Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

from the theater to meet an enemy who had cunningly figured that without Schnucke to guide him Maclain could not run; an enemy prepared in a most unorthodox fashion to murder not only the Captain, but Dreist too, in a good old medieval way.

“Schnucke!” the Captain called loudly. “Come here. Schnucke!”

He heard the curdling scrape of Dreist’s claws on burnished steel as the big dog leaped again. Then Dreist whimpered and his powerful body thudded to the floor.

“If you’ve killed my dog,” said Duncan Maclain, “you’ll never live to reach the electric chair.”

“You’ll never live to put me there,” the reverberating voice declared. The terrible clumping started again, drawing very near.

The patter of Schnucke’s running feet sounded on the basement stairs. The Captain gave an agonized call when he heard her stop at the partly open basement door. She hesitated only a second before she thrust her muzzle in the crack and forced her body through, darkening The Crags as she pulled the light switch off at the foot of the basement stairs.

The muffled voice gave a gasp.

Maclain said, “I think the honors are even, now that there’s darkness.”

He dropped to the floor and began to roll. Metal swished down above him as a madly swung halberd buried its blade in the floor. His powerful arms circled chain-clad knees, and tackled. The dull clang of a fall echoed through the vaulted hall.

Maclain found a steel-clad arm, twisted it into a hammer lock, and said in a voice that dripped like water on stone, “A suit of mail armor has one great disadvantage. It slips on like pants and sweater, but it’s clumsy. You’re under arrest for treason and murder, Cheli Scott, or should I call you Madame Bonnée!”

CHAPTER XXVI

I DISLIKE ax-killers. It’s a method of murder accompanied by a certain amount of unavoidable messiness which I find deplorable,” announced Duncan Maclain.

“In other words, you want your murders clean.” Spud Savage gave the nurse who was arranging his pillows an approving smile and waved her away. “If you’ll just run along, sweetheart, and eat yourself some Christmas dinner, I promise I won’t die.”

“Also shooters from the rear, and stabbers in the back,” the Captain continued when the nurse had shut the door behind her.

“And I dislike friends and relatives who sit around my hospital room and swill highballs without mixing me a second one on Christmas Day,” Spud declared.

“They’ll move you to the alcoholic ward.” Rena smiled and filled his glass. “You’ve already lost count.”

“It’s a trick I learned in the army.” Spud turned his head and winked at Colonel Gray.

“—And kidnapers and spies,” Maclain went on. “They lack the primary traits of humanity.”

“It’s a pity you haven’t a notebook, Rena,” Spud broke in. “Dunc’s about to hold forth on the Joan of Arc who put Dreist into the dog infirmary. Properly deleted, his remarks might be collected for the benefit of posterity. Tell the Colonel how you tackled her, Dunc, and threw her for a ten-yard loss on her cuirass.”

“Spud!” exclaimed Rena. “I’m going to take your drink away!”

“It’s French, and my pronunciation is flawless,” Spud protested with indignant scorn.

“Perhaps,” Maclain suggested, “you’d like me to go into details about blondes and their methods of purveying perfume.”

“That’s right, strike me in an open wound.” Spud found a cigarette, lit it, and held his empty glass out to Rena with an appealing smile.

She tried to look grim.

“I hear the plaintive tinkle of ice in an empty glass,” said Maclain. “Instinct tells me that the glass is in Spud’s outstretched hand. Give him another, Rena. I’ve never known a man who could bleed Haig and Haig from an open wound. The idea interests me.” He turned toward Colonel Gray. “Have you had further news of Cameron today?”

“I talked with Hartford Hospital an hour ago. They’ve operated and collapsed one of his lungs. He’ll be on the sick list for many a day.”

“He’s a brave man—and a good one,” said Maclain.

“And so are you.” The Colonel took a rose from a vase by the bed and absently smelled it. “That code you phoned me last night enabled us to locate every time bomb in the country today. We dug them out of a mailing list of customers in the House of Bonnée. We also found another flock of agents provocateurs scattered from California east to New London.”

“I’ve encountered my share of fanatics.” The Captain was thoughtful. “Frankly, I’ve never been so close to failure as I was with that Scott girl, or whatever her name may be.”

Colonel Gray replaced the rose he was holding in the vase, and asked: “What about her using Bunny Carter’s car?”

“He’s innocent as you are, Colonel. Just as Cheli fooled the Tredwills, Bunny was taken in by his chauffeur. The Crags was filled with false leads, too—Gilbert Tredwill’s monetary difficulties, and his foreign-born wife, didn’t make things any easier for me. Here’s the information we got from Babs Tredwill today.”

The Colonel sighed. “I’m glad that they spared that girl.”

“Only because they thought they might use her.” Resentment marked the Captain’s tone. “Babs admitted herself to Gerente’s apartment with a key. He was already dead. Babs turned around to leave and faced Cheli Scott standing in the door. Cheli said: ‘My God, you’ve killed him, Babs!’ and the distraught girl broke down and began to cry. It never entered her head that Cheli could have been there before her and murdered Paul.”

“It never entered mine,” said Colonel Gray.

“Babs said this morning that she thought Norma had put Cheli up to following her into New York to persuade her from seeing Gerente.”

“You’d have thought Babs would have insisted on giving an alarm,” Rena ventured.

Maclain nodded. “That she didn’t was one of many circumstances I put together last night to form the answer: Cheli. I’ve said before that this Scott lady is infernally quick-witted. She told Babs: ‘It doesn’t matter who killed this man. Nobody must know you’ve been here. Get your things from the Ritters’, and I’ll