by Craig Rice
When he returned from the phone, however, he had forgotten all about the trick. “That’s what I mean when I say everybody tries to make things hard for me. Some guy called up from a drugstore phone booth to say there was a dead guy at an address on West Schiller street. So it turns out the dead guy is Johnny Oscar who I’d figured out had murdered the midget. And what’s more, he’s been hanged with a bunch of silk stockings.” He stood glaring at the trio, as if they were responsible for the whole thing.
“Monotonous, isn’t it!” Malone said feebly.
“Imagine a frail little dame like her—like Annette Ginnis—strangling a guy like Johnny Oscar!” von Flanagan said, as though he admired her for it. “Well, we’ll pick her up.” He walked to the door, paused with one hand on the knob, and said, “If you hear anything from her, lemme know,” opened the door and said in a melancholy voice, “And all this when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep!”
“All this,” Malone muttered after the door was closed, “when I haven’t had any night’s sleep! And how in hell do I get this string off my hand?”
“Call von Flanagan back,” Jake said unfeelingly, “or call in Allswell McJackson who seems to be running around loose. Oh—here’s a pair of scissors.”
Malone’s remarks, as he cut his hand free, were almost unnecessarily to the point.
“You don’t suppose by some wild chance von Flanagan could be right?” Jake asked slowly. “You don’t suppose that instead of just walking out on Mildred Goldsmith this morning, Annette hanged her first?”
Helene said, “Annette Ginnis?”
“She isn’t strong enough,” Malone said, “to have hanged a mouse. And she certainly didn’t hang Johnny Oscar.”
“Well,” Jake said, “it was the only idea I had.”
Malone relit his cigar and stared out the window. “At least,” he said, “that accounts for all twelve pairs of stockings. All twenty-four of them. Eleven for the midget, eleven for Johnny Oscar, and two for Mildred Goldsmith. There’s some reason for those stockings being used, and especially, for their being used in that order. If we knew the reason, we’d know everything we needed. They were used that way deliberately, possibly to point out something that we’re too blind to see.”
“We’re not blind,” Helene said, “but we don’t have X-ray eyes, either.”
“What do you mean?” Malone asked.
“I mean,” she told him, “that Jake’s going out to the nearest hardware store to buy us a hammer and a chisel. And you, Malone, are going to get on the phone and get Pen Reddick over here in a hurry.”
“But—” Jake began.
She shut him up with a gesture. “I’ve waited this long to find out what’s in that box,” she said firmly, “and I’m not going to wait any longer, if I have to open it myself, with my teeth and fingernails!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jake went out and got the hammer and chisel. Malone reached Pen Reddick by phone, and told him to come right over. Helene went into the kitchenette and made a big platter of sandwiches that would have done honor to Oscar of the Waldorf.
Halfway through a sandwich, Helene said suddenly, “The thing Pen Reddick wants out of that box! It wouldn’t be Annette Ginnis’s marriage certificate, would it?”
Malone scowled. “Why the hell would he want that?”
“Maybe he’s the nice young man she married after she married the midget.”
“But the nice young man,” Jake objected, “didn’t know anything about the previous marriage. That was the hold the midget had over her.”
“The midget might have told him,” Helene said. “You can’t tell what he might have done.”
“It’s true,” Malone said slowly. “The midget might have told him, to make sure he wouldn’t go running after Annette Ginnis. And when Pen Reddick found out how the midget was using Annette, he’d have known what hold the midget had over her. Now, with the midget dead, he’d want to get that certificate and destroy it to protect her.”
“Well,” Helene said, “we’ll soon know.” She began clearing away the remains of the sandwiches.
Suddenly Malone jumped as if he’d been shot. “Lou Goldsmith!” It was almost a yelp.
Helene put down the empty dishes and came back into the room. “You don’t have to startle people like that,” she complained. “What about Lou Goldsmith? Somebody’ll have to break the news to him that his wife’s been murdered, but—”
“That isn’t it,” Malone said. “That isn’t it at all. He’s lying in my hotel room right now, dead to the world, and he said he was going to murder his wife.”
