by Craig Rice
“Child-ren,” Mother called.
April wrapped the bathrobe around her and ran through the dining room. She burst in through the kitchen door, pink-faced and sleepy-eyed. Mother and Bill Smith were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. The turkey was a shambles, and the maple cake was practically gone.
“Baby!” Mother said, jumping up, “what’s the matter?”
“Bad dream,” April whimpered.
Mother sat down again, and April climbed into her lap, trying to look about six years old.
“Poor little girl,” Bill Smith said. He came around by Mother’s chair and began feeding April the remains of the maple frosting. She managed to sneak most of it into her pocket, to share with Dinah later. “She’s a very nervous child,” Bill Smith said to Mother. April whimpered again, faintly, and Bill Smith said soothingly, “There, there.”
“She is not nervous,” Mother said indignantly, “and she is not a child.” She glanced down and spotted April’s blouse showing under the bathrobe. “And what’s more—”
The front doorbell rang just in time. Mother shoved April off her lap, said “Excuse me,” and went to answer it. Police Lieutenant Bill Smith followed. April took advantage of the diversion to race halfway up the stairs and pause to listen.
“I must apologize for this intrusion,” a pleasant masculine voice said. “But I am very anxious to get in touch with the police officer in charge of the case next door. I was informed that I might find him here.”
“Why, yes,” Mother’s voice said. “Won’t you come in?”
Then, “I’m Bill Smith. And you—?”
April peeked through the stair rail. She saw a handsome young man, tall and tanned, with smiling blue eyes and curly brown hair. “I’ve just seen the newspapers,” the young man said, “and I understand you’ve been looking for me.”
“Yes?” Bill Smith said.
The young man said, “I’m Rupert van Deusen. I’m quite willing to admit that Mrs. Sanford—the late Mrs. Sanford—was blackmailing me for the possession of certain foolishly written letters. Also I admit that the interview with her took place exactly as reported in the newspapers by some—reliable witness. However, at the time of her death I was having a haircut in a barbershop at least twenty miles from here, and a half-dozen people can testify to that effect.”
Bill Smith stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “Would you mind coming down to headquarters with me, so that we can verify your alibi?”
“Delighted to,” the young man said. “Glad to do anything that will help.”
“Will you excuse us?” Bill Smith said. “And thank you for the supper, Mrs. Carstairs.”
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” Mother said.
The two men went out. April fled up the rest of the stairs, ran into her room, and shut the door, fast.
“For Pete’s sake,” Dinah said, looking up from her dairy. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost!”
“I have,” April said, shivering. “I’ve seen a man who doesn’t exist!”
Chapter Nine
“I did not join the force for the purpose of giving advice,” Sergeant O’Hare said in tones of wounded dignity. “I am not going to be no Dorothy Dix. But you’re a pal and if I see you making a bad mistake I can point it out to you, see, as a pal, not officially. You never should of let that Van Deuseri guy get loose again.”
Police Lieutenant Bill Smith sighed, sat down on the bottom front step of the Sanford villa, and lit a cigarette. “At the time Mrs. Sanford was murdered, he was in the Grand Central Barber Shop, in downtown Los Angeles. A dozen people—including the barber—saw him there. Are you suggesting he left the barber chair, traveled seventeen miles, murdered Mrs. Sanford, and traveled seventeen miles back again, without anyone noticing his absence? You’ve been reading too many comic strips about rocket ships.”
“I suppose all these witnesses identified him with his face covered with lather,” O’Hare said coldly.
“He was getting a haircut,” Bill Smith said, “not a shave.”
“Okay, okay,” O’Hare agreed. “He’s got an alibi. But there’s something very fishy about that business. He threatened this Mrs. Sanford. That fine, smart little girl heard him and told me so. He even admits it. Just because he’s got an alibi, you let him go. If he didn’t have nothing to do with the murder, why did he show up out here?”
“Maybe he’s an honest, upright citizen who wants to aid the police,” Bill Smith said wearily.
Sergeant O’Hare said one word. It was a very rude one.
