Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan

by Stuart Palmer

  “But I had a headache!” Dobie protested. “I didn’t imagine—”

  “So had I! Neither did I!”

  They stared at each other for a moment, and then Miss Withers snatched up the telephone. “Don’t you worry!” she said. “There is plenty of time. Hello? I want the studio infirmary. Yes. Yes? Doctor Evenson? Can you get over here right away?—and bring a stomach pump?”

  Virgil Dobie didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that anybody would try to murder him—not just because of a practical joke that he had played days ago….

  But he leaned back on the couch in his office, a grayish-green look on his face. And after a few moments Dr Evenson arrived, nodded at Miss Withers and started to open his instrument case.

  “I’ll wait outside,” said the schoolteacher.

  It was nearly half an hour later when Dr Evenson emerged. He seemed very pleased with himself. “Everything will be okay,” he told Miss Withers. “The man is in fine shape.”

  “You’ve been wonderful, Doctor,” she assured him. Then she went back into the office.

  Virgil Dobie lay on the couch, and his face was a pale puce color now. But he lifted his hand feebly. “Don’ tell Jill …” he managed. “Worry her. No good. I’m okay….”

  “Of course you’re okay,” said the schoolteacher. “You’re fine.”

  “That stomach-pump thing,” he said loudly, “that’s a terrible thing to go through. Almost rather die from poison, eh? Sure—I’d rather die from poison….”

  “You won’t die from anything,” she advised him. “Because I was right here on the spot. Now just relax, Mr Dobie. I’ll keep this from your wife until you feel better. She’s very busy at the moment over on the test stage, so she’ll never know….”

  “Thanks,” said Virgil Dobie fervently. “You’re a swell guy. A fellow can really talk to you.

  His speech was louder now, and he seemed to have trouble with his consonants. “Yes sir, some women understand men, and you’re one of them….”

  “Thank you,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers. “I understand about headaches, too, because I have one.” She rubbed her forehead.

  “Sure,” Virgil Dobie said. “All intellectual people have headaches. I have ’em at the drop of a hat. Sign of brains….”

  “Thank you,” Miss Withers told him. “Do you suppose that George Spelvin has headaches?”

  Dobie frowned. “Spelvin? Oh yes. You know about that, don’t you? Guess there’s no use trying to fool you.”

  “Not much,” confessed Miss Withers.

  “Well, why not?” he went on, his voice loud and stumbling and insistent. “This income-tax thing is terrific. Out here in pictures we make big salaries for a few years, five or ten at the most, but Uncle Sam wants the same percentage as he’d take from any stockbroker who has a sure thing for life. You can’t blame us for trying to dodge—”

  “Dodge? Just what do you mean?”

  “Why, the way I did. I lent a lot of money to Derek Laval—only there isn’t any such guy—and charged it off to a loss. So did Saul; so do lots of guys. Derek Laval is a phony, a nom de plume. Whenever any of the boys gets into a hell of a jam he gives that name, whether it’s a traffic ticket, a girl, or what?”

  “Of course,” chimed in Miss Withers. “Whether he is arrested for speeding or held for being in a raided night spot or playing polo against the rules laid down by the studio….”

  Dobie nodded again. “That must have been Doug August playing polo. He’s not the only one to take a phony name. Spence Tracy usually has to play under the name of Murphy when he’s making a picture because Metro don’t like the idea of his risking that million-dollar face. As for the rest of the boys, anybody in Hollywood is likely to give the name of Derek Laval, when he gets in a jam. It’s like the actors—when they have to play two parts in one play they take the name of George Spelvin for the minor part.”

  He frowned and tried to sit up. “Say, why am I talking your arm off like this?”

  Miss Withers smiled. “But, of course, Mr Dobie. You have every reason to co-operate with me. After all, the murderer is a menace to each and every one of us until he is caught.”

  “That’s right,” Dobie admitted, still speaking a bit thickly.

  “He killed your collaborator and best friend in cold blood. He tried to kill me because I was snooping too close and he succeeded in doing away with a studio driver and a girl hitchhiker. And he killed Lillian Gissing….”

