1953 - I'll Bury My Dead (18 page)

IV

T
here was a pause while the two men looked at each other, then English came back slowly to the centre of the room.

‘No,’ he said, speaking quietly. ‘I shouldn’t like that. Are you quite sure the girl you saw was Miss Clair?’

Sherman made a little gesture of impatience with his hand.

‘I know you are a very busy man,’ he said, ‘but you might feel inclined to discuss the situation now rather than later, but please yourself. I’m in no violent hurry.’

‘What is there to discuss?’ English asked.

‘Wouldn’t it save time if we stopped behaving like a couple of clubmen at a social gathering?’ Sherman said sharply. ‘I own a piece of information and I am prepared to sell it to you. That’s what there’s to discuss.’

‘I see,’ English said, raising his eyebrows. ‘This is a surprise. You have decided to drop the mask, have you? I was wondering if you would have the nerve to try to blackmail me.’

Sherman smiled.

‘To me, Mr. English, you are just a rich man. Your importance and fame leave me indifferent. You have the money and I have the information. I can either sell it to you or to Miss Clair. I would prefer to sell it to you as I would be able to ask a much higher price, but if you are not inclined to make a deal, then I must go to her.’

‘I was under the impression you already have dealings with her,’ English said mildly. ‘She has been paying you two hundred dollars a week, hasn’t she?’

Sherman’s eyes blinked, then he smiled.

‘I don’t usually betray a client’s confidence, but as she has obviously told you about it, then I see no harm in telling you we have a modest deal on together, but this new proposition would be a much larger deal, and it would be a cash payment, not a few hundred a week.’

‘I don’t think she could pay.’

‘Possibly not, then perhaps you would come to her assistance.’

English sat down, took out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette and lit it.

‘What do you want for your information?’ he asked as he flicked the match into the fire.

‘From you, I should think a fair price would be two hundred and fifty thousand in cash,’ Sherman said. ‘From her I don’t suppose I could expect more than fifty thousand. But if I sold to her I couldn’t guarantee that the press wouldn’t discover your brother was a professional blackmailer. For the larger sum I should be able to guarantee it.’

English crossed one leg over the other. He appeared quite at ease. His face expressionless, his eyes unworried.

‘How did Roy happen to get mixed up with you?’ he asked.

Sherman leaned his shoulders against the mantel while he studied English, a slightly puzzled expression in his eyes.

‘Need we go into that?’ he said. ‘We are discussing a deal, if I may bring your mind back to business.’

‘There’s plenty of time to talk about that,’ English returned airily. ‘How did Roy happen to get mixed up with you?’

Sherman hesitated then, shrugging his shoulders, he said, ‘Your brother was anxious to make some easy money. His agency was a convenient place for my clients to go to and settle their accounts with me without causing embarrassment to either side. I paid your brother well. He collected ten percent of the gross.’

‘I see,’ English said. ‘And he decided that ten percent wasn’t enough. He attempted to help himself. Probably he held some money due to you. He was planning to go away with his secretary, Mary Savitt, and no doubt he was anxious to lay his hands on a getaway stake. I assume you found out that he was cheating you, and you decided to teach him a lesson. On the night of the 17th, you went to his office, shot him through the head with his own gun, impressed his fingerprints on the gun butt and collected the card index containing the names of your customers before leaving. Am I right?’

Sherman continued to smile, but his eyes were now wary.

‘I believe something like that did happen,’ he said. ‘Naturally you wouldn’t expect me to swear to it before a jury, but between ourselves, since we are talking off the record, something very much like that did happen.’

English nodded and blew smoke toward the ceiling.

‘You then went to 45th East Place where Mary Savitt had an apartment. You strangled her and strung her up against the bathroom door. I assume you silenced her because she knew what Roy had been doing and could have told the police that you had the motive for murdering him.’

‘I must say, Mr. English, you appear to keep yourself very well informed,’ Sherman said, an acid note creeping into his voice.

‘During the late afternoon,’ English went on, ‘a man named Hennessey called at the Alert Agency to pay his dues. He met the present occupier, who persuaded him to talk. Somehow you managed to overhear the conversation, and you murdered Hennessey by running him down in your car. Before he died, Hennessey had mentioned a girl named May Mitchell, who was paying you blackmail. Less than an hour ago you met her in a quiet alley and knifed her.’

