The Dead Ringer

by Fredric Brown

  “Enough of them. How much has Ed told you?”

  “Nothing,” Weiss said. “Does he know too?”

  Uncle Am glanced at me. “He’s figured out most of it by now, haven’t you, Ed?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  Weiss looked from one to the other of us. He said, “Hoagy did it. Why?”

  Uncle Am tilted his chair toward the table, reached over, and got the whisky bottle. There were still a few inches left in it. He tilted it up, and then there was less of it left.

  Then he said, “Go ahead, Ed. Give him a start. I’ll fill in anything I can, that you can’t.”

  I said, “Cap, the night the midget was murdered, there was a kidnapping in Louisville. The whole thing revolves around that. The son of a rich manufacturer named Porley was snatched from his bed about nine that evening, when his parents were at a party and only two servants were in the house. The kid was seven—just about the size of Lon Scaffold, the monkey, and Jigaboo. That’s the missing piece; with that, the rest can be fitted in.”

  “Hoagy did the kidnapping?”

  I nodded. Uncle Am said, “I checked Louisville papers this afternoon. The kid was returned on the twenty-sixth, for forty thousand dollars ransom; that was a compromise figure. The kid was alive and in not too bad shape, but he showed evidence of being kept under drugs the eleven days he was gone. He’s recovering; he’s still under a doctor’s care, but he’ll be all right.”

  Weiss said, “The twenty-sixth—last Monday. That was when Susie was drowned. My God, Am, my mind’s tired; I could go off and dope out the details, but if you’ve got ‘em, save me the trouble. Give it to me in order.”

  Uncle Am looked at me, so I took over.

  I said, “Hoagy must have been working on the idea for at least a month before the kidnapping, all the time we were playing towns in Kentucky. He figured on one big gamble for a big chunk of dough, and then a break with the carney.

  “The hard part of a kidnapping is keeping the kid under cover, while you’re negotiating. If there’s a kidnapping, you can’t suddenly have an extra kid around without somebody putting the two things together. Hoagy figured out a way around that.”

  I wasn’t too sure about the next part, so I watched Uncle Am’s face while I went on:

  “But Hoagy kept the kidnapped boy right in his trailer, in plain sight, only nobody saw him. Because he was under drugs, and in a monkey suit. There wasn’t any real monkey—then. The Porley boy was the monkey for the whole eleven days he was gone, while Hoagy was fixing it up to return him and collect.

  “He was in a dim corner, behind wide bars so nobody could see him plainly, and nobody even guessed there was an extra kid around the carney. If the kidnapping had been traced to the carney, you still wouldn’t have found him.”

  Weiss grunted. He looked up at the door of the trailer. Then he looked back at me. “What about the midget?”

  I said, “That was part of Hoagy’s careful advance planning. He didn’t want to turn up with a monkey suddenly right after the kidnapping. He wanted that sick monkey planted in everybody’s mind before he got the kid.

  “For the five days before the night of the kidnapping—and the first murder—Hoagy’s sick monkey was Lon Staffold in the monkey suit. In his case, not drugged, just playing sick. He was Hoagy’s accomplice. Maybe he helped in the actual kidnap—”

  “No,” Uncle Am said. “He was found naked, remember? That means he was wearing the monkey suit up to just before he was killed. Probably he’d just taken it off when it happened.”

  Weiss asked, “But why a midget? Why didn’t Hoagy get a real chimp right away, for a stand-in up to the time of the kidnapping?”

  I didn’t see why, either, so I looked at Uncle Am. He said, “I think he figured there’d be too much difference between a real monkey, and the Porley boy in a monkey suit. Somebody might notice. And then there’d be the problem of what to do with a real monkey while the kid was playing the part. Lon would have gone back to Cincinnati, then returned again to stand in for the monkey a few days after the kid was returned, to avoid any coincidence of dates again. Then the monkey would have disappeared or something.”

  Weiss nodded.

  I said, “Hoagy must have known Lon a long time ago, somewhere. He and the midget must have pulled something crooked together once before. That would be why he thought of Lon for a stand-in, and advertised to reach him through Billboard. Hoagy must have had the nickname ‘Shorty’ then; case of opposites, like a fat guy will sometimes get called ‘Slim’ or a guy who never talks, ‘Gabby.’”

