Headless Lady

by Clayton Rawson

  I answered him: “If you look at the envelope you’ll see my initials. I was around when he found the hair.”

  “You see him take them out of the wastebasket?”

  “I—” Then I remembered. I had been outside the trailer when Merlini had made the discovery. “Well, no, but—”

  “What the hell is this?” Hooper growled. “And what if Harte had seen him? Merlini’s a sleight-of-hand expert. He takes rabbits out of empty hats. He could pretend to take some little wisps of hair out of a wastebasket without any ever having been there. I could get by with that myself. What—”

  Merlini went to bat. “Don’t you two gentlemen ever look before you leap? Perhaps if you examined the trailer yourself you might find more of the same. I didn’t go over the interior with a vacuum cleaner.”

  “Always got an answer ready, haven’t you?” Schafer said belligerently. “What did you do, plant more blond hair around the place?”

  Merlini raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. It’s the blondness of it. Hold your hats, everybody; we’re going to do a loop-the-loop. The doctor says the body is a brunette. That it?”

  “Yes, dammit, he did! If this case doesn’t take the cake—”

  “That’s mild,” Merlini commented. “It gets the bale of blue ribbons and several gross of loving cups. If the clothing labels do identify the brunette corpse, you’ve still got a blond, vanished, and unknown lady to worry about. We both do, for that matter.”

  I suddenly caught a curious look on O’Halloran’s listening face, something that was almost a smile; but he hastily concealed it. None of the others had noticed.

  “Chief,” the Captain said, “lock ’em up. This guy will drive me nuts too if I have to listen to him much longer. We’ll keep him on ice for Inspector Gavigan and hope he’s got something that’ll help. And in the meantime we’re going to be busy as all hell.”

  Merlini said, “You’re charging me, then?”

  “Yes.” Schafer eyed him calculatingly. “I won’t make it a murder charge until Gavigan gets here and I find out what he’s got. For the moment, we’ll make it breaking and entering Major Hannum’s trailer last night. You picked the lock, you know.”

  “Won’t do,” Merlini objected. “Miss Hannum won’t back you up. If she does, I’ll prefer a similar charge against her. Besides, it hasn’t been established yet that she owns that trailer. Miss King insists that she does. You can’t get the owner to prefer a charge until you know who the owner is.”

  The Captain, however, still held an ace. He turned to O’Halloran, who stood leaning against the wall at his right. “Merlini picked your pocket yesterday. You’re charging him with that. Understand?”

  “But I returned his property to him,” Merlini said.

  “Maybe so,” Schafer returned, “maybe not. If you’ve got any evidence or witnesses to prove it, you can produce them before the judge tomorrow. In the meantime—”

  Merlini faced O’Halloran. “Well,” he said, “whose side are you playing on?”

  O’Halloran took his cigarette from his mouth and tapped the ashes into a tray on the desk. He gave Merlini a wink as he did so and crossed the first two fingers of his right hand, which was on the side away from Schafer, but visible to us. “I can’t help myself very well, can I?” he answered.

  I decided then to make a last stand myself. “You aren’t locking me up as a material witness without a court order,” I stated.

  Schafer said, “A sea lawyer, eh? Okay, then I’ll get one. Hooper, get Judge Ewing on the phone.”

  As the Chief reached for the instrument, Merlini took a step forward, gave me a dig in the ribs with his elbow and said, “I guess he wins this round, Ross. Come on. Let’s see your dungeon, Hooper.”

  Hooper put the phone down. He and Stevens started to take us out. Schafer said, “Don’t forget those picklocks of his, Chief. Inspector Gavigan said it would be a good idea to strip them both. He says Merlini knows how to escape from packing boxes that have been nailed up and dumped in the river.”

  Hooper snorted. “This jail ain’t no packing box. He’ll find that out.”

  The prospect of jail hadn’t bothered me much until I heard this. I’d figured that Merlini might be able to roll up his sleeves and pass a minor miracle that would circumvent the stone walls and iron bars. I was beginning to have doubts, and in a few moments I had more of them.

