by Craig Rice
“The guy was stabbed, all right,” Bingo told him in a low voice. He examined the almond-green shirt to see if it could be worn again, decided it could, and put it on a hanger to dry. “Both guys.”
While he hung up his clothes, rubbed himself dry with a towel, and put on a pair of magenta and pale-yellow striped pajama pants, he told Handsome the events of the evening. His narrative ended, however, with him and the unknown blonde babe leaving Art Frank’s body outside Marty Bucholtz’s door.
“I always knew that guy would get killed someday,” Handsome said philosophically. “What’d you do then?”
“Came home,” Bingo said truthfully, only neglecting to mention what had happened before he came home. He sloshed cold water on his head and began brushing his sandy hair.
“It wasn’t Marty killed him,” Handsome mused. “He wouldn’t use a knife.” He paused and then said, “Wonder who it was,” as though he didn’t really care very much.
“Somebody who can throw a knife,” Bingo said. “That isn’t what I’m interested in. We’re wasting a lot of time and not getting anywhere.”
Handsome rose. “You know, while you were away, I had an idea. Wait a minute, and I’ll show you.” He went into the bathroom.
Bingo finished brushing his hair. He felt much cooler, much more comfortable. After a little thought, he decided to make a concession to Mr. Pigeon’s presence and put on the jacket of the magenta and yellow pajamas. He’d just finished fastening it when he heard Handsome’s voice behind him, telling him to turn around.
Bingo turned around, said, “What the hell!” and sat down on the bed.
For just a moment, he didn’t recognize his partner. He saw a tall man, in a loud checked jacket and matching cap. The man had red hair, and a fantastic, incredibly false red beard, and a pair of round, dark-green glasses. As a final touch, he was carrying a walking stick, of the type won by pitching darts at Coney Island.
“For the love of Mike,” Bingo gasped. “Handsome!”
Handsome held on to the beard so it wouldn’t fall off when he spoke. “I got a friend who owns a costume rental joint,” he said in a proud, but slightly muffled voice. “So I called him up and asked him to lend me this stuff, and he sent it right over. I just told him I had to make up to look like an English lawyer.”
Bingo had never seen an English lawyer, but he had a suspicion Handsome’s friend hadn’t either. “It’s beautiful,” he said, “but why?”
“To go to see Mr. Penneyth’s lawyer,” Handsome said. He got tired of struggling with the beard and took it off. The rest of the costume looked even odder without it. “I got to thinking about you telling that girl we were lawyers, and it gave me the idea. We gotta find out who’ll get all that dough, with Mr. Penneyth dead. So who’d know better than Mr. Penneyth’s lawyer?”
“You’re on the right track,” Bingo said.
Handsome beamed. “Get my idea? I’ll go to see the guy’s lawyer and tell him I’m a lawyer from England and I want to know who’ll get that dough, with Mr. Penneyth dead.”
Bingo said, “That’s all very nice, and it’s an elegant outfit, too. Only he won’t believe you’re an English lawyer because you don’t talk like one.” Much simpler, he reflected, not to explain to Handsome that the costume would probably scare Mr. Penneyth’s lawyer into screaming for the police.
Handsome’s face fell. “You mean I gotta talk with an accent?”
“That’s it,” Bingo said, “an accent like an Englishman. And if you can’t do it, the outfit’s no good.”
Slowly and sadly Handsome began taking off the red hair, the green glasses, the checked jacket. “I guess I’d better send these back to Morrie,” he said unhappily.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Bingo said. “It was a swell idea, and we’ll do it. Only,” he added quickly, “by tomorrow I’ll think of a different disguise for us, a much better one, I promise you.”
Together they packed the costume to be returned, and went back into the room where little Mr. Pigeon was happily rocking back and forth. The lights were turned off, on the theory they would heat up the room, and a soft, pale glow, like artificial moonlight, came from the street lamp outside. Bingo sank down in the upholstered chair and breathed a sigh of contentment. There was still a half-gallon bottle of beer, unopened, and at the moment he felt disposed to overlook Handsome’s having kept it cool by setting it in the developer.
Mr. Pigeon’s rocking chair made a soft little whisper on the floor. He smiled at Bingo in the half light.
