The janitor blinked at me. His eyes were red and his clothing rumpled as if he’d just been wakened from sleep.

  He glared at me, not liking what he saw, and muttered something as he opened the cage. I stepped inside and jerked my thumb towards the heavens.

  ‘To the tenth, and wait.’

  ‘Wait?’

  ‘That’s right. Unless you want to go all the way down again and then up and then down. I shouldn’t be long.’

  He mumbled something and started the elevator.

  It was a long journey. The floors crawled past us as though we were burrowing our way up from the bowels of the earth, empty, devoid of all life and movement. It was cold too, the heaters had been turned off, and I was shivering by the time we reached the tenth floor.

  My office was dark and the automatic stair-lights casting a dim glow from the stair well snapped off as I left the cage. I swore and, fumbling in the dark, found the button and switched them on again. As the lights came on, I stepped towards the door of my office, dragging my keys from my pants pocket and running my finger over them to find the right one. I needn’t have bothered, the door was unlocked, anyway.

  I swung it open and felt for the lights. My fingers hit the switch and I pressed it. For all the good it did I might as well have tried to switch on the Heavenly Choir. No lights. I tried again, clicking the switch. Nothing. I said something and took three long strides towards where I knew the desk to be.

  On the second step I tripped over something soft, stumbled and landed heavily on my knees, the top of my head slamming hard against the side of the desk.

  For a moment I counted stars. Then I shook my abused skull, made sure that I hadn’t bit my tongue in two pieces, then, dragging myself to my feet, I fumbled around until I found the desk-lamp. I switched it on, it lit, and I stared down at what had tripped me.

  It was Harmond.

  He lay, his sightless eyes staring at the flaked whitewash on the ceiling, one arm doubled beneath him and the other outstretched as though he had tried to grab at something as he fell. A red-rimmed hole stared at me like a third eye, and blood made a soggy mess on the carpet beneath his head.

  He was very dead.

  I stooped over and touched the skin of his face, then rested my fingers lightly on the great artery in his throat. His skin was cold, clammy, and the artery had long ago lost the pulse of life. I straightened and stared down at the old butler, and his dead eyes stared back at me like the windows of a deserted house.

  He had carried a million trays, run a million errands, had served others all his life, and now? Now someone had served him an ounce of lead, had blasted the life from his body, smashed his skull, and left him in red-grey ruin on a dingy carpet in a dingy office in a run-down building.

  I felt that I had to have a drink.

  The bottle was empty, aside from a few drops clinging to the brown glass, and the few I managed to pry loose didn’t do me any good at all. I stared at the bottle, trying to remember when I’d drunk it so low. I hadn’t, and with the memory something clicked.

  ‘Pug!’

  No answer.

  ‘Pug!’ I didn’t shout too loud, but loud enough for him to have heard me. Ridiculous really, because if he’d been around I would have seen him. I didn’t, but just to make sure I went over the office with a fine-tooth comb. I even looked under the desk. No Pug.

  I tossed the bottle back into the drawer, took out my spare gun, checked the loading and slipped it beneath my arm. Outside in the elevator cage I could hear the old janitor sniffle and stamp his feet as he waited for me to finish my business so that he could get back down to the warmth of the boiler room and his interrupted sleep.

  I left him waiting.

  Carefully, so as not to disturb the position of the body, I examined the contents of the dead man’s pockets. He had the usual junk, nothing of interest to anyone but himself, and now he wasn’t interested in anything anymore.

  There was a pawn ticket, a fob watch of gold and with a worn inscription on the back. A wallet with a few bills, some loose change, a dog-eared snapshot of a young woman in a bathing costume, the sort of costume which was all the rage twenty years ago, but now was only worth a laugh. He had some keys, a torn stub from a movie ticket, a roll of peppermints, and a couple of receipts for registered mail. I turned him over, opened the fingers of his hand and pryed loose a scrap of pasteboard. It was one of my own cards, crumpled and dirty, and I stared at it, seeing it as the passport to hell it had become.

  I rose and looked down at him, mentally apologising for what had happened and, somewhere, probably in Heaven, perhaps he heard and understood.

  I stepped out of the office into the corridor and walked up to the old janitor.

  ‘Did you let anyone in tonight?’

  He blinked at me, not fully awake, and I repeated the question. He blinked again and reluctantly tore his thoughts from downstairs and brought them up to the tenth floor.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I did let someone in now that you come to mention it. An old guy.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Time?’ He had to think that one over. ‘Maybe nine or maybe a little later.’

  ‘Did you bring him up here?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Life sparkled in his eyes, the animal cunning of a cornered beast who thinks that he sees trouble and wants to avoid it. ‘He had one of your cards. He said that you was expecting him and that it would be okay for him to wait. I didn’t do nothing wrong, mister. Honest I didn’t. I—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ I cut short his whining. ‘Try and think now. What time did he get here?’

  ‘I told you, about nine, or maybe it was ten, some-time like that.’ He was vague. He didn’t know. I didn’t waste time pressing the point.

