by Otto Penzler
In the thin grass was a naked man. Even at that distance, and it must have been a dozen yards at least, I knew he was dead.
The tall man suddenly began whimpering.
“When did you find him?” I asked.
He turned slowly, blinking. “Before I put on this new suit.” He added eagerly, “But I haven’t been near him. No closer’n this,” and asked, “Who put him there?”
My eyes roamed the patches of grass and bare dampish earth surrounding the body. Then bidding them stay where they were, I walked forward gingerly. I knew the importance of footprints. The body was lying, face down, in a curiously humped position, almost as if it had been in the first stage of turning a somersault. The temple rested in an indentation in the soft earth but the head was twisted and part of the cheek and chin was visible.
I looked back to where Mona and the stranger were standing and could clearly distinguish the tracks I had made. Then my eyes carefully surveyed the area surrounding the corpse. There was not the slightest indentation. How then, I wondered, did the man come to be lying there, thirty feet from the road. Of course, I’d known at once the cause of death. There was a bullet hole behind his ear. I straightened, frowning, to find Mona beside me.
“Now, don’t be fussy,” she said. “Simon’s run away to be sick.” She looked down at the nude figure, ludicrous even in death, and made a little grimace.
“He’s been shot,” I told her. “See, the bullet went in there.” I pointed to the hole behind the ear. “He was shot at very close quarters.”
“And in the early morning,” Mona said. “That’s why he’s undressed.” She snapped her fingers. “I know. He was shot in the bath and dumped here. He must have shaved, finished his bath, and then got himself shot. It’s a lesson, isn’t it, always to lock your bathroom door and risk having a fainting fit?”
“O.K., Mrs. Sherlock Holmes,” I said. “Now tell me something else. How did he get thirty feet from the highway? Peek around. You can see my footprints, can’t you?” I raised my eyebrows. “Where are yours?”
“Oh,” she said, “I was very clever about that. I tiptoed in your marks.”
“Good for you,” I said. “Now, do you see any other prints? Any indentations? Any wheel tracks? There isn’t a sign. Then how did he get here?”
“Oh, you’ll never make a detective,” she said, calmly. “He was dropped, of course. Out of an airplane. He was murdered thousands of miles away and flown here.”
“But,” I objected, “airplanes have to travel at a good bat to keep up. When he hit the ground wouldn’t he roll or bounce or something? This man looks as if he’d just plopped!”
“I know,” she said. “Balloon! They were coming down and when they threw him out the balloon hurtled up again.”
“Balloons are extinct,” I told her. “Anyway, it’s not our worry. After all, my pet, you’re not going to ride with Simple Simon. Whether he likes it or not he’s got to stay here and watch the body.”
As her sister embraced her, Mona said breathlessly, “Oh, Nell, we’re so sorry we’re late. We’ve seen a murder.”
“Nothing of the sort,” I said, cutting short further exaggerations. “We came across a dead man.”
“A gipsy,” Mona said. “He was disgustingly naked in the middle of nowhere.”
“We know nothing about him,” I said. “We don’t know who he is or what he is. Now you two gossip about something else while I find the policeman.”
“He’ll be watching the circus,” Nell advised. “Half the population has gone to see the tent go up.” She added apologetically, “The circus is an event in this little town.”
Sergeant Copestone was watching an elephant hauling on some gadget affixed to a pulley that lifted the soiled and sagging canvas and gave it the shape and substance and magic that is the circus. He was frankly irritated when his attention was distracted from the unusual scene.
“Dead in a paddock, eh? Well it would have to happen today.”
I explained about Simple Simon. “Oh, Daffy!” he said lightly. “Did he find him? Well, he’s harmless. A half-wit and that’s an exaggeration.”
“He’s at least a mechanic,” I said.
“Daffy?” he scoffed. “A mechanic!”
“My car stalled. He made it go.”
“I didn’t think he’d ever ridden in one,” Copestone chortled. “He must have had a lucky break.” He looked at me keenly. “Did you say this chap was naked?”
