Mourn the Hangman (8 page)

Blake just nodded. Numbly, he followed Harrison and Arnoldson out to the street. There was a shiny black Cadillac at the curb. The back door stood open, a man hunched forward watching through it. A swarthy chauffeur stood at attention beside it. “I’m Arrenhower,” the man in the car said. “Mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed — so here I am.”

ARRENHOWER put out his pudgy hand. Blake hesitated a moment and then took it. Arrenhower smiled genuinely enough and seemed not to notice the pale look of puzzlement in Blake’s face.

Arrenhower was a fat little man, with barrel chest and bantam weight legs. But there was a look of innate power about him. He appeared well-fed, prosperous, in his two hundred dollar tailored suit and hand-tooled felt hat. His jowls were heavy. But in his eyes and about his movements was the inborn condition that made him feel powerful and that made bigger men instinctively fear and obey him.

He said, “Well, Mr. Blake. I’m glad you’re free.”

Blake released his hand and stepping back from the car, straightened a little. “I’m afraid I don’t get it, Mr. Arrenhower. But I agree with you. I’m glad I’m free.”

He could feel the presence of Harrison and Arnoldson at his back. The chauffeur at his side sported a broken nose, cauliflower ears and a wide chest that was beginning to slip a little. The chauffeur was standing at attention at the open door, but Blake had the upsetting feeling that the man was on the balls of his feet, ready to spring and that though he wasn’t touching anything, the big hands at his sides were not relaxed.

Blake decided there was no such thing as freedom, not on this earth, not any more. You meant something to somebody: taxes, labor, gain or knowledge. He would probably have been safer with the district attorney and twelve citizens in a jury box.

He determined to get the waiting over as quickly as possible. “Well, thanks, Mr. Arrenhower. I can’t repay you for what you’ve done.”

“Maybe you can,” Arrenhower said casually.

“Can I? How?”

Arrenhower looked up at him. He was no longer smiling. But there was no malice in his face, either — just that look of authority. Just the certain knowledge that he would always be able to accomplish anything he wanted. He could even with bond, bribe or legal technicality, get a suspected murderer temporarily freed from jail. In Arrenhower’s face there was no expression of wonder that this should be true, just placid acceptance.

But Blake knew that Arrenhower wanted something from him. Something that could not be had while Blake remained in jail.

Arrenhower’s voice was deceptively soft. “Are you in any hurry, Mr. Blake? Any dates, engagements?”

“I’ve a date with a killer, Mr. Arrenhower. But I guess it can wait.”

“Get in,” Arrenhower said, and then added, softly, “won’t you?”

Blake could feel a fragile silence in the dark street before the police station. It was as though the three men walling him in were, for the moment, not even breathing.

“Thank you,” Blake said. The three men exhaled.

He stepped into the rear of the car. Arrenhower moved over to the far corner and Blake flopped into the seat beside him. Harrison slid in beside Blake. The chauffeur went around the car and got in under the wheel. Arnoldson smiled at all of them, closed the back door and got in the front beside the driver.

The car moved swiftly from the curb, made a U-turn in the middle of the street and was hitting forty in second gear.

Blake relaxed between Arrenhower and the lawyer. They were gliding past every car going north on Fourth street. The silence grew slightly tense. The lawyer took out a pack of Luckies, looked at them longingly and then let them slip back into his pocket. Obviously, Blake thought, Mr. Arrenhower doesn’t smoke.

Arrenhower spoke at last. “Al White, my chauffeur,” he said to Blake. “He was a heavyweight boxer a few years ago. Did you ever see him in the ring, Blake?”

“Yes. A few times, out at Soldiers’ Field,” Blake said. He let his voice lift a little. “He was always pretty slow on his feet.”

Arrenhower smiled chidingly. “It’s no use, Blake. You can’t ride him. Punched a little too much in the head. Slightly deaf.”

Again there was silence. It grew warm in the big car. Finally, Harrison said, “You understand, Blake, you are out under heavy bond. It wouldn’t do for you to attempt to jump. You have no idea how many people would be after you.”

Blake said, “That’s where you’re wrong. I do have an idea.”

Harrison shrugged. “Just so you understand.”

Arnoldson turned slightly and smiled from the front seat.

“That’s the trouble,” Arrenhower said, half to himself, “the smart men. They’re always working against me. And usually for peanuts. You know, I could have used a smart man like you in my outfit, Blake.”

