“To make on the whole a family happier for my presence.”
Heavily he achieved his feet, handed back the picture, and with one clumsy finger caressed ever so lightly a dimpled cheek.
“You did the right thing, darlin’, in showing me Daddy’s picture. The North Pole ain’t as far away as I thought, and who knows but what the Police Department might have a little influence with Santa Claus!”
That night Officer O’Malley passed up his date with Sadie Smith, and called instead on various public officials, including Superior Judge Humphrey, District Attorney Taylor, and Captain Collins.
“Jim,” said his veteran superior, “I’m not much in favor of paroling a man that’s sent up for gun-play. The habit is hard to break. But I know the little girl you speak of, and I think you’re right in sayin’ she’ll do Danny as much good as Greenbow. Anyway, they’re pretty crowded up there. When are you goin’ to get married?”
“Me?” said Jim, turning a dull crimson. “Me?”
Captain Collins laughed. “Do you think I got all these stripes on my arm for bein’ blind? I held Sadie on my knee, and I knew her twenty years ago, and I’ll do it again if you don’t look out. Go on with you now, and conduct yourself as becomes a courageous man.”
* * *
—
June came, the month of roses and romance and reckoning. School commencement exercises were but a few days off. Margie scampered up with the unbelievable news that her father was coming home the next morning. Her radiancy well repaid Officer Jim for all his efforts.
“Well, well, well,” he commented, “that’s fine! You want to be extra cautious now, crossing the street. I’ve taken care of you this long—you mustn’t let anything happen to you at the last minute. Take my hand, darlin’, and we’ll cross together.”
Margie was excused a half-hour earlier the next morning in order that she could hurry home to meet her father. Fate, which operates in ways that are beyond all human understanding, saw to it that a coal-oil stove exploded in a house on upper Hillside. Far down the boulevard a shrill siren began its wail, and Officer O’Malley, strolling leisurely toward his noonday post, quickened his pace. When he reached the cross-street, he saw Margie starting toward him from the opposite corner. He held up a warning hand, but she mistook it for a friendly greeting, and ignoring the siren that was growing louder every second, sprang forward to meet him. At the same instant Battalion Chief Powell’s red car swept into sight, traveling fifty miles an hour. Powell had every reason to expect a clear street at that time of day. Instead a little girl fluttered into his path, saw her danger, and instead of standing still, turned first one way and then the other.
Brakes shrieked on a swerving car. There was a wild yell from the driver, and Officer O’Malley left the curb in a headlong leap. Streak of red, flash of blue—bump—and on!
Careening on two wheels, the fire-car missed a telegraph-pole by inches, mounted the sidewalk, regained the street and came jerkily to a stop. Chief Powell looked back. A bare-headed cop, covered with dust and with his right coat-sleeve torn off, had regained his feet, and in his arms he held the limp figure of Danny’s daughter.
“All right!” bellowed Officer Jim. “Go on! She’s just fainted—you didn’t touch her!”
“Thank God!” said Chief Powell. “Well, that’s one cigar I owe big Jim. —Step on it, son!”
Margie had been shocked into a swoon. Her house was not so far away, and O’Malley walked there straight as a bee travels, but he had no recollection of it afterward. The terrific fall had stunned him. He felt no pain at all from a fractured collarbone. He had but one blind instinct—to get this child to her home, and then go to his own cottage and lie down. He did not even remember turning little Miss Sunshine over to her mother, nor of starting to descend the narrow stairs that led to the street. But what happened immediately thereafter penetrated his torpor. Halfway down the stairs he came across his handcuffs where they had fallen from his pocket, and he bent mechanically to pick them up. The effort told on him, and for a moment he drooped against the wall, half crouched in the shadows with the steel bracelets in his hands and his heavy features contorted with pain.
This was the picture presented to young Danny the Dude, as he ran lightly up the steps of his home expecting to greet his wife and child. The door was unlatched and he pushed straight in! The two men looked into each other’s eyes, and they were as close as they had been that day in the courtroom when the threat was uttered and answered.
