Alter Ego

Book 51: Murder Room

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Mystery writer Brendan Monroe is tormented by the fear that his flamboyant fictional detective P. I. Roy Barron has come to life. Is the author losing his mind? Or is someone making it seem that way? When Barron is found dead, Sergeant Dan Valentine of the Santa Monica police focuses his investigation on the local chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, where he faces the fascinating challenge of trying to trap a murderer whose profession is devising diabolical plots. 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune

Release date: October 14, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

“‘He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse,’” said Sergeant Daniel Valentine with a sigh. “‘He
purchased raiment and forbore to pay.’ Kipling always has a phrase to fit.”

“Huh?” said Sergeant Andrews.

“The gentleman who’s just left us.”

“Yeah. You think he’s the one did the Webster caper?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Valentine. “We’ll see if the prints match up. Did you say there was somebody waiting to see me? What about?”

“He won’t say. Jimmy was persistent, but he just went on saying he wanted to see you and it’s a private matter. Gave me a card.”

Valentine took it and looked at it. Mr. Brendan Monroe, and a good address in town. He had a vague feeling that the name was familiar, that he ought to recognize it, but he couldn’t
identify it offhand. He sighed. One of the nuisances which plagued the Santa Monica police force, among others in Southern California, these people with money wanting preferential treatment, or
demanding that the police waste time on their minor little problems. And you had to be polite, for a good many of them were Names: give them the brush-off, the next thing you knew the local
newspapers were printing editorials about Inefficient Police.

Too much ego in his cosmos, he reflected, and said, “So shove him in and let’s hear his problem.”

The man who came into the small, rather shabby office a moment later was a man you wouldn’t forget meeting. He was as tall as Valentine, a good six-two, and somewhat broader: a big, hefty,
solid man, looking a hale forty though, he might be ten years or more older. He’d kept most of his hair and it had only a sprinkling of gray; his arched nose was commanding and his jaw
square. But behind heavy horn-rims his blue eyes were bloodshot, and the hand he held out to Valentine was shaking a little.

“Well, what can we do for you, Mr. Monroe? Sit down, won’t you?” Valentine sat down again himself.

Monroe took the chair beside the desk. He said unexpectedly, in a worried-sounding baritone, “You’re going to think I’m nuts. But I didn’t know what else to do.” He
pulled out a cigarette case, offered it, lit his own with a flick of a lighter. “Look, Sergeant. I asked for you because of seeing that thing in the paper last week—when you got that
rapist. Said you were a graduate of UCLA. I figured you might have a little higher IQ than the average cop, and ’d listen to me.” He was looking at Valentine earnestly.

“Quite a few police officers have been to college these days, Mr. Monroe,” said Valentine, suppressing annoyance.

“I must say you look more like an English teacher than a cop,” said Monroe, sounding surprised and doubtful. He was, Valentine saw, quite unconscious of any small rudeness; he was
wholly concerned with his own troubles, and wondering how to tell the story.

“What’s your complaint?” asked Valentine again, patiently.

“Hell, it sounds so damn crazy,” said Monroe. “Reason I haven’t said anything about it to anybody, you know? First reaction, better go see a headshrinker. But it’s
driving me nuts, and when I find it’s affecting my work, well, something’s got to be done.” He stopped, took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Yes?” Eyeing him, Valentine thought, money all right. Custom-tailored suit, silk tie, gold ring with a diamond on his right hand, heavy gold links. He looked like a man used to
living well—maybe a little too well; but he was genuinely upset about something.

“Well, hell, the only thing to do is come out with it straight, I guess. Maybe give you a good laugh, anyway. Damn it, it sounds— Well, here it is. I expect you know my name, who I
am?” On the surface, modest; but the tone said, “Of course you know.”

“I’m sorry—” said Valentine apologetically.

