The Memorial Hall Murder (27 page)

Vick shook her head and shrugged her shoulders and followed him out into the hall to get her books. But then it occurred to her that carbon monoxide was as odorless as it was poisonous. She ran back into Mr. Crawley's office, unlocked the window, threw it open, hurried out into the hall, slammed the door, locked it, picked up her book bag, marched into the great hall, found a table under the balcony, and sat down. Taking a sandwich out of her book bag, she began flipping through her chemistry textbook.

Mr. Crawley's assistant walked along the basement corridor until he found the boarded entry to the subbasement. Cradling the tank carefully in his hands, he looked at the boards he had hammered back into place so securely. On the other side of the boards the stairs led down to a door against which the litter from the explosion was piled high. And behind the door … The question was, had the administered dose been enough to do the job? He wasn't sure how much of the stuff it would take. Did that room at the bottom of the stairs still harbor a very stubborn rat? Probably not. The man was surely dead by now. Dead as a doornail. But what if one had miscalculated again? It was better to be sure. He must be ready to finish the job. To provide that extra increment of security. To be thoroughgoing. Again it was just a matter of thoroughness and economy of means. It would be wise to prepare his equipment. Readiness was all.

One only had to know where. And he did. He knew precisely where to place his material, at the four corners of the tower, high on the basement walls, hidden in the forest of pipes that ran along the ceiling. He was pleased to observe that after all these years he still had an instinct for the job. (Well, it was an instinct based on a hell of a lot of experience). And then he would only need to lay a single wire. The stuff was right there in the closet where he kept his change of clothing: He would take care of that part of the job right now. And then later on if there was any need, he would be ready at a moment's notice with the control switch. The switch was one of those clever little wireless gadgets the size of a man's hand. It had belonged to his nephew George. Poor feckless simple-minded George! The boy was his mother's despair. He would never make it to any institution of higher learning, never mind Harvard. Flying model airplanes was the only thing the poor kid cared about at all. Well, for once it was a good thing. The shaft of the rudder servo from one of George's old kits would turn at a flick of the transmitter switch and connect the battery with the detonator. The wretched boy was about to be of some unwitting service to the world at last.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Homer woke up smiling. A little nap always made him feel like a newborn babe. He sat up and looked around the empty forest of Sanders Theatre. His watch said one o'clock. He still didn't feel like going home. He decided to go downstairs where the Rats lived and find somebody to talk to. His nap had made him feel friendly and talkative, eager for the society of his fellow man.

The first person Homer ran into downstairs in the basement was a chap who was fixing something behind a door. Jolly-looking feet were sticking out of the doorway. Some competent fellow was down on his knees doing something in the corner.
Bzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzz.
Whine of electric drill.

“Hello, there,” said Homer, all geniality and willingness to serve. “Do you want some help? I'd be glad to lend a hand.”

The feet jerked, but they stayed behind the door. “Just rewiring in here,” mumbled the person attached to the feet. “Putting in more outlets. Old building. Not enough electrical outlets anyplace down here.”

Homer poked his head around the door. It was Mr. Crawley's right-hand mail again, drilling a hole in the baseboard. A great coil of black cable lay on the floor beside him. He had his back to Homer. He didn't look up. He just went right on drilling the hole. “Oh, say,” said Homer helpfully, “I don't know if you noticed it, but there's an outlet a couple of feet down the wall. See there? You've got your drill plugged into it.”

“Wrong voltage,” mumbled Crawley's assistant.

“Oh, I see,” said Homer, who didn't know voltage from wattage, or AC from DC. “Well, if you need any help, just holler.” He backed out of the room again and tripped over the cable, which ran out the door and down the hall. Homer followed the cable to Mr. Proctor's room. Mr. Proctor's door was open. Mr. Proctor was sitting in an upholstered chair reading the paper and eating a bowl of soup. “Mind if I come in?” said Homer. “Mmmmm, doesn't that smell delicious.”

“Oh, come right in, Professor Kelly.” Mr. Proctor was delighted. “Won't you join me? Just canned soup, I'm afraid.” He stood up and waved Homer into the chair.

“Oh, no,” said Homer, “I couldn't take your chair.”

“Oh, that's quite all right. I'll just sit on the bed.” Mr. Proctor took a pan of steaming soup off his electric hot plate and poured another bowl for Homer.

“My, my, doesn't that look good. Say, isn't this a nice room you've got here.”

“Oh, yes, we're very comfortable down here. I've even got a window. See my window? I can watch the world go by. Nice and warm. All the comforts of home.”

“You bet,” said Homer. “Nice lamps and everything. A hot plate. Is that new wire going to come in here? No, I guess you have enough outlets already. Plenty of voltage of one kind and another, right?”

“Yes, sir. I'm just as comfortable as a bug in a rug.”

Homer chatted with Mr. Proctor until he had finished his bowl of soup and eaten several large sticky buns, and then he said good-bye and wandered upstairs and out of the door at the northwest corner of the basement and in again by way of the cloister porch into the great hall.

At first Homer was blinded by the broad column of colored light falling across the dusty air from the high west window over his head, spreading out in an immense pattern on the floor. But then the dim hollows of the enormous room revealed themselves, and he saw a little figure staring at him far, far away at the other end. It was Vick Van Horn, sitting at a table under the balcony, studying her chemistry. The crazy kid. She'd wear herself out. She was standing up, calling to him.

“What's that?” shouted Homer. “Wait a minute.” He galloped the full length of the hall, while Vick put her hands to her mouth like a megaphone and kept right on talking at the top of her lungs and gesturing, but the sound of her voice kept ricocheting all over the room. “I'm sorry,” said Homer, pulling up a chair and sitting down on the other side of the table. “What did you say?”