“Give Malone another cup of coffee,” Jake said disgustedly, “and an aspirin. Or maybe he needs a drink.”
“Damn you,” Malone said. “He is there, and he did say so.”
Helene sat down, lit a cigarette, and looked at the lawyer. “When did you see him?”
“About”—he looked up, blinking. “About the time Mildred Goldsmith was being murdered.”
“Well then,” she said sensibly, “he didn’t murder her.”
Malone mopped his brow with a wrinkled handkerchief. “No, but I should have asked him more questions. If I’d known she was being murdered, I would have.”
“If you’d known she was being murdered,” Helene pointed out, “you could have trotted up there and found out who the murderer was. And then you could have given Pen Reddick the box and the murderer both, and collected the whole fee all at once.”
“I wish I had some sleep,” was all Malone said.
There was a knock at the door, and Helene sprang to answer it. It was not Pen Reddick, however. It was Betty Royal and her brother.
Ned Royal was a slender, limp-looking young man with light-brown hair, watery blue eyes, and a pleasant, if blank, face. He looked pale and a little shaky, but he managed a weak smile at Jake and Helene.
“How do you feel?” Jake asked sympathetically.
“Terrible,” Ned Royal said. “I’m suffering from delusions.”
Helene raised a slender eyebrow. “Delusions?”
The young man nodded. “I suffer from a delusion that a cold bottle of beer when you wake up is the best thing in the world for a bad hangover.” He sank into a chair and managed to light his cigarette on the third try.
“I brought Ned over,” Betty Royal said firmly, “as soon as he could make it, because I knew you wanted to get everything straight. And so did I. So here you are, and here he is.” She planted her little brown oxfords firmly on the floor in front of her chair, and looked very determined, and very young.
“I didn’t marry that girl, you know,” Ned Royal said sheepishly. “Close shave, wasn’t it? If I had”—he paused and shuddered.
“If you had,” Helene said severely, “it would have been hell.”
Malone asked, “But why didn’t you? Or better, why were you going to in the first place?”
“Well—” Ned Royal wrinkled his brow. “I met this awfully nice woman somewhere. Mrs. Goldsmith. And she suggested that I come to the Casino some night and go out with some friends of hers, and have fun. I didn’t see anything wrong with that.” He looked up appealingly.
“Naturally not,” Malone said helpfully. “Go on.”
“So yesterday she phoned, and suggested I meet these friends of hers for a drink before the show. I said, swell, and she introduced me to this very nice chap—can’t think of his name to save my life—” He paused.
“Never mind it,” Jake said.
“Well, anyway. She had to go back and get dressed for the show, and he and I hung around the bar and had a few drinks—well, quite a few. Then this really very nice girl came out and joined us and said Mrs. Goldsmith was tied up and couldn’t be with us, so the three of us started out going places. I guess we went quite a lot of places.”
“I guess you did,” Betty Royal said unfeelingly.
He reddened. “Well, anyway. This really was an awfully, very nice girl. I don’t know how the idea of our getting married
came up exactly, but it did, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“So many things do,” Malone commented.
“Well, anyway. We went to a few more places and all I remember is this. One place we went to, the bartender said there was some guy had tried to reach Annette there a few minutes before, and then another place we went—the last place—some guy did call Annette while we were there, and when she came back to the table she was laughing like everything. She said, ‘I’m not going to marry you,’ and then she laughed, and then she said, ‘The midget’s dead, the midget’s dead,’ and then she laughed and laughed.” He frowned. “She must have had a laughing jag.”
Helene said, “Something like that. Or maybe she just thought it was amusing.”
Ned Royal thought that over in silence for a moment. “Well, anyway. The last thing I remember is this guy—wish I could think of his name—getting a cab for me and I guess he put me in it, and that’s all.”
