The Willie Klump

by Joe Archibald

  “Where was you between nine and twelve las’ night? Think fast, Devine?”

  “I was here all the time.”

  “Who can prove it? When did you visit

  Bowers’ penthouse last?”

  “A week ago,” Jellica said.

  “Yeah?” Kelly grinned like a hyena. “Now Bowers would get his place tidied up each day, wouldn’t he? With his rocks he could afford maid service?”

  “Of course,” the model said.

  Satchelfoot Kelly whipped out the flimsy hanky and dangled it in front of Jellica’s nose. “It’s yours, babe. ‘Why did it take a week t’ find it? And then by cops! You was there las’ night. That does it, huh? You want t’ confess?”

  Willie felt very sorry for the cutie. Her face reminded him of a smear of red paint

  against a whitewashed fence.

  “Who was in it with you?” Satchelfoot kept firing. “Come on, sister, as the jig is up.”

  “Nobody,” Jellica said in an anemic voice. “I mean I didn’t do it even if I went to see him last night.”

  “Ha, ha,” Kelly sneered. “You went t’ play drop the handkerchief with the guy, huh? You ever see this lug before?” He pointed at Willie.

  Jellica shook her head. “All right, I’ll tell you the truth. I was going to marry Bowers, a week from today and I would rather have died. He forced me into it. I’m glad he’s dead!” She snatched the handkerchief out of Kelly’s hand and sniffled into it.

  “Hey, that’s Exhibit A!” Satchelfoot yelped.

  “The D. A. will have t’ wait until it comes back from the laundry,” Willie grinned. “Go on, Miss Devine.”

  “Keep out of this, Willie!” “You ast me in, remember?”

  ELLICA DEVINE reached out and clutched at Satchelfoot’s sleeve. “You promise to keep my sister’s name out of the papers if I give you the whole thing

  straight?

  “I’ll try,” Kelly said.

  “Well, this Bowers kept askin’ me to marry him and I refused. Then one day my sister came to call for me at the studio,” Jellica explained. “She’s ten years older than I am and has a part in two or three radio programs. That night Bowers sent for me and Flo and we went to his penthouse.

  “All of a sudden he asked Flo how she’d liked it in the woman’s klink over in Pennsylvania and Flo nearly passed out. It seems that Bowers, before he became famous, took pictures of, well, criminals, for the police department in Shamokin. He remembered taking Flo’s picture. She got

  caught shoplifting. Oh, this is horrible.” “There’s the motive,” Satchelfoot said.

  “Looks like we don’t have t’ go no further, boys.”

  “I tell you I didn’t kill him, you fathead!” Jellica screamed at Kelly.

  “Flattery won’t work on him, ma’am,” Willie sniffed.

  “So he was forcin’ you t’ middle-aisle it with him or he’d tell the radio people that a soap opera star was oncet a shoplifter,” Satchelfoot said. “No jury will singe you for that. Le’s go to the D. A.”

  “I will not! I am innocent!”

  “Tsk, tsk.” Kelly went on. “Well, we will have t’ do it the hard way. I must tell you to git a mouthpiece an’ not to say no more as we’ll use it against you, babe. You are under arrest for knockin’ off Barnaby Bowers.”

  “To think a beautiful babe like you would just up an’ stab a guy!” Willie observed dryly.

  “Stabbed?” Satchelfoot yelled. “You know he was shot, blubberhead! What is the idea?”

  Willie ignored Kelly. He watched Jellica Devine’s face and saw no reaction to his ruse whatsoever. It occurred to Willie that if Jellica had really liquidated Bowers with a Roscoe she would have looked quite surprised to hear that he had been shivved.

  “Let’s go, sister,” Satchelfoot said coldly.

  Willie sat down and began biting his nails. Ten minutes later he realized that he was left alone in Jellica Devine’s apartment, and that it was actually in his mind that the doll was innocent.

  “I wish I knew why I was so sceptic about it,” he said, and began moseying around. He made himself a ham and cheese sandwich in the kitchenette and washed same down with a glass of milk. After which he wandered into Jellica’s boudoir and noticed the letter on her dressing table.

  “With a life at stake,” Willie decided, “who is Emmy Post?” He took the letter out of the mauve envelope and was aware of a very exotic scent. “It is some stationery.

