Чарльз Кенни - This Is Murder

He deliberately turned his shoulder to the foreman of the Grand Jury and said to the deputy sheriff, who stood at the doorway, “Call Barney Morden.”

The door opened. Barney Morden’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. He looked up at the Grand Jurors, smiled ingratiatingly, walked to the witness stand and was sworn.

Duncan’s voice was cold and hard.

“Your name is Barney Morden? You were an investigator of the district attorney’s office, and you investigated the circumstances surrounding the killing of Peter R. Dixon?”

“I did.”

“Explain to the gentlemen of the Grand Jury what you discovered.”

Some of the Grand Jurors, very apparently more interested in the political significance of the documents contained in the suitcase, were looking through those documents, but the balance, aware of their duties, kept their eyes on Barney Morden, who crossed his legs leisurely, grinned in a friendly manner at the Grand Jury, and said, “Well, we found Mr. Dixon lying dead on the floor. He was lying on his back. He’d been shot with a .38 caliber revolver. He’d fallen back against the window, and there was a piece of glass under his body, and some on his coat, showing that, as he fell, he fell against the window. There was a candle in the room that had apparently been blown out by the wind when the window was broken.”

“This is the candle?” Duncan asked.

“That’s the candle, yes.”

“You put some identifying mark on it?”

“That’s right. I scratched my initials in the wax on the side, with the point of my knife.”

“And these are your initials?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you subsequently conduct experiments with identical candles in order to determine how long this candle had been burning at the time of the murder, and thereby fix the time of the murder?”

“I did.”

“What did the experiments show?”

“There couldn’t have been a variation of over five minutes,” Barney Morden said. “The murder was committed right around ten forty-seven, say between ten forty-two and ten fifty.”

“Now then,” Duncan said, “you are acquainted with Samuel Moraine, sitting here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you see him on the night of the murder?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At what time?”

“Shortly before ten forty-seven.”

“You were in his office at that time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who else was present?”

“You were.”

“What happened?”

“There was a call came over the telephone for Mr. Moraine. It was a girl’s voice. I think I recognized the voice of Natalie Rice, his secretary. After Moraine took the receiver, I could hear some of the words she said. She told him to come out there, and come quick.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then Moraine stalled around for a little while, and pretended he was going home and go to bed, but we found out he took a taxicab and went out to Pete Dixon’s residence.”

“I think that’s all,” Duncan said. He turned to Eaton Driver, the foreman of the Grand Jury.

“You will understand, Mr. Foreman,” he said, “the reluctance with which I call this witness, in view of what I understand those papers disclose.”

Barney Morden gave a sudden start, as he appreciated the full significance of the papers on the table. The smile faded from his face. He started to get up from the witness chair, but Mr. Moraine said, “Just a moment. I want to examine Mr. Morden.”

“I don’t have to answer your questions,” Barney Morden said.

“Oh, yes, you do,” Duncan snapped.

“He ain’t a public officer,” Morden protested.

“He doesn’t have to be. He’s assisting the Grand Jury in this investigation, and you’ll answer his questions, or be held in contempt.”

Moraine, grinning at Barney Morden, said, “Barney, here’s where I get even with you for that sock in the face.”

Morden’s face purpled. He half-rose from the witness chair.

“Sit down,” Moraine said, “and describe the wounds on the body of Pete Dixon.”

“I intended to show that by another witness, the doctor who performed the post-mortem,” Duncan interrupted.

“Well, let’s prove it by this witness,” Moraine remarked easily. “What were the wounds, Morden?”

“He was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the temple. The shot in the chest was slightly above and to the left of the heart. It was fired while he was standing up. The shot in the temple was fired after he had dropped to the floor. It was fired by someone who wanted to make absolutely certain of the job. There were powder burns around that last bullet hole.”

“That couldn’t have been the first shot?”

“No. That shot was fired while he was lying on the floor. The bullet went clean through the head and lodged in the carpet.”

“Any other wounds?” Moraine asked.

“None.”

“No cuts?”

“No.”

“No cuts of any sort on the head, neck or hands, such as might have been made by window glass if he had fallen against the window and broken it?”

Barney Morden said slowly, “No, there weren’t any cuts.”

“And the only way you have of fixing the time of the murder is by the length of the candle that was left in the room?”

“No.”

“How do you fix it, other than from the candle?”

“From the fact that the shots must have been fired when the train was going through. The only train that went through at around that hour was one that passed Dixon’s place at exactly ten forty-seven.”

“Yes,” Moraine said, “but how about the train that went through about ten minutes past ten — the freight train?”

Morden smiled patronizingly.

“The candle had been burning longer than that,” he said.

“Had it?” Moraine asked.

“Of course it had.”

“You’re certain?”

“Of course I am. I conducted experiments.”

“But,” Moraine asked, “did you notice the bottom of this candle?”

“Of course not. The bottom hasn’t anything to do with it.”

“Oh, yes, it has,” Moraine remarked. “Just take a look at the bottom of this candle carefully and you’ll be forced to the conclusion it has been cut off. The candle was orange in color; that color is deeper on the outer surface. You’ll notice that the bottom shows quite a bit of white through the orange. A man could have taken a hot knife and cut a piece from the bottom of the candle. If you’ll examine it closely, you can see the marks of the knife.”

Barney Morden leaned forward, stared at the candle and said in a low voice, “By God, you may be right!”

Moraine stepped back and smiled triumphantly.

“Therefore,” he said, “assuming that the murder was committed either at ten forty-seven or at ten ten, because trains went through at both times, will you kindly tell the Grand Jury where you were at ten minutes past ten?”

Morden’s face showed his panic. “Where I was?” he asked, sparring for time.

“Exactly,” Moraine said. “You had a motive for murdering Peter Dixon. Peter Dixon was going to be a witness before the Grand Jury. You, Barney Morden, have been selling out the district attorney’s office. You and Carl Thorne have been selling immunity from prosecution to wealthy criminals. You have purloined certain files from the district attorney’s records, so that it was impossible to prosecute in one or two major cases. Peter Dixon had uncovered the evidence of that, and that evidence is in the form of documents which are now on the table in front of the Grand Jury. Naturally, you, and your political accomplice, Carl Thorne, didn’t want Dixon to testify before this Grand Jury. You had a powerful motive for killing him. Now, where were you at ten minutes past ten on the night of the murder?”