Fallen Sparrow (24 page)

The shrug wriggled from shoulders to uplifted palms. “You will wish I kill you if this gas is release.”

The cold lump throbbed within Kit. The Luger in his pocket. The little gun under his arm. The power mechanized in his fingers. The refusal in his soul.

Dr. Skaas smiled as if they understood each other. “Now we have the little talk, yes?” He lurched into the chair and looked towards the fireplace. He shivered a little. “It is cold in this room. You will light the fire for me? It is laid, you see. You put the match to the paper and soon it will be comfortable for us.”

Kit was afraid to move, afraid that there was more in Skaas’ request than the wish for fire warmth. But the room was chill. And he wouldn’t be shot down, not yet.

The man said, “It is not easy for me to stoop to it.”

Kit walked catlike to the hearth, struck the match, bent quickly and tipped the flame to the crumpled newspapers. Quickly he returned to the desk, sat across the room facing Skaas.

“You are very kind. I thank you.”

Kit didn’t like the unctuous smile.

“You were surprise to see me, I think. You did not know I could climb these stairs and find you here.”

“I didn’t know you were the Wobblefoot.” He spoke aloud but to himself.

The color of dark blood momentarily pocked the round face. But the man spoke without feeling as if he’d trained himself to remember it in that way. “It is done to me when I am young—more young than you. The Turks do not wish me to escape from them. I am a Serb. They flay my feet. You know what that means, yes?”

Kit looked away abruptly. “Yes.”

“I escape. On my hands and knees like a dog.” Dr. Skaas ended this. “You will tell me now what you look for in my desk.”

Kit stated flatly, “I was looking for many things. I was looking for proof of who killed my friend, Louie Lepetino.”

“How could I do this?” If a hyena could look innocent, so could this man.

Kit said, “You ordered his death.”

“Perhaps.”

Anger shook Kit’s voice. “Who killed him?”

The dripping smile was amused. “It was that Otto. He does pretty well at what he is told. There is no imagination, you understand. But at following the plans pretty well he does.”

He could have throttled this man with his bare hands but the ring of lethal gas was a warning. He jammed his hands into his pockets, felt the Luger stiff against his palm. And he could not pull the trigger. He asked, “Ab Hamilton. Why did you kill Ab Hamilton?”

The false eyebrows beetled. “He try to find out who is this Dr. Skaas. Too near he come to the facts. My agents intercept the message. He must be kill before he learn the truth of who I am, what I do here. My usefulness is at an end if he make the discovery. This cannot be. I do not wish to return to the headsman—or the prison camp. I must not fail.”

Kit’s smile was secret. Skaas was too willing to waste time in talk. He was waiting, waiting the arrival of his strongarm man. He didn’t know Otto was safe in Washington. Kit was willing to talk, to learn the truth before—
until
he figured the safe way out of this room.

He asked, “How did Otto kill Hamilton?”

“He did not.” The man sighed. “This girl—he is young and she is rich and beautiful. He say wait. He do it tomorrow perhaps. First he ski. I know we must not wait. I take care of it myself.” He looked at his watch and he sighed again.

“You followed him to Washington?”

“Yes.”

Kit started to the slight plop. But it wasn’t someone outside. A log stirring in the fireplace. The room was already stuffy. Christian Skaas oozed in it like a bloated salamander.

“The arrangements they have been made for me. I knock at the door. I have heard he is in the hotel and I am so please to see my young friend. He is suspicious but he pretend not. I bring out my gun. ‘Give me the papers,’ I demand. He is craven. He gives them to me. I shoot him.”

In cold blood, shoot to kill. Return—by private plane, by motor?—pass the word to José: it is accomplished. The Spaniard, the educated one, prepares the cabled report. Skaas had Ab’s fresh blood on his hands when Kit followed him into Content’s apartment house that night.

Another plop but Kit didn’t stir to it now. The room was unbearably hot. He said, “Ab knew nothing of the Babylon goblets.”

“No?”

“He distrusted you only because of Otto, because he didn’t want Barby Taviton mixed up with suspicious persons.”

Skaas blinked comfortably. “He should not have been suspicious.”

