Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 31, No. 1 — January, 1948)

I looked at Norris. “Well, that’s that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your daughter’s death closes the case, doesn’t it?”

“Why?” he grated.

“Look,” I said, “I didn’t have a chance in a thousand on this case from the beginning. You wouldn’t see that and your stubbornness has ruined whatever chances I did have. I’ve been stumbling around in circles ever since you tricked me into coming out here.”

“Tricked you?” Norris sneered. “Are you sure it wasn’t the money I offered you?”

I gritted my teeth. “I’ll admit that a five thousand dollar bonus is a lot of money,” I said. “But if you will remember, your letter stated that you wanted me to ‘conduct a little business investigation’ for you. You hinted broadly that I ought to be able to clean it up in a week and I had nothing to lose. But for pete’s sake!” I exploded. “A dope ring!”

I counted off on my fingers. “Mistake number one — the Feds. They’ve got a nationwide organization and they work at their business twenty-four hours a day. You won’t even let me talk to their local agent. You read a news story about me in an L.A. paper and immediately decide that with your brains and my experience we can do a job the Feds can’t do.”

“Apparently I was mistaken about your contribution.”

“You can save the sarcasm. I told you what we were up against before we started.” I held up a second finger. “Number two — the Honolulu police. At least, they know the local situation. You’ve got one guy down here, the Lieutenant Chun I was telling you about, who’s hotter than a dime store pistol. I’d like to meet the guy even if it was only to swap lies. But you didn’t like the idea.

“Number three, and worst of all — your daughter. There was a chance I could have gotten a description of the guy who peddled the stuff to her. Maybe I could have slapped some information out of him, maybe not. But you thought you could handle that end. You didn’t, and I never talked to her. It’s a wonder you didn’t make it really tough and not allow me to look at a map of the city.”

Norris mumbled: “Perhaps I deserve all you’ve said.”

He seemed to be apologizing. I said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rub it in.”

Norris waved that aside. “I’ve got an easier job for you now. I want you to find my daughter’s murderer.”

“Huh?”

He pointed to the automatic lying on the floor. “That gun is Jennifer’s. But it wasn’t in this house until the moment before it was used to kill her. She told me herself, months ago, that she had lost it. She didn’t know where. When we first discovered her condition and called in Dr. Wolsey, I had this house searched from top to bottom. There were no guns here. Furthermore, though Jennifer’s condition had improved enough not to require the services of a night nurse, the day nurse searches this room carefully before she goes off duty. The main reason for the search was to see that Jennifer didn’t have access to drugs other than those Dr. Wolsey was administering. But she was instructed to remove anything that Jennifer might conceivably use as a weapon against herself.”

“How did you work that?”

“We made no bones about it. Jennifer watched and she approved. Thanks to Dr. Wolsey, she was on the road to recovery and she didn’t want to take chances any more than we did.”

I went over and tried the balcony doors. They were locked. I said: “Wolsey said the room was locked.”

Norris nodded. “We always kept the doors locked from the outside when no one was in the room with her. If she wanted anything, she could ring. The nurse or the servants would hear it during the day and I would hear it in my room at night.”

“When you came upstairs after hearing the shot, did you have to unlock the bedroom door?”

“Yes.”

“But anyone else could have done the same thing before you did?”

“There was no one else in the house. And no one could have gone up the stairs without being seen by the three of us through the open library door.”

“What about back stairs?”

“There are no back stairs leading onto that hallway.”

I looked at him impatiently. “You still say it’s murder?”

Norris turned and beckoned me to follow. He led the way down the hall and into the adjoining room. “My room,” he said, “and the only other room opening onto this balcony.” The balcony doors were closed but unlocked. We went out and along the balcony to Jennifer’s room. I saw that the key was in the door on the outside. “I left it there for convenience,” Norris said. “I had no idea her life was in danger.” He leaned across the balcony rail and patted the thick gray trunk of a coco palm which curved upward, grazing the balcony. “When Jennifer was in her late teens and retired to her room, ostensibly to study, she locked the door and scrambled down this tree to see her young men.” His mouth twisted sadly. “Another of my failures as a parent. Any reasonably athletic youngster could reach the balcony by climbing that tree.”