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

“You would,” I thought, but without saying so.

She gave me a sort of a come-on smile and said: “You’re not a bad-looking guy at all for a detective.”

“That’s what my wife and eighteen kids tell me,” I squelched her.

“Hmph” she said, and went over to chisel a drink from Stormann.

Just then they sent word in that, impossible as it sounded, Meadows was still breathing. She was going fast, though — just a matter of minutes now. They’d given her morphine to kill the pain.

“Is she conscious or out?” I asked.

“Semi-conscious.”

“Quick then, let me have a look at her before she goes!”

It was a slim chance, but maybe she, herself, knew what or who had done it. Maybe she, alone, of all of them, had seen what caused it and hadn’t been able to prevent it in time to save herself.

On my way out, I collared the guard, who was back at the door again keeping out the crowd of extras and employees who had heard the news.

“Consider yourself a deputy,” I said to him in an undertone. “See that they all stay where they are until I get back. Whatever you do, see that nothing’s touched on that set — not even a match stick. Keep everything just the way it is—”

It was a monstrous thing they showed me in that bed, dark as the room was. Without eyes, without ears, without nose, without any human attribute. An oversized pumpkin-head, a Hallowe’en goblin, made of yards and yards of interlaced gauze bandaging. It stood out whitely in the greenish dimness cast by the lowered shades. A crevice between the bandages served as a mouth. Atop the sheets were two bandaged paws. She was conscious, but partly delirious from the heat of the burns and “high” from the morphine that kept her from feeling the pain in her last moments. The faithful Nellie was there beside her, silent now and with her forehead pressed to the wall.

I bent close to the muffled figure, put my face almost up against the shapeless mound that was Martha Meadows, to try to catch the garbled muttering which came through the bandages. I couldn’t make it out. “Martha Meadows,” I begged, “Martha Meadows, what caused the accident?”

The muttering stopped, broke off short. I couldn’t tell whether she’d heard me or not. I repeated the question. Then suddenly I saw her head move slowly from side to side, slowly and slightly. “No — accident,” she mumbled. Then she repeated it a second time, but so low I couldn’t catch it any more. A minute later her head had lolled loosely over to the side again and stayed that way. She’d gone.

I went outside and stood there, lost in thought. I hadn’t found out what I’d come to find out — what did it — but I’d found out something else, much more important. “No — accident” meant it had been done purposely. What else could it mean? Or was I building myself a case out of thin air? Delirium, morphine — and a shaking of the head in her death-throes that I’d mistaken for “no”? I tried to convince myself I was just looking for trouble. But it wouldn’t work. I had an answer for every argument. She’d known what I was asking her just now. She hadn’t been out of her mind.

Death will strike during unconsciousness or sleep, maybe, but never during delirium. The mind will always clear just before it breaks up, even if only an instant before. And hadn’t she gotten threatening letters and asked for protection? Anyway, I told myself, as long as there was a doubt in my mind, it was up to me to track it down until there wasn’t any doubt left — either one way or the other. That was my job. I was going to sift this thing down to the bottom.

Nellie came out. She wasn’t bellowing now any more like she had been on the set. “They musta been casting her in heaven today, but they sure picked a mis’able way to notify her,” she said with a sort of suppressed savagery. “I’m gonna buy me a bottle a’ gin and drink it down straight. If it don’t kill me the fust time, I’ll keep it up till it do. She’ll need a maid on the set up there fust thing and I ain’t gonna leave her flat!” She shuffled off, shaking her head.

I was hard-hearted enough to go after her and stop her. “That’s all right about heaven, auntie, but you don’t happen to know of anyone down below here who had a grudge against her, do you?”

She shook her head some more. “Stop yo’ mouth. She was everybody’s honey. Didn’t she even go to the trouble of axing ’em and coazing ’em to give that Miss Tobias a job in her picher on account of she felt sorry for her cause she was a back-number and nobody wanted her no-how?”

“What about those threats she got, where are they?”

“She turned ’em over to her supe’visor. They weren’t nothing, everybody in the business gets ’em. It means you a big-shot, that’s all.”

“You were there when it happened. What’d you see?”

“Weren’t nothing to see. ’Pears like it musta been some of this here sponchaneous combusting.”

That gave me an idea, but I hung it up to dry for a while. I rang headquarters and spilled what had happened to the chief. “Something new — an invisible accident. Right under everybody’s nose and yet nobody saw it. Guess I better stay on it for a while, don’t you?”

“You park your can on it till it breaks. I’ll let the studio hot-shots know.”

When I got back to the set they were all there yet — all but Stor-mann and Tobias! “I thought I told you—” I snarled in the guard’s ear.

“They’ll be right back,” he whined, “they told me so. Stormy only stepped next door to get some more liquor. The electrician that was supplying him ran out of it. And she went to take off her costume. She got jittery because Stormy was nervous and started smoking around her. After what happened to— Besides, they weren’t under arrest. Nobody here is, and you don’t know Stormy. If I’d a’ tried to stop him, it woulda been good-bye to my job—”

They were back in no time at all. Tobias was back first and I made a mental note of that. Since when does it take a man longer to dig up some liquor than it does a woman to change clothes from head to foot — besides, scraping off a stage make-up in the bargain? That was another little chip stacked against Stormann. I had three of them so far. He hadn’t wanted Meadows to bring me on the set with her. He bullied her into going in alone while my back was turned. And lastly he’d found an excuse for leaving the set, taking him longer to get back than it had a conceited frail, like Tobias, to do herself over from head to toe.

The ace turned up when I checked up on the electrician who’d been supplying him.

“Why, no,” he admitted, “I got another bottle left. I told him so, only he got a sudden notion his own was better quality and went out after it.”

What a dead give-away that was!

He had the staggers when he showed up, but he had enough decency left to straighten up when he saw me and breathe: “How is she?”

I made the announcement I’d been saving until he got there — to see how he’d take it.

“I’m sorry to say — she’s quit.”

I kept my eyes on him. It was hard to tell. Plop! went the bottle he’d brought in with him and he started folding up like a jack knife. They picked him up and carried him out. It might’ve been the drink — but if he hadn’t wanted to be questioned, for instance, it was the swellest out he could’ve thought up.

Maybe I should and maybe I shouldn’t have, but I’m frank to admit I stuck a pin in him before they got him to the door — just to see. He never even twitched.

I turned a chair around backwards, sat down on it, and faced the rest of them. “I’m in charge of this case now,” I said, “by order of police headquarters and with the consent of the studio executives. All I’m going to do, right now, is repeat the question I’ve already asked Mr. Stormann, Miss Tobias, Nellie, and the script-girl. Did any of you see what caused it?” This meant the electricians, stage-hands, and the two cameramen. They all shook their heads.