Headless Lady

by Clayton Rawson

  “Children?” Merlini exclaimed.

  “Pauline and her twin sister, Paulette,” Irma said.

  Merlini looked at Pauline and then at Mac. “Twin sister,” he said ominously. “Why hasn’t this been mentioned before now?”

  But they paid no attention to him.

  “Mac,” Pauline said hoarsely, “then it is true. Can she prove it after all this—”

  “She’ll have one hell of a job,” Mac said. “We can carry a case like that clear to the Court of Appeals, and I don’t think Irma can afford it.”

  “There are lawyers,” Irma countered, “who’ll handle an inheritance case for a percentage of the take.”

  Pauline, said, “Send him around, Irma. We’ll take care of him. In the meantime, get the hell off this lot and stay off!”

  “Sure. I’ll go. But this show doesn’t move an inch. There’ll be an injunction on it before tomorrow morning that’ll keep every last tent pole on this lot until I start giving orders. Think that over.”

  Irma gave Pauline one last venomous glance, snatched the divorce papers from Mac’s hands, and went out, slamming the door violently behind her.

  Mac shuddered, “Calamity was right,” he groaned. “Suppé’s goddamned ‘Cavalry March’ is poison. This is worse than murder. All we need now is a blowdown or a fire!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Eyewitness

  I AGREED WITH MAC. Whether or not the Suppé music was the cause, the Mighty Hannum Combined Shows was certainly having more than its share of grief. For that matter, the Merlini-Harte Murder Investigation wasn’t treading what could be called a rose-strewn path. With one well-aimed shot Irma seemed to have made scrap of nearly every motive for murder that we had discussed. Merlini was right; this was the place where we got off and started walking back.

  For a moment after Mac’s outburst no one spoke. Merlini’s half-dollar was motionless in his fingers, its intermittent vanishing stilled. Merlini regarded it gloomily.

  Then Pauline said slowly, “It’s not quite that bad, Mac. Irma is the murderer Merlini wants. It’s obvious now. She had to get Dad before he should make a will. She—”

  Merlini looked at her sharply. “Is that what you were going to tell Sheriff Weatherby last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t know until now that she had a motive—or am I wrong?”

  “I didn’t know. But I saw her enter the trailer last night after I had left.”

  “That does it!” Mac said excitedly. “I’ll have her in the can on a murder rap before she can think twice about an injunction!” He started for the door.

  Merlini stopped him. “Not so fast, Mac. I’m not so sure. Deep-Sea Ed says she was with him, lining up the bulls to go on after Tex’s announcement. That’s an alibi both for the lights and for the stolen evidence.”

  “Break it,” Pauline snapped. “She’s bribed him or told him that when she owns the show—”

  “Maybe,” Merlini said. “But I doubt it. I know Ed, and it doesn’t sound like him. Does it, Mac?”

  “Well—” Mac hesitated. “Maybe not. But a lot of people that you wouldn’t suspect have tin mittens.” (Anyone who will accept a bribe has tin mittens; he likes to hear the money clink in his hand.)

  “Suppose we put him through the wringer before you do anything rash. Send someone for him.”

  Mac put his head outside and called, “Joe, round up Deep-Sea for me. Tell him I want to see him here right away.”

  Then Merlini said, “While we’re waiting I want some Hannum family history. More of this Irma Stark-King story. Quickly.”

  “It’s a mess,” Mac explained. “And if it ever does hit the courts it’ll make legal history or something. Mr. and Mrs. Stark—the Major and Irma—joined the Hannum show in 1911. I was in the flying act, and our catcher cracked up right at the start of the season. He’d been swinging around in the top of a tent for years, and then he gets a broken arm in a clem [fight]. The Major joined up to replace him. Irma did an equestrian routine and worked a ring of zebras. Before the season was half over, he’d fallen hard for old man Hannum’s daughter, Pauline’s mother. Her name was Lucille.

