by Craig Rice
“So was I. We seem to attract it. Would you have minded?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’d probably have loved it.”
“So would you, and don’t try to tell me different.”
“If I didn’t love trouble,” Jake said, “I wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with you in the first place—Stop, you’ll drive us into a tree!”
At the canopied entrance to the immense apartment hotel just off the drive, Helene turned her car over to the doorman and hurried across the sidewalk, Jake close at her heels.
“Just the same,” she whispered as they crossed the lobby, “I’m glad things turned out as they did. After all that happened last summer, and after all the excitement of opening the Casino, we need a little peace and quiet for a while.”
“Don’t mention peace and quiet,” Jake begged. “Because every time you do—”
“I know,” she said. “But this time it’s going to be different.”
They rode up to their floor, said good night to the elevator boy, walked down the corridor to the corner that led to their door, and stopped dead in their tracks.
Right beside their door, leaning against the wall, was the missing bull fiddle case.
Chapter Six
Without a word, Jake unlocked and opened the door with one hand, grabbed the fiddle case with the other, and shoved it into the apartment. Then, with the door closed safely behind him, he stood staring at the case.
“I’m a patient man,” he said under his breath, “but this is too damned much. How in the hell did that thing get here?”
“Somebody brought it,” Helene said.
“Marvelous deduction, Hawkshaw,” Jake said reverently. “Now tell me why.”
“Because he liked us and wanted to give us a nice present,” she said between her teeth. “Don’t just stand there and goggle at it. What are we going to do?”
Jake didn’t answer. For the next thirty seconds he discussed the habits, inclinations, parentage, and probable future of the person who had deposited the fiddle case beside their door. Suddenly his voice trailed off in the middle of a word.
“Helene, when I picked it up—” He paused, picked up the case, set it down again, and looked at it, his grey eyes wide.
“It’s light,” he said. “Helene, it’s—empty.”
“Nonsense! It can’t be empty.”
“Lift it yourself. See?” He ran one hand over his forehead. “Wait a minute.” He knelt beside the case and tried the catch. “And it’s still locked. The key’s in my pocket and it’s been there ever since I locked it.”
“Oh no,” Helene gasped. “Things like that just don’t happen. Bodies don’t get out of locked fiddle cases—even bodies of midgets!”
“Even midgets,” Jake repeated in a whisper. For a moment he felt as though he’d unexpectedly stepped into an ice-cold shower. He found himself remembering all the shuddery stories he’d heard as a boy, about malicious small beings who couldn’t be killed, and who couldn’t be confined in any space, no matter how securely locked and fastened.
“Even if what you’re thinking is true,” Helene said very calmly, “that midget was certainly dead when we found him in the dressing room. And anyway he couldn’t have carried that big bull fiddle case all the way over here by himself.”
Jake relaxed. “You looked a little pale yourself, and don’t tell me otherwise.”
“I feel pale,” Helene told him. “And I’d much rather have it be magic. Because leaving the magic out of it—just how did the midget’s body get out of there?”
“Somebody took it out,” Jake said slowly, “God knows how, and decided to stick us with the fiddle case, God knows why.”
He took the key from his pocket, knelt down, and unlocked the case. The eleven silk stockings were still there, wadded up in the narrow end. He took them out and tossed them on a chair. Then he relocked the case, slipped the key back in his pocket, stood up, and began buttoning his coat.
“Jake, what are you going to do?”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’m thinking.” He stood there for a moment, scowling, then walked across the room and picked up the telephone.
“Hello, the desk? This is Mr. Justus. Did anyone deliver a parcel or anything to me sometime during the night? Would you mind checking with the elevator boys and see if anything was brought up for me?” He stood waiting, one hand drumming on the table-top. “There wasn’t, eh? Thanks very much.” He hung up the phone.
“It must have been brought up the back way,” Helene said.
“And it’s going out the back way,” Jake said grimly. “Give me the keys to the car, Helene.”
