Having Wonderful Crime

by Craig Rice

  “Meaning you,” Malone said.

  “There was another letter,” Mr. Proudfoot said, received by a Miss Dorothy Finny. She telephoned me this morning and read it to me over the telephone. Frankly, I was quite inclined to doubt the authenticity of the letter. Miss Finny appeared to be in a hysterical state. She is, I might add, assistant to a well-known medium. She appeared to believe that both Bertha and her husband were dead, and that this letter was a manifestation of some sort. I induced her to send it to me by special messenger, collect. I must admit to you, Mr. Malone, that I was baffled. And then when Mrs. Olsen—”

  “Let’s see the letter,” Malone said.

  It contained just what he’d expected.

  My dear Dorothy:

  Thank you for your lovely gift, and for your good wishes. Niagara Falls is so beautiful, I wish that you could be here. Tomorrow we are going on West. Soon we will be home again, and then we will look forward to a visit from you. We are deliriously happy. All my love.

  Bertha

  “Bertha didn’t have much originality, did she?” Malone said, handing back the letter. Mr. Proudfoot lifted his eyebrows, and Malone said hastily, “You’re right. She must be nuts.”

  “Exactly what I maintain,” Mr. Proudfoot said. “It is my thoroughly established belief that some shock must have unbalanced her mind, poor girl. Evidently she believes that she is happily married and on her honeymoon.”

  “Or,” Malone said, “she is happily married and on her honeymoon, and she doesn’t read the newspapers.”

  Proudfoot said, “I am principally concerned with finding her, and reassuring myself that she is safe and well. I am certain that is what her father would have wished me to do, were he alive today.”

  “Right,” Malone said. “And if I do find her, and she is nuts, and the court does appoint you guardian, I think you ought to double my fee, pal.”

  Mr. Proudfoot stated immediately that that was impossible, and that Malone had an unfortunate attitude toward the whole situation. He had promised Malone too large a fee already. In fact, it might be wiser for him to end the arrangement and call in some more responsible party. Malone stated that if Mr. Proudfoot did any such thing he would sue him, and that Mr. Proudfoot was obviously the offspring of an unwed half-wit and a shameless camel. Mr. Proudfoot said that he regretted, deeply, the fact that Malone failed to appreciate the delicacy of the situation. His sense of responsibility to Bertha’s father—Malone said he was going back to Chicago on the six-forty-five train and the hell with the whole thing. Mr. Proudfoot ventured a remark that he might offer a small bonus in the event that the courts did find Bertha incompetent and appoint him a permanent guardian.

  Malone said, “I’ll find her. And if she isn’t crazy when I find her, I’ll promise you—”

  “I wouldn’t even suggest,” Mr. Proudfoot said, coldly, “that you do anything even remotely illegal.”

  Malone walked to the door and opened it. He was anxious to get out of the office, to smell clean, fresh air again. He smiled amiably at Mr. Proudfoot. “And meantime, chum,” he said, “if you find yourself with time hanging heavy on your hands, drop up some night for a game of poker.”

  “I never indulge in card games,” Abner Proudfoot said, without turning a hair.

  “That’s all right,” Malone said. “Just bring along a couple of your pals. Or a couple of your thugs, I’m not choosy. Only next time, bring along tougher ones.” Abner didn’t answer and didn’t move. But the flicker in his eyes told Malone that his guess was right. Last night Abner Proudfoot had believed Bertha Morrison dead, he hadn’t wanted her to be found and identified. He had tried to protect himself by getting the signed agreement back from Malone, and by having Malone found, senseless or dead, at the bottom of an excavation. Now, Bertha seemed to be alive, and he’d changed his mind, fast. He sincerely hoped Malone would consent to ignore the little contretemps. “I’ll find her,” Malone repeated. He closed the door and looked at the gray-haired, frozen-faced spinster at the reception desk. “Your boss,” he said, “is the ring-tailed, cross-eyed son of an unmarried mother.”

  To his happy surprise, she smiled at him.

  28. Jake Goes to Staten Island

  Jake felt a sense of exhaustion and futility. There had been no further word from Helene. Malone had gone out somewhere and not returned. After an hour’s fruitless waiting, he’d decided to go ahead where he left off yesterday.

