22
The sight of the gun held John Hayden stiff-legged and immobile for a moment until he realized it had been hidden in the chair some time earlier. Now, accepting the situation, he was surprised to find that he felt no great sense of shock. He glanced at Marion and saw that her face was slack and incredulous. She seemed unable to pull her gaze from Denham, but if there was any feeling of fear inside her it did not yet show. She was, it seemed, not yet ready to accept the fact that this man was indeed sick, and Hayden was glad for that.
“All right,” he said, and began to move toward the dining end of the room while Denham circled cautiously toward the divan. “Let’s talk. You took the gun from Adler. Is that what you used to slug Doris Lamar?”
Denham nodded as he sat down. “I imagine a laboratory test or a spectrographic analysis may prove it. That’s why I brought it when you phoned.”
“You intended to plant it?”
“It seemed like a good idea. If Doris failed to recover—and I thought she might—the authorities would have to keep the pressure on you. I felt sure they’d make another search here. If they found the gun it might help clinch the case.”
Hayden eased down on the edge of the chair, the back of his neck tightening. For he understood beyond all doubt that Denham’s mental instability was no longer academic, and in the brief silence that followed while he tried to collect his thoughts he turned his head slightly, wondering if he had heard some faint sound from the kitchen or whether it was his imagination.
Denham, seeing the movement, mistook its purpose. “Don’t try anything, John,” he warned. “I’ve gone too far to make any more mistakes.”
“Roger!” Marion found her voice but a look of awe tempered the alarm that now showed in the hazel eyes. “Why, Roger? Why should you hate me so? What did I ever do—?”
“You laughed at me,” Denham said, and for the first time there were signs of strain and vindictiveness in his voice as his thoughts focused on the seeds of his sickness. “I tried to be nice, to make love to you, to make you treat me like a man wants to be treated, and you laughed.”
“No, Roger.”
“I say you did. I had things to offer that most girls want,” he added, his words low and ragged now. “But you took Corbin, and Hayden. You wouldn’t let me touch you—”
“I didn’t laugh, Roger. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. When we were young I liked and admired you. I trusted you. Later I had to be more careful because I knew how you felt. I tried to make you understand that I didn’t feel the same way about you. I couldn’t help how I felt but I tried to disguise it because we were friends. I tried to explain that the physical thing between a man and a woman is something that is either there or it isn’t. It isn’t enough for a man to be handsome or considerate or generous. There has to be something very special, and if it’s not there you can’t pretend that it is; at least I couldn’t.”
“You laughed.”
“No. I liked you too much to tell you that I couldn’t stand to have you kiss me. I tried to play it lightly and hoped you’d finally understand. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I thought if you’d only accept the fact that I could never be serious about you that way, you’d start looking for someone who could give you what you wanted willingly. Maybe I should have come right out a long time ago and told you. Maybe I should have told you that I could never love you physically, that something about you repelled rather than attracted me, but I didn’t want to hurt you—and—”
“That’s it,” Denham cut in. “You couldn’t stand me. You cringed when I touched you, as if there was something rotten inside me. That’s what you thought, isn’t it?”
“I never stopped to think what it was, Roger. I know now that it must have been something hard and arrogant that made me uneasy and sometimes a little frightened.” She caught her breath. “But why did you pretend to be my friend all these years when you hated me?”
“I told you,” Hayden said. “He’s sick. He’s always had exactly what he wanted except you. He couldn’t take it. His ego hurt him. He had to get even.”
“I waited a long time,” Denham said, his voice low but sinister now. “I thought you’d learned your lesson when you and Corbin made such a mess of things. I thought the accident would wake you up and give me another chance. I was even ready to be second choice. I took care of all the details for you. I collected your insurance and nothing had changed. You still pulled away from me when I tried to be affectionate. To make it worse you married Hayden. You turned that money over to him—”
Hayden interrupted. He did not know what Denham’s plans were, or if he had any, but he wanted to get the pressure off Marion. He knew that the man would not hesitate to use the gun if he made up his mind, but somehow he was no longer afraid of it.
“Sure,” he said, “and that must have burned you plenty. It not only gave me a chance to buy into a business but the business is doing fine.”
Denham ignored him. It was as if he had not heard what was said. Whatever lay in his mind was a corrosive thing that was undermining his sanity and there was no room left for digressions.
“Adler gave me the chance I was waiting for,” he said, still watching Marion. “When you told me what he wanted and why he was here I knew how to get even.”
“You took the knife when you were here,” Hayden said.
“I planned to get him right after you’d seen him, but when you said you’d stop for a drink at the tavern I decided I could do the job then.”
