The food was marvelous. I combined breakfast, lunch and supper in one feast of a meal. And I really put it away. Southern fried chicken in the rough. With red hot corn muffins and raspberry jam. And Julienne potatoes. And lovely coffee. Four cups. Coffee that never tasted coffier.
I was just polishing off the fourth cup when Duffy took out his cigarillos and offered me one. We were dining together and better company at a meal I never had. He had let me eat uninterrupted. And done most of the talking himself. We’d already had a busy two hours wrapping things up. Dean and Harry were intellectual room mates in the baggage car with two armed guards to keep them company. And the two corpses had been taken care of. I’d finally had a look-see at the world famous, trouble-making Violent Virgin in its broken case. It was kind of a letdown for me. Maybe, I just don’t like the virgin theme, or maybe it was the fact it was only a clever reproduction; but it just didn’t seem to be worth all the hullabaloo it had caused.
Duffy had his iron-gray hair combed and a fresh uniform on. The sling on his game arm was white and clean. Except for his leathery old puss, he looked like a real peaceful hombre. But he wasn’t. Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, and the old gunfighter was in his blood. To stay.
The cigarillo was like everything else had been in the diner. Marvelous. I exhaled with all the pleasure of the phony tobacco commercial. But I really felt the difference.
Duffy cleared his throat.
“How’d you figure the Kelly tomato was tied in with your girl friend?”
I blew a smoke ring.
“I didn’t get it right away but things started to add up. Kelly was on the train. Kelly’s top product is a jazzy lipstick known as ‘Cleopatra’s Needle.’ She happened to have a dog that your men insisted should ride in the baggage car. She liked that and she didn’t like it. As a dog owner she hated the idea, but when she realized that her former employee, Opal, had the Blue Green in that car it gave her a damn good reason to find an excuse to get in that car and search the hatbox. The bomb was the way.”
Duffy made a face. “Let’s get back to the bomb later. How does all that tie Opal in with her?”
I grinned. “Ever met anybody named Trace in all your life? I never did. And Opal Trace is too unusual to let ride without thinking about the name. Sure, it’s a show business type name. Would look great on a marquee. But it made me think and I played around with it. Opal Trace. Think about it, Duffy. Suggest anything to you?”
Duffy scowled. “I told you–I’m a plain, ordinary guy. I don’t have any luck with puzzles.”
“Anagrams is more like it,” I said. “And the name Opal Trace is an anagram on the name Cleopatra. Try it out yourself.”
Duffy wasn’t convinced. “Yah–so it spells Cleopatra if you shift the letters and the Kelly girl makes a lipstick called Cleopatra’s Needle. That could be a co-incidence.”
“It could be, But it wasn’t. Schnapps seemed to recognize Opal in the corridor when we first ran into Marlene. You know how dogs are with people they remember, and Dachshunds aren’t that friendly with strangers as a rule. And then Marlene showing up in our compartment with Opal when we got back from the baggage car. Well, she just wasn’t that type to be palsy-walsy with everybody. She was cold, high-handed and a real shrewd mind. So it sort of added up that Opal was never in the chips, and Marlene would never be the kind to truck with the peasants. Does that make sense to you?”
“Not bad,” he admitted. “But keep talking.”
“Okay.” I drew on the cigarillo. “Let’s make it up as we go along and fit the facts in. Opal Trace ducks out on Dean and Spider and Harry with the Blue Green. But now it’s all chopped up into little pieces. You’ve seen the dog collar. That’s a job that couldn’t be done in five minutes. So it’s safe to assume that Opal contacted Marlene before they got on the train. So the collar can be fixed before they leave town. Now, the stones are hot. Very hot. And this is a good way to sneak them off without anybody catching wise. But they put the collar in the hatbox first. Intending to put it on Schnapps while the train is underway. Just to play safe. But what happens? Marlene forgets the regulations about dogs so off Schnapps goes to the baggage car. But not with his collar. He wasn’t wearing it the first time I saw him. Marlene didn’t want to keep the collar in her compartment. Too dangerous. So Opal Trace’s hat box seems like an awfully good idea. So what happens? Dean shows up. Spider shows up and Harry. And everybody starts shooting at everybody else. Now our poor little rich girl is panicky. She sees Opal is with me, an obvious detective. So right away she’s thinking about doublecrosses. And she hasn’t had a chance to see Opal to have a quiet chat with her. So she thinks of the bomb as a perfect means to get in the baggage car, rifle the hatbox, or at least claim it and retrieve the dog collar. She knows about the valuable crate with the valuable statue and figures it will stir up enough excitement.”
