Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

“And what do you want me to do with these?” demanded the A.C. Police Commissioner dryly. “Stuff a pillow with ’em, or put ’em in a locket for a keepsake?”

“Just send ’em to Washington for me and have the Department of Justice experts find out which matches which. Be sure not to get the tags mixed. A,” he explained, “was taken from under the fingernails of the body — I have witnesses at the morgue to verify that. Group B is from the head of the accused, C from that of the chief State’s witness. The analysis ought to show which matches which.”

“Thanks for A, anyway,” the Commissioner nodded, “it’s one bet our examiner overlooked. It ought to come in handy at the trial. I’ll do it for you, though, Travis.”

“Have ’em send you a wire,” pleaded Mike. “They can forward the full report later. I know the suspect you have now will stay put, but in case it turns out to be somebody else — you can reach me at my sister’s house, South Carolina Avenue.”

“You have my word on it,” repeated the Commissioner.

Then he added, not unkindly, “I don’t like to tell you this, old-timer, but that boy’s as good as dead already. It’s one of the strongest circumstantial cases we’ve had here in years.”

Mike left, thinking, “And I’m counting on three hairs to outweigh it!”

He plodded along the Boardwalk, head down. It was hopeless. Even if the report that came back was favorable, what chance had the kid against that young swell, with all his money and influence? The dead girl’s own people would probably back him up if it came to a showdown. He thought of Murray having him thrown out of his cell, and grinned. Spunky, fiery, even in the shadow of death. Then he thought of the other youth, nervous, fidgety, in his luxurious hotel-room. There had been something soft and flabby there just under the surface, Mike had sensed it. Too much money, maybe. Why not dig in, maybe he’d get something! Why wait for the hairs to tell the story? Maybe he could get something more, to back them up with. Why wait for the phalanx of high-priced lawyers that would close in around him, shielding him the moment he was legally jeopardized?

Arnold was ramming eighty-odd neckties into a valise when the knock came on his door. He thought it was the bellhop for his baggage, and unsuspectingly went to open it. By the time he saw that it wasn’t, it was too late to close it again, they were in already.

There were three of them, and he recognized the one in the middle and knew then for a certainty what he’d already suspected all along, that his barber of awhile before had been something more than a barber. The suspicion alone had jittered him to the point of getting ready to take a run-out powder until the trial came up; the certainty of it now paralyzed him to the point of helplessness. It was characteristic of his fiber that instead of trying to bar their way he fell back flabby and limp as a rag. Sylvia Reading had known her men, she had known what she was doing when she refused to marry him. “Soft and no good.” She had carried the knowledge to her grave with her. He was vanquished before the blow was even struck.

The men closed the door behind them. One stayed beside it. One went over to the telephone and moved it out of the way. Arnold’s way.

“Remember me?” said Mike.

Arnold nodded, ashen.

Mike flashed some kind of a badge, took in the readied luggage. “So you were going away?” he drawled.

“Why? What do you want?” stammered the playboy.

“Funny you should be going away right at this time. Funny you should have that little scratch on your scalp, just above the hair-line. By the time you came back it would’ve healed, wouldn’t it?”

There was a bottle on the table, and a glass. Arnold said, “Lemme have another drink, will you? Lemme talk to the Commissioner, will you?” He sounded out-of-breath.

The one by the telephone took it up with both hands, swung downward with it. The wires came flying loose out of the soundbox. Then he handed it to Arnold.

“You’re going to talk to the Commissioner,” Mike promised. “That’s why we’re here. He sent us to get you.”

Arnold gave a hiss of relief. “Nobody has to know, do they? I can explain to him — but it won’t get in the papers, will it, your taking me there like this?”

“Won’t it?” grinned Mike. “Won’t it? Every leg-man in Atlantic City’s ganged up down at the door, there’s a camera waiting behind every post to get you—”

A cry broke from him. “I can’t stand it! Photographers, my name in all the papers — it’ll ruin my life! Can’t you take me down the back way? Let me get hold of a lawyer, at least! Oh, my God, let me have a drink!”

Mike moved the bottle away. “I’ll make a bargain with you,” he said quietly. “You can have a drink, and we’ll take you out the back way. Just take a sheet of that stationery and write, ‘I killed Sylvia Reading,’ and sign your name under it.”

Arnold jumped back as though he’d been bitten. “No!” he yelled. “No! I didn’t do it! You can’t make me say I did! You’re trying to catch me, aren’t you! You can’t pin it on me—”

“Can’t we?” said Mike. “We have already. We’ve proved who killed her! Show him, Lane.”

The one by the door fished out two little paper packets, undid them.

Mike said, “Your hair’s been tested, since I was here this afternoon. You didn’t know I helped myself to some, did you? It matches the specimens we found under her fingernails. Murray’s doesn’t! She reached up in her death-struggle and clawed at your head; she not only made that little scratch I reopened today, she tore out several of your hairs by the roots. They stayed under her nails, even the water didn’t dislodge them. It’s not the word of a friendless little dance-hall lizard against yours any more, it’s the word of an expert at the Department of Justice in Washington! Come on — and hold your chin up when you hear the camera-shutters go click-click!”

He looked all around him, blindly, as though he couldn’t see them any more. Suddenly he was talking through his hands, face hidden. “I couldn’t stand it, to see her night after night with that cheap. She had no use for me, and it rankled. She wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t get up and leave when I found her sitting there alone. I started to shake her by the shoulders, I only wanted to shake some sense into her — and then, before I knew it, it had happened! I tell you, she drove me to it, she wouldn’t take me seriously — Please,” he slobbered, “let me have a drink—”

“Do like I told you,” said Mike, “and we’ll even wait outside the door for you, let you finish the bottle in peace.”

Arnold’s face stopped twitching for a moment. “You’ll — wait — outside the door?” He snatched at a sheet of hotel paper, scrawled two lines on it. His voice was just a whisper. “Here — now let me have my drink.”

Outside the door Mike folded the paper and put it away. “Soft and no good,” he murmured. He motioned his two companions toward the elevator.

“Ain’t you gonna wait?” one whispered curiously.

“What for?” said Mike. “He’s down there on the Boardwalk already, ahead of us.”

“You knew that — and you let him?”

“It’s the kindest thing anyone coulda done for him,” Mike answered. “Funny how too much money takes all the backbone outa you. I gotta go over to the Commissioner with this confession.

The second one crumpled the two little paper packets and threw them away disgustedly. “I ain’t getting bald fast enough,” he complained, “I gotta yank out the few I got left. He didn’t even look at ’em!”

“Quit beefing; here’s your twenty apiece,” said Mike, “and stay away from that cheesy confidence-racket of yours on the Boardwalk, or next time I will turn you both in like I threatened to!”