Tex doubled his fists and came at me with his arms swinging. “Damn you to hell,” he roared. “You don’t frame me that way. I’ll—”
Schafer suddenly stepped between us. “You’ll what?” he asked, his jaw sticking out a mile.
Tex started a haymaker, but the arc was too long. The Captain’s fist drove swiftly upward in a short, hard punch and hit bone. Tex folded up. Behind him the canvas spread of the big top mimicked his action. It settled quickly to the ground, the metal bale rings sliding rapidly down the center poles. Moving figures carrying lights ran in and began unlacing it.
“Thanks, Captain,” I said. “I’m sorry about that little fuss at the jail. I don’t deserve such—”
“This,” Merlini said hastily, “is getting way out of control. I think we’ve had enough patchwork solutions for now.”
I didn’t like the confident way he said that. I could feel the watertight spread of canvas that was my solution sink and lie flat on the ground like the big top, ready to be rolled and carted away.
“It’s good, Ross,” he added. “Ingenious as anything. But it doesn’t explain the arrow on the pole, for one thing. And besides, I’ve just come from questioning Headless Lady number two. Your theory had occurred to me as a possibility. Just to make sure, we had her bandages off and got a look at her face. The flaw in your solution is the fact that she is Pauline after all. And she’s going to wind up this case. Her nerves are pretty well shot with what she’s gone through today, and she passed out on us before we’d finished. But she has told us that she knows who killed her father! She listened at the broken pane of the trailer window when she saw Irma King go in. A little later, when the elephant goad struck the Major, she saw the person who wielded it. And she was watching when that person moved the body to the Major’s car and drove it off the lot to set the accident.”
Irma King’s face was white. “But I tell you I didn’t—”
Merlini disregarded her. “Pauline fainted just before she could finish. There’s a doctor working on her now. The murderer might as well turn in his chips. We’ve got an eyewitness. Anyone want to say anything?”
The silence was short, tense. Then Mac Wiley spoke. “I don’t believe it. Why wouldn’t she have told us that before now?”
“She had an excellent reason, Mac,” Merlini said. “You see—”
Inspector Gavigan came out of the darkness. “Okay, Merlini. Let’s go. The doc says we can see her now.”
“Good.” Merlini’s eyes moved around the circle, resting for an instant on each of us. Then he turned abruptly and started off.
I slid out of my camp chair and went after him.
“I’m in on this,” I said flatly. “And don’t give me any back talk.”
“Okay, Ross,” he said ominously. “But remember that you asked for it.”
O’Halloran caught up with us. “You still insist it wasn’t the Duke?” he asked.
“I’m not insisting on anything at the moment,” Merlini answered. “The anti-aircraft guns have bagged too many high-flown theories in the last hour. I’m keeping my fingers crossed until after Pauline has said her piece. Inspector, I want a man at each window and one at the door.”
Gavigan issued orders. “Windows, Brady, Stevens, and you,” he indicated Robbins. “Schafer, where are the rest of your men?”
“Up front with Hooper. Working on the you-know-what.”
“Okay. O’Halloran, you take the window on the other side. Schafer, take the door. Let’s get this over quick. I don’t like it.”
He ducked his head and went through into the lighted trailer. Merlini and I followed. Pauline’s figure lay stiffly on the bed with the covers pulled high about her neck. The new bandages on her face hid her features even more than before. There was the thin black slit where her eyes were, but their cool black stare was lost in the shadow which the edge of the near-by lampshade threw across the upper part of the white mask of gauze. The edge of the yellow light circle touched the bandage-swathed point of her chin as if the light man had centered his spotlight badly.
Merlini knelt at once by the side of her bed and as he did so her jaw moved slightly and her voice, half hysterical and thin with effort, said:
“I’m sorry. I’m better now. I’ll try—”
Gavigan’s hand fastened on my arm above the elbow in a tight, motionless grip.
Merlini said; “Your father opened the wardrobe door to get his raincoat. The elephant hook struck him and you saw—”
Again the bandage over her jaw moved. “Yes.” Her voice rose in a high tone that I hadn’t heard before, a frightened, horror-stricken tone. “The murderer is—”
I half expected it. From beyond the window above the foot of Pauline’s bed a sharp cry came; then the words, “Damn you, get back …”
Something bumped against the trailer’s side.
The sound of the pistol shot within the narrow trailer room was deafening.
I saw the sharp spitting rush of flame that came through the window; and, when I jerked my head toward the direction in which it spurted, I saw the ugly black hole that had appeared as if by magic in the center of the white mask of gauze above the eyes.
I stared at it and wondered with a strange clarity of thought why I was having none of the sensations I would have expected.
The interval before Gavigan’s hand yanked downward on my arm, pulling me floorward, seemed long. I know now that it was less than a second.
We hit the floor together; Merlini had moved like lightning back against the wall beneath the window. I waited for the second shot.
But the momentary stillness was followed instead by the sound of shouts and running feet. Then, with the sudden rush of a bursting dam, the rain came in earnest, pounding on the trailer roof.
Merlini started up, and moved quickly toward the door. “I think we can go now,” he said.
Gavigan pulled the door open and tumbled out into the driving swirl of the storm. I plunged after him. Schafer was not at his post.
We circled the trailer. O’Halloran lay by the window on the ground, half propped on one elbow. Stevens’s torch spotlighted him. Gavigan and Schafer stood over him. The blood on O’Halloran’s forehead mingled with the streaming rain.
“He ran behind the trailers,” O’Halloran said. “That way. For God’s sake, get him! He took my gun.”
Schafer, bellowing orders, ran. O’Halloran rolled over and lifted himself shakily to his feet. Gavigan put a hand under his arm and helped him.
Mac Wiley, Keith, Joy, and then Tex appeared on the edge of the circle of light. Others crowded behind them. Irma King pushed through.
“Sure it was a man?” Merlini asked quickly.
O’Halloran shook his head, dazedly, “I–I think so. I couldn’t see too well, but—”
Merlini said evenly, “It’s all out and all over now. The person who fired that shot didn’t go far. Misdirection again. But the gunman might be interested to know that the shot didn’t do its work. The figure in the bed now is not Pauline Hannum! We substituted the mummy of John Wilkes Booth! With a length of white cotton thread to make the jaw appear to move and a little ventriloquism—Gavigan, watch it!”
Gavigan swung, his whole body behind the blow. The first blow landed in the pit of the stomach; and, as the murderer doubled up, Gavigan’s other fist found the skull behind the ear.
Merlini bent above the figure on the ground. When he stood up he held an object wrapped in his handkerchief. He placed it under his coat quickly to shield it from the pouring rain.