The Deadly Percheron

by John Franklin Bardin

  “What about those letters?” Sonia asked. “May we see them, too?”

  Anderson picked the sheaf of correspondence off his desk and handed it to Sonia. His eyes twinkled. “Feminine curiosity or pure intellectual interest?” he asked.

  I read them over her shoulder. They were all signed either “affectionately” or “With Love.” They seemed to be in order of receipt: the earliest dated back more than six months, but the latest was no more recent than six weeks back. If she had received any letters from Jacob since then, they were not included. I pointed this fact out to Anderson.

  He nodded his head. “I noticed that. But I don’t know if it’s too significant at this stage of the game. There is nothing remarkable in her corresponding with Blunt. They had been close friends before. What we must find out is whether Jacob is in any way, other than that we know already, connected with Frances Raye’s death, your kidnapping or Nan’s murder.”

  “I should think you had better get in touch with Jacob and ask him some pointed questions. Even if he is innocent of all connections with Nan’s plotting, he may be able to throw additional light on the whole affair.”

  Anderson agreed. “I telephoned the New Britain police this morning and asked them to bring him to New York. I’m expecting to hear from them any moment. He has been under surveillance ever since the Raye case was tabled, however, and I doubt if he is involved in this latest development.”

  “It seems to me that you ought to have investigated Jacob Blunt much more thoroughly than you have up to now,” Sonia commented drily.

  Anderson stood up, pushing his swivel chair back against the wall with a resounding bang. “Why?” he demanded of the room. “How can I question or hold a man when I haven’t a particle of direct evidence against him? What did he do? He got drunk and assisted in tying a horse to a lamppost. I have no definite proof that he even did that, although he admitted it. He left the scene of the crime before it occurred – again on his own word, but we have no direct evidence that he even visited the address. Before that he went to a psychiatrist who was later kidnapped – again Jacob had nothing to do with the crime. A man who is suspected of murder registers in jail under his name. That’s peculiar, but not criminal as far as Jacob is concerned. The only charge I could have held him on, to the best of my knowledge, is that of disorderly conduct. And with a good lawyer he could beat that!”

  “But,” protested Sonia, “looking at the whole case from the day Jacob stepped into Dr Matthews’ office until today, you must admit that Jacob Blunt has a great deal to do with it. And from what Dr Matthews tells me, whoever the person was who had him held prisoner and tortured was seeking information about Jacob’s whereabouts. I just can’t see how you can ignore the question of Jacob Blunt!”

  Sonia was walking back and forth across the room, her dark hair swinging loosely about her shoulders. She was wearing slacks and alight polo coat, and her stride, as usual, was uninhibited by skirts. Her excitement had grown while she talked to Anderson – I had never seen her as close to anger. Anderson’s ire was aroused, too. He stood behind his chair, his knuckles drumming the wood, his teeth clenched. It might have been the beginning of a real row…if the intercom had not buzzed just then. Anderson had to lean down to the microphone to answer it.

  The voice of the receptionist sounded in the small office, “A Mr Jacob Blunt to see you, Lieutenant. He says he wants to report a murder.”

  Anderson collapsed in his chair. He was so astonished that he failed to respond to the loudspeaker’s question. He sat still as a stone, staring at me blankly, while the mechanical voice kept repeating: “What shall I tell him, Lieutenant? A Mr Jacob Blunt, Lieutenant, wants to report a murder. Shall I send him in?”

  At last, Anderson leaned forward and flipped the switch. “Yes, you might as well tell him to come in,” he sighed.

  I think things were just a little too much for Anderson just then.

  THIRTEEN

  A Knife Stained Darkly

  Jacob was surprised to see me. He stood in the doorway of Anderson’s office looking just about the same as he had on the day he visited me. He stared at me with astonishment. This time there was no flower in his hair and he was not grinning. His brown suit seemed in want of a pressing and he needed a shave. But he was enough the same that I had the feeling that I had suddenly been carried back ten months into the past – that instead of this being the last day of August, 1944, it was the eleventh of October, 1943 – and I found myself at the beginning of it all again. I guessed from Jacob’s manner that he was experiencing a similar sensation.

