The Wrong Murder

by Craig Rice

Helene said, “There’s a bottle of Bacardi somewhere in the back seat, in case any of you big, strong men feel faint.”

  By the time the bottle had been passed around, her passengers were able to speak again.

  “I hope Little Georgie has a drink,” John J. Malone said soulfully. “I never felt so sorry for a guy in my life. And as far as the driver of that car goes, he’s probably earned the city safety council’s reckless-driving award.” He paused, thought a moment, and said, “That don’t sound right, but I must have meant it.”

  Helene prepared to make a left turn off the Drive. “Hope our friends don’t mind waiting for us outside Mona McClane’s.”

  “Mind!” Jake said indignantly. “They’ll be grateful for the chance to sit still!” He looked back as Helene slowed down in front of the McClane driveway and saw the big black car edge into a parking place.

  The old McClane house on Lake Shore Drive had always excited Jake Justus’ curiosity. It was an enormous, ugly, square house, built of some kind of brownish stone, and set in almost a block of ground surrounded by a magnificent iron fence. For fifty weeks of every year it stood empty, blinds drawn tight at every window, the once famous lawn going to seed. It had always had a haunted look to Jake.

  Now he saw it through a veil of swirling snow as Helene’s big car turned up the driveway. Only a few windows showed; the rest were still tightly curtained. Snow clung to the edges of the roof and the window sills, and lay in great drifts on the lawn.

  A plump colored maid showed them into a softly lighted, comfortable room full of big, cushiony furniture. Jake sank into a chair with a feeling of never wanting to rise again. Tables, desks, and bookcases were huge, heavy affairs, yet the room itself was so large that they didn’t make a dent in its vast space.

  In that room, Mona McClane seemed tiny, fragile, yet far from insignificant. Jake guessed roughly it was about half the size of Soldiers’ Field, but five feet of Mona McClane dominated it from wall to wall.

  She was, Jake observed, the least spectacularly dressed woman in the room, and the most spectacular. He remembered that had been true at the wedding party, too. She wore black tonight, a dress that was extremely simple and, he guessed, extremely expensive. It clung to her just a little as she walked. The single, unadorned ruby that she wore on a long, slender chain was so perfectly plain in its setting that he decided at once it must be real.

  He looked around the room. There was Daphne Sanders, apparently recovered from her state of mind of the afternoon. She seemed a little pale, but exceedingly calm, and nearly sober.

  Beside Daphne, Fleurette Sanders was delicate, birdlike, perfect. Jake admired her dress, extreme in cut, made of some strange, exotic, printed stuff. Those two women ought never to sit near each other, he decided. Taken by themselves, both Daphne Sanders and Fleurette were reasonably interesting specimens to look at, but side by side they seemed to bring out all of each other’s worst points. Neither of them looked particularly happy at the moment, either. Fleurette Sanders had a distinctly displeased expression on her small face. Jake wondered if she hadn’t appreciated her husband’s new beard.

  The transfer of the beard had made a sensation, in a small way, and George Brand and Willis Sanders were wandering about together, showing off, very pleased with themselves.

  Jake finished his drink, the plump colored maid removed his glass and substituted a filled one. He sipped it, sighed, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. It wasn’t a bad party, taken on the whole. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Under other circumstances, he would probably be having a good time himself. He opened his eyes long enough to notice Helene across the room, talking vivaciously with a brown-haired, undistinguished-looking woman, and closed them again. The chair was wonderfully comfortable. He wondered if he could manage just a tiny nap without being noticed.

  Detached phrases from the room’s conversation came vaguely to his ears, without making much impression. Someone casually mentioned the murder at State and Madison Streets the day before. And then Fleurette Sanders’ reedy voice brought Jake wide-awake in an instant.

  “I saw that murder.”

  The incredible sentence echoed in the breathless quiet that followed it.

  Then Malone said, “Don’t speak too rashly, Mrs. Sanders, or you’ll find yourself a material witness.”

  She shrugged her shoulders delicately. “I didn’t really see enough to be a material witness. I was quite a distance away. Besides,” she laughed a little shrilly, “I’m among friends.”

