Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1942)

I couldn't speak. "I appreciate what you're trying to accomplish," he said. "Personally, I never did think you were guilty. None of us did." I started for the window. "I'm sorry I bothered you." "It's all right. Need any dough?" "I could use some," I said. Robin picked up his wallet, flipped it open and took out all that was there. It amounted to forty dollars. "Good luck," he said. I drove the car down around the hills and on to Cahuenga. I kept driving. I meant to turn back but I kept driving. San Fernando fell behind me. The car ate up the black asphalt highway. My mind was turning the whole thing over. There were two of Ed Cornell's clues that bothered me. Vicky's shoe somebody had stood on and crushed. The cigarette that had been smashed out in the closet. Somebody had been hidden in the closet when she and Robin came in. Who? It had narrowed down to this. The answer of this one question contained the solution. I was suddenly possessed with the notion that I knew it. THE town of Doris in California is near ' the state line. It is a small town, and in the hotel where I had a room it was very hot. But I didn't spend much time in the hotel. Through the long days I stopped every person I met and asked endless questions. I didn't look at newspapers. I didn't want to know what they were doing with Jill. I couldn't stand to know. At the end of the first week I found him. It was on a Saturday night and it was raining very hard. He lived in a ranch house ten miles out of town. I stood there at the door and rapped my knuckles against it. After a long time the door opened and a woman peered out. She was withered, but very hard, with sharp, ugly little eyes. "What is it you want?" "I came to see Bill Hunter." "Who are you?" "I'm a friend of his from Doris." She opened the door. "Come in, then. He's there in the living room." I came in and she closed the door. He was sitting next to an open fire. He turned and looked up at me. "Hello, Harry Williams," I said. He stared at me. The old woman was his aunt and she was saying: "William gets in a lot of trouble at the pool room, don't you, William?" She talked to him as though he were not quite bright. But suddenly it struck her that I had spoken his real name, and she turned to me. "What did you call him?" "Harry Williams." "But he's not! How foolish! He's — " Harry Williams was on his feet. The big yellow eyes behind the thick-lens glasses were horrible. "Harry, who is this man?" she demanded. "He's from Hollywood," Williams said evenly. I watched him. "You killed Vicky, didn't you?" He didn't speak. "It was like this," I said. "When Lanny Craig left — you went back into the apartment to wait for Vicky." "Yeah," he said. "But you saw her coming in through the fire escape and Robin was with her. You weren't supposed to be hanging around in her apartment and you got scared. It was too late to make a break for the door — they'd have seen you. So you beat it into the bedroom. You hid in the closet! You smoked a cigarette in there and stood on one of her shoes." 62 "Yeah — yeah." "You heard her and Robin arguing. You heard the door slam when Robin left. You came out of the closet — " "CTAND clear, Harry!" ^ I turned. The old woman had a shotgun leveled at me. Harry saw it. "No! Don't! I'm not afraid." She lowered the gun but it was still pointed at me. "Go on," Harry Williams said. "When you're through — there's something I want to say." "You came out of the closet. Vicky saw you and screamed." "Yeah." "You were in love with her. You knew she'd signed a movie contract — was going to leave the apartment — " He nodded; now he began to talk. "Yeah. She screamed, and yelled at me to get out. Her screaming got me excited. I went a little crazy maybe — Latest figures on the Broadway stripteaser Ann Corio: She's making news in the newest Producers Releasing Corporation picture, "Swamp Woman" listen, here's what I told her — I swear I said, 'Vicky, you're going away. I want just one little kiss!' That's what I said." He was almost sobbing. "I only wanted one little kiss! But she kept screaming. "I had that big iron key ring," he went on, "the ring with passkeys; I had it in my hand. I don't know what happened. I must have hit her. She went limp in my arms. Her eyes fluttered closed. I ran out of the apartment. I got a freight train — I came back here to Doris. They hid me. We changed my name. You see — you see — " The old lady slammed the shotgun down across the table. She wasn't going to use it. "Harry, you're a fool!" "What's the difference?" he said. "The cops figured this all out. They just said lay low and don't talk about the murder. They understood how it was. This guy'll understand, too — " "What was it you said?" "I said the cops, they — " "Cops?" "Well, no — just one detective, by himself. I suppose he told the others how it was. He was a guy from L.A.. this detective. His name was — " It was noon. In Los Angeles the traffic was thick on the streets and the sidewalks were crowded with people. I was in an old hotel. I knocked at the door of a room. Then I went in. Ed Cornell looked up. "Hello, Operator Thirteen," I said. He wore white pajamas. In the shadow that fell across the room from the window his face was long and evil. He had cards laid out in a game of solitaire. His face was jaundiced, sickly — and I knew somehow that he was on his last legs. There were six different pictures of Vicky around the walls. They were largesize. In four of them she seemed to be looking at you. I felt cold. I remembered all the things Ed Cornell had said. Harry Williams couldn't be guilty. Jealousy was the only strong motive. Jealousy. Rank, bitter hatred. The blind obsession of a man about to die. With each day his hatred for me had grown. It was very clear now. For weeks he alone had been fully aware of the fact that Harry Williams was the murderer! It didn't matter! He arrested me for the murder while Williams' confession still rang in his ears! He knew what he was doing. It was not the law I was fleeing — but him. He had trumped up a case, manufactured evidence. And all the time he knew that Harry Williams was guilty. It was only in the very beginning that he must have honestly believed I was the killer. He was too good a detective to hold that opinion long. I HAD heard Vicky say months ago that ' Harry Williams had complained about his job and said he could always get employment in Doris, California. He was not overly bright but he realized that the police would find his home address without difficulty. The place in Doris was an ace up his sleeve; and this only because his cousin had recently dropped him a card to the effect that fruit pickers were needed up there. Probably a hundred such cards were sent out to every address the cousin could find. When the fruit is ripe, or a week or so earlier, certain ranchers do this. But for Harry Williams it was obscurity. He went to Doris, was welcomed by a shrewd, mean and lonely old woman. Ed Cornell, with only one possible clue — the post card from Harry's cousin, which might have been left in his room the night he fled — had journeyed alone to Doris, discovered Harry without difficulty, and heard his confession. And for what must have been the first time in Cornell's life — turned his back on a murderer. Cornell gambled on the chance that no one else would ever find Williams. At least, until after I'd been hanged. If he was discovered then — by accident some day — it was of no importance. Ed Cornell knew that his own days were numbered and he cared nothing for the fact that it would be revealed he had deliberately sent an innocent man to the gallows. But he wanted first the satisfaction of seeing me hang. His was the most fantastic game in the world: he wanted to commit a legal murder! Even now. with my appearance in this room, he labored under the impression that his plans were moving with flawless precision. He imagined that he had cornered me — that I was in a trap from which there was no possible escape. He laid the card down now. He sat very still. I heard the sound of the clock: and I could hear the downtown traffic. He (Continued on paae t'4 photoplay combined with movie mirror