Hunt in the Dark Page 14

  As he spoke, there were slow footsteps in the living room. Paul Trenton appeared, looking very gray and ill. He was holding a hand to his side, and his eyes were glazed. He did not seem to notice the girl.

  Swiftly, Claire slipped the revolver into her pocketbook and moved to the door. Then, as her fingers touched the knob, she gave a little gasp and stepped backward. Someone was knocking, loudly.

  The sound seemed to bring Paul Trenton back to the reality of the moment. As a swift glance passed between Claire and the professor, he hurried to the door and swung it open. “Are you the doctor?” he asked eagerly.

  A policeman stood on the threshold. “Mr. Trenton? Is anything wrong here? I’m Patrolman Davis.”

  “Why—er—“ Trenton seemed unable to form the words. “The hotel detective arrested a man on the fire escape,” continued the policeman, as he stepped into the hall. “Sam Nolan— he was an electrician around here—and for some time they’ve had their suspicions here that he was a thief. I was called in when the house detective found Nolan on the fire escape, injured. He had a valuable pearl necklace in his pocket and also the key to the back door of this apartment. He’s being held downstairs. I came up to find out if you’d missed anything.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not merely a question of missing things,” murmured Comroy. “A murder has been committed. You’d better come, look things over, and take charge.”

  The policeman hurried after Comroy to the kitchen. There, Comroy swiftly outlined the details of their discovery. For an instant the policeman gazed at the dead body of Lila Trenton. Then he snapped:

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Er—no, not yet. I was just going to when you came.”

  The policeman moved back to the hall, and for the next few minutes replied rapidly to questions from the other end of the wire. At length he hung up the receiver.

  “Captain Lee will be round right away,” he said, “Meanwhile, no one’s to leave the apartment. It looks as if Nolan had done it, but we can’t take chances.” His eyes rested on Claire. “How about the young lady? Did she come in with you?”

  Comroy looked momentarily nonplused. “No, Miss—er— she had dropped in to see Mrs. Trenton just before you arrived. Naturally, she didn’t know anything about the murder.”

  The policeman grunted.

  “Perhaps,” continued Comroy, “it would be all right for her to leave.”

  “Sorry. You’ll all have to stay.”

  As the policeman spoke, Paul Trenton gave a little groan and doubled forward. Instantly Comroy was at his side.

  “He’s a sick man,” he explained. “And it’s been a terrible shock. Paul, can I do anything?”

  “Tablets,” gasped Trenton. “Green bottle in the bathroom.”

  As Comroy hurried away, the policeman lifted Trenton’s slight body and carried him into his bedroom. When the professor returned, Claire was standing by the bedside.

  “I’ll stay with him,” she said.

  Leaving the girl with Trenton, Comroy and the policeman returned to the kitchen. Where before the professor had been numbed and stupefied by the shock of that grisly scene, his mind was now clear. While the policeman’s eyes darted around the room, he stood on the threshold, thinking.

  “Look at that hair!” exclaimed the policeman.

  Watching carefully where he stepped, he moved to the body and, tilting forward the grotesquely coiffured head of Lila Trenton, revealed an ugly wound on the back of the skull. Instantly his gaze flashed to the stained hatchet at her side.

  “Easy to see how it was done,” he muttered.

  “The pearls are gone,” put in Comroy. “She was wearing them last time I saw her alive.”

  “I guess that puts Nolan on the spot.”

  The professor was looking down at the broken fragments of glass which strewed the floor. Gingerly, he turned one of them over with his foot.

  “Don’t touch anything,” snapped the policeman.

  “Look like part of a pitcher,” said Comroy reflectively. “And there are some drops of fluid still in it; tomato juice, I think. That explains the open refrigerator door. Mrs. Trenton had a cold and was taking a liquid diet. She must have been getting some tomato juice when she was attacked.”

  The policeman glanced quickly at the piece of glass and then at the refrigerator. “Yeah. Looks that way. Nolan must have come in through the back door with the key, picked up the hatchet, and hit her from behind while she was still pouring the tomato juice. It’s all over the floor.”

