I am the dog
Of the King at Kew.
Pray tell me, Sir,
Whose dog are you?”
The little man nodded. “I'd never heard it, but— Yes, it would be a parody all right. The original's clever. 'Whose dog are you?' ” He chuckled, then sobered abruptly. “I thought my verse was funny, too, but last night—”
“Yes?”
“Somebody tried to kill me, twice. At least, I think so. I took a walk downtown, leaving the dog home, incidentally, and when I was crossing the street only a few blocks from home, an auto tried to hit me.”
“Sure it wasn't accidental?”
“Well, the car actually swerved out of its way to get me, when I was only a step off the curb. I was able to jump back, by a split second and the car's tires actually scraped the curb where I'd been standing. There was no other traffic, no reason for the car to swerve, except—”
“Could you identify the car? Did you get the number?”
“I was too startled. It was going too fast. By the time I got a look at it, it was almost a block away. All I know is that it was a sedan, dark blue or black. I don't even know how many people were in it, if there was more than one. Of course, it might have been just a drunken driver. I thought so until, on my way home, somebody took a shot at me.
“I was walking past the mouth of a dark alley. I heard a noise and turned just in time to see the flash of the gun, about twenty or thirty yards down the alley. I don't know by how much the bullet missed me — but it did. I ran the rest of the way home.”
“Couldn't have been a backfire?”
“Absolutely not. The flash was at shoulder level above the ground, for one thing. Besides— No, I'm sure it was a shot.”
“There have never been any other attempts on your life, before this? You have no enemies?”
“No, to both questions, Mr. Kidd.”
Peter Kidd interlocked his long fingers and looked at him. “And just what do you want me to do?”
“Find out where the dog came from and take him back there. To — uh — take the dog off my hands meanwhile. To find what it's all about.”
Peter Kidd nodded. “Very well, Mr. Smith. You gave my secretary your address and phone number?”
“My address, yes. But please don't call me or write me. I don't want my wife to know anything about this. She is very nervous, you know. I'd rather drop in after a few days to see you for a report. If you find it impossible to keep the dog, you can board it with a veterinary for some length of time.”
When the pudgy man had left, the blonde asked, “Shall I transcribe these notes I took, right away?”
Peter Kidd snapped his fingers at the shaggy dog. He said, “Never mind, Miss Latham. Won't need them.”
“Aren't you going to work on the case?”
“I have worked on the case,” said Peter. “It's finished.”
The blonde's eyes were big as saucers. “You mean—”
“Exactly.” said Peter Kidd. He rubbed the backs of the shaggy dog's ears and the dog seemed to love it. “Our client's right name is Robert Asbury, of six-thirty-three Kenmore Street, telephone Beacon three, three-four-three-four. He's an actor by profession, and out of work. He did not find the dog, for the dog was given to him by one Sidney Wheeler who purchased the dog for that very purpose undoubtedly — who also provided the hundred-dollar fee. There's no question of murder.”
Peter Kidd tried to look modest, but succeeded only in looking smug. After all, he'd solved his first case — such as it was — without leaving his office.
He was dead right, too, on all counts except one:
The shaggy dog murders had hardly started.
• • •
The little man with the bulbous nose went home — not to the address he had given Peter Kidd, but to the one he had given the printer to put on the cards he'd had engraved. His name, of course, was Robert Asbury and not Aloysius Smith. For all practical purposes, that is, his name was Robert Asbury. He had been born under the name of Herman Gilg. But a long time ago he'd changed it in the interests of euphony the first time he had trodden the boards; 633 Kenmore Street was a theatrical boardinghouse.
Robert Asbury entered, whistling. A little pile of mail on the hall table yielded two bills and a theatrical trade paper for him. He pocketed the bills unopened and was looking at the want ads in the trade paper when the door at the back of the hall opened.
Mr. Asbury closed the magazine hastily, smiled his most winning smile. He said, “Ah, Mrs. Drake.”