  “And you think he found out the midget was going to cross him up?” Weiss asked. He looked at the door again; I knew he was beginning to wonder when Hoagy was coming back. I saw him reach under his arm and loosen a gun in its holster.

  I said, “I’d guess that when the kidnapping actually happened, when he came back that night with the boy, the midget demanded half of the take— instead of whatever Hoagy’d offered him, a few thousand bucks, probably. Or maybe he hadn’t known, till then, just what his impersonation job was for, and wouldn’t stand for a kidnapping. Maybe Hoagy’d lied to him what the real reason for the business was, and he threatened to turn Hoagy in unless Hoagy took the kid back home.”

  Uncle Am said, “That’s my guess. Your second one.”

  I said, “That takes us up to the twenty-sixth, the day Hoagy traded the Porley boy back for the forty thousand dollars. He’d found out, meanwhile, where he could buy a real chimpanzee, and bought it on his way back from Louisville. Only he didn’t want to risk keeping it. He had drugged it, and the minute he got back he drowned it in the diving tank. Then he told us it was missing, and we spent the rest of the night hunting it.

  “Up to that time, everything was okay—except for his having had to kill Lon. But on the twenty-sixth, he must have thought he was safe. The kid was returned, he had the money, the monkey was accounted for, and you hadn’t got to first base on Lon’s murder. Then something went wrong again, and he had to kill once more. This time—Jigaboo.”

  Weiss said, “The monkey suit!”

  “Sure,” I said. “Jigaboo found the monkey suit. When I saw it—while Jigaboo was looking in the window of Carey’s trailer, wearing it—it had dirt on it, so it had been buried; probably Hoagy buried it somewhere in the same woods he buried the chimp in. Likely Jigaboo was playing around in the woods and saw him bury it, that afternoon. Or maybe he just came across a place where something had just been buried, and dug for buried treasure.

  “Anyway, he found the suit and took it back to the van he slept in and hid it there. And that night, after the show, he went to his bunk, undressed, and put on the monkey suit; it was just the right size for him. He started out, in kid fun, to play a joke on someone.”

  I shivered a little, thinking about it. “On me, as it turned out. He was a dead ringer for Susie, all right, when he looked in the trailer window and I saw him. Then—somehow—Hoagy got hold of him, and after that he wasn’t a dead ringer—he was just dead.”

  Weiss said, “A dead ringer for a monkey that didn’t exist, but that had one stand-in after another—the midget, the Porley boy, the monkey he drowned, the kid— No wonder it didn’t make sense.” His voice was ugly. He looked at the door again, and stood up. There were, I noticed, a few beads of sweat on his forehead.

  He said, “What the hell’s keeping him?” Suddenly he turned and glared at Uncle Am. “God damn it, Am, did you tip him off?”

  Uncle Am didn’t look at Weiss, nor answer him directly. He said, “He won’t try to get away. Guy with a build like his; you could trace him to Patagonia. He’ll—take care of it himself, I imagine. He wouldn’t want to fry.”

  “He ought to fry. God damn it, Am—”

  Uncle Am said mildly, “Sure, he ought to. But how about Marge? Maybe they wouldn’t give her death, but they’d give her worse. Life. And knowing about it when Hoagy sizzled. … Even if he was a son of a bitch, she loved him, Cap.”
/>
  Weiss frowned. “Past tense, already. You’re that sure?”

  Uncle Am didn’t answer. Weiss started for the door. As he opened it, Uncle Am said, “Cap,” and Weiss turned.

  “Look, Ed and I aren’t in on this. You doped it out, the whole thing. Don’t mention us.”

  Weiss looked at him a moment and then said, “Thanks.” There was still sullen anger in his voice, but not so much. He’d get over it. He went on out.

  We sat there and didn’t say anything, Uncle Am and I. We sat there and waited. There was a deck of cards lying on the table, and after a while I picked it up and shuffled it. I played a game of solitaire, and started a second one.

  Then Weiss came back. There were two men with him. Fort Wayne detectives.

