‘And I too am of the common persuasion which Mr Frimbo so logically exposed, that one who comes to life was never dead. Logic to the contrary notwithstanding, I still believe the dead stay dead. And, while the corpse may be hard to produce, I still believe you have a murder on your hands.’
‘But you practically admitted he was the same man. Why?’
‘I found no evidence to the contrary—nothing decisive. He looked enough like the dead man, and he had an identically similar wound.’
‘Explainable how?’
‘Self-inflicted, perhaps.’
‘Not unless he had seen the original.’
‘If he removed the corpse, he did see the original.’
‘Then why didn’t you spring that removable bridge on him? I saw you look at his teeth.’
‘Because his teeth were perfect.’
‘What! Why, that would have shown he wasn’t the same man right there!’
‘Wait a minute now. When the bridge was first found, we considered the possibilities: It might be the corpse’s, it might be his assailant’s—’
‘And decided it must be his—the corpse’s.’
‘But we didn’t check that up by going back to the corpse at once. We said we’d do so when the medical examiner arrived. But when the medical examiner arrived the corpse was gone.’
‘But you just said Frimbo’s teeth were perfect. So the bridge can’t possibly be his.’
‘That doesn’t prove it belonged to the corpse. It might or might not—we never did establish the point.’
‘That’s right—we didn’t,’ Dart admitted.
‘Which allows for a third possibility which we haven’t even considered—that the bridge may belong to neither the victim nor the assailant. It could conceivably belong to anybody.’
‘You’ve got me there. Anybody who’d ever been in that room could have dropped it.’
‘Yes—out of a pocket with a hole in it—after having found the thing on the street.’
‘All Frimbo would have to do would be know nothing about it.’
‘Exactly. The identification of the ownership of that bridge is to find the person it was made for. And it must fit that person. So you see I had only a conviction—no tangible support whatever. It would have been worse than useless to show our cards then and there. But now, if these two blood specimens reposing in my bag present certain differences which I anticipate, I shall advise you to proceed with the total demolition of yonder dwelling—a vandalism which you have already contemplated, I believe?’
‘Gosh, doc, it would be so much easier in French. Say it in French.’
‘And if you shouldn’t find the elusive corpse there—a possibility with which I have already annoyed you tonight—you may proceed to demolish the house next to the right, then the next to the left, and so on until all Harlem lies in ruins. An excellent suggestion, I must say. You, after all, would only be doing your duty, while ever so many people would be infinitely better off if all Harlem did lie in ruins.’
‘And if we do find a corpse, Frimbo becomes a suspect himself!’
‘With things to explain.’
Dart whistled. ‘What a mess that would be!’
‘Testicles,’ mused the other.
‘All right, doc. It’s irregular, of course, but I believe it’s the best way. And I’d rather work with you than—some others. I’m dependin’ on you.’
‘You have the house covered?’
‘Sewed up back and front. And we’ll keep it sewed up from now till we’re satisfied.’
‘Satisfied—hm—have you reflected on the futility of satisfaction, Dart?’
‘Never at one o’clock in the morning, doc. So long. Thanks a lot. See you in Macy’s window.’
‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ murmured Dr John Archer.
CHAPTER XVII
WITH an unquestionable sense of humour, the sun grinned down upon the proud pageantry of Seventh Avenue’s Sunday noontime, beaming just a little more brightly and warmly than was strictly necessary for a day in February. Accordingly, the brisk air was tempered a little, and the flocks that flowed out from the innumerable churches could amble along at a more leisurely pace than winter usually permitted. This gave his celestial majesty time to observe with greater relish the colourful variety of this weekly promenade: the women with complexions from cream to black coffee and with costumes, individually and collectively, running the range of the rainbow; the men with derbies, canes, high collars, spats, and a dignity peculiar to doormen, chauffeurs, and headwaiters.
Bubber Brown had his place in the sun, too, and he swaggered proudly along with the others, for although Bubber was moulded on the general plan of a sphere, his imitation camel’s hair overcoat was designed to produce an illusion of slenderness and height, with broad shoulders, a narrowly belted waist and skirts long enough to conceal the extraordinary bowing of his legs. Although he boasted no derby, no cane, and no spats, still with his collar turned swankily up, the brim of his felt hat snapped nattily down, and his hands thrust nonchalantly into his coat pockets, even the rotund Bubber achieved fair semblance of a swagger.
This he maintained as he moved in the stream of church people by humming low yet lustily the anything but Christian song of the moment:
‘I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you …’
On he strolled past churches, drugstores, ice-cream parlours, cigar stores, restaurants, and speakeasies. Acquaintances standing in entrances or passing him by offered the genial insults which were characteristic Harlem greetings:
‘What you say, blacker’n me?’
