Having Wonderful Crime

by Craig Rice

  Malone cried, “No!” and ran, not toward Dr. Puckett but toward Dennis Morrison.

  “Please get away, Mr. Malone,” Dr. Puckett said. “I’m not a very good shot and I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  Malone ran on anyway. He’d seen the move Dennis Morrison had made, toward his pocket. He wanted to call out a warning, but his voice seemed to have frozen. Suddenly a big shape loomed up through the mist. A blow landed on his chin, a heavy body knocked him to the ground and held him there. He heard a shot, felt the bullet whiz past. Then there was another shot, from another direction, and he lifted his head just in time to see Dennis Morrison’s eyes grow wide for a split second with terrible surprise, before he pitched, head forward, into the dirt, the automatic dropping from his hands.

  Schultz helped Malone to his feet. “Hope I didn’t hurt you,” he said anxiously. Then, angrily, “You damn fool, don’t you know any better than to do a thing like that?”

  Malone didn’t hear him. No one heard him. Everyone, even O’Brien and Birnbaum, was looking at Dr. Puckett. Dr. Puckett was looking at his gun. He looked tired and, somehow, surprised. “I guess I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Because now that makes me a murderer, doesn’t it?”

  Malone walked over to Dr. Puckett and took the old-fashioned revolver from his limp and unprotesting fingers. “Don’t you worry,” he said confidently. “The most beautiful case of self-defense I ever saw in my life, with plenty of witnesses. And besides, you’ve got the best damn lawyer in the whole wide world.”

  33. The Pay-Off

  “This is the sort of thing,” Arthur Peterson said severely, “that invariably results when well-intentioned but untrained amateurs attempt to interfere with legitimate police activities.”

  Malone said, “Nuts.” He finally got his cigar lighted. “We found Bertha Morrison’s head, didn’t we? And Gloria Garden’s body. And the murderer.”

  O’Brien said, “You lay off him, Peterson. He’s a cousin of mine.”

  “Mine too,” Birnbaum put in. “On my mother’s side.”

  Schultz said, “Unarmed, when he saw this guy he knew was a killer, he ran.” He thought over the statement and added, “Not from him, at him.”

  “Nevertheless,” Arthur Peterson said, “this interference brought about Dennis Morrison’s death.”

  “Thereby saving the state the cost of a trial,” Malone said, chewing on the cigar, “and the cost of a little electric current. You don’t have any gratitude, that’s all. Besides,” he said, “you’ll get the credit for tracking down the ruthless madman murderer of two helpless women.” He was beginning to warm up to his courtroom manner now. “You caught him just when he’d returned to where he’d buried the head of one of his victims, and the body of another. Just when he was about to murder the aged father of one of his victims—who, luckily, shot first.”

  Arthur Peterson cleared his throat and said, “Of course, there’s something in what you say.”

  “You’re damned right,” Malone said. He prayed that Dr. Puckett would keep his promise to shut up and let his lawyer do the talking.

  Arthur Peterson’s little office was full of people. Helene was there, her lovely face very pale, her gleaming hair tumbled over her shoulders, her blue satin negligee spattered with mud. Jake was there beside her, holding her hand tight. Dr. Puckett was sitting, silent and motionless, in a straight-backed chair. O’Brien, Birnbaum, and Schultz were ranged along the wall, looking admiringly at Helene. Standing near the door—he’d refused all offers of a chair—was Abner Proudfoot, looking annoyed.

  Malone ached. Not anywhere in particular, he just ached. His suit was a mess, from his headlong fall into the mud. His jaw hurt, where Schultz had landed on it. The cut over his eye had reopened and was bleeding a little. The trip back on the ferry had been every bit as bad as he’d anticipated, even worse. And he’d have cheerfully given twenty years of his life for a drink. Yet, he was happy. He thought he saw a way out, if he could only put the story across now.

  “But, Malone,” Helene began. His eyes signaled her to silence.

  “Morrison was a madman,” Malone said thoughtfully. “Insane, and drunk. That explains everything.” At least, he hoped that it would. He turned to Peterson. “You already know that he was behaving irrationally. That business of his riding back and forth on the ferryboats.”

