by Jerry eBooks
He reached for a drawer in a nearby table. Simultaneously, Kettleman’s free hand dived into his pocket and came out with a revolver.
“Hold it!” The publisher’s voice had changed. It rang out like a whiplash. Mahoney slowly turned back to face the other, his eyes wide.
Kettleman laughed and stood up. “You’re smart, Mahoney. But you’re not smart enough. When the police find your body here, they’ll think Hogarth or Buchta did it.”
“You can’t get away with it,” Mahoney said slowly. “Mrs. Sullivan knows I wasn’t hurt.”
“She knows you were shot up. And she doesn’t know how many bullets you stopped. I’m right, eh?” Mahoney’s face showed that the chance shot had landed. “This gun can’t be traced. The police will think you bled to death after Mrs. Sullivan left.”
“Then I was right.”
“Of course you were right. But you just weren’t careful.” Kettleman moved back, his gun leveled. “I haven’t much time. Do you want to take it standing up?”
There was a curious look of happiness on Mahoney’s face.
“It doesn’t matter much, does it? I—I’m just glad I found out Jerry’s straight—that you framed those papers.”
The publisher chuckled. “You’re the only one who’ll ever know that. After I smear your son, he’ll be finished. Even if those documents are forged, they’ll stick.”
“Will they?” Mahoney’s blue eyes were level. “I don’t think so, Kettleman.”
“Eh?” The gun jutted. “Don’t try to stall me—”
“I’m not stalling you. I’m just saying that you’re washed up. When I came in here, I turned on the recording device on the radio-phonograph. The mike’s right under your chair. Your confession’s recorded on a disc, Kettleman—and it’s mighty good evidence.”
THE publisher’s face twisted with murderous fury. He turned toward the phonograph, and snapped open the top.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said, a triumphant look in his eyes. “I might have missed it.”
“Don’t touch that record, Kettleman,” Mahoney said.
“All right. I’ll drill you first, then.” The publisher turned. His gun wavered and held steady. His eyes narrowed.
Mahoney’s bandaged hand, resting on his knee, moved slightly. A streak of flame flashed out from it. Kettleman’s revolver flew across the room. The publisher cried out sharply and staggered back, red drops falling from his wrist.
“Don’t move,” Mahoney said. “I have five bullets left in this little automatic.” He patted the bandaged hand and the tiny weapon that was still hidden by the gauze, all but the dark eye of the muzzle. “I had to do it this way, so you’d talk. And now—you’ve talked plenty.”
Kettleman’s mask had vanished. His face was askew with blind rage and hatred. “You—you blasted cop!” he snarled. Mahoney’s smile was curiously happy. “Thanks,” he said. “Now, sit down, Kettleman. We’re going to wait a little while.”
Then there was silence, broken at last by the wail of a siren growing louder in the distance.
“That’ll be Jerry,” Mahoney said. “He’ll be glad to see you!”
ONE HUNDRED BUCKS PER STIFF
J. Lloyd Conrich
Mr. Peck was dead . . . the papers said so. Yet Mr. Peck performed his own autopsy and saved eight men from death!
“THERE’S a guy outside wants to see you, Chief,” Charlie Ward’s assistant announced through the door.
“What’s he want, Joe?”
“I don’t know. Says his business is confidential and urgent. Wouldn’t say what. Looks harmless though, in spite of he drove up in a Rolls Royce with a chauffeur.”
“Well, send him in.”
Ward busied himself with a sheaf of morning mail and miscellaneous police circulars. Presently a small, immaculate looking individual with an apologetic, breathless air entered the room and approached the desk timidly. Silently, without even so much as a nod, he laid a newspaper clipping before the Chief of Police. Adjusting his glasses, Ward reached for the item and glanced through it hastily:
MAN KILLED AT EL GATOS GRADE CROSSING El Gatos, November 1. The decapitated body of a man tentatively identified as J. Peter Peck, address unknown, was discovered by a company track walker early this morning on the South West Pacific grade crossing half a mile south of the town of El Gatos. Local police believe that the man was killed some time after midnight, possibly by the San Francisco milk train. Identification was established by a wallet containing papers of the deceased.