  Gilbert Comroy had moved almost fussily to the back door and was gazing through the smashed glass panel. “This is extraordinary.”

  “What?”

  “You said Nolan had a key to this door.” Gilbert Comroy looked thoughtful. “Surely, if he had the key, he wouldn’t have bothered to break the glass in the panel in order to get in.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Comroy, shaking his head sadly, “I mean that I believe you are suspecting quite the wrong person.”

  The policeman’s eyes narrowed. “Well, we’ll soon see. But whoever did it, it’s a pretty nasty piece of work.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly, it’s—terrible.”

  Professor Comroy took out a handkerchief and wiped the shiny skin of his forehead.

  Poor Lila, he was thinking. And for the first time he felt some vestige of pity for this woman he had always hated. How ironic that she, who had always lived for her appearance, should die like this, with her negligee torn and stained, her face distorted and ugly, and her hair so grotesquely discolored.

  XI

  “I CAME TO KILL HER”

  With the arrival of Captain Lee and his men, the Trentons’ apartment became a scene of professional activity. The captain hurried into the kitchen, accompanied by the medical examiner, the fingerprint man and the police photographers. Comroy and Claire French were taken to Lila’s bedroom to await questioning. Only one room was quiet, that of Paul Trenton, who had yielded to the narcotic effect of the tablets and fallen into an uneasy sleep.

  At length, the body of Lila Trenton was removed, and a policeman summoned Professor Comroy into the living room. Captain Lee sat at a table. He was a quiet, middle-aged man with alert eyes and broad shoulders.

  “Well, professor,” he said with a smile, “I didn’t realize who you were at first. My son is in your chemistry class at the university. He thinks the world of you. Too bad we should meet in such unpleasant circumstances.”

  “Too bad, indeed.”

  The professor drew up a chair and outlined the salient facts of his discovery, omitting to mention either Claire French or Larry Graves. Lee listened keenly. When Comroy had finished, he said: “Doctor Jones has made a cursory examination. From the congealing of the blood and the rigidity of the limbs, he thinks Mrs. Trenton died between nine fifteen and ten. That means she was probably killed a very short while before you and Mr. Trenton found the body.”

  “She died instantaneously?” asked the professor.

  “Doesn’t need an autopsy to tell us that. Her skull was crushed like an eggshell. Of course, this looks like a pretty clear case against Nolan. He was caught with the pearls a few minutes before ten. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet because he sprained his ankle trying to get away and a doctor is still fixing it. But before I see him, there are just a few things I’d like cleared up. I suppose I can’t talk to Mr. Trenton tonight?”

  “He’s a very, very sick man,” said the professor gravely. “But I think I can tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Well, Mrs. Trenton was well off. I happen to know that. Do you know how she left her money?”

  “As I understand from something Trenton once said,” replied Comroy reflective, “his wife made no will. She liked to think of herself as younger than she really was and I believe she felt making a will suggested age. Of course, if she dies intestate, the money, or a good shar
e of it, goes to her husband.”

  “I see.” Captain Lee glanced at his hands. “And you were with Mr. Trenton all evening? It wouldn’t have been possible for him to—”

  “Quite impossible.” The professor shook his head emphatically. “Mrs. Trenton was alive when we left here at seven-thirty, and we were together every moment until we returned. You say she was killed before ten. We were just leaving the restaurant at that time.”

  “No family quarrel, I suppose?”

  Comroy’s eyes grew cold. “Paul Trenton was always devoted to his wife.”

  “Just another matter.” Lee’s gaze was still fixed on the professor’s face. “You say you arrived here at about ten minutes past ten. The police were not notified until ten-thirty. Why did those twenty minutes elapse?”

  The professor removed his spectacles and began to wipe them thoughtfully. “Naturally, we were both rather upset by our discovery. But I did hurry to call you. Unfortunately, however, the young lady, Miss French arrived just as I was about to lift the receiver.”

  “What did she want?”

