Having Wonderful Crime

by Craig Rice

  Birnbaum said, “I wish we could stop by a drugstore. I’d like to get an Alka-Seltzer.”

  “You eat wrong, that’s all,” O’Brien said.

  There were, Jake reflected, two things he could do. He could tell the whole truth, what he had been doing, and why. It wouldn’t be difficult to prove it. Only, if he did so, the cops would probably keep an eye on him till the case was finished. He wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s ghost of a chance of finding Bertha Morrison and the murderer of the unknown beauty. He’d never be able to prove to that editor that he knew all there was to know about crime detection. Besides, Helene would find out. Not that she wouldn’t understand and sympathize. In fact, if she knew what he was doing she would enthusiastically insist on helping. He’d welcome her help, but this time he wanted to surprise her. The other thing he could do was to go on playing dumb, and pray that the cops would rapidly find out that he had nothing to do with the crime. The trouble with that was, it might take anywhere from an hour to a week, and in the meantime, Helene would worry herself frantic.

  Suddenly a third possibility occurred to him and, thinking it over, he began to feel better. That inspector from the Homicide Bureau, Arthur Peterson, had looked like an understanding and reasonable guy. He’d tell Peterson the whole story, the book, Helene, everything. A good guy like Arthur Peterson would appreciate the situation, turn him loose, and keep the secret. Hell, Peterson would probably be glad to have the help of a well-grounded, though strictly amateur, criminologist. Everything was going to be swell, if only Wildavine could be released, too. Because he still had a lot of questions to ask Wildavine. The chances were good, he told himself. The police really didn’t have anything on Wildavine.

  At headquarters he assumed an air of great dignity and importance, and announced, “I have valuable information to give, but it can only be given to Inspector Arthur Peterson. Take me to him at once.”

  The sergeant wasn’t impressed. He ignored Jake’s statement and barked, “What’s your name?”

  Jake stared at him silently, trying to look as though he weren’t thinking hard to find a usable name. “He says he’s the spirit of the murdered woman,” Birnbaum said.

  “Yeah,” Schultz added, “and he says he can manifest himself any time he wants to and disappear any time he wants to. Personally, I don’t believe it.”

  “I said, what’s your name?” the sergeant said to Jake, grim determination in his voice.

  “Edward J. Kelly,” Jake said promptly. It was the first name that had come into his mind. “Listen, I want to talk to Arthur Peterson.”

  “Shut up,” the sergeant said. “Where do you live?”

  Jake said, “Chicago.”

  The sergeant looked at him for a moment, then picked up an interoffice phone and dialed an exchange. “Say,” he said, “I’ve got a nut down here who’s mixed up in that St. Jacques hotel killing. He thinks he’s the mayor of Chicago.”

  That hadn’t occurred to Jake before, but he said coyly, “Maybe I am. Then wouldn’t you be surprised.”

  “Shut up,” the sergeant said again to Jake, and then into the telephone, “O.K., I’ll send him along to you.”

  “What I want to know is,” O’Brien said, “do we get the credit for this guy, or does Peterson?”

  The sergeant said, “Depends on what he done. Take him on upstairs.”

  “He socked me,” Schultz said. His voice sounded hurt.

  “He was in the place where the babe was murdered,” O’Brien said, “and then we found him hiding out with this dame.”

  “Who’d written the threatening letter,” Birnbaum added.

  Schultz said, “Yeah, but lookit, fellas, the dame she wrote the t’reatenin’ letter to didn’t get murdered.”

  “For two bits, Schultz,” O’Brien said, “I’d sock you myself.”

  “Wait a minute yet,” the sergeant said, “is he booked for resisting an officer, or is he a material witness, or what?”

  “Put him down as held for questioning,” Birnbaum said. Then they took Jake upstairs.

  A soft-voiced young man in a gray double-breasted suit smiled pleasantly at Jake, offered him a cigarette, and said, “I’m sure this is just a simple little misunderstanding which can be cleared up very quickly if you’ll answer a few questions.” He unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and shook a drop of ink over the waste-basket. “Your name, again?”

  “I’ll tell that to Mr. Peterson,” Jake said. He wondered what was happening to Wildavine.

  “He says he’s the mayor of Chicago,” O’Brien said.