Ward laid the clipping on his desk, rolled a bulbous wad of chewing tobacco into one cheek and expelled it into a spitoon some ten feet away with a resounding plunk. Wiping his chin inexpertly with the back of a grizzled hand, he looked up and eyed his visitor interrogatively.
“I clipped it from last night’s San Francisco Bulletin,” the latter explained quietly. “I drove practically all night so as to be here this morning.”
“You’re a relative?”
The stranger smiled weakly and placed a pair of painfully thin hands on the desk as though to steady himself.
“Well, no, not exactly; that is, somewhat,” he answered obscurely.
Charlie Ward eyed the little man curiously. “Come again, please?”
“Well, it’s this way,” slipping nervously to the very edge of a convenient chair. “There appears to have been a slight error made. The clipping is somewhat inaccurate.”
“Sure. Half the stuff you see in the papers these days is cockeyed. Them guys never get anything straight. I always tell my wife you gotta believe only ten per cent of what you read and doubt that.”
The stranger smiled thinly. “Precisely. Now the real truth of the matter in this particular case is that I happen to be J. Peter Peck and, to the best of my knowledge, I’m not dead. In fact I’d take issue with anyone who questioned the fact. I therefore feel that the report has been exaggerated; just a tiny bit, at least.” He paused for breath. “I thought you’d like to know.”
Ward arched his brows and smiled calmly. As a veteran police officer, he was used to surprises. “Well, now that’s one for the book, ain’t it?”
“Rather.”
“So, if you’re the guy that’s supposed to be downstairs on ice,” Ward supplemented, fumbling in a drawer of his desk, “how come we find this here wallet with your name all over the papers inside on him?” Mr. Peck glanced at the wallet.
“Very easily explained,” he answered.” I was held up last Monday evening in San Francisco. The wallet and the papers it contains were among the things taken from me. Incidentally, there were several thousands of dollars in the wallet when I last saw it.”
Ward whistled softly. “How much?”
“About twenty-four hundred dollars.”
“That’s a lot of dollars.”
“It would keep a man in cigars for a day or two.”
“And this guy, after he stuck you up,” Ward reasoned, “left Frisco and come North where he had the bad luck to meet with an accident.”
“Precisely.”
“What’d he look like?”
“There were two of them. One had red hair and his left ear was missing. The other was short; about my size, I would say; rather thin, with a small, black, straggly mustache and swarthy skin. I should judge he were either an Italian or possibly a Spaniard.”
“The second one fits the guy on ice. Want to take a squint at him?”
Mr. Peck jumped to his feet.
“I’d be delighted,” he said with what sounded to Charlie Ward like unwarranted glee.
Ward picked up a flask of corn whiskey and slipped it into his hip pocket.
“I warn you,” he cautioned as he rose, “this guy’s pretty much worked over in spots. A train went through him you know. Some people get goose pimples looking at them kind of things.”
“I’ll risk it.”
THE pair left the office and descended a flight of steps. At the end of a dark corridor, Ward led the way into a basem
ent room. Upon one of two marble slabs in the center of the room, lay a sheeted corpse. Ward pulled the shroud back, revealing a horribly mangled body. Mr. Feck leaned over the corpse, revealing none of the repulsion that Ward was sure he would exhibit.
“Yes, that’s unquestionably one of the men who held me up,” the little man said quietly. “I’d know that face anywhere, what there is left of it. Er—seems to be quite dead, doesn’t he?” he added wryly.
“Quite,” Ward mimicked, wondering at the same time what strange complex could cause a man of Mr. Pick’s evident refinement and good breeding to jest under such circumstances.
The little man leaned over the corpse again.
“Odd marks on his face, aren’t they?” he observed.
“Huh?” Ward seemed startled.
“I said those were odd marks on his face,” Mr. Peck repeated.
Ward’s face clouded and he stepped closer to Mr. Peck.
“It’s funny you should notice them red blotches, Mr. Peck,” he said. “I been kind of wondering about them myself.”