  “Yeah. And to top it all off he just tried to kill me!”

  Miss Withers hesitated. “Yes, didn’t he? But don’t worry about that. Doctor Evenson got it out of you before it could do you any real harm.” She smiled. “You feel better, don’t you?”

  Dobie decided that he did. “My headache is better anyway,” he said. “Nothing like a dose of arsenic to cure a bad case of migraine, what?” He shook his head as if to clear it from cobwebs. “Say, wait a minute, doesn’t this solve the whole case? Why don’t you call in the police and have them arrest Wilfred Josef?”

  “For several reasons,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers. “And the most important one is that it just occurred to me that the handwriting on the note attached to that aspirin bottle isn’t Wilfred Josef’s at all!”

  “What? But—but whose is it then?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” lied Miss Hildegarde Withers. “But during my investigations I’ve managed to collect samples of the handwriting of most of the characters involved in this case. I think if you don’t mind I’ll borrow that card and start making some comparisons….”

  “Go ahead,” muttered Virgil Dobie. “Things are moving too fast for me. I’ll just lie here and let things stop whirling around in my head….”

  She started to leave, and he started up. “Oh, before I forget,” he called after her. “Thanks for saving my life.”

  Miss Withers took a bow and then went back to her own office. Things were not working out quite as she had hoped. She felt very much out of her element, very much alone and bewildered….

  And the least of her problems was the matter of who had written the note attached to the bottle of aspirin tablets. She had taken a desperate chance, had played her ace in the hole. And it had come to nothing.

  She couldn’t take this case to the police. She couldn’t even take it to the inspector. It was woven all of moonbeams, gossamer thin….

  She called Mr Nincom’s office, but there was no answer. The great man must still be superintending the screen test which was his wedding present to the luscious Jill.

  She called Chief Sansom, but he seemed to be out. “When he comes back I’ll have him check with you,” was the best information she could get. And finally she called the inspector, both at his hotel and at downtown headquarters. Another blank….

  “Just tell him it’s a ‘4-11’ in Miss Withers’s office,” she left the message. That meant “riot call” in police code.

  She sat there for half an hour, made little meaningless diagrams on sheets of paper. And then finally there came a knock on her door. It was Virgil Dobie, his hair dark as if it had been recently drenched with water.

  “Any luck?” he wanted to know, swaying unsteadily.

  “Not in the slightest,” she advised him.

  He came over to the desk, peered at her scribblings. “You can’t figure out who wrote that note?”

  “No,” she lied. “I can’t. But that’s only one of my headaches….”

  “Speaking of headaches,” said Virgil Dobie pleasantly, “I know a wonderful remedy.”

  “Not aspirin!” she said quickly.

  “No, no drugs at all. It’s a knack I happen to have. You’ve heard about some people rubbing headaches away?”

  She thought that she had heard about that. A combination of the ancient idea of laying on hands and of the powers of massage.

  “I can do it,” Virgil Dobie said, nodding.

  “Thank you so much, but I don’t know—my head seems better,” s
he hedged. “Yes, much better….”

  “Just lean back and relax,” Virgil Dobie said. He came closer, swaying slightly on his feet, though his eyes were clear now. “I’ll fix that headache of yours. It’s a small enough return for what you’ve done for me today….”

  Powerless to move, she sat there in her chair as Dobie bent over her. “You have to relax completely,” he said. And his hand started to stroke her forehead, the long fingers moving upward from the bridge of her nose toward the hairline.

  Then the other hand touched her, pressing gently on her sinuses, against the subtle places near eyes and under nostrils and in front of the ears, relaxing her muscles….

  “Just sink back,” said Virgil Dobie. His voice was very soft, very far away….

  His fingers closed on her temples, pressing deep into the curve just back of her brows….

  “That’s a funny thing about Hollywood,” Dobie was saying in a soft and almost caressing voice. “The tempo of life is speeded up; everything is so hectic and rushing that we all get headaches. Sometimes we make our own headaches. Sometimes we’re shackled to our headaches, the way I was shackled to Saul Stafford.”

