by Craig Rice
The Fourth Postman
Craig Rice
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
To the anonymous postman who brought me the postcards from Fred Dannay which inspired this story.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
CAPTAIN DANIEL VON FLANAGAN, of Homicide, who hadn’t wanted to be a policeman in the first place and whose life is made difficult by the methodical murder of postmen
JOHN J. MALONE, fast-talking criminal lawyer, chronically short of funds, who gets involved in detective work
MAGGIE, his long-suffering secretary
RODNEY FAIRFAXX, gentle and wealthy eccentric, still expecting a letter from his sweetheart, lost at sea more than thirty years ago
BRIDIE, the tearful Fairfaxx maid
KENNETH FAIRFAXX, Rodney’s nephew and an heir to his fortune, who is up to his neck in woman-trouble
ELIZABETH FAIRFAXX, Rodney’s beautiful niece, who has a motive for the crime
VIOLET, faded and silent housekeeper of the Fairfaxx ménage, who reminds Malone of someone he has seen before
A STRAY MUTT, looking for a home
HELENE JUSTUS, who snarls up activities and insists that her friends the Fairfaxxes couldn’t have done it
JAKE JUSTUS, Helene’s husband, who comes down with a spectacular case of the chicken pox and makes a find
MRS. ABBY LACY, neighbor of the Fairfaxxes, who’s unpleasant and knows it
GAY LACY, her homely daughter, engaged to Kenneth Fairfaxx
UNCLE ERNIE FAIRFAXX, who has information to impart and is hit by a brick wall
GLIDA, irrepressible mother of six twins
DR. MCSMITH, irate physician, who turns up on the most convenient occasions
BOB ALLEN, seedy-looking actor, on whom Elizabeth Fairfaxx is sweet
HUNTLEIGH, the Lacy butler, who could make a living as Boris Karloff’s stand-in and whose devotion knows no bounds
1
The sound of a dead body falling is like no other sound on earth, as any effects technician who has tried to create it in a radio studio will tell you. (Effects men differ, sometimes angrily, as to whether it should be a bumping sound, a plopping one, or a dull thud.)
Actually, it is all of those in one, and more. It is incredibly soft, unless the body has fallen a great distance. It is accompanied by a curious little sigh, as of the last breath leaving the body. It is, unmistakably and unforgettably, the sound of a man dying.
The killer waited, weapon in hand, and thought about the sound. It had become a familiar one. This would be the third time.
In the house nearby, a clock chimed ten. The killer stiffened, every nerve alert. It would be a matter of minutes, now. The victim, unaware of what was waiting for him, was on his way up the street, probably whistling.
A sudden pang of pity brought an almost anguished groan from the killer’s throat. Poor old man, he’d never harmed anybody in his life. No doubt he had a wife and family. Grandchildren, too, most likely. Probably lived in a modest bungalow somewhere in the suburbs, had a few cronies in for beer on Saturday nights, and went to church Sunday morning. Undoubtedly he looked forward to retiring on his pension, and raising chickens or rabbits in the back yard.
Perhaps—no, there could be no turning back. Once engaged in so difficult and dangerous a business as murder, one had to go on with it.
And there would, inevitably, be other murders in the days ahead.
There it was, the cheerful, mid-morning whistle. “Rose-Marie—I love you—” The killer’s eyes closed for a moment, and saw the imagined victim. A short, stocky man, past middle age, with thick gray hair under his cap, and plump, rosy cheeks. A man who whistled on his way up the street, and whose footsteps were brisk as they came along the walk.
For one last moment the killer speculated as to what the victim’s name might be.
A man who loved his wife, children and grandchildren, who had a few friends in for beer on Saturday night, who shepherded his family to church on Sunday morning and probably passed the collection plate, who had only a few more payments to make on his tiny suburban bungalow, in which he had great pride, and who planned to raise chickens or rabbits when he retired on his pension.…
The cheerful whistle was drawing near.
The killer’s hands tightened on the weapon.
At least, death would be quick and practically painless.
