The Collection (143 page)

Sir Charles smiled. “I have never yet admitted, in so many
words, that I am not. Would it not be foolish to start now? At any rate, it
gets me in to see people much more easily.”

Nick Corianos laughed. He said, “I see what you mean.

And I'm beginning to guess what you want. You're a ham,
aren't you?”

“I am an actor. I have been informed that you are backing a
play; in fact, I have seen a script of the play. I am interested in playing the
role of Richter.”

Nick Corianos frowned. “Richter — that's the name of the
blackmailer in the play?”

“It is.” Sir Charles held up a hand. “Please do not tell me
offhand that I do not look the part. A true actor can look, and can be,
anything. I can be a blackmailer.”

Nick Corianos said, “Possibly. But I'm not handling the
casting.”

Sir Charles smiled, and then let the smile fade. He stood up
and leaned forward, his hands resting on Nick's mahogany desk. He smiled again,
but the smile was different. His voice was cold, precise, perfect. He said,
“Listen,
pal, you can't
shove me off. I know too much. Maybe I can't prove it
myself,
but the police can, once I tell them where to look. Walter
Donovan.
Does that name mean anything to you, pal? Or the 
 
date September first?
Or a spot a hundred yards off the road
to Bridgeport, halfway between
Stamford and there. Do you
think you can—?”

“That's enough,” Nick said. There was an ugly black
automatic in his right hand. His left was pushing a buzzer on his desk.

Sir Charles Hanover Gresham stared at the automatic, and he
saw it — not only the automatic, but everything. He saw death, and for just a
second there was panic.

And then all the panic was gone, and there was left a vast
amusement.

It had been perfect, all down the line.
The Perfect
Crime
—
advertised as such, and he hadn't guessed it. He hadn't even suspected it.

And yet, he thought, why wouldn't — why shouldn't —Wayne
Campbell be tired enough of a blackmailer who had bled him, however mildly, for
so many years? And why wouldn't one of the best playwrights in the world be
clever enough to do it this way?

So clever, and so simple, however Wayne had come across the
information against Nick Corianos which he had written on a special page,
especially inserted in his copy of the script.
Speak the speech, I pray you—

And he had even known that he, Charles, wouldn't give him away.
Even now, before the trigger was pulled, he could blurt: “Wayne Campbell knows
this, too. He did it, not I!”

But even to say that now couldn't save him, for that black
automatic had turned fiction into fact, and although he might manage Campbell's
death along with his own, it wouldn't save his own life. Wayne had even known
him well enough to know, to be sure, that he wouldn't do that — at no advantage
to himself.

He stood up straight, taking his hands off the desk but
carefully keeping them at his sides, as the two big men came through the wide
doorway that led to the outer office.

Nick said, “Pete, get that canvas mail sack out of the
drawer out there. And is the car in front of the service entrance?”

“Sure, chief.” One of the men ducked back through the door.

Nick hadn't taken his eyes — or the cold muzzle of the gun —
off Sir Charles.

Sir Charles smiled at him. He said, “May I ask a boon?”

“What?”

“A favor. Besides the one you already intend to do for me. I
ask thirty-five seconds.”

“Huh?”

“I've timed it; it should take that long. Most actors do it
in thirty — they push the pace. I refer, of course, to the immortal lines from
Macbeth.
 Have I your permission to die thirty-five seconds from now, rather than
right at this exact instant?”

Nick's eyes got even narrower. He said, “I don't get it, but
what's thirty-five seconds, if you really keep your hands in sight?”

Sir Charles said,
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and
tomorrow—”

One of the big men was back in the doorway, something made
of canvas rolled up under his arm. He asked, “Is the guy screwy?”

“Shut up,” Nick said.

And then no one was interrupting him. No one was even
impatient. And thirty-five seconds were ample.

“...
Out, out, brief candle,
Life's but a walking
shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And
then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury,
Signifying nothing.”

He paused, and the quiet pause lengthened.

He bowed slightly and straightened so the audience would
know that there was no more. And then Nick's finger tightened on the trigger.

The applause was deafening.

The seed of murder was planted in the mind of Wiley Hughes
the first time he saw the old man open the safe.

There was money in the safe. Stacks of it.

The old man took three bills from one orderly pile and
handed them to Wiley. They were twenties.

“Sixty dollars even, Mr. Hughes,” he said. “And that's the
ninth payment.” He took the receipt Wiley gave him, closed the safe, and
twisted the dial.

It was a small, antique-looking safe. A man could open it
with a cold chisel and a good crowbar, if he didn't have to worry about how
much noise he made.

The old man walked with Wiley out of the house and down to
the iron fence. After he'd closed the gate behind Wiley, he went over to the
tree and untied the dog again.

Wiley looked back over his shoulder at the gate, and at the
sign upon it: “Beware of the Dog.”

There was a padlock on the gate too, and a bell button set
in the gatepost. If you wanted to see old man Erskine you had to push that
button and wait until he'd come out of the house and tied up the dog and then
unlocked the gate to let you in.

Not that the padlocked gate meant anything. An able-bodied
man could get over the fence easily enough. But once in the yard he'd be torn
to pieces by that hound of hell Erskine kept for a watchdog.

A vicious brute, that dog.

A lean, underfed hound with slavering jaws and eyes that
looked death at you as you walked by. He didn't run to the fence and bark. Nor
even growl.

Just stood there, turning his head to follow you, with his
yellowish teeth bared in a snarl that was the more sinister in that it was
silent.

A black dog, with yellow, hate-filled eyes, and a quiet
viciousness beyond ordinary canine ferocity. A killer dog.

Yes, it was a hound of hell, all right.

And a beast of nightmare, too. Wiley dreamed about it that
night. And the next.

