“Guy by the name of Harte, Lieutenant,” Lovejoy said, and then appended a summary of my previous criminal record. “I booked him for speeding just last week.”
He may have said something more; I don’t know. I was staring past the lieutenant in at the study door. The shock of my icy plunge was no worse than the one I got now. There were two bodies on the floor!
Dudley Wolff was sprawled face down in a curiously twisted attitude. A dark wet stain spread from beneath his body near his chest out on across the carpet. Beyond him, in a pale rose dressing-gown, lay Anne Wolff. The curtains at the open window swayed slightly, the only sign of movement in the room.
I looked at the lieutenant, at the hard eyes that were as icy cold as the water in the Sound outside.
“Dead?” I said.
He nodded slowly. “Yes. What do you know about it?”
“N-Nothing.” I tried hard to sound confident, but my chattering teeth destroyed that illusion completely. “I h-heard the shots. That’s all. I was busy t-trying to keep m-my head above water.”
“How’d you get out there? Why—”
Merlini interrupted. “Lieutenant. He won’t be any use as a witness if he dies of pneumonia. Play your game of twenty questions later. I’m going to—”
The lieutenant had to concede Merlini that point. He turned, threw open the door of Wolff’s bedroom, switched on the light, and said, “Okay, Sergeant. In here. Thaw him out, but stick with him.”
Lovejoy and I hurried in. Merlini tried to come too, but the lieutenant stopped him. “Not you. Phillips can help him. I want to know who you are, what you’re doing here, and how come you seem to know so damned much about lockpicking. Why—”
Then the door closed behind us. “Your b-boss,” I told the sergeant as he helped me strip off my wet clothes, “has a surprise or two c-coming his way.”
“Yeah?” he said as he discovered the revolver in my trousers, and drew it out. “Maybe he’s not the only one.”
I had the uncomfortable feeling that the sergeant had said himself a mouthful. But the verification didn’t come until later. For the next half-hour or so I was busy defrosting. After drying me off, Lovejoy and Phillips buried me in the bed beneath layers of hot-water bottles and blankets, and plied me with whisky.
The rest of the house also hummed with activity. Several times the sound of sirens outside heralded the arrival of official re-enforcements in carload lots. And shortly, a brisk, worried man who turned out to be Doctor Haggard hurried in, okayed the anti-chill treatment, made an additional suggestion or two, quickly examined the bump on my head, and concluded, “You’ll be all right. Get some sleep.”
I was tired. Every last muscle and bone in my body ached. But sleep was definitely not what I wanted most just at this point. I said so flatly, and, suspecting that Haggard had already had a look, added, “What happened in that study? I’ve got to know—”
But the Gestapo clamped down. Lovejoy shook his head at the doctor and led him toward the door. I didn’t like his attitude, the whispered conference between them, nor the careful way Lovejoy locked the door as Haggard went out. It looked damned suspicious.
“Now look here, Sergeant,” I said seriously. “Are you and the lieutenant jumping at conclusions because of that gun I had? Just what goes on? Is this my cue to call for a lawyer?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said just as seriously but not very convincingly. You heard the doctor. He said sleep. Start doing it.” He handed me another dose of the medicinal, twenty-year-old, bonded Scotch.
“Sleep! Another ten minutes of this and I’ll be as tight as a hoot owl. How can I sleep at a time like this?”
“Why not?” Lovejoy asked, trying hard to look sly. “Guilty conscience?”
That gave me an idea. “Yes,” I said. “Something like that. Get the lieutenant in here. I want to make a confession.”
It worked. His eyes popped. He turned and made for the door. “Get Flint,” he told the uniformed cop who stood outside. “He wants to talk.”
But the lieutenant, apparently up to his neck in other things, didn’t come immediately. And when he did come, if he did, I never knew it. Ten minutes later I was sound asleep. Lovejoy, as I afterward discovered, had spiked that last drink with Luminal which Haggard had supplied when I showed signs of being obstinate.
When I awoke, Merlini was shaking me and the cold gray light of dawn was beginning to glow at the windows.’
“Wake up,” he said. “Morning’s at seven — or maybe a bit earlier — and the hillside’s dew-pearled; the lark’s on the wing, and the inquisition is about to inquisit.”
Lieutenant Flint was there too, pouring himself a drink from the bottle at my bedside. Both men looked tired and unhappy. Flint, in addition, had a badly frayed temper. I suspected that he had been hearing ghost stories and not liking them. He didn’t look as if that sort of thing was his dish of tea. As I tried to shake the sleep from my eyes, he walked around the room giving it a careful once-over. He eyed the stack of steel file cabinets in the corner thoughtfully, and then went to the window overlooking the Sound. He opened it, put his head out and scowled down at the water.
I scowled too, remembering something. “Is that burglar alarm on duty at the moment?” I asked.
Flint turned. “Yeah. Why?”
“You just put your head out the window. I don’t hear any bells.
“No,” Flint said. “Wolff apparently didn’t think it was needed on the windows directly over the water.” He paused, then added slowly, “I guess he didn’t figure on a murderer making a getaway by doing a high dive out into the Sound.”
I tried to overlook that crack. “So that’s why there were no loud alarms when I put out to sea. I was wondering about that.”
Then Flint pounced like a hungry cat. “So you admit you were in the study? And you dived out the window after the shooting, and—”
I shook my head energetically. “Hold it! You’re way ahead of me. I was in the study; I’ll admit that. And I did leave by the window, but I didn’t dive out. And the shooting—”
Flint leaned above the bed like a movie district attorney. He stopped just short of shaking his finger under my nose. “If you didn’t dive out, how the hell—”
I appealed to Merlini. “Is there any way to make him sit down quietly and listen, or is his St. Vitus’s dance incurably chronic?”
“It’s chronic and epidemic,” Merlini answered. “I’m latching it myself. Will you please—”
Both men were even more upset than I had realized. Flint turned on Merlini and exploded. “Will you sit down and shut up? Okay, Harte, talk fast and make it hold water.”
“Water? Don’t mention it. I’ll have a relapse. I was in the study and I went out the window, but I didn’t dive or jump. I was thrown out with a weight tied to my ankles!”
That stopped him. I couldn’t have rocked him harder it I’d hit him on the head.
Merlini closed his eyes hopelessly. “There you are, Lieutenant,” he groaned. “The mystery of the missing andiron and light cord explained. I was afraid of this. And I have an awful premonition that Ross’s story isn’t going to help matters a bit. It’s going to make them worse!”
Flint, recovering somewhat, ignored him. “And just who,” he demanded, “threw you out?”
I reached quickly for the bottle of Scotch. This wasn’t going to be any fun — not if I told the unvarnished truth. And I didn’t see what else I could tell — not without sticking my neck out even farther than it projected already.
I looked at Merlini. “He’s heard about our haunt, I suppose?”
Merlini blinked at me and nodded. “Yes. He has. But he doesn’t care for it much. You’d better treat the subject gently, if at all.”
“It didn’t treat me gently. It tried to murder me. It knocked me out, tied me up, and threw me in the drink.”