Blake smiled grimly. “I’ve heard that for years, Mr. Arrenhower. Nobody can ever understand why you’re working at the job you have. It isn’t ever good enough. Why are you wasting your brains and your talent? I’ve heard all that. There’s just one answer. To eat. No matter how smart a man is, he’s got to have the breaks. It would have just been the breaks if I’d gotten a job in your outfit. In fact, I got one. But I never got to show what a master mind I had.”

Arrenhower nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. It’s just that men in charge of other men don’t see it quite that way. When we see a smart man and know that we have a place for him, we halfway blame that man for not making his knowledge at least available to us. Since we’ve become aware of you, we have made an exhaustive study into your background. Isn’t that right, Harrison?”

The lawyer nodded. “We’ve investigated you pretty thoroughly, Blake.”

“I’m flattered,” Blake said. “Do you do that with every hit-and-run victim?”

There was charged silence in the car.

Arrenhower spoke finally. “Hit and run. You should think more about that idea, Blake. Do I appear to be a man who would order such a thing done?”

“How many teeth do I lose for answering that one?”

Arrenhower smiled thinly. “All right. I have my answer. You think I do. Well, you’re wrong. You’ve been listening to Dickerson. Don’t you see, Blake? His company was in trouble with the government. And the way to get off the hook was to get us on it. And you can always raise a stink with Uncle Sam by yelling profiteer. That’s why I’m trying to break off with American Materials and Dickerson. I don’t want his men in my plants. I want men like Dickerson kept out — and when they work for Dickerson, I want men like you kept out.”

Blake took a deep breath. “It seems to me that I was out. As long as I sat in that jail back there, I wasn’t much threat to you.”

“You never were much threat to me, Blake,” Arrenhower said. “I do not care whether you live or die, return to that jail or go free. I’m sorry you lost your wife. I’ve heard that she was young and quite lovely. That makes it wasteful and sad indeed.”

“Somebody thought that getting her out of the way would get me out of the way,” Blake said evenly.

He felt Harrison’s leg nudge him sharply.

Arrenhower was silent a long time. “A variation of the hit-and-run theme, is that it, Blake? Is that why you called my secretary, Edwards? Is that why you wanted to talk to me today?”

“Somebody killed her,” Blake said softly.

“My business,” Arrenhower said in a strangely taut voice, “is manufacturing. That is my only business. So far, God has been kind to me. I have been able to protect my interests without stooping to inhuman violence.”

“I think,” Blake told him quietly, “somebody ought to tell you what goes on in the lower levels of this giant business of yours.”

“I would like that, Blake,” Arrenhower replied coldly. “Perhaps you will be so kind.”

“It’s none of my business. Unless I found that one of your goons killed Stella. Then I wouldn’t wait to see you about it.”

“My goons?”

“All right. Your private police. Your plant guards. Whatever it pleases you to call them.”

“Well. It might have pleased me to call them goons,” Arrenhower answered. “It’s just that I never thought of that particular word.”

“Mr. Blake is bitter. And young,” Harrison interposed.

“Why should I be bitter?” Blake said sardonically. “You people drag me out of my nice, warm jail bed and bring me over here. I’m a citizen. I’m a taxpayer. I’m a human being. But I could yell my brains out and I’d still be right here with you. My life would still be worth exactly what it’s worth to you right now. A very plugged nickel.”

“Inflation,” Arrenhower said mildly, “has set in everywhere, Blake. But you wrong me. I want only to have a chance to listen to you talk. No one is going to lay a hand on you, except as I order it. I consider you a human being. I see that you have been caused suffering and loss. It is not my wish either to add to your suffering or to deprive you of your rights. But as a matter of fact, you would be reclining in a filthy jail at this moment if I had not come forward. Isn’t that correct?”

“You’re right.”

“So. I’m right. Then why scream that you’re being deprived of your constitutional rights? You had none a few hours ago — even a few minutes ago. What happens to you tonight, Blake, depends entirely upon your own choice. This much I will tell you now. If any man in my employ had any part in the brutal murder of your wife, I’m as anxious to know it as you are. You needn’t worry about swift retribution if you can show me the man who did it and say that the orders came anywhere along the line from me down to him!”

“If I find him,” Blake said, “don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.”