  ‘The Willows. Westhampton, L.I. Mrs. Theodore Brottinger.’ ”

  Willie sat down on a very sleek counterpane and scratched his noggin as if trying to recall where he had seen the name before. He gave up and read the letter:

  Dear Jellica.

  How are you, darling! It seems just ages and ages since we had lunch together at Pierre’s. How is that old wolf, Barnaby? Sometimes I envy you and

  think I’d gladly swap places with you as being a

  member of the smart set isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Really, darling, you just can’t let your hair down for a minute. Remember when we modeled slips at the convention in Cleveland?

  Has Barnaby proposed to you again? Why don’t you grab the snook and it’ll serve him right. My Theodore is such a darling but 1 sometimes I wish you could swap a sixty-year-old one for two thirties, ha ha. Well, I have about given up on the police finding those jewels, but after all they were insured and—

  Now Willie remembered. Six months ago the Brottinger place had been broken into and relieved of nearly a hundred grand worth of assorted gems, and he’d gone to the insurance detectives and offered his help for a very moderate fee. Willie never forgave the flatfeet for what they said to him.

  LUMP left Jellica’s and went uptown and saw that the first editions of the evenings rags were draping the stands. Scareheads announced the violent removal from the scheme of things of Barnaby Bowers, and the taking into custody of one

  of his luscious models, Jellica Devine. “Well,” Willie told himself as he hied to

  a beanery, “When that society babe reads it she’ll spring her ol’ pal with a lump of lettuce an’ hire her a lawyer that could’ve beat the rap for the Nazzies. I bet she’ll bust

  all speed records gettin’ over the bridge. I better stick aroun’ downtown after I git a hamburger.”

  Willie called Gertie after he’d flirted with ptomaine. “How’s everythin’, Gert?” he inquired.

  “Ain’t it awful about that murder, Willie?” Gertie Mudgett yelled back. “It looks like she done it awright an’ it looks like Kelly will git to be a real cop yet. I don’t know why I bother with the likes of you.”

  “After seein’ them models I wonder why—skip it,” Willie said, making a fast switch. “They ain’t got a conviction yet.”

  “Oh, I had the swelles’ time with Tilly Hoffenspiel, Willie,” Gertie gushed. “We had cocktails an’ lunch at Schraff’s. Then she an’ me got tickets fer a show an’ after that—”

  “I have t’ be goin’, Gert,” Willie sighed. “I—what was that you said?”

  “We went t’ a swell show I told you, stupid.”

  “No, it was somethin’ elst you said,” Willie insisted. “I’ll see you around, Gert.”

  All the way downtown Willie tried to think of what Gertie had said that put hummingbirds in his stomach and started the wheels far in the back of his head turning. The trouble with Willie Klump, however, was that he was usually more aware of what might happen tomorrow than he was of what had really taken place yesterday. “I won’t try t’ force it,” he said. “Maybe it’ll sneak up on me.”

  At precisely three the next afternoon, Mrs. Theodore Brottinger, ex-Bowers model, wrapped up in half the mink in Canada, stepped from a limousine half a block long and was immediately followed by a very legal citizen packing a briefcase. A big sports roadster drew up jus
t behind the limousine and stopped and Willie Klump came out of a doorway across the street just as photographers swarmed the

  steps of the pokey.

  “Maybe she is wearin’ fifty grand worth of more jewels,” Willie told himself. “An’ the gee in the roadster is a bodyguard. It is a swell polo coat he is wearin’ but I’ll lay six t’ one he never saw a horse. I’ll go and draw him out.”

  “Good afternoon,” Willie greeted as flashlight bulbs popped. “The babe come with heavy bail, huh?”

  “Git lost,” the character behind the wheel said. “What’s it to you, frogface?”

  “I was just bein’ polite,” Willie sniffed. “I am a detective.”

  “I’m King of Siam. Here’s a dime. Go git a cup of coffee, Buster.”

  “Thanks,” Willie said, and he was halfway across the street with the dime in his hand when he suddenly stopped. “What am I doin’? Huh, ver-r-r funny! Well, I know my rights an’ I’ll hang aroun’ as long as I please.”

