“They aren’t seances. I’ve explained—”
“It’s just unlikely,” I went on without paying any attention to his interruption, “for us not to have found something you wouldn’t want found. Not even letters tied in blue ribbon. Not a scrap of a notation about one of your customers.”
“Clients.”
“Clients, then. Nothing at all. I just don’t believe it, Barranya. And if you knew this apartment would be searched, then you knew Randall was going to be killed. That means you killed him, somehow.”
“Brilliant, Sergeant. Have your deductions gone any farther?”
“Yes. You knew when he was going to be killed—or when it would appear that he was killed. Probably it was twenty minutes before I got that phone call. Time for you to get from his flat to my office.”
“And you think I framed myself by accusing—”
“Why not? That radio was a swell trick. It wasn’t the radio at all, Barranya. I’ve thought that out. It was ventriloquism. My first guess was right, only I found that radio going and naturally thought that the voice came from it. You fixed the radio yourself, and any spiritualist knows ventriloquism—the safest and easiest way of getting spirit voices in a seance. The trick has whiskers on it.”
He said, “Interesting, Sergeant—if you can prove that I do know ventrilo—”
“I can’t, but I’m not interested. All I have to prove is that you killed Randall. As long as I know you could have pulled that stunt in the car, I can forget it. How’s about another drink? And incidentally, what you said was clever as hell. You knew we’d find out about you and Mrs. Randall, and if you accused yourself of having that motive, it would spike our guns. You expect to marry her, don’t you, and get Randall’s money?”
He filled my glass, but not his own. He stood up, yawning. “Hope you’ll excuse me, Sergeant. I am tired.”
“Go right to bed,” I said. “Got an alarm clock, or shall I wake you any special time?”
“Never mind.” He sauntered to the door of the bedroom and then turned. “I’ll appreciate your leaving one drink in the bottle.”
“I’ll buy you a new bottle,” I assured him. “Barranya, you know anything about relays?”
“Relays? I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“I’m not, either. Probably that’s the wrong name for it. But it’s the first thing I looked for when I came up here. I didn’t find it.”
“And where would you have looked for one?”
“I thought of the bell box of your telephone. Look, while you were playing Randall for a sucker on the celestial advice racket, didn’t you have his phone wire tapped?”
“No, Sergeant. But how would a tapped wire—”
“Here’s the idea. Holding gave it to me, in a way. He said you might have phoned from the booth at the station, right out in the hall. Except that the call came from here, that would have made sense. So I got to thinking.”
“So?”
“This could have happened. You came here, driving fast from the roadhouse, killed Randall, and switched in the gimmick. You’d have everything ready, so you could do it in a minute. There’d already be the tap on Randall’s wire. The gimmick is a little electromagnet in your phone’s bell box.
“You drive to the station and call your own phone. The circuit is shorted through the electromagnet, so instead of ringing the bell, the magnet throws the double switch—just as though the receiver had been lifted from Randall’s phone. You’re on Randall’s wire and when the light goes on down at the phone company switchboard, it’s over his number. That switch also opens his circuit, of course. When Central says ‘Number, please?’ you give my number, and—well, that’s all it would take. You knew, of course, that snapping a rubber band across the diaphram of the transmitter makes a sound like a shot.
“And when you hung up, both circuits would be broken, and things just like they were. The call would trace back to Randall’s phone, but his receiver was never off the hook!”
Barranya’s eyes had widened while I was talking. He said, “Sergeant, I never thought it of you. That’s positively brilliant. But you didn’t find such an electromagnet?”
“No,” I admitted. “But it was a good idea.”
He yawned again. “You underestimate yourself. It was excellent. Pardon me.”
“I will,” I said, “but how about the governor?”
He chuckled and closed the bedroom door. I poured myself another drink, but I didn’t touch it. The last three drinks hadn’t had any further effect on the toothache, so I figured I might as well stay sober and bear it.
I listened until I heard him get into bed. Then I gave it another ten minutes by my watch.
I went out the door and closed it, being neither quiet nor noisy about my movements, got into the elevator and—in case the sound of the elevator would be audible—I rode it all the way down to the first floor and walked back up to five. One of my set of keys worked easily on the door of the absent Mr. Shultz.
I crossed over to the telephone and bent down to examine the box. There wasn’t any dust on top of it, and there was a thin layer of dust on most other things in the room.
I didn’t touch it. I was sure enough now that the electromagnet would be there, and I didn’t want to lessen its value as evidence by taking off the cover until there were other witnesses. Anyway, there was an easier way to check my hunch.
I picked up the receiver and when a feminine voice said, “Number, please?” I asked, “What phone am I calling from?”
“Pardon?”
I said, “I’m alone at a friend’s house. I want to tell someone to call me back here, and I can’t read the number without my glasses.”
She said, “Oh, I see. You’re calling from Woodburn 3840.”
Randal’s number. That cracked the case, of course. Barranya had worked it just as I’d told him upstairs, except that, knowing his own flat would be searched, he’d put the tab on Shultz’ phone and called up there.
“Fine,” I said, “Now give me—”
That was when something jabbed into my back and Barranya said, “Tell her never mind.” His tone of voice meant business. “Never mind,” I told the operator. “I’ll put in the call later.”
As I put down the phone, Barranya’s hand reached over my shoulder and slid my police positive out of its shoulder holster. He stepped back, and I turned around.
He’d really undressed for bed; he wore a lounging robe over pajamas and had slippers on his feet. That’s why I hadn’t heard him come through the flat. I’d known he’d be down sometime today to remove the evidence, but I’d expected him to wait longer, and I hadn’t thought of the back door. Maybe I’d drunk more Scotch than I thought I had, to overlook a bet like that.
His face was expressionless; there was just a touch of mockery in his voice. “Remember that message I brought you from the spirit world a few hours ago, Sergeant? Maybe it wasn’t as wrong as you thought.”
“You can’t get away with it,” I said. “Killing me, I mean. If you do, you’ll have to lam, and they’ll catch you. The homicide boys know I stayed with you. If they find me dead—”
“Shut up, Sergeant,” he said, “I’m trying to think how—”
I didn’t dare give him time to think. The guy was too clever. He might think of some way he could kill me without it being pinned on him.
I said, “A good lawyer can get you a sentence for shooting a rat like Randall. But you know what happens when you kill a cop in this state.”
I could see there was indecision in his face, in his voice when he said, “Keep back, or—”