“I can’t guarantee to make him feel better.”
“I suppose not. No.” She went in, ahead of him.
George lay in one of a pair of twin Holly-woods, pillows banked behind him, the purple, striped pajamas the only spot of color against the whiteness of candlewick spread, sheets and pillowslip.
Doranne clutched Pedley’s arm. “George! He dragged you up out of that awful basement!”
The treasurer scowled. “You did, Marshal?”
“Happened to get down there first, that’s all. One of the boys’d have brought you out if I hadn’t.” Pedley could see no sign of a scalp wound or bruise.
George’s scowl faded, was replaced by a growing grin. “Only trouble is, I’ll never be able to get even with you, for a thing like that, pal.” He held out his hand. “But I sure won’t forget it.”
Pedley put the wrench on the outstretched palm. “You see the party who tapped you with this?”
Fehlman gawked at the Stillson, looked up at the marshal, transferred his glance back to the green-handled tool. “I didn’t see a soul. I didn’t know, till I came to, up on the street, that Val Kreston had gone down and helped her upstairs.”
“The fire was set.” Pedley made no move to take the wrench back. “Somebody spilled two quarts of naptha on the rayon and satins on the wardrobe racks, touched a match to ’em. Someone who dropped this wrench on the dressing room floor.”
Doranne cried, “How’d he ever get down there!”
Pedley took the twisted bit of galvanized wire out of his overcoat pocket. “Anyone who could get around the Belfonte without being noticed while the panic-bolts were being gimmicked with this stuff, wouldn’t have had much trouble.”
Hail, Hail, began the chimes.
“The doctor,” Doranne hurried out, closed the door behind her.
The marshal hefted the wire thoughtfully. “This turns out to be a murder case, not just a matter of arson, George.”
The treasurer huddled down against the pillows. “Did anyone get—”
“One of the stagehands couldn’t get down from the flys in time. Some of that brickwork broke the back of a ladderman when they were soaking down.” Pedley rubbed the scar welt on his jaw. “If the doc says you’re all right to ride downtown, I’ll have to ask you and Lily to come along and make some depositions.”
George hesitated. “Sure... sure. Anything to help.”
“Your wife told you about Ted Wilter.”
“Yes.” George looked sick. “I hope you get a statement out of him!”
“Don’t fret yourself into a sweat about that,” Pedley opened the door. “We will.”
He closed the door, stepped to the living-room.
A muzzle jabbed him in the short ribs. “Stick your thumbs in your ears, fire laddie!” It was Ted Wilter, wild-eyed and pale-lipped, the automatic in one hand, a morning paper folded in the other.
Pedley clasped his hands over the top of his head.
Doranne whispered, “I didn’t know who it was! He came in before I realized!” She stood, rigid, backed against the mantel by the fireplace.
Wilter’s voice shook. “You realized enough to spill to th’ stinkin’ papers!” He hurled the early edition on the divan.
Black type blazoned—
“Gave ’em my name, the whole story,” the ex-con trembled with rage. “What chance’ve I got now! I’m as good as strapped in the chair already! And I haven’t been within a mile of the theatre since four o’clock!”
She whimpered, “Ted — put that gun down!”
“Hah! So ol’ horse-puss here’ll railroad me up river again! When I haven’t done one thing except shell out five bucks to see you.”
George coughed gently. He stood straddle-legged by the open door of the bedroom. The gun in his hand might have been a duplicate of the one Wilter held.
“You might,” he coughed, “as well take your medicine,” George said.
“Think y’ got me cornered, don’t ya?” Wilter’s shoulders hunched forward like a boxer’s. “Think you’ll pin it all on me, don’t ya?” His eyes opened very wide. “Th’ dog has a bad name so you can blame him for any—”
George’s gun spoke flatly.
Wilter’s shoulders straightened with a jerk. His pistol exploded so closely after the other it sounded, in that quiet apartment, like an echo.
Pedley went for the treasurer as Wilter crumpled, wrested George’s gun away. “You seem to have plenty of stuff left,” Pedley shoved him toward the divan, “I guess we won’t send you back to bed just yet.”
Doranne held her hands over her eyes, sobbing.
Wilter groaned. “You really gave it to me. But I’d soon get it this way as get fried for somethin’ I didn’t do.”
Pedley knelt beside him. “You’re leaking a lot. But that hole in your shoulder shouldn’t keep you in the hospital for four years. Lie still. There’ll be a doc here before long. He’ll fix you up so you won’t bleed to death.”
“I never set the fire,” Wilter said tightly.
“I know you didn’t,” the marshal stood up. “The bug who did took a lot of pains to plant it on you, though. Wire from that duct job Eureka was doing at the theatre. A stillson one of you left lying around; all the tools you lug around in your truck’s painted green, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. But if you knew?” Wilter grimaced with pain.
“One of my deputies was on your tail all evening. I had a report from him ten minutes before I came up here. He says you were in a Seventy-ninth street beer joint at nine-twenty, when the alarm went in.”
“Cripes! If anybody’d ever told me I’d be glad I knew you!” Wilter closed his eyes.
Pedley stared down at him morosely. “Told the warden I’d go to hell to help you, if you meant to play it straight. Damn near did, too. If it hadn’t been for that ticket—”
George asked, “What ticket?”
“Ducat for Bedtime Story tonight. Middle of the tenth row. Idea was, I’d find out Wilter’d been in that seat last night, figure he’d sent it to me.”
Doranne took her hands away from her eyes. “Anyone would know a fireman doesn’t need a ticket to get into a theatre.”
“Not anyone,” Pedley was curt. “You would. That’s why you sent it to me.”
Doranne’s face paled.
Wilter groaned.
George came off the divan in a fury. “Damn you, don’t you dare—”
“Put it back where you took it from,” the marshal said wearily.
George sat down.
“You don’t have to play straight man for her any longer,” Pedley went on. “If you haven’t already doped out you were to be the patsy while Wilter was nabbed as the goat, chances are you won’t believe it now. But she clunked you with that wrench after touching off the wardrobe stuff.”
Doranne whimpered, “What are you saying?”
He ignored her. “She knew you’d come pelting down to the dressing room the minute you learned she was in danger, George. She waited for you and socked you cold. If I hadn’t gone down there, you’d be a shovelful of cinders by now.”
The treasurer’s face was a contortion. “No!” he muttered. “I don’t believe it. Not one word of it. Why would she? Why should she? She knows I’d do anything in the world—”
“Yair, she knows, all right.” Pedley blew smoke past the muzzle of George’s gun. “One trouble with her. Too easy for her to get a man, too simple to hold one. She didn’t want that. She wanted the kick of getting a new one. I’d say this Val Kreston, at a guess.”