The Right Murder

by Craig Rice

  The Right Murder

  Craig Rice

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  Chapter One

  The pudgy, red-faced man sitting alone at the bar was crying into his gin. From time to time he raised his glass, drank from it, stared into it as though it were a crystal ball reflecting all the sorrows of the world, and set it down again.

  It didn’t matter to him that the other customers in Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar—most of them his friends, too—were having a wonderful time. Even the loud trio at the 26-Game table didn’t distract him. Once he did lift his head when he realized that the group of men next to him was celebrating the election. He lifted his head because it puzzled him. The election had been over two months ago. Then he discovered it was Cleveland’s election they were celebrating, and returned to his incipient melancholia.

  The short, stocky, red-faced man was John J. Malone, Chicago’s most famous criminal lawyer. At the moment, he was also the unhappiest man on earth.

  It wasn’t just because the long-legged brunette from Chez Paree had hocked his expensive Christmas present and gone off to New York with a new prospect. It wasn’t because he had reached that stage of being broke where the only thing he could afford to do was to get expensively drunk. Nor was it because this was New Year’s Eve and he was all alone in the big city. It was just that the two people he liked best in the world had gone off to Bermuda on their honeymoon, and he missed them.

  Malone pushed the thinning, damp black hair back from his forehead, mopped his face, shoved his empty glass and a five-dollar bill at Joe the Angel, and said, “Let me know when this is used up.”

  If Jake were only here. Red-haired Jake Justus was the greatest press agent alive, just as, by his own admission, he’d been the greatest reporter on earth until the Examiner fired him. If Helene were only here. Helene—blonde, beautiful, rich, glamorous, the terror of the traffic department and the delight of every bartender between Lake Bluff and Gary. But Jake and Helene were honeymooning in Bermuda. John J. Malone hoped Jake and Helene were having a wonderful time, and cried into his gin.

  The four men to his immediate right began singing Did Your Mother Come from Ireland? The little lawyer roused himself long enough to wonder why it was that whenever four men sing in a barroom, three of them turn out to be Irish.

  A city-hall hanger-on chose that inauspicious moment to edge up to him and say chummily, “Say, I hear you certainly were a lot of help in clearing up those State and Madison shootings.”

  Malone said, “Sorry, I’d like to buy you a drink, but—”

  “That’s O.K., pal. Did the girl really confess to you that she’d done the killings?”

  The morose man stemmed the flood of questions with a long, cold, and perfectly vacant stare.

  “You’re John J. Malone, aren’t you?”

  “Hell no,” the lawyer said. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m Admiral Byrd.”

  The intruder took the hint and went quietly away.

  John J. Malone heaved a long, indrawn, and outgoing sigh that would have pulverized a heart of stone, ordered another gin, and wished that the subject of murder hadn’t been called to his mind.

  He knew he would have to make one more mental excursion over the events of the past few weeks.

  The day Jake and Helene had been married, Jake had made a bet. The other half of the bet had been the much married, magnetic social leader, aviator, author, explorer, millionairess—Mona McClane. She had bet Jake that she could commit a murder, and Jake would never find it out. The stake had been the far-famed Casino, Chicago’s favorite drinking and dancing spot.

  Then someone had been murdered, several people, in fact, and Malone, Helene, and Jake had worn themselves to a frazzle pinning it on Mona McClane, only to find out that it was somebody else’s murder all the time, which was okay, except that Mona insisted they had followed the wrong corpse.

  Now Malone found himself in the uncomfortable position of knowing that a murder had been committed and knowing the identity of the murderer, without knowing the identity of the victim. It irked him. It wasn’t his bet, and it wasn’t his business, but it bothered him just the same. If Jake and Helene were only here.

  Malone discovered he was crying into an empty glass. He called for another gin and said, “Remember, Joe, I want to go home at five minutes after twelve, even if it is New Year’s.” He knew that he wouldn’t.

  Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar was small and far from ornate, but it was handy. One longish, narrow room, the bar running from end to end, the extra space occupied by the 26-Game table, a few small tables and chairs, and a telephone booth—that was all. But it was located in the very heart of Chicago’s Loop, and you couldn’t toss a stone in any direction from its doorway without hitting a politician who probably deserved it. If you wanted to bet on a horse, cash a check, get an interview with the mayor, meet the buxom, red-haired girl in the Rialto chorus, or just buy a drink, Joe the Angel could fix you up. He was one of John J. Malone’s closest friends, and he knew enough to keep the gin flowing and his mouth shut.

  The group at John J. Malone’s right had stopped singing Did Your Mother Come from Ireland? and were trying to remember the opening bars of Killarney’s Lakes and Dells The little lawyer sighed again. On top of all his other troubles, he could foresee exactly how the night was going to end. He was going to be drawn into conversation with some of the men at the bar. People would start buying drinks for each other. He would lend his silver-plated tenor to There’s a Little Bit of Heaven, and be coaxed into reciting the “Elegy for Robert Emmet.” They—he and his new-found friends—would move to a number of other bars, ending up in Cicero. There would be a fight and he would get the collar torn off his shirt by some perfect stranger from Rock Island. He would wake up eventually, either jailed for disorderly conduct or in some woman’s apartment at least a forty-five-minute train ride from the Chicago Loop.

  He knew the night was going to end that way, because that was the way they always did.

  John J. Malone held out his glass to be refilled, emptied it with one breath, and reminded himself that tomorrow morning was the beginning of a new year, and he was going to start life all over again.

  He heard the door open and close. He looked up and saw Joe the Angel’s face whiten a shade and then freeze grotesquely into an expression of horror.

  “Malone!”

  The voice that screamed it was strained, hoarse, terrible, a travesty of a voice. Malone wheeled around on the bar stool.

  A man had come in the door and stood there clinging to the knob with one white-knuckled hand. He was a stranger to John J. Malone. He was hatless, and tiny bits of snow glistened on his smooth, black hair. He was a tall man, lean and angular, dressed in a mustard tweed suit, with a badly worn but expensive camel’s hair topcoat thrown back on his shoulders. There was a deep tan on his big-boned, deeply lined face, but the color now was a hideous, bloodless gray.

  He took two steps into the room.

  “Malone—”

  There was a ghastly, bubbling sound in the voice.

  The crowd in Joe the Angel’s bar was still as death. The man took one more step, and held out his hand Almost automatically, without thinking, John J. Malone reached out his own hand to grasp it. The hand clasped his and loosened again. He felt something hard and cold slip into his palm.

  Then the stranger began to fall. First his knees buckled—slowly—so that he sank to the floor in an attitude of prayer, his hands outstretched in front of him. A look of horror and incredulity came over his colorless face. Then he fell backward, his head striking the wood floor with a strange, hollow sound. One knee unbent, the foot flying out in a curious, springing movement; the other leg remained crooked under him. There was a s
udden, horrible twitching that shook his entire frame and then, just as suddenly, he lay still.

  John J. Malone was the first to move. He slid off the bar stool, lurched only a trifle, and knelt beside the twisted figure on the floor. After a divided second he rose, drew a nickel from his pocket, and threw it on the bar.

  “Gimme a slug.”

  Joe the Angel handed him a telephone slug. No one else moved.

  The little lawyer crossed the narrow room to the telephone booth, dropped the slug in the telephone, and dialed POL-1313

  “Send a squad car to Joe the Angel’s, on Dearborn Street. There’s a dead man on the floor.”

  He slammed down the receiver after missing the hook on the first try.

  At exactly that moment hell broke loose. The radio back of the bar began to let forth sounds that rocked the little machine. Outside, whistles began to scream, bells clanged, and the off-pitch roar of voices was heard all the way from State Street where the crowds were gathered.

  It was twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve, the beginning of a new year.

  John J. Malone swallowed the gin he had left on the bar. When it had set the blood moving in his veins again the little lawyer opened his hand and looked at what the stranger had slipped there in the last moment of his life.

  It was a key. An ordinary key, with the number 114 printed on its handle.

