Dark Tunnel Page 11

  Thank God for that, I thought. I had no great faith in the sly-faced sergeant.

  I said: “The Bomber Plant? What’s the matter there?”

  Galloway answered, “I don’t know,” and closed his face up like a fist. After a pause, as if to console me for the snub, he said: “A great boy, Chet Gordon. I had him in psychology seminar eight or nine years ago.”

  I remembered the name from my undergraduate days. “Was he an intercollegiate swimmer?”

  “That’s the man.” After another pause he said, “You had something to tell me, Branch.”

  I gave it to him without trimmings: “Alec was murdered by Herman Schneider or his son, or both of them.”

  “Jesus Christ, Branch! Do you know what you’re saying? Did you see them do it?”

  “No.”

  “What grounds have you for this—accusation?”

  “The Schneiders tried to murder me to-night. Shortly before Alec was killed, he called me on the phone and told me he had found proof that Herman Schneider had copied confidential War Board information. There are other things.”

  “Jehosophat.” Galloway was regaining control of his proper names. “What other things?”

  I told him what I knew, leaving out my suspicions of Ruth Esch. If she was an innocent friend of the Schneiders, there was no point in ruining her university career before it began.

  When I finished, Galloway said, “This is a big thing, Robert. I’m glad you called me before speaking to the police. A big thing. A scandal involving a man of Schneider’s standing in the university could do us a great deal of harm. We must move with circumspection.”

  Circumspection was his favorite word: he had to consider the Board of Regents and the State Legislature and the national reputation of the university. I wanted to see Schneider in handcuffs. I said:

  “You can’t hush up murder and you can’t hush up espionage.”

  “Of course not, Robert, of course not,” Galloway said in the soothing accents he used when he was most unalterable. “But we cannot be impetuous. Murder has not been proved. Stronger men than Alec Judd have committed suicide.”

  “I was with Alec an hour before it happened. He was in fine fettle.”

  “Of course, of course,” which meant that he would move when he was ready. “Have you found this evidence against Schneider which you say he said he had?”

  I didn’t like the ‘you say’ construction but wasted no more breath. “No.”

  “Has a search been made for it?”

  “I told the police nothing about it.”

  “Good. We can handle this in our own way. We must have a talk with Schneider. At least we can find out if he could possibly have killed Alec.”

  “Why not let the police handle it?” I said sharply. He had the temporizing brain without which few university presidents can last a year, and trying to co-operate with him was like shaking hands with an octopus while walking in quicksand.

  “Chester Gordon will be here soon. He is a man of wider experience, and greater discretion, than I should judge the local police to be. Meanwhile, I should like to discuss this matter with one or two members of the War Board.”

  “Don’t call Schneider, sir.”

  “I shall call Herman Schneider,” Galloway said softly, “and ask him to come over. I think you may trust me to be discreet.” He looked at me out of blank, cold eyes over which the lids drooped slantwise.

  I remembered that I was an Assistant Professor and said nothing. Galloway said, “May I use your phone?”

  “Certainly. I’ll go down to Alec’s office and see if the police have found anything. The detective said he wants to question me.”

  “Go ahead.” He sat down to phone.

  When I opened the door, Haggerty was going through the drawers of Alec’s desk. He looked up at me with a nasty look in his small eye like a rat cornering another rat:

  “I hear you were having a little conversation with the university operator a few minutes ago. A very highbrow little confab, I bet you. I’m not an intellectual myself, but I hear it was a very highbrow little confab.”

  “That’s what you said,” I said with eighteenth-century courtesy. “I’m not a detective myself, but I thought I might learn something from her. It turned out I couldn’t.”

  “Yeah, I know. But don’t you think it might be a wise plan, professor, to leave investigation to the proper authorities? We’re stupid, we’re slow, we’re dumb, but we’re trained to find out things. Isn’t that right, professor?”

  “That’s right, Sergeant. I don’t want to butt in.” In the United States a college degree is a mystic symbol. There are a lot of men who have never been to college and can’t get over it. It pays to humor them.

  “O.K., now we know where we stand. You leave investigation to me, I leave Shakespeare to you.” His thin lips smiled narrowly: he had taken the curse off one college degree. I hid my Phi Beta Kappa key in my watch pocket.

  Sale, the officer with the sallow face, was watching us as if he were enjoying himself. “Where’s Cross?” I asked.

  “He took the body to the morgue,” Haggerty said. “I told him to send over the fingerprint man. He’ll probably want your fingerprints, so he’ll know which are yours and which are somebody else’s, if there was somebody else.”

  “Don’t forget Miss Madden’s fingerprints. The Lieutenant told you about her, didn’t he?”

  “I’m not planning to forget anything, professor. I went down there a few minutes ago and she said she was ready to talk to me when I get through with you.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s O.K. Now I want to know what you saw. Everything you can remember.” He sat down in the swivel-chair at the desk and I sat facing him in the chair I had sat in talking to Alec earlier in the evening.

  Sale was standing behind us looking unnecessary but interested, and the sergeant said, “You better go down and guard the front entrance.”

  “O.K., Sarge.” Sale went out closing the door behind him.