  If Merlini was bothered, however, he pretended not to show it. As our guides ushered us into the jail proper, he said lightly, “I’d like a nice roomy cell with a southern exposure, please.”

  “You’ll take what you get,” Hooper growled. “And none of the cells have any windows, so if you’re thinking of sawing your way out, forget it. Every bar in the place is case-hardened steel, and if I gave you a hacksaw you’d still be trying six months from now.”

  The cells, a dozen barred steel cages, were arranged in two rows on either side of a corridor within the cell-block that ran the length of the long cement-floored room. Another exterior corridor, ten feet wide, completely circled the cell-block, so that it was a steel-ringed island completely isolated from the outside walls. There were a half-dozen smallish windows in one wall, but from the interior of the cell-block they were completely inaccessible, and the grating of thick, close-set bars that crossed them looked distinctly formidable.

  Hooper opened the door of an electrical control box on the wall and pulled a switch. “Each cell has its own individual lock,” he said proudly. “And this switch operates an additional bolt on all the cells simultaneously, double locking them. Your arms are plenty long, but they’d have to be about ten feet longer yet to get at this switch. A ghost couldn’t get outta here unless I let him.”

  “Very nice,” Merlini commented. “And you don’t believe in ghosts, I suppose?”

  Hooper didn’t think that merited an answer. He took a ring of keys from Stevens and fitted one in the lock of the single door that opened into the cell-block corridor. “We’ll put Merlini in Cell Two with Harte across from him, well out of reach of that switch even if they had a twenty-foot pole, but in sight of the door so I can look in now and then and keep an eye on them.” He turned to Merlini. “I guess we can take them cuffs off now.” As Stevens removed them, Hooper added, “And your duds too. Peel them off.”

  “All of them?” Merlini asked.

  “Yeah, you ain’t too modest, are you?”

  “I’m very susceptible to colds, Chief,” Merlini replied. “And, warm as the weather is, these cells are built so as to allow the maximum number of drafts. If one of your prisoners dies of pneumonia you’ll have a newspaper scandal on your hands. What’s more, I’ll come back and haunt you.”

  “Stop jabbering and undress. Stevens, there are a couple of old uniforms in the locker room. Have Robbins get them. They won’t fit so well, but these guys aren’t going any place.”

  The Chief investigated the pockets of Merlini’s clothes as they came off. He found, among other things, a couple of decks of cards, a red and green silk handkerchief, several vari-colored thimbles, a spool of black silk thread, and two or three queer-looking gadgets of an indeterminate nature.

  “Lunatic,” Hooper said. “If you get violent you can try our padded cell. First chance I’ve had to use it.” Then he found a key ring that held a dozen oddly shaped angular bits of metal—the picklocks. “That’s that,” he grinned. “I’ll let Burns add these to the Crime Museum he’s collecting.”

  “Not unless they execute me,” Merlini objected. “I want those returned when I leave here. Some of those picks are collector’s items. They were once Houdini’s.”

  “Okay,” Hooper said. “If you leave.”

  “Any objection if the condemned men keep their cigarettes?” asked Merlini, indicating his pack of Camels and a cigarette lighter the Chief had taken from his pockets.

  Hooper looked at him suspiciously, carefully examined the two articles in question, and then handed them over. “I guess not,” he said, and, turning, g
ave my discarded clothes equal attention. When we had completely disrobed, he eyed us both inquisitively as if he were making sure that neither of us were equipped by nature, like kangaroos, with pockets in our skins.

  Hooper, satisfied but wary, ushered us into our respective cells and locked the doors behind us himself.

  The metallic clang of my door as it closed and the shooting over of the heavy bolt were final, irrevocable sounds that were anything but reassuring. Chief Hooper’s satisfied smile was even less so.

  He and Stevens went out through the cell-block door; and, as Stevens was locking that, Hooper threw the switch in the wall. I heard the extra bolts click over solidly all down the line.

  Hooper gave us a last malevolent grin and then went out. He slammed the door behind him.

