The Collection (102 page)

Dave nodded. "My own composition," he said.
"A suite for flute and piano. I brought it over tonight for us to try
out."

"Interesting," said McGuire casually. He was
leaning over to study the manuscript, and he'd taken a pencil from his pocket.
He pointed to a place about halfway down the second page. "This would be
about the point where the machine gun made a trio of it, wouldn't it? About
so."

Lightly, with his pencil, he sketched in six slurred
thirty-second notes below the staff. "About six notes right here."

I thought he'd gone nuts. I didn't change my mind at all
when he turned and went on talking. "The history of music is very interesting,
Mr. Peters," he said. I gawked at him.

A guy who'd talk about the history of music over a dead
body was a new one on me. He went on: "Have you ever read about a Colonel
Rebsomen who lived in France early in the last centur--"

Then
I knew he'd gone genuinely and completely insane, because he tensed suddenly
and his right hand darted inside his coat and came out holding an automatic.
But this time I wasn't so slow; I dived before he could aim at whoever he was
going to aim at, and the bullet went wild and snipped a stem from a potted
plant on my left. My right to his jaw made him drop the gun and claw the air,
and I grabbed for the gun and got it. McGuire didn't go down from my punch. He
kept his feet and looked at me a little sadly. "You damned fool!" he
said. "I was going to shoot it out of his hand."

I said blankly, "Shoot what out of whose hand?"

Then I turned around and saw Dave, and saw that he was
slumped back in a chair, and that his face wasn't pretty to look at. There was
a little bottle in his hand. Even as I watched, his relaxing fingers let it
slide to the floor.

Sam said, "Prussic acid. It's all over; no use rushing
for any antidote for that stuff."

I didn't understand it, but I did get that I'd made a fool
of myself again. This time, though, I can't say I was really sorry. I'd known
Dave pretty well, and if he'd killed Hank Remmel it was better for him to have
had a sudden out than to go through what a murderer goes through before he
climbs the steps. A guy like Dave.

I turned back to McGuire, and I didn't call him Mac this
time. I handed him his gun respectfully, and I said, "I sure owe you an
apology, Mr. McGuire. I thought--but damn it all, I still don't see how Dave
could have killed him. We heard 'em, all the time."

He slid his gun back into its holster. "Here's the
score for it, sheriff," he said. "Suite for Flute and Tommy-gun. I don't
like this case, sheriff, but just the same, I'd like to take along this piece
of music as a souvenir of it. It's unique. May I?"

He took it out into the hall and put it into the brief case
he'd left there. I followed him. "Listen," I said, "I'm still as
dumb as I was. How did Dave--"

We were out of sight of the two dead bodies now, and he
grinned. "The case is closed, sheriff," he told me, "and I can
catch the ten-o'clock train out. If you can have your deputy stay here and call
in the coroner and so on, why on the way back to town I'll tell you."

I fixed it with Sam, and as I started to drive McGuire in,
I said: "I figure it this far. It's easy to see how Dave could have had
motive, as teller of the bank. An audit'll show it. I'd guess offhand that he
must have forged Remmel's name to cover up, too, and figured that with Remmel
dead the forgery would never be found out. Maybe he even had it fixed to get
control of the bank himself. If he was short, and had a choice between that and
jail--well, you can see the motive, all right.

"And sending those notes was a natural to throw
suspicion in another direction, and that, too, would show the murder was
planned. But how on earth--Say, you mentioned a Colonel Reb-something. That was
when Dave pulled out the bottle and--you know. What the hell would a colonel
who lived last century have to do with it?"

"Colonel Rebsomen," said McGuire, "was quite
famous. He was a one-armed flute player. Anyone much interested in the flute
would have heard of him. He had a special flute he could play anything on and
play it well. When I wrote in that part for the Tommy-gun into Peters' flute
score and then mentioned Colonel Rebsomen, Peters knew I saw through it."

"A one-armed flute player! Holy cow! But . . . but
that was a special flute, you say. Dave's is an ordinary one, isn't it?"

McGuire nodded. "But on an ordinary flute there are
certain notes that can be played with the left hand alone. Quite a few of them,
in fact. From G to C in the first and second octaves, and most of the notes in
the top octave.

"You see, sheriff, he not only planned this murder,
but he had written the music for it. Almost the whole of that suite he wrote is
so pitched that it can be played with one hand.

"We were to be his alibi. He waited until he heard us
come, and then persuaded Remmel to run through that number once before he went
out to join us. As soon as they started he backed to the window, still playing.
He'd planted the gun on the window sill when he came, and he'd probably opened
the window earlier to be ready to get at it.

"He
got the gun and, still playing, pulled the trigger. You can't do much with a
Tommy-gun one-handed, but you can fire one
burst that
can't miss a man two yards away. Then he dropped his flute, probably wiped his
prints off the gun and threw it out the window and came to unlatch the door.
Perfect--except for Colonel Rebsomen's ghost."

I'd just swung my car in to the curb at the station, and we
walked in. It was well before train time and, except for us, the station was
empty.

I said, "My God, Mac, what a scheme for murder that
was! Only an unbalanced mind would have planned it. I guess flute players
really are a bit nuts."

McGuire nodded absently. He put his brief case down and took
the score of Dave's suite from it. I looked over his shoulder and shuddered
when I saw those penciled staccato notes that showed where the Tommy-gun had
joined in.

And suddenly I realized how near Dave had come to getting
away with it. He would have, for all of me or Sam. Offhand, you'd say only
another flute player could have--

"Gawd, Mac," I said, "I just remembered that
you didn't answer me before when I asked if you played the flute.
Do
you?"

