“Don’t be a fool. He’s got a gun.”
There was a sharp knock on the door, and we neither of us moved until the knock came again, louder. Then we heard Professor Winton’s high, nervous voice.
“Brian, was that a shot a minute ago? Are you all right?”
Jack muttered something under his breath and groped for the door handle. In the receiver against my ear I could hear Dr. Roth’s phone still ringing. He hadn’t answered yet. I put my hand over the mouthpiece.
“I’m all right, Dr. Winton,” I called out.
By that time, Jack had found the knob and opened the door. Light streamed into the room from the hallway outside, and he stepped through the door quickly and closed it behind him.
“Someone shot through the window, Doctor,” I heard him say, “but everything’s under control. We’ve called the police. Better get back inside your room, though, till they get here.”
Dr. Winton’s voice said something, excitedly, but I didn’t hear what, because Jeanette Roth’s voice, husky and beautiful, but definitely sleepy, was saying “Hello,” in my ear. I forgot Jack and Winton and concentrated my attention on the phone.
I talked fast. “This is Brian Carter, Jeanette,” I said. “Listen, this is important. It’s maybe life and death. Just do what I say and don’t argue. First, be sure all the lights in your house are out, all doors and windows locked tight—bolted, if they’ve got bolts. Then don’t answer the door, unless you’re sure it’s the police—or me. I’m coming over, too, but the police may get there first.”
“Brian, what on earth—?”
“Don’t argue, darling,” I said. “Do those things, fast. Lights out. Everything locked. And don’t answer the door unless it’s me or the police!”
I hung up on her. I knew she’d do it faster that way than if I stayed on the line.
I groped my way through the dark room and out into the lighted hallway. The door to Dr. Winton’s room, just across from my apartment, was closed, and there was nobody in the hallway. I ran to the front door and out onto the porch.
Out front on the sidewalk, Jack Sebastian was turning around, looking. He had something in his hand. When he turned so light from the street lamp down on the corner shone on it, I could see that it was a long-barreled pistol. I ran out to join him.
“From Winton. It’s a target pistol, a twenty-two. But it’s better than throwing stones. Look, you sap, get back in there. You got no business out in the open.”
I told him I was going to Roth’s place, and started down the sidewalk at a trot.
“What’s the score?” he called after me. “What makes you think it was that Cole kid and why the excitement about Roth?”
I saved my breath by not answering him. There’d be plenty of time for all that later. I could hear him running behind me. We pounded up the steps onto the porch of Dr. Roth’s place.
“It’s Brian Carter—and the police!” I called out while I rang the bell.
Maybe Jack Sebastian wasn’t exactly the police, in the collective sense, but he was a detective, the youngest full-fledged detective on the force. Anyway, it wasn’t the time for nice distinctions. I quit leaning on the bell and hammered on the door, and then yelled again.
The key turned in the lock and I stepped back. The door opened on the chain and Jeanette’s white face appeared in the crack. She wasn’t taking any chances. Then, when she saw us, she slid back the chain and opened the door.
“Brian, what—” she began.
“Your father, Jeanette. Is he all right?”
“I—I knocked on his door after you phoned, Brian, and he didn’t answer! The door’s locked. Brian, what’s wrong?”
Chapter II
Murder for a Million!
OUT FRONT a car swung into the curb with a squealing of brakes and two big men got out of it. They came running up the walk toward us and Jack stepped to the edge of the porch, where light from a street lamp would fall on his face and identify him to the two men. It also gleamed on the gun dangling from his hand.
Jeanette swayed against me and I put my arm around her shoulders. She was trembling.
“Maybe everything’s okay, Jeanette,” I said. “Maybe your father’s just sleeping soundly. Anyway, these are the police coming now, so you’re safe.”
I heard Jack talking to the two detectives who’d come in the squad car, and then one of them started around the house, on the outside, using a flashlight. Jack and the other one joined us in the doorway.
“Let’s go,” Jack said. “Where’s your father’s room, Miss Roth?”
“Just a second, Jack,” I said. I snapped on the hall lights and then went into the library and turned on the lights there and looked around to be sure nobody was there.
“You wait in here, Jeanette,” I said then. “We’ll go up and try your father’s door again, and if he still doesn’t answer, we’ll have to break—”
Footsteps pounded across the porch again and the other detective, the one who’d started around the house, stood in the doorway.
“There’s a ladder up the side of the house to a window on the second floor—northwest corner room,” he said. “Nobody around unless he’s upstairs, in there. Shall I go up the ladder, Sebastian?”
Jack looked at me, and I knew that he and I were thinking the same thing. The killer had come here first, and there wasn’t any hurry now.
“I’ll go up the ladder,” he said. “We won’t have to break the door now. Will you two guys search the house from attic to cellar and turn all the lights on and leave them on? And, Brian, you stay here with Miss Roth. Can I borrow your flashlight, Wheeler?”
I noticed that, by tacit consent, Jack was taking charge of the case and of the older detectives. Because, I presumed, he was the first one on the scene and had a better idea what it was all about.
One of the men handed over a flashlight and Jack went outside. I led Jeanette into the library.
“Brian,” she asked, “do you think Dad is—that something has happened to Dad?”
“We’ll know for sure in a minute, darling. Why make guesses meanwhile? I don’t know.”
But—what happened that made you call me up?”
“Jack and I were playing chess at my place,” I told her. “Someone took a shot through the window. At me, not at Jack. The bullet went into the wall behind me and just over my head. I— well, I had a sudden hunch who might have shot at me, and if my hunch was right, I thought he’d consider your father his enemy, too. I’m afraid he may be—mad.”
“Alister Cole?”
“Have you noticed anything strange about him?” I asked her.
“Yes. He’s always scared me, Brian, the way he’s acted. And just last night, Dad remarked that—”
She broke off, standing there rigidly. Footsteps were coming down the stairs. That would be Jack, of course. And the fact that he walked so slowly gave us the news in advance of his coming.
Anyway, when he stood in the doorway, Jeanette asked quietly, “Is he dead?” and Jack nodded.
Jeanette sat down on the sofa behind her and dropped her head into her hands, but she didn’t cry.
“I’ll phone headquarters,” Jack said. “But first—you and he were alone in the house tonight, weren’t you, Miss Roth?”
She looked up and her eyes were still dry. “Yes” she said. “Mother’s staying overnight with my aunt—her sister—in town. This is going to hit her hard. Will you need me here? I—I think it would be best if I were the one to break it to her. I can dress and be there in half an hour. I can be back in an hour and a half. Will it be all right?”