Kit let it pass. The heat was too uncomfortable to pursue it further. If it were not for turning his back on Skaas, he’d ask to open a window. But he didn’t want to let the man out of sight for an instant now. He asked, “What do you expect to get out of me? Don’t you know by now I don’t have the cups?”

“You know where they are.”

“I’ll never break. You must have realized that when you let me escape. Even if you could take me back again, do you think I’d tell you, whatever you did to me?”

The fingers spread apologetically. “That was mistake before. It was crude, yes. Stupid. By now we are wise. They have listen to me. I fail before—this time I do not fail. There are drugs. Scopolamine, yes. The truth serum. Our scientists—even better ones they have. You will talk.”

Kit’s eyes drooped in terror. Unless he got away now … It could be done. Yes. And after he talked, he would be killed. By what torture he couldn’t envisage. He had thwarted them too long. Even in this suffocating heat, he rallied spirit.

“What makes you think I’ll sit here and let you stick a hypodermic in me? You needn’t look at your watch, Skaas, or whatever your name is. Your gunsel isn’t coming tonight. He’s gone to Washington with that girl. He’s waiting for me there.”

Skaas smiled. “That is not why I look at my watch, my friend, Mr. McKittrick. I think it is about time the gas affect you, yes? Oh, not the ring what is so deadly. But the cylinders I place in the fire wood today. All have melted by now, I believe. This anesthesia will grow stronger. Already your eyes are heavy. You are too warm. I have these filters to protect. Soon you are quiet and I put on my mask. A hypodermic. You are safe to remove to a place for this test. Perhaps it take time before you talk.” The faraway eyes were cruel as a spider’s. “But this time you talk.”

The horror was a creeping paralysis through Kit’s nerves. It was true. His eyes were heavy; his head had begun to swim; his muscles were growing soft. He willed the last shreds of clarity to a focus. He pushed himself to unsteady feet. The man’s head was a bulbous floating mass as he leaned forward, on his upturned lips the smirk of evil triumphant over good. Kit didn’t draw. He shot and killed Christian Skaas.

His chair was thunderous in its overturn. He hadn’t the strength to open the window, his shoulders shattered the glass, and he gulped at the icy air of the night. Only when his head had cleared sufficiently did he lift high the sash, slide quickly past the desk to the next one, throw it open.

He breathed cleanness, his head thrust out into the night. He didn’t have to hurry. There was time for everything now. He didn’t look at Skaas until it was safe again to turn into the room.

He took up the sheaf of papers, the ones that had betrayed Louie, tempted Ab. Even if they were forgeries, they were dynamite. There were too many to wad into his pocket. He lifted the worn brief case, opened it, laid the white sheets inside. He could borrow this. Skaas wouldn’t need it again.

The man lay face down in a widening stain of blood. The end of an unknown man. He hadn’t been hard to kill; half-drugged as Kit was, the pale hairless head had shone, a target. The bullet must have entered the mean brain; the reflex attempt to rise had thrown him to the floor. He hadn’t had a chance to use the ring if it were anything but glass. It had probably been a lying bluff. Kit didn’t investigate. He took the Luger from his pocket; laid it on the desk. He didn’t want it now; it was a killer. But he smeared the fingerprints with the sweat of his palms, dried the butt on his handkerchief; he did not want the police after him until he was ready to give himself up.

The fire was dying; the room was almost cold. The opened windows would hasten rigor mortis; the time of death couldn’t be definitely established. The small gun he removed from the unfamiliar shoulder holster, placed it in his pocket again. He took up the brief case, locked the room behind him.

He descended the front stairs now, easily, with certainty. The Prince’s door was ajar. He pushed it quietly, quietly framed himself in the entrance to the candlelit room. Det had escaped; she stood in defense by Toni’s chair. There was a lump in her hand bag. All were silent, they were a frieze with José nervously plucking the strings of his violin. Content saw him first, her eyes disbelieved their sight, and then they closed. She must have made a faint sound as she relaxed limply in the chair, for the others turned, heightened with disbelief, with unknown fear. They had heard the shot; they could not conceive this quickly that it was the wrong man who lay dead.

Det’s bag was open, her fingers inthrust.

“You don’t need that. I’m leaving.” His voice was loud. “I’ll have to run to make that plane to Washington.” He held the brief case in full view, arrogantly clutched. He flung brazen words into the stark silence. “Content, bring my hat and coat.” She slid swiftly from the chair. He couldn’t leave her here. “I can drop you at the club.”