  Arthur Peterson frowned. “Doc Grosher said he acted sane enough. Still, Doc Grosher has been known to be fooled before.” Jake coughed apologetically. “But that business of switching the heads,” Peterson said. “Dismembering Gloria Garden’s body, and burying it, with Bertha Morrison’s head, in her father’s back yard.”

  “Her father’s sister-in-law’s back yard,” Schultz said, with his passion for accuracy.

  “Obviously, the act of a madman,” Malone said. “And you’d better refer to her as Gloria Morrison, because she was married to him, too. Then he bigamously married another woman, Bertha, for her money, and murdered Gloria. When he truly realized the horror of his deed, in a mad and perverted attempt at retribution, he murdered Bertha, and switched the heads of the two unfortunate women. Why? An insane act, obviously. Yet, like all insane acts, with a certain twisted reasoning. The woman found murdered in the St. Jacques hotel would be recognized by the world as his wife. To him, however, Gloria, his secret bride, was his true wife. Therefore, he placed Gloria’s head upon Bertha’s shoulders.”

  “But, Mr. Malone,” Dr. Puckett said, half hesitatingly.

  Malone turned to him and said quickly, “I ask you, as a doctor.” He glanced around the room. “I ask all of you, as reasonable, intelligent people. Was that the act of a sane man? I do not need to answer ‘No,’ I can see it written in your eyes.” He paused and mopped his brow. “And why the midnight burial in that deserted corner of Staten Island? Why, you ask. Because his poor, mad brain demanded that, in some fashion, he return poor Gloria Garden to the aged father whom he had so cruelly and brutally wronged.” He closed his eyes for a moment. In another minute, Helene thought, he’ll forget himself and demand that the judge instruct the jury to bring in a verdict of not guilty.

  “Yes,” O’Brien said, “but how about Gloria selling that other dame’s jewels?”

  Malone turned on him with a magnificent scowl. “Can you prove that was the case? Are you willing to take the word of a—a fence, instead of the word of a reputable lawyer?” He shook his head sadly. “Only heaven,” he added piously, “will ever know who sold Mr. Prince those jewels.”

  “Yeah,” Schultz said, blinking. “Only, then, how come somebody tried to murder him—Dennis Morrison?”

  “Did anyone see an attempt at murder?” Malone demanded. “Were there any witnesses to the actual deed? Was the attacker ever found? The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is no. Poor boy,” he sighed sonorously, “in his insanity, he attempted to do away with himself.”

  Arthur Peterson nodded and said, “Yes, that’s possible. It all sounds reasonable. His going mad, committing the murders, switching the heads, and burying the head of one wife and the body of another in Dr. Puckett’s yard.”

  “Sister-in-law’s,” Schultz muttered under his breath.

  “But,” Birnbaum said. “You’ll excuse it, Mr. Malone.” His brow wrinkled. “He buried them. So why did he go and try to dig them up again?”

  “Who knows?” Malone said. “Who, now, will ever know?” He sighed again. “Perhaps,” he whispered, “the man was a necrophiliac.”

  “Whatever the hell that is,” O’Brien said, “you’d better leave it out of the report, Peterson. Just say the guy was a nut, all right, and it was a damn lucky thing that Dr. Puckett shot in time.”

  “A perfect case of self-defense,” Malone said. He smiled reassuringly at Dr. Puckett. Dr. Puckett’s tired old eyes smiled back. “I guess that takes care of everything.”

  “Except the letters,” Arthur Peterson said. “Those letters that were received from Bertha Morrison. There still isn’t any explanation for t
hat.”

  “A mere trifle,” Malone said, with a lordly gesture, but a worried frown wrinkled his forehead.

  “A murdered woman writes letters, and he calls it a trifle,” Birnbaum moaned.

  “Why worry?” Malone said to Peterson. “Hell, you’ve got the whole case sewed up in a bag. You’ve got an explanation, a motive, and a dead murderer. If you ask me, the police did themselves proud in this case. You ought to get a promotion out of it.” He began unwrapping a fresh cigar.

  “Besides,” Jake said, “I can explain about those letters.” He gave Helene’s hand a squeeze, and stood up. He might have been a miserable failure as an amateur detective, on his own, but there was one thing he could contribute.

  “Bertha Morrison,” he said, “was a very methodical woman. She kept an address book with notes on the personal life of her friends. She kept a list of people to whom she owed letters, and of people who owed letters to her.”

