Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

A heavy voice called from the room beyond. “Erika! You haf trouble?”

“It's nothing, Carl. A leak on the floor below. They're checking-“ Her glance returned to Johnny fleetingly before it passed on to Ronald Frederick, and the tenseness in the air began to communicate itself to her. Her smile shrank, and her features became tight and lifeless as she gestured stiffly to her left. “There is the lavatory. If there is a leak-”

“Call in your husband, please.” Ronald Frederick's voice was crisp. He was standing in profile to her; she had not seen the revolver, but she did not miss the edge in his tone, She was uneasy, but not yet alarmed.

“It is about his papers? I'm sure-”

“Call him, please.”

She hesitated, and then her head turned and her hand went apprehensively to her lips as quick shuffling steps sounded on the tile of the bathroom floor, and a beefy blond man appeared in the doorway. “There is no leak, Erika-”

The immobility of the tableau before him caught him in mid-air. He sucked in his breath sharply and seemed to try to pull his bulk together. He was very blond, with light blue eyes, and a florid face streaked with mottled veins, the face of a drinker. He had on a white shirt that seemed too small for him, a carelessly knotted tie, and a pair of seaman's trousers. He was in stockinged feet.

Johnny spoke first. “Herr Muller-”

The blond man turned to him alertly. “]a?”

“I'll do the talking, Johnny,” Ronald Frederick interposed smoothly, and the blue eyes swung to him. “Herr Muller, we are here concerning a matter involving a Herr Dumas.”

Carl Muller nodded slowly and turned to his wife. “Leaf us, Erika.”

“Carl-”

“Leaf us.”

She crossed the room slowly, circled the card table, and disappeared into the bathroom. In a second they could all hear the closing of the door beyond that led into the other room of the suite.

“Very well done, sir,” the manager said approvingly, and the blond man looked at him steadily.

“Mein hen,

the man Dumas wass to meet me himself.”

“There was no time to inform you of a necessary change in plans.”

“You haf the word, then?”

Ronald Frederick looked over at Johnny. The fractional turn of his body disclosed the gun butt in his grip to Carl Muller, who took a half step backward as Johnny spoke after a momentary hesitation. “Samud.”

The blond man's hands had come halfway up to his belt line in the beginning of the assumption of a defensive posture. “Ja,” he said slowly, head cocked to one side as though extracting every morsel of inflection from the syllable. “That iss the word-” He looked from Johnny to Ronald Frederick and back again, looked down at the floor and rubbed a palm on his trouser leg, and looked up again at the little manager as Ronald Frederick spoke impatiently.

“Well, sir? You say that is the word?”

Carl Muller nodded and rubbed his hands together nervously. “Ja. Das ist daswort. I get you-” With a scarcely concealed eagerness, he dropped to his knees and flung open the partially closed nearer valise, his hands rummaging beneath a pile of loose clothing. The watching manager frowned and jerked the revolver out into the open from beneath his jacket. “Just a minute, Muller. I don't-” The kneeling man whirled with a whistling gasp of satisfaction. Black steel glinted in his palm as he tried desperately to reverse the gun he had blindly gripped by the barrel.

“Drop it-!” Ronald Frederick cried out sharply, and in the same instant the gun in his hand jerked up and back as it went off, and the blond man was smashed backward against the valises where he hung pinned motionless a long instant before he plunged sideways to the floor where the gun clattered loosely away from the body. The noise had been no more than a smart clap of the hands.

Johnny walked over and looked down at the glazing eyes. There was a small hole high on the forehead and no back to the head at all. He noted that the white shirt no longer seemed to fit the blond man tightly, and he looked across at the whitefaced, staring manager. “You didn't overestimate the package in that peashooter much. Well, what now? You sure handled that one like a high school kid in the kip with his girl friend the first time. That was the man with the stuff, remember?”

“I had to,” Ronald Frederick whispered. He cleared his throat, and his voice was firmer. “I had to. And get away from that gun.” He drew a long, shuddering breath. “Lock this door here. Come on. Move.”

Johnny locked the door, and when Ronald Frederick motioned with the revolver, he moved back to the center of the room. For an instant it was quiet, and then the manager's head came around abruptly as they heard the door open at the far end of the bathroom and the unhurried tap-tap of high heels on the tile. Automatically the revolver swung over and lined up on the bathroom door before the little man remembered and realigned it on Johnny.

Erika Muller appeared in the doorway and glanced first at Johnny, next at Ronald Frederick, and lastly at the body on the floor. Her expression had not changed at all from the time of her exit from the room. She crossed the room swiftly and looked down at the blond man, and only the tightly clenched hands betrayed any emotion. “Carl-” she said softly. “You poor, pitiful fool-”

She turned away at last and looked at them, face and voice devoid of emotion. “Well, gentlemen?”

Johnny looked at the still whitefaced manager, who attempted to pull himself together with a visible effort. The tip of his tongue circled his lips swiftly. “Ah… Frau Muller. You know why I am here?”

“No.”

“You know where the package is? The capsule?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath. Johnny realized that the little man had come back a long way; he was very nearly in control of himself again. “I think that you do. I think that you realize that the only thing I can afford to believe is that you know. The capsule, please? Where is it?”

“I do not know.”

He made an abrupt movement as the tension built up in him again and then pulled himself up. With a plainly deliberate effort he forced himself to speak slowly and calmly, but the perspiration stood out on his face in great, beaded drops. “I would recommend that you listen to me carefully, Frau Muller. We are more than likely all dead people in this room.” The revolver waved at Johnny. “This man, you, and more than likely myself before I can get away. That is realistic enough, surely? But I am not leaving without the capsule, is that clear? I am not leaving without it.”

His voice rose; he struggled to hold himself together. “If you give me the capsule, I promise you a merciful exit from this world.” He glanced at the body on the floor. “As quick as his, but if you persist in this foolish denial then I shall have to hurt you badly, and you will tell me in time, anyway.”

She swallowed visibly, but her voice was firm. “I do not know.”

Color flooded back into the little man's features with the furious blood of anger, but again he took himself in hand. The revolver gesticulated at Johnny. “Stand back in that corner.” With a careful eye on the corner he approached the card table on which the remains of dinner still rested. With the revolver unwaveringly in one hand he worked awkwardly with the other as he turned over the unused wine glass and slopped it half full from the bottle. With quick, jerky movements he reached into an inside pocket and removed a small vial containing a colorless liquid. He had difficulty in dislodging the cap one-handed, but finally managed it and poured the contents into the half-filled glass of wine. He turned again to Erika Muller, and his voice was taut and explosive. “Frau Muller, the wine in this glass is now poisoned.”