The Burned Man Read online

  M. E. CHABER writing as CHRISTOPHER MONIG

  The burned corpse of a business tycoon and a four-and-a-half million dollar insurance payoff start investigator Brian Brett on an international journey to danger and intrigue.

  FOUR-AND-A-HALF MILLION DOLLARS...

  There’s a cruel and masterful criminal at work, and he’s not afraid to kill.

  MURDER...

  The action moves from New York to Tangiers to Paris, and the stakes are high: all that money, and a beautiful woman with whom Brian Brett just might be in love.

  A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN ...

  AND MURDER.

  The Burned Man

  M. E. CHABER

  CHRISTOPHER MONIG

  PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION First Printing: June, 1971

  Copyright © 1956 by Kendell Foster Crossen All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56-6308

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper or radio broadcast.

  This Paperback Library Edition is published by arrangement with E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc.

  Paperback Library is a division of Coronet Communications, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Paperback Library” accompanied by an open book, is registered in the United States Patent Office. Coronet Communications', Inc., 315 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Remember me a little then, I pray, The idle singer of an empty day.

  . . . William Morris

  PART I: New York

  FIRST INTERIOR

  The two men died without a struggle. The old man never knew what hit him. He was tired and it was merely another interruption of his rounds. He trudged over in response to the command and obediently leaned over to look at the lock that was supposed to be broken. The short club crushed his skull with a brittle, almost gentle sound.

  The younger man guessed at the last minute, but that was only because he'd spent two months wondering what was expected of him. He had anticipated every demand except death. Even then he might have guessed sooner, but he'd had a rough day. He’d been forced to go forty-eight hours without a drink. The last twelve hours had been sheer torture with no room in his brain for any thought except his single need. He’d stepped eagerly into the office because a drink had finally been promised. He’d seen the blow coming, but not in time. He didn’t really care. He didn’t mind dying; his only regret during the few seconds left him was that he didn’t have the drink first.

  The rest didn’t take long. The murderer had become a murderer before this and he wasted no time viewing his deeds. He emptied the cans of gasoline, careful to pour plenty over the second corpse. He knew that the detectives would probably learn easily that death had come before the fire, but he was indifferent to that probability.

  Starting in the office, the murderer walked through the factory and warehouse, methodically breaking windows so that there would be plenty of cross-drafts to whip the fire. He could have had someone else do all of this, but he had wanted to do it himself. He wanted it done well and he could never be sure that the others wouldn’t slip up somewhere.

  On the ground floor, he fixed the candle on a small table and splashed gasoline all around. He made a gasoline trail to the boxes waiting for shipment and another trail to meet the gasoline that trickled down the stairs. He stood back and surveyed his work. He grinned with satisfaction. The warehouse and factory were filled with plastic, finished and unfinished. It would burn quickly and brightly. He was sorry that he couldn’t stay to watch it.

  The murderer went back upstairs to the suite of offices. He stripped off his clothes and, naked, did what had to be done with the corpse at the desk. Then he went in and took a hot shower, using the soap lavishly. It was a soap well known for its deodorant qualities. He rubbed himself with it and rewrote the advertising copy in his mind. “The soap that gives full protection. Guaranteed to remove body odor, gasoline and the smell of death.**

  He rubbed himself dry with a huge towel and took fresh clothing from the pigskin bag he’d brought with him. He dressed quickly. Then, carrying the bag, he made a last-minute tour of the factory. Everything was in order.

  Walking over to the candle, he took a cigar from the pigskin case in his pocket. There were three cigars remaining in the case. He stared at them and then reluctantly tossed the case into the pool of gasoline. He used his cutter to clip off the end of the cigar. He tossed it on top of the stacked boxes. He took a large match from his pocket and scratched it into fire across the sole of his shoe. When the cigar was burning evenly, he leaned over and held the match to the wick of the candle.

  The last thing he did before leaving the factory was turn off the sprinkling system.

  The murderer was looking down at the city lights from two thousand feet when the candle burned down and ended in a sheet of flame.

  Chapter One

  This is the story of four and one-half million dollars. Two and a half million never got out of the bank, but there were still two million dollars in cash. It’s partly my story, too, but the money gets top billing. Think of two million dollars in cash, crisp clean bills in good American currency; think of what two million dollars will do to people, to their morals and ethics and even their souls; then you’ll know why the cash gets the credit.

  But it’s still partly the story of Colin Dane and Kitty Dane and me. The name is Brett. Brian Brett. I’m an insurance adjuster or investigator. Whichever you prefer. It depends on the point of view. Usually, people who are being investigated, or should be, prefer adjuster. It sounds less like cops. But no matter how it sounds, when I’m on a case it usually ends up in the laps of the cops—neatly tied so they don’t have to do any work on it.

