Dr. Kyne said, “I think he’s right.”
I went over to Jane Willis’s body and bent down close to her face and looked at the smudge there. “I thought there was something screwy about this thing,” I said. “It looks like a thumb print. Only it’s upside down.”
Hanley came over and looked, but the expression in his face said, “So what?”
“When you made that pass at yourself in the Hideaway, making out that you were fainting,” I said, “what did you do?”
Hanley did it and his face fell. “Oh-oh,” he said. “I get it. That print on her dome is upside down. It’s a thumb print upside down. And she couldn’t have made it. Not in a normal position. Then how did it get there?”
“Watch,” said I. “Consider a hat pin in my right hand. I put my left hand on your head to steady it, maybe while we struggle. My other fingers are in your hair, my thumb on your forehead, upside down. Get it? Then I jab into your eardrum and the deed is did.”
Hanley said, “We’ve got something. Doc, you stay right here and you don’t let anyone get near that stiff except Babcock whom I’m gonna send right down.” He waved at me. “Come on.”
* * *
—
We went upstairs, and Hanley sent Babcock down with the print equipment to take the mold of that print off Jane Willis’s face. “And check with Al Myers’s when you get it,” Hanley called. “And if that don’t work, check its type through the files, but check it!”
There were reports from the lab on his desk. Report from checking the fingernails: negative. Dust, small particles of wood, no flesh. Report on the glass found: negative, no prints, no trace, apparently cheap frosted glass, used extensively now for junk jewelry which was quite the rage. Junk jewelry probably smashed in scuffle. Junk jewelry is the inexpensive ornamental stuff that is so popular. Did it mean a woman? The hatpin too!
I could see that Poppa was getting bogged down into details so I left him and went home. When I got home, I thought the thing over for quite a while, trying to find a woman in it, but the only woman I could think of was Marian Hans, who had played sick and asked Dinah to pinch-hit for her. It was possible that Marian had pulled a phony, perhaps murdered Jane Willis, then sent Dinah to discover her while she lay in bed with a fairly decent alibi. But why? Marian Hans and Jane Willis had been closer than a pea and its pod. Sharing the news, the dirt, double-dating, pally-wallying. Murder was quite a rap. Even if two gals get in a huff, they don’t jab hatpins into each other’s ears.
I wired Dinah Mason at the Pancoast in Miami Beach and asked her if she had smelled perfume or powder or seen anything to give a clue as to whether or not the identity of the killer was feminine.
Then I telephoned Marian Hans at her apartment. There was no answer. I didn’t give it much chance, just two rings, and then I hung up. I hung up in a hurry because my door was opening. I thought of making a break for the desk where I keep my .31 Colt gravescratcher, but it was too late for that. The door opened and two people came in.
You could have knocked me over with a heavy look.
It was Gentleman Al Myers, and his winsome debutramp bride, Elsie Whittaker.
CHAPTER IV
Finger Girl
Life is full of little surprises. No matter how many times I’ve written that nothing is ever new, I am constantly eating those words by being surprised out of my very pants.
Myers and Whittaker. There they were. The police of three states were hanging in suspense, waiting for a sight of them. And here they were. Poppa, and Halloran, the city editor of any newsrag in the town, Pop and Mom Whittaker, Dinah Mason: all of them would have given a shirt to be this close to them.
And they picked on me.
“Just tell me one thing,” I said slowly. “Is this a bump-off or is it a social visit? I want to say quick prayers for one, or break out the champagne for the other.”
The question, needless to say, was prompted by the very ugly automatic pistol in Myers’s fist. But even so, the presence of Elsie Whittaker seemed to indicate that the gun was merely to keep my head in line and my hands off a telephone. It didn’t look as if the season’s glamorous debutante was going in for witnessing murders. On the other hand, men seldom carry guns unless they expect to use them.
“Don’t be silly,” Myers snapped. “And stay away from that telephone. Keep away from the desk. I’m not going to kill you. Just sit tight a minute.”
