The Great Merlini (Clayton Rawson)

Chap 2: The Clue of the Broken Legs

INSPECTOR GAVIGAN KNELT IN THE GLARE OF THE POLICE EMERGENCY light and replaced the automatic on the floor beside the body of Jorge Lasko, theatrical producer.

"His own gun," he said. "Two shots fired. One hit Lasko, the other smashed the only light in the room to smithereens. Brady, is there a phone in this place?"

The Sergeant nodded. "Yeah, it's downstairs in the library."

"Get on it," Gavigan ordered. "Find out what's keeping Merlini, and then bring those three suspects in here again."

The Great Merlini's voice came from the doorway behind them. "You won't need to phone, Brady. The marines have landed." Walking in, he added, "Did you say 'three suspects,' Inspector?"

Gavigan nodded. "Harold Kingsley, the novelist whose bestseller Lasko was adapting for production this fall; Dorothy Dawn, the famous star who's on leave from Hollywood to play the lead; and Marie Lasko, the victim's daughter."

"And Dorothy," Merlini said, "is also the ex-wife Lasko divorced six months ago."

"Which," the Inspector added, "probably gives her a motive. And Marie inherits her father's fortune, although I don't see why she'd want to kill him for it; she owns the world famous Lasko Parfums, Inc. As for Kingsley..." Gavigan scowled.

Merlini was looking at the overturned wheel-chair and the body beside it. "Plaster casts on both legs," he said. "How did that happen?"

"Auto accident a few weeks ago," Gavigan explained. "He's only been out of bed a day or two but insisted on being wheeled into his study here at five o'clock to do some work on the play script. He also apparently had some business to transact with a blackmailer. I found a record among his papers of some mysterious $1000 cash payments extending over the last six months." The Inspector pointed to the scattered hundred-dollar bills on the floor near the corpse. "There's just an even grand there. It looks to me like Lasko was making a payoff, an argument developed, Lasko drew a gun, and the blackmailer jumped him. In the struggle the wheel-chair tipped over and Lasko was shot."

Gavigan turned to a heavy-set individual who leaned against the wall chewing thoughtfully on an unlit cigar. "This is Dan Foyle, Merlini. A private op who works for Acme. Dan, tell him what you found."

"Well," Foyle said, talking around his cigar. "Lasko's an Acme client: we got him his divorce evidence. He phoned me tonight just as I was leaving the office shortly after five and asked me to be out here at eight o'clock. He said: 'I'm going to talk to someone who's threatened to kill me. Come in through the kitchen and up the back stairs to the study. And bring a gun.'

"I got here fifteen minutes ahead of time, but it wasn't soon enough. I was just crossing the lawn when I heard the first shot. I started running. Then there's another shot and I see the light in the study go out. Up here I find the door open, and inside, in the moonlight by the French window, I see the body and a man standing by it. I covered him just as he decides to take it on the lam and heads for the window. I told him to put his hands up. He jumped a foot and was so scared he nearly—"

A tall, blond man, one of the three persons Brady had ushered into the room as Foyle was speaking, said coldly, "Who wouldn't be startled? I heard shots, entered a dark room to find a body, and then turned to discover a man I'd never seen before barking at me over a gun."

"Kingsley," Gavigan said. "I'm not satisfied with your story at all. You say you were downstairs when you heard the first shot, that you ran up, heard the second shot as you reached the top of the stairs, and that no one came out through the study door before you got to it."

The novelist nodded. "That's correct. I opened the door, pushed the light switch just inside without result, and saw the overturned wheel-chair. I went across and found Lasko—dead." Kingsley looked at the private detective. "But I had no intention of leaving by the window. It was locked on the inside, and I went toward it because I heard someone outside trying to get in."

"Everybody," Gavigan growled, "tried to get in. And you want me to believe nobody ever went out—that Lasko's murderer vanished into thin air like a soap bubble. Miss Dawn, how long had you been out there on the sundeck?"

Miss Dawn's tone of voice said that she didn't like cops—not even inspectors. "Ten minutes," she said frostily. "I told you that before. And don't ask me again if anyone came out through that window. No one did. You might try asking something important. Such as where Mr. Kingsley was when he heard that first shot."

The novelist frowned. "I was in the library reading."

Miss Dawn smiled. "You never told me you could read Braille, my dear."

"Braille? I can't. Why—"

"I could see the library windows from the sundeck. They were dark.

There were no lights there at all!"

"Well, Kingsley," Gavigan said. "That eliminates our invisible man.

You were in here with Lasko. You're the only person who could possibly

—"

Marie Lasko spoke suddenly, her voice tense and angry. "Just a minute, Inspector. Harold was in the library. I know. You see—I was with him."

Dorothy Dawn smiled again. "Reading aloud to you, I suppose—in the dark?"

"Don't look now, Inspector," Merlini said. "But that invisible man is back again."

"No!" Gavigan growled. "Don't give me that." He faced his three suspects. "Somebody is lying like hell. And I'm going to find out—"

"I know who's lying," Merlini said. "I'll demonstrate. Which one of you people called the police?"

It was Marie Lasko who answered. "I did. Harold told me to stay in the library, but when I heard the second shot I followed him upstairs." She indicated Foyle. "And this man told me to phone Spring 7-3100. I went down again to the library and did so.

"You see, Inspector?" Merlini said. "Together with Lasko's broken legs, that tells you who has been lying and explains the mystery of the vanishing blackmailer."

The Inspector scowled. "Oh, it does, does it?"

"After disarming and shooting Lasko," Merlini explained, "the blackmailer had to vanish. And with Miss Dawn on the sundeck outside the window and running footsteps approaching the only door, that was something of a trick. His first step was to shoot out the light, thus insuring that it couldn't be turned on again too soon. Then he dropped the gun by the body and flattened himself against the wall by the door. After Kingsley ran in, he merely stepped into the doorway behind him, pretended he'd just arrived, and—"

Foyle shook his head. "Theories are a dime a dozen."

"All right," Merlini said. "Here are some facts. Fact Number One: the other suspects are all in the high income tax brackets, leaving you as the only decent candidate for the blackmailer role. Fact Number Two: the blackmail payments began six months ago when you got Lasko his divorce evidence and discovered something that—"

"The D.A.," Foyle said, "will need a hell of a lot more than that."

"The best," Merlini smiled, "is yet to come. When you had to explain your presence here, you couldn't very well admit you came to blackmail Lasko. So—Fact Number Three—you said he'd phoned and asked for protection. But the telephone, as Brady and Marie both clearly stated, is downstairs in the library. At shortly after five, when you claim Lasko phoned you, he was confined with two broken legs to a wheel-chair in his study on the second floor. And that puts you, Mr. Foyle, in a chair of a different kind."