But the guy in the overcoat didn’t wait to add it up. He came out of the closet after me in a flying leap like the charge of a tiger. The empty gun was raised now to be used as a bludgeon and just in the nick of time I got my cane up to block a blow that would have crushed my skull.
His wrist hit against the edge of the cane and the gun flew out of his hand, over my shoulder, and knocked a square foot of plaster out of the wall behind, before it hit the floor.
He kept on coming, though, and the momentum of his charge knocked me off my feet, and he was right there on top of me, his hands reached for my throat.
All this had happened before Mac could get back down the two or three steps of the staircase he’d started up, but I heard him yell, “Herman, stop!” and the thud of his feet as he vaulted over the bannister and came running.
One of Herman’s hands had found my throat and I was having to use both my hands to keep the other one off when Mac got there. He joined the fray with a nifty full nelson that pulled the maniac’s arms away from my throat and yanked him up to his knees. Then Mac let the full nelson slide to a half, and got one of Herman’s arms pinned behind him in a hammerlock. It was neat work.
But all of this hadn’t been accomplished in silence. Another light flashed on at the top of the stairs, and we heard slippered feet in the upper hallway.
“The old man?” I asked Mac.
“No, he’s deaf; this wouldn’t have waked him. That’ll be Kurt Wunderly.” He called out, “Hey, Wunderly. This is MacCready. Everything’s under control, but come on down.”
A tall man in a bathrobe thrown over pajamas was starting down the steps even before Mac finished talking. He said, “What on earth? Herman!”
Herman gave a yank to get free then, and I picked up the empty scattergun. Held by the barrel, it made a beautiful billy. I tapped Herman lightly on the skull—just a soft tap—and said, “Behave, sonny.”
Mac was explaining to Kurt Wunderly. “Herman got away from the sanitarium. He was going to kill you and your foster-father. Stopped at my place to brag about it or something, and left us tied up, but we—”
I said, “My name’s Bryce. I was visiting—”
“The famous playwright?”
“Thanks,” I said. “Better get us some ropes.”
He nodded, his face a bit pale. “There should be some in the closet there.” There were, and I got them.
I came in with the ropes. Herman made no resistance, his face was dull, expressionless, and his manner completely lethargic now. I’m no psychiatrist, but I recognized the symptoms of a manic-depressive insanity. Being captured had thrown him into the depressive state. Speechless, on the edge of sheer unconsciousness, he paid no attention to his surroundings or to what was said or done to him. Tying him up was routine. And old Mr. Wunderly turned out to be sleeping soundly, the sleep of the partly deaf, upstairs. Still with his ears on, so we didn’t waken him.
Back down in the living room, Mac said, “Bryce and I will go to the coast guard station and phone for—”
“Hold it, Mac,” I cut in. “I figured out what was wrong with that second act. Look,” and I pointed at Herman, “this guy’s crazy.”
Mac gawped at me for a minute like he thought I was, too, and maybe he did just then.
I went on: “But your caller wasn’t, Mac. He was pretending to be. Add that up.” And I turned the scattergun around and pointed it at Kurt Wunderly, Herman’s brother. I said, “Herman escaped and came here and asked you to protect him. He wasn’t homicidal, just then. You hid him in that closet, and you came over to Mac’s house to establish the idea that Herman was going to kill his foster-father and yourself. You turned out the light in Mac’s study before you came in, and you figured that wearing that old overcoat and a hat and acting insane, you could pass for Herman in a darkened room.
“My guess is you wanted to kill Old Man Wunderly, probably because you thought he might live another ten years and you wanted your inheritance now. Or is that a good guess? Maybe you’ve got a taint of Herman’s homicidal streak, too.”
Mac cut in, “Bryce, do you realize what you’re—”
“Pipe down, Mac,” I told him, and went on talking to Kurt: “You left us tied up, ready to be witnesses that Herman was going to kill the old man. Then you came back here, gave him back the coat and gun, and you were getting into your pajamas when we came. Then you were going—except that we got here in time—to kill the old man and then ‘capture’ Herman and turn him over with the story that you’d overcome him after the first murder and while he was trying to kill you. He had nothing to lose by being blamed for another murder; he’d just be sent back. And who’d have believed anything he tried to tell them?”
Kurt Wunderly said, “That should make a good play, Mr. Bryce, but you’re being absurd. Now put down that empty gun and—”
I laughed. “If you didn’t know Herman was here, how do you know this gun is empty? Because you unloaded it before you gave it back to him, to play safe! You weren’t in the hall when he clicked it at me. You couldn’t have known it was empty, if you’re innocent.”
I heard Mac give a low whistle.
I wanted to push the point home while I was at it, so I lied a little. My glimpse of the intruder’s face in Mac’s mirror had been too brief and too distant. But I said: “I can identify him, Mac. Before he reached around the corner in your study and turned out the light, I had a good look at his face in the mirror behind you—and his fingerprint will be on that light switch, and—”
The other proof came in a way I wasn’t expecting. Kurt Wunderly yanked his hand out of his bathrobe pocket, and it held the thirty-two revolver that he’d taken away from Mac back at Mac’s place.
He said, “You’re too clever, Bryce. That forces me to go through with it—with one alteration. It will be found that Herman killed you and MacCready also.”
I guess I began to sweat a little when I saw what I’d done. Mac and I were each maybe three yards from Kurt Wunderly, and not standing together. But if we tried to rush him, he’d be sure to get one of us. And this time he wasn’t going to take any chances; I saw from his face that he was going to shoot us down here and now, and then take the time necessary to get the stage set before he went for help.
For some reason he picked Mac first—maybe to save me for last, I don’t know. But he pointed the gun Mac’s way, and said “Sorry, MacCready, but—” and I had to do something.
Just to stall an instant I said the first damn fool thing that popped into my head. I said, “It’s a good thing I happened to have a shell to fit this scattergun, Wunderly. Drop your pistol!”
I knew as I said it that there wasn’t a chance on earth that I’d be believed. People don’t carry around small-gauge shotgun shells on the chance they’ll find a gun to put them in. But it did divert his attention from Mac for the second. He swung the gun back my way.
The scattergun was hanging at my side and I brought it up as though to fire it. I saw Kurt Wunderly grin as he waited for the empty click that would call my bluff—before he shot me. But I didn’t pull the trigger. I kept my hand arcing out with the gun in it, and let go of the gun, sailing it right at his face.
He triggered the revolver then and it spat noise and flame at me. But five pounds of cold steel being thrown into a man’s face is enough to spoil his aim, even if he’s easily able to duck the missile. That shot came close, undoubtedly, but it didn’t hit me.
And Mac had leaped in the second he saw what I was doing, and had Kurt Wunderly by the wrist before he could fire again. I got there myself a split second later, and between us we had no trouble handling him. We tied him and put him on the couch beside Herman.