The Willie Klump

by Joe Archibald

  me an’ that’s all. Why don’t you give up playin’ cops an’ robbers? You can’t be lucky all the time. Well, come on!”

  Willie followed Satchelfoot Kelly to a restaurant not far away. Satchelfoot ordered a T-bone steak, French fries, creamed cauliflower, mince pie and coffee, and Willie’s teeth near floated loose from their gums.

  “I’ll take the same,” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Satchelfoot yelped. “Bring this bum a bowl of consommé, two crackers an’ some weak tea. He has ulsters an’ maybe you want him to drop dead here an’ give the joint a bad name?”

  “Look, Satchelfoot. Even you couldn’t be such a rat!” Willie protested. “Waiter, he is kiddin’, as I—”

  “You heard me,” Kelly snapped at the hovering flunkey.

  The detective gestured violently with his hand, and something flew out of his sleeve and skidded into Willie’s lap. The president of the Hawkeye Detective Agency picked it up and saw immediately that it was an ace of spades.

  “Tsk-tsk,” Willie said. “Was you playin’ poker with the boys this aft, Satchelfoot?”

  “Now, Willie. You give me back that! Ha, you can have steak. Ice cream with your pie an’—”

  “After I have it in my stomach.” Willie grinned. “I never did trust you, Kelly. H- m-m, a pin-up babe on the back of this card, an’ why is there a little cross on her right knee? Now, I’ll suggest the boys count the cards in a deck. You wouldn’t stoop so low as to mark a ace, Satchelfoot? Er—of courst you would. Yes, I believe I will have pie a la mode for dessert. Make that a double order of French fries,” he called after the waiter. I got a witness, too.”

  “Some day, Willie,” Satchelfoot

  threatened, “the breaks’ll all go the other way an’ most of ‘em will be in your legs an’ arms. Lookin’ at you, I don’t hate murderers like I should.”

  “I wonder have they mushrooms with the steak,” Willie said and grinned all over. “If the T-bone is exter good, I’ll have me a second. How much you win from the boys this aft, Satchelfoot?”

  When the waiter passed by, Kelly said, “Cancel my steak as I lost my appetite. Just bring me a sharp knife and an old trunk.”

  “You kill me, Kelly!” Willie laughed. William Klump ate two T-bone steaks

  and a double portion of dessert, and the bill came to six-eighty not including tax, and Satchelfoot looked more miserable than the tip he left. On the way out, Kelly asked for the ace.

  “1 didn’t promise when, Satchelfoot!” Willie said.

  Kelly’s hands were reaching for a piece of throat when an excited contemporary jumped out of a cab and called to him.

  “Kelly, we stopped to pick you up. There’s a murder way uptown an’ they want help. Most of the flatfeet up by Fordham Road have got an epidemic of ptomaine an’—”

  “Let’s go,” Willie said. “Who do you think—”

  “You think, Jughead!” Willie said. “What goes with a corpse, huh? A spade, Satchelfoot! Ha-a-a-a!”

  HALF hour later, Willie was in an old gingerbread house on Gunhill

  Road with the cops and looking at the remains of a citizen who once pursued the profession of taxidermy. In the musty living room there were stuffed owls, ducks, wildcats and other life-like effigies. The deceased always registered at the polls under the name of Omer Plastick.

  He was a chunky cadaver, about six by five, and must have reached close to his forty-fifth year before Old Man Bones tapped him on the clavicle. Mrs. Plastick was a lanky doll and was in the midst of hysterics when she answered Kelly’s opening questions.

  “He never had no enemies,” Mrs. Plastick said. “How would I know who shot him, an’ if I did would I have to call for so many detectives to tell? All I know is I went visitin’ my sister up at Verplanck and when 1 got home, Omer is on the floor an’ won’t speak to me. I find out he is dead. Was it suicide?”

  “Not unlest your husband went an’ hid the gun so’s nobody could find it, and then come back an’ put it to his head and fired a shot through his back,” Willie said.

  “This is no place to try and be funny,” Satchelfoot admonished Willie. “You get outa the way while we investigate. They ain’t even elbow room now an’—”

  “A full house,” Willie nodded.

  “Maybe I’ll let you help,” Kelly gulped.

