The phones spread the news and the details as quickly as they had the news about Saddler’s death.
I asked old man Carver for the day off. He gave it to me, along with a funny look, and not asking why. Chances are he had his ideas, but however that may have been, I caught the next bus for San Bernardino. The odds in favor of my getting hold of a library file of New York papers were pretty good. I remembered the date and page number on the scrap left in Saddler’s book, though that wasn’t all that took me to town. Seeing Major Heffner was important. There was a chance that Norma wouldn’t phone him, preferring not to holler till she was hurt.
When I found Heffner, I learned that Norma had not got in touch with him; so I got to work, and he listened. His face got sharper and so did his eyes; they began boring into me. He was getting on edge. He’d reach for a match to light the dead cigar, and then he’d forget to, and finally he’d dig for another match.
“All right, Mason!” Heffner got up and paced the carpet. “That Blockhead Parley thinks he can prove she was in Saddler’s back yard. However, the bits of cloth do not prove when she was there.”
“We don’t know how much else he has up his sleeve, major. The girl that does the housework must’ve smelled burning leather. She probably knows how many pairs of shoes Norma had, you know how the hired help snoop around.”
His forehead was puckered in three ridges; the tip of his nose was edging down a bit, and his mouth was tightening. He made a snarling sound, and a helpless move of his hands. “Damn it, yes. Even if he’s bluffing, he’ll uncover the facts.”
“It’s sure as hell bad, major. The heel print is on record, and every person has a certain way of wearing heels down, so destroying that pair didn’t do much good. The others’ll spill the beans.”
“Mason, how do you fit into this? Tell me.”
“I’m trying to help her. She’s a neighbor.”
“There’s more than that behind it.”
“I’m in on this myself, and if Parley questions me, it sure won’t help her any.”
“Good Lord!” he groaned, and changed color.
After telling him pretty much what I had told Norma, I went on, “And since talking to her about both of us having been there, the answer hit me right between the eyes. Only, I don’t know how to use it without putting myself on a limb. But maybe you could figure out a way. You’re the last person on earth who’d want me put on the pan, not that I’d spill on purpose, but—”
“I understand,” the major cut in. “Your nerves are—um—unstable, you’ve had a severe shock. Very much like a man in battle. The police would have an unfair advantage of you. All right! What is it?”
“Suppose we went to Saddler’s, on the quiet, and I showed you?”
“Anyone know you came to see me?”
“Positively no one. Couldn’t take a chance. Everyone thinks I’ve got bats in my loft, and quite a few think I finished Saddler. The only way to get Norma totally in the clear is to take a whack at whoever did it.”
He whistled, then straightened up, and smoothed out his decorations. “Nice, if you can do it.”
“It’s just a matter of figuring why someone typed that BACK IN 30 MINUTES note. Saddler didn’t do that, there was a gadget with clock hands to show what time he’d return. Suppose you look at everything and then you can figure.”
“Let’s do that.” He dug a five out of his wallet, handed it to me, and said, “You go down and find some Bourbon, we can both do with a drink. Meanwhile, I’ll promote some gas, I’m a bit low. Wait at the bank at the corner, in case you find the bottle before I can wangle a tankful.”
We both worked fast; I’d not been waiting more than five minutes when the Pontiac pulled up, and we were heading for Bagdad.
* * * *
About two miles short of town, we swung into a wagon track, and then ran the car into greasewood. That done, we set out afoot, with the murky lights of Bagdad guiding us.
Once we were in Saddler’s house, I began showing Heffner around. “A draft can suck the front door open, but the guy that conked Saddler didn’t know that, so he puts up the phony note, not suspecting it’d miss fire. The only reason he’d put up such a note is in case there was an expected visitor.”
