Deadly Joke (13 page)

“How can we help Charlie?” I asked.

“Would you believe that I haven’t been allowed to see his body?” Hyland asked.

“There has to be an autopsy,” I said. “It’s the law.”

“Nor have I been able to contact Douglas Maxwell.”

“Why did you want to see Maxwell?”

Hyland looked surprised. “Why, he’s Charlie’s cousin. Only living family, so far as I know. Arrangements have to be made; for a funeral and all that. Did Melody come here to claim his body, too?”

“She came here to talk to a very old friend—my boss, Pierre Chambrun,” I said.

“Ah, yes, the famous Monsieur Chambrun,” Hyland said. “They were in the Resistance movement in France way back when, weren’t they?”

“It’s no secret, I guess.”

“I should think not. Melody’s been telling stories about it for the last fifteen years; all the time she’s been living with Charlie. That was no secret either, her attachment to Charlie. I’m not gossiping behind her back, you understand.” He looked directly at me. He had suddenly forgotten about Pat Coogan, who was singing “I Get a Kick Out of You.”

I ducked. “I guess she didn’t want Charlie left in the hands of complete strangers. Like you, she wasn’t allowed to see him until the Medical Examiner’s office has finished its job.”

“Dear Melody,” Hyland said. “She really loved Charlie, in spite of his faults.”

“He had faults?”

“Don’t we all, my dear Haskell? Charlie was hipped on practical jokes. Tragic payoff, wouldn’t you say?” He lit a cigarette, his hands surprisingly steady. He could really hold his liquor. “I daresay dear Melody made the improbable suggestion that the bullet was meant for Charlie and not Maxwell.” He made it a question by cocking his head slightly.

“Why should she think that?” I asked, trying to look as innocent as I could.

Hyland shrugged. “Center stage is where Melody likes to be,” he said. “If the killer was after Charlie, dear Melody would instantly be in the public eye. She is—was—his common-law wife.”

“I see,” I said. I wasn’t going to let this character guess I’d ever heard of Charlie’s blackmailing business. He would know it had come from Melody, and if he was the one who was holding Charlie’s aces, Melody’s fear that she might become a target wouldn’t be too far-fetched. I had the feeling that Richard Hyland was a cold-blooded opportunist.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hyland, but I’ll have to leave you. As I told you, I’m looking for someone.”

“One minute,” he said as I stood up. “The switchboard won’t put calls through to Maxwell’s suite. Will you get word to him that I think it’s urgent that he should talk with me?”

“About the funeral arrangements?”

“About the funeral arrangements,” Hyland said blandly.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “It may not be till morning. The man needs rest.”

“I can imagine,” Hyland said. “Well, thanks for whatever you can do. My number is in the phone book. Maybe Maxwell would call me.”

I walked out toward the velvet rope. Pat Coogan was singing “All I Do the Whole Day Through Is Dream of You.” At the entrance I looked back. Hyland was listening to her as though she was all that mattered in the world.

“No sign of Miss Maxwell?” I asked Cardoza.

He shook his head.

“I’ll be with Mr. Chambrun if she does show,” I told him. I was mildly concerned. It was almost an hour since she had told me she’d join me in ten minutes.

T
HERE ARE HALF A
dozen private dining rooms on the main lobby floor of the Beaumont. They range in size from a cozy room for eight or ten people to larger ones that will accommodate twenty or thirty. One of the smaller ones had been set aside for Lieutenant Hardy, and I found Chambrun there with him.

A large coffee maker had been set up on a side table and there was a platter of cold meats and bread for sandwiches. Chambrun and Hardy were sitting at the main table. To one side was a uniformed cop poised in front of a stenotype machine.

“Find your girl?” Chambrun asked as I came in.

“Thin air,” I said. “She left Fourteen B at the right time, but she never showed. I guess she got hungry for her young man.”

“I’m hungry for him, too,” Hardy muttered. “I need a rundown on that mob of kids.”

Chambrun took a sip of coffee and made a face. This wasn’t his favorite Turkish. “You missed the limousine driver,” he said to me. “He backs up Doug Maxwell’s story a hundred percent. They left the Maxwell house at five minutes to seven. He keeps a chart like a taxi driver. Shaw left the car a block from the hotel at three minutes past seven. The driver drove Doug around until twenty-five after when Shaw rejoined them. Doug never left the limousine. So he’s personally clear on all counts. He couldn’t have shot Charles Sewall, and he was being watched by Jerry’s men at the time Shaw was clubbed to death.”