  His hands were strong and caressing and very swift now. “You see, Saul was like an ‘Old Man of the Sea’ to me. We were typed as a team, typed forever and ever. I could never get a job without him. I could never get away from him. I didn’t need the work—I have a race system that I think will make me a million dollars. And if it doesn’t it’s fun trying it. But Saul clung to me. He couldn’t drive a car; he couldn’t do anything. He hung on to me. If I cast him off I was set down as a heel….”

  “My headache is all cured,” Miss Withers muttered.

  But Virgil Dobie wasn’t listening. “Funny thing about Saul,” he went on. “He couldn’t drink. When he drank he talked. He talked about a lot of things, but mostly about something that happened years and years ago back in New York. He found out how to commit a murder an easy, perfect way. It worked, and Saul was smart enough not ever to try it again….”

  She tried to sit up, but Virgil Dobie’s hands held her there. “That was a mistake on Saul’s part. Because you never should talk too much. I’m never going to talk too much. Well, maybe right now, because I can’t help it. But not tomorrow….

  “I don’t know why I’m talking now. Heaven knows I didn’t intend to. I hadn’t the slightest idea of telling anybody what I’m telling you. But with you it doesn’t matter…. You see, ever since Saul and I have been working together he’s had the original ideas and I’ve put them into final form. I can take any of Saul’s ideas and work them up into something. So why not take his idea of murder, eh? Of course. Nothing to it….”

  Miss Withers began to struggle, but it was a bit late. Because Virgil Dobie’s right hand was across her forehead, the fingers clamped down on her cheek. And the left hand was on the back of her head, giving a terrific leverage….

  She drew a quick breath, tried to tense the muscles of her neck to resist the terrible pressure that was swinging her head around in an impossible circle….

  In the midst of her agony, in the midst of her terror, there was a cry of exaltation. For this was how the murders had been committed. This was the answer to all her questions….

  There was strange noise|, a sound of roaring in Miss Hildegarde Withers’ ears, and then silence.

  XII

  It does not want to beat any more,

  And why should it beat?

  This is the end of the journey;

  THE THING IS FOUND….

  CHARLOTTE MEW

  “EASY DOES IT,” CAME THE inspector’s voice. Someone was dabbing water in Miss Withers’ face, a sensation that she disliked extremely.

  “I’m perfectly all right,” she insisted, and sat up.

  She was on the couch in her own office. “Sure you’re all right,” the inspector was saying a bit dubiously. “Of course.”

  She frowned at him. “Oscar!”

  “Yes?”

  “How did you manage to arrive just in the nick of time?”

  “Well, if you must know, I didn’t. We were out in the hall for ten minutes or so, listening through the door to your chat with Mr Dobie. He was talking so well that we hated to interrupt.”

  “Well, you certainly waited until the last minute,” she snapped. “He was actually starting to wring my neck when you came in. Where is he, by the way?”

  “The lieutenant and Sansom carted him away,” Oscar Piper admitted. “I hope you don’t mind?”

  “The farther they took him the better I’ll like it,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers fervently. “I’ve had just about as much of Mr Virgil Dobie as I can stand.”

  “I see what you mean,” said the inspector. But just to keep the record clear I hope you won’t mind clarifying a few points. I understand why Virgil Dobie killed Stafford. That’s obvious enough. Stafford got drunk and confessed to him how he’d got rid of Emily Harris back in New York. The perfect murder and all that. So Dobie saw the humor of turning the tables on his collaborator….”

  “Exactly, Oscar. Virgil Dobie wasn’t a creator but he was exceptionally good at taking other people’s ideas and developing them.”

  “Okay, okay. And I understand about his twisting necks when he could get the victim to relax—in Stafford’s case he was supposed to be rubbing away a headache and in the Lillian Gissing job he probably found her passed out. But what I don’t see is, how did he have time to murder Stafford? Was the girl lying when she said she talked to Stafford on the phone after Virgil Dobie left the floor?”