“Oh. Well, I expect real cops don’t often read crime novels. That’s what I write.” The moment he said the word the connection jumped into Valentine’s mind. Of
course, Mr. Brendan Monroe wrote crime novels. Dozens and dozens of crime novels, over a long period of years. Valentine had never read one of them, but you couldn’t look over the paperback
stands in any bookstore or market without having Monroe leap to the eye. Often, he remembered, a number of Monroe’s books in paperback would be displayed all together on one stand; he was
evidently very prolific and popular.

“Yes?” he said again. Monroe had come to a stop. He’d been a trifle shaken by Valentine’s disclaimer of knowing him; maybe he’d lost a little faith in the higher
IQ.

“I— Oh, hell,” he said, taking another quick drag on his cigarette, “it’s hard to know just how to tell it. Look, Sergeant, I don’t know if you ever
do read the damn things—” and his tone said, of course you don’t since you don’t know me— “but quite a lot of us, we write a series. You know? A series
of books all about the same detective.” Valentine nodded. “And I’ll tell you something too, sometimes you get very damned fed up with him.” He came out with that suddenly,
jerkily. “You know, you do a thing about this boy and for some reason it sells, people like him, so you go on writing about him, and for a while it’s just great, you like writing about
your boy, it’s fun, and you get a kick out of everybody liking him too. You know? But after twenty-seven years, you can get very damn fed up with him.” He leaned forward to put out his
cigarette in the desk ashtray. “Have to force yourself to do another one. You know? I’ve written forty-nine books about Roy Barron, and edited the TV scripts on the series about Roy
Barron, and four movie scripts about Roy Barron—and sometimes I wish to God Almighty I’d never invented the bastard.” He laughed abruptly.

Valentine said he could see how that might be. “And I still haven’t heard why you wanted to see me, Mr. Monroe.”

Monroe sighed. He fumbled for his cigarette case, lit another cigarette. “Hell. You’ll just tell me to go to a headshrinker. Barron’s my trouble, Sergeant. He’s come to
life. He’s deviling me until I think maybe I am nuts. He writes me notes and leaves his hat on my desk. That kind of thing. Go on and laugh.”

Valentine stared at him, not laughing. “Unless you are crazy, Mr. Monroe, that sounds as if someone’s playing practical jokes on you. Without much point.”

“Point!” said Monroe. “No. No, Sergeant. No practical joker. Because nobody but me has a key to my apartment or knows the combination of my safe. It couldn’t be.
That’s what’s—driving me nuts. Listen, I’m even wondering if—my God—I’ve written too much about him, so he’s come to life. I mean, in my
more desperate moments— I see you’re not laughing yet.”

“What exactly has happened?” asked Valentine.