  The appraiser of the violently removed said that Plastick was rubbed out with a thirty-eight caliber Roscoe and must have been on the other side of the veil for at least eleven hours. Satchelfoot Kelly and one of his associates, Ears Brannigan, began casing the immediate vicinity for clues and Willie Klump leaned against the buffet in the little dining room and admired the fruit in a bowl. Willie was partial to pears and he picked one up and started to take a bite when Mrs. Plastick let out a protesting squeal and told Kelly to keep his men from looting.

  “He’s a keptomaniac, Mrs. Plastick,” Satchelfoot said. “Keeps things he grabs that don’t belong to him. You keep your hands off things in this house, Willie Klump!”

  “It is a good thing it is only wax fruit,”

  the widow sighed.

  Willie took a gander at the pear and saw it had teeth marks in it. He turned it so that the marks would not be noticed and came out to see how the cops were doing with the briefing.

  Satchelfoot Kelly picked up the card near Omer Plastick’s radio. He took a swift gander at it, then asked Mrs. Plastick if she knew a Peruna Wigginbottom of Ninety-Six East Eighty-Sixth Street.

  “Her? She was a customer of Omer’s,” the bereaved doll says. “An excentric with a barrel of dough. She got awful mad at Omer when he stuffed her cat. She claimed he done a bad job an’ nearly scratched his eyes out, he tol’ me. She says she loved the cat more’n any human bein’ in the world an’ that Omer ought to be shot for desecratin’ its memory. I think she called it Pygmalion.”

  “Wa-a-it a minute,” Kelly says. “A screwball old doll with a pet tabby, huh? Most likely she was as batty as a belfry an’ did sneak here an’ rub out Omer. Why, it is a crime, I bet that belongs in a serial, Mrs. Plastick.”

  “You mean somebody put arsenic in the mouser’s oatmeal?” Willie asked.

  Satchelfoot shut his eyes and counted until his blood pressure came down.

  “Boys,” he said, “we will go over and quiz this old thrip right away an’ not let no grass grow under us. Awright, have the morgue delivery take the remains away.”

  “I’ll ride with you, Kelly,” Willie said. Satchelfoot ground his teeth and stepped hard on Willie’s foot as he went out. Willie was right at Kelly’s shoulder when the detective and two other cops were admitted into Miss Peruna Wigginbottom’s gay nineties apartment on

  East Eighty-Sixth.

  Peruna was a dumpy little doll who could have been anywhere between sixty and a hundred and twenty years old. She

  wore a taffeta dress that crackled like a brush fire when she moved, and high buttoned shoes. Peruna’s face was as wrinkled as a hobo’s cuffs, and it had a pair of eyes that made Willie’s spine shiver.

  “You know who’s dead, Miss Wigginbottom?” Satchelfoot Kelly said first thing.

  “Abe Lincoln,” Peruna said. “Wa’n’t it awful?”

  “Look, Omer Plastick was shot dead,” Kelly yelped. “He was a taxidermish.”

  “Omer Pl—? He was? Good!” Peruna exclaimed and clapped her hands. “You hear that, Pygmalion?” she said and trotted over to a marble-topped mantelpiece.

  Willie Klump saw the stuffed cat. It was sitting on its haunches and it was cross-eyed. It was a Maltese but it had a tiger cat’s tail. There was a saucer of milk in front of the tabby.

  “There, don’t you feel good now, my pet. So drink your milk like a good girl!”

  “Ugh,” Willie said. “If she was a hen an’ laid a egg, it would be cracked, Satchelfoot.”

 
“Yeah, she did it awright. Search the joint, boys,” Kelly said. “Omer did do a messy job on that mouse-chaser, didn’t he? Well, we can’t convict a lunatic, though. Just my luck. I git a open an’ shut case—”

  MAN walked in. He looked very much aghast at the cops. He wore a

  black overcoat and derby. He had a pale face with very little chin and his nose was long and pointed.

  “Policemen?” he said as if the word was rat poison on his tongue and wanted to get rid of it quick. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “They come to tell me that Omer Plastick was shot quite dead, Ellsmere. Wa’n’t it sweet of them?” Peruna chirps.

  “See if you can get Pygmalion to drink her milk, you dear boy.”

  “Now look,” Kelly said to the arrival. “You any relation to this old babe?”

  “Have a little more respect, my man,” the character said. “I am her nephew. Ellsmere Forditch.”