I relaxed. He wanted help, not homicide. I watched him close the door. He tried to lock it but there wasn’t any key. “Never has been a key,” I said. “Safest way to keep out burglars is to leave the door unlocked. They get suspicious when they find an open door. I’ll bet you thought twice yourself. Now take it easy, Al, and relax. I’m not going to telephone the cops. Why should I? I’m a newshound, not a bull, and you’re good for a story just as long as you’re not excommunicado in some bullpen.”
It was logical, and it happened to be the truth. Myers put the gun away and told Elsie Whittaker to sit down. She looked pale and frightened and I felt sorry for the kid. The blonde hair was askew, the makeup was no longer perfect, and the glamor was gone. She was a young scared matron and she looked it. Myers looked pretty upset himself. He was pallid too, and he lighted a cigarette nervously, so nervously that when the telephone rang, he jumped to the ceiling—well, almost—and back again. Before he could object, I waved him away and picked up the handset and said, “Hello?”
The operator said, “I have your party now, sir.”
“What party?” I said, being absentminded.
“The party you just called,” she said. “You hung up before the line answered. I have it for you now. Go ahead.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Who is this?” said Marian Hans.
“Hello, Marian,” I said. “This is Daffy. Remember?”
“Well, for pete’s sake,” said Marian Hans huffily. “You might give me a chance to answer the telephone before you hang up next time.”
“How do you feel?”
“Come on, come on,” she said, “what’s on your mind? You don’t give a hoot how I feel. I can’t see Daffy Dill getting worried about a cocktail reporter. You once told me that my brand was the onus of the Fourth Estate….Oh well, I feel pretty good. A touch of flu. It hit me like a light and put me down, but the doctor says I’ll be okay.”
“Still in bed?”
“Yes. But don’t ask me where I was when you called. No embarrassing queries please. Washing my hands, let’s say. To tell the truth, I feel sort of lousy still, but I’ll be okay. Did Dinah see Jane and get that story? Jane called me and said she had a honey. She wouldn’t tell me what it was on the phone. Said it might leak and that it was good for page one. I couldn’t go myself, so I asked Dinah.”
“Dinah got the story,” I said. “It was the elopement of Gentleman Al Myers with the society sprout Elsie Whittaker.”
Marian groaned. “Did I have to miss a natural like that? That was big of Jane to split with us. She could have double-crossed. I think I might have with a yarn like that.”
“Look,” I said slowly, “you’re sick and maybe I shouldn’t tell you this. You and Jane were pals. But someone’s got to tell you and it’s a cinch you don’t know yet. I thought you did by now. But you’ve got to be checked like anyone else.”
Her voice changed. “Something happened? To Jane Willis?”
“Yes,” I said. “The worst that can happen.”
“She’s dead?”
“That’s got it. Stabbed through the eardrum with a hatpin. You guessed it pretty well.”
“Murdered!” she breathed. “She was murdered!”
“She didn’t die of old age,” I said.
There was a long pause, and I could feel Marian Hans trying to get her bearings. Finally she said, “Daffy—can you c
ome up here right away, Daffy?”
“I think so. Why?”
“I know who killed her,” Marian said. “I’m sure I do. You come up here right away.”
“I’ll arrange it,” I said. “Take it easy.” I hung up. I turned to face my visitors.
* * *
—
Elsie Whittaker was sitting down opposite me, puffing a cigarette. Al Myers was pacing back and forth. He had put the gun away and he was wearing out the rug. When I finished the phone call, he stopped pacing and stared at me. He looked tigerish. His eyes were shiny and his lantern jaw was set, and he threw an index finger at me and said, “You know I didn’t kill that dame. We were divorced. She didn’t mean anything to me and she didn’t have anything on me to be bumped for. I didn’t do it, and you know I didn’t do it.”
