“So Cole and Snow, possibly even experiencing a momentary first instant of fright, think nothing more of it. Cole turns his back and they break his neck, place his body on the floor along with a toy automobile they’ve stolen from his home or bought in a dime-store toy department.
“Snow turns his back, and the two of them cram his head in a pail of their water. They dry his head and face, and he’s apparently drowned with no water near. Just who the two ‘window washers’ were is a minor detail that we’ll And out when your boys really get rolling to tie up the loose ends, Tim.”
“No!” Linda Sloan sobbed. “I wasn’t behind it! I didn’t do it!”
“But you will talk!” Murder said. “Not on the stand of course, for a woman can’t testify against her husband. But you’ll tell us enough off the record to make a confession come easy and lighten the grief you’re going to carry. You were an accomplice, working from inside, putting pressure on the rich guys and building the idea of Nostra and death! Not to mention the way you worked on Hobbs with the bodies planted in his den!”
Gregory Sloan bounded to his feet. “I won’t take your insinuations, Murder! I’m a sick man. I’ve just been out of the hospital a few hours. I was in bed when I graciously consented to come here when Brogardus phoned me.”
“Sit down,” Murder said coldly. “You’re a killer and you’re going to take all the insinuations I can hand out. You were the man behind it all. It’s no secret around town that the last election upset your apple cart. So you picked this way of getting rich quick.
“Sure, you were poisoned. You included yourself right in your list of victims. You even sent the carbon of the note you’d supposedly received from Nostra along with the other carbons that went to Wendel Hobbs. Carbons that were one more tiny example of the dozens of ways your pressure mounted on your victims. You knew that if you were among the victims, there was a good chance you might get caught. One of your hoods might have talked a little too much. There might have been a slip somewhere.
“I suspected you of giving yourself a slight dose of poison — not too much of course — this morning when Tim told me your secretary had rushed in your office and given you luke warm water and baking soda, a good emetic. The water and soda were both on your desk where you’d put them in advance!
“I was positive it was you, Sloan, when I came up to your hospital room and heard you blessing out your secretary for coming into your office at one thirty-five when you had told her in advance to come in at one thirty sharp. That five minutes could have been fatal had the poison been stronger.
“We’ve got Krile. He’ll talk. Linda here is in a jam. She’ll talk. How long do you think you’ll last, Sloan?”
Gregory Sloan whimpered, bolted for the door. I hit him, and he staggered back across my desk, his hand to his cut lips. He slouched there and held out his other hand to Wendel Hobbs.
“Help me! You’ve got money. You can hire lawyers! I’m sorry I did what I did to you. Your money is in my safe at home. Help me.”
Wendel Hobbs looked at Sloan, and Sloan’s words died. His piggish gaze dropped before that of the old man. I looked at Sloan, his pleading words to the man he had victimized echoing in my ears. I knew that not even Abner Murder would ever fully understand the criminal mind. Tim mumbled a thanks, pulled his gun, and herded Linda and her broken, sobbing husband out. The door closed behind them. The chief turned to Hobbs and cleared his throat.
“Mr. Hobbs, I feel I should tell you that my price for recovering lost or stolen property is a mere ten per cent. Now since your money is now known to be neatly tucked away in Gregory Sloan’s safe.”
Old man Hobbs laughed, pulled a checkbook from his pocket. Without hesitation he wrote a nifty. Ten grand, with the notation in the corner of the check, For services rendered — in more ways than one.
“I’ll watch the company I keep, Mr. Murder. I met Linda Sloan at a rather wild party one night. She was the first contact.”
He shook the chief’s hand and walked out. Murder sat down, blowing tenderly on the check. “Luke, call my wife and tell her to put on the coffee and break out the cream puffs. We’re doing to have a celebration!”
Celebration? With ten grand who — besides Abner Murder — would care anything about cream puffs!