  The young man in the gray suit frowned and wrote something down. Then he smiled at Jake again. “I know this is all a great nuisance, but it really is quite important. Now tell me, just how did you happen to be in that suite at the St. Jacques?”

  “I’ll tell that to Mr. Peterson, too,” Jake said. “Along with a number of other things.”

  “In another minute he’ll start hollering for a lawyer,” Birnbaum said gloomily. “They always do.”

  “Please,” the young man said, “I want you to consider me your friend. I’m only trying to help you out of what is really a very serious situation. You do believe I want to help you, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” Jake said. “So get me Arthur Peterson so I can talk to him quick and get the hell out of this lousy jail.”

  “You are not being very co-operative,” the young man said reprovingly. “Just why do you insist on seeing Arthur Peterson?”

  “Because I want to tell him something,” Jake said.

  “Ah,” the young man said. “Won’t you tell me what you want to tell him?” His voice was so friendly it almost cooed.

  “Sure,” Jake said. He nodded his head and grinned broadly.

  “See, he’s a moor-on, all right,” O’Brien said.

  The young man in the gray suit scowled at him. Then he chirruped at Jake, “Ah, that’s fine! Just tell me what you want to tell Arthur Peterson.

  Jake tiptoed over to the desk, looked all around him cautiously, laid a finger on his lips, leaned over the young man, and finally whispered, “A secret!”

  The young man leaned back, sighed, and said, “All right, boys, turn him over to Doc Grosher.”

  Eventually, Jake reflected, they’d get tired of him and deliver him to Arthur Peterson.

  Doc Grosher turned out to be a big, impressive man with a scrubbed-looking pink skin, eyeglasses, a mane of iron-gray hair, and a well-cultivated reassuring manner. He had a couple of assistants in white coats. Birnbaum, O’Brien, and Schultz vanished. Jake hoped Birnbaum got his Alka-Seltzer.

  “Fine, fine, fine,” Doc Grosher said, beaming and giving his hands a dry wash. “Lovely day, isn’t it? Now, young man, just take off your coat, tie, and shirt.”

  “I’m not sick,” Jake said, “and I’m not going to take off my shirt. I just want to talk to Arthur Peterson.”

  “Of course you do,” Doc Grosher said soothingly. “Yes, of course you do. But let’s get through with this little routine first. Now just take off your coat, tie, and shirt.” He signaled to his assistants with his eyes. Jake took off his coat, tie, and shirt. He was silent and patient while his chest, his blood, his blood pressure, and his reflexes were tested. He was even amiably quiet while the measurements of his skull were taken and the doctor murmured, “Hm. Yes, yes, yes.” But by the time he was allowed to dress again, and was seated cozily at a corner of the doctor’s desk, he was getting pretty damn tired of it all.

  The doctor stared at him dreamily and then said, “Tell me quickly. What is the first thing you remember?”

  “Trying to find Arthur Peterson,” Jake said. He said it quickly, too.

  “No, no, no,” Doc Grosher said. “I mean the very first thing you can remember.” Jake gave the same answer. They went through that routine several times before the doctor gave up. “When did you first become aware,” Doc Grosher went on, “that you were the mayor of Chicago?”

  “When I started looking for A
rthur Peterson,” Jake said.

  There were a number of other questions concerning his birthplace, his childhood memories, his home life, his education, his occupation, and a few more questions which Jake considered insultingly personal. He gave the same answer to all of them. He’d tell Arthur Peterson.

  “Now tell me this,” the doctor said, in the same dreamy manner, “have you ever felt an impulse to kill, a momentary impulse?”

  “I’m going to feel a momentary impulse to give somebody a bust in the nose,” Jake said, “if you don’t quit playing games with me and take me to Arthur Peterson.”

  “Definitely an interesting type, isn’t he, doctor?” one of the assistants said. He was a thin young man with glasses and curly dark hair. “Threatening, and yet not violent.”

  The doctor said, “Sssh!” to him, and then snapped at Jake, “Quick! Are you asleep or awake?”

  “Neither,” Jake said. “I’m dreaming. Dreaming of getting to see Arthur Peterson.”

  “What day is this?”