  Chapter Two

  “I tell you I never saw the guy before,” John J. Malone repeated. “I haven’t the faintest idea who he was. He came into Joe the Angel’s bar and dropped dead on the floor at exactly two minutes to twelve, and that’s every last thing I know about him.”

  “Don’t try to give me that noise, Malone.” Daniel von Flanagan of the homicide division scowled heavily. He was a tall, big man, somewhere near middle age, with a large moon face and thinning, gray hair. “You must’ve known him because he knew you. He made it to Joe the Angel’s bar from some place up the street with a knife in his ribs, and hollered ‘Malone.’”

  “He mistook me for someone else,” the lawyer said.

  Von Flanagan snorted loudly. “Come on, who was he? A client? Or just somebody a client of yours was using for target practice?”

  “He was a perfect stranger to me,” Malone insisted. He added under his breath, “And I wish to God you were.”

  It was sometime between two and three by the big electric clock in von Flanagan’s office. The first squad car had arrived at Joe the Angel’s bar just as the last echoes of the twelve o’clock racket were dying away. The dead-wagon had arrived from the morgue thirty seconds later. That was routine. However, since it was New Year’s Eve, locating anyone in authority had taken a little time. The deadlock in von Flanagan’s office was only starting its second hour now.

  John J. Malone was even unhappier than before, and in addition he felt terrible. It had been two hours and twenty-five minutes since the last drink of gin, and the after effects of the preceding gins were beginning to take hold. He felt that his arms, legs, and head were a little too heavy for the rest of him, and he had a vague notion that small green men were sitting on his shoulders, poking miniature battering rams into his ears.

  “Why pick on me,” he said morosely, “just because I happened to be sitting quietly in a barroom when some bum gets mixed up in a knifing?”

  “He was no bum,” von Flanagan said. “Not that guy. He had over four hundred bucks in his kick and a fancy Swiss watch strapped on his wrist.”

  “All right,” Malone said, with an attempt at amiability. “He wasn’t a bum. That proves I couldn’t have known him. Let’s call the whole thing off. If you ask me, headquarters is one hell of a place to spend New Year’s Eve.”

  “You should talk,” von Flanagan growled. “What if you had my job? Damn it, Malone, I never wanted to be a cop. As soon as I get enough dough saved up to buy a little weekly newspaper some place in the country, I’m gonna quit. This just goes to show you. Here I was at a New Year’s party at my brother-in-law’s—” He paused, looked thoughtful, and added, “Not but what it wasn’t a stinking party, anyway. What’dya say, Malone, when I get through with this mess—I think we could still make the last floor show at the Grand Terrace?”

  The little lawyer’s face brightened. He looked at his watch and said, “I guess we could.”

  “Fine,” von Flanagan said heartily. “Now about this guy—” He scowled. “Why couldn’t he of fell over right where he was, in some place where somebody might of known him, instead of walking all over town just to make it hard for me. Somebody stuck him in the ribs, just below his right shoulder blade. If it’d been on the other side, he probably would of died right then and there. But no, he has to—”

  “How far does the doc think he walked?” Malone interrupted.

  “Hell, he can’t say. Chances are he didn’t get more’n a coupla blocks before internal hemorrhage carried him off but that don’t prove nothing.” Von Flanagan spoke bitterly.

  “Well, I was only trying to help,” the lawyer said in an injured tone. Suddenly he frowned. “Funny he wouldn’t have any kind of identification on him. This is none of my business, but do you mind if I take a good look at his clothes?”

  “Not a bit,” von Flanagan told him, a shade more hopefully than before. “Take another look at him, too. I’ve got to go back to the morgue anyway and you might as well come along to keep me company.”

  “Remember, though, I’m not mixing up in this,” Malone said, as he struggled into his overcoat.

  “Oh, sure,” the police official assured him, almost too heartily. “As long as you’re positive you don’t know who he was, and why he came into Joe the Angel’s bar hollering for you, why it’s none of your affair. You’re just helping me out a little tonight, that’s all. You’re not mixed up in it a bit.”

