The Collection (137 page)

As the match burned his fingers, Peter Kidd remembered that
these two blocks had been between warehouses. There was no traffic, pedestrian
or otherwise. He saw that the man had already unbuttoned his coat — which had a
stain down one side of it. He was pulling a pistol out of his belt.

The pistol had a long silencer on it, obviously the reason
why he'd carried it that way instead of in a holster or in a pocket. The pistol
was already half out of the belt.

Kidd did the only thing that occurred to him. He let go the
leash and said, “Sic him, Rover!”

The shaggy dog bounded forward and jumped up just as the
tall man pulled the trigger. The gun pinged dully but the shot went wild. Peter
Kidd had himself set by then, jumped forward after the dog. A silenced gun, he
knew, fires only one shot. Between him and the dog, they should be able . . .

Only it didn't work that way. The shaggy dog had bounded up
indeed, but was now trying to lick the tall man's face. The tall man, his nerve
apparently having departed with the single cartridge in his gun, gave the dog a
push and took to his heels. Peter Kidd fell over the dog. That was that. By the
time Kidd untangled himself from dog and leash, the tall man was down an alley
and out of sight.

Peter Kidd stood up. The dog was running in circles around
him, barking joyously. It wanted to play some more.

Peter Kidd recovered the loop end of the leash and spoke
bitterly. The shaggy dog wagged its tail.

They'd walked several blocks before it occurred to Kidd that
he didn't know where he was going. For that matter, he told himself, he didn't
really know where he'd been. It had been such a beautifully simple matter,
before he'd left his office.

Except that if the shaggy dog
hadn't
been the dog of
a murdered man, it was one now. Except for that bullet having gone wild, his
present custodian, one Peter Kidd, might be in a position to ask Mr. Aloysius
Smith Robert Asbury just exactly what the devil it was all about.

It had been so beautifully simple, as a
hoax.
 For a
moment he tried to think that— But no, that was silly. The police department
didn't go in for hoaxes. Asbury had really been murdered.

“I am the dog of a murdered man. . . . Escape his fate,
Sir, if you can....”

Had Asbury actually found such a note and then been
murdered? Had the man with the silenced gun been following Kidd because he'd
recognized the dog? A nut, maybe, out to kill each successive possessor of the
shaggy dog?

Had Asbury's entire story been true — except for the phony
name he'd given — and had he given a wrong name and address only because he'd
been afraid?

But how to—? Of course. Ask Sid Wheeler. If Sid had
originated the hoax and hired Asbury, then the murder was a coincidence — one
hell of a whopping coincidence. Yes, they were bound for Sid Wheeler's office.
He knew that now, but they'd been walking in the wrong direction. He turned and
started back, gradually lengthening his strides. A block later, it occurred to
him it would be quicker to phone. At least to make certain Sid was in, not out
collecting rents or something.

He stopped in the nearest drugstore and: “Mr. Wheeler,” said
the feminine voice, “is not here. He was taken to the hospital an hour ago.
This is his secretary speaking. If there is anything I can—”

“What's the matter with Sid?” he demanded. There was a
slight hesitation and he went on: “This is Peter Kidd, Miss Ames. You know me.
What's wrong?”

“He — he was shot. The police just left. They told me not to
g-give out the story, but you're a detective and a friend of his, so I guess
it's all ri—”

“How badly was he hurt?”

“They — they say he'll get better, Mr. Kidd. The bullet went
through his chest, but on the right side and didn't touch his heart. He's at
Bethesda Hospital. You can find out more there than I can tell you. Except that
he's still unconscious —you won't be able to see him yet.”

“How did it happen, Miss Ames?”

“A man I'd never seen before said he wanted to see Mr.
Wheeler on business and I sent him into the inner office. Mr. Wheeler was
talking on the phone to someone who'd just called— What was that, Mr. Kidd?”

Peter Kidd didn't care to repeat it. He said, “Never mind.

Go on.”

“He was in there only a few seconds and came out and left,
fast. I couldn't figure out why he'd changed his mind so quick, and after he
left I looked in and— Well, I thought Mr. Wheeler was dead. I guess the man
thought so too, that is, if he meant to kill Mr. Wheeler, he could have easily
— uh—”

“A silenced gun?”