  “The day on which I’m trying to see Arthur Peterson.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The guy who wants to see Arthur Peterson.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the office of some damn-fool doctor who’s trying to keep me from seeing Arthur Peterson.” Jake was beginning to get impatient.

  “Rather a definite feeling of persecution there, don’t you think, doctor?” the other assistant said, an anemic-looking young man with sandy hair.

  “I think the hell with it,” Doctor Grosher said, dropping his reassuring manner. “I think the guy’s nuts.”

  The sandy-haired assistant said, “You don’t want me to write that down, do you, doctor?” and the dark-haired assistant said, “Shall I give him Test A, doctor?” The doctor said a rude word and lit a cigarette. “Tests A and B are routine,” the assistant said earnestly. “They have to go on the charts.”

  Dr. Grosher snorted. The curly-haired assistant sat Jake at a desk, handed him an eight-page leaflet and a pen, and said, “Try to answer all the questions in eleven minutes.” Jake drew faces all over the chart, labeled them all “Arthur Peterson,” and handed it in in six minutes.

  The sandy-haired assistant led him into a small adjoining room and seated him before an immense wooden board covered with variously shaped holes. Beside the board was a pile of variously shaped wooden blocks. The idea, he informed Jake, was to fit the blocks into the proper holes. Then he went away and shut the door. Jake built a magnificent house out of the wooden blocks. Over the door he lettered, “Arthur Peterson lives here.”

  “He seems to have a definite fixation about Arthur Peterson, doctor,” the sandy-haired assistant said.

  Dr. Grosher said another very rude word. Then he said, “All right, let him talk to Arthur Peterson.”

  Jake’s heart leaped. A few minutes—half an hour, at most—of man-to-man discussion, and he’d be out of here. A taxi would take him back to the hotel in another half-hour, and he’d straighten things out with Helene somehow. Maybe he’d tell her he’d been having a tooth filled. Anyway, he’d be there in time to take her to dinner.

  “You don’t think we ought to give him Test C?” the curly haired assistant said.

  “The hell with Test C,” Doc Grosher said. “The hell with him. Just get him out of here.”

  As Jake was being turned over to a uniformed cop, he heard the sandy-haired assistant say to the curly-haired assistant, “Doc Grosher must be getting old. He seems to be losing his grip.”

  Jake had expected to land in Peterson’s office. Instead, he landed in a cell. He protested indignantly and loudly. After all, time was fleeting. The cop said soothingly, “Sure you’re going to see Arthur Peterson. Only just settle down and make yourself at home, and you’ll get a nice little dinner, and a nice little sedative the doc ordered. On account of Arthur Peterson is some place up in Connecticut and he ain’t coming back until ten tomorrow morning, and so you can’t see him till then.” He locked the cell door, and said, “So long, buddy. Sleep well.”

  13. Literary Material for Jake

  “This is not Chicago,” Arthur Peterson said sternly. “We do things differently here. Scientifically and efficiently. And we don’t need help from amateurs.”

  Jake nodded his head apologetically and said, “Yes, of course. I realize that.” He looked hopefully for a sympathetic gleam in the police official’s eye, and saw none.

  “Particularly,” Peterson added, “amateurs who disturb the morale of the entire department.”

  “I’m really very sorry,” Jake said humbly. “It was just”—he remembered Doc Grosher’s words—“a momentary impulse.”

  Arthur Peterson looked at him, a cold gleam behind his thick-lensed glasses. “Momentary impulses,” he said, “impair efficiency.”

  “I’m sure of it,” Jake said. He felt tired, miserable, and worried. His night in jail had not been a restful one, punctuated as it had been by busy young men from the Behavior Clinic who kept popping in to test his reflexes and ask him questions. Besides, he’d been too disturbed about Helene to sleep. He could just see her, sitting by the telephone, waiting, when she could have been out showing Malone the town. A couple of times he’d considered giving the whole thing up and telling the next busy young man who came in, “I’ll tell you everything, if you’ll only let me phone my wife.” But every time, when the young man appeared, he’d thought better of it. After all, he was doing this for Helene, wasn’t he? When it was all over, and he’d succeeded in what he was trying to do, they’d laugh over it. Now, however, it was beginning to look as though it had been for nothing. He’d told Arthur Peterson the truth, and all he’d got had been the kind of scolding a schoolboy might expect for throwing a rock through a window. He’d been apologetic and sorry and humble, but so far it hadn’t done any good, and his patience was beginning to wear thin. In about sixty more seconds he was going to pop Arthur Peterson right on the end of his long, thin nose.

