Чарльз Кенни - This Is Murder

“No!” Dr. Hartwell said, his forehead glistening with perspiration.

The documents on the table were forgotten as the Grand Jurors leaned forward, tense, alert, expectant. Phil Duncan, who had seated himself in one of the chairs reserved for attaches of the district attorney’s office, hugged his knees, and his straining fingers showed white under the unconscious pressure he exerted in his excitement.

Moraine went on doggedly, “I think you did, Doctor. You are the only one who had a motive for murdering Peter Dixon who wouldn’t have appreciated the value of the political documents contained in that suitcase. The murderer had sufficient time to cut off a portion from the base of the candle, to smash the window and put a sliver of glass under Dixon’s body, and yet he didn’t touch those documents which had such deep political significance. Therefore, the murderer must have been either ignorant of their importance or indifference to them, or both. If anyone except you had committed that murder, desire to possess those documents would have been the motive which prompted the act. You alone had another motive.

“You dumped the shells from your gun, appeared at my office, and made a play which you knew would get you arrested, and furnish you with an alibi. The murder of your wife shows that it was a crime of brutal savagery. It wasn’t premeditated. The murder of. Dixon shows that after he had been shot, and fallen to the floor, his murderer knelt and shot him once more through his head, showing that the desire was to make very certain that Dixon was dead. It was a crime of savagery, a crime of vengeance, a crime of jealous rage. But, after the murders had been committed, your cunning asserted itself, and you wanted to escape paying the price.

“I think, Doctor, that if we examine the knife blade which you were carrying in your pocket, we will find some traces of orange wax from the candle. It would be easy to cut through the base of the candle with a hot knife blade, but if the candle wax cooled on the blade it would be very difficult to remove it; moreover, you must have put the piece of candle which you cut from the base of the candle in your pocket, and I think a trained investigator will find where some of the orange wax rubbed off on your coat pocket.”

Sam Moraine stepped forward, picked up the envelope containing the articles which had been taken from Dr. Hartwell when the dentist had been arrested. He opened the envelope, shook out an assortment of articles, opened a pocket knife, examined the blade for a moment and then smiled triumphantly.

He turned to Phil Duncan.

“It was the only explanation which made sense,” he said, “but I didn’t have any evidence to back my theory, but this knife speaks for itself. There’s the same orange-tinted candle wax clinging to the blade, and an expert can...”

Dr. Hartwell interrupted. His voice was calm.

“You won’t need a trained investigator,” he said. “I don’t want to live anyway. I intended to kill her and him and commit suicide. She was a tramp, a double-crossing, two-timing cheater, and he was a crook. I told her that I’d kill her and I told her that when I found the man she’d been with I’d kill him too.”

He laughed. Now that he knew he was trapped, he boasted of his crime. “I clubbed her to death. I shot him, once when he was standing and once after I failed to make a good job of it. And then it occurred to me I could fake up an alibi that would hold water.”

The smile which always seemed lurking at the corners of Natalie Rice’s lips had materialized into what was almost a grin. There was a sparkle to her eyes, a snap to her motions.

Her father sat across from Moraine’s desk. The morning light, streaming in through the eastern window of the office, showed the lines which had been etched upon his face by his term in prison, but there was about him the power of complete calm, a suggestion of tranquility such as man likes to attribute to snow-capped mountain peaks which had endured through the ages.

Knuckles sounded timidly against the door of the private office. One of the stenographers stepped into the room and closed the door carefully behind her.

“The district attorney’s out there,” she said in a hushed voice.

Natalie Rice gave a quick little gasp, looked apprehensively at her father.

Moraine grinned.

“Show him in,” he ordered... “No, Natalie, your father stays right there. I want him to meet Duncan. Your father’s in the clear now on that murder charge and I’m going to see what can be done...”

The door opened. Phil Duncan stepped into the room. He seemed older, more disillusioned, but more mature. He nodded to Natalie Rice, looked across the desk at Sam Moraine, and then glanced at Alton Rice.

“I thought you were alone, Sam,” he said; “I wouldn’t have disturbed you, otherwise.”

“Shake hands with Alton Rice,” Moraine said. “I’ve just brought him out from cover.”

Duncan whirled toward the older man, stared at him steadily and said, “So you’re Alton Rice.”

Rice, on his feet, seemed uncertain as to whether he should offer his hand.

Duncan grabbed the hand, pumped it up and down. “I’ve got good news for you,” he said, “that was one of the things I wanted to tell Moraine. I’ve managed to get a complete statement from James Tucker. He was Pete Dixon’s butler, ostensibly; in reality, he did a lot of Dixon’s dirty work. He knows all about the frame-up on you. He participated in it to some extent. I’ve just completed a letter to the Governor, telling him what I’ve discovered. I feel certain he’ll waive all red tape and see that your rights of citizenship are restored at once.”

Duncan turned to Moraine.

“Sam,” he said, “how the devil did you dope that out? How much of it was bluff and how much of it was detective work?”

Moraine, who had risen when he performed the introduction, slid one hip over on the corner of his desk and grinned amiably at the district attorney.

“I’m no detective,” Moraine said, “but it didn’t take a detective to figure this out. It only took a little common sense. In the first place, I knew that the crime couldn’t have been committed at ten forty-seven because Natalie Rice was telephoning me at that time. Therefore, if shots could only have been fired when a train was going past the house without alarming the servants, I knew the murder must have been committed when that first train went through. Now, I’d noticed a sliver of glass under the body and glass on the man’s coat, that would indicate he’d fallen against the window when he was shot. But if that had happened, we’d naturally have expected to find some cuts on his face, neck, hands, or in his clothes. There weren’t any.

“So it was obvious that if the body hadn’t fallen against the window, the window had been smashed for a purpose. The only logical reason was to let it appear the wind had blown out the candle. And that, in turn, would only be of value in fixing an alibi.

“The logical motive of virtually all the suspects was the possession of those documents. Obviously, the murderer had plenty of time to frame his alibi, but he hadn’t taken those documents. That meant he had another motive; that meant some suspect other than those we had been suspecting.

“Since the length of the candle didn’t check with the time of the murder, it indicated the candle must have been doctored. One of the possible murderers was a dentist. A dentist is clever with his hands, it would be relatively easy for him to cut off the bottom of the candle.

“Now, I was pretty certain Ann Hartwell had been in Dixon’s house during the time she was supposed to have been held by kidnapers. Therefore, the butler must have known her. When he lied about it, it indicated he was trying to protect himself. The thing he’d logically have tried to protect himself from would have been a kidnapping charge. If Dixon and the girl had framed the fake kidnapping, with both of them dead, it left the parties who participated in that kidnapping in a questionable position.