Homer Bull fanned himself with the yellow sheet. “You can follow only one line in this, McElmore. That line is the line of murder, or I miss my guess. If Cramer was the cop you say he was, he must have been slugged and slugged hard just after he arrived in that smoke-filled room. Whoever slugged him must have been desperate. The murderer knew that if Cramer remained alive there was a strong chance that the cop would identify him at some future date. One and one makes two.”
McElmore blew his nose violently. “But why? What in hell were they printing in that dump to warrant a cop’s murder? We’ve had men examining that press all afternoon. They haven’t found a crumb of evidence that points to, let’s say, filthy pictures or counterfeit dollar bills. Just a simple little printing machine is all.”
“Fascinating. Are your men checking the surrounding engraving shops? A thorough shakedown of the engravers may yield you a few clues.”
“They’re working on it. Any other suggestions?”
“Several. First, check thoroughly on Cramer. He may have been the best cop in New York and still have taken a few sly bucks in graft money. Next, check with all paper companies to determine the source of paper supply for this printing nest. Finally, check all the surrounding tenements for possible witnesses to the criminal’s escape.”
“Now you’re insulting me, Bull,” McElmore grunted and thumbed through a mass of paper on his desk. “We’ve already questioned everybody in each neighboring house. I can’t find the report, but I remember that we had only one story that means something.” The big man leaned over his desk and pounded a fist into his palm. “A janitor in the house next door reports that he saw somebody running back through the alley when the place was thick with smoke.”
“Ah. But he couldn’t give you an accurate description? Too much smoke?”
“Not at all. He was on the first floor looking right at the guy. His description is swell. A big man, small head, hat pulled down over his eyes, seemed to run with a slight limp.”
“Splendid. And his face?”
“Couldn’t see his face. The man had his hat down over his eyes.” The chief of detectives sighed. “Only distinguishing highlight was the mug’s nose, according to our witness.”
“The nose? That’s interesting. What was the man’s nose like?”
“Just big. The witness reported a big nose. A lumpy nose.”
Homer Bull stirred in his seat and finally stood. “Well, that’s something to work on, isn’t it, Dick? All you have to do is find a man with a small head and a big and lumpy nose. Let me hear from you when you get more facts on these items.”
McElmore wanted him to stay. He was a lonely man in search of sympathy and advice. “Have dinner with me, Bull?”
The little fat man looked at his watch. “Impossible tonight, Dick. I’ve got a meeting of The Comic Arts Club. Wouldn’t miss it for the best murder in town. If anything turns up you can get me at the Danton Hotel later. I’ll see you soon.”
When the door closed, McElmore stared at the sheets, shook his head sadly, clicked off the desk light and walked into the night for a beer.
CHAPTER 3
On the corner of Forty-Fifth Street and Sixth Avenue Raleigh Peters, a young student of cartooning, met Dino Bragiotto and Marcia Prentiss. More exactly, Raleigh met Dino, for Marcia only waved to him and hurried away as he crossed the street toward them.
He pumped Dino’s hand. “Gosh, Mr. Bragiotto, it’s swell meeting you again. That was Marcia Prentiss, wasn’t it? She’s just about the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Dino beamed. “You said it, sonny. That little lady will soon be Mrs. Bragiotto.”
“Really? Well, say—congratulations!” Again he shook Dino’s hand. “It’s been a long time between visits, hasn’t it? Since I last saw you I’ve done lots of new stuff.” He patted a small portfolio under his arm. “Would you like to see some of it now?”
Dino looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, Raleigh, but I’ve got an important date. Maybe some other time, eh?”
Raleigh was crestfallen, but optimistic. “Sure. Could I—well, will you be at the meeting later? Maybe I can show ’em to you there?”
“Good.” Dino edged away and flung up an arm to punctuate his goodbye.
Raleigh felt better after that.
Raleigh Peters had boarded the BMT subway at Beverly Road, a main artery in the Flatbush district of Brooklyn. On the train he had sketched his fellow travelers in black crayon on the back of his newspaper all the way up to Forty-Second Street. He did this because he had once read in a book that Denys Wortman (the creator of Metropolitan Movies) sketched this way all the time. All the art books, the instruction manuals and the mail order courses advised sketching, too.
He was an eager youth, short and slim with a crest of untidy hair on his freckled brow. He dressed in the manner of a high school boy, with brilliant bow ties and loose sweaters, and he smoked an insignificant pipe.
After Dino’s abrupt farewell, Raleigh hurried on toward the Hotel Danton. There, in the lobby, he met another of his casual acquaintances among the professionals. He was approaching the desk when Tim Alfonte crossed his path.
Raleigh ran up to Alfonte, pulled gently upon his sleeve and said, “Why, hello, Mr. Alfonte! Do you remember me? I’m the fresh kid who interrupted your chalk talk when you were lecturing the art classes at Erasmus.”