  Willie retraced his steps and took his stand against a hydrant not more than ten feet behind the spiffy roadster. The gent in the polo coat twisted around and gave him a funny look, he thought.

  Half an hour later, the peroxide Mrs. Brottinger came out with Jellica Devine and Willie watched the big citizen in the polo coat jump out of the roadster and form interference for the glamor dames. He wrecked two cameras and had one photog down and was feeding him a bulb when the cops broke it up. Willie was just three feet away when Mrs. Brottinger hustled Jellica into the sports roadster.

  “I have a tea with some Park Avenue biddies, darlin’,” she told the accused. “An’ some shoppin’ to do. You go along with Sheehan and I’ll be home about six.”

  “I’ll never forget you for this, Trixie,” Jellica said weepily.

  “You’re as good as in the clear, darlin’,” Mrs. Brottinger said. “That mouthpiece eats juries. Sheehan, if any reporters foller her

  you use your judgment.”

  “Leave it t’ me, Trix—er—Mrs. Brottinger, ma’am.”

  “H-m-m,” Willie grunted. “Don’t he know his place?” The hummingbirds in his stomach were joined by butterflies now and Willie wondered if he was coming down with something. He was standing there gazing after the departing roadster when Satchelfoot Kelly came up griping down his rain-barrel.

  “Okay, so that broad got bailed out,” Kelly snapped. “Leave her try an’ get outa that rap, though! So it is you, Willie! What are you moochin’ around here for?”

  “I want you to understand that I have a client even though he is post humorous,” Willie said with dignity. “He detained me just before the foul deed was done.”

  Satchelfoot Kelly pawed at his face and then sat down on the curb. “That is what I can’t figure out, Willie,” he said. “When he could have just ast for cops, but instead looked up the likes of you in a phone Classified while his murderers were breakin’ into the penthouse. An’ the aitch of it is we’ll never know.”

  “You give up too easy,” Willie said. “Well, I must go to my office an’ see if clients are waitin’. Yeah, Jellica will get the rap awright, but don’t be surprised if it is a mink one.”

  AUTIOUSLY, the president of the

  Hawkeye counted his petty cash when he reached his office and it came to sixty- seven cents. He immediately called Gertie. “Look, my passion flower,” Willie promoted, “I just got to see you. Tonight you can meet me in front of Luigi’s for spaghetti an’ meatballs, huh? Bring about five as I had emergency expenses t’ day.”

  “I’m sorry, Willie,” Gertie said. “Tilly Hoffenspiel just called a minute ago. She wants she an’ me to go for smoggens board t’night an’ she has a friend. Maybe tomorrer

  night, Willie!”

  “Ah—er—maybe later t’night,” Willie pleaded: “A midnight snack somewheres an’—”

  “No dice, Willie. After a show, she an’

  me—”

  “I’m sick of listenin’ t’ that she an’ me stuff. Always it is she an’—awk! Something cut loose inside Willie’s noggin when he hung up. It made a sound like a busted harp string. Tw-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ng! A desperate voice was in his ears again. “I think they’re outside, Klump. She an’—!”

  “Sheehan!” Willie gulped out when he’d pulled his tongue down from the roof of his mouth. Jellica Devine was a Bowers model and so had been Mrs. Theodore Brottinger! Sheehan worked for Trixie Brottinger; Willie worked mentally with a ball of twine to tie the characters all together. He looked up the Brottinger telephone number, found it and grabbed the phone. Finally a doll with an accent answered. “Good aftairnoon, Mrs. Brottinger’s rasidence .”

  “I want to talk t’ Mr. Sheehan,” Willie said, “This is an old frien’ just got in town.” “Oh. Mr. Sheehan,” the menial said. “You weel have to call the

  supereentendent’s offeese, oui.”

  “Okay, I weel,” Willie said. “Mercy bookoo.” He clamped his teeth together. He was indignant, for his intelligence, such as it was, had been insulted. A superintendent of an estate calling the lady boss, Trixie. And wearing a coat that had not cost less than two hundred clams.

  “A round peg in a square hole if I ever saw one,” Willie sniffed. “I am a long ways from the Fulton fish market an’ why do I smell haddock?” He sighed deeply and then snapped his fingers. “Yeah, I have to face the grim tragedy. Tonight I will ride the Long Island railroad.”

