by Jerry eBooks
Mahlon nodded impatiently, “That gave the others a chance to sit down at the table with this fellow . . . didn’t it?”
The black brows lifted again confidingly. “Now that you mention it, that’s right. Those two—the heavy guy and the tall skinny one—walked in, and sat down at the table with the fellow in brown. A few minutes later, the fat lady came in, too.
“As usual, he had his three cups of coffee. I’ve been keeping my eye on him for a couple of weeks now. Don’t like the funny business going on in here. What do you think they were up to?” he asked, looking at Dr. Steele with a sidelong glance.
“Murder,” said Mahlon, quietly.
The toothpick broke in half. “Murder? I don’t get it,” he declared a little pathetically, after he’d thought for a moment.
Mahlon smiled ironically. “Now what happened after they all sat down?”
“Are you a detective or something? I don’t know. I don’t remember, hardly. Nothing at all happened.” The cashier was excited and nervous. He fluttered.
“The fellow got up after a while, sore as hell, complaining about the coffee, and sort of wobbled out, like I said—The fat lady was right on his heels. She was mad about something, too. Do you think she killed him?” he whispered conspiratorially, his eyes rolling toward the window.
MAHLON wasn’t listening. He drew a slip of paper out of his pocket hastily, and penned a note.
“Lisbeth, if the ambulance gets here, give this to the driver. It’ll be-the Manhattan City ambulance. This is our territory. The men know my handwriting. Wait for me here.”
Lisbeth took the note, a little uncertainly; while she opened the note, Dr. Steele was on his way, striding down the aisle to the table where the two men sat.
Lisbeth read:
Ambulance attendant: Please don’t leave until I personally notify you. Am in Manny’s Restaurant. Stall if necessary. Thanks.
Dr. M. Steele
Manny cocked his eye at the girl standing straight-shouldered, worriedly reading.
A smart little chicken. He wondered what she’d be like in a bathing suit. Then he remembered the expression on her escort’s face when he had said, “Murder,” and Manny stopped wondering about her.
Lisbeth gave a little gasp, and started uncertainly forward. The cashier followed her gaze.
“Hey,” he said mildly, “I hope he don’t start no fight in here.”
Mahlon had suddenly grabbed the sleeve of the thin man with the slit mouth and was holding its material twisted painfully about his forearm. It was a static pose for a moment, but then it was over as Dr. Steele released his grip.
Mahlon stared at the pigmented papules following the bluish veins . . . He looked at the eyes of the two men, their pupils tiny as seeds. Their skin was moist, their faces registered fear. This man Ragon was very much afraid.
The face of the man in the loud checks, who had just been introduced to Mahlon, was no candidate for cosmetics advertising. At some time in its past it seemed as though a mesh screen had been squeezed against it, leaving the skin coarse and pocked. It was twisted into a sneer, which added little to its beauty. His thick fingers built steps and made designs with the sugar cubes out of the bowl on the table, as he said softly, with menace, “Pull up my sleeve, Doc, and I’ll break off your other arm and beat you with it eight to the bar.” Then he smiled as if they were pals.
Ragon readjusted his sleeve in some confusion, glanced over at his confederate warningly and uttered, “I don’t think the Doc scares, Masland.” Mahlon reached out his hand, stared into the eyes of the man in the checked suit and said mildly, “Let’s not be heroic, Mr. Masland.”
He pointed to the half-dozen soiled cups and saucers and the ashtray, a concentration camp full of dead and dying cigarets. “You’ve been here waiting for that policeman to leave. Does he know you’re both drug addicts? Does he know that a murdered man sat with the two of you less than twenty minutes ago, alive and well?”
Their breaths were hisses.
“OK—OK, Doc, you win,” said Masland. “That cop has picked us up before—”
“Your arm, Masland.”
The checkered sleeve was withdrawn a few inches. Mahlon examined the brown spots following the veins, narrowed his lips over the numerous sores from the use of unsterile hypodermic needles.
He spoke softly and to the point. “It’s been five years, Ragon, since you were my patient at Manhattan City, and you promised you’d go to Lexington, Kentucky, to take the cure at the Government Narcotic Farm. I warned you you’d get into trouble if you didn’t. Looks as if you couldn’t be in a worse jam.”