‘How you doin’, short-order?’
‘Ole Eight-Ball! Where you rollin’, boy?’
In each instance, Bubber returned some equivalent reply, grinned, waved, and passed on. He breathed deeply of the keen sweet air, appraised casually the trim, dark-eyed girls, admired the swift humming motors that flashed down the Avenue.
But at frequent intervals a frown ruffled his customarily bland countenance, and now and then he foreswore his humming and bowed his head in meditation, shaking it vainly from side to side.
When he reached the corner of 135th Street, he stopped. The stream flowed on past him. He looked westward toward the precinct station-house. Heaving a tremendous sigh, he turned and headed in that direction.
But when he reached the station-house, instead of stopping, he strode on past it as rapidly as if no destination had been further from his mind. At Eighth Avenue he turned south and walked three blocks, then east toward Seventh again. A moment later he halted, aware of a commotion just across the street.
This was a quiet side street, but people were stopping to look. Others, appearing from nowhere, began to run toward the point of agitation, and soon dozens were converging upon the scene like refuse toward a drain. Bubber approached the rim of the clutter of onlookers and craned his neck with normal curiosity.
The scene was the front stoop of an apartment house. Two men and a girl were engaged in loud and earnest disagreement.
‘He did!’ the girl accused hotly. ‘He come up to me on that corner—’
‘If you was jes’ man enough to admit it,’ menaced her champion.
‘Aw, boogy, go diddle,’ the accused said contemptuously. ‘I never even seen your—’
Clearly, whatever his epithet might have signified at other times, at this moment it meant action; for hardly had Bubber time to comment, ‘Uh-oh—that’s trouble—’ before the girl’s protector had smacked the offender quite off the stoop and into the crowd.
The latter, somewhat like a ball on an elastic, came instantaneously and miraculously back at the other. As he flew forward, the girl was heard to yell, ‘Look out, Jim! He’s got a knife!’ Jim somehow flung off the attack for the moment and reached for his hip. Apparently every onlooker saw that sinister gesture at the same instant, for-the crowd, with one accord, dispersed as quickly and positively as a moment ago it had converged upon this spot—as though indeed, some sudden
obstruction had caused the drain to belch back. Two quick loud pistol reports punctuated that divergent scattering. Inquisitive dark heads thrust out of surrounding windows vanished. The victim lay huddled with wide staring eyes at the foot of the stoop, and the man with the gun and his girl sped back into the foyer, appropriated the empty elevator, banged the gate shut, and vanished upward.
Bubber did not slacken his rapid pace till he was back at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 135th Street, a few feet from the precinct station. Then he removed his hat and with his bright-coloured handkerchief mopped his beaded brow and swore.
‘Damn! What a place! What is this—a epidemic?’ The thought recalled his superstition. He opened his mouth and gazed awestruck into space. ‘Jordan River! That’s number two! One las’ night and another one today. Wonder whose turn it’ll be nex’?’
Inadvertently, pondering the horror of the mysterious, he allowed his feet to wander whither they listed. They conveyed him slowly back toward the station-house, the abrupt presence of which struck so suddenly upon his consciousness as almost to startle him into further flight. But his feet were in no mood for further flight; they clung there to the pavement while Bubber’s original purpose returned and made itself felt.
For a moment he stood hesitant before the imposing new structure, peering uncertainly in. There was no visible activity. He moved closer to the entrance, gazed into the spacious, not uninviting foyer, looked up and down the street and into the foyer again.
‘They’s an excuse,’ he mumbled, ‘for gettin’ dragged into jail, but jes’ walkin’ in of yo’ own free will—ain’ no sense in that …’
Nevertheless, with an air of final resolution, he mounted the steps, tried and opened the door. ‘Hope it works jes’ as easy from the other side,’ he said, and entered.
He approached the desk sergeant.
‘Y’all got a boy in here name Jinx Jenkins?’
‘When was he brought in?’
‘Las’ night.’
‘Charge?’
‘Suh?’
‘What charge?’
‘Couldn’ been no charge, broke as he was.’
‘What was he brought in for—drunk, fightin’, or what?’
‘Oh. He didn’ do nothin’. He jes’ got in the wrong house.’
‘Whose house?’
‘Frimbo’s. You know—the conjure-man.’
‘Oh—that case. Sure he’s here. Why?’
‘Can I see him?’
‘What for?’
‘Well, y’see, he figgers sump’m I said put him in a bad light. I jes’ wanted to let him know how come I said it, that’s all.’
