Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

I looked at my watch as he started off. It was just nine-thirty.

We gave him twenty minutes to get into position, then started our drive toward him. As we moved through the underbrush I imagined Tom crouched on top of the knoll, sufficiently screened by evergreen to make his identification impossible from a hundred yards off except by means of his brilliant red jacket and red-and-green cap.

We had made about half the distance to the knoll when we heard a single rifle shot.

“Sounds like he got a crack at one anyway.” Harry remarked.

“Yeah,” I said.

But I knew different. The shot had a hollow reverberation to it, as though it had been fired from beneath a bridge.

It was nearly three in the afternoon when I drove the car into the garage. Nora must have been watching from the window for someone to come and report my death, for she met me at the kitchen door.

Unbelievingly she looked me over from head to foot, her eyes widening with the beginnings of shocked understanding as she took in the checkered jacket and red cap I wore.

“That was Tom Wright in the red jacket,” I said casually.

Her face was already pale, but now it turned dead white. For an instant she closed her eyes, then opened them again and stared at me.

“It passed as a hunting accident,” I said. “The coroner’s already issued a verdict. There won’t even be an inquest. Hunting deaths are pretty cut and dried.”

Nora said nothing.

“I want to show you something in the basement,” I said, taking her arm again.

Again she offered no resistance, but it was like piloting a drunk. She was so unsteady on her feet, I had to grip her bicep forcibly to prevent her from falling down the stairs.

In my hobby room I left her standing in a corner while I got out the recording machine, plugged it in and started the playback. At first she simply stared at the rotating dials without understanding, but as the meaning of the recorded conversation penetrated, she swayed on her feet and gripped her hands together until the knuckles turned white.

“On the phone,” Nora whispered. “That was you !”

“Right,” I agreed. “But you’d never prove it in a million years, in case you get the urge to sacrifice yourself just so you can take me along as an accessory. On the other hand, the case can be proved against you. Ballistic tests will establish it was one of my rifles which killed Tom, and I have a witness that I couldn’t have fired it. The new will I made yesterday leaves the keys to my safe-deposit vault to the district attorney. It’ll be to your advantage to make sure I don’t drop dead. Because if I do, you’ll fry in the electric chair.”

Nora shook her head as though to clear it. “How can you… You mean you still want me?”

“Of course,” I said. “Where else could a man my age find such a beautiful woman?”

In a dead voice she said, “It’s horrible. You don’t love me. You never have. You’re just being vengeful.”

Smiling, I shook my head. “I’m merely preserving my happy home.” Approaching her, I tipped up her head with one hand and looked down into her face.

“Kiss me,” I commanded softly. “You may as well get in the habit of being a loving wife, because you’ve got a lot of years to go.”

She stood like a lifeless thing when I kissed her, as unresisting as a stick of wood. When I released her, her face grew pinched and she walked stiffly from the workroom.

I took time to light a cigarette before leisurely following. When I came out into the main part of the basement, I discovered she was over in the far corner of the basement, where I kept my gun rack.

I stopped still as she swung around with the same deer rifle in her hand with which she’d killed her lover.

Neither of us said anything as she drew back the bolt to throw a shell into the chamber. I just stood there frozen, my only thought being that I had overlooked one thing.

I had forgotten to make allowance for an unpredictable factor.

Originally published in Manhunt , February 1956.

Except that his right earlobe was missing, there was nothing arresting about the tall, sunburned man until you looked closely. He was as quiet-mannered and as sleekly-dressed as any patron of Club Rotunda.

But Sam Black, the club’s assistant manager, made a habit of looking closely at every new customer. This one, he decided after only momentary study, was carrying a gun under his arm.

The man told Black that his name was Larry Eaton, that Judge Bernard had said to mention his name and he’d like to go upstairs to the gaming rooms. The assistant manager furrowed his forehead as though searching his mind for a Judge Bernard. He shook his head regretfully.

“Afraid I don’t know the judge,” he said. “Anyway, there’s nothing upstairs but Mr. Ross’s apartment.” He glanced across the room at Oscar the headwaiter, who wasn’t even looking his way. “Excuse me, Mr. Eaton. The headwaiter’s signaling me about something. Nice to have met you.”

As Black walked away, the sunburned man shrugged and moved toward the bar.

Beneath the deliberate stupidity of Sam Black’s expression was a lightning-quick mind. His snap decision to brush off the man who said his name was Larry Eaton was actually the result of careful consideration, even though the thought process took only seconds.

A dozen times nightly the stocky assistant manager had to decide whether or not to allow first-time visitors to the club upstairs to the casino. And what had brought about his decision in this case was recognition of a type. Though he had never before seen the sunburned man, nor heard the name Larry Eaton, instinct warned him this was a high-caliber hood. Possibly the man was merely out for a good time. But also, possibly he was gunning for someone.

At the end of a half hour Larry Eaton decided to leave. At the archway giving off the foyer where the cloakrooms were, he paused to glance reflectively at the mirrored elevator doors across the room.

At that moment they opened and a thin, slightly stoop-shouldered man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a brief case stepped from the car. Black recognized Benny Stoneman, the club bookkeeper, and shifted his gaze back toward Eaton again.

During the part of a second the assistant manager’s gaze had been settled on the elevator, the sunburned man had disappeared through the front door.

The bookkeeper went out the front door also. Black shrugged and turned to wander back among the tables. He had barely taken three steps when a rapid series of shots sounded from immediately in front of the club.

Black was racing forward before the last shot stopped echoing. One hand thrust the glass door outward while the other drew a short-barreled revolver from beneath his arm. He landed in the center of the sidewalk in a crouch, his gaze sweeping the surrounding area in one quick but thorough glance before settling on the crumpled figure lying on the concrete just outside the door.

There was not a pedestrian in sight and the only vehicle in motion was a block away. Black caught only a glimpse of twin taillights before it turned the corner and disappeared.

Sheathing his gun, he knelt next to the crumpled figure.

“You hurt bad, Benny?” he asked.

The thin bookkeeper didn’t answer. He was beyond answering.

Except for a brief phone conversation with Clancy Ross upstairs, Sam Black didn’t have a chance to talk to the club proprietor before the police arrived. He was too busy quieting the downstairs customers and Ross was too busy closing the casino and herding the gambling customers downstairs to tables in the night-club portion of the building.