JOE LOOKED at them closely. “Both of you have had a dose of one of the opium derivatives in the past hour. You should be feeling pretty good, pretty confident. Now tell me. Who is the dead man? Who is the stout lady in the purple dress? Where do you get the drug, and why did you call me over, knowing I’d recognize you, Mr. Ragon?” demanded the psychiatrist searchingly.
He went on implacably. “Was it because you are guilty and want to brazen out your fear of being caught—at murder?”
Mr. Ragon held out his twig-like fingers and seemed pleased that they did not tremble. He sipped at his coffee before he answered.
“Dr. Steele, you were good to me when you were a lowly initiate into the mysteries of medicine. And even now, though you are a master of your profession,” he was perfectly serious, “and have added mind reading and wrestling to your armamentarium for diagnosis,” he was a shade less serious, “you are still good to me. A veritable Aesculapius. It’s incredible,” he sighed.
“In about six hours, hardly more, both Reggie and I will be most unhappy about the death of one Harry Bigard, dope-peddler, blackmailer, ex-convict. Right now we’re quite contented that Mr. Bigard is dead, although I didn’t kill him. Did you, Reggie?” he asked lazily, the egg-shell white of his eyes flickering at his companion.
Reggie’s face grew black. “You damned fool—are you trying to start something? With me!” He seemed astonished that anyone would want to try something—with him.
The curtain-rod of a man opposite him snickered, and looked up again at Dr. Steele. “Reggie’s nervous. But not as nervous as he’s going to be when he can’t have his little needle of consolation. By tomorrow morning we should both be clawing the ceiling, shouldn’t we, Reggie? And wishing very much that Mr. Bigard were still alive. Still alive and well, and doing business at his old stand.”
“Selling dope here at Manny’s?” challenged Mahlon.
“Yes, Dr. Steele. Now, to answer your questions. Mr. Bigard would take sugar labelled with Manny’s insignia—” he picked a handful of the paper-covered cubes out of the sugar bowl, “take off the wrappers, cut the cubes, and hollow out their centers. Then he’d put whatever dope he had to sell inside the sugar, wrap the paper on again, and mark one side of the wrapper with an ink mark; a little dot. We’d leave the money in the sugar bowl, and help ourselves to our share.”
“And today?”
“Today,” said the slitted mouth, closing grimly, “there were no cubes with the little ink marks. Mr. Bigard has raised his price. I’m afraid it made his regular customers very angry.” His fingers moved over the edge of the table like something dug up from a dark cellar and only barely alive.
“Lotte Anderson, that delicate, faun-like, sweet dove of a woman, made some interesting remarks. She didn’t like the idea of the rising cost of living. She said it was a shame that Bigard was the kind of a business man that causes inflation in this country. Lotte is a masseuse. She runs a parlor on the West Side. I suspect her clients got most of their massage at the end of a needle.
“Harry laughed at her. Lotte hates to be contradicted. After he finished his third cup of coffee, he walked out on us. Lotte may have killed him. We haven’t looked. Does he have a knife stuck in his back?” he asked sardonically.
Dr. Steele glanced toward the doorway. Lisbeth was biting her thumbnail. He made a mental note to remind her what th
at act signified. Then he turned back to the two dope addicts.
“No, he was poisoned.”
Mahlon reached with his shiny steel fingers. They clamped smoothly over the handle of one of the cups that stood in the middle of the table.
“Has the waiter cleared away his cups yet? Were these the ones he drank from?”
They nodded affirmatively.
MAHLON lined up the cups.
There wasn’t even the click of metal on china. He stared at the halfmoon of muddy residue on the bottom of each cup, and swirled them about, one after the other. Little coffee-browned particles of recrystallized sugar clung to the china.
“Do you know any other of Bigard’s regular customers?”
Their faces reflected censure.
“Come now, Dr. Steele, do you really mink we would volunteer names?” asked Ragon, smiling.
Mahlon smiled wryly. He put his forefinger into one of the caps and tasted the dark residue gingerly.
Ragon demanded, “Hey—what’s the matter?”
