Bill Crider: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 1. Whole No. 797, January 2008

That couldn’t last!

Cudner dropped his left-hand gun, and, as he raised the other, he sagged forward and went down on one knee. Orrett stopped firing abruptly and fell over on his back — spread out full-length. Cudner fired once more — wildly, into the ceiling — and pitched down on his face.

I sprang to Orrett’s side and kicked both of his guns away. He was lying still, but his eyes were open.

“Are you Cudner, or was he?”

“He.”

“Good!” he said, and closed his eyes.

I crossed to where Cudner lay and turned him over on his back. His chest was literally shot to pieces.

His thick lips worked, and I put my ear down to them. “I get him?”

“Yes,” I lied, “he’s already cold.”

His dying face twisted into a grin.

“Sorry... three in hotel...” he gasped hoarsely. “Mistake... wrong room... got one... had to... other two... protect myself... I...” He shuddered and died.

A week later the hospital people let me talk to Orrett. I told him what Cudner had said before he died.

“That’s the way I doped it out,” Orrett said from out of the depths of the bandages in which he was swathed. “That’s why I moved and changed my name the next day.

“I suppose you’ve got it figured out by now,” he said after a while.

“No,” I confessed. “I haven’t. I’ve an idea what it was all about but I could stand having a few details cleared up.”

“I’m sorry I can’t clear them up for you, but I’ve got to cover myself up. I’ll tell you a story, though, and it may help you. Once upon a time there was a high-class crook — what the newspapers call a mastermind. Came a day when he found he had accumulated enough money to give up the game and settle down an honest man.

“But he had two lieutenants — one in New York and one in San Francisco — and they were the only men in the world who knew he was a crook. And, besides that, he was afraid of both of them. So he thought he’d rest easier if they were out of the way. And it happened that neither of these lieutenants had ever seen the other.

“So this mastermind convinced each of them that the other was double-crossing him and would have to be bumped off for the safety of all concerned. And both of them fell for it. The New Yorker went to San Francisco to get the other, and the San Franciscan was told that the New Yorker would arrive on such-and-such a day and would stay at such-and-such a hotel.

“The mastermind figured that there was an even chance of both men passing out when they met — and he was nearly right at that. But he was sure that one would die, and then, even if the other missed hanging, there would only be one man left for him to dispose of later.”

There weren’t as many details in the story as I would have liked to have, but it explained a lot.

“How do you figure out Cudner’s getting the wrong room?”

“That was funny! Maybe it happened like this: My room was 609 and the killing was done in 906. Suppose Cudner went to the hotel on the day he knew I was due and took a quick slant at the register. He wouldn’t want to be seen looking at it if he could avoid it, so he didn’t turn it around, but flashed a look at it as it lay — facing the desk.

“When you read numbers of three figures upside down you have to transpose them in your head to get them straight. Like 123. You’d get that 321, and then turn them around in your head. That’s what Cudner did with mine. He was keyed up, of course, thinking of the job ahead of him, and he overlooked the fact that 609 upside-down still reads 609 just the same. So he turned it around and made it 906 — Develyn’s room.”

“That’s how I doped it,” I said, “and I reckon it’s about right. And then he looked at the key rack and saw that 906 wasn’t there. So he thought he might just as well get his job done right then, when he could roam the hotel corridors without attracting attention. Of course, he may have gone up to the room before Ansley and Develyn came in and waited for them, but I doubt it.

“I think it more likely that he simply happened to arrive at the hotel a few minutes after they had come in. Ansely was probably alone in the room when Cudner opened the unlocked door and came in — Develyn being in the bathroom getting the glasses.

“Ansley was about your size and age, and close enough in appearance to fit a rough description of you. Cudner went for him, and then Deveyln, hearing the scuffle, dropped the bottle and glasses, rushed out, and got his.

“Cudner, being the sort he was, would figure that two murders were not worse than one, and he wouldn’t want to leave any witnesses around.

“And that is probably how Ingraham got into it. He was passing on his way from his room to the elevator and perhaps heard the racket and investigated. And Cudner put a gun in his face and made him stow the two bodies in the clothespress. And then he stuck his knife in Ingraham’s back and slammed the door on him. That’s about the—”

An indignant nurse descended on me from behind and ordered me out of the room, accusing me of getting her patient excited.

Orrett stopped me as I turned to go.

“Keep your eye on the New York dispatches,” he said, “and maybe you’ll get the rest of the story. It’s not over yet. Nobody has anything on me out here. That shooting in Pigatti’s was self-defense so far as I’m concerned. And as soon as I’m on my feet again and can get back East there’s going to be a mastermind holding a lot of lead. That’s a promise!”

I believed him.

(c)1923; renewed. Reprinted by permission of the Literary Property Trust of Dashiell Hammett

Chuck Hogan debuted as a novelist in 1995 with The Standoff , a book that was adapted for film and translated into fourteen languages. The Blood Artists followed in 1998, and 2004 saw the release of his Hammett Prize-winning thriller Prince of Thieves . The Boston author recently adapted Prince of Thieves for film, for Warner Brothers and director Adrian Lyne. His latest crime novel is The Killing Moon , due in paperback this month.

It was a diner off the interstate exit, pushed back from the road to make room for a truck turnaround.

The customer with the handgun inside his jacket sat on the first red-padded stool at the front counter, the seat closest to the takeout register. He had come in alone, ordered a Coke. Other than turning to watch every car pulling in, he sat there as patiently as night waiting for day.

Sam, the grill man, worked out in front. He lifted off two half-pounders of cooked patty meat and tucked them into prepared rolls, wrapped them up tight in a square of wax paper, and then dropped them into a yellow Best Burger To-Go sack. He thumbed three or four yellow Best Burger napkins off the top of the stack next to the register and stuffed them into the sack before folding and curling down the top. The moves were routine, automatic, normally requiring no thought — except that Sam could feel the counter customer eyeing him. The woman he was serving paid and thanked him and carried her burgers out the door.

The counter stool croaked, metal grating against metal, and Sam thought the customer was turning to watch the woman leave. She wasn’t much to look at from behind, but she was a woman.

A green sedan came rolling up outside, tires popping gravel. The young driver took off his sunglasses and carefully laid them upside-down on the dash before getting out. Sam saw that the customer was still turned toward the front windows.

Sam knew then that the customer wasn’t watching the woman.