The Whistling Legs

by Roman McDougald

  Carlo hesitated. “Well—I’ve known Mr. Cabot only about two minutes. But, had I passed him on the street, I should hardly have considered the possibility of his being a famous sleuth.”

  “Just what,” pursued Jan, “would you have thought?”

  “Well—I should have found Mr. Cabot almost startlingly American. I should have said to myself, ‘Harvard. Sigma Chi. Twenty-nine. A broker, rushing at this moment from his Wall Street office to some gym to keep up his amateur boxing. Then he will go home to dinner; and after dinner he will play bridge.’” His amiable eyes were faintly apologetic. “I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Cabot?”

  Cabot said, “Not at all. But it was Yale.”

  Jan broke in. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Cabot. But I understood that you specialized in murder.” She paused. “Don’t you feel that in this case you’re stooping a little—descending, let us say—from the diabolical to the ridiculous?”

  Cabot shrugged. “I am like a physician,” he said, “who would prefer elephantiasis but has to take measles.”

  Gail Rand threw back her lovely head and laughed delightedly. “Measles!” she exclaimed. “That’s the perfect word for it. It is measles!” She stopped laughing suddenly when her gaze met Jan’s. After a second she got up and said lightly, “Carlo, perhaps you would show Mr. Cabot to Deb’s room?”

  “Delighted!” Carlo rose quickly. “Come with me, Mr. Cabot.”

  They were around the turn in the staircase when Carlo Pugh’s manner changed abruptly. He glanced swiftly over his shoulder and put a delaying hand upon Cabot’s arm.

  “That was masterfully done, Cabot!” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I was the only person in that room who suspected for one moment that you had come here, so to speak, in disguise!”

  Cabot was startled. “Disguise!” he said. “Hell, man, I look like this!”

  Pugh made a quick gesture. “I didn’t mean literally. I was referring to your subtly deceiving allusion to measles. Measles, indeed!” He glanced over his shoulder again. “We can’t talk here, naturally. You’ll have to go on with it, see Deb, see Darryl—everything. But I just wanted you to know, Cabot, that I’m going to collaborate with you on this thing.”

  Cabot said, “What thing?”

  “All of it.” Pugh moved closer. In his manner there was an odd hint of restrained enthusiasm. “I shall be, let’s say, your Dr. Watson. You’ll find that I am not altogether lost in the role. I know a few things about murder myself.”

  Cabot smiled at him. “Listen, fellow,” he said, “are you trying to tell me that this is murder?”

  Carlo raised his eyebrows. “Surely you took that for granted?”

  “And you know something about it?”

  “Know something?” Pugh was going up and down on the balls of his feet. He appeared to be bouncing with suppressed excitement. “Know something! I have virtually solved it, Cabot! I have discovered who the murderer is. I have assembled the evidence. I can actually show you photostatic copies and enlargements, all ready to be presented to a jury. Only one thing, in fact, is needed at this moment to make the case complete.”

  Cabot was still smiling at him. “And what’s that?” he asked.

  Carlo Pugh frowned faintly and replied, “A corpse.”

  Chapter Two

  The room was dark. The dim shaft of light from the hall extended inside just far enough to reveal the edge of the carpet. Beyond that he could see only the one thing, and that one thing was obscurely frightening.

  He stood there in the doorway feeling along the inner wall for the light switch. On his left he could hear Carlo Pugh’s footsteps going back down the stairs. For a moment he thought of calling to him and then he changed his mind.

  Pugh was evidently taking it for granted that his knock had been answered.

  The great eyes continued to blaze at him steadily and malevolently out of the darkness. He judged that they were at least two feet above the level of the floor. That meant one of two things. The creature was as huge as the eyes seemed to indicate—or it was on the bed.

  He had no intention of approaching it until he was quite certain what it was.

  He called out again, “Deb! Deb, where are you?”

  There was still no answer from within.

