by Craig Rice
“I never read the papers,” Max Hook told him, “but one of my boys informed me. Tragic, wasn’t it?”
“Tragic is no name for it,” Malone said bitterly. “He hadn’t paid me a dime.”
Max Hook’s eyebrows lifted. “So?” Automatically he reached for the green metal box in the left-hand drawer. “How much do you need?”
“No, no,” Malone said hastily, “that isn’t it. I just want to know if one of your boys—Little Georgie La Cerra—smuggled the rope in to him. That’s all.”
Max Hook looked surprised, and a little hurt. “My dear Malone,” he said at last, “why do you imagine he’d do such a thing?”
“For money,” Malone said promptly, “if he did do it. I don’t care, I just want to know.”
“You can take my word for it,” Max Hook said, “he did nothing of the kind. He did deliver a note from a certain young lady to Mr. Palmer, at my request—a bit of a nuisance, too, getting hold of that admittance order signed by the warden. I assure you, though, there was no rope. I give you my word, and you know I’m an honest man.”
“Well, I was just asking,” Malone said. One thing about the big gangster, he always told the truth. If he said Little Georgie La Cerra hadn’t smuggled in that rope, then Little Georgie hadn’t. Nor was there any chance that Little Georgie had engaged in private enterprises on the side. As Max Hook often remarked, he liked to keep a careful watch on his boys. “One thing more, though,” the lawyer said, “if you don’t mind. Why did the young lady come to you to get her note delivered?”
Max Hook shrugged his enormous shoulders. “We have a certain—business connection. To be exact, she owes me a large sum of money. Like most extremely mercenary people she loves gambling, but she is not particularly lucky. When she told me that the only chance for that money to be paid was for the note to be delivered, naturally I obliged.”
“Naturally,” Malone agreed. “You didn’t happen to know what was in the note, did you?”
Max Hook was shocked. “My dear Malone! You don’t think I read other people’s personal mail!”
No, Malone reflected, Max Hook probably didn’t. And not having read the note, the big gambler probably wouldn’t know what kind of “terrible trouble and danger” Madelaine Starr was in. He decided to ask, though, just to be on the safe side.
“Trouble?” Max Hook repeated after him. “No, outside of having her fiancé condemned to death, I don’t know of any trouble she’s in.”
Malone shrugged his shoulders at the reproof, rose and walked to the door. Then he paused, suddenly. “Listen, Max. Do you know the words to a tune that goes like this?” He hummed a bit of it.
Max Hook frowned, then nodded. “Mmm—I know the tune. An entertainer at one of my places used to sing it.” He thought hard, and finally came up with a few lines.
“He was leaning against the prison bars,
Dressed up in his new prison clothes—”
“Sorry,” Max Hook said at last, “that’s all I remember. I guess those two lines stuck in my head because they reminded me of the first time I was in jail.”
Outside in the taxi, Malone sang the two lines over a couple of times. If he kept on, eventually he’d have the whole song. But Paul Palmer hadn’t been leaning against the prison bars. He’d been hanging from the water pipe.
Damn, and double damn that song!
It was well past eight o’clock, and he’d had no dinner, but he didn’t feel hungry. He had a grim suspicion that he wouldn’t feel hungry until he’d settled this business. When the cab paused for the next red light, he flipped a coin to decide whether he’d call first on Madelaine Stan or Lillian Claire, and Madelaine won.
He stepped out of the cab in front of the small apartment building on Walton Place, paid the driver, and started across the sidewalk just as a tall, white-haired man emerged from the door. Malone recognized Orlo Featherstone, the lawyer handling Paul Palmer’s estate, considered ducking out of sight, realized there wasn’t time, and finally managed to look as pleased as he was surprised.
“I was just going to offer Miss Starr my condolences,” he said.
“I’d leave her undisturbed, if I were you,” Orlo Feather-stone said coldly. He had only one conception of what a lawyer should be, and Malone wasn’t anything like it. “I only called myself because I am, so to speak and in a sense, a second father to her.”
