Then all hell broke loose. There was a sudden movement as Janie threw herself on me, scratching and screaming like a wild thing. I guess I was too stunned to do anything but just stand there wiping the flecks of blood from my face, as they rushed her out of the room.
I touched my cheek and it felt sore. I guess her fingernails had really dug in. I turned to the lieutenant.
“This is screwy. Why would I kill her? I didn’t even know the dame. And you’re all wet about that trench knife, too. It’s not mine.” I spread my arms out in front of me. “How can it be?”
“Did you put your initials on your knife?”
“Sure, I did. So what?” I challenged. “That doesn’t make me the murderer any more than it makes it my knife.”
“We’ll see,” he muttered quietly and nodded his head at the sergeant.
The fat guy came over and patted my pockets, and pretty soon Lt. Repetti was holding the sealed envelope my boss had given me and the gun I’d taken from Janie.
I told him about the gun and the man Janie was looking for. The sergeant laughed out loud, but the lieutenant looked interested and made some notes in that little book of his.
“Here, sergeant, catch!” He tossed the .45 across the room and I watched the fat boy grab it in the air and put it in his pocket.
The lieutenant fingered the envelope and looked at the sealing wax.
“What’s that for?” he grunted.
I started to explain but he had already opened the envelope and didn’t seem to hear what I was saying, so I shut up. He examined the policies briefly then looked up, waving them in the air.
“Policies to be signed, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t know what’s in them, huh?”
I shook my head. “That’s right.” Again I started to explain, but he stopped me cold with a movement of his hand.
“You didn’t know these were signed, huh?”
“You’re nuts,” I told him. “How can they be?”
His eyes darted from the policies he held in his hand to me. “Look,” he said and his bony finger pointed at the signature lines.
I looked, and I guess my eyes must have popped. Even from where I stood I could plainly read Ethel Winters’ signature on both policies.
Lt. Repetti whistled sharply and it brought me up short.
“They’re both for $10,000,” he was saying. “Her sister, Janie Winters, is the beneficiary on one. And the other—” He stopped and threw a quick glance at his fat assistant.
I saw the sergeant pull a .38 calibre pistol out of his holster and hold it loosely in his hand.
“Guess who gets the dough on the other one, Martin?” the lieutenant queried softly, and he held it up for me to see.
I took a step towards him and the sergeant’s gun made an arc in my direction. I strained to see the name typed under the word beneficiary. The blood drained out of my face and I got jelly in my knees, because the name written there was mine... Len Martin.
Chapter Three
Rough Stuff
I must have looked like a sick dog because when I told them I was going to throw up, the sergeant shoved me roughly towards the bathroom.
“Get in there, mac.”
Just as we got to the door, I kicked out hard and my foot caught him wickedly in the right shin. He went down yelping with pain, grabbing his leg with both hands. Before they came alive I’d banged the bathroom door shut and snapped the lock. I opened the small window and went down the outside of the two-story fire-escape, hand over hand.
It had happened so fast that they didn’t have a chance, but I just had to have time to think. The way I figured it, a two by four cell in the city jail wasn’t going to accelerate my mental processes to any great extent.
I shuffled along with the crowd milling about the boardwalk for a while. Then I cut over to the main street and stopped in at a large drug store on the busiest corner. I ducked into a phone booth at the rear of the store and called the boss at his home in New York.
Right off the bat he asks smugly, “I presume you got those policies signed?”
“Who are you trying to kid?” I snapped into the phone. “You knew they were signed all the time.”
“That’s right,” I heard him say calmly.
“What’s the big idea?” And before he had a chance to answer, “And how the devil did my name get on there as beneficiary?” I tossed at him.
“Well, you should know by now, young fellow.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“That’s the way she wanted it,” and now he sounded a bit impatient. “It’s for me to follow instructions, understand?”
“What are you talking about?” I barked.
“Oh, come now, Martin.” His voice was ringed with ill-concealed amusement. “You don’t have to pull my leg. Obviously you and that girl must have been very close... uh... friends.”
“What?”
He laughed softly to himself. “Although it is somewhat of a mystery to me why she wanted to keep that policy such a secret from you,” he continued. “Sealing wax!” He clucked knowingly. “Women are such sentimental fools anyway.”
“Now, look here, Hartley,” I demanded. “I want to know—”
He interrupted me in a voice that was cold and biting. “If you’ve got any more questions about that stupid policy, Martin, I’d suggest that you take it up with your lady friend. Good-by.”
I tried to get him back but he wouldn’t answer the phone.
I got me a belly full of panic and I wanted to bolt for the nearest depot, grab the first bus out and keep going until I was a thousand miles away. But I didn’t because I knew I was a fool. I hadn’t been thinking right from the first moment I walked into that hotel. Somebody was playing me for a sap, with the electric chair as the payoff. Besides, by now Lt. Repetti probably had me on the teletype and I had as much chance of getting out of town as if I had my name in neon lights on my back.
“Maybe,” I conjectured, “if I could locate Ethel Winters’ guy...”
That gave me an idea and I phoned Janie at the hotel.
She really gave me a rough time. Here was a gal who had convicted me of murdering her sister before I’d even had a trial. She didn’t seem to be interested in the other guy any more. But somehow I sold her a bill of goods and she agreed to meet me an hour later. I suggested a deserted spot on the boardwalk at the northerly end of the beach. She told me she’d be there and I believed her.
After I hung up, it occurred to me that maybe persuading Janie to meet me had been easier than I had expected. Could be that she wasn’t sure after all that I was the killer.
I went to the far end of the beach and waited. There wasn’t a soul around, and the only sound was the crashing of the waves on the sandy beach coming with monotonous regularity.
I chain-smoked like mad and watched the moon throw indistinct shadows on the boardwalk as it ducked in and out of dark masses of clouds. After a while I could see Janie coming. She was alone. I stood there and let her flashlight pick me up. Then it winked out and she walked right up to me and said, “Well?”
I started to answer but the words got only as far as my lips. Too late I sensed something moving behind me and turned just in time to catch a huge hairy fist under the right ear.
The beach tilted sharply and I lost my footing. I rolled over, spat the sand out of my teeth and looked up.
Janie seemed to be dancing in front of me and she was grinning. I shook my head vigorously and took another look-see. She wasn’t dancing but she was still grinning. Kosloff the Great reached down and a big paw grabbed my shirt and yanked me to my feet.