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked, handing over the keys.
“I’m going to take it back to the Casino, put the fiddle back in it, and leave it right there in the midget’s dressing room. From that point on, as far as we’re concerned, we never even heard of a fiddle case.”
“I want to go too.”
“You’re not invited. Stay here and guard the premises.”
“What for?”
“In case anyone decides to deliver the midget to us too.” He kissed her warmly, said, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” picked up the fiddle case, and slipped out into the hall.
The first pale-grey light of a stormy April morning was shining through the windows when he came back into the apartment. Helene had changed into a gleaming ice-blue house-coat, and for a moment he stood just inside the door admiring her, oblivious of his weariness and of the cold wet snow that had accumulated at the back of his collar and around his ankles. Her corn-silk-color hair was smooth and shining, her pale, delicate face looked as though she had just risen from a good night’s sleep.
“Is it all right?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Very much all right. I don’t know what I’ve ever done to deserve it.”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t leave your mind over there along with the fiddle case?”
“No. I might have married a girl who wasn’t beautiful, or who wasn’t smart, or who couldn’t cook, but instead I married you and everything is very much all right.”
“Idiot! I’m talking about the fiddle case.”
“Oh. Every now and then when I look at you I forget everything else. Yes, the fiddle is back in its case and the whole works is there in the dressing room. Nobody saw me leaving here or going into the Casino.”
He sighed wearily, took off his overcoat, and sank down into a chair. “It’s too late to go to bed and too early to stay up.” He looked up at her wistfully. “And besides, I’m hungry.”
“Now isn’t that an amazing coincidence?” Helene said. “I got hungry myself while you were out, and so the coffee’s all made, and the omelet is practically done, and the ham is all broiled and—stop it, you’re breaking my ribs!”
The last morsel of omelet was gone and the last cup of coffee was poured before Helene said, “And now Jake, about our murder—”
“Look here,” Jake said sternly. “We don’t have a murder. We don’t even know anything about a murder. If the star performer from the Casino has disappeared overnight, we’ll be very sorry and we’ll do our best to help find him, but that’s all.”
Helene sighed. “I was afraid you were going to be stubborn about it.”
“Stubborn hell,” Jake said. “I’m being sensible. If the police learn that we discovered a murder and not only didn’t call them right away, but proceeded to hide the body with an eye to removing it from the Casino, and did everything possible to destroy or conceal evidence, they aren’t going to like it one bit.”
“The police,” Helene said gravely, “take a very narrow-minded view of things.”
“So do I, as far as this particular affair is concerned,” Jake said. “Let the police find out what happened. It’s their worry, not ours.”
“You’re perfectly right,” Helene agreed, just a shade too meekly. She lit a cigarette, leaned on the table, and said, “Aren’t y
ou even the least bit curious?”
“No,” Jake said firmly. “Not the faintest bit curious. I’m not even interested.”
“Well,” Helene said, “let’s forget it then.”
“It’s a funny thing, though,” Jake murmured a few minutes later, “about those stockings.”
She perked up fast. “You mean their all being different sizes?”
“No. I mean there only being eleven of them. If those stockings were used to hang the midget because the Casino chorus was someway involved, why weren’t there twelve stockings? There’s twelve girls in the chorus.”
“I thought of that too. I wonder which girl of the twelve wasn’t included.”
“So do I. Wonder if it would be possible to find out. Not that I think it has any bearing on the murder, but—” He caught Helene’s eye across the table and reddened faintly. “I was just talking. Didn’t mean a thing.”
Before she could say a word, the telephone rang. Jake looked at his watch, scowled, and went into the other room to answer it. When he returned, his scowl had deepened.
“That was Betty Royal. She wants to see us. I told her to come up. She says it’s very important.”
“At six-thirty in the morning,” Helene said, “it must be.” She rose and started making a fresh pot of coffee. “Maybe she murdered the midget and wants us to recommend a good lawyer.”