“That being true,” Arrenhower said. “It appears to me that you would be more tolerant of me. Your wife has been slain. You want revenge, right?”

“All right.”

“My wife — my life — my mistress — the business that I built alone, with my own heart and hands and mind — mine and nobody else’s — is threatened. Threatened by men like you — often, like you, hired to do a job without even knowing what lies behind it. I want to protect what is mine. What happens to you, Blake, will happen only because I am trying to protect my own love. Is that clear?”

“If you know all about me, what more can I tell you?”

“That is why we brought you from the jail, Blake. That is what we will find out. That is what we will see.”

No one spoke again. The big car swung north long the bayshore, and then was whipped west along a tree-lined, macadam road. The car lights swung across gate posts. A gate was opened and the car moved along a gravel drive and stopped before a vaguely lighted portico. White columns, two stories tall, stood like sentinels before the closed white door.

Al White killed the engine, sprinted around the car and opened the rear door. Harrison stepped out, Blake followed and then Al White got in the car and helped Arrenhower out. For the first time, Blake saw that Arrenhower suffered from a mild form of paralysis of the legs. Moving was a slow and painful business for the manufacturer.

They started up the wide steps. The house was old Southern Colonial. The town had grown up around it. But from the aged, solid appearance of mansion and grounds, it must have been a country estate when first built. It had been restored, refurbished, repainted without losing its dignity or its agelessness. It was a dowager with her face lifted. A grand dame given every care to preserve her beauty. But something else impressed Blake about the silent old place. There was just one way to get inside this house. By invitation only.

And I’ve been invited, he thought. He was the private eye, Roberts, just before the die casting machine blew his face off. He was a snooper about to be dealt with. He had wanted to see Arrenhower. But he had wanted to ask the questions. He was sure he was answering questions this inning. None of that ingratiating manner and steady smiling was deceiving him or reassuring him either.

They went inside. Arnoldson and White disappeared immediately. After a moment, Harrison was gone. Blake was alone with Arrenhower in the massive library.

Arrenhower let himself into a deep chair. He looked at Blake. “I hope you won’t think we’re forgotten,” he said. “Everyone here has his job.”

“I don’t think we’re forgotten,” Blake said. “I don’t even think we’re not watched.”

Arrenhower smiled deprecatingly. “Oh, it’s not quite that bad, Mr. Blake. You see, I wanted this few minutes alone with. you. I want to make you an offer. I can offer you ten thousand dollars a year and a job in a South American branch of my firm. How does that sound to you?”

“Fishy,” Blake replied honestly.

Arrenhower’s brows drew together. “You’re not a cautious young man, are you, Blake?”

“No. You see, Mr. Arrenhower, my wife has been murdered. I’m sorry. I can’t worry much whether I make friends or influence people. Now, about that South American job. I don’t speak Spanish in the first place. Oh, an Ybor City smattering of Cuban Spanish, but that’s all. I can tell you to get that knife out of my back. That’s about the extent of it. I don’t know enough about your firm to be worth ten thousand dollars a year to you.”

“You couldn’t learn?”

“How long would I have to learn? You want me out of this country, isn’t that it? You know that as Robert Cole I worked in your plant. You know that I undoubtedly have found out quite a few embarrassing truths. And you’d like me out of the country.”

Arrenhower looked pained. “That would be the simple way. The easy way. That’s what I’m offering you first, Blake. You’re a fool to refuse.”

“I’ve already told you. All I want is to find who killed my wife.”

“Your wife is dead. If I sound brutal, it’s because I’m an old man. You’ve got to go on living.”

“Well, thanks. I’ll go on living right here. I’m not taking ten grand to carry me and what I might know out of this country.”

“You might well wish you had listened to me, Blake. An older man. A wiser one. I’m willing to up my offer.”

“You couldn’t offer me enough.”

Arrenhower pulled himself painfully up from the chair. “You have your price! Every man does. Show some sense. You’d better make up your mind to name your price. We’ll come to terms, or what is ahead of you will leave you worth nothing — even to yourself.”

“I won’t haggle with you over what my life is worth to me, Arrenhower. I got into this thing knowing it was dangerous. This is a hazard of my job. Suppose we get on with it.”

For a moment, Arrenhower just looked at him. Then he hobbled across the room and pulled a cord. Alder Harrison, the lawyer, came in immediately. Blake knew he must have been listening outside the library door.