"It won"t be easy because he"s so fat," she said. "We"ll wait until it"s late at night. He"s kept his apartment. The key is in his pocket. We can"t carry him, but we"ll drag him down the hall. Then we"ll put all his stuff back in his apartment. They"ll find him there, dead of a heart attack. That"ll be the end of it."
Marcia reached into the pocket of her housecoat and held up a vial of white tablets.
"We"ll put these alongside his body," she said. "That"ll be a nice touch, don"t you think?"
Suddenly Marcia and Helen began to giggle foolishly.
They"d giggled something like that when they were children, and had been up to mischief.
Wanting something for nothing has been man"s dream, since he first saw the advantages of being intolerably greedy. It has been dreams such as these that have made man what he is. Flaw-wise, man is tops.
THE CRIME MACHINE.
BY JACK RITCHIE.
"I was present the last time you committed murder," Henry said.
I lit my cigar. "Really?"
"Of course you couldn"t see me."
I smiled. "You were in your time machine?"
Henry nodded.
Naturally I didn"t believe a word of it. About the time machine. He could actually have been present however, but not in that fantastic manner.
Murder is my business and the fact that there had been a witness when I disposed of James Brady was naturally disconcerting. And now, for the sake of security, I would have to devise some means of getting rid of Henry. I had no intention of being blackmailed by him. Not for any length of time, at least.
"I must warn you that I have taken pains to let people know that I have come here, Mr. Reeves," Henry said. "They do not know why I am here, but they do know that I am here. You understand, don"t you?"
I smiled again. "I do not murder people in my own apartment. It is the height of inhospitality. And so there will be no necessity for you to switch our drinks. I a.s.sure you your gla.s.s contains nothing stronger than brandy."
The situation was basically unpleasant, but nevertheless I found myself rather enjoying Henry"s bizarre story. "This machine of yours, Henry, is it a bit like a barber"s chair?"
"To some degree," he admitted.
Evidently we had both seen the same motion picture. "With a round reflector-like device behind you? And levers in front which you pull to propel you into the past? Or the future?"
"Just the past. I"m still working on the mechanism for the future." Henry sipped his brandy. "My machine is also mobile. That is, it not only projects me into the past, but also to any point on the earth I desire."
Excellent, I thought. Quite an improvement over the old model time machines. "And you are invisible?"
"Correct. I cannot partic.i.p.ate in any manner in the past. I can only observe."
This madman did at least think with some degree of logic. To so much as injure the wing of a b.u.t.terfly ten thousand years ago could conceivably re-shuffle the course of history.
Henry had come to my apartment at three in the afternoon. He had not given me his last name, which was entirely natural since he intended to blackmail me. He was fairly tall and thin, with gla.s.ses that gave him an owlish appearance and hair that tended toward anarchy.
He leaned forward. "I read in yesterday"s newspaper that a James Brady was shot to death in a warehouse on Blenheim Street at approximately eleven in the evening of July the twenty-seventh."
I thought I could supply the rest. "And so you hopped into your time machine, set the dials back to July the twenty-seventh and to Blenheim Street and were there at ten-thirty for a ringside seat, waiting for me to re-commit the crime?"
"Precisely."
I would have to discuss this particular form of insanity with Dr. Powers. He is a quite mature and - since I disposed of his wife - wealthy psychiatrist.
Henry smiled thinly. "You shot James Brady at exactly ten-fifty-one. As you stooped over him to make certain that he was dead, you dropped your car keys. You said, "Oh, d.a.m.n!" and picked them up. At the door of the warehouse, you looked back and lifted your hand in a mock salute to the corpse. Then you departed."
Unquestionably he had been there. Not in that fabulous time machine, but probably hiding among the thousands of boxes and bales inside the warehouse - an accidental witness to the murder. It was one of those unfortunate coincidences that occur occasionally to mar an otherwise perfect killing. But why did he bother to resort to this fantastic story?
