Quade bit his lip. “Where do you live, Sergeant?”
“On West Forty-Sixth. I’ve got a little apartment—”
Quade cried, “Meet me on the corner of Forty-Sixth and Broadway, in front of Childs’, in ten minutes. And don’t go to your apartment first.”
“Why not? What’s it all about?”
“Meet me there and you’ll find out!”
Quade slammed the receiver on the hook. “Come on, Charlie. I’ve got an awfully funny feeling about something.”
“About what?”
“You’ll see!”
Outside the Huyler Arms, Quade signaled to a taxicab and inside of ten minutes paid it off at 46th and Broadway. They had scarcely taken up a stand than Sergeant Vickers climbed out of a police car and waved goodbye to his driver.
“All right,” Sergeant Vickers said to Quade. “What’s this about winding up the Bond case?”
Quade caught the detective’s arm. “First of all, let’s go to your apartment.”
“What for?”
“I want to see that trombone of yours. In the meantime let me see that song manuscript that came in the mail.”
A look of scepticism on his face, Vickers produced the manuscript. Quade scanned it closely. “Yes, as nearly as I can tell, it’s the same one Billy Bond handed to Cassidy, the piano pounder at the Midwest Bar.”
“But why would he send it to me, whoever it was? Soup, you figure?”
Quade shrugged. “I think I can answer that when we get to your apartment.”
They were already walking west on 46th Street, crossed Eighth Avenue, and near Ninth Vickers turned into a shabby building.
“I guess you live on your salary,” Quade murmured.
“Damn tootin’ I do,” Vickers retorted.
He led them down a half-lit corridor and finally unlocked a door, exposing a rather neat two-room-and-kitchenette apartment. “I call this home,” Vickers said.
Quade immediately began poking around the place. “Where’s this secret vice of yours, Sergeant?”
Somewhat sheepishly Vickers brought it out from a closet, a gleaming trombone. He started to put it to his lips, but Quade caught it from him. “Hold it!” he cried.
Startled, Vickers surrendered the instrument. “Say, you don’t think—”
Quade was examining the mouthpiece. He shook his head. Then he hefted the instrument gingerly. “It looks all right,” he said, “it must be something else.”
“What are you talking about?” Vickers demanded in bewilderment.
“Soup Spooner,” Quade replied. “That lad may be goofy, but he isn’t goofy enough to send you a bit of evidence that might point to himself — if he didn’t have a danged good reason. I thought for a minute…”
A look of horror suddenly spread across the sergeant’s face. “That he wiped some of that poison on the trombone. Good Lord!” He snatched the instrument from Quade and began examining it himself.
Quade asked, “Would Soup be apt to know where you live, do you think?”
Vickers nodded, vigorously. “Everyone around here knows me, and Soup holes himself up nearby, over on Tenth Avenue.”
“Then,” said Quade, “let’s go over this place. With a fine-tooth comb.”
It was Quade who found it. His sensitive nostrils led him to it. It was in a glass vase standing on the mantel piece — just a couple of feet from a raised music stand which the sergeant would no doubt use when practicing on his trombone.
Quade smelled the ammonia first, then when he took down the vase and looking in, saw that it was half-filled with a solid brownish cake, he sniffed again and knew that the composition also contained iodine.
A film of perspiration covered his forehead. “Sergeant,” he said, “if you’d played the trombone, you’d have made yourself a candidate for a harpist’s job — up above!”
Vickers came over and looked into the vase. “Who put that stuff in there?” he demanded.
“I think,” said Quade, “your friend, Soup Spooner.”
“What is it? Smells like ammonia.”
“Ammonia,” said Quade, “when mixed with iodine is perfectly harmless when wet, but when dry, it’s more devastating than T.N.T.”
Sergeant Vickers reeled back, his face blanching. “Soup—”
Quade nodded. “You were annoying him. So he sent you the music manuscript and suggested you play on your trombone.” Quade gasped. “Let me see that manuscript again.”
The sergeant handed it over. Quade’s steely eyes scanned it again and slowly his mouth widened in admiration. “Sergeant, remember your saying Soup was a genius! Well, he is. When it comes to figuring out a devilish murder plot. This score’s been changed. I heard Lily Roberts sing it last night and this morning I heard Al Donnelley play it on the piano. Neither of them ever reached high G sharp. But here — see, in this fourth bat, a couple of notes have been changed. You hit high G sharp, suddenly and unexpectedly!”
Vickers stared. “I don’t get it.”
“Did you ever hear of the stunt old Caruso used to pull? He’d go into the bar of the old Knickerbocker Hotel, take a wine glass and hit it with his fingernail to get the pitch of it. Then he’d sing in that pitch, and break the wine glass. With his voice.”
A gleam came to Vickers’ eyes. “You think this bomb would explode if I played high G sharp on this trombone?”
Quade nodded slowly. “With iodine and ammonia you can make an explosive so sensitive a fly lighting on it will detonate it. Soup’s an expert on explosives. He experimented with this, mixed the stuff in just the right proportions. You can vibrate all you want and nothing will happen. But make a sound in high G sharp — and this house will go up!”
Without a word Vickers went into the bathroom. Quade heard him running the water in the tub and carried in the vase.
A few minutes later they returned to the living-room. “And now,” said Quade, “let’s round up a few people and see what’ll happen.”
Various detectives brought them to Sergeant Vickers’ little apartment on West 46th Street. There was Murdock, president of the Murdock Publishing Company, his secretary Martha Henderson, Al Donnelley and finally — brought in handcuffed to a cop — Soup Spooner himself.
Vickers got them all seated in his apartment, with detectives posted at strategic spots. The chairs, by prearrangement, all faced Sergeant Vickers’ music stand and the mantel piece. A red glass vase was prominent on the mantel piece.
Oliver Quade then took charge of the show. “Folks, you’ve all been brought here because you all had something to do with the death of Billy Bond, a young song writer; one of you committed the actual crime of murder.”
Murdock, pompous as ever, exclaimed, “I demand to be allowed to call my attorney.”
“Later,” said Quade, “and you’ll need him, too. You’re a damn crook, Murdock!”
“You’ll hear from my lawyer about that remark.”
“I don’t doubt it, yet, for the benefit of the other witnesses, I’ll repeat my statement. You’re a crook, Murdock.”
“I’ve got testimonials from hundreds of satisfied clients,” Murdock cut in. “Bona fide testimonials. I can prove—”
“Sure, you can. I could bottle salt water and sell it as a cure for cancer and a certain number of people would write and tell me how it cured their incurable cancer. People are like that. They’re gullible as hell.” Quade grinned crookedly. “And the most gullible of all are would-be song writers. The radio and the movies have made the people in even the most remote sections, song conscious. The words of a song are simple. A million people could write words for a song. And so a million people who read your cleverly worded ads are potential suckers.”
Quade picked up a magazine and turned to the ads. He read: “ ‘Song poems wanted. Fame and fortune may be yours. You write the words. We furnish the music. Big royalties. Murdock & Company, New York City.’”