“I trust you concluded your evening’s business satisfactorily,” he said pleasantly.
“Fairly,” Bingo said. He was beginning to wonder if it was a mistake not to tell Mr. Pigeon all about everything, especially the murder of Mr. Penneyth.
“Very good,” Mr. Pigeon said, nodding and smiling. “Naturally I’m interested in your success, since it concerns myself. But I shan’t pry into your affairs. That wouldn’t be etiquette, under the circumstances.”
“Naturally not,” Bingo agreed. Handsome looked a trifle confused.
“The relationship between the kindaper and the kidnapee is a curious one,” the little man mused. “It entails a certain amount of responsibility on both sides. I remember a bandit who kidnaped me in China, nearly twenty-five years ago—charming fellow, really, when I got to know him—”
“China?” Bingo interrupted. “You’ve been there?” Maybe, with a few adroit questions, he could find out where Mr. Pigeon had been those seven years.
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Pigeon said. The old rocker creaked a soft accompaniment to his voice. “You forget that I was an importer of Oriental art. On the occasion when I was kidnaped, I later brought back an all but priceless set of porcelain, now in a museum. So near priceless, in fact, that it enabled me to set up the firm of Pigeon and Penneyth.”
He seemed almost to be talking to himself. “Naturally, I could hardly be touring the world, seeking out lost masterpieces, and at the same time be here in New York, arranging the sale of them. So I took as partner a bright young man named Harkness Penneyth. It was a thoroughly satisfactory partnership, as long as it lasted.”
Bingo waited, breathlessly. Perhaps now Mr. Pigeon was going to tell them the secret of why he had gone away, and where he had gone, and why he had returned just before the seven years were up.
But Mr. Pigeon chose to speak of other things. “And on another trip,” he went on, “I brought back a still rarer treasure—but, unfortunately, a more perishable one.” He paused and was silent.
“And is that in a museum, too?” Bingo asked.
Mr. Pigeon said, “No, it is not,” as though he didn’t want to answer any more questions.
There was a long silence. Bingo sat watching the shadow of Mr. Pigeon’s rocking chair move back and forth on the wall. Today had been practically wasted. Tomorrow, though, he’d really accomplish something. He’d get a good night’s sleep, davenport or no davenport, and be up bright and early. He’d really get things done. What’s more, he’d send Handsome out with the camera, to take some more pictures. Maybe down around Forty-second Street, for a change. There would only be a few scattered quarters still coming in from Sunday’s work, and funds were getting low again. You couldn’t feed hamburger and beer to a distinguished man like Mr. Pigeon.
He’d like to fix up the apartment a little, too, he reflected. Get some flowers, maybe, and a few odds and ends from the dime store. Seeing it now, with Mr. Pigeon in the rocking chair, he realized suddenly that it was a very pleasant place in which to live.
Bingo yawned, stretched, and drew a long, slow breath of contentment. In the same moment, a loud caterwaul came in through the window. He sat bolt upright.
“Gracious,” Mr. Pigeon said. He stopped rocking. “What was that?”
The sound continued, faintly resembling By the Waters of Minnetonka, and even more faintly resembling a human voice.
“It’s the tenor in the saloon next door,” Handsome said apologetically.
“He sings there every week night.”
“Usually,” Bingo added, even more apologetically, “me and Handsome just stay up until he gets through.”
“I should think he’d be easier to listen to if you were asleep,” Mr. Pigeon said.
They listened in silence through At Dawning, Poor Butterfly, Alice Blue Gown, My Wild Irish Rose, and Return to Sorrento. The tenor had just started on O Sole Mio when there was a knock at the door, and Baby came in.
“I knew you wouldn’t be asleep with that going on,” she said, closing the door. She had on the cute little black dress with a white collar and cuffs, and a funny little black hat with a veil that stuck out all around her head. She looked all of fifteen. There was an unusual light in her eyes, she was breathing faster than usual, and there was a newspaper under her arm.
“Look!” she said, switching on the light and holding out the newspaper. “Golly! I saw both those guys tonight, in the night club where I work! And here one of ’em’s murdered the other one.”