  “You know she’s got a couple of gaskets an’ spark plugs loose, so don’t give me no airs,” Satchelfoot said. “We think she knocked off Plastick an’ are searchin’ the joint for the Betsy.”

  “Why, this is fantastic!” Ellsmere snorted. “You can’t do this, you know!”

  “We can’t?” Kelly grinned. “Just watch, Buster.”

  Willie could not keep his eyes off Peruna’s blood relation. When Ellsmere opened his mouth wide, he showed a big gap between his front teeth. Ellsmere reminded Willie of a pet rabbit he owned once. Suddenly Ears Brannigan came out of Peruna’s boudoir, and he had a gun. “Found it in a cedar chest, Kelly. One shot was fired.”

  “Gimme it,” Satchelfoot said, and took out his handkerchief. “Always remember hereafter, Ears, that I do the investigatin’ first. Well, ma’am, what you got to say for yourself, huh?”

  “A gun?” Peruna says. “Now what would I be doing with one of those awful things?”

  “Ask Omer Plastick,” Kelly said in cold tones.

  “You think she is a medium, too?” Willie asked. “Besides bein’ an eggsentric. I never would have believed this, Satchelfoot.”

  “We got to take your aunt downtown, Forditch,” Kelly said to the nephew.

  “Maybe,” Willie said, looking at the cat. “Pigsmellon got run over an’ lost its tail an’ Omer had to be like Frankensteen an’ take parts from other night howlers—” “He did not,” Peruna objected. “She

  died a natural death. She just slept away to—Ellsmere, where did they say I was going?”

  “You just go along quietly, Auntie,” Forditch said. “The D.A. just wants to ask you a few questions. Oh, I knew she’d do something awful some day. I better call her lawyer.”

  “She’ll need more than one mouthpiece,” Kelly said. “Git her wraps, Buster.”

  Willie noticed that Ellsmere’s eyes were not too good. The nephew took a card from his pocket and held it within a sixteenth of an inch of his glasses.

  “Somebody has to stay here while I’m gone,” Peruna says. “Pygmalion gits her chopped liver every night at eight o’clock.”

  “I’ll see she gets it, Auntie,” Ellsmere says. “I’ll be down later, Kelly. I’ll bring her lawyer.”

  An hour later, Willie ran headfirst into a break. He was standing outside Satchelfoot’s office when he saw a beefy citizen huffing and puffing his way along the corridor, and he immediately recognized him as a barrister who rented from the same building as he did.

  “Why, Thornton Updyke!” Willie greeted. “You been chasin’ ambulances ag’in!”

  “Ver-r-ry funny, Klump. Got to see my client, Miss Wigginbottom. Guess you heard the awful thing she did.”

  “What a lawyer!” Willie sniffed. “Right away you admit she is guilty. Don’t ever expect me to ever give you any business.”

  “Oh, you shut up!” Updyke said and put on steam again.

  Twenty minutes later, Satchelfoot Kelly came out of the D.A.’s office looking as satisfied with himself as a movie queen posing for cheesecake.

  “Well, there won’t be no trial, Willie.

  They figure to reserve a room in a cuckoo castle for her soon as they can. Wish she hadn’t been slap-happy, though, as I’d got more credit for everythin’.”

  “Water finds its own level,” Willie countered. “It takes a thief to catch a thief. An’ a half-wit to trip up a lamebrain. It is funny about somethin’, though. That old doll was as antique as Priscilla’s shift an’ if she was goin’ to knock off a taxerdermist you would expect her to use a blunderbuss or a bow an’ arrer, wouldn’t you?”

  “Talk sense,” Satchelfoot said. “An’

  gimme back that ace of spades.”

  “I could use a loan of ten bucks,” Willie said. “I would even let you loan it to me, Kelly, to show you my heart is in the same place.”

  ATCHELFOOT KELLY paid Willie ten dollars and Willie got a fifty-foot

  start on the headquarters detective before he tossed the playing card into the air. Kelly almost caught Willie before the president of the Hawkeye reached a safety zone where a big cop stood.

  “You git away from here, understand, me fine bucko,” the gendarme said to Willie. “I was watchin’ you two, an’ a fine pair of troublemakers you are. Beat it ‘fore I wrap me billy-stick about your neck?”