“The police say it must have been, when I told them I hadn't
heard the shot.”

“What did the man look like?”

“Tall and thin, with a kind of sharp face. He had a light
suit on. There was a slight stain of some kind on the front of the coat.”

“Miss Ames,” said Peter Kidd, “did Sid Wheeler buy or find a
dog recently?”

“Why, yes, this morning. A big white shaggy one. He came in
at eight o'clock and had the dog with him on a leash.

He said he'd bought it. He said it was to play a
joke
on somebody.”

“What happened next — about the dog?”

“He turned it over to a man who had an appointment with him
at eight-thirty. A fat, funny-looking little man. He didn't give his name. But
he must have been in on the joke, whatever it was, because they were chuckling
together when Mr. Wheeler walked to the door with him.”

“You know where he bought the dog? Anything more about it?”

“No, Mr. Kidd. He just said he bought it. And that it was
for a joke.”

Looking dazed, Peter Kidd hung up the receiver.

 
Sid Wheeler, shot.

Outside the booth, the shaggy dog stood on its hind legs and
pawed at the glass. Kidd stared at it. Sid Wheeler had bought a dog. Sid
Wheeler had been shot with intent to kill.

Sid had given the dog to actor Asbury. Asbury had been
murdered. Asbury had given the dog to him, Peter Kidd. And less than half an
hour ago, an attempt had been made on
his
life.

 
The dog of a murdered man.

Well, there wasn't any question now of telling the police.

Sid might have started this as a hoax, but a wheel had come
off somewhere, and suddenly.

He'd phone the police right here and now. He dropped the
dime and then — on a sudden hunch — dialed his own office number instead of
that of headquarters. When the blonde's voice answered, he started talking
fast: “Peter Kidd, Miss Latham. I want you to close the office at once and go
home. Right away, but be sure you're not followed before you go there. If
anyone seems to be following you, go to the police. Stay on busy streets
meanwhile. Watch out particularly for a tall, thin man who has a stain on the front
of his coat. Got that?”

“Yes, but — but the police are here, Mr. Kidd. There's a
Lieutenant West of Homicide here now, just came into the office asking for you.
Do you still want me to—?”

Kidd sighed with relief. “No, it's all right then. Tell him
to wait. I'm only a few blocks away and will come there at once.”

He dropped another coin and called Bethesda Hospital.

Sid Wheeler was in serious, but not critical, condition. He
was still unconscious and wouldn't be able to have visitors for at least twenty-four
hours.

He walked back to the Wheeler Building, slowly. The first
faint glimmering of an idea was coming. But there were still a great many
things that didn't make any sense at all.

“Lieutenant West, Mr. Kidd,” said the blonde.

The big man nodded. “About a Robert Asbury, who was killed
this morning. You knew him?”

“Not before this morning,” Kidd told him. “He came here —
ostensibly — to offer me a case. The circumstances were very peculiar.”

“We found your name and the address of this office on a slip
of paper in his pocket,” said West. “It wasn't in his handwriting. Was it
yours?”

“Probably it's Sidney Wheeler's handwriting, Lieutenant.

Sid sent him here, I have cause to believe. And you know
that an attempt was made to kill Wheeler this morning?”

“The devil! Had a report on that, but we hadn't connected it
with the Asbury murder as yet.”

“And there was another murder attempt,” said Kidd.

“Upon me. That was why I phoned. Perhaps I'd better tell you
the whole story from the beginning.”

The lieutenant's eyes widened as he listened. From time to
time he turned to look at the dog.

“And you say,” he said, when Kidd had finished, “that you
have the money in an envelope in your pocket? May I see it?”

Peter Kidd handed over the envelope. West glanced inside it
and then put it in his pocket. “Better take this along,” he said. “Give you a
receipt if you want, but you've got a witness.” He glanced at the blonde.

“Give it to Wheeler,” Kidd told him. “Unless — maybe you've
got the same idea I have. You must have, or you wouldn't have wanted the
money.”

“What idea's that?”

