The Case of the Murdered Madame (Prologue Books)

by Henry, Kane,

  I said, “Easy does it. You said he had it coming. Why?”

  “Because he was a son of a bitch. My brother. A gilt-edged, double-barreled, fourteen carat son of a bitch.”

  “Loved him, didn’t you? Loved him a lot.”

  “I didn’t really hate him either. There are all kinds of sons of bitches. This was a charming one. He was hard to hate. Most of the time, I liked him. He could get under your skin. He could be kind when he wanted to, sweet, considerate. You couldn’t help liking him — until he’d let go and just be horrible, bad, evil.”

  “Well, how was it lately? Like him or hate him?”

  “Liked him. Which was the reason for the candlestick. He had admired it one time when we’d strolled Madison Avenue. He had a birthday coming up this week. Which is why I bought that candlestick.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “He didn’t keep birthdays, he was too sophisticated for birthdays. So I had some time this evening, and I brought it to him, early this evening. But he had people there, and he hardly even looked at it.”

  “And the argument? What was that about?”

  “He went son of a bitchy on me again. Took me into the other room and threw me a proposition. He wanted me to stay with a guy.”

  “He — what?”

  “You heard me. Prospective client. Some big shot he had lined up as a client. Guy who was sweet on me, guy who had seen me perform, was hot for me and knew Max was my brother. How do you like that? Do you blame me if I blew my top? God knows, and you know, I’m no angel. But I sleep with whom I choose to sleep. I don’t sleep around because it’ll help my brother in business. I’d see him fry in hell first, where he’s frying right now.”

  “Real sisterly.”

  “Maybe I’m hysterical. Maybe I don’t mean it. Maybe I just can’t realize he’s dead. Maybe even you’ll get to hate me, knowing the kind of crazy bastard I am. But that’s the way I am. Hate me, if you want to.”

  I went to her, took the cigarette out of her hand, put my mouth on her mouth. Her body pressed to me and I could feel the heaving of her stomach. Then I said, “Easy does it. Just stay put. Stay right here. Papa’s going to work. And Papa’ll be in touch. And one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Papa doesn’t hate you.”

  IV

  Parker’s office was more barren than an established playwright commissioned to do a TV show on order. A young cop ushered me in, said, “He’s expecting you. Wait for him. In the meantime, I’m to send in a stenographer for your statement.” He left, I waited, and the stenographer came. “Suppose,” he said, “you go with me. We’ll save time. I’ll take it down directly on the typewriter.” I went with him, dictated as I watched his wonderful fingers fly. Then I signed the statement and returned to Parker’s office. The office had two windows, four walls, one desk, one swivel-chair, five straight chairs, one telephone, two ashtrays, one inter-com, one door, one floor, and one ceiling. Now it had me, sitting, smoking, and tapping a foot.

  The door opened and Parker came in accompanied by a tall blond cat-walk guy with narrow blue eyes and a pointy nose and a lawn-mower haircut. “Ralph Adams,” Parker said. “Peter Chambers.”

  We shook hands. He was one of those hearty guys. He had a fist like a vise and when my knuckles expanded into place, I said, “I think we met once. When I was doing a job back there for Mr. Keith.”

  “Yeah,” Adams said. “That’s right.”

  “Okay, Mr. Adams,” Parker said. “Thanks for the co-operation. Where’ll we be able to find you?”

  “At the office. Or at home. I’ll leave word, either place, if I’m out.”

  “Fine. You’re all through here.”

  “Bye, then. Bye, Mr. Chambers.”

  He went away and Parker said, “They get your statement?”

  “Yes.”

  “That little sister. We haven’t been able to lay our hands on her yet. Any ideas?”

  “No.”

  He went behind the desk, slumped in the swivel chair, opened a drawer, brought out a photograph and a packet of keys. He handed me the photograph. “Tommy Huk,” he said. “No question.”

  “Tommy, huh?” I looked. “This for sure?”

  “Identified by all three parties — Rollins, Hartley, Adams. Now about that little sister — ”

  “Where are they, the other two?”

  “Which other two?”

  “Rollins and Hartley?”