  “Come on in,” Anderson grumbled. “Don’t just stand there. It’s only Dr Matthews and he is alive and well.”

  Jacob shut the door behind him. “I thought you said he was dead.”

  “It turned out I was mistaken. The body we found in the river, the one his wife identified, wasn’t his – obviously. But that’s a long story that will keep. Tell me what you want to see me about.”

  Jacob approached Anderson’s desk, but he kept looking side-wise at me. I knew that he was discomfited by my appearance and that he could not take his eyes off my scar. By now I should be used to this initial revulsion people felt when they looked at me, but instead I had begun to doubt if I ever would get used to it – although I had learned to stare it down. Finally, he said, “I’m glad to see you, Doctor. You seem to always turn up when I’m in trouble.” He swallowed and then faced Anderson. “I – I want to report the murder of Nan Bulkely,” he stammered.

  Anderson’s hands had been playing with a pencil on his desk. Now they went limp and the pencil rolled off onto the floor. “How do you know about that?” he demanded. “Who told you?”

  “I – I was with her when it happened,” Jacob said. “I ran away afterwards. I didn’t kill her, but I knew you would think I had. I went and ate breakfast and I thought it all over. Then I took a walk in the park and thought about it some more. I decided to give myself up. I – I want to face – the music.”

  Anderson slammed his hand down on the desk and jumped to his feet. “I might have known when I saw that horse,” he exclaimed, “that this guy would be mixed up in it somehow!” He turned and glowered at Jacob. “What do you mean you didn’t kill her?”

  Jacob put his hand to his head. “We were walking along West Tenth Street,” he said, “early this morning – we had been to a nightclub in the Village and we wanted a little air

  – when I heard a silly pop. Nan grabbed at me, started to say something, then fell in a heap as if someone had tripped her. I looked around, but I didn’t see anybody. I’m sure there was no one around. But I didn’t do it.” He looked appealingly at Anderson.

  Anderson stared at him belligerently, his mild face twisted into a frightening scowl. “Do you expect me to believe that story?” he asked sarcastically.

  Jacob smiled submissively. “It’s the truth.”

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  Jacob shook his head. “No, that’s all that happened. We were walking along, and there was this pop, and – ”

  Anderson walked around his desk and laid one hand on Jacob’s shoulder, an almost fatherly gesture. “Tell me, son, didn’t you forget that goddamn horse? Didn’t you forget all about that stinking percheron?” Anderson was being nasty, but I could not blame him for his bad temper. Too many things had gone wrong in the last few hours.

  But Jacob did not understand the reason for Anderson’s irony. He was only puzzled. “What percheron?” he asked. “I didn’t see a horse this time. We were walking along and I heard – ”

  “Yes, yes, I know!” cut in the Lieutenant. “You heard a bang and you looked and there was Nan, dead. It’s a sad story–a very sad story.”

  Jacob was shaking his head in obstinate disagreement. “It wasn’t a bang, it was a pop. A sound like – like a paper bag makes when you bust it, only hollower. It was so quiet I couldn’t tell where it came from.”

  Anderson glared at Jacob. I kne
w that he was venting all the irritation and bad temper that had accumulated during the past day on this boy. Jacob had the misfortune of being the straw that broke the back of Anderson’s camel. “Why don’t you let him tell his story in his own way?” I suggested.

  Anderson glanced at me, then returned his glare to Jacob. “All right,” he said. “Begin at the beginning. Tell me what you were doing in New York, and tell me – ” he reached into the pile of papers on his desk and grabbed one of Nan’s letters – “what is the meaning of this?” He shoved the letter at Jacob.

  Jacob looked at the letter and handed it back. “That’s only a letter I wrote to Nan,” he said.

  “But why did you write to her? I thought you told me you were married?”

