Long Live the Dead (16 page)

She helped him out of his chair and went with him to the door of the bedroom. There she held his arms, forced him to look at her. “Kiss me,” she said.

He shook his head, freed himself and closed the door behind him, leaving her there. She turned and went slowly back to her chair, her eyes wet with tears.

The clock on the table said two
A.M.
and the radio, turned low, sent out a voice to smother the sound of the girl’s sobbing.

“Station WPSO signing off… . Attention, please. Police have requested all radio stations in the state to issue a final warning to residents of the Logan Lake region. John Brandon, dangerous madman who escaped yesterday from the Logan Lake Asylum, is still at large. Shortly after midnight this man attacked and critically injured a member of a searching party and escaped with the man’s gun. He is now armed and is therefore doubly dangerous. Local and State Police, aided by hundreds of private citizens, are combing the lake district in search of him. This man is cunning and desperate. A description of him—”

She shut the radio off and returned to her chair and sat there in the dim yellow glow of the lamp, sobbing. There was no sound anywhere but the sound of her sobbing. Once or twice she glanced at the door of the bedroom, but it did not open.

About an hour later she fell asleep.

M
atthew Karkin, known affectionately as Matt, was Chief of Police in Lakeville. He said he would do it alone, and he did. He was a brave man. He said, “I been the law in these parts for seventeen years without no help, and I can handle this without help. The feller may be a nut, but even so I reckon I can handle him.”

His men and the townspeople didn’t argue. They knew better.

He arrived at Mr. Dennis’s cottage at seven-thirty that morning, and it was raining. Not raining hard, but drizzling enough to make the morning gray, the sky heavy, the lake ugly.

Scowling to himself and feeling vaguely uneasy, Karkin approached the front steps—and stopped. And picked up a bloody handkerchief.

He looked at the handkerchief for a moment, then wrapped it in his own clean one and thrust it into his pocket. He drew his gun and knocked.

He had to knock several times because the girl, asleep in the chair, waked slowly and was bewildered by the knocking when she did wake. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she stood up, her body a vast ache from being curled so long in an awkward position.

She glanced at the closed bedroom door and then she said anxiously: “Who—who is it?”

“The law,” Karkin said.

She opened the door and he entered, staring at her. Her presence confused him. He had been given to understand that Mr. Dennis lived alone and never had visitors.

“Who’re you?” he demanded gruffly. And added: “Where’s Dennis?”

She ignored the first question and answered the second. “He’s asleep.”

“Oh. Well, I want to talk to him.”

“Who are you?”

“Chief of Police.”

She said, frowning: “Can’t I answer your questions? Mr. Dennis needs his sleep so badly.”

“Sorry,” Karkin told her, “but my business is with Dennis.”

She turned to walk to the bedroom door, but it wasn’t necessary.The door opened before she reached it. Mr. Dennis, with a dressing gown over his wrinkled black pajamas, stood there staring.

“What is it?” he demanded.

Karkin, his gun back in its holster with his right hand resting on it, scowled and said, “You’re Dennis?”

“Yes.”

“Like to have a talk with you, then.”

“Who are you?”

“Chief of Police. Matt Karkin.”

Mr. Dennis thought he understood, and nodded. It would be about the escaped madman. The police were combing the region, and this was a routine visit. He paced forward, motioned Karkin to a chair and sat down himself. The girl sat, too, and stared uneasily at both of them.

“You ever hear of Papa Nickson, Mr. Dennis?” Karkin asked.

“Papa Nickson? No.”

“You sure of that?”

“Quite sure. I know very few of my neighbors, Mr. Karkin.”

“Who said he was one of your neighbors?”

“Well,” Dennis said with a vague smile, “I assumed from the question—”

“Papa Nickson,” Karkin declared gravely, “was murdered last night.”

“Murdered?”

“Murdered,” repeated Karkin slowly, his gaze falling to the long black gloves which covered the other man’s hands and wrists, “by someone with mighty strong hands.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“It’s rumored around here,” Karkin said, “that Papa Nick-son was what you might call a miser. Folks were of the opinion he had money hidden away. Last night or some time yesterday, someone tried to get that money.”

“I see. And just how does this concern me?”

“It was a brutal murder,” Karkin said. “Like I just told you, someone with mighty strong hands did it.”