If anyone else had said that, Malone thought, it would have called for an answer. From Orlo Featherstone, it sounded natural. He nodded sympathetically and said, “Tragic affair, wasn’t it.”
Orlo Featherstone unbent at least half a degree. “Distinctly so. Personally, I cannot imagine Paul Palmer doing such a thing. When I visited him yesterday, he seemed quite cheerful and full of hope.”
“You—visited him yesterday?” Malone asked casually. He drew a cigar from his pocket and began unwrapping it with exquisite care.
“Yes,” Featherstone said, “about the will. He had to sign it, you know. Fortunate for her,” he indicated Madelaine Starr with a gesture toward the building, “that he did so. He left her everything, of course.”
“Of course,” Malone said. He lighted his cigar on the second try. “You don’t think Paul Palmer could have been murdered, do you?”
“Murdered!” Orlo Featherstone repeated, as though it was an obscene word. “Absurd! No Palmer has ever been murdered.”
Malone watched him climb into a shiny Cadillac, then started walking briskly toward State Street. The big limousine passed him just as he reached the corner, it turned north on State Street and stopped. Malone paused by the newsstand long enough to see Mr. Orlo Featherstone get out and cross the sidewalk to the corner drugstore. After a moment’s thought he followed and paused at the cigar counter, from where he could see clearly into the adjacent telephone booth.
Orlo Featherstone, in the booth, consulted a little notebook. Then he took down the receiver, dropped a nickel in the slot, and began dialing. Malone watched carefully. D-E-L—9-6-0—It was Lillian Claire’s number.
The little lawyer cursed all sound-proof phone booths, and headed for a bar on the opposite corner. He felt definitely unnerved.
After a double rye, and halfway through a second one, he came to the heartening conclusion that when he visited Lillian Claire, later in the evening, he’d be able to coax from her the reason why Orlo Featherstone, of all people, had telephoned her, just after leaving the late Paul Palmer’s fiancée. A third rye braced him for his call on the fiancée herself.
Riding up in the self-service elevator to her apartment, another heartening thought came to him. If Madelaine Starr was going to inherit all the Palmer dough—then it might not be such a trick to collect his five thousand bucks. He might even be able to collect it by a week from Thursday.
And he reminded himself, as she opened the door, this was going to be one time when he wouldn’t be a sucker for a pretty face.
Madelaine Starr’s apartment was tiny, but tasteful. Almost too tasteful, Malone thought. Everything in it was cheap, but perfectly correct and in exactly the right place, even to the Van Gogh print over the midget fireplace. Madelaine Starr was in exactly the right taste, too.
She was a tall girl, with a figure that still made Malone blink, in spite of the times he’d admired it in the courtroom. Her bronze-brown hair was smooth and well-brushed, her pale face was calm and composed. Serene, polished, suave. Malone had a private idea that if he made a pass at her, she wouldn’t scream. She was wearing black house-pajamas. He wondered if they were her idea of mourning.
Malone got the necessary condolences and trite remarks out of the way fast, and then said, “What kind of terrible trouble and danger are you in, Miss Starr?”
That startled her. She wasn’t able to come up with anything more original than “What do you mean?”
“I mean what you wrote in your note to Paul Palmer,” the lawyer said.
She looked at the floor and said, “I hoped it had been destroyed.”
&n
bsp; “It will be,” Malone said gallantly, “if you say so.”
“Oh,” she said. “Do you have it with you?”
“No,” Malone lied. “It’s in my office safe. But I’ll go back there and burn it.” He didn’t add when.
“It really didn’t have anything to do with his death, you know,” she said.
Malone said, “Of course not. You didn’t send him the rope too, did you?”
She stared at him. “How awful of you.”
“I’m sorry,” Malone said contritely.
She relaxed. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m a little unnerved, naturally.” She paused. “May I offer you a drink?”
“You may,” Malone said, “and I’ll take it.”
He watched her while she mixed a lot of scotch and a little soda in two glasses, wondering how soon after her fiancé’s death he could safely ask her for a date. Maybe she wouldn’t say Yes to a broken-down criminal lawyer, though. He took the drink, downed half of it, and said to himself indignantly, “Who’s broken-down?”
