The Deadly Percheron

by John Franklin Bardin

  “How did you get him to talk this time?”

  “I recognized him. He used to be in numbers before be went straight and I’ve seen him in the lineup again and again. He called himself by another name in those days – we got his record – and he’s been up the river twice. He knew it would go hard for him if we cracked down, so he sang.”

  “Promised him protection, hunh?”

  Arnheim opened his eyes wide. Surprisingly, they were baby blue. “Yeah, chief, I did. That was right, wasn’t it?”

  Anderson waved his hand in weak protest. “I suppose so. You should have checked with me first, though.”

  Arnheim’s eyes gleamed. “I didn’t get a chance, chief. I could see this guy knew something. So I pushed him around a little.”

  “How did you find him so quickly?”

  “That was easy. Bide-Away Farms was printed on the nag’s blanket. That was because this horse was rented, I figure. When Bulkely bought the other horse, she used her own blanket. Then we didn’t have the clue.”

  Anderson nodded his head. “OK, Arnie,” he said, “that’s nice work. Now I want you to trace that van. If necessary send a special squad out after it. If we find it quick enough, we may get another lead.”

  When the detective had left the office, Anderson turned to me and asked, “What do you make of that?”

  “It looks like whoever is behind these killings has plenty of money,” I said. “Ten thousand dollars for a horse! And, as far as I can see, it plays no essential part in the murder!”

  “It certainly lends a grotesque touch,” Sonia commented.

  That reminded me of what Bill Sommers had said about the murderer being a man with a sense of humor. I could not get that idea out of my mind. “Just what part do you think horses play in this murder?” I asked Anderson.

  He swiveled around in his chair. “Criminals, especially murderers, are fond of the sensational. They frequently trip themselves up by adding a useless, but melodramatic, touch to their crimes. I hope it works out that way this time.”

  “Doesn’t Mr Arnheim’s evidence prove that both these murders are the work of the same person?” asked Sonia. Womanlike, she insisted on coming back to the same point. I smiled.

  Anderson was also smiling at her. “It proves that Nan Bulkely played a part in both of them. But we knew that much already.”

  I had a thought. “There is something else, too,” I said. “Supposing that Sonia is right and that the same person did kill both Frances and Nan – then we know that he had less money to spend this time than before.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “The first time the horse was bought, wasn’t it? This time it was only rented. Doesn’t that indicate something?” I asked.

  Anderson smiled and shook his head. “‘He’ didn’t buy or rent either horse. Nan Bulkely bought one, rented the other. She may have been acting as agent for someone else, possibly she was. But we still have no proof of that.”

  He picked up another of the reports and, after regarding it intently for a moment, flicked the switch of the intercommunications system. “Send Miss Hanover in,” he said into the microphone. Then he looked up at me. “Denise Hanover was Bulkely’s roommate. When my men examined Bulkely’s apartment this morning they found her there. Here, I’ll read from the report: ‘When told of Miss Bulkely’s death, Miss Hanover was hysterical. Later she said, “I know who killed her!” She was placed in protective custody.’”

  I felt suddenly cold. I was remembering the previous afternoon and Nan’s attitude toward me. She had acted as if I were the guilty one. Could this Hanover girl know something about me that I did not know myself – that I had forgotten? I knew that my fears were neurotic and that they were conditioned by the extreme hardship and insecurity of the past months of my life, but they remained real enough. I put my handkerchief to my forehead to wipe the perspiration away. I saw that Sonia was concerned – she must have noticed my sudden pallor. Luckily, Anderson stood facing the door with his back to me so for once he did not see my reaction. Denise, seeming younger and prettier than ever before, walked into the room. Her eyes were red with tears.

  I stood up and gave her my chair. She stared at me for a long moment before she sat down, her eyes glimmering with curiosity, her lip curling with revulsion. I knew that look well by now – it was the price I paid for showing strangers my face – and I had learned to take it.

