Cragin was in for history, whether he wanted it or not, so he patiently listened to the biography of the entire staff, and particularly of one Andrew Jackson Chaney, a chronic alcoholic. But finally the old man’s ramblings promised to wind up.
“An’ dis heah Andy Jackson, he gits powerful drunk and sets around groaning all mawning, and de other po’ters is falling over him and doing his work.
“An’en around noon, in comes Munkgomery Diggs and he sayd, ‘Andy I’ll work yo’ shift, and mine too.’ An’en Andy says, ‘Gawd bless you, getting me hawg-drunk an’en doing my work when I got de miseries.’ And Munkgomery Diggs, he—”
Cragin figured it was time to cut in. “Where’s Diggs live?”
Moses rolled his eyes, and grimaced. “Mistah, Ah jest don’t know. No, suh, I ain’t never heard.”
Moses Wilson had dummied up, and neither fire, famine, or pestilence could shake him. Ten-to one, he did know, but all the cops in New Orleans, including the hard-boiled Third Precinct crowd, could wear themselves to grease spots and without hammering the facts from Moses.
Cragin recognized the symptoms. “If you don’t, you don’t. Here’s a cigar for you.”
He went out, whistling, mainly because he did not feel that way. The way Moses dummied up indicated that Montgomery Diggs had, for a stranger, a remarkable hold on his superior, the Chief Porter.
Voodoo was one of the things no Negro cares to discuss with white folks. There were other subjects, such as police business, which made them dummy up, but voodoo headed the list. And that worried Cragin.
He went up to the mezzanine and barbed through the front offices until Warren, the assistant, blocked his way. “Don’t tell me Ormond’s not receiving,” Cragin said, forestalling the brush-off. “I want to see him, and right away.”
Warren said, “Okay, if you must. But it won’t be fun, I guarantee you!” Cragin twisted the knob.
Harry Ormond bounced up from behind his walnut desk, and ran his lingers along the edge of his collar. “All right, Cragin! The police have driven me wild. Now what’s on your mind?”
“I want some dirt on Montgomery Diggs.”
“Who the hell doesn’t?” Ormond’s laugh jangled; it sounded as if he had picked up the hysteria which Nedra had shaken off. “I never saw the fellow! His social security card’s gone, if he ever had one. Ask Warren, ask the Chief Porter. Don’t ask me!”
“Huh! How about the payroll? Signed that, didn’t he?”
“He hasn’t been here long enough, we pay every two weeks.”
That killed Origin’s chance of a handwriting specimen to check against the warning note in his pocket.
He parked himself on the polished desk top. “This voodoo angle?”
“Journalist rot and nonsense, movie and magazine tripe!”
“Tell that to the newspaper men. Ormond, you lived here long enough to know better. So have I. I know of a druggist down on Euterpe Street that used to sell his customers powdered lion’s hoofs. And ‘walk-out’ powders. And ‘love-me’ powders. And all the rest.”
“Nonsense.”
“Yeah, but they believe in it. What in hell’s wrong with Moses Wilson, he can’t remember a thing about Diggs? You’re crying all over the place about Nedra being on the spot, about her career being ruined. I’d say it’d be a blessing if something did ruin it; the gal’s half nuts now from Hollywood’s notions on winning a war—well, open up.”
Ormond eyed him curiously, speculatively, for a moment before he said, “You really mean all that?”
“It’d be good for her, she can’t last any longer than any of the others, and why go dizzy playing out your luck? Meanwhile, something rotten is on her trail, something lowdown and deadly. Smoking out Burnett was just a left-handed whack at her. Or do you think some crackpot just has an anti-Hollywood complex?”
“Let me tell you something,” Ormond answered. “It’s that movie, ‘Pirates.’ The Negroes for miles around here are screwy on treasure hunting. They spend every dime they can cage, buying divining rods and hocus-pocus gadgets to conjure spirits and find out about buried treasure. Pirate treasure, Lafitte’s treasure.”
“Well, all right, what of it?”