There was a long pause of silence while Sherman studied English. His smile was fixed now, and his eyes were uneasy.

‘All this is very interesting, Mr. English,’ he said at last, ‘but suppose we get back to our business deal. Time is getting along. I have an appointment in half an hour.’

English smiled.

‘You don’t really imagine you can blackmail me, do you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I see no reason why not,’ Sherman returned, his voice hardening. ‘It would be no hardship for you to find a quarter of a million. The advantages of paying are considerable. Up to now you have made a big impression on this city. You are anxious to have the hospital named after you. You have done the city a lot of good. It would be a pity to spoil your good name because you happen to have a brother who failed to live up to your own high standards. I think you would be extremely foolish not to make a deal with me.’

‘But I don’t have to make a deal with you,’ English said mildly. ‘It is you who have to try to make a deal with me.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sherman asked, frowning.

‘I should have thought it was obvious. Within the past few days you have murdered four people. I hold your life in my hands.’

Sherman made an impatient gesture.

‘Surely that is an exaggeration. There is a considerable difference between making a guess and proving it.’

‘I don’t need to prove it. You will have to prove you didn’t kill these people.’

‘I’m afraid we’re wasting time,’ Sherman said sharply. ‘Are you going to buy my information or do I have to go to your mistress?’

English laughed.

‘I had the mistaken idea that when I found the man who murdered my brother I was going to take the law into my own hands. At the back of my mind I was prepared to shoot him. I knew my brother was a weak, gutless fool, but I felt I couldn’t let his murder go unrevenged. In my family we have a tradition. We bury our own dead. That is to say we prefer to deal with matters concerning the family in our own way, rather than call in outsiders. So I had made up my mind that I would find Roy’s murderer and deal with him myself.’ He leaned forward to flick ash into the fire. ‘Well, I have found him, but the circumstances have changed. I have also discovered my brother was not only a cheap cheat, but he was also a blackmailer, and to me, Mr. Sherman, a blackmailer is lower than any other form of life. A man who sets out to blackmail people who have no money, as Roy did, is beyond mercy. If you hadn’t killed him, then I should have. In fact, Mr. Sherman, I am moderately grateful to you for ridding me of Roy.’

Sherman’s face was now set, and his yellow eyes gleamed.

‘All this is very interesting, but it doesn’t answer my question. Are you paying me or do I have to go to your mistress?’

‘I’m certainly not paying you,’ English said, ‘and Miss Clair isn’t paying you, either.’

‘Then you give me no other alternative but to go elsewhere with my information,’ Sherman said.

‘Nor will you take your information elsewhere,’ English returned. ‘Up to now you have been blackmailing people who don’t know how to hit back. I do. You’re like a middleweight who has rashly taken on a heavyweight, and the heavyweight is bound to win.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ Sherman said.

‘That’s true, but you don’t seem to realize what you’ve taken on by trying to blackmail me,’ English said, stretching out his long legs. ‘I have a lot of money and a lot of influence. I have many useful friends. When dealing with a blackmailer I should not hesitate to throw aside all scruples. I have already told you I don’t regard a blackmailer as a human being. I would treat him as I would treat a rat that happens to find its way into my room. I would exterminate him without mercy and by any means, and that is what I am prepared to do to you. I know you killed four people. At the moment I have no evidence against you that would stand up in court, but in two or three days I shall have the evidence. I have an exceedingly efficient organization. I have people who will trace some of your blackmail victims. Having found them I will guarantee them immunity plus a big financial reward if they will testify against you, and some of them will. I will then inform the police and I will let them know I would take it as a favour if they showed you no mercy. I am quite sure Lieutenant Morilli will personally take over the questioning, and he would beat you to a pulp if I offered to pay for the energy expended. It is very possible that you will break down and confess. If you happen to be tougher than you look, then the next move will be to manufacture the necessary evidence, and you will be surprised how easy it can be done. I admit it will cost money, but then I have money. It won’t be difficult to find someone willing to perjure himself for an agreed sum who will identify you as the man who drove his car over Hennessey. Someone else will be only too willing to swear he saw you murder May Mitchell. Someone else will say he saw you leaving Mary Savitt’s apartment the night she died. Tom Calhoun, the janitor, will identify you as the last person to see my brother alive. Having got my perjured evidence, I shall then talk to the judge who will try you. I know all the judges in the city, and they are all anxious to do me a favour. I will arrange to see the jury before they try you, and I will promise them a reward if they bring in a guilty verdict. Once you are arrested, Mr. Sherman, I guarantee you will be dead within a few months. Make no mistake about that.’

