The Right Murder

by Craig Rice

“I bet it’s tough being married to Michael Venning,” Helene observed on the way up.

  “I bet it’s tougher being married to his wife,” Jake said. “She looks like a combination of Willie the Weeper and the last act of East Lynne, to me.”

  Malone said, “I don’t know. I suspect she has more stamina than shows on the surface. These tall, horsy-looking women are always tougher than you think they’re going to be. I know.”

  At the door of the room he had taken for Ross McLaurin, he started to reach for the key. Helene clutched at his arm.

  “Malone! How are you going to tell him about—Lotus?”

  “With my vocal cords, tongue, lips, and teeth,” he said crossly. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid he’ll scream?”

  “No, but—” She frowned. “It’s going to be awful, Malone. He’s so helpless. She’s arrested for murder and in jail, and there won’t be anything he can do about it.”

  “Maybe the shock will jolt his memory back to work,” Malone said grimly. “God knows, something has got to.”

  Jake sighed. “If it doesn’t, maybe we can coax him to take a drink by this time.”

  Malone grunted, and opened the door. Halfway through it he stopped dead. Jake grabbed Helene’s arm, pulled her into the room, and shut and locked the door.

  Ross McLaurin was sitting up in bed. His boyish face was pinkish, and there was a cheerful, carefree light in his eyes. A collection of empty glasses was strewn on the bedcover, and he was holding a partly empty bottle of Old Crow in his hand.

  “C’mon in and have a drink,” he invited them happily. “You’re m’friends. You’re m’only friends. Goin’ help me clear fine ol’ name of McLaurin of murder charge.” He shook his head. “Don’ know why I murdered those men, but mus’ have had good reason. Com’n’ ’n’ have drink.” He waved the bottle of Old Crow at them.

  “Holy Jumping Judas!” Malone said in an awe-struck voice. “He’s gone and done it all by himself!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Don’t know how I could’ve done it,” Ross McLaurin assured Helene gravely. “Never wanted murder anyone in m’whole life. Can’t understan’ why I murdered man I didn’ even know.” He had discarded the use of glasses now, and was punctuating his remarks with sips from the bottle. “Never even heard of a man named Gerald Tuesday. Couldn’t forget man name like that. Could anybody forget man name Gerald Tuesday?”

  “Never,” Helene said solemnly. She was sitting on the foot of the bed, a glass of rye in one hand, and a chicken leg in the other. “But maybe he wasn’t really named Tuesday.”

  Ross McLaurin gestured with the bottle. “Whatever’s name was. Never knew the man in whole life.”

  Malone picked up his bottle of gin. He too had given up glasses half an hour ago. “Nuts. You never murdered anybody in your life, either.”

  The young man stared at him. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I never did.” For a moment he seemed sober, completely, painfully sober. “Oh God, if I only remembered.”

  Jake said, “Take it easy, kid.”

  “You can remember,” Helene said convincingly. “You were just about to tell me what happened on New Year’s Eve.”

  “I met this man in a bar. I was so damned mad, this man hanging around Lotus. Not the man we’re talking about, another man. Gosh, you know what I mean.”

  “Sure.” Jake said, “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I got so mad I walked out onna party. I must’ve been drunk to do thing like that. Wandered around and got into a bar. There was a man came in, good-looking young man. Dead now, poor devil. He called the bartender and said he was looking for man named Malone.”

  “That’s me,” the lawyer said.

  Ross McLaurin stared at him as though seeing him for the first time. “Your name Malone? Imagine that. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

  “Getting smaller every minute.” Malone assured him.

  “Go on,” Jake said patiently. “This man came into the bar asking for Malone—”

  “Name sounded familiar. Remembered Mona had talked about a Malone. Told me about him. So I went up to this chap. I went right up to him and I said, “I know of a Malone. Heard all about him. John Joseph Malone. Irresistible to women. Wonnerful lawyer.”

  “That’s still me,” Malone said, reaching for the gin.

  “Shut up,” Helene said. “Go on, Ross. What did he say?”

  “He says that was the man he was looking for.”