“The police of three states,” I pointed out sagely, “are looking for you right now. Looking for your car”—I nodded at him—“and looking for her car.” I sighed. “Silly silly police. They should be looking for a car belonging to a guy named Vincent Harris.”
Myers jerked, startled. “How’d you know that?”
“Simple, my dear Watson. Her car is hot, your car is hot, her families’ cars are in the dear old Southland where I yearn to be—Miami, where the sailfish come up like thunder across the Gulf Stream. Vinnie Harris was a pal of yours, still is. Vinnie would lend you his car while the heat was on, and you’d cover him if you got caught.”
“I didn’t kill Jane,” Myers said.
“All right, says you, you didn’t. Says I, mayhap you’re telling the truth. I don’t think you did. Where do I come in? Why bust in here with the spouse and the gat?”
Al Myers sat down and held his head in his hands. Then he looked up at me. “Dill, you’ve got to help me. The first time in my life, I played a game square, and I’m roped. I’m not kidding. This marriage thing is level. It’s got to keep. But it won’t keep. Not with cops looking for me, trying to pin the killing of my ex-wife on me. How much of a chance do you think I’ve got with that?”
“Chance of what?”
“Listen,” he said. “Elsie and I are in love. Never mind that dirty smile. We’re in love, see? We’ve been in love for a long time, almost a year now. I’d have married her sooner but I didn’t see how it could work out. Her old man is tough as nails on family and breeding and background. He’d eight-ball me from the start. Then, the other night, we thought we’d just go ahead and do it. Elsie said that she could persuade her father to give his approval, but first we’d have to be married. Once married, she was sure she could make him come around. And if he came around, her mother would come around too. So we made the break and did it. And then this happened.”
“Well?”
“You only say ‘well.’ Can’t you see? It’ll ruin the whole thing. If they don’t get the guy who nabbed Jane right away, the whole thing’ll be sunk.”
“Look,” I said. “This isn’t a sewing circle. Let’s be frank. Fletcher Whittaker has twelve million bucks. I think you married his daughter for a divorce or annulment price. Say no.”
Al Myers said, “No….I ought to slug you for that crack.”
“Now don’t get yourself hurt trying,” I said. “There’s no point in being an outraged juvenile. Anything I say, you’ve got coming.”
“Listen,” Myers said. “I’m in love with this kid. Understand that? I’m in love with her. Ball and chain, for keeps. I’ve given up the rackets, given the boys the go-by. I’ve got a job crooning at the Eldomingo, and it’s honest and it’s all I’m going to do. I’m going to try and get a band behind me of my own. I’m going straight and respectable. You’re right. I’ve got cracks coming because I’ve been tinhorn all my life. But no more.”
“Even by-by to the twelve million bucks?”
“You can look at my books yourself. Or send an accountant to do it if you want. I don’t need any more money. Sure, maybe I didn’t make it working hard in an office, but I’ve got dough. Plenty of dough. I’ve got sixty grand in savings banks, in stocks, in bonds. That’s plenty, mister, that’s not pennies. And I get a good take-off at the Eldomingo. I don’t need her old man’s dough. What would I do with it?”
“Black Sheep Turns White,” I said. “Headline.”
“That’s all the truth.”
I turned to her. “When did this guy propose to you?”
“He didn’t. I did the proposing,” she said. “Last November. I told him I was in love with him and asked him to marry me. He took down his hair and told me his past and said no. I’ve been after him since then. I’m twenty-two, Mr. Dill, old enough to know better. I’m in love, and I think you’re hateful.”
“All right,” I said. “Maybe you’re both on the level. I could be wrong. But I don’t see my hand in this.”
“You can whitewash us in your column as much as possible,” Myers said. “And maybe I’ve got some ideas on what happened to Jane.”
“Now you’re talking,” I said. “Give.”
* * *
—
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know so much really. But this much. I tipped off Jane to the elopement.”
“Keep talking.”