"I was just considering," he said, "showing
you how this would sound if it were well played. It's not bad music,
really." He reached deeper in his brief case and came up with a black
leather case that proved to be plush lining and the sections of a dismembered
flute. And darned if it didn't sound not so bad at that, the way he played it.

I've had mine a month now, and I can play "My Country
'Tis of Thee," and a few other easy ones. Only, as my wife acrimoniously
points out, if another fancy murder is ever pulled off in Crogan County, it'll
probably be planned by a chess player instead of a flute player, and I'll make
a fool of myself again because I don't know a pawn from a bishop, except that
the knights look like horses.

But a guy can't be an expert in everything, and what's good
enough for a guy like McGuire, who can solve a case practically while it's
happening, is good enough for a guy like me.

The Locked Door

We were in the middle of our third game of chess when it
happened.

It was late in the evening--eleven thirty-five, to be
exact. Jack Sebastian and I were in the living room of my two-room bachelor
apartment. We had the chess game set up on the card table in front of the
fireplace, in which the gas grate burned cheerfully.

Jack looked cheerful too. He was wreathed in smoke from his
smelliest pipe and he had me a pawn down and held a positional edge. I'd taken
the first two games, but this one looked like his. It didn't look any less so
when he moved his knight and said, "Check." My rook was forked along
with the king. There didn't seem to be anything I could do about it except give
up the rook for the knight.

I looked up at the Siamese cat who was sleepily watching us
from her place of vantage on the mantel.

"Looks like he's got us, Beautiful," I said.
"One should never play with a policeman."

"I wish you wouldn't do that, dammit," Jack said.
"You give me the willies."

"Anything's fair in love and chess," I told him.
"If it gives you the willies to have me talk to a cat, that's fine.
Besides, Beautiful doesn't kibitz. If you see her give me any signals, I'll
concede."

"Go ahead and move," he said, irritably.
"You've got only one move that takes you out of check, so make it. I take
your rook, and then--"

There was a noise, then, that I didn't identify for a second
because it was made up of a
crack
and a
ping
and a
thud.
It
wasn't until I turned to where part of the sound came from that I realized what
it had been. There was a little round hole in the glass of the window.

The
crack
had been a shot, the
ping
had been
the bullet coming through the glass--and the
thud had
been the bullet
going into the wall behind me!

But by the time I had that figured out, the chessmen were
spilling into my lap.

"Down, quick!" Jack Sebastian was saying sharply.

Whether I got there myself, or Jack pushed me there, I was
on the floor. And by that time I was thinking.

Grabbing the cord of the lamp, I jerked the plug out of the
wall and we were in darkness except for the reddish-yellow glow of the gas
grate in the fireplace. The handle of that was on Jack's side, and I saw him,
on his knees, reach out and turn it.

Then there was complete darkness. I looked toward where the
window should be, but it was a moonless night and I couldn't see even the
faintest outline of the window. I slid sideways until I bumped against the
sofa. Jack Sebastian's voice came to me out of the darkness.

"Have you got a gun, Brian?" he asked.

I shook my head and then realized he couldn't see me.
"No," I said. "What would I be doing with a gun?"

My voice, even to me, sounded hoarse and strained. I heard
Jack moving.

"The question is," he said, "what's the guy
outside doing with one? Anybody after you, pal?"

"N-no," I said. "At least, not--"

I heard a click that told me Jack had found the telephone. He
gave a number and added, "Urgent, sister. This is the police." Then
his voice changed tone and he said, "Brian, what's the score? Don't you
know anything about who or why--"

He got his connection before he could finish the question
and his voice changed pitch again.

"Jack Sebastian, Cap," he said. "Forty-five
University Lane. Forty-five University Lane. Somebody just took a pot-shot in
the window here. Head the squad cars this way from all directions they can come
from. Especially the campus--that's the logical way for him to lose himself if
he's on foot. Start 'em. I'll hold the line."

Then he was asking me again, "Brian, what can I add?
Quick."

"Tell 'em to watch for a tall, slender, young
man," I said. "Twenty-one years old, thin face, blond hair."

"The hell," he said.
"Alister Cole?"

"Could be," I told him. "It's the only guess
I can make. I can be wrong, but--"

"Hold it." Whoever he'd been talking to at the
police station was back on the line. Without mentioning the name, Jack gave the
description I'd just given to him. He said, "Put that on the radio and
come back in."

Again to me, "Anything else?"

"Yes," I said. "Tell 'em to converge those
squad cars on Doc Roth's place, Two-ten University Lane. Forget sending them
here. Get them
there.
Quick!"

"Why? You think if it's Alister Cole, he's going for
Doc Roth, too?"

"Don't argue. Tell 'em. Hurry!"

I
was on my feet by now, trying to grope my way across the pitch black room to
the telephone to join him. I stepped on a chessman and it rolled and nearly
threw me. I swore and got my lighter out of my pocket and flicked the wheel.

The tiny flame lighted part of the room dimly. The faint
wavering light threw long dancing shadows. On the mantel, the Siamese was
standing, her back arched and her tail thick. Her blue eyes caught and held the
light like blue jewels.

"Put that out, you fool," Jack snapped.

"He isn't standing there at the window," I said
impatiently. "He wouldn't stay there after we doused the light. Tell them
what I said about Roth's, quick."

"Hello, Cap. Listen, get some of the cars to Two-ten
University Lane instead. Two-one-oh. Fast. No, I don't know what this is about
either. Just do it. We can find out later. The guy who took a shot here might
go there. That's all I know. So long."

He put the receiver back on the hook to end argument. I was
there by that time, and had the receiver in my hand.