  Anderson introduced us and explained our presence as persons interested in the case. I said, “Miss Hanover and I have met before in Jacob’s apartment.” I saw that her eyes still stared at me and that they were large with hate. Her shoulders kept quivering. It was some time before she could speak.

  “Nan’s dead,” she said to me, “and you killed her!”

  Sonia jumped up and seized my arm. “Are you sure of what you’re saying, Miss Hanover?” Anderson asked.

  “I know he killed her,” she said softly – so softly that her words were almost inaudible.

  “How do you know?”

  “He phoned her last night. She went right out to meet him. And I never saw her again.”

  “You say Miss Bulkely received a telephone call that caused her to go out on the night of her death. But how do you know that the call was from Dr Matthews?”

  She pointed her finger at me. “He has been calling her up and threatening her life since last January. Sometimes, always against my advice, she would go out to meet him after one of those calls. That’s what she did last night.”

  “But how do you know these telephone calls, including the one you say she received last night, were from Dr Matthews?” Anderson asked again.

  “She told me,” said Denise. “But I knew it without her telling me. She used to get calls from him at the theater – that was when she was still going with him. Then she caught him out with one of the girls from the chorus, and they had a fight and she broke off. It was then he began to threaten her. Finally she was so scared of him she asked me to come to live with her. That was this spring.”

  Denise was very young, even younger than I had thought the day I first met her with Nan in Jacob’s apartment. She wore too much makeup. Her face was garish now, a tear-streaked mask. Her lips were trembling so that she could hardly form her words. Strangely enough I was not surprised at what she said, perhaps because I was past being surprised.

  Anderson, though, was taken aback. He shot me a quick glance, then looked down at the papers on his desk. I could see Sonia’s back stiffen and her eyes harden. All the sympathy that she had been prepared to give this girl was now gone in the face of what was, to her, an outrageous lie. But she said nothing.

  “Are you certain of what you’re saying, Miss Hanover? To accuse a man of murder is to make a mighty serious charge, you know? You must have the evidence to back it up.” Anderson’s voice was level and steady.

  Instead of answering the girl began to cry again. Her head sank until it was buried in her gloved hands and her whole body shook with genuine grief. Anderson came around from behind his desk and stood helplessly beside her, patting her back clumsily. He looked to Sonia for assistance, but Sonia’s eyes were cold and indifferent. Denise quieted soon though, and took the paper cup of water that the Lieutenant had fetched from the watercooler.

  She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, sitting up straight in her chair, her high heels caught under the bottom rung as a child might sit.

  “Let’s go back to the beginning, Miss Hanover,” Anderson suggested. “You’ve known Miss Bulkely how long?”

  “I met her in 1941 when ‘Nevada!’ began its run. We were both in the chorus at that time. I’ve lived with her since March, though.”

  Anderson glanced at me. “I didn’t know that Miss Bulkely was in ‘Nevada!’” he said. “What part did she play?”

  The girl continued as if she had not heard his question. “I was only in the chorus. But Nan understudied the lead. I was lonely – I had just come to New York – and she was kind to me
. She never changed after she became a star.”

  “When did she become a star, Miss Hanover?”

  “After Frances Raye died, of course – everyone knows that!”

  Sonia broke in. “But the girl who replaced Raye was Mildred Mayfair! I ought to know, I’ve seen ‘Nevada!’ three times!”

  Denise nodded her head. “Mildred Mayfair was Nan’s stage name. She thought it sounded more romantic.”

  “Was Miss Bulkely still playing the leading role at the time of her death?” I asked. I did not notice how maladroit my question was until Denise began to cry again.

  “No, Nan left the cast in June. She was tired and needed a vacation. Now she’ll never be able to play it again!” Her face was taut with grief.

  “What happened after she became a star, Miss Hanover?” Anderson’s question was put gently, but I could see that he did not intend to be halted by her continual tears.

