Howdy, folks! Happy Independence Day! This is the grand finale of Murder by Installment, so enjoy the fireworks!
Episode 22
“I don’t care why you brought her, Slade. If this ungrateful little bitch of mine is the one who poisoned me—” the feeble old sufferer roared, showing a glimpse of the powerful bull industrialist who had made the name of Brazelton great, and something to be feared. A palsied claw dug under the pillow of the big four-poster bed and came out with a gun.
It was a beautiful thing, one of the new Smith & Wesson .357 Magnums. This one positively glowed with bright nickel plating, with intricate scrollwork on the long barrel and massive cylinder. The liver spotted hand gripped ivory stocks. I didn’t have time to be admiring fine firearms, though. The muzzle wavered from Claire Brazelton, the old bull’s daughter, to me and back again.
I didn’t want to see her perforated; she was a lovely young lady, in spite of all the trouble she’d caused me over the last twelve hours. Even less did I want one of those overpowered magnum slugs blasting through my own brisket, for reasons I’m sure you can imagine.
“Brazelton, listen to me. I’m saying she didn’t do it.”
The muzzle of the heavy revolver started to droop. Before it subsided entirely though, Claire put her oar in. “Maybe I should have. ‘Ungrateful little bitch,’ indeed. Thank you so much, Father dear.”
“You never wanted one thing I could give you! Always with the books and the potions, test tubes and bunsen burners!”
“So what makes you think I want your moldy old money so much I’d kill you for it now?”
“You’ve hated me for years. It’s plain.”
She flared anew. “I’ve never hated you, Father. I hate what you’ve become. You think that just because you’ve made some money selling your canvas, that gives you the right to rule the world!”
“I don’t hanker to rule the world. Just Philadelphia,” he muttered.
“You and Kavanaugh. Plotting. Scheming. Corrupting.”
“Corrupting? Hell, girl, this town was corrupt long before I got here. But what do you know about Kavanaugh?”
“What don’t I know about him, that’s more the question.”
“If you’re gonna come in here and hint at—”
“I’m not hinting! I’m saying it right out!”
“Well then say it! Land’s sake, girl…”
“Mr Brazelton,” I cut in. “Haven’t you wondered at Kavanaugh? Just a few years ago, he was a jumped up bag man. Now he’s got the club, the fancy estate out in Chestnut Hill, the big cars, the men…”
“So what?”
“So he’s been the go-between. Taking money, and orders, from you and the other mill owners and magnates and pulling the levers down at city hall. The puppet-master. But he’s tired of dancing to your tune. Now he’s cutting the strings.”
“What do you mean, cutting the strings?”
“He doesn’t want to be a gopher for the money men all his life. He’s been siphoning off cash for years. After all, who’s going to audit bribe money? Now he thinks he’s set. He doesn’t want you and your Union League pals bossing him any more. He wants the strings in his own hands.”
The old man just sat there. The soft bed, in the richly appointed room, in the millionaire’s row mansion all seemed to fade away from the skeletal figure. Like so much else, the beauty and power of the magnum revolver that lay in his lap faded into irrelevance.
“Kavanaugh’s a tool,” he croaked at last.
“Tools turn on their wielders all the time. Knives slip. Hammers miss their mark. Just think of your own mills. All the missing fingers on the kids who work your machines.” I’d been one of those kids, many years before. I clenched my fist, what was left of it, behind my back.
“You’re saying he’s the one who poisoned me?”
“Not just you. Have you read the paper lately? The obits are like a who’s who of Philly society. It’s an unhealthy time to be a rich man in this city.”
“So what’s with her?” He twitched the muzzle of the shiny pistol to indicate his daughter. “Why’s she here?”
“I made the same mistake you did. I thought, ‘If you wanna find a murderer, see who stands to gain.’ But when I met her, I became rapidly unconvinced. But before I could move on, investigate somebody else, she was snatched. Right off the street, where I’d been talking to her. Partly because she seemed like a stand up dame, and partly because a man can’t let something like that stand, not if he wants to get on in this town, especially not in the circles I move in, I figured to get her back. Took some doin’; I played hell all night, but here she is. And I managed to figure out a few things, along the way.”
“Snatch? Who snatched her? Why?” A little bit of paternal feeling showed in his anger, now.
“Kavanaugh’s goons. I traced them to his speak downtown, then out to his big house in Chestnut Hill. As to why, I’d best let the lady tell it. Lady?”
“He might have gotten the idea for the poison from me, originally.”
“What? You told him how to—”
“No, that’s not what I said. Angelo Sabatini, one of his men, although I didn’t know he worked for Kavanaugh at the time, asked me out. It was an interesting lecture, one that I’d wanted to go to. I was happy to have an escort.”
“What was this lecture about?”
“Radium. They were discussing some of the unhealthy side effects in the girls who paint the stuff onto watch-dials.”
“And this Sabatini character wanted to go to a lecture?”
“He’d been a student at the university, but I found out that he’d failed for a reason. I had to explain the lecture to him, like to a kindergartener. Not university material at all.”
“But you explained to him all about the radium, is that it?” I asked.
“Right.”
“And now millionaires are dropping like flies, all up and down the Row.”
“That’s right. He wanted to know if I’d told you, or Father for that matter, anything. I hadn’t. I don’t follow the obituaries as a rule, and haven’t really moved in society in years.”
“The guilty flee where no man pursueth. Pretty sure I read that somewhere.”
“Mister Slade, you seem to have handled this case remarkably well. Thornycroft tells me you left quite an arsenal downstairs. Would you like to finish it off? Put an end to Kavanaugh once and for all? It would pay well.” He laid the Registered Magnum aside, and reached for the rich man’s real weapon, a checkbook. “Very well indeed.”
“No, sir. Just what we agreed on. I’m lots of things, most of them bad. But I ain’t no assassin.”
He scribbled angrily. “Take it and be damned to you, then.” He handed me the check, then roared, “THORNYCROFT!”
The butler appeared so quickly, he must have been waiting just outside.
“See this man out. His business is through here.”
“Yes, Mr. Brazelton.”
“Don’t bother, Thornycroft,” Claire said. She linked her arm through mine. “I’ll take him out, myself.”