  “Just about then I left the show. I was doing a two-and-a-half to a catch by the legs for the first time that season. One day I missed the Major and the net. When I got out of the hospital I had this game leg, and I’ve never been up on a trapeze since. The season after that I read in Billboard that the Major and Irma had split up, and it wasn’t long before he married Lucille. They had twin daughters in ’14. The Snyder case was reported just after that, but I never suspected that’s where the Major’s divorce came from. Even if I had, I’d have assumed he must have heard about it and straightened it out. There was a girl on the Hagen show who got two divorces from Snyder and remarried after both of them. She found herself married to three men and had to get legal divorces from the first two.”

  Merlini turned to Pauline. “And your twin sister, Paulette, Miss Hannum?”

  “She died two years ago.”

  Mac looked surprised. He said, “I didn’t know that, Pauline.”

  “I know. Dad very seldom mentioned her after she married.”

  “Who did she marry?” asked Merlini.

  “Fellow Dad didn’t like. They eloped in ’33, six years ago. He had been the patch on the show, and it was when he left that Mac joined on.”

  Mac nodded agreement, and Merlini started to ask, “What was his name and where did they—”

  But Pauline folded up on us. I wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t been in any condition to withstand the shocks she’d been exposed to in the last half-hour. She seemed suddenly to go very limp. In a weak voice she told Mac to get a doctor, and once more requested that we get the hell out and leave her alone. This time we did.

  Walter Jennier, the equestrian director, stood just outside the performer’s entrance with an annoyed look on his face. “Mac,” he called, seeing us, “where’s Garner? Have you seen him?”

  Mac shook his head. “No,” he said rather curtly and turned his attention to Deep-Sea Ed, who had just arrived. “Stick here,” he said, “I’ll be right back. See about that doctor.” He hurried off toward the front door.

  “Who is Garner, Ed?” Merlini asked.

  “Clown,” Ed said. “The tramp. He disappeared right after the spec. It’s upset the clown routines. Jennier’s sore and—”

  “Wait,” Merlini said, “I want to catch Miss King before she—” He moved off quickly in mid-sentence. Irma King’s car was moving away from the others and turning to leave the lot.

  I lit out after him.

  “Miss King—or Mrs. Hannum or whatever it is—just a minute.” She stopped the car and looked at him suspiciously.

  “Yes?”

  “Where were you night before last during the concert?”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “Nothing,” Merlini said. “But it’s important to you. If you don’t know, there was a murder committed on the lot during that time. There’ll be troopers here any minute now investigating it and—”

  “Murder? During the concert? Who?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “No.” She looked worried all the same.

  “Where were you?”

  “In bed.”

  “Anyone drive over with you from Waterboro when you came this morning?”

  She answered almost hypnotically, as if she couldn’t help herself, “No. No one.”

  Merlini kept the questions coming fast. “Have you lost a bull-hook?”

  She nodded, wide-eyed. “But who—”

  “Merlini,” I broke in, my voice none too steady, “Look!” I pointed toward Pauline’s trailer. The slovenly, baggy-trousered figure of the tramp clown had just descended from the door of the trailer. He moved quickly, in a furtive manner, and ran hurriedly toward the entrance to the tent.

  “You and Mac forgot all about the guard you were going to post. So I’ve had one eye on the
trailer. That guy didn’t go in since we left. He must have been in there all the time!”

  Merlini very seldom used profanity, but he did now. “That wardrobe closet again!” he added, and then we were both sprinting wildly for the trailer.

  But Pauline Hannum was apparently leading a charmed life. She lay on the trailer bed as we had left her, her eyes closed. She turned her head inquiringly at our entrance.

  “Are you all right?” Merlini asked breathlessly.

  “No,” she said. “Is Mac getting a doctor?”

  “Yes. What was that clown doing in here?”

  “What clown?”

  “Garner.”

  “There’s been no one in here since you left.”

  Merlini turned and pulled the wardrobe door open. The hangers within held circus tights and brightly spangled costumes. Merlini looked at them for a moment and then closed the door again.

  “My mistake,” he said. “Sorry.”

  But when we’d stepped outside, Merlini, his voice lowered, said, “He overheard all that conversation. He was in the wardrobe. Must have gone in while that Negro guard was having his siesta. There are smears of clown-white on several of the costumes and a streak of it on the inner surface of the door.”

