Talmage Powell

Murder on the Expense Account

Hector Drumm, roving operative for Speare “We Hit The Target” Private Investigations, Inc., arrived in Asheville late Friday afternoon. He came out of the smoky, domed terminal, leaving his bag checked inside, and asked a cab driver the fare to Kimberly Avenue. It was a dollar, and Drumm drew in his shoulders, boarded a municipal bus and dropped six cents in the fare box. In his seat, he took a small black notebook from his pocket and under the heading “Expenses” he jotted carefully: “Cab fare, one dollar.”

This he regretted; the closest bus stop was seven block from Alex Donnelly’s house, up a long sweeping hill that drained the strength from Drumm’s short legs. It was a hot summer afternoon with a glaring sun lying low over the ragged hills in the west. When Hector Drumm rang Donnelly’s bell he was sweating.

An ancient Negro came around the side of the house, a garden trowel in his hand. “Yassuh?”

“I’m looking for Mr. Donnelly,” Drumm said.

“He inside,” the servant said. “You jest go right in. These heah summah folk are infoamal. Jest open de doah.”

Drumm shrugged, opened the door. He was in a short hallway. A door opened just past the walnut table with its fragile looking vase and wilted flowers. Without being told. Drumm had a hunch that the man coming toward him was Donnelly.

Drumm introduced himself. Donnelly was stiffly slim, as if he wore, beneath his soft gray, drape model suit, a supporter to keep his stomach muscles from bulging, his figure trim. Drumm didn’t like the faint smell of perfume about the man, and he wondered how much longer Donnelly could hide those loose layers of skin under his eyes from a movie camera.

Without preamble. Drumm said, as they went toward the open door. “I don’t mind telling you. This had better be good. Old man Speare — my boss — chased me six hundred miles down here. Couldn’t you find a detective closer?”

“No,” Donnelly said. His face was suddenly lined, his liquid eyes mirroring something that might be fear. “The job I hired you for, Drumm, is for you. I’m in a helluva mess.”

The last statement brought Drumm’s quick, keen gaze. His jet black eyes reflected light as he studied the evident fear on Donnelly’s face.

Donnelly closed the door behind them. They were in a room that had been used for lots of drinking. Several empty bottles were in evidence. Through the wide window in the other side of the room, Drumm could see the magnificent sweep of the Smoky Mountains, rolling away into the blue, hazy distance.

But he saw all that only in a flashing glimpse. His attention was held by a girl in a huge white leather chair. She was wearing white shorts and a blue sweater, and had one long brown leg curled up under her. She was deeply tanned; her hair was glittering blonde. She had eyes like blue ice, and Drumm compared her to solidified carbon dioxide; smoky, subzero dry ice. Then he remembered that he had held a piece of dry ice once and it had burned his hand with its cold.

She nodded at him as Alex Donnelly said, “Miss Viola Munday, Mr. Hector Drumm.”

She said, “Hiya, Heck,” and went on with her drinking.

Drumm said, “Well, what’s the turkey?” He sat down, and when Donnelly offered him a drink, Drumm said, “Never touch it.”

Donnelly drank nervously. Drumm guessed there’d been a party the night before. Seeing Donnelly in the flesh, it was hard to think of him as a movie idol in those dashing western roles where he personified everything that was noble and conrageous.

Donnelly said, “I came to these widely-advertised hills for a rest, and I end up hiring a private dick. Your boss soaked me plenty for getting you down here, Drumm. The situation is plenty ticklish, and you sure as hell better earn your money.”

“I’m a member of proletariat,” Drumm said glumly, “so don’t start giving me orders. Speare investigations never miss — no pun intended. Just spill your brains. Or if you want to lecture. I’ll be getting along.”

The blonde smiled, and she didn’t look so icy.

Donnelly’s face darkened, but he bit back his hot retort and said, “My daughter came to town yesterday.” He looked at Drumm expectantly, but the sandy-haired detective’s face was blank.

