Читать книгу Murder Points a Finger - David Alexander - Страница 7

IT WAS two o’clock in the morning.

One hundred and eighty city blocks south and east of the street where a castle stood and a man lay murdered, J. Dabney Ashton sat in the basement bar of the ancient Washington Square Hotel playing chess. His opponent was a thin, ascetic looking man named Thomas Pirtle who was an architect. Behind the small zinc bar the white-haired barkeep nodded sleepily. The Washington Square Hotel was one of the last buildings in the neighborhood to resist the encroachments of expanding New York University. It had been built during the administration of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, and, judging from their appearance, most of the present employees had been in service at its opening.

Dab Ashton had no false modesty. He was proud of a great many things, justifiably proud, he believed. He took quiet pride in his blooded Virginia ancestry. He was proud of his reputation as one of Broadway’s most dependable character actors. He was convinced that few men the shady side of sixty carried themselves so erectly, had such slim waists, or such a fine head of wavy white hair. He was vain of his mustache, which he considered dashing and tended carefully with French wax. He thought his taste in such matters as tweeds and Havana cigars and Bourbon whisky was excellent. He was glad that one of his minor accomplishments—a facility at solving puzzles—had been of some small service to his country during the first World War, when he had been assigned to Yardley’s Black Chamber charged with breaking enemy codes. He also believed himself to be an outstanding exponent of the ancient game of chess, an opinion that the position of the pieces on the board now confirmed.

Dab was about to move a chess piece when Charles, the night porter, limped into the barroom. He seemed to be of an age with the waiter and the barman.

“There’s a man here to see you, Mr. Dab,” Charles called out in a cracked voice. “I told him you were playing chess and couldn’t be interrupted but he wouldn’t wait. Says he’s a police officer.”

The big, dark man directly back of the porter obviously had no compunctions whatsoever about interrupting such a serious matter as a game of chess. He was swarthy, bulkily built. In profile, his heavily defined features had an almost classic look. There was a dead-serious air of brooding intensity about him. This made his method of speaking, which was usually a form of cynical raillery, distinctly shocking to those who did not know him well. He addressed everyone except the very highest brass of the Department as “honey boy” or “baby doll.” He was Detective Lieutenant Romano, attached to Homicide at Manhattan West.

Dab had met Romano before at Philip Linton’s home. He recognized him, said, “Lieutenant Romano! What brings you out at such a witching hour?”

“A police officer?” said Pirtle. “What have you been up to, Dab?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Dab replied. “But if John George Arthur, the critic, has been found slain, I’m justly suspect. He once refered to me as ‘that moldy old Virginia ham.’ ”

“Well, I can give you an alibi from nine o’clock on,” said Pirtle. “You’ve been beating me at chess since then.”

Romano said, “Can I see you privately, honey boy?”

“Of course,” Dab answered. “We can go to my rooms. This must be serious, Lieutenant.”

“Kind of serious, I guess,” Romano replied. “Matter of murder. That ain’t a misdemeanor, honey boy.”

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Dab. “How on earth can it concern me?”

“Privately, baby doll. Privately,” Romano answered.

“You’ll excuse me, Pirtle?” Dab asked, rising.

Pirtle nodded, obviously swallowing questions he wanted to ask.

Dab led Romano up a short flight of steps to the lobby. Enormous, inscrutable old Madame Sorel, proprietress of the hotel, acted as night manager herself, because she suffered from insomnia. She sat behind the desk, adding figures in an old-fashioned ledger. She wore a rusty black dress, her rough-hewn face was pallid, she had keen dark eyes and a shock of bright red hair. Dab knew the hair was dyed. The woman was over seventy. She always reminded him of one of those calculating concierges dressed in bombazine whom Van Gogh loved to paint.

Dab lived on the second floor and did not use the elevator. Upstairs, the carpeting of the hall was threadbare and the plastering bald in spots. Madame Sorel was frugal. Dab occupied a corner suite that overlooked the park. He had occupied the same suite for more than a quarter of a century. The living room was so large it was barnlike. A crystal chandelier was suspended from the high ceiling. A coal fire was laid in the grate. The Washington Square was the last hotel in New York with fireplaces that really worked. Hotel furniture had been moved out to make room for gracious Sheraton pieces that Dab had shipped from the family home in Virginia when his mother died. One wall was covered almost completely by photographs of actors and actresses and framed theater programs. Over the mantel was an heroic oil of a handsome bearded gentleman in the gold-laced gray of the Confederacy—Major Joshua Ashton, of Lee’s staff, Dab’s grandfather.