There was something he wanted very badly in those dreams. Or
somewhere he wanted to go. And his way was barred by a monstrous black hound,
with slavering jowls and eyes that looked death at you. Except for size, it was
old man Erskine's watchdog. The seed of murder grew.

Wiley Hughes lived, as it happened, only a block from the
old man's house. Every time he went past it on his way to or from work he
thought about it. It would be so easy. The dog? He could poison the dog. There
were some things he wanted to find out, without asking about them. Patiently,
at the office, he cultivated the acquaintance of the collector who had dealt
with the old man before he had been transferred to another route. He went out
drinking with the man several times before the subject of the old man crept
into the conversation — and then, after they'd discussed many other debtors.
“Old Erskine? The guy's a miser, that's all. He pays for that stock on time
because he can't bear to part with a big chunk of money all at once. Ever see
all the money he keeps in—?”

Wiley steered the conversation into safer channels. He
didn't want to have discussed how much money the old man kept in the house.

He asked, “Ever see a more vicious dog than that hellhound
of his?”

The other collector shook his head. “And neither did anybody
else. That mutt hates even the old man. Can't blame him for that, though; the
old geezer half starves him to keep him fierce.”

“The hell,” said Wiley. “How come he doesn't jump Erskine
then?”

“Trained not to, that's all. Nor Erskine's son — he visits
there once in a while. Nor the man who delivers groceries.

But anybody else he'd tear to pieces.”

And then Wiley Hughes dropped the subject like a hot coal
and began to talk about the widow who was always behind in her payments and who
always cried if they threatened to foreclose.

The dog tolerated two people besides the old man. And that
meant that if he could get past the dog
without
harming it, or it
harming him, suspicion would be directed toward those two people.

It was a big
if,
 but then the fact that the dog was
underfed made it possible. If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach,
why not the way to a dog's heart?

It was worth trying.

He went about it very carefully. He bought the meat at a
butcher shop on the other side of town. He took every precaution that night,
when he left his own house heading into the alley, that no one would see him.

Keeping to the middle of the alley, he walked past old man
Erskine's fence, and kept walking. The dog was there, just inside the fence,
and it kept pace with him, soundlessly.

He threw a piece of meat over the fence and kept walking.

To the corner and back again. He walked just a little closer
to the fence and threw another piece of meat over. This time he saw the dog leave
the fence and run for the meat.

He returned home, unseen, and feeling that things were
working out his way. The dog
was
hungry; it would eat meat he threw to
it. Pretty soon it would be taking food from his hand, through the fence.

He made his plans carefully, and omitted no factor. The few
tools he would need were purchased in such a way that they could not be traced
to him. And wiped off fingerprints; they would be left at the scene of the
burglary. He studied the habits of the neighborhood and knew that everyone in
the block was asleep by one o'clock, except for two night workers who didn't
return from work until four-thirty.

There was the patrolman to consider. A few sleepless nights
at a darkened window gave him the information that the patrolman passed at one
and again at four.

The hour between two and three, then, was the safest.

And the dog. His progress in making friends with the dog had
been easier and more rapid than he had anticipated. It took food from his hand,
through the bars of the alley fence.

It let him reach through the bars and pet it. He'd been
afraid of losing a finger or two the first time he'd tried that.

But the fear had been baseless.

The dog had been as starved for affection as it had been
starved for food.

Hound of hell,
hell
! He grinned to himself at the
extravagance of the descriptive phrase he had once used.

Then came the night when he dared climb over the fence.

The dog met him with little whimpers of delight. He'd been
sure it would, but he'd taken every precaution possible. Heavy leather leggings
under his trousers. A scarf wrapped many times around his throat. And meat to
offer, more tempting than his own. There was nothing to it, after that.

Friday, then, was to be the night. Everything was ready.

So ready that between eight o'clock in the evening and two
in the morning, there was nothing for him to do. So he set and muffled his
alarm, and slept.

Nothing to the burglary at all. Or the murder.

Down the alley, taking extra precautions this time that no
one saw him. There was enough moonlight for him to read, and to grin at, the
“Beware of the Dog” sign on the back gate.

Beware of the dog! That was a laugh, now. He handed it a
piece of meat through the fence, patted its head while it ate, and then he vaulted
over the fence and went up toward the house.

His crowbar opened a window, easily.

Silently he crept up the stairs to the bedroom of the old
man, and there he did what it was necessary for him to do in order to be able
to open the safe without danger of being heard.

The murder was really necessary, he told himself.

Stunned — even tied up — the old man might possibly have
managed to raise an alarm. Or might have recognized his assailant, even in the
darkness.

The safe offered a bit more difficulty than he had
anticipated, but not too much. Well before three o'clock —with an hour's factor
of safety — he had it open and had the money.

It was only on his way out through the yard, after
everything had gone perfectly, that Wiley Hughes began to worry and to wonder
whether he had made any possible mistake. There was a brief instant of panic.

But then he was safely home, and he thought over every step
he had taken, and there was no possible clue that would lead the police to
suspect Wiley Hughes.

Inside the house, in sanctuary, he counted the money under a
light that wouldn't show outside. Monday he would put it in a safe deposit box
he had already rented under an assumed name.

Meanwhile, any hiding place would serve. But he was taking
no chances; he had prepared a good one. That afternoon he had spaded the big
flower bed in the back yard.

Now, keeping close under cover of the fence, so he could not
be seen in the remotely possible case of a neighbor looking from a window, lie
scooped a hollow in the freshly spaded earth.

No need to bury it deep; a shallow hole, refilled, in the
freshly turned soil would be best, and could never on earth be detected by
human eyes. He wrapped the money in oiled paper, buried it, and covered the
hole carefully, leaving no trace whatsoever.