Crime on My Hands (6 page)

“I didn't
go
to do anything wrong,” she said.

I put my hand on her head. “Where did you throw the guns, darling?”

She pointed a shaking finger. “Out there, on the other side of that big pile of sand.”

“I wonder if anybody saw you.”

“I don't think so,” she said. “It was when everybody started down to the wagon to see what was going on. When I got back, they were still there. I didn't see anybody around here.”

“Will you run along now, and let me and Sammy do some talking?”

She got up, dabbing at tears. She looked at Sammy.

“Are you still mad at me, Sammy?”

“Oh, hell,” Sammy said wearily, “what's the use to be sore. I know you were trying to help. Listen, kid, don't do a thing on your own before you've asked me, will you? And don't say anything to anybody about this, huh?”

“I won't, Sammy. Honest.”

“And don't wander around alone,” I said. “Stay with people. We – well, I must confess that I haven't the foggiest notion of what we're up against, and until we find out, it may not be safe to boggle about.”

Listless went out, and we sat silently for a while.

“George,” Sammy said tentatively.

I gave him a three-quarter view of my face. I didn't actually look at him. “I know what you're going to say, Sammy. You're going to ask me to solve this crime in a hurry. You're going to point out that I have had a great deal of experience in the role of detective. You're going to mention my inventiveness. You're going to suggest that I pull a surprise out of my hat, something that will bewilder the murderer and force him into an unwary move. You're going to say that I am really like the character I have portrayed, clever, shrewd, fearless.”

“Well, George, I wasn't. I was just going to say that you've been kind of dopey on this so far, and maybe we just ought to tell that deputy sheriff what we know and let him work on it.”

“Oh.”

Poor Sammy. Dealer in the obvious. Now is forever, was the way he felt. He couldn't see that bad breaks over which I had no control had put me in a rather bad light. I was correct in theory, and I knew it. Was it my fault that Listless, in an orgy of adulation, had intervened? The murderer would have taken the guns if he'd known where they were. My deductions fitted the known facts. Could I be blamed if those facts had unsuspected ramifications?

“You had it all figured out,” Sammy amplified. “But you had it figured out wrong. Maybe we ought to stop messing around.”

“You don't know, Sammy. You don't know how hick policemen jump at conclusions. If we told them how we'd lied about the guns, they'd toss us both in jail, as accessories if nothing worse. We have withheld facts, and that action has aided the murderer. My private opinion is that they'd waste no more time on me. They'd charge me with murder, and give me the privilege of disproving it.”

“Well, maybe. All right, then, why don't we just clam up? If we don't know from nothing, what could they do? They'd never find the gun, and it would go down as an unsolved crime. How about that?”

“But, Sammy!” I protested. “We just can't let a killer wander about. It isn't good citizenship.”

“Lay off the lecture,” Sammy said. “Besides, we're about to have company.”

Our company was McGuire, head of props. He was like a short brown wire. He had a shrewd, wrinkled face and bright gray eyes. He came in smiling.

“I'd like to put those guns away,” he said to Sammy. “We won't need 'em before tomorrow.”

‘I'll bring 'em over after a while,” Sammy stalled. “We're working on a scene.”

McGuire shrugged, and went away. Sammy frowned.

“We get deeper and deeper,” he said. “What am I going to tell him? They were his responsibility.”

“He'll pass the buck to you in case of trouble.”

“What'll I tell the cops, then?” Sammy wailed. “Am I gonna say I gave you the guns, and I only got one back? That the other was in Carla's wagon, and you had a strange gun on you, a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight, just like the gun you claim is the murder weapon? My God, look where that puts you. You had this strange gun, and now it's gone.”

“That,” I said gently, “is what I pointed out to you. The inference is so obvious that they'd take their minds off the actual murderer. We must keep quiet, if we expect to find the killer.”

“George, I don't like it. I don't want to be mixed up in it.”

“You
are
mixed up in it, though,” I said reasonably. “It was you who gave me the signal to say nothing when you lied about the thirty-eights. Besides, Sammy, I need you.”