  He’d gone over to Brooklyn to see Bertha Morrison’s uncle, George Lutts, who turned out to be a gentle, slightly deaf, overweight, real-estate broker, not as successful as Bertha’s father had been, but mildly prosperous. He didn’t manage Bertha’s property, he explained to Jake, a Mr. Proudfoot did that. Abner Proudfoot. He was in the phone book. Jake made a note of the name.

  He didn’t remember ever having heard of Dennis Morrison, Gloria Garden, Puckett, Wildavine Williams, or anyone else connected with the case. “I haven’t seen so much of Bertha since she grew up,” he explained apologetically. “Anyway, since her father passed away. He was a fine man, but I’ve always thought he should have made me Bertha’s trustee. Not that she wasn’t capable of managing her own affairs. Anything else I can do for you?”

  A look of pain came into his mild blue eyes when Howie’s name was mentioned. Jake wished he hadn’t had to mention it. Howie was in trouble again. Of course Mr. Justus must know that, if he’d seen the papers. Jake nodded, and thanked heaven that Helene’s name had been kept out of the story, and his own.

  Howie had always been a bad boy. Not that everything possible hadn’t been done for him. Old George Lutts’ face looked tired and drawn. Howie had been arrested at eleven for stealing hub caps off parked cars and put on probation. “He never was a vicious boy,” George Lutts said. “He had a real nice nature. Only he just never could seem to resist temptation.” Howie had been arrested at fourteen for stealing cigarettes and candy from a cigar store. “Not that he hadn’t been in trouble before that,” George Lutts said, “only not with the police.” At seventeen he’d been picked up on a morals charge. “Not a girl, you understand,” George Lutts said, looking embarrassed and unhappy. “Howie, he never would have anything to do with girls. Once we thought maybe he’d fall in love with Bertha when he grew up, only it didn’t work out that way. A person never can tell about those things.”

  Howie had been committed to the House of Refuge. At eighteen he’d been paroled and given a job in a filling station. He’d worked as an usher, an office boy, and a soda jerk. “Howie never could keep a job very long,” Mr. Lutts said. At twenty-two Howie, in the company of three friends, had held up a junk dealer. The three friends had been arrested, convicted, and sent to Elmira, but Howie had got away. “I hid him out, I didn’t tell,” George Lutts said. “Heaven forgive me. Only his mother was so sick. She died in a coupla months, and she never knew about Howie.”

  He’d been picked up looting the till of a filling station, and served four years. After he’d come out he’d returned home, borrowed a hundred dollars, and disappeared. George Lutts had only seen him once or twice since then, when he’d come back to borrow more. “Now he’s in jail again,” George Lutts said, sighing. “Too bad. Howie had such a nice personality, too.”

  Jake got away as soon as he could. He hoped that Howie Lutts would draw a long term, at hard labor. He hadn’t learned anything of value from George Lutts, nor did he learn anything at Abner Proudfoot’s office, where a pimply-faced young woman informed him that Mr. Proudfoot was out of the city and not expected back for six months. This, by golly, was going to be his last visit today. He knocked lightly on Melva Engstrand’s door in the Beaux Arts Apartments, resolving that if he didn’t learn anything here, he’d give up and go back to Chicago. He said, as the door opened, “I’m a reporter, and I wanted to ask you a few questions—”

  “Oh,” Melva Engstrand said. “How thrilling! Come right in!”

  She was a big, buxom woman with bright-red hair and a well-made-up face. She ha
d on a jade-green housecoat that rustled as she walked, and tinkling little silver earrings. The apartment was expensive-looking, and tastefully decorated. Melva Engstrand mixed him a drink, offered him a cigarette, and curled up on the couch across the room from him, looking coy. “You reporters do get around! How did you hear about my divorce suit so soon?”

  “Oh,” Jake said. He sipped the drink. “Oh—well, we get around. Tell me all about it.”

