Three to Conquer Page 3

  "It has helped extract a few confessions."

  "Yes, from the babes and sucklings. I am a maker of top-grade scientific instruments myself. You drag a polygraph into court and I'll tear it to pieces for all time."

  That worried Ledsom. His thoughts revealed that he believed Harper perfectly capable of it.

  "How about scopolamine?" suggested Harper, for good measure. "I'll talk that right out of usage if you'll give me half a chance." He leaned forward, knowing that their respective positions were reversed, even if but momentarily. "From the criminal viewpoint, what have I got that those punks in the Thunderbug haven't got? Do you regard them as figments of my imagination and think I've bribed witnesses to support my story?"

  "They were real enough. We have proof of that."

  "Well, then?"

  "Two hours ago we picked up the girl. Her story doesn't jibe with yours; somebody's a liar."

  Leaning back in his seat, Harper eyed him meditatively. "So you've got the girl. Is her version a trade secret?"

  Ledsom thought it over and decided that there was nothing to lose. "She missed her bus, thumbed a lift. Three fellows picked her up in that green Thunderbug. They were in a humorous mood, took her a long, roundabout way and kidded her she was being kidnaped. At the filling station she really was scared; but after a bit more fooling around, they dumped her where she wanted to go. It was all a rib."

  "And what about Alderson?"

  "She saw nothing of him, knows nothing about him."

  "But he chased that car."

  "I know. The girl says the blond fellow drove like a maniac, for no reason other than the hell of it, so maybe Alderson never caught up with them."

  "You believe that yarn?"

  "I don't believe any story without satisfactory evidence in support. But hers casts grave doubt upon yours."

  "All right. I know you're going to check on mine. Check on hers, too, and see if it stands up."

  "We've already made a partial check on both of you, and we're going to finish the job as soon as possible. The girl doesn't know the names of the three fellows or anything else about them that we hadn't already found out. She didn't notice the number of the car. Having suffered nothing, she had no reason to grab the number."

  "That's a big help."

  "But the rest looks convincing," said Ledsom. "She is a girl of excellent reputation, coming from a highly respected family. She left home when she says she did, missed the bus she says she missed and was seen by two witnesses being offered a lift. She arrived at her destination at the time she states, and can prove it."

  "Those fellows took her a long way round?"

  "Yes. They were feeling their oats."

  "Nice way of accounting for lost time, such as that involved in stopping, shooting, starting and getting away."

  "Look, Mr. Harper, it's almost twenty-four hours since Alderson was shot down. All we've got are you and this girl; all I know is that somebody used a gun and somebody's telling lies."

  "If that girl is telling the truth, which I beg leave to doubt," ventured Harper, "there's only one solution. A third party is wandering loose, untraced, unsuspected and laughing up his sleeve."

  "There's not the slightest evidence of it." Ledsom hesitated, then went on, "I wouldn' dream of chewing the fat with you in this manner if it wasn't that your home town law gave you a very big hand. That sort of thing counts with me."

  "I suppose so."

  'Therefore, I'll tell you something more. The three fellows don't tally with any trio released or escaped from prison this year."

  "How about the military prisons? That old bird at the filling station thought they might be wearing altered uniforms."

  "There is no military, naval or airforce uniform corresponding with that description."

  "Not in this country. Maybe they were foreigners."

  "The girl says not. They spoke the language as only we can speak it and knew the country like the backs of their hands."

  "Have you asked the authorities whether they know of any uniform that does correspond?"

  "No. The girl agrees that their clothes had a sort of official look, and thinks they were wearing army disposal stuff dyed green. If so, we've poor chance of tracing it. Ex-army jackets have been thrown on the market by the thousands."

  "How about their car? You thought it might be stolen."

  "To date, we've pulled in reports of ten missing in various parts of the country. Four of them are green. We have urgent calls out for those four numbers; no luck so far." He gazed morbidly through an adjacent window. "Anyway, they may have resprayed it and changed the tags. Or it may be legitimately owned. Or it may be a rented car. The Thunderbug is a popular make; it would take months to check all sales and rentals from coast to coast."