  “See,” Malone said triumphantly. “I told you so.”

  This time Helene ignored him. So did Ross McLaurin, now absorbed in the telling of his story.

  “I said, ‘I’ll help you look for him.’ He said, ‘Fine,’ so I had a drink and out we went. Together. There’s a very good song with that for a title.” He decided to sing it. “We’ll stroll along—together—”

  Jake said, “Listen, Ross. Skip that. Do you remember what happened to you on New Year’s Eve?”

  “New Year’s Eve? I’ll never forget it. I was at the Panther Room with—”

  “Not now you aren’t,” Helene said. “You’re out with a man who was killed later that night, looking for a lawyer named Malone.”

  “So I was,” Ross McLaurin said. “We went to some bar. Had a couple of drinks there while he asked the bartender for some man. Malone, I think his name was.”

  “That’s me,” Malone said. No one heard him.

  “I stopped for one more drink and this chap—don’t know who he was—went on without me. That made me mad. He’d gone off and left me, and I was only trying to help him find some chap—can’t think of his name.”

  “Malone,” the lawyer said.

  “That’s it, Malone. Unusual name. Anyway, I was mad. So I went out after him. Saw him going in barroom up the street. Caught up with him there and I said to him, ‘Look here, I know a lawyer named Malone. Be glad to help you find him,’ He didn’t pay any attention to me. Acted as though he thought I’d been drinking and didn’t know what I was doing. Just walked off and left me there. I was mad. So I finished my drink and went after him. Only wanted to help, and chap wasn’t even civil to me.”

  “Imagine that,” Helene said sympathetically. She threw the chicken bone at the wastebasket. “So what did you do?”

  “I kept after him. Went different places. Still looking for this Malone. Think he’d have been tired of it by that time. Can’t remember what places he went. Can’t remember how long it took.” Suddenly he paused breath half indrawn. “There’s something else too.” For another brief moment, he seemed entirely sober. “But I can’t think what it was. Something ghastly. I can’t remember it. Everything gets mixed up. I remember following some man to a lot of different places because he was looking for someone named Malone, and I’d heard of someone named Malone, and going in and out of places and the snow out on the street and something that was terrible but I can’t think what it was, and that’s all. And it’s all mixed up and I can’t remember what happened when.” He drew a long, shuddering breath, buried his face in his hands, and said something that sounded like “Mamma!” After a while he looked up again. “I can’t remember.”

  “Don’t try,” Jake said quietly.

  After a very long silence, Helene said gently, “What you need, Ross, is a drink.”

  He looked at her gratefully. “That’s right. Maybe we’d better go out and get one.”

  Helene glanced at the array of bottles on the bureau and said, “Maybe we’d better stay right here.” She picked up the bottle of Old Crow and handed it to him. “Ross, what happened the day Gerald Tuesday was murdered?”

  A light came into his eyes. “I remember. That wasn’t very long ago. There was this man Tuesday. And something about some man named Malone.”

  “That’s me,” the little lawyer said feebly.

  The young man turned to Helene. “Funny how many men there are named Malone.”

  “Funny is no word for it,” Helene said grimly. “Was Mr. Tuesday lookin
g for a Malone?”

  “That’s it. I was all alone in my room. Been drinking a little. All alone, nobody even cared where I was. Somebody knocked on my door. Man came in. Said his name was Gerald Tuesday. Looking for telephone book. He said, ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, old man, but I’m looking for a telephone book.’” Ross McLaurin paused and said wistfully, “Where’s the best place to get a drink?”

  “Right here,” Jake said hastily, handing him the bottle again. “Did you have a telephone book?”

  He nodded. “Sure I had a telephone book. Why, you want one? No? Well, this man did. I picked it up and said, ‘What name d’ya want? Be glad to look it up for you’ He acted as though he thought I was drunk. That made me mad. I said, ‘Don’t you think I can find a name in the telephone book?’ He said he was looking for a man named Malone. I said, ‘That’s funny, I know of a man named Malone—’”

  Helene put a hand firmly over Malone’s mouth and said, “Did you find the name for him?”

