Green Ace

by Stuart Palmer

  He nodded. “She wore low oxfords and slacks, probably picked up the trenchcoat and man’s hat in a restaurant. With the phony nose and glasses, and her hair tucked inside the hat, she could pass for a man on the stairs. And best of all, for her purposes, she could whip off the nose and stuff it into her pocket, tuck the hat under her coat, and look like herself again by the time she knocked on Marika’s door for the séance appointment. Once inside it was easy—she killed Marika and carefully planted the hat under the body, as a false clue. Only thing I don’t see is how she got over those back fences.”

  “She didn’t, Oscar. The woman had terrific nerve. When she heard Mrs. Fink and the others coming up the back way, she simply left the kitchen door wide-open as a blind, unbolted the hall door and went down the front stairs! Trusting that when they found the body they’d be too excited to notice whether the door was locked and bolted, or just locked. Which actually was the case.”

  “I can see this will take some more coffee,” the Inspector said. “Waiter!”

  “I think it’ll take more sandwiches too,” Miss Withers suggested. “Even though it hurts to swallow. You know what happened from then on, Oscar. I wore myself out trying to pin something on the men Midge Harrington had known, and getting nowhere except to scare them plenty. But the time was drawing short, and Natalie had to go ahead with her original plan of committing another murder, a repeat performance right down to the last detail, to convince you and me and everybody that Andy Rowan was the victim of a frame-up and that the real killer was at large. A homicidal maniac, of course—that’s why she dreamed up the idea of the phone calls.”

  “Yeah. But all this about that record you bought—The Clock Store, wasn’t it?”

  “That was the more popular side, so the man wrote it on the sales slip and your detective found out about it. But the reverse is something just called The Laughing Record—years ago it used to make them split their sides and roll around on the horsehair sofa. It was a stunt record, where one man started off in a jolly laugh and eventually others joined in—it was supposed to be so contagious that anyone hearing it had to howl!”

  “Those were the days,” said the Inspector. “But why then did it strike you and Iris as something horrible and frightening—right from the depths of hell, I think you said?”

  “She monkeyed with the speed of the turntable,” Miss Withers explained. “The old victrolas, like the one Natalie has in her hall, can be adjusted quite a space either way. I accomplished almost the same thing by slowing and speeding up the record with my thumb when I played it for Iris long-distance. That raises or lowers the pitch, and makes the overtones that dogs howl at, from sheer misery.”

  “You always manage to get that silly pup in somehow, don’t you?”

  “He’s not so silly! If Talley hadn’t been sleeping on my bed that night, and wakened me, Natalie might have finished the job right there. The missing pane of glass downstairs would have borne out her story of an intruder. And Talley later sitting there by that door—he wanted to go out, but how would he know it led outside unless he had already gone out into the garden through it? He must have squirmed through when Natalie was preparing the scene.”

  The Inspector shook his head. “I don’t think she planned to kill you that night. What she wanted all along was the hackneyed old gag of getting all the possible suspects together in a dark room, people who knew Midge Harrington and thus could conceivably have committed both murders—I mean all three, of course. Because you’d been so nice and helpful in working out a theory that fitted right into her plans.”

  “I know, Oscar. I fell for it at first, hook, line and sinker. And then I began to dream about necklaces, and finally I made some experiments. Cheap costume jewelry is made of soft metal, and snaps too easily. The murder of Midge Harrington had to be committed with a genuine one, and Natalie Rowan was the only person in the case who might conceivably have owned an expensive thing like that. I proved my point, to myself at least, that afternoon at Tiffany’s when I couldn’t pull theirs apart no matter how hard I tried! Natalie must have kept the necklace in her safe deposit box at the bank—she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it, of course. She brought it home Friday and hid it in the chandelier, where it would be nice and handy—”

  “Wait,” said the Inspector. “If it was the same necklace she used on Midge Harrington, then why did it snap—and probably save your life?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to ask that question,” said the schoolteacher happily. “Do you remember saying a long time ago that there was a weak link or two in the chain of evidence in the Rowan case?”