To young Danny, chastened and hopeful, but fresh from Greenbow, Officer O’Malley’s presence in his home meant but one thing. The handcuffs confirmed it! All the stories which he had heard from fellow-prisoners and only half believed were true. The police were persecutors! They weren’t going to let him even see his family. His release was a frame-up. Red madness engulfed him.
“You dirty hound o’ hell!” he shrieked, and leaped barehanded for O’Malley’s throat. The big man, protesting feebly, went down under the attack. The police gun slipped from his holster, and fell within reach of a slim hand. Bang!
* * *
—
A moment later Danny the Dude fled down the front steps. After him reeled an officer of the law, blood streaming from a wound in the shoulder, and calling desperately as he went. “Danny—Danny—for God’s sake don’t run!…It’s all right, I tell you. Danny, come back here!”
But the fugitive fled on. O’Malley hailed a passing machine.
“Gosh!” said the startled driver. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’,” he answered. “Take me home.” He gave his address and fell into the back of the car.
That night Inspector Foley and two plainclothes men, having heard part of the story and halfway suspecting the rest, stood at O’Malley’s bedside and tried unsuccessfully to worm the truth from him. The papers had it that Officer Jim had been hurt saving a schoolchild from certain death. Chief Powell had made that part of it plain. The rest was still a police secret.
“You say,” questioned the Inspector, “that as you were coming down the stairs, your gun fell out and exploded. Is that it, Jim?”
“Yes,” confirmed O’Malley. “It’s only a flesh-wound. I’ll be all right in a few days.”
“I believe that part of it,” said Foley. “But I’d like you to tell me how the top of your shoulder is all powder-burned if the shot was fired as you say?”
O’Malley remained silent.
“And you couldn’t by any possible chance tell us who belongs to this soft black hat we found on the staircase? Nor who it was that ran out of the house just ahead of you?”
O’Malley shook his head.
“That’s all,” said the Inspector. “Let’s go, boys! My mind’s working better than Jim’s.”
At eleven o’clock the next morning, just as the commencement exercises of the Highland Park School were drawing to a close, a police car drew up at O’Malley’s humble domicile. Captain Collins, who had risen from a sickbed, was in the front seat, and in the rear, handcuffed to Inspector Foley, sat Danny the Dude. Old Mother O’Malley, blessing herself nervously, ushered them into the sickroom.
The injured officer tried to flash a message to the prisoner, but it was of no avail. Danny figured the game was up. He drew back with a snarl, “Aw, what’s the use of this foolin’ around. Sure I plugged him, and I’m sorry I didn’t bump him off.”
O’Malley groaned and turned his face to the wall.
“So you admit you shot him,” said Captain Collins. “Well, my lad, you know what that means, don’t you? ’Twill be more like forty years now instead of four. You might at least have given your little girl a kiss first.”
Suddenly, Danny the Dude’s composure broke. He fell into a chair, buried his face in manacled hands, and sobbed out his version of the shooting of O’Malley. Bitter curses punctuated the recital. “There he was, l
ayin’ for me with the ’cuffs in his hand! Wasn’t even going to let me upstairs to see my kid—my kid! I tell you I was goin’ straight. I was—I was! He waited for me just as he said he would. Waited right in my house with the ’cuffs, and my kid upstairs.”
O’Malley propped himself up. “ ’Twas because of your little girl,” said he, “that I was there. The ’cuffs fell out of my pocket and I was picking them up.”
“You lie!” raved Danny the Dude. “What license have you got to be thinkin’ about my kid? You dirty—”
“Help me up, boys,” pleaded O’Malley. “I’ll bust him right in the nose—”
Captain Collins raised his hand. “Shut up, both of you! I’ll tell the story now as it ought to be told. As my old woman used to say, ‘Anybody can see through a door after somebody bores a hole in it.’ Listen to me, Danny, and I’ll tell you why Jim happened to be in your house.”