“The dog,” said Peter Kidd, “might not have anything to do
with all this at all. Today the dog was in the hands of three persons —
Wheeler, Asbury, and myself. An attempt was made — successfully, I am glad to
say, in only one case out of the three — to kill each of us. But the dog was
merely the —ah —
deus ex machina
of a hoax that didn't come off, or else
came off too well. There's something else involved — the money.”

“How do you mean, Mr. Kidd?”

“That the money was the object of the crimes, not the dog.
That money was in the hands of Wheeler, Asbury, and myself, just as was the
dog. The killer's been trying to get that money back.”

“Back? How do you mean,
back?
 I don't get what
you're driving at, Mr. Kidd.”

“Not because it's a hundred dollars. Because it isn't.”

“You mean counterfeit? We can check that easy enough, but
what makes you think so?”

“The fact,” said Peter Kidd, “that I can think of no other
motive at all. No reasonable one, I mean. But postulate, for the sake of
argument, that the money
is
counterfeit. That would, or could, explain
everything. Suppose one of Sid Wheeler's tenants is a counterfeiter.”

West frowned. “All right, suppose it.”

“Sid could have picked up the rent on his way to his office
this morning. That's how he makes most of his collections. Say the rent is a
hundred dollars. Might have been slightly more or less — but by mistake, sheer
mistake, he gets paid in counterfeit money instead of genuine.

“No counterfeiter — it is obvious — would ever dare give out
his own product in such a manner that it would directly trace back to him. It's
— uh—”

“Shoved,” said West. “I know how they work.”

“But as it happened, Sid wasn't banking the money. He needed
a hundred to give to Asbury along with the dog.

And—”

He broke off abruptly and his eyes got wider. “Lord,” he
said, “it's obvious!”

“What's obvious?” West growled.

“Everything. It all spells
Henderson.”

“Huh?”

“Henderson, the job printer on the floor below this. He's
the only printer-engraver among Wheeler's tenants, to begin with. And Asbury
stopped in there this morning, on his way
here.
 Asbury paid him for
some cards out of a ten-dollar bill he got from Wheeler! Henderson saw the
other tens in Asbury's wallet when he opened it, knew that Asbury had the money
he'd given Wheeler for the rent.

“So he sent his torpedo — the tall thin man — to see Asbury,
and the torpedo kills Asbury and then finds the money is gone — he's given it to
me. So he goes and kills Sid Wheeler — or thinks he does — so the money can't
be traced back to him from wherever Asbury spent it.

“And then—” Peter Kidd grinned wryly — “I put myself on the
spot by dropping into Henderson's office to get Asbury's address, and
explaining
to him what it's all about, letting him know I have the money and know Asbury
got it from Wheeler. I even tell him where I'm going — to Asbury's.

So the torpedo waits for me there. It fits like a gl— Wait,
I've got something that proves even better. This—”

As he spoke he was bending over and opening the second
drawer of his desk. His hand went into it and came out with a short-barreled
Police Positive.

“You will please raise your hands,” he said, hardly changing
his voice. “And, Miss Latham, you will please phone for the police.”

“But how,” demanded the blonde, when the police had left,
“did you guess that he wasn't a
real
detective?”

“I didn't,” said Peter Kidd, “until I was explaining things
to him, and to myself at the same time. Then it occurred to me that the
counterfeiting gang wouldn't simply drop the whole thing because they'd missed
me once, and — well, as it happens, I was right. If he'd been a real detective,
I'd have been making a fool out of myself, of course, but if he wasn't, I'd
have been making a corpse out of myself, and that would be worse.”

“And me, too,” said the blonde. She shivered a little.

“He'd have had to kill both of us!”

Peter Kidd nodded gravely. “I think the police will find
that Henderson is just the printer for the gang and the tall thin fellow is
just a minion. The man who came here, I'd judge, was the real entrepreneur.”

“The what?”

“The manager of the business. From the Old French
entreprendre,
 to undertake, which comes from the Latin
inter
plus
pren—”

“You mean the bigshot,” said the blonde. She was opening a
brand-new ledger. “Our first case. Credit entry —one hundred dollars
counterfeit. Debit — given to police — one hundred dollars counterfeit. And —
oh, yes, one shaggy dog. Is that a debit or a credit entry?”

“Debit,” said Peter Kidd.