Daily Short Stories - Mystery & Suspense

The Gat

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Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 22 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Maybe that's why more than half of the Fortune 100 looks to Highland to connect their content and data, improve processes, and turn little efficiencies into big wins for their customers and clients. Highland - Intelligent Content Solutions for Innovators Everywhere at Highland.com The GATT by Clyde B. Wilson When you have killed a man, it's time to go. The GATT listened, thought rapidly, and decided. So swift and sure had been the attack, not a cry had escaped the victim. The GATT placed a knife where it might naturally have fallen from the hand of a self-murderer. Then he turned to open the safe, where he had been surprised before finding what he sought. Stooped before it he hesitated for an instant, tempted to further search. He shook his head. The prize was not worth the risk. Robbery exposed a suicide blind, and with the biggest job of his career planned for tomorrow, he could not afford to have the police aroused to extra watchfulness by a mysterious murder committed tonight. This must look like a suicide. He replaced the papers in the safe, exactly as he had found them, and closed the door. The rattle of the combination crashed against the dead silence of the room. Somehow it reminded him of the clang of a certain bolt to a certain cell he knew of. He stepped back to the double doors and turned his ear to the crack where they met in the center. His eyes fell upon the figure. Its evening clothes exposed an expanse of white shirt front. White, except for a splotch on the left side, the size of a man's two fingers. He must hurry. Noiselessly he slid the big brass door bolt into place. With infinite ease he turned the key over in the lock below, and the bolt clicked faintly. His strange senses again recalled the clang of a certain bolt to a certain cell he knew of. Again he listened for a moment. Quickly, and without sound, the gat then drew two of the hinge pins from the hinges of the right hand door. The third one stuck slightly. A few turns back and forth with a pair of pliers, and it came out freely. From a small bottle he deposited with an apothecary's accuracy, a few drops of oil into the loop of each hinge. With his pliers gripped on the door portion of the middle hinge he slowly and noiselessly worked the door free. Fastened by the lock and bolt in the center, the two doors swung as one on the left side hinges. He opened them an inch and let them sag to the floor. Then he took the pins, immersed each in the oil bottle, and inserted them a quarter of an inch in the hinge loops on the door facing. Where they leaned enough from a perpendicular to keep them from dropping into place until he should be ready to jar them down. The gat was ready for his exit. He turned and surveyed the room to see if he was leaving any clues. He suddenly was seized with an impulse for cautionless flight. He set his teeth and muttered an oath. This wasn't the first man he had killed, but it was the first he had knifed, and that shirt front. The stain had spread to the size of a man's hand. Hurredly he went into his coat, buttoned the fur front over his evening clothes, and sprung his opera hat into shape. The hollow snap of it startled him. He quickly lifted the doors clear of the floor, opened them the width of his body, and stepped into the hall. He stood perfectly still for a second. His ears fairly sucked at the silence. Opening a corkscrew in a combination tool knife, he quickly inserted it into the hall side of the door to serve as a knob. With knee braced against the facing to steady himself, he raised the doors to the proper height, and with nerve-wracking slowness, meshed the hinges without jarring the pin down. Then, pulling steadily by the corkscrew to hold the door in place, he tapped lightly with the heel of his hand on the door in the position of the top hinge. The pin dropped into place with a barely audible click. Once more he listened intently before proceeding. The middle pin jarred down with equal success. He stooped and tapped lightly at the bottom hinge. It did not drop in. He tapped harder, and with a noise that sounded to him like the ring of a steel crowbar, the pin clattered to the bare floor. The gat ground his teeth in rage at this utter waste wrought to his infinite pains. He had left a clue to point straight away from the suicide lead he had planted. That satanic sleuth who'd in would grab it with the eagerness of a bloodhound. Nervously, he pulled his corkscrew from the door. He had intended to cover up the hall it made, but there was neither need nor time for that now. That hinge pin was enough to waken the dead man. How could the servants sleep on? A faint life shifted into the hall through the crack in the doors he had just closed. He turned toward the street door and stiffened like an icicle as he faced a man. Fool, how he hated nerves. It was only a clothed, halterie. Halfway through the outside door he dragged in a deep breath of cold air, then suddenly choked. With head bent against the tumbling snow a policeman was crossing the street directly toward him. The gat was trained for fast thinking. Too many policemen in New York had studied his photograph. Only recently that devil detective Houdin, who was sending all his pals to the penitentiary and the death room, had impudently promised him to his teeth, that he would surely get him shortly. Over on open Broadway with nothing