“Lafitte’s loot,” Ormond slowly went on, “is supposed to be buried around Bayou Barataria. Guarded by spirits. And if the movie people plough all through there, the spirits will be annoyed. They’ll get nasty. They’ll play tricks on the treasure hunters.”
Ormond was right about local superstitions; Cragin knew that from way back.
“Still and all,” he contended, “picking off Burnett is a crazy way to discourage a movie. He’s not the star; she is.”
“But you don’t understand,” Ormond protested. “She was threatened with the death of her friends, one by one, if she didn’t get out of the cast. Which of course would settle her for keeps. Her withdrawal or breakdown would upset the whole show, it’s all hung on her, man, what’ve they got, if Nedra falls out?”
“Don’t tell her I said so,” Cragin answered, bleakly, “but the movie’s got to have more than just her—if they’s not got a story or gag or something catchy, she can’t put it over alone; that’s a sure way to kill a star, expecting her to carry the show.”
“Well, it is exactly as you say. They had to cut out the Battle of New Orleans—can’t show Jackson’s men shooting at today’s gallant ally—all right to read about and mention in columns, but not to show on the screen. So Nedra is carrying the whole works, they did the slashing at the last minute and they’ve not got a thing left. They’re in too deep to back down, and they can’t wait and stall for a script which will stand on its own legs, one which some other star could carry.”
“You know the answers, Harry.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I?”
Cragin eyed the photos which plastered the office; they were an autographed history of Nedra Dalli’s career. “I guess you’ve kept in touch, all right. Well, I might as well head for Club Montalban to keep an eye on things, though my guess is, her friends are the ones that need watching. Don’t get yourself shot, Harry.”
“Thanks, I won’t.”
But Ormond was no more enthusiastic about the reassurance than he had been depressed by the general threat. When Nedra had refused to marry her one-time floor-show partner, on his inheriting plenty bucks, and had instead carried on, finally to reach stardom, it had taken the sparkle out of Ormond; he had become a business man, handling his legacy, and learning the niceties of hotel managing, learning who was to be cajoled and petted, who was to be frozen out, and who was to be booted out. As he left, Cragin was thinking, “No dough then, but I bet Harry had more fun in the old days!”
CHAPTER V
Ketchup or Blood?
Cragin made another try for a word with Dayles Sinclair; and this time he found the actor in his rooms.
Sinclair was tall and blond and thin-faced; a rangy fellow, good looking and yet angular enough to escape any hint of prettiness. Now he was mussed up and shaky. His collar was melted, and his hair doing a porcupine act, except that it lacked the neat arrangement of uniformly bristly quills.
“Now what?” he snapped, irritably. “God almighty, aren’t the regular cops enough, without your barging in? They’ve asked me plenty, and I’ve told them, and—”
“Aw, take it easy, chum. Sit down, bend your elbow.” Cragin set the example, reached for the decanter of Bourbon, and poured himself a shot. “I’m here going to bat for Nedra. Would I be interested in griping her friends?”
Sinclair eased up. Cragin’s matter-of-factness and amiable grin reassured him. He sat down, hitched up his tweed pants, and gulped a shot. It made him grimace. “All right, what’s on your mind?”
“You and Burnett were at the Gem Oyster Bar—” This was a bluff based on ketchup stains. “Where did you go—?”
“We weren
’t at the Gem,” Sinclair corrected. “We were at the Ponchartrain. Where the river pilots claim the oysters are tops.”
“Say, you don’t lose much time finding your way around! Not many strangers ever go there; it’s on a cross street and jammed in next to a garage.”
Sinclair warmed up to his appreciative audience, but went somber with his next observation. “Poor old Frosty found the place. It’s terrible, it’s crazy, it’s wild, he didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
“Someone who loved him dearly done it to him.” Cragin sighed and poured another slug. “Oh, well, friendships are tricky things. I know how it is.”
Sinclair straightened up and jerked his collar down and cocked his head. “What’s that quip?”
“Well, someone barged right in and shot him, must’ve been a pal to catch him off guard for a neat, close shot with a little gun, no struggle, no disturbance.”