  “Took their statements and sent them home. Now about that little sister — ”

  “And what’s with keys?”

  “Yeah, keys.” He took up the packet and brooded over it, nodding as though he were reciting a prayer. “Max Keith’s keys,” he said. “We’ve got all of them pegged — except two.”

  I traded the picture for the packet of keys, eight hunks of metal, some long, some short. I said, “I’d like to help, Lieutenant.”

  “About that little sister, that Julia — ”

  “I’d like to help, Lieutenant.”

  “Like to help how, and why?”

  “I feel I’m mixed up in this. Maybe if I’d accepted that bodyguard thing, the guy’d be alive. Your conscience throws a crazy lunge once in a while. And mine’s lunging. Okay if I join, Lieutenant?”

  “You know as well as I do that I couldn’t keep you out if I wanted to.”

  “You, Lieutenant …?” I used my best little-boy voice. “You? The very symbol of authority?”

  “Stick it,” he said. “I know you, shamus. When you’re in, you’re in, no matter how you wriggle in. So okay, it’s official. You’re in. What do you want?”

  “Duplicates of those two keys. The ones unaccounted for.”

  “I’ve made twenty sets of duplicates. Handed most of them around to my guys.”

  “Any left?”

  He looked at me, a look as long as a loser’s face. Then he sighed and said, “Okay, I play.” He opened the desk drawer again and donated two keys. “Remember, kid, just in case. If you help, you get no credit. This is Department business.”

  “Thanks, Louie.”

  “Now about that little sister — ”

  “What’ve you got on Huk?”

  “He’s in town.”

  “Got him located?”

  “Not yet. But we’ve got confirmation that he’s in town. Now about that little sister — ”

  I went for the door, talking fast as I went. “I’ll let you know, Lieutenant. Any little thing, I’ll let you know. Anything at all breaks, I’ll let you know …”

  I flagged a cab, downstairs, and I went to where I didn’t think cops had gone, The Purple Room, on First Avenue, a late spot that started jumping at midnight and jumped as late as the law would allow. The entertainment was a harp, a fiddle and a piano — each giving off with the soft stuff in rotation — but the stuff was no softer than the lights of the room which were dimmer than the viewpoint of a pregnant spinster. The food was first-rate, the decor lavish, the potables superb, and the clientele consisted of show folk, gay folk and nighttime butterflies. It was managed by Henri Piquet, a gentleman of impeccable taste and impeccable discretion. Managed by Henri Piquet but owned by Tommy Huk — Piquet was the screen, the man to whom the license had been issued.

  Tommy Huk. Hoodlum allegedly reformed. Tommy Huk, one of the few small-bore men in the business. Tommy Huk, soft-spoken and dangerous, once a little-gun killer with a remarkable record for a West Coast labor union, then moving up to more important slots, and then retiring when the union heads were jailed for racketeering. Now Tommy Huk was the money behind Vero’s in Hollywood, the Plump Room in Chicago, and The Purple Room in New York — and Tommy Huk was fairly respectable. Headquarters was Hollywood, from where he rarely stirred except for short flying junkets to Chicago and New York. He had done time once — a three-year rap in Sing Sing — but this was a coarse stick-up experience of early youth, before Tommy had begun to realize on his true capabilities.

  The Purple Room was crowded
tight, the bar nudgingly thronged, and I had to muscle through to buy myself a drink. Then I found Henri Piquet and he gallantly led me to his private table.

  “Long time,” he said, “no see.”

  “Very witty,” I said. “Real sharp.”

  “Always the joke, this Chambers.” He grinned with spaced teeth.

  “I’ve got another joke.”

  “Dirty, it is hoped.” The grin remained.

  “Dirty. Two dirty words. Tommy Huk.”

  No more grin. “Something is wrong?”

  “Guess, Henri.”

  “I have already guessed.”

  “How?”

  “You see? Over there?” His eyes pointed.

  I looked. I saw two beefy bald-headed men living it up. They had a bottle on the table and the waiter was pouring. They were laughingly red-faced and narrow-eyed in appreciation of every bulging curve of the colored lady who played the harp in a dress that held itself up by magic.

  “I see,” I said, “over there.”

  “Cattle from the Homicide.”