Monroe was calming down a little, after having got the worst over and meeting an unexcited reception. “I kept notes, after the first couple of . . . Tell you the truth, I never thought
I’d have the nerve to tell anybody. The damnedest thing—” He brought out a pocket diary, frowned at it, and said after reflection, “Look, I don’t want to—talk
down to you, Sergeant, but if you don’t read these things, maybe you wouldn’t exactly get the drift unless I explained— A series character”—he gestured—
“he’s got trademarks. You know? Mannerisms. Habits. To—establish the character. In every next book you put the trademarks in automatically, if you see what I mean. The favorite
cusswords, and the kind of clothes he always wears, his lifestyle in general, what his apartment looks like, well, his general background. Well, you grasp what I’m talking about.”
Valentine said he did. “You haven’t read any of the books about Barron?” Valentine said he was sorry, no; Monroe sounded incredulous. “Well— Barron’s a private
eye. He’s got a kind of running feud on with a cop, Lieutenant Dunne, who’s a typical dumb, crude cop. He never drinks anything but rye, and he puts away quite a lot of that. He likes
chicks and they like him, and he’s got a habit of calling any he likes Cookie. He always wears a wide-brimmed homburg, the way he’s got a favorite revolver—that Colt
three-fifty-seven with a six-inch barrel, it is—and smokes Pall Malls and always drives a gray Ford. And says . . . Well, I guess that’s all I need to tell you right now.
Pertinent.” Monroe put out his second cigarette. “The first thing happened about six weeks ago. I came home one night and found this hat. On my desk. A wide-brimmed gray homburg. It
had—his initials on it, on the sweatband. R.B.” Monroe lit another cigarette, nervously. “I— And you know something, it wasn’t a new hat, Sergeant. It’d been
worn. It had a couple of dark hairs stuck on the band inside—he’s got dark hair—and you could see it’d been worn. You know? I was— Well, I thought it was funny, sure,
but on that one I didn’t make the connection right away. Somebody I know might’ve— Only I didn’t see how anybody could have got in, both doors were locked. I went to bed,
thought I’d call around next day—and next morning the hat was gone.” He waited for comment; not getting any, he went on. “The next thing was a couple of days later. In the
evening. I went to pour myself a nightcap, and there was this half-empty bottle of rye sitting alongside the Scotch. I never buy rye—don’t like it, and find that not too many people
do—general rule, I’ll have Scotch and gin on hand but nothing else. You know? Well, there was this bottle of rye—same brand Barron always buys. I— Well, it was a hell of a
funny thing. Like he’s—moving in with me. Maybe you’ll think I’m a damn sensitive plant, but I got the jitters about it. And ordinarily I’m not a man to waste liquor,
but I took the bottle out and put it in the trash. And—next afternoon it was back. Sitting alongside the Scotch again.” The hand holding his new cigarette was shaking, Valentine saw.
“I— It It shook me, I don’t deny it. Thought maybe I was seeing things. I threw it out again and that time it didn’t come back.

“Well—I’m sorry, I know this must seem a damn silly waste of time from your viewpoint, tell you as briefly as I can—the next thing was, he—he left me a
note.”

“Left you a note.”

“In the margin of the manuscript. I— You see, I generally work at night, I’m a nighthawk, I usually put in about four, five hours up to around 2 A.M.,
then get up late—when I’m working on something. You know? Fortunately I’m in a very well-built apartment, upstairs. Nobody’s complained about the typewriter yet—even
an electric one makes some racket, you know, especially at night with everything quiet. Well, then I read over what I’ve done, after breakfast, you see, and start revising. And about three
days after that rye business, there was this note. In the margin, middle of chapter ten.” Quite suddenly Monroe looked terrified, just for a second. “There was a scene right there
between Barron and this girl—he’d called her Cookie—and the note said, ‘This one I wouldn’t call pet names,’ and it was signed—with his initials—R.B.
I—”

“Something,” said Valentine interestedly, “frightened you about this note? Especially?”

“Acute,” said Monroe shortly. “This does sound crazy—but it was Barron’s writing. I mean, the way it’s always described. ‘A careless
scrawl’—‘hurried big scrawl’—like that. Big rounded letters, scribbled in a hurry.”

“I see.”

“I— Well, hell, I thought maybe I needed a head doctor. I thought, somebody playing a practical joke—only who, and for God’s sake why? What was the point? And I
couldn’t see how. You see, I live alone in an apartment—on Fermo Drive—and nobody else has the keys. Sure, I’ve got a woman who comes in to clean and so on, but she
hasn’t got a key. I’m always there when she comes, to let her in, or if I’m not she goes to the manager. And nobody else . . . Well,” and he made a helpless gesture,
“Barron has written me twenty-eight notes. I kept copies. If that means anything—I don’t know. The second time, at the end of that chapter it was, he wrote in the margin,
‘Dunne’s not this smart, tone him down.’ And signed it again. And—”

“Where do you keep your manuscripts?” asked Valentine.

Monroe seemed to shrink a little. “Usually, when I’m working on a book, it’ll be in a box right on the desk. Until it’s finished and goes to the typist. But—after
the third note, I was rattled, I don’t mind admitting. I—oh, hell, of course I didn’t really think—but anyway, I put the manuscript in the safe when I stopped work.
It’s just a little one, but it’s got a combination lock and nobody else knows the combination. So how the hell . . .”