  She did, and it took an hour and a half. Her first husband had been a dear, but far too old for her. She’d been just a child out of school, and she’d wanted to go out and have fun. They’d finally parted friends, and he’d settled a very nice sum of money on her. Her second husband had been a simply terrible person, he’d obviously married her for her money, and as soon as he saw he couldn’t get his hands on it, he’d left her. Her third had been a brute, an absolute brute. They’d quarreled all the time, every minute of it. Would you believe it, she’d actually had to go to a sanitarium for a nervous breakdown. And mean! The way she’d had to fight to get any alimony! And now? Well, Arthur Engstrand had a lovely disposition and he was so generous, and he had a fine business, but he was unbearably conventional. He’d actually objected to her going to the race tracks, and that had been the last straw.

  Besides, she was engaged. She giggled and said, “Please, you mustn’t tell anybody, because I haven’t gotten my decree yet. But he’s such a dear! Wait, I’ll show you his picture!” She produced it, a thin-faced young man with sideburns. “He’s a poet. Tell me, since you’re on the case, what do you think my chances are of getting a cash settlement out of Arthur?”

  “Excellent,” Jake said, “and all this has been very interesting. And while I’m here, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. Didn’t you know Bertha Morrison—Bertha Lutts?”

  “Know her,” she said, “why I’m her very best friend! I nearly went out of my mind last night when I thought she’d been murdered, honestly I did. We were so close. Why, she used to tell me everything about herself, everything.”

  Jake lit a cigarette to conceal his sudden excitement and said, “She did? Do go on.”

  “We had lunch together just last week,” Melva said. “She told me all about her young man. How he was just fabulously rich, and came of such a wonderful old Southern family, and he’d been pursuing her—really pursuing her—for months! He was madly in love with her. Can you imagine? Bertha? Not, of course, that she didn’t have a lovely nature and all that, but—well, I guess you never can tell.”

  For just a minute, Jake thought he had something. Further questions, though, brought out that Melva hadn’t seen a great deal of Bertha since boarding school, except for class reunions and the bridge club that had been organized last year. In fact, as she talked, the friendship seemed to dwindle down to a faint and not too amiable acquaintanceship. She, Melva, hadn’t liked Bertha very well in school, she’d been too much of a dud. And terribly stingy. She’d spend plenty of money on herself, but never on her friends. She, Melva, had borrowed a little money from her a year ago, and Bertha had positively hounded her until she paid it back.

  Jake remembered the clothes, the perfumes, and the beauty aids in Bertha Morrison’s apartment, and the letter she’d written to Wildavine, refusing a loan.

  “Not,” Melva said, “that I’m not devoted to her, because I am. She may not be pretty but she has such a sweet disposition, even if she is opinionated and stubborn. And I was so relieved to hear from her this morning and know that she’s all right.”

  “You must have been,” Jake said absent-mindedly, reaching for a match. His hand froze in mid-air, and he said, “What?”

  “When I got her letter,” Melva said, “I was so relieved. After all that had been in the papers. It just shows how they exaggerate, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh!” Jake said. “Oh, yes. Her letter. Of course. Could I see it?”

  Melva giggled and said, “Well—I don’t see why not. It doesn’t have any secrets in it.”

  She found it under a box of chocolates on her writing desk and gave it to him. He recognized the paper, the blue typewriter ribbon. The envelope was postmarked April 11. It had been mailed from Niagara Falls.

  My dear Melva:

  Thank you for your good wishes and your lovely gift. Niagara Falls is beautiful beyond description. Tomorrow we are leaving for the West. We are deliriously happy. As soon as we are home, do come and call on us. Until then, all my love.

  Bertha

  Jake read it through three or four times, and then handed it back, saying, “Thank you.” His throat felt numb. Had Bertha Morrison gone insane, or had he?

  “Isn’t that the silliest thing you ever heard of?” Melva Engstrand cooed. “I read in the papers that the police seemed to think that body in the morgue was Bertha’s. As though Bertha would ever have such a thing happen to her! And that the nice young man Bertha married was in the hospital, a victim of an attempted murder! While she writes me from Niagara Falls that they’re deliriously happy! It just goes to show, you can’t believe a thing you read in the papers. Honestly, sometimes I believe these newspaper reporters cook up these stories just from sheer sensationalism.” She glanced at Jake, remembered why he was there, and added hastily, “I don’t mean you, of course.”

