The Music Box Murders

  The Music Box Murders

  Glenn Low

  Detective Sully Heath had to obtain a mysterious music box for his entry fee to the McCullochs' tower of terror. But when Heath heard the ghoulish tunes that eerie clockwork picked off, he knew the price of the tower's secret was death.

  The Music Box Murders

  Glenn Low

  Ten Detective Aces, October 1946

  Detective Sully Heath had to obtain a mysterious music box for his entry fee to the McCullochs' tower of terror. But when Heath heard the ghoulish tunes that eerie clockwork picked off, he knew the price of the tower's secret was death.

  CHAPTER I

  IT WAS nice there in the big yellow convertible. Any way you looked at it, it was nice. Around you the tiny hillocks and the snug little valleys seemed alive, to waft swiftly away—a monster drab-backed bird, feathered with dying grass and stiff, spiky fir trees.

  Out there it looked cool, too; but not too cool. Looking at it, the gentle lift of the shadowy land, slanting upwards to the grey and rust of an hour old sunset, Detective Sully Heath had an impulse to get out and walk- walk long and hard to a mile away to the summit of the fir-clad ridge, there to listen to the wind, to taste of the lonely darkening world.

  On lonely nights when he'd walked a beat, bored with dogging it over deserted streets, making routine call-ins, he'd attempted to think out poetry—stuff about such as he now saw in the swift, silent passing of the stones, the trees, the old farm fences. He'd been trying to imagine in rhyme something of which he knew nothing, and how pitiful his efforts had been. . . . He looked across at Mary McCulloch and laughed.

  As if in complete understanding Mary laughed, too. But the worried expression that had clouded her greyish green eyes since they'd left Baltimore was still there. In the two months Heath had known her he'd never seen her eyes like that, and he didn't like it. A bit of sadness, a touch of alarm, a pinch of fear mixed in. They all added up to the intent look she sent out along the hard ribbon of highway.

  Until she spoke he studied with admiring care the delicate, yielding firmness of her face; the fading sunset playing in her wide eyes, striking them a pure jade; the slow curve of her dark lashes reaching out; the just- rightness of her nose, its slight tilt setting off the smooth, melting curves of her chin.

  “There it is!” she suddenly said.

  He stiffened, startled, looked around.

  She laughed. “The sign, silly.”

  He glanced to the right of the road and saw it. Coverlee. Pop. 7,003. He said, “Antique dealers usually ask murderous prices for their junk. But I do hope your little heirloom is still waiting for a buyer.”

  “Only forty miles to McCulloch's Rest now, Sully,” she said, letting the coupe slow to thirty miles an hour.

  “McCulloch's Rest.” He turned the words on his tongue as if tasting them. Then, “How about the antique shop—think you can find it?”

  “I was a kid in this town,” Mary said lightly. “I remember most of the streets. My mysterious correspondent wrote that the shop is on Tydings, five blocks off Main. It'll be a cinch to find it.”

  “Probably closed now,” he said.

  Mary shook her heart “Not if Mr. Anonymous is right. According to his letter the dealer lives in back and keeps open until bedtime.” She paused, glanced at Sully Heath's strong, rough-featured, half-handsome face. “The old fellow's eccentric. The letter says so, says it will be best to humor him.”

  “Got to coddle the old codger, eh?”

  “Please, Sully, don't forget this does mean a great deal to me.” A sudden seriousness in her manner sobered him.

  He thought the fear-trace in her eyes grew. “Grandfather McCulloch meant that I should have this heirloom. It was a specific request in his will. Then he disappeared and it with him. If it's really turned up in this antique shop— well. . .”

  “I'll behave,” he promised. “I won't kid the old boy, not even a little bit.”

  ''Thanks,'' said Mary solemnly.

  “Tell me more about your home, about McCulloch's Rest,” said Heath, nestling deeper into the cushions, a bit lazy with the coupe's easy motion, the comfy warmth.

  “It's just an old house in the hills with a stone tower beside it. When you see it, know the people who live in it, you'll probably decide my family was and is kind of—goofy.”

  “Nothing goofy about a family building a tower. It's been done before, and by kings and their children.”

  “Father and grandfather built the tower. They built it right after my father came home from spending ten years in Baltimore. My mother was dead then. I was five years old.”

  “You don't know why they built it—for what purpose?”

  Mary shook her head. “No. They never gave a reason.”

  “Well,” said the big-town detective, frowning, “maybe they just wanted a tower, just wanted one. Like I want an atom bomb, just for the heck of it. A tower makes more sense though.”

  “It was built because of their fear,” said Mary, not responding to his banter. “Grandfather spent most of his time locked inside it. Of nights my father stayed there with him, behind bolted doors in the little room at the top.”

  “Then at seventy Grandfather McCulloch disappeared?” said Heath.

  “A storm was coming up,” said Mary. “The last he was seen he was standing in front of the tower, watching some excited crows that were flying above a clump of distant cedars. The storm came as a cloudburst. I remember it took only a few minutes for the creek to overflow its banks.”