Bingo and Handsome looked at the paper and then at each other. There was the story of how one Art Frank, a thoroughly disreputable character, had been stabbed in the back and one Marty Bucholtz, an equally disreputable character, had been arrested for his murder.
“Can you imagine that?” Bingo said, shaking his head.
“Shocking!” Mr. Pigeon murmured. He didn’t sound shocked.
Handsome looked hard at Baby and said, “Look here. Are you running around with gangsters?”
“Listen to him,” Baby said scornfully to Mr. Pigeon. “This pair of crooks, asking me if I run around with gangsters!”
Mr. Pigeon said mildly, “Well, do you?”
She sniffed. “Of course not. Only, they used to hang out all the time at the place where I work. I think the guy who owns it is mixed up in some kind of a racket, and those two were working for him.” Suddenly her face grew sober. “Gee! You don’t suppose they’ll investigate my boss, and maybe close up the place while they’re doing it, and I’ll be out of a job!”
“If you are,” Bingo said loyally, “we’ll hire you. We’re going to need a secretary pretty soon.”
Baby sniffed again. “Ma’s going to need more rent pretty soon, too.”
“Now, now, now,” Mr. Pigeon said in mild reproof. “Don’t be so hard on my young friends. It won’t be long before they’ll be able to afford to hire a dozen secretaries.” He smiled at Baby. “I mean it. And you do believe me, don’t you?”
She smiled back at him. “I’d believe you if you told me the world was not only flat, but spinning backwards.” With a sudden, impulsive move she kissed little Mr. Pigeon just over the left eye, said, “Good night, all you guys, see you in the morning,” and was gone.
Bingo glanced at Mr. Pigeon and saw that the little man’s eyes were, incredibly, filled with tears. He glanced away again and turned off the lights, fast. “Too hot in here with those on,” he explained. “Besides, it’s bedtime.”
“It may be bedtime,” Mr. Pigeon said gloomily, “but—”
The tenor next door had now started work on The Song of the Vagabond. Bingo felt, though, that he could sleep through anything now. He was right, too.
His last thought before he went to sleep was about how to approach the late Mr. Penneyth’s lawyer. What was his name again? Oh yes. Rufus Hardstone. How were they going to get any information out of Rufus Hardstone?
Sleep on it, Bingo told himself drowsily, and it’ll come to you.
It did. A good idea, and a very simple one.
He woke up the next morning knowing exactly what to do. Handsome was already up and around, busy putting the last of yesterday’s prints into envelopes. Bingo pulled him into the bathroom and whispered to him.
“Handsome, I’ve figured out how you’re to disguise yourself when we go to see that lawyer guy.”
Handsome’s face brightened. “Yeah?”
“Sure,” Bingo said. “Easiest thing in the world.” He drew a long breath and looked proud. “Handsome—you’re going to disguise yourself as a photographer!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Mr. Hardstone sure has swell offices,” Handsome said admiringly, looking around the waiting room. “He must make a lot of dough.”
Bingo said, “Ssh,” very sternly.
Handsome was right, though. It was a very superior waiting room, the walls covered with some fancy kind of wood, and the chairs all made of red leather. The desk where Rufus Hardstone’s secretary sat was big and shiny and magnificent.
When the International Foto, Motion Picture, and Television Corporation of America moved into its new quarters, Bingo reflected, they’d have a reception room that was exactly like this one, even down to the details of big glass ash trays and English hunting prints on the walls. A beautiful secretary, too.
Getting an appointment with Mr. Hardstone had been wonderfully easy. Bingo had telephoned in the morning and explained that the newspaper he worked for (he decided to make it good and say the Times) was starting a series of interviews with prominent lawyers, merchants, doctors, and others, on how to get on in the world, and on interesting cases from their careers. Naturally, a lawyer as well known and successful as Rufus Hardstone was their first choice. Could he and a photographer call on Mr. Hardstone that afternoon? Mr. Hardstone would be delighted.
