“Hey,” I exploded, “what—”
Her whisper, as she passed, said, “Nix! Phone me from your room.” Then she was gone, and the door slammed jarringly behind her.
“Damn!” I muttered under my breath. “Things happen around here so fast I can’t—”
At the hall’s end I saw Merlini, who had been at my side a moment before, cautiously disappearing down the back stairs. His attitude indicated that he was up to no good. I didn’t get that either. I shook my head hopelessly, hitched up my trailing blankets, and went back to the bedroom.
The phone there was a flossy intercommunicating gadget with a row of buttons on its base as long as your arm. I lifted the receiver and jabbed at the one opposite Kay’s name. She was already at the other end of the wire, waiting.
“Ross,” she said quickly. “Flint suspects you, doesn’t he?”
“Well, frankly, he has hinted at something like that once or twice. What was that high-hat act in the hall for just now?”
“Flint. He was watching. Dunning told him that Dad had threatened to cut me out of his will.”
I tried to concentrate. “Are you making sense? Or does my condition make things sound that way? I don’t get it.”
“Flint figures that gives you a motive. So I told him we weren’t speaking. I told him I hated the sight of you, that you were the last person on earth I’d ever marry. I said you were a dope.” Her voice quavered, an SOS quality in it. “Darling, I wish you were here!”
“I will be as soon as I find some pants.”
“Ross, no! Flint will think—”
“Do him good. Besides, it’s nothing to the things he thinks already. And anyway, he didn’t act as though he believed your story when he talked to me.”
“I was afraid he didn’t. That’s why I acted as I did. I thought some corroborative evidence might help. We’ve got to pretend—”
This was too much. “No!” I objected flatly. “Life’s too damn complicated now. I’m coming—”
Behind me a voice commanded, “Ross, get off that phone!” I turned. Merlini was bearing down on me. He jerked the receiver from my hand. “Who is it?” he whispered.
“Kay. What’s eating you? Why—”
He spoke into the mouthpiece. “This is Merlini. Hang up. And keep off the phone. Explain later.”
He clamped his hand tightly over the mouthpiece. “And Ross, if you lay another egg like you did the last time I tried to eavesdrop—”
“Eavesdrop? But how—”
“I detoured around Flint and got into the library. I hid the phone in the library-table drawer and took the receiver off the hook. We’ve got a direct wire. If he doesn’t hear your bodiless voice floating round the room, we may be able to stay up to date on this case. Or would you rather spend your time between now and the trial in clink?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I growled, “My nervous system needs peace and quiet.”
Merlini, suddenly intent on the phone, waved at me frantically. I subsided, and began hunting through Wolff’s wardrobe for clothes that weren’t too short and too wide. There were none, but I pulled out an assortment and got into them anyway.
Merlini, ear glued to the phone, looked around as I drew a shirt over my head. “Go back to bed with your hot-water bottles and blankets,” he said. “Flint won’t be letting you go any place anyway, unless it’s headquarters.”
“No,” I objected. “Those blankets keep slipping. I’m no Indian. Besides, I’ve got a date and I wouldn’t want the lieutenant to get any more wrong ideas. He’s overstocked now. How’s the play-by-play broadcast coming?”
“It lags at the moment. Haggard has deposed that he lives alone — Soundview Apartments in Mamaroneck. Says he was in bed when Phillips phoned. Might be. No corroboration. Driving time: five minutes, and the call didn’t go out until ten after the shooting. He’s insisted his fingerprints must have been left in the study a couple of weeks ago, he doesn’t remember exactly when.
“Flint called that one. Galt’s statement says he was in there a week ago Saturday night, just before Wolff suddenly decided to lock the study up. Flint naturally wanted to know more. The doctor hemmed and hawed. And Flint is now reading him a riot act, Type A, No. 6. I hope—”
He stopped suddenly and gave his full attention to the phone. I crossed the room and put my ear close to the receiver, but Merlini was holding it so tightly against his own that I couldn’t hear a thing. I could see from the expression on his face that I was missing front-page copy.
“Haggard’s talking?” I whispered.
Merlini nodded, and motioned me to be still. I turned and hurried to the door. The hall outside was clear. I slipped out, hugged the wall as I passed the stair well, and made Kay’s room undetected. Her door was unlocked. I pushed it open an inch or two.
“Kay, are you decent?”
“Flint won’t think so,” she replied, “not if he finds you—”
“He won’t.” I ducked in. “He’s busy. Where’s your phone?”
I saw it, before she could answer, on a table beside the bed. I sat down and scooped up the receiver.
Kay crossed the room. “You and Merlini are up to something. What—”
I kept one hand over the mouthpiece. “Ssh! Special broadcast on a nationwide hookup by the Flint-Haggard ensemble. Sit down and be quiet like a mouse. We’re on the air too.”
Haggard’s voice was faint and far away, but I got enough to catch the gist of his story.
“The man in the photo,” he was saying. “He cut the phone cord. Dunning found him in the study going through Wolff’s private files. He called Wolff. Galt and I — waited, talking. Ten minutes later Dunning came back — nervous, upset — said Wolff wanted me. I went up. The stranger — an FBI man named Garner — blackmailing Wolff. When he tried to put the screws on—”
“FBI man?” Flint must have been sitting right over the phone. His voice rattled the receiver in my hand. “How did Wolff know that?”
“Identification card. I saw it later.”
“Well that’s one thing I can check anyway. What did he have on Wolff?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Wolff took a swing at him and laid him out. When I got there—” Haggard’s voice was reluctant. Flint had made him talk, but he wasn’t enjoying it. He stalled now completely.
The lieutenant ordered, “Get on with it!”
Haggard’s voice had a deflated sound. I just managed to make out the words.
“When I got there, the man was dead.”
Flint didn’t say a thing for a full minute. I stopped breathing myself. Kay squeezed my arm.
“Ross, what is it?”
“Dynamite,” I said weakly. “Haggard’s identified the ghost. A man he saw in your father’s study a week ago. And he was D.O.A.”
“D.O.A.?”
“Dead on arrival.”
Then Flint spoke. His voice was the voice of doom. “Why wasn’t that reported to the police at the time?”
Hopelessly Haggard said, “I tried to. But Wolff was on a spot — the newspapers — Mrs. Wolff backed him up. We argued—”
“She was there too?”
“Yes. Wolff was completely unreasonable, and halfcrazy with fear. He was obsessed by death — amounted to a phobia. When he struck the man and then found that he’d killed—”
“That’s no reason for not reporting,” Flint said coldly. “And you know it.”
“There was another. I had to have more funds for my research — right on the edge — something big. Wolff knew that. He said I’d not get the money I needed unless—”
“Unless you helped him cover up.”
“Yes.” Haggard’s voice rose. “Dammit! He had me cold. If I brought a newspaper barrage of that sort of publicity down around his head, I’d—”