“Mr. Nickson was strangled, you mean?”

“Worse. His neck was broke. Matter of fact, his neck was near twisted off.”

Dennis glanced at the girl. Her face was pale, her eyes very wide.

“It sounds,” Dennis declared,“like the work of that escaped madman.”

“It wasn’t. We might’ve thought so, but Papa Nickson lived long enough to tell us the name of the man who did it.”

“Oh. And his name?”

“Dennis.”

Mr. Dennis sat quite still, staring at his accuser. His lean face seemed to dry up a little, but his other reactions were entirely internal. The girl was different. She stiffened spasmodically in her chair, leaned forward and said shrilly: “But that’s ridiculous!”

“Is it?” Karkin said grimly. “Then maybe Mr. Dennis can explain this. I found it out by the steps, on my way in.” With his left hand he fumbled the bloody handkerchief from his pocket, unwrapped it and held it up. His right hand remained on the butt of his gun.

“So I’m—accused of murder,” Dennis said wearily.

“That’s right; you’re accused of murder. Maybe you’d have got away, but it so happened we stopped at Papa Nickson’s early this morning for coffee, after searching for that crazy guy all night.”

“You realize, of course,” Dennis said, “that I didn’t do it. That I couldn’t have done it.”

“Why couldn’t you?”

“He couldn’t,” the girl said quickly, “because—”

A glance from Dennis silenced her.

“You say Mr. Nickson was murdered by a man with unusually strong hands?” Dennis asked.

“That’s right.”

“You think my hands are strong, Mr. Karkin? You think I wear these gloves to conceal the fact that my hands are scratched, perhaps—or bruised, or bloody?”

Confused by both the question and the tone of voice in which it was put, Karkin scowled, said nothing.

“I’ll show you,” Dennis said quietly.

He held his hands out, and Marie gently removed the gloves. Rising then, he took a step forward and showed the Chief of Police his hands. Karkin gaped at them, stupefied.

“They’ve been like that,” Dennis said wearily, “for three years. Once they were strong; I admit it. But a piece of apparatus exploded with my hands inside it—and now these fingers are not flexible enough, Mr. Karkin, to break a match, let alone a man’s neck.”

Chief of Police Karkin stared at the withered hands and shook his head, frowning. “Before Nickson died, he wrote on the floor—in blood—that you did it. Why would he do that if you’re not the man who killed him?”

“Perhaps he was mistaken.”

“Then what about this bloody handkerchief I picked up outside the house here?”

“That I can’t explain.”

“Well, neither can I,” Karkin mumbled. “Those hands of yours sure couldn’t break a man’s neck; I admit that. But still” He stood up, shaking his head.

“You’ll have to come along with me, Mr. Dennis. Even if you ain’t guilty you’ll have to come along, because if you didn’t do it—who
did
?”

“I’ll get dressed,” Mr. Dennis said wearily.

He went to the bedroom and Karkin followed him to the threshold, stood there and waited for him. Marie remained seated, her face still pale, her eyes wide and staring.

It took Mr. Dennis a long time to dress himself. Watching him, Karkin felt sorry for him. Certainly Mr. Dennis had not murdered Papa Nickson with those pitifully weak hands.

“I don’t like to be doin’ this,” Karkin said, “but if I didn’t, it would go hard with me. You won’t have no trouble proving you ain’t guilty, Mr. Dennis.”

Mr. Dennis came out of the bedroom and said: “I’m ready, Karkin.”

Marie closed her eyes to hide the tears in them.

I
t was Karkin who opened the door. He did it because Mr. Dennis was slowly and painfully pulling on those long black gloves. And when he opened it, he drew a quick, sharp breath and stood stiff.

A face stared at him. A bearded, gaunt face with abnormally wide eyes hung there in the gray of the morning, atop a muscular body as big as Karkin’s own.

The face snarled, and Karkin reached quickly for his gun. That was a mistake. Flame spurted from a weapon in the visitor’s left hand, and the Chief of Police bent double with a guttural exhalation of breath. Bent double in agony, and stumbled back, dropping his gun. And crumpled to the floor.

The report ran back and forth across the room in small, weird echoes. Karkin clawed at the floor, groaning. Marie clung rigidly to the arms of her chair. Mr. Dennis stood quite still, staring from Karkin to Karkin’s assailant.

