by Craig Rice
“Frightful weather,” Mr. Venning said. His well-bred voice had just the right tinge of British. “After living in the tropics for twenty years, one feels it.” He laughed, not too loudly. “Chicago seemed amazingly strange to me, considering I was born here.”
Michael Venning, Malone thought. The name seemed familiar. He searched his memory. Oh yes, old Michael Venning had made a great fortune in real estate at the turn of the century, and then married the only daughter of one of the wealthier North Shore families. This was their one child.
He looked at Michael Venning with a new interest. He was a tall man, big-boned, heavy around the shoulders, and evidently just beginning to put on weight. His dark hair was starting to gray a little above the temples, and he was deeply tanned. To Malone he seemed to be one of the Americans who, after spending twenty years in the Orient, come home far more British than any of the British themselves, having apparently concentrated on adopting only the more objectionable habits.
Mrs. Venning took a drink and said, “Poor Michael does feel the cold so badly.”
Malone turned to look at her. She too was tall, a trifle rangy. Malone thought most people would be attracted to her, especially those who liked horses. She had that kind of well-built muscular solidity that looked well in any kind of clothes or without them, and moved with the unconscious and unstudied grace that some athletic women develop. Her face, though, was deeply lined, haggard; her dark eyes seemed unhappy and almost frightened. There was one wide streak of pure white that began at one side of her forehead and waved back through her darkbrown hair.
Malone asked her politely if she too came from Chicago.
“Yes, indeed. I was born here, and I grew up here. We’ve only lived in the Orient all this time because Michael liked it.” She spoke in an oddly jerky, nervous manner. Malone had a sudden notion that however Michael might have felt, she hadn’t liked the Orient much.
“We went over to Europe now and then,” Venning said, as though he didn’t expect anyone to care.
Malone’s attention wandered. He thought of Pendley Tidewell and wondered how he was getting on with his developing. Another woman entered the room and sat down close to Editha Venning. Mona McClane introduced her as Louella White.
This was Editha Venning’s companion, Malone remembered. She looked about as companionable as a soldiers’ and sailors’ monument. Louella White was a large woman, wide-bosomed, with flat, substantial feet, thick ankles, and muscular arms, dressed in an unbecoming and perfectly plain brown satin dress. Her big, expressionless face was as hard, uncompromising, and undecorated as the alley side of a Loop building, save that her eyebrows were plucked to fine, curved lines. Her crimped hair was a reddish brown, probably dyed, Malone thought. She opened a knitting bag, took out some shapeless article and a mass of heavy dark-gray yarn, and began to knit, with machine-like rhythm.
“Red Cross?” he asked politely.
She lifted her eyes to his face for a fraction of a second, looked back at the knitting again, and said, “No.”
He had a vague and uncomfortable notion that he ought to make conversation with her, everyone else in the room seemed to be occupied in talk.
“Are you making a sweater?”
“Yes.” This time she didn’t look up.
He was a little discouraged, but couldn’t resist the challenge. He tried again.
“I suppose you’re glad to be back in Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“Or did you enjoy living in the Orient?”
“No.”
Malone had just admitted defeat when Helene returned. She had changed into a clinging, soft wool dress the exact color of ripe wheat, and rearranged her sleek, pale-gold hair. Malone wished fervently that Jake could get one look at her right now, just one.
The girl who came into the room with Helene was introduced as Lotus Allen. She would have been better named Jane, Malone thought. Her smooth, well-brushed hair was just plain hair color and was drawn back from her face into a heavy coil on the back of her neck. There was something pleasantly and indescribably ordinary about her. She had what were usually described as good features and a healthy skin; she was of average height, with a trim, well-organized figure. Any man who did take a second look at her would probably take a great many more, and approving ones. It was the second look that would be the hurdle.
“I don’t think Ross will show up,” she said to Mona McClane.
Mona McClane raised one eyebrow slightly. “Again?”
The girl nodded. “He’s been plastered now since New Year’s. It’s almost a record.” She picked up a tall glass, sat down, and smiled impartially at everybody.
Mona McClane said, “But where is Mr. Tuesday?” Nobody answered. Then she added, “I forgot none of you have met him.” She rang for the maid. “I’m so anxious for you to meet him.” Malone had the feeling that Mona was talking for his benefit. He wondered why.
She sent the maid to ask Mr. Tuesday to step downstairs, and said, “He only arrived in town this morning. He’s very charming and interesting.”
Malone suddenly became conscious of the fact that Louella White was managing to watch everyone in the room, without seeming to take her small, beady eyes off her knitting.
“Where’s Mr. Tuesday from?” Lotus Allen asked.
Mona said, “He’s also from the Orient. I’m sure he and the Vennings will have so much in common.”
The maid reappeared a moment later. Her carefully restrained face was very pale.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but Mr. Tuesday isn’t coming down.”
Lotus Allen put down her glass and said, “Good God. Don’t tell me he’s plastered, too.”
“No, Miss Allen.” The maid turned back to Mona McClane. “I’m sorry, ma’am. But Mr. Tuesday’s dead.”