The two men eyed one another for a moment of tense silence, and marked suspicion.
“Why?” Mr. Peck asked abruptly.
Ward scanned the little man’s face with an air of uncertainty.
“Er—do them marks mean anything to you?” he finally asked, his voice tinged with caution.
Mr. Peck made no immediate answer, but turned and leaned closer to the corpse, examining the faint red blotches on the cheeks with more care than he had at first taken.
“To the casual observer, that is, to the layman,” he said, removing his glasses and facing Ward, “it might appear that the de ceased was suffering from a mild case of measles”—he paused, glanced at the corpse again, then turned once more to Ward—“but to the trained eye, I would say that this man has received a shot of xetholine caniopus into his system.”
“A shot of what?”
“The name means little. Xetholine caniopus is a drug; not rare, not common, but violently poisonous. Contact, even to the lips or to a flesh abrasion will bring about practically instantaneous paralysis of the cardia.” The little man blinked. “Er—the heart, I refer to. Xetholine invariably leaves its mark, as you perceive, in the form of faint red blotches on the cheeks.” He thumbed in the direction of the corpse. “Putting the diagnosis into simpler words, this man has been poisoned. He died from the effects of the poison as is indicated by the slight carmine tinge to the blood. The effect of this poison on the blood stream is similar to that caused by asphyxiation by coal gas or a similar substance, only not quite so brilliantly red. If this man nad died as a direct result of injuries received by the train passing over his body, the blood would be darker, almost purple. Offhand, I would say that the train passed over his body some several hours after his death. Depending upon the determination as to whether the poison was self administered or otherwise, will settle the question as to whether you have a suicide or a murder case on your hands.” Ward stared into the little man’s eyes in astonishment.
“Say,” he interrupted, “who are you, anyhow?”
Mr. Peck smiled benevolently.
“My name,” he explained, “you already know. I happen to be deeply interested in criminology. It’s been an avocation of mine for many years. My specialty is toxicology. I . . .”
“Tox—tox . . .?”
“Toxicology; the study of poisons. The circumstances of this particular case are unusually close to home and I feel a personal interest.” He paused and peered into Ward’s face hesitantly and then added in a voice that half pleaded and half apologized—“I—could I—would you allow me to—er—work with you in this matter, Mr. Ward? I’d expect no pay, of course,” he hastened to add, “and I can assure you that my efforts will be sincere and my intentions entirely honorable. My only interest is in clearing up the matter, or at least attempting to do so, for the—well—the fun of doing it.”
“Some fun, all right,” Ward observed wryly. “But, at that price, the County can’t lose much. You’re hired.”
“That’s fine,” Mr. Peck enthused, his eyes shining brilliantly. He rubbed his alms together briskly. “I can’t tell you ow deeply grateful I really am.”
“Okay, Mr. Peck,” with a shade of doubt. “It’s your funeral. The paper says so.”
“Now first, I must make a test to satisfy myself that xetholine caniopus was the actual cause of death. There are a few things I’ll need; a glass, an ordinary water glass will do, a small quantity of commercial alcohol and a bit of lime water. My chauffeur will get the latter two, if you’ll supply the glass. Please notify him.”
Ward hesitated, as though doubtful about leaving this unusual person alone in the morgue, but finally assented.
A few minutes later he reappeared with the glass, followed almost directly by the chauffeur with the alcohol and lime water.
“Thank you, Christian,” Mr. Peck said in the chauffeur’s direction. “You may wait in the car.”
WARD’S eyes followed the chauffeur as he left the room.
“He’s a big guy all right,” he observed, thumbing toward the vanishing driver. “Sure must have et his mush every morning when he was a little boy. Looks like he’s about six foot six.”
“Six, six and one-eighth in his stocking feet, to be exact,” Mr. Peck corrected. “Before meals he weighs two eighty-eight; after meals two ninety-eight.”
“Wouldn’t want to run into him on a dark night.”