Romano made himself comfortable in an overstuffed chair, accepted a drink of Bourbon that Dab poured from a crystal decanter.

“Tell me what this is all about,” Dab asked.

“I will,” said Romano. “Prepare yourself for a shock. Then don’t interrupt me with a lot of foolish exclamations. To get it over fast, your friend Phil Linton’s been murdered. Shot through the belly with a .45. Assailant unknown. One prime suspect. More about that later. Take a drink now, and I’ll give you what facts we have.”

“I—I can’t believe it!” said Dab inadequately.

“Nobody believes murder until it happens,” the swarthy detective answered. “According to the statistics six out of every hundred thousand persons living today are going to die from a slight case of murder. But no one believes murder can happen to him or anyone close to him.”

Dab opened his mouth. Romano raised his hand. He said, “A little after midnight a call came in to an uptown precinct station. It was a man, unidentified, call untraced. He said there’d been trouble at a certain address and the police had better investigate. Then he hung up. It was Phil Linton’s address. Prowl car reached there about twelve-twenty. Lights on downstairs. Door locked. French window to porch closed but unlocked, with a pane knocked out. Cops went in, found Linton shot to death, called Homicide. We found Linton lying beside a little coffee table. Carpet had soaked up a lot of blood. Pretty obvious he’d been shot by man standing just inside the room, in the window.

“Medical evidence Linton probably killed somewhere between eleven-thirty and twelve, may have lived some ten minutes after bullet hit him. Linton had those little fingerprint-symbol cards he uses in his lectures on the floor beside him. Some of them he’d arranged into a kind of order or pattern. A display, you might call it. Evidently he wanted you particularly to see this display, thought it would mean something to you. Something special, maybe. Anyway he’d propped a letter addressed to you against the leg of the table, like he wanted to attract your attention to the cards. We read the letter, I’m afraid. It didn’t seem very important. Said he couldn’t dine with you at the hotel Friday night. You were to come to his place instead, because there was going to be a kind of family dinner and his granddaughter had an important announcement to make. We’re pretty sure now what the announcement was.”

“This is awful. Awful!” exclaimed Dab. The actor’s face was drawn, bloodless.

“It’s worse than awful,” replied Romano. “I’m afraid there’s an even greater shock coming for you, Mr. Dab. Murder’s not the worst thing in the world, not from a cop’s standpoint, anyway. We like to solve a murder fast, but there’s no real urgency. The victim’s already dead. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. We can take all the time we want in tracking down a murderer. Years, sometimes. But kidnapping’s a different matter. In kidnapping, time’s the all-important factor. We have to solve a kidnapping in a matter of hours, days at most, or we almost always find the victim dead.”

“Kidnapping?” Dab’s expression was blank. “What’s kidnapping got to do with Phil’s death?”

“Patricia Linton, Phil’s granddaughter, has been kidnapped,” Romano said flatly.

Dab sank back in his chair. “Oh, no!” he cried. “Oh, my God, no! Not little Pat, Lieutenant! Not my little girl! When? How, man?”

“Don’t get impatient, honey boy,” said Romano. “It’s a tough story to tell, because it’s screwy. A little before one, while a dozen or so cops were stewing around at Linton’s house, another call came in to headquarters. It was from Detective Allan Walters. He was at a gas station, on a little country side road off the main highway in Westchester, just across the New York City line. He was pretty frantic. He’d had a date with Patricia Linton. It was a very important date. He was going to ask her to marry him. So he took her ’way up in Westchester to one of those farmhouse restaurants with candles on the table and prices high as a camel’s hump. Pat said yes, so they took a long time over dinner. Didn’t finish until nearly ten. They decided to do a little more celebrating at a roadhouse with a big-name band that was even farther up-country, but when they got there all the tables were taken, so they left and just drove around. The car had a heater, so they were cozy. Just after midnight, on the way back to town, they stopped at a roadside stand for hamburgers and coffee. Walters parked his car outside in a dark space near some trees. When they finished, he took a short cut, a side road, back to the main highway. He hadn’t got far when the car began to cough and spit, and then it stopped. He’d had a full tank when he started but he was out of gas. He figured somebody had siphoned his gas while he was parked at the hamburger joint. He remembered that he’d seen a gas station a few hundred yards back on the side road. It was closed, but it looked like one of those places where the proprietor combines his home and his business. He thought he could wake up the proprietor. He asked Pat to walk back with him. She said it was cold, the road was rough and she was wearing high heels. Pat’s a rugged girl who’s not afraid of the dark. She said she’d sit there in the car while her boy friend went back for a can of gas. Said she could keep the heater on. He didn’t argue too much. The road was deserted. One car came toward him while he was walking back to the gas station. He stood and watched it until it made a turn in the road, past the place where his own car with Pat in it was parked. He had some trouble waking the gas-station people and took a little abuse, but finally got a can of gas and went back up the road. The front door of his sedan was standing open. Pat wasn’t inside. She wasn’t anywhere. Walters threw in the can of gas and drove back to the station. He called the Westchester police from there, which was proper, then he called his own people. Headquarters was to send men up to work with the county boys. Walters didn’t know about Linton’s murder, of course. He couldn’t have. They’re going to bring him to the house to tell him. He’s probably there by now.”

