The Right Murder

by Craig Rice

  He sipped his rye and reviewed in his mind the floor plans of the McClane mansion. There was the big staircase that went up from the central hall. Gerald Tuesday’s room had been at the head of it, in a little ell, with its door toward the stairs. Helene’s room was down the hall to the right. Lotus Allen’s room was across from it, and Louella White’s next door. Ross McLaurin’s was down at the end of the hall, just past the little staircase that ended near the side door. Pendley Tidewell’s darkroom was at the very end of the hall, toward the rear. Those five had been upstairs when Gerald Tuesday was killed.

  Downstairs—He sighed, and refilled his glass. There was the time element to consider, too. Helene had seen Tuesday alive, sitting at his desk, just after their arrival. That had been at five minutes after four. She had just come downstairs when the maid was sent to Tuesday’s room and found him dead. That had been at twenty-five minutes after four. During those twenty minutes in which Tuesday had been killed, Mona McClane had been downstairs—he had been in the same room with her—Helene, Lotus Allen, young McLaurin, Tidewell, and Louella White had been upstairs. The Vennings had been out walking on the Drive during most of that time. When they came in—he had heard them himself—they had come straight into the living room, without going upstairs.

  Jake interrupted his reverie, asking very casually, “You haven’t heard anything from Helene, have you?”

  “Would you expect me to hear from Helene?”

  Jake turned faintly pink and said. “Well, I thought she might have sent you a postcard from Havana.”

  “She probably hasn’t had time,” Malone told him. “You know what those Cubans are.”

  Keeping Helene’s name out of the newspaper accounts of the murder had taken a little doing, but Malone had managed it. He considered it well worth the effort.

  The little lawyer had come to a very positive conviction about the situation. The rock in Jake and Helene’s progress had been pride, which was not only a sin, but a lot of damned foolishness. However, there it was. If, he reasoned, they could be kept from running into each other too soon, everything would be all right. In the meantime, keeping them apart was going to be a tricky business, which was just the kind of business he liked.

  Jake scowled at the newspaper. “Who are all these people?”

  Malone drew a long breath. “Even you ought to be familiar with the Venning estate. Michael Venning is the Venning estate. He’s never done anything for it except cash the checks. Just returned to this country for his first visit in twenty years. Been living in the Orient—India, Singapore, Shanghai—because he liked it there. Big, beefy guy, looks as though he might have an ugly temper and no brains worth mentioning. His wife is a tall, graceful dame with a figure like a very beautiful horse. Looks like Lady Macbeth with a bad hang-over. Can’t figure if she has this granite-puss nurse just to keep her company or because she’s a dopey. She’s of the Putnams, of Lake Forest and Charlevoix.”

  Jake made an insulting, clucking noise with his teeth and said, “We could bill you as Genevieve Malone and get you a job writing society columns. Hand me the bottle and go on with your story.”

  “The McLaurin boy was still passed out when I left. Good-looking even when cockeyed, in an appealingly revolting sort of way. He was the only child of the sort of dame who buys six pairs of British-made shoes, finds a nice island in the Mediterranean, and lives there the rest of her life. He was brought up there and in swanky private schools. Mamma kicked the bucket about a year ago, and the cutting of the apron strings was a nasty sock. Mona McClane was a close pal of his old lady, so she’s taken him under her wing.”

  Jake muttered something to the effect that anyone under Mona McClane’s wing had better have a parachute along, and said, “Don’t let me interrupt you. How about this Lotus Allen?”

  “She’s the sort of expensive Massachusetts girl who instinctively wears the right clothes on every occasion. Damned good-looking, in a restrained sort of way. Imported tweeds, hand-knit sweaters, sport scarves, and black chiffon underwear. The sort of girl who wouldn’t seem like a prig if she didn’t drink, but she does, and she probably spits and swears, too.”

  “Did you make a date with her?” Jake asked.

  Malone said, “She has her eye on McLaurin. I suspect that’s why she’s visiting Mona McClane.”

