Brett Halliday - Shoot to Kill

Griggs agreed flatly, “Yeh. It does look that way. All right, Conroy. I want to talk to all of you a little later. No one is to leave the house.”

The man hesitated as though about to protest the order, but checked himself and went out of the room.

Griggs moved about restively for a moment, clasping his hands behind his back and disregarding Shayne. Suddenly he swung on him and demanded bitterly, “Why don’t you ask me what the P. M. turned up?”

Shayne asked obediently, “What did the P. M. turn up?”

“Wesley Ames was dead before the bullet went into his heart. He had been stabbed in the heart with a knife that had a long thin pointed blade sharp as a razor on both edges.”

“Something like an antique Florentine dagger,” Shayne said interestedly.

“Damn it, you don’t act surprised. What sort of prior knowledge did you have? If you’ve been holding out information on me, Shayne…”

“I haven’t been holding out anything,” the detective assured him earnestly. “It just all falls into place suddenly. We can even see how we were all mistaken, thinking Larson’s bullet killed him. It must have gone through his vest about the same place as the stab wound. It wouldn’t bleed a great deal, and the blood would be soaked up inside the vest. No one opened it up to notice that the blood was already congealed until the M. E. got here twenty minutes later, and by that time he couldn’t tell without making extensive tests. My God!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Larson didn’t commit murder after all. All he did was fire a bullet into the body of a corpse. What irony.”

“Shooting with intent to kill,” muttered Griggs. “We can hold him on that.”

“What a terrific stroke of luck for the real murderer. The wildest sort of coincidence. He couldn’t possibly have planned it that way even if he had known Larson was coming back here with a gun to kill Ames. It was one chance in a million that Larson would actually fire without realizing Ames was dead, and that the bullet would go in the same wound and destroy evidence of the stabbing.”

“Yeh. Whoever did it must be shaking hands with himself right now and figuring he’s in the clear with Larson ready-made to take the rap for him.”

“One of the four people downstairs,” Shayne pointed out to him thoughtfully. “We know he was alive when Larson stormed out the back way. Ames bolted the door behind him. They all say no one else came up the drive and in the back way after Larson. It has to be one of those four, Sergeant.”

“Wait a minute. We don’t know that Ames was still alive when Larson went out. Suppose he did it then? Picked up the knife and stabbed him.”

“And then came back half an hour later to do the job openly with a gun?” scoffed Shayne.

“Well, he might have figured that would give him an alibi for the real killing,” argued Griggs stubbornly. “He wouldn’t expect his bullet to go in the same hole, and would expect the stab wound to be discovered immediately. By God, that would be smart,” Griggs went on, warming up to the idea. “If he did work it like that, he must be sitting in his jail cell right now sweating blood and waiting for us to discover the truth. The poor bastard can’t tell us to have an autopsy and look for a stab wound. Talk about your ironic situations. By God, Mike,” the sergeant went on wonderingly. “It could be that way. If it hadn’t been for his wife being missing and you getting suspicious and wanting a P. M., he could have gone to the chair for shooting a dead man. And maybe it would be justice because maybe he stabbed him in the first place.”

“But Dorothy Larson is missing,” Shayne reminded him. “I hardly see how that ties in with your theory. And don’t forget that back door bolted on the inside. Ames couldn’t have done that with a knife wound in his heart.”

“How’s this? Maybe Ames didn’t bolt the door. Maybe one of the others in the house came in here after Larson left and found him stabbed. So they bolted the door and just walked out the other one without saying anything.”

“If one of the people in this house found him dead and the door unbolted, they’d know Larson was the killer. By bolting the door behind him they would immediately take all suspicion off Larson and make each one of them suspects. It’s the last thing in the world any of them would do.”

“I guess you’re right.” Griggs looked unhappy and chewed on the knuckle of his left thumb. “That gives us those four… counting the houseboy… and that New York lawyer, too. The way I remember their statements, any one of the five could have had an opportunity to slip in here between the time Larson left and when he came back. Sutter was up here, supposed to be in his room alone with the door shut. Mrs. Ames was up here doing something unspecified. Conroy came up to his room for a time before deciding to go out. Mark Ames claims he was downstairs all the time, but he was alone in the living room after Mrs. Ames and Conroy went out, and he could have slipped up here. So far as we know, Alfred didn’t come upstairs, but I suppose there’s a servant stairway up the back, so he’s not out. Damn it, the thing is wide open, Mike. And I don’t know whether you caught any of that by-play between Mark Ames and the widow or not, but neither one of them is doing much grieving. You remember what Tim Rourke said about the two of them, and rumors around town they were having an affair.”

Shayne nodded, tugging at his ear lobe. “If I were you, Sergeant, I think I’d try to find out why Mark Ames had come out tonight for the first time in months to talk to his brother.”

“Yeh, and I also want a line on Mr. Sutter, the attorney from New York, and why he was here to see Ames. It didn’t matter before when I thought it was a cut-and-dried shooting, but now it does matter. Now I’ll have to hold him in town… Goddamn it, Mike!” Griggs broke out explosively. “Why did you have to get so smart? You and your damned post mortem! I never will get any sleep tonight.”

Shayne grinned and said, “You’re a cop. You get paid by the city for not sleeping. Me, I don’t.” He pretended to yawn widely. “It’s all yours, Sarge.”

“Goddamn it, Mike! You tear this thing wide open with your lousy post mortem… are you just going to walk away and leave it that way?”

“I’m leaving it in your very efficient hands, Sergeant Griggs. I’m headed for some well-earned shut-eye. Hell, you’ve got it narrowed down to five suspects and about half an hour of time,” he said indulgently. “What more do you want in a murder case?”

“Yeh,” said Griggs unhappily. “Five suspects that hated the dead man, and not a clean-cut alibi for a single one of them. Okay. Get out of my hair,” he said with finality. “Go get your shut-eye or whatever private dicks do on their nights off while honest cops are working for a living. Just don’t come back messing up this case with any more of your smart ideas. If you get any more like that, keep ’em to yourself, hear?”

Shayne drew himself to attention and saluted smartly. “Very well, Sergeant. I shall away.” He turned and strode stiffly out of the room and down the stairs where Mark Ames and Helena were still huddled together rather intimately on the sofa, and where Victor Conroy intercepted him on his way to the door with a worried look on his face.

“Why is that policeman so interested in Wesley’s paperknife, Mr. Shayne? He was shot to death, wasn’t he? Suppose the knife is missing? There might be a dozen reasonable explanations for that?”

Shayne shrugged and countered, “You never can tell what sort of crazy tangent a homicide dick will go off on. It’s an occupational disease.”

“But what did he mean by ordering that no one should leave the house?” demanded Conroy, following Shayne to the door. “Does he have a right to issue orders like that?”