  Maybe this sounds cynical to you, but it isn’t. It’s a world in which there are only two sides, the insurance companies and all the rest of you. Each side is trying to take the other side. The only difference is that the insurance companies do it legally and get away with it. If you think I’m wrong just check up some day and see how much of the wealth is owned by insurance companies. The rest of you try to take the insurance companies only there’s no way for you to do it legally. And I mean all of you. Everybody knows about the guy who tries to get a new television antenna by claiming the wind blew the old one down. Maybe he lives next door—or maybe he’s you. Nobody thinks of that being illegal, but it is even though you get away with it pretty often. The larceny that people try against the insurance companies ranges from the TV antenna all the way to—say—four and one-half million dollars.

  I’d been out on the town the night it started. Nothing spectacular. Just a couple of cocktails and dinner with a girl of the moment, then a movie and a pleasant hour or so up in her apartment. A nice social evening and it was only one o’clock when I got home. The phone was ringing as I unlocked the door.

  I closed the door and flicked on the lights. I took off my coat and hung it up in the closet. The phone kept ringing. I was pretty sure that it would keep on ringing. If it stopped it would start again every ten minutes. I didn’t get many phone calls at one in the morning and when I did it usually meant business. This time I was sure it did. When I’d been on my way home, the cab driver and I had both noticed a red light against the sky over lower New York. There was a fire down there. A big one. That was probably why my phone was ringing.

  Finally I got around to it. I picked up the receiver. “Yeah?” I said.

  “Brian,” a voice yelled excitedly, “where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for the last half hour.” It was Warren Rogers, vice-president in
charge of investigations for Excelsior Mutual Insurance. He was my immediate superior.

  “Let me see,” I said. “I left here at seven—and I’m back here at one which leaves eighteen hours of the day devoted to Excelsior. I took a taxi down to Fifty-second Street where I met a young lady. She’s five feet two, red hair, green eyes, a small mole on her—”

  “Never mind,” he snapped. “What I meant is that you should keep in touch. You ought to get a telephone answering service so you can be found when you’re out. I’ve told you that before. You really have to be on the ball, boy.”

  “What’s being on the ball on your level is being on a merry-go-round on my level,” I told him. “Besides I always get my advance tips from the Firebugs Union. I guess they must have slipped up this time.”

  “How’d you know it was a fire?” he demanded.

  “Easy, my dear Watson. On my way home in the taxi 10

  I saw a reddish glow against the sky. It was too strong to be somebody smoking a pipe so I figured it for a fire. You call, so that clinches it. What is it?”

  “The Dane Building. Know it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I remembered it vaguely, a big four-story building down on Nassau. Factory, warehouse and executive offices combined. As I recalled, it wasn’t one of the old firetraps. “How did it happen?”

  “How the hell do I know?” he asked irritably. “All I know is that the alarm was turned in at twelve-fiifteen.” He had an arrangement with somebody in the Fire Department so that he always knew about all the fires within a few minutes of an alarm. “That’s what we pay you to find out.”

  “I’ve heard rumors,” I admitted. I remembered something else about the Dane Building. The Dane Corporation which occupied it was in plastics. “It ought to be quite a blaze with all that plastic in the place.”

  “Four-alarm. You know how much we got riding on it?” ^

  I knew it was big from the tone of his voice. He always sounded respectful when he was about to mention big money. “How much?”

  “Two million dollars.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Go get your beauty sleep. I’ll nurse your two million.”

  “See you in the morning?”

  “Some time during the day,” I corrected him. “I need a little sleep. I’m not like you. Just reading a matured policy doesn’t knit up my raveled sleeve of care.” I hung up on him.

  A taxi took me down to Nassau Street, but I had to go the last two blocks on foot. It was a big one all right. The street was filled with fire trucks and apparatus. The police lines were drawn up a block on either side. I had a police card that got me through.

  All the burning was confined to the inside; there was nothing that would burn on the outside of the building.

  Flames were shooting out at least a hundred windows and the roar of the fire was like the passing of giant bombers. Black smoke, thick and heavy, poured from the building and hung in the sky like a malignant mushroom.

  I threaded my way through the spiderweb of hose lines, ducking out of the way of firemen. In addition to the cluster of fire trucks, there were three red sedans parked in the area. Two of them were empty except for the drivers, but there was a man in the rear seat of the third one. His face was outlined in the red glare. I was in luck. I knew him. He was a grizzled old fire-eater named McCluskey who’d come up the hard way. I stopped beside his car. “This one’s really ripe,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. He took his eyes off the fire long enough to look at me. “This one of yours, Brett?”

  “Two million bucks worth,” I said cheerfully.

  He grunted. “That’s why you got here so fast? You know there are times when I think you set these fires yourself and then wait around for us to get here.”

  “It’s a living,” I told him with a grin. “How’s it look?” “Not good,” he said, shaking his head. “It had a big start before someone spotted it and turned in an alarm. Supposed to be a watchman in there—maybe he still is.” I gestured at the sky. “Think all that black smoke’s from the plastic?” Usually a lot of black smoke means that something with a petroleum base has been spread around, but with the place full of plastic it was going to be confusing.