“You found notes in the margin after that?”

Monroe nodded. “I don’t see how the hell—unless I am nuts. Oh, naturally that was the first thing that occurred to me—that I was doing it in my sleep, growing a split
personality or something. But I’m not, Sergeant. It’s not that easy. I don’t think. I don’t feel crazy. And, my God, I’d show some other symptoms, wouldn’t I?
Only I don’t see why or how anybody else . . .”

His hand was shaking badly now.

Valentine sat back and regarded him interestedly. From the little he’d gathered about Monroe’s writing, he didn’t suppose Monroe was a perceptive poetic genius given to
volatile moods, easily impressed or influenced. The sensitive plant. But something had certainly reached Monroe: the man was rattled as hell. Funny, thought Valentine. Is he really unhinged? Does
he really think . . .?

There were characters in fiction who felt more real than real-life people, of course. Whom you might imagine— But of all fictional people to come to life, Mr. Monroe’s Roy Barron
sounded one of the least likely. Valentine was amused, but concealed amusement.

Of course, no writer could ever think that what he turned out was really bad—lifeless, in that sense. And if you could generalize about anything, maybe all writers were sensitive plants in
a way. No matter whether they were good or bad as writers.

And equally, of course, it could be that Monroe was slightly unhinged. Or something. That was the likeliest explanation.

“And then there was a half-empty pack of Pall Malls on the coffee table . . . I told you he always smokes Pall Malls—I smoke Marlboros.”

“Yes,” said Valentine, and thinking of Mr. Kipling’s Aurelian McGoggin murmured to himself, “‘The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the sting of the
roweled steel.’”

“What? I don’t—”

“Just a small quotation from Kipling. Tell me—”

“Who the hell,” said Monroe, “reads Kipling anymore?”

Valentine regarded him with dislike. “Have you always lived alone in this apartment? Nobody else ever had a key?”

“No. I mean yes, I’ve always lived alone there since my wife and I were divorced eight years ago. Nobody else ever had a key. But, damn it, there’s no point to it!
Why—”

“Doesn’t seem to be, does there?” But the man was rattled. It had reached him. Because, for one thing, a man of Monroe’s type—successful, prosperous, and if not
exactly vain at least complacent, pleased with himself—he’d hesitate a long time before inviting derision by telling this tale to anybody. He must have been feeling fairly desperate to
come in at all. “Just exactly what did you think we could do about this, Mr. Monroe?”

After a moment Monroe said a little sulkily, “I thought—a watch on my apartment—in case anybody is getting in—technically, I suppose, you’d call it malicious
mischief.”

“Yes,” said Valentine, “but there hasn’t really been any damage done, has there?”

“You don’t understand—no, but—it’s d-damned annoying, and—”

“Yes, well, I can offer you some advice, Mr. Monroe. I think,” Valentine put it tactfully, “just to set your mind at rest, you ought to see a psychiatrist to be sure you
aren’t doing these things yourself and forgetting it. That kind of thing does happen—”

“I’m not, goddamn it! I know! It’s—that damn Barron. He would needle me just like this too, if he— Arrogant bastard,” said Monroe. “Arrogant
bastard.”

“And if,” said Valentine, “the head doctor says you’re as sane as anybody else, your best bet is to hire a couple of private investigators. I can give you the name of an
agency with a good reputation. In that case, you’ll probably find out that one of your friends has been practical joking.” He stood up.

Monroe didn’t, at once. “You won’t—the police couldn’t—? Well, I guess I never expected . . .”

“I’m afraid not. It’s a funny little offbeat thing, but until you can show us that there’s been breaking and entering, you see how it is. If I were you, Mr.
Monroe—”

“Sure, sure, see the headshrinker! You think much of the shrinks, Sergeant?”

