Fredric Brown - Homicide Sanitarium

I said, "All right, let's go."

"To Taggert's? You're really going to follow through with that silly business of wanting the role in the Bluebeard play?"

"Yes."

Adrian shrugged, and backed out of the parking place. He drove on across the park and over East Seventy-second past Third Avenue. He parked in front of a remodeled brownstone front halfway down the block.

"This it?" I asked.

"Sure. Haven't you been to Taggert's place before?"

"I've seen him around," I said. "I've never been in his home up till now."

Adrian started to get out of the car. Then he said, "Wait a minute, Wayne. I've been thinking while I drove. I think I've got your angle, now. It threw me for a while.

You're going to try an insanity plea, aren't you? That's the reason for this build-up of keeping after a Bluebeard role just after you've killed your wife. That's why you locked Mike in his closet. That's why you tried the backfires, or had me do it. That's why you've been telling everyone you killed Lola, but not going to the cops.

You--you aren't really crazy, are you?"

I said, "I sometimes think that maybe I am, Adrian."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "That's the boy. If that's your story, stick to it. I'll ride along for a little while yet. Not too much longer, or I'm going to have to cop an insanity plea myself."

I didn't say anything, and we got out of the car. He led the way to the door and pushed a button in the hallway. The latch of the lock clicked almost right away, and we went in and walked up two nights.

Dane Taggert was standing in the doorway of his apartment. He said, "Took you fellows long enough to get here."

Adrian said, "I went home to get those scene sketches to show you, Taggert.

How goes the rewrite on the third-act curtain?"

We were inside by then. Taggert said, "Finished, but don't know whether you'll like it or not. Let's have a drink first. Rye and sparkling okay? Sit down; I'll get it."

Adrian sank into a chair, and I wandered over to the radio. It was a big Zenith console, the kind with four wave bands. It wasn't playing but I looked at the setting.

It was on short-wave and the dial was turned for police calls. I moved it out from the wall a little and reached in behind. The tubes were warm; it had just been shut off.

Taggert must have heard me move the set; he stepped to the doorway of the kitchen, an open bottle in one hand.

"Nice set you've got," I told him, moving it back. "Is it good on police calls?"

His eyes missed mine and went to the dial. He said, "Very good. I sometimes get story ideas from them. I still do an occasional detective short."

"Tubes are warm," I said. "You must have been listening in before we came."

"For a few minutes. How do you want your highball, Dixon? Strong?

Medium?"

"Medium will do, thanks."

I sat down across from Adrian and felt his eyes on me curious-ly, but I paid no attention until Taggert came in with the drinks on a tray. I took one and sipped it.

Taggert said, "About that third-act curtain, Adrian. What do you think of the idea of--"

"It stinks," I said.

They both turned to stare at me. Their eyes took in the gun--the nickel-plated, .32 revolver--that was in my hand, resting on the arm of my chair with the muzzle pointed between Carr and Taggert. Then their eyes came back to my face. I wouldn't know, being behind it instead of in front, but I think my face was pretty deadpan, and I kept my voice that way too.

I said, "I've got one idea for a third-act curtain. It's corny as hell. Why don't you have your wife-killer shoot the rest of the cast and then himself?"

Adrian cleared his throat. He said, "It's been done, Wayne. Othello. Roderigo, Iago, Othello."

"Not quite the same," I said. "Othello himself doesn't kill either Roderigo or Iago. My plot is different." I saw Taggert start to get up and I said, "Sit down, Taggert. I'm not kidding." I cocked the revolver.

Taggert had sunk back in the chair. He looked sideways at Adrian. He asked,

"Is this a bad joke, Adrian, or is he ... crazy?" There was a little sweat, not much, on Taggert's forehead.

Adrian was staring at me intently. He said, "I'm not sure."

I said, "You had the police short-wave on, Taggert. You know there's a pick-up order out for me. Let's take the gloves off. Even this one."

With my free left hand I took a man's right leather glove from my coat pocket and tossed it to the floor in front of me. I asked Taggert, "Ever see it before?"

He shook his head slowly.

I explained, to Adrian rather than to Taggert, "Lola had it in her purse, along with the gun. This gun."

Adrian stared at me, bewildered. I said "You're on the outside of this, Adrian.

Taggert knows what I'm talking about, but you don't. I'll straighten you out. Don't move, Taggert.

"Tonight Lola suggested we take a walk in the park. It puzzled me a little, because it's a cool night, not the kind that makes you want to take a walk at eleven in the evening. But Lola wanted to--and she was sober tonight and very nice to me, so we went for the walk.

"There was hardly anyone else in the park at that hour. We were near the lake and suddenly Lola wanted to walk over to the bridle path--through a dark spot. She didn't give a reason; maybe she had one ready if I'd argued but I didn't argue. We were behind a big clump of bushes, concealed from the drive--if there'd been anyone on the drive. Out on Central Park West, a little past the bridle path, a car began to backfire."

I had them both now. They were staring at me and Adrian's eyes were wide.

I said, "It was nice timing. I remembered afterward that Lola had been glancing at her watch fairly often. Lola must have dropped a couple of steps behind me without my knowing it. After the first time the car backfired, she said 'Wayne' and I turned and there--it was just light enough to see her--was Lola with a pistol in her hand aimed right at me. She had a glove--that glove--on the hand that held the pistol. Shall I let that be the second-act curtain, Adrian, while we have another drink?"

Adrian was leaning forward. He said, "Go on. And don't corn it up."

I said, "I did corn it up, then and there. I guess Lola wasn't used to murdering people; she didn't move fast enough. And, for some reason, I did move fast enough.

I had my hand on the gun, over hers, before she pulled the trigger.

"And then we were fighting for the gun, and Lola was plenty strong. And she must have been scared and thought she was fight-ing for her life, because she fought like a demon for that gun. She almost got it aimed at me again once, short as that struggle was. But it was turned back, pointing at her, when it went off.

"And the car, out on the street fifty feet away, backfired once more after the shot. I just stood there, too stunned to move or to know what had really happened.

It didn't make sense; Lola couldn't have gone suddenly insane, because the fact that she'd had the glove along--a man's glove, by the way--and the gun proved she'd planned it.

"But first I was mostly worried about having killed her. I sup-pose I did silly things. I pulled off the glove and rubbed her hands I started to run for help and ran back because I didn't want to leave her there alone. And I touched her again and knew for sure that she was dead."

I looked at Taggert. I said, "One thing I remember out of that frantic first few minutes after I killed her. I heard the sound of footsteps on the cinders of the bridle path and I turned around and said, 'Hurry! Someone's hurt!' But no one came.

Whoever had been on the bridle path turned around and went back to the street--

when he heard my voice instead of Lola's. He got in the car--the car he'd made backfire a few times--and drove off. But that part of it I figured out afterwards, while I was walking around wondering what to do.