by Jerry eBooks
“Okay,” I said. Then I thought of something. “Hey! How did you know I was going to get this letter and the money? And how did you know about the file?”
“I didn’t know about the file,” he admitted. “But I knew about the letter. I got a letter at Homicide early this morning telling me about yours.”
I WAS RIGHT there with the answers. “You did?” I said, surprised. “I said I did. In fact, the letter stated that you had been retained to solve the murder of William R. Walker, and would I please cooperate with you. How do you like that?”
“Good. Fine. That’s the way it ought to be all the time.”
“Uh huh. I figured you’d feel that way. Now tell me something before I ‘cooperate’ with you. Do vou know William R. Walker?”
“Nope. You mean ‘did’ I know William R. Walker.”
“I mean do.”
“Whaddya mean, do?”
He dropped the egg right in my lap, and it wasn’t cooked. “Today is February 24th,” Scott said.
“Holy cow! You mean Walker isn’t dead?”
“He isn’t dead.”
“There goes my case,” I said.
“We hope. I’ve got men protecting him. He’s quite a boy. Rich old lawyer; used to be in politics.”
“How’s he taking the news?”
“He’s afraid he’s going to die.”
“Why?”
Scott lifted an eyebrow. “He doesn’t know, he says.”
“H’mm. And who is Phyllis Farnam?”
“Used to be his secretary until this year. Devoted to him. Faithful employee, etc.”
“Did you see her?”
“Yes. She lives over on Yacuta Road. 3657. Right outside of San Berdoo.”
“What’s she got to say?”
“As much,” Scott commented dryly, “as anybody will listen to. Unfortunately the woman is a psycopathic case.”
“Confined?”
“No, no. But she has a fixation that her former employer is going to be killed tomorrow. So much so that she wrote to me; hired you; and in addition, broke into your office and put that folder in your file. I was sure of it when I spoke with her. Now that you’ve gotten the letter I’m positive. There’s only one queer thing about it.”
I beat him to the draw. “The queer thing is why Walker is afraid he’s going to die.”
Scott looked mildly surprised. “Yes,” he said wonderingly. “Exactly. Why is Walker afraid he’s going to die?”
“Well,” I said cheerfully, “I’ll let you get back to your little office now, Inspector. And when you get some more dope on it, I’ll expect you to cooperate with me.”
Scott didn’t even bother to argue about the “inspector” as he made for the door. He just stopped a moment and his eyes were calm and thoughtful as he said: “The department will expect you to report any developments you discover, Kelly. I think we have a right to that—considering the unusual aspects. So long.”
2
YACUTA ROAD was a quiet little street lined with palms and eucalyptus. There were orange trees in the neighborhood and the scent from the blossoms gave a clean smell to the air. Number 3657 was a little house set back a few feet from the street and had a well-cared-for lawn before it.
The door opened almost before I got my hand off the knocker, and a little woman dressed in a dark blue skirt topped by a frilly white blouse stood before me. She was about fifty-five or sixty and had lines etched in her face and brow which went well with her plain dressed gray hair. She looked up a little at me, for she was small.
“How do you do?” she asked in a plaintive voice.
“How do you do,” I said. “I’m looking for Miss Phyllis Farnam. My name is James Kelly.”
“Oh! I’m Phyllis Farnam. Please come in, won’t you? I really didn’t expect you until tomorrow, you know; the mail was faster than I would have thought.”
I followed her inside into a tiny living room loaded with all kinds of little chairs, both covered and not—and one small divan placed kitty-corner against two walls. Half reclining on the divan was an old character which I perceived in the dim light to be a man aged enough to have remembered the “crime of ’73” as though it were yesterday.
The little lady quickly seated herself on one of the more fragile chairs and I looked around for a strong one.
“This is father,” Miss Farnam said. “He’s a little deaf, so we can speak before him. It’s all right, you know.”