  * Melted paraffin is dropped over the fingers and hand until a thick coating is obtained. This is slightly reinforced by a thin layer of cotton, which in turn is covered with hot wax. After the paraffin has set, it is cut around the sides and removed in two halves. The resulting negative cast or mold is then tested for the presence of nitrates.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fond Farewell

  THE COT IN MY cell was a wooden shelf with a leather-covered mattress on it. I sat down and lit a cigarette. Then, for the first time, I noticed that we had company. Farther down the line of cells toward the rear of the cell-block, two cells were occupied. One held a heavy-set, blue-jowled individual whose round bulbous nose shone like a red danger signal. I guessed that he might be the town drunk. He stood at the door of his cell watching us interestedly. The other man, lying on his cot, also regarded us, half-raised on one elbow. His languid posture, his sleepy drawling voice, and his ill-kempt clothes suggested a knight of the road who was doing his 30 days for vagrancy.

  Weary Willie, when he saw me light up, asked, “How about a smoke down this way, buddy? We ran out a couple days back and we’re both too flat to buy more.”

  I took two cigarettes from my pack, put my arm between the bars, and pitched them one at a time down the corridor. They managed to reach them and snake them in. I looked across at Merlini, who was absorbed in an examination of the lock on his cell door.

  “What I can’t understand,” I told him, “is why you didn’t shuck those handcuffs long ago and make a break for it instead of waiting until we landed in this pocket edition of Alcatraz. Don’t tell me the Chief has a new style of cuff that you can’t beat?”

  “No,” he answered. “They were a cinch. But I didn’t want to impress our hosts with any escape tricks too soon. They might have made it really inconvenient.”

  I stared at him. “Inconvenient? Don’t look now, but we seem to be pretty completely surrounded by case-hardened steel bars and an electrically controlled double-lock system. Even if you still had your picklocks and could beat that first lock on your door, you’d still have to project some ectoplasm or something to reach that wall switch that controls the other bolt. It’s a good 25 feet from us both and 10 feet outside the cell-block itself.”

  “But it could be worse. Hooper might have left Stevens in here to watch us. About the only way out then would have been to hypnotize him, and he doesn’t look like a particularly good subject.”

  “We’re so lucky!” I said. “That leaves us three or four ways out, I suppose.”

  “Well, it leaves one good one at least, and we’re taking it. I’ve got to get a look at those newspaper stories O’Halloran has been jabbering about. I want to know what Maxie and the Duke have to do with this case. Somehow I don’t like not knowing. It’s something Gavigan apparently doesn’t want us messing around in. And I want to mess. If I don’t, and quickly, the devil might find more work for the murderer’s idle hands to—” Abruptly he stopped, gave me a queer, thoughtful look and added, “Idle hands—idle hand—Ross, that does it!”

  “Does what? Get us out of here?”

  “It tells me my hunch about the murderer’s identity is correct. I think we’d better go away from here right now.”

  “Good,” I cracked. “After you, Gaston.”

  Merlini all this time had been fiddling with the lock on his door. He fiddled a moment longer, then suddenly straightened up and said, “Okay, Ross, I’m set. Now do exactly what I tell you and don’t argue. We’re in a hurry. Take this cigarette lighter”—he scaled it across the floor and under the bars into my cell—“rip that mattress cushion on your cot a bit, light the kapok inside, and as soon as you have a fair blaze, holler, ‘fire.’ And rattle your tin cup against the bars. That’s the customary prison etiquette.”

  I would have agreed then that Hooper was right and that Merlini was off his chump except that I’ve heard him issue cockeyed orders before—orders that later proved fairly sensible. I obeyed.

  Our jailmates down the way watched me wonderingly. Rednose said, “Hell, those two have gone stir-bugs already.”

  Weary Willie said, “Look like a couple of dope-hops to me.”

  When I had fanned up a little blaze and a good deal of smoke Merlini said, “That’s fine. Your story is that you dropped your cigarette. Now turn in the alarm.”

  I sang out and got action immediately. The very thought of fire in his nice new jail brought Hooper on the double-quick, and nearly everyone else—the Captain, O’Halloran, Stevens, and others.