Mahlon was perplexed. He sat bolt upright looking off into space. Finally he said, philosophically, “You never know.” Then he asked. “Do either of you take sugar with coffee? Did Bigard, usually?”
“Black, without cream for both of us,” said Ragon. “Bigard used three cubes with each cup. H€ had a sweet tooth. As a matter of fact, he complained about his coffee today. Said it was bitter, didn’t he, Reggie?”
Reggie’s heavy face indicated agreement.
Mahlon demanded, “Taste this, both of you, you’ll be able to recognize it—better than I can, probably.”
Wondering, Masland and Ragon dipped their fingertips into the cup, and imitating Mahlon, tasted. They looked at each other and nodded.
“It’s morphine,” said Ragon. “Thank you. That cinches it! Don’t touch those cups!” ordered Mahlon. Then, he half-ran to the front of the restaurant. A clangor from the street which he recognized immediately, told him the ambulance had finally arrived.
“Lisbeth! Give the driver the note,” he shot at his wife and dashed into the phone booth. She ran outside as the ambulance slid to a stop. The woman in purple had disappeared.
Lisbeth intercepted the burly man in white by running out into the street.
He took the note, and looked at her narrowly. “What’s this lady?”
He read the note, and projected his lower lip in surprise. As he got out of the cab of the ambulance he winked the whole left side of his face to indicate he’d do what he could.
“Where in hell have you been, driver?” demanded the policeman. “There’s a man died of a heart attack and you’ll have to get him to the morgue for identification.”
“Okay, okay, officer. All the cars were out when the call came through. I got here as soon as I could. Considering traffic, sooner. Now let’s see what ails this fellow. Is he dead or is that just your idea?”
The policeman snorted. “The Doc here saw the guy fall down dead . . . What more do you want?”
The ambulance driver perked his cap to Dr. Roscoe—who was very weary, very patient, and very resigned.
“No offense, Doctor, I gotta make report. Will you tell me what happened?”
The policeman raised his eyebrows. “Since when do you have to make a report?”
The burly driver stared him down. “New Department of Hospitals regulation. Didn’t you know?”
Lisbeth saw Mahlon through the window, in the glassed-in telephone booth. His every gesture communicated violent haste to Lisbeth.
Dr. Roscoe had recited the story three times to the slow-thinking, slow-moving, slow-talking driver before Mahlon came out of Manny’s and slipped his hand around Lisbeth’s waist.
The driver caught his eye, caught a signal, and suddenly became much more efficient. With the help of the policeman, he unloaded the stretcher-bed, and enlisted some willing assistants from the ranks of the Sunday baseball athletes in the crowd, who enthusiastically lifted Harry Bigard into the back of the ambulance.
“You want to come along, Doc?” asked the driver, speaking to Dr. Roscoe.
The ambulance orderly glanced swiftly to Mahlon, saw no signal, shrugged and got into his seat.
A tiny nugget of sound expanded against the backdrop of swishing tires, shuffling feet, honking horns, and street-voices as a spotlight on a train first seen from a distance in dead of night swells into an avalanche of light.
The sound grew up, acquired dimension. It became strong and threatened every listener. It was the sharp shriek of a police car siren, shouldering traffic out of the way, stopping the breath in men’s throats, heart breaking.
Out of the silky dusk the black Buick came. It slid to a halt in front of the radiator of the ambulance.
Lisbeth felt Mahlon pull away, into the depths of the crowd, across the street. The crowd extended tentacles, dragged into itself every passer-by.
FROM THE top step of the entrance to the park, Mahlon and Lisbeth watched.
A heavy man got out of the car. He was tall, and wore civilian clothes. With him were two policemen.
Lisbeth saw the crowd part for the men, saw them stop and talk to the officer who had so patiently waited for the ambulance, saw them question the ambulance driver. Then the man in civilian clothes shook hands with Dr. Roscoe.
A moment or two later, he tipped his hat to the little physician. The man in the black overcoat—and one of the policemen who had come with him walked through the crowd, and entered Manny’s Restaurant.
Mahlon laughed like a little boy with a big surprise for his parents.
“Now, darling—watch!”
Lisbeth watched.
