“All right,” Tragg said. “Now, if there’s any change, I want to know about it. And if it looks bad, I’ll want to get a death-bed statement.”
Dr. Rosllyn laughed. “I don’t think you’re going to have the chance. That boy wants to live. He’s nuts over some girl or other, and, until I put him under with a whiff of gas, was rambling on how glad he was he got shot because that way he found out how much she loves him! Can you beat it? The only thing that’s bothering him is that the bullet knocked him over and he couldn’t get the man who did it. All right, Lieutenant, let me know when you want me to be a witness and identify that bullet.”
Lieutenant Tragg made his way down to the fourth floor, tip-toed down the corridor to 481, gently pushed open the door.
A nurse was standing in the far corner of the room. Helen Kendal, self-conscious and embarrassed, was seated on a chair by the foot of the bed. “I’m so glad,” she was saying as Lieutenant Tragg opened the door.
Jerry Templar frowned at the new interruption standing in the doorway.
Tragg smiled at him cheerfully. “Hello! You don’t feel much like talking now, but I’ve got a couple of questions to ask you. Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide.”
Templar closed his eyes, let the lids flutter open, looked at Tragg for a moment as though having some difficulty getting his eyes in focus, then grinned back and said, “Shoot!”
“Not twice in the same night,” Tragg protested. “Now you answer as briefly as you can, because you’re not supposed to talk much.”
Jerry nodded.
“Who fired the shots?” Tragg asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Could you see anything at all?”
“Just a little motion — a blurred figure moving.”
“Tall or short?”
“Couldn’t say... a corner of the room moved, then came the shots.”
“Could this person have been shooting at Helen instead of you?”
That thought galvanized Templar into hard-eyed attention. “How’s that? Shooting at Helen?”
“Could that have been the case?”
“Don’t know. Can’t think that out. Yes... yes... might have. I never...”
“I’m sorry, but the patient mustn’t be excited,” came a droning voice from the nurse in the corner.
Lieutenant Tragg looked at Helen Kendal’s proudly stiff figure, thought of the baffled, thwarted expression on Templar’s face as he opened the door. He grinned at the nurse, and said, “Sister, I’ve been talking with the doctor, and I can tell you right now you’re in the right church, but in the wrong pew. This shooting, mysterious as it is, has started to clear up some mighty important things that would get all cleared up once and for all if you’d just relax and go and get yourself a cup of coffee. I may not know a darn thing about medicine, but I know something of human nature, and if you’d get out of here for about five minutes and leave these two people alone, it would do your patient more good than anything in the world. He was telling the doctor all about it during the operation. Why not give him a chance to tell her about it now?”
The nurse glanced at Templar, then her garments rustled as she moved quietly around the foot of the bed toward the door.
Lieutenant Tragg said, “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”
“You only have a minute,” the nurse warned Helen Kendal.
Tragg held the door open for the nurse, caught the glint of Helen Kendal’s eyes, and pushed the door shut behind him. “Give her as long as you can,” he said to the nurse.
She walked with him down toward the elevator. “You certainly spoke your piece.”
Tragg grinned. “I had to. Pride has busted up more romances than jealousy. Guy didn’t want to say anything because he’s in the Army. Girl shows how she feels when she’s riding up to the hospital with him, and then becomes suddenly self-conscious, thinks she’s been forward, and waits for him to make the next move. He’s afraid perhaps she’s changed her mind. Neither one of them want to say anything, and you standing there...”
“I stood back in the corner out of the way.”
Tragg grinned and said, “Well, I’ve started something, anyway.”
Whistling a little tune, Tragg pushed the button for the elevator, went down to the street floor, walked through the long lines of hushed corridors out into the cold, stinging tang of the night air.
He got into his police car, and drove rapidly to headquarters. An irritable Scotchman in the laboratory said, “I dinna suppose this could a’ waited until nine o’clock.”
“It couldn’t,” Tragg said. “You’ve got the bullet the autopsy surgeon gave you from the body of Henry Leech?”
“Yes.”
Tragg handed him two bullets from his vest pocket. “The one with the three straight lines on it was recovered in an operation performed on Jerry Templar. The other one was dug out of some woodwork beside the door in which Templar and the girl were standing when Templar was shot. Now then, how long will it take you to tell me whether those three are from the same gun?”
“I don’t know,” the Scotchman said with singular pessimism. “It’ll all depend. It may take a long while. It may take a short while.”
“Make it take a short while,” Tragg said. “I’m going down to my office. Give me a ring. And don’t mix those bullets up. Perry Mason’s on the other side of this case, and you know what he’ll do to you on cross-examination.”
“He’ll na do a thing to me in cross-examination,” the man at the laboratory bench said, adjusting the eyepieces on a comparison microscope. “He’ll have no chance. I’ll take micro-photographs, and let the camera speak for me. A man’s a fool to talk wi’ his tongue when he can get a camera lens to do it for him.”
Tragg smiled, then pausing in the doorway, announced, “I’ve declared open season on Mr. Perry Mason. I’m going to teach that boy not to cut corners.”
“You’d better be buyin’ yourself an alarm clock,” Angus MacIntosh grunted as he settled himself to his task. “Ye’ll be gettin’ up early in the morning, Mister Lieutenant.”
Tragg paused in the act of closing the door to say, “I’ve already got one.” Then he gently slipped the door shut and walked down to his office.
Tragg made a little grimace, as the dead odor of stale smoke assailed his nostrils. He went to the windows, opened them, and shivered slightly as the dry cold of the before-dawn air stole into the room. He rubbed exploratory fingers across the angle of his jaw, feeling the stubble, and frowned as he noticed the oil which had been transferred from his skin to his fingertips. He felt sticky, dirty, and tired.
He crossed to the coat closet which contained a wash stand, turned on hot water, washed his hands and face, and was drying himself with a towel when the telephone rang.
Tragg walked over to pick up the receiver.
“Yes?”
The voice of the Scotchman in the laboratory department said, “I havena got ’em in the most advantageous positions yet so that I can make the best possible photograph, but I can tell you one thing. The three bullets came from the same gun. Now then, how soon will ye be wantin’ photographs?”
“Just as soon as I can get ’em,” Tragg said.
The Scotchman groaned. “Ye was always an impatient lad,” he observed, and hung up the receiver.
Tragg grinned his satisfaction.
Once more the telephone rang. The man on duty at the switchboard said hurriedly, “Here’s an anonymous tip for you, Lieutenant. Won’t talk with anyone else. Says he’s going to hang up in exactly sixty seconds, and there’s no use trying to trace the call.”
“Got it so you can listen in?” Tragg asked.