  ‘Was he the only one you let in tonight?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure!’ He licked his bloodless lips. ‘I wouldn’t let just anyone into the building, mister, you know that. But he had one of your cards, see, and he said that it would be okay for him to wait.’

  ‘I heard you the first time,’ I said tiredly. I stood, feeling the cold of the night fight the Scotch, and win. ‘Did you shut the door after him?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Anything else happen? Bell ring or something like that?’

  He thought about it, creasing his forehead as he tried to sort dreams from reality, then he nodded.

  ‘That’s right. The bell did ring once. I answered it, but there was no one there. I even walked out into the street to make sure.’

  I nodded. The old guy was luckier than he knew. The killer had taken a chance, rung the bell, and when the old man had squinted out with his weak eyes had slipped past him into the building without being seen. If the janitor had seen him, or if he had not walked out in the street to see what was doing, the killer would have chalked up a double murder.

  That part was simple, but what about Pug?

  I knew that big ox and I knew that he wouldn’t deliberately let me down. I’d told him to be at the office by ten. He had his own key, so that he needn’t have rung the bell to get in. But he was missing, and suddenly I began to get worried about him.

  I looked at the old janitor.

  ‘Sure that you’ve seen no one else tonight?’

  ‘Positive.’ He was too. An army could have marched past him, but he found a story and he was sticking to it. I sighed and led him into my office. I pointed to the thing on the floor.

  ‘Recognise him?’

  He gulped, his adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny throat, and I had to catch him as his legs buckled beneath him. I sat him in my chair.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That’s him,’ he muttered. ‘That’s the old man I let in tonight.’ He stared at me. ‘Why did you do it, mister?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ I clamped down on my anger. ‘You brought me up here, you’ve been with me ever since. How could I have killed him?’

  He shook his head and I could read the doubt in his eyes.

  ‘He’s been shot,’ I pointed out. ‘Did you hear a shot?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you hear a shot anytime tonight? Anytime at all?’

  Again he shook his head, and I knew that he was telling the truth as he knew it. A cannon could have gone off and he wouldn’t have known about it, not with him cuddling the boilers down in the basement.

  I sighed and reached for the phone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Captain Bresholm was one of the few men on the force that I both liked and respected. There were others whom I liked and a few whom I respected, but not the both. Bresholm was different, in that he hadn’t let his uniform replace his brains, and he hadn’t let a corrupt administration turn him into a crook. He did his job and did it as well as he was allowed, which is different to saying that he did it as well as he could. If sometimes he received a gentle hint from upstairs, he merely shrugged and played the game their way.

  He was married with a couple of kids and he liked to eat.

  He sat in the customer’s chair in my office and stared wooden-faced as the photographers and fingerprint boys did their job. The body had gone, carted away like a hunk of cold meat to the morgue, and I was glad to see it go.

  I sat in my own chair and killed cigarettes. My head ached, I couldn’t stop shivering, and I felt like death. I wanted a hot bath, hot toddy, and some decent food. I could also do with some sleep.

  I hoped that I would be allowed to get them all.

  Bresholm snubbed out the butt of a long, thin cigar and snapped his fingers at the police stenographer. The man grunted, closed his book and went outside, where I could hear him stamping his feet.

  Bresholm looked at me.

  ‘So, as far as you’re concerned, Lantry, this kill is a mystery.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard your story and checked with Constance Young and the janitor, but when you come down to it the story means nothing.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said tiredly. ‘I could have sprouted wings and flown back from the Purple Orchid. I could have made myself invisible and bumped the old man. Then I could have flown back, beat myself up, and carried on as normal. The reason I killed him, of course, was that I didn’t like the way he parted his hair.’

  Bresholm wasn’t amused.

  ‘You could have returned to the building earlier, let yourself in and bumped the old man,’ he pointed out. ‘We’ve only your word for it that you were knocked out and stayed that way for several hours.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘Aside from the fact that I was miles away from here, I don’t own a car, and I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to have killed him in my own office, you’ve almost got a case.’

  ‘I could hold you on what I’ve got,’ he reminded. ‘You knew Harmond would be here tonight, and you’re about the only one who did. Your alibi isn’t watertight and you know it. He had one of your cards.’ He shrugged. ‘Many a man has been burned on less evidence than that.’

  ‘You should know,’ I said bitterly. ‘Maybe I should have a doctor check my injuries?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mean a thing,’ he assured cheerfully. He lit a fresh cigar. ‘Anyway, it’s even simpler than that. You could have set the scene and had an accomplice pull the trigger. See what I mean?’

  ‘Sure. I also had the impression that a man was innocent until he was found guilty.’

  He didn’t laugh, but then it was nothing to laugh about. Not for a cop who still had some respect for the law. But both he and I knew that assumption was just one of those things. Not that I was worried. Bresholm might take a hint and write off a murder as a suicide, but he wouldn’t stand for an innocent man being railroaded to the chair. Not while he knew it, anyway. I leaned towards him.

  ‘Do you think that I killed him?’

  ‘No, Lantry, I don’t.’ He stared at the tip of his cigar. ‘But I’ve got the impression that you’re holding something back. Want to tell me?’