Duffy ground his cigarillo out. “Goddammit, that’s the most ridiculous part of the whole mess. Who carries bombs around with them?”
I shook my head at him. “I asked myself that too. Which is another reason Miss Kelly started to interest me.” I stared out the windows. The green was gone now. Structures and buildings started to pop up more frequently. I saw a long line of rooftops. Chicago was on the horizon. I turned back to Duffy. He was still waiting for my answer.
“This may be news to you Duffy, but explosive materials are quite a thing in cosmetics. You’d be surprised how much dynamite can be found in Milady’s face powder and lipsticks and things. Nitrates, properly reduced, are a big thing in the manufacture of cosmetics. A high-handed dame like Kelly, admittedly a genius and a researcher and a perfectionist, would be just the type to combine business with pleasure. She must have been traveling with a kit of chemicals and powders and such working out some new formula for her business. It’s not too hard to make a home-made bomb with a watch and some wire. Look at the Mad Bomber. And she probably didn’t want the thing to go off anyway. Just wanted to stir up an excuse to get in the car in the first place. But Dean and Spider loused her up.”
Another cigarillo appeared between Duffy’s horsey white teeth. He thumbed a wooden match, lit up and blew it out noisily.
“I have heard everything,” he confessed soberly. “But that one ties tin cans on them all.”
“Sure it does,” I admitted. “There was Opal going off to the baggage car to get her hat box with The Blue Green not in it. Knowing all the time it wasn’t. Because she could see Schnapps wearing it. On his collar. Which means only one thing. Marlene Kelly must have told her she’d kill me if she didn’t dummy up and go through with the gag. Poor Opal. Always torn between loyalties. Up to her neck in crooked deals. Wanting just to straighten herself out. And never getting the chance.”
Duffy was now the guy from Missouri who had been shown what he wanted to see.
“They’ll never believe this one in Union Station. Who’d think a doll like Kelly would do things like that? Her having all that loot to begin with …”
“That’s just it. She didn’t! Checked. She lost a wad in bad investments.” I sighed. “It takes all people, Duffy. Look at Hitler. And Ilse Koch. Or McCarthy. Spider and Dean. And what about fat, impossible Harry?”
He didn’t have an answer to that so I just listened to the Mainliner’s big wheels skimming along the rails. The car swayed. The long train slowed slightly and the couplings moved flexibly as we blended smoothly around a bend. The loud blast of the streamliner horn hooted on a rising note in the afternoon air. The scenery rippled by everchanging into patterns of brown houses and white roofs and gray buildings. We were pulling into Chicago.
I looked at my wristwatch. It was closer to four. Four o’clock Windy City time. And the passengers of the Mainliner had had a train ride they would long remember.
Duffy got to his feet. “Well, I gotta get back to my station before we pull in. Stayin’ in Chicago long?”
I put out my cigarillo and looked up at him.
“I’m taking Opal ba
ck to where she came from. Where I come from. Where we both should have stayed when we ran into each other.” I smiled at him as beat as I was. “It’s my favorite city,” I concluded weakly.
Duffy grunted and moved away without a word. I sat staring at my coffee cup for a long time. Until a voice foghorned through the diner. “Chicago! Chicago! Last stop!” But all I could think of was the simple wooden box in the baggage car with a lovely black-haired girl lying in it.
The Case of the Violent Virgin Page 13