‘You don’t think you can scare me, do you?’ Sherman said. ‘I make a point always to call a bluff.’

‘There comes a time when you can call a bluff once too often,’ English returned. ‘I admit if I handed you over to the police it wouldn’t be possible to keep the shabby news that my brother is a blackmailer out of the papers. I admit I would cook my own goose in this city by having you arrested, but rather than submit to blackmail or let Miss Clair submit to blackmail, I shan’t hesitate to go after you, and once I do go after you, no power on earth can save you from the electric chair.’ He got up abruptly and began to pace up and down, his hands clasped behind his back, his face thoughtful. ‘I can’t allow you to remain in the city, nor can I allow you to continue to levy blackmail. I am going to make you a proposal. It doesn’t suit me at the moment to hand you over to the police. Instead, you are to leave town by the end of the week. You are not to return. You are to give up your blackmailing activities. If you don’t leave, and if you attempt to levy blackmail in this town again, then I shall hand you over to the police. If you think I am bluffing, go ahead and stay in this apartment and see what happens to you. If it’s the last thing I do I’ll have you in the electric chair within six months. That is all I have to say to you. If this apartment isn’t empty by Saturday night, you will be arrested on Sunday morning. I shall not warn you again. Get out of town by Saturday night or take the consequences. And if you think the police will believe that Miss Clair shot my brother, go to them and tell them. They won’t react favourably. They know she is under my protection, and they won’t be anxious to make difficulties for me.’ He walked to the door, opened it and paused to say, ‘As I don’t expect to see you again, I won’t say good night, I’ll say goodbye.’

Sherman had gone pale, and his yellow eyes showed his suppressed fury.

‘A war is never won until the last battle, Mr. English,’ he said, his voice unsteadily.

English looked at him and made a grimace of disgust.

‘This happens to be the last battle,’ he said, opened the front door and walked slowly down the passage to his own apartment.

CHAPTER FIVE

I

C
orrine English carried the coffeepot into the lounge and set it on the table. As she sat down, she yawned and ran her fingers through her blond hair. The time was twenty minutes past eleven in the morning, and the bright sunshine made her feel jaded. Never at her best in the mornings, Corrine only came alive after six o’clock when she had been fortified by the first cocktail of the day. She poured the coffee into a cup, and then, after only a momentary hesitation, she got up and went over to the cellarette for a bottle of brandy.

Since Roy’s death she had been drinking heavily. The lonely house, her brooding thoughts about Roy and Mary Savitt, and her hatred of Nick English so preyed on her mind that she turned automatically to brandy to ‘deaden her suffering’ as she put it to herself. She began by drinking steadily in the evening, then she went to the bottle during the afternoon, and now she was beginning to take brandy in her morning coffee.

She brought the bottle to the table and poured a liberal shot into the coffee and sat down again. She found she couldn’t face the toast she had made, and she pushed the plate aside with a grimace of disgust. She drank more brandy, then she carried the cup over to the electric fire and sat down on the settee.

She wore her rose-pink silk wrap over black lounging pyjamas, and as she settled herself among the cushions, she remembered she had been wearing this outfit when Nick English had broken the news to her of Roy’s death.

Her eyes hardened as she thought of English. She hated him as she didn’t think it possible to hate anyone. She blamed him for Roy’s death. His threat to hand over Roy’s letters to the press filled her with vindictive fury. To make matters worse she knew she was helpless to hurt him. She knew if she tried to pit herself against him it would be as futile as opposing a tank with an air pistol. She finished her coffee, got up and took a glass from the cellarette and half filled it with brandy.