Death from Nowhere (5 page)

Church turned to Miss Skinner who sat at her desk twisting a small handkerchief with nervous fingers. “Who is she, do you know?”

Blondie nodded, staring at the woman, “Yes. She … She …” The secretary seemed to have trouble talking under the dirty look that Branner's prisoner was throwing her way. “Her husband works on the Hagenbaugh-Powers show. She is Mrs. Juan Belmonte.”

“Belmonte.” Church repeated, a dim memory stirring somewhere within him. “What does he do?”

The Inspector should never have asked that.

Miss Skinner's answer crackled with a high voltage charge. “He's a tightwire walker.”

3
The Invisible Man case to which the Inspector referred, that curiously inexplicable affair that concerned the murder at Headquarters, the Siva statue, and the Queen's necklace, has previously been published in these columns under the title:
Death From Thin Air.

C
HAPTER
V

Ways of Departure

C
ONSIDERING
what he had been through already the Inspector took that one on the chin remarkably well. He merely glared at Don Diavolo; then growled, “Keep both eyes on him, Brophy,” and went out into the anteroom. He did, however, give the door a good hearty slam as he went.

Diavolo moved forward, hands in his pockets toward the window.

Brophy said, “Where do you think you're going?”

“Do you have to yell at me too?” Don asked him. “Don't worry. I'm not going far, not out this window at any rate.” Don stooped and from the floor just behind the corner of the screen, picked up an object that he would not have expected to find in a busy executive's office.

It was a large damp sponge. “I wonder,” he said aloud, “what that would be doing here?”

Brophy was touchy. “Put it down,” he ordered brusquely. “Don't handle things. Maybe the guy you say bopped you took a bath here.” He nodded at the dampness on the carpet and the bare footprint. “That looks like it.”

“Then he hit me with the bathtub which he took with him when he left? Or maybe he was a snowman and he vanished by melting. Brophy, I don't like this much. I still don't see how …” Don's voice trailed off as a thought hit him.

Brophy said, “The Inspector don't like it either. If I was you I'd get a better story than the one you got. A murderer nobody saw socks you on the skull, and then does a tight-wire walking act out the window twenty stories up, leaving you to take the rap. Well, it ain't so hot.”

“Maybe he's a smart murderer,” Don said thoughtfully. “Leaving the scene of the crime by a method no one is going to believe, is a clever dodge.”

The lieutenant shook his head. “I heard you say once that the best tricks were the simplest ones. The simplest solution to this murder isn't an acrobat.
It's you!
”

“There's one rule about jigsaw puzzles you should remember, Lieutenant,” Diavolo answered. “Don't try to put them together until you're sure you've got all the pieces. I've got a hunch that—”

Inspector Church blew into the room again, followed by a rabbity little man with a droopy mustache, a quiet confident air, and a small black bag.

“There's the body, Doc,” Church said. “Find out what the hell killed him as soon as you can.”

Doctor Pepper put his bag down, pushed his hat back on his head and went to work.

Church turned to Don. “Miss Skinner says that Belmonte's wife has been playing games with Hagenbaugh. That gives Belmonte a motive. You knew that all the time, didn't you? That's why you're trying to make me think a tight-wire walker might've gotten out of here by that—” He turned suddenly. “What's that, Pepper?”

The doctor, bending over the body, repeated himself, “I said I was surprised this hadn't happened long ago.”

“Surprised what hadn't happened?”

“Hagenbaugh getting killed.” Pepper said. “I've been looking forward to doing an autopsy on him. Knew I'd get to some day.”

Church stared at the man. “What do you know about Hagenbaugh?”

“Patient of mine once. When I had a private practice before I went to work for the city. He was a first-class candidate for murder. Shouldn't wonder if half the people he knew wouldn't have liked to knock him off. Do we
have
to find out who did it?”

“You're a fat lot of help!” Church growled. “What killed him?”

“I don't know yet. If there were any marks to show he'd been strangled, I'd say asphyxiation, but there aren't. When can I have him?”

Church turned to Brophy. “Where's that photographer? We haven't gotten any pictures yet. Get him.”

Don Diavolo ventured a question. “Any idea what made those scratches on his face, Doc?”

Pepper glanced at Church and jerked a thumb toward Don. “Who's he?”

“Oh,” Church said, “that's just the killer. Don't pay any attention to him.”

“I see,” Pepper replied. “Good question though. You find any gadget that might have made marks like these?”

“Not yet,” Church answered. “We're looking. I put a man on it downstairs. He probably fired it out the window.”

“Hmm,” Pepper murmured. “Yes, maybe. Five nice neat parallel scratches. Not too deep, not a lot of blood. New one on me.” He cocked an eye at Diavolo. “I never saw a wound quite like this before. Did you?”

Don said, “Yes, I think I have.”

The Inspector scowled at him, not liking what he was going to say before he said it. Pepper looked interested. “Where?” the latter asked.

“Sarasota, Florida,” Don replied. “Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey winter quarters. Animal trainer working a cage of cats. A leopard made a pass at him. The wound looked a lot like that one.”

Pepper was scowling now too. “Didn't kill him, did it?”

“No.”

“Hmm,” Pepper said. “Hagenbaugh's dead though.”

Church growled. “Diavolo, I've had more than enough of your pipe dreams. You'll be telling me next that leopards can walk tight ropes too.”

“They are the most difficult and dangerous animals to train,” Don replied. “But I wouldn't say it couldn't be done. Had you noticed that?” He pointed to a framed photograph on the wall behind Hagenbaugh's desk. It showed a trainer in his cage standing beneath a taut heavy cable. Above him a lion snarled and gingerly felt his way across the slender strand.