  “Now you were walking on the sidewalk down below this window,” Haggerty said. “What time?” He had taken out a black-bound notebook and waited with pencil poised.

  “Five after twelve as close as I can figure it.”

  “What did you see? Tell me in the order you saw it.”

  “The first unusual thing I noticed was that the light on the corner of the building was out.”

  “Sale checked on that. The bulb was partly unscrewed. But that doesn’t prove anything, it could’ve been kids.”

  “And perhaps Alec thought he could fly and just jumped down to greet me.” The official assumption that Alec’s death was suicide, unless it could be proved otherwise, was getting under my skin.

  “Aw c’mon, professor, don’t be like that. I’m just trying to figure a case. We got to co-operate.”

  “Somebody turned that light out, and I think it was for a reason. And somebody turned on the light in this office.”

  “When was that?”

  “I saw the light go on at the moment that Alec fell.”

  “Could he have turned it on just before he jumped?”

  “He could have, I think, if he stood on the sill and pulled the chain through the window-opening as he jumped. But why would he do that?”

  “Make it look like an accident,” Haggerty said.

  “You think it was suicide,” I said, “but he had no motive for suicide. Alec Judd was a successful man, in general a happy man! He just got engaged to be married to Miss Madden, and yesterday he went to Detroit to apply for a commission in the Navy.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in general’? Was something bothering him?”

  “He was a little worried recently, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d kill himself over.”

  “He was worried, eh? What about?”

  “About the War Board. Certain things were bothering him.”

  “Such as?”

  “He didn’t tell me.” Galloway wanted me to k
eep mum for the present, and I kept mum against my will.

  “Now look, professor, this looks like suicide to me. I know you don’t like to think so; he was your friend. But I’ve seen quite a few suicides. I’ve seen a couple right in this university.”

  “It was not suicide,” I said.

  “What makes you so sure? Did he look dead when he fell?”

  “He was alive when he fell. I heard him yell, and it scared me to death.”

  “Did you see him jump?”

  “I saw him the moment after he jumped. I could see him against the light from the window, flinging his arms up. He was feet-first but he turned in the air on the way down and landed on his head.”

  “Did it look like a jump?”

  “It looked like a jump. But I know he was pushed.”

  “Look here, professor.” He stood up and put his hand on the windowsill. “Is this the way the window was when you came up here after he fell?”

  I got up and looked at the window. It was still open at a thirty-degree angle. Between the bottom sash of the outward-swinging pane and the outer edge of the narrow concrete sill, there was hardly more than a foot of clear space.

  “This is the way it was,” I said.

  “Miss Madden didn’t close the window, did she?”

  “Not that I saw. She looked out, screamed, and fainted. No, she didn’t close it.”

  “Right. Now how in hell could anybody push or throw a man as big as Judd through that little space, even if he was lying sideways? And you said he came feet-first and standing up. I don’t see how anybody could push him out in that position even with the window wide open. Look.”

  He opened the pane wide, so that it made a right angle with the vertical sash. The metal supports at the side creaked as if it was seldom opened that far. As the bottom of the pane swung outward, the top came down, moving in grooves in the sash on each side, so that even when the four-foot square of window was wide open there was only two feet of clear space between the horizontal pane and the sill. Above the pane there was another two-foot space, bounded at the top by the bottom sash of the upper pane.

  The upper pane was closed and had been since I could remember. I tested it with a push but it was firmly rusted in place.

  “They could have opened the window wide and flung him out and closed it after him.”

  “Who are they? You didn’t see anybody close the window after. You didn’t see or hear any struggle before. Don’t forget Judd was conscious, and he wouldn’t co-operate with anybody chucking him out a window.”

  He paused and went on: “I’m sorry, professor, I think he jumped, and I’ll think so until I see the evidence pointing the other way. I think he opened the window wide and climbed up and stepped out on the outer sill—”

  “He couldn’t have been knocked unconscious and stretched out on the sill so that he’d fall off when he moved?”

  “Maybe if he was Tarzan of the Apes,” Haggerty said. “That sill isn’t eight inches wide. Anyway, that’s not the way you saw him fall. He didn’t roll off, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Haggerty said, “he climbed out on the sill and stood out of the way of the window and partly closed it. He reached in and turned on the light—see, it’s got a pull chain and he could even hold the end of it outside the window.”

  “Why would he turn out the light in the first place?”

  “So nobody would see him climb out the window. Same reason he turned out the light down below on the corner.”

  “So now you think Alec did that.”

  “I just thought of it,” Haggerty said, as if his own cunning surprised him. “He didn’t want anybody to see him jump. A lot of suicides try to make it look like an accident. He probably called you up to convince you that it was going to be an accident.”

  “He convinced me that it was murder,” I said. “Not an accident, and not suicide.” This ratty detective can ratiocinate till doomsday, I thought, and I’ll stick by what I know about Alec Judd.

  “Tell the coroner,” Haggerty said. “You’ll be the main witness at the inquest.”

  I was still standing at the window trying to figure out how Alec had been murdered, and I noticed a tiny strip of white cloth on the upper righthand corner of the sash. When I looked more closely, it turned out to be a small piece of adhesive tape, one end of which was stuck to the sash.