“Oh, all right,” Bill Smith said. “He murdered Mrs. Sanford and it’s a perfect crime, because he has a perfect alibi. So let’s turn in a report and stop worrying.” He added bitterly, “We’ve got to make some kind of report pretty soon.”
Sergeant O’Hare looked at him from the corner of his eye. “Maybe you just need a good night’s sleep,” he suggested.
Bill Smith sighed, and said nothing. Two days’ investigation of the Sanford murder seemed to have left him exactly where he’d come in. For the two hundredth time he let his mind run over the meager assortment of facts he had succeeded in accumulating. A wealthy woman named Flora Sanford—wealthy and domineering—had been murdered. She’d had a husband who—from all Bill Smith had been able to learn about him—was handsome, weak-willed, and somewhat younger than his wife. That husband had been running around with a pretty little actress named Polly Walker. Very pretty, he reflected, but with a sharp temper, a very determined young person who’d probably insist on getting what she wanted.
He’d learned that Mrs. Sanford and Polly Walker had never met, until the day of the murder. But a meeting had been arranged—was it, he wondered, arranged by Flora Sanford or by Polly Walker? They didn’t meet, though, because by the time Polly Walker arrived, Flora Sanford had been murdered.
No! Wait! They must have met before. Because Polly Walker’s frightened voice over the telephone had said, “—and quick. Mrs. Sanford has been murdered.”
“How,” he said out loud, “did she know that the dead woman on the floor was Mrs. Sanford, if she’d never seen her before?”
Sergeant O’Hare looked at him anxiously. “Speaking strictly as a pal,” he said, “maybe you had better get that good night’s sleep. We can come back in the morning and really tear the joint apart. And anyway, if this dame did have any incriminating letters, she would of stuck ’em away in a safety-deposit box under the name of Mrs. John Smith.”
Police Lieutenant Bill Smith didn’t answer. He lit another cigarette and stared out through the trees. There were too many facts that didn’t seem to fit in. The disappearance of Wallace Sanford. Why had he disappeared? He had the most perfect alibi in the world. He’d been on the suburban train at the time the shots were fired. Had he simply run away, or had he been kidnapped—or murdered?
Why had such a curious assortment of people tried to sneak into the Sanford villa after the murder? Mrs. Carleton Cherington III. She didn’t look like an ordinary souvenir hunter. That rabbity little lawyer, Holbrook. A lawyer ought to know better than to try to pick the lock of a house where a crime had been committed, even if the victim of the crime had been his client. And that man they’d caught sneaking up through shrubbery, who called himself Pierre Desgranges, and claimed to be a French painter. His accent didn’t sound like that of any Frenchman Bill Smith had ever known. And then, this guy, Rupert van Deusen. Where in blazes did he fit in?
Two shots had been heard. One bullet had killed Flora Sanford. Where was the other bullet? Certainly not in the chintz-hung living room where the crime had been committed. It had been searched, microscopically. Had there been a second murder, and the body carried away? Two cars had roared away from the scene of the crime. Two shots. Two cars. One murder. People with motives and perfect alibis. And a house that had to be searched for a cache of blackmail material. Bill Smith groaned.
“How do you feel, pal?” Sergeant O’Hare said solicitously.
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“Confused,” Bill Smith muttered. He threw away his cigarette and stood up. Through the trees, he could see the house next door. The kitchen had been warm and pleasant. And not everybody liked railroad songs as much as he did. The turkey sandwiches, and the maple cake—well, Marian—Mrs. Carstairs, he reminded himself—was not only a fine mother, a brilliant woman, and a beauty, but a magnificent cook as well. He walked to the end of the Sanford patio. He could see her, through her lighted window, sitting at her typewriter. She was working hard. What a shame, he thought, that such a charming woman had to work so hard. How sad that she should be all alone in the world, to bring up those handsome and talented children, all by herself!
Suddenly he realized that the entire Carstairs house was brightly lighted, even the porch and front driveway. Was someone ill—one of the children, perhaps? Oh, no, in that case Marian—Mrs. Carstairs—wouldn’t be at her typewriter. She’d be at the sick child’s bedside, a skillful and soothing nurse. Then, what—?