  Jacob ran his hand through his curly hair and looked steadily at the ceiling. “I am,” he said. “I’m married all right.”

  “But these are love letters,” said Anderson. “You say all kinds of silly things in them. They’re enough to turn a man’s stomach!”

  Jacob stood stiffly, but not without dignity. His face was flushed and he was perspiring heavily. “What difference does it make to you what kind of letters I write?” he demanded weakly. “I’m not living with my wife anymore. In fact, she’s getting a divorce. But what do you care about that?”

  “I care this much,” Anderson snapped. “The woman who received these letters was murdered this morning. She had been receiving threatening telephone calls for some time. She received the last of these calls last night, about twelve-thirty. She went out to meet the person who called. You tell me that you were with her last night and that you were with her when she was shot. It looks to me like you – who wrote her ardent love letters, who were the last one to see her alive – were also the same person who made the telephone calls and finally carried out your repeated threats by killing her. And to think that now you have the brass to come into my office and try to lie your way out of your crime with the most absurd, damn-fool story I’ve ever heard!” Anderson slammed his fist down on his desk knocking papers in all directions. “Well,” he snorted, “you may fool the Doctor, but you aren’t fooling me!”

  Jacob looked dazed. He hesitated, then he said in that worried tone I knew so well, “I didn’t call Nan up last night. I met her outside the apartment building.”

  Anderson continued to stare belligerently at him. “Go on, Jacob,” I said. “Tell us what happened.”

  Jacob’s eyes rolled nervously, his face twitched. Anderson had frightened him badly and it was a moment before he could speak. “I decided yesterday to come to town for a few days. My wife had just left me for good – we never did get along, and now I know I never should have married her and I felt like being alone and getting good and drunk. So I gave the sheriffs man you had watching me the slip and came on into town.

  “I had been writing Nan off and on for the past year. Recently she had stopped answering my letters, why I don’t know. I thought I might drop around to her place and see if she wanted to go nightclubbing with me. As my taxi stopped in front of her building, I saw her coming out of the apartment door. She saw me about the same time and she rushed up to me and threw her arms around me. She was very excited about something; in fact, as I held her I could feel her tremble. She said, ‘Oh, Jakey, I’m so glad to see you! Take me some place quick!’”

  “Did she say why she was glad to see you?” I asked. Anderson was leaning back against his desk pretending not to listen to what Jacob was saying. He had a you-can-go-on-with-this-if-you-want-to-but-I’ve-made-up-my-mind expression on his face. “Or did she say why she wanted you to take her someplace quickly?”

  Jacob nodded his head. “As soon as we were in the taxi I asked her what was wrong. She said she had just had a fight with Denise and that she was so disgusted she did not want to think about anything. I didn’t think she was telling me the truth, but I couldn’t say so. ‘Take me someplace where there is music and dancing, Jakey,’ she said. I felt sure she wasn’t telling me all that was wrong. But I didn’t feel like quibbling just then. I let her lean back against my shoulder and I told the driver to take us to this place I knew in the Village. I had troubles of my own I wanted to forget, too.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “There isn’t much else to tell.” Jacob showed me that bashful grin of his for the first time since he had come into Anderson’s office. “We did what you would expect us to – we got drunk. Nan was sick and I took her outside for some fresh air. We sat in the park for a while, and then I suggested we take a walk. We

  were walking along West Tenth Street when it happened. I just heard this pop and I felt Nan grab at me and then she fell over in a scrambled heap. At first I thought somebody had pushed her…”

  “What time was it when you left the nightclub?”

  “It was closing time, around four o’clock.”

  “And how long did you sit in the park?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I was pretty drunk you see. It was still dark when we left.”

  “Make a guess.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe an hour, maybe longer.”

  “Then it was probably between five and six o’clock when you were walking along West Tenth Street?”

  Jacob nodded his head, but he looked dubious.

  “And you didn’t see anyone on the street when the shot was fired? Did you notice which direction the sound seemed to come from?”