He looked up at them like a child who wonders if he’s done his recitation correctly.
“You see?” Betty Royal said. “I thought you’d want to know about it.”
“We did,” Malone assured her. “We did very much.”
She rose. “I guess that’s all, then. Come on, Ned. Only, what ought we to do now?”
“Nothing,” Malone said. “There wasn’t any marriage and nobody knows anything about it except us five and Annette Ginnis, and none of us are going to say a word.”
Ned Royal blinked. “What about this chap who was with us?”
“He won’t say anything either,” Malone said. “Not ever.”
After they had gone, the little lawyer lit a fresh cigar, walked to the window, and stood looking out.
“Well,” he said at last, “we know how Annette Ginnis found out about the midget’s murder. Somebody called her up and told her. And we know Ned Royal didn’t murder the midget, because from the hangover he has today, last night he couldn’t have murdered a gnat with a Flit gun. And Annette and Johnny Oscar evidently were with this guy all the time, so they couldn’t have murdered the midget either. Not that we didn’t know that already.”
“What we don’t know,” Jake said, “is who called up Annette.”
“The murderer, no doubt,” Helene said.
“But why?” Jake asked. “Why go to all the bother of calling up all the saloons in Chicago until he happened to hit the one where Annette was, just to let her know that the midget was dead?”
Malone said, “Maybe the murderer thought she’d had her quota of marriage ceremonies.” He looked thoughtfully at his cigar. “Maybe he wanted to spare her this one more. Maybe he was trying to give Ned Royal a break.”
Helene shrugged her shoulders. “Ask the murderer that at the same time you ask him why he used silk stockings for his weapon.” She paused. “While we’re asking questions, who called up the police and told them they’d find a murdered man in a house on Schiller street?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said scowling, “but I have a pretty good hunch. And it won’t take me more than a minute to find out.”
He went to the telephone and dialed Max Hook’s number.
“Ask Mr. Hook,” he said to the male voice on the other end of the wire, after identifying himself, “if any friends of his called today on a gentleman he was discussing with me this morning, and if his friends subsequently talked to the police on the telephone.” He waited a moment, said, “Thank Mr. Hook for me,” and hung up.
“Well?” Helene demanded.
“It was,” Malone said. “I thought so, because—unless the murderer himself telephoned, and of course that was possible—somebody had to get into the house and find the body. Max Hook had one key to the house, so he might have had others, for emergencies. His gunmen went in, found Johnny Oscar already dead, went out again and made an anonymous call to the police.”
“Then how did the murderer himself get into the house?” Jake asked.
Malone frowned. “Unless he also had a key, he must have come in with Johnny Oscar.”
“I can’t be sure,” Helene said, “but while I was down there in the cellar, I only heard the door open and close once.”
“The more I think about this whole damn business,” Jake said, “the more I think Malone was right about his first theory. Little elves. Eleven silk stockings. The midget is carried back to his hotel in the fiddle case and put carefully to bed. Everybody in the world seems to know about the murder before the body is found. Mildred Goldsmith is hanged with her own silk stockings at a time when her husband is telling Malone he’s going to murder her. Then Johnny Oscar is murdered with eleven silk stockings. Ruth Rawlson tells some of the most wonderful stories in the world, and Allswell McJackson is teaching von Flanagan how to do magic tricks.” He groaned.
“I’ll add to the confusion,” Helene said. “Eleven pairs of stockings, and there were twelve girls in the show. I’ll bet you any money that the twelfth pair—the one that wasn’t included—belonged to Mildred Goldsmith.”
“Because she had them on?” Jake asked.
“You’re a very stupid man. Those eleven stockings were a special kind, worn only in the show. No, her stockings were left out deliberately.” Her eyes began to flicker with excitement. “And I think it was in order to call attention to her, for some reason. To point to her.”
“Very nice theorizing,” Malone said. “Why?”
“That,” she said, “is what I left for you to figure out.”
Pen Reddick arrived just then, a trifle breathless.