  Harper thought it over and said, "Well, you'll know it if ever you lay hands on it. You have a tire-cast, and that's something."

  "Doesn't follow it's one of theirs. Anybody could have gone up that lane anytime the same day. All we've discovered is that it doesn't belong to any logging vehicle. Neither do those three fellows answer the descriptions of any logging company's employees, past or present."

  "No matter what that girl says, I still think they're the boys you want."

  "The girl was an unwilling witness in that event. She wasn't a guilty party, so why should she cover up for a bunch of strangers?"

  "Maybe they weren't strangers," Harper offered.

  "What d'you mean?"

  "It doesn't follow that because they gave her a lift they must have been unknown to her."

  "She swears she didn't know them from Adam."

  "You could bet on her saying that — if one of them happened to be a crazy boy friend, or a shiftless relative."

  "H'm!" Ledsom viewed this as remotely possible, but rather unlikely.

  "If she's telling lies about a murder, she must have a very strong reason. Perhaps she's been intimidated."

  "Wrong guess," snapped Ledsom, positively. "I've been in this game a long time and I can tell when a suspect is secretly afraid."

  "I'm a suspect, too — a bigger and better one, to judge by what's happening right now. Think I'm scared?"

  "No," admitted Ledsom.

  "I ought to be-if I did it. But I didn't."

  "Somebody did. We know that much." Ledsom studied him levelly. "I can hold you for twenty-four hours, and I'd do it if I had a fair chance of pinning something on you by then. But it's going to take that long to empty the pond, so you can go. God help you if we salvage a gun traceable to you."

  Harper departed, feeling distinctly surly, and made the long drive home in ruminating silence.

  3. Roped In

  He had a small plant, employing six myopic but deft-fingered men. There was an office barely large enough to hold his desk and that of a secretary cum stenographer cum telephone operator. This person, Moira, was three inches taller than himself and about half the width. Cupid couldn't lug a ladder into the room and that fact suited Harper.

  Seated at his desk, he was examining a set of miniscule glass forceps under a powerful magnifier when Riley opened the door and took the two steps necessary to reach the middle. His plainclothes effectively advertised him as a cop in disguise.

  " 'Morning, Lieutenant," greeted Harper, glancing up momentarily before returning attention to the task in hand.

  " 'Morning, Neanderthal." There being no extra chair, or space for one, Riley hooked a thick leg over a desk comer and rested himself as best he could. He bent forward to stare through the magnifier. "Beats me how paws so thick and hairy can fiddle with stuff that size."

  "Why not? You pick your teeth, don't you?"

  "Leave my personal habits out of this." Riley's eyes became accusing. "Let's discuss some of yours."

  Harper sighed, fitted the forceps into a velvet-lined case and placed it in a drawer. He shoved the magnifier to one side, looked up.

  "Such as what?"

  "Being around when things happen."

/>   "Can I help it?"

  "I don't know; sometimes I wonder. It's mighty queer the way you latch onto this and that."

  "Be specific," Harper invited.

  "We've had a call. Fellow wants to know if you're still around. And if not, why not."

  "All right, I'm still around. Go tell him."

  "I wanted to know why he wanted to know," said Riley, pointedly.

  "And he told you; he said it isn't in the mud."

  "Mud? What mud?"

  "At the bottom of the pond." Harper grinned up fit him. "He also asked whether I'm known to own a.32."

  "You're right; it was Captain Ledsom. He gave me the details from first to last."

  "Whereupon you solved the whole case for him," suggested Harper. "Two minds being better than one."

  "You are going to solve it," said Riley.

  "Am I?" Harper rubbed a chin (and produced gasping noises. "Moira, throw this bum out."

  "Do your own dirty work," ordered Riley. "You aren't paying her to act as bouncer as well, are you? Let's get down to basics. You're going to let business go to pot; while you play Sherlock."