  The answer, unexpectedly, came from behind him and slightly above him. A youthful voice was saying with only nominal interest, “Oh, he’s there, all right. He must be.” Cabot spun around and confronted a young man in a blue dressing gown. The dressing gown appeared too small for his big, bronzed frame, which was otherwise bare. His hair was very blond and tousled, his eyes very blue and intent as they stared back at Cabot. His smooth, handsome face suddenly crinkled into a cavernous yawn.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s my bedtime. I’m Greg Rand, Darryl’s cousin. I gather that you’re the dick. Why don’t you go on in? Hers there.”

  Cabot looked back at the twin gleams in the darkness. “I presume, however,” he said, “that those are not his eyes?”

  Greg Rand peered over his shoulder. “No,” he replied thoughtfully. “No, I shouldn’t think so.”

  “Do you happen to know,” inquired Cabot, “whether there is a tiger in the house?”

  “No.” Something seemed to strike Greg all at once. “Why, that’s Cotton—of course! No, he’s not quite a tiger. He’s only the king of the cats.”

  “Oh.” Cabot was still frowning. “But Deb, is he deaf?”

  The tall young man hesitated for a secondhand when he spoke, there was something odd about his reply.

  “No—it’s quite all right, I’m sure. He has simply gone to bed.”

  He yawned again and moved off casually, without waiting to see the outcome.

  Cabot stood there, feeling for the lighter in his pocket. If Deb was not deaf, he reflected, it wasn’t quite all right. It was King Cotton who had gone to bed.

  He snapped on the lighter, found the switch, and quietly closed the door.

  His gaze moved from the great, fluffy white creature sprawling across the coverlet in tigerish repose and came to rest upon the back of a brown armchair near the bed.

  His feet made no sound whatever as they crossed the thick carpet, but the enormous cat on the bed was viewing his approach with a crafty alertness that had the appearance of listening. Cabot thought: They’re deaf, and his eyes are old. He smells me.

  He moved around the chair and looked down at the boy reclining there. The boy was clad in blue silk pajamas, and his slim body appeared almost lost in the great, soft depths of that chair, which might have been made for a tired giant. The body seemed completely relaxed except for the left leg, which lay across the ottoman so stiffly that Cabot knew without looking that there was a brace of some sort under the silk.

  He gazed down at the handsome face and thought: Twenty. Twenty, perhaps. The youth’s mouth was opened slightly, and around it hovered a faint, vaguely expectant smile, as though he were waiting there in a half-world of drowsy pretense for some girl to shake his arm and say, “Wake up, Lazy Bones! Stop dreaming! It’s time to live.” It was rather charming.

  Mrs. Rand, he guessed, would have found it very charming indeed.

  He glanced toward the bed and found the big Persian still watching him, but complacently now and with relaxed vigilance. The large eyes were bland again, dimming a little with the luxurious imminence of sleep. Cabot thought: So it’s all right, Cotton? I have a reassuring scent...

  He looked back at the boy in the chair and noticed the glass on the table beside him. It was four-fifths full of a liquid that looked like malted milk. Cabot smiled suddenly and put his hand upon the boy’s arm. “Deb.”

  Unexpectedly the arm twitched, and then, at once, the whole body in the chair became as unnaturally rigid as the out-thrust leg. The boy moaned and muttered something without opening his eyes. Cabot leaned over him and heard him mumbling, “Don’t!...Please don’t...Don’t!” And the little intervals between the dazed, imploring words were like t
he deliberate turns of a screw or the repeated falling of a whip.

  Cabot said sharply, “Wake up! What’s wrong with you?”

  Deb opened his eyes and stared at him in terror.

  Cabot turned at once and moved casually to a chair. He sat down and pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d be afraid.” He put a cigarette into his mouth. “What’s made you afraid, Deb?”

  Deb was staring at him. “Who are you?” he asked uneasily.

  Cabot said, “What has scared the living daylights out of you, son?”

  The youth’s eyes retained their fascinated stare, but after a moment his lips twitched in a dim, wondering smile. “I know who you are now,” he said. “You’re Philip Cabot. Mr. Rand told me——”

  Cabot said, “I haven’t seen Rand yet. You’ll have to give me the story.”

