No Coffin for the Corpse Read online

  Her whisper, as she passed, said, “Nix! Phone me from your room.” Then she was gone, and the door slammed jarringly behind her.

  “Damn!” I muttered under my breath. “Things happen around here so fast I can’t—”

  At the hall’s end I saw Merlini, who had been at my side a moment before, cautiously disappearing down the back stairs. His attitude indicated that he was up to no good. I didn’t get that either. I shook my head hopelessly, hitched up my trailing blankets, and went back to the bedroom.

  The phone there was a flossy intercommunicating gadget with a row of buttons on its base as long as your arm. I lifted the receiver and jabbed at the one opposite Kay’s name. She was already at the other end of the wire, waiting.

  “Ross,” she said quickly. “Flint suspects you, doesn’t he?”

  “Well, frankly, he has hinted at something like that once or twice. What was that high-hat act in the hall for just now?”

  “Flint. He was watching. Dunning told him that Dad had threatened to cut me out of his will.”

  I tried to concentrate. “Are you making sense? Or does my condition make things sound that way? I don’t get it.”

  “Flint figures that gives you a motive. So I told him we weren’t speaking. I told him I hated the sight of you, that you were the last person on earth I’d ever marry. I said you were a dope.” Her voice quavered, an SOS quality in it. “Darling, I wish you were here!”

  “I will be as soon as I find some pants.”

  “Ross, no! Flint will think—”

  “Do him good. Besides, it’s nothing to the things he thinks already. And anyway, he didn’t act as though he believed your story when he talked to me.”

  “I was afraid he didn’t. That’s why I acted as I did. I thought some corroborative evidence might help. We’ve got to pretend—”

  This was too much. “No!” I objected flatly. “Life’s too damn complicated now. I’m coming—”

  Behind me a voice commanded, “Ross, get off that phone!” I turned. Merlini was bearing down on me. He jerked the receiver from my hand. “Who is it?” he whispered.

  “Kay. What’s eating you? Why—”

  He spoke into the mouthpiece. “This is Merlini. Hang up. And keep off the phone. Explain later.”

  He clamped his hand tightly over the mouthpiece. “And Ross, if you lay another egg like you did the last time I tried to eavesdrop—”

  “Eavesdrop? But how—”

  “I detoured around Flint and got into the library. I hid the phone in the library-table drawer and took the receiver off the hook. We’ve got a direct wire. If he doesn’t hear your bodiless voice floating round the room, we may be able to stay up to date on this case. Or would you rather spend your time between now and the trial in clink?”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I growled, “My nervous system needs peace and quiet.”

  Merlini, suddenly intent on the phone, waved at me frantically. I subsided, and began hunting through Wolff’s wardrobe for clothes that weren’t too short and too wide. There were none, but I pulled out an assortment and got into them anyway.

  Merlini, ear glued to the phone, looked around as I drew a shirt over my head. “Go back to bed with your hot-water bottles and blankets,” he said. “Flint won’t be letting you go any place anyway, unless it’s headquarters.”

  “No,” I objected. “Those blankets keep slipping. I’m no Indian. Besides, I’ve got a date and I wouldn’t want the lieutenant to get any more wrong ideas. He’s overstocked now. How’s the play-by-play broadcast coming?”

  “It lags at the moment. Haggard has deposed that he lives alone—Soundview Apartments in Mamaroneck. Says he was in bed when Phillips phoned. Might be. No corroboration. Driving time: five minutes, and the call didn’t go out until ten after the shooting. He’s insisted his fingerprints must have been left in the study a couple of weeks ago, he doesn’t remember exactly when.

  “Flint called that one. Galt’s statement says he was in there a week ago Saturday night, just before Wolff suddenly decided to lock the study up. Flint naturally wanted to know more. The doctor hemmed and hawed. And Flint is now reading him a riot act, Type A, No. 6. I hope—”

  He stopped suddenly and gave his full attention to the phone. I crossed the room and put my ear close to the receiver, but Merlini was holding it so tightly against his own that I couldn’t hear a thing. I could see from the expression on his face that I was missing front-page copy.

  “Haggard’s talking?” I whispered.