I didn’t pay any attention to ‘father’. “Look, Miss Farnam,” I dug in. “First, I’ve come to give you back your two hundred dollars. Second, I want to know by what right you entered my office last night and used my personal property.” I handed over the two centuries.
The little lady seemed more concerned with number two than with the money. She ignored it. “Mr. Kelly, I didn’t ‘enter’ your office, as you call it. True, I went in, but the door was unlocked. Since there was no one in the office at the time, rather than entrust a note to the whims of chance, I made out that folder you found in your file. I have been a secretary all my life, and I love neatness. And as to the money, you are to keep it; you’ll be earning it, won’t you?”
“Look,” I began again, “I’m not sore about the folder in the file. And Lord knows I’m not even a little annoyed at the money. But for heaven sake, Miss Farnam, your former employer, William R. Walker, is just as much alive as . . .”
She interrupted me. Her voice rose a pitch or two, “Mr. Kelly, I object to your use of the term ‘Lord’ in this sense. There’s no necessity for us to allow ourselves to become disrespectful.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Furthermore, I am aware that Mr. Walker,” and her tone at the use of Walker’s name got a pious quality about it as though she were referring to the Lord, herself, “is alive—at the moment. However, I am convinced that the dear man is going to be killed. Since I am powerless to stop it, I am content to apprehend his murderer.”
“After the murder happens, of course,” I mentioned.
“Naturally,” she agreed.
“What makes you think he’ll be murdered?”
“This,” she said and gave me a yellowed slip of paper. There was penciling upon it in a crude hand that said: You will die Feb. 25th. No more. Just that.
I tucked it away in my coat pocket. “Okay. So we got a blackhand. So what?”
She got a little peeved over that. “Mr. Kelly, you will please treat this matter with the seriousness it deserves! Do you think I throw money away in jokes?”
“I think you do,” I said, studying her. “Lots of it, too. Two hundred dollars of it.”
Somehow I got the impression that the money meant a great deal to this old lady. Her mouth began to twitch a little.
“What’s more,” I went on, “I think you’re sacrificing this money at great suffering to yourself. But it isn’t a joke. I came here to find out what it really is. What’s the truth, now?”
Her mouth twitched faster. “Mister Kelly!” she said, but it was more as if she had asked a question.
I got up and went over to her. I put my hand under her chin and lifted her head so that her eyes met mine. She started to tremble at that.
“Please,” she said quietly and then, “Please, please!” and the tears rolled down from her eyes as though I had turned on a tap. I dropped the chin, and went back to my chair.
Almost instantly she regained her composure. She spoke again: “That slip of paper, Mr. Kelly, came in the mail while I was still working in his office. It was addressed to him.”
“Does he know about it?”
She tilted her head to one side and appeared to be thinking. “No,” she said finally, “I don’t believe I ever showed it to him.”
“And you believe, because of this note, that he will be murdered tomorrow?”
“Of course. You will please devote all your time to this, won’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” I agreed. “It’s so interesting.”
“Do
you really think so?” she said, a little pleased smile on her face.
“Miss Farnam, I don’t know what to think. I believe that you’re mistaken about all this, though. This paper you gave me is obviously a note from a crank of some sort. Tomorrow I will return your money to you, for there will be no need of an investigation. Mr. Walker will not be killed.”
“Oh, I hope not,” she said wistfully.
I arose and walked to the door. “Goodbye, Miss Farnam,” I said.
As I went through the door, the old character on the divan sat up with a jerk. “Phyllis,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Phyllis! Who was that?”
“Would you like your warm milk now father?” she replied as I closed the door behind me.
I PAUSED outside the door marked Homicide and knocked. There wasn’t any answer so I walked in. Scott was seated behind his desk. He looked up at me.
“I’m looking for Mr. Homicide,” I said, real cute.
“Something like that has been pulled before, I imagine,” Scott commented.
“Yeah,” I said, throwing Miss Farnam’s yellowed slip of paper on his desk.