“Five in the afternoon. I went up to the hotel and saw her. We’ve been friends, I figured I’d do her a favor. I told her about the marriage and I said it was exclusive and told her to hold it until me and the kid got down to Miami to see the folks.”
“Well?”
“Well, she knew about it already. She has tipsters in the towns around and about, who look through the license records for her. She knew we’d been married in Harrison before I told her. She said, since she’d found out about it first, she was going to run the story right away. But that’s not what I’m getting at. There was someone else there when I was there.”
“You were the last to see her alive,” I said, “if you saw her that late in the day. If you didn’t kill her, it was the guy who was there with her. Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” Myers said. “Only it wasn’t a guy. It was a dame. I didn’t see her. I could hear her. She was in the bathroom. I think Jane stuck her in the bathroom when I knocked. But she sneezed once. And I could smell perfume.”
“Kind?”
“I wouldn’t know. Sweet and sort of heavy. I saw a handkerchief on the table. I snitched it when Jane wasn’t looking. I’ve got it right here.”
He handed it to me. There was still a scent on it. Hmm, says I. Then, “Okay, Al. I’ll play ball with you. You won’t tell me where you’re hiding out, so I won’t ask you. But right now, I’ve got some heavy work to do, and I’ve got to lam. I just had a call from—well, skip it. Anyway, I have someone who thinks she can put the finger on the killer, and I’m on my way.”
They had no sooner left than I called the Chronicle and got through to Pop Henderson at the morgue. Not the kind of morgue where the stiffs grow like the poppies in Flanders Field. A newspaper morgue, full of clippings from the past. “Pop,” I said. “This is Daffy. I’m coming down there later. I want you to get out everything you’ve got on Gentleman Al Myers.”
“All right, Daffy.”
Then I left and went downstairs and caught a cab and rode over to the apartment house on 86th Street near Fifth, where Marian Hans lived. I took the elevator up and then knocked on the door. Marian called, “It’s open, Daffy. I left it open for you.”
I opened the door to go in and I hadn’t got it halfway, when I saw the room was black as night. And suddenly there was a flash and a roar, and I felt as though I had been clubbed across the chest. I heard Marian scream once and then I fell forward on my face and passed out cold.
CHAPTER V
The Lowdown
When I came to, I was bouncing around and it hurt a little. I opened my eyes and said, “Where are we going?�
��
“Hospital,” said a familiar voice. “I always told you never to jump a gun. Now you’ll know better.”
I looked up and the homely, welcome pan of Poppa Hanley loomed down at me. My head was in his lap. I guess I was a sick little boy. We were in an ambulance, I realized next second, for they opened up the siren as they made a turn.
“Am I hit badly?” I asked.
“No,” said Hanley. “But you’re hit, and hit proper. It’s the nicest hole you ever picked up. Does it hurt?”
“Not so much,” I said. “But it feels numb and soft.”
“You’ll be all right.”
“Did you see Marian—”
“He’s got to keep quiet,” the medico in the amb said. “That’s not going to help him any.”
Poppa Hanley said, “Okay then, Doc. I’ll tell him. Marian Hans is dead as the buffalo nickel, Daffy.”
“She was alive when I walked in. She called me, said the door was open. I didn’t jump a gun, Poppa. I was bushwhacked.”
“Then she was killed right after you. She’s dead. Drilled clean through the head, almost a contact shot. She didn’t have a chance. There was a letter under her pillow for you. I opened it and read it. Sorry, but murder is murder. You know.”
“What did it say?”
“I’ll read it. It’s right here. ‘Dear Daffy, I am writing this note, perhaps foolishly, because I know something which the man who killed Jane might kill me for. Taking no chances. Don’t expect a sudden end, but I want you to know this just in case. Take the key in my bag which has a tag on it. Number on tag 11098. Go to Mirabeau Bank and open lock-box drawer 11098 in the vaults downstairs. Belonged to Jane. See if there is a gun there. If not, tell cops Al Myers did the job. If so, take that gun to headquarters right away. Marian.’ ”
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 54