  Denise sniffed and patted her eyes with her handkerchief. “We didn’t see so much of each other for a while. Don’t misunderstand me, please. It wasn’t that she went upstage. Nan was always sweet to me. It was just that she didn’t have so much time to herself being a star and all and having so many boyfriends.”

  “You say she had many men as friends. Who were they?” Denise sniffed again. “I’m sure I don’t know. I never pried into her personal affairs.”

  “But surely you must have heard her mention some of them by name?”

  “Well, yes.” Denise paused. “Right after–no, just before she became leading lady – there was Edgar. I never saw him but he was real nice to her. He gave her a mink coat and…and other things. She didn’t like him much though.”

  “Do you know his last name?”

  The girl hesitated, her face blank with concentration. “No, I don’t think I ever heard his other name. But there were others I do remember. There was Jacob Blunt. She liked him. I think he was younger than Edgar. But she stopped seeing him right after she became a star. She said he might get her into trouble about Frances Raye’s death.” Denise stopped, shut her mouth tightly as if she had just realized that she might have said too much – then rushed on. “And then there was the Doctor. He started to call her up a couple of months after she became a star, about January I think. And when she wouldn’t see him, he began to threaten her. He said she knew something about Frances Raye she wasn’t telling. And she didn’t know a thing! – not a thing, I know that! But from then on up until just last night he kept after her. Sometimes she would go out to see him, although I always begged her not to, and when she came back she would be limp and bedraggled looking. She’d be so frightened. And she had reason to be frightened! Didn’t he kill her?”

  Denise was pointing her finger at me again.

  Anderson ignored her accusation. “When did you come to live with Miss Bulkely? Did you say this spring?”

  “It was in March. That was the funniest thing!” she said. She hesitated, pulled at her gloved finger with her teeth. “She called me up one day – right out of the blue sky! She said she was lonely and wouldn’t I share her apartment with her? Would I? Well, I should say! Her with an apartment on Central Park South!” She stopped and looked at me. “But it wasn’t because she was lonely,” she said tragically. “It was because she was scared of him!”

  “Did you ever see Nan with Dr Matthews, Miss Hanover?” asked Anderson.

  The girl started to speak, then stopped. She looked down at her gloved hand and picked at a loose thread. Looking up again, she flared: “No, I didn’t! But that was only because he was so cagey! Always meeting her someplace late at night – never coming to see her backstage or at home the way a decent person would!”

  “How do you know then that the person who was threatening your friend was Dr Matthews?” Anderson was quiet and reasonable.

  “Because Nan told me, that’s why! Because I had no wish to doubt her word!”

  Anderson smiled, but shook his head. “I admire your loyalty, Miss Hanover, but such blind, unsupported belief isn’t very reliable as evidence. We know for a fact that Dr Matthews could neither have telephoned or murdered Miss Bulkely last night. One of our men was watching him all last night. He made no telephone calls since there is no phone in his room, and he did not leave his room all night. Someone else may have been threatening your friend – someone else may have telephoned her last night – someone else certainly killed her. But it wasn’t Dr Matthews.”

  Denise was on the verge of tears again. “But I tell you she was afraid. Afraid of him! I lived with her and I know!”

  “Miss Hanover, would you go out to meet a man in the middle of the night if that man had been threatening your life for months?”

  She shook her head.

  “But that’s what you say Nan did. Can’t you see that she must have gone out to meet somebody else, somebody she said was Dr Matthews to keep you from knowing who she really had an appointment with?”

  “But why should she lie to me?”

  Her lips trembled and I thought she was about to cry again. But I was mistaken. Instead, she unhooked her heels from the rung of the chair and stood up unsteadily. The mascara about her eyes had run over her cheeks and her lipstick was badly smeared.

  “Before you go, Miss Hanover, I’d like you to identify these,”

  Anderson said. He was holding a sheaf of letters and postcards out to her. “One of my men found these in Miss Bulkely’s desk when he searched the apartment this morning.”