  “Pair?” Willie said. “Huh—I just remembered somethin’. Thanks, officer. I just remember I didn’t bite into no pear.”

  Willie managed to escape and reach his rooming house. He got out paper and pencil and began to scribble in a great hurry.

  “No, I never bit into that pear. Knowin’ that fruit was all wax, none of the Plasticks bit it. That is odd, ain’t it?”

  “What was I saying? To Kelly back at headquarters. Yeah, about antiques. Would Peruna Wigginbottom have any truck with modern things? She still had an old coal

  stove in her parlor, and a old phonograph with a horn. Something is wrong somewhere. I’1l talk to Updyke while he is hot.”

  Willie walked in on Thornton Updyke at ten o’clock the next morning.

  “Just wanted to ast a couple questions,” Willie said. “Peruna have more relations than Ellsmere Forditch?”

  “She has. Another nephew in Pittsburgh. A niece in Shamokin, that’s all. What you fishin’ for, Klump?”

  “Who’s gittin’ all her lettuce?”

  “H-mm,” Updyke said. “Now you mention it, I guess her will won’t hold, the one she made five years ago. But she was in her right mind then. Know what? She had me draw up a will which left seventy- five percent of her estate to her cat. It’s been done before. Figure sometime, when I think of my relatives, I’d rather leave what I got to a cocker spaniel to be sure it has a good home the rest of its life.”

  “That wouldn’t leave too much to her nephews and niece, huh?” Willie asked.

  “Only about ten thousand each. Miss Wigginbottom wa’n’t as rich as I thought, Klump.”

  “Then it would be smart to bump the tabby off, wouldn’t it? If it was goin’ to cost some guy a lot of hay, Updyke,” Willie said, surprised at his own deduction.

  “Yes, 1 see your point,” Updyke said. “You don’t think—”

  “Not often,” Willie grinned. “Today, though, I’m a surprise to myself. I better go to my office an’ put down some notes.” “Case was open an’ shut, Klump,” Updyke said. “You tryin’ to build a

  snowball into a glacier?”

  “I got nothin’ elst to do,” Willie said. “Thanks for the tips, Updyke.”

  William Klump reached his desk on the twenty-ninth floor and quickly opened his case book. He filled three pages with

  scrawls that looked like a new kind of shorthand, but they were scribbles that preserved Willie’s thoughts regarding a certain matter for all time. It occurred to Willie that taxidermists and veterinaries went together as much as physicians and undertakers, and ha
m and eggs, to say nothing of liver and bacon. It behooved a taxidermist to keep friendly with at least one vet if he wanted some choice subjects to work on in his stuffing studio. So that afternoon Willie went up to Gunhill Road to call on Mrs. Omer Plastick.

  “Well, I see they caught the old witch,” Mrs. Plastick snapped by way of greeting. “They ought to boil her in oil.”

  “The poor ol’ babe wa’n’t responsible,” Willie said. “Could I look about in your late husband’s, office? There’s some things the law has to clear up, Mrs. Plastick.”

  “I s’pose so. But don’t go stealin’

  nothin’.”

  “Don’t worry,” Willie said. “The only stuffed things I like is myself after a good meal. Er—maybe you can save me some time, though. Did Omer have occasion to do business with a vegetarian?”

  “You mean a vet,” Mrs. Plastick said. “Of course. When people’s pet parrots or canaries or dogs or cats died, the vet would call up Omer and Omer would contact the owners of the deceased pets an’ ask would they like to have them mounted at a reasonable price. Sometimes he got business that way.”

  “Any special vet?” Willie asked.

  “His closest friend was a vet named Junius Colt,” the widow said. “It’s in the phone book.”

  “I will go and see the Doc,” Willie said. “Could I have a glass of water?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Plastick said. “Then you got to go. I have to go and see poor Omer at the mortician’s. And he was just dyin’ to see my new fur coat on me for the

  first time.”

  “A bearskin he didn’t stuff?” Willie asked politely.

  “Don’t be silly. It is a shirred beaver,”

  the widow said;

  Willie suddenly remembered looking at one of the coats in a window with Gertie Mudgett and Gertie had said they cost anywhere from seven hundred to a thousand clams. When Mrs. Plastick went for the glass of water, Willie hurried into the dining room, and when he came out, a waxed pear was missing from the fruit bowl.