“I hope that’s it,” Jake said. “Malone needs the money. But I’m afraid it isn’t. What would she want to murder the midget for? She didn’t even know him.”
“Maybe she didn’t like his act,” Helene commented. “A severe form of criticism, but effective.”
A moment later there was a knock on the door. Jake opened it to admit the young debutante, still in evening dress, and a pale, dark-haired young man.
“Hello,” Betty Royal said. “I’m so glad you weren’t asleep. I’m so glad you let me come up. Helene and Jake, this is Pen. Pendleton Reddick.” She spoke breathlessly, and as though she were thinking of something else.
Jake murmured something, and looked curiously at the young man. Pen Reddick had been a joy to the newspapers since he had inherited one of the nation’s larger fortunes at the age of five. He appeared to be a serious, indeed almost glowering young man, totally unlike the gay and debonair character Jake—and the columnists—had imagined. The dark eyes below his thick, heavy eyebrows seemed to contain a smoldering fire; his square jaw was set in a firm, hard line. Not a person to fool with, Jake decided.
“Helene and I went to the same school,” Betty Royal was saying in the same disturbed voice.
“Except that she went to it years later than I did,” Helene murmured. “Sit down. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
“Thanks,” the girl said. “I could use one.”
Did that school turn out nothing but beauties? Jake wondered, looking at Helene, and then at the seventeen-year-old Betty Royal. The girl’s chestnut-brown hair, that reached just below her shoulders, had been softly tumbled by the wind. The unusual pallor of her skin was sharp against the shining russet satin of her dress. Her face wasn’t beautiful, strictly speaking, Jake realized. The brilliant mouth was too wide and full, and the little chin too sharply pointed. Yet somehow she gave the impression of beauty. Yes, even now, worried as she was.
She took the coffee Helene offered her almost absentmindedly, stirred it, sipped it once, set it down, and forgot about it.
“It was terrible of me, barging in on you at an hour like this,” she said. “For all I knew you might have been sound asleep. But I was so frightfully worried. And I didn’t know anyone else to go to. Certainly I couldn’t let any of the family know. In fact, that’s the whole trouble.” She paused for breath.
“What on earth’s the matter?” Helene asked.
“It’s her brother,” Pen Reddick said. “Ned Royal. We’re afraid he’s eloped with a chorus girl.”
“We know he has,” Betty Royal said, her voice shaking a little.
Jake stared at her for a minute. “For the love of Mike!” he said weakly. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Betty Royal demanded. “Don’t you know my family?”
“I know of your family,” Jake said slowly. “And I guess I see what you mean.”
“It’s awful,” she said. “Simply awful.”
Pen Reddick added, “She’s right, you know, Mr. Justus.”
Jake sat down and lit a cigarette before he spoke again. “I understand. But don’t you think you might be taking it a little hard? Chorus girls can be pretty nice people, you know. If they’re really in love with each other, it might turn out to be a very happy marriage.”
“I wish it was like that,” Betty Royal said, “but I know it isn’t.” She drew a long, sighing breath. “I may be only seventeen, but I’m nobody’s fool. Ned only met this girl yesterday, and when I ran into him at the Casino last night, he was drunk as a goat. And he had some perfectly frightful-looking man with him, who was stone cold sober.”
“Oh,” Jake said. “One of those things.”
“I was afraid he was getting into some kind of trouble again,” the girl went on, “so Pen and I started out to find him when we left the Casino, and finally we learned he and this girl had gone off to Crown Point to get married, and the man Ned was with was driving the car.” She paused. “Now do you see what I mean?”
Jake nodded. “Yes. I see.”
“Jake,” Helene said. “Call Malone.”
“Oh yes,” Betty Royal said. “I know about him. He could do something. I know he could.”
Helene said, “Call him right away. If he could get hold of the girl as soon as they got back from Crown Point—and arrange for everything to be kept quiet—”
Jake turned to Betty Royal. “How much cash money could you and your brother raise, in a hurry?”