“How do you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Simple. The visitor sits around on the steps half an hour, forty-five minutes, then goes to the Oasis or the Mojave Inn, or the like, asking whether Saddler was around. And in the morning, when the corpse is found, the whole town knows about the caller, and figures he conked Saddler and tried to put across the idea he didn’t go in. Only, I did go in, account of the door being open, so I didn’t advertise myself. See why it’s important to show that the killer must’ve left the note, and that Saddler wouldn’t have?”
“Mmm…”
Just that; and with the flashlight not pointing at him, I couldn’t see his face, but it’d been worth seeing. He sounded impressed and surprised. “Another thing, major, Norma came in after me, to see what’d gone haywire with the friendship convention, and stepped in some blood. Looks bad for her, though that phony note helps.”
“Carry on!” he snapped, when I held my fire a second.
“Well, figure it. Suppose, like Parley probably does, that she went to see Saddler, and he got rough and familiar, and she conked him, which is not impossible. Only, can you picture her or any woman coming out of a jam like that, and then stopping to type a note? She’d make tracks, crazy-mad, tearing her clothes on nails and mesquite.”
“You may have had enough of a nervous breakdown to rate 4-F,” the major said, pretty slow and thoughtful, “but you’re offering very good logic.”
“Nothing wrong with me except I am gun-shy. It was this way—”
“Norma told me all about that! Now, how am I supposed to have become acquainted with these interesting things—what I mean is, how am I to present the facts to Parley without mentioning you?”
“Heck, you’re an officer, you’re supposed to have more brains than the mill run, that’s why I let you in on this. But I can do some guessing while you’re thinking. Let’s sit down.”
I flipped the light toward the settee, for him to sit down, then drew the chair from the typing table, and planted myself. “You take the flash a second and play it on that shelf, while I find the book with the riddle. You know, he was looking at his news clippings when he was conked. Fine drops of blood fell on an open scrap book, and when it dried, it stuck the page against the next one.”
“Yes? What of it?”
“What he was studying when he was conked might tell what his thoughts were about.” I leaned to grab the scrap book. “There was a clipping, pretty good size, torn out, only whoever tore it out didn’t get all. There’s enough left to show it came from page eight of the New York Times, dated January 4, 1944. Getting another copy is easy. And whatever the item was about, it has a bearing on why Saddler was killed.”
“Far-fetched, isn’t it?”
“No, sir. Only one clipping on that page, and nothing on the one facing it. If he’d changed his mind and yanked the clipping out, before the run-in, he’d sure not have been looking at blank pages while someone was getting sore enough to conk him.”
But the major was ahead of me, when I’d been thinking I was still ahead of him. He made a move; the shift of the light warned me, like I expected it would.
But what I didn’t expect was having him pull a gun. I’d been ready for him to snatch that Indian war club right next to where Saddler had kept the mortar and pestle, which Parley had taken for evidence. I was due to be socked then, and if my guess was right, beaned to keep me from ever telling Norma he was a phony, a home-made major who wore a French Croix de Guerre in his collection, when he was way too young to have got one in the first World War. None had been dished out to Americans this time, naturally not. Ray Saddler would sure
ly have noticed that boner, and what happened to him, the way I figured it, wasn’t coincidental!
So here I was, ready to heave the typewriter when Heffner grabbed the war club. Only, he had other plans.
“Quit playing! Get in front of me, and do what I tell you or I’ll drill you, here and now.”
“Uh—what do you mean, major?”
“This damn’ foolishness has gone too far. You’re going to the police station right now, you know too much of this, entirely too much.”
Only he would not take me to the station. His voice made that clear. The only reason he was hanging off was that it’d look very odd if they found me dead in Saddler’s house. But half a mile out of town, you could bury ten men in the sand, and no one would ever suspect. I’d just have disappeared, and the law would figure that when Norma was taken up for questioning, I lit out while the lighting was good. And the phony major marries Norma, her date grove, and her bank roll.
