Pauline glared at him, angry but uncertain. “What are you doing here — in this trailer?”
Merlini had the answer to that. And he gave it to her, politely but without warning. I could see the white deadly wake of the torpedo as it went.
“We are investigating your father’s murder.”
Chapter Six
Fingerprints
The explosion had the solid reverberating thud of a direct hit. But before it there was one instant, a long-drawn-out instant of deadly quiet. One thing only, the tinny festivity of the distant side-show band, came to make a disturbing ripple in the tense, tight silence that held us.
Pauline seemed to sway under the impact of Merlini’s words as if they were hard, driving physical blows. Her lithe body was taut and rigid, her fists clenched as if she were trying frantically to grasp at something that would keep her from hysteria. The dark eyes were round staring circles, and the full red lips opened as if to speak.
But it was Mac’s voice that thundered and smashed the silence.
“What the blazing everlasting hell are you talking about?”
“Murder,” Keith said. “If the Sheriff is still on the lot, you’d better get him.”
Mac didn’t move.
Keith added, “If you don’t, I will.”
In answer to that, Mac made one swift movement. His hand was on the doorknob, and he turned it with a decisive jerk. The holt clicked over.
“No, I don’t think so. Merlini, will you explain—”
“Mac! I’ll handle this.” Pauline’s voice had no hysteria in it now, only sharp, crisp authority. Her words were slow and precise, eyes narrowed and careful. She took a step toward Atterbury. “All right, Keith,” she said. “Spill it. And fast.”
Keith glanced sidewise at Merlini, and then said, watching Pauline, “Mac, when the Major left the front door last night, where did he say he was going?”
“You were there. Weren’t you?” Mac replied gruffly.
“Yes. He said he was going over to his trailer to get a slicker. But did he, at any time, say anything to you about leaving the lot?”
“No,” Mac scowled. “And so what? He didn’t tell me every—”
“All right, Pauline,” Keith said. “Let’s have it. Where was he going? What’s the story you’ve rigged up? I warn you it’ll have to be good, very good.”
“Atterbury”—Pauline’s voice had an Arctic cold in it—“you’re fired! Starting now. Get your money from the wagon and get off the lot.”
“No, wait, Miss Hannum,” Mac interposed hastily. “That won’t do. I’m not going to have him running to the cops with whatever he thinks he’s got before I know what it is. Nobody sets foot outside this trailer until this is straightened out!”
Keith started toward the door. “I’m afraid this is something our legal adjuster isn’t going to be able to adjust as smoothly as usual. Get out of my way, Mac!”
Mac stood directly before the door. He was a much older man than Keith and half a head shorter, but it was obvious that he was perfectly confident of holding his own. He stood lightly poised on his feet like a boxer.
“You heard her,” Keith said. “I don’t work here any more. I’m leaving.”
“Not yet you aren’t.”
Merlini’s voice cut across the tension in the room in the nick of time. “Miss Hannum,” he said, “I have no authority to ask questions or to expect any answers. But unless someone can and does explain the very peculiar behavior of the Major just before he died last night, then Keith is right; the police will have to be notified.”
“Merlini!” Mac shouted. “For God’s sake! You don’t believe Calamity’s beefing is—”
“Mac,” Pauline ordered sharply, “I said I’d handle this.” She faced Merlini. “What peculiar behavior?”
“Where was the Major going when he left the lot last night?”
“I don’t see that that is any of your business.”
“It isn’t. But unless someone can supply a decent answer, it’s police business. If you would prefer to tell them, that’s your privilege. That is, if you know?”
“If I don’t know, does that prove anything?”
“No. It only makes his death look even queerer.”
“I don’t understand you. As it happens, I do know where he was going.”
Merlini blinked. “You know why he left the lot in the face of a possible blowdown? And why he was in such a great hurry on a road that goes nowhere in particular?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last see him alive?”
Pauline’s answers were all hesitant, but when she did speak the words came swiftly, with a sudden jerk.
“At dinner,” she said.
Out of the tail of my eye I saw Keith start and open his mouth to protest. Merlini cut in quickly.
“Is that when he told you about his plans for the evening?”
“Yes.”
“And they were?”
“I’ve already told you that it doesn’t concern you.”
“Yes, I heard you. I’m glad that you know the answers, because the police are going to want them.”
She studied him a moment. “You’ve got some other reason for saying that. What is it?”
“Show Mac the photos, Keith. Perhaps you’d better not look, Miss Hannum. They were taken at the scene of the accident, and are not very—”
She snatched them from Keith’s hand as he drew them from the envelope. She looked with wide eyes, Mac crowding behind her.
Merlini spoke rapidly: “The photos were snapped by the man who found the body, before anyone had touched it. The face and neck are severely lacerated. There is no blood except for a very insignificant amount across the top of the head. The deduction is — that the cuts were made a considerable time after death.”
Both Pauline and Mac looked up and stared at him.
Before either of them could speak, Merlini added, “Mac, is that the hat the Major was wearing last night?” He pointed.
Mac was thoroughly alarmed now. He turned his head nervously, biting at his thin lips. But he was still cagey.
“Maybe,” he said. “What about it?”
“Keith says he was wearing it and that there was no hat found on the scene of the accident, although the Major, because of his baldness, invariably wore one. We found that hat here in this trailer; and inside, on the inner surface of the, hat’s crown, there is a smear of dried blood.”
Mac picked up the hat and turned it over. “Blood?” he said skeptically. “Dark brown stain. It might be anything, and it could have been there for days. You’ve got to do better than that. Dammit to hell anyway, Merlini, what’s got into you? The medical examiner—”
Merlini cut him off. “Miss Hannum, were the Major’s glasses found with the body?”
The photo had taken some of the starch out of Pauline; and the bloodstain, if that was what it was, seemed to have impressed her. Though I knew well enough that Mac was quite right and that Merlini, before the stain was worth a nickel as evidence, would have to have it tested.
Pauline looked at Merlini without answering, as if she were thinking of something else and had not heard.
Mac answered instead, angrily, and put his foot smack into it. “Yes,” he roared, “they were — what was left of them. They were in the breast pocket of his coat, smashed all to hell by the accident.”
“And yet,” Merlini said quietly, his voice contrasting with Mac’s roar, “I found several small fragments of glass on the floor of the trailer here. The curvature of the pieces obviously suggests spectacle lenses.” He tipped the envelope and let them slide on to the desk top, where they glinted in the light. “If they should fit the pieces of glass that were in his pocket … ”