No Coffin for the Corpse Page 3

  “Tomorrow!” Doctor Haggard stood up and drew a spiral-edged notebook from his breast pocket. He dropped it on the table before Wolff. “I’m on the right track at last. I’m sure of it. The germ of the answer is there in those notes. I’ve got a serum now that—”

  Wolff leafed quickly through the book scowling at the complex chemical formulas and the charts showing the comparative mortality curves of science’s old friend the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll listen to the lecture later. If it makes sense you can have what you need. Everything but time. I haven’t got much more of that to give. And just remember that from now on I’m not buying any more fine-spun theories no matter how ingenious. I can get those for nothing. I want results and I want them—”

  Wolff stopped and turned toward the door. A slender, sallow-faced man had appeared there quietly. He stood just inside, a worried look on his face, his hands moving nervously. His voice was not too steady.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Wolff. I must see you for a moment, privately.”

  Wolff scowled. “Can’t it wait, Dunning?”

  Dunning shook his head. “No, sir. It’s most urgent. It—”

  Wolff stood up. He said, “Excuse me,” then crossed quickly toward the man at the door.

  Albert Dunning was Wolff’s private secretary. His appearance was commonplace, so much so that he seemed to possess a curious protective coloration which enabled him to blend almost unnoticeably with the wallpaper. Few people ever looked at him twice. Those that did wondered how such a frail, anemic-looking person had ever lasted two years in the employment of a man like Wolff who used up and discarded secretaries nearly as fast as he did razor blades.

  But Dunning had managed to last much longer than most. His sincere interest in and meticulous care for the firearm collection, rivaling Wolff’s own, was one reason. The others were a precise, robot efficiency and a ducklike ability to shed the Wolff insults and temper tantrums with what seemed to be the greatest of ease.

  Dunning’s voice as he spoke to Wolff was low and rapid. Galt and Haggard couldn’t make out the words, but they saw the millionaire’s bushy eyebrows lift in surprise and then flatten ominously. Wolff looked around toward them.

  “Back in a minute,” he said, then hurried out the door. The puffs of cigar smoke that floated in his wake were disturbed angry ones.

  Dunning vanished after him as silently as one of Galt’s ghosts.

  “You should investigate Dunning some time,” the doctor commented as he poured himself another drink. “I shouldn’t wonder if he’d turn out to be a zombie.”

  Galt, though annoyed by what he had considered an unsportsmanlike attempt on Haggard’s part to undermine his position with Wolff, apparently had a sense of humor. He made no verbal answer, but the doctor heard the spirit knocks again, tapping softly and mockingly.

  Dudley Wolff charged up the stairs toward his study. His none too steady blood pressure had been bubbling up near the danger point pretty constantly the last few days. Tonight’s events hadn’t helped the condition any. And now, a few moments after he burst in at the study door, something happened that made him boil over completely. He really exploded this time.

  Chapter Three:

  Bury Him Deep

  DUNNING’S REPORT CONCERNED a strange and, he thought, sinister individual who had mysteriously appeared in Wolff’s office-study on the second floor. The butler, whom Dunning had queried on his way down, denied ever admitting the man.

  The secretary had walked into the study and discovered a man he had never seen before calmly running through some personal papers in Wolff’s files. The stranger had seemed in no way startled or disturbed by Dunning’s entrance, and had made no attempt to escape. Instead, he had simply shoved the file drawer to, sat himself down in a chair before the desk, and said quite calmly, “Tell Dudley Wolff that I want to see him here. Now.”

  Dunning, who made and kept track of Wolff’s appointments with all the deadly precision of a time clock, was upset by the incident. He had protested and tried to question the man, but had received no reply except for an insolent smile and the blunt repeated command, “Get Wolff!”

  He was still sitting there quite calmly when Wolff barged in. He was an odd sort of man, though the oddness was something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. He was dressed soberly enough in a smooth-fitting dark overcoat, white scarf, and a black hat which he showed no intention of removing. His face was thin, sharp-featured, ascetic. His black eyes set in deep hollows burned brightly. A thin penciling of dark mustache crossed his upper lip and descended down around each side of his mouth to meet the small close-cropped black beard that covered his chin. Although his skin was white, here was a hint of accent in his voice that Dunning couldn’t quite place. The man was, furthermore, anything but polite.