“It didn’t bother you a bit, did it?”
“Why should it? I killed better men than him in Korea. He was nothing, a human leech. It was all over before he knew what had happened.”
“He never had a chance.”
“No chance at all,” Denham said, and something about the connotation of the words made them sound as if he were enjoying the thought. “We used to have to do it at night. We had to be quiet. We had to be careful or get killed. But the technique was the same.”
The grin that warped his mouth showed his teeth, and to Hayden it seemed that the bright gleam in the pale eyes was no longer rational.
“If I had a knife I could show you, John,” he said. “I could demonstrate how easy it is to spin a man around and get your left hand over his mouth from behind while you do the job with your right—”
“Oh, Roger—” Marion buried her face in her hands and for a moment Hayden thought she was going to break down. He heard the muffled sob as she caught her breath, and then she dropped her hands and her face came up, white and stricken. But she was looking right at Denham now when she spoke and her voice had an outraged sound. “How could you?”
“It was almost the same with Doris Lamar,” Hayden said, and wondered again if he had not heard some faint whisper of sound from the kitchen. “After you slugged her—how come she didn’t get a look at you?—you used the stocking from behind, the way they taught you in the Rangers, hunh?”
“If it had got dark a few minutes earlier I’d have made it.”
“You couldn’t let her talk, could you? If she told the truth, and you knew she probably would, we’d have been in the clear and you’d have done your killing for nothing. The fact that she was a woman who had never done anything to you made no difference at all.”
“Why should it?” Denham said. “As a woman she was no better than Adler. She was amoral, promiscuous, common. She was nothing but a tramp and—”
That was as far as Denham got and Hayden knew that he had not been wrong about the faint sounds he had heard in the kitchen. He heard the sudden violent rush of someone coming through the open door, and even before he could turn he knew who it was, who it had to be. For only one person had a deep and personal feeling about what happened to Doris Lamar, and as he twisted and got a glimpse of George Freeman he knew why he was here.
Later, when he had a chance to think, he understood the compulsive and perhaps irrational drive that precipitated the outburst. To Freeman Doris Lamar was none of the things that Denham had just mentioned. Freeman was in love with the girl; he had already proved it when he tangled with Sam Adler at the Log Cabin.
He could not know then whether Doris would live or die, but he had sworn to kill whoever was responsible. To give himself that chance he had sneaked away from her cottage earlier. He had known that they were all coming here and the door to the breezeway, which had been ajar earlier, was evidence of how he had entered. He knew now that Denham was responsible. He had heard the woman he loved maligned and slandered and he was ready for the showdown.
Hayden could not stop him. He saw the gun that Freeman had threatened him with before. The round face was chalky and stiff and the eyes held that same wild, unseeing look. He was yelling now as he snapped up the gun and the words made no sense to Hayden.
There was only time for him to feel the full impact of a paralyzing fear that was directed not at himself but at Marion before the gun kicked in Freeman’s hand and the sound of it slammed through the room.
He knew at once that Freeman had missed. He heard the second shot, but by then Denham, who had been under fire before, was moving.
He rolled sideways off the end of the divan and came to a stop in a crouch. The sound of a door opening somewhere in the distance caught Hayden’s ear, though he did not understand it, and with it Denham squeezed the trigger.
Hayden saw the gun buck in Denham’s hand. He heard Freeman’s third shot and knew that Denham had still not been hit. But Freeman had. The bullet struck him somewhere high on the right side, the impact jerking his shoulder back and staggering him slightly.
Denham, still in the crouch, a gleam of some inner satisfaction brightening his bespectacled gaze, seemed about to fire again when Hayden heard the shouts of warning.
Somehow he managed to pull his horrified gaze from Marion, who had instinctively ducked forward to lower her head in her lap. He saw Lieutenant Garvey and the plainclothes man named Malone at the end of the room. He saw their service revolvers snap up and swing toward Denham. He heard two voices, the two quick, hard commands spoken simultaneously.
“Hold it!... Drop it!”
There was no hesitation on Denham’s part. Training, instinct, desperation, whatever it was that fed the impulse, made him wheel to meet this new threat. There was no doubt in Hayden’s mind now that the man intended to shoot and apparently there was none in the minds of the officers.
And so, stunned and powerless to interfere, he simply watched in morbid fascination as the three shots hammered in the room, and he knew instantly the results of that exchange. Denham was an expert of sorts but so were Garvey and Malone. They must have fired a fraction of a second quicker because they stood in their tracks, nothing changing in their faces, ready to shoot again but holding their fire.