  “What?”

  “Cattle — how you say it?”

  “Bulls?”

  The grin returned. “But of course. Bulls. From the Homicide.”

  So I had not gone to where the police hadn’t thought of going. Dear old Parker. I had held The Purple Room out on him, and he had held it out on me.

  Henri said, “It is … for Tommy?”

  “It is for Tommy,” I said. “Where is he?”

  Gallic shoulders shrugged. “I have not the faintest of the ideas.”

  I stood up. “If the faintest of the ideas suddenly comes along smack-dab out of nowhere, tell him Peter Chambers has been looking for him.”

  “For what?”

  “For, maybe, getting him out of a hole. Tell him cops are looking for him, and tell him I know why cops are looking for him. Tell him if he wants to crawl out of the hole, maybe I can show him how. Tell him all of that, Henri, just in case a faint wandering idea comes along and bites you on your fat behind. And tell him where I live too.”

  I gave him the address, pinched his cheek, went out into First Avenue, breathed deep of the warm-wet air, waved down an empty cab speeding to nowhere, went home, sourly set the clock for early in the morning … and so to sleep.

  V

  Morning was hot. Fifth Avenue was hot. Pedestrians looked hot. And I was a hot pedestrian strolling Fifth Avenue at the ungodly hour of 10 A.M. My destination was Frank Conaty at No. 545, and I said, “Six” to the elevator boy in the hot lobby.

  “Hot,” said the elevator boy.

  I said, “Hot.”

  But the waiting room of Frank Conaty, Esquire, was air-conditioned, pine-smelling, cool and relaxing, only I stopped relaxing before I could start because the first object that loomed into my line of vision as I entered was the bulk of Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, evenly distributed on a hard chair, an open magazine on one crossed knee. He did not look up from the magazine but he said, “Hi, shamus.” (Ah, the eyes of the law.)

  “Hi, Lieutenant.” I took the magazine from his knee and sat near him. I said, “They keep Homicide waiting too?”

  “Said it’ll be a minute. What are you doing here?”

  “Same as you, I suppose. Inquiry about Keith’s will.”

  “Yeah. You know this lawyer-guy, Pete?”

  “I introduced him to Keith.”

  His knees uncrossed. “Mean anything?”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing. Just introduced them. Frank Conaty’s an old friend.”

  “I’ve never met him. Right guy?”

  “The rightest.”

  A girl came through and said, “All right, Lieutenant.” Parker rose and I stood up too and the girl put frost into her slow glance at me. Parker said, “He’s with me, Miss,” and the frost melted and she nodded and led us to Frank Conaty’s room, real eagle-legal-like with books shelving three of the walls. Conaty was young, spry and orange-faced. He said, “Didn’t expect you, Pete. Had a date with the Lieutenant.”

  “We’re here on the same errand.”

  “Is it all right with the Lieutenant?”

  Parker said, “It’s perfectly all right with me.”

  “Fine, fine. Sit down, gentlemen.” Nobody sat except Conaty. He sighed, said, “Terrible, this Keith thing.”

  “Yeah,” Parker said. He drew the blue-backed document from a pocket of his jacket and tossed it on Conaty’s desk. “Keith’s will. Your name’s on it as attorney. Just a few questions, Mr. Conaty.”

  Conaty said, “Just a minute.”

  “What? What’s that, Mr. Conaty?”

  “I said just a minute, Lieutenant.” While the Lieutenant pouted, Conaty opened the document, looked at it briefly, folded it back into shape, leaned over and handed it to Parker. He said, “This is not Max Keith’s will.”

  “Not,” Parker exploded, “Max Keith’s will! Now what the hell’s going on here. It’s got your name on it.”

  “Easy, Lieutenant.”

  Parker pulled himself back into shape. “Sorry, but — ”

  “What I mean,” Conaty said, “is that this will is no good.”

  “No good? Why? What’s the matter with it?”

  “It’s not Max Keith’s last will and testament.”

  “Meaning …?”