on him he did not dodge them, but coming out of a house on Fifth Avenue after midnight, where a stabbed man would be found the next morning, perhaps now the servants were up. Only so long as it took these slots to flash film-like through his brain did the gat hesitate. He might have to kill another man, or two, but he stepped back inside the door. Absolute silence greeted him. It was a white night, unfit for red deeds. On the street with people about him he should have felt easy, but he was shaken. Things were not working out. In the first place he had not come to New York to pull this job, but a bigger one. He was a fool to have been tempted by it. But it had looked so easy, no killing, and see how it had turned out. He had dressed at his hotel in evening clothes, and gone to Paolo's fashionable gambling rooms for no other purpose than to see if Henshin was there. He was, and had seemed drunk enough to be good for the night. But that's just the trouble. No dope is dependable when you have to figure booze in one of the elements. Henshin had taken a notion to go home. Worst of all, he hadn't gotten the money, and because, like a bush burglar, he had left his gun in his overcoat, clear across the room, he had to use his knife instead, and smear things all up. Well, if the murder outed, the knife would be his alibi. His jealously guarded reputation, as an exclusively gun user, would save him from suspicion. The gat straightened himself savagely. He used to have nerve. But no wonder he was cracking. For one thing there was Betty. Good old Betty. Once so game. Now afraid to read a murder story in a magazine. Scared, spineless, of the thing. That shapeless phantom, something which she believed in religiously, and claimed eventually gets all criminals. Writing him everywhere he went. Employing him to cut the thing, and make a home in some green, quiet, no place, and settle down with her. Then there was Cat Stark, the fastest thinker and fastest gunner in the gallery. Caught only last week with his automatic steel smoking. And the papers today were full of Bruce's little nap in the hot chair. The snow lit cold and wet on the gat's face, and he shuttered. He needed a drink. But not in this neighborhood. He take a stiff one at the hotel. He found himself on Broadway. Lights showed red through the screen of snow. Great splotches against the white background. He noticed an unwanted number of policemen in sight. They seem mostly in pairs. That usually meant something. For reasons in accord with well-laid plans, he had avoided tonight the haunts of his accomplices in the big coup of tomorrow. He hailed a taxi and mentioned a hotel miles south of them. As they turned east into the shadowy street far down on the lonesome end of Broadway, two policemen suddenly appeared directly in their path. As they came to a stop, one of the officers stepped to the side of the taxi. His front was covered with a blanket of damp snow. A red side light on the taxi reflected on his star. A red splotch on the white background over the left breast. "Let's see your fare," he demanded. "What's the joke?" asked the driver. "Murder," said the policeman, peering through the water-street cab window. The gat, with his hand to his nose, ducked his head slightly with a loud sneeze. While the point of something in his right coat-pocket came to a line with the officer's head. "Where?" questioned the driver. Kylie's place, 14th Street, Koka Saka, outgun to Detective, but he got through us. "We'll get him before morning," the net spread. "Not Houdin, I guess," persisted the driver. "Not scarcely," laughed the officer. "They don't outgun Houdin." "All right, go ahead." The gat breathed again, but wished the idiotic driver had not mentioned Houdin. Rotten queer, some of these New York automatic artists, couldn't outgun him. The trouble was they didn't have bones anywhere, but in their heads. As he elided from the taxi and paid the driver, a policeman parted from another on the corner close by, and strolled by, scrutinizing him closely. The gat turned down his collar and entered the hotel. As he approached the desk, the house-officer walked directly toward him. Again, the point of something in his right coat-pocket lifted slightly. The officer passed on by him. For God's sake. Wasn't there anyone a stir in New York tonight but bulls? The clerk handed him a letter and a telegram. The letter was from Betty, and he thrust it into his pocket. He knew what was in it, one long pathetic plea to quit it before they got him, and a lot of superstitious talk about the thing. He tore open the telegram. He knew by heart the three or four code-words incorporated. As he read, the letters staggered and ran into unintelligible streak. They rited himself, and he read it again. Dan taken into Lido. More Houdin's work. Houdin in New York. The gat felt warm. He took off his coat and threw it over his arm. In doing so, he slid something from it into his trouser pocket. He turned to the clerk, cleared his throat, and made a second attempt to speak. Bar opened, closed as at one, maybe even get in. The bar was deserted, save for one somewhat crumpled customer, in evening coat and hat, leaning heavily against the rail at the far end. The gat scarcely noticed him. Most of the lights were out, for which he was glad. Perhaps the bartender wouldn't notice how hard it was for him to hold a glass of three-star steady. He raised it toward his lips. A glass crashed at the end of the bar. A bartender swore at his clumsy customer. Part of the gat's liquor splashed on the bar. There was