Nick Corianos frowned. “Richter — that’s the name of the blackmailer in the play?”
“It is.” Sir Charles held up a hand. “Please do not tell me offhand that I do not look the part. A true actor can look, and can be, anything. I can be a blackmailer.”
Nick Corianos said, “Possibly. But I’m not handling the casting.”
Sir Charles smiled, and then let the smile fade. He stood up and leaned forward, his hands resting on Nick’s mahogany desk. He smiled again, but the smile was different. His voice was cold, precise, perfect. He said, “Listen, pal, you can’t shove me off. I know too much. Maybe I can’t prove it myself, but the police can, once I tell them where to look. Walter Donovan. Does that name mean anything to you, pal? Or the date September first? Or a spot a hundred yards off the road to Bridgeport, halfway between Stamford and there. Do you think you can—?”
“That’s enough,” Nick said. There was an ugly black automatic in his right hand. His left was pushing a buzzer on his desk.
Sir Charles Hanover Gresham stared at the automatic, and he saw it — not only the automatic, but everything. He saw death, and for just a second there was panic.
And then all the panic was gone, and there was left a vast amusement.
It had been perfect, all down the line. The Perfect Crime— advertised as such, and he hadn’t guessed it. He hadn’t even suspected it.
And yet, he thought, why wouldn’t — why shouldn’t —Wayne Campbell be tired enough of a blackmailer who had bled him, however mildly, for so many years? And why wouldn’t one of the best playwrights in the world be clever enough to do it this way?
So clever, and so simple, however Wayne had come across the information against Nick Corianos which he had written on a special page, especially inserted in his copy of the script. Speak the speech, I pray you—
And he had even known that he, Charles, wouldn’t give him away. Even now, before the trigger was pulled, he could blurt: “Wayne Campbell knows this, too. He did it, not I!”
But even to say that now couldn’t save him, for that black automatic had turned fiction into fact, and although he might manage Campbell’s death along with his own, it wouldn’t save his own life. Wayne had even known him well enough to know, to be sure, that he wouldn’t do that — at no advantage to himself.
He stood up straight, taking his hands off the desk but carefully keeping them at his sides, as the two big men came through the wide doorway that led to the outer office.
Nick said, “Pete, get that canvas mail sack out of the drawer out there. And is the car in front of the service entrance?”
“Sure, chief.” One of the men ducked back through the door.
Nick hadn’t taken his eyes — or the cold muzzle of the gun — off Sir Charles.
Sir Charles smiled at him. He said, “May I ask a boon?”
“What?”
“A favor. Besides the one you already intend to do for me. I ask thirty-five seconds.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve timed it; it should take that long. Most actors do it in thirty — they push the pace. I refer, of course, to the immortal lines from Macbeth. Have I your permission to die thirty-five seconds from now, rather than right at this exact instant?”
Nick’s eyes got even narrower. He said, “I don’t get it, but what’s thirty-five seconds, if you really keep your hands in sight?”
Sir Charles said, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—”
One of the big men was back in the doorway, something made of canvas rolled up under his arm. He asked, “Is the guy screwy?”
“Shut up,” Nick said.
And then no one was interrupting him. No one was even impatient. And thirty-five seconds were ample.
He paused, and the quiet pause lengthened.
He bowed slightly and straightened so the audience would know that there was no more. And then Nick’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The applause was deafening.
Hobbyist
“ I HEARD a rumor,” Sangstrom said, “to the effect that you—” he turned his head and looked about him to make absolutely sure that he and the druggist were alone in the tiny prescription pharmacy. The druggist was a gnarled gnomelike little man who could have been any age from fifty to one hundred. They were alone but Sangstrom dropped his voice just the same “to the effect that you have a completely undetectable poison.”
The druggist nodded. He came around the counter and locked the front door to the shop, then walked toward a doorway behind the counter. “I was about to take a coffee break,” he said. “come with me and have a cup.”
Sangstrom followed him around the counter and through the doorway to a back room ringed by shelves of bottles from floor to ceiling. The druggist plugged in an electric percolator, found two cups and put them on a table that had a chair on either side of it. He motioned Sangstrom to one of the chairs and took the other himself. “Now,” he said “Tell me. Whom do you want to kill, and why?”
“Does it matter?” Sangstrom asked. “Isn’t it enough that I pay for—”
“The druggist interrupted him with an upraised hand. “Yes, it matters. I must be convinced that you deserved what I can give you. Otherwise—” He shrugged.
“All right,” Sangstrom said. “The whom is my wife, the why —” he started a long story. Before he had quite finished, the percolator had finished its task and the druggist briefly interrupted to get coffee for them. Sangstrom finished his story.
The little druggist nodded. “Yes I occasionally dispense an undetectable poison. I do so freely; I do not charge for it, if I think a case is deserving. I have helped many murderers.
“Fine,” said Sangstrom, “Give it to me then”
The druggist smiled at him. “I already have by the time the coffee was ready I decided that you deserved it.
It was, as I said, free. But there is a price for the antidote.”
Sangstrom turned pale. But he had anticipated—not this, but the possibility of a double—cross or some form of blackmail. He pulled a pistol from his pocket.
The little druggist chuckled. “You daren’t use that. Can you find the antidote” —he waved at the shelves—”among those thousands of bottles? Or would you find a faster, more virulent poison? Or if you think I’m bluffing, that you are not really poisoned, go ahead and shoot. You’ll know the answer within three hours when the poison starts to work.”
“How much for the antidote?” Sangstrom growled.
“Quite reasonable. A thousand dollars. After all, a man must live. Even if his hobby is preventing murders, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t make money at it, is there?”
Sangstrom growled and put the pistol down, but within reach, and took out his wallet. Maybe after he had the antidote, he’d still use that pistol. He counted out a thousand dollars in hundred—dollar bills and put it on the table.
The druggist made no immediate move to pick it up. He said, “And one other thing—for your wife’s safety and mine. You will write a confession of your intention—your former intention, I trust— to murder your wife. Then you will wait till I go out and mail it to a friend of mine on the homicide detail. He’ll keep it as evidence in case you do decide to kill your wife. Or me, for that matter”