  He said, “You’ll have to get out. We’re going to search the trailer. He didn’t have the money with him. We got to find it.”

  Uncle Am looked at him, without asking. Weiss glared at him, and then said, “Yeah. Two miles down the road. Head-on into a concrete abutment at about eighty miles an hour. Both killed instantly.”

  Uncle Am nodded and we started to leave. But the Fort Wayne detectives wanted to search us first to be sure we weren’t walking off with the kidnap money, and we didn’t argue about it. I don’t think Weiss would have thought of searching us.

  We went back to our sleeping tent, and about ten minutes later Weiss came in to tell us they’d found the money. “Anyway,” he said, “the bulk of it, thirty-four thousand. We’ll find the rest.”

  Uncle Am nodded. “Have a drink, Cap?”

  “No, thanks. ... Say, Am, maybe it was best that way. On account of the woman. Well—I got to go and wind some red tape. Be seeing you.”

  He went out.

  A few minutes later I suddenly remembered Rita was waiting for me at Lee Carey’s trailer. I told Uncle Am, and hurried over there.

  I was late, almost an hour late, but she was there, sitting on the steps outside the trailer, crying. I knew then that I wouldn’t have to tell her the news, and I was glad of that.

  It was almost time to start to the railroad station, and we were lucky in finding a cab that got us there in plenty of time. We sat in the station, and didn’t talk much. Once Rita mentioned the illusion show, and I said, “It does sound good, Rita, but why don’t you wait? Go look at it, maybe take an option on it if you can get one, but don’t go the whole hog until we’ve all had time to think it over.”

  “All right, Eddie, I’ll not do anything more till I see you again. Monday afternoon, in Milwaukee.”

  “Shall I meet your train?”

  “I don’t know which one I’ll take, Eddie. I’ll phone you from a hotel when I check in.”

  The train pulled into the station and I put her on it. We didn’t kiss good-by; I wanted our next kiss to be something more than one could have been just then, with our minds full of what had just happened.

  But when the train pulled out again, there seemed to be a hole in my life, and I found myself counting up how many hours it would be from Friday midnight to Monday afternoon.

  I went back to the lot, and the carney was just closing. Uncle Am was still—or again—in our sleeping tent. He hadn’t undressed; he was sitting on the cot, with his hat shoved back on his head.

  He said, “Hi, Ed,” when I came in, and then he yawned. “I’m trying to convince myself that I’m sleepy, but I can’t.”

  I felt the same way myself. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to turn in, either.

  He said, “Want a drink, Ed?”

  “No, thanks,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “Ed, did you like playing detective? It’s a nasty business, sometimes.”

  I said, “Murder is nastier. I’m sorry as hell about Marge, but I’d do it again—my part in it, I mean. Damn it, Uncle Am, I think maybe I would like to be a detective.”

  “It’s a hell of a life, Ed. It’s not what you read about in those magazine stories. It’s long hours for not much money, and nine-tenths of what you work on is peanut stuff, anyway. It’s a hell of a life.”

  “That’s what you told me about being a carney, before I joined up. It isn’t; I like it. But I just don’t think I’m cut out to be a carney. All my life, I mean.”

  “How are you going to fit Rita into the idea of being a detective, Ed?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  I thought about it awhile, and the two things didn’t seem to fit at all.

  I said, “All right, I’ll forget it. Being a detective, I mean.”

  Uncle Am stood up suddenly. He said, “I’m going out awhile, Ed. I’ll be seeing you.”

  I sat there, thinking, after he’d left. I thought, he’s going out to get drunk, I wished I could do the same, but I’m not cut out for that, either.

  I wondered again if I really had what it took to be a detective. Maybe there was some way I could have both that and Rita. But maybe, anyway, I didn’t have what it took? Could I do routine shadow work, for instance? I’d never shadowed anybody in my life.

  On a sudden impulse I got up and went out. For a gag, why not? Uncle Am had been gone only a minute or two. I’d find out if I could tail him for a while, without losing him or without letting him spot me. Anyway, it would kill some time.

