And suddenly I realized how near Dave had come to getting away with it. He would have, for all of me or Sam. Offhand, you’d say only another flute player could have—
“Gawd, Mac,” I said, “I just remembered that you didn’t answer me before when I asked if you played the flute. Do you?”
“I was just considering,” he said, “showing you how this would sound if it were well played. It’s not bad music, really.” He reached deeper in his brief case and came up with a black leather case that proved to be plush lining and the sections of a dismembered flute. And darned if it didn’t sound not so bad at that, the way he played it.
I’ve had mine a month now, and I can play “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and a few other easy ones. Only, as my wife acrimoniously points out, if another fancy murder is ever pulled off in Crogan County, it’ll probably be planned by a chess player instead of a flute player, and I’ll make a fool of myself again because I don’t know a pawn from a bishop, except that the knights look like horses.
But a guy can’t be an expert in everything, and what’s good enough for a guy like McGuire, who can solve a case practically while it’s happening, is good enough for a guy like me.
The Cat from Siam
Chapter I
The Locked Door
WE WERE in the middle of our third game of chess when it happened.
It was late in the evening—eleven thirty-five, to be exact. Jack Sebastian and I were in the living room of my two-room bachelor apartment. We had the chess game set up on the card table in front of the fireplace, in which the gas grate burned cheerfully.
Jack looked cheerful too. He was wreathed in smoke from his smelliest pipe and he had me a pawn down and held a positional edge. I’d taken the first two games, but this one looked like his. It didn’t look any less so when he moved his knight and said, “Check.” My rook was forked along with the king. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it except give up the rook for the knight.
I looked up at the Siamese cat who was sleepily watching us from her place of vantage on the mantel.
“Looks like he’s got us, Beautiful,” I said. “One should never play with a policeman.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, dammit,” Jack said. “You give me the willies.”
“Anything’s fair in love and chess,” I told him. “If it gives you the willies to have me talk to a cat, that’s fine. Besides, Beautiful doesn’t kibitz. If you see her give me any signals, I’ll concede.”
“Go ahead and move,” he said, irritably. “You’ve got only one move that takes you out of check, so make it. I take your rook, and then—”
There was a noise, then, that I didn’t identify for a second because it was made up of a crack and a ping and a thud. It wasn’t until I turned to where part of the sound came from that I realized what it had been. There was a little round hole in the glass of the window.
The crack had been a shot, the ping had been the bullet coming through the glass—and the thud had been the bullet going into the wall behind me!
But by the time I had that figured out, the chessmen were spilling into my lap.
“Down, quick!” Jack Sebastian was saying sharply.
Whether I got there myself, or Jack pushed me there, I was on the floor. And by that time I was thinking.
Grabbing the cord of the lamp, I jerked the plug out of the wall and we were in darkness except for the reddish-yellow glow of the gas grate in the fireplace. The handle of that was on Jack’s side, and I saw him, on his knees, reach out and turn it.
Then there was complete darkness. I looked toward where the window should be, but it was a moonless night and I couldn’t see even the faintest outline of the window. I slid sideways until I bumped against the sofa. Jack Sebastian’s voice came to me out of the darkness.
“Have you got a gun, Brian?” he asked.
I shook my head and then realized he couldn’t see me. “No,” I said. “What would I be doing with a gun?”
My voice, even to me, sounded hoarse and strained. I heard Jack moving.
“The question is,” he said, “what’s the guy outside doing with one? Anybody after you, pal?”
“N-no,” I said. “At least, not—”
I heard a click that told me Jack had found the telephone. He gave a number and added, “Urgent, sister. This is the police.” Then his voice changed tone and he said, “Brian, what’s the score? Don’t you know anything about who or why—”
He got his connection before he could finish the question and his voice changed pitch again.
“Jack Sebastian, Cap,” he said. “Forty-five University Lane. Forty-five University Lane. Somebody just took a pot-shot in the window here. Head the squad cars this way from all directions they can come from. Especially the campus—that’s the logical way for him to lose himself if he’s on foot. Start ‘em. I’ll hold the line.”
Then he was asking me again, “Brian, what can I add? Quick.”
“Tell ‘em to watch for a tall, slender, young man,” I said. “Twenty-one years old, thin face, blond hair.”
“The hell,” he said. “Alister Cole?”
“Could be,” I told him. “It’s the only guess I can make. I can be wrong, but—”
“Hold it.” Whoever he’d been talking to at the police station was back on the line. Without mentioning the name, Jack gave the description I’d just given to him. He said, “Put that on the radio and come back in.”
Again to me, “Anything else?”
“Yes,” I said. “Tell ‘em to converge those squad cars on Doc Roth’s place, Two-ten University Lane. Forget sending them here. Get them there. Quick!”
“Why? You think if it’s Alister Cole, he’s going for Doc Roth, too?”
“Don’t argue. Tell ‘em. Hurry!”
I was on my feet by now, trying to grope my way across the pitch black room to the telephone to join him. I stepped on a chessman and it rolled and nearly threw me. I swore and got my lighter out of my pocket and flicked the wheel.
The tiny flame lighted part of the room dimly. The faint wavering light threw long dancing shadows. On the mantel, the Siamese was standing, her back arched and her tail thick. Her blue eyes caught and held the light like blue jewels.
“Put that out, you fool,” Jack snapped.
“He isn’t standing there at the window,” I said impatiently. “He wouldn’t stay there after we doused the light. Tell them what I said about Roth’s, quick.”
“Hello, Cap. Listen, get some of the cars to Two-ten University Lane instead. Two-one-oh. Fast. No, I don’t know what this is about either. Just do it. We can find out later. The guy who took a shot here might go there. That’s all I know. So long.”
He put the receiver back on the hook to end argument. I was there by that time, and had the receiver in my hand.
“Sorry, Jack,” I said, and shoved him out of the way. I gave Dr. Roth’s number and added, “Keep ringing till they answer.”
I held the receiver tight against my ear and waited. I realized I was still holding up the tiny torch of the cigarette lighter and I snapped it shut. The room snapped again into utter darkness.
“You stay in here,” Jack said. “I’m going out.”