  “That does up the suspects,” Jake said. “Now who was the corpse? Outside of being a Mr. Gerald Tuesday.”

  “Nobody seems to know,” Malone said, “including Mona McClane. She’d met him somewhere in Europe a few years ago—Paris, I guess. Got acquainted with him there. Some mutual friend wrote Mona that he was coming to Chicago, and she got in touch with him and invited him to stay with her. That’s about all anyone knows. After all, he’d just arrived in town, and nobody in the house had met him except Mona McClane. Von Flanagan’s losing his mind trying to find out about him now”

  Jake scowled. “His murder doesn’t fulfill the terms of Mona’s bet. But there must be some connection. He was murdered in her house. His dying act was to try to telephone you. Evidently he knew about the bet.” Jake drew a long breath and said, “I want to talk to Mona. I think I’ll go over there right now.”

  Involuntarily Malone exclaimed, “Oh no, you can’t do that,” and stopped suddenly.

  “Why can’t I go to see Mona McClane?”

  “She’s suffering from shock,” Malone said quickly.

  “You’re full of little bananas. That woman wouldn’t suffer from shock after a mass dynamiting.”

  “She’s just had a murder in her house. That’s bound to be a little upsetting.”

  “All right, so she’s upset. You always said yourself you could get more out of people by talking with them when they were upset.”

  “It’s late and I’m tired.”

  “It’s nine o’clock, and if you’re that tired, I’ll go alone.”

  “No, no, no,” Malone said. “If you insist on going, I’ll go with you.” He was thinking fast. For Jake to run into Helene at Mona McClane’s so early in the game might imperil the chances of a future reconciliation. And if Jake discovered that Helene’s presence in the city had been kept from him, there would be hell to pay, with Malone on the paying end.

  He went on thinking fast all the way down in the elevator. There was no way he could get Helene out of the McClane house. He could hardly explain the situation to Mona McClane, even if he could manage a private telephone call on the way.

  They hailed a taxi in front of the apartment hotel and Jake gave the Lake Shore Drive address of Mona McClane. Malone leaned forward and said, “But first, driver, go to Rickett’s.”

  Jake said, “What’s the idea?”

  “I haven’t had any dinner yet. Mona’s Scotch on top of an empty stomach, and I’d fall flat on my face. We’ll get some food first, and then go and have a long talk with her.”

  Jake sighed heavily, and leaned back against the cushions. It seemed good to be out of the apartment he had taken for his and Helene’s return to the city. Not that it wasn’t a nice apartment, but it was too damned reminiscent. All in all, it had been a dreary day.

  “Do you want to hear what I found out about the Chicago homicides of the past three weeks?”

  “Later,” Malone said.

  The cab dropped them in front of Rickett’s. At the door leading to the bar Malone paused, one hand resting on the knob. He had seen a certain shade of blonde hair among the heads at the bar. Of course there might be other women in the city with hair that particular pale gold, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Suddenly he wheeled around, took Jake by the arm, and started west on Chicago Avenue.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  “Just remembered. Gotta make a phone call.”

  “Couldn’t you make it from Rickett’s?”

  “Not this call.”

  At the corner drugstore he went in, bought a slug, and walked back to the phone booth. Jake, looking very dubious about the whole thing, hovered by the
door to the booth. After a moment of thought, Malone had a flash of inspiration and called the weather bureau. He wanted to know if it had been snowing that afternoon.

  No, it had not been snowing. The thermometer had hovered around forty-five degrees.

  Then had there been any rain?

  Yes, there had been one short, heavy rainfall during the afternoon.

  “There.” Malone said happily. “That’s the one I mean. Exactly what time did it occur?”

  It was a little while before the weather bureau reported that the rain had started falling at four-ten, rained hard for fifteen minutes, and stopped falling at about four-thirty-five.

  Malone thanked the weather bureau profusely and hung up. He tried to think of someone else he might call, but inspiration refused to deliver.

  Jake said in anguished exasperation, “Come on and get your damned dinner and let’s get up to Mona’s. This may not seem important to you, but it is to me.”

