Accent on Murder

by Frances Lockridge

  But resistance had finally failed. That had been in 1950. It had been thought that, by then, The Dutchman had retired (with, it was thought, plenty) but it was evident that there had been those who took a different view. The Dutchman had left his real estate office (in which real estate operations had, it appeared, actually been carried on) and got into his car and pressed the starter. Enough fragments had been found to make identification positive. There was no doubt whatever The Dutchman was dead.

  He was survived by his wife, Opal. He had left her a substantial sum, although not as substantial as had been expected. Far away and long ago, Heimrich thought; farther from North Wellwood than was at all helpful. Heimrich returned records and expressed thanks and, after a few moments of consideration, drove uptown to the office of the New York Daily News. Having come this far from North Wellwood—

  The Daily News morgue did not have much about the late Homer Schneider. He appeared in a few news stories as “the notorious gangster” and one of the stories, longer than the rest, had to do with his fragmentation. There was also a feature story, from the Sunday edition—one of a series entitled “The Gangland Era.” In it, The Dutchman had split billing with one “Buggsy” Moran.

  The story told Heimrich chiefly what he already knew. But, it was illustrated—Schneider, clothed this time, was pictured with a girl also (relatively) clothed. The clipping was old and yellowed; the reproduction a little smudgy. But the girl, again, was very young and pretty, and had regular features—a little exaggeration of feature would have helped. Not surely, but probably, the girl of the snapshot and, if so, Schneider’s wife. Heimrich read further. The feature writer corrected his terminology. Schneider’s “child bride.” Opal Schneider, née Opal Potter.

  “Like some others of the period,” Heimrich read, “‘The Dutchman,’ while ruthless in most respects, had a streak of sentimentality. It was because of this, presumably, that he married Opal—a pretty, but poorly educated orphan of fifteen, a native of Kansas. How they first met was never clear, since Schneider’s sphere of activity was urban, and she lived on a run-down farm near Oswego. Schneider was in his late forties at the time of their marriage.

  “After their marriage, Schneider sent his young wife through high school in Kansas City, Missouri, and when he was killed, two years or so after she was graduated, left her an estate estimated at some twenty-five thousand dollars. Opal—her Cinderella party over—dropped from sight for a time after her notorious husband was killed, but is reported later to have attended the state university under another name.”

  Onward and upward Opal Potter had gone, rather understandably under another name. And I, Heimrich thought, am obviously going nowhere—going down a blind alley leading to nothing. He put the small sheaf of yellowed clippings back in an envelope and, briefly, regarded the envelope. “The state university,” not otherwise identified. But, quite possibly—quite probably, even—the university of the state in which she had attended high school. Therefore, the University of Missouri. Why bother with—of course! Caroline Wilkins, when she was Caroline Bennett, had gone there. She had even met Conrad Beale there. And—Opal Schneider, née Potter, alias something else entirely?

  Or—For a moment Heimrich shut his eyes, the better to listen to his thoughts. Opal had been slender and blond. So had Caroline Bennett. Schneider’s pretty wife, who came, it appeared, from what Heimrich could only think of as the depths of Kansas, would be about the right age. He figured briefly. A few years older. But, within limits, failing close scrutiny, a person’s age is what a person says it is. Especially a woman’s age. And—

  It was tempting. It could have been gone on with. Opal knew something, or had something, which The Dutchman’s former associates sought. Opal (now Caroline) had been caught up with, had revealed knowledge, had not paid up, had— It was a temptation which passed, faded, like a wisp of smoke. Caroline Wilkins had been Caroline Bennett, the daughter of Vice Admiral Jonathan Bennett. Any other idea was preposterous. Among other things, the unquestionable existence, the indubitable authenticity, of Admiral Bennett made it so.

  That Caroline, while at the University of Missouri, might have known Opal was not, of course, preposterous. It was somewhat unlikely—state universities run large, run in strata. Opal Potter, however improved—and it seemed unlikely that high school and prolonged association with Schneider would have improved her markedly—would remain still on quite a different social plane from that of Caroline Bennett, the child of the very best Navy, by force of necessity youthful citizen of the world. Still—

  And, where did it get him? That Opal had passed along to Caroline, for reasons not to be guessed at, information of perilous value? The answer to that was obvious—“Phooey!” was the answer to that. Forniss had been right in raising eyebrows. The defunct Schneider, his “girl bride” had nothing to do with the case. Beale had been carrying the snapshot for unrelated reasons of his own. So—

  Of course, hair can be dyed. Dyed, for example, to a burnished red. Like the hair of the pretty, worried child who would not now (almost certainly would not) have further cause to torment herself. Since it was unlikely that Young Ash was lying about his father. Dorcas Cameron had regular features, of course and— And she was too short by half a dozen inches, and too young by at least as many years. Opal Schneider had been tall; taller, at any rate, than her husband, who had been five feet seven and weighed two hundred and eight pounds. Unless, in the snapshot, she had been standing on something. Heimrich took the snapshot out of his pocket and looked at it again. Another look did not help. The photographer had cut off their feet.