  Ross McLaurin shook his head vigorously. “He looked it up himself. Said thanks and went away. Then I sat down and had a drink and I got to thinking. Here this man was looking for a Malone. Now by a funny kind of coincidence on New Year’s Eve I’d met another man looking for some Malone. Did I tell you about that?”

  Jake and Helene nodded in unison. “You did,” Helene said grimly.

  “Tha’s right, guess I did. Well, anyway, I got to thinking about it, and I came to the conclusion I’d better tell this Gerald Tuesday about the whole thing. Didn’t like him, but thought I’d better tell him. So I took a drink to steady my nerves and went down to his room.”

  There was an anxious silence. “Well?” Jake said at last.

  “I didn’t stop to knock. Just opened the door and went in.” There was another pause, agonizingly long.

  “You opened the door and went in,” Helene said, when she couldn’t stand it any more, “and then what?”

  “I—” the young man sat straight up in bed, staring at her. The color began to recede from his cheeks. “I haven’t forgotten. I do remember. I remember everything, exactly as it was.”

  Suddenly he lay back on the pillow, his eyes closed.

  “Yes, I do remember. I went in there—” His voice trailed off into silence.

  “Ross,” Jake said sharply, and then louder, “Ross!”

  There was no answer.

  “Oh Lord!” Helene wailed, “he’s died on our hands!”

  Malone rose laboriously from the floor, bent over the bed, and carefully examined the motionless figure.

  “No,” he said wearily, “he’s not dead. But he’s dead to the world. He probably will be, for hours to come. And we still don’t know what the hell he remembers.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Sure I could sober him up enough to talk,” Malone said wearily. “But what good would it do?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” Jake said. “The trick is to start with him completely sober and bring him back to just a certain stage.”

  “The hell with it,” the lawyer said. “Considering the many and varied collection of things he probably drank while we were out, it would take two days to unscramble him enough to get him sober.”

  “Wait a minute!” Helene said. “Let me think.” She was silent for a moment or two. “Malone, fill up the bathtub again and go to work on him. I have telephoning to do.”

  “Helene, what horrible thing is forming in your mind?”

  “Don’t ask questions. I know what I’m doing. Just get him moving and talking again.”

  The lawyer groaned. “I wish I was asleep.”

  “Do you want me to phone von Flanagan and tell him you’ve been keeping Ross McLaurin hidden out here since yesterday evening?”

  “All right,” Malone said wearily, “I know when I’m licked.” He went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but whatever it is, I won’t like it. Lend me a hand, Jake.” Between them they hauled the unresisting young man into the bathroom and closed the door.

  When they returned, Helene was just setting down the telephone. “Is our young friend restored to life?”

  ‘He walks and talks, if that’s what you want to know. But you can’t get any information out of him.”

  “We can’t,” Helene said, “but Dr. Leonardo T. Hennessey can.”

  Jake’s eyes widened. “Not really!”

  “Doctor which?” Malone asked suspiciously.

  “The lie-detector man,” Helene said. “You’ve read about him in the papers. He’s going to give Ross a lie-detector test.”

  “When?” Malone asked, hoping it was some time next week.

  “Right now,” Helene said. “As soon as we can get him over to the office. Dr. Hennessey didn’t like the idea of coming downtown at ten o’clock at night, but I told him it was an emergency case. He’ll be there by the time we arrive. Help me get this guy’s shoes on.”

  “Put on m’own shoes,” said Ross McLaurin in a hurt voice.

  “See,” Helene said, “he’s practically sober.”

  Jake snorted, “You’re thinking of ‘That guy ain’t drunk, I just saw his eyelids flicker.’ What do you expect to learn from this lie-detector test, anyway?”

  “Who murdered Gerald Tuesday.”

  “Much more of this,” the lawyer growled, “and I’ll confess to it myself.”

  Twenty minutes later, Ross McLaurin walking stiffly between Jake and Malone, they faced a ground-glass door on which appeared:

  —202—

  DR. LEONARDO T. HENNESSEY

  PSYCHO-PSYCHOLOGIST

  Below it was the picture of a wide, blue, and uncomfortably realistic-looking eye, with rays streaming out from it.