And that last bit is what was the shot of hop; though I was good and scared, all the more so for knowing from Heffner’s voice that he was scared too, scared he’d not only lose his whole gamble, but flirt with a murder rap to boot! And when a man is panicked, he can do a lot he couldn’t begin to do otherwise.
My move was unexpected, which helped. I made a dive for the shelf, and just as Heffner’s gun smacked, I got hold of Saddler’s .45 revolver. Gun-shy, but no time to get sick and shaky. The big double action gat began bellowing and bucking. The light blinded me, slugs were whacking all around me, one or two hit me, but I was yelling and blazing away.
The flash dropped, and there was a thump, and choking and groaning. Bagdad turned out howling.
Well, I was leaking like a sieve. The major was worse off, a single .45 almost anywhere is like being hit with a broad-axe, and he’d stopped a pair.
Meanwhile, Parley had come back from San Bernardino. He was there in time to pour the heat on Heffner before the shock wore off. When I showed the item I’d snitched from the library files, the fake major threw up the sponge. It told all about his swindles, and cashing bum checks, using the uniform as a front. The name was different, but the face was his. He’d slipped, letting someone mug him, and realizing his boner, he’d headed for the desert to cool off, and then, meeting Norma, he figured he’d combine business with pleasure.
Saddler had called his hand, but privately. After Norma got sore at Saddler for ribbing me, he was afraid that exposing Heffner would kick back, the bearer of nasty news never being popular.
It was clear now why Saddler had figured himself still having a chance with Norma. And Heffner, flaring up, had conked him, and yanked the clipping out of the scrap book.
Parley said, when the smoke cleared away, “Look here, Mason, you didn’t know a Croix de Guerre from a Legion of Honor!”
“Sure I didn’t, but the bronze palm leaves on the red and green ribbon stand out, no matter how many other ribbons you got, and I noticed Heffner wore one the first couple times I saw him. Then came the killing. And then, tonight, I noticed he had no Croix de Guerre, and why’d he dump it? Even if I’d not found the Times in the library, his getting rid of that decoration would have been a tip-off. Particularly since Saddler’s old uniform has one of the same kind.”
Old man Carver cackled and cut off a chew. “I told you that the way to cure nerves was to grab a gun. And grit your teeth.”
I straightened up and blinked. “You sure did tell me! But things happened so fast—heck, I guess I forgot to be gun-shy, I was just plain scared he’d riddle me.”
Then I headed for the door.
“Hey, where you going?” Parley hollered.
“To wire my draft board, to tell ’em I’ll cold caulk any or all sons of bitches that claim I am gun-shy 4-F.”
But Carver hobbled after me, and hooked a claw on my shoulder. “Son, that there is a first rate idea, but this war’ll last another couple months anyway, you stick around till I find myself some weak-minded and decrepit cuss for a gang boss.”
“Well, that’s no more than right.”
Carver scratched his head. “Sam. I think this fellow must have bats in his loft after all! It don’t seem to have occurred to him if he sticks around another week or two, it’ll give Norma a chance to get over the shock of finding her hero was an imitation.”
That’s the way I played it. And here’s one advantage I got over the other G.I.’s—while there’s no telling whether Norma will have a welcome sign out when I come back from winning the war, it is at least one hundred percent certain she is going to shy away from heroes, whether the real article, or homemade.
THE LINE IS DEAD
Originally published in Smashing Detective Stories, December 1951.
Even for the French Quarter of New Orleans, Jeff Carver’s apartment was a conspicuous litter. A Smith & Wesson .38, a Crescent Agency badge, a blackjack, a fifth of Spanish brandy, and a file of patrol service reports competed for the space he had cleared to make room for working out his second installment of income tax. And what made him frown was not the figures on the paper, but the missing exemption, as he called Alma Foster.