“He wore less than Adam. And your Daffy had on a new suit—one that didn’t fit.”
“Don’t tell me Daffy shot him just to get his clothes,” Copestone grinned.
“In any case,” I said, “how would he get the corpse to where we found it without leaving any tracks? There’s no sign of anything.”
“You’re saying it,” Copestone said. “I know the spot. He could have been emptied off the highway.”
“No,” I said, definitely, “He was too far from the road. I guess he was dropped from a plane.”
Copestone groaned. “That means all sorts of blinking experts. Of course the stripping’s to avoid identification. That won’t help if it’s a local lad, but if he was thrown from a plane he might have come from anywhere.”
Well, he wasn’t a local lad, and Cincotta, the circus proprietor, at the Sergeant’s request, had a look at the body and said it was no one from his show. When I had a close-up with the local doctor I knew the man had died late the previous night, probably not more than an hour or so before he’d been dumped. He’d a number of injuries all consistent with a fall from a height, and for a moment I wondered if he could have come down in a parachute that had landed him none too gently. But, then, where was the parachute? I told Copestone I’d be in the town for two weeks and left him with his headache.
I’d been warned that tea would be served promptly at three-thirty and although I arrived on the dot, the girls were already taking theirs. Opposite them a young woman sat bolt upright, a cup held stiffly in her right hand. She gave me quite a shock because, as far as features went, she was the counterpart of Mona. She made as if to rise but Mona said:
“Don’t move. It’s only my brute of a husband.” She turned to me. “This is M’lle. Valda from the circus,” and left me to wonder while Nell served tea as if it were quite usual to have itinerant show-folk dropping in.
After some desultory conversation Mona said abruptly, “Rodney, you’ve got to give M’lle. Valda a certificate or something to say she can’t perform tonight. She’s had a great shock.”
The circus woman attempted to wipe her eye with her free hand. I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” And with that the cup fell from M’lle. Valda’s fingers and she burst into tears.
“There, there,” Nell said, putting her arms about her. “You come to my room and rest.”
When she had led the sobbing girl away I said: “Now what is all this? What’s she doing here?”
“I met her at the chemist’s,” Mona explained. “The chemist introduced us … sort of. He said, ‘Are you ladies sisters?’ I remembered the picture poor silly Simon showed us and I knew who she was. I couldn’t help being interested. When the chemist went away to mix something she’d ordered, she began to dab her eyes. I said, ‘You’re M’lle. Valda, aren’t you? Can I help you?’ I think she was just dying to talk to somebody. She broke down and on the spur of the moment, I invited her round for a cup of tea. I knew Nell wouldn’t mind. And she told me all about it.”
“And what was it all about?”
“Her boy friend has run away. He’s not coming back.”
“How does she know that?”
“He wrote her a letter. He wanted to be free.”
“Nothing unusual in that,” I said.
“Now you’re being Dr. Smug,” Mona said. “And, anyway, I’ll bet my suspenders against your stethoscope that Valda’s boy friend is the naked lad Simple Simon found in the paddock.”
“Oh, that’s just guessing,” I said. “The circus b
oss saw the body. It’s no one from the show.”
“He might be lying.”
“Mona,” I protested, “that’s unreasonable. However, if you wish to satisfy your romantic little mind, why not ask the girl to describe her friend. You can then check with the corpse. Heaven knows you saw enough of him.”
“I’ll get it out of her,” she promised. “He must have been a detestable man sending a letter like that.”
“Oh, so you’ve seen the note?”
“He didn’t actually write it,” Mona said. “He got someone to do it. He can’t write.”
“Well, we are moving in nice company,” I said, smugly. “Naked men dropping from the sky! Crying circus girls! Illiterate Casanovas!”
“Maybe writing isn’t so important in a circus,” Mona said. “Valda’s friend is a bareback rider. I don’t see that knowing how to write would help him to stick on.”
Nell returned just then, looking a mite serious. “If Rod would like to assume his bedside manner he could visit the patient.” She added in another tone, “You’ve only my word, but I fancy our visitor is going to have a baby.”