It was Hatchet-face herself, but she wasn't frowning.
Must be in a good mood. Swell! The five-dollar bill he could give her on account would really tide him over. He took it from his wallet with a flourish.
“Permit me,” he said, “to make a slight payment on last week's room and board, Mrs. Drake. Within a few days I shall—”
“Yes, yes,” she interrupted. “Same old story, Mr.
Asbury, but maybe this time it's true even if you don't know it yet. Gentleman here to see you, and says it's about a role.”
“Here? You mean he's waiting in the—?”
“No, I had the parlor all tore up, cleaning. I told him he could wait in your room.”
He bowed. “Thank you, Mrs. Drake.” He managed to walk, not run, to the stairway, and start the ascent with dignity. But who the devil would call to see him about a role?
There were dozens of producers any one of whom might phone him, but it couldn't be a producer calling in person.
More likely some friend telling him where there was a spot he could try out for.
Even that would be a break. He'd felt it in his bones that having all that money in his wallet this morning had meant luck. A hundred and ten dollars! True, only ten of it was his own, and Lord, how it had hurt to hand out that hundred! But the ten meant five for his landlady and two and a half for the cards he absolutely had to have — you can't send in your card to producers and agents unless you have cards to send in —and cigarette money for the balance. Funny job that was. The length some people will go to play a practical joke. But it was just a joke and nothing crooked, because this Sidney Wheeler was supposed to be a right guy, and after all, he owned that office building and a couple of others; probably a hundred bucks was like a dime to him. Maybe he'd want a follow-up on the hoax, another call at this Kidd's office. That would be another easy ten bucks.
Funny guy, that Peter Kidd. Sure didn't look like a detective; looked more like a college professor. But a good detective ought to be part actor and not look like a shamus.
This Kidd sure talked the part, too. Circum — am —Circumambulate, and — uh — succinctly. “Perhaps you had better circumambulate me succinctly.” Goofy! And that “from the Latin” stuff!
The door of his room was an inch ajar, and Mr. Asbury pushed it open, started through the doorway. Then he tried to stop and back out again.
There was a man sitting in the chair facing the doorway and only a few feet from it — the opening door had just cleared the man's knees. Mr. Asbury didn't know the man, didn't want to know him. He disliked the man's face at sight and disliked still more the fact that the man held a pistol with a long silencer on the barrel. The muzzle was aimed toward Mr. Asbury's third vest button.
Mr. Asbury tried to stop too fast. He stumbled, which, under the circumstances, was particularly unfortunate. He threw out his hands to save himself. It must have looked to the man in the chair as though Mr. Asbury was attacking him, making a diving grab for the gun.
The man pulled the trigger.
• • •
“ 'I am the dog of a murdered man,' ” said the blonde. “ 'Escape his fate, Sir, if you can.' ” She looked up from her shorthand notebook. “I don't get it.”
Peter Kidd smiled and looked at the shaggy dog, which had gone to sleep in the comfortable warmth of a patch of sunlight under the window.
“Purely a hoax,” said Peter Kidd. “I had a hunch Sid Wheeler would try to pull some
thing of the sort. The hundred dollars is what makes me certain. That's the amount Sid thinks he owes me.”
“Thinks he owes you?”
“Sid Wheeler and I went to college together. He was full of ideas for making money, even then. He worked out a scheme of printing special souvenir programs for intramural activities and selling advertising in them. He talked me into investing a hundred dollars with the understanding that we'd split the profits. That particular idea of his didn't work and the money was lost.
“He insisted, though, that it was a debt, and after he began to be successful in real estate, he tried to persuade me to accept it. I refused, of course. I'd invested the money and I'd have shared the profits if there'd been any. It was my loss, not his.”
“And you think he hired this Mr. Smith — or Asbury—”
“Of course. Didn't you see that the whole story was silly?
