I hung up on her. I knew she'd do it faster that way than if I stayed on the line.
I groped my way through the dark room and out into the lighted hallway. The door to Dr. Winton's room, just across from my apartment, was closed, and there was nobody in the hallway. I ran to the front door and out onto the porch.
Out front on the sidewalk, Jack Sebastian was turning around, looking. He had something in his hand. When he turned so light from the street lamp down on the corner shone on it, I could see that it was a long-barreled pistol. I ran out to join him.
"From Winton. It's a target pistol, a twenty-two. But it's better than throwing stones. Look, you sap, get back in there. You got no business out in the open."
I told him I was going to Roth's place, and started down the sidewalk at a trot.
"What's the score?" he called after me. "What makes you think it was that Cole kid and why the excitement about Roth?"
I saved my breath by not answering him. There'd be plenty of time for all that later. I could hear him running behind me. We pounded up the steps onto the porch of Dr. Roth's place.
"It's Brian Carter--and the police!" I called out while I rang the bell.
Maybe Jack Sebastian wasn't exactly the police, in the collective sense, but he was a detective, the youngest full-fledged detective on the force. Anyway, it wasn't the time for nice distinctions. I quit leaning on the bell and hammered on the door, and then yelled again.
The key turned in the lock and I stepped back. The door opened on the chain and Jeanette's white face appeared in the crack. She wasn't taking any chances.
Then, when she saw us, she slid back the chain and opened the door.
"Brian, what--" she began.
"Your father, Jeanette. Is he all right?"
"I--I knocked on his door after you phoned, Brian, and he didn't answer! The door's locked. Brian, what's wrong?"
Murder for a Million!
Out front a car swung into the curb with a squealing of brakes and two big men got out of it. They came running up the walk toward us and Jack stepped to the edge of the porch, where light from a street lamp would fall on his face and identify him to the two men. It also gleamed on the gun dangling from his hand.
Jeanette swayed against me and I put my arm around her shoulders. She was trembling.
"Maybe everything's okay, Jeanette," I said. "Maybe your father's just sleeping soundly. Anyway, these are the police coming now, so you're safe."
I heard Jack talking to the two detectives who'd come in the squad car, and then one of them started around the house, on the outside, using a flashlight. Jack and the other one joined us in the doorway.
"Let's go," Jack said. "Where's your father's room, Miss Roth?"
"Just a second, Jack," I said. I snapped on the hall lights and then went into the library and turned on the lights there and looked around to be sure nobody was there.
"You wait in here, Jeanette," I said then. "We'll go up and try your father's door again, and if he still doesn't answer, we'll have to break--"
Footsteps pounded across the porch again and the other detective, the one who'd started around the house, stood in the doorway.
"There's a ladder up the side of the house to a window on the second floor--northwest corner room," he said. "Nobody around unless he's upstairs, in there. Shall I go up the ladder, Sebastian?"
Jack looked at me, and I knew that he and I were thinking the same thing. The killer had come here first, and there wasn't any hurry now.
"I'll go up the ladder," he said. "We won't have to break the door now. Will you two guys search the house from attic to cellar and turn all the lights on and leave them on? And, Brian, you stay here with Miss Roth. Can I borrow your flashlight, Wheeler?"
I noticed that, by tacit consent, Jack was taking charge of the case and of the older detectives. Because, I presumed, he was the first one on the scene and had a better idea what it was all about.
One of the men handed over a flashlight and Jack went out-side. I led Jeanette into the library.
"Brian," she asked, "do you think Dad is--that something has happened to Dad?"
"We'll know for sure in a minute, darling. Why make guesses meanwhile? I don't know."
But--what happened that made you call me up?"
"Jack and I were playing chess at my place," I told her. "Some-one took a shot through the window. At me, not at Jack. The bullet went into the wall behind me and just over my head. I-- well, I had a sudden hunch who might have shot at me, and if my hunch was right, I thought he'd consider your father his enemy, too. I'm afraid he may be--mad."
"Alister Cole?"
"Have you noticed anything strange about him?" I asked her.
"Yes. He's always scared me, Brian, the way he's acted. And just last night, Dad remarked that--"
She broke off, standing there rigidly. Footsteps were coming down the stairs.
That would be Jack, of course. And the fact that he walked so slowly gave us the news in advance of his coming.
Anyway, when he stood in the doorway, Jeanette asked quietly, "Is he dead?" and Jack nodded.
Jeanette sat down on the sofa behind her and dropped her head into her hands, but she didn't cry.
"I'll phone headquarters," Jack said. "But first--you and he were alone in the house tonight, weren't you, Miss Roth?"
She looked up and her eyes were still dry. "Yes" she said. "Mother's staying overnight with my aunt--her sister--in town. This is going to hit her hard. Will you need me here? I--I think it would be best if I were the one to break it to her. I can dress and be there in half an hour. I can be back in an hour and a half. Will it be all right?"
Jack looked at me. "What do you think, Brian? You know this guy Cole and you know what this is all about. Would Miss Roth be in any danger if she left?"
"You could figure that yourself, Jack," I said. "Cole was here, alone in the house with her after he killed Dr. Roth, and he had all the time in the world because there hadn't been an alarm yet. But let me go with her, though, just to be sure."
He snorted. "Just to be sure--of what? He is after you, my fine friend. Until we get Cole under lock and key--and throw away the key--you're not getting out from under my eye."
"All right," I said, "so I'm indispensable. But everybody isn't, and this place will be full of police in a few minutes. If I'm not mistaken, that sounds like another squad car coming now. Why not have one of the boys in it use it to drive Miss Roth over to her aunt's?"
He nodded. "Okay, Miss Roth. I'll stick my neck out--even though Headquarters may cut it off. And Wheeler and Brach have finished looking around upstairs, so it'll be okay for you to go to your room if you want to change that housecoat for a dress."
He went to the front door to let the new arrivals in.
"I'm awfully sorry, Jeanette," I said then. "I know that sounds meaningless, but-- it's all I can think of to say."
She managed a faint smile. "You're a good egg, Brian. I'll be seeing you."
She held out her hand, and I took it. Then she ran up the stairs. Jack looked in at the doorway.
"I told the new arrivals to search the grounds," he said. "Not that they'll find anything, but it'll give 'em something to do. I got to phone Headquarters. You stay right here."
"Just a second, Jack," I said. "How was he killed?"
"A knife. Messy job. It was a psycho, all right."
"You say messy? Is there any chance Jeanette might go into-- ?"
He shook his head. "Wheeler's watching that door. He wouldn't let her go in.
Well, I got to phone--"
"Listen, Jack. Tell me one thing. How long, about, has he been dead? I mean, is there any chance Cole could have come here after he shot at me? I might have thought of phoning here, or getting here a minute or two sooner. I'd feel responsible if my slowness in reacting, my dumbness--"