Accusation
There is such a thing as amnesia. It’s not invariably a convenient lapse dreamed up by some guy who can’t think of any other way to explain a three-day absence from home and hearth. Almost always, in those cooked-up instances, there’s a sudden, complete recovery. Maybe it’d be that way with Yaker.
I told Pud to show the pollster how to use a zipper, case he’d forgotten. While Yaker was dressing, I tried Mr. Bell’s system. Ruth Moore wasn’t at her apartment. Mrs. Lanerd wasn’t at home. Jeff MacGregory, so some bright babe at Lanerd, Kenson & Fullbright informed me, was downtown in the Criminal Courts building. With the Grand Jury.
If the producer was there, the others would probably be testifying, too, I thought. When Pud came back presently with Crew Cut fully arrayed in all Walch’s glory, I said, “Le’s go play charades with Mister D.A. Right with you?”
Yaker stared blankly. Of Pud he asked, “Who’s this?”
Pud grunted, “Gil Vine, bud. He brought you here. You hadda fight somewhere. You were stinko. Remember?”
Yaker waggled his head dazedly. “No. I wish I could. Why does he want me to go with him?”
I paid Pud off, took Yaker’s arm. “Maybe it’ll come back to you, when you get down there.”
Pud came up to the sidewalk with us. “If he’s in that kind of trouble, I don’t want anybody to say I’ve been hiding him out here.”
“You’re in the clear, Pud. I’ll take the blame.” I pushed Yaker in the cab ahead of me. I sat between him and the Syrian. We got rolling.
Nikky had a queer expression as she watched Yaker. He gazed at her with the same puzzled air he’d used on me.
I asked him a couple of questions about Edie and Ruth Moore, elicited nothing except: “I don’t remember those people — do I know them?” I said he’d had dealings with them, let it go at that.
There are several waiting-rooms outside the grand jury chamber where the DAides present their evidence to the twenty-three good men and true. A cop on the third floor wanted to know who I was looking for. “Mister Hacklin — the Lanerd business.”
“Oh. Yuh. Room three-one-four.”
It could have been the anteroom outside a dentist’s office, minus the old magazines. A dozen hard, straight-backed chairs, half a dozen people, and Charley Schneider. Jeff MacGregory was next to Marge, Keith Walch sat beside Tildy, in the chair pulled close beside Ruth Moore’s was Dr. Elm. Their heads swiveled around like spectators at a tennis match, when I shepherded my two witnesses in.
The only person who didn’t come up on his feet was the physician with the pointed beard. Nikky flew to Tildy. Walch growled, “It’s about time,” at Yaker; Ruth shrank as far away from Yaker as she could.
Schneider roared, “Siddown. All of y’, siddown.” He swaggered to me with that familiar belligerence. “Comin’ in of y’r own accord ain’t goin’ t’do you a mite of good, Smart Stuff. We got a list of charges against you, would choke a whale.”
“I’ll cherish ’em to remind me of you.” I boosted Yaker at him. “Meantime, charge this lad. He’s the one you want.”
“Yeah?” Schneider squinted at Yaker. “Who’re you?”
Yaker shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“What?” Schneider bellowed so loudly the cop on duty in the Grand Jury room opened the door, saw there was no unseemly violence, and withdrew.
Yaker repeated. “I don’t know who I am.” His eyes roved from Marge to MacGregory, Tildy to Walch, came to rest on Ruth as if some vague stirring of recollection was beginning to assert itself. “I can’t seem to remember anything—”
Schneider’s face got hamburg-red. He stuck out his jaw at me. “Whatsa big gag, Smart Stuff?”
“I’ll tell you.” I patted Yaker’s shoulder. “You’ve been bulling ahead on the assumption Lanerd knifed Roffis and then killed himself to avoid disgrace. He didn’t. The killer was a gent who knew Lanerd, knew of his interest in Miss Millett, had his own reasons for wanting to break it up.”
Yaker listened as if I’d been giving a recipe for spaghetti sauce.
“He was in a room on the floor below Lanerd’s suite; he’d been up on the twenty-first to familiarize himself with the layout of the rooms. He made careful preparations for what he meant to do. Covered his finger tips with melted wax from a candle; the floor maid found the bedspread spattered with it.”