Then, before the Inspector had time to erupt again, Diavolo said quickly, “One thing I'd like to know, Inspector. It might prove interesting. Miss Skinner, when I arrived, said that R.J. was in conference. I thought then that it was just the usual soft soap. Now I'm not so sure. Would you mind asking her — or have you?”

The Inspector considered that a moment wondering what the catch was. Then he said, “The condemned man gets what he wants for his last meal. Sure. I'll ask her.” He turned and opened the door. “Miss Skinner. What was your employer so busy at when Diavolo barged in? He says you told him Hagenbaugh was in conference.”

Miss Skinner's voice was thin and shaky. Little of the confidence she had used on Diavolo remained. “Mr. Hagenbaugh” she answered, “was interviewing Toro Zalini.”

“
He was what?
” Inspector Church acted as if he had stepped on a high voltage wire, or a live cobra — or both. “Why didn't you say so before? When did he leave? You said no one came out of this office after Diavolo.”

“Leave?” Miss Skinner's voice overflowed with pure astonishment. “Leave? He didn't leave!
Isn't he there now?
”

The homicide squad's awaited photographer came in from the corridor just then and moved toward Hagenbaugh's office. He noted the thunderstruck look that covered Inspector Church's face like a mudpack.

“What's the matter, Inspector?” he asked. “Did you see a ghost?”

Church growled like a hungry lion. “You're late. Get in there and get to work. Miss Skinner, would you please say that again, slowly?”

“Toro Zalini,” she answered. “A circus performer after a booking. He—”

“Wait, Miss Skinner,” Church broke in. “
He
wouldn't by any chance be a tight-wire walker too, would he?” The Inspector's expression said that he expected nothing less.

He got more than he expected.

“No,” Blondie said. “He shoots himself out of a cannon!”

C
HAPTER
VI

The Second Corpse

I
NSPECTOR CHURCH
looked at Miss Skinner for a long silent moment. “Cannon,” he said softly as if it were a strange word he had never heard before. “Cannon,” he repeated. He turned around slowly. “Diavolo,” he said, his voice low, taut and ominous, “If you make one single solitary crack about—”

Don shook his head. “No, Inspector. No cracks. But maybe now you'll admit there was someone else in this room? Someone beside myself who could have killed—”

Officer Schultz returned scowling. Church saw him and grunted, “Well?”

“Nobody climbed out that window on any ropes,” he said. “I've got statements from witnesses in both offices, upstairs and down. But that window across the way — the one he thinks a tight-wire walker might've—” Schultz paused doubtfully.

The Inspector gave him an apprehensive look. “Dammit,” he began, “what—”

“Well, it's an empty. So I couldn't get any witnesses to say—”

“Brophy!” Church commanded. “If there was anyone else in this room and if Miss Skinner's positive he didn't leave through her office, then he's still here! I don't care how many tight-wire walkers and men who get shot out of cannons there are in the case. Take this room apart!”

The lieutenant looked around at the walls in a bewildered way, not knowing just where to begin. “I don't see,” he said, “where he could be, unless he's a midget.”

Church jumped. Midgets! Hagenbaugh very probably had some of them on his payroll. If Zalini was—

“Miss Skinner,” The Inspector howled. “What did this man look like? Describe him.”

Miss Skinner seemed to be at a loss. “I can't do that very well,” she said hesitantly. “He — well, I didn't see his face.”

“You didn't — Why, not?”

“It was almost completely covered with bandages. He looked as if the last time he was fired out of his cannon he must have missed the net.”

“The more questions I ask the less I find out,” Church muttered. “But you must have seen something. Color of his eyes, hair, clothes. How tall was he? How heavy?”

“He was just a medium size, dark blue suit, I didn't get a good look at his eyes. He wore his hat turned way down. He talked funny.”

“Funny?”

“Sort of as if he had mush in his mouth. Or as if … as if he was disguising his voice!” Miss Skinner's blue eyes were wide. “Maybe his name wasn't Zalini after all! Maybe he was someone I know, someone who didn't want me to recognize—”

“I think,” Church said, “that maybe you've got something there. Did he have an appointment?”

“No, he didn't. And when I took his name in, Mr. Hagenbaugh said he couldn't be bothered. He told me to tell the man to come back Monday. That's his day for interviewing acts. But … but—” Blondie frowned.

“Go on,” Church urged impatiently.

“Something odd happened then. Zalini said, in that funny voice of his, ‘I must see him now.' And then he picked up a pencil and wrote something on my desk pad. He didn't let me see it. He tore it off, folded it, and asked me to give it to Mr. Hagenbaugh. He said it was very important. I took it in and …”

“Hagenbaugh changed his mind?”

“Yes,” Miss Skinner said. “He … that note upset him. He almost seemed scared. He thought a minute and then he said, ‘Send him in.' And I did. That's all.”

Church looked at the desk top. “The note?” he asked. “Hagenbaugh keep it?”

“Yes.”

Church riffled quickly through the papers in the wire basket on the desk, pulled out a drawer or two and then ordered, “Brophy. Get me that desk pad.”

The Lieutenant hurried out and returned a moment later with the memo pad Miss Skinner had mentioned. He gave it to Church. The Inspector switched on the desk lamp and held the pad close under it so that the light struck it at an angle. He squinted at it curiously, tilting the pad from side to side.

Then he swore.

Don Diavolo who had edged up behind him saw it too. The impression the pencil had made on the sheet beneath the one that had been written on was faint but perceptible. The message that had caused Hagenbaugh to change his mind had been composed of two words, printed one above the other in capitals.

SNOW
LEOPARD

“Leopard,” Church muttered eyeing Diavolo with a sour expression. “You certainly call the shots ahead of time, don't you? Nobody but a guilty man could know that much — unless he was a—” Church had been about to say “mindreader” but he stopped short, remembering that Diavolo pretended to be just that. “What,” he asked instead, “is a snow leopard?”