There was one blow, perfectly aimed.
And then that sound again, the soft sound, with the faint, expiring sigh.
2
“Can you imagine anybody,” Captain Daniel von Flanagan said, “going around murdering postmen?”
“Easily,” John J. Malone told him. He added, thoughtfully, “Particularly around the first of the month.”
Captain von Flanagan, of the Homicide Bureau, laughed heartily, too heartily, and ordered a couple more drinks. “When the first one got bumped off,” he said, “we figured it was somebody had some personal grudge against him. After all, even a postman has to have a private life. And then when the second one came along, I didn’t pay as much attention as I might of, on account of being busy with those racket murders and the girl ghost.* You remember.”
Malone nodded. He remembered entirely too well. In fact, he was engaged at present in trying to forget it.
“But,” von Flanagan finished, “when the third postman gets killed, and all three of them in the same territory, I begin to get suspicious.”
The little Irish lawyer sighed and rested his elbows on the polished surface of Joe the Angel’s City Hall bar. He suspected that the big police officer was angling for some free advice, even some free detective work. He was one hundred per cent right. He had already made up his mind that he would have nothing to do with the affair. There, he was one hundred per cent mistaken.
“Why the hell,” von Flanagan said, getting back to his original theme, “would anybody want to murder a postman?”
Malone didn’t know, and in spite of his present state of mind, he was intrigued. He could imagine anybody wanting to murder a policeman, or a bank teller, or a chorus girl, or a millionaire, maybe even a lawyer. But a postman—no. Not, at least, in his official capacity as a postman.
“Robbery?” he suggested at last.
Von Flanagan shook his head. “Nothing none of those guys carried had been touched,” he said. “Nothing had been stolen.” He scowled into his gin-and-ginger ale. “All three of these guys were killed in the same place, and in the same way, and at the same time of day,” he said. “A very swell neighborhood, too.”
It seemed to offend him a little that murder should take place in a very swell neighborhood.
“They have a regular route they all follow,” he went on, gloomily. “Four big houses in one block. One vacant. Then they go up an alley between two of the houses. That saves half a block’s walking getting to the next house. It was in the alley they got killed. Clubbed, every one of them. Hit square on the head. We never found the club yet.”
He drew a long, profane-sounding breath. “A gun you can trace, maybe. Knives, too, sometimes. But a club or a blackjack is the very devil of a thing to find.” He sat silent for a moment. “Damn it all,” he said at last, “why do people have to go out of their way to make things hard for me?”
Malone didn’t know that, either, and didn’t especially care. He was mostly concerned with whether or not von Flanagan was going to pay for the drinks. He was cherishing the crumpled five-dollar bill in his pants pocket in the hopes of considerably enlarging it that night in a poker game. And Joe the Angel had extended about all the credit that could reasonably be expected. On the other hand, if von Flanagan did pick up the check, there would be a certain moral obligation to give a little advice in this matter of the three murdered pos
tmen.
“I never wanted to be a cop,” von Flanagan said, mournfully, “and most of all I never wanted to get promoted to the homicide squad. Now on top of that, why do people deliberately try to make my job worse than it is already?” He had a profound conviction that murderers attempted to conceal the evidence of their crimes as a personal affront to himself.
“Well, anyway,” he said at last, “we’re gonna go pick up this guy. He must of done it. Bring us a couple more, Joe. He’s a cracked old bird. His sweetie went off on a boat someplace about thirty years ago—the Titanic, I guess it was—anyway, it got sunk and she got drowned. Only he thinks she’s still a tourist over in England and she’s gonna write to him. So every day he goes down and asks the postman, does he have a letter from her. I figure he must of decided the postmen were holding out on him, so he bops them on the head, one after another. The post office is having a hell of a time getting guys to take that route.”
“Sure,” Malone said, with forced enthusiasm. “That’s the way it must have been. You’ve got your murderer, with a motive for murdering nobody but postmen, so what are you worrying for, and bothering me?” He knew why. He knew that for some reason, not yet confided, von Flanagan wasn’t sure of his case.