  The little lawyer allowed himself to be led out to the sidewalk. He was just asking providence to suggest the next move, when he saw a little group of people getting into a car halfway down the street. His eye caught the gleam of electric light on pale-gold hair.

  “All right, but let me eat in peace. Don’t heckle me.”

  There was a chance that Rickett’s would be crowded, and it would take a long time to be waited on. It was not. They had barely reached the table before a waitress appeared.

  “Three double ryes,” Malone said. “I mean two triple ryes. Anyway, hurry.”

  The girl fled toward the bar.

  Jake said crossly, “I thought you wanted food.”

  “I do,” Malone assured him. “Alcohol is a food. Do you know how long it’s possible for a human being to exist entirely on alcohol?”

  “No,” Jake said. “Someone always sobered me up before I had a chance to find out. But you said you hadn’t had any dinner. You said—”

  “That’s right,” Malone said hastily, remembering. He looked over the menu, found a special steak that took thirty minutes to prepare, and ordered it when the girl returned. “Wait a minute.” He downed the rye in one shuddering gulp, handed her the glass and said, “Fill this up first. It’s an emergency.”

  It was just a matter of using up time, now.

  Jake sat silent, watching the little lawyer anxiously. There was something about his behavior that didn’t seem quite normal.

  Eventually the steak arrived. Malone glared at it. “I said well done.”

  “You very positively said rare,” the girl told him.

  Malone scowled at her, poked a fork into the steak and lifted it up so that a broad stripe of scarlet showed. “Call this rare? Call this even cooked?” He flopped it down disgustedly. “Damn it, I’ve seen steers hurt worse than this, and get well.”

  The waitress drew a long breath. “Do you wish me to take it back, sir?”

  “Bring it to me well done,” the lawyer said firmly. “And when I say well done, I mean crisp.”

  She stared at him and picked up the steak.

  “And bring another rye while I’m waiting.”

  Jake leaned across the table, his face wrinkled with anxiety. “Malone, how have you been feeling lately?”

  “Never felt better in my life,” Malone assured him.

  Jake opened his mouth and closed it again.

  The steak returned at last. Malone eyed it distastefully. Rickett’s evidently didn’t want anyone to go away hungry. He thought regretfully of the corned beef he had shared earlier in the evening with von Flanagan, the corned beef and fried potatoes and apple pie, and sighed regretfully.

  “Did you say something?” Jake asked.

  “I said if we starve to death, it won’t be for lack of food.”

  Thirty minutes later he had consumed exactly three square inches of the steak. Then he pushed the plate away from him and shook his head. The cause of true love was a good one, and deserved great self-sacrifice, but he was damned if he could manage another mouthful.

  Jake said. “Don’t you want any more?”

  The lawyer shook his head. “Don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’ve been off my feed lately. Maybe we’d better have one more drink, and then go.”

  By the time they were at the door, it was just twenty minutes to eleven.

  “It’s late,” Jake said regretfully, “but Mona McClane won’t mind. We’d better go right up there now.”

  Malone shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re going to say when you do get there. You need information before you can ask questions. If you’ll just let me get you one more piece of information to go on, you can ask her all the questions you want.”

  “All right,” Jake said, “but make it snappy.”

  The lawyer bounded across the sidewalk and into a cab. Jake followed him and slammed the door.

  “The Roosevelt Road elevated station,” Malone told the driver, “and drive like mad!”

  The cab was halfway to the Michigan Avenue bridge before Jake recovered enough breath to ask, “But why the hell—”

  Malone said, “Sssh!” put his fingers to his lips, shook his head, and pointed to the cab driver.

  At Madison Street Jake leaned over and whispered, “But why—”

  Malone whispered back, “Because of the clock,” and shook his head again. “Don’t ask me so many questions. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re drunk,” Jake said indignantly.

  “I still know what I’m doing.”

  There was another difficult moment just inside the doors of the elevated station, and Malone had another quiet conference with providence. In the midst of it, his eye fell on the station clock.