“Sorry I took so long. I was way up on the North Side when you reached me.” He took off his hat and shoved back his hair. “Have you got it?”
Malone pointed to the box, to the hammer and chisel.
Pen Reddick gasped, sat down on the nearest chair, and said, “I never was so glad to see anything in my life. I’ll write your check right away, Mr. Malone.”
“Wait a minute,” Malone said. “Open the box first, and see if what you want is there. I want to make sure I don’t cheat you.”
Pen Reddick smiled. “It’s there, all right. But I’ll open the box first, if you insist.”
He inspected the box and said, “This won’t be so hard to bust.” Then he looked dubiously at Jake and Helene.
“Now look,” Helene said firmly. “We’re all in on this, together. If you trust one of us, you’ve got to trust all three.”
“Besides,” Jake said, “you said this morning—”
Pen Reddick nodded slowly. “All right,” he said. “I do trust you, God knows. But when we’ve opened the box—you’ll understand—”
It took both Jake and Pen Reddick a good fifteen minutes to break the lock. At last a combined effort with both the hammer and the chisel did the trick. The lid bounded open.
“He sure got himself a good strong box, while he was about it,” Jake said, wiping his brow.
Helene repressed an insane impulse to recite, “When the box was opened, the birds began to sing—”
Pen Reddick dumped the contents of the box into his lap. They were few. A thin bundle of letters, tied with cord. A legal paper of some kind, which he also laid aside. A single paper with a few lines written on it in ink. And a second legal paper, which Pen Reddick glanced at, said, “This isn’t mine,” and handed to Malone.
It was Annette Ginnis’s marriage certificate. Malone stared at it, gave it to Helene, who signaled to Jake.
Written across it, in jet-black ink, was, “In the event of my death, kindly return this to Miss Ginnis, who will doubtless be delighted to learn that it was a forgery, which I arranged to have made.”
Helene gasped, “Then she wasn’t—” and stopped at a warning “Sh!” from Jake.
“The little bastard!” Malone growled under his breath. Then he looked again at Pen Reddick.
There was a look of almost incredible relief on the young man’s face as he sat there with the papers in his hand. “They’re all here,” he announced. “Everyt
hing.”
“But what are they?” Helene began. She stopped herself and then said, suddenly, “No. If it’s something—if you don’t want us to know—”
“It’s all right,” Pen Reddick said. “I do trust you.” He held up the legal document. “This is the midget’s birth certificate. This,” he held up the packet, “are letters from his mother. And this—appears to be a will. I hadn’t known about it.” He handed the single sheet of paper to Malone.
Helene and Jake crowded close to read it. There was only a brief sentence, written in the same jet-black ink.
“Everything that I possess in this world
I leave to my beloved brother, Pendleton Reddick.
Signed, Jay Otto, the Big Midget.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I guess that explains why I felt the way I did—about the box,” Pen Reddick said.
“Yes,” Malone said. “Yes, I guess it does.”
There was silence for a moment, broken by the sharp scratch of a match as Helene lit a cigarette.
“I remember,” she said very slowly, “you—had an older brother. He died when he was very small.”
“No,” Pen Reddick said. “He didn’t die. He grew up on a farm, without knowing anything about his family. That was—after they found out he—what was wrong with him.”
Again there flashed through Jake’s mind that picture of the Reddick family. The Reddick millions. The Ambassador to England. The leader of New York society. The famous Virginia belle who had been Pen Reddick’s mother—and the midget’s—who had written that little packet of letters Pen Reddick held in his hand.
“He didn’t know—anything about himself,” Pen Reddick said, “except that the farm couple were very well paid for taking care of him, and that—he was a midget.” He drew a long breath. “The farm couple had a son who was a very famous mimic in his day and who came back to visit every summer. The midget learned his tricks from him, and grew up to be—the Big Midget.”
Jake remembered the biographies of the midget, that always began, unaccountably, with his being about twenty-one years old.