“Hardly,” Mr. Peck agreed. “When he first came to me, he applied for the position which he now holds under the name of Mike Dennis and explained that he generally answered to the intimate and thoroughly quaint cognomen of ‘Butch.’ But I changed that to Christian. Of course ‘Butch’ is more in keeping, but I do believe that Christian adds to his dignity in spite of his ears. Don’t you think so?” Ward grunted vaguely. “I have it on good authority that he put Mr. Dempsey to sleep one evening about fifteen years ago in an amateur boxing meet.” Mr. Peck’s eyes sparkled as he glanced up from his work for a moment. “Unfortunately, I happen to be worth several million dollars. There have been two attempts to abduct me. Christian makes an excellent body guard as well as chauffeur. Not much intellect, but most conscientious and as faithful as an old watch dog. I’ve had him with me twenty-two months now and to date he’s uttered not more than twenty-two words; except, of course, when I speak with him. A handy person to have about; most handy.”
By now Mr. Peck had sterilized the glass with the alcohol and was prepared to make his test.
“In the glass,” he explained, holding the object toward the light, “I have poured some lime water. By blowing one’s breath into the liquid, through a common cigarette holder, the lime water becomes a milky white; thusly,” and he suited the action to the word. “The balance of the test is quite simple. Several drops of the deceased’s coagulated blood are now added to the water. As you see, there is no change. In a moment, I will add a little alcohol. If the lime water clears and becomes colorless again, and shows indication of a volatile oil on the surface, you may rest assured that xetholine caniopus exists in the blood stream. Although the test is simple, the chemical reaction is rather involved, being a combination and then a dissemination of structural heraetixae and third power phincus. I shall not, therefore, bother you with its details. Suffice to say, the test is infallible and conclusive.”
Ward scratched his head in hopeless perplexity and stared in mild anticipation mingled with a great deal of skepticism as Mr. Peck poured a small quantity of alcohol into the glass. Immediately, the liquid became pure and colorless and the surface indicated a distinctly oily film.
“All of which bears me out,” Mr. Peck: said quietly, placing the glass on the table. “This man has been poisoned. Our next step is to determine whether the poison was self administered or otherwise. We . . .”
“Just a minute, Mr. Peck,” Ward interrupted, raising his hand. “There’s a couple of things here I ought to explain.” Ward fl
oundered for a moment of hesitancy. “You see, it’s this way. For about twenty years, now, about twelve people a year have died in this here town; one a month; that’s the average.”
“Yes; yes?” Mr. Peck interjected interestedly.
“But in the last month, eleven people have turned in their rain checks. This guy’s the twelfth.”
“Which more or less upsets the law of averages.”
“That’s just what I’m getting at. But what’s worse, is that ten out of these twelve met with deaths from accidents of one kind or another.”
“Just how do you mean?”
“Well, this guy, for instance,” motioning toward the slab, “was bumped by a train. The rest met with other accidents ranging all the way from hit and run, down the line to falling off hay lofts and being kicked in the head by a mule. Nobody seen any of the accidents, but the evidence was such that you couldn’t help see what happened. For instance, the guy that was kicked by a mule, he had a hoof mark on his head and his mule had a bloody hoof. The hit-run guy, we found in the middle of the high way.”
“Coincidence. Accidents almost invariably occur in threes or fours.”
“Sure; threes and fours, but not tens and twelves. But there’s something else.”
“. . . yes?”
CHARLIE WARD moved a little closer and glanced behind him as he spoke. “Of the ten who met with accidents,” he said, “nine had these red marks on their cheeks.”
“Excellent! Gorgeous!” Mr. Peck enthused through grinning lips. “A multiple murder! Nothing could be clearer or more fortunate!”
“Well, you may be tickled, Mr. Peck, but I ain’t. Several of the victims were close friends of mine.”
Mr. Peck’s attitude changed at once.
“I’m deeply sorry, Mr. Ward,” he apologized. “My enthusiasm carried me away for the moment. Please proceed.”
Ward nodded and went on. “At first I didn’t think very much about these blotches, but when this guy was brought in this morning, I began to get kind of nervous. As a matter of fact, I was just going to phone Frisco for help when you come in.”