  “Hard to tell now. It built up pretty fast, but maybe that’s the plastic, too.”

  “Maybe. How much longer do you think, Mac?”

  He studied the building for a minute. “Probably four hours to the wash down. Maybe longer. The Arson Squad can take over in the morning.”

  “And me,” I grunted.

  I hung around for another half hour and saw that the firemen hadn’t even made a dent in it. I muttered a general opinion of Warren Rogers under my breath and went home. By a little after two I was in bed and asleep.

  I was up before nine the next morning. I grabbed some coffee and toast in a restaurant downstairs and took a cab to Nassau. I’d timed it about right. The Dane Building was a mess, with everything still soggy underfoot from the thousands of gallons of water that had been pumped into it. The inside of the building was mostly black. Several men were poking around in the charred remains. Another man was leaning against the wall glaring at them. He was a big, beefy man who looked like a harness bull disguised as a civilian. He was Lieutenant Bob Murko of the Arson Squad. We’d worked together a hundred times.

  “I don’t think I like the decor,” I said, walking over to him. “Solid black is too depressing.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. “Not half as depressing as it’s going to be for your company if they have to pay for all this,” he said.

  “You’re so right, Lieutenant.”

  “What’re you doing down here so early? Dropped around to do my work for me again?”

  “Sure,” I said. I grinned at him. “In the meantime, how much of my work have you done?”

  “Enough,” he said sourly. “It was bugged all right.” “How do you know?”

  He gave me a hard stare. “You think you insurance flunkies are the only ones who can spot a bugged fire? There’s a basement down below. Some of the gasoline leaked into it and didn’t burn. The sprinkling system was turned off, too.”

  “How was it rigged?”

  “Candle,” he grunted. “You’d think one of these guys would think up something new once in a while. There’s part of a table left over there. The boys found some wax on it. From the amount of wax, they figure it was probably a seven-eighths inch candle and was about one inch high when first lit. If they’re right—and they’re very seldom wrong—that means the candle burned about fifty-seven minutes before touching off the gasoline. Give or take a couple of minutes.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Lieutenant,” I said. “You’re so free with minutes.”

  He chewed on the cigar. “The alarm was turned in at twelve-fifteen last night. The Fire Department figures the place had been burning about forty-five minutes when the alarm was turned in. That leaves the lighting time of the candle at about ten-thirty. Now, all you got to do is find some guy who doesn’t have an alibi for ten-thirty and maybe you can save your company some money.”

  “Me?” I said in mock surprise. “I’m not a cop. That’s why I pay taxes.”

  “That’s what I mean,” he said. “Me, I’m a cop. All I got to do is try to find the guy who set off the fire. And I’ve got a little help. But you, you got to go out and try to catch the guy singlehanded and after you catch him you got to try to prove he was hired to do it so you can save dough for your company. I’m glad I’m a cop.”

  “You’ve got a point,” I admitted. “Find anything else?” “We’ve been here since eight, but that’s about all. The fire was started down here on the table. There was gasoline trailed over to some boxes of plastic, and on upstairs. Plenty of it splashed around up there, too. The boys did rake up a small piece of melted gold down here, but I don’t know what it was. Maybe a ring. That’s about it so far. Sorry, Brian, we can’t give you a description of the guy yet. Maybe
later.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said. I remembered something. “What about the watchman?”

  He stared at me. “Didn’t you take a look at the morning paper?” he wanted to know.

  I had a small sinking sensation. Rogers had expected me to stay on the job all night. “What about it?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure about the watchman,” he said, “but when the firemen got the fire out this morning, they found two roasts.”

  “Two?” I asked.

  “Yeah. One guy was found on the second floor at about the spot where the watchman might be on his ten o’clock round. The second man was on the top floor in the big private office. He’d been sitting at the desk.”

  In the big private office, that would, probably be Dane himself, I was thinking.

  The lieutenant let me think for another minute. Then he took the cigar from his mouth and examined it carefully while he let me have the rest of it.

  “Both of them,” he said softly, “were dead before the fire got to them. Their skulls had been cracked open.”

  Chapter Two

  It took a minute or two for the whole thing to sink in. Two men murdered and the building burned. One of the men was probably the watchman, the other might be Cohn Dane. Murder first and then arson. Which might mean that the fire had been set to cover the murders rather than to collect the insurance. If that turned out to be the case, Excelsior would be stuck for the face of the policy. Any way I looked at it, this was going to make it tougher.

  “Identification of the two men?” I asked.

  “Not the last I heard,” he said. “The Medical Examiner’s office is working on it. I didn’t see the bodies, but they were pretty badly burned. You can see by the spots where they were lying that gasoline was dumped on them.”

  I knew they could tell that by the way the floor burned around the bodies as compared with the way it burned elsewhere. And the spot beneath the bodies would be burned the least.