“Oh, hell!” Sammy growled. “Why do people have to make friends? If a friend asks you for help, you've got to play ball or be a heel. And heels get along pretty well. There's a lot of 'em in our business, doing all right.”

“Thanks, Sammy. I knew you'd see it my way.”

“I don't see it your way at all. But what else can I do?” He glanced out the door. “Oh, God, here comes somebody else. You'd think this was the men's can.”

The bearded extra who had asked Riegleman about his place in the scheme of things came to the door. He stabbed Sammy with his sharp black eyes.

“Mr. Riegleman told me, sir, to ask you.”

“He would,” Sammy muttered. “Just pack up your troubles and drop 'em in my lap.”

The man waited for Sammy to go on. The silence got a trifle embarrassing.

“'Well?” Sammy finally snapped.

‘I'm sorry,” the man apologized. “I did not comprehend that you had finished. I am trying to ascertain the reason for my presence here.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Sammy asked gently, “that we're shooting a picture?”

“Yes,” the man said with dignity, “I understand that. But this strange series of events which began in Hollywood has me somewhat bewildered. You see, my agent told me to report to your studio. When I did, I was told to go to Gate Seven. Gate Seven bore a sign: ‘Beards.' The man inside took one look at me and told me to report Monday morning ready to come here. Why?”

“You're getting your fifteen dollars a day,” Sammy snapped. “What do you want, a supporting role? Are you kicking about the dough?”

“Dear me,” the man said, “as much as that? Then I have no complaint on the score of remuneration. But I still do not understand–”

“It will all be made clear,” Sammy said. “Just keep yourself in readiness. You'll get your orders.”

“I see.” A reflective pause. “I – see.” He didn't. That was very clear. “Thank you.” He went away, tall, lean, stooped, his head shaking.

“You meet some funny ones,” Sammy said, looking after him. “Now, where were we?”

“I want you to do something, Sammy. I want you to get the film that was being shot while Flynne was being murdered and bring it over to my trailer. Tonight, before they ship it back to the studio to be developed.”

Sammy's eyes went round with scandalized horror. “George! The master film! Undeveloped stock! You can't do that. It would be like asking Congress to loan you the original Declaration of Independence.”

“You want to trap the murderer, don't you?”

“Not under those conditions. I'd rather forget about him. If Riegleman caught me, he'd tear my hide off with his teeth.”

“Look, Sammy. The cameras recorded all the action. That film will furnish alibis for several hundred persons. If we give out the news that we have it and know that it contains a very important clue, the murderer will have to get the film and destroy it. Wouldn't you, if you were the murderer?”

“Not the master film, George! My God, that's sacrilege!”

“The murderer won't see it that way, Sammy.”

“Then he's a dirty rat. Look, that was a swell scene this morning. We can't take a chance on getting the film destroyed. We'd have to shoot it over, and maybe do retakes. That costs
money
, George! Listen, I've worked with Riegleman for a year. When he spends a nickel, he's got to have an aspirin. You'd think he raised that buffalo from a calf.”

“Only if it's someone else's money,” I reminded Sammy. “That's what's made him a success as a producer, remember. A successful producer gets to be a rich man. And Riegleman–”

“A modest little home in the country,” Sammy said softly, and grinned.

I repressed a grin. “Let's don't be unkind,” I said.

“Twenty-six rooms and nine baths,” Sammy murmured. “Two swimming pools –one, of course, for the servants. A private shooting gallery where he can show off his fancy marksmanship. Remember the time he made a bet with the bit player who'd once been a bodyguard for Capone?”

“He won it, didn't he?” I said. “Wish I'd been there.” It must have been a memorable evening. A deck of cards tacked up on the target, and Riegleman and the ex-bodyguard playing poker by shooting at the cards. “Anyway, why shouldn't he have the kind of modest little house he wants?”

“If he ever gets it paid for,” Sammy said, “he'll trade it in as down payment on another modest little home. This one with a private golf course and a polo field.”

“All right, he's ambitious,” I retorted. “It's his money. Let's veer back to business. About this film.” I paused. “As a matter of fact, Sammy, you might say I was doing this for Riegleman.”

