Tracy blinked but Dunlap didn’t. He stood there with fists knotted tightly, his voice ominously quiet.
“Cheerio, Mr. Tracy. You seem to be awf’ly clever at overhearing things. But not clever enough to hide a click on a busy wire.”
“You didn’t, by any chance, murder Bruce Hilliard tonight, did you, Mr. Dunlap?”
That stopped him. “You think I did?”
“You were there tonight after Betty Hilliard obligingly emptied the house for your arrival. I have two witnesses to prove you left here and went there.”
“Right-o.” Dunlap remained polite. “But unfortunately for your logic, I didn’t go in. Hilliard was already dead on his study floor when I peered through the window.”
“When was that?”
“A quarter of eight.”
“It won’t wash. Hilliard was still alive at eight-thirty. He phoned me right after my broadcast ended. Do you know Bert Lord?”
“We’re fairly friendly,” Dunlap said.
“Friendly enough to steal his gun?”
Dunlap exhaled faintly. “I begin to see your drift. Fingerprints, eh? Looking for samples in my apartment. That was bloody foolish of you.”
Tracy’s fist lashed out as Dunlap sprang. The blow didn’t stop the headlong rush of the heavy-set Englishman. A heave jack-knifed Tracy backward. He tried to kick out with both feet but Dunlap was around him like an eel. Fingers closed on Tracy’s windpipe. The pressure eased before Tracy lapsed into unconsciousness, but he lay utterly helpless with a red haze whirling before his bulging eyes.
Through the haze he could see Dunlap grimly examining the cigarette case he had found in Tracy’s pocket. He also found the master key.
“So you sneaked in here with the connivance of the blasted doorman downstairs! Well, it won’t do you a particle of good.”
He hauled Tracy upright with one hand, anchoring him on swaying legs.
“If I weren’t in such a hurry to get somewhere else, I’d give you what-for, my friend. As it is—”
Tracy saw the fist shoot upward in a powerful uppercut, but he was too groggy to roll his head. The blow caught him squarely under the chin. He could feel the hammering impact of every tooth in his head. Then he didn’t feel anything...
He came riding out of nothingness on long waves of nausea. It seemed as if someone had launched Tracy on a surfboard that raced up and down the smooth chasms of endless waves. Flat on his face he held on desperately until he became confusedly aware that his fingers and his wide-open mouth were pressed against the soft texture of a rug.
He got up dizzily, clutched for a bedpost and fell over a chair. He felt weak and sick. He knelt with head hanging until the sickness reached its climax, then he felt better.
There was no sign of Dunlap in the apartment. Tracy glanced at his wrist watch. He had been unconscious over two hours.
He jumped to the telephone on the night table. He could get no answer from the operator. The line was dead. So was the phone in the living-room. Dunlap had done a neat job.
Tracy raced out the front door to the corridor and kept his finger jammed on the elevator button until the indicator began to move. To his relief the elevator was operated by his friend, the doorman.
The doorman gasped as he recognized the battered little columnist.
“Jerry! For Gawd’s sake! Did Dunlap—!”
“Get this cage down quick! How come you’re running it? Switchboard man off duty?”
“He went over to Madison Avenue for some coffee.”
“Swell. I want to phone without any publicity.”
“Jerry, you told me you weren’t going up to his apartment. If I’d only known, I could have warned you when he came in.”
“I know. It was a dumb stunt. I went in the back way after I spoke to the hackman at the corner. Did Dunlap hire the same cab this time?”
“No. He stopped a roller.”
They had reached the street lobby. The doorman jumped to the deserted switchboard and plugged an outside wire.
“Police headquarters,” Jerry growled. “Hello? Jerry Tracy! I want to talk to Inspector Fitzgerald or Sergeant Kilian. Either one.”
“Sorry, Jerry. They’re both out right now on that Hilliard thing.”
“Did they go back to the Hilliard home?”
“I don’t think so. It was some other angle.”
“Try all of the mid-town precincts. If you get ’em, tell ’em I’ll be over at Hilliard’s. Wait! Better tell ’em to give me a quick buzz before they start.” He gave them the number.
“Anything hot?”
“Hot enough. I’ve got a hunch two more people are due to get the works tonight.”
“Wow! O.K.”
Tracy hung up and called the Hilliard number. All he could raise was a busy signal. Sweating, he waited and tried again. Buzz-buzz-buzz... Every minute he waited here he was giving Dunlap additional time. And yet if he quit and raced for a cab, he was giving him still more time. He got two more busy signals before he cursed and ran out into the street.
The doorman’s whistle brought him the night-hawk hackman from the corner. Tracy slammed in and went streaking uptown and across to the west side.
There were lights on in the Hilliard home, but Tracy’s ring at the doorbell went unanswered. Racing across the dark grounds, Tracy found that the side window through which he had originally entered was still open. He squirmed over the sill and darted for Hilliard’s study.
To his angry amazement Hilliard’s butler was seated calmly in an easy chair, smoking a cigarette. There was no sign of the cop who had been left on guard — or of anyone else.
“Why the hell don’t you answer the doorbell?”
Marcom said placidly, “The policeman told me to remain in this room and see that nothing was disturbed. After he went I thought I’d better not leave the room.”
Tracy felt a chill of anxiety. He had heard Fitz tell that cop to remain on duty until relieved!
“When did the cop leave?”
“I don’t know. I stepped into the hall to speak to him a moment ago and he wasn’t there.”
“Has a guy named Dunlap been here? Did he and the cop go away together?”
“No, sir. Mr. Dunlap arrived before that. The four of them—”
“What four?”
“Mr. Dunlap and Hilliard’s secretary, Mr. Furman, went away with Mrs. Hilliard and Miss Hilliard. They all seemed very friendly, particularly the two women, which puzzled me, sir.”
“Me, too,” Tracy growled. “What happened?”
“There was talk about going to Mr. Hilliard’s Long Island estate in order to avoid newspaper reporters. The policeman vetoed that. Then the front door bell rang and the policemen left me here.”
The word “bell” reminded Tracy suddenly of the peculiar series of busy signals when he had tried to call Hilliard’s home.
“Who’s been using this phone?”
Marcom looked puzzled. “No one, sir. There haven’t been any calls.”
Tracy noticed that a small screen had been shifted from its accustomed place and was standing in front of the telephone desk. He whisked it away and nodded with grim understanding. Someone had slyly disconnected the phone by lifting it from its cradle. He placed it back.
Tracy stood stiffly still, his brow wrinkled in thought. His preconceived suspicion of Bert Lord as Hilliard’s murderer had long since vanished. There was the phone call which Tracy had received on his private line at the broadcasting studio from Bruce Hilliard. Remembering something that Ken Dunlap had told him sneeringly in his Park Avenue apartment, Tracy was coldly convinced that Hilliard had been dead when that alleged call of his had gone over the wire at 8:32. And if Hilliard was dead, only two people could possibly have made the phony call.
One of them was a woman, one a man. The realization of the man’s identity made the hair crawl on Tracy’s scalp. He did a sudden, seemingly illogical thing. He darted toward the radio over which Hilliard had been listening when he was shot to death. He examined the dial swiftly.