  “What the hell is a psycho-psychologist?” Jake demanded.

  “It looks like double trouble to me,” Malone growled. “Or maybe it’s the hair of the dog that bit you.” He opened the door.

  The anteroom of Dr. Hennessey was spacious and subdued. A dove-gray carpet covered the floor, the walls were alternating panels of pale-blue brocade and plate-glass mirrors, all with cabalistic signs engraved in the corners. The furnishings were restrained and expensive, copies of Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, and the The New Yorker were on the table. It looked like the waiting room of a fashionable specialist, with just a slight touch of overdressing.

  On the wall, in lieu of pictures, were charts with zigzag lines, like cardiograms. One door bore the legend PRIVATE, another LABORATORY and the word CAUTION, flanked by two lightning bolts. Malone looked around instinctively and uncomfortably for hidden dictaphones and high-voltage wires.

  “We go in here,” Helene said, moving toward the door marked PRIVATE.

  “Just a minute,” Jake said. “Does Dr. Hennessey know what he’s testing this guy for?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t know he isn’t perfectly sober, either.” She opened the door.

  The inner room was likewise spacious, but far from subdued. The walls were hung with heavy black cloth, but interior decoration had stopped there. Electrical gadgets of all kinds were piled pell-mell on top of each other, like a combination of a Rube Goldberg cartoon and a Hollywood horror picture.

  Malone definitely expected Boris Karloff to appear through the black curtains. Instead, it was Dr. Hennessey. He was a gray-haired, gray-suited gentleman, looking not unlike the portraits in the science sector of Time magazine, with a reassuringly medical manner, and nothing to suggest his strange profession save a searching gleam in his eye. It was a little like the eye painted on the door.

  “How nice to see you again, Miss Brand,” the doctor said cheerfully. “Did your father ever get his watch back from that young woman?”

  Helene said, “No,” and blushed faintly. “Doctor, this is Mr. Justus, my—”

  “Jake Justus, as I live and breathe!” exclaimed Dr. Hennessey happily. “Still with the Examiner, I presume. Will there be a photographer coming?”


  Jake started to explain he was no longer a reporter, decided it would be more tactful not to mention it, and just said, “No, no photographer this time.”

  “Too bad,” said Dr. Hennessey.

  “This is Ross McLaurin,” Helene went on.

  The young man said, “How do you do, doctor,” in an automatic and polite voice.

  “And this is Mr. Malone,” she added.

  “Ah yes,” the doctor said pleasantly. He cleared his throat. “I usually don’t come down to my laboratory in the evening, but I gathered from your conversation on the phone that this was definitely urgent. Some of these loss-of-memory cases are very sad.” He smiled sympathetically and laid a hand on Malone’s shoulder. “This would be our patient, I presume.”

  “No, no, no,” Helene said. “Over there.” She indicated Ross McLaurin.

  “Ah yes.” Dr. Hennessey said, with magnificent aplomb. “Mr. McLaurin. Yes indeed. Now if you’ll just come right over here—”

  The chair in which the patient was to sit seemed to be the focal point of all the electrical gadgets in the room. Ross McLaurin sat down in it obediently, though a bit hesitantly, and rested his hands, as directed, on the rubber pads at the end of each arm.

  It was when the doctor was strapping an electrode on the upper part of his arm that he looked up protestingly at Helene.

  “You promised me if I’d talk to Mr. Malone, they wouldn’t do this to me.”

  “It’s not the electric chair,” Helene said. “It only looks like one.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” the doctor said humorlessly. “All my patients comment on that similarity. Now there’s nothing to hurt you, young man. Nothing at all. Just sit back, quite comfortably. That’s right.”

  Over the chair, placed where the patient couldn’t see it, was a red and blue dial, marked “True” on the blue side and “False” on the red.

  “First I balance the patient,” explained Dr. Hennessey. “Quiet. Quiet, now. That’s fine.” He added, pointing to the dial, “See how the needle is balanced, right in the center? The patient is at ease.”

  “At ease,” Jake muttered under his breath. “He’s probably petrified.”