“There!” Mona exploded. “What a beast of a man!”
Nell asked: “What man?”
“The jockey … the bareback rider. Saying in his letter ‘I’m sick of you. You won’t ever see me again.’ He must have known about the baby. I bet he’s some monkey-faced, under-sized rat,” she said, entirely forgetting that she’d previously identified him with the man in the paddock who had been slim and well-shaped and not bad-looking.
“He’s nothing of the sort, Mona,” Nell said, unexpectedly. “I’ve seen his picture. She asked me to get something from her bag and it was there. He’s quite picturesque with the fiercest mustache and a tuft on his chin that might have come off Napoleon the Third.”
“There!” I said. “That disposes of your idea about Valda’s lover being the corpse in the copse.”
“Anyway,” Mona said, “he deserved to be murdered. Writing such a brutal letter!” She regarded me sternly. “If you were half a doctor,” she said, “you wouldn’t stand eating your head off while that poor child …”
“Oh, all right,” I said, swallowing my cream cake. “I’ll see the lady.”
“And if it’s what Nell thinks,” my wife went on, “you’ve got to march over and tell the ringmaster she can’t possibly perform tonight. I’m not going to have that girl bounding about on a slack-wire.”
“Oh, she’s a wire-walker?”
“I don’t know,” Mona admitted. “In the circus they do everything. She might even go in with the lion.”
“Oh, go on in with the patient,” Nell said, laughing, pushing me through the door.
I found it was true enough about the baby, but there’d be quite an interval before its birth. M’lle. Valda wept as she told me, “I don’t want you to think I’m bad,” she said. “You’ve all been so kind. You’re not snobs. We were going to be married and now he’s run away.”
“He knew about the baby?”
She nodded.
I sighed. “I’ll walk across and tell your boss you can’t perform tonight.”
She regarded me curiously. There was something in her expression I couldn’t fathom. “You’re a doctor,” she said at length. “You know men—men who are going to have babies they think will be a tie. Do you think Joe will come back?”
I patted her hand. “In time, yes,” I lied. “I feel sure of it. Don’t you?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think he’ll ever come back.”
On my way to the circus I met Sergeant Copestone. “They’re round the body like bees,” he told me. “It’s got ’em guessing. The absence of tracks, I mean. Cincotta lent us a blacktracker who does a boomerang act in the circus but he couldn’t pick up a damn thing. I think you’re right, doc. He was dropped from a plane.” He sighed prodigiously. “That’s where the tax-payers’ money goes. He could have been flown from anywhere in Australia and Australia’s a damn big place. I hear the newspapers are playing it up. ‘The Flying Corpse’ or something.”
I found Cincotta suave and swarthy—all teeth and sideburns. I imagined, in make-up, under arc lights, he’d look well in a dress-suit. Just now he was a little grimy in oil-smeared slacks and dirty pullover. I began with some politeness about intruding upon him at a busy time and with an African lion in a cage roaring in my ears, broached the subject of my visit.
“I’ve called to see you regarding M’lle. Valda,” I said. “I have advised her to rest tonight. She is suffering from shock.”
He shrugged. “She will get over it. They all do. Her man has run away.”
“Oh, you know that?”
He shrugged again. “The girl, she rides him too hard. Joe Varella, he is never serious.” He looked at me slyly. “Maybe something has happened?”
I ignored the implication. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Valda’s condition.
He went on: “Mister, if you knew Joe, you would understand. Two days ago he hands me his notice. I am not surprised. I am sorry but I understand. Joe!—he can pick up dames like that …” he snapped his fingers. “Why should he stick to one woman? She wants he should marry her, he tells me. Joe Varella marry? pouf!”
“You mean he gave up his job because Valda was pressing him to marry her?”