  “Who,” Dudley Wolff demanded, “are you?”

  The stranger looked at Dunning. “Get your secretary out of here. My business with you is private.”

  There was an insolence not only in his words but in his whole manner that affected Wolff like so much hot red pepper. The millionaire’s complexion grew dark with all the rapidity of litmus paper in the presence of undiluted hydrochloric acid and his voice thundered like a Heaviside war chariot racing over cobblestones.

  “You go to hell! Who the devil are you? What the blazing hell do you want? Why—”

  The intruder reacted to Wolff vocal bombing attack as if he were miles away, safe underground in a deep mine. Only his eyes were watchful and careful. His thin-lipped mouth curved in what seemed to be a smile, although there was no humor in it.

  “Smith will do for a name,” he said, his low steady voice cutting in across Wolff’s deep bellowing one. “And I repeat, get your secretary out of here!”

  The old question of what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object seemed about to be answered.

  The pitch of Wolff’s voice changed. It was, suddenly, more like the crackling of a shorted electric cable.

  “Dunning! Telephone. Police.”

  Albert Dunning approached the desk, beside which the sinister Mr. Smith sat, gingerly. He put out his hand to pick up the phone. But no lightning struck. The man only grinned again, his sharp eyes still on Wolff.

  Dunning started to dial. Then he stopped, frowned, and depressed the bar in the phone cradle once or twice. The stranger, still grinning, poked at the telephone cord that led down over the desk to the bell box by the baseboard. The point of his cane hooked under it and lifted it for their inspection. It ended abruptly three feet from the phone in a neatly sliced end.

  “I thought it might be wise,” Smith said. “You’re too hasty, Wolff. If you continue to act in this manner you’ll regret it. When I tell you why I am here you will wish that you had dismissed this man—” he nodded at Dunning—“as I asked.”

  “Asked!” Wolff growled, infuriated by the man’s calmly impudent manner. “You have a damned funny way of asking. Get to the point. What do you want?”

  Wolff had moved in closer. He stood above the man, looking down, his jaw tight, his fists clenched. The stranger didn’t appear to notice. He glanced once again at Dunning, then shrugged.

  “I want money,” he said. “Naturally.” His gloved hand slid in beneath his coat. Dunning sucked in his breath. Wolff’s right arm flexed as if to strike out.

  But they heard the crinkle of paper and saw the man’s hand come out again, holding not a weapon but a long envelope of legal size.

  Mr. Smith put down his cane and used both hands to open it. He removed several long, narrow, glossy photographic prints, spread them fanwise between his fingers slightly, and extended them in Wolff’s direction. Dunning caught a glimpse. They appeared to be facsimile photographs of checks. He also caught a brief flash of the envelope’s interior and of something there that looked suspiciously like the negatives from which the prints had been made. He saw Wolff’s eyes narrow and knew that he too had seen
them.

  Wolff stared at the prints. Then, suddenly, he let the stranger have his way. “Dunning,” he said grimly, “I’ll handle this. Wait outside.”

  The secretary hesitated. “Are you sure—”

  “Yes. Get out!”

  Dunning turned and left hastily, closing the door behind him. He didn’t go far, but dropped on one knee and investigated the keyhole.

  “That’s more like it,” he heard Smith say. “You shouldn’t let everyone know about something like this, you know.”

  “Where did you get these?” Wolff asked coldly.

  Smith ignored the question. “Interesting, aren’t they? And not nice. Particularly if the papers or those senators should see—”

  “They’re forgeries,” Wolff protested. “I can prove that.”

  Mr. Smith lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “I don’t think so. Even if you could it would take considerable time. And, meanwhile, the newspapers and the Senate Munitions Committee—” He left the sentence unfinished.

  Wolff glared at him. “How much?”

  “A hundred thousand. They’re worth more. But that will do.”

  “And I get the negatives?”