  “You haven’t seen him?” Deb appeared amazed. “But he was expecting you. He told me this evening. And then——”

  “And then,” said Cabot, “it seems that he rushed off to his bed and promptly went to sleep. That is odd.” He paused, frowning. “But go on. Start at the beginning.”

  Deb glanced at the crutch leaning against the side of the chair. “The beginning, with me,” he said hesitantly, “is when I woke up in the hospital. But I can tell you what I heard.”

  “Well, why not? You’re not on the witness stand.”

  Deb said, “It happened two weeks ago. Mr. Rand was driving home late that night, and he saw it. It took place right in front of this house.”

  “The accident?”

  “Yes, sir—if it was that. Mr. Rand himself couldn’t be sure. He said it looked like an accident.” Deb stopped. “He turned the corner and he saw this car coming at a high rate of speed. It seems that I had started to cross the street—toward this house—and the car was coming directly at me. At the last moment I jumped back, but the car cut over in the same direction. It ran over the sidewalk and over me and stopped. The driver started to get out, but all at once he noticed Mr. Rand’s car and drove off—fast.”

  “Then Rand picked you up?”

  “Yes, and rushed me to a hospital. He didn’t know how badly I was hurt, and they were not able to tell him at first. He was worried about it because I didn’t have any means of identification on me, and he couldn’t give them my name. Mr. Rand is the kind who worries a lot—even about things like that.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “He left his name and telephone number and asked them to keep him informed. Then he notified the police, and they investigated and said it looked like attempted murder. That worried Mr. Rand still more.” Deb glanced toward Cotton. “And to make it still worse, the hospital people got me mixed up with another injured fellow who was brought in about the same time. The girl at the desk was confused about it, you see, because I didn’t have any name. So when the fellow died, she thought it was the patient Mr. Rand was interested in, and she phoned him.”

  “When did they discover the error?”

  “They caught it about thirty minutes later and phoned him again. He came down early the next morning and was there when I recovered consciousness. That was when I learned that I couldn’t remember anything about my past life.”

  “Was your skull injured in any way?”

  “No, sir. The doctors took X-rays and said there was nothing to account for the loss of memory. They said it was simply shock and would wear off in a few days. They told me it was fairly common.”

  “And Mr. Rand remained interested?”

  Deb nodded. “One reason for that was because it looked like I was coming here that night when I was hit. If so, I must have been coming to see somebody in this house. Maybe I was coming to see Mr. Rand himself. But why? He didn’t know, any more than I did.”

  “He had never seen you before?”

  “He thought not. But he had a feeling that I resembled someone he had known. That was as far as it went, and it puzzled him. He kept coming to see me...”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, they had found that I wasn’t seriously hurt. One of my legs was badly sprained and bruised, but there were no broken bones. The worst thing, really, was lying there trying to remember who I was. It got on my nerves so much that Mr. Rand noticed it. He thought it would be a good idea if I came here for a while, until I got completely well.”

  “On the theory that the change of scene would restore your memory?”

  “Yes.” Deb hesitated. “But it wasn’t altogether that. Mr.

  Rand still thought that I must have been on my way that night to see some person in this house. That person knew me. If I came here, something might develop.”

  Cabot leaned forward to crush out his cigarette in the little tray on the table. “Since you came here, Deb,” he asked deliberately, “has something developed?”

  Deb was shaking his head. “No,” he said flatly. “I can’t recognize any of them.”

  “And none of them shows any sign of recognizing you?”

  “No, sir. And that’s the mystery. If I was coming to see one of them, why is that one keeping silent now? He could tell me who l am.” Deb’s gaze was straying around the room. “It scares me a little.”

  “Does Rand think that the driver of the car was trying to kill you?”