Dab poured himself more Bourbon. “This is fantastic, Lieutenant,” he said.

“Yeah, honey boy,” replied Romano. “Murder and kidnapping and things like that are always fantastic. But they happen. One thing, the cops, especially the fingerprint men, think they’ve read those little cards that Linton arranged without any trouble. They’re pretty sure they know who killed him. But they want you to take a look at them before they’re disarranged.”

“They think they know the murderer? Who, Lieutenant? Who?”

“Linton’s foster son. Abner Ellison.”

Dab’s mouth fell open. His eyes stared. An expression of complete amazement that any actor might have envied was written on his face. The expression faded. Now there was nothing in the old man’s face but the blank, shocked look of death itself.

Inside his head there was an insistent sound like a whispering My son! My son! said the whispering voice. The little boy with the great, wide eyes that held so much of fear and hurt. The little boy I tried to comfort. The little hoy who became the only son I ever had. Abner. Little Ab. The human being I love most in the world. They’re telling me my little boy is vile, a murderer.

Dab shook his head, fought to regain control of himself. He said, “With all due respect, Lieutenant, are you quite insane? Ab? Impossible! Phil was a father to Ab from the time he was eight years old. He brought him up, housed him, fed him, educated him. They were devoted to each other. What possible motive could Ab have had for killing Philip Linton?”

Romano said, “Take it easy, baby doll. Who knows what grudge Ellison might have had sticking in his craw? For one thing, Ellison’s father copped a Murder Two plea more than twenty years ago and went away to Dannemora. He died there while Abner was being a hero in the Battle of the Bulge. Linton’s evidence helped send the elder Ellison up. That’s the reason Phil took pity on the motherless child and adopted him. Another thing, you and I and everybody who knew Phil Linton and his family realize that Abner Ellison’s been in love with Pat ever since she was a little girl in pigtails.”

“Yes,” said Dab. “I’ve always hoped she’d marry him. I’m very fond of Ab. And I love Pat as if she were my daughter.”

“But she wasn’t going to marry him,” said Romano. “She was going to marry Walters. More motive.”

“For killing Philip Linton?”

Romano nodded. “The police have reason to believe Phil Linton knew something very bad indeed about Abner Ellison. He moved out of Phil’s house a couple of months ago, remember, took a room in a hotel. Maybe Phil influenced his grand-daughter’s decision.”

“Have the police questioned Ab?”

“The police can’t find Ab,” replied Romano.” They haven’t yet, anyway. He’s not at his hotel. But when we started checking his license-plate number, a bright young cop remembered something that happened during the afternoon. About five o’clock Abner Ellison called to say his car had been stolen. The police got a lot of phone calls in the last few hours.”

Dab said, “Do you mean to imply that you suspect a man of murder because he reported a stolen car?”

“No,” said Romano. “I don’t mean that at all, honey boy. But look at it this way. If your car happens to be seen at the scene of a murder or kidnapping, it would be mighty convenient to have it on record that the car’d been stolen from you quite some time before.”

Dab gave Romano a look so witheringly contemptuous that it was worthy of Cyrano at his most arrogant. “There is not a shred of real evidence against Ab,” he said. “I’ve never heard such moonshine. I’m surprised that competent police officers would put any credence whatsoever in any of it.”

“Let’s be getting up to the Linton place,” replied Romano, “and you’ll see the evidence. The real evidence, I mean. We’ve got what amounts to a deathbed statement. Like the fortuneteller says, it’s all in the cards.”