  The man nodded. He made a small gesture with the envelope. “Yes. Of course.”

  Wolff said, “I’ll pay ten.” His eyes were steady on his opponent, anger spilling from them—and decision.

  “Ten?” Mr. Smith made his little grin again. “I’ll give you one minute. At the end of that time the price will go up to—”

  Dudley Wolff never found out what the new rate was going to be. His fist, clenched until his fingernails cut into the flesh of his palm, swung up at the man’s face.

  Smith saw the movement in his shoulders. He threw himself back in the chair and tried to twist his head. Wolff’s fist smashed against the side of his jaw and ploughed along his cheek.

  Smith’s chair went over backward.

  It teetered for a moment in slow motion on its back legs, and then crashed down. Smith’s feet described an arc above his head. His body somersaulted from the chair along the floor, then lay still, face down.

  Wolff knelt quickly and scooped the envelope up from the floor. He glanced inside, grinned briefly, and then moved hastily around behind his desk.

  His right hand yanked at a drawer, readied in and came out with a revolver. His left shoved the envelope and the prints into his side coat pocket.

  “Dunning!” he called.

  The secretary pushed the door open.

  Wolff pointed at the man on the floor with his gun. “Search him quickly, before he comes to.” His physical explosion had given Wolff control over his temper again, and, though the cold light in his gray eyes still indicated anger, he seemed almost to be enjoying himself now.

  Dunning went through Mr. Smith’s pockets. He found nothing at all except some small change and a wallet. He laid these on the table before Wolff. The latter flipped open the billfold.

  He blinked for a moment at the card that was there behind the square of celluloid. Then he smiled.

  “That fixes him, Dunning. It makes his little blackmail attempt boomerang very nicely.”

  The card stated, in the same simple, cold, matter-of-fact way Mr. Smith talked, that William Garner was an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “Lock that door, Dunning,” Wolff said. “Then see what you can do about a little first aid.”

  Dunning started toward the door, then halted. Wolff looked around.

  Anne Wolff, Dudley’s wife, stood in the doorway watching them.

  “What happened, Dudley? Who is that?” Her voice, though surprised, was cool. Anne Wolff was a cool person, poised, and self-assured. Even her rather startling beauty, as warmly alive as it was, had something of the cool smooth quality of a Grecian marble that comes from a too classic regularity of feature. But, in the deep hazel eyes, there was a glow that told plainly of emotions beneath the surface quite capable of flaring hotly.

  Dudley Wolff was fifty-five; she was at least fifteen years his junior and appeared even younger. Her clothes, which had the smart ultra fashion of an Eric drawing, accented this youthful appearance, as did the equally extreme coiffure of her dark hair and the alert lithe way she used her body. This last you noticed even when she stood perfectly still, as she did now, staring at the gun in Wolff’s hand and at the still figure on the floor. A thin feather of blue smoke curled slowly upward from the gold-tipped cigarette in her right hand.

  Wolff scowled at Dunning over his desk and splashed some whisky into a highball glass.

  “He’s a detective who had an odd idea that he could blackmail Dudley Wolff. He’s not so smart in other ways too. I hit him and took what he wanted to sell. You’d better go. He might be a bit nasty when he wakes up. Dunning and I will handle him.”

  Anne frowned at the man on the floor. “Doctor Haggard is downstairs, isn’t he? Perhaps I had better call him.”

  “No. That won’t be necessary. I don’t want everyone to know—”

  Dunning, who had gone to kneel at the man’s side, said nervously, “I think we should have the doctor. I don’t like—I can’t feel his pulse and he doesn’t seem to be breathing.”

  Wolff scowled at Dunning over his glass. “Nonsense!” he said. But he put his drink down and crossed to join the secretary. He looked down at the body for a moment. “He doesn’t look too good, does he? All right, get Haggard.”

  Dunning hurried into the gun room, ran his finger down a row of buttons beneath the phone and pressed one marked Library.

  Anne Wolff said, “I think I’ll stay. I don’t like this.”

  Wolff frowned down at the figure at his feet for a moment and then returned to his drink.