The gray-haired apostle of the Central Station was not an orator. He spoke simply and as one man to another, but more than once his voice wavered and he looked out the big window. He loved his men and his work, and he knew the value to the community of teaching little children to run to an officer instead of away from them. The story was long in the telling, for Captain Collins omitted little and supplied much that O’Malley had thought was a secret of his own. Certain chapters brought a dull red to the cheeks of Officer Jim.
“So, you see,” concluded the Captain, “to sum it all up, ‘police protection’ is a pretty broad term. This harness bull that you took such pleasure in wingin’ is the one who made it possible for your little girl to walk, who guarded her from all harm while you were away, and who headed the petition for your parole. If you hadn’t found him in your home, bruised and out of his head, it would have been because you’d have later found your baby stretched out under a sheet at the City Morgue—God help you then, lad! We’d have been powerless!”
* * *
—
Through most of the recital Danny the Dude had listened with tight lips and challenging eyes, but gradually the hard lines had softened, incredulity had been replaced by amazement; and now his youthful features twitched with the reaction. He drew a deep breath and looked up at Collins. “As God’s my witness,” said he, “if I believed one-half of that was true—” He hesitated.
“You’d do what?” prompted Captain Collins.
“I was brought up to hate cops,” said Danny, “but if you ain’t lying, I’ll get down on my knees and kiss all the polish off that guy’s shoes!”
There was a moment of silence.
“Faith,” chuckled the Captain. “I’d hate to have that sentence passed on me. Jim’s got the biggest shoes in the department. Now, let’s see—”
Mother O’Malley appeared in the doorway, visibly excited.
“Parade,” she called. “Parade, an’ it’s comin’ this way! All the kids in the world and a brass band! Hear it?”
They all heard it then: the Hillside Park School Band, trying its best to master the mysteries of the official police anthem, “Fearless and True.” The music grew louder.
Captain Collins went to the front window. A battalion of school children, six hundred strong, was coming up the street, little girls in stiff white dresses escorted by little boys carrying school colors and American flags. At their head marched Miss Sadie Smith, holding by the hand the daughter of Danny the Dude. The parade came to a stop outside the O’Malley residence. A youthful yell-leader mounted the steps, faced the assemblage, and waved his arms. The enthusiastic response rang throughout the neighborhood.
Rah—rah—rah!
Officer Jim!
O’Malley’s crimson face disappeared under the bedclothes, whence came a muffled voice: “For the love o’ Pete! They ain’t comin’ in here, are they? You talk to them, Captain! Tell ’em I’m much obliged.”
Captain Collins returned from the window. “Better take the ’cuffs off your man, Inspector. Danny, you wanted evidence, did you? Well, stand back in that corner, and you’ll get it.” He prodded the shrouded figure that represented O’Malley. “Stick your head out, you big turtle! You’re a hell of a hero! Quick, now—both your girls are comin’ in here with candy and flowers.”
* * *
—
He spoke just in time. O’Malley looked up to see Danny’s small daughter standing in the doorway, her arms filled with flowers. Behind her was Miss Sadie Smith. Margie, made timid by the presence of strangers, hesitated a moment. Then she saw the welcoming light in blue eyes, and forgot all else, even the carefully prepared speech which she had been elected to deliver. Hurrying across the room, Danny’s daughter dropped to her knees by O’Malley’s bed. The flowers fell unheeded to the floor. Small arms went around his neck.
“Thank you for saving me, Officer Jim, and I hope you’re not hurt bad, and—and—” her voice wavered, and the hot tears of childish grief descended. “Oh, J-Jimmy,” she sobbed, “he came, and I missed him! Mamma says he’s gone back to the North P-Pole, and now I’ll have to wait all over again. It wasn’t any use s-saving me at all.”
She buried her face in the bedclothes and sobbed bitterly.