“Well, you see,” the police officer said, “this guy ain’t got no lawyer yet, so I thought maybe you’d like to come along. Hell, I’m just trying to do you a favor.”
Malone sat up straight. The office rent was due again, not this month’s, but last month’s. Maggie, his secretary, was beginning to look decidedly wistful about her salary. And he couldn’t really depend on that poker game tonight. Here appeared to be a ready-made client. “Tell me,” he said, “has this guy got any money?”
“Money!” von Flanagan exploded. “He’s got half the money in Chicago. This guy is Mr. Fairfaxx. Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx.”
Malone downed his drink and bounded to his feet. “Well, then,” he said, “what are we waiting for?”
He rushed to the door, strategically, while von Flanagan paid for the drinks.
There were four houses in a row in the block just east of North State Parkway. On the east corner of the block was a brick wall enclosing a garden belonging to a big house on Astor Place, and between the wall and the last of the three houses was a narrow alley, leading back to the next street south. It was possible to see into the alley from the windows of the house that bordered it, or anyone passing by on the street could see into it. Across the street was another large enclosed garden. The alley was admirably secluded, Malone observed, in case anyone wanted to use it for a murder.
The little lawyer reflected that, swell neighborhood or not the alley was just as littered with rubbish, waste paper empty bottles, tin cans and battle-scarred cats as the far less aristocratic alleys only a mile to the south. He didn’t disapprove of the condition. Indeed, it was a democratic touch which rather pleased him.
“Every one of ’em was lying right there,” von Flanagan said pointing. “Heads stove in. None of ’em ever knew what hit him.”
Malone looked at the spot indicated on the paving. It didn’t tell him much.
“Who found them?” he said at last.
“The post office found the first one,” von Flanagan said. “People farther along his route began calling up and squawking on account of their mail wasn’t delivered yet. And he didn’t get back to the sub-station. So the post office sent out a guy to trace him, and that guy caught up with him, here in the alley. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and he must of lay here an hour, but nobody noticed him. I guess people don’t look into alleys much.”
He shook his head sadly. “Kenneth Fairfaxx, the old guy’s nephew, found the second one. He lives here with his uncle.” Von Flanagan indicated the house next to the alley. “It was a little earlier, about ten-fifteen. The postman usually gets here right at ten. Mr. Kenneth Fairfaxx, he was going to drive downtown; his car was parked in front of the house and he headed into the alley to turn around, and saw the body. And old Mr. Fairfaxx, he says he found the other one. He says he thought he heard a noise, and he looked out of his window, right up there”—he pointed to a small overhanging bay on the second floor. Its curtains were tightly drawn.
Malone looked up at the window, then down at the alley again. “Well,” he said at last, “let’s go in and get him.”
A pleasant-faced, pretty Irish maid opened the door. She looked tired and worried, and her face paled perceptibly when she saw von Flanagan.
“Oh, sir,” she said anxiously, “there hasn’t been another!”
“Nope,” von Flanagan said, “and there won’t be.” He turned to Malone. “This is Bridie. She phoned me when old Mr. Fairfaxx claimed to find the third body.”
Bridie said, “Oh!” Then she said, “I’ll tell Mr. Fairfaxx you’re here,” and fled, leaving them in the big, shadowy hall.
A handsome, young man in light tan tweeds came through the double doorway leading to a big sunlit room, a pipe in his hand. He was short—not much taller than Malone—and slender, but he looked as though he might have useful muscles. A good-looking guy on a small scale, Malone thought. He grinned at von Flanagan and said, “Hullo! You again!”
“Afraid so,” von Flanagan said. He added to Malone, “This is Mr. Kenneth Fairfaxx. He found the second body.” Then to the young man, “This is Mr. Malone. I was able to talk him into—talking with your uncle.”
“Oh, good,” Kenneth Fairfaxx said. He grinned at Malone, and said, “Maybe I ought to have a chat with you first.”
“Maybe you had,” the lawyer said noncommittally.
