“Are you trying to tell me that I bumped off somebody?” .
“Yes. And evidently every bit as crudely as you’ve just phrased it. A sloppy bit of work, Mr.—”
“Now wait a minute! I didn't kill anybody. Not lately, anyway.”
“You didn’t kill George Quentin last night?”
“Kill Quen—! Of course not. The last I saw of him he was alive and kicking up his heels. Now, suppose you tell me what this is all about.”
There was a long pause. Then— “Get dressed and meet me out at Quentin’s place right away.”
The receiver clicked in my ear. I stared at it for a minute, and then started moving. Less than an hour later a cab was dropping me off back at the Quentin home.
The place was lousy with cops. Putnam was there already, too, which was lucky for me. It was lucky because, if he hadn’t been there, as soon as the cops found out who I was they probably would have come down on me like the proverbial ton of bricks. And they found out right away, thanks to two female finger-pointers.
The first was Patricia, Helen Quentin’s fifteen-year-old sister. She took one look at me, her finger shot out, and her voice went screeching up the scale as if she’d just spied a stray Beatle strumming into view. “That’s him!” she screamed hysterically. “That’s the man! That’s the man who killed George!”
Before I had a chance to tell her that being an adolescent was no excuse for acting like an adolescent, her big sister was coming in on the refrain. She was calmer, but just as positive. “That’s Steve Victor, all right,” she told a cop-ish looking type. “That’s the man who killed my husband.” Even as she said it, her eyes were reminiscing over my body.
“Let’s go in here where we can talk.” Putnam ushered the boss Sherlock and me into an empty room.
“Okay, let’s have it,” I said when he’d closed the door behind us.
Putnam nodded at the homicide cop and sat back to listen. The cop pulled out some notes and consulted them from time to time as he spoke. “You left here at twelve-thirty last night with a young lady you claimed was your wife,” he began.
“That’s right.”
“You returned shortly after two a. m. and -”
“That’s wrong.”
“Just listen, Mr. Victor. Don’t interrupt.” Putnam’s voice was weary.
I listened.
“George Quentin admitted you,” the homicide cop continued. “You had words. You threatened him. Loudly enough so that you awakened the other members of the household. Quentin’s sister-in-law came downstairs. She claims she saw you holding a gun on Quentin and twisting his nose. She says you seemed to be trying to extract some sort of information from him.”
“I was probably just checking his sinuses,” I said.
The cop shot me a disapproving look and continued. “The kid ran upstairs and got her sister, Quentin’s wife. She came down and entered the room where you were. She greeted you by name and you turned around and slugged her. You knocked her unconscious. The kid was still in the hall, not knowing what to do, and she saw this. Then you gave Quentin a jab in the kidneys with the gun and told him he’d better tell you what you wanted to know, or else. He protested that he didn’t know anything. The kid says she heard both of you mention the name Cromwell. But she says Quentin kept protesting he didn’t know anybody by that name. Well, you started really pistol-whipping the poor guy. But you must have given him one slash too much, cause all of a sudden he doubled over and blood began pouring out of his mouth. The kid screamed. That scared you and you bolted out of there. Quentin died. The coroner says he thinks you ruptured his spleen.”
“I’d never do a thing like that to dear old George,” I said.
“How well did you know him?” the cop asked.
“Not well. I just met him. He was a superb host. That’s about all I know about him.”
“Okay. Be a wise guy,” the cop said. “It doesn’t matter. We got you dead to rights. Two witnesses—and one actually saw you kill him.”
“Putnam,” I said plaintively, “I’m in trouble.”
“That you are! ” the cop confirmed.
“As usual,” Putnam sighed. “Well, you’ll just have to go through the formalities,” he told me. “There can’t be any official cognizance taken of your position.”
“What formalities?” I squeaked. “Like getting hung for a murder I didn’t commit, maybe?”
“You were seen committing it,” the cop reminded me. “Putnam, will you please tell him—-”
“No!” Putnam’s voice was quick and firm. “And neither will you! Don’t even mention it. Just go along with him and don’t worry.”
So that’s what I did. I went through the formalities. And I didn’t tell the cops about my Russian double. I played it that way because that’s the way that Putnam wanted it. All the same, I was getting pretty nervous by the time Putnam finally pulled enough strings to get the cops to let me go. I’d shot the whole day playing cat-and-mouse with cops who’d just been itching to give me the third degree. The only thing that had stopped them was their conceit at being criminologists, rather than strong-arm men. But their conceit was wearing pretty thin by the time Putnam finally came through.
It was nightfall when they finally let me creep out of the jailhouse. I made a beeline for the nearest telephone and called the number Barry had given Hortense.
But Barry wasn’t home, and neither was Elsa. The maid who answered told me they’d gone out somewhere with another couple. No, she didn’t know who the other couple was; she’d never seen them before. The girl had dark red hair; that was all she could tell me.
So I got some more change and called my girl with the dark red hair. “Is Hortense there?” I asked the female who answered.
“No. You just missed her. She went out.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“No.”
“Do you know who she went with?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I’ll say. Hortense might not like it. Who’s calling, anyway?”
“Just tell her Steve Victor.”
“Steve Victor? Are you kidding?”
“No. Why?”
“Because that’s who she went out with. Steve Victor. They left here together not an hour ago. Is this some kind of a gag or something?”
“Are you sure? ”
“Sure I’m sure. Hortense introduced me to him. She ought to know who she’s going out with, shouldn’t she?”
“Yes, she should.” I thanked her and hung up. Yes, I told myself, Hortense should certainly know Steve Vic- tor when she saw him. But what she didn’t know was that _‘ I was twins and that one of me was a Russian killer.
The Wrong one! . The one with Hortense!
chapter FIVE
SO I WAS the odd twin out. Somewhere in the Washington area my diabolical double was following up my lead with the help of a duped Hortense and a spank-happy married couple who thought he was me, the sex-researcher from O. R. G. Y. But where? How could I pick up their trail?
It was a slim chance, but the only one I could think of who might conceivably point an arrow for me was the bookseller, Martin Velvet. I was sure he would know of any underground discipline clubs operating in the D. C. district or its suburbs. Getting him to part with the information might be something else again, but I decided it was orth the old boola-boola try. I hopped a cab over to U and Eleventh Streets.
I didn’t exactly expect Velvet to greet me with open arms, but I didn’t expect the greeting I did get, either. He was just getting ready to shut down for the night when I came through the door. It was probably early for him to be doing that, but I guess he wasn’t feeling too well. My guess stemmed from the fact that he looked as if some ardent gymnast had been using his face for a trampoline. The parts of it that weren’t covered with adhesive bandages or iodine were swelling prettily in a multitude of colors. His visage was as rainbowed a collection of boo-boos as I’ve ever seen. I had no chance to commiserate, though. The minute I came through the door, Velvet picked up a very large gun from under the counter and pointed it quite accurately at my large intestine.