  “No. All I heard was a pop, and then I was too busy trying to help Nan to look around. When I did look around, I saw no one. The pop didn’t sound too close though. It wasn’t loud enough to startle me.”

  I could not think of anymore questions to ask. I believed Jacob’s story just as I had believed his story when he had come into my office that day so long ago. But I could see where Anderson would never believe it.

  “Are you through?” Anderson asked me.

  I nodded my head.

  Anderson pushed the buzzer on his desk. We waited until Sommers, the fat detective, came into the office. Then Anderson pointed at Jacob, “Take this man downstairs and see if you can get him to talk. Book him on suspicion of murder, but see that he gives you a statement first. I’ll be down to talk to him later.”

  Jacob started to protest, then thought better of it. But he looked at Anderson for a long time before he turned and followed Sommers to the door. As he was going out the door he turned around again, and this time he decided to speak.

  “I didn’t see a horse,” he said falteringly. “I didn’t see a horse all night.” Then he went out the door.

  Sonia and I left Centre Street a few minutes later. I promised to report to Anderson the next morning – by then he would be through with his questioning of Jacob. We went up to the Village and had lunch at a sidewalk cafe. While we ate I told her about seeing Sara enter the building on West Tenth Street and about my intention of returning there to see if I couldn’t find her. I explained that I wanted to do this alone, but asked Sonia to meet me at West Tenth Street in a couple of hours. Sonia said she would pass the time at a movie.

  We parted and I walked through Washington Square to Fifth Avenue. It was one of those wonderful, clear sunny summer days when everyone seems glad to be alive. Washington Square was crowded with students, families and Fifth Avenue buses. The dogs were out in full force: pomeranians, schnauzers, greyhounds, cockers, collies, terriers of every sort and a few more weird breeds I could not name. Even the stately façades of the Fifth Avenue apartment buildings seemed warm and friendly, instead of cold and majestic.

  But when I came to the building on West Tenth Street that we had visited that morning all my good feeling vanished. As I gazed at the long rows of mailboxes, each equipped with its own doorbell, I felt faint and weary. None of the names on the boxes was Matthews. How would I know which apartment Sara lived in? I could ring them all, but that would create a disturbance. I could ask the superintendent, describe Sara to him; but he would certainly recognize me and report the conversation
to Anderson. I stood undecided, not knowing what to do.

  And I began to think of my face. I saw again the first glimpse I had had of my disfigurement in the drugstore mirror; my flesh began to creep as I visualized that livid slash that divided my features, made my mouth twist into a permanent sneer. I put my hand to my cheek, feeling the smoothness of it, and imagined the look of revulsion that would come over Sara’s face when she saw me. My stomach felt empty and a great weight pressed upon my chest. I was about to turn away…

  Then I heard the door click behind me. I looked around and found myself face to face with Sara. She was smiling at me…she knew me…she seemed to accept me as I was. She was the same, unless she was a little more wonderful than I had remembered. I looked at her for a long moment, afraid to speak as if in speaking I might break the magic – and then she gave a little gasp and fell into my arms. We held each other close like two kids in love. “George,” she whispered in my ear. “I’m so glad I’ve found you!”

  I held her tighter, but did not speak. I knew I did not need to tell Sara how miserable I had been. There was so much to tell, enough for days, and these first few moments of reunion were precious. But if I did not speak, I nevertheless communicated my emotions to her: I could feel her trembling in my arms. “Oh, George,” she sighed, “I was afraid I might never see you again…”

  We went up in the elevator to her apartment and into a small living room. This room seemed strangely familiar to me. While she took off her hat and coat, I wandered around wondering at this sense of familiarity, so similar to the feeling I had had that morning in the apartment on the floor above. When Sara came back into the room I asked her, “Why did you take a flat in the same building as Frances Raye’s?”

  She seemed puzzled by my question. “Why that was your idea, George – don’t you remember? You wanted an apartment in the building because you wanted to be on the scene of the crime. You felt it was a safe place to carry on your investigation – a place where they would never look for you.”