Tim Alfonte, the Arrow-collar juvenile in the marts of cartoonery, pulled at his thin mustache, sucked his cigarette and let his answer drop slowly. “Sure. Hello, kid.”
Raleigh guided his new-found hero skillfully to a couch. He talked endlessly in the naïve, open-jawed manner of high school artists.
“It must be swell,” he said earnestly, “to feel that you’ve climbed to the top in the business. I guess everything comes pretty easy after you hit the top of the ladder, eh, Mr. Alfonte?”
“Don’t be a sucker, kid—this is a tough racket. Tougher than selling insurance.”
“You mean it’s hard even now to sell your work?”
Alfonte allowed himself a measured suck at his cigarette. “Cartooning is the hardest stuff in the world to peddle. You can’t really sell it, see? You show a man a cartoon. Either he laughs at it or he makes a face. Well, suppose he makes a face? Think you can sell him the idea of laughing? Not a chance. Either the joke is funny or it stinks.”
“But that’s only at the start, isn’t it? I mean—after a while you only draw funny stuff, don’t you?”
“You draw what you think is funny. No man on earth can be right about laughs.”
Raleigh swallowed and shook his head dubiously.
“Yessir,” continued Alfonte, “it’s a tough grind all the way up, and when you get to the top, where in hell are you? Don’t think because most of these men you see here are dressed and well fed that it’s all peaches and cream.”
“Oh, no,” said Raleigh in a tremulous voice. “I know how all artists suffer on the way up.”
“You’ve been reading too many art books, sonny. The way artists suffer is a different thing entirely. Selling cartoons is much worse than peddling fancy pictures. You’ve got to be a salesman in this business, as much as a cartoonist.” He leaned toward Raleigh confidentially. “You see that dame over on the couch there?”
Raleigh followed the nod. On the other side of the lobby sat a woman dressed in tweeds who fiddled with a long cigarette holder.
“The one with the cigarette holder?”
“Yes. Know who she is?”
Raleigh shook his head dumbly. “Can’t say that I do.”
“Guess.”
Raleigh shook his head dumbly and exhaled through his nose. “I can’t imagine. Who is she?”
“Ever hear of Sue Bates?”
The leech stiffened, awestruck. “You mean the Sue Bates?” This was a name that rang a bell in any cartoonist’s brain.
Sue Bates was the leading woman humorist in America—in the world for that matter. She was a fixture in the columns of The Country where her drawings appeared every week in a special spot reserved for her use exclusively.
“Like her work, Raleigh?”
“Wonderful! The tops!” gasped the neophyte.
“Cut it. You really like her work?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
Alfonte laughed in his throat. “You’ve got a lot to learn, sonny, if you’ve got a yen for the sort of junk that dame draws. Everybody in the business knows it’s pure corn. That dame is a living example of foul art and good salesmanship. Know how many years she’s been drawing for The Country?”
“I thought she started with them.”
“Not quite. She started drawing for them when Earl Chance was made the editor. That was six years ago, after Charley Barnett died.”
Sue Bates put away her cigarette holder and minced out of the lobby.
“She’s probably waiting for Chance,” said Alfonte. “Nothing on earth but Earl Chance would bring that dame down to a meeting of fellow cartoonists. She’s not in our class, you know. You mean to say you haven’t read some of her publicity? It’s a riot. Sue Bates is the greatest woman cartoonist who ever lived. Sue Bates is a genius at expressing the female angle in humor. Sue Bates is this, that and the other thing. I wonder what would have happened to that dame if she hadn’t met Earl Chance. I’ll bet anything she’d be down in Macy’s selling art supplies along with the other great female geniuses.”
Sue Bates reentered the lobby and walked to a phone booth.
“Probably checking up on little Earl,” sneered Alfonte. “The smart talk has it that he’s ready to slip her a Mickey. I think he’s found himself another great woman genius somewhere. The woods are full of dame cartoonists now. Maybe he’s got his eye on Helen Dodd, or Marcia Prentiss.”
Sue Bates came out of the phone booth frowning. She returned to her couch. She fumbled in her bag for her holder and a cigarette.
“Nervous,” said Alfonte. “She looks worried, all right. I’d give fifty bucks for a squint at her pan if Earl Chance walks through that door with a doll on his arm.”
Raleigh Peters saw another cartoonist leaving the bar, ahead of a cluster of big names. He jerked to his feet, shook Alfonte’s hand nervously. “Well, thanks, Mr. Alfonte,” he mumbled. “I’ve got to go now.”
“Not at all. Glad to have seen you, sonny.”
He watched the youth scurry across the lobby. He saw Raleigh corner another professional, shake hands and move toward the meeting room. Then Alfonte turned his head and spat diagonally toward a nearby cuspidor.
“Damn little leech!” he said to the cuspidor.