scarcely enough left to moisten his throat. As he started into the elevator, he heard a rubber-soled step behind him, and simultaneously felt a touch on his arm. His hand shot to his right trouser pocket as he whirled. A bell-boy handed him his key. "He left it at the desk," the boy explained. At the second floor he left the elevator and plunged down the hall. The dim green glow barely lighted the hall with its ghostly hue. His room was just around the corner in the next hall. With head down he swept around and smashed into something. His hat fell to the floor. He swore viciously as he kicked shut the linen closet door which had been left carelessly open. The gat laughed nervously as he picked up his hat and strode onto his own room. The key rattled in the lock as he inserted it. He stepped aside and pulled the door shut quickly behind him as if pursued. He was in total darkness. He recalled turning out the lights that evening when he left the room and knew the position of the buttons. With his hat in his right hand he extended his left before him along the wall. His tremulous fingers found the top button. He pressed it. For an interminable second he stood rigid with a hellish terror. He felt his flesh creep, his scalp itch and shift, and his eyes burst. Merciful instant guided his fingers to the other button. He plunged the room in darkness but the positive after image of something. Something with a hand pointed straight at him. With a wide expanse of white shirt front smeared on one side with a vivid stain the size of a man's three fingers remained for a second. Instinct, training, and a melting spine contributed to the gat's quick squat. Hunched low across the floor he waited for the flash of a gun to give him a mark for his own. He did not come. Not a sound came. Many a seconds passed while Tardy Reason tried to reach his panicked wits. He knew he was mortally afraid but he was sober. He had taken but one drink and spilled most of that. This he had just seen was miles from here, dead. He had stabbed it to death. That shirt front was the bloodiest thing he had ever seen. Baa, it was time to quit the murdering business when a little blood could so stir up the imagination. Imagination. No, bye. He knew when he saw a thing once before in his life he had thought he imagined seeing something but a man had fallen when he shot. Should he shoot now? What at? Deadman don't travel miles across city blocks. Deadman's ghosts may. Betty believed in ghosts. She had told him that he would someday, that the thing would get him. Betty must be right for when you have killed a man and his ghosts beat you to your room. But you see ghosts in the dark, not in lighted rooms. He could see it now. It was no ghost then. It was something else, unutterable, unthinkable, closing in on him, perhaps. With this terrorizing impression the gat's last nerve cell exploded, and every fiber of his being impelled him to flight. He grasped and turned the knob behind him as he rose, sprang backward into the hall, and jerked the door closed. He turned, and again the breath caught in his throat, and he stiffened and swayed. Not three feet from him, in the green ghost light from the globe above, stood a grinning apparition. Something an evening close, with a wide expanse of white shirt-front smeared, with a dark splotch. That was all the gat saw. Through his blinding fright he did not recognize the intemperate patron of the bar-room of a few minutes before. He did not notice that the damp ashes from a slobber-soaked cigar, dangling from the maudlin' mouth, had blackened the inebriate's shirt-front. Neither did he see the sudden, sobered look of appeal, nor hear the pitiful cry for mercy as, crazed with a fear that knew no reason, he fired full into the breast of the helpless creature before him. As though the report of the gun had an awakening effect upon his paralyzed senses, the gat came back to the actual. With a horror upon him, he whirled and ran in the opposite direction. No other intersecting halls appearing, he was brought up at a closed window. Forcing this up, he peered into the semi-darkness, only to discern a sheer wall below and one opposite, neither of which offered any means of escape. He heard the rattle of the elevator ascending, and calculated his half-minute of time. Desperately he tried door after door to find them all fast. As the elevator stopped, heads began to appear through the doors down the hall. The gat recognized the house detective as the latter stepped around the corner with gun projected. Both weapons exploded, and the detective swung half around. In the instant that the gat withheld a second shot, to note the effect of his first, he was lost. A door swung open just behind him. For he could turn, a heavy form was hurled against him, and a pair of hard arms encircled him. Chewing curses, he fought insanely with a man in pajamas, but, taken behind, his arms were locked. As he tried to bring his automatic into line with the detective, who had started forward again, it was knocked from his hand by another ally in pajamas. The hall was full of people. He was tripped to the floor, and the detective, with a pale face and limp arm, was standing over him. Still sticky, with one crime, the gat was caught with the damning evidence of another thick about him. Other officers arrived, and he was taken down to the hotel office. A sergeant recognized him. "I think who Dean would like to know about this," the sergeant said, and went into a telephone booth. He came out shortly and addressed another officer. "I thought so, who Dean