Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

“There isn’t any. Would have been if Mrs. Munson had been smoking it — no matter how water-soaked it had gotten. She used lipstick, of course; she hadn’t wiped it off.”

The hotel man sighed. “She didn’t start it, then.”

“No. She was hurt enough to do it, maybe. But her mind didn’t run to endangering other people’s lives — only her own. She took an overdose of luminol. Not enough to kill her. But enough to keep her from waking up until the blaze had a better start than the firebug ever intended it should have.”

“Who—?”

“He opened the door with a master key, after Mrs. Munson had gone to sleep — say twenty minutes to one. After he made sure she wasn’t awake — he probably assumed she was drunk — he tiptoed in, took the lighted cigarette out of his mouth, laid it on the edge of the ash-tray that was on her bed-table, put the ash-tray and cigarette on the bed so the burning stub would fall off and ignite the mattress. He thought Mrs. Munson would wake up after the mattress started to smolder and filled the room with smoke. She didn’t; the sleeping pills prevented her from waking up until the flames from the burning blankets began to sear her.”

“What was the idea.... if he didn’t mean to burn down the building?”

“To cause a panic. Get people running around the corridors in their nightgowns and pajamas, half scared to death. With the corridors filled with smoke, the apparatus rolling in with bells clanging and everybody screaming “Fire!!” — it was easy for the bug to go through the guests’ rooms on the pretext of routing them out and starting them for the elevators and the stairs.”

“Why!”

Pedley slid the contents of the pillowcase out on the desktop. “So he could loot their rooms; their clothing. Most people don’t lock up their money or jewels when they go to bed. They leave their money in their purses and wallets — their rings and watches on the bureau. With a hotel employee yelling at them to get out of their rooms in a hurry — with those sirens and the smoke stampeding them — not many would take time to go for their valuables before they rushed out into the hall.”

“Wayner!”

“There’s another screwy thing about firebugs,” the Marshal shook his head. “They always have an alibi. In twenty years I haven’t run across one who hasn’t claimed he was somewhere else when the fire was set — who didn’t try to prove he couldn’t possibly have been around when the fuse was lit. Now your bell-captain didn’t have any alibi at all — any more than you did.”

“That damned Harris!”

“Sure. He kept impressing me that his patrol clock would show by the times he punched it, on each floor, that he couldn’t have been down on the fourth at the time the place was torched.”

“But why—?”

“Your fault, partly. You gave him his notice today. He didn’t know where to get another job, probably. By the room he was living in, I’d say he didn’t have much money saved up. He saw a way to get even with you for firing him and to get his hands on a lot of valuables, at the same time. Only the thing got out of hand; he didn’t know it until it was so late he got cut off, up on the eighth — and nearly lost his own life before the boys brought him down.”

“They should have left him up there,” Broodman said grimly. “Did you get him?”

“Somebody did.” Pedley stirred the heap of jewelry with his finger. “He’s dead. It was supposed to look like suicide. He was shot with his own gun. But he’d been slugged before he was lit up.”

“Ah...!” Broodman waited.

“One of my deputies trailed Wayner over to Harris’s rooming house, called me and I went down there. When I went in the room, somebody was hiding there. I didn’t see him; he crowned me with a gun-butt and got away while I was out cold. My deputy trailed your bell-captain back here to the hotel, collared him and found a big roll of bills on him. Nearly a thousand bucks. Wayner’d slugged Harris, taken the money which couldn’t be traced and left the jewelry because it would be risky to pawn it.”

“Check Wayner shot Harris?”

“No. You did that.”

The manager didn’t deny it. He appeared to be too dazed by the accusation to attempt an answer.

Pedley felt of the bump on the top of his skull. “Wayner wasn’t the person who crowned me. He isn’t tall enough to swing a gun down on the crease of my hat. Harris wasn’t, either. But you are. And you sneaked out of the lobby right after I left for the hospital.”

“For coffee,” Broodman admitted. “I had to have some coffee. I was dead on my feet.”

“Harris was, anyway. You doped it out just the way Wayner had. Only your bell-captain wanted the money he guessed Harris had stolen; you wanted to get even with Harris for ruining you. If you hadn’t been afraid the whole business about your entanglement with Mrs. Munson would come out, if Harris had been forced to defend himself in court — you might have had him arrested and tried for arson. But you didn’t want your own dirty linen hung up for everyone to see — so you took his punishment into your own hands...

“You followed Wayner to the boardinghouse, waited in the hall until the bell-captain had slugged Harris and taken over the dough. When he came out, you went in. You were still in there when I arrived. Wayner was down in the hall somewhere — anyhow, he left the rooming house before you did. My man trailed him, didn’t see you!” The Marshal walked around the desk.

“I’m not booking you for murder,” the Marshal said harshly. “I’m taking you in for criminal negligence in connection with the deaths in this fire. You’ll have the better part of the next ten years to wish you’d spent the dough to make those changes the Commissioner ordered. At that,” he gripped the manager’s arm roughly, “it won’t be as long as a lot of other people will have, to regret what happened tonight. Come on...”

Popular Detective, March 1949

Don Rixey peeled cellophane from a Choc-a-Bloc Nibble, gnawed the confection moodily. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t like it one bit.”

Annalou Kenyon leaned dimpled elbows on the lunch counter, her pert face tilted up provocatively. “Whyn’t you try a Baby Ruth, then? Ask me. I know what you like!”

“Yeah,” He admired her taffy-bright hair, her smoky-gray eyes. “You know what I mean, too.” He jabbed an accusing finger at the newspaper lying beside the salt and pepper rack.

She read the headline aloud: “Icy Eyes Strikes Again! Third Gas Station Stickup in Week Spurs Citywide Manhunt.” Annalou pouted prettily. “If it’s me you’re worrying about — don’t!”

“What else?” Don licked chocolate off his thumb. “You! Out here in this dump, all alone, at this time of night!”

“It’s not either a dump. It’s a modern snack bar. And I’m not all alone.”

“Most the time you are.” His amiable square face was unhappy.

“Bill’s here. Or anyway, he’s right near.” She glanced across the drive-in at the row of red-enamel gas pumps.

“Bill’s a nice old gook,” Don said. “Very fatherly. About as much protection as one of those woolly poodles they sell in toy stores. If this gent the papers call Icy Eyes showed up around here—”

“It wouldn’t bother me!” Annalou asserted flatly. “I know better’n to argue with an automatic. I’d just say, ‘Mister, help yourself.’ It’s not my cash register. He can take the works, for all of me. Don’t you fret!”

“No-o-o!” Don scowled. “I’ll never give it a second thought. You. Way out here on the lone prairee, practically, fixin’ to swap wise cracks with a gunman who’s scared three gas-station attendants so bad they can’t even remember what he looked like!”