  “Where were you?” Mona McClane asked lightly.

  “Of all the silly places,” Fleurette Sanders said, “I was in the dentist’s chair. My dentist’s office is right on the southwest corner, on the third floor. I was sitting there waiting for him to attack me with some new devilish instrument, and looking out the window while I waited, and I saw—everything that happened.” She frowned as though the recollection was faintly repugnant to her, not horrible, just distasteful.

  Jake started to speak, saw that Malone was concentrating on getting the ash from his cigar into the ash tray, and kept quiet.

  “Probably,” the little lawyer said, clearing his throat, “the only way anyone could see what happened there was by looking down from a window. Possibly you’re the only real witness.”

  She shook her head, smiling deprecatingly. “I didn’t see enough to testify to anything.” She went back to chatting with Wells Ogletree about something else, and the subject seemed to be closed.

  Jake sighed. Helene’s pale-gold hair was like a beacon, beckoning him across the room. Or was it a beckon beaconing? He felt a litle vague about it. With a heroic effort he rose and walked to her side.

  Helene introduced him to Mrs. Ogletree.

  Wells Ogletree’s wife was a small, harassed-looking woman with unmanageable brown-gray hair and peering, inquisitive eyes behind heavy glasses. Her tan-colored print dress looked expensive and dowdy. Jake felt immediately she was the sort of woman who was always one sentence behind in the conversation and trying desperately to catch up. At the moment she was a little drunk.

  She giggled at him. “Your bride has just been telling me that four gunmen tried to kidnap you, and you beat them off single-handed.”

  “Helene underexaggerated.” He wondered if that was the right word. “There were ten of them.”

  Mrs. Ogletree looked impressed.

  “I have many enemies,” Jake assured her. Somehow an extra syllable crept in and it came out as “many enenemies.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Ogletree said. Fifteen seconds later she giggled again and said, “Oh, then you’re a gardener.”

  Jake had a profound conviction that the conversation wasn’t getting anywhere.

  “This is really an engagement-breaking party for me,” the woman said confidingly, laying a plump, freckled hand on Jake’s arm. He had a momentary terror that she was going to rest her head on his shoulder. “My dear little girl’s engagement. She was engaged to the most awful man, with a lot of money, but she broke it off last night. I’m so happy!”

  Jake followed the direction of Mrs. Ogletree’s gaze to where Ellen Ogletree sat. The girl looked highly pleased with herself. Her small, weakish mouth was curved in a half-feline manner, her little, pointed chin was held high.

  “Is that the man she was engaged to?” Jake asked politely.

  Mrs. Ogletree squeezed his arm and said, “Of course not, silly boy. He was an awful man, really awful.”

  “That man over there looks awful to me,” Jake said.

  The man with Ellen was tall and slender, with thinning blonde hair, a concave chest, and stooped shoulders. He had a narrow, razorlike nose, pale blue eyes, and a slightly receding chin. His apparently permanent expression was that of one who has just heard an incredible but well-verified fact for the first time.

  “That’s Leonard Marchmont,” Mrs. Ogletree said. “Ellen’s wild about him. So is Daphne Sanders. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Jake looked a
gain, more closely, remembering what Daphne Sanders had said about the man earlier in the evening. He felt a little bewildered. The English were truly a wonderful race, if they could overcome handicaps like that.

  “He’ll never marry Ellen,” Mrs. Ogletree confided. “She hasn’t enough money.” Suddenly she clasped Jake’s hands. Her own were warm and unpleasantly damp. “I don’t want Ellen to marry. I don’t want my dear little girl to go away and leave me alone.”

  Jake looked her straight in the eye, said very solemnly, “I promise I’ll never, never try to take her away from you,” gently disengaged his hands, and fled.

  He wondered where Helene had gone. People seemed to be wandering about all over the house. Probably if he explored a little he could find her. But perhaps he ought to mark his trail as he went. There seemed to be such a lot of downstairs to the old McClane house.