  “We know that,” Arthur Peterson said.

  “Well,” Jake went on, “she and her husband decided, for some reason, to spend a secret honeymoon in Manhattan, instead of going on the tour they’d planned. I know that, because while Dennis was out on his binge, she unpacked everything as though she were going to stay in the St. Jacques for a month. But she’d told all her girl friends that she was going on a honeymoon. So, she wrote all her thank-you notes and dated them ahead. She probably wrote postcards, too, and I’ll make a small bet her friends will be receiving those postcards for the next couple of weeks.* In her typewriter there was a letter to her uncle George, dated three weeks ahead. And among her papers there was a receipt from the World-Wide Mailing Service.”

  “What in hell is that?” Malone asked.

  “It’s a letter service,” Jake said. “I should have tumbled to the whole thing when I saw that receipt, but my mind was on something else. When I was a press agent and manager, I knew the World-Wide Mailing Service very well. They’ll mail letters for you from any place in the country.” He drew a long breath. “Say you’re managing a radio tenor. You want him to get a fan letter from some certain part of Tennessee where response hasn’t been so good. You write the letter, and the World-Wide Mailing Service mails it from whatever town you pick in Tennessee. Or suppose you want somebody to think you’re in Florida, when you’re really back home next to the radiator. The World-Wide Mailing Service mails a postcard for you. Bertha wanted her friends to think he was on a honeymoon tour, so she planted her letters with World-Wide Mailing Service.”

  “Well, I’m damned!” Malone said.

  “Jake!” Helene said. “You’re wonderful!”

  Arthur Peterson said, “That’s very interesting. And I guess that takes care of everything.”

  “I sincerely trust you are correct,” Abner Proudfoot said. He’d been standing in his corner like a statue of gloom. “And now may I inform you that I have deeply resented being called from my bed and being brought down here at this hour of the night, for the purposes of listening to this explanation.”

  “Explanation hell,” Malone said. “I had you brought down here to sign a check, chum.” He pulled the crumpled paper out of his wallet. “I, Abner Proudfoot, as trustee for Bertha Morrison, née Lutts, do promise to pay to John Joseph Malone the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars, in the event of the said Bertha Morrison, née Lutts, being found and proved innocent of the murder committed in suite 713 the St. Jacques Hotel, on the night of April 9th.” He read it out loud and then said, “Pull out your checkbook, chum. Because Bertha’s been found, and because she sure as hell is proved innocent of that murder, since she was its victim.”

  “Nonsense,” Abner Proudfoot said.

  “It may be nonsense,” Malone said, “but it’s in your handwriting.” He looked around the room. “Can someone here lend Mr. Proudfoot a fountain pen?” Six fountain pens were offered, simultaneously and immediately.

  “I did not come here to listen to any such ridiculous demands,” Abner Proudfoot said. He started to put on his hat.

  “If you owe my cousin Malone any money, you’d better pay it right here and now, buddy,” O’Brien said, moving up a step.

  “Or we’ll collect it for him,” Schultz said, moving up two steps.

  “And if it should go into court,” Birnbaum added, “I have an uncle, he’s a judge.”

  “This is entirely out of my department,” Arthur Peterson added, “but it does appear to me to be a legitimate claim.”

  Abner Proudfoot opened his mouth to speak, looked around him, and shut it again. He took a step toward the door and said, “I shall take this up with my attorney. I refuse to be intimidated.”

  Schultz’s eyes shone with the joy of impending battle. He turned back one cuff. “Leave him alone,” the little lawyer said. “He doesn’t like to be intimidated. You heard him.” He took out a cigar and began slowly unwrapping it. “It’s a good thing Dennis Morrison was mad. It’s a good thing he didn’t murder Bertha for her money. Because he’d have been so bitterly disappointed when he found out that he wouldn’t get it.”

  “But he would have,” Arthur Peterson said, a puzzled look on his face. “As her husband, he’d have inherited it.”

  “If there was anything to inherit,” Malone said. “Maybe Bertha didn’t know it, but maybe she didn’t have any money. Maybe it had all been spent, gambled away.” He looked at Abner Proudfoot and smiled amiably. “I might just happen to stumble on the evidence, and it would be interesting, all things considered.”