“Oh, Mr. Malone,” she breathed “you don’t believe my note had anything to do with it?”
“Of course not,” Malone said. “That note would have made him want to live, and get out of jail.” He considered bringing up the matter of his five thousand dollar fee, and then decided this was not the time. “Nice that you’ll be able to pay back what you owe Max Hook. He’s a bad man to owe money to.”
She looked at him sharply and said nothing. Malone finished his drink, and walked to the door.
“One thing, though,” he said, hand on the knob. “This—terrible trouble and danger you’re in. You’d better tell me. Because I might be able to help, you know.”
“Oh, no,” she said. She was standing very close to him, and her perfume began to mingle dangerously with the rye and scotch in his brain. “I’m afraid not.” He had a definite impression that she was thinking fast. “No one can help, now.” She looked away, delicately. “You know—a girl—alone in the world—”
Malone felt his cheeks reddening. He opened the door and said, “Oh.” Just plain Oh.
“Just a minute,” she said quickly. “Why did you ask all these questions?”
“Because,” Malone said, just as quickly, “I thought the answers might be useful—in case Paul Palmer was murdered.”
That, he told himself, riding down the self-service elevator, would give her something to think about.
He hailed a cab and gave the address of the apartment building where Lillian Claire lived, on Goethe Street. In the lobby of the building he paused long enough to call a certain well-known politician at his home and make sure that he was there. It would be just as well not to run into that particular politician at Lillian Claire’s apartment, since he was paying for it.
It was a nice apartment, too, Malone decided, as the slim mulatto maid ushered him in. Big, soft modernistic divans and chairs, paneled mirrors, and a built-in bar. Not half as nice, though, as Lillian Claire herself.
She was a cuddly little thing, small, and a bit on the plump side, with curly blonde hair and a deceptively simple stare. She said, “Oh, Mr. Malone. I’ve always wanted to get acquainted with you.” Malone had a pleasant feeling that if he tickled her, just a little, she’d giggle.
She mixed him a drink, lighted his cigar, sat close to him on the biggest and most luxurious divan, and said, “Tell me, how on earth did Paul Palmer get that rope?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said. “Did you send it to him, baked in a cake?”
She looked at him reprovingly. “You don’t think I wanted him to kill himself and let that awful woman inherit all that money?”
Malone said, “She isn’t so awful. But this is tough on you, though. Now you’ll never be able to sue him.”
“I never intended to,” she said. “I didn’t want to be paid off. I just thought it might scare her away from him.”
Malone put down his glass, she hopped up and refilled it. “Were you in love with him?” he said.
“Don’t be silly.” She curled up beside him again. “I liked him. He was much too nice to have someone like that marry him for his money.”
Malone nodded slowly. The room was beginning to swim—not unpleasantly—before his eyes. Maybe he should have eaten dinner after all.
“Just the same,” he said, “you didn’t think up that idea all by yourself. Someone put you up to asking for money.”
She pulled away from him a little—not too much. “That’s perfect nonsense,” she said unconvincingly.
“All right,” Malone said agreeably. “Tell me just one thing—”
“I’ll tell you this one thing,” she said. “Paul never murdered his uncle. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t Paul. Because I took him home that night. He came to see me, yes. But I didn’t put him in a cab and send him home. I took him home, and got him to his own room. Nobody saw me. It was late—almost daylight.” She paused and lit a cigarette. “I peeked into his uncle’s room to make sure I hadn’t been seen, and his uncle was dead. I never told anybody because I didn’t want to get messed up in it worse than I was already.”
Malone sat bolt upright. “Fine thing,” he said, indignantly and a bit thickly. “You could have alibied him and you let him be convicted.”
“Why bother?” she said serenely. “I knew he had you for a lawyer. Why should he need an alibi?”
Malone shoved her back against the cushions of the davenport and glared at her. “A’right,” he said. “But that wasn’t the thing I was gonna ask. Why did old man Featherstone call you up tonight?”
Her shoulders stiffened under his hands. “He just asked me for a dinner date,” she said.