  Heimrich got up from the table. He felt heavy, sluggish. The trouble is, he thought, my mind’s stopped. I’m worrying this side issue to give my mind the semblance of movement, to delude myself. It doesn’t he here—in this snapshot, in this old story from far away and years ago. Get back where it does lie, make the mind work; turn back out of this dark alley and—

  Blond hair can, of course, be dyed black. Dyed black and curled tightly like the hair of the very handsome, very slender, Margo Craig. At a guess, the age would be right. Skip it, Heimrich told himself. Get back on—

  “Have you got an envelope on a man named Paul Craig?” Heimrich asked the morgue attendant, who was listed as the ‘librarian” and never called that. The morgue attendant went to see; he came back with an envelope which was even thinner than that which had held the yellowed records of The Dutchman’s life and death. This, labeled “Craig, Paul,” held, in fact, only two clippings.

  In one he was an irrelevance. He was a survivor—the survivor of Helen Sibley, the “well-known popular novelist,” who had died some years before, after a long illness; who had been, in social life, Mrs. Paul Craig, of Park Avenue and North Wellwood, New York. There were several paragraphs about Helen Sibley, who appeared to have been famous, and to have lapsed from fame, some years before her death.

  The other clipping was more recent. It reported the marriage of Paul Craig, “whose first wife was the well-known novelist Helen Sibley,” to Miss Margo Nowlin, of Baltimore, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Sibley Nowlin. (Craig, Heimrich thought, had ridden into print this time, also, on the train of his first wife’s skirt, and brought his second wife with him.)

  Craig and Margo Nowlin (who had been doing postgraduate work at Dyckman University at the time they met) had been married in church. Miss Nowlin, a graduate of Goucher College, had been given in marriage by her father, and a sister, Pauline, had been one of her bridesmaids. Mr. and Mrs. Craig had planned to travel extensively before reopening the Craig house in North Wellwood.

  So much for dark alleys, so much for wild geese. Heimrich expressed thanks for co-operation supplied and went to the lobby of the News building and found a telephone book. He found that “Felson, Oliver,” had an address on West Fifty-seventh Street, and thought of telephoning first and decided against it. There was nothing to indicate that Felson might decide to prove slippery, but there was no particular reason to
give him a chance to slip. There was, Heimrich felt, no particular reason to give the editor of Shakeup! anything. If Felson was the kind who went to bed early—which seemed improbable—he would be asked to wake up.

  Heimrich pushed a doorbell on the seventh floor of an apartment house on West Fifty-seventh. When nothing happened, he continued to press the button. In rather more than due time, a fat man in a silk dressing gown opened the door. He wore a long cigar between two fingers of his right hand. He had eyes which appeared to have no particular color and were set deep in a fat face. Editors of scandal magazines, Heimrich decided, came in all sizes.

  “Mr. Felson?” Heimrich said.

  The round man said, “Yup.”

  “The editor of Shakeup!?”

  “Yup.”

  “Heimrich, State Police.”

  The fat man did not say anything. He was not, it was clear, a man who led.

  “A man of yours has been killed,” Heimrich said, and doubted he was giving information. “A man named Beale.”

  “Yup,” Felson said, and looked at the long cigar. “Heard it on the radio,” he said. He looked at Heimrich through pinched-in, colorless eyes. “Identification?”

  Heimrich showed him identification. The fat man looked at it very carefully. He gave it back. He said, “Yup. Come on in.” Heimrich went on in. Felson sat in a fat chair and drew on his cigar. And waited.

  “What was Beale doing up there?” Heimrich said. “In North Wellwood? Where he got killed?”

  Felson considered this very carefully. He shook his head. He said, “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Now Mr. Felson,” Heimrich said. “Guess, then.”

  “No guess,” Felson said. “Unless he was on the track of something.”

  Heimrich took his turn at waiting.

  “A story, could be,” Felson said. “Nothing I know about. Could be he was just visiting friends.”

  “Who?”

  “Nope. I wouldn’t know that, either.”

  “Felson,” Heimrich said. “Beale worked for you. If he was on the track, as you say, of a story, you’d know about it.”

  “You say I would,” Felson said. “Doesn’t prove I would. Also—aren’t you a little off your beat? This is the city. City’s got cops.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Want me to call them in?”

  The fat man looked hard at Heimrich from the fat-pinched eyes. Heimrich looked at him and waited.

  “All right,” Felson said. “I don’t know a damn thing about it. Could be he was working on something, like I said. Something he was developing. Hadn’t got enough on to bring up. That’s the way we work, captain. Beale, or one of the others, gets on to something. Finds out if it’s anything we can use. If he thinks it is—brings it in. That’s when I come in.”

  “Not before?”

  “If I get the tip, sure. Otherwise, nope.”

  “And you’re saying you haven’t any idea what Beale may have been working on?”

  “Nope. For all I know, he was visiting friends.”

  “Not,” Heimrich said, “very friendly friends.”

  “There’s that,” Felson said.

  “Mr. Felson,” Heimrich said. “I think you’re lying.”

  It did not upset Felson in the least. He merely nodded his round head.

  “Up to you,” Felson said.

