I stood up, braced myself and went to the door. The smell of cordite hit me as I entered the room. The breathing sound I had heard turned to a gasp and a rattle that made my hair stand on end. I flicked on the flashlight. The beam hit a scene I dream “about even now. One quick look brought my hand groping for the light switch; a moment later the room was flooded with harsh, white light.
The room was small, and the bed faced me. On the bed was a man wearing only pyjama trousers. From the waist up he was naked. Two big, 45 slug wounds decorated the middle of his white, hairy chest, and blood ran down his ribs in a shiny, maroon-coloured stream. A third slug had ripped open h’s jugular, and blood spurted from the wound in a terrifying scarlet jet, hitting the near wall and dripping on to the floor.
It took me a second or so to recognize the man on the bed. The blood-smeared, ghastly coloured face looked like something someone had cooked up for a horror show in a wax-work exhibition. But it was Thayler all right It couldn’t be anyone else but Thayler.
There was nothing I could do for him. It was a miracle he was still alive. Even if I could have sealed the artery I couldn’t do anything about the holes in his chest.
He lay very still and stared at me; his slate-grey eyes unafraid; life going out of him, splashing on the wall and dripping on to the floor.
‘Who did it?’ I asked, leaning over the bedrail. ‘Come on, you can still talk. Who did it?’
Even though he was going fast and his lungs were drowning in blood he tried to speak. His mouth moved, his jaw twitched, but that was as far as he got. But he did manage to convey something to me. Slowly, and with an effort that mingled sweat with his blood, he lifted his hand and pointed. I followed the direction of the pointing finger and found myself looking at a cupboard.
‘Something in there?’ I said, stepped round the bed and jerked open the cupboard. There wasn’t much in it: a suit of clothes, a hat and a small suitcase. I looked over my shoulder at him. The grey eyes held mine, willing me to understand what he was trying to say.
‘In the suit?’ I asked, pulling out the suit from the cupboard.
The finger continued to point. I tossed out the hat and the suitcase and looked at him again. Still the finger continued to point at the cupboard which was, as far as I could see, now empty.
‘Hidden in there?’ I asked.
The eyes said yes, the hand dropped. The breathing was very slow and laboured. Red-tinged air-bubbles came through the two holes in his chest.
I turned back to the cupboard, shone the beam of my flash at the flooring and back panel, but could see nothing except dust and bits of fluff.
I took out my knife, opened the heaviest blade and began prising up the floorboards in the cupboard. As I worked I became aware that the laboured, wheezing breathing had stopped. I glanced over my shoulder. The face on the blood-soaked pillow had turned the colour of clay, the lean, heavy jaw sagged. The finger still pointed to the cupboard and the dead, blank eyes looked directly at me.
I levered up one of the floorboards and flashed the torch beam into the cavity. There was nothing bat dirt, a spider or two and the signs that a rat had once lived there. I straightened up, scowled at the cupboard, knowing I should get out, but certain Thayler had meant me to find something in there; something that might be the key to the whole of this mad, murderous business.
There was a cane-bottomed chair close by and I jerked it before the cupboard and stood on it so the upper shelf of the cupboard was level with my face. A panel of wood formed the back of the shelf, and I got my knife-blade under it and began to lever it out. It resisted my efforts, but I kept at it, feeling the blade bend under the leverage, careful not to put too much pressure on it, but making the pressure even and continuous. I had the panel on the move when I heard a faint noise that could have been the scraping of a boot on bare boards. Stepping down from the chair I sneaked to the door and listened. Hearing nothing I snapped off the overhead light, opened the door, and peeled into the dark passage. My heart was banging against my ribs, and I felt it miss a beat when I saw a flash of light on the wall by the foot of the stairs.
I crept out of the room and peered over the banisters. Someone was moving about in the passage below. Then another torch flashed on, and I caught a glimpse of a cop standing at the foot of the stairs looking up into the darkness.
‘Must be upstairs, Jack,’ a voice murmured. ‘No one around here.’
I didn’t wait to see or hear more, but went quickly and silently back into the room of death, shut the door softly and turned on the light again. There was a good strong bolt on the door and I pushed it home. I had about two minutes to find what I was looking for, and I returned to the cupboard, got my fingers in the gap I had made in the panel and heaved at it with all my strength. It moved, the nails coming away with a sharp, creaking sound. I heaved again, and the panel came away in my hand. I shone the torch into the cavity. Two things met my eyes: a Colt .45 automatic pistol equipped with what appeared to be a miniature telescopic sight and a leather-bound notebook I grabbed them up as a rap came on the door.
‘Open up!’ a voice called. ‘We know you’re in there. It’s the city police. Come on; open up!’
I shoved the gun in my hip pocket and the notebook in my coat pocket, slipped silently off the chair and went over to the window. I was scared stiff and had difficulty with my breathing, but I kept my head. If they caught me in here I would be in a hell of a jam.
As I pushed open the window one of the cops drove his shoulder against the door, but the bolt held.
‘Get down and around to the back,’ I heard him say. ‘He may try to get out of the window.’
The other cop went clattering down the stairs.
I was out on the windowsill by now. There was a sheer drop of about thirty feet into the yard. I couldn’t go that way, and besides the cop would be in the yard any second now. The roof guttering was just above my head. I caught hold of it, tested its strength. It seemed strong enough, and sweating in every pore I started hauling myself up on to the roof. For about four seconds I hung in space, then I got my heel in the gutter and heaved myself up. I felt the gutter bend under the strain, then a voice yelled from below. With a tremendous heave I rolled myself on to the gently sloping roof, crawled desperately for cover behind a chimney-stack. A gun went off and bits of brick stung the back of my neck. I gave a convulsive wriggle and put the stack behind me and the gun, and lay for a moment or so, trying to get my breath. I knew I hadn’t long before they’d be up here looking for me. The moonlight turned night into day. About twelve feet away I could see the flat roof of Delmonico’s bar, separated from Bertillo’s place by the alley.
‘He’s up on the roof, Jack,’ the cop yelled from below, ‘I’m coming up!’
I crawled to the far edge of the roof, stood up and measured the distance between the two roofs. I hadn’t any run back. It had to be a cold-blooded leap with the alley thirty feet below me.
There wasn’t any time to waste. If I was going to get out of this mess I had to jump, so I balanced myself on the edge of the roof and jumped. It flashed through my mind as I was in mid-air that I wasn’t going to make it, and I flung myself forward, hitting the opposite guttering with my chest and sliding back. My hands grabbing and searching for a hold gripped a concealed drain pipe running along the flat roof. I heaved myself up, and, gasping for breath, rolled on to the roof.