Читать книгу Dead Man's Hat - Footner Hulbert - Страница 7

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Dave pulled the body out of the closet and closed the door. His flesh crawled at the touch of the cold clay. It was a small man, perhaps a hundred and thirty pounds in weight, but his arms and legs had stiffened awkwardly and he would be a difficult load to shoulder. Dave tried to straighten him out somewhat, swallowing the repulsion that made his gorge rise.

Once upon a time he might have been a good-looking lad, but now his face was mean and ugly. He had played a losing game with life. His clothes, which had been of flashy cut and material, were much worn. The ragged bottoms of his trousers lay against old-fashioned elastic-sided shoes, and soiled frayed cuffs hung down over his quiet hands. Cheap sport was written all over him. An odor of stale alcohol hung about him.

Paula’s face was still hidden in the sofa. “I can’t look at him!” she said, in a muffled voice. “It’s too awful!”

“There is no need,” said Dave.

“What are you going to do?”

“Carry him downstairs. You can give me ten minutes start, and then ring for the elevator. Think up some excuse to keep the hallman in talk while I’m getting out of the lobby.”

“I’ll tell him I’ve run out of digitalis for mother, and ask him to get me some at the all-night drug store. He’s done it before.”

“Good!”

“What will you do when you get out in the street?” she faltered.

“I don’t know. I’ll do what I can. I’ll just have to drop him somewhere and beat it.... First I’ll make sure that there’s nothing on him that could connect him with you in any way.”

“I think he’s already been searched,” said Paula. “One of his pockets was hanging out.”

“I’ll search him again.”

Dave went carefully through the dead man’s clothes. There was no money on him, and no writing that could cast any light on his identity. Only an old pocketknife with the blades sharpened away to nothing, a packet of cigarettes, a comb with some of the teeth missing, a soiled handkerchief, unmarked. It was obvious that he had been searched before.

Dave turned him over, the better to hoist him. He saw the butt of the knife blade sticking out of his back. It must have been driven directly through his heart, for he had bled but little. It was broken off short where the blade enters the handle. One little steel cross piece was still affixed to the butt of the blade; the other had broken off with the handle.

“Are you sure the handle is not lying about?” he asked.

“I looked,” said Paula. “The murderer must have carried it away with him.”

“Was there no sign of any struggle?”

“No. The chair was not moved. He had just slipped down.... There couldn’t have been any noise, or mother would have heard it.”

“Perhaps they killed him outside, and carried him in.”

“There was no blood anywhere except beside the chair.”

“If I was only a detective, maybe I could piece the thing out,” muttered Dave.

He hoisted the body over his shoulder. The dead man’s arms hung down behind Dave’s back, and the half-bald head lolled with every step. A cold sweat sprang out on Dave’s face. He set his teeth. Paula looked at last, and a soft cry escaped her.

“His hat!”

“I couldn’t keep it on him,” muttered Dave.

“How will I get rid of it?” she said, in terror. “I have no way of burning anything in this place.”

Dave lowered the body to the floor again. “Give it to me,” he said. “I’ll lose it somewhere.”

Paula fetched the hat out of the cupboard—an old, carefully brushed derby, greasy around the brim. Dave crushed it flat between his hands, so he could stow it away. In so doing his eye was arrested by an edge of white sticking over the sweatband. He pulled out a piece of paper folded into a narrow strip.

“Hello! Here’s something the searchers missed!” he said. He spread it out. It was covered with writing on the inside, and bore the imprint of an official seal. “This may be evidence. It’s an affidavit of some kind. I won’t stop to puzzle it out now. Put it in a safe place.”

Paula took it.

Dave shoved the crushed hat inside his vest, and hoisted the body over his shoulder. “Open the door,” he said, “and take a slant outside.”

Obeying, she nodded to tell him the way was clear. He went out, Paula shrinking with averted head from his burden. He crossed the hall and, pulling open the stair door, started down.

Back and forth down the endless stairs went Dave, bent under his burden. In spite of his care to tread softly, his steps echoed as in a vault. There was a light at every turn of the stairs, and at every turn he looked around, sweating fearfully, half expecting to meet somebody. But when his steps stopped all was silent. The chill of the thing he carried seemed to strike into his very marrow. Long before he reached the bottom his frame ached intolerably and his knees were giving under him.