  “I’m sure of it,” Jake croaked. He rose and reached for his hat.

  “Oh, must you go? When we were just beginning to get so nicely acquainted! Really, I never thought a reporter could be so charming, and I’ve known so many of them! Won’t you come back and visit me again—I mean, informally—one of these days?”

  “I’ll call you up sometime,” Jake said. “We’ll have lunch.” He fled.

  Bertha was murdered. But she’d mailed a letter, yesterday, from Niagara Falls. Bertha was alive and well. But she’d written that she was deliriously happy, and yet, her bridegroom was still here in New York. What the hell? He stopped at the nearest United Cigar store. Maybe he ought to call up a psychiatrist. Or maybe he ought to call up the police. He finally called the hotel and asked first for Helene, then for Malone. Neither was in.

  Well, there was still one thing left on his schedule for the day. He’d go over to Staten Island and have a talk with old Dr. Puckett. Jake looked at his watch. Yes, there was plenty of time left to go there, get back, dress, and be at Wildavine’s at the appointed dinner hour. He walked to Grand Central Station, took the subway, and rode to South Ferry. A boat was waiting, he got on, found a seat in the cabin, picked up an abandoned newspaper from the seat beside him, and began working the crossword puzzle. The movement of water past the boat made a lovely sound. He closed his ears to it. If he looked out the window, he could see boats in the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. He didn’t look. If he went out on deck, he could look back and see the New York skyline. He stayed where he was. Someday he’d take this same ferry ride, and Helene would be with him. He’d wait until then to do his looking. What was a six-letter word beginning with l, meaning Egyptian skink?

  He got off the boat, went to the information booth in the ferry building, looked again at the address of Dr. Puckett’s sister-in-law. Mrs. Mabel Puckett. The information clerk told him what car to take and what station to get off at. Jake had never been on Staten Island before, but he resolutely kept his eyes and his mind on the crossword puzzle, abandoning it only when his station was called. By then he’d got hopelessly stuck with a seven-letter word beginning with poc, defined as a genus of oceanic ducks.

  He’d started his trip in the center of a great city; now, forty minutes later, he stepped off the car in a very small and very neglected town. He walked past a tiny, weather-beaten station and plowed his way through knee-high weeds to a wooden sidewalk. The address he was seeking proved to be up a slight hill, a block and a half down an unpaved road, and across a vacant lot to where four small brick houses stood desolately along a paved street, a memorial to what had once been planned as a Development. The last house of the four was Mrs. Mabel Puckett’s. There was
a vacant lot beside it, newly spaded and raked, and carefully laid out with plant markers and cord. Dr. Puckett was there, in old corduroy overalls, planting radishes. Jake picked his way carefully across the damp ground. “Early for planting, isn’t it?” Jake asked cordially.

  Dr. Puckett stood up, grinning, and wiped his brow. “Well, might be. I don’t think there’ll be another frost, though. Just thought I’d get in Mabel’s garden for her while she’s away, and while I’m here.”

  Jake said, “Don’t let me stop you. In fact, let me help. Where do you want to put in these carrots?”

  “Right over there,” Dr. Puckett said. “Next to the beets. Don’t pat ’em down too hard. You gotta be careful with carrots, this time of year.” He straightened up for a minute, rubbed his back, and said, “I gotta put my own garden in, soon’s I get home. Ma isn’t real well, and Irma—that’s my son Ed’s wife—don’t care much for gardening. And Ed’s busy all day in his garage.” He carefully raked the moist ground over the radish seeds. “But since Mabel’s down in Florida, and since she was kind enough to let me stay in her house while I was here—not that she didn’t always ask me to stay here, which I always did—and since she’s my dead brother Henry’s wife, well, I thought the least I could do was put in her garden for her. Look out you don’t step on that hose line.”

  Jake put in a long row of carrots, being careful not to pat them down too hard. The feel of the moist earth was good on his fingers, and when he straightened up, he took pride in the evenness of the row. After all, he’d been brought up in a little town, and there had always been a garden in the back yard. He wondered how Helene would like living on a farm someday.