Sim Simonson also entered the lobby of the Danton and turned to the left toward the cigarette stand. He bought a package of Camels and slowly worked off the cellophane.
Sim, unlike Alfonte, was a studious cartoonist and a quiet one. His little eyes studied the lobby, counted the small groups of cartoonists who stood around exchanging talk of the trade.
He saw Dino Bragiotto enter and stride toward the bar. Dino walked with the air of a successful man. He carried himself stiffly erect, not bothering to notice the others in the lobby. This was typical of Dino’s work, Sim reflected. He drew his cartoons with a firm, hard line. He was a master of the direct approach.
A minute later Herb Merritt walked in. Herb was different. Here was a gentleman of the high-pressure school of art. Good old Herb—an artist who would have made good in any other trade. A salesman.
When Herb saw him at the cigarette stand Sim smiled and met him half way.
“Well, hello, Herb,” said Simonson in that bashful whisper he saved for old friends. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Herb, the perennial salesman, pumped his hand and slapped his shoulder. “Simee! I’ll be double-damned! It’s great to see you again, you little stinker! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you so we could sit down over a couple of beers and chew the fat.”
Sim smiled at the lie. “Any magazine office would have given you my—”
“Of course—what a nut I am!” Herb slapped his brow. “I should have thought about that. Come on, I’ll buy you a beer! You want a beer? Let’s go into the bar right now!”
He tugged Simonson’s sleeve and they entered the bar together. The bar was full of cartoonists gathered in knots at small tables. A group in the corner waved to them and Merritt headed for their table, still tugging his companion’s sleeve.
Dino Bragiotto made them welcome. “The meeting’s going to be a big success, gents. Who would have thought we’d suck in Herb Merritt? I didn’t know you were the clubman type, Herb.”
Herb slapped the table and closed his eyes. He was registering humorous impatience, a stock emotion. “Don’t tease me, Dino—don’t tease me! Who was it first said the idea for a cartoonist’s club was a wow? Who was it got all excited up at Collier’s? Tell the boys, Dino, or I’ll tear your heart out!”
“The guy’s better than Garbo,” said Sim, in his quiet way.
“A study in righteous indignation,” said Dino. “Quick, Watson, the sound camera.”
John Hedge turned a glass in his hand, spoke into the suds. “Of course, the fact that Earl Chance is talking tonight had nothing to do with it. You wouldn’t be interested in goosing Earl Chance, now would you, Herb?”
“Chance? Don’t make me laugh. Why should I come down here for Chance? You think little Herbie expects Chance to buy his tripe for The Country?” Merritt began to laugh. “Not that my stuff isn’t good enough for his lousy magazine, mind you. It’s just that I’m not interested, that’s all. I’ve been in this business for fifteen years—”
“—sold every magazine in the country,” whispered Sim.
“—from Maine to California,” added Bragiotto.
“—and made damn good dough at it,” said Hedge.
All this, reflected Simonson, was the truth. Every man in the group was upper bracket magazine cartoon society. Each earned his living by contributing humorous drawings to almost every magazine in the country. Almost, but not quite. None of these men had ever sold a drawing to The Country. None had ever entered the inner sanctum of Earl Chance’s office to deliver a finished drawing for publication.
Sim Simonson knew the reason. It was Earl Chance.
Once he had talked to Earl Chance. Earl was very pleasant. He came out from behind his desk to grasp Sim’s hand. He made Sim comfortable with a small, sweet-smelling cigar—a two-bit cigar. His sleek and handsome face was full of sympathy and understanding. His voice purred soothing phrases in an oily monotone. “Mr. Simonson, I want you to understand that I have a high regard for your art work,” he had said. “Your drawing is professional—technically finished. But, after all, Mr. Simonson, drawing isn’t the most important thing to the editors of The Country.” He dropped the statement into thin air and awaited a question from Sim.
Sim studied his cigar while the editor leaned far back in his chair, clasped his long fingers behind his head and closed his eyes.
“No, it’s not your drawing that holds you back up here—it’s your point of view.” Then he began a rambling dissertation. He talked about the members of his staff of artists and the type of humor each had made his specialty. He talked on and on. Twenty minutes of this sort of talk left gentle Simonson in a pleasant haze of cigar smoke and involved rhetoric. He walked out of the office full of a strange variety of emotions. He liked Chance. Chance was all right. The magazine was all right. He liked the cigar. The cigar was all right. He couldn’t understand what Chance had said but felt that this was his own fault. He was too quiet, perhaps, too meek for editorial conversation. He would try again, someday soon.
But he never did.
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About the Author
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Lawrence Lariar (1908–1981) was an American novelist, cartoonist and cartoon editor, known for his Best Cartoons of the Year series of cartoon collections. He wrote crime novels, sometimes using the pseudonyms Michael Stark, Adam Knight and Marston la France.
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Copyright © 1943 by Lawrence Lariar
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