Henry put down his gla.s.s. "I think that five thousand dollars would be sufficient for me to forget what I saw."
For how long, I wondered. A month? Two? I took a puff of my cigar. "If you went to the police, it would be your word against mine."
"Could you bear an investigation?"
I really didn"t know. I am a very careful pract.i.tioner of my craft, but it was still possible that here and there I might have made some slight revealing error. I certainly would not welcome the interest of the authorities. Of that much I was positive.
I replenished my gla.s.s. "You seem to have fallen into an interesting and profitable business. Have you approached many other murderers?" I looked at his suit. It had undoubtedly been sold with two pairs of trousers.
Perhaps he read my mind. "I have just started, Mr. Reeves. You are the first murderer I have approached."
He smiled primly. "I have done considerable other research on you, Mr. Reeves. On June the 10th, at eleven-twelve in the evening, an automobile which you had stolen for the purpose ran down a Mrs. Irvin Perry."
He could have read about Mrs. Perry"s death in the newspapers. But how did he know that I had been the driver? A wild guess?
"You parked approximately one hundred yards from the intersection. You kept your motor running while you waited for Mrs. Perry to make her appearance. Ten minutes before she arrived, a collie ran across the street. Seven minutes before she arrived, a fire engine sped past. Three minutes before she arrived, a model A Ford filled with teenagers raced by. The automobile"s m.u.f.fler was faulty. It was quite noisy."
I frowned. How could he possibly have known those things?
Henry was enjoying himself. "On September 28th, last April at two-fifteen of a chilly afternoon, a Gerald Mitch.e.l.l "fell" off an escarpment near his home while he was taking a stroll. You had a bit of trouble with him. Though he was a small man, he showed remarkable strength. He managed to tear the left pocket of your coat before you could throw him into s.p.a.ce."
I caught myself staring at him and quickly took a sip of brandy.
"Five thousand dollars," Henry said. "Small bills, of course. Nothing larger than a five hundred. Naturally I didn"t expect you to have that much cash lying about. I shall return tomorrow evening at eight."
I pulled myself together. For a moment I had almost entertained the thought that Henry actually might have a time machine. But there was some other explanation and I would have to think it out.
At the door to the hallway, I smiled. "Henry, would you hop into your time machine and find out who Jack the Ripper really was? I"m frightfully curious."
Henry nodded. "I"ll do that tonight."
I closed the door and went into my living room.
My wife Diana put aside her fashion magazine. "Who was that strange creature?"
"He claims to be an inventor."
"Really? He certainly looks mad enough for the part. I imagine he wanted to sell you an invention?"
"Not exactly."
Diana is green-eyed and cool and she is perhaps no more predatory or unfaithful than any other woman who marries a man with money who is thirty years her senior. I am fully aware of the nature of our relationship, but I realize that one must pay by various means for the enjoyment of a work of art. And Diana is a work of art - a triumph of physical nature. I value her quite as highly as I do my Modiglianis and my Van Goghs.
"What is he supposed to have invented?"
"A time machine."
She smiled. "I am partial to perpetual motion machines."
I was faintly irritated. "Perhaps it works."
She studied me. "I hope you have no intention of letting that queer man talk you out of money."
"No, my dear. I still retain my mental faculties."
Her solicitude for my money would have been touching, except that I realized that she preferred to spend it on herself. Henry"s chances of acquiring any of it were nil as far as she was concerned.
She picked up the magazine. "Has he asked you to see it?"
"No. And even if he does, I have no intention of doing so."
And yet I wondered how Henry could possibly have managed to know the details of those three murders. His presence at one of them could be an acceptable coincidence. But three?
There was no such a thing as a time machine. There had to be some other explanation - something that an intelligent man could believe.
I glanced at my watch and turned my mind to another matter. "I have something to attend to, Diana. I"ll be back in an hour or two."
I drove to the main post office downtown and opened my box with a key. The letter I had been expecting was inside.