  “Why—yes. But—”

  “Well, when I found the necklace hidden up there in the chandelier, I twisted a couple of the gold links part way open—just as a precautionary measure! Before I poured the ink on it, of course.” She smiled. “I’m not always as gullible as I look, Oscar.”

  “You are,” he said fervently, “about as gullible as a Scotch pawnbroker.” The Inspector rubbed his hands together. “Yes, I think we can make a murder indictment stick, even if Natalie doesn’t talk. But she will, she’s a woman.”

  “Oscar, has the Governor really granted a stay of execution for Rowan?”

  He nodded. “They may hold him until after Natalie’s trial. I wouldn’t be surprised if they built a special electric love seat for them both up in the execution chamber and knocked them off in a double ceremony.”

  Miss Hildegarde Withers, gingerly feeling of her tender throat, said that would be perfectly all right with her.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Ina Kell. A pretty little redhead from the sticks, newly arrived in Manhattan.

  Inspector Oscar Piper. A short, capable, cigar-smoking police detective.

  Hildegarde Withers. An angular, inquisitive retired schoolteacher who’s both the light of Oscar’s life and the bane of his existence.

  Winston H. “Junior” Gault. The playboy vice president of Gault Foods, on trial for murder.

  Tony Fagan. An outspoken television personality who didn’t live to regret his intemperate ribbing of his show’s sponsor, Junior Gault.

  Dallas Trempleau. A socialite, as blue-blooded as she is beautiful, who’s engaged to Junior.

  Art Wingfield. An up-and-coming young television producer.

  Thallie Gordon. A bosomy singer who appears on Tony Fagan’s show. She and Art Wingfield are an item.

  Ruth Fagan. Tony’s most recent ex-wife, who was also once married to Wingfield.

  John Hardesty. An assistant district attorney and Oscar Piper’s friend.

  Sam Bordin, aka Sascha Bordin. A crafty lawyer and former pupil of Hildy’s.

  Gracie. Sam’s secretary.

  Vito. An enterprising street urchin who becomes Hildy’s unofficial assistant.

  Nikki Braggioli. A scheming young actor, half-Italian and half-English.

  Ramón Julio Guzman y Villalobos. A Mexican private eye and lawyer.

  Crystal Joris. A 300-pound tap dancer.

  Talleyrand. An independent-minded apricot poodle, the apple of Hildy’s eye.

  Plus assorted cops, bureaucrats, relatives, clerks, and passersby.

  “From ghoulies and ghosties

  And long-leggitted beasties

  And things that go Boomp in the night

  Oh Lord deliver us!”

  —Old Scottish Book of Common Prayer

  1

  THE NOISES WERE UGLY and a little unreal, like sound effects left over from a nightmare. Only Ina knew she hadn’t been sleeping. She had been too highly charged with the wonder of it all to close an eye, because tomorrow—if it ever dawned—would be her first day in the city, the beginning of a new life all in glorious Technicolor.

  She had been lying awake hour after hour, listening to the night symphony of Manhattan and from each chord weaving dreams in which a certain little girl with fire-blonde hair pla
yed the starring role. Every foghorn on the Hudson or the East River was from a luxury liner taking her to Capri or the Bahamas; every siren was clearing the way for a squad car full of personable young policemen coming to rescue her from some vague but deliciously shuddery doom; the planes that roared overhead to and from La Guardia were bearing her to Casablanca or Carcassonne. Even the rattle of the milkman’s cart and the tinkle of his bottles lent themselves to the game, for Ina saw herself and a Gregory Peckish young man in white tie and tails sitting on the rear step of that homely vehicle, singing “Shall I Wasting?” and “Mavourneen” and the rest, and splitting a quart of homogenized Grade A as an antidote against hangovers. So had passed the night, the happiest of her life.