  One room had been fitted up as a miniature bar, complete even to the half-pint enameled piano. Jake stood in the doorway an instant, reflecting that if he did win the Casino, and if he ever did become very rich, he would build Helene a house with just such a built-in bar. Helene would love that. Still, if he won the Casino, she would never be home anyway.

  There were half a dozen people in the room, clustered around the piano. Daphne Sanders stood alone at the far end of the bar, staring vindictively into a glass. Jake ambled over to her. She seemed to be getting that look in her eyes again.

  “It isn’t that I care a snap about him,” she said as though she were picking up the conversation where it had been left off that afternoon, “but I hate to see her get away with anything.”

  Jake nodded gravely. It seemed to him that he ought to offer advice, but he couldn’t think of any.

  “The little bitch,” Daphne Sanders added, “she’s almost as bad as Fleurette.”

  “It seems to me you take dislikes to people,” Jake said.

  She looked at him indignantly. “I have plenty of reason.” She added after a moment, “Go away.”

  He decided it was just as well to obey. He wasn’t here to find out anything about Daphne Sanders, anyway. This wasn’t just an evening’s fun, he reminded himself.

  At the far end of the shadowy hall, a door stood open. He decided to investigate, and walked into a library, a pleasant, soft-lighted room at the front of the house. No one was there, and he sank down on the big cushioned davenport happily. It seemed to him he had wanted to be alone for a long time now.

  He felt in his pocket for matches and found none. There was an ash tray at his elbow, but no matches. He rose, searched the other ash trays and the top of the table. No matches anywhere. A hell of a way to run a house, he reflected.

  The drawer of the big library table was just slightly open, enough so that he could see a couple of bright-covered match folders. He gave the drawer a little jerk, helped himself to matches, and lit his cigarette.

  As he started to push the drawer shut, a gleam of light on metal caught his eye. He pulled the drawer open another inch or two.

  There was an ugly, efficient-looking little gun in the drawer.

  He took it out and shut the drawer. A series of small electric shocks went up and down his spine.

  Jake had no doubts. In his hand was the gun that had killed Joshua Gumbril.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The problem was entirely a moral one. On the one hand, Jake reminded himself, the gun was a valuable piece of evidence that he ought to have in his possession. On the other, it distinctly was not the correct thing to pinch a lady’s gun when you were a guest in her house.

  He thought over all the arguments on both sides, without reaching any conclusion. He wondered what Helene or Malone would do. He wondered what Emily Post would do.

  Suddenly he remembered that he was still carrying the gun taken from little Georgie la Cerra earlier in the evening. There, that would solve everything. A fair exchange was no breach of good behavior. He slipped La Cerra’s gun into the library table drawer and closed it softly.

  Now to get a word to Helene and Malone and inform them of his great discovery. No, there was a better way. He’d just say nothing about it, and surprise them with the gun at some opportune time.

  He put the gun in his pocket, finished the drink he had carried into the library with him, set the glass down on the table, and stretched out on the big davenport that faced the windows to enjoy what he considered a very well-earned rest.

  Just a short nap, or even a doze was going to make him feel much better. He yawned, settled himself comfortably, and admired the snow that was falling past the windows like a veil. Like a bridal veil. He wondered where Helene was, his bride. He began to feel very sorry for himself.

  Voices by the library door roused him from his reverie. After the first moment or so he identified them as belonging to Fleurette and Willis Sanders.

  The small woman whose name had once been Flossie seemed very angry about something. “You must have had some good reason for telling her you’d do it,” she was saying indignantly. “I want to know what it is.”

  Willis Sanders mumbled something indistinguishable.

  “She must be blackmailing you,” Fleurette said. Her voice was low, but nastily insistent. “And I think I know why. Don’t you know what you let yourself in for when you agree to something like that?”

  Jake heard something that sounded like “couldn’t help it.”

  “You should have come to me,” the woman said. “I’d have known how to handle it. And I still do.” She paused and said furiously, “Fool! Idiot! Imbecile!”

  The voices drifted away again. Jake sat up and ran a hand through his hair. This was a hell of a house in which to take a quiet little nap. Just as soon as you were comfortable, someone came in and had a fight. He felt that the conversation he had overheard must be important, but he preferred not to think about it now.