  “What do you make of this?” I said to Haggerty.

  He squinted up his little black eyes and looked at the piece of tape without touching it.

  “Adhesive tape, eh?” he said. “Damned if I know what to make of it.” Damned if either of us knew.

  There was a quick double knock on the door and President Galloway came in wearing a tie and suitcoat. His face, newly shaved and gleaming rosily, looked ten years younger. I looked at him in surprise, and he saw my look.

  “I’ve an electric razor down in my office,” he said, “and some clothes. I heard you men talking in here and rather than interrupt I went down and shaved. The external man is the father of the internal, you know.”

  And an administrative job is the mother of vanity, I thought. What I said was:

  “This is Detective-Sergeant Haggerty, sir.”

  Galloway turned to Haggerty. “Was anything found on the body?—anything of importance, I mean.”

  “Nothing but personal stuff, sir. Pens and pencils and opened letters, pipe and tobacco pouch, things like that.”

  “Was his wallet in his pocket?”

  “Yes, sir. Nothing missing that I could tell. They took the stuff down to the station.”

  A young man in uniform, carrying a large black case, came in the open door and Haggerty suggested that he take my fingerprints. He decorated my fingers with indelible black ink and then went to work on the telephone.

  “Shall we go down, Branch?” Galloway said. “I asked them to come to the seminar room on the fourth floor. Quite a sensational subject for a seminar discussion.”

  “Quite,” I said, not relishing his academic quaintness. “Did you call Schneider?”

  “Why not? He is here.” He turned to Haggerty. “I’ve called together several university officials to discuss this case, Sergeant. Will you hold yourself in readiness in case we want information from you?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll be in the Ladies’ Room for a while.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Miss Madden’s in the Ladies’ Room,” Haggerty spluttered. “I want to ask her some questions.”

  “Oh, of course,” Galloway said and went out the door. In the hall he said to me, “What is Miss Madden doing here?”

  “She was in the building when Alec fell and saw him on the pavement afterwards. She fainted. They were engaged to be married.”

  “Miss Madden and Alec? It must have been a dreadful shock to her.”

  We passed the Ladies’ Room and I jerked my thumb at the closed door. “She’s been lying down in there for an hour or more. The doctor said she took it like a soldier, but I thought it best not to disturb her.”

  “Quite right,” said Galloway. “Shocks like that have driven women insane.”

  We went down the stairs to the fourth floor. The door of the seminar room was open and the lights were on. From the hall I could see Jackson, executive assistant to the President and head of the economics department, sitting at one end of the table, his broad bald scalp glistening in the light.

  I said to Galloway, “I’ll be in, in a minute,” and went down the hall to the drinking-fountain. My heart had begun to accelerate again and my throat was dry.

  When I got back to the door of the seminar room, Galloway was standing at the end of the table beside Jackson. He was talking about Alec’s death. I could see Hunter sitting on the far side of the table, his black stare fixed on the President, but I couldn’t see Herman Schneider.

  I was about to enter when a soft bass voice purred at my shoulder, “Can you tell me where Professor Branch’s office is, please? I was t
old at the President’s house that he is there.”

  “I’m Branch,” I said. “Galloway’s in here.”

  “My name’s Gordon, Chester Gordon. How-do-you-do.” The bass voice was diffident, and the long dark face from which it issued had an inward-looking, almost sullen look. Gordon had sleepy black eyes set deep in a burnished outdoor face. Black horse-tail hair receded from his narrow temples. His face was like an Indian’s who distrusted all palefaces.

  “How-do-you-do,” I said and looked him up and down, having never seen an F.B.I. man to my knowledge. He had a short-distance swimmer’s broad shoulders and thin flanks; they were neatly clothed in a grey business suit.

  “You’re the secretary of the War Board, aren’t you?” Gordon said.

  “Right. Shall we go in?”

  “Thank you.”

  Galloway turned to greet Gordon. “I’m glad you could come, Chet. I shan’t waste time with introductions, gentlemen. Mr. Gordon is an agent of the Federal Government.”

  I took a vacant chair beside Hunter, and Gordon sat down beside me.

  Hunter murmured, “This is a damnable thing about Alec, Bob.”

  “Yes.”

  I looked up and saw Dr. Schneider watching me across the table. His face was set so hard that his beard looked false and tacked on, and his brown eyes were like marbles. He had begun to realize the significance of the meeting, if he hadn’t all along.

  Galloway closed the door and returned to the head of the table. When he spoke, his voice was impersonal:

  “Professor Branch has a story to tell and, I understand, an accusation to make.”

  All eyes but two turned to me. Chester Gordon sat with his chin down, looking into the intricacies of his own brain.

  I stood up and spoke:

  “I’ll come to the point immediately. You know what happened to Alec. Yesterday afternoon he told me that he was worried about the War Board, that he suspected a leakage of information from us to the spies who were recently arrested in Detroit. President Galloway and Mr. Gordon can confirm that suspicion, or at least the fact of its existence.”

  Gordon nodded and Galloway said, “That’s so.” Schneider did not move in body or face.