The Spaniard rose as quickly. “You will drop me too?” he squealed. His face was dark and distraught.

Toni did not speak.

Content shivered beside him in her crimson cloak. He took coat and hat without relinquishing the case, one hand free to reach for the little gun. He didn’t know when Prince Felix might materialize. He said, “I’ll be back, Toni. It will be late.”

He could scarcely catch her reply. She didn’t look at him. “I will be waiting.”

“Alone.”

Det’s face was a death mask. She had not moved.

He was grateful for the silence in the cab, for Duck at the wheel. He didn’t want questions now. Nor did either of his companions ask them; for separate reasons, they were afraid of answers. He entered the club with them, ignoring the disturbance torturing them. He didn’t explain. He waited until they disappeared towards the dressing-rooms and he went to Jake’s office.

He handed over the brief case. “Take care of this. Put your hoods on it if you must but don’t let anyone but me touch it.”

Jake’s face tightened with triumph. “O.K., Kit.” If Kit didn’t return no one would ever see those papers. He would return. He wasn’t tempting success with counter orders.

“Will you call Shannon to be ready for me?”

Jake nodded.

Kit wet his lips. “Don’t let anything happen to Content tonight. Don’t let her—get hurt.”

A tremor touched the man.

“After the show, put José on ice. Don’t let anyone get to him.”

Jake assured him quietly, “It is done, Kit.”

He said, “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.” He went away.

The plane winged through the night. Hour and a half to Washington. Maybe an hour to clean it up. Hour and a half back to New York. It was past ten now. He had to talk to Toni tonight. He had to help her if against her will. She hadn’t arranged his death of her own volition; she hadn’t wanted him to die. There had been reprieve in her eyes when he returned to the living-room, a man not a ghost.

He’d give himself up to Toby but he had to try to save Toni first. The cold air roaring about his ears was power for the ordeal ahead. Not that he feared Otto Skaas. He’d knock a confession out of him in no time, wrap him up and take him back to the Inspector as a present. Barby needn’t figure in it; she could stay in Washington. Dantone would take her riding in Rock Creek Park tomorrow and she’d forget all about her bully boy.

Shannon set him down, walked with him, spotted the right cab. He said, “I’ll stick around here till you get back.”

He stopped at the Willard, from a booth called the Wardman Park. He wouldn’t walk in unannounced. Without emotion he heard Otto’s voice come over the wire, “What happened to you, Kit? We’ve been waiting and waiting.”

“I was delayed but Southey finally located this man. It’ll take him about an hour more to get there but I’ll be right over. Before he arrives I can tell you some of the things I’ve found out.”

He hung up. He saw the smile on his face reflected in the dark glass of the booth. It was the smile Jake would wear if he met danger. It wasn’t afraid. He returned to his cab.

He didn’t phone up at the Wardman Park. He took the elevator to the eighth floor, to the room where Ab had met death.

Otto opened the door to him. He was nervous. “We thought you weren’t coming.”

Kit flung his coat and hat on the bed. “We had a devil of a time reaching this man. Something had scared him off.” His eyes went around the room slowly; no fireplace here, plenty of air, the window was raised. “Barby?”

Otto’s head nodded to the next door. There was insolent implication in his voice. “She is dressing.” He watched warily until Kit was seated. Otto wasn’t too sure of himself, his fingers were restless, fumbling with a cigarette, forgetting to strike the match. “What did you find out?”

“How Ab was killed.” He sketched it, watching, waiting for the giveaway. “This fellow who’s coming up here was in the state department with Ab. He’s bringing a list of names that Ab inquired about and some messages in German that were intercepted. We can go over the names together with the messages. We know Ab had come on important stuff about enemy agents in this country, higher ups. Southey says it is in these documents.”

“But how was he killed?” young Skaas asked tautly.

“One of these agents pretended to be in the state department and offered to supply him with more information. He fell for it. Curtains.”

Otto smiled. He began to lose nervousness. “Maybe your man is a phony too.”

“No. I know him. Ab didn’t know the man who approached him.” There was no reason to waste time longer. He must get back to Toni. Might as well start things. He said evenly, “He did know the man who killed him.”