Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

But the murder at the Columbia Hotel was splashed across page one. And Mr. George Kelly was very badly wanted by the police for questioning, not only about who his callers had been so they could be nailed for killing the clerk, but also about brand new twenty-dollar bills that had been popping up all over town for the past week or more. There might be some connection, the police seemed to feel, with a certain bank robbery in Omaha. Kelly might be someone named Hogan, and Hogan had been very badly wanted for a long time. Then again Kelly might not be. The descriptions of the twenty dollar bill spendthrift that were coming in didn’t always tally, but the serial numbers on his money all checked with the list that had been sent out by the bank.

The picture of Kelly given by a haberdashery clerk who had sold him shirts and by the station-agent who had sold him a ticket to New York didn’t quite line up with that given by the elevator boy at the hotel nor a coffee pot counterman who’d sold him java he hadn’t drunk — except that they all agreed he was wearing a light-gray suit.

The colored man’s description, being the most recent and detailed, was given more credence than the others; he had rubbed elbows with Kelly night and day for a week. It was, naturally, my own and not the other Kelly’s. He was just senile enough and frightened enough not to remember that I had looked different the first six days of the week from what I had the seventh, nutty as it seems.

And then at the tag end, this: all the trains were being watched and all the cars leaving town were being stopped on the highway and searched.

So I was staying in town and liking it; or to be more exact, staying, like it or not. A stationery store across from the lunchroom opened up at eight, and I ducked in there and bought a light tan briefcase. The storekeeper wasn’t very well up on his newspaper reading, there wasn’t any fuss raised about the twenty I paid for it with, any more than there had been in the eating place I’d just left. But the net was tightening around me all the time. I knew it yet I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d just presented them with two more witnesses to help identify me. I sent him into the back room looking for something I didn’t want, and got the money into the briefcase; it didn’t take more than a minute. The gun I had to leave where it was. I patted myself flat and walked out.

There was a respectable-looking family hotel on the next block. I had to get off the streets in a hurry, so I went in there, and they sold a room to James Harper. My baggage was coming later, I explained. Yes, I was new in town. Just as I was stepping into the elevator ahead of the bellhop, someone in horn-rimmed glasses brushed by me getting off. I could feel him turning around to look after me, but he wasn’t anyone that I knew, so I figured I must have jostled him going by.

I locked my new door, shoved the briefcase under the mattress, and lay down on top of it. I hadn’t had any sleep since two nights before. Just as I was fading out there was a slight tap at the door. I jacked myself upright and reached for the gun. The tap came again, very genteel, very apologetic. “Who is it?” I grated.

“Mr. Harper?” said an unctuous voice.

That was my name, or supposed to be. I went up close to the door and said, “Well?”

“Can I see you for a minute?”

“What about?” I switched a chair over, pivoted up on it, and peered over the transom, which was open an inch or two. The man with glasses who’d been in the lobby a few minutes ago was standing there. I could see the whole hall. There wasn’t anyone else in it. I jumped down again, pushed the chair back, hesitated for a minute, then turned the key and faced him.

“Harper’s the name, all right,” I said, “but I think you’ve got your wires crossed, haven’t you? I don’t know you.”

“Mr. Harper, I represent the Gibraltar Life Insurance Company, here in town. Being a new arrival here, I don’t know whether you’ve heard of us or not—” I certainly had. Ethel had ten thousand coming to her from them. He was way past the door by now. I closed it after him, and quietly locked him in the room with me. He was gushing sales talk. My eyes never left his face.

“No, no insurance,” I said. “I never have and never will. Don’t believe in it, and what’s more I can’t afford it—”

“There’s where you’re wrong,” he said briskly. “Let me just give you an instance. There was a man in this town named Lynch—” I stiffened and hooked my thumb into the waistband of my trousers, that way it was near the opening of my shirt. He continued. “He was broke, without a job, down on his luck — but he did have insurance. He met with an accident.” He spread his hands triumphantly. “His wife gets ten thousand dollars.” Then very slowly, “As soon as we’re convinced, of course, that he’s dead.” Smack, between the eyes!

“Did you sell him his policy?” I tried to remember what the salesman who’d sold me mine looked like. I was quivering inside like a vibrator.

“No,” he said, “I’m just an investigator for the company, but I was present when he took his examination.”

“Then, if you’re an investigator,” I said brittlely, “how can you sell me one?”

“I’ll be frank with you,” he said with a cold smile. “I’m up here mainly to protect the company’s interests. There’s a remarkable resemblance between you and this Lynch, Mr. Harper. In fact, downstairs just now I thought I was seeing a ghost. Now don’t take offense, but we have to be careful what we’re doing. I may be mistaken of course, but I have a very good memory for faces. You can establish your own identity, I suppose?”

“Sure,” I said truculently, “but I’m not going to. What’s all this got to do with me anyway?”

“Nothing,” he admitted glibly. “Of course this widow of his is in desperate need, and it will hold up the payment to her indefinitely, that’s all. In fact until I’m satisfied beyond the shadow of a doubt that there hasn’t been any — slipup.”

“What’ll it take to do that?”

“Simply your word for it, that you are not Walter Lynch. It’s just one of those coincidences, that’s all.”

“If that’s all you want, you’ve got it. Take my word for it, I’m not.” I tried to laugh as if the whole thing were preposterous.

“Would you put that in writing for me?” he said. “Just so my conscience will be clear, just so I can protect myself if the company says anything later. After all, it’s my bread and butter—”

I pulled out a sheet of hotel stationery. “What’s the catch in this?” I asked.

His eyes widened innocently. “Nothing. You don’t have to put your signature in full if that’s what’s worrying you. Just initial it. ‘I am not Walter Lynch, signed J. H.’ It will avoid the necessity for a more thorough investigation by the company—”

I scrawled it out and gave it to him. He blotted it, folded it, and tore off a strip before he tucked it in his wallet.

“Don’t need the second half of the sheet,” he murmured. He moved toward the door. “Well, I’ll trot down to the office,” he said. “Sorry I can’t interest you in a policy.” He turned the key without seeming to notice that the door had been locked, went out into the hall.

I pounced on the strips of paper he’d let fall. There were two of them. “ I am not— ” was on one and “ J.H. ” on the other. I’d fallen for him. He had my own original signature, standing by itself now, to compare with the one on file. He suspected who I was!

I ran out after him. The elevator was just going down. I rang for it like blazes, but it wouldn’t come back. I chased back to the room, got the briefcase, and trooped down the stairs. When I came out into the lobby he’d disappeared. I darted out into the street and looked both ways. No sign of him. He must have gone back to his own room for a minute. Just as I was turning to go in again, out he came. He seemed surprised to see me, then covered it by saying, “If you ever change your mind, let me know.”