  “Look at this,” Heimrich said, and showed Felson the snapshot, and watched the man look at it. There was not, he found, much to be gained by watching Felson. Neither heavy face nor slitted eyes showed anything whatever. Felson might, for all his face revealed, have been looking at blank paper. He handed the snapshot back.

  “Well?” Heimrich said, expecting nothing.

  “Nope,” Felson said.

  “The man,” Heimrich said, “was a punk. Operated out in the Middle West. Name of Schneider. They called him The Dutchman. He’s been dead for several years.”

  “So?”

  “The girl is—probably is, anyway—his widow. Name of Opal.”

  This time Felson said nothing at all, but merely looked at Heimrich. If he had any expression, it was one of boredom.

  “Beale had it with him,” Heimrich said. “The snapshot. Hidden in the lining of his suitcase.”

  “All right,” Felson said. “He had it with him.”

  “If the girl’s alive,” Heimrich said. “Doesn’t want it known, say, that she used to be the wife of this punk. Picture might be worth something, mightn’t it?”

  “If she was prominent enough,” Felson said. “Might be a story in it. Nothing I know about, as I keep saying.”

  “A story,” Heimrich said. “Or, a place to put a bite.”

  Felson sighed. He said, “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “Shakedown,” Heimrich said. “Blackmail.”

  Felson made a sound of deprecation with tongue and teeth. It came through fat lips. He said, “Think of that, now.”

  “I’ve heard,” Heimrich said, “that you do, Felson.”

  Felson made the sound again. He said he couldn’t help what Heimrich heard. He said, “Shakeup! is dedicated to the exposure of corruption and immorality. Published to improve the moral tone of the community.”

  “Unquote,” Heimrich said.

  Felson sighed again. He said that Heimrich was beginning to bore him. He said that if Heimrich thought he could do anything about anything he could always try. He said, “I don’t know a damn thing about what Beale was doing up there in the sticks.”

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “What do you know about Beale?”

  “He worked for me. Reporter out on the West Coast. Brought along a tip he thought we might like. Pretty juic—a suggestion of quite deplorable behavior by a star whose name to many misguided movie-goers had become—”

  “Unquote,” Heimrich said. “And bought a job with this tip. Anything else you know?”

  “We make it a policy,” Felson said, “not to probe into the pasts of our employees.”

  “I’ll bet,” Heimrich said. “How old was he? Or didn’t you probe into that, either?”

  “Thirty,” Felson said. “According to his social security record.”

  Felson put fat hands on the arms of the fat chair and began to lift himself. He came out of the chair with less effort than Heimrich had supposed would be needed. He was a man of rubber, with some of rubber’s resilience. When he was on his feet, he said, “Sorry you’ve got to rush off.”

  “Sometime,” Heimrich said, “there’ll be a squeal. Sometime they’ll catch you at it, Mr. Felson.”

  “Unquote,” Felson said. “Meanwhile, the word is scram.”

  Heimrich considered briefly. He decided that that probably was the word.

  In his car, Heimrich again considered. There did not seem to be anything further to be done immediately. He looked at his watch, found that it was only eleven-fifteen—earlier than he would have thought. Tuck in one loose end, perhaps, and round off the day.

  He drove a few blocks and found a telephone, and looked up a number and dialed. He was informed, after a pause, that he was connected with the Men’s Faculty Club of Dyckman University. He asked whether Professor Walter Brinkley was still at the club.

  The club was afraid not; the club would check. Heimrich waited. Professor Brinkley had just left.

  The loose end, therefore, left to dangle. Heimrich drove up parkways in the warm night to Van Brunt Center and the Old Stone Inn, and checked in from there, and learned there was nothing from North Wellwood that wouldn’t keep, and that Forniss was staying there, in the Maples Inn. Heimrich thought of calling him and looked at his watch and found it was no longer earlier than he had thought.

  Wrap it up until morning, Heimrich thought. Call it a day. He called it one.

  As such things go, Walter Brinkley thought, this one had gone at least as well as could be expected. Professor Francis Anderson (dear old Andy) had been duly welcomed to the rather sere pasture of the superannuated. Professor Anderson had
taken it well, with grace and with somewhat fewer clichés than Brinkley had (secretly, of course) anticipated. And his own performance, Walter Brinkley concluded—driving the M.G. with confidence and in excess of the speed limit on the Saw Mill River Parkway—had been acceptable. He had been brief in introductions, at any rate, and one or two of the things he had said struck him, in retrospect, as rather good. Not too good, of course—it would have been inappropriate to be too good. One sought, in such surroundings, under such gently melancholy circumstances, the chuckle, not the belly laugh.

  The food had, of course, been execrable. And, after dinner, capping his night in the lounge, Professor Abel Milner had grown doleful—as a man with wife and children, on an as sociate professor’s salary may well—and had fallen to saying, “Why?” in the saddest of tones, adding from time to time that that was what he asked himself. But he had been much more cheerful by the time Walter dropped him at his apartment near Riverside and Walter’s own somewhat lowered spirits—it had to be admitted that “Why?” was a question one was likely to ask oneself at intervals—climbed pleasantly. The M.G. was really on its best behavior and the night was fine.