“I said, don't you think carbon monoxide is dangerous stuff? I've been reading about it in my chemistry textbook. It's really terrible. What's Mr. Crawley's assistant doing with carbon monoxide in Memorial Hall?”

“Carbon monoxide? Mr. Crawley's assistant?”

“He was in Mr. Crawley's office a little while ago. He had a tank of carbon monoxide. He drilled a hole in one of the pipes and he was putting it into the pipe. But I think that's just an incredibly dangerous thing to do, don't you? The stuff could go all over the building. He said he was exterminating a rat downstairs. But he shouldn't be running around loose with a tank of carbon monoxide, sticking it into a pipe like that, should he?”

Homer frowned. “I saw him just now. He was downstairs drilling another hole.” Homer looked at Vick thoughtfully. “You know, the man gives me the heebie-jeebies. Who is he anyway? Another one of Ham's Rats?”

“No, I don't think so. I mean, I'm not sure. I never laid eyes on him until after Ham was gone. Doesn't he work here? I thought he was Mr. Crawley's assistant. You know, you never see Mr. Crawley doing any work himself. I thought this guy was Mr. Crawley's second in command or something.”

“Well, let's see if Crawley's back in his office and ask him.”

Mr. Crawley was back. He was angry. “The place is a refrigerator. I had this funeral to go to, see, so what happens behind my back? Somebody gets in here and opens the window. What's the big idea?”

“It was me,” said Vick. “The room was full of gas. Your assistant was doing something to the pipe.”

“My assistant? I don't have no assistant.”

“But, Mr. Crawley,” said Homer, “what about that man who goes around here cleaning the halls and fixing things up? Isn't he your assistant?”

“Oh, you mean that old guy? Oh, sure. Well, you know. I let him hang around. I mean, a poor old guy like that. I let him think he's being a big help. He don't do no harm.”

Homer drew Vick out of the room and closed the door softly. His cheery mood had vanished. “Listen here, Vick, I'm worried about that guy with the broom. He's up to no good. What in the name of God was he trying to do with the carbon monoxide but poison everybody in the building? Those pipes go all over the place. I saw the chart of all those plumbing and ventilating pipes in Mr. Maderna's office. The man must be mad. What on earth do you suppose he's up to? I'll find him. I'll get a straight answer this time. He says he's putting new electrical outlets in the basement. But that's not what he's doing. There are plenty of outlets in the basement. Maybe he's planning to flood the whole place with poison gas.”

But Mr. Crawley's assistant was not in the basement. Homer looked up and down the hall outside the doorway where he had seen the man working half an hour before. “Hey, you,” he shouted.

There was no answer. The man was gone. They looked for him up and down the basement corridors, then went upstairs and ransacked Sanders Theatre and looked around once again in the memorial corridor and the great hall.

“He must have gone away,” said Vick, after Homer came out of the men's room and shook his head at her. “And we don't even know his name.”

“I don't like this at all,” said Homer gloomily. “There's something very strange and unpleasant about it. I think we need help. A whole lot of help. Right now. Look here, I want you to call up everybody you can think of, and get them back here. Immediately. But the first person I need is that chemist. What's his name? Flynn. Charley Flynn. I've got to be sure the place isn't roiling and boiling with poisonous fumes. Do you know how I can get hold of Charley Flynn?”

“That's easy. He's my chem lab instructor. He practically lives in Mallinckrodt. Try the office there. I'll get busy on the others right away.”

“Get hold of my wife first, would you? I'll use the pay phone. You can use the one in Crawley's office. And if he objects, just yell, and I'll come in and knock him down. It would be a pleasure. A service to mankind.”

Charlie Flynn came over with a pump and a plastic bag and took a sample of the gas in the pipe back to the infrared spectro-photometer in his laboratory. A few minutes later he, came running back into Mr. Crawley's office. “It was there alright,” he said. “Carbon monoxide dissipates quickly, but there must have been more than enough to kill a whole mess of rats.” Charley looked at Homer soberly. “Are you sure the man isn't still in the building?”

“The tower,” said Homer. “What if he got up in the tower? The place is one huge jungle of ventilating pipes. All those air-conditioning ducts from Sanders Theatre.”

“All those people,” said Charley Flynn, “coming to the concert this evening. Just five or six hours from now. If this nut decided to pipe carbon monoxide into the air-conditioning system in Sanders Theatre, he could kill a thousand people. Look, we've got to get up there and take a look.”

“Right,” said Homer. “We'll start right now. Say, Mr. Crawley, have you got a key? You know, another one of those master keys?”

“Well, I don't know.” Mr. Crawley shook his head. “I've only got a few left. I'm not giving out no more keys.”

“The hell you're not.” Homer shoved Mr. Crawley against the wall. Mr. Crawley whimpered, and turned over his entire collection of keys. Homer put them in his pocket and strode out of the office.

He found Vick marshaling her forces in the hall. She had collected Mary Kelly and half the chorus and most of the orchestra. Mrs. Esterhazy had brought her two little boys. Jane Plankton was dithering with excitement, eager to help out.

Homer quickly began sorting them into search parties. “Vick, you and Mary take a bunch of people downstairs and search the basement. Every single cubbyhole and room down there. Here, I've got a bunch of extra keys. Now, who wants to go upstairs with Charley and me to search the tower?”

“Me, me.” Putzi and Siegfried Esterhazy were jumping up and down.

“No, no,” thundered Mrs. Esterhazy. “You vould fall down and be keeled.”

“Me,” squealed Betsy, beaming at Charley Flynn.

“Me,” growled Tim, glowering at Betsy.

“Well, all right, then,” said Homer. “Come on, you people. Good Lord, Charley, I've just thought of something. What if he comes in from outside?”