Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 3, Number 1, January, 1955

“All right, all right,” Dave said irritably. “Come on.”

The mike picked up his voice and tossed it around the studio, and then he and Cynthia walked away from the lights and into the blackness. Marauder and Cadet Holmes had already disappeared into blackness. I lighted a cigarette, and then headed for the control booth, figuring I’d bandy a few words about with Artie Schaefer. The booth was empty when I got there, though, so I strolled out to the stairwell and looked through one of the windows at the rooftops of New York, puffing happily on my cigarette. I ground the butt out under my heel, lounged around for another ten minutes, and then went back into the studio.

Dave was fiddling around with one of the plants on the set. Stu was handing both Marauder and Cadet Holmes their new death-ray guns and face masks. Artie Schaefer was back in the booth. I took my seat near the monitor again, and that was when I spotted old Felix Nechler, the guy who used to produce Rocketeers. I got up, walked over to him, and took his hand.

“Hello, Felix,” I said, “how goes it?”

Felix was a thin man with a trim black mustache. He looked up sadly and said, “Hello, Jon. So-so, I guess.”

“Back for a looksee at the old baby, eh Felix? How long have you been here?”

“Few minutes,” Felix said, his grey eyes dull.

“Okay, we’re ready to go now,” Dave called into the mike. “You out there, Cynthia?”

“She’s not here, Dave,” I shouted.

“Scare her up, will you, Jon? She’ll want to watch this.”

“Where is she?”

“Piddling around out there someplace,” he said into the mike.

“Excuse me, Felix,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

“Sure,” Felix answered. “I was about to leave anyway.”

“Oh, stick around. You’ll enjoy it.”

Felix shrugged, the shrug plainly stating he would probably not enjoy anything produced by the woman who’d taken his job. I started off around the studio, walking past the rocket ship interior set, and then over past the Earth Control Office set, both unilluminated now. Then I strolled around back to the cubbyhole where Stu kept his props, and then over to where the flats were piled against the inside brick wall of the building.

“Cynthia?”

When I got no answer, I walked past the flats, and the first thing that hit me was the overwhelming stench, and I thought someone was burning garbage right here in the building, and I knew Cynthia would have a fit about that. I kept walking in the darkness, the stench overpowering now, and that was when I tripped and fell.

I got to my knees cursing. I reached down and groped for what I’d tripped over, and I found the stench and I found soft flesh, and I reared back in what must have been stark terror. I hit the wall, and my fingers groped for the light switch. I scraped my knuckles, finally found the switch, and flicked on the light.

Cynthia Finch lay on her back on the concrete floor.

“Douse that goddamned light!” Dave yelled into his mike.

I stood over against the wall and looked down at her. I knew it was Cynthia because of the dress. It was a blue woolen number that hugged her flesh, only now it was scorched down the front, and the fabric had browned and parted to show the blistering flesh underneath. Her face was an unrecognizable, charred, burned mass of skin and bones.

“Hey, how about it?” Dave shouted again. “We’re trying to run this through, you know.”

“Dave!” I yelled when I’d caught my breath. “Come back here! Quick!”

I didn’t move from my spot near the wall. I stood there even when I heard many running footsteps, even when I heard Dave mutter, “Oh God! Oh, holy, holy God!”

And then Marauder, and Cadet Holmes and Stu Shaughnessy and even old Felix Nechler were standing around the charred, lifeless body on the concrete floor, and Marauder took one look at the ominously cumbersome death-ray gun in his fist, and dropped it to the concrete as if it were alive.

Detective-Sergeant Hilton could have been a high-priced performer on Dragnet. Perhaps he watched the show. He had an underplayed, natural delivery and an inscrutable face, and he went about his business with the calm detachment of a shoe clerk at I. Miller’s.

“You found her?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, still a little sick at what I’d discovered.

“Just like that, sir? Burned all over?”

“Just like that, Sergeant.”

“Mmm. Hell of a way to die.” Hilton stroked his lean jaw and shoved his fedora to the back of his head. “And the rest of you were all on the set when Mr....” Hilton paused. “What’s your name again, sir?” he asked me.

“Jonathan Crane.”

“Nice name,” Hilton said conversationally. “Your own?”

“It is now.”

“You an actor?”

“Writer.”

“Do any mystery stuff?”

“Science-fiction,” I said, and Hilton seemed to lose all interest immediately.

“You were all on the set, is that right, when Mr. Crane discovered the body?”

“I wasn’t,” Felix Nechler said.

“Where were you?”

“I was sitting near the monitor.”

“Are you connected with the show, Mr. Nechler?” Hilton asked.

“No,” Felix said, embarrassed.

“What were you doing here then?”

“I thought...” Felix hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind, and blurted, “I thought Cynthia might have a job for me.”

“Did you talk to her before she was killed?”

“No. I was waiting out here for her.”

Hilton turned to Dave. “When did you see her last, Mr. Halliday?”

“Back in Stu’s prop room,” Dave said. He looked at Stu, and his voice carried a muted accusation.

“And what was she doing then?”

“Stu had given her the... the death-ray gun. He was showing her how it operated.”

“The what gun?”

“Look, Sergeant,” Stu broke in, his eyes serious behind their black-rimmed bop glasses. “The gun is just...”

“What kind of gun did you say?”

“The death-ray gun,” Dave said more firmly.

“It’s just a plastic gimmick,” Stu said hurriedly. “A few batteries and some flint. Here, I’ll show you.”

He unhooked the flap on Cadet Holmes’ holster and pulled out the unwieldy weapon. He was ready to squeeze the trigger when Hilton said, “The other way, please.”

Stu shrugged. “It’s a harmless thing,” he said. He pointed the gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. There was the harsh scrape of metal against flint, a burst of spark, and then the nozzle of the gun seemed to glow and a cascade of sparks showered from the open end. “Harmless,” Stu said.

“She was holding this gun when Mr. Halliday left you?”

“Yes,” Stu said. He gave the gun back to Cadet Holmes, the fifteen-year-old boy from the High School of Performing Arts. Cadet Holmes’ face was a chalky white, his eyes fear-filled.

“She was burned to death,” Dave said suddenly.

“But not with that toy,” Hilton said. “Looks more like someone used a blowtorch.”

“No blowtorches around here,” Dave said emphatically.

“I’ll have my men look the place over,” Hilton said drily. “Mr. Shaughnessy, where did Miss Finch go when you left her?”

“I don’t know. She said the gun was okay, and told me to bring it out together with the oxygen masks. I left her in the prop room.”

“And what about you, Mr. Halliday? Did you come directly back to the set when you left Miss Finch and Mr. Shaughnessy?”

“No,” Dave said. “Matter of fact, I didn’t. I stopped at the fountain for a drink of water. Then I went around and checked the Earth Control Office set.”