The Perfect Host, page 16
The squad arrived—two carloads, sirens and all, making so much noise I thought sure Stoye would get up and tell ’em to let him rest in peace—and in they came—photogs, print men, and the usual bunch of cocky plainclothesmen. They swarmed all over.
Flick was the man in charge, stocky, tough, mad at everybody all the time, especially on the night detail. Man, how he hated killers that worked at night and dragged him away from his pinochle!
I told the whole story to him and his little book.
“His name’s Tommy,” I said, “and he says he lives at—”
“His name’s Ronnie,” says Sam, from behind me.
“Hey,” I says. “I thought I told you to stay with him.”
“I had to go powder my nose,” says Sam. “My stomach done a flip-flop a while back that had me worried. It’s okay. Brown was dusting in the room when I went out. And besides, that’s a nice little kid. He wouldn’t—”
“Brown!” Flick roared.
Brown came out of the living room. “Yeah, chief.”
“You done in the front room?”
“Yeah; everything I could think of. No prints except Stoye’s, except on the phone. I guess they’d be Sam’s.”
“The kid’s all right?”
“Was when I left,” said Brown, and went back into the living room. Flick and me and Sam went into the front room.
The kid was gone.
Sam turned pale.
“Ronnie!” he bellows. “Hey you, Ronnie!”
No answer.
“You hadda go powder your big fat nose,” says Flick to Sammy. Sam looked bad. The soft seats in a radio car feel good to a harness bull, and I think Sam decided right then that he’d be doing his job on foot for quite a while.
It was easy to see what had happened. Sammy left the room, and then Brown got finished and went out, and in those few seconds he was alone the kid had stepped through the short hall into the kitchen and out the side door.
Sam looked even worse when I suddenly noticed that the ten-inch ham slicer was gone from the knife rack; that was one of the first things I looked at after I saw Stoye had been stabbed. You always look for the kitchen knives in a home stabbing.
Flick returned to Sam and opened his mouth, and in that moment, believe me, I was glad I was me and not him. I thought fast.
“Flick,” I said, “I know where that kid’s going. He was all worried about what his old man would think. Here—I got his address in my book.”
Flick snapped, “Okay. Get down there right away. I’ll call what’s-his-name—Daniels—from here and tell him to wait for the kid and hold him if he shows up before you do. Get down there, now, and hurry. Keep your eyes peeled on the way; you might see him on the street. Look out for that knife. Kelly, get a general alarm out for that kid soon’s I’m off the phone. Or send it from your car.”
He turned back to me, thumbed at Sam. “Take him with you,” he says, “I want him out of my sight. And if hot damned nose gets shiny again see he don’t use your summons book.”
We ran out and piled into the car and took off. We didn’t go straight to Daniels’ address. Sam hoped we would see the kid on the way; I think he had some idea of a heroic hand-to-hand grapple with the kid in which maybe he’d get a little bit stabbed in the line of duty, which might quiet Flick down some.
So we cut back and forth between Myrtle Avenue and Varick; the kid could’ve taken a trolley on one or a bus on the other. We found out soon enough that he’d done neither; he’d found a cab; and I’d like to know who it was drove that hack.
He must’ve been a jet pilot.
It was real dark on Daniels’ street. The nearest streetlight was a couple hundred feet away, and there was a big maple tree in Daniels’ front yard that cast thick black shadows all over the front of the house. I missed the number in the dark and pulled over to the curb; I knew it must be somewhere around here.
Me and Sam got out and Sam went up on the nearest porch to see the house number; Daniels was two doors away. That’s how we happened to be far to the left of the house when the killer rang Daniels’ bell.
We both saw it, Sam and me, that small dark shadow up against Daniels’ front door. The door had a glass panel and there was some sort of night light on inside, so all we saw was the dark blob waiting there, ringing on the bell. I guess Daniels was awake, after Flick’s phone call.