  Merlini nodded, and motioned me to be still. I turned and hurried to the door. The hall outside was clear. I slipped out, hugged the wall as I passed the stair well, and made Kay’s room undetected. Her door was unlocked. I pushed it open an inch or two.

  “Kay, are you decent?”

  “Flint won’t think so,” she replied, “not if he finds you—”

  “He won’t.” I ducked in. “He’s busy. Where’s your phone?”

  I saw it, before she could answer, on a table beside the bed. I sat down and scooped up the receiver.

  Kay crossed the room. “You and Merlini are up to something. What—”

  I kept one hand over the mouthpiece. “Ssh! Special broadcast on a nationwide hookup by the Flint-Haggard ensemble. Sit down and be quiet like a mouse. We’re on the air too.”

  Haggard’s voice was faint and far away, but I got enough to catch the gist of his story.

  “The man in the photo,” he was saying. “He cut the phone cord. Dunning found him in the study going through Wolff’s private files. He called Wolff. Galt and I—waited, talking. Ten minutes later Dunning came back—nervous, upset—said Wolff wanted me. I went up. The stranger—an FBI man named Garner—blackmailing Wolff. When he tried to put the screws on—”

  “FBI man?” Flint must have been sitting right over the phone. His voice rattled the receiver in my hand. “How did Wolff know that?”

  “Identification card. I saw it later.”

  “Well that’s one thing I can check anyway. What did he have on Wolff?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that Wolff took a swing at him and laid him out. When I got there—” Haggard’s voice was reluctant. Flint had made him talk, but he wasn’t enjoying it. He stalled now completely.

  The lieutenant ordered, “Get on with it!”

  Haggard’s voice had a deflated sound. I just managed to make out the words.

  “When I got there, the man was dead.”

  Flint didn’t say a thing for a full minute. I stopped breathing myself. Kay squeezed my arm.

  “Ross, what is it?”

  “Dynamite,” I said weakly. “Haggard’s identified the ghost. A man he saw in your father’s study a week ago. And he was D.O.A.”

  “D.O.A.?”

  “Dead on arrival.”

  Then Flint spoke. His voice was the voice of doom. “Why wasn’t that reported to the police at the time?”

  Hopelessly Haggard said, “I tried to. But Wolff was on a spot—the newspapers—Mrs. Wolff backed him up. We argued—”

  “She was there too?”

  “Yes. Wolff was completely unreasonable, and halfcrazy with fear. He was obsessed by death—amounted to a phobia. When he struck the man and then found that he’d killed—”

  “That’s no reason for not reporting,” Flint said coldly. “And you know it.”

  “There was another. I had to have more funds for my research—right on the edge—something big. Wolff knew that. He said I’d not get the money I needed unless—”

  “Unless you helped him cover up.”

  “Yes.” Haggard’s voice rose. “Dammit! He had me cold. If I brought a newspaper barrage of that sort of publicity down around his head, I’d—”

  Flint’s voice was icy. “You’d have been in a better spot than you are now. What did you do with the body?”

  Haggard’s voice nearly faded out. “—grove of pines—along the shore—we—we buried it.”

  Flint’s
voice was that of a sleepwalker having a bad dream. “I hope,” he said slowly, “that the A.M.A. likes those reasons of yours better than I do.” Then he roared, “Tucker!” A door slammed.

  I put the receiver back in its cradle, and, for a moment, stared at nothing. The ghost was apparently that of a man whom Wolff had killed and whose body had been secretly buried. I knew at last why its appearance had effected him as it did.

  Kay was shaking me. “Ross, if you don’t tell me—”

  “Haggard just took the lid off. We’ve got another corpse. Your father, stepmother, and Dunning were all lying like troopers when they said they didn’t know who the ghost was.” I gave her a rapid summary of the rest of it, then added, “Come on. I want to see Merlini.”

  I jumped up and went to the door.

  Kay came after me and caught at my arm. “Careful. The lieutenant—”

  Her warning was too late. The door was already open and Flint, in person, faced us from the head of the stairs.

  “Well,” he said. “So you two don’t speak!”

  There didn’t seem to be any answer to that one.

  Flint added, “Miss Wolff, your car keys. Where’d you see them last?”

