Bedside Murder

I caught the faint tone of disbelief in his voice. I dug in my purse, handed him the bit of paper. He unwrapped it, stared at the small object.

“A bullet!”

“I live in an apartment in the Village,” I said. “There is a fire escape outside my window. It came through the window one night on a short visit. I dug it out of the plaster.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t meant for you.”

“The curtain was scorched. Whoever fired the gun stood on the fire escape.”

He shrugged again. “Some sort of a practical joke.”

I stood up so quickly it startled him. I unbuttoned the coat of my navy suit, drew the blouse up out of my skirt, exposing a tan tummy. I pointed a shaking finger at the faint red streak two inches long just below my ribs.

“Big joke,” I said. “Ha, ha!”

He stared at the red mark and then his eyes roamed away from it and he began to perspire. I hurriedly tucked the blouse back into the top of my skirt. His nice crinkly eyes were narrowed.

“Who would want to kill you?”

“Are you going to take the case?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Become the current boyfriend,” I said. “Take me around places. Keep your eyes open. I’ll pay all expenses and give you whatever you ask.”

For the first time he really smiled. “Mother forgot to mention that some days would be like this,” he said. “All this and money too!”

“You understand, Kim Hale, that this is purely a business arrangement,” I said coldly.

He sobered at once. “Of course. Of course.”

“Just exactly how busy are you?”

He glanced over at the crisp bill. “That money, Hank, will keep the men from coming and taking away the furniture.”

“Do they do that to lawyers?”

“Especially to lawyers. I trust you’re not thinking of me in terms of a bodyguard. I’m not — in practice for that sort of thing. I can use a gun, and I have both the gun and the permit to carry it because sometimes I have to carry negotiable securities around. Should I wear it?”

“I’d feel better if you would, but I didn’t expect you to.”

He picked up the bill, glanced at his watch. “Now, then,” he said, “I’m working for you, Hank. Give me the rest of the story. Whom do you suspect? What other attempts have been made?”

“I’ll tell you about the other attempts. That bullet was fired at me four nights ago at four o’clock in the morning. A week ago I was crossing Madison at Forty-second. The crowd was thick. I was in the front rank waiting for the traffic to thin out. I like to hurry across whenever there’s an open space between cars. I saw room enough between two cabs. Just as I moved ahead, somebody tripped me. I went flat on my face and it was so close that the right front tire of the taxi smashed my hat and ran over my hair.”

He looked at me wide-eyed and swallowed hard. Evidently the idea of Henrietta Ryan with a mashed head did things to his insides.

I continued, “You know the Halloween stunt of balancing a bucket of water on top of a door so that when you open it, it comes down and drenches you?” He nodded. “Two weeks ago I went back to the apartment and found the lock broken. When I opened my bedroom door, I was moving quite rapidly. That’s what saved me. I was hurrying to see if all my things were safe — jewelry and clothes. A plain cardboard carton had been put up there. It had a rock in it twice the size of your head. It smashed on the floor so terribly hard it broke two floor boards. The edge of the carton barely grazed my— Well, you see it fell right in back of me and—”

“I see,” he said quickly. It’s refreshing to meet a man who can blush.

“Those are the only three attempts.”

“Does anyone beside the two of us know about them?”

“A girl named Betty Lafferty knows about the rock, nothing else. She lives with me. She’s a girl I played with when I was little over in Brooklyn. She’s had simply awful luck. She’s a companion and secretary and keeps the place neat and does the cooking when we eat in. I pay her a good salary.”

“How good?”

“A hundred a week. I gross about fourteen hundred a week from all sources, including the record sales. Betty is a tax deduction. My net after taxes is around four and a quarter a week.”

“How about your list of suspects?”

I fiddled with the catch on the red purse. “How does this sound? Suppose I just arrange that you meet all the people who could have some crazy reason for killing me. You can form your own opinions. You can start taking me out. I hope it won’t get you into too much of a mess with your wife.”

He jingled the change in his pockets, blushed again. “I haven’t got one.”

“All the better,” I said briskly. “Are you busy tonight? Good. Here’s my address. I have to be at the Club at nine. The food there is just dreadful. Pick me up at six and we’ll eat some place, then you can take me to the Club.”

He smiled. “Sounds wonderful.”