At the bottom he was faced with a new difficulty. How was a man to measure ten minutes in his mind? How could he tell when the coast was clear? The stair door faced the desk where the doorman usually sat, and he could not open it without betraying his presence. Lowering the body to the ground, he pushed the door open a fraction of an inch and put his ear to the crack. He heard the sound of a yawn outside. So he waited.

Presently the elevator indicator clicked and a chair scraped back. The doorman crossed the foyer and the elevator door slid to. Dave heard the whine of the current when it was turned on. He hoisted his burden again.

He pushed open the door with his foot—and instantly drew back, sweating again. For, outside the street doors he had seen the shadow of a man, fumbling with the lock. Dave lowered his burden, and held himself ready to spring up the stairs if he had been seen.

A long wait succeeded. The man came into the lobby, and evidently went to the elevator to ring. Dave could hear him moving back and forth. Then the elevator returned and greetings were exchanged.

“Evening, Pat.”

“Evening, Mr. Walters. You’re late tonight.”

“Hardly worth while coming home, eh?”

The elevator door closed and, hastily shouldering his load, Dave stepped out. He crossed the lobby with the dead man on his back, shrinking under the bright lights. As he approached the street doors he saw that there was a taxi standing in front. He stopped and looked behind him desperately. The indicator showed the elevator descending. He plugged blindly ahead. Anything to get out.

When he got out he saw that the taxi was empty, the engine shut off. A breath of relief escaped him. The next instant he saw a policeman standing on the corner, hardly fifty feet away. His back was turned to Dave as he stood, idly swinging his night stick. Towards Second Avenue there was no cover within a hundred feet or more. The policeman might turn around any second. Dave had no choice. Opening the door of the taxi, he boosted the dead man in on the floor.

He had no time to run; his hand was still on the door when the taxi-driver came running around the corner. “Taxi, sir? Taxi?”

Dave hung there for a ghastly second. It would have been suicidal to run, with a car there ready to chase him and a policeman on the corner. He did the only thing he could do—opened the car door again, and climbed in over the corpse.

Meanwhile the driver slid under the wheel and stepped on his starter. “Where to, boss?”

Dave was unable to get a word out. The driver looked around in surprise. “Where to, boss? Don’t you know where you’re going?”

“I ... I’m a stranger,” stuttered Dave.

The driver laughed. “Well, you seem to know where to get it, stranger. What’s your next stop?”

This gave Dave his line. “Sure I been drinking a little,” he said, thickly. “But I know what I’m doing. Hotel Prince George, Twenty-eighth Street.”

“Okay, boss!” The car jerked into motion.

The body lay cold against Dave’s shins. He had a difficulty in getting his breath, but at the same time he could hear himself breathing noisily. Gripping the edge of the seat, he clamped down the screws of self-control.

His driver was a little fellow with a wizened boy’s face and a quick black eye. A dirty bandage wound many times around his neck suggested that he suffered from a chronic sore throat. He was one of these casual lads who appear to drive by a sixth sense which makes it unnecessary for them to look where they are going. He was disposed to be sociable. He said:

“Bit of luck, picking you up. I just brought a guy to that house from Central Park Casino. And say, maybe I didn’t shoot a scare into him! We was snorting down Park about fifty, kind of racing like with a taxi, and the other fellow had me crowded over near the curb. And all of a sudden a car turned in short from Fifty-sixth just under my bumper. I crammed on my brakes, and damn if we didn’t shassey clean around, and start back uptown without losing speed. On the wrong side the parkway you understand. And a whole mess of cars behind us. I snaked through them without taking a scratch. Cheese! What cussing! A couple of guys lost their heads and sideswiped, and junked theirselves against the curb. I fluffed down to Lexington to get out the way of it.

“My fare he hollers out, ‘Can’t you look where you’re going?’ And I says, ‘I’m a good looker, boss! I’m twice as good a looker as them two guys plastered against the curb!’ Boy! I got eyes all round my head! Driving a car comes as natural to me as eating my dinner. I always say the faster you drive, the better chance you got of getting by. It’s the cautious guys that gets jammed!”

They sped across Second Avenue and across Third. These blocks were quite empty and silent, but Dave knew that they would presently turn into Park, where there is traffic at any hour of the night. Keeping his eyes fixed on the talkative driver, and nodding occasionally to keep him going, Dave softly opened the door on the left. The driver sat on that side, but in half turning to speak to his fare, he had the back of his head to the door. Dave let the door hang open, and stooping, got his hands under the body, preparatory to easing it out.

A draught of air warned the driver. He looked around the other way. “Shut that door!” he yelled, and stepped on the brake.