  AS SHE lapsed into silence he didn't ask any questions. He knew the story of David McCulloch's strange disappearance. His knowledge of the circumstances surrounding that event had prompted him to ask his boss, the county prosecutor, for time off so he could accompany Mary on her visit home.

  An anonymous letter recently received by Heath—Mary had received one the same day—had suggested a new angle on a nineteen-year-old unsolved kidnapping and murder. Heath had been doing research along lines suggested in the letter. But when the county prosecutor understood the circumstances that Heath thought made the trip with Mary important, he'd been anxious for the detective to go.

  “Probably just another crank letter,” the prosecutor had said. “Never knew of a thing of its kind leading anywhere. But Roland Marcot and his wife have never been satisfied the dead baby was theirs. Besides the crooks got away with thirty thousand dollars or more. The business has been one big black eye to the county department for nineteen years. So if you think this lead is worthwhile, why, follow it. Take all the time you want.”

  Bothered by the anxiety in Mary's eyes, Heath said, “Maybe it's only because I'm a detective that you've asked me along. Maybe you think—”

  He was teasing her, and she knew it; but she didn't take what he said lightly enough. “Sully,” she interrupted jerkily, “if anything should harm you because of—”

  He leaned, quickly kissed her to silence. A minute later she parked the coupe in front of the little antique shop on Tydings Street.

  The old antique dealer glared up at Heath, eyes swimming in red behind rheumy, vein- bulged lids. “Look, Mister,” he said, his voice a sharp lisp. “I'm not a man to quibble about a deal. Anything I got I'd just as soon keep as sell. I say two hundred, and two hundred it is.”

  Mary squeezed Heath's arm. “He's angry, Sully. I told you—”

  Heath grinned good-naturedly; “Okay, old-timer. You win. But it's a holdup. The thing isn't worth more than six-bits.”

  The dealer grinned, satisfied, yellow fangs gleaming as his pale lips whipped back. “It ain't worth more than two-bits, looking at it one way,” he said. “But looking at it another way it's worth any price a man might ask. Any price. The man th
at made it was a strange man, Mister. A strange man, indeed. David McCulloch made it, whittled and tapped and tinkered it into shape while he sat high in his rock roost out there at McCulloch's Rest watching for bloody murder to come traipsing up the turnpike. You ever hear of David McCulloch?”

  Mary's face paled. Heath said, “Wrap it and we'll take it along.” As the dealer's whistling voice continued, Heath counted two hundred dollars from his wallet.

  “Forty miles north as the crow flies from here is the spot where David McCulloch made this here thing. McCulloch's Rest 'tis called, and an accursed place it is—where dogs won't stay, where bats and owls abide.”

  The old man suddenly bent forward and gave a short, harsh cackle. “Murder makes a hard bargain, Mister.” He nodded swiftly, his eyes lost behind red film. “Yes, so it does. And what I say is true, a man might ask any price for a thing like this, two hundred or two thousand or more. . . .”

  HEATH passed him the money. He shuffled the bills, folded them and slipped them into a pants pocket, then turned and picked up a huge piece of wrapping paper. Smoothing it on the counter with gnarled hands, he looked up at them, his fiery eyes unwinking.

  “John McCulloch lives at the Rest now,” he said. “Keeps on out there, he does, with his three hired men, trying to get a living off that accursed land. But I didn't get this antique from him. Ah, no! He threw it away, he did. Trash to him, it was. Trash, mind you!”

  He gave with another cackle as he turned his back and began wrapping the package.

  Heath said, glancing at Mary, ''Well, how about getting along? Ready, darling?”

  She nodded. The old man followed them to the door. “Maybe you're buying it for that stranger—that yellow-faced stranger that was here awhile ago trying to buy it for one hundred dollars? Maybe you're buying it for him?”

  “We're buying it for ourselves,” said Heath stiffly, irritated by the dealer's prying manner, his uncouthness.

  “Well, you got a fine antique piece there,” the dealer said, his voice a lisping throb as they stepped out on the sidewalk. “There ain't another music box like it in the whole world. David McCulloch made it without pattern or design. But don't try to figure out the conundrum under the lid. It won't do you any good. Carved by a fool it was; by a fraidy- headed old fool.”

  He let go with a short, shrill cackle, then after a moment of complete silence, his voice a slow, hoarse croak, said, “When the water runs low look at the feet of the weeping one.” His laugh rose and fell like the quick screech of a rusty hinge. “Under the weeping one, mind you! If such as that ain't a fool's folderol then I'm a catbird's uncle.”

  Mary slumped onto the seat, shuddered, whispered, “You drive, Sully.” Heath took the wheel, cursing the old man for an idiot. “Don't let it get you, baby,” he said. “That old buzzard would make the sea hag a good husband.”

  She shuddered again. “The letter said he was eccentric, but—ugh!” She slipped a hand under Heath's arm, gripped it hard.