They were all standing again and, probably unconsciously, backing away from Yaker a little. He wet his lips.
“It’s all Greek to me — what he’s saying. I can’t remember—”
I kept pouring. “Mister Lanerd’s secretary had been in his suite around five-thirty. She stepped out in the hall to listen to a squabble in Miss Millett’s suite; that’s when the murderer slipped into Lanerd’s rooms unnoticed. He hid there awhile, expecting Lanerd to come in. But the adman didn’t show up.”
Yaker squeezed his forehead as if to force his memory to behave.
“Miss Moore came back into Lanerd’s living-room. From some phone conversation she had then, the murderer must’ve discovered Lanerd was going directly to Miss Millett’s, instead of coming to his own rooms. So the murderer decided to get in her suite, force her to conceal him until Lanerd’s arrival. He knew Lanerd was often admitted to Miss Millett’s bedroom after tapping a pre-arranged signal on her door. He’d heard the signal, could reproduce it. But he was afraid that, after opening the door, she’d slam it in his face before he could push in, unless he could somehow convince her it was Lanerd seeking admission. So he changed his coat for a jacket he found in Lanerd’s closet.”
Ruth goggled at Yaker, as if her eyes were about to pop right out of their sockets. I hurried on before Schneider gave way to his inclination to shut me up.
“He slipped into Lanerd’s coat, went to the corridor, rat-tatted the signal on Miss Millett’s door. Her maid pulled aside the bureau they’d shoved against the door as a protection from gunboy Gowriss. When the door opened a little, the murderer let them see the sleeve and shoulder of Lanerd’s jacket, so they hauled the bureau completely away, let him in.”
Tildy and Nikky fixed their eyes on me in utter consternation.
“When Miss Millett saw who it was, of course, she was horrified — particularly since the murderer’d snatched a steak knife off one of the serving-tables in the hall. She ran into the living-room to call Roffis. Probably the maid grappled with the intruder. Right, Miss Narian?”
The maid rattled off something in Arabic to Tildy. I couldn’t understand it. But I could tell it wasn’t a testimony to my sweet disposition.
“Maybe Miss Narian ran into the living-room, too. Anyhow, Roffis dashed in, was stabbed as he came through the door to the bedroom. Likely the murderer thought he was knifing Lanerd. When he found it was only the guard he’d killed, he slammed the connecting door shut, that’s how blood-prints got on the bedroom door, rifled the guard’s pockets. Took his room key which also unlocked the closets, dragged the body to the closet, threw it in. Went out through the same door by which he’d come in, bumping into Auguste as he did and getting blood on Auguste’s sleeve.
Yaker groaned, “No! No, no!” Then he caught himself. “I don’t remember a thing — but I know I could never have done anything like that!”
I tried to sneer. It’s not my forte, but I did my best. “One door to the Lanerd suite would have been left unlocked, of course, so it was no trouble to get back in there after Auguste had returned to the Millett living-room for the last of the serving-tables. The steak knife went in towel hamper, the blood was scrubbed off guilty hands, the jacket exchanged for the killer’s own coat. Then it was merely a matter of waiting, probably right there in the bathroom, for Dow Lanerd to return to his own suite — take his gun from him, kill him with it, make it look like—”
“Frame-up!” Yaker shouted. “You’re all—”
Schneider commanded, “Shaddup, all ’f yuh!”
“Ask Miss Millett.” I held out a hand to her for confirmation. “She described the man who killed Herb Roffis. Big, tall, husky, florid face—”
“By God!” Yaker howled, “I see it all now! You’re all in it together to get me. I won’t stand—”
Schneider grabbed his elbows from behind, pinned him.
“The clincher,” I had to raise my voice over the scuffling, “was when he gave a key to a kind of glorified madam, so she could send a couple of her hot-pant cuties up to his room. He gave her the wrong key by mistake. The key to 21MM!”
“Not me!” Yaker shrieked. “I did not. I never even saw the woman. It was Keith!”
I said, “It took long enough for you to admit it.”
Keith Walch didn’t say anything, except with a stubby-nosed, nickel-plated 38.
It spoke louder than words.