  “Meaning, as far as the law is concerned, the paper you’re holding is null and void. A subsequent will, properly executed, revokes all prior wills. That’s the law, Lieutenant. And a subsequent will has been executed.” Conaty bent to a deep drawer, riffled, and came up with a twin to the folded blue-backed document. “I got it out of the files after I heard about Keith’s death.”

  Parker said, “Can I have a look?”

  “Certainly. Nothing improper about that after the decease of the testator. This will now becomes public knowledge. Has to be probated.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Parker grumbled. “Nothing improper, decease of the testator, public knowledge, has to be probated … lawyers and their jargon. Let’s see the goddamned thing.”

  Conaty smiled, Parker grabbed, and I looked over his shoulder. It was a tiny will, shorter than the one before. Max Keith left everything he owned to his only living relative: his sister, Julia Keith. Period.

  Parker looked at the date, opened the prior will, looked at the date of that one, said, “The good one’s dated only one day later. This guy changed his mind in a hell of a hurry, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Conaty said quietly.

  Parker’s hackles were up. “Lawyers,” he groaned. “Go deal with lawyers. Tackle a lawyer — it’s like shooting at a shark with spitballs.”

  “Not at all,” Conaty said. “I’m trying to help you, Lieutenant.”

  “This is help?”

  “Ordinarily, I don’t comment on the motives and mental gyrations of a client. But you’re not here to discuss wills. You’re here in the investigation of a murder case.”

  “Very good,” Parker said.

  Conaty pursed his lips. Then he said, “All right. My comment is I don’t think my client changed his mind in a hurry.”

  “Don’t, huh? Well, he didn’t change it slow. A new will dated one day after the old will. That ain’t slow — or is it, Counsellor?”

  “No. But I think he actually had a plan in mind. Please understand that he didn’t discuss it with me. He came here one day and instructed me to draw a will dividing his estate between Miss Rollins and Miss Keith. He wanted it drawn in a hurry. It was, and it was executed and witnessed immediately. He took that will away with him and the next day he was here again, grinning and winking. He inquired about the law, whether a later-dated will superseded a prior will, despite the fact that the prior will remained undestroyed. I assured him that that was the law. Then he ordered this new will. And when that was done, he left it with me for safekeeping, left it with this office.”

  “I see,” Parker said. “Excuse the cracks before, Mr. Conaty.”


  “I’ve a thick hide, Lieutenant.”

  “One more question. Do you think the sister, Miss Keith, do you think she knew about this new will?”

  “I have no idea as to that, Lieutenant. I don’t know who knew about any of these wills, as a matter of fact.”

  “Okay. Thank you very much, Counsellor. And I mean it about excusing the cracks.”

  “Forget it.” Conaty smiled in my direction. “Mr. Chambers has been strangely silent, which is strangely unusual for Mr. Chambers.”

  “Me? Well, when the Lieutenant makes with perfect talk, I have nothing to say. I just stand by, and listen, and learn.”

  Conaty said, “And very humble today too. Look out for him when he’s humble, Lieutenant.”

  “He’s probably just sleepy. This is before dawn for the likes of him. Good bye, Mr. Conaty.” And the Lieutenant took my arm, and downstairs in the sunshine of Fifth Avenue, the Lieutenant made with more talk. “Now about that little sister …”

  “Gets it all now, under the new will, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah. And you’re the one who knows more about her than any of us. She ain’t been back to that apartment of hers, either. I’ve got a small hunch she’s blown.”

  “Blown, Lieutenant?”

  “The coop.”

  “How goes it with Ruth Rollins?”

  “We were talking about Julia …”

  “Let’s not go off the deep end, Lieutenant. Let’s try it logically. We’ve got two wills, and one of them is meaningless. Yet the one that’s meaningless is the one that’s around to be seen.”

  “So?”

  “Who benefits from that one? I mean Julia gets everything from the new will, which maybe nobody knows about, stuck in the lawyer’s office. And she gets half from the phony, the one people might know about. But who gets the other half, Lieutenant? Who gets the other half? Who really benefits from that first will, the one that’s around to be seen?”

  Grudgingly he said, “I know what you’re driving at.”

  “So … how goes it with Ruth Rollins?”

  “Smooth, so far. No wrinkles.”

  “And Brad Hartley?”

  “Just as smooth.”