Why would anyone put a note like that on a dog's collar and then try to kill the man who found the dog?”
“A maniac might, mightn't he?”
“No. A homicidal maniac isn't so devious. He just kills.
Besides, it was quite obvious that Mr. Asbury's story was untrue. For one thing, the fact that he gave a false name is pretty fair proof in itself. For another he put the hundred dollars on the desk before he even explained what he wanted.
If it was his own hundred dollars, he wouldn't have been so eager to part with it. He'd have asked me how much of a retainer I'd need.
“I'm only surprised Sid didn't think of something more believable. He underrated me. Of all things — a lost shaggy dog.”
The blonde said, “Why not a shag— Oh, I think I know what you mean. There's a shaggy dog story, isn't there? Or something?”
Peter Kidd nodded. “The shaggy dog story, the archetype of all the esoteric jokes whose humor values lie in sheer nonsensicality. A New Yorker, who has just found a large white shaggy dog, reads in a New York paper an advertisement offering five hundred pounds sterling for the return of such a dog, giving an address in London. The New Yorker compares the markings given in the advertisement with those of the dog he has found and immediately takes the next boat to England. Arrived in London, he goes to the address given and knocks on the door. A man opens it. 'You advertised for a lost dog,' says the American, 'a shaggy dog.'
'Oh,' says the Englishman coldly, 'not so damn shaggy' . . . and he slams the door in the American's face.”
The blonde giggled, then looked thoughtful. “Say, how did you know that fellow's right name?”
Peter Kidd told her about the episode in the printing shop. He said, “Probably didn't intend to go there when he left here, or he wouldn't have taken the elevator downstairs first.
Undoubtedly he saw Henderson's listing on the board in the lobby, remembered he needed cards, and took the elevator back up.”
The blonde sighed. “I suppose you're right. What are you going to do about it?”
He looked thoughtful. “Return the money, of course. But maybe I can think of some way of turning the joke. After all, if I'd fallen for it, it would have been funny.”
The man who had just killed Robert Asbury didn't think it was funny. He was scared and he was annoyed. He stood at the washstand in a corner of Asbury's dingy little room, sponging away at the front of his coat with a soiled towel. The little guy had fallen right into his lap. Lucky, in one way, because he hadn't thudded on the floor. Unlucky, in another way, because of the blood that had stained his coat. Blood on one's clothes is to be deplored at any time. It is especially deplorable when one has just committed a murder.
He threw the towel down in disgust, then picked it up and began very systematically to wipe off the faucets, the bowl, the chair, and anything else upon which he might have left fingerprints.
A bit of cautious listening at the door convinced him that the hallway was empty. He let himself out, wiping first the inside knob and then the outside one, and tossing the dirty towel back into the room through the open transom.
He paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at his coat again. Not too bad — looked as though he'd spilled a drink down the front of it. The towel had taken out the color of blood, at least.
And the pistol, a fresh cartridge in it, was ready if needed, thrust through his belt, under his coat. The landlady— well, if he didn't see her on the way out, he'd take a chance on her being able to identify him. He'd talked to her only a moment.
He went down the steps quietly and got through the front door without being heard. He walked rapidly, turning several corners, and then went into a drugstore which had an enclosed phone booth. He dialed a number.
He recognized the voice that answered. He said, “This is— me. I saw the guy. He didn't have it. ... Uh, no, couldn't ask him. I — well, he won't talk to anyone about it now, if you get what I mean.”
He listened, frowning. “Couldn't help it,” he said. “Had to. He — uh — well, I had to. That's all. ... See Whee — the other guy? Yeah, guess that's all we can do now. Unless we can find out what happened to — it. . . . Yeah, nothing to lose now. I'll go see him right away.”
Outside the drugstore, the killer looked himself over again. The sun was drying his coat and the stain hardly showed. Better not worry about it, he thought, until he was through with this business. Then he'd change clothes and throw this suit away.