  “Of course,” Peterson said suddenly, “I do appreciate the circumstances. I have a wife myself. And I’ve always had a kind of feeling that I could write a book.” Jake felt hope leap up in his chest for the first time in hours. “In fact,” Peterson went on, “sometime I’d like to tell you about the book I have in mind. I really have a lot of material. Maybe I could give you some good ideas, too.”

  “That would be wonderful!” Jake said ardently.

  “I even have a few things jotted down. Just roughly, you know. Maybe you’d like to look at them.”

  Jake said, “I’d be delighted! They must be extremely interesting.”

  Arthur Peterson’s thin lips almost smiled. There was a moment’s silence. Then he said, “Letting you go is going to be hard to explain to Doc Grosher. But I guess I can do it.”

  He spent several minutes trying to get Doc Grosher on the phone. Then he said, “Funny, the doc’s home with a hangover. I never knew him to go on a bender before.” Jake said nothing. He mentally apologized to. Doc Grosher. “I shouldn’t let you go,” Peterson said, “but of course, as a fellow writer—” He paused, coughed mildly, and went on, sternly, “Remember, though, we don’t allow this sort of thing here. Detection is not a pastime for amateurs. Stick to your writing and don’t bother us.”

  Jake said, “Oh, don’t worry,” and hoped the officer would take it to mean, “Yes, I will.”

  There was another brief silence, and then Arthur Peterson looked up from behind his shiny and orderly desk. “Just between ourselves, though,” he said, “as a matter of idle curiosity, did you happen to stumble on anything important yesterday?”

  Jake’s heart jumped for joy a couple of times. The only difference between New York and Chicago cops was in the words they used! “Well,” he said slowly, “not exactly. There were a few things that struck me as interesting.” He went on to tell about the fact that Bertha Morrison had unpacked as though she expected to stay at the St. Jacques forever, instead of just overnight, even
to haying her luggage taken to the storeroom, but that Dennis Morrison hadn’t unpacked, save for a few overnight necessities.

  “You have a very keen eye,” Arthur Peterson said reluctantly, making a few notes. “Anything else?”

  Jake decided to keep Bertha’s notes and her address book to himself. “Just the letter—if it was a letter—from Wildavine Williams. It should have occurred to me to look in the wastebasket for the envelope, but your cops beat me to it.”

  “Our department is very efficient,” Arthur Peterson said, a little purr of pleasure in his voice. “It wasn’t a letter, of course. Miss Williams, it develops, is a poetess. She had, quite innocently, sent Bertha Morrison a copy of her latest poem. One of the last things Bertha Morrison did before her disappearance was to write her a letter thanking her for it.”

  He pulled out a cardboard file and took out a letter. Jake immediately recognized the handsome stationery with the engraved queen bee in one corner.

  “Dearest Wildavine,” Arthur Peterson read aloud, “I think your last poem is very beautiful. Thank you for sending it to me. I am sure that someday you will be a famous and successful poet like Shakespeare and Robert Burns and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Do not let hardships discourage you, someday you will be grateful for the good effect they have had on your character. I am sorry I cannot make you the loan to take the course of study you are interested in, but I am sure the trustees would not allow it. Thank you again for your poem and for the good wishes you expressed over the telephone. I am very happy, and looking forward to our Manhattan honeymoon. Affectionately, Bertha.”

  He put the letter back in the file. “The whole business,” he said, “was quite discouraging to O’Brien and Birnbaum, but Schultz claimed to have suspected it all the time.”

  Jake repeated slowly “‘Our Manhattan honeymoon.’ That might explain her unpacking job. Maybe there was a change of plans at the last minute. It could have happened that way.”

  “It could,” Arthur Peterson said, nodding.

  “Only,” Jake went on, thinking out loud, “Dennis hadn’t unpacked. And he said that they planned to leave in the morning on their honeymoon tour.” He frowned. “Maybe she decided on a Manhattan honeymoon and was going to break the news to him when he came back. Women do things like that sometimes.”