She entered, closed the door and stood with her back to it, ignoring the proffered chair.
“If you’re not out of town by morning,” she said, “I’m going to sue you for slander.”
“All right,” Tony said agreeably.
The anger in her eyes was partially displaced by surprise. “You mean you’ll leave?”
“I mean go ahead and sue.”
Color rushed to her face and her eyes blazed. But before she could speak again, another knock sounded. Immediately she stepped away from the door and examined it fearfully, as though trying to guess who stood on the other side.
“Come in,” invited Tony.
The door pushed open to disclose George Erickson. He started to open his mouth, saw Mrs. Larson, shut it again and closed the door.
“What are you doing here, Grace?” he asked.
“Probably the same thing you are,” she snapped.
Erickson swung his eyes back to Tony. “Perhaps it’s just as well we’re here together. Ransome, unless you make immediate public apology for the rumors you’ve started, I intend to sue you for defamation of character.”
“What rumors?”
“You know very well what! The dirty story you’ve spread that Grace — Mrs. Larson and I hired her husband murdered.”
“Never even suggested such a thing,” Tony said. “Simply suggested somebody might have.”
“But that coupled with Larson’s idiotic divorce action—”
“Listen, bub,” Tony interrupted. “What Larson did to you is none of my concern, nor what you did to him to make him do it. That restaurant robbery was as phony as a telephone booth, and that I’ll quote for the papers. If people are embroidering that with dirt, I’m sorry, but you can expect dirt in a murder investigation. Somebody had Larson killed, and when we catch the guilty guy, people will stop talking about you — unless you’re the guy that did it. But if you think I’m going to stop a murder investigation because your feelings are hurt, think again.”
“You—” Grace Larson started to say, but stopped when the phone rang.
Tony lifted the receiver and said, “Yeah?”
“This is Mayor Ainslie,” a tense voice said in his ear. “I’ve been trying to reach the chief, but can’t. I’ve discovered something in the men’s dressing room at the Bijou.”
“What?”
“Something missing. We haven’t had a show this week, or I’d have discovered it sooner. Can you come over here?”
“Listen, Mr. Mayor,” Tony said irritably, “all I’m in town for is the Larson killing. Call on the local police to solve your robbery.”
“But this may tie in with the Larson case. If it means what I think it does, it puts an entirely different complexion on the whole matter. I just discovered—”
“Hold it!” Tony interrupted. He glanced at the attentive faces of Erickson and Mrs. Larson. “Where is the Bijou?”
“First block beyond the square on Main Street. The front door is open, so just come on backstage.”
“Be right there,” Tony said, and hung up.
Grace Larson said, “That sounded like Mayor Ainslie’s voice. Did I understand him to say something about my husband?”
“You got good ears, lady,” Tony said. “Sorry to rush you people off, but I got an appointment.”
He shooed them from the room amid assurances from Erickson that he had not heard the last of this. From his window he could see by the dim light of a street lamp that they got in the same car and drove off toward the square.
It took Tony only ten minutes to walk to the Bijou. As Ainslie had indicated, he found the front door unlocked and walked in. A single small light burned in the lobby, and in the main auditorium only the footlights were on. Tony made his way down a dark aisle to the stage, mounted steps at one side and walked backstage.
He found himself in a lighted hallway, passed two doors marked with stars, another labeled LADIES’ DRESSING ROOM, and eventually came to one marked MEN’S DRESSING ROOM. The door was slightly ajar and light shown from within.
Tony pushed the door the rest of the way open, stepped through and then stopped still. Mayor Ainslie lay face up on the floor in the center of a pool of blood. Simultaneously with his realization that the man was dead, Tony sensed another presence in the room and attempted to spin around in order to slam the door back against whatever was behind it.
The spin was but half completed when a star shell went off in his brain, the momentary flash being followed by pitch blackness...
The first thing of which Tony’s dim consciousness grew aware was a large shoe. He closed his eyes until the noise in his head subsided to boiler factory intensity, then opened them and let his gaze travel from the shoe up a wrinkled pant leg, across a bulging stomach to the face of Chief Murphy. The chief stood some four feet away idly swinging a large revolver.
Tony sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Finally he stood up, swaying slightly, and looked around the room. Except for the body of Ainslie, he and the chief were alone. On the floor next to where Tony had been a moment before lay an automatic, and lying next to the dead man was a heavy cane. Neither had been present when Tony first entered the room.
“You clip me?” Tony asked dully.
The chief shook his head. “Just got here. Mayor Ainslie left word at the jail for me to drop around.”
“He phoned me he had a lead on the murder,” Tony said dispiritedly. “Said something had been stolen from this room. When I walked in, he was lying like that and his murderer clunked me from behind. I didn’t see who it was.”
“Sure,” the fat chief said tolerantly. “You was framed.”
Tony peered at the fat man through aching eyes. “Think I shot him and then knocked myself out?”
Murphy gestured with his gun toward the cane. “Looks like you shot him, then he biffed you with the cane before he died.”
“Come awake,” Tony said sourly. “Do I look stupid enough to let a guy with a cane bean me if I had a gun in my hand?”
“No stupider than getting clipped from behind.”
“All right,” Tony said. “Either way I’m stupid. But you’ll probably find that cane came from the stock room and hasn’t got Ainslie’s fingerprints on it. And if that’s supposed to be the murder gun, it’s not mine. I haven’t been carrying one because I got no permit for Missouri, but you’ll find it in my suitcase at the hotel. You can check which one is mine with Buffalo.”
“Guys have been known to own two guns. Let’s go.”
There was nothing Tony could do about it, so he went. The jail was in the basement of the city hall, which sat in the center of the town square. It consisted of three cells, all empty at the moment. Tony was given the middle one.
“Listen,” he said to Chief Murphy through the bars. “If you’re going to be a boob about this, at least you can check my story. George Erickson and Mrs. Larson were in my room when the mayor phoned, and could hear what he said because his voice carried. You might also try to find out what was missing from the dressing room. There must be a cleaning woman or something familiar with the place.”
“Sure,” the fat man said. “We’ll put our homicide and arson squad on it.” Tony said a four-letter word.
Following a night of fitful tossing on the hard, drop-down bunk, he was awake by seven when Chief Murphy appeared accompanied by a uniformed policeman carrying Tony’s suitcase. When the policeman had set the suitcase inside the cell and relocked the door, the chief sent him off to get some breakfast for the prisoner.
The fat man examined Tony’s reddened eyes through the bars. “No sleep, huh?” he asked.
“No,” Tony said shortly.