  “I’m afraid I left them in the car.”

  He gave her a disgusted look, then hurried on down the hall and disappeared into Mrs. Wolff’s room, Doctor Haggard after him.

  “My horoscope for today,” I muttered gloomily, “must have predicted floods, typhoons, and ice storms. If it didn’t, astrology is a washout.”

  Merlini’s head popped out of Wolff’s room just as we reached it. “Ross, get Tucker up here. Quickly!”

  “Tucker? He won’t take any orders from me.”

  “Tell him Flint sent you. Tell him anything. But get him.” Merlini hurried back into the room.

  “Kay,” I said, “do your Mata Hari imitation. Find out what that means.” I went back to the stairs. Tucker was in the hall below near the front door giving rapid instructions to two uniformed cops.

  I called down. “Tucker! The lieutenant wants you on the double-quick. Wolff’s room. Hurry!”

  Then I ducked, not giving him a chance to discuss the matter or pop any doubting questions. It worked. I heard him start after me up the stairs.

  In Wolff’s room, Merlini was blowing at Galt’s iodine fumer, spraying the purple gas onto the metal surface of the stack of file cabinets in the corner. Tucker burst in, looked around, and scowled at me.

  “You said the lieutenant—” Then he saw what Merlini was doing. “Hey, what are you up to? Flint told you to lay off—”

  “I know,” Merlini said. “But this is rush. Tucker, if you want to give your boss a surprise that will curl his hair, take a quick look at this.” He pointed to several brown smudges on the face of the cabinet’s top drawer.

  Tucker’s professional curiosity started to work. He crossed the room, pulling a magnifying glass from his pocket as he went.

  And, behind him from the doorway, a cold voice asked, “What’s going to curl my hair?” Flint stood there, Haggard and Ryan behind him.

  No one answered. Merlini looked at Tucker. Then the latter suddenly straightened up and turned. “There’s a print here that matches the ones I’ve got labeled Person Unknown.”

  “And this file,” Merlini said distinctly, spacing his words, “is the one that Wolff’s blackmailing visitor was investigating in the study a week ago Saturday night. The ghost leaves the same fingerprints as the dead Mr. Garner!” He glanced at Haggard. “You’re quite certain, Doctor, that—”

  But Flint was roaring over Merlini, dropping bombs. “How the blazing hell do you know anything about that? The library doors were under guard. You couldn’t—”

  Merlini’s dark eyes twinkled. “You forget,” he said calmly, “I’m a mind reader. And, with so many positively violent thought waves flitting about—” He turned back to Haggard and completed his question while Flint was still sputtering. “You’re quite sure the man was dead?”

  Haggard nodded in a dazed fashion. “Those fingerprints can’t match. It’s impossible. Of course he was dead. You don’t think I would have—”

  “They match all right,” Tucker put in. “I’ll swear—”

  Flint swore too—at Merlini. “If he wasn’t dead then, he is now. They buried him!”

  “I know,” Merlini admitted. “And in a grove of pine trees. Remember what the apparition left behind when he appeared in the hall out there yesterday morning? A small, dried cake of mud with pine needles embedded in it! Don’t you think we might take a look into that grave?”

  “That’s being done,” Flint growled. He stepped forward and planted himself in front of Merlini. “I want to know how you—”

  The phone, just beside him, began to ring. Flint grabbed at it irritably. As he picked it up, he started slightly and gave the receiver a curious look. He gave Merlini another. And his mind worked out loud.

  “This receiver’s warm. You couldn’t have been calling outside because I—So, that’s your mind-reading secret, is it? Who?” This last exclamation was directed into the phone. “Yes, he’s here. Who’s this?”

  The answer raised Flint’s eyebrows. Hastily, he cupped his hand around the mouthpiece, muffling his voice. I could only make out a word or two from there on.

  “—yes, murder—both of them—clear up to their necks—I see—yes. Okay, thanks.” He hung up.

  “That,” he said slowly, “was your friend, Inspector Gavigan.”

  “It’s about time.” Merlini’s smile was a relieved one. “I was beginning to think my official status would never be confirm—”

  “It’s still nil,” Flint said flatly. “You’re not in his county just now. Besides, he warned me not to use handcuffs if I arrested you. He recommended a day-and-night guard.”