Alma was Carver’s neighbor. Her second floor apartment was across the patio from his; and because of the Rube Goldberg methods of remodeling buildings a century and a half old, converting a French or Spanish mansion into a dozen or more studios and apartments, the quickest way from Alma’s door to the stairs leading down to the patio was a bridge across to the balcony on his side. But Alma was finding less and less time to cross over for coffee, or to straighten things out. Her last visit, a breathless three minutes, had been to leave her income tax tangle.
“After all, darling, you’re a detective; you can figure out what’s wrong with it!”
She would have stayed longer, except that she had a dinner and dancing date with an important-looking lug who drove a red and black convertible Cad. And that was not two-timing: first, she had been entirely frank about her capering around with Herb Lowry, and second, she had never made Carver any promises. Her story was that, through meeting Herb Lowry’s friends, she would have a grand chance of switching to a better job. Positions and promotions went largely on the basis of friendship or kinship: perhaps not a great deal more so than in other parts of the country, though with the difference that in this colorful and fun-loving city, people blandly admitted the facts.
A clannish place, the French city, so proud of its Old World background, yet hearty in its welcome to outsiders.
All this left Carver in the unpleasant situation of wondering whether he was being tolerant and generous-minded, or merely a chump. His frown exaggerated the angles of his face. So did the dark brows, and taut cheeks, and the straight nose which was slightly off center. His hands were lean, wiry and restless. A mosquito buzzed near him. Irritably, he looked up, reached—and nipped the nuisance right out of the air, neatly, between thumb and forefinger. He had not quite touched the stage of grabbing pistol or blackjack for such chores.
The jingle of the bell brought him to his feet, and he pounced for the door. Alma had crossed the bridge; she stood spotlighted against the wrought iron work of the gallery, and the further background of massive masonry and stucco which on all four sides enclosed the dusky patio. Her hair was dark, all alive and rippling as though windblown. She had fine teeth, but the center of her smile was in her dark eyes, and in her voice.
Alma wore a zippered robe which covered her from dainty ankles to the smooth line of her chin: the snug fit made it delightfully clear that she had that rare combination of slenderness and a full-fashioned feminine shapeliness.
“Hi, darling! How much do those bandits owe me for refund?” she asked, in gay and breathless optimism. Without waiting for an answer, Alma glided in, pivoted, and laying her long, slender hands against his cheeks, gave him a blithe and breathless kiss. “Ooh, I’ve got just time for a drop of brandy; I love Pedro Domecq.”
He looked at the hair-do, the makeup, now slightly smudged, and the golden sandals, open-toed and twinkling. He sniffed the billowing sweetness of Black Narcissus. “You smell like a date with somebody else,” he grumbled, and not as whimsically as he had tried to make it sound. “All right, honey, meet Pedro Domecq.”
He rinsed the coffee cups, which had been half full of inky black Creole brew, flushed the cigarette butts from the saucers, and poured a dollop of Three Vines.
“Jeff, you know who is really important. Don’t be that way. I am meeting people, and things are clicking. You do believe me—you know you do! I’d feel awful if you didn’t.”
“Why not let Herb fix up your tax headaches?”
“Oh, he sends his to an expert. How’s the patrol service?”
Eagerness lighted eyes and face: she had a knack of making present company seem the most important of all important persons.
Carver wafted Alma to the Chesterfield with one hand, and with the other swept a clutter of newspapers and magazines to clear sitting space. “It’s looking up, and better than being a private snoop. See here, you forget that better job; the patrol service is just about come to the point when it’s enough for both of us. Look at the shoe-leather we’d save, not hustling back and forth over the bridge from my place to yours. We’d get a bigger place, on the ground floor, right off the patio with the two marble lions.”
“On Toulouse Street? Mmmm… I’d love it.”
“Exemption with golden hoofs! And every time I put you on the list of dependents, we’d tap the till for dinner at Antoine’s, and then we’d go to the Slave Exchange to heckle the boss till he mixed a pousse cafe the hard way.”
“And exchange me for another slave? Oh, quit trying to fascinate me that way! How’s the patrol service?”
E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives Page 56