  It was dark now, starless dark. There would be a moon later, but now it was so dark the line dividing the headlights' swath from the darkness seemed scalloped. Heath had just brought the convertible onto the highway beyond Coverlee when the car turned in behind them. They both noticed the car because it didn't try to pass, though they were doing less than thirty-five.

  For five miles it hung behind them, maybe three hundred feet back. Other cars came up, passed on, but still it stayed there. Ten miles out its presence began making Mary nervous and Heath curious. Once when she was speculating as to probable reasons why anyone might want to follow them, he said:

  “After all, Mary, there's no law against anybody driving along at the same speed as somebody else. Forget it, there just isn't any reason why we'd be tailed.”

  “Of course,” she said, her voice brittle with mounting anxiety, “you remember that the dealer mentioned a stranger who tried to buy grandfather's music box today?”

  He'd been remembering it since the car had persisted in tagging them. “I'll speed up a little,” he said. “Make the play interesting for him, whoever he is.”

  The car behind speeded up, too, moving up to keep a little closer pace.

  CHAPTER II

  “I POSITIVELY refuse to ride any faster,” Mary said when the convertible's speed indicator touched seventy- five. “You're driving a strange road. Seventy- five is too fast for any kind of road.”

  He laughed lightly, cut the gas. He certainly didn't wish to add to the strain that was tightening her nerves. In a few seconds they were doing sixty. The car was still back there. It had been there all the time. A few miles farther on Heath began getting angry.

  “How far to your home now, Mary?”

  “About fifteen miles. A road leaves the highway beyond the village of Imps Cove. I'll know when to tell you to turn off.”

  “I think I'll stop just to see what our bloodhoundish friend will do about it.”

  “No, Sully;” Mary said quickly” touching his arm. “It may cause trouble. He'll not follow us off the highway, surely.”

  “Open the package and take a look at the music box, look it over good,” he told her.

  She obeyed. The music box was about a foot square, made of something that looked like cherrywood. She took a flashlight from the glove compartment, placed the music box on the seat between them. She lifted its wooden lid and it began tinkling a tune. A moment later she gave a short, tight gasp.

  “Find Nero's emeralds?” Heath asked.

  ''The—it's carved inside the lid like the old man said! See?”

  He was busy watching in the rear vision mirror, also along the road ahead, and didn't look. The car behind suddenly spurted up closer. “Read it,” he said.

  She did, slowly. “When the water runs low look at the feet of the weeping one.”

  “River or lake near your home?” he asked.

  “A creek. I used to wade in it. It runs near the house. Narrow and very swift.”

  “Water ever get low in it?”

  “Not often. I remember twice.”

  The car behind suddenly drew so close its head beams passed on to mix with those of the convertible. Heath slipped his automatic pistol from under his arm, dropped it into his lap.

  “How many are in the car?” Mary said, her voice loose and shaky.

  “I don't know,” he said. “Examine the music box, maybe it has double paneling.”

  She rapped on it with her knuckles. It was still tinkling a tune. When she jarred it the tinkling stopped, but a clicking sound began in the place of the music. It was like the ticking of a clock, only louder and unevenly timed. “The walls are of thin wood, so is the lid and the bottom. There doesn't seem to be anything hidden inside it.”

  She put the music box back on the seat. In a moment the ticking ceased and another tune began.

  “I'm going to slow down and make them pass us—or else,” Heath said. He pulled his foot off the accelerator.

  The car behind slowed down, keeping some fifty feet back. Heath was driving fifteen miles an hour when he said, “This can't go on. They mean business,” He turned the coupe off the highway, braking it to a slow stop.

  The car pulled off and stopped a few feet behind them. Heath started to get out. Mary clutched his arm. “Let them make the first move, Sully.”

  He was angry. A hard pulse slammed at his temples, his neck throbbed. Behind them a door opened and a man's voice called out, “That you, Jack?”

  Heath got out. “You're not looking for us, fellow,” he said.

  “My mistake,” said the voice. It was too dark for Heath to see the speaker. The fellow had doused his headlights, putting Heath and the convertible in the dark. “Thought I knew you,” continued the voice. “A friend of mine drives a car like yours.” The speaker was moving toward them, his feet slapping softly on the roadside sod. Heath waited, holding the automatic loosely.

  The fellow, much closer now, said, “I been wanting a smoke for a long time. Lighter in my
car's on the blink somehow. You got a match!”

  “I got a match,” said the county detective.

  He didn't see the man until the glow of the convertible's taillights struck him. He was tall, thick-bodied, slightly stooped. Heath put his age at around twenty-nine. An unlighted cigarette dangled from his thin, gashlike mouth. His hands swung free at his sides, empty. Heath put away his pistol.

  THE fellow was standing close when the detective reached for a match. The move was beautifully, expertly timed, and as swift as lightning. The blackjack must have been concealed in his sleeve, because it didn't appear until his arm was up and coming down.

  Heath ducked, dived in, slashing out hard with his right. The blackjack whispered a mean song past his ear. His fist whacked against flesh and bone. The fellow straightened up, took two backward steps. Heath followed in, crashing a left to the head. The man dropped quickly, without so much as a sigh.