  “I really don’t know. To call on Mrs. Trenton, I suppose. But I didn’t care to tell her about the tragedy, I was trying to get her to leave when the policeman arrived to report about Nolan’s arrest.” The color in his face deepened. “That’s why there was the small delay.”

  The captain nodded slowly and glanced at the policeman by the door. “If the doctor’s through with Nolan, you can bring him up.”

  “I was wondering,” remarked the professor, “whether you would permit me to stay for this interview. Being an old friend of the family, I am naturally interested.”

  “Sure, you can stay, professor, only too pleased. Perhaps you can learn something you don’t teach at the university.”

  When he hobbled in with the officer, Sam Nolan was a very different person from the self-assured, impudent young man who had attended to Lila Trenton’s refrigerator and built a fire for her that afternoon. His youthful face had lost its easy grin. His dark eyes seemed strained.

  “Well, Nolan,” said the captain curtly, “you’re in a pretty tough spot. Are you going to talk? Of course, you needn’t if you don’t want to.”

  The young man lowered his head and said nothing.

  “You took that back-door key when you fixed the refrigerator, didn’t you?”

  Sam Nolan’s eyes shifted uneasily.

  “And tonight you came up the fire escape to steal those pearls.

  You let yourself in with the key and killed Mrs. Trenton.”

  “I didn’t kill her!” Sam Nolan’s voice was dull and toneless. “What’s the use? You had the pearls on you. You—“

  “Might I interrupt for a moment?” put in the professor mildly. “I would like to ask the young man a question.”

  Captain Lee’s eyes widened slightly but he shrugged his assent.

  “Tell me this.” Comroy looked over his spectacles at Nolan. “Was the glass panel in the back door broken when you came up the fire escape?”

  “Why, yes, sure it was.”

  “I thought so.” The professor turned his solemn gaze to Lee. “We all know this man had a key to the back door.”

  “You think someone else broke that panel and got into the kitchen?”

  “That is a possibility.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going a bit scientific on us, professor.” Lee’s voice was slightly sarcastic as he added: “If you didn’t kill Mrs. Trenton, Nolan, maybe you can tell us what happened.”

  “If I did, you wouldn’t believe me.” A look of fear had come into Nolan’s eyes. Then he shook the dark hair from his forehead and continued fiercely: “But it’s God’s truth. Yeah, I did steal that key. And I did come up the fire escape to get them pearls. What’s the good of saying I didn’t? When I got into that kitchen, she was dead already.”

  “Ah!” exclaimed the professor.

  “Yeah. When I got up onto the balcony, the kitchen was all dark. But I wasn’t taking no chances. I flashed my light in before I unlocked the door. And she was there on the floor, lying with blood all over her and that—that green hair.”

  Sam Nolan looked very young and very frightened.

  “At first,” he went on, “I was going to scram just as quick as I could. I didn’t want to get mixed up in no murder. But I could see them pearls sort of gleaming on her neck. Although I was scared, I thought I might as well get ‘em. I went in and lifted them. And—and then, as I was bending over her, I heard someone open the front door and call out ‘Lila,‘ so I beat it.”

  Lee looked interested. “You’re sure of that? Was it a man?”

  “Yes, a young man. He sounded kind of excited.”

  “And then,” put in the professor.

  Sam Nolan gripped the arms of his chair. “You won’t believe it. I know you won’t. But it’s the truth, I swear it. After I was out on the fire escape, I flashed my torch back in, just for a last look.” He paused, and added almost inaudibly: “Mrs. Trenton was still there on the floor, but she was moving. At first I thought it was just my eyes and the light and everything, because I knew she was dead. But she moved again. Sort of turned, as if she was going to come after me. God, it was awful. I couldn’t do anything, not run, not move—nothing. I could see that green hair and the blood all over her clothes. And she’d been dead, I tell you—dead.”

  Slowly, Sam Nolan’s hands slipped to his sides. “Then I guess I lost my nerve and started to run like hell. On the fire escape I slipped and turned my ankle. It hurt so I let a yell out of me, like a damn fool. That’s how the house dick got me.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Captain Lee smiled wearily.

