Stuart Kaminsky - The Howard Hughes Affair

“I know what to tell them,” Alex said with what might have been sarcasm. He started to leave the room.

“And take this Jap with you and keep an eye on him,” Nelson said, looking at Toshiro. “The troopers are going to want to talk to him.”

Toshiro shrugged and accompanied Alex out of the billiard room. Rathbone circled the table, examining the corpse and the floor. Nelson warned him, not knowing what else to do.

“This house is full of exits,” said Rathbone. “A side entrance, rear entrance, garden entrance.” He opened a door in a corner and looked in the room beyond. “There’s an open door leading down to the beach. I’d guess our Mr. Schell had an assignation here with someone. He assumed the house would be relatively deserted except for the cook and chauffeur. There is no sign of a struggle, so apparently he had no fear of his murderer and anticipated nothing.

“I’ll bet the Jap did it,” said Nelson.

“Well, if he did,” said Rathbone,” he changed his clothes before calling you. Look at the knife. Whoever plunged it in hit a main artery. Blood spurted out. See the lines of blood on the handle. Might not have been a great deal of it, but certainly a spray would have hit the assailant. The young man who was just in here is certainly dry and there are no stains on him. You might check his room, but I’m inclined to think he was telling the truth. His point was well taken. Why call you with evidence so clearly against him coupled with a quite reasonable assessment of the present prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment in this country?”

“He was being clever,” said Nelson, “trying to throw us off.”

“There is,” said Rathbone, “such a thing as being so clever that one is stupid. Whatever he may be, the calm young man who just left here is not stupid. However, there’s no reason to debate the issue, sheriff. We can leave that for the State police.”

“What was Toshiro’s story?” I threw in.

Nelson looked at me with distaste, but Rathbone’s show of attentiveness changed his mind, and he talked, keeping his back to the corpse.

“Said he heard someone going out the door in the other room,” Nelson said. “Didn’t see anyone. Then he came in here, saw the corpse and called us. Said it didn’t take him more than three minutes to get to the phone. We got here five minutes later, about two or three minutes before you came in.”

Over Nelson’s shoulder, I nodded to Rathbone, indicating that I wanted to get out of the room. He took the cue with a lift of his chin and said, “Toby, would you go out in the car and get my cigarette case? I seem to have forgotten it.” Before Nelson could raise a protest, Rathbone went on, “Sheriff, you might want to step over here and have a look at this.”

I hurried out of the room and found my way to the servants’ quarters. I didn’t run into Alex and Toshiro, but I went past the room where the cook, Nuss, was sleeping in the same position I had seen him in 24 hours earlier. I found the room Toshiro had told me was Schell’s and went in fast. I didn’t find much, but I did find a photograph of Schell and the man who had been found strangled in Shelly’s dental chair, the man who Phil said was Wolfgang Schell. I put the picture in my pocket and hurried back to the billiard room. If I had it figured right, two brothers named Schell and a Major named Barton had been killed by hands unknown in the last few days. Whoever the killer was, he believed in variety: one strangling, one shooting, one stabbing.

When the State police arrived a half hour later, they found a silent gathering in the billiard room. The cop in charge was a beefy pro named Bill Horrigan, who asked Nelson what he had touched and told us all to get out of the room while his men went over it. We went out. An hour later, Rathbone and I were headed back to Los Angeles in his car.

“We’ve had a busy murderer,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” said Rathbone, pulling into a roadside restaurant called Jason’s. “I mean it’s quite likely we have more than one murderer involved here.”

“Which will simply complicate my life further,” I said.

Over a steak sandwich, Rathbone explained:

“Murder Number One in your office was a strangling. The killer did not have a gun and was apparently quite strong. Strong enough to take a bullet and still strangle the unfortunate Mr. Schell. Victim Number Two, Major Barton, was shot cleanly through the heart, while Victim Number Three on the billiard table was stabbed in rage by someone who knew him.”

“Too much,” I said, sinking my teeth into fat and meat. “You work it out your way and I’ll go mine, with my feet and a big mouth, which reminds me.”

I excused myself and made a call to Dean at the Romaine Office and told him about the corpse at Hughes’ house. Knowing Hughes’ love of secrecy and his contacts, I thought he might want to set his machinery going to keep Hughes’ name out of it. Dean said thanks and hung up.

Rathbone drove me back to his house and my car, wished me luck and said he’d see me on Saturday at Hughes’ house. Then I drove back to my rooming house. I didn’t feel like facing Shelly yet, and I didn’t think I had anything to fear at home. The skeleton, Schell, who was looking for me was dead. What I had to do fast was put the puzzle together. Phil would probably see a report on the second dead Schell, make some inquiries, find out about my being at the Hughes house and call me back for a talk.

The rope-skippers were gone when I pulled up and Mrs. Plaut, seated on her porch swing, greeted me with a hearty “Hello Tony.”

I waved back and tried to step past her.

“A lady called you,” she said, reaching out to hold me with a bony hand. “Very bad English. Said her name was Judy, but you shouldn’t call her.”

“Thanks,” I said, figuring she meant Trudi Gurstwald.

“Did you hear about the shooting here last night?” she said, moving her arm to let me pass.

“Yes,” I said. “You told me this morning.”

“Oh yes,” she remembered, “I told you this morning.”

I made it up the stairs and into my room. In the next room, I could hear Gunther and someone with a high voice arguing in German. I tried to put it from my mind while I pulled the two photographs out of my pocket. I flattened the Schell Brothers and thumbtacked them to my wall. They were a somber pair. I didn’t like the fact that the picture reminded me of the photograph in my office of Phil and me. I thumbtacked the second photograph of the word in blood next to it and took off my shoes.

I got on the floor on my mattress to take the weight off my back, touched my sore cheek with my tongue and stared at the photographs, waiting for them to talk, but they said nothing. The only voices were in German from the next room. Life had been Germanized in the last week and would probably be more so when the war actually came.

There was a knock on the door. The knocker turned out to be one of Hughes’ bodyguards. “You asked for these,” he said, handing me an envelope.

“Thanks,” I said. He left without another word. I opened the envelope and found photographs of everyone who had been at the Hughes party. I spread them on my table.

A few minutes later, there was a slight, tentative knock at the door.

“Come in,” I called and looked back over my shoulder. Gunther came in politely.

“Do you have any tea, Toby?” he said. “I have a client and…”

“Sure,” I said. “You know where it is. Take what you need.”

Wherthman was as quiet as he could be, which was pretty damn quiet, but he had trouble finding the tea. He took enough time that his client came to the door.

“Gunther?” a tentative voice asked.

“I’m getting some tea,” Gunther said.