With a sigh, Alex Donnelly continued, “Imagine yourself in my position, Drumm. Every week, with the full sanction of their parents, hundreds of thousands of kids flock to theaters to see my pictures. I’m the sort of man in those pictures parents would like their kids to be.”

“A model man,” Viola Munday supplied, “strong, good, kind.” Donnelly looked at her darkly, and she added seriously: “Alex really is that sort of man, too, Mr. Drumm. His face might look a little soggy, but except for a very human bender now and then. Alex believes in the same code he lives in his roles.”

Drumm wasn’t so sure about that: but he’d learned long ago not to judge by appearances alone. “I didn’t know you bad a daughter,” he said.

“That’s just it,” Donnelly said morosely, “neither did I.” He laughed shortly, harshly. “You see, Drumm, years ago, when I was just starting, I married a woman in Mexico. I got a break, made a little dough, and played the rat. The marriage didn’t last. My wife went back to Mexico. I’ve never heard of her since — until day before yesterday, when a beautiful young creature came here with her lawyer and informed me that she was my daughter, Georgia. Her lawyer, a butter-tub, bald-headed character named Ober Illman, told me a pathetic tale of starvation and grief.” Donnelly sat down shakily. “Can’t you imagine what it would do to me if I was smeared all over the country as the sort of man who would let his wife starve to death in a foreign land while I — through the years — greedily clutch bigger and bigger contracts?”

“The studio would drop you like a hot potato. I guess,” Drumm said.

“Not to mention,” Viola Munday said, “what the mamas and papas of all those kids would do if they could get their hands on you.”

Donnelly nodded, and Drumm thought he looked sick. Drumm said, “You want me to scare the girl off?”

Donnelly shook his head vigorously. “If she’s not my daughter, yes. But if she is my daughter. I’m going to pay. I can understand how she might hate me. She wants a small fortune that’ll clean me for sometime to come. But if she actually is my daughter and I’ve abandoned her these years to the sort of life she told me about, I want to pay.”

For the first lime, Drumm’s thin lips cracked in a smile. It was apparent he didn’t do it often. “Since you put it that way, Donnelly, I’ll do what I can for you. Maybe Miss Munday is right about you. You want me to determine definitely whether she is your daughter?”

“That’s it,” Donnelly nodded. “Ober Illman — her lawyer — has pretty convincing proof. But I called you here to be positive. I’m not going to be rooked by a slick scheme if I can help it.”

Drumm stood up. “You’ll give me the address of Georgia, your daughter, Ober Illman, her lawyer, and anything else you can think of that might be pertinent, and I’ll get started right away.” He smiled again, thinly. “You made arrangements with my lord and master, Mr. Speare, about the finances?”

Donnelly nodded.

“Well,” Drumm said, “there might be incidentals come up. A palm to lie greased, you know or something like that. I might need, say, a couple hundred.”

Donnelly looked at him shrewdly, and Drumm’s smile became bland. Finally, taking a pigskin wallet from his pocket, Donnelly said, “All right. I’ll play hall with you. But you get results, Drumm, or I’ll show you those action scenes in my pictures are not all done by stuntmen.”

Hector Drumm warmed his pocket with the two hundred, took out his black notebook, and under the heading “Bonuses”, carefully wrote; $200.00. The grand total of the column of figures brought a mellow sigh.

A half hour later, Drumm and Alex Donnelly, in Donnelly’s study, rose. “The first thing,” Drumm said, “is a phone call. To the lawyer.”

Alex Donnelly walked toward the door, Drumm at his side.

“The phone is in the hall. Scarcity of phones now, and I couldn’t get extensions. Ober Illman and Georgia arc living in a cottage on Linden Avenue. The number is 9211R. No dial phones here, just tell the operator.”

They walked down the hall, and Drumm put through the call. Ober Illman, the lawyer, answered. He bad a heavy, nasal voice that rumbled in Drumm’s ear.

