Эллери Куин - Kill as Directed

“Hilarious! You don’t know how hilarious, Lieutenant. The answer is no. I don’t handle abortions, and I don’t recommend pregnant girls or women to any doctor who does. In fact, I wouldn’t know where to send such a patient if I wanted to.”

Galivan continued to look at him. “Do you know a doctor who would send such a patient to you if he wanted to?”

“Oh, I see what you’re driving at. You think the dead girl...” Harry shrugged. “No, I don’t.”

One of the technicians came up to them and said, “We’re through here, Lieutenant.”

“Any luck, Closkey?”

The man glanced at Harry. “No,” he said, and went away.

“There are no signs of violence on the body, incidentally,” Lieutenant Galivan said to Harry. “Have you any idea, as a doctor, what she died of?”

“I’m going to leave the medical opinions to your Medical Examiner’s office, Lieutenant.”

“Oh, they’ll do an autopsy. I just wondered if you knew. Willing to come downtown with us, by the way?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Sure,” said Galivan, puffing hard. “You can come voluntarily, or I can get legal about it.”

Harry Brown looked at him in absolute incredulity. “Do I understand that you’re detaining me? As a suspect?”

“Suspect? Suspect for what, Doc?”

“How should I know? For murder, I suppose!”

“Oh, you think she was murdered?” Galivan asked.

“Well, wasn’t she?”

“Was she?”

“Oh, hell,” said Harry.

“Look, Dr. Brown,” the detective said. “This could be a rough deal for you all around. Whether you’re telling the truth or lying.” He actually sounded sympathetic. “I’m not going to bull you. I know a doctor can’t afford to get personally mixed up in a police investigation. But I can’t help myself any more than you can. As bad as it might be for you professionally, it’ll be a whole lot worse if you’re withholding information.”

“I’m not withholding information!” exploded Dr. Harrison Brown. “How many times do I have to repeat that? What do you want me to do, tell you I know the girl when I don’t? This is as much a mystery to me as it is to you!”

Surprisingly, Lieutenant Galivan said, “I’m inclined to believe you. Only a nut would dream up a story like this under these circumstances. Of course, it may be that’s what you are, Doc — a nut. We’ll check that out, too. In fact, you’re going to have to be checked from every angle we can think up. Nothing personal, you understand. Let’s go.”

At the precinct station Galivan took him upstairs to a square, bare, shabby room. “Before we go through the formalities, I’m going to leave you alone here to think.”

“Think?” cried Harry. “About what, for heaven’s sake?”

The lieutenant looked thoughtful. “Well, if you’re telling the truth, Doc, some son of a bitch played a real socker of a joke on you. For your own good you’d better start rummaging through your head for some patient, or so-called friend, or anyone else you may know who’d be cockeyed enough, or mean enough, to put you in the middle of a mess like this.”

Galivan went out and closed the door. Dr. Harrison Brown sat down on a hard chair scarred with cigarette burns and scratchwork art.

And he began to think.

He had not thought sixty seconds when he knew it must have been the work of Kurt Gresham.

Two weeks ago his phone had rung at midnight. He had sat up in bed and fumbled for the receiver and Kurt Gresham’s voice had come through, contained, precise, almost prissy: “Harry? Harry, can you get up to your office right away?”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“An emergency. How soon, Harry?”

“Give me thirty minutes.”

Twenty-four minutes later he was in his office and five minutes after that the bell rang and Dr. Brown opened the street door to admit Kurt Gresham and a steel-faced man supporting a woman with a face the color of well-aged cheese.

The woman was fat and tight-lipped; she wore an expensive evening gown, and in her naked shoulder, just under the skin, there was a bullet. It had required hardly more than first aid: a simple probe to extricate the bullet, a clamp, a shot to prevent infection. The steel-faced man had taken the woman away, neither of them having uttered a sound; and then Kurt Gresham had said, “Neat and quick, Harry. I like the way you work.”

“Mr. Gresham—”

“Kurt, Harry,” Gresham had said gently. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“All right — Kurt.” He had had the most curious feeling of entrapment. “You’re going to have to tell me what this is all about.”

“I am?” Gresham had said, just as gently.

“Of course! The woman suffered a gunshot wound. The law says all such wounds have to be reported to the police department by the attending physician.”

“I know what the law says, Harry. You’ll do me a great personal favor if you don’t report it.”

Harry Brown had stared at him. “You can’t be serious. I could have my license revoked.”

“Yes,” the millionaire had smiled, “but that won’t happen. I absolutely guarantee the discretion of everyone involved. Naturally, I don’t expect you to run even the slightest risk without adequate compensation. Will this be of help?”

He laid a check down on Harry’s desk. It was for five hundred dollars.

“No,” Dr. Harry Brown said.

“The woman is not implicated in anything criminal, Harry. She was an innocent bystander—”

“Then she has nothing to worry about,” Harry said abruptly, “and neither have you.”

“Harry, listen, will you? Will you please listen? Let me have my say.”

“Go ahead and have it. But I’m not going to jeopardize my medical license—”

“For a measly five hundred dollars?” The fat man looked hurt. “Harry, have you misjudged me to that extent? This is just a token fee. Listen, I own a large number of night clubs. Does that surprise you? Here in New York. A couple in Washington. Several in Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami. Nobody knows I own these clubs; my ownership is hidden behind a complicated corporate setup. I want it that way, I need it that way. See, I’m not holding anything back.”

Listening to the smooth, precise voice, watching the bland and fleshy face, Harry felt a knotty hardness form in the pit of his stomach. “I don’t like it, Mr. Gresham—”

“Kurt.”

“Kurt. The answer is still no.”

“But why, Harry? Lots of businessmen put surplus funds to work in other enterprises—”

“And hide them?”

“Why not? Why should I complicate my business life by letting it be known that I also own a string of night clubs? Anyway, that’s the way I prefer it.”

“You mean,” said Harry tightly, “because your anonymous sideline produces an occasional gunshot wound?”

“That’s part of it,” Gresham said without hesitation. “Every once in a while somebody gets out of line in a club, in spite of my people’s precautions, has too much to drink, starts a brawl. Not often, Harry. And sometimes that somebody turns out to be packing a gun. So, occasionally, somebody gets hurt and needs medical attention. Night clubs operate under license, the way doctors do; and a shooting or other violence jeopardizes the license. At the least, it makes us subject to investigation. I don’t want my clubs investigated — it might reveal my ownership. And that’s something, as I said, that I want to remain under cover. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to keep it that way. One of my precautions has been to retain a physician to take care of just such incidents on a strictly confidential basis. Dr. Welliver did it for me for years. Now that he’s retired, I’d like you—”