A tall, beautiful, long-legged girl with tawny hair, a lightly tanned face, and a slight band of freckles across her nose, came into the room from the other side of the room, walking like a young collie. She too said, “Hullo,” to von Flanagan.
The police officer greeted her and introduced her to Malone. “Miss Elizabeth Fairfaxx.”
A tall woman in black was standing unobtrusively behind her. She had a thin face, with deep-set eyes, and stringy hair that was a blond-gray. She vaguely reminded Malone of someone, but he couldn’t think who it was. From her dress and manner, she might have been the housekeeper, or a poverty-stricken unmarried aunt.
“This is Violet, Mr. Malone,” Kenneth Fairfaxx said, as though that explained everything.
Violet acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod.
Elizabeth Fairfaxx cleared things up by adding, “Violet’s been our housekeeper for years.” She held out a cordial hand and said, “How do you do, Mr. Malone.”
“How do you do,” Malone said. “And what body did you find?”
“I’ve found quite a number,” she said, “but none of them dead.”
It was the kind of retort he might have expected from her. “I’m Rodney Fairfaxx’s niece. No,” she added, as she saw Malone look from her to Kenneth Fairfaxx and back again, “we aren’t brother and sister. We’re cousins. My father had the foresight to marry a woman half a head taller than he was.” She glanced at Kenneth Fairfaxx as though she were tossing him a hint but he didn’t seem to notice it. Then she said, apparently irrelevantly, “We both live here. In fact, we all live here.”
Bridie reappeared and said tearfully, “Will you come in, please.”
Kenneth Fairfaxx held out a restraining hand and said, “But I thought first—Mr. Malone—” He drew the hand back and quickly said, “Well, never mind. You’ll have to take him away with you, I suppose. But will you come back, as soon as you can? I want to have a word with you.”
Malone promised that he would, and went on into Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx’s study with von Flanagan, wondering what his new client was going to be like.
He wasn’t like anything Malone had expected. The little lawyer had met a number of assorted murderers in his lifetime, but none of them remotely resembled this one. Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx was a gentle-looking old man, even shorter than his nephew, and very frail, with wispy, snow-white hair and tired, rather vague blue
eyes. The room he was in seemed incongruously large for so small an occupant, with its wide paneled walls and massive furniture, yet it was a warm, cheerful, sunlit room for all that.
The old man greeted them at the door and said, “I must apologize for keeping you waiting. I’ve been busy cataloguing my stamp collection and I was just putting it away. I suppose you want to see me about that wretched postman business.”
“That’s right,” von Flanagan said. He looked unhappy and embarrassed. Finally he introduced Malone.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx said, smiling and holding out his hand. “Kenneth said something to me about arranging for a lawyer. I didn’t quite understand it. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying very close attention.”
Malone mentally damned von Flanagan up, down, cross-ways and sideways, for being afraid to make the pinch, and said, “I’m your lawyer, Mr. Fairfaxx, because you’re under arrest, for suspicion of murder. Don’t worry because I’ll get you out of it, and don’t say anything in front of this—” He caught himself just in time and glared at von Flanagan.
“Murder?” Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx said questioningly. His mild old eyes widened. “But I haven’t murdered anybody.”
“There seems to be an impression,” Malone said, “that you murdered three postmen.”
The old man looked more puzzled than alarmed. “But that’s quite absurd. Why should I? Why should anybody want to murder a postman?”
“Why indeed,” von Flanagan said, with what tried to pass for cheerfulness. “Just the same, you’re under arrest.”
Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx submitted to the arrest very amiably, bewildered, but anxious to be agreeable, and in no way worried. Once he said, “I suppose if you say I murdered those men, it must be so, but I assure you—” And von Flanagan’s eyes met Malone’s in a significant look.
That was his only protest. He locked up his stamp collection. He rang for Violet, who came in looking more than ever like a badly-cared-for ghost, and asked her to pack a few things for him. She nodded and went away. Malone found himself wondering if she ever spoke at all, or if her conversation was limited to nods and shakes of the head.