“John Brandon,” the radio had said, “is five feet eleven inches tall, weighs about one hundred sixty pounds. He has brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin. He is wearing a heavy brown overcoat over white cotton pajamas and is without shoes or stockings.”

This man wore shoes and trousers, but otherwise the description was accurate. This man was John Brandon.

Mr. Dennis backed slowly away from him as the madman entered and pushed the door shut. The radio reports, Dennis decided, had not been exaggerated; this man was both mad and dangerous. Color ebbed from Dennis’s face and a queer numbness crept through him. Then abruptly he regained control of himself and said calmly: “You’ve hurt him. You shouldn’t have done that.” And went to his knees beside Karkin.

It was not serious. The bullet had shattered Karkin’s collarbone and deflected out through his shoulder muscles. It was a nasty wound. He would suffer, but he would live.

Brandon snarled, “Leave him alone.”

“But he’s hurt.”

“I said leave him alone! Go sit down.”

Mr. Dennis retreated slowly to a chair and sat down. The madman glared at him. A moment later Karkin groaned and the madman stepped forward, reached down with one hand and yanked the Chief of Police to a sitting position. When he did that, something at Karkin’s belt, under his coat, clinked.

Brandon reached under the coat and pulled loose a pair of handcuffs.

He looked at them and grunted. Kneeling, he placed his gun on the floor for an instant, jerked Karkin’s wrists together and snapped the cuffs into place. Then he rose, gun in hand, and stared at the girl. And licked his lips.

Mr. Dennis said quietly, with a calm he did not feel: “You mustn’t stay here, Brandon. The police are looking for you.”

“Are they? Let ’em look.”

“They’ll come here after you.”

“Let ’em come,” Brandon snarled.

You couldn’t reason with the man, Dennis realized. A soft voice, gentle persuasion, an outward appearance of calm—all the artful devices supposed to be effective when dealing with a deranged mind—were useless here, because Brandon’s gaze was on the girl, and that gaze was hungry.

Frightened by it, Marie shrank back in her chair and turned a white, pleading face to Dennis. The madman saw and was amused.

He paced behind the girl’s chair and lifted an ornamental coil of rope from its place on the wall. Strong rope, new rope. Testing it, Brandon approached Mr. Dennis from the rear.

“Put your hands behind you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Why? So I can tie you up the way they tied me!”

“But I don’t wish to be tied up, Brandon.”

“Shut up and do like I say!”

He made a thorough job of it. Marie, watching with fear-widened eyes, shuddered at his diabolical cleverness. Evidently at the asylum he himself had been bound many times, and had learned the secrets of twisting a rope.

Mr. Dennis did not resist.With his eyes closed and a queer, detached expression on his face, Dennis patiently endured the torture. His thin frame was almost limp.

The madman bound his arms and elbows to the chair and tugged on the rope until the detached expression on Dennis’s white face changed to a look of intense pain. While he worked, his gun lay on the floor beside him and he raised his head continually to look at Marie, who sat facing him.

Finished, he said grimly, “You won’t ever get loose from that, mister,” and then pushed a chair close to the girl and sat down, staring at her.

Just sat there, staring, as if her beauty troubled him.

A strange silence crept through the room. The girl, cringing, tried to look away from the bearded face so close to her own, and was unable to. Behind Brandon, Mr. Dennis sat motionless. On the floor behind Dennis lay the Chief of Police, conscious now but too weak from loss of blood and too sick with pain to inch himself across the few feet of floor that would have brought him close enough to Mr. Dennis to reach the twisted ropes with his teeth.

“You’re pretty,” the madman said. “What’s your name?”

“M-Marie.”

“Marie. They didn’t have girls like you in the place I escaped from. No, they didn’t.” He scowled at her. “But you don’t like me, do you?”

“I—I don’t know you,” she whispered.

“You’d like me if you knew me?”

“I—might.”

“It don’t make any difference,” he said. “I’d have to kill you anyway, after a while, same as I got to kill those two.” His head jerked in the general direction of Mr. Dennis and the Chief of Police, but he did not turn to look at them.

“Why?” Marie whispered.

“They sent me to that asylum.”

“But they didn’t! They never saw you before today!”

“All the same I was sent there, and I got to kill people for it. I got to get even. Only first I’m gonna look at you for a while. You’re pretty.”