  Abner Proudfoot looked at him, at Arthur Peterson, and at the three cops. Then he took out his checkbook and his own fountain pen and made out the check, slowly and meticulously, dotting every i.

  Malone watched him happily. Maybe, he told himself, he should have informed the police about Abner Proudfoot’s embezzlements. About the well-dusted shabbiness of Abner Proudfoot’s house and the disorganized and understaffed office that had tipped him off, about the evidence he’d been given by Charlie Firman. But frankly, he just didn’t want to bother. Besides, Abner Proudfoot would get everything that was coming to him. In the first place, he was broke. In the second, Bertha’s heirs, whoever they were, would undoubtedly investigate and bring charges, when they discovered that Bertha’s fortune had all gone down a drain. From the expression on Abner Proudfoot’s face as he crossed the last t, the check was being written with his heart’s blood.

  “Thanks, pal,” Malone said. He took the check, blew on it to dry the signature, folded it, and tucked it in his vest pocket. “I knew you’d be reasonable. And just to show you how reasonable I can be—” He took out the sheet of paper Charlie Firman had sent him, with all the facts and figures, and recklessly handed it to Abner Proudfoot. “Press that in your memory book, chum.”

  Proudfoot looked at it. For a moment he looked frightened. Then he looked defeated, a man who knew when he was licked. And then he looked just plain mean-and-nasty vindictive. “A clear case of blackmail,” he said coldly. “I demand that this man be arrested. You saw him force me into giving him a check. You saw him, in return give me a paper full of—lying accusations.” He tossed the paper on Arthur Peterson’s desk. “I may have made some errors of judgment in regard to financial matters, and if it can be proven that I have done so, I will be glad to pay the penalty, but this—this extortionist!” He paused, as though speechless.

  “Tt-tt-tt!” O’Brien said. “That’s a very bad word.”

  Arthur Peterson glanced at the paper. He looked at Malone. Then he exchanged glances with O’Brien, Birnbaum, and Schultz. He took off his glasses, folded them, and put them carefully away in their case. Then he launched into a little speech about the value to the police department of public-spirited citizens who did not hesitate to do their duty. He thanked Malone for his assistance in clearing up the murder, congratulated Jake for his brilliant deductions, and looked admiringly at Helene. He regretted the necessity for placing Dr. Puckett under arrest, even temporarily, since he had so obviously fired in self-defen
se and rid society of a dangerous madman. He hoped Dr. Puckett would be made as comfortable as possible during his brief incarceration. He praised O’Brien, Birnbaum, and Schultz for their untiring efforts, and added a pretty little phrase about departmental efficiency. Under cover of the speech, Malone picked up the damning paper from the desk, and lit his cigar with it. The ashes fell, unnoticed, into Arthur Peterson’s waste-basket.

  “And as for you,” Arthur Peterson said to Abner Proudfoot, “your accusations are obviously unfounded in fact. There is no evidence to substantiate your claims. And besides”—a thin but happy smile curved his lips—“that is not in my department.”

  * Jake was right. They did.

  34. It Had Better Be Good

  Jake yawned and stretched. “It’s seven o’clock. Shall we send down for breakfast, or shall we all go to sleep and wait till we wake up to send down for breakfast.”

  Malone announced that he was going to stay awake until the banks opened, and then cash that check, fast. He looked at his watch and said, “It’s time for breakfast, though.”

  “It’s damned near time for supper,” Jake said. He yawned again.

  “What’s more,” Helene said coldly, “it’s time for explanations. I’ll order breakfast, while you two think them up.”

  Jake and Malone didn’t bother thinking about explanations. Their eyes followed her as she went to the phone and called room service. She’d changed into a long, fluffy white robe that made her look like a Christmas-tree angel, washed her face and made it up again, and brushed out her shining hair. She said into the phone, “Send up six omelets with American-fried potatoes, hot biscuits, marmalade, and six pots of coffee.”

  “And a pint of gin and two quarts of beer,” Malone said, signaling to her frantically. “And a piece of lemon-meringue pie.”

  She repeated it into the phone, hung up, and turned on him indignantly. “Now. What was the idea of all those outrageous lies you told poor, credulous Arthur Peterson?”