“Did it ever occur to you,” he said through clenched teeth, “that I might have other reasons for wanting to be near you?”
“What?” she said, hardly believing her ears. “What did you say?”
“You’re not hard to take, Gertie,” he said.
“Take?” she said in confusion. “Oh but-”
“You never gave me much encouragement. You always seemed to have so much on your mind, Gertie.”
“If that’s really true, Mr Odell, I’m sorry I – if I offended you just now.”
“
“I can’t be sure of anything any more.”
“I was in that office to protect Mr Gosling – and you.” He looked at her steadily. “You believe me, Gertie.”
She looked back at him for a long moment, and he thought her eyes were watering.
She lowered her gaze. “Yes, Mr Odell, I do. I do believe you.”
“Well, then,” smiled Odell, “I hope you’re not doing anything tonight, as I want-”
“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry. Not tonight. I have an appointment I can’t break. Shall we make it some other time?”
“Sure, Gertie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” She smiled. “So long then.” She had her right hand in her coat pocket. She took it out and held it toward him. He grasped her palm. And then he felt that she had something in her hand – a slip of paper. When she drew her hand away she left it in his palm. He felt, with a rush of intuition, that everything was wrong. He pretended not to notice what she’d left in his hand. As she turned on her high heels to walk swiftly away from him, he thrust his own hand into his pocket.
He watched her go out of sight along the path, then he walked out of the park in the opposite direction. He was curious about what she was trying to convey to him. He went into the first street corner phone booth he came to and took the slip of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it.
The wrinkles of perplexity increased on his forehead.
The paper was blank except for two circles, a small one inside a much larger one, drawn on it in pencil.
Gertrude, the cold night wind whipping the coat about her knees, went up the legation steps. All the windows were dark. X Street was dark. Fumbling in her handbag, she took out a key, unlocked the front door, and slipped into the vestibule. It was all cold marble, like a mausoleum. She left the front door unlocked behind her as she went in, as if she was expecting someone else to follow her.
She flicked on a cigarette lighter to light her way up the plush carpeted stairway to the third floor. This was the floor on which the murder had been committed. She went into the office, tiptoeing past her desk in the reception room, going into the private office.
She looked at Gosling’s empty chair behind the desk. Gosling’s bloodied ghost still seemed to occupy it. And she shuddered.
She remembered a line from one of the newspapers
The watch on her wrist ticked away loudly. She was painfully conscious of time. Everything had depended on time.
She did not know anyone was in the room with her until she heard the door between the offices click softly closed.
She turned around with a violent start. The cigarette lighter flicked out when she released her thumb. A shadow moved against the closed door.
“Is that
A powerful flashlight blinded her.
“Yes,” answered a voice. “Have you done all that was expected of you?”
She nodded miserably.
“Fine.” She heard a heartless chuckle.
And that was all she heard, for it is doubtful if she heard the two quick coughs before the lead slugs tore into her breast.
She was dead before she hit the floor.
McKitrick was saying: “The patrolman on the X Street beat saw the door of the Legation swinging open in the wind. He thought something was up, so he took a prowl through the building. He was the one who found her.”
Someberly Banner looked down at all that was left of Gertrude. “It’s a crying shame,” he muttered.
Odell sat gloomily on the edge of the desk. He roused himself up enough to say: “Well, this isn’t as puzzling as the first shooting. I talked to Gertie in the park this afternoon, Senator. She said she was going to meet someone tonight. Whoever it was just followed her in here and shot her. If I had any inkling this would happen, I never would have left her alone.”
Banner nodded. “It’s not your fault, Red.” He glared around. “What kinda gun this time? D’you know?”
McKitrick answered: “The medical examiner thinks it’s a.38.”
Banner snorted. “An American gun! This’s striking closer to home.”
Odell said: “There’s something else I’ve got to tell you, Senator. It might help you. I confess it doesn’t mean a thing to me. In the park today Gertie slipped this into my hand. She acted mighty secretive about it.” He gave Banner the paper with the circles drawn on it.
“Whatzit mean?” snapped Banner.
“Circles within circles. Wheels within wheels. You tell me, Senator.”
Banner looked at it front and back and held it up to the light to see if there were any pinpricks in it. Then, without saying anything, he crumpled it up and shoved it into his marsupial pocket. Plainly he could not make head or tail of it, but he wasn’t going to say so.
Though they stayed there till dawn they found no other clue to point to Gertrude’s murderer.
McKitrick woke up to find his phone ringing insistently and Banner on the other end of the wire.
“You never sleep, do you?” snorted McKitrick.
“Hardly ever, Mac. We ain’t got time for that now. It’s after breakfast. Come to the Legation and bring that small arms expert with you.”
“Captain Cozzens?”
“Yaas. Him. I’ve figgered out what everything means.”
“What put you on it?”
“Those circles.”
“Suppose you quit being so damned mysterious, Banner, and-”
“Get cracking to the Legation,” interrupted Banner. He hung up.
Banner was sitting in a leather chair, comfortably waiting for them to arrive. He bobbed his big grizzled head at McKitrick and Cozzens. His grizzled mane looked like a fright wig this morning, as if he had been trying to comb it with an eggbeater.
“Gennelmen,” he said, “this won’t take too much of your precious time. Lemme get on with it. First off, you will swear that there ain’t any Tokarev pistols hidden in that private office.”
“Of course not,” responded McKitrick a little testily. His face bore the results of a very hasty shave. There was a nick on his chin. “There isn’t as much as a needle hidden in there that we don’t know of.”
“And you can search me and find out I’m not packing a Russian pop-gun.”
“We’ll take your word for it, Senator,” said McKitrick shortly.
“We get on together,” chuckled Banner. He got up with a heave and a vast grunt. “You two sit here on the lounge, the way you were the other day with Odell, Cap’n.” He watched them sharply as they followed his suggestion. “I’m going in there.” He entered the private office, where Gosling and Gertrude had been killed, leaving the intervening door open. He was out of sight from the two watchers for about five minutes, then he reappeared and stood in the doorway, filling the frame with his bulk, his hands deep in the bulging frockcoat pockets. “Nothing up my sleeve, mates,” he announced.
They both stared at him, not knowing what to expect. Then both of them leaped to their feet.
Three loud shots had crashed out in the empty office behind Banner’s back!
Banner did not even take his hands out of his pockets. “And there you have it,” he said.
“But, great Godfrey!” yipped McKitrick, pushing past Banner to see who else was hidden in the private office.