He took an unnecessarily deep breath, like a man nerving himself up to something, and then started walking rapidly again. He went to an office in a building about ten blocks away.
“Mr. Wheeler?” the receptionist asked. “Yes, he's in.
Who shall I say is calling?”
“He doesn't know my name. But I want to see him about renting a property of his, an office.”
The receptionist nodded. “Go right in. He's on the phone right now, but he'll talk to you as soon as he's finished.”
“Thanks, sister,” said the man with the stain on his coat.
He walked to the door marked Private — Sidney Wheeler, went through it, and closed it behind him.
• • •
Stretched out in the patch of sunlight by the window, the white shaggy dog slept peacefully. “Looks well fed,” said the blonde. “What are you going to do with him?” Peter Kidd said, “Give him back to Sid Wheeler, I suppose. And the hundred dollars, too, of course.”
He put the bills into an envelope, stuck the envelope into his pocket. He picked up the phone and gave the number of Sid Wheeler's office. He asked for Sid.
He said, “Sid?”
“Speaking— Just a minute—”
He heard a noise like the receiver being put down on the desk, and waited. After a few minutes Peter said, “Hello,” tried again two minutes later, and then hung up his own receiver.
“What's the matter?” asked the blonde.
“He forgot to come back to the phone.” Peter Kidd tapped his fingers on the desk. “Maybe it's just as well,” he added thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“It would be letting him off too easily, merely to tell him that I've seen through the hoax. Somehow, I ought to be able to turn the tables, so to speak.”
“Ummm,” said the blonde. “Nice, but how?”
“Something in connection with the dog, of course. I'll have to find out more about the dog's antecedents, I fear.”
The blonde looked at the dog. “Are you sure it has antecedents? And if so, hadn't you better call in a veterinary right away?”
Kidd frowned at her. “I must know whether he bought the dog at a pet shop, found it, got it from the pound, or whatever. Then I'll have something to work on.”
“But how can you find that out without—? Oh, you're going to see Mr. Asbury and ask him. Is that it?”
“That will be the easiest way, if he knows. And he probably does. Besides, I'll need his help in reversing the hoax. He'll know, too, whether Sid had planned a follow-up of his original visit.”
He stood up. “I'll go there now. I'll take the do
g along.
He might need — he might have to— Ah — a bit of fresh air and exercise may do him good. Here, Rover, old boy.” He clipped the leash to the dog's collar, started to the door. He turned. “Did you make a note of that number on Kenmore Street? It was six hundred something, but I've forgotten the rest of it.”
The blonde shook her head. “I made notes of the interview, but you told me that afterward. I didn't write it down.”
“No matter. I'll get it from the printer.” Henderson, the printer, wasn't busy. His assistant was talking to Captain Burgoyne of the police, who was ordering tickets for a policemen's benefit dance. Henderson came over to the other end of the railing to Peter Kidd. He looked down at the dog with a puzzled frown.
“Say,” he said, “didn't I see that pooch about an hour ago, with someone else?”
Kidd nodded. “With a man named Asbury, who gave you an order for some cards. I wanted to ask you what his address is.”
“Sure, I'll look it up. But what's it all about? He lose the dog and you find it, or what?”
Kidd hesitated, remembered that Henderson knew Sid Wheeler. He told him the main details of the story, and the printer grinned appreciatively.
“And you want to make the gag backfire,” he chuckled.
“Swell. If I can help you, let me know. Just a minute and I'll give you this Asbury's address.”
He leafed a few sheets down from the top on the order spike. “Six-thirty-three Kenmore.” Peter Kidd thanked him and left.
A number of telephone poles later, he came to the corner of Sixth and Kenmore. The minute he turned that corner, he knew something was wrong. Nothing psychic about it —there was a crowd gathered in front of a brownstone house halfway down the block. A uniformed policeman at the bottom of the steps was keeping the crowd back. A police ambulance and other cars were at the curb in front.
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