  "Why?"

  "First, because I told I Ledsom you could clear up the matter if continuously kicked. So he wants me to kick."

  "And second?"

  "Because there's now a reward for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of the killer or killers. Being human, and in old shoes, and wearing a tie obviously given with a gallon of grog you could use the dough."

  "That all?"

  "Not by a long shot. I've saved the best bit to the last." He grinned, revealing big teeth. "An hour ago some hoarse-voiced character phoned Ledsom and said he'd seen Alderson having an argument with a compressed bruiser answering more or less to your description. Know what that makes you?"

  "The sacrificial goat," said Harper moodily.

  Riley nodded. "We'd pick you up and sweat a confession out of you but for two things. One is that we know you too well to believe you did it; the other is that the witness is not available to identify you."

  "Why isn't her

  "He said his piece and cut off — so Ledsom doesn't know who called."

  "That looks fishy."

  "Some folks hate to get involved,'' observed Riley. "More's the pity."

  "I'm not surprised. I became too public-spirited myself; see what it's bought me."

  "You jumped into it. Get busy and wriggle out of it."

  "I can't afford the time," Harper complained.

  "You can't afford a spell in clink, either," Riley pointed out. "If Ledsom asks us to take you in, we'll have to do it."

  "Do you think that's likely?"

  "God knows. It depends on what they turn up in the way of further evidence."

  "If they find any pointing at me, it will be purely circumstantial."

  "That's a hell of a consolation when you're sitting around awaiting trial," said Riley. "The moment Ledsom believes he's got enough to convince, a jury, he'll make the pinch. He may then find he's wrong because the jury proves difficult to satisfy. But even if you get away with it, you'll have been put through the mill, lost a lot of patience, time and money."

  Harper said flatly, "They haven't the chance of a celluloid cat unless they find that witness and he identifies me. Even that won't be proof. It will do no more than suggest a motive. And if the witness does identify me, he'll be a liar who knows something about the shooting and is trying to divert attention. He can't appear without becoming suspect himself."

  "Could be. A way to find out would be to trace him and beat the truth out of him."

  "The state troopers can do that themselves."

  "Maybe," said Riley. "And maybe they couldn't."

  "Maybe I couldn't, either."

  "I'm not so sure. You've done some darned funny things these last few years."

  "Such as what?"

  "That Grace Walterson murder. Twelve years old and unsolved — until you sit on a park bench and hear a boozey tramp muttering about it in his sleep. You tell us. We grab him and he confesses."

  "Sheer luck," informed Harper.

  "Was it? The Grace Walterson case had been long forgotten and wasn't in our bailiwick, anyway; we had to check across country to get details. That guy did it all right. He was drunk like you said. There was only one respect in which his story didn't jibe with yours."

  "What was that?"

  "He didn't go to sleep and he didn't mutter. He swears he sat there, blurry-eyed but wide-awake and wordless, while you slid away and brought back a patrolman."

  "He wrote his confession on paper and I ate it," said Harper. "I just can't resist paper." He frowned at the other. "You must be nuts. The sot voiced the burden on his conscience and gave himself away."

  "All right." Riley stared at him very hard. "But you had to be there when he did it. Then there was the Tony Giacomo case. He heists a bank, kills two, and you have to be lounging nearby, two days later, when he—"

  "Oh, give it a rest," suggested Harper wearily. "I'm thirty-seven years old; I have rubbed shoulders with nine wanted men, and you pretend it's remarkable. How many have you sat next to in your half century of sin?"

  "Plenty, I daresay; but not one of them told me he was wanted and begged me to take him in."

  "None begged me, either."

  'The entire bunch did the next best thing. They made the mistake of being some, place where you were, too. You've upped our score of snatches by quite a piece and the Commissioner thinks you're Wonderman. There's something decidedly odd about it."

  "Name it, then."

  "I can't," confessed Riley. "I can't so much as imagine an explanation."