Sammy blinked. “Come again?”

‘I'm trying to save money, Sammy.”

“How?”

“Suppose the sheriff makes us stay here until the crime is solved. You and I know that would take him forever. And the costs would pile up every day. Now, if we clean up the case tonight, we can hand him his murderer and go on with the picture. We don't lose any time.”

Sammy thought about it. “You think you can clean it up?”

“Tonight.”

“Well–” Presently, he heaved to his small feet. “All right, but I hope to God you know what you're doing.”

“While you're getting the film,” I said, “I'll drive a couple of stakes so that when they're lined up they'll direct us to the dune where Listless threw the guns. If all this stuff is moved to another location, we'd have no landmark. And we can't go out looking for the guns now. We'd be seen. Not that I think we'll need them, anyway. But best not to chance it.”

“I'll need the other gun in that museum pair,” Sammy said. “We'd better find it.” He groaned. “Priceless guns, undeveloped stock. Somebody's gonna catch up with us. God, what a mess! Good-by, George. If I get caught, plant a rose for me somewhere.”

I sat for some time, thinking. I tried to drum up a little self-contempt. We were motivated by strictly personal considerations. I wanted to catch the murderer to forestall personal difficulty. I doubted that even I could explain to the sheriff how I was innocent in this mixed-up mess. And Sammy was going along in the hope of getting the picture finished on schedule. Neither of us thought about Severance Flynne.

As I went out to get a hammer and a couple of stakes, I resolved that I would find out something about Flynne. I must know his background to some extent in order to ascribe a motive for murder. Then, when I could define a motive, all I needed was the person at whose feet it could be laid, and I would have the killer. Very simple.

As I drove the last stake, the killer would have erased me if I hadn't put my back into the last blow. I put my back into it, which saved my life. My head was in motion. I knew, in a fragment of time between light and darkness, that I had been hit a terrific blow on the head. 

I came to in the first-aid trailer, with the burn of raw brandy in my throat, and sacrificial drums in my head.

Sammy, Paul, Riegleman, and Lamar James were there, crowded so close together that they were just a tangle of arms and legs.

“I know where I am,” I said, “but what year is it?”

“You've only been out a few minutes,” Lamar James said. “Somebody smacked you with a hammer. It wasn't a solid blow, it just tore up a strip of scalp. Otherwise, they'd be making out entrance papers for you – somewhere.”

They all eyed me as if I were in a glass case, with a printed placard: “George Sanders, good, if battered, specimen. From the
Seven Dreams
collection.”

Lamar James said, “What were you doing out there?”

I had no answer ready other than to say I was staking a mining claim. I hoped Sammy had. I said, “Let Sammy tell you. I don't feel like talking.”

“Why?” James demanded. “There's no concussion. You're not really hurt.”

“Somebody left an old cement mixer in my skull.”

He grinned, put his dark eyes on Sammy. “We were talking about the next scene,” Sammy said glibly. “'George wanted some changes in it. So he drove a couple of stakes to illustrate his point.”

“That was a lot of work just to illustrate a point,” James said. “I felt those stakes. You could snub a landslide with 'em.”

“I got carried away,” I said.

“Yes, and it took all four of us, you big oaf,” Sammy said.

Riegleman and Paul looked at me with disbelief. They knew the script. They couldn't figure how a couple of stakes could fit into the next scene, changes or no. Neither could I. I closed my eyes, and Lamar James pried at them with questions.

“Did you see anybody?”

“No.”

“Hear anybody?”

“No.”

“It looks like an attempt to kill you,” James said. “Why would anyone want to kill you?”

“I haven't the faintest notion.” I opened my eyes. “I thought you and the sheriff were going.”

“I was on my way,” he said, “when Sammy found you and yelled for help.”

I closed my eyes again. I didn't want Sammy to see the glint of suspicion. He had been nearest to me at the time. He could have done it. But I had waited for a few moments after he left me. Even so, he could have gone to the lab and returned in plenty of time.