Drumm introduced himself and said, “I’m a candid worker, Illman. If Georgia Donnelly is really Alex Donnelly’s daughter, he’s going to pay off, no matter what. If she isn’t. I’m going to find it out and reserve a room in the pen for you.”

Illman’s laugh boomed over the humming line. “This is no con game, Drumm. Do all the snooping you like.”

“Thanks. Donnelly says he wants to see you.”

“I’ll be right over,” Illman chortled; he hung up with a heavy hand.

Drumm turned to Alex Donnelly. “Thus far, thus fine. He’s coming over. Keep him occupied. I’m going to take a private look about his cottage and whatever papers he doesn’t bring in his brief case. I’ll look through the rooms and get a juicy picture of the guy. I hate dull jobs.”

The cottage on Linden, a street writhing around one of Asheville’s ever-present lulls, was a small, brightly white, frame affair. A few shrubs dotted the lawn. The afternoon was growing old and a soft north wind was beginning to blow. Drumm had heard that tourists in this altitude slept under blankets in August.

With a quick look at the comfortable, but inexpensive, sleepy neighborhood. Hector Drumm palmed the knob of the front door. It was unlocked. He eased inside. The blinds were drawn tightly. It was twilight in here. He blinked his eyes against it.

His vision focusing, he saw the girl. The back of her head was visible over the top of the maroon chair. Drumm grimaced, realizing he would have to make an excuse and get out and return later to prowl through Mr. Illman’s things.

But the girl said nothing so he walked forward. He bent over the (hair and looked her in the eyes. Her hair was jet black, her skin was olive. She was very beautiful, and dead.

Hector Drumm touched her arm. It was warm, which meant that she had been killed moments ago. Blood still seeped from the ugly place where a bullet had punctured her cheek. Pinned in the soft fabric of her homespun jacket was a glistening wooden monogram pin. The initials were C. D. Georgia Donnelly.

Drumm straightened, his face set. He hated it when they were young and lovely. He wiped beads of perspiration from his heavy upper lip and considered the local law. He was in strange territory, he decided. He picked up the phone, heard a conversation on the party line. Three minutes later he tried again and found himself talking to a drawling detective sergeant named MacGruder. Sergeant MacGruder was on his way over before Drumm hung up. Drumm looked back at the girl, sucked in a heavy breath, and went outside.

He sat down on the edge of the tiny excuse for a porch, his feet on the walk, and took out a cigarette. He pinched it neatly in two, lighted half, and returned the other half to his crumpled pack.

He kept remembering the girl inside, how bubbling with life she must have been, and he was making dire threats against somebody when the man came down the walk.

The newcomer was fat, fifty, bald, and explosive. His “Hello” was like a miniature clap of thunder. He stood over Drumm. He was well-dressed, Drumm thought, if you liked green slacks, tan sportcoat and open-throated shirt. The late rays of the sun struck the man’s bald pate obliquely, and as he bent to squint closely, Drumm saw that the top of the man’s head had been sunburned and was peeling, giving it a scalelike appearance.

“I’m Rick Elwyn,” the heavy man said, nodding ns Drumm mentioned his own name. Drumm mused, “Elwyn? Seems familiar. I had a cousin once who tried to get in pictures. Never made it, but she mentioned an agent...”

“Yes!” Elwyn said lustily. “Actor’s agent, adviser, creator of stars, that’s me.”

He didn’t like himself — much. Drumm eyed him thoughtfully. “Alex Donnelly’s agent?”

Rick Elwyn nodded, beaming. “I’ve done miracles for him.” Then he said in a more sober tone, “I’ve rented a cottage three blocks over for as long as Donnelly, myself, and his wife will be here. I...”

“Wife?” Drumm demanded.

Elwyn started a trifle at having someone else’s voice equal his own in intensity. “Why, yes. Viola Munday — that’s her screen name — if she ever gets a part. They’ve been married couple months.”

Drumm laboriously got one more drag from his fag. “I thought he had a wife in Mexico.”

“Yes, the Mexican woman. Beautiful creature, several years back. But when Donnelly and Viola decided to tie the knot, Alex hired a private dick in Mexico who found that his first wife was dead.”