  “His impression is that it was an accident. The driver was trying to miss me, but he swerved the wrong way.” Deb paused. “Mr. Pugh, though, believes that this man whom he calls ‘X’ was really attempting to kill me to keep me from meeting somebody here whom he calls ‘Z.’ He says it was a diabolical plot and I am still in deadly peril.”

  “So Carlo Pugh has been giving you his theories?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s a nice little man, but I think he has an awful lot of imagination. All his reasons for believing anything are terribly complicated, and he counts them off on his fingers. He holds up one finger and says, ‘Point 1’; and then, when he has explained that, he holds up another finger and says, ‘Point 2.’ I don’t believe half of them, but they scare me all the same.”

  “Have any of the others shown a noticeable interest in you?”

  “All of them have except Greg. He is the only one who doesn’t come in. He is always rushing off somewhere.”

  “Mrs. Rand, I’m sure, has tried to make you feel at home?”

  Deb’s cheeks turned faintly pink. “She’s very nice,” he said. “She’s very charming.”

  “And her sister, Miss Utley?”

  The boy gave a slight, involuntary shiver and then looked a trifle embarrassed because Cabot had noticed it. He said stiffly, “I don’t know about her. She comes in here every day and tries to talk me into letting her hypnotize me. She is a graduate student in psychology, you know, and she claims that amnesia interests her. She sits there staring at me through those big glasses, and the glasses seem to get bigger and bigger.”

  “Have you tried hypnotism?”

  Deb shuddered again. “I wouldn’t—in this house!”

  Cabot repeated interrogatively, “In this house? Why do you say that, Deb? Is something wrong here?”

  Deb was staring at Cotton. “Something is horribly wrong,” he said. “Even the cat knows that. But he doesn’t know—and neither do I—what it is.”

  “Do you think it’s something that concerns you?”

  “I can’t believe that. It’s too incredible.” Deb was still looking off. “I don’t want it to concern me, Mr. Cabot. I want to get away from here.”

  Cabot studied his face for a moment before he spoke. “Deb, I have an idea that you’re holding something back. Aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not, Mr. Cabot.” The boy hesitated and then smiled slightly. “Cross my heart and——”

  Cabot said, “Don’t. The little man who reads whodunits may have something, Deb. There might just possibly be a Mr. X.”

  Deb said, “Gosh, I hope not!”

  Cabot waited a moment longer and
then got up, smiling. “And why Deb?”

  Deb grinned a little sheepishly. “The nurses stuck that on me at the hospital,” he explained. “They joked about giving a coming-out party for me, introducing me to society.” His face sobered. “It’s not such a good joke, though. It’s really pretty tough, Mr. Cabot, not knowing who you are, wondering about your past——”

  Cabot said, “Don’t waste any time worrying about yours, kid. There’s just not enough of it.” He moved on a step and stopped. “I suppose you can hobble around a bit—for instance, get up and lock the door?”

  Deb was picking up the glass of malted milk. He turned his eyes back slowly toward Cabot. “Oh, yes. I do that every night.”

  Cabot said quietly, “Will you promise to do it as soon as I leave and not to open the door for anyone except me?” For a moment Deb’s gaze remained fixed upon Cabot’s face with a fascinated intentness, and then he put the milk down unsteadily. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll promise.”

  Cabot waited outside until he heard the key turn in the lock before he moved on down the hall into the short corridor which Carlo Pugh had pointed out to him as the way to Darryl Rand’s apartment.

  Only the two doors of Rand’s rooms opened upon the corridor, and opposite them a winding staircase led up to a third floor which was most likely the servants’ quarters.

  Cabot opened the first door and found himself in a small study. A fluorescent lamp was burning on a mahogany desk, which was perfectly bare otherwise except for a telephone and a silver-framed picture. The picture was turned Sway at a strangely indirect angle from the leather chair behind the desk, as though someone sitting there had found it unbearable to confront the smile on that beautiful face.

  The smile appeared to follow Cabot as he crossed the room, and he seemed to hear that charmingly dazed voice speaking again with a warmer, richer accent of surprise: “You’re young! You’re handsome. You’re...”