Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (58 page)

“I’ll stew it awhile.”

“If the idea is to wait for the reward to be jacked up,” warned Riley, “you may wait too long. By the tone of his voice Ledsom’s feeling mean enough to put his own mother in the jug.”

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

“Moira, do you sense anything strange about me?”

“Oh no, Mr. Harper,” she assured.

It 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 mid-morning of the following day, 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 reckon I can leave for a few days without risk of bankruptcy. But I’m not going away blind.”

“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 for the hell of it.”

“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 with me. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” Harper pronged the phone, watched its fluorescent dial cloud over and go blank. He did not like the situation. He felt no real concern over entanglement in a murder. That affair would straighten itself out sooner or later. It was the least of his worries.

What bothered him was the hulking but agile-minded Riley’s vague suspicions concerning his aptitude for uncovering evil long hidden from everyone else. Though devoid of a satisfactory theory to explain it, Riley had him tagged as a natural born smeller-out of witches.

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 rung a mental alarm-bell and unknowingly broadcast their reason for doing so. They 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. The world’s pleasantness so long preserved by his self-concealment would change to a hell of avoidance by day and menace by night.

While waiting for Riley, he indulged macabre amusement by picturing the manner of his own demise at the hands of the fearful. Obviously they couldn’t use the conventional method of the gunman lurking in an alley. Such an assassin could not ready himself without thinking about the task in hand and thus warning the victim of the impending deed. No tactic could be effective that involved the presence of an active mind.

They would have to turn to some delayed or remotely controlled device that could function without radiating its intentions. A time-bomb might be suitable.

So he’d come to the office one morning, give Moira the cheery hiho, sit at his desk, pull open a drawer and—
bam!
Then the smoke would clear away and give him a view of the afterlife, if any.

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. And it gratified him to feel that at long last some hapless victim had been avenged.

One fellow he had detected, chased and finally shot down had been seven times guilty of rape and once of murder accompanied by criminal assault. He could not let a louse like that freely run around for the sake of keeping Riley at arm’s length.

In 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. He had become too well-known a local character to leave the police puzzling over the source of the tip-offs. Any one of them, from the Commissioner downward, could put two and two together and make it four.

The phone yelped 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 mid-morning. There were several witnesses and the caller in all probability was one of those.”

“What was this squabbler doing at 4 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.”

“More likely I’d appreciate that some guys know how,” Riley retorted. “And that’s the trouble with you—so go to it!”

He faded off the screen. Harper sighed for the third time, tucked the slip of paper with its addresses into a vest pocket, spoke to Moira.

“I’ll phone each day to see what’s doing. If you can’t handle something urgent and important you’ll have to nurse it until I ring through.”

“Yes, Mr. Harper.”

“And if anyone turns up to pinch me tell them they’re too late—I’m on the lam.”

“Oh, Mr. Harper!”

Ruth Alderson proved to be a pretty blond with sad eyes. Obviously she was still in much of a mental whirl.

Sitting opposite her and idly turning his hat in his hands, Harper said, “I hate to trouble you at such a time, Mrs. Alderson, but it is necessary. I have a special interest in this case. I found your husband and was the last to speak to him.”

“Did he—?” She swallowed hard, stared at him pathetically. “Did he . . . suffer much?”

“It was all very quick. He was too dazed to feel pain. He talked of you then kind of faded away. ‘Betty,’ he said, ‘Betty.’ Then he was gone.” He frowned in puzzlement, added, “But your name is Ruth.”

“He always called me Betty. Said it suited me. He made a pet name of it.”

She put on a sudden tearfulness, covered her face with her hands, made no sound. He watched her quietly awhile.

When she had recovered, he said, “There’s a slight chance you might be able to help find the rat who did it.”

“How?”

“Tell me, did Bob have any enemies?”

She considered the question, gathering her thoughts with difficulty. “He arrested a number of people. Some went to jail. I don’t suppose they loved him for that.”

“Did any of them promise to get him when they came out?”

“If they did, he never mentioned it to me. It isn’t the sort of thing he would tell.” She paused, went on, “Four years ago he caught a man named Josef Grundoff and Bob said that when he was sentenced Grundoff swore to kill the judge.”

“But he did not threaten your husband?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“You cannot recall any occasion on which somebody has menaced your husband specifically?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Nor any time when extraordinary resentment has been shown as a result of his doing his duty?”

“He had wordy arguments twice a week,” she said wearily. “He often came home riled about someone. But as far as I can tell it was the normal give and take between the police and the public. I know of nobody who hated him enough to kill him.”

“Only this Grundoff?”

“Grundoff only threatened the judge.”

“I don’t like pestering you this way, Mrs. Alderson, but can you recall any incident that seemed to worry your husband, even if only temporarily? Any small happening, no matter how insignificant, at any time in the past?”