“You’re a liar,” Malone said, not unpleasantly. He ran an experimental finger along her ribs. She did giggle. Then he kissed her.…
All this time spent, Malone told himself reprovingly, and you haven’t learned one thing worth the effort. Paul Palmer hadn’t killed his uncle. But he’d been sure of that all along, and anyway it wouldn’t do any good now. Madelaine Starr needed money, and now she was going to inherit a lot of it. Orlo Featherstone was on friendly terms with Lillian Claire.
The little lawyer leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands. At three o’clock in the morning, Joe the Angel’s was a desolate and almost deserted place. He knew now, definitely, that he should have eaten dinner. Nothing, he decided, would cure the way he felt except a quick drink, a long sleep, or sudden death.
He would probably never learn who had killed Paul Palmer’s uncle, or why. He would probably never learn what had happened to Paul Palmer. After all, the man had hanged himself. No one else could have got into that cell. It wasn’t murder to give a man enough rope to hang himself with.
No, he would probably never learn what had happened to Paul Palmer, and he probably would never collect that five thousand dollar fee. But there was one thing he could do. He’d learn the words of that song.
He called for a drink, the janitor, and the janitor’s guitar. Then he sat back and listened.
“As I passed by the ol’ state’s prison,
Ridin’ on a stream-line’ train—”
It was a long rambling ballad, requiring two drinks for the janitor and two more for Malone. The lawyer listened, remembering a line here and there.
“When they hanged him in the mornin’
His last words were for you,
Then the sheriff took his shiny knife
An’ cut that ol’ rope through.”
A sad story, Malone reflected, finishing the second drink. Personally, he’d have preferred “My Wild Irish Rose” right now. But he yelled to Joe for another drink and went on listening.
“They hanged him for the thing you done,
You knew it was a sin,
How well you knew his heart could break,
Lady, why did you turn him in—”
The little lawyer jumped to his feet. That was the line he’d be
en trying to remember! And what had Paul Palmer whispered? “It wouldn’t break.”
Malone knew, now.
He dived behind the bar, opened the cash drawer and scooped out a handful of telephone slugs.
“You’re drunk,” Joe the Angel said indignantly.
“That may be,” Malone said happily, “and it’s a good idea too. But I know what I’m doing.”
He got one of the slugs into the phone on the third try, dialed Orlo Featherstone’s number, and waited till the elderly lawyer got out of bed and answered the phone.
It took ten minutes, and several more phone slugs to convince Featherstone that it was necessary to get Madelaine Starr out of bed and make the three-hour drive to the state’s prison, right now. It took another ten minutes to wake up Lillian Claire and induce her to join the party. Then he placed a long-distance call to the sheriff of Statesville County and invited him to drop in at the prison and pick up a murderer.
Malone strode to the door. As he reached it, Joe the Angel hailed him.
“I forgot,” he said. “I got sumpin’ for you.” Joe the Angel rummaged back of the cash register and brought out a long envelope. “That cute secretary of yours was looking for you all over town to give you this. Finally she left it with me. She knew you’d get here sooner or later.”
Malone said “Thanks,” took the envelope, glanced at it, and winced. “First National Bank.” Registered mail. He knew he was overdrawn, but—
Oh, well, maybe there was still a chance to get that five thousand bucks.
The drive to Statesville wasn’t so bad, in spite of the fact that Orlo Featherstone snored most of the way. Lillian snuggled up against Malone’s left shoulder like a kitten, and with his right hand he held Madelaine Starr’s hand under the auto robe. But the arrival, a bit before seven A.M., was depressing. The prison looked its worst in the early morning, under a light fog.
Besides, the little lawyer wasn’t happy over what he had to do.
Warden Garrity’s office was even more depressing. There was the warden, eyeing Malone coldly and belligerently, and Madelaine Starr and her uncle, Dr. Dickson, looking a bit annoyed. Orlo Featherstone was frankly skeptical. The sheriff of Statesville county was sleepy and bored. Lillian Claire was sleepy and suspicious. Even the guard, Bowers, looked bewildered.