“He’s got a passion for hiring private detectives,” Drumm said. “The dick found nothing about Georgia, Donnelly’s daughter by his first marriage?”

Elwyn hesitated. “The detective said nothing about a daughter ever having been born.”

“I guess the Mexican wife had pride.”

“Or the daughter is a fraud,” Elwyn said.

Their eyes locked and Hector Drumm said, “She’s no fraud. She’s as beautiful as her mother once was. And just as dead.”

Elwyn’s flabby chin dropped, quivered; his eyes squeezed toward the fronts of his sockets. “Dead...?” It was a very small voice now.

Drumm listened to sirens rising in the distance. He said softly, “Dead.”

MacGruder was a gangling, raw-boned hillbilly with stooped shoulders, a chin like an obstinate hound, and the eyes of a sly opossum. He carried a sizable quid in his left cheek, and never seemed to need to expectorate.

With him was the usual retinue: photog, fingerprint expert, coroner — since Asheville had not installed the more modern system of medical examiner’s office — a downy-faced cub hanging goggle-eyed to the sleeve of a bulky reporter from the Citizen, and three other individuals, one of them in a blue uniform, who took up a station at the door as the neighbors began to thrust heads out of windows and start across lawns.

Drumm sat in a corner and watched them. Rick Elwyn stood quivering like a puppet on a jerky string, wringing his hands.

MacGruder finally stood over Drumm.

“She was killed about an hour ago. She’d been dead about thirty minutes when you got here.”

Drumm made a mental calculation. He’d got mixed on municipal buses and it had taken about forty-five minutes for him to get from Alex Donnelly’s house. Which meant that the girl had been murdered about fifteen minutes after he had left Donnelly’s place. Someone with a fast car could have gotten from the actor’s house and done the job, leaving Donnelly’s house at the same time Hector Drumm had.

Drumm met MacGruder’s gaze. “I haven’t touched a thing, sarge. I waited on the porch until you got here.”

“You haven’t told me why you’re here yet.” MacGruder’s voice was sleepy, like a lazy fuse burning toward a keg of gunpowder.

Drumm got to his feet, dusting off his pants where he’d been sitting on the floor. He lighted half a cigarette. “I know local cops hate to have a private dick pushing his nose in. But I’m going to play fair hall with you, MacGruder. I want to get away front here. And since I found the body, I know I’m a material witness and am going to have to pay a hotel hill until this thing gets cleared up. I’ll lose work, time, and my boss ain’t going to like it a hit.” He sighed glumly. “The dead girl is Georgia Donnelly, Alex Donnelly’s daughter. Or that’s what she was supposed to be. Donnelly dished out a lot of dirt in the past, desertion and so on, and now when the gal got growed up, she haled him and was going to make him pay. I was supposed to find out if she really was his daughter.”

“And was she?”

“I’m inclined to think so,” Drumm said hesitantly.

“And he killed her to keep her quiet?”

“Maybe he’s got a cast-iron alibi,” Drumm reminded quietly. “Anyway, I think he really wanted to kick in with a pile of dough if she was his daughter.”

MacGruder looked from Drumm to Elwyn. “You two come along. I always had a hankering to see a movie star in the flesh.”

With MacGruder driving, Drumm timed the short trip from the cottage on Linden, where MacGruder’s men were still working over Georgia Donnelly, to Alex Donnelly’s place on Kimberly. Eleven minutes had elapsed when they pulled in the gravel drive. Drumm put his cumbersome, pre-war, ninety-nine cent watch to his ear. It was still clanging faithfully, and with a shrug, he replaced it in his pocket.

Alex Donnelly stood stiffly when he opened the door at MacGruder‘s heavy knock. Without preamble, MacGruder said, “I’m the law. We want to talk to you about a killing.”

Drumm was prepared to catch the actor as he crumpled in a faint, but Donnelly said, his thick, and tightly-quiet, “Georgia...”