  The lawyer hoped von Flanagan was right, but he didn’t believe it.

  The stranger who had stumbled into Joe the Angel’s bar had been a handsome and impressive figure. He appeared so even now, in the gloomy austerity of the Cook County morgue. He had been tall, big-boned, and muscular, with a lean, large-featured face. It had been a hard face, almost cruel; seen even now against the white-sheeted table, it had an expression of grim, inexorable force, a determination that persisted even in death.

  “Tough-looking mug,” von Flanagan needlessly commented.

  The dead man’s hair had been chestnut brown, almost black, coarse and heavy, and perfectly straight. The skin on his chest and upper arms was delicately white, almost womanish, but where it had been exposed to sun and wind it was a deep, leathery brown. Malone guessed that his eyes had been either gray or blue, probably gray.

  “Sure you don’t know him?” von Flanagan asked.

  The lawyer shook his head. “Not from Adam. Never saw him in my life.” He felt almost entirely sober now, but still extremely uncomfortable. He wished he had a drink. The spectacle of the unidentified man starting the new year in the Cook County morgue depressed him.

  “Let’s look at his clothes,” he told von Flanagan.

  The camel’s hair topcoat and mustard tweed suit were piled together untidily on a nicked brown wooden table. Malone poked at them absently, picked up the white broadcloth shirt and examined it, ran a finger over the heavy tan brogues. Suddenly he stood stock-still, his face expressionless, staring at the heap of clothing.

  “What time did it stop snowing tonight?”

  Von Flanagan blinked. “Sometime around midnight. I can find out exactly when it was, if you want me to.”

  “I do,” the lawyer said. While von Flanagan telephoned to the weather bureau, he continued to stand by the table, his eyes fixed on the dead man’s clothing, yet seeing something twenty blocks away.

  Von Flanagan came back and reported, “It stopped snowing at eleven-forty. Can you make something of it?”

  “Twenty minutes to twelve,” Malone said absent-mindedly. He was silent for a moment, then spoke almost dreamily. “When this guy came into Joe the Angel�
��s bar, it was three or four minutes before twelve. He had snow on his shoes, plenty of it, so he’d been walking. But there wasn’t any snow on his clothes, so it hadn’t been snowing when he was walking. Snow would have stuck to that fuzzy topcoat.” He drew a long breath. “This guy walked to Joe the Angel’s from someplace under seventeen or eighteen minutes’ walking distance, maybe less, but certainly not more. The medical examiner said he’d had a drink or two just before he was killed, not many, but one or two. Now you can try all the places where he might have got a drink within a few blocks of Joe the Angel’s, and see if you can find anybody who remembers him.”

  Von Flanagan looked at him. “I never would of thought of that.”

  “I think of everything,” the lawyer said smugly. He picked up the mustard tweed trousers and examined them, ran a quick glance over the camel’s hair topcoat. “He fell down, once or maybe twice. Mud on his knees and elbows, a little on the front of his coat, fresh mud. Fell down, maybe lay there a few minutes, dished himself out a last batch of energy and got up again.”

  “Finding you must have been pretty important,” von Flanagan said softly.

  Malone ignored him. He picked up the coat of the tweed suit in one hand and one of the tan brogues in the other. “These clothes tell something else, too, if you weren’t too dumb to see it for yourself.”

  The police officer blinked. “I’m just a cop. What else?”

  “These shoes were bought in England and the suit was made there. You can’t get either in this country. Neither are very badly worn. He hasn’t been wearing them more than two months at the most. You might try to find out if some guy looking like this came into the country within the last couple of months and maybe you can find out who he was.”

  “Thanks, Malone,” von Flanagan said explosively. “I want you to know I really appreciate—” He paused, scowled, and said, “But I can’t figure out why he came into Joe the Angel’s and bawled for you.”

  “I never saw him and I never heard of him,” Malone said crossly. One hand slipped into his coat pocket and felt of the key the stranger in his last moment of life had put in his hand. He wished he had a chance to take it out and examine it. “Let’s get the hell out of here, I want a drink.”