by Kane, Henry
“And then I showed up,” I said.
“You did indeed,” said Barry Howard. A small sigh rippled his lips. He lit a new cigarette. He said, “Back to the professionals, if you please, Mr. Chambers. Of course, I shall retain excellent lawyers and all of that. Of course, the money is intact, and restitution shall be made in full. Comparatively, these are minor problems, as compared to the major problem. A felony-murder, in the law, renders all of the members participating in the felony guilty of the individual act of murder by any one of the members—provided the murder takes place during the commission of the felony. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”
“And the felony here would be a conspiracy to embezzle?”
“So?”
“You can imagine that I’ve given this matter some thought?”
“I can imagine.”
“I maintain that the felony was completed before the murder, and that, in such case, the murder was the sole and exclusive act of one individual, and not binding upon or attaching to any other individual.”
“How so?” said Surf, shake of head and click of tongue a clucking revelation of involuntary admiration for his newest author.
“I maintain that the felony was complete when Mr. Medford showed up at the office of Nigle Realty carrying a hundred thousand dollars. That was it. The job was over, ended. Any act of violence on the part of Miss Elgin was then after the felony, an act apart from the felony, and therefore her own responsibility, and none of mine. What do you think, Mr. Chambers?”
“It’s a delicate question,” I said, “and I’m a richard not a lawyer. In my opinion …”
I never got to it. The bell rang. Surf rolled off and his tidings on return were a wave of capped cops and a billow of plainclothes-men, five in all, headed by Lieutenant Generoso. There were two uniformed policemen, two bulky detectives in dour mufti, and the slender young lieutenant resplendent in a grey-tweed raglan topcoat. Our tales wagged again: first mine, then Howard’s; and then I returned Surf’s elephant-gun.
“Lieutenant Generoso,” I said, “would you permit me the signal honor of flicking the chick for you?”
“Peter,” he said, “your hip talk dislocates me. You seem to be making some sort of request.”
“I request that you permit me to go downstairs and fetch the gal for you—Frances Elgin.”
Dryly he said, “Why? Don’t you think we can handle it?”
“Look, you’re not sore about any of this, are you?”
“Let’s put it this way—I’m not pleased. I’m not crazy about private detectives—not even on television. I don’t like what you pulled—that John Maxwell deal. You did some nice detective-work with that address book which led you to the body—but even that was not your province. It was your duty to turn that address book over to the police who were working on Mr. Medford’s disappearance with the hundred thousand dollars. But certainly, once you discovered the body—you should have called up and stayed put and waited for us.”
“Why vie over spilled bilk? The theft is cleaned up, and the murder is solved. You’ve got Barry Howard right here, and you’ve got the hundred thousand waiting for you at the Roosevelt. All I’m asking is that you permit me to go downstairs and bring back Frances Elgin.”
“Why?”
“It’s personal. Cripes, can’t you give an inch? Aren’t I entitled to one lousy little favor. Look, I’m not crazy about police-lieutenants —not even on television. There’s only one police-lieutenant I am crazy about …”
“Yeah. I know. You’re Parker’s boy—not mine.”
“Tony, I threw this case into your lap and you’re going to get a lot of credit for its solution. Fine by me. I don’t want any credit. All I want is one lousy little favor …”
Surf intervened. “Lieutenant, I’m running a big party downstairs. An arrest down there would create a shambles. Actually, Mr. Chambers is making his request on my behalf …”
That gave Generoso his out. “Okay,” he grumbled, “but do it fast, and don’t muff it.”
“No muff there for me,” I said and went out and walked the long quiet corridor to the elevator and punched the button and descended to the kitchen and panned past the chefs and was embroiled once again within the caldron of the merrymakers, seeking the lady in blue. Generoso could not understand and I could not explain: this mission was for me. What could I tell the good lieutenant?—that I was sentimental? Sentimentality is not for the mentality of the private richard: it is a bitter-sweet to be enjoyed by those in less hard-bitten professions. The lady had killed my friend. It was fitting that I deliver her.
I found her, this time tall in the thrall of only one man, a huge unliterary specimen without a beard.
“Miss Elgin,” I said.
“Oh no. Not you again.”
“Do you know him?” said the huge specimen.
Her icy eyes slitted in distaste. “An egregious, ineffable bore. The humble-pie type. He makes me ill.”
“Beat it, buster,” said the specimen.
“Butt out,” I said. “I have a message for the lady.”
“He has a message he says,” he said.
“He’s tried to get through with his message before. He’s a damnable bore. I’m not receiving.”
“I come not now with any message from me,” I said. Pretty flighty, eh? What the hell, this was a literary party. “I come crawling to Your Highness as a lowly messenger-boy.”
“See what I mean about humble pie? This disgusting man simply won’t take no for an answer.”
“Beat it, buster,” said the specimen.
My right hand became a knuckled ball. Not for him. For her. I resisted. I said, “Your Majesty, my message is from … Barry Howard.”
“Walter,” she said to the specimen, “would you please go there to the bar and get me a drink? Drambuie, please.” The beardless bull hoisted a smile, oxed no more questions, and hoofed off on a steer toward the bar. “A message,” she said, “from whom, Mr. Er?”