“Yes,” Rick Elwyn croaked, “easy, Alex.”

“Come in,” Donnelly said.

Ober Illman was in the study. His briefcase lay on the desk. He had spread papers out. Drumm caught a glimpse of a marriage license, a birth certificate, an aged report card from a school in Texas.

Donnelly said to Illman, his face like chalk mottled with red blood close to the surface, “Georgia is dead.”

Illman came to life slowly, like a volcano gathering its strength. Teeth set, he lunged at Donnelly. “That’s where you were! While I waited for you, yon were out killing her!”

MacGruder cuffed him on the side of the head, dragged the lawyer hack. Drumm said, “What’s he talking about?”

Donnelly had reared hack against the desk; he relaxed slowly as Illman pulled from MacGruder’s grasp and straightened his coat; the lawyer stood glaring.

Donnelly said after a moment, “I kept him waiting for thirty minutes when he first got here. You told me to detain him, Drumm, and I wasn’t sure I could detain him long enough. So I just stayed in the back of the house and let him wait for awhile.”

MacGruder turned to Drumm. “Why did you tell Donnelly to keep Illman here?”

Drumm shrugged and pinched a cigarette in two. “I wanted to look through Illman’s things in the cottage. That’s why I was there when I found Ceorgia.”

MacGruder said nothing, but Drumm read unpleasant things in his eyes. The rawboned cop turned back to Donnelly. “You,” he said, “have the strongest motive. The girl was going to wreck your career, wasn’t she? Or take you for a merry ride financially.”

“I... I wouldn’t kill my own daughter,” the actor said hoarsely.

“Maybe she wasn’t your daughter. Anyway, more gruesome things have happened. Did you have money to pay her?”

It wasn’t nice to watch Donnelly in that moment. Drumm thought. Like looking at a trapped animal. Alex Donnelly said, “I’ve got a new contract coming up. Rick and the studio heads are going to complete it the first of the month.” His face was like ashes as he realized the net being spun about him. “You’ll find the story out anyway — so here it is, straight. It’s true, I am broke right now. I lost fifty grand on a wild oil-drilling venture that looked like a sure thing. But I could have paid the girl.”

“On the installment plan, eh?” MacGruder said. He added grimly: “She hated you; she didn’t want to wait; so you killed her.” His broad hand gathered Donnelly’s tie, shirt, and coat lapels. “Spill it! Didn’t you?”

Donnelly shook his head, his Adam’s apple shuttling visibly in his neck. MacGruder slammed him hack against the desk. “Sit down and stay seated, Drumm, get any other members of the household. I’m going to close this case in a hurry.”

Alex said weakly, “Viola is upstairs. Bedroom at the head of the stairway. She just went up, as you knocked on the front door.”

Drumm sighed and ambled from the room.

He heard her moving beyond the door of the bedroom. The carpet had deadened his footfalls all the way up the stairs. He opened the door silently. She was standing across the room, the dying sun making a blinding sheen of her yellow hair. She was standing perfectly still, every muscle and nerve taut. She was holding a gun in her hands, a gun with a silencer, the gun. Drumm guessed, that had killed Georgia Donnelly.

He moved surprisingly fast, wringing the gun from her fingers. She uttered a gasping scream of sudden pain and fright. Drumm said, “I was afraid you’d point this thing at me if I let you know in advance I was here. Let’s go downstairs and see the cop.”

Her fingers dug into his arm. “You don’t think...”

“Lady, I believe my own eyes.”

She was suddenly standing weakly against him, sobbing. “I wanted to! I hated her. We’ve had it tough, Alex and I. Alex borrowed fifty thousand from Rick for a sure fire oil deal, lost it together with what money we had saved. And then she came along, his daughter, taking what money we’d have in the future. She... she wanted half a million dollars, Drumm! It would have taken years to pay...”

“We still have to go downstairs,” Drumm said obstinately.