  “Suspects popping up all over the place,” I commented. “Irma, and now a mysterious clown”

  Merlini frowned. “Yes, a mysterious clown who has a full set of alibis. He was waiting in the back yard to go on when the lights went out; and he was working that impromptu act in the ring after Tex carried Pauline out, when the evidence was stolen. If he traveled with the other clowns in the sleeping car this morning, then he had nothing to do with the Headless Lady’s disappearance, and if—” Merlini raised his voice. “Ed, know if Garner worked the concert night before last like he did last night?”

  Ed nodded. “Yes. I saw him. I was—”

  Mac, returning hastily, barked at Ed, “Did you tell Merlini that Miss King was with you last night when the lights went out just before Miss Hannum fell?”

  “I did. She always is. Tex’s announcement only lasts a minute or so, and we have to be ready to swing in.”

  “You’re real sure of that, are you?” Mac asked quietly.

  Ed gave him a slow once-over, threw Merlini a puzzled look, and then answered curtly, “I am.”

  “Are you prepared to stick to that statement under oath in a murder trial, remembering that a perjured statement on your part will make you liable to a charge of accessory to murder?”

  Ed seemed quite sincerely bewildered. “Murder?” He said, “Say, what the hell is this?”

  “It’s beginning to look as if the Major’s death the other night wasn’t an accident after all, nor Pauline’s fall either. Someone put those lights on the blink purposely. Are you still sure that Irma King didn’t pay or promise to pay you for an alibi?”

  “Oh,” Ed said interestedly, “trouble! I’ve been expecting it. Only this is more than I figured on. I’m glad I put a few lines out, because I think this is about where I get off. Nobody’s offered to pay me a nickel; I have a job as it is collecting my pay envelope on time. I don’t like—”

  “You’ve been expecting trouble, have you?” Mac cut in. “Why?”

  “Same reasons everyone else has. The boys on the advance have gone nuts, and the Major—well, he used to know how to route a circus, but the way we’ve been jumping all over the map and making all the wrong stands doesn’t make sense. Something damned fishy’s been in the wind for a couple of weeks now. If it’s murder, I’m counting myself out. That accident in Bridgeport—” Ed stopped uncertainly.

  Merlini, smelling a rat, pounced on it. “Bridgeport accident,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten that. The elephant car piled up in a ditch and two of the bulls escaped. What was fishy about that?”

  “The whole damned thing,” Ed replied. “It wasn’t an accident at all. I put that car in the ditch and saw to it the bulls got out, under orders from the Major himself!”

  Mac blinked, started to speak, then stopped, apparently at a loss for words, and just stared at Ed.

  “It wasn’t easy, either,” Ed added. “Modoc didn’t want to go. I had to prod her a bit. If shenanigans like that make sense, you tell me.”

  “Major Hannum,” said Merlini, “told you to fake an accident and see to it that the bulls escaped?”

  “He did, and it wasn’t no publicity stunt either. Atterbury says he didn’t run a word on it. And the Major told me I’d lose my job instanter if I opened my trap. But now that he’s dead and you say maybe he was murdered, I don’t like it around here anyhow, so—” Mac said simply, “I don’t believe it. It’s screwy.” Merlini seemed readier to accept it. “I think I do, Mac. Screwy things, like birds of a feather, flock together; and this is just more of what we’ve got already. He didn’t give you any sort of an explanation, Ed?”

  “No. He told me I didn’t need to ask questions before I got a chance to open my mouth. He said all I was to do was follow orders. Just trail his car with the bull truck, and when he gave me the high sign, run it in the ditch and see to it the door came open and at least a couple of bulls got out. After the way he yelled about the high price of elephants when he bought Rubber just before we started out, he must have gone completely loco.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “’Bout a mile and a half outside Bridgeport. And that’s funny, too. I know that part of the country pretty well. Bridgeport’s famous for Barnum, of course, and I lived there for four or five years when I was a kid. And I know that the jump we made out of Bridgeport that day was a good ten miles longer than necessary. We headed west out of town instead of north. For some cockeyed reason he wanted those elephants to escape in a certain place. I don’t expect you to believe any of this. Maybe I did dream it.”