I grabbed Sam’s arm, and he shook me free. He had his gun out. I said, “What are you gonna do?” He was all hopped up, I guess.
He wanted to make an arrest or something. He wanted to be The Man here. He didn’t want to go back on a beat. He said, “You know how Stoye was killed. Just like that.”
That made sense, but I said, “Sam! You’re not going to shoot a kid!”
“Just wing him, if it looks—”
Just then the door opened. There wasn’t much light. I saw Daniels, a stocky, balding man with a very mild face, peering out. I saw an arm come up from that small shadowy blob. Then Sam fired twice. There was a shrill scream, and the clatter of a knife on the porch. I heard Ronnie yell, “Dad! Dad!”
Then Sam and I were pounding over to the house. Daniels was frozen there, staring down onto the porch and the porch steps.
At the foot of the steps the kid was huddled. He was unconscious. The ham slicer gleamed wickedly on the steps near his hand.
I called out, “Mr. Daniels! We’re the police. Better get back inside.”
And together Sam and I lifted up the kid. He didn’t weigh much. Going inside, Sam tripped over his big flat feet and I swore at him.
We put the kid down on the couch. I didn’t see any blood. Daniels was dithering around like an old lady. I pushed him into a chair and told him to stay there and try to take it easy.
Sam went to phone Flick. I started going over the kid.
There was no blood.
There were no holes in him, either; not a nick, not a graze. I stood back and scratched my head.
Daniels said, “What’s wrong with him. What happened?”
Inside, I heard Sam at the phone. “Yeah, we got ’im. It was the kid all right. Tried to stab his old man. I winged him. Huh? I don’t know. We’re looking him over now. Yeah.”
“Take it easy,” I said again to Daniels. He looked rough. “Stay right there.”
I went to the door, which was standing open. Over by the porch rail I saw something shining green and steel blue. I started over to it, tripped on something yielding, and went flat on my face. Sam came running out. “What’s the—uh!!” and he came sailing out and landed on top of me. He’s a big boy.
I said, “My goodness, Sam, that was careless of you,” or words to that effect, and some other things amounting to maybe Flick had the right idea about him.
“Damn it, Delehanty,” he says, “I tripped on something. What are you doing sprawled out here, anyway?”
“I was looking for—” and I picked it up, the green and steel blue thing. It was a Finnish sheath knife, long and pointed, double razor edges, scrollwork up near the hilt. Blood, still a bit tacky, in the scrollwork.
“Where’d that come from?” grunted Sam, and took it. “Hey! Flick just told me the medic says Stoye was stabbed with a two-edged knife. You don’t suppose—”
“I don’t suppose nothin’,” I said, getting up. “On your feet, Sam. Flick finds us like this, he’ll think we were playing mumblety-peg … tell you what, Sam; I took a jump knife off the kid out there, and it only had a single edge.”
I went down the steps and picked it up. Sam pointed out that the kid never had a chance to use the ham slicer.
I shrugged that off. Flick was paid the most for thinking—let him do most of the thinking. I went to the side of the door and looked at the bell push to get an idea as to how it might take prints, and then went inside. Sam came straight in and tripped again.
“Pick up ya feet!”
Sam had fallen to his knees this time. He growled something and, swinging around, went to feeling around the porch floor with his hands. “Now it’s patty-cake,” I said. “For Pete’s sake, Sam—”
Inside Daniels was on the floor by the couch, rubbing the kid’s hands, saying, real scared like, “Ronnie! Ronnie!”
“Delehanty!”
Half across the room, I turned. Sam was still on his knees just outside the door, and his face was something to see. “Delehanty, just come here, will you?”
There was something in his voice that left no room for a wisecrack. I went right to him. He motioned me down beside him, took my wrist and pushed my hand downward.
It touched something, but—there was nothing there.
We looked at each other, and I wish I could write down what that look said.
I touched again, felt it. It was like cloth, then like flesh, yielding, then bony.