I conduct most of my business by mail and box number. My clients do not know my name, even on those occasions when personal contact is necessary.
The letter was from Jason Spender. We had exchanged some correspondence and Spender had been negotiating for the elimination of a Charles Atwood. Spender did not give his reasons for that desire and for my purposes they were not necessary. In this case, however, I could hazard a guess. Spender and Atwood were partners in a building concern and evidently sharing the profits no longer appealed to Spender.
The letter accepted my terms - fifteen thousand dollars - and provided the information that Atwood had a dinner engagement tomorrow evening and would return to his home at approximately eleven. Spender would have an alibi for that particular time in the event that the police might make embarra.s.sing inquiries.
I drove on to the Shippler Detective Agency and went directly to Andrew Shippler.
I cannot, of course, employ his agency continuously to follow my wife. But several times a year I made a precautionary use of his services for a week or two. It is usually sufficient.
In 1958, for instance, Shippler discovered a Terence Reilly. He was extremely personable - fair, athletic, and the type to which Diana seems to be drawn - and I cannot blame Diana too much.
However Terence Reilly soon departed this world. I was not paid for the demise. It was a labor of love.
Shippler was a plump man in his fifties with the air of an accountant. He took a typewritten page from a folder and adjusted his rimless gla.s.ses. "Your wife left your apartment twice yesterday. In the morning at ten-thirty she went to a small hat shop for an hour. She finally purchased a blue and white hat with..."
"Never mind the details."
He was slightly aggrieved. "But details can be important, Mr. Reeves. We try to be absolutely thorough." He glanced at the page again. "Then she had a strawberry soda at a drugstore and went on to..."
I interrupted again. "Did she see anyone? Talk to anyone?"
"Well, the owner of the hat shop and the clerk at the drugstore counter."
"Besides that," I snapped.
He shook his head. "No. But she left the apartment again at two-thirty in the afternoon. She went to a small c.o.c.ktail bar on Farwell. There she met two women her age, apparently by prearrangement. It appears that they had been college cla.s.smates and hadn"t seen each other for years. My man overheard most of their conversation. They discussed their former cla.s.smates and what they were doing now." Shippler cleared his throat. "It seems that they were most impressed that your wife had ... ah ... caught such a man of means."
"What did Diana say?"
"She was extremely noncommittal." Shippler folded his hands. "Your wife consumed one Pink Lady and one Manhattan during the course of two hours."
"I am not interested in my wife"s liquor preferences. Did she see anyone else? A man?"
Shippler shook his head. "No. At four-ten she left the two women and returned to your apartment."
The human mind is a peculiar thing. I was relieved, of course - and yet, a trifle disappointed.
"Shall we keep watching her?" Shippler asked hopefully.
This time I had had Diana under a surveillance for about a week. I mulled over Shippler"s question. Shippler charged one hundred dollars a day and that was rather expensive. I smiled slightly. Now if I had Henry"s time machine. I could save a great deal of money. "Watch her a few days more," I said. "And I have something else for you."
"Yes?"
"At eight tomorrow evening, I am expecting a caller. He will be with me ten to twenty minutes. When he leaves, I want him followed. I want to know who he is and where he lives." I gave Shippler a description of Henry. "Phone me as soon as you find out."
I went to the bank and withdrew five thousand dollars.
At seven the next evening Diana left to see a motion picture. Or at least so she informed me. I would find out about that later.
Henry arrived punctually at eight o"clock and I took him into my study.
He took a chair. "He was a clerk with an importing concern."
"Who was?" I asked.
"Jack the Ripper. A timid-looking man - in his early forties, I"d estimate. He was apparently a bachelor and he lived with his mother."
I smiled. "How interesting. What was his name?"
"I haven"t gotten that yet. You see people don"t go about with signs hanging from their necks and it can be difficult to find out who they actually are."
He could easily have invented some name for this Jack the Ripper, but this was really more clever - and logical.