“Not in connection with his police duties,” she replied. A faint smile came into her features. “All his bothers were domestic ones. He was a bag of nerves when my babies were due.”

Harper nodded understanding, continued with, “One more angle, it is imperative that I try it. Please forgive me, won’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Her eyes widened.

“You are an attractive person, Mrs. Alderson. Did Bob earn anyone’s enmity by marrying you?”

She flushed and gave back strongly, “The idea is quite ridiculous.”

“Not at all. Such things have happened. They will happen again and again. Jealousy is perhaps the oldest motive for murder. It feeds upon itself, unseen, unsuspected. You might well have been admired and desired without realizing it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Since your marriage has any male friend or acquaintance shown undue attention toward you or displayed more than average friendship?” He saw the revulsion rising in her mind, knew that he could have expressed himself more tactfully, added with haste, “I do not expect you to be aware of an unconfessed lover. I am asking you to help seek a possible killer.”

She cooled down, said dully, “There is nobody.”

“When you first met Bob did you leave anybody for his sake?”

“I did not. I was free and unattached.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Alderson.” He stood up, glad to be at the end of the matter. “I apologize most sincerely for subjecting you to all this. And I really do appreciate your cooperation.” He followed her to the front door, paused there, patted her gently on the shoulder. “Nothing anyone can say is adequate. Actions speak louder than words. You have my card. Any time I can help, please call on me to do so. I shall consider it a privilege.”

“You are very kind,” she murmured.

He got into his car, watched her close the door, said to himself savagely, “Damn! Damn!”

A mile down the road he stopped beside a phone booth and called Ledsom. “So it’s you,” said the police captain, not visibly overjoyed. “What d’you want this time?”

“Some information.”

“About what?”

“A character named Josef Grundoff.”

“You’re doing fine, digging up that hoodlum,” Ledsom commented. “I wouldn’t have thought of him myself.”

“Why not?”

“He got twenty years for second degree murder. It will be a long, long time before he’s out.”

“Is that all?” asked Harper.

“How much more do you want?”

“Official reassurance that he’s still inside. Maybe he has escaped.”

“We’d have been advised of it. They’d send out fliers within twenty-four hours.” “Do you think it worth checking?” Harper persisted. “Just in case some notice has gone astray?”

“I can do that in five minutes,” Ledsom became crabbed and demanded, “How did you get hold of Grundoff’s name, anyway?”

“From Mrs. Alderson.”

The other registered surprise. “Surely she hasn’t told you that Grundoff—?”

“She said only that he’d sworn to get the judge,” Harper chipped in. “So it seemed to me possible that he might have had Alderson’s name on his list as well.”

“He had no list. He was merely making tough talk. The judge said twenty years and Grundoff went nuts. That sort of thing happens often.” He was silent a moment then continued, “I’ll check all the same. It’s one chance in a million but we can’t overlook it. Call me back a bit later.”

Harper phoned him from a diner twenty miles farther on.

“No luck,” Ledsom informed. “Grundoff is still in the jug.”

“Did he have any pals who might do his dirty work for him?”

“No. He was a lone wolf.”

“Do you think he may have made friends in clink who’ve been released and started tending his affairs?”

“Not on your life,” scoffed Ledsom. “No ex-con is going to shoot up a cop merely to please some con still inside. There would have to be money in it, big money. Grundoff couldn’t dig up ten bucks.”

“Thanks,” said Harper glumly. “So that’s another wrong tree up which I’ve barked. Oh well, press on regardless.”

“To where?”

“That girl who was in the Thunderbug. Did you learn any more about her?”

“Yes. Her boyfriend is in the armed forces and serving overseas. She has no relative with a police record, no bad egg in the family. Helps us a lot, doesn’t it?”

“How about her protecting a girl friend who, perhaps, is afflicted with a trigger-happy lover?”

“How about pigs taking wings? The follow-up has been good and thorough. Her entire circle of relatives, neighbors and friends is in the clear.”

“All right, keep your hair on. I’m only a major suspect trying to establish my pristine purity.”

Ledsom let go a loud snort and cut off. Evidently lack of progress was trying his patience.

The second address was that of the central house in an old-fashioned but still imposing terrace of substantially built property. The road was wide, quiet, tree-lined and had an air of stuffy respectability. Harper went up six steps, thumbed the bell-stud.

A tall, good-looking youth of about eighteen answered the door, eyed him quizzically.

“Miss Jocelyn Whittingham in?” Harper asked, trying to sound official or at least semi-official.

“No.” The other’s mind confirmed the truth of that but went on to whisper to itself,
“Joyce doesn’t want to see anybody. Who is this muscle-bound ape? Another nosey cop? Or a reporter? Joyce is fed up answering questions. Why don’t they leave her alone?”