Лесли Чартерис - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 3, March, 1953

“Damn it, George,” he said sharply. “What’s wrong with you?” He put both wide hands on George’s shoulders and shook him. “What’s wrong?”

George wet his lips. “It’s Kathy,” he said. “She’s—” He looked at Malone, and his lips moved, but there was no sound.

Malone shook him again. “She’s what? Speak up, George!”

“She’s... dead.”

The floor beneath Malone’s feet seemed to tilt, and for an instant George Weston’s face blurred out of focus. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and the word dead sickened through him...

George’s eyes moved slowly toward the stairs and back again.

“She’s upstairs,” he said. “Malone, she’s...”

Malone’s fingers came up to tighten around George’s arm. “Come on,” he said. He tugged George around and headed him toward the stairs.

“Where is she?” Malone asked.

“In her bedroom. She isn’t just dead, Malone. She’s... she’s been murdered.”

“George, you’re out of your mind!”

George shook his head. They started up the stairs. “No,” George said. “Somebody’s killed her. Somebody’s killed my wife.”

Malone caught his beefy lower lip in his teeth, and said nothing. Of all the people he knew, George and Kathy were two of the ones he’d liked the best. If Kathy was dead, then a little part of him had died too. Kathy. Lovely, gracious Kathy...

At the top of the stairs, George turned to the right and stopped before the second door. “In there, Malone,” he said hoarsely.

Malone twisted the knob and stepped inside. It was a large room, bright and infinitely feminine. It was in perfect order, and even the bottles on Kathy’s vanity seemed to have been arranged in some whimsical order of her own,

Malone took in the entire room at a glance. He turned quickly to George. “Where is she?”

“On... on the other side of the bed,” George said. “On the floor.”

Malone went around the bed fast. Kathy lay on her back, the blue-black waves of her long hair in contrast vividly with the smooth white arm thrown out behind her head. One slim ankle was crossed over the other, and above them her stockinged legs tapered up to swelling thighs. A sheet had been spread over the body from shoulders to hips, but it took Malone no second glance to know that, except for the sheet, and her shoes and stockings, she was completely naked.

She was beautiful in death. It was, Malone thought, almost as if she were sleeping. He put his hand over her heart and held it there until he was convinced.

He looked up at George Weston. Very softly, he said, “How?”

George had remained near the door, but now he closed it behind him and took two tentative steps toward Malone. “Her neck’s broken,” he said thickly.

Malone put his fingertips to the back of Kathy’s head and moved them slowly downward. He felt the break, the small bump where there should be no bump.

He got to his feet and stood very still, looking at George.

“You touch her?”

“I put the sheet over her.”

“And what else?”

“I straightened her head. It was all...” His shoulders slumped and he put a hand out to the foot of the bed as if for support. “I couldn’t stand to see her look that way.”

Malone nodded. “Sure, George,” he said.

George turned and pulled the bench out from the vanity and sat down. Malone walked to the window and stood staring out into the night. He would have gone through a thousand hells to be able to help George Weston now. But there was nothing he could do for him, and nothing he could say to make it any easier for him.

George was speaking now, almost as if to himself. “I loved her. Nobody will ever know how much I loved her.”

Malone cleared his throat. “George, isn’t it about time we called the police?”

George nodded. “Yes. I guess so, Malone.” His eyes were sick. “This was our anniversary. It was fifteen years today.”

Malone felt an utter helplessness that was alien to him. In most situations, he knew what to do, and how to do it. But not this time. His grief was not as great as George’s, of course, but it was profound.

“I hate to ask this, George,” he said gently. “But have you got any ideas? It had to be one of your guests. You know that.”

George was silent a long moment. Then, “No, Malone. It couldn’t have been. Everybody loved her. There’s never been anybody like her, Malone. Everybody...”

Malone tried to get a stern tone into his voice, but he Jailed. His words came out as gently as before. “You found her without any clothes on? Where are they?”

“Under the bed,” George said. “They were in a heap beside her, but I pushed them under the bed. I don’t know why. I guess I just didn’t want anybody to know what had happened to her.”

Quickly then, Malone went around the bed once more and bent down. The dress Kathy had worn earlier was in tatters, and her underclothing had obviously been ripped from her body. Malone dropped them to the floor and went back to lean against the wall near George Weston.

“Killing her wasn’t enough,” George said. “They had to do that , too.”

For the first time in several minutes, Malone felt as if he was capable of coherent thought.

“George,” he said, “I’ll promise you something. Except for you, no one thought more of Kathy than I did. I’m going to find out who killed her, George — if it takes me the rest of my life.”

“You can’t bring her back,” George said dully. “Nobody can do that.”

“No. But we can find out who did it. It had to be somebody downstairs, George. Now, can you think of anyone who might have any reason at all to want to...” He paused. “Think hard, George.”

George shook his head. “No. Nobody.” His face was very white. “I can’t stay in here any longer, Malone. I... I’ve got to have some air. I feel sick.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “We’ll go down the back stairs.”

As they walked between the trees in the huge back lawn, John J. Malone, for once, kept his silence. He was thinking back a good many years, back to the first time he had seen George and Kathy Weston.

There had been a carnival on the outskirts of Chicago that year, and one of the feature attractions was the Cage of Death. Malone had watched two young daredevils wheel a pair of motorcycles into a giant globe fashioned of steel mesh. He had been across the midway at the time, and it was not until he got much closer that he discovered one of the riders was a girl. Her companion had ridden his motorcycle in small circles around the bottom of the cage, until he had gained sufficient momentum to suspend him and his vehicle horizontally. And then, defying gravity, he had increased the speed and looped-the-loop a dozen times.

Then the girl had done the same thing. And, at the climax, both riders were at the top of the mesh sphere one moment, and at the bottom the next, both of them looping-the-loop at the same time, and in opposite directions.

Malone had never seen anything like it. He waited around, and when the young riders came out, he told them so. That was the beginning, and Malone haunted the carny lot and the Cage of Death every night thereafter, until the carnival moved to the next town. He and the two young riders — George and Kathy — had become friends instantly. The next year, Malone had renewed the friendship. He had been watching them the night they collided head-on at the very top of the cage...

Kathy had suffered a broken arm and severe bruises, and that was all. But George had been badly mangled. During the four days when his chance of life was fifty-fifty, after the long sessions of surgery, Malone had haunted the hospital just as he had the carny lot.