“Not much,” said Valentine truthfully. “But one of them should be able to say whether or not you’re apt to be—playing tricks on yourself like this,
unconsciously.”

“I wonder,” said Monroe despondently. He got up and took his hat from Valentine’s desk. He said in a whisper, “That damn arrogant bastard. My alter ego maybe—is it?
Trying to take over. I wonder. Well . . .” he looked at Valentine. “Well, you listened, anyway. Thanks for that. Now you can wait till I shut the door before you start to laugh.”
He went out quickly and banged the door behind him.

Valentine didn’t laugh. He wondered too. Because, say Monroe wasn’t unhinged—

Once in a very long while (as a cop with nearly eleven years’ experience he knew) you got the offbeat, complicated thing. A thing straight from a bad melodrama.

Like that fellow who tried to murder his wife by putting a trapped rattlesnake in the garage.

About once in five thousand times.

And this offbeat thing had reached Monroe. He’d said it was affecting his work. Maybe somebody was meaning it to do just that.

Andrews put his head in the door and said, “Klaus just called. The prints match up—Shipley’s our boy.”

“Isn’t that just dandy,” said Valentine. “So you start the machinery going to get a warrant on him, all legal. I’m going to lunch—back in half an hour.”
He went down the hall to the washroom. Facing himself in the mirror over the bowl, he did laugh, remembering Monroe. More like an English teacher than a cop. Well, maybe—and he had been a
liberal arts major. Thin face with sober dark eyes under heavy brows, straight mouth, long Irish upper lip, high forehead with the dark hair waving obstinately above it. English teacher? Or almost
anything else. Cops these days—Mr. Monroe and his arrogant private eye were slightly behind the times maybe.

He walked down the block to the bookstore on the corner. On either side of the double doors were neat racks of magazines and paperback books. He stopped to look at them, idly. One entire shelf
of Erle Stanley Gardner reprints, another of Ellery Queen and John D. MacDonald. A lot of things getting into paperback reprints these days, classics and nonfiction, but still the majority of it
the kinds of things that sold in volume—evidently mystery and suspense, separate racks of romance.

Another separate shelf of nothing but Brendan Monroe. He ran an eye over the gaudy covers. Roy Barron’s Forty-fifth Case. Barron Does It Again. Barron and a Dozen Blondes.

Well, well, he thought. Quite a private eye.

If Mr. Monroe only knew as much about private eyes in real life as he did. Nice quiet family men as a rule, the good ones, and getting such dull, tiresome little jobs, looking for debtors and
runaway husbands . . .

Blood Lust, Death of a Redhead, Hellion, Homicide in Haiti, Death House, Call for Barron.

Offbeat you could say. But nothing for the force.

He went on next door to the restaurant and ordered a couple of ham sandwiches on whole wheat and coffee.

Monroe called him back about three o’clock to ask for the name of a good private detective agency. “I’ve decided to try that, the
way you said.”

Valentine said again he thought it was Monroe’s best bet and gave him the name of Malloy and Putnam. “They’ll do a good job for you.” Johnny Malloy was a retired cop, his
own ex-superior, and knew his business.

“OK, thanks,” said Monroe.

And what with the Webster case to clear up legally—there was a lot of red tape there—the other jobs on hand, and as always new ones coming up, Valentine dismissed Mr. Brendan Monroe
and his odd problem from his mind. For nearly a week.

On the following Friday he had to give evidence in the Dalton trial; Johnny Malloy had been in on that case too and had also been called. Valentine was on the stand before the noon recess;
Malloy was to be called later, so they foregathered for lunch, and Valentine asked casually about Monroe.

“You sure sent us a nutty case there, Danny,” said Malloy with a grin. “Hell of a funny thing, but I think we’ve proved to him he’s not going nuts,
anyway.”

“It sounded like a practical joker to me. Except for that safe—he says nobody else knows the combin. . .