He carefully picked it up by its corner in the manner of all homicide people who see fingerprints when there aren’t any. “What’s this?”
“Phyllis Farnam gave it to me.”
He read it. “Funny. She didn’t mention it when I talked to her.”
“You probably didn’t give her a chance, like me,” I said. Then I told him where she got it.
“H’mm. No chance of fingerprints, I suppose. Still it’s worth trying.”
“Yeah. It’s worth trying. And don’t forget to give me a receipt for it, will you?”
Scott’s face colored at that. “The trust you place in this department,” he murmured, “moves me deeply.” He scribbled a receipt and passed it over.
He said something else, too, that was meant to put me in my place. “Ingratitude goes with a short memory; that’s a bit of philosophy, Kelly.”
“I’ll stick it in my next letter to Ma,” I said. “And now, Lieutenant, since I have been legitimately hired to solve a murder that was never committed, I’ll be toddling off to interview the ‘corpse’. I suppose your hard boys will let me in?”
He nodded slowly and turned his head to look out the window at his side. This, I imagined, was my dismissal. So I crept out tippy-toe and closed his door quietly.
William R. Walker was the kind you meet when you’re trying to sell vacuum cleaners door to door.
“What you want?” he said when I gave him my card.
“Miss Farnam has hired me to discover who is going to murder you,” I told him simply.
This set him off like a lit fuse. “Oh, for the love of heaven!” he exploded. “What the hell’s wrong with everybody? Can you tell me? Well, young man, don’t just stand there! Open your mouth—but think first, think first!”
“I’m getting two hundred dollars for listening to you. I don’t mind it so far,” I told him.
“You mean Farnam’s giving you two hundred?”
“Yeah.”
This set him stroking his chin. He was the kind of a guy who sets his moods by what he hears. Right now it was the reflective mood. “You’ll give it back,” he said at last.
“No.”
“Listen, Mr. Kelly! Farnam’s a poor woman; she’s been supporting her father for years on a very small salary.”
“Yeah? Wonder who she worked for?”
His face got ripply-purple like a sixty year-old alcoholic who shaves too much. “You’re too damned fresh, young man!” he spluttered.
“Okay. I came here for information anyway. Of a different kind, I mean. What you afraid of?”
This last stopped him and he assumed a new mood.
His breast rose two inches and I could see him breathe in deep. “I,” he announced as though I were a reporter interviewing him, “am afraid of nothing or no one.”
“Fine. You won’t be scared when you die, then.”
“Of course not. That is simply rubbish and this whole affair is the result of somebody’s imagination.”
“I don’t know about that, Mr. Walker. Did you know that sometime earlier this year Miss Farnam got a letter stating you would die on Feb. 25th?”
“I did,” he said solemnly. “Not only that one but several more have since reached my office. It’s not unnatural for a man of my standing to have made enemies. I pay no attention to the notes.”
“You know,” I said wonderingly, “Miss Farnam said you were unaware she received that threatening note. Isn’t that funny?”
FOR SOME unaccountable reason his face got purple once more. I expected another outburst, this time an invitation for me to share the great outdoors with God. Instead he suddenly sat down in the nearest chair and wiped his brow with his old hand. His hand shook as he did so, and I was amazed.
“Something—?” I began.
“The police will protect me . . .” he muttered.
“Sure. As well as they can. You’re afraid, huh?”
“I’m not afraid of dying; I’m afraid of being killed. There’s a difference.”
I thought that over. “Yeah, I guess there is. Well, have you got one of those threatening notes? I’d like to see one.”
He reached into his breast pocket and passed over a slip of paper. Yellowed like the rest. Same crude hand. Same message: You die Feb. 25th. However, underneath this was another message. A post script, as it were: I have spent much on postage for these warning notes. It must stop. Don’t fail me tomorrow.
“This came today?” I asked.
He nodded, and I thought it over for a moment. “You have any idea who’s sending them?”