“It’s the Invisible Man!” breathed Sam, bug-eyed.
“Stop talking nonsense,” I said thickly. “And beside, it’s a woman. Look here.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Sam, backing away. “Anyhow, I’m a married man.”
Cars came, screaming as usual. “Here’s Flick.”
Flick and his mob came streaming up the steps.
“What’s going on here? Where’s the killer?”
Sam stood in front of the doorway, holding his hands out like he was unsnarling traffic. He was shaking. “Walk over this side,” he said, “or you’ll step on her.”
“What are you gibbering about? Step on who?”
Sam flapped his hands and pointed at the floor. Flick and Brown and all the others looked down, then up again. I don’t know what got into me. I just couldn’t help it. I said, “He found a lady-bug and he don’t want you to step on it.”
Flick got so mad, so quick, he didn’t even swear.
We went inside. The medic was working over the boy, who was still unconscious. Flick was demanding, “Well! Well? What’s the matter with him?”
“Not a thing I can find out, not without a fluoroscope and some blood tests. Shock, maybe?”
“Shot?” gasped Daniels.
“Definitely not,” said the M.O.
Flick said, very, very quietly, “Sam told me over the phone that he had shot the boy. What about this, Delehanty? Can you talk sense, or is Sam contagious?”
I told him what we had seen from the side of the house. I told him that we couldn’t be sure who it was that rang the bell, but that we saw whoever it was raise a knife to strike, and then Sam fired, and then we ran up and found the kid lying at the bottom of the steps. We heard a knife fall.
“Did you hear him fall down the steps?”
“No,” said Sam.
“Shut up, you,” said Flick, not looking at him. “Well, Delehanty?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, thinking hard. “It all happened so fast.”
“It was a girl.”
“What was a girl? Who said that?”
Daniels shuffled forward. “I answered the door. A girl was there. She had a knife. A long one, pointed. I think it was double-edged.”
“Here it is,” said Sam brightly.
Flick raised his eyes to heaven, moved his lips silently, and took the knife.
“That’s it,” said Daniels. “Then there was a gunshot, and she screamed and fell.”
“She did, huh? Where is she?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Daniels in puzzlement.
“She’s still there,” said Sam smugly. I thought, oh-oh. This is it.
“Thank you, Sam,” said Flick icily. “Would you be good enough to point her out to me?”
Sam nodded. “There. Right there,” and he pointed.
“See her, lying there in the doorway,” I piped up.
Flick looked at Sam, and he looked at me. “Are you guys trying to—uk!” His eyes bulged, and his jaw went slack.
Everyone in the room froze. There, in plain sight on the porch, lay the body of a girl. She was quite a pretty girl, small and dark. She had a bullet hole on each side of her neck, a little one here and a great big one over here.
VII
Told by the Author
Theodore Sturgeon
I DON’T MUCH care for the way this story’s going.
You want to write a story, see, and you sit down in front of the mill, wait until that certain feeling comes to you, hold off a second longer just to be quite sure that you know exactly what you want to do, take a deep breath, and get up and make a pot of coffee.
This sort of thing is likely to go on for days, until you are out of coffee and can’t get more until you can pay for same, which you can do by writing a story and selling it; or until you get tired of messing around and sit down and write a yarn purely by means of knowing how to do it and applying the knowledge.
But this story’s different. It’s coming out as if it were being dictated to me, and I’m not used to that. It’s a haywire sort of yarn; I have no excuses for it, and can think of no reasons for such a plot having unfolded itself to me. It isn’t that I can’t finish it up; far from it—all the plot factors tie themselves neatly together at the end, and this with no effort on my part at all.
This can be demonstrated; it’s the last chapter that bothers me. You see, I didn’t write it. Either someone’s playing a practical joke on me, or—No. I prefer to believe someone’s playing a practical joke on me.
Otherwise, this thing is just too horrible.