  "Some people are always there when accidents happen," Harper pointed out. "They can't help it; it's the way things go. Take my Aunt Matilda—"

  "Let somebody else take her — I'm married," said Riley. "Are you going to break this case, or do you prefer to wait until I'm ordered to bring you in?"

  "How much is the reward?"

  Riley looked prayerfully at the ceiling. "He weakens at the thought of money. Five thousand dollars."

  "I'll stew it awhile."

  "If the idea is to wait for the reward to be jacked up, you may wait too long."

  With that, Riley bestowed a curt nod on Moira and walked out. They listened to his heavy footsteps fading away in the distance.

  "Moira, do you sense anything strange about me?"

  "Oh, no, Mr. Harper," she assured.

  That was true enough. Her mind revealed that she wished he were ten inches taller and ten years younger; it might add a little spice to office work. She asked no more than that because her stronger emotional interests were being satisfied elsewhere.

  He did not probe any more deeply into her thinking processes. His life resembled that of one perpetually walking by night through a city of well-lit and wide-open bedrooms. He tried not to look, didn't want to look, but often could not avoid seeing. He was guilty of invasion of privacy twenty times per day, and just as frequently regretted, it.

  "Riley must be talking through his hat."

  "Yes, Mr. Harper."

  He called Riley, on the phone, midmorning of the following day, and announced, "You've given me the fidgets."

  "That was my intention," said Riley, smirking in the tiny visiscreen.

  "Everything is well in hand here, we being better organized than are some police headquarters. I can leave for a few days without risk of bankruptcy; but I'm not going away blind and bollixed."

  "What d'you mean?"

  "For a start, I'll get nowhere if the moment I set foot across the line Ledsom's boys grab me."

  "I'll tend to that," Riley promised. "They'll leave you alone — unless they can prove you're ready for cooking."

  "I want the addresses of Alderson's widow and of that girl. Also of the fellow who phoned Ledsom — if they've managed to trace him."

  "Leave it to me; I'll call you back as soon as I can."

  Harper
pronged the phone, watched its fluorescent dial cloud over and go blank. What bothered him was the hulking but agile-minded Riley's vague suspicions concerning his aptitude for uncovering evil long hidden from everyone else.

  The trick was easy enough. He had found out long ago that if he stared too long at a man with a guilty conscience, the recipient of the stare became wary while the guilt radiated from his mind in vivid details. Nine times in the last ten years he had gazed absently at people who had literally thought themselves into jail or the chair.

  Harper had no difficulty in imagining the reaction should the news ever get out that no individual's mind was truly his own. He would be left without a friend, other than some person of his own peculiar type — if such a one existed.

  As for the criminal element, they'd see to it that his life wasn't worth a moment's purchase.

  Possibly he had been followed-up in police thought as a direct result of his foolishness, in passing them news so openly, and so often. He had been impelled to do it mostly because he detested finding himself in the presence of somebody who had got away with mayhem, and any time might try to get away with it again. It irked his sense of justice.

  In the future, it might be better to pass the word to the police by some indirect method — such as, for example, the anonymous telephone call. It was doubtful whether that would serve, however; Harper had become too well-known a local character to leave the police puzzling over the source of such tip-offs.

  The phone buzzed, and Riley came on. "I've got those two addresses." He read them out while Harper made a note of them, then said, "The unknown caller hasn't been traced, but Ledsom now thinks there's nothing to his message. They've found a fellow, roughly corresponding to your description, who gave Alderson some lip in the midmorning. There were several witnesses and, in all probability the caller was one of those."

  "What was the squabbler doing at 4:00 p.m.?"

  "He's in the clear; he was miles away and can prove it."

  "H'm! All right, I'll go take a look around and hope my luck holds out."

  "Is it luck?" asked Riley pointedly.

  ."Bad luck, to my way of thinking," said Harper. "If you had fathered ten sets of twins, you'd appreciate without being told that some men can be afflicted."