Banner Deadlines: The Impossible Files of Senator Brooks U. Banner by Joseph Commings & Edward D. Hoch

Author:Joseph Commings & Edward D. Hoch [Commings, Joseph & Hoch, Edward D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crippen & Landru, Publishers
Published: 2022-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

The X Street Murders

Carroll Lockyear came out of the attaché’s private office at the New Zealand Legation on X Street, Washington, D.C. He was tall and skinny. The sallow skin of his gaunt face was drawn tight over his doorknob cheekbones like that of an Egyptian mummy. The resemblance to a mummy did not end with the tightness of his skin. Sticking out from his sharp chin, like a dejected paintbrush, was a russet-colored King Tut beard. He looked like a well- dressed beatnik. In his left hand he carried a brown cowhide briefcase, his long fingers curled under the bottom of it.

The secretary in the reception room, Miss Gertrude Wagner, looked up at him. He approached her desk and laid his briefcase carefully down on it, then towered over it toward her.

“Yes, Mr. Lockyear?” she said.

“I have another appointment with Mr. Gosling on next Tuesday, Miss Wagner.”

Gertrude penciled a line in an appointment pad.

“Good day,” said Lockyear. He picked up his briefcase and walked out.

Gertrude smiled thinly at the Army officer waiting on the lounge. He was reading a copy of the Ordnance Sergeant, but it wasn’t holding his attention as much as it should. He wore a green tunic with sharpshooter medals on the breast, and his legs, in pink slacks, were crossed. Gertrude stopped her professional smile and picked up the earpiece of the interphone and pressed a button.

“Mr. Gosling,” she said, “Captain Cozzens is waiting to see you.” She held the earpiece to her head for a moment, then lowered it. “Captain,” she said. Cozzens looked up with bright expectancy from his magazine. “Mr. Gosling wants to know if you’d mind waiting a minute.”

“Not at all,” said Cozzens, eager to agree with such a good-looking girl. No doubt, visions of dinners for two were dancing in his head.

Gertrude stood up suddenly and tugged her skirt straight. She had black hair cut in a Dutch bob and dark blue eyes. The austere lines of her blotter- green suit could not entirely disguise her big-boned femininity. She gathered up a steno pad and a mechanical pencil and started to walk toward the closed door of Mr. Gosling’s private office. Glancing at the slim bagette watch on her wrist, she stopped short. It was as if she had almost forgotten something. She went back to her desk. On it lay a sealed large bulky manila mailing envelope. A slip of paper had been pasted on its side. Typed in red on the paper was the Legation address and:

Deliver to Mr. Kermit Gosling at 11:30 a.m. sharp.

Gertrude grasped the envelope by the top and proceeded into Gosling’s office, leaving the door open. This private office, it was carefully noted later, was on the third floor of the building. It had two windows and both these windows were protected by old-fashioned iron bars. It was a room in which an attaché might consider himself safe.

Captain Cozzens had been following Gertrude’s flowing progress with admiring eyes. Those narrow skirts did a lot for a girl if she had the right kind of legs and hips.

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