Denham took both slugs, one high up in the arm which seemed to recoil. The other apparently struck him in the thigh because the leg started to collapse. He made one final effort to bring the gun to bear but could no longer hold it, and as it dropped from his limp fingers the leg gave way and he fell lopsidedly to the floor.
Hayden was never sure what happened in the next three or four minutes. He had but one thought in mind now, and when he could move he went directly to the divan and sat close to Marion, his arms enveloping her. She came to him immediately, leaning her weight against him, her face buried in the corner of his neck. He could feel her trying to get her breath while her body was racked by small convulsive sobs she could not control. He spoke softly, comforting her, conscious of his own muscular weakness as reaction released the tension that had been punishing him.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all over.”
He said other things, and he could feel the sobs stop and her breathing grow more regular. When she was ready, she released herself. She brushed the wetness from her cheeks and tried to smile at him.
“I’ll behave now.”
“You’re wonderful,” he said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I am now.”
“Don’t you want to go into the bedroom and lie down for a while?”
“I couldn’t. Not now. I can’t even sit still. Isn’t there something I can do?”
“How about making some drinks?” he asked, giving words to the first thought that came to mind.
“No.” She stood up and straightened her dress. “But I’ll make some coffee.”
“Good.” He walked part way to the kitchen door with her. “I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”
When he looked about he saw that Lieutenant Garvey was just hanging up the telephone. Malone had collected the guns from Freeman and Denham, and he had now hunkered down in front of Denham and was helping straighten the wounded leg as Denham leaned back, his shoulders against the front of the divan.
“There’ll be a doctor and an ambulance here in a few minutes,” Garvey said.
Denham watched him, his bespectacled eyes painridden and sullen. “You two are quick with your guns,” he said morosely, “but you need practice.”
“I thought we did pretty well,” Garvey said. “We didn’t have much time. We don’t like to shoot to kill if we can help it.” He glanced at Freeman. “How are you, Mr. Freeman? Can you hold on?”
Freeman was sitting in a straight-backed chair, the heel of his left hand pressed beneath the right shoulder. The round face was no longer chalky and stiff, and his eyes were dull and disinterested.
“I think he busted a collarbone but I’m okay. It’s a damn good thing you got here when you did. I never even shot a gun before.”
“We’re all lucky,” Hayden said. “What brought you back anyway?”
Garvey considered the question, and for the first time since Hayden had met him he saw the lieutenant smile. It was not a big smile but it was pretty good for Garvey. He seemed pleased about what he had to say.
“Did you think we’d forgotten about the knife, Mr. Hayden?”
“Oh?”
“It took a while but we definitely traced it to you. Without the Lamar woman’s statement we had what we call a pretty airtight case against either you or your wife or both.”
“Did you ever consider Denham?”
“We considered everybody,” Garvey said. “With Denham we had no motive, but in this business when you have the facts to warrant an arrest you make it and let the motive develop later.”
He took a moment to glance at the wounded man on the floor before he continued.
“We spent a lot of time on Freeman but we couldn’t crack him. He had no reason to take that knife from your house or any opportunity. Neither did Mr. Corbin. It didn’t take us long to check him out tonight, and what they told us at Jerry’s Tavern was enough to start us thinking in another direction. There wasn’t anybody left but Denham and we came back to pick him up.... I still don’t know what the motive is, do you?”
“I know,” Hayden said, “but it goes ’way back and it’s not too easy to understand.”
The sound of a siren fading outside took Garvey to the front door, and Hayden moved into the kitchen and swung the door behind him. He moved up beside his wife, who was standing by the sink, and slipped his arm about her waist. Again she leaned her head against his shoulder and he said: “How’s the coffee coming?”
“It should be perking any minute.”
“How about the baby?”
“He’s fine too,” she said and digressed with a sigh. “I’m awfully glad it wasn’t Ted.”
“Me too.”
“What will they do to Roger?”
Hayden said he did not know. “He’s a lawyer and he’s got plenty of money, but from now on it’s up to the State’s Attorney and the courts. We’re not going to worry about Roger and we’re not going to worry about us because everything’s going to be fine. We’ll have a divorce in no time and after that—”
He let the sentence dangle and turned her by the shoulders until she faced him.
“You don’t mind marrying me again, do you?”
He saw the answer in her eyes as she put her hands on the back of his neck. She kissed him hard and passionately and almost as quickly stepped back.
“I’d like to, Mr. Hayden.”
He grinned at her and then gave her a firm but affectionate slap on the rump as she turned toward the stove. He said they’d probably have to be poor for a couple of years until the insurance money was repaid, and when she said it didn’t really matter she sounded as though she meant it.