  Dunning came back after a moment, and then Doctor Haggard hurried in. He stopped just inside the door, blinked once in a startled way at the body, threw a ¢questioning look at Wolff, and scowled briefly at the gun in Wolff’s hand. But he asked no questions. He moved across to the man on the floor and knelt above him.

  Wolff, less confident now, poured himself another drink. They all watched the doctor without speaking.

  Haggard’s fingers went to his patient’s wrist. The calmly interested professional look on his face suddenly froze. He hesitated a second, scowling. Then, quickly, he turned the body over on its back, threw open the overcoat, ripped away the man’s tie, and unbuttoned vest and shirt. He leaned forward and put his ear against the bare flesh over the heart.

  Wolff, distinctly nervous now, watched him intently. Mrs. Wolff seemed to be holding her breath. Dunning was transfixed.

  Then, after a long moment, Doctor Haggard straightened up, sat back on his heels, and looked again at Wolff and at the gun in Wolff’s hand. His voice was crisp. “What happened? I don’t see any wound, and no blood. I heard no shot. How long—”

  “There wasn’t any shot,” Wolff said quickly. “I hit him. What are you waiting for? Aren’t you going to do something? Why—”

  “Do something?” Haggard lifted one eyebrow. “I’m a bit late. This man is dead.”

  The doctor’s voice was, except for a trace of curiosity, as matter-of-fact as a weather report.

  But the words gathered impact in the silence that followed them. Wolff shook his head in a dazed fashion. He opened his lips twice before his words came. Then, hoarsely, he said, “Dead? No. I don’t believe it! He can’t be—”

  Haggard frowned. “He is though.” His eyes went again to the gun in Wolff’s hand. “What happened?”

  Dudley let the weapon fall onto the green desk blotter. He sank back into the chair. “I hit him,” he said. “But not that hard. He might have cracked his head when he went over backward, but—but—dammit, look at him again. You must be wrong. It isn’t possible—”

  Haggard bent above the body again. “There’s some abrasion along the side of the jaw. But that’s all. His head seems to be all right. But he’s still dead.” Haggard stood up. “Bad heart probably. The autopsy will show. Who wa
s he?”

  Wolff stared at Haggard for a moment, then took a hasty drink from his glass. His hand shook. He looked at the body on the floor and his voice was like that of a sleepwalker. “Man named Garner. He tried to blackmail me.”

  Haggard blinked again, glanced curiously at Anne and Dunning, and said, “Oh. That’s a bit awkward, isn’t it?”

  Wolff nodded vaguely, still staring at the body, not believing it. His face was white and his forehead shone damply in the light that came from the green-shaded desk lamp. He sat limply in the chair, all his dynamic energy gone like the air from a pricked balloon.

  Haggard picked up the phone, saw the cut wire, blinked once more, and looked around at everyone again. Then he replaced the receiver slowly and, turning, started out the door.

  Wolff wasn’t paying attention, but Anne asked, “Doctor Haggard, where are you going?”

  “Telephone,” he answered. “Notify the police. Cases of sudden or violent death must be—”

  Dudley Wolff heard that. He came up out of his chair abruptly. “Wait a minute, Haggard!” Something of the old punch was back in his voice now.

  The doctor turned. “Yes?”

  “You’re not going to call the police,” Wolff said heavily.

  “No?” Haggard’s eyebrows lifted. “I haven’t any choice in the matter. You can’t possibly avoid—”

  “I’m going to though,” Wolff insisted. “Somehow. I’ve got to. I can’t have this hit the papers now. That man was an FBI agent.”

  The surprises came so fast Haggard seemed a bit dazed. “But if he was blackmailing you—that’s excuse enough for hitting him.”

  “But I can’t admit that. It would only make things worse. The papers would love it. And the Senate Committee—” Wolff’s rugged face had a cornered look, but there was hard determination in the set of his jaw.

  Anne, still cool, said, “Perhaps if the body was found somewhere else—”

  Haggard protested. “If he was a Federal agent his presence here is probably known. That wouldn’t help a bit. The police would—”