“Barge in where?”
“Right into this room. You mean the cops didn’t see that blood smudge on the carpet?”
Sinclair started, hitching himself and chair in one move. “What blood? What are you getting at?”
Cragin shrugged. “Wrong number, I guess. Sorry.”
There wasn’t any stain, but Sinclair had turned toward where the peculiar dragged blot had been.
“Skip it, my friend. You and Frosty—Burnett—were at the Ponchartrain, and then what?”
“The opener—the fellow who knifes the oysters, whatever you call him—said Nedra wanted Frosty on the phone. And he came back in a minute—Frosty did, I mean—saying she was all up in the air, wondering if he was getting blotto, and when he’d be back, and not to miss the appearance tonight.”
“And you?”
Sinclair looked glum. “She hadn’t asked for me, so I moved on, hoofed for Jackson Square. The park with the man on horse. I tossed off a few in that place on St. Peter Street, where they have brick arches in the side room.”
“Maloney’s, on the corner of Royal,” Cragin said, nodding.
“Then I went to Celeste’s, and then I came back here, and check me all you please.”
Cragin flashed the waxen image of Burnett. “Ever see this before?”
The question was needless; Sinclair’s face clearly indicated not only his horror, but his surprise. “Ahhrr—bad enough without that damn pin. Bad as Nedra got.”
“Hers had no pins.”
“That’s right. Say—you mean—the pin means death?”
Cragin nodded. “He never got anything like this before?”
“I didn’t know he had this. He didn’t mention it, and he would have, wouldn’t he? Not a thing worrying him when we went out.”
“Not even the threats Nedra’s been getting?”
“He thought that there was something phony about all that. Said he was going to convince her. That Meraux was a damn old woman, letting a few threats get under her skin, instead of talking her out of it.”
“Optimistic, huh?”
“Why wouldn’t he have been?”
Sinclair’s voice implied that Nedra had been very receptive to Burnett’s attentions. Cragin said, “That checks, all right, but one thing doesn’t. You’re a liar, and for your own good, come clean.”
“What?”
The actor’s puckered brow showed that he was really puzzled so Cragin clarified: “I mean, about your alibi. You made a sap of the cops, but I got an edge. You were back in this room before you made the grand tour of Maloney’s and Celeste’s. Maybe you came back with Burnett.”
That brought the actor to his feet.
“Why, you lousy—! You have the guts to hint that—that I was here when—”
The man’s color had receded. His eyes blazed. His lips were tight and his fists matched his tense pose. He was ready to strike. Sinclair had a temper.
Cragin took it smiling and sitting down. “Wait a minute, chum. Maybe you came back after Burnett returned alone, returned and went—to wherever people go when they got a hatful of slugs. He was killed in this room. You mopped up that blood smudge. I saw it, and now it’s gone. The carpet still has a damp spot no one would ever notice unless he was wised up. And the paper that wiped it up is down the drain. But the laboratory can find plenty of blood trace in that broadloom. How you like?”
For a moment, Cragin wondered if, sitting down, he could get up fast enough when the explosion came. He knew that any move to rise would touch the man off. And he did not want a brawl.
But Sinclair sagged. The fury left him, and only alarm remained. “I came back to change my shoes. I had ketchup on them.”
“I noticed that. As well as the bloodstain. And for the time, that little detail is strictly between you and me. Get it—between the two of us.”
Sinclair drew in a deep breath. “What for?”
“Nedra and I are friends from way back. Suppose some gossip columns poured out libel-proof yarns about the mysterious knocking off of Nedra’s latest heartthrob in your suite, and the uncertainly of your alibi. And spoke of Hollywood whitewash, which might even work in New Orleans. All they got to say is, movie murders are never solved—funny, but a number haven’t and never will be, though they could be, even to this day.”
Sinclair didn’t speak.
“How you like?” Cragin prompted.
“If I say I like it, I’m as good as admitting—”
“Well, say other things. If you’d told the cops you returned—”
“But look here!” Sinclair brightened, exultantly. “The cops didn’t see that—er—stain. They don’t know—uh—” He deflated a bit. “That—um—you think—Frosty was—shot—here.”