  He motioned to Jake not to disturb him, took out his watch, examined it as carefully as if he suspected it of being an infernal machine, and then stood, holding it in his hand, looking first at it and then at the station clock. He stood perfectly still, doing this, for exactly fifteen minutes. At the end of that time he closed his watch and put it back in his pocket.

  Jake had completely forgotten Mona McClane.

  “Look here, Malone. Are you sure you feel all right? Wouldn’t you like to lie down for a little while?”

  Malone decided providence had had an idea of its own.

  “Maybe I would like to lie down,” he said gratefully and a little weakly. “Just for a few minutes. It must have been something I ate.”

  He allowed Jake to lead him to a taxi. Jake gave the driver the address of Malone’s hotel, and added, “Drive rather slowly.”

  “Drive very slowly,” Malone said, sitting bolt upright and tapping the driver on the shoulder. “Please drive very slowly and carefully. My wife’s going to have a baby.”

  He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  The driver, turning onto Michigan Avenue, caught Jake’s eye in the rear-view mirror and tapped his forehead questioningly. Jake shook his head and made the gesture of a man holding a bottle to his lips.

  “I am not,” Malone said indignantly, without opening his eyes. The driver nodded sympathetically to Jake, and drove on.

  In his hotel room, Malone allowed Jake to help undress him and get him into bed. By the time the covers were tucked under his chin, the time was quarter to twelve. He sighed with relief. Jake wouldn’t call on Mona McClane at this hour of the night.

  “You’ll be all right after a night’s sleep,” Jake assured him. “Will you promise to stay in bed and not go roaming around?”

  “Promise,” Malone said, shutting his eyes. Out of the corner of one of them he could see Jake carefully hiding all the pants, taking a last look around the room, and going out quietly, closing the door behind him.

  The little lawyer drew a long breath. It had been a busy evening, but he’d warded off a possibly disastrous meeting between Jake and Helene. Tomorrow would be another day, but he’d meet it as it came.

  He was just dropping off to sleep half an hour later when the telephone rang. He
lene’s voice, breathless and excited, came from the receiver.

  “Malone, I’m down in the lobby. Come down right away. I’ve got a newsboy driving the car around the block.”

  He couldn’t think of anything better than, “Huh?”

  “Are you awake? Then listen, you blockhead. I’ve kidnaped the man who murdered Gerald Tuesday.”

  Malone counted to ten slowly and then said calmly, “Is there a reward?”

  He heard an indignant and unintelligible sputtering noise at the other end of the wire.

  “Where is he now?”

  “In the back of the car, under some blankets. I knocked him out.”

  Malone sighed. “Maybe I’d better come right down.”

  “Maybe you had,” Helene told him, “and maybe you’d better hurry. Because I’m driving a stolen car.” She hung up.

  Chapter Twelve

  “He won’t move an eyelash for another hour,” Helene said, referring to the passenger in the back seat. “But what’s the best thing to do with a stolen car?”

  “To stop driving it up and down State Street,” Malone said crossly. She swung into the lower level of Wacker Drive, and he breathed easier. “It’s a good thing for you I’m able to get dressed in a hurry. I was in bed.”

  “I will say you made it in record time.”

  “That,” he told her, “is what comes of always being calm and cool-headed. It’s when you get excited that you get into trouble. I never forget what I’m doing.”

  Helene said, “Just the same, I can’t help wondering why there’s two inches of pajama pants showing below your trouser cuffs and why you only have one sock on.”

  Malone was indignantly silent. She crossed the river and turned west on Grand Avenue

  “How did all this happen?” the lawyer asked at last.

  “The house had pretty well quieted down for the night. Everyone was in bed. I couldn’t sleep. Something on my mind, I guess. Anyway, I prowled around downstairs for a while and finally decided to go up to my room. When I got up the stairs I found this dope wandering around looking for Mr. Tuesday’s body. He seemed to think he’d mislaid it somewhere.”