“Did you say dead?” she asked. Her voice was low, toneless. It was not so much self-possession as a sort of numbness or shock.
“Somebody rigged a switch in the basement,” Lee told her bluntly. “It killed a man in a dark blue overcoat. He’s got gray hair.”
“Uncle John,” she said.
“Who’s Ray? Is that Connor?”
“Ray? What do you know about Ray?”
“You just asked if I was Ray!”
“Ray? Why, he’s my — he’s—”
“Husband?”
“We’re... we were... we’re supposed to be engaged.”
“Looks like it,” Lee Bassler said sourly. “You better get some clothes on, sis. I’ve called the cops.”
There was a Sergeant Fogarty in charge of the squad arrived in a few minutes, a gray, quiet man with even teeth and a soft voice. The others with him accepted Bassler’s warning about the wire, prowled about the house, and finally removed the body.
The body, in Fogarty’s precise notes, became John McCready, who owned a small but very lucrative lumber brokerage. He was uncle to Helen McCready, the lovely who seemed to enjoy running bare-shouldered in ice storms. He was step-father to Ray Connor, who managed McCready’s office and was engaged to McCready’s niece. What Connor was doing in the house in a smoking jacket was something Lee Bassler could figure only too well. Lee didn’t like it much, but the conclusion was inevitable.
“The transformer burned out about three hours ago,” he told Fogarty. “I came out on the call and we fixed up the trouble. Just as I was leaving this girl came out of the house with nothing on.”
Fogarty leaned forward, and Lee said: “Just a dress, I mean — no coat or anything. She was scared, no doubt about that. But I had plenty to do elsewhere, so I didn’t waste any time. But here’s the point — a man getting all that juice in the basement would pull enough current to burn out the transformer. So that must be what happened, and when it happened.”
Fogarty nodded, looking through into the living room where the others waited with a couple of policemen. “It adds up that way,” he said. “That’d explain why she was panicky enough to run outside, too. She’s probably heavy in his will, and wanted the dough. Could she do that wiring job?”
“Anybody could,” Lee said. “But more’n likely this Connor guy was helping her. They’re engaged, not to use a stronger word.”
Fogarty lifted an eyebrow, but Lee sensed that his surprise could be as much at Lee’s vehemence as at the information.
“If he was helping,” the sergeant said, “why would she get scared enough to run away from him out of the house?”
“Ask her.” Lee Bassler was tired — and just now, he had a bad taste in his mouth. He wanted another cup of Bert’s bitter coffee and a good night’s sleep. Maybe that would take his mind off a silken, silvery, slender body in a soaked evening gown.
“I will,” said Fogarty.
Lee stood up and Fogarty flicked a finger at him.
“Stick around,” he said. “I can use you here. Otherwise you’d be out in the storm, so why not get smart and take it easy.”
“I’ll have to call in,” Lee said.
It took quite a bit of explaining to the dispatcher. On a night when every available man had twice as much as he could do, why was Bassler involved in a murder investigation, three hours after his duties in that neighborhood were completed. Lee did a lame job of explaining, and the dispatcher, since he could think of no practical way to call Bassler away, silenced the truck. Bassler turned away from the phone to face a gentle mocking grin from Sergeant Fogarty.
“You don’t mind my eavesdropping on your conversation, do you?” he asked. “Because I was a little puzzled about your being here myself, if your call was three hours ago and all done.”
Lee cursed himself mentally, groping for any logical explanation as they went in to join the others. He stopped Fogarty in the door.
“I came back because it looked queer, the girl running out with no wraps,” he said. “I got to thinking about another time that same transformer burned out, when an electric heater fell in a—”
“Tell them the truth!”
Lee Bassler turned in amazement to look at the girl’s pale face, at the blue eyes with the bright blaze of anger in them.
“This man’s mixed up in Uncle’s death,” she said. “He was hanging around here earlier. I’ll bet Ray hired him to fix that wire. Ray couldn’t do it himself!”
Ray Connor emitted a squawk of indignant protest. He jumped up and marched across the room to stand in front of his fiancee, and the words that tore from his lips were anything but affectionate.
“Try to blame it on me, will you, you tramp!” he said thinly. “You’re the one gets all his money! You’re the one got this jerk to fix up the kill! And I can guess how you coaxed him to do it, too, you little—”
The girl jumped up and slapped him at about the same time Lee Bassler’s fist came sledging against the man’s mouth. Connor sprawled on the floor. There, safe on his back, he went on cursing until Fogarty nudged his ribs with a toe and told him to shut up.
“You gonna let ’em beat me up?” Connor demanded.
“Do it myself, if you don’t watch your talk!”
Fogarty grinned at Lee Bassler. “I don’t know which one of ’em’s right,” he said, “but it looks like you’re a good bet either way.”
“Don’t be silly,” Lee said. “I been on call. I can account for every bit of my time.”
“You’re sure?” asked Fogarty.
And Bassler did not answer, for he knew that the wiring could have been done easily in any five minute period between his other calls. The night that had seemed so busy to him had plenty of holes in it for murder.
“You’ll play hell proving I did it,” he said.
“The boys think it’d take a good electrician to fix up that death trap in the garage,” Fogarty pointed out. “You don’t make so much at your job you couldn’t be hired for a chore like that. Or otherwise persuaded.”
“I knocked Connor kicking for not much more than that remark,” Bassler said quietly.
“Yes, you did,” said Fogarty. “But I got a gun an’ a sap, an’ I’m not paid to let tough guys push me around. So don’t crowd your luck, sonny.”
“I think there’s something here, officer,” said Phillips then. “This is the same man who was out three hours ago to fix the transformer. And I saw his truck in the neighborhood an hour or so before that. So it’s likely he was hired by one or both of these young people to put the fatal wire in place. After all, who would be certain of delivering a killing jolt besides a professional electrician?”
“Damn it, I wasn’t even here!” said Connor. “I didn’t get out here till the lights were back on! Helen had gone to bed, so I put on a smoking jacket and sat down to wait for the old man. I thought he’d gone to a dinner.”
Fogarty said: “How about it, Helen? Is he telling the truth?”
Reluctantly, the girl said: “He wasn’t here. Uncle John started to go to his dinner just before the lights went off. I thought he’d gone. When the lights went out I thought it was a fuse, so I went to the back hall, and then I... I thought I heard something in the basement. I was frightened, but I couldn’t find a candle or a flashlight or anything. Then when the lights came on it startled me so I ran out without even stopping to think.”
“You can do better than that!” Fogarty said.
“I’ve always been afraid of darkness,” she said.
“First I’ve heard of it,” Connor sneered.