“Lookahere,” Sergeant O’Hare said. “Are we gonna go home, or are we gonna search this place?”
Bill Smith returned — with difficulty — to the world of reality. “Oh, all right,” he said crossly. “We’ll go home and search.”
Sergeant O’Hare regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment. “Pal,” he said at last, “you are confused.”
Suddenly there was a shrill, juvenile scream from the Carstairs house. It was followed by several others, even shriller.
“What the blazes!” Lieutenant Bill Smith gasped. He was down the steps and halfway across the lawn before Sergeant O’Hare caught up with him and slowed him down.
In the meantime there had been more screams. Young, feminine screams. A shrill voice cried, “Eddie! Don’t you dare!” There was a burst of music from a Harry James record. Then, pure pandemonium.
Bill Smith paused in his race across the lawn and gasped, “O’Hare! Riot call!”
“G’wan,” O’Hare said soothingly, catching his superior by the elbow. “It’s just them kids over there having a party. I’ve raised nine of my own, and I know.”
Bill Smith caught his breath and said, “Oh!” In the next minute he said, “Oh!” as a figure, moving with what seemed to be the speed of a torpedo, shot out of the bushes and butted him in the stomach, sending him sprawling on the lawn.
“Pard’n me, mister.” It was a small boy dressed in blue dungarees and a torn jersey, his face not only incredibly dirty, but luridly decorated with red chalk. “I’m one of the Mob. G’by.”
He headed back toward the bushes as a young voice hissed, “C’mon back here, Slukey. And keep still. We gotta steal them cokes.”
Police Lieutenant Bill Smith picked himself up and brushed himself off. “Maybe,” he said, “we had better send in a riot call.” He looked up toward the window where Marian Carstairs was still typing furiously. “How does she stand it?” he murmured.
“She’s used to it,” Sergeant O’Hare assured him. “You should just hear mine sometime.” He strode back to the edge of the Sanford property and yelled “Quiet!” There was immediate silence. “See?” he reported. “Kids is kids. Now, if you had nine of them—”
“Heaven forbid!” Bill Smith said. He didn’t say it with real conviction. There were a lot of times—though he would never have admitted it—when he envied Sergeant O’Hare. Maybe if he’d married that pretty dark-haired girl he’d met in his last year of high school—Her name had been Betty-Lou. She’d had a soft, warm, Southern voice. Definitely the helpless type. He’d worshipped her. The summer after graduation, when he was clerking in Hopner’s Drug Store, they’d decided to get married in the fall, if old Mr. Hopner would continue to hire him after the summer season.
But in August, Dad died, after five days in the hospital, from the wound inflicted by a bank robber’s bullet. During those five days, he made the arrangements for Bill to enter police school. His last whispered words were, “Take care of your ma, and be a good cop.”
Bill started police school. Betty-Lou promised she’d wait for him. Three weeks later she married an automobile salesman from Portland.
He took care of Ma as long as she lived. He was a good cop. He advanced, step by step, from his first assignment as a rookie. Now he was a Lieutenant on the Homicide squad. Dad would have been proud of him. And he hadn’t married. Because he didn’t have time, because he didn’t have money, because the girls he met didn’t look like Betty, or didn’t have soft Southern voices, or weren’t helpless and adoring.
Finally he’d come to the conclusion that he was happier as a bachelor, in a comfortable hotel apartment with excellent maid service and a good restaurant close by.
Lately, though, he’d begun to wonder.
It was a comfortable hotel. The service was excellent. A skillful maid, for whom he left regular weekly tips, but whose face he’d never seen and whose name he didn’t know, hung up his clothes and emptied his ash trays. And it was a good restaurant. The waitress didn’t bother to bring him a menu any more, she just brought him the evening newspaper and his dinner. He didn’t even wonder what she looked like.
Only, he couldn’t get maple-fudge cake in the restaurant. And the comfortable hotel apartment was entirely too quiet.
Still—Betty-Lou would never have consented to nine kids. In fact, he reflected, she probably never would have consented to one. Besides—she would never have developed into a brilliant woman who could write mystery novels. And could sing The Wreck of the Old Ninety-seven. And who could look beautiful with a smudge on her nose.
