“Now come across, Belknap. Talk. Or shall we run you up to town for that? Room 27 at Headquarters is a fine place to talk. As you should know.”
Belknap, examining his folded hands with meticulous interest, spoke sidewise through a lifted corner of his mouth.
“Can the rough stuff, Berry. It won’t get you anywhere with me, as you should know. What’s eating you? Curiosity? Yes, I killed ’em. Do I have to say it? Oh, don’t let it worry your poor weak intellect that you haven’t the right man. You have. How many did I murder? I lost count. You add ’em up. And don’t for God’s sake ask me why. Why the Hell! Look in that rotten little Diary there. It’ll tell you why and then some. One of us had to wipe out the litter before it hatched; to make his world safe—for crime. I got in my licks first, that’s all.” Belknap would have made a waving gesture with his right hand but was checked by its anchorage to his left. “Let’s clear out of this,” he cried. “I expect you’re champing at the bit to drag me at your chariot wheels through the streets of Rome. Well, do it and be damned. Only get it over.” Belknap’s eyes, a little sunken in their heavily shadowed sockets, gleamed feverishly. The lines in his face had deepened. He looked his age. “When, may I ask, did you catch the cat out of my bag? I hadn’t a notion I’d let it out. Thought I had it pretty well sewed in. Like the Little Red Hen you must have left a stone in its place. Or she did, the vixen. I should have marked the extra weight. Christ, the mess I’ve made of the perfect crime; all in my best tradition. And I had it on toast but for playing with fire. The utter fool I was to take her into my game when I already had her so neatly fitted to my boots. Just as I fitted Violet Mowbray to Blake’s, and Durgin to Allan Galt’s, and Thane to— Take her away,” he shouted suddenly, hoarsely, half rising to his feet. “In God’s name why leave the carrion about! Get her false face to Hell out of here or I’ll—”
Berry came close to Belknap. His face was white. He gripped the sides of the table between them till the knuckles of his hands shone; and in a level, hard voice spoke into Belknap’s eyes and teeth.
“Keep quiet, and listen to me for a change! You’ll take a page from my book now. I’m not a proud man, or a boastful one, Ordway Belknap, one-time Judge, and one-time detective, but this here is a haul of mine, and you know it. For once in a lifetime I had a hunch. From the crack of the whip this morning I had you on the list. As a guest in this house last night. Don’t you see what a difference that makes in the point of view? You came here too early for safety, my boy, and you’re leaving here too late. It may be true I didn’t downright suspect you until Mdevani and Lacey caught onto something at sight of your black number on the wall. But then it took a psychologist (and that’s my strong point) to figure why they were keeping their mouths shut. One was scared of her life of you; and the other cared about you. Right? After that I found the extra bullet. And I knew right then, as well as you did, that neither would fit the Mdevani weapon. We’ll prove tomorrow, when it won’t matter a hoot, that they both fit this little gun of yours.” Berry picked up Belknap’s 22 and dropped it again with a clatter that echoed in the tense stillness of the listening room. Berry was decidedly working himself into a heat. “Then Lacey remembered the Mowbray name—and I saw why the poor little actress had to be bumped off. She was the only one of your morning’s bag I had to find your motive for. Blake had to go because he was so much a part of your most recent legal crime. Yours and the Judge’s.”
“Bit off there,” Belknap hissed, his face dark and threatening, close to Berry’s. “I can’t have you imputing motives. I collided with him in the dark last night. He knew what we both were after—and that I got it. So I got him.”
“Aha! That’s the way the wind blew, is it? And after that you strangled the baby doll—”
“Before, as it happens.”
“Well, before. A Hell of a lot of difference it makes when you did it. Too bad I had to come barging in just about then, before you’d finished off your Damon and Pythias friend. Guess Whittaker threw his dice so you’d play the villain’s part all along. He had it in for you, to my way of thinking. Clever idea your wall-hole and the planted gun. But a bit out of the reckoning that your first shot missed. However, I’d have got you anyway, one shot or two. The holes, by the way, reminded your girl-friend that she’d once interrupted your investigation in this room at an embarrassing moment. She lit the Murad, I understand. Miss Lacey was also reminded that you mysteriously emerged from no man’s land when she was here in the night. Whereupon it ceased to be no man’s land. And don’t think I missed the little by-play when you tried to convince Miss Mdevani she hadn’t done what she knew she did—put that carnation in your buttonhole. She was too keen to try that kind of trick on. I don’t know when you made up your mind to lay the whole pack of crimes at her door. But I suppose you rifled her room of her gun and handkerchief for the express purpose. Damn lucky for you she came across with the Blake order for you to sprinkle about. And the drug for Crawford, for you to exchange en passant. God, you’re a beast. Worse than they come. Why Crawford? Just because it clinched the case against her? His death to insure hers? And all the time making eyes at the woman you were playing for a sucker. Well, don’t ever kid yourself you succeeded in putting it over on her. She was watching you cut your own throat. Only wasn’t helping give you away until she had to. Until it was your life or hers. But with you determined to make it hers she still had enough guts left to outplay you. For she has outplayed you. Dead as she lies on that floor, God rest her soul, she’s better off than you are. No, Dorn was your best bet for a double if you had to have one. You should have stuck to someone who couldn’t defend himself.”
“Defend himself!” Belknap laughed ferociously, breathing hard. “Dorn defend himself! It is to laugh! About as much chance of his coming back to—”