  Merlini groaned, “There’s liquor at that convention tool” He reached for the phone. “I’ll tell him what I think of his sense of humor, his scandalous conduct, his—”

  Flint stepped in front of him. “You’re not telling anybody anything. And you’re tagging right along with me where I can watch you.” He gave me a dirty look. “And you too. Haggard, show us where that grave is.”

  Kay tried to get Flint to wait until she had dressed, but he snapped, “This isn’t a sight-seeing tour. Get back to your room. The rest of you start moving.”

  A half-dozen stone markers in the little clearing among the pines sagged wearily with the weight of age; the inscriptions on their gray faces were blurred and cryptic. A blue uniform coat hung over one of them, and before another, two red-faced patrolmen were industriously digging. A third stood near by directing operations. Farther back, on the clearing’s edge, the boatkeeper, Scotty Douglass, watched dourly. He was trying to fill a briar pipe and spilling rather more tobacco than he put in because his fingers shook.

  “Somebody’s been digging here all right,” the officer in charge reported. “The ground’s loose.” He pointed to a sheet of newspaper spread out close by the grave, its edges weighted down with stones. “Footprint. Nice neat one. Rubber-heel markings that oughta be a cinch.”

  Flint knelt, raised the paper and took a look. “Haggard,” he said after a moment, “let’s see your shoes.”

  The doctor approached, lifted one foot and let Flint scowl at its sole.

  “Those the shoes you wore when you were here that night?”

  Haggard nodded. “Yes. I think so.”

  Flint replaced the paper. “Tucker, get your stuff and make a cast. Compare it with Wolff’s, Dunning’s, and Haggard’s shoes, every pair you can find.”

  As Tucker nodded and hurried off Merlini said, “Lieutenant, take a look at friend Douglass. The subject of footprints and shoes seems to bother him. He’s positively white about the gills. I wonder—”

  He didn’t have to wonder long. The sudden spotlight of our attention increased Scotty’s perturbation tenfold. If I ever saw a man who looked as if he wanted to run like hell, Scotty was it.
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  “Okay,” Flint snapped. “Step over here, Douglass.”

  The man shuffled over and lifted a foot for the lieutenant’s inspection reluctantly. I didn’t need to see what Flint saw to know that Merlini’s shot had put a hole right smack through the center of the target. Scotty’s expression was as eloquent as the markings on his rubber heels.

  “I guess this time you talk, don’t you, Scotty?” Flint stood up. He aimed his forefinger at the grave. “What do you know about what’s buried in there?”

  Scotty wouldn’t look where Flint pointed, nor would he look at Flint. His eyes cast quick nervous glances about him as though he hoped for some chance of escape, or as if afraid that he might see something he did not want to see.

  He spoke haltingly. “I—I saw Mr. Wolff, Dunning, and the doctor carry something out of the house—a big heavy bundle it was, wrapped in a blanket. I—”

  Flint cut in. “When was this?”

  “A week ago, Saturday night. They carried spades and they came up here.”

  “You followed them?”

  The boatkeeper nodded. “I stayed back under the trees and watched. I saw them digging. Then they buried what it was they had, and covered it up.”

  Haggard, beside me, said, “I’ll be damned.”

  There was fire in Flint’s eyes, and in his voice. “And then what did you do?”

  “I—I went back too. But then I was thinkin’ it o’er, an’ it did look verra fishy.” The emotional tension that pulled at Scotty brought his burr back again. “An’ the more I thought, the more I dinna like it at a’. So then I got a spade—”

  “How much time did you spend at this thinking, Scotty?” Merlini asked.

  “’Twas an hour before I went back. I had to make rounds first. An’ I dug in where they hae been diggin’. And—” he looked accusingly at Haggard—“it was a body I found.” Scotty grew incoherent. “A dead body—it hae to be dead—it was lyin’ there a’ that time, and then— then—”

  “Then what, Scotty?” Flint sounded apprehensive.

  “You’ll na believe me, but it began to climb up out of that grave after me!”

  He was right. The lieutenant didn’t believe him. In an awed voice, he said, “D.t.’s!”