“Why not?” he asked. “Joe can get plenty jobs. Valda can get plenty men. But me? I am the poor mug because Varella must have his fun and maybe carries the game too far. I lose a good rider the dames come twice to see in the two-night stands and now you want I should lose little Valda.” He smiled, deprecatingly, showing all his teeth. “Well, mister, I still got that mangy lion and a good elephant. I should worry.” He spat into the tanbark, then lit a cigarette without offering me one. “Where is she now?” he asked.
“Quite safe,” I told him.
He grinned. “Wherever she is, she will not stay, my friend. She is circus. When she hears the band tonight she will come running. Tomorrow she forgets you. The day after she forgets Varella.”
He bawled instructions to a man fixing some gear at the top of the tent, then turned to me apologetically.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Plenty to do, you understand. Tell Valda she shall take it easy. I find her some simple act. Not too much jolt, eh?” He smirked, knowingly. “Later, maybe, she sells the tickets.” He took my arm familiarly and steered me toward the entrance. “Don’t worry too much, doc. Circus girls is tough.”
“What exactly does Valda do?” I asked, but he was no longer interested. His eyes had gone to the tent top again and he directed such a spate of obscenity at the fellow perched there that I was glad to escape. I paused at the entrance, feeling for a cigarette, and heard a complaining circus hand: “Listen to him. I feel like turning the game in. There’s no programs tonight. How does he think a man can live without side-lines?”
As I lit my cigarette a telegraph messenger thrust an envelope at me. “Mr. Cincotta?” I pointed to the ring. A moment later I heard Cincotta shout. “Doc!” He came hurrying, waving a telegram, then held it under my nose. “See! Joe, he is not such a bad fellow, eh?”
I read the message: “I admit nothing but give Valda ten pounds for me.”
Cincotta said: “He has got a conscience, that fellow. I’ll bet he’s been worrying and this morning he sends the telegram.” He tapped the paper. “See—from the city.” He put the envelope in his pocket. “Poor Joe. He thinks maybe he’ll have bad luck if he don’t do the right thing. Very superstitious. D’you know, doc, that man is so superstitious he has a picture of some saint pasted in his watch-case so he can get protection any minute! Well,” he clapped his hands, rubbing them together as if all were well with the world, “now I get Valda back tonight, sure. Ten pounds, eh? That makes everything okey-doke.”
I was a little disgusted with Mr. Cincotta but had to admit he knew his people. At any rate M’lle. Valda refused Nell’s invitation to remain for dinner. I impressed up
on her the wisdom of resting and she promised to take it easy.
“And,” Mona said, “you must on no account walk any wires or things.”
Valda stood at the door looking back at us with that queer enigmatic expression. “She reminds me of someone,” I said, when she had gone.
“It’s me,” Mona said, promptly.
I shook my head. “Not the face, the expression.”
“Mona Lisa,” Nell suggested and of course that was it.
We assured ourselves we didn’t want to see the circus. Distantly we could hear the band and noisy ballyhoo and occasionally the poor lion roared. The footsteps and excited chatter of people on their way to the show came to us clearly.
“I wish I knew what that girl is doing,” Mona said. “I bet that brute of a circus man will make her go in with the animals.”
“He promised she would do some simple act,” I protested.
“Simple!” she cried. “What’s simple about circus acts? Do you call swinging by your toes from a trapeze ninety miles high simple?” She eyed me sternly. “You ought to be there to forbid it.”
“Which adds up to—you’d like to see the circus?” I said.
“It’s all very well to be complacent,” Mona said, “but I keep thinking of that poor lamb.”
“All right,” Nell said, good-naturedly. “Just to satisfy ourselves Valda isn’t being cruelly exploited, we’ll go.”
Cincotta was standing near the entrance, a picturesque figure in his evening clothes. He flashed me a smile and I asked after Valda. He shrugged, characteristically. “My friend, I have done my best.” He went on hurriedly, “But it is only a little act. Just looking pretty.”
As we were hustled along the gangway by those following, Mona whispered, “Who was that?”
“Cincotta. Valda’s boss,” I told her.
“He looks every inch a white-slaver,” she commented, and just then a megaphone voice announced the grand parade and we had only just reached our seats when the cavalcade entered.