  When I reached the street, I could see him a block down, walking toward town. I crossed over to the other side of the street and kept about a block behind him, keeping him in sight and making myself as inconspicuous as I could, so he wouldn’t notice me if he turned around.

  He walked all the way in to town, although a late inbound bus passed us, and several empty cabs went by.

  When we got to town there were still a few people on the streets, so I closed up a little. I was getting proud of myself, for I knew he hadn’t seen me.

  Then I quit feeling proud and felt foolish, for he stopped and turned into a building—but it wasn’t a tavern. It was a church, one of the big ones that stay open all night. I felt foolish because I’d figured he was going out to get drunk, but instead he’d wanted to go somewhere and pray for Marge and maybe for Hoagy, too.

  I stood there a minute, wanting to go in and join him, but knowing I couldn’t because I’d followed him there and would be ashamed, now, to admit it.

  A cruising taxi went by and I grabbed it back to the carney lot. I felt like kicking myself, in a way, but in another way I was glad; what had just happened proved that detective work can find out good things about people as well as bad things, if there are good things to find out.

  We opened up the ball game booth again the next day, Saturday, and then on Sunday the lot was jammed and we worked like the devil, so the time went quick. Sunday night we tore down late and it was after three when we got the vans loaded. Uncle Am and I were too tired to go into town to try for Pullmans, so we found a pile of canvas in one of the vans and slept most of the way to Milwaukee.

  It was almost noon when we got there and we worked like hell pitching our tops so I’d have time to get cleaned up before Rita called. I checked right away that the office car had a telephone run into it.

  I didn’t quite make it; the call from Rita came while I was taking a sponge bath in our sleeping tent. He came back and told me, “She just got in and she’s taking a room at the Wisconsin Hotel on Third Street. She’ll meet you in the cocktail bar there in an hour or so.”

  I set a record getting dressed.

  Rita was waiting there when I went into the bar, looking more beautiful than ever. She was in one of the booths, and I sat down across from her.

  I said, “I don’t believe it. There’s a catch somewhere.”

  “You’re too far away, Eddie. Come on over.”

  I shook my head firmly. “No, positively not. We’re still in public and if I get any closer than this— Nope, I’ve waited this long so I can wait a few minutes more. Must we have a drink?”

  The waiter was coming over, so it appeared that we must, and we ordered martinis.
/>   When they came, I lifted mine. “To us,” I said.

  She smiled. “Love me, Eddie?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’m waiting to find out. How long should we sit here and act civilized?”

  “I’m shameless, Eddie. I registered for two, and took a double room.”

  I said, “I shall now make the greatest understatement of my life: That’s nice.”

  “How is Am, Eddie?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Rita, I don’t believe this. There’s a big catch somewhere. You’re a beautiful liar; but you aren’t what you seem. You’re—”

  Something in her face stopped me. Just a quick flicker of something that might have been fear.

  She leaned forward a little, dead serious. “What do you mean, Ed?”

  I hadn’t meant anything at all. I’d been going to say that she was really a beautiful international spy, pretending to love me so she could wheedle from me the secret plans of the fortifications of Peoria, Illinois. God help me, that was what I’d started to say.

  I stared at her, and didn’t answer. Her face cleared and she smiled at me. She said, “You’re kidding, Eddie.”

  I was; I had been. But that little flicker of something had been fear. And a thought that I’d pushed to the back of my mind ever since Friday evening crawled out of hiding and looked me in the face, and I couldn’t make it crawl back.

  I said, “Rita, you knew about the kidnapping, didn’t you?” Her eyes went wide, but it was because she made them so. I said, “I don’t mean you were in on it, Rita. But you spent so much time in the trailer with Marge, you must have seen something. During those five days when the midget was playing chimp; he, or Marge, must have given something away to you. And you were afraid; that’s why you carried the gun that night. And when you stumbled over the dead midget you must have known, more or less, who it was, and that Hoagy had killed him.”

  She wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. She said, “Eddie, I did suspect something. I didn’t know. Yes, I knew from something that happened that Susie wasn’t a real monkey. It—he—must not have known I was in the trailer once when I was there with Marge, and he talked to her. Marge was scared stiff of Hoagy. She made me promise not to tell.”