  “What was the place like where it happened?” Mac answered, his unbelief still strong. “You’ve been hitting the bottle, Ed. It was like any other along the road. Couple hundred yards from a farmhouse. The bulls took to the woods; and the man and his wife, who acted as if they owned the place—didn’t look like farmers, though—city people—came out and raised hell. But it didn’t do ’em a lot of good. There was quite a crowd trespassing all over their place before we got the truck back on the road and the bulls in it again.”

  “Kellar,” Merlini muttered cryptically. “I wonder if it’s his elephant story in reverse?” Then he addressed Mac seriously. “We’ve got to get the cops in on this, Mac. It’s way out of hand. I’m going after them. Just one more thing I want to know first. Can Irma really collect on a story like the one she gave us? It sounds a bit thin to me. If the Major remarried in good faith, not knowing—”

  “That’s the catch,” Mac replied. “How the hell do I prove that? It’s a heller all the way around. Enough to give the whole damned Bar Association kittens. We’ve got to sort out how many different states it all happened in for one thing. The laws all vary. In this state she’s still his wife, and even if he’d made a will leaving everything to Pauline, she could still collect a third. Unless there’s a statute of limitations. I don’t know; I hope so. Or the Court of Appeals might decide Pauline was legitimate because of the length of time involved, or maybe the fact Irma married again is sufficient proof of infidelity. It’s a rip-snortin’ mess.”

  I could see that, though Mac’s legal remarks didn’t interest me greatly at the moment. Whether Irma could collect or not, she obviously thought she could and that was the important thing; she had a motive—two in fact: money and revenge. And, besides, I had just thought of something else. It classed as a brainstorm. I proceeded to let it loose. “Mac,” I asked, “did you ever see Pauline’s sister?”

  “Yes, once. When they were about sixteen.”

  “They were twins. They look a lot alike?”

  “In a way, yes,” he said. “They weren’t identical twins, though, if that’s what you mean. Pauline took after the Major, and Paulette looked more like her mother. Pauline�
�s no slouch as a looker, but Paulette was a lulu. Regular movie star for looks.”

  I said, “I see.”

  Merlini, catching the inflection I couldn’t keep out of my voice, gave me a quick curious glance. I tried to keep a poker face. I had just discovered that I was pregnant—with a theory. But I wasn’t going to give yet. I wanted time to think about it. I was asking myself if Pauline might not have been lying when she said that sister Paulette was dead. Suppose sister was alive and kicking. She’d have one nice simple Grade A motive for eliminating both the Major and Pauline—the inheritance. And Pauline could know it—but, in spite of the attempt on herself, have some reason to cover up. If I could prove that assumption, the next step was as obvious—Sister Paulette was the Headless Lady.

  Then Merlini, blast the man, grinned widely. “Ross Harte, I’ll bet you a ten-gallon cowboy hat that I can read your mind right now.”

  He turned to Mac, and his abrupt change of subject from Paulette to Headless Lady made me glad I hadn’t taken the bet and sore as a boil because my theory wasn’t exclusive.

  “I’m afraid this is going to hurt a bit, Mac,” he said. “But I’ll bet you another hat that the Headless Lady is dead, and it’s high time we did something about it.”

  Mac nearly had apoplexy. “You aren’t going to tell me she was—was—” The word nearly got him down. “—murdered too!” he finally finished.

  “I don’t think she left that trailer willingly,” Merlini answered. “Ross here has lately been theorizing high, wide, and handsome to the effect that whoever the Headless Lady is, she committed the murder and took it on the lam. That hypothesis completely disregards the fact of the arrow on the pole. The arrow quite obviously indicates that she was deliberately sidetracked—misled into thinking she was following the proper route to Norwalk.”

  I didn’t have a good objection ready for that. “Why was the arrow covered with the poster?” I asked.

  “So that the other circus people who came along afterward wouldn’t all come traipsing down the side road and interrupt whatever was going on. Someone cut in ahead of the Headless Lady, placed the arrow, and after she had made the turn, covered it with the poster and streaked out after her. Then he stopped her, and the rest is pure guesswork. Of the clues at the trailer, the really ominous one is the missing rug.”