“Correct, they do not, not yet. Sure, I am putting the bee on you; I am also unethical every minute I hold out, but I want something. Why didn’t you mention you came back?”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because you’d be getting a brisk questioning, a blow by blow so to speak.”
“They’d not dare slug me.”
“I meant, you’d have to give a blow by blow account of every minute. The Vieux Carré—French town, in case you’ve forgotten—is pretty compact, a fellow can shape an alibi without more than a five minute gap, which is pretty near perfect, until it is under very concentrated fire. Better tell me, before you have to tell someone else.”
“All right! I was shocked silly. I dammed up. And got away with it.”
“Or so you think. Tell all.”
Sinclair licked his lips. “Well, there was ketchup on my shoes, and I didn’t notice it until after Frosty left; I ate another dozen Bayou Cooks before I moved on. I was almost down to Maloney’s on Royal and St. Peter when I noticed the horrible blob on my shoe, so I came back, no hurry.”
“Say, twenty minutes after Frosty left you, you were back, and Frosty wasn’t there?”
“That’s right.”
“Then what? Anything odd in the room?”
“A yellow porter was fumbling around with a trunk. Nedra’s trunk, her name was stenciled on it. I said, ‘You dummy, that don’t belong here,’ and he said, ‘’Scuse me, Boss, I’m new here. I thought this was Miss Delli’s suite.’ And he trotted out. Now do you see why I was not talking much?”
He mopped his forehead.
“You didn’t know then that Frosty Burnett was in the trunk?”
“God, no! Of course not!”
“You didn’t knock at Nedra’s door?
“No, she hadn’t asked for me, and—”
“You got sulky? Said, to hell with her?”
“Well, why not?” Defiantly and uneasily. “What’d you’ve done?”
“What you did. Checked out for more bars. But the stain, chum?”
“I thought it was ketchup.”
“Aw, nuts! You didn’t drag a red trail from the Ponchartrain to
Saint Peter, and then back.”
Sinclair was plain rattled. He threw up his hands. “Cragin, before God, I just don’t know! I had an odd feeling, and I thought at the same time, I must be nuts. I wiped up that smudge; it wasn’t big, it did give me the shivers, but what’d you’ve done? Hollered murder? Gone to Nedra’s suite to ask, is Frosty hurt? Made a fool of yourself, saying, I thought there was a blood smudge, did you cut yourself shaving?”
“No. And I’d not wiped it up, either. Frosty Bennett was knocked off right in this room, packed into a trunk, trundled over to Lord knows where, kept under cover, and finally rolled into Nedra’s rooms while I was there. Someone wiped that bloodstain. You, or whoever killed Frosty. And you said you did it. Are you sure you did?”
“I must have.”
“Okay. Get dressed and go to the round of cocktails, and the like. The guy the cops really want is a missing porter. The pale yellow one. Montgomery Diggs. The one you saw in here. Buck up and look bright and gay! Even if there has been a death in the family. That’s what she’s doing.”
Sinclair thrust out his hand. “Cragin, I’m grateful. You don’t know how much. I didn’t know it was blood I wiped up. I was griped and flustered, moving automatically.”
When Cragin hauled out, he was pondering on the fact that Sinclair liked Nedra enough to be dizzy and absent-minded because she paged Frosty Burnett, and forgot him.
CHAPTER VI
Strictly Human
Cragin still had lots of time, since Nedra’s cocktail and dinner appearances would shoot a few hours before she headed for Club Montalban. Funny business: she hides out from threats, but murder brings her out of cover, to show herself as much as she can. She has to race the morning papers, making as many big build-ups as she can before the bomb explodes. Typical Hollywood inside-out reasoning, yet logical. Maybe the movie world wasn’t really nuts if you got to know it.
He hurried to the drug store on the corner of Royal and Canal. There he got beeswax, lampblack, a paper of pins, a bit of cotton batting, and a small flask of whiskey. That done, he went over to his own hotel and set to work making a little black image.
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