She was astonished.
The little doctor had edged through the crowed. He stopped. His coat-tails were held.
He turned and fought. The startled roar of the crowd obscured his hysterical curses, as the second uniformed policeman who had come with the detective flung him to the concrete. The door to the coffee shop burst open and the heavy-set man lunged through the crowd like a swimmer through the surf.
Lisbeth gasped, “Mai! The Doctor? Him?”
Mahlon hurried her through the park toward 42nd Street. “Let’s get out of here, Lisbeth. Lieutenant Lindquist will be looking for me.”
“But what have you done?” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Now, Dr. Steele, what have you been up to?”
He grinned at her. “Come on Lisbeth, we’re awfully late.”
“Not a step until you tell me.” She sat down on a bench.
“All right, you nag.”
He sat with her, and his arm went over her shoulders.
“If Lotte Anderson,” he began, “that fat lady with the overwhelming oral aggression, hadn’t thrown me off-balance, I would have realized Dr. Roscoe was a fraud much sooner. He was too good, Lisbeth—just too competent, too assured for that kind of an emergency. Why, I’ve spent a year in emergency surgery, and you know what my Army experience was; yet I felt shaky when I saw that man lying dead on the street. It was unfamiliar. Out of proper environment. It takes a while to adjust.
“Those gestures Doctor Roscoe made—lifting the victim’s eyelids, feeling for the pulse and especially his feeling for the heartbeat through the man’s shirt was a dead giveaway—no pun intended.”
Lisbeth murmured. “My, he must be a cool customer. Imagine how he felt when the doctor—I mean the other one—Dr. Barrett, or whatever his name was, came out and wanted to help!” Mahlon’s eyes narrowed. “Dr. Barrett will stand a little investigating, as will our friend Lotte Anderson, the lady in purple. The policemen have their names. Apparently none of the others knew Roscoe, who must have made his contact with Bigard elsewhere, and resolved to kill him for motives other than that Bigard raised his price of narcotics.”
“How do you know Roscoe isn’t a drug addict, too?”
Mahlon’s hand tightened on her waist as they sat together. “It’s not certain as a Pythagorean formula, but it is as sure as anything in psychiatry can
be—that an addict would never have used morphine as a weapon to kill!” Lisbeth nodded dubiously.
MAHLON went on. “I suspected Ragon or Masland, until I discovered that morphine had been used as the poison. There are other bits of evidence which exclude them, too. For example, they had made no effort to get rid of the coffee cups out of which Bigard had been drinking. They had plenty of time to have had the table cleared before I reached it. Furthermore, they were suspicious of each other later, when I accused them of having killed Bigard. No, honey if they shared the crime of using narcotics, of buying them illegally, they would have plotted Bigard’s murder together, and they wouldn’t have used morphine.”
“How about that woman? Didn’t the proprietor say she sat in with them?” asked Lisbeth. “Why did you rule her out?”
Mahlon chewed the inside of his cheek. “To tell the truth, I’d like very much to saddle Lotte with a murder charge. But both Manny and the two men recall that she came into the restaurant a while after Bigard had already taken the fatal dose.”
Mahlon squinted across Bryant Park. They were in the shadow of the New York Public Library.
“Let’s start looking for a cab, honey,” he suggested. They began to walk toward the nearest exit.
“What was all that fuss about you telephoning?”
“When I realized that Bigard had been poisoned by morphine, and put together my previously-unconsidered criticism of Roscoe’s action, it seemed certain that Roscoe had planted the poisoned sugar cubes. Bigard made a mark in ink on one side of the wrappers to identify those he had previously loaded with drugs. Roscoe put clean, new wrappers on the poisoned cubes, and knowing Bigard’s sweet tooth, and also where Bigard usually sat, it was easy for him . . .”
Mahlon stopped walking, and looked back over his shoulder.
Lisbeth asked, “After he planted the poisoned cubes, Bigard asked him to leave the table, just as he expected. They pretended not to recognize each other naturally. Roscoe dodged into the phone booth to wait for the drug to take effect, and then got out in the street to play ‘doctor’ in order to forestall anyone else from examining him too closely. Is that right? It seems he took quite a chance.”