But about that demonstration, here’s what happened:
Flick never quite recovered from the shock of seeing that sudden corpse. The careful services of the doctor were not required to show that the young lady was dead, and Flick recovered himself enough to start asking questions.
It was Daniels who belatedly identified her as the nurse he had seen at the hospital the day Mrs. Stoye killed herself. The nurse’s name was Lucille Holder. She had come from England as a girl; she had a flawless record abroad and in this country. The head doctor told the police on later investigation that he had always been amazed at the tremendous amount of work Miss Holder could turn out, and had felt that inevitably some sort of a breakdown must come. She went all to pieces on Mrs. Stoye’s death, and he sent her on an immediate vacation.
Her movements were not difficult to trace, after she left the administrative office, where she ascertained Mr. Daniels’ address. She went first to his house, and the only conclusion the police could come to was that she had done so on purpose to kill him. But he was not there; he, it seems, had been trying to find her at the hospital at the time! So she left. The following night she went out to Stoye’s, rang the bell, and killed him.
Ronnie followed her, apparently filled with the same unaccountable impulse, and was late. Miss Holder went then to Daniels’ house and tried to kill him, but was shot by the policeman, just as Ronnie, again late, arrived.
Ronnie lay in a coma for eight weeks. The diagnosis was brain fever, which served as well as anything else. He remembered little, and that confused. He did, however, vouch for the nurse’s visit to his home the night of Mrs. Stoye’s death. He could not explain why he had kept it a secret from his father, nor why he had had the impulse to kill Mr. Stoye (he admitted this impulse freely and without any horror), nor how he had happened to think of finding Stoye’s address through the information operator at the telephone company.
He simply said that he wanted to get it without asking any traceable questions. He also admitted that when he found that Mr. Stoye had already been killed, he felt that he must secure another weapon and go and kill his father. He says he remembers thinking of it without any emotion whatsoever at the time, though he was appalled at the thought after he came out of the coma.
“It’s all like a story I read a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t remember doing these things at all; I remember seeing them done.”
When the policeman shot Miss Holder, Ronnie felt nothing; the lights went out, and he knew nothing until eight weeks later.
These things remained unexplained to the participants:
Mrs. Stoye’s disappearing body. The witnesses were the two Daniels and Miss Holder. Miss Holder could not report it; Ronnie did not remember it; Mr. Daniels kept his own counsel.
Lucille Holder’s disappearing body. Daniels said nothing about this either, and for the rest of his life tried to forget it. The members of the homicide detail and the two prowl car men tried to forget it, too. It was not entered into the records of the case. It seemed to have no bearing, and all concerned were happy to erase it as much as possible. If they spoke of it at all, it was in terms of mass hypnosis—which was reasonably accurate at that.…
Lucille Holder’s motive in killing Mr. Stoye and in trying to kill Mr. Daniels. This could only be guessed at; it was simple to put it down to the result of a nervous breakdown after overwork.
Mrs. Stoye’s suicide. This, too, was attributed to a mounting mental depression and was forgotten as quickly as possible.
And two other items must be mentioned. The radio patrolman Sam was called on the carpet by Detective Lieutenant Flick for inefficiency in letting the boy Ronnie go. He was not punished, oddly enough. He barely mentioned the corpse of Lucille Holder, and that there were witnesses to the fact that apparently the lieutenant had not seen it, though he had stepped right over it on the way into Daniels’ house. Flick swore that he was being framed, but let Sam alone thereafter.
The other item has to do with Miss Jennie Beaufort, an operator in the Information Office of the telephone company. Miss Beaufort won a prize on a radio quiz—a car, a plane, two stoves, a fur coat, a diamond ring, a set of SwingFree shoulder pads, and a 38-day South American cruise. She quit her job the following day, took the cruise, enjoyed it mightily, learned on her return that income tax was due on the valuation of all her prizes, sold enough to pay the tax, and was so frightened at the money it took that she went back to work at her old job.