Chapter Ten
Mr. Tuesday—Mr. Gerald Tuesday, Malone learned later—had not been dead very long. The little lawyer, mounting the steps three leaps ahead of everyone else, found him slumped over a small writing desk. The fingers of one of his hands were curled around the telephone, which lay crookedly in its hook as though it had been carelessly replaced there. His body was awkwardly in the chair, half falling. The fingers of the other hand loosely held a crumpled bit of paper.
There was a knife wound in his back, just below the right shoulder blade.
Malone suddenly realized that the other guests had collected just inside the door. Mona McClane took a few steps into the room.
“What a shame.” There was no emotion in her voice save polite regret. “I had so wanted you to meet Mr. Tuesday.”
Malone glanced at her face, hoping to find the emotion so curiously absent from her voice. She was pale, but serene. Helene pushed her way into the room and caught at the lawyer’s arm.
“Malone, he’s been murdered!”
“I noticed it,” Malone said coldly. He straightened up from a brief examination of the body and faced the group by the door. “Before we call the police, does anyone here want to consult me professionally? I’m considered the best defense attorney in the city of Chicago.”
There was a tiny gasp—he couldn’t tell where it came from—and then silence.
Malone sighed, shook his head, and signaled to the maid. “All right, you’d better call the police. Tell them there’s been a murder in the house.”
The maid said, “Yes, sir,” automatically, and scuttled down the hall.
Malone took out a cigar, began to unwrap it slowly and with exquisite care, suddenly glanced at the dead man, and put it back in his pocket.
“You’ll find it helpful later,” he said very casually, “if, before the police get here, you get your stories straight. It’ll save you a lot of bother,”
Michael Venning looked surprised and a trifle annoyed. “You don’t fancy the police will need to ask us a lot of questions, do you?”
Helene said, “You’d be amazed at the questions the police can ask. You’d better take Malone’s advice.”
&nb
sp; “But look here,” Venning said. “None of us had even met the beggar. I’d never been introduced to him.”
“The police,” Malone said wearily, “have never accepted lack of a formal introduction as proof of innocence.” He looked at Venning coldly. “This man has only been dead a few minutes. Less than a half-hour, anyway. Where had you been before you came in the house just now?”
Venning frowned. “Oh, very well, if you think that it’s necessary.” He pronounced it “necess’ry.” “My wife and I were walking, out on the Drive. We went out immediately after lunch. Editha wanted to do a bit of shopping, and then we walked up to the Park and back.”
“That’s right,” Editha Venning said. “We’ve been out ever since lunch.”
“Who has been in the house this afternoon?” Malone asked.
“I have,” Mona McClane said. “I rested awhile after luncheon, and then until you arrived I was conferring with the cook about tomorrow’s dinner. I haven’t been upstairs since about three o’clock, though I don’t suppose I could prove that if I had to.”
“How about you?” Malone asked Lotus Allen.
“I’ve been in all afternoon. I was doing my nails when I heard Mrs. Justus come up the stairs. Then I went down the hall to see what kind of shape Ross was in, and I found he’d passed out cold. When I came back from seeing about him, I met Mrs. Justus coming out of her room, and came downstairs with her.”
Malone nodded approvingly. Lotus Allen—he kept thinking of her as Jane—was a good, practical girl. “What about this Ross?”
“His name’s Ross McLaurin,” Mona said. “He was a little drunk at lunch, but not unusually. As far as I know, he’s been shut up in his room with a bottle of bourbon all afternoon.”
“Where’s the candid-camera fiend?”
Mona McClane said, “He’s probably been locked in the darkroom ever since he ran upstairs with his camera.”
Malone nodded and glanced around the room. His eye fell on Louella White. A swell candidate for a murderess, he thought, except that she’d probably do her murdering in a haunted house, and with an ax.
“Were you in the house all afternoon, Miss White?”
“Yes.”
“Had you been downstairs before you came into the living room?”
“No.”
“You were upstairs all afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Just exactly where?”
She drew a long breath, and said, “My room.”
At least he’d got two words out of her, Malone told himself. Hearing von Flanagan trying to question the hard-faced companion would be well worth the price of admission.
“Well,” he said, “this man may have been murdered before Mrs. Justus and I arrived, or after. But if—”
“It was after,” Helene said suddenly.
Everyone stared at her.
“I came up the stairs to change my dress.” There was a curiously flickering light in her eyes. “His door is right at the head of the stairs, and when I came up, it was open. He was sitting there at the desk, his back to me, looking in the telephone book.”
“Alive?” Michael Venning said incredulously.
“Obviously,” Helene said.
“Was he alive when you came downstairs again?” Malone asked.
“I don’t know. His door was closed. He might have been—being murdered—right then. I suppose the murderer would have closed the door.”
This time the gasp came from Editha Venning. Her husband said, “Look here, we don’t all have to stay up here with that. I’m going downstairs and have a drink.”
“Me too,” Lotus Allen said weakly.
“We all will,” Mona McClane said. “We might as well be comfortable while we wait for the police.” She smiled almost impishly. “What to do until the policeman comes.”