  I shrugged. I’m not one of these smart guys who think it clever to run against the cops. I’ve a living to earn, and I know that I’m allowed to do it on strict sufferance. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Bresholm to have my licence revoked, and without it I’d be hounded by every cop on the beat for every charge in the book. I wouldn’t even be allowed to carry a gun.

  But against that there was the fact that, to me, a client was protected by professional ethics.

  ‘I’m on a case,’ I said briefly. ‘Harmond reckoned he knew something and fixed an appointment to see me tonight.’ I glanced down at my wristwatch. ‘Last night. The rest you know.’

  ‘The Geeson woman?’ He smiled at my blank expression. ‘Yes, Lantry, I know, not officially, of course, but a thing like that can’t be kept secret, not when there’s ten million dollars mixed up in it.’ He looked at me. ‘The information is confidential. Officially I know nothing of the missing woman and I can’t do anything about it anyway. It isn’t even in my department.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘When people begin asking questions, I can put two and two together. A few hints were dropped in the right places and we did a good job. She hasn’t been seen, Lantry.’ He puffed at his cigar. ‘Why didn’t you come to me about it first? I could have saved you a lot of leg work.’

  ‘No thanks. I owe you enough favours as it is.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for. Or would there be another reason?’

  ‘Sure. I was hired to do a job not to go around shooting off my big mouth.’

  ‘I see your point.’ He nodded and frowned at his cigar. It wasn’t drawing well and he had no patience with it. He crushed it out and lit another. ‘When are you going to ask me for a job, Lantry? I could use you in Homicide.’

  ‘When I have to.’ I grinned at him with the easy familiarity of good friendship. ‘You’ve got too many bosses for my liking, Bresholm. I like to be on my own.’

  He shrugged, breathing out clouds of smoke, and stared at me as though he had never seen me before.

  ‘You could be right,’ he admitted, and something struggled for expression in his eyes. Struggled and died. A wife and a couple of kids can teach a man to guard his tongue even when he’s with friends.

  ‘Am I free to go now?’ I rubbed my aching head and glanced at my watch. ‘It’s past three in the morning and I’ve had a hard day.’

  ‘You’re free.’ He rose, brushing a little ash from his suit. ‘Drop in at headquarters sometime and sign a statement.’ He shrugged. ‘Personally, I doubt if we’ll find out who did it. No clues, no motive, no nothing. Just one of those things.’

  ‘I’ll find him,’ I gritted and was surprised at the conviction in my voice. ‘I’ll find him, and when I do I’ll give him to you on a plate—all ready to burn.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He looked at me. ‘You look all in. How about me dropping you off at home?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I’ll leave a car at the door for a few minutes then. They can drop you off, it’s no night for even a dog to be out.’

  He was right and I knew it. I smiled.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be right down.’

  He nodded and left the room. I could hear his firm, muscular legs carry him lightly down the stairs. He always walked downstairs, said that it kept him fit, but I didn’t feel like following his example.

  The elevator took a long time to answer my signal.

  The prowl car dropped me off before the apartment house where I live, and the driver waved me goodbye as he slid away from the kerb. The doors were locked, so I had to use my key to get in. The elevator had shut down too, so I had to crawl up to the fifth floor. By the time I arrived my head felt as if it were ready to burst like an overfilled balloon.

  I live in one of those small, too-compact apartments where one room doubles up for another. I stripped and filled the bath with water as hot as I could bear. While the tub was filling, I broke open my reserve bottle of Scotch and fed myself a drink. The liquor burned my stomach, but it warmed me and I took another drink before getting into the hot water. I soaked for almost an hour, letting more hot water keep up the temperature, and taking a drink at frequent intervals. When I climbed out of the tub I was as red as a lobster and not quite sober. But the shivering had stopped and I didn’t feel as if I was coming down with pneumonia. I got into pyjamas and robe and set some coffee to boil while I fried a couple of eggs.

  The food sobered me, the coffee sobered me still more, and for the first time in hours I began to feel really human.

  My suit was ready for a trip to the cleaners. Blood, snow, and dirt had made it unfit for wear. I emptied the pockets and tossed it into a corner, then sat down and stared at what I had.

  Two receipts for registered mail and one pawn ticket.

  Bresholm wouldn’t like me having taken them, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I stared at them for a long time, smoking, drinking, killing time. I was too tired to think straight, and the reaction from what I’d been through was making my thoughts go in circles. I took another drink and tried to concentrate.

  The pawn ticket was from a shop down on east side and was for a gold wristwatch. I wondered what Harmond would be doing with a wristwatch when he used a fob timepiece, and then filed it for future reference. The two receipts were both made out to the same address. Harmond, for reasons of his own, had posted a couple of registered envelopes to a Sam Jenkin, who lived at 354 Green Street, down near Greenwich Village. Both had been posted from the same office and they were dated a week apart.

  I glanced at my wristwatch and noticed that it was getting near dawn. I pulled the phone towards me and dialed City Hall. I listened as the bell rang and rang and rang at the other end. I was just about to give up when the receiver clicked, and a voice, heavy with sleep and sharp with irritation barked at me.