I knew that was a relief to Chambrun. He was genuinely fond of Douglas Maxwell.

“I’ve given Hardy the blackmail story,” Chambrun said.

Hardy nodded, scowling. Thought was painful for him. “But this blows it, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Maxwell was the victim and Maxwell is clean. So don’t we get back to where it started? The killer was after Maxwell and made a mistake.”

“Maxwell was almost certainly not Charlie Sewall’s only victim,” Chambrun said. “Maxwell admits that he gave Sewall fifteen thousand a year. Melody mentioned that Sewall lived at the rate of about thirty thousand. She presumably knows.”

“But she didn’t mention anybody but Maxwell,” I said. “It may interest you that I just left Sewall’s lawyer in the Blue Lagoon. He is anxious to get in touch with Maxwell—about the funeral arrangements, he says.”

“I had incoming calls shut off from Maxwell’s suite without an okay from me,” Hardy said. “The man needs rest.”

“Mr. Hardy found that out,” I said. “He wants Maxwell to call him in the morning—about the funeral arrangements.”

“You think this lawyer may how have Sewall’s evidence against Maxwell?” Hardy asked.

“It’s very likely,” Chambrun said.

“The people I hate most are blackmailers and poisoners,” Hardy said. “I’d like to break his back. Let’s get him in here.”

“I suggest you wait till he makes his move and we’re sure,” Chambrun said. “I think you can count on Maxwell to tell us if it happens. If you show your hand, he’ll just wait, and we’ll have to wait, too. Let him think he’s in the clear and he’ll make his move as soon as he can get to Maxwell.”

“I feel like a goddam juggler,” Hardy said. “Two balls in the air. I’m looking for someone who hated Maxwell and I’m looking for someone who hated Sewall. I’m looking for someone who didn’t know that Sewall had planned a joke, and someone who did. You and your goddam theories, Chambrun!”

“I’m looking for someone who got himself a key to those balcony doors,” Chambrun said. “It’s as simple as that.”

“And maybe we’ll come up with that answer next Christmas,” Hardy said. “There are a handful of those lousy keys, none of them hidden away. The plans for the dinner have been public property for a week or ten days. Whoever it was had plenty of time to snitch one of those keys and get a copy made for himself. I suppose I could check out the thousands of keymakers there are in New York.”

The door to the little dining room opened and one of Hardy’s plainclothes men came in. Behind him was Watson Clarke. Clarke had obviously gotten to his apartment for a change of clothes. He was wearing a russet-brown tweed suit with a pale pink shirt and a brown knitted tie; very Brooks Brothers. I was struck again by his resemblance to Raymond Burr. He was Ironside without the wheelchair. He impressed with his physical strength and fitness for a man in his mid-fifties. I thought he was somebody I’d like to have on my team in a tight corner. He gave us a kind of tired smile.

“I understand I’m a murder suspect,” he said.

The plainclothes man was whispering to Hardy.

“Not really, Mr. Clarke,” Chambrun said. “Jerry Dodd, my security officer, thought of you when they determined the kind of gun that had been used. But we know you weren’t on the balcony when Sewall was killed.”

“That’s rather fortunate,” Clarke said. “Because, you see, I do own a 6.5 millimeter
P-38
Walthers, German-made handgun.” He reached in his pocket and produced a brown shell briar pipe, rugged enough to go with his square-jawed face. He began to fill it from an oilskin pouch.

“My man says it doesn’t appear to have been fired,” Hardy said. “Not recently.”

“Not in my memory,” Clarke said. “I collect guns. I showed your man what I had that isn’t in storage. The Walthers isn’t a gun I’d use on safari, which is the only shooting I’ve done in recent years. I’m afraid my Walthers is a rather unpleasant coincidence.”

Hardy looked up. “Is it the kind of gun you’d have chosen to use if you had meant to shoot someone from that balcony, Mr. Clarke?”

Clarke held a lighter to his pipe. There wasn’t a nerve in his body, I thought.

“I have about thirty guns in my apartment,” Clarke said. “If I had been planning to gun someone down from that balcony, the Walthers is exactly what I’d have chosen. It’s light, deadly accurate if you know how to handle it. It would have been the perfect weapon.”

“Who else do you know who owns one?” Hardy asked.

Clarke’s laugh was easy. “My friend, there are hundreds of them around. It’s not a rarity.”

“But you have one in your collection.”

“My collection, Lieutenant, is not a collection of rare weapons or antiques, as your man will tell you. I collect the best modern guns of their type. The Walthers is such a gun.”