  Hooper fumbled and swore at the lock on the cell-block door. As he got it open and came on the run toward me, he yelled, “Somebody throw that switch!”

  Stevens reached it, and a moment later Hooper pulled my door open. Robbins ran in with a sloshing water bucket and threw the contents on the cot. Hooper poured a lavalike flow of language at me that was so blistering I was afraid it would touch off a much larger conflagration. I wondered if Merlini was hoping that the Chief’s wrath would melt the bars off the cell. It nearly did.

  “You’d better throw another bucket of water on the Chief,” I told Robbins, “before he goes up in smoke.”

  “We’ve got a charge on you now, Harte,” Schafer said. “Willful destruction of county property. Laugh that off.”

  Hooper relieved me of the cigarettes and the lighter, placed me in the next cell down the line, and slammed the door angrily. This time the sound seemed more irrevocable than ever.

  Merlini, standing close against the bars of his cell door, watched us and made no comment. Hooper gave him a piece of his mind in passing, for good measure. He relocked the cell-block door and threw the switch. Then, with the others, he went out again, still muttering.

  “Well,” I said then, “here we are again. Why didn’t you do whatever it was you had in mind?”

  “I did,” Merlini said quietly.

  He pushed gently at the door of his cell. It opened and he stepped out.

  He went immediately to the cell-block door, thrust his hand between the bars and, from the outside, inserted an angular buttonhook-shaped probe into the lock’s keyhole.

  “Where the devil did you hide that picklock?” I asked, my mouth ajar. “Swallow it?”

  “No. When we first came in I took a good look at these locks. They’re Courtney-Brema Company’s latest model. Then, my hand in my pocket, I slipped the picklock I figured I’d need off the key ring and palmed it. Perhaps you’ve noticed that all my picks have a small sharp hook on their upper end. There’s a reason. While we were undressing I edged up near Hooper, used a little primary misdirection to keep his eyes front, and hung the picklock on the back of his coat. It’s slender and black and wouldn’t have shown up much against his dark-blue uniform even if he had turned around. When he ushered me into my cell I lifted it again. I used the Chief himself as a gimmick. It’s a simple dodge and an old one. It’s highly recommended and endorsed by leading professionals in Jail, Bank-Vault, and Underwater Escapes, issue number 16 of my dollar booklets, ‘The Strange Secrets Series.’”

  “Stop advertising,” I said. “What about the electrically controlled double lock? I saw the Chief throw the switch.” I glanced at the door of Merlini�
��s cell. The heavy switch-controlled bolt was projecting in the locked position. In opening his door, Merlini had apparently caused solid steel to pass through solid steel!

  The cell-block door opened as I spoke, and Merlini went quickly to the wall switch and pulled it down. The bolts on all the cells slid back. He returned and got to work on the individual lock on my cell.

  “I had my door unlocked, except for the electrical device,” he explained, “before you called Hooper in with your fire alarm. As soon as Stevens threw the switch I was free of my cell. When they left, and just as Hooper reached up to throw the switch again, I pushed my door open half an inch. The bolt on my door slid over without engaging. Hooper’s clink would be a mite harder to leave if that cell-block door was on the electrical hookup too. Courtney-Brema Company gave him short weight.”

  Merlini’s attack on my lock was swift and sure. As he finished his explanation, the door swung wide and I stepped out into the corridor with him.

  From down the corridor a voice said, “Say, old-timer, don’t forget us.”

  “l haven’t,” Merlini said, going toward them. He began to work on Weary Willie’s door.

  “You’re a right gee,” that gentleman said appreciatively. “This is really swell of you.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Merlini replied. “You aren’t going far. Just down to my cell. You and your friend are going to take our places so that if the Chief gets nosy as he promised, he’ll think we’re still here and sleeping. Keep under your blanket and keep your faces out of sight. He may not notice your absence because right now we’re on his mind almost exclusively.”

  “Yeah? Do we look like chumps? If you don’t take us with you, we’ll sing out right now. His Nibs might give us a few privileges if we prevented a couple of big-shots like you two from lamming. He might even fix it so’s our lags were cut.” By lags he meant sentences.