  Denise took them hesitantly, glanced at all of them, and handed them back quickly. “Those are Nan’s own! Why are you meddling in them?”

  Anderson ignored her question. “Are these part of the correspondence Miss Bulkely carried on with Jacob Blunt?” he asked.

  Denise stood very erect and tried to look cold and dignified. “I really wouldn’t know. I never read Nan’s mail.”

  “But you know his name. Didn’t you just say that Nan used to see him, but had stopped because she was afraid he would get her mixed up in Frances Raye’s murder?”

  “Yes, but – ”

  “But what, Miss Hanover?” There was a sharp edge to Anderson’s politeness.

  “But I thought she hadn’t seen him since last October. She never told me that she wrote to him. I didn’t know.”

  “Isn’t it possible that there are many things you don’t know about your friend’s affairs, Miss Hanover?”

  “Yes, but–”

  “Isn’t it possible that, if Nan could carry on so lengthy a correspondence with Jacob Blunt without your knowledge, she was also deceiving you as to the identity of the person who made those threatening telephone calls?”

  “I suppose so. But–”

  “Then you aren’t really sure just who she went out to meet, are you, Miss Hanover? You really don’t know who murdered her, do you?”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean – ”

  Anderson was peremptory. He picked up one of the letters and waved it. “You don’t know anything more about this correspondence?”

  Denise shook her head. “I thought she had broken off with him.”

  Anderson opened the door for her. “I want you to remember, Miss Hanover, that Dr Matthews could not possibly have had anything to do with your friend’s death. I want you to remember that he was under surveillance all last night, including the time when she was killed. I don’t want you to say anything to anybody about what you’ve told me here. I don’t want you to let anyone know you’ve been to see me or anyone at Police Headquarters. Keep it all to yourself. You will remember that, won’t you?”

  She looked up at him and fluttered her eyes. “If you say so, Lieutenant.”

  Anderson was holding the door for her. She gave him one more lingering glance that was intended to be dramatic, then swept her fur about her throat – an absurd gesture – and bounced into the hall. Anderson shut the door violently, then leaned against it. He was obviously relieved.

  “What do you make of that?” he asked us.

/>   “I’m interested to find that Nan Bulkely was Frances Raye’s understudy and thus profited directly by her death. How is it that you didn’t know that before?”

  Anderson’s face was grim. “I should have known!” he said. “Somebody slipped up on that one. At the time of Raye’s death my men interviewed the entire cast of the show. But no report I ever saw indicated that Mildred Mayfair was Nan Bulkely.”

  “That was probably because Nan did not want you to know that if she could help it.”

  “Still we should have discovered it,” said Anderson.

  “We all make mistakes,” said Sonia.

  “Yes, but none of my men should make an error as bad as that.” He returned to his desk and jotted down a memorandum. I could see heads rolling on the Homicide Squad.

  “I don’t see why Nan lied to Denise about the name of the man who was threatening her,” I said. “Why should she say it was me? Could it be that whoever was threatening said he was me as long as he confined his actions to telephone conversations? Then, when he finally made himself known to her, she was afraid to reveal his true identity and continued to pretend to Denise that it was me?” I put this explanation forward self-consciously. I was still very much aware that I had just been accused of murder.

  Anderson was chewing contemplatively on his cigar. “Then you would interpret her visit with me yesterday as an attempt to get the police to investigate the case again and in so doing uncover her real enemy?”

  “Something like that,” I agreed. “Isn’t that the way a girl, afraid for her life, might act if she wanted police protection yet was unwilling to accuse the man who was threatening her? She used me as a pretext for coming to see you, for getting you to reopen the case.”

  “But how did she know where you were?”

  He had me stumped. I felt that if I could know the answer to that question, I would be able to lay my hands on the murderer. I said as much to Anderson, and added, “I feel that Nan is the link to the murderer; in fact, we already have a certain amount of evidence to prove it. But I still don’t see how.”