Hardy sighed. “I’m going to tell you something that may make you feel better, Mr. Clarke. The bullet they dug out of Sewall’s body was so scratched and damaged in the process that our ballistics man tells me we’ll never be able to match it to a gun.”

“I don’t feel any better than I did, Lieutenant. It wasn’t my gun that was used. It’s where it belonged, not recently fired.”

“At least recently cleaned,” Hardy said. “Mr. Maxwell is probably familiar with your collection, isn’t he?”

Clarke’s heavy eyebrows rose. “Doug? Sure he’s familiar with it. Are you suggesting he borrowed my gun so he could shoot himself? I mean, from the balcony—when he was in the lobby.”

“It was Sewall who was in the lobby,” Hardy said.

“But—”

“Doug has told us about Sewall’s blackmailing habits, Mr. Clarke,” Chambrun said.

“Oh, God!”

“Doug is also completely in the clear,” Chambrun said. “We know exactly where he was when Sewall was shot, and where he was when Shaw was beaten to death.”

Clarke’s pipe had gone out. He relit it. “Well, thank the Lord for that!” he said. “But are you suggesting the killer was after Sewall and not Doug? I’d like to think so, but it doesn’t seem very likely. The killer would have to have known what Sewall was planning for the evening.”

“A lot of people knew,” Chambrun said, “including Diana Maxwell.”

“You have to be kidding!” Clarke said.

“Diana and her young man were good friends of Charlie Sewall’s,” Chambrun said.

Clarke bit down hard on his pipe stem. “And would have been delighted to have him make Doug look foolish.”

“Politics have always been a no-holds-barred brawl,” Chambrun said. “In the old days the brawling took place in a corner saloon or down a back alley. Today—the age of television, radio, computers—the brawling takes place in public. Everybody sees it happen while it’s happening. Ask the mayor of Chicago about it. Tell me, Mr. Clarke, what was your reaction when Maxwell came to you with his blackmail story?”

Clarke shook his head. “You have to understand that I grew up with Doug and Charlie,” he said. “We were kids together. We went to college together. I must have seen and been the butt of dozens of Charlie’s jokes. Sometimes they made me mad; sometimes I had to laugh at them even if the egg was on my face. Frankly, my first reaction was that Doug had been had by Charlie; that Charlie would never really use that confession against Doug. It couldn’t do Doug any harm. But as I thought about it, I realized that twenty-odd years ago it could have hurt Doug. The college would probably have fired Doug if Charlie had made a big smear of it. The more I thought about it, the angrier it made me.”

“But in relation to the present political picture?”

“It’s hard to judge how much it would hurt Doug right now,” Clarke said. “It might even help him, but that would be a big gamble to take. My suggestion was that he pay Charlie whatever he asked for until after the election. Then, win or lose, he should tell Charlie to drop dead—do his worst.”

“Has it occurred to you, Mr. Clarke, that somebody else now has that confession? That the ball game may not be over?” Chambrun asked.

For the first time I thought Clarke looked a little shaken. “That
is
the blackmailer’s
M.O
., isn’t it?” he said. “If I die of anything but natural causes, turn this over to the police.”

“Or use it for your own purposes,” Chambrun said.

“Does Doug have any ideas—?”

“Sewall has a girl friend who knows,” Hardy said. “He also has a lawyer named Hyland.”

“Dicky Hyland?” Clarke said. He laughed. “Dicky went to college with all of us. He’s a third-rate lawyer, making a thin living out of divorce case scandals. He is also a first-rate lush. He would love to try to control someone like Doug. The total failure ruling the destiny of the distinguished success. A miserable louse, Dicky Hyland. He’s just the kind of guy Charlie would use for his fun and games.”

“He’s already been in the hotel tonight looking for Maxwell,” Hardy said. “I thought of grabbing him, but Chambrun advises we wait until he makes his move. Right now he says he wants to see Maxwell about funeral arrangements. We can’t nail him for that.”

A muscle rippled along Clarke’s jaw line. “I’d like the chance to deal with that miserable little creep myself,” he said.

Chambrun had gotten up from his chair and was walking restlessly up and down behind the table. He was snapping his gold cigarette case open and shut without taking a cigarette from it. Finally he stopped his pacing and faced Clarke.

“If I were the strategist for the opposition political party and this story broke—the story of Doug Maxwell’s theft from the college twenty-three years ago—I’d ask some questions. Nobody could do anything to me for asking questions, could they? No matter what the questions implied?”