“Count Maroufke.”
The cold eyes turned on the heat. “I beg your pardon?” But the arrogance was crippled by a splint of anxiety.
“That’s what he told me to say, ma’am, in case you didn’t take me seriously. Count Maroufke. What does it mean, Count Maroufke?”
“I have no idea. Where is he?”
“Count Maroufke?”
“Mr. Howard.”
“He’s upstairs with Mr. Alfred Surf in Mr. Surf’s small study.”
“Upstairs?”
“The top floor. This is a triplex. Something like when you give birth to three babies all at once.”
The Count Maroufke had thrown her. But she was a quick recovery. She was back on her high saddle. “Exceedingly funny. Now if you please … how can we possibly … with this mob …?”
“There’s some sort of servants’ elevator in the rear through the kitchen. Now if Your Highness won’t be discommoded by a lift in the servants’ elevator …”
Hauteur snobbed up again grandly. “If you’ll kindly lead the way …”
“Your humble-pie servant, Your Majesty. By your leave, or your leaf, or your entire bush, follow the assle of your vassal, my liege-lady; onward through yon thicket of skillet, fry-pans beating like cymbals in a tympany of titular reverence …”
What in hell could she do but follow? The vassal had knocked her on her assle by the mention of Maroufke. She knew it was legit. She knew I wasn’t throwing a fast one past her. She knew that Howard had furnished me with a cryptic (she thought) password that could not be ignored.
Her silence was cold through the hot kitchen, descending to freezing as we ascended in the small elevator. On the top floor I pointed to the far door and said, “There’s where he wants you.” We were halfway along the quiet corridor when the door opened and Lieutenant Generoso emerged, impatiently.
“Who’s he?” she said
“Lieutenant Generoso.”
“Lieutenant—who?”
; “Generoso”
“Who’s he?”
“A lieutenant.”
“Of what?”
“Police.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants you.”
“Me?”
“For the murder of Charles R. Medford.”
She turned and ran. I ran after and grabbed a wrist. She pulled but I pulled her back. The claws of her free hand came up to scratch but they never arrived. With pleasure but not permitting the pleasure to interfere with direction, I hauled off and belted her Not too hard. Just hard enough to satisfy everybody all around.
EIGHTEEN
BARRY HOWARD went away handcuffed to one of the policemen in uniform. Frances Elgin went away handcuffed to the other of the policemen in uniform. One of the detectives muffled in mufti, but unhandcuffed so that he could drive, accompanied them. The other of the detectives in muffled mufti was ruffled off to a shuffle with the desk-man at Hotel Roosevelt, his object to impound one hundred thousand clams cramped to a chowder of illicit money within a licit lissome-leathered new-bought attache case. That left Lieutenant Anthony Generoso whose reluctant object was I. Wrapped within imperious mantle of raglan topcoat he declared with modestly muted authority, “You’ll come with me now, Pete.”
“Oh no!” cascaded the Surf in a Niagara of negation. “He and I have a monumental Last Chapter to discuss.”
“Oh no!” cascaded I in a simple trickle of simple-minded dedication. “I must go to 14 Sutton Place at once.”
“Oh yes!” cascaded Generoso generating a pisspotful of streaming bossism. “I’m in charge here. I’m averse to pulling rank but in this case, sorry, but I must turn a deaf ear to your heartrending croaks and cries concerning the immediacy of other business. Chambers goes downtown with me—now! There are more questions to be propounded for the files, more answers to be adduced, odds and ends to be ended, papers to be signed, and statements sworn.” Generoso was one of our latter-day career-cops: careering through college and copping all the prizes and then deciding upon police-work as the life-work. He could rattle more polysyllables in a moment of excitement than a Russian could rattle missiles in a foment of fear.
“But the book,” said Surf.
“But Sutton Place,” said I.
“But nuts,” said Generoso. “Do you come peacefully, Peter, or do you require handcuffs like the other miscreants?”
“I’m a miscreant?” I said sorrowing visibly.
“If you flout the law, what else?” said Generoso grinning risibly. “And right here, right now, I represent the law, and if that’s not a flout you’re pulling, what else is it?”
So the phone rang.
So Surf answered it.
So he said, pounding the shore of his white-capped teeth with a rising swell of annoyed propriety: “This telephone call is for you, Mr. Chambers.”
“Me?”
“You.”
I seized the receiver and breathed, “What?”
“Pete,” said Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker in a spray of almost unintelligible syntax, “Sandy Santee doesn’t put it past you, although I do, so I apologize in advance for asking, although he insists, for all the good it can do—was anything passed to you while you were here? Ridiculous, huh?”
“Pardon?”
“Ridiculous?”
“What?”
“If anything was passed illegitimately—although I know you wouldn’t be party to anything like that—but if anything was passed illegitimately then it doesn’t make sense that you’d admit it, but Santee is a lawyer, and lawyers insist upon having things on the record, one way or the other, whatever it may be—so was there?”
“What? Damn!”
“Anything passed to you?”
“Passed to me? What the—”
“Did Jack Medford pass anything to you?”