He nodded to this one, too. “Yes. It’s old Mr. Farnam; he has put a curse on me.”
“Why?”
“For ungentlemanly treatment of his daughter, he says.”
“He right about that?”
Walker lifted his hand off his forehead and looked at me. “Farnam was with me for many years. Would she have stayed had I been ungentlemanly?” he asked.
“Well that’s that,” I said. “You afraid of that old man?”
“I don’t know. He’s weak and old and . . .”
“And deaf,” I added. “He won’t hear your cries as you die. No fun in it for him.”
“Look here, Kelly! This all seems funny to you, does it? Something to joke about? You can get the hell out, then. Now!”
“Getting killed isn’t funny, Mr. Walker,” I admitted. “But being scared of an old man who can’t do much more than say his prayers anymore is funny.”
Walker’s face got still and the purple drained out like water dripping from a bag. “That’s just it, Kelly. He prays—all the time that I’ll die!”
“His batting average so far is zero,” I answered.
“Prayer is strong,” he countered. “Even Gerald tells me that.”
“Who’s Gerald?”
“My nephew. He lives with me; he’s very religious.”
This was getting out of hand. My Doctor of Divinity’s degree hadn’t come through yet so I had to stop there.
“My two hundred dollars goes back to Miss Farnam tomorrow,” I said. “This is the second time I’ve said that, now. Goodbye.”
“The Police will protect me!” Walker said again, hopefully.
“Better yet,” I told him as I left the room, “why don’t you pray hard that old Farnam’s prayer don’t come true. That’ll confuse the Angels.” He didn’t seem to grin much at that, I saw, as I closed the door behind me.
3
I HADN’T been back to my office for my daily nap, so I headed there. On the way I dropped off my latest threat note at Homicide. Lieutenant Scott was still in. He looked as a matter of fact as if he were all in.
“Tired?” I said.
For the first time I got out of him a. friendly tone of voice. “No, Kelly, but somehow I don’t feel up to par today. I must have eaten something.”
&nb
sp; “People often do,” I encouraged. But he didn’t follow it up.
“Did you want something?”
“Not especially. You instructed me to report progress, etc. I’m reporting.” I laid the yellowed threat note in front of him and he read it at a glance.
“This come from Walker?” he asked.
“Yeah. And you were right. He is afraid of something. I don’t believe it’s a fear of death. He himself said he was afraid only of being killed; he pointed out there was a difference. But I think he’s afraid of something else. We parted not on the mutual note of cheery comradeship you might expect of a couple of love birds like us.”
Scott laughed. It was a pleasant laugh and not sarcastic. I was finding out that this guy was a nice Joe once you got to know him—if you were on the right side of the law.
“Why don’t you join the force, Kelly?” he asked curiously. “I could have you attached to Homicide.”
That made me laugh with him. “It’d be a break for your department.” I conceded. “But I don’t like homicide. Matter of fact I’m returning Miss Farnam’s two hundred dollars tomorrow because I think this case is going to get serious.”
Scott’s laughing wasn’t laughing anymore. It was noises in his throat. “It doesn’t matter, Kelly,” he was saying. “I’ve been to see Walker. My boys are guiding his path for the next few days, just in case. But since I saw you earlier, I’ve gotten the impression that we’d better go softly, Kelly.”
“What you mean?” I asked. And of course, then I got it. “Somebody closer to heaven than you whisper to tread easy?”
Scott’s face tinged pinkly. I couldn’t help thinking he’d have made a nice blushing bride—around 1925 or so. “Captain Hendricks was in this morning and he—”
“He what, Scott? He speak rough?”
“I take back what I said about you joining the force, Kelly.”
“I thought you’d feel different when you considered.”
“The truth,” he said quickly, “as I see it, or think I do, is that William R. Walker was annoyed at my visit.
He complained. I heard about it. Therefore, I’m just as pleased that you’re dropping the case.”