She raised her head. “And you... you’ll show the cop the gun? I don’t know where it came from!” she said fiercely. “I opened the drawer and there it was. I heard the cop tell Alex as you came in the hall that Georgia had been killed, and when I found the gun just now...” Tears drowned her voice for a moment. “Will... will you show the cop the gun?”

Drumm said wearily, “I guess maybe I’ll have to.”

The study was a frozen tableau as they entered. Hector Drumm could feel their eyes. He released Viola’s arm and she sank dazedly into a chair. He handed the gun to MacGruder.

“The murder weapon?” MacGruder said, his shaggy brows uplifted.

Drumm said, “Ballistics will show it. Solve your own problems.”

MacGruder smiled thinly. “For my money, this gun killed Georgia Donnelly. Where’d you find it?”

Drumm was saved from speaking by Viola, who said quietly, “In my room. In my hand. I found it in my drawer. He came in as I was staring at it.”

“Well!” MacGruder said. “And where were you an hour and ten minutes ago?”

The room was heavy with silence. MacGruder laughed softly, “Chances are you didn’t walk it or take a bus. You either caught a cab or look your own car. If you caught a cab to that cottage on Linden Avenue, I’ll grill every driver in town — that’s one advantage of being a small town cop. Or I could feel the radiator of your own car.”

“You needn’t,” she said dully. She had been shrinking in the chair, until now she looked beaten and helpless. “The radiator is warm,” she said. “An hour and ten minutes ago I was in the car. I did drive to the house on Linden. I parked in the next block parallel to Linden and cut across a vacant lot. But when I got in the house, Georgia Donnelly was dead. I... I stood and looked a moment, then hurried out the back and came here. I guess I missed... missed the killer by inches.”

“Bah!” MacGruder said. “It looks to me like you’re guilty. You killed the girl to keep her out of her father’s life, to keep her from taking the money you’d married him for.”

“That’s a dirty lie!” Alex Donnelly shouted.

“You ain’t got no cameras focused on you now, Bub,” MacGruder said. “Shut up.”

He whirled back to face Viola. “We’ll prove it, lady. With prints on the gun. Footprints on the vacant lot, fingerprints you left in that cottage on Linden.” He stepped over to her. “You’ll have to go downtown with me.”

Donnelly rushed toward his wife. MacGruder pushed him back. “But,” he warned them, “if I decide we can’t prove it, that she didn’t do it, I’ll be coming back. You folks stick around — Donnelly, Illman, Elwyn, Drumm. You see, I ain’t through with a case ’til the judge passes sentence.”

He guided her through the door and Donnelly sank behind the desk in his chair, burying his face in his palms. Drumm thought it was nerve-wracking to hear a man tom by sobs. He eased out of the room. Illman and Elwyn followed.

Illman sighed heavily. “Nothing we can do for him. Best to leave him alone at a lime like this.”

Drumm grunted. Elwyn mumbled shakily that he was going to the living room to find a drink. The fat agent waddled off, and Illman said uneasily, “I’ll be getting along, Mr. Drumm. Can’t tell you what this has done to me.”

Drumm sat in the wicker chair on the broad veranda and watched the sunset. He tried to sort his thoughts. He kept seeing a dead, beautiful girl. And if he had to stick around this town much longer old man Speare would be jumping down his throat.

He remembered the way Viola had looked holding the gun in the bedroom upstairs. How did guilty people look? He was supposed to know, he guessed. She didn’t look guilty. Was it a smooth attempt to frame her? Say the killer had seen her approach, had known she would leave fingerprints, that the police would learn she had been in the cottage at the time of Georgia’s death. Had he planted the gun, thinking to clinch the case with that?

The most important thing in murder, Drumm knew, was the almost fanatical desire of the killer to remain invisible. It wasn’t too far-fetched to think that maybe a killer had seen Viola and had played opportunity to its limit in order to give the cops a fall guy and get the case closed, in which event the killer need no longer be afraid.

Drumm realized that he was hungry. He wondered what he could find in Donnelly’s kitchen. He took out his black notebook and under the heading “Expenses” jotted “Dinner, $2.25.”

