moment the heavy melody of a classical piece filled the house. I sat down and listened. It was gay one moment, serious the next. He ran up and down the keys in a fantasy of expression. Good music to think by. I chain-lit another cigarette, wondering how the music was affecting the murderer. Did it give him a creepy feeling? Was every note part of his funeral theme? Three cigarettes gone in thought and still I waited. The music had changed now, it was lilting, rolling in song. I put the butt out and stood up. It was time to see the killer.
I put my hand on the knob and turned, stepped in the room and locked the door behind me. The killer was smiling at me, a smile that had no meaning I could fathom. It was a smile of neither defeat nor despair, but nearer to triumph. It was no way for a murderer to smile. The bells in my head were rising in a crescendo with the music.
I said to the murderer, “You can stop playing now, Ruston.”
The music didn’t halt. It rose in spirit and volume while Ruston York created a symphony from the keyboard, a challenging overture to death, keeping time with my feet as I walked to a chair and sat down. Only when I pulled the .45 from its holster did the music begin to diminish. My eyes never left his face. It died out in a crashing maze of minor chords that resounded from the walls with increased intensity.
“So you found me out, Mr. Hammer.”
“Yes.”
“I rather expected it these last few days.” He crossed his legs with complete nonchalance and barely a glance at the gun in my hand. I felt my temper being drawn to the brink of unreason, my lips tightening.
“You’re a killer, little buddy,” I said. “You’re a blood-crazy, insane little bastard. It’s so damn inconceivable that I can hardly believe it myself, but it’s so. You had it well planned, chum. Oh, but you would, you’re a genius. I forgot. That’s what everyone forgot. You’re only fourteen but you can sit in with scientists and presidents and never miss a trick.”
“Thank you.”
“You have a hair-trigger mind, Ruston. You can conceive and coordinate and anticipate beyond all realm of imagination. All the while I was batting my brains out trying to run down a killer you must have held your sides laughing. You knew pretty well what killing York would expose . . . a series of crimes and petty personalities scrambled together to make the dirtiest omelet ever cooked. But
“Yes, you’re only a child, but you have a man’s mind. That’s why I’m talking to you like I would to a man. That’s why I can kill you like I would a man.”
He sat there unmoving. If he knew fear he showed it only in the tiny blue vein that throbbed in his forehead. The smile still played around his mouth. “Being a genius, I guess you thought I was stupid,” I continued. With every word my heart beat harder and faster until I was filled with hate. “It was getting so that I thought I was stupid myself. Why wouldn’t I? Every time I turned around something would happen that was so screwy that it didn’t have any place in the plot, yet in a way it was directly related. Junior Ghent and Alice. The Graham boys. Each trying to chop off a slice of cash for themselves. Each one concerned with his own little individual problem and completely unknowing of the rest. It was a beautiful setup for you.
“But please don’t think I was stupid, Ruston. The only true stupidity I showed was in calling you Lancelot. If I ever meet the good knight somewhere I’ll beg him to forgive me. But I wasn’t so stupid otherwise, Ruston. I found out that Grange had something on York . . . and that something was the fact that she was the only one who knew that he was a kidnapper in a sense. York . . . an aging scientist who wanted an heir badly so he could pass on his learning to his son . . . but his son died. So what did he do? He took a kid who had been born of a criminal father and would have been reared in the gutter, and turned him into a genius. But after a while the genius began to think and hate. Why? Hell, only you know that.
“But somewhere you got hold of the details concerning your birth. You knew that York had only a few years to live and you knew, too, that Grange had threatened to expose the entire affair if he didn’t leave his money to her. Your father (should I call him that?) was a thinker too. He worked out a proposition with Alice to have an affair with his lesbian assistant and hold that over her head as a club, and it worked, except that Junior Ghent learned of the affair when his sister told him that York had proposed the same deal to her, too, and Junior wanted to hold that over Grange’s head, and Alice’s, too, so that he could come in for part of the property split. Man, what a scramble it was after that. Everybody thought I had the dope when it was lying beside the wall out there. Yeah, the wall. Remember the shot you took at Roxy? You were in your room. You tossed that lariat that was beside your bed around the awning hook outside her window, swung down and shot at her through the glass. She had the light on and couldn’t see out, but she was a perfect target. You missed at that range only because you were swinging. That really threw me off the track. Nice act you put on when I brought the doctor in. You had him fooled too. I didn’t get that until a little while ago.
“Now I know. You, as an intelligent, emotional man, were in love. What a howl. In love with your nurse.” His face darkened. The vein began to throb harder than ever and his hands clenched into a tight knot. “You shot at her because you saw me and Roxy in a clinch and were jealous. Brother, how happy you must have been when the cops were on my back with orders to shoot to kill. I thought you were simply surprised to see me when I climbed in the window that time. Your face went white, remember? For one second there you thought I came back to get you. That was it, wasn’t it?”
His head nodded faintly, but still he said nothing. “Then you saw your chance of bringing the cops charging up by knocking over the lamp. Brilliant mind again. You knew the bulb breaking would sound like a shot. Too bad I got away, wasn’t it?
“If I wasn’t something of a scientist myself I never would have guessed it. Let me tell you how confounded smart I am. Your time doesn’t matter much anyway. I caught up with one of your play-mates that snatched you. I beat the living hell out of him and would have done worse to make him talk and he knew it. I’m a scientist at that kind of stuff. He would have talked his head off, only he didn’t have anything to say. You know what I asked him? I asked him who Mallory was and he didn’t know any Mallory. Good reason too, because ever since you were yanked out of his hands, your father went by the name of Nelson.
“No, he didn’t know any Mallory, yet you came home after the kidnapping and said . . . you . . .
“But when that didn’t do it you resorted to murder . . . and what a murder. No sweeter deal could have been cooked up by anyone. You knew that when York heard Mallory’s name brought into it he’d think Grange had spilled the works and go hunting up his little pet. You thought correctly. York went out there with a gun, but I doubt if he intended to use it. The rod was supposed to be a bluff. Billy heard York leave, and he heard me leave, but how did you reach the apartment? Let me tell you. Out in the garage there’s a motorbike. Properly rigged they can do sixty or seventy any day. The noise like a cough that Billy heard was you, Ruston. The sound of the motorbike, low and throaty. I noticed it had a muffler on it. Yeah, York had a gun, and you had to take along a weapon too. A meat cleaver. When I dreamed up all this I wondered why nobody spotted you going or coming, but it wouldn’t be too hard to take to the back roads.
“Ruston, you were born under an evil, lucky star. Everything that happened after you surprised York in that room and split his skull worked in your favor. Hell seemed to break loose with everybody trying to cut in on York’s dough. Even Dilwick. A crooked copper working for Mallory. Your real father needed that protection and Dilwick fitted right in. Dilwick must have guessed at part of the truth without ever really catching on, and he played it to keep Mallory clear and in a good spot to call for a rake-off, but he got too eager. Dilwick’s dead and the rest of his lousy outfit are where they’re supposed to be, cooling their heels in a cell.
“But where are you? You . . . the killer. You’re sitting here listening to me spiel off everything you already know about and you’re not a bit worried. Why should you be? Three or four years in an institution for the criminally insane . . . then prove yourself normal and go back into the world to kill again. You have ethics like Grange. There