was to see him here. He was just called on another case, but will be down on the wagon from headquarters." The gat, huddled in a big chair, wrists locked, and an officer beside him, heard but evidence no interest. He was dazed and nauseated, like a patient from an operating room with an aesthetic still clouding his mind. His terrible fear, the more tormenting because he could not induce or define it, had gone, but had left him weak and beaten. His one vivid impression of all that had transpired was a spectral something in his room which had driven from him his last reserve of reason, and brought this ruin upon him. The coroner had arrived and was attending to the removal of the body when Houdine appeared. The detective came straight to the gat, and surveyed him deliberately. At sight of him something in the old gats and taganism awakened, and with it just a flash of his old courage. He faced the detective squarely for a minute. At last was Houdine's curt and only comment. He turned to the house detective who was having a slight wound on his arm dressed. "What happened?" he asked. The officer reported it briefly. The gat had come in the hotel, gone to the bar, then upstairs. In a few minutes Whitney, a notorious but harmless character, and a permanent guest at the hotel, had gone up, a little more illuminated than usual. A shot had followed almost immediately. The battle in the hall was described. Whitney was unarmed, hadn't an enemy in the world to anyone's knowledge, and no reason could be a scribe for the shooting. Houdine turned to the gat fiercely. "Why'd you shoot Whitney?" he snapped. I didn't mutter the gat his tone and manner rendering the wretched denial convincing only as to its untruth. "All right," replied Houdine. Then he continued less severely. "This isn't like you, gat, to be caught so far away from an alibi. There's something behind it. What's the matter with you? Lost your mind, or your nerve, or both?" There was nothing left for the gat to build courage on. There, discussed, self-pity welled up, and mixed in his mind, and impaled him to impetuous speech. "That's it, Houdine, my nerves busted. I'm a yellow-spined coward. I was scared. Afraid. I—afraid of what?" cut in Houdine eagerly. "That's it. What? I don't know. You lie. You do know." Houdine was driving him. The gat shook his head distressily. "You'd been at something else. That's why you were afraid." Houdine was conferring the third now. He was bent over the gat, watching his every expression, and reading behind his eyes. "Tell what you know about the killing on Fifty-First and Fifth Avenue tonight. Henshin. Tell it, I say." The gat, a professional gunman, and even in his fallen estate still proud of his special difficulty, spoke too eagerly. "Ever hear of me using a knife?" Houdine smiled and straightened up. "Who told you a knife was used?" he shot at him. "The papers, the police!" countered the gat desperately. "You sure fell out of bed that time, gat?" replied Houdine. "The papers haven't got it yet. These officers don't know it. A servant found Hichins less than thirty minutes ago. They had just phoned me about it when I heard you were caught. Somehow I thought so. That's why I came up here first." The gat relaxed and sank further into his seat. Honor hopelessness dulled his eyes. "You can't put me in the chair but once," he faltered, offering at the same time his only rebuttal and consolation. "That's right, gat. Too bad," replied Houdine, a little pity, replacing his elation at having so successfully maneuvered a confession. Houdine turned to an officer. "We'll go up and take a look at his room. Bring him along." On the elevator, Houdine, looking at the prisoner's shirt front, said, "Ben drinking, haven't you? Looks like you spilled some booze on your shirt here." The gat looked down. A large stain, the size of a man's three fingers, soiled the left side of his shirt. He raised his manicled hands to the spot, then placed his fingers to his nostrils. "Brande," he said, "had one drink and spilled it." Two officers, the hotel clerk and Houdine, took the gat to his room. The clerk unlocked the door, stepped into the room and snapped on the light. He stood to one side and left the other's pass. The gat, coming next, suddenly stopped. "Go on," ordered the policeman. "Wait a minute," replied the gat, staring straight ahead of him. The others hesitated. "Unlock my hands for a minute," the gat requested of the officer. "No tricks." The policeman looked at Houdine. The detective nodded his head, interested in the proceeding. The officer unlocked the cuffs. The gat freed his left hand, stepped back a pace, and extended his left arm along the wall to the position of the light buttons. Across the room, directly opposite the door, was a tall closed cabinet. The door of it was a full-length mirror. Into this the gat was staring. He saw reflected a man in evening dress, his arms pointing straight out in the direction of the door where they stood. A wide expanse of white shirt-front was reflected on the right side of which was a dark stain, the size of a man's three fingers. For a second the gat stood thus, then, with a thin laugh, turned and extended both hands to be cuffed again, remarking, "That's the first time a drink applied externally ever made me see things." "What's the big idea?" asked Houdine. "I know now what I have been afraid of all evening," replied the gat, wierly. "What?" queried Houdine, "myself," and again the gat left thinly. The end of the gat by Clyde B. Wilson. 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