While Handsome had gone to borrow the proper equipment for a newspaper photographer from an employed friend, Bingo had strolled up and down Forty-second Street, snapping pictures of people he spotted as out-of-town tourists and handing out cards. (“A picture of yourself to show the folks back home, taken on one of New York’s most famous thoroughfares.”) By the time Handsome joined him, he’d succeeded in disposing of thirty-four cards. If half, or even a third, of them came in with quarters, it would see the International Foto, Motion Picture, and Television Corporation of America through another day.
His mental arithmetic was interrupted by the most elegant item in the office, the secretary, informing them that Mr. Hardstone would see them now.
Mr. Rufus Hardstone was not only incredibly successful, he was incredibly pompous. He was a tall, slender man, with silvery white hair that fell in a becoming lock over his high, classic brow, with a handsome chin, a roman nose, and a pair of rimmed eyeglasses on a thin black cord. He welcomed Bingo and Handsome with just the right mixture of modesty and condescension and proceeded to tell them, for an hour and twenty minutes, exactly how a young man could get on in the world, while Bingo made a great show of taking notes.
Mr. Hardstone’s advice fell into three major divisions: (1) Hard Work Never Hurt Anybody, (2) the Will to Win, and (3) Honesty Is the Best Policy. Bingo scribbled furiously on the backs of envelopes, asked exactly the right questions, and prayed that Handsome wouldn’t fall asleep. From Mr. Hardstone’s observations, it appeared that the only way to become rich and famous was to be born poor, work diligently, save money, and lead a good life. Bingo looked impressed and thought about the information that Handsome had given him, to the effect that Mr. Hardstone’s father had not only provided him with an extravagant education but had also left him a sizable fortune and a flourishing legal practice, and that several times Mr. Hardstone had been severely criticized for the slightly questionable financial transactions and income-tax returns of his principal clients. That, Bingo reminded himself, was Mr. Hardstone’s business, and a very profitable one, too.
When the lawyer had finally run down, Bingo looked appreciative and said, “That’s very inspiring, Mr. Hardstone. Now tell me, what was your most interesting case? Was it a divorce, or a murder trial, or what?”
Mr. Hardstone cleared his throat. “I’m afraid, young man, that I’ll have to disappoint you. I’m a very different type of lawyer from what you have in mind.” He smiled benignly and said, “We lawyers are specialists too, you know, like doctors. Criminal practice is entirely outside my line. My activities consist principally of managing estates, handling tax returns, making wills, and so forth.”
“Oh,” Bingo said, “but that must be interesting work, too. How about some of the funny wills people make?”
Mr. Hardstone obligingly spoke of several, including one wealthy man who’d left his entire fortune to found a hospital for circus elephants. Fortunately, Mr. Hardstone had been able to prove, in court, that the testator had been suffering from the d.t.’s at the time and that there was no such animal as a pink elephant. There had, of course, been other extraordinary cases in his career.
At that point Handsome picked up the cue Bingo gave him and said, “Say, weren’t you the lawyer for that guy who disappeared seven years ago—wasn’t his name Pigeon?”
Mr. Hardstone nodded pontifically. “Now there was a remarkable situation. A man, apparently in the best of health and spirits, whose business is doing well, suddenly and inexplicably disappears and is never heard from again. Amazing!”
“Amazing,” Bingo said, “is no word for it. And if he doesn’t turn up before next Sunday, this partner of his gets a lot of dough from the insurance policy, isn’t that right?”
“Quite right,” Mr. Hardstone said. “Five hundred thousand dollars, to be exact.”
Bingo said, “Gosh!” and then said, “Now here’s something I’m curious about. Suppose something should happen to Mr. Penneyth in the meantime—suppose he got run over by a truck or something. Then who’d get the dough?”
“According to the terms of the policy,” Mr. Hardstone said, “Mr. Penneyth’s heirs, as named in his will.”
“Oh,” Bingo said. “And who are they?”
Mr. Rufus Hardstone looked mildly amused. “Now, my dear young man, you must know I couldn’t tell you that. If anything should happen to Mr. Penneyth, I should take his will out of my safe, read it to his heirs, and then give a statement to the press, but in the meantime, it’s a professional secret.”
“Pardon me,” Bingo said. “I wouldn’t know that.” He paused, and then said, “You wouldn’t tell us, though, in strict confidence, if we promised not to put it in our story, or tell a soul?”