“Passed the time of the day. What the hell goes, Lieutenant?”
“Look! Can you come down here? Right away?”
“I can, and I want to, but there’s a lieutenant here—”
“Let me talk to him.”
I extended the thing to Generoso. “The lieutenant wishes to speak to the lieutenant, Lieutenant.”
Generoso took hold and the lieutenants conferred and then the phone got banged and Generoso delivered himself of a withering glance.
“Ah, the nipups of the pipsqueaks,” he sighed. “A beautiful title, sir,” said Surf.
The withering glance now fell on the churning Surf. “Title for what?”
“Who cares?” said Surf glossily waxing enthusiastic. “It’s just a beautiful title. For anything. Nipups And Pipsqueaks. Great. May I have it, sir? Maybe I’ll use it for a book of excerpts from Lord Bertrand Russell. Or maybe I’ll lend it to Jean Kerr.”
“I couldn’t Kerr less,” said Generoso. “It was meant for Peter here.”
“Mud in your withering eye, Lieutenant,” I said. “Am I the nip, the pup, the pip, or the squeak?”
“May I have it, Peter?” said the unquenchable Surf.
“It’s yours,” I said. “May I go now, Lieutenant?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that 14 Sutton Place was a police matter?”
“What chance did I have for ejaculation while you were pulling off rank?”
“Who is Rank?” said Surf.
“May I go now, Lieutenant?” I said.
“On condition that you come to me immediately that you’re through with Parker.”
“You have my promise.”
“Then get out of here.”
Surf returned to his Last Chapter. “Now wait a minute! I must talk with you, Peter. I have a contract with you. I’ve given you five thousand dollars. You just can’t run like that. These developments have been absolutely sensational. Now let’s just—”
“I can’t, Alfred. I’ve got to run.”
“Will you be at your apartment later?”
“Yes but—”
“I’ll see you there.”
“What about your party?”
“The hell with my party.”
“Goodbye all,” I said.
NINETEEN
THE TECHNICIANS were gone, the body was gone, even the muscular Mrs. Monet was gone. There was only a grave male assembly to greet me: Parker, the Pea, Santee, Jack, and assorted cops. Jack was wild-eyed and wheyfaced, tense and explosive, tightly braced between two cops. Santee was pink-faced, pleased, and cordial. Peabody, handsome and arrogant, talked up as soon as I was admitted to the library where they were all now gathered in solemn conclave.
“There’s the monkey that pulled the rock on you, Lieutenant. The pretty-boy peeper pulled the old switcheroo. He passed it to you, didn’t he, son of a bitch?”
“I didn’t pass anything,” said Jack Medford.
“What the hell goes here?” I said.
“Look how innocent,” said Mike the Pea. “Butter couldn’t melt in his goddam mouth. That’s a wise old apple, Lieutenant, and he’s putting the frig to you but good.”
“Quiet,” said the lieutenant.
“Quiet,” said Sandy Santee.
“That’s all I’ve been hearing,” said Mike the Pea. “Quiet. Look, we got free speech here. It’s a free country, ain’t it?”
“Quiet,” said Sandy Santee. “I’ll do the talking for you. That’s what I’m here for.”
“Well, damn, talk.”
“Chambers,” said Santee, “we’re convinced that the brooch was passed to you.”
“What brooch?”
“Chambers,” said Sante, “I’m advising you now as a lawyer. This kid—this Jack Medford—will break once the police begin to question him in earnest. If you deny now, you’ll be in terrible trouble later. You’re a smart guy. A caper can go kaput. I tell you, as a lawyer, if you repent and withdraw right now, if you cooperate, if you tell your story here and then you tell your story to the Grand Jury, waiving immunity—if you produce that brooch or tell us where it is—I guarantee, as a lawyer, nothing w
ill happen to you. At worst, a suspended sentence. At best, and much more likely, not even an indictment.”
“What brooch?” I said.
“I didn’t pass anything,” said Jack Medford.
“What the hell goes here?” I said.
“They’re back on their broken record,” said Santee.
“Was a diamond brooch passed to you?” said Parker.
“Care to frisk me in front of these witnesses?” I said.
“How stupid do you take us for?” said Santee. “You’d be an idiot to have it on you now—and you’re no idiot.”
“What brooch?” I said.
“Come with me,” said Parker.
He led me to Penelope Arlington’s bedroom which he seemed to have established as his private office. The bed was made. Penelope was no longer there.
“What’s with a brooch?” I said.
“We’re going to book your boy,” he said. “We now have motive.”
“What took so long? Is this the brooch-bit that was broached out there?”
“We couldn’t touch anything until my experts showed up. After they did their photographs and their fingerprints and all of that, we could move, inspect. You know?”
“I know I know. So what’s with a brooch?”
“Motive for murder. A brooch worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. How’s that sound for motive for murder?”
“Sounds grand. Two hundred and fifty grand. But how does it apply?”
“Miss Arlington was a rich woman.”
“So?”
“A tremendously rich woman.”
“So?”
“She owned an enormous amount of jewelry. In the millions. All insured, but in the millions. Most of it she keeps in her vault.”