  Miss Withers shook her head. “Dobie saw to it that she called Stafford. It was all part of his alibi. He was checked out by that time. But if the woman who sells neckties could sneak through by walking on her hands and knees, why couldn’t Virgil Dobie? He came up on the floor to fill his tobacco pouch, learned that Saul Stafford was getting wise to things and was planning on calling in a detective—so he checked out only to crawl back and murder the man!”

  “It could be,” Piper admitted. “But from there on …”

  “From there on everything went smoothly. Until Mr Dobie discovered that I was close on his trail. He tried to built up the imaginary character of Derek Laval for a scapegoat. But I got too close to him. That was why he took very special steps to make sure that I wouldn’t survive the trip up to Arrowhead. The studio cars are kept in a garage at the back of this lot, Oscar, and anybody could have access to them. That time he struck down two innocent people but missed me.”

  “And what about Lillian?”

  “He had to kill her, Oscar. There wasn’t any choice by that time. Because, as his secretary, Lillian knew where to look for the canceled checks. You know, the checks that Dobie had made out to an imaginary character, Derek Laval, in order to whittle down his income tax.”

  “But why Laval?”

  “It was just a name, Oscar. Stafford used it in New York, and later when he came out here all the boys started to use it. Whenever any of them got into a jam or wanted to play fast and loose with a girl they stepped into the character of Derek Laval. They signed it to hotel registers, to ribald poetry, to anything….”

  “Like George Spelvin?”

  “Exactly. But you see, the most vulnerable point for Virgil Dobie was that he had written those checks—the ones I almost caught Lillian abstracting from his office. She lied and said she couldn’t find them, but that was only because she hoped to make something of them later. It was at Shapiro’s that she finally got up nerve enough to approach Virgil Dobie and try a bit of polite blackmail, and it was her hard luck that just then the lights went out. She was halfseas over anyway, and Dobie couldn’t resist giving her the same treatment he had given Stafford. Afterward he carried her body downstairs and tried to make it look as if she had fallen.

  “You see, Oscar, Dobie thought he was safe because of his alibi and because he had nothing to gain—nothing directly, that is—from Saul Stafford’s death. He knew that the
insurance policy was outlawed. He knew that without Stafford his writing career might be ended. Of course he didn’t care about that because he had a system for betting the races that he was sure would keep him in luxury the rest of his days and he wanted with all his heart to be rid of Saul Stafford.

  “He took another man’s idea and developed it wholesale. Stafford killed Emily Harris by snapping her neck while he was supposed to be treating her headache—and it was too clever an idea to drop there. Saul Stafford made the fatal mistake of confiding it to his collaborator while in his cups, and that was the beginning of the end.”

  “Well,” said the inspector, “I can take the Harris case out of the ‘Open’ file anyway. But I want to know just one more thing. How did you get Dobie to open up and talk so freely? Up to now he’s been a clam, and all of a sudden you trick him into spilling his life history—”

  Miss Withers showed him the little white card which had been supplied to her by Mr Lothian. “I had to use this,” she explained. “I arranged for the delivery of that big bottle of aspirin, writing the card myself. Virgil Dobie had a guilty conscience about Josef and he would be likely to believe that the man tried to take some sort of revenge. Then after the aspirin I arranged for the arrival of Doctor Evenson and his stomach pump—”

  “All right, all right,” cut in the inspector. “But I don’t see what good the stomach pump would be—”

  “This one was,” Miss Withers advised him. “Because there was no question of pumping Dobie’s stomach at all. That was only aspirin that he took. Doctor Evenson put up quite an argument, but the little white card did its work. You see, Virgil Dobie was very insistent upon not drinking. For fear, quite obviously, that he would get liquored up and talk and give the whole show away. He probably remembered how Saul Stafford talked to him while in his cups. Anyway, I took a cue from a book I read recently—the memoirs of Doctor Joe Catton, chief consulting psychiatrist at Stanford. He tells of how he trapped a malingering killer by giving the man a nasal feeding of eight ounces of scotch whisky and thus breaking down his reserves.