  An hour later William Klump sold a beat-up typewriter to a second-hand outfit for fifteen bucks and so had his expenses

  covered. “Dead or alive, I pertect my clients,” he asserted stoutly and went out to stoke up for the ordeal. An hour later, heavier by three pork chops, french fries and apple pie ala mode, William Klump arrived at the Pennsylvania Station where he purchased a ticket for Westhampton. “No use t’ git a round trip,” he mused philosophically. “In this business you never know.”

  It was getting quite dark when William J. Klump alighted from a bus out on Long Island and began hiking the half mile to the Brottinger estate. It was a lonely road and not far away frogs were croaking and they seemed to chant, “Klumpa-klump’ Klump- klump! Klump’s a chump!”

  ”Could be.” Willie sighed as he came to the entrance to the Brottinger estate. The iron gate was closed and Willie scaled a high stone wall and fell into some shrubbery not twenty yards away from the gatehouse. He listened for awhile, then reconnoitered and discovered that a casement window was open.

  He hauled himself up and inside a very dark room and just as his eyes were getting accustomed to the objects in the room, he heard somebody come in the front way. Willie quickly scootched down behind a couch that was close to the wall. A citizen with a heavy tread came in and snapped on the light and a few moments later the private eye heard liquid escaping a bottleneck:

  “Ah, brother, I needed that hooker,” a familiar voice said, and the springs of a chair creaked. Willie’s ticker sounded to him like a voodoo drum.

  Nearly an hour passed and Willie felt rigor mortis coming over him. A mouse trotted up and stared Willie in the eye, then scampered away. He felt a sneeze coming on and knew he couldn’t stop it. It cut loose just as the phone rang.

  “Ah, nuts!” Sheehan growled and went

  out into the hall. “Gatehouse, yeah. Who? Now look, Trixie, don’t come down here. Oh, you will. Okay, come ahead.”

  The character paced the floor and talked to himself. Willie heard him hit the bottle again and again. Then the door out there opened and closed and in a few seconds Willie smelled perfume.

  “What’s the idea comin’ here?” Sheehan growled.

  “For twenty grand I’d go anywhere, Georgie,” the dame said. “How about it? Where’s the dough for the rest of the jewelry?”

  “Look, you got nothin’ more t’ worry about, babe,” Sheehan snapped. “Why so greedy? Don’t you think the r
est of that scratch belongs t’ me? After all I just didn’t go out an’ bake a cake the other night.”

  “I’ll let you keep five grand,” Mrs. Brottinger said. “I owe a bookie nearly ten G’s and Theodore despises gambling of any sort. And I didn’t bail Jellica out with peanuts. And there is a certain mouthpiece wants five grand as down payment to get Jellica out of the hot seat so I shall not quibble with you, Georgie. After all I’ve practically supported you since I married Theodore.”

  “Leave us understand each other, Trixie. You was in business with me long enough to know I don’t change my mind once I make it up,” Sheehan said. “The bite is off you permanent and my profit is twenty grand. I’m quittin’ this cockeyed job now everythin’ is put straight.”

  T WAS difficult for Willie Klump to keep from shivering, the woman’s word

  was so cold.

  “So you want to be difficult, Georgie.” she said. “Look—I come into the gatehouse to talk to the superintendent. He attacks me and I have to kill him. The cops will identify you by some old fingerprints as Mervin Merrivale alias Hubert Whipple, old

  badger game himself. And they won’t wonder why you got a job on a millionaire’s estate. Look at me, Georgie. Do I look like the blonde that used to play the two-timin’ wife? Who would ever suspect me when the cops arrived? All right, let’s have the twenty G’s.”

  “Nice lookin’ Betsy you got there,” Sheehan said, and the sweat was oozing out of William Klump. “This bulge at my coat pocket ain’t from a banana, you doublecrossin’ moll! I took all the chances with the fences peddlin’ the rocks you had me steal. You can thank me that your meal ticket won’t ever learn you was a crook and my fee is the twenty grand I’ve got right in my kick, baby. Okay, drop that g—”

  There was plenty of lint on the floor behind the sofa and it got into Willie’s nose once more and this time the sneeze cut loose and knocked Willie’s hat off. The doll yelled, “Sheehan, who was that? There’s somebody behind the—!”