She shook her head helplessly. “Not much. The family has money, but we just have our allowances, and they aren’t too big.”
“Well,” Jake told her, “don’t worry. There’s other ways of handling these things.” He looked at the phone, said, “Malone is going to love being called at this hour of the morning. Lawyers really aren’t supposed to be called out for emergencies in the middle of the night. They aren’t like doctors.”
“This lawyer is,” Helene said firmly.
Jake carried the phone into the kitchenette, shut the door, and was gone a long time. When he returned, he was scowling heavily.
“Malone is out.”
Helene stared at him. “Out! Why we just took him home a little while ago!”
“I know it,” Jake said crossly, “and there was a message there for him to call somebody, and he called her from the lobby and told her he’d be right over, and went out.”
Helene opened her mouth to speak, shut it again, caught her breath, and said, “Did the clerk tell you who left the message for him?”
Jake nodded grimly. “One of the girls in the Casino chorus. Annette Ginnis. I suppose I can reach him there—”
Betty Royal had leaped to her feet, her face dead white. “Oh no! Annette Ginnis! No, it can’t be her! Because that’s the girl Ned went to Crown Point to marry!”
Chapter Seven
“Well,” Jake said very quietly, “either you were mistaken, or else they didn’t lose much time sending for a lawyer. Maybe they thought a preacher wasn’t legal enough.”
Betty Royal sank back into her chair. “I don’t understand it. Where’s Ned?”
“He may be there,” Jake said, “and if he is, he’s in good hands. Or—wait a minute.”
He went back to the phone, looked up the number of the Edward R. Royal town apartment and called it. A sleepy-voiced manservant answered.
“Is Mr. Royal Junior in?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir. But I’m afraid he can’t be disturbed. He’s sleeping, sir.”
“You don’t know what time he got in, do you?”
“No, sir. I have no idea. Is there any message?”
“Just tell him George Washington called,” Jake said, and hung up. He returned to the living room and said, “Well, your brother’s home and sleeping too soundly to be disturbed.”
The girl gasped. “But why did he go home?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Maybe he thought the cooking was better.” He wondered if it would be polite to add, “Why don’t you go home too?”
“You see?” Helene said consolingly. “You really haven’t anything to worry about. The whole thing may have been a mistake.”
“It couldn’t have been,” the girl insisted.
“Well, if it wasn’t,” Jake told her, “it’s on the road to being straightened out right now.”
“You’d better let me take you home, Betty,” Pen Reddick said. “There isn’t anything you can do now in any case, and you need sleep.”
She nodded absentmindedly, her brows still knit.
“Don’t worry about it,” Helene said. “Everything’s all right.”
Betty Royal managed a faint smile. “I hope so. I’m sorry I bothered you about all this.”
“It’s perfectly all right. It wasn’t any bother,” Jake lied. “Just any time at all. It’s part of our regular service to the Casino’s guests.”
The smile widened a little at that. “I’m crazy about the Casino. And the show is wonderful.”
“That midget!” Pen Reddick said. “He’s absolutely tops. I’m coming back to see him tonight.”
“Do!” Helene said warmly.
“And good morning,” Jake said cordially, opening the door.
He closed it after them and stood for a minute clinging to the knob.
“I wish to heaven I’d never heard of the midget. What am I going to do about tonight’s show?”
“Nothing,” Helene said. “If the midget’s disappearance—or murder—is in the papers today, you’ll draw a crowd from curiosity. And if it isn’t in the papers, you’ll have a crowd anyway, of people who’ve come back to see the midget. And you’ll have to tell them he’s vanished. It’s tomorrow night’s show you need to worry about.”
“That’s right,” Jake said wearily. He slumped down in a big easy chair and ran one hand through his red hair. “Annette Ginnis. What do you know about her—as a person, I mean?”