“You damned insane fool!” Slaughter screamed. “What in the name of God…”
He was across the room in a single wild leap and slashing down at Gerald’s arm with his closed fist. He caught the revolver as it started to fall to the floor, but Gerald held on to the handkerchief which had been wrapped around its stock.
The moment Slaughter’s fist struck his arm and he reached for the falling gun, Gerald side-stepped, moving like lightening to Slaughter’s right. His hands reached out as he moved and he swung the other man around so that he was momentarily facing the bathroom door.
Gerald was in time to see the door itself bursting inward on its hinges as he made a flying tackle across the room, dropping Sue Dunne to the floor as her straight-backed chair went over backwards, and half falling on top of her.
“You double-crossing son…”
Slaughter was screaming the words as the door gave way. The gun in his hand was half lifted and instinctively he pressed the trigger.
The sound of the explosion blended with that of Lieutenant Hopper’s service revolver as the detective fired.
Slaughter never had the opportunity for a second shot. The dark red blood was gushing from twin holes just above his eyes as he crumpled and dropped to the carpeted floor.
Gerald himself had time for only the few brief words as he pressed his mouth close to the girl’s ear.
“Remember,” he said, “remember what you told me. You’d give anything to get the man who got your brother into it. Keep trusting me. Say nothing-and trust me.”
Lieutenant Hopper waited until the basket arrived from the morgue and they’d removed the body; until after the chalked outlines on the floor had been photographed and the lab men were all through.
The room was cleared now and there were only the four of them. Gerald Hanna sat as Lieutenant Hopper stalked in front of him. Sue was on the edge of the bed, with Finn next to her chewing his nails and muttering under his breath. The uniformed patrolman was outside the door and all the others had left.
“You certainly have the damnedest way of turning up, the lieutenant said. “Maybe you are going to try and explain this one away.” His voice was thin with sarcasm.
“Nothing to explain,” Gerald said. “I’m just glad you took my telephone calf seriously and showed up. I was getting a little nervous.”
“You will probably be a lot more nervous before it’s all over,” Hopper said. “Maybe you’d like to tell me about it. It might relieve you and it certainly…”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Gerald looked over at the detective and smiled as he continued.
“You have it all in the registered letter which I mailed you this afternoon,” he said. “The letter which you will have in the morning. I said in that letter that if you came here after I called you on the phone, you’d find the loot from the Gorden-Frost robbery. Well, there it is-in that brief case which your men checked and put over on the dresser.”
“So you wrote and explained,” Hopper said softly. “How nice of you.” And just how do you fit into this thing?”
“That’s very simple, Lieutenant,” Gerald said. “As you know, I’m in the insurance business. Well, I figured after I read about the robbery, that the stuff must be insured. And I knew that the insurance company would offer a reward for the return of the jewels. Yesterday, through a connection in my office, I found I was right. There’s a hundred thousand dollar reward. I’m claiming that reward. I sent you a note advising you to come here and pick up the stuff and you did and here it is. I have a receipt for that note.
“To make doubly sure there would be no misunderstanding later on, I mailed a second registered letter to the insurance people, establishing my claim.”
Lieutenant Hopper stared at him, his face growing red and congested as Gerald finished speaking.
“That’s dandy,” he said. “Just downright dandy! So you’re going to claim the reward, eh?”
He hesitated, fighting to control his temper.
“And how about the rest of it? How about the two police officers who were killed? By God, don’t you remember our little conversation? Don’t you remember what I told you about how we feel about things like that? Don’t you…”
“I think I can help you out a little there, too, Lieutenant,” Gerald said. Once more he smiled, conciliatorily.
“Yes,” he went on. “I believe I can help you. You took a gun out of Slaughter’s hand when you broke into this room and after he was shot down. Remember? Well, check that gun down at ballistics, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find that it was the same gun which was used to kill your policemen. Slaughter had the jewels and he had the gun. What more do you need?”
The lieutenant looked at him closely for several moments. At last, when he again spoke, his voice was more nearly back to normal and had lost a little of its bitterness.
“All right, just for the sake of argument, we’ll assume it was the murder weapon. But how do you plan to prove that Slaughter was in on the job? That he used the gun?”
“That’s simple, too,” Gerald said. He pointed over to the desk. “Among your other souvenirs,” he said, “you have that pile of broken glass which was swept up off the bed. I saw in the newspapers that police found fragments of glass from a shattered windshield at the scene of the robbery. Glass shot from the windshield of the getaway car. I think-in fact I feel absolutely sure-that if you take that glass along with you and match it up with the glass you already have, you’ll end up with a complete windshield. So can’t we just assume that Slaughter had to be in the getaway car in order for him to have the glass in his possession?”
Gerald stood up and yawned, putting his hand delicately to his mouth to cover his social lapse.
“And now,” he said, “I’m rather tired and I would appreciate it if you would just let me leave. I’m sure Miss Dunne is tired too and I’d like to take her home.”
Gerald’s eyes went over to Sue and he smiled, a little weakly, at her.
He noticed then, for the very first time since he had seen her, that the antagonism and the bitterness was gone from her face. That she was looking at him, still wide-eyed and with a trace of amazement in her expression. But there was something else; there was a warmth that had never been there before.
She nodded ever so briefly and half smiled, as her eyes met his.
Lieutenant Hopper was eying Gerald with grim distaste.
“At the very best,” he said, “you’re a material witness. And so is Miss Dunne. I’m going to hold…”
“Lieutenant,” Gerald said. “You don’t want to do anything foolish. The fact is, I’m a sort of hero. I feel quite sure that’s what the morning newspapers are going to say. Of course, up until now I have had every intention of explaining to the reporters that I have worked with the police on this and that I am sharing the reward with them-in the hope that their share will be turned over to the widows of the officers slain in the robbery…”
Detective Lieutenant Hopper shook his head slowly, staring at Gerald as though he were observing some completely new specimen in the Bronx Zoo.
“All right,” he said, at last. “All right, Hanna. You’ll get the reward, I guess. Maybe you are a hero. But I still don’t understand it. I know that I won’t be able to make you talk and tell me about it, but in the long run, I am glad to have the thing cleaned up. We’ll go over the glass and the gun of course, but I’m satisfied that they’ll check out.
“The thing I can’t understand, though, is why Slaughter would have the glass with him. Why he’d bring it here to the hotel. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Gerald looked at the detective and smiled.
“You are so right,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all. But then so many things haven’t made sense. Why don’t you just be satisfied that he did have the glass with him? After all, that broken glass is the evidence, that if found, would possibly have put him in the electric chair. The same as the jewels would. Well, he had the jewels, so why not the glass? Certainly he wouldn’t be leaving it around for someone else to find and possibly use for blackmail, would he? The safest place for it, from his point of view, was with him. After all, he wasn’t expecting to be picked up, to be questioned in the case. He was in the clear. But I wouldn’t let it bother me. I’d just be satisfied that he did have it.”