  “As a story, Nolan, that’s not so hot. You say Mrs. Trenton was dead when you came in, and the doctor says she was killed instantaneously. She couldn’t possibly have moved.”

  “But I tell you it’s true. Honest, that’s what happened.”

  “Davis!” Lee glanced at the policeman by the door. “Get

  Mallory to take this bird down to the station house, I’ll talk to him again later.”

  Sam Nolan made no resistance as the policeman slipped on the handcuffs. He rose dazedly and limped out of the room with Mallory.

  “These small-time crooks,” exclaimed Lee, “when it comes to faking up a story, they have the imagination of a louse.”

  Professor Comroy’s round face was thoughtful. Absently, he tapped a button on his vest.

  “Of course,” he murmured, “one cannot go against the medical evidence. The boy must have been suffering from some sort of hallucination. But wasn’t it possible that the body was being moved by someone whom he could not see? After all, he said he heard a voice in the next room.”

  “Well, if he isn’t lying, I’d like to know who that man was. It couldn’t have been you or Mr. Trenton, because it all happened before ten o’clock.” Lee turned to the officer. “I’ll see the girl now.”

  Claire French was very pale when she entered. She clutched her pocketbook firmly, and her eyes turned swiftly to Comroy, trying to guess how much he had told. She was reassured by an infinitesimal movement of the professor’s eyelid.

  “Well, Miss French,” began Lee, “there are a few routine questions.”

  Claire nodded.

  “Professor Comroy tells me you arrived here just as he was going to call the police. You had come to see Mrs. Trenton?”

  “Yes,” said Claire instantly, “I came to see Mrs. Trenton.”

  “You were a friend of hers?”

  “No. I was not.”

  “Then why—“

  Claire bit her lip. “I own a beauty parlor a few blocks away. This afternoon I came round at Mrs. Trenton’s request. It was the first time I had attended to her hair. She asked for a touchup and I used a henna compound. It was not until later that I remembered that this compound, if used on hair that’s been dyed already, turns it a sort of greenish color. I was
very worried and came to—er—find out if anything of this sort had happened.”

  “So that explains the color of the hair,” mused Lee. “But why didn’t you realize your mistake when you were here this afternoon?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Trenton wanted to dry her hair herself. The discoloration wouldn’t show until after the hair was dry.”

  “And that was your only reason for coming here tonight?” Claire inclined her head slowly.

  “All right, Miss French. That will be all for the moment.”

  Swiftly Claire French rose. As she did so, the pocketbook slipped from her lap and fell to the floor with a heavy thud. She bent instantly to retrieve it, but Captain Lee was too quick for her. His lips tightened as his fingers gripped the soft material and flicked open the catch. For a second there was absolute silence. The he said slowly:

  “If you were merely going to discuss hairdressing with Mrs. Trenton, was it necessary to bring a revolver?”

  Comroy flashed the girl a warning glance, but she did not seem to notice. Her gray eyes fixed the captain’s in a level stare. “I lied to you,” she said calmly. “I did use the wrong henna compound, but it wasn’t by mistake, I’m afraid I gave way to a thoroughly spiteful instinct.”

  “And the revolver—was that a spiteful instinct?”

  “No.” Claire’s face had gone cold. “That was more serious. I came here tonight to threaten and, if necessary, to kill Mrs. Trenton.”

  For the first time that evening, Captain Lee seemed shaken out of his official composure. He was still gazing at the girl when there were swift noises in the hall and a policeman hurried in.

  “There’s a guy out here who—”

  He broke off as Larry Graves pushed past him and strode to Claire’s side.

  “Larry!” The girl swung around on him almost fiercely. “You fool! I told you to go. Why—why on earth did you come back?”

  “Did you think I’d leave you here? I waited for you downstairs. But you didn’t come. Then I saw the police arrive. I had to see if you were all right.”

  “What is all this about?” asked Lee sharply.

  Larry was standing very close to Claire. “I don’t want Miss French mixed up in this. She hasn’t anything to do with it. She didn’t even know Mrs. Trenton.”