Dave dropped the body and pulled the door to. He sat back on the seat and wiped his sweating face.

“What’s the matter with you?” cried the driver. “Do you want to commit suicide?”

“Just wanted a little air,” said Dave.

“Air! Will nothing less than a hurricane cool you!”

Thereafter he drove more slowly, glancing suspiciously at Dave from time to time.

Dave exerted himself to make him forget his suspicions. “Me, I like New York,” he said, drunkenly. “It’s one swell little old town! I come down from Albany yesterday morning, and I scarcely touched ground since! What I mean is, I like New York!”

“Oh yeah?” said the driver, sarcastically.

In a few moments they drove up to the door of the hotel. Dave who had his money ready, handed it to the driver through the front window. He hopped out, closed the door quickly, and started into the hotel. The driver did not pull away immediately, but sat watching him curiously. Dave quickened his pace a little.

Inside, the big public rooms of the hotel were dark. Only the main corridor was lighted. There was nobody in sight but a watchman with some sort of a timing-clock hanging on a strap around his neck, and halfway through the corridor a sleepy clerk behind the desk. Dave had stopped in this hotel on first coming to New York, and knew that there was a rear entrance on Twenty-seventh Street. He walked through, not too fast, with an innocent and business-like air. The clerk gave him a careless glance as he passed the desk.

He had almost reached the rear door when a commotion arose in the front of the building. The little taxi-driver burst in through the revolving door crying:

“Stop that man! Stop that man! He passed a dead one on me!”

Dave flung himself against the revolving door in front of him. It resisted him. He shook it with all his force. It was locked. The door into the taproom near by; locked too. He looked around him wildly. He was trapped in the end of the corridor.

In an instant they were upon him—watchman, clerk, and taxi-driver. The watchman seized him and patted him all over, looking for a gun. Dave made no resistance. What was the use? The watchman retained a viselike grip on his arm. Meanwhile the taxi-driver was squealing in a voice that cracked with excitement:

“That’s the fellow! That’s the fellow! Tried to plant a stiff in my cab! A dead man! He’s cold already!”

“For God’s sake shut up!” said the clerk. “We’ve got him! Do you want to start a panic among the guests upstairs?”

Dave had gone pale and clammy. He instinctively tried to brazen it out. “The man is crazy!” he said.

“Crazy, am I? Look at him sweating! If you don’t believe me, come and see for yourselves!”

“Keep a hold of him,” said the clerk to the watchman. “I’ll telephone for the police.”

They returned to the sidewalk in front of the hotel. The rear door of the taxi stood open and the dead man lay inside for all the world to see. His head was just inside the sill, twisted back, and the lights of the hotel entrance showed up the thin spears of hair on his skull, the open eyes, the hanging jaw with horrible distinctness. Dave averted his face with a shudder.

At the first noise of excitement, people seem to spring out of the pavements in New York. Late as it was, a little crowd pressed around, and the taxi-driver told his story over and over—how he had left his cab to get a cup of coffee, and when he came back the tall young fellow was standing with his hand on the door. And so on. And so on.

A policeman came running along the pavement; a fine specimen of young manhood in his coat of military cut, neat blue collar and black tie. “What’s the matter here?” he demanded, shouldering his way through the crowd. A glance informed him. The taxi-driver told his story for the last time. The policeman and Dave sized each other up. They were about the same age.

“Well, if you’ve driven all this way with him,” said the policeman, “you can drive on to the station house. Get in.”

Dave quailed from it. He had had all he could stand. “I won’t do it!” he said. “I’ll pay for another cab.”

“It’s all the same to me,” said the officer. Several cabs had drawn up, and he hailed the nearest. To the first taxi-driver he said: “Drive on to the police station. We’ll be right behind you.”

“I’m losing money!” whined the little driver. “Who’s to pay me?”

“We’ll take it off this guy if he has it on him.”

The little driver slammed the door on the dead man, slid under his wheel, and drove away.

In the following cab with the policeman, Dave began to shake, and once he started shaking, he couldn’t get a grip on himself again. A groan was forced from him.

“You look like a square fellow,” he said to his companion. “Can’t you see I’m on the square like yourself?”

“I often been fooled,” said the young officer, grimly.

“I didn’t do this thing!”

“Don’t tell it to me, fellow.”

“Do I look like a murderer?” cried Dave.

“I don’t know,” said the officer, philosophically. “There are all kinds.”