She led the way into the hall. Malone observed that Louella White took Mrs. Venning’s arm. More like a police matron than a companion, he thought, but the very rich had funny tastes. He took another look around the room. The position of the telephone puzzled him a little. The scrap of crumpled paper had half slipped from the dead man’s fingers; almost absent-mindedly Malone picked it up and smoothed it out.
There was nothing on it save a number: “114.”
He crumpled it up again, dropped it back where he had found it, and followed the others downstairs.
One-fourteen. There was something maddeningly reminiscent about that. Something to do with a murder, too.
He could hear the sound of excited conversation from the living room. Everyone seemed to be trying to outtalk everyone else. He heard Michael Venning’s carefully modulated voice saying, “I remember once in Calcutta, in 1929,” and Lotus Allen’s New Englandish voice cutting across it with, “Well anyway, Ross won’t be suspected, he must have been passed out for hours,” and the maid saying, “Scotch or bourbon, Mrs. Venning?”
Mona McClane was waiting for him on the bottom step.
“You didn’t plan this, by any chance, when you invited me over?” he asked.
She smiled at him as though he didn’t mean it. “No, I didn’t. I did plan something, but this has spoiled it. I didn’t murder that man, either, if that’s what you were going to ask.”
“I wasn’t,” he told her. “Who was Gerald Tuesday?”
“Just a house guest,” she said lightly. “Someone I’d met abroad. Mutual friends wrote me he was coming to Chicago, and so of course I invited him to stay here.”
“All right,” Malone said. He took the cigar out again, this time he finished unwrapping it. “If that’s your story, I hope it’ll stand up.”
“It will,” she said coolly.
He had started to follow her into the living room, when Helene came down the hall and clutched at his arm.
“Malone!” It was a low, insistent whisper. “This isn’t—or is it?”
“Don’t ask riddles and don’t hiss. What do you mean?”
“Mona’s murder.”
He looked at her a moment before answering. “You’re forgetting the terms of the bet again. This man wasn’t shot down in the public streets, with plenty of witnesses. He was stabbed, just like the other—”
“Like the other what?”
“Man—who—was—stabbed,” he said automatically. He had just remembered why that number, 114, was familiar.
“Malone—”
“Never mind now. How do the telephones work in this house? What kind of a system is it?”
“Extension phones. A call can be picked up on any telephone. Or you can pick up any telephone and call an outside number. There are three lines, in case one is busy, and every telephone has a little switch connected with it.”
“Then you could make a telephone call from any phone in the house, without anyone else knowing it?”
“Yes, unless someone happened to pick up another phone hitched to the same line while you were making it. When that happens, the person picking up the phone is supposed to press the little switch, unless he’s curious and feels like eavesdropping.”
“Thanks,” Malone said. He was silent a moment. “Now I want to make a call. Where’s the nearest phone?”
She led him to a little closet down the hall. He said, “Wait for me,” closed the door, and dialed the number of his office. After a minute Maggie’s voice answered.
“I was just going home, Mr. Malone.”
“Go ahead. Tell me first, have I had any calls in the last hour or so?”
“Two. One from Louie, about his check. I don’t know who the other was from.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean whoever it was didn’t say. I answered the phone and a funny-sounding voice said, ‘Malone.’ It sounded like a voice from Mars. I started to say you weren’t in, and the voice said, ‘Malone. One-fourteen. One-fourteen.’ Then before I had a chance to say another word, he hung up. Just like that.”
Back in the hall, Malone told Helene, “I think I know who he w
as looking for in the phone book.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Before either of them could say another word, there was a sudden sound from the dead man’s room, and another. Someone was moving about.
For just an instant they stared at each other, then Malone raced up the steps, two at a time. At the door to the room he paused, one hand clutching the door jamb, then pushed it open.
The six-foot Pendley Tidewell, camera in hand, was stretched flat on the floor in the middle of the room, engaged in photographing the murdered man.
Before Malone could say a word, his attention was distracted by a thin sliver of white paper protruding from under the desk blotter. While Pendley Tidewell apologetically gathered up his photographic equipment, the little lawyer had slipped the paper out from under the blotter into his own pocket.
Not until the young photographer had gone did Malone examine his find. Then he read it through silently, his face expressionless, and handed it to Helene without a word.
It appeared to be the second page of a letter, written in a decisive, vertical handwriting.
“No one can pin a crime on a man who’s been dead for twenty years.”
Malone said, “He probably was writing it when he heard someone in the hall, and slipped it under the blotter.” His brows drew together in a heavy scowl. “If you ask me what it means, it’ll be the last thing you ever ask me.”
He stowed the note carefully in an inside pocket and led the way downstairs.
Chapter Eleven
“… according to John J. Malone, prominent attorney, who happened to be in the house at the time of the tragedy. It is believed that Tuesday was the victim of a burglar. Captain Daniel von Flanagan promises an early arrest.…”
Jake Justus crumpled up the paper and threw it on the floor. “It’s unbelievable how they go on falling for that old burglary gag after all these years.”
Malone poured an inch of rye into his glass. “Hell, von Flanagan had to tell the papers something. He could hardly say, ‘There were a bunch of people in the house when this Tuesday guy got knocked off, but I’m damned if I know which one to pick.’”