  Left behind forever was Bourdon, Pennsylvania (1950 pop. 3,495) where nothing ever happened except the biweekly change of program at the Bijou. Ina had come to the greatest, noisiest, cruelest, dirtiest, most generous city on earth to seek her fortune, equipped with a reasonably nice face and figure and quite exceptional hair and skin, some sixty dollars in cash, and no training or experience of any sort; but still filled with the firm conviction that she was a very unusual girl destined for a wonderful and exciting future, starting now.

  The hand of her watch had crawled past six, though there was still no sign of dawn at the east windows. She had been lying there in the strange bed in the borrowed one-room apartment, loving the night and loving the city as she never could again. At the moment all Manhattan, down to the last sooty snowflake, belonged to her by a sort of divine right. Above her the heavy future hung like a rain cloud over the desert, like ripe purple fruit ready to be plucked.

  “Just let things happen to me!” Ina prayed to her own special deity. “Anything at all as long as it’s different and exciting and soon!”

  At the same time something warned her that if she intended making the proper impression on the men who interviewed models and showgirls and mannequins and perhaps (heaven forbid) even secretaries and receptionists, she really ought to be getting some sleep. Only maybe dark shadows around her eyes would be intriguing. Girls weren’t supposed to look too innocent these days, even if they were. Oh, she thought, to be like the wise, dreamy minxes in the Marie Laurencin paintings she had seen reproduced in the art magazines back in the Bourdon Carnegie Free Library; those girls so faintly but definitely dissolute!

  They looked as if they wouldn’t be surprised at anything. They wouldn’t have popped up in bed like a jack-in-the-box at hearing strange muffled noises in the night. The sounds must be coming, Ina decided suddenly, from the next apartment, where a late party had been going on until a couple of hours ago. She had eavesdropped shamelessly, straining her ears in an attempt to catch the words of the tantalizing songs they were singing, the point of the long involved jokes they told. All she had been sure of was that they sang, and laughed. Finally they had broken it up and gone home, with much slamming of doors and many loud farewells. But that party couldn’t be reviving itself, not now.

  Then she realized what she was hearing. It was almost too simple. Men were fighting there, on the other side of the wall—at a quarter past six of a winter morning!

  Perhaps Ina was the only one in the entire apartment house to hear the battle, though it is fairly certain that any seasoned New Yorker, wakened in the night by noises up to and perhaps including the Last Trump, would only have turned over and gone back to sleep. Not Ina. Wild horses could not have kept her a moment longer in bed.

  She smiled in the darkness, wondering just how wild horses could possibly keep anybody anywhere. Slipping out of the warm covers, a slim white naked virginal ghost, she found her old wool bathrobe. Then she pattered barefoot across the room, holding out her arms so she wouldn’t stub a toe on the television set or on Crystal’s little spinet piano, and finally made the hall door without mishap. With an ear pressed to the panel she could hear that the fight was still going on.

  Dry smack of hard fists on soft flesh…. Feet stamping like the hoofs of rutting stags…. Wordless exclamations, smothered gaspings for breath. Once a male voice blurted out a name coupled to a black obscenity. Whoever they were, they weren’t fooling.

  Ina was trembling now, and not with cold. But she softly turned the knob. Just as the latch clicked there was a muffled crash, louder than anything before, and then silence as thick as cold molasses.

  With one eye against the tiny crack in the door she waited, filled with an unreasoning impatience. She shivered there for what seemed an hour, and was never able later to swear whether it was really only a few minutes, or ten, or thirty. But she never took her eyes from the door at the end of the hallway, and at long, long last it opened and a man came out.

  He was a stocky, youngish man in rumpled dinner clothes—what Ina called a tuck—hatless, and carrying a dark overcoat. His face was paper-white, his dark hair plastered across his damp forehead, and his bow tie was loose. He looked utterly spent, breathing heavily through swollen lips, his eyes blank and unseeing. Indeed, he almost threw his exit into low comedy by stumbling over the milk bottles outside the door.