  He rose, straightened his tie, and gazed out the window. Through the snow he could make out the figure of little Georgie la Cerra standing unhappily in the shelter of the immense gatepost.

  Suddenly an idea came to him. (He claimed later that it came to him straight from heaven.) Opening the window a trifle, he whistled softly.

  The gangster looked up and saw him. Jake beckoned frantically. After an instant’s hesitation Little Georgie came over to the window, somewhat skeptically.

  “This is a swell party,” Jake said enthusiastically. “Come on in.”

  “What the hell’s the idea?”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Jake said in an injured tone. “I don’t know any of these people, and I’m bored. Come on in.”

  Little Georgie la Cerra glanced in through the lighted window. “I can’t,” he said unhappily, “I ain’t got on my tux.”

  “The hell with it,” Jake said, “neither have I. Here, I’ll give you a hand.”

  The gangster hesitated only an instant. “No tricks now—” He decided to allow Jake to haul him in through the window. They deposited the new visitor’s hat and topcoat in the hall. Then Jake led him in the direction of the little bar.

  “There’s a swell girl here,” Jake confided, “just your type.”

  He beamed happily at Daphne Sanders.

  “Miss Sanders, want you to meet a friend of mine, just dropped in. Name’s—Mr. Cherry.”

  “Charmed,” Daphne said politely. “What do you drink, Mr. Cherry?”

  “Gin,” La Cerra said, “and call me George.”

  Jake thought he detected a faint look of admiration in the girl’s eyes as Little Georgie la Cerra downed an ordinary water tumbler of gin.

  “Do you ride?” she asked, as though she might as well make the best of things.

  “Horses? No.”

  “Golf?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Sail?”

  “You mean boats? Naw.”

  “Shoot?”

  “And how,” said little Georgie with enthusiasm, “and I don’t mean pool.”

  Fine minutes later Little Georgie was givi
ng a creditable imitation of the tobacco auctioneer and confiding his ambition to get on the radio. Ten minutes later he was showing Daphne his good-luck charm, which Jake recognized as a genuine white jade Buddha. Fifteen minutes later, when Georgie started demonstrating wrestling holds, Jake decided that it was the dawn of a beautiful friendship and tiptoed off with the feeling of a good deed done. Not only had he provided Daphne Sanders with a new interest in life, but he’d quite possibly saved Ellen Ogletree from violent and possibly homicidal attack.

  The big living room seemed much as he had left it. Fleurette and Willis Sanders had returned. Jake sank down in an easy chair near Helene and wondered how soon they could go home.

  Through a pleasant haze he heard Malone’s voice speaking near him. Then suddenly he was wide awake as Mona McClane said, “But murder is so often justified.”

  Jake sat bolt upright. Malone, cuddling a glass in his hand, was preparing to speak in his best lecture-hall manner.

  “Everyone has the makings of one good murder in him,” the little lawyer said. “Probably everyone is entitled to one good murder. Whether the supply of murderees would keep up with the demand—” he paused reflectively.

  Wells Ogletree’s long, thin, aristocratic nose fairly quivered with an excess of righteousness.

  “That, it seems to me,” he said harshly, “is an attitude that practically condones murder.”

  Malone didn’t appear to have heard him. “Of course,” he twirled his glass thoughtfully, “there is such a thing as unrequited murder. Cupid too often fires from ambush, because love, like murder, does not always wait upon the consent of the victim.”

  “Love,” said Wells Ogletree, “is something that I, for one, have always been accustomed to believe the most intimate—”

  “Precisely,” Malone went on smoothly, as though a prosecuting attorney had raised an unreasonable objection. “Like love, murder is the most intimate of human relationships. And, like everything that is intimate, it is strictly a private matter between the murderee and the murderer. Murder becomes justified when, for example, the existence of another person becomes sufficiently obnoxious to warrant the risks involved in removing him. The lover says, ‘I cannot live without you.’ And the murderer says, ‘I cannot live with you.’ The trouble with murder—” Malone paused, as if a new note had crept into his thought, a doubtful note.