“I’m glad she didn’t marry me,” Police Lieutenant Bill Smith thought out loud.
“Howzat?” Sergeant O’Hare said.
“I was thinking,” Bill Smith said. He drew a long breath. “I was thinking we still have to search that house. And I’d much rather—” He didn’t finish it.
Dinah and April, meanwhile, were involved in a difficult problem. The party was going well. The cokes were cooling in the icebox. The kids had brought food. Hot dogs, potato chips, popcorn, and cookies. And an enormous chocolate mocha cake had turned up unexpectedly on the kitchen table, with a note reading, “In case your gang gets really hungry. Ma.” Joella had brought the records. Eddie and Mag hadn’t had a fight, at least not. so far. And the Mob wasn’t causing any trouble—yet.
But—The treasure hunt was going well. Wendy found the first clue, under the corner of the sundial. Pete had found the next one, in the goldfish pond, sealed in a bottle. Now, a really enthusiastic search was under way. Pretty soon it would begin to spill over into the Sanford grounds as per schedule.
Only—They were confident that they looked slick. Dinah in a plaid skirt, a station-wagon sweater, and brown-and-white saddle shoes. April in her pale-blue organdy, with flowers in her hair. Even Archie had washed his face, brushed his hair, and put on his best pants.
However—The party was a social success, but def. It wasn’t even bothering Mother. Dinah and April had sneaked upstairs once to see. She was typing fast, in a white-faced frenzy, evidently close to the last chapter of the current book, and completely oblivious of the racket downstairs.
Except—The Mob’s plan to steal the cokes had been discovered in time, and two strong, reliable guys had been stationed in the back porch to frustrate it. Only one phonograph record had been broken, so far. The crepe-paper decorations in the rumpus room were still intact. Everything was under control.
But—“How are we going to get away from the kids?” April whispered to Dinah, “and really search?”
“I don’t know,” Dinah said in a cross voice. “Pete keeps following me around all the time.”
“He’s your problem,” April said.
“Maybe we ought to explain it to him,” Dinah said, “and let him help.”
“That lame-brain!” April exclaimed. “Where did you check your mind, or did you just lose it?”
“Well, my gosh,” Dinah said defensively. “We’ve got to do something. If only—”
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“Hey, Di-nah,” Pete’s voice said, at close hand. April groaned.
“Here I am,” Dinah said, resignation in her voice.
Pete stepped from behind the hydrangeas, tastefully attired in dungarees and a plaid Okie shirt. Sixteen years old, five foot ten inches tall, and with a tendency to fall over his own feet. “Hey, April,” he said, “Joe’s looking for you.”
“Let him look,” April said serenely.
Dinah had a sudden inspiration. “Oh, Pete. Willya do something for me, willya?”
“Sure,” Pete said adoringly. “Anything.”
“I forgot to get any paper napkins. Willya ride your bike down to Luke’s and get me a dime’s worth?”
“Oh, sure,” Pete said.
“I’ll give you the dime,” she said. She felt in her blouse pocket. “April, have you got a dime?”
April shook her head and called “Archie!” Archie came up the garden steps, two at a time. “Have you got a dime?”
“Yep,” Archie said. “For what?”
“Never mind for what,” April said severely. She gave him a meaningful look.
Archie gave the dime to April, who gave it to Dinah, who gave it to Pete. Pete said, “Be right back,” and ran off to where he’d parked his bicycle.
“That makes two dollars and eighty-five cents you owe me,” Archie said.
“You’ll get it,” Dinah told him. “And now,” she sighed, “we’ve got to work fast.”
They crossed the lawn to the edge of the Sanford grounds. There was a whoop from Joella, who’d found a clue inside a milk bottle floating in the Sanford lily pool. A uniformed cop ran up from the front gate and yelled, “Beat it, you kids!” Eddie shinned down one of the Sanford trees with an exultant cry. He’d found the clue that had been planted in a bird’s nest. Another uniformed cop, who’d been on guard inside the house, came racing down the Sanford back steps. And just then Bunny scooted across the Sanford grounds in the direction of the kitchen garden.