He got up with a soft exhalation of air through his button-like nose. In the hallway, he picked up the phone. When the operator asked for his number he said, “9211J, please.”

Alter one ring, a voice at the other end said, “Mr. Elwyn’s residence.”

Drumm hung up quietly, and went in the living-room. Hick Elwyn was mixing bourbon and soda.

Drumm said, “Hello, killer.”

Elwyn’s gaze jerked up. “What was that?”

“I said you killed Georgia Donnelly. Alex Donnelly was determined to pay his daughter off if it took every dime he owned. He felt he owed it to her. She really was his daughter, too. So you knew you’d be whistling for that fifty grand that Donnelly borrowed from you for the oil deal. He’d pay his daughter and let you go hang.”

Elwyn’s fat face was a study in mixed emotions. “I’ll not take your lopsided, insulting humor!” he thundered. The glass trembled in his hand.

“Ha, ha,” said Drumm drily. “So you think it’s funny? Well, think again. MacGruder was right. We will prove it by little things. We’ll trace that gun over the whole country, if need be. We’ll take a nitrate test of your hands. We’ll...” The wind jerked out of him as Elwyn pulled a gun.

“You’re a little too damn smart, Drumm. So was the girl. You’ll get the same treatment she got. I had to hate that fifty grand back that Alex Donnelly owes me. I’m in a squeeze. I lent it to him expecting a big return. Now it’s gone — and his daughter came, threatening to destroy our chances of the new contract that would enable him to pay off. Or if the contract did get signed, she was going to take his dough. I had no choice. Now I have no choice, either, because I’m killing to save myself.”

“Sure,” Drumm said, his voice thick despite his efforts. “I used the old process of elimination — and got you. Donnelly, I knew, would not kill his own daughter. And loving Donnelly, as she does, I doubt that Viola would, either. Illman, the lawyer, might have done it had the girl not been the real daughter. In that case, he might have tried to sell her out to Donnelly for more money than she was paying. Which would have led to his disbarment and disgrace when she found out — if she were able to talk. But since she was Donnelly’s real daughter, the only way the lawyer could have gained was by pushing her case for her, for since it was not a con scheme, she could get another lawyer any time.

“That left you, Elwyn, with strong motive. And with a telephone smack on Illman’s party line. His number is 9211R, and with the scarcity of telephones in this town, you had to get on a party line, which suited you fine, for yours is 9211J, and by picking up the receiver every few seconds, you could keep track by listening in on any calls that went in and out of Illman’s house, three blocks away from your place. You heard me call Illman over here this afternoon. You learned definitely then from my call that Donnelly was going to pay off to the girl, and that’d you’d be in the cold for your dough. You...”

He sprang abruptly at Elwyn, moving with deceptive speed. The gun roared, tearing a jagged hole in Drumm’s coat, burning his side with the explosion blast. He grappled for the gun. Then Elwyn was jerked from him.

Alex Donnelly tore the gun from Elwyn’s grasp. He smashed Elwyn in the face and the fat man sprawled on the carpet. Donnelly stood over him, his blazing eyes begging Rick Elwyn to get up. But Elwyn stayed on the floor.

“That heavy voice of his brought me to the door,” Donnelly said. “I listened, Drumm. This guy is going to the gas chamber.” He held himself with an effort from kicking his daughter’s fear-sodden killer in the face.

Drumm looked at Donnelly’s skinned knuckles with respect. “You weren’t kidding, were you, when you said you didn’t use stuntmen all the time.”

He watched with one colorless eyebrow cocked as Donnelly dragged Elwyn toward the hall and phone.

Drumm sighed, touched his burned side and ruined coat gingerly. He took out his little black notebook and under the heading “Expenses” he wrote carefully: “One gray worsted suit, $15.00.” Then after a moment’s reflection, he erased that. Finally, after deliberation, he wrote: “One gray worsted suit, seat of the trousers worn thin, $44.50.”

Content

Talmage Powell
Murder on the Expense Account