“There, there!” comforted O’Malley. “Your mother might be mistaken, darlin’.” He looked up at Captain Collins, and the latter with a wave of one hand relegated all authority to his subordinate. O’Malley patted the head of his favorite. “Kiss big Jim,” he whispered, “and I’ll tell you some grand news. Your daddy didn’t go back to the North Pole. He came down to see his little girl, and he lost his way, so he had to come to us. All people who are lost do that, you know. He’s in this room, darlin’. Dry your eyes now, and see if you can pick him out. They wanted me to identify him, but somehow I couldn’t seem to do it.”
Margie didn’t have much trouble, for as she turned swiftly around, young Danny the Dude crumpled to his knees and held out his arms. With a sharp cry Margie covered the distance between them.
“Take him home, sweetheart,” said Captain Collins, “and see that he don’t lose his way again. Inspector, I guess you and I might as well be goin’.”
They paused a moment on the porch to acknowledge the cheers of the children in the street.
“Look at that, will you!” said Captain Collins. “There’s the finest testimonial ever given an officer in the history of the Department. We’ll have no trouble with that crop of citizens.”
Sadie appeared in the doorway, her eyes moist and her lips trembling.
“Where do you think you’re goin’?” said the head of the Central Station. “We came out on the porch to give you and Jim a chance.”
The pink deepened in Miss Smith’s cheeks. “I—I’ve got to march the children back to the yard before I can dismiss them.”
“Me and the Inspector will do that,” said the Captain. “Go on back and give a deserving officer the decoration that’s comin’ to him.”
“Orders are orders,” said Sadie, turning back….
Captain Collins descended the stairs and consulted with the leader of the band. “Do you know the Wedding March? Well, you better learn it! All right, kids, fall in! About face! Squads right! Forward march! Heads up, everybody! Shoulders back! Eyes straight ahead! Ah, that’s fine! Watch your step! Hay foot, straw foot, belly full of bean soup. Hay foot—”
The band played “Freedom Forever,” and down the street marched Sadie Smith’s kids, four abreast, and led by two veteran upholders of the law. Captain Collins’s head moved jauntily to the beat of the drums, and his countenance was serene. He rightly guessed that in the cottage on the hill behind them, a blushing young schoolteacher was at that moment applying the finishing touches to the making of O’Malley!
Once Upon a Train
STUART PALMER & CRAIG RICE
THE STORY
Original publication: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 1950; first collected i
n People Vs. Withers & Malone by Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1963)
THE AUTHORS WHO COWROTE THIS STORY were friends who also collaborated on several screenplays and enough stories to fill a collection titled People Vs. Withers & Malone (1963). Charles Stuart Hunter Palmer (1905–1968) and Craig Rice (1908–1957) were two of the most beloved and successful mystery writers in America from the 1930s to the 1960s—Palmer for the books and stories featuring his schoolteacher sleuth Hildegarde Withers and Rice for the zany humor she brought to her mystery novels.
It seems that Palmer occasionally found collaboration with Rice a tricky, even frustrating, business. She had become an alcoholic, so her dedication to meeting deadlines had diminished in later years. Still, they were a good partnership, each of them blessed with a robust sense of humor.
Born Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, Rice’s real-life mysteries were a match for her fiction. Because of her enormous popularity in the 1940s and 1950s (she was the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine), she was often interviewed but was as forthcoming as a deep-cover agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. How her pseudonym was created is a question that remains unanswered sixty years after her premature death. Equally murky are the questions about her marriages, the number of which remain a subject of conjecture. She was married a minimum of four times, and it is possible the number reached seven; that she had numerous affairs is not in dispute. She had three children.
Born in Chicago, where she spent much of her life, her parents took off for Europe when she was quite young, so she was raised by various family members. She worked in radio and public relations but sought a career in music and writing poetry and general novels, with which she had no success, so she turned to writing detective novels with spectacular results.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 76