  As he came forward Ina saw that his right fist was jammed into his coat pocket; his left held a gold lighter, its flame inches from the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He went past and on down the hall, walking like a zombie, limping a little. Like Lord Byron, Ina thought. His face was something like the engravings of Byron, too—handsome, arrogant, demon-haunted. It was only as he reached the elevator at the other end of the hall that he succeeded in setting fire to his cigarette, and then he absently tossed the lighter into an urn filled with sand, as if the golden toy had been only a burnt match. Then the door of the automatic elevator slammed shut behind him. Curtain.

  Excited and disappointed at the same time, Ina closed the door. But this couldn’t be all. Maybe he would come back. Maybe …

  Pausing before the bathroom mirror, she decided that the tiny red spot on her nose wasn’t going to be a pimple after all. And a good thing the fascinating young man hadn’t turned and seen her peeking around the door, with her hair this way. She came back into the room again, surprised to find that she was listening so hard that her ears ached, listening for something she’d heard … or almost heard. Were there sounds outside, sounds anywhere? Even the city seemed suddenly muted.

  And especially was everything quiet in the next apartment. The other man in the fight should have been up and around, ministering to his cuts and bruises, pouring a comforting drink or straightening up the wreckage.

  Then she suddenly remembered. The man she had seen leaving hadn’t shut the door behind him, or she would have heard the click. It must be—it was!—ajar. Ina started impulsively out into the hall just as she was, and then almost too late remembered to stop and release the lock so that she wouldn’t be trapped out in the open with no retreat. A few steps and she was just outside that other door. No light showed inside. “Hello?” Ina said softly.

  There was the ghost of a sound somewhere inside. It could have been a groan or a snore, the rustle of a Venetian blind in the morning breeze or an inner door softly closing. She touched the panel, which swung easily inward, and a fan of yellow light from behind her began to widen across a formal foyer, across a scuffed and rumpled rug. She saw the slipper first, and then a man’s leg.

  “Excuse me, but is anything wrong?” Ina waited a moment and then pushed the door hard, and then the hall light blazed in on the body of a man wearing cerise pajama pants. The upturned face was not recognizable, even though she had seen it a hundred times in her own stepfather’s living room back home. Blood and bruises had altered it, smeared it inhumanly.

  Ina didn’t move. She knew she had to do something, but what? She was missing her cue. Here she was forced into the role of heroine, standing before the footlights in front of a waiting, if yet invisible audience, not knowing what the tragedy was about or what lines she ought to be improvising. She was caught like a fly in amber, stiff with stage fright, unable to take her eyes from the thing sma
shed against the wall. It was a bloody atrocity, crying mutely to have its limbs decently composed, to be covered up….

  Any minute now there would be policemen swarming all over; the cold white light of publicity would expose her. In this bathrobe, and her hair …

  Ina sighed. As she slowly went forward to bend over the crumpled man in the corner she had a clear preview of herself on the witness stand, wearing a demure black suit and her sheerest nylons. The prosecutor was roaring, “Miss Kell, you have testified that you knew the man was dead! How did you know that?”

  “Because I forced myself to touch him—this artery right here on the throat—and there was no sign of a pulse!”

  There was a little ripple of applause from the spectators in the courtroom, among whom were talent scouts from MGM, Fox, and NBC-TV.

  “Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?”

  —WILLIAM MORRIS

  2

  IT HAD BEEN A deceptively quiet afternoon, as afternoons at Centre Street go. Only ten minutes more and Inspector Oscar Piper would have closed up his office and taken off for greener pastures. Then to his unbelieving ears there came the sound of scrabbling paws in the outer room, and through his doorway there descended an avalanche of dog.

  “Judas priest almighty! Get down, you damn silly beast!” But the inspector, even as he fended off the big poodle’s attempts to lick his face, was flattered at being remembered after all these months. As might have been expected, the dog’s mistress was not far behind—a weatherbeaten spinster armed with a black umbrella, who had the general appearance of having dressed hastily in an upper berth.

  “Oscar!” she cried. “As I live and breathe!”

  Speaking of breathing, he thought, the poor old girl still wheezed a bit. And for all its sun tan, her face seemed thin and tired. “Well, Hildegarde,” he said heartily. “So California’s finally lost its charms, eh? About time.”