‘Oh, that’s all, huh? Well that ain’t enough.’
But the lieutenant on duty happened to be crossing the foyer at the time and heard part of the conversation. He knew the circumstances of the case, and had planned to be present at the questioning for which, in part, Jinx was being held. With the quick grasp of every opportunity for information that marks the team-work of a well-trained investigative organization, he nodded significantly to the sergeant and promptly departed to arrange a complete recording of all that should transpire between Jinx and his visitor.
‘You a friend o’ his?’ the sergeant asked.
‘No—we ain’ no special friends,’ said Bubber. ‘But I don’t aim we should be no special enemies neither.’
‘I see. Well, in that case, I guess I could let you see him a few minutes. But no monkey-business, y’understand?’
‘Monkey-business in a jail-house, mistuh? Do I look dumb, sho’ ’nough?’
‘O.K.’
In due time and through proper channels, it came to pass that Bubber confronted his tall lean friend, who stood gloomily behind a fine steel grille.
‘Hello, Judas,’ was Jinx’s dark greeting.
‘Boy,’ Bubber said, ‘it’s everybody’s privilege to be dumb, but they ain’ no sense in abusin’ it the way you do.’
‘Is that what you come here to say?’
‘I done nearly had what I come here to say scared out o’ me. I done seen number two.’
‘Number two?’
‘Yea, man.’
‘Number two—that’s what the little boy said to his mammy. You big and black enough to—’
‘Death on the moon, boy. First one las’ night, second one today—not ten minutes ago—’round on 132nd Street. Two boogies got in a li’l argument over a gal, and first thing you know—bong—bong! There was one of ’em stretched out dead on the ground and me lookin’ at him.’
‘No.’
‘Yea, man. This Harlem is jes’ too bad. But I tol’ you I’m go’n’ stare three corpses in the face. They’s one mo’ yet.’
‘Hmph. And you call me dumb.’
‘What you mean?’
‘That wasn’ no corpse you stared in the face las’ night. Las’ I remember, he was sittin’ up in that chair talkin’ pretty lively, like a natchel man.’
‘Yea, but he ain’ no natchel man—he’s a conjure-man. He was sho’ ’nough dead, jes’ like he said. He ’jes knows sump’m, that’s all.’
‘He knows sump’m, I don’t doubt that. Tol’ me plenty. But any time a man knows enough to come to life after he’s dead, he knows too much.’
‘Reckon that’s how come he got kilt, ’cause he knows too much. Sho’ was the same man though, wasn’t he?’
‘Far as I could see. But ’course that don’ mean much—all coons look alike to me.’
There was a moment’s silence, whereupon Jinx added, with meaning, ‘And no matter how well you know ’em, you can’t trust ’em.’
‘Listen, boy, you all wrong. ’Course I know you can’t help it, ’cause what few brains you had is done dried up and been sneezed out long ago. But even you ought to be able to see my point.’
‘’Cose I see yo’ point. Yo’ point was, you was savin’ yo’ own black hide. If you admit you a friend o’ mine, maybe you inhale some jail-air too. Jes’ like all boogies—jes’ let the man say “Boo!” and yo’ shirt tail roll up yo’ back like a window shade.’
‘All right—all right. But see if this can penetrate yo’ hard, kinky head. What good am I—’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Wait a minute, will you please? What good am I to you if I’m right here in jail alongside o’ you?’
‘What good is you to me anywhere?’
‘Well, if I’m out, at least I got a chance to find out who done it, ain’t I?’
Jinx relented a little, reluctantly comprehending.
‘Yea, you got a chance,’ he muttered. ‘But you go’n’ need mo’n a chance to find out who done that. Right under my nose, too, with me sittin’ there—and if I seen anybody, you did.’
‘Well cheer up, long boy. You ain’ got nothin’ to worry ’bout. The man’s alive and you heard what the detective said—all they can hold you for is assault.’
‘No,’ reflected Jinx sardonically. ‘I ain’ got nothin’ to worry ’bout. They tell me the most I can get for assault is twenty years.’
‘Twenty—whiches?’
‘Years. Them things growin’ out the side o’ yo’ head. And all twenty of ’em jes’ that colour. It sho’ is a dark outlook.’
‘Mph!’
‘Who’s gruntin’ now?’
‘Both of us. But shuh, man, they can’t do that to you.’
‘I know they can’t. You know they can’t. But do they know they can’t?’
‘Don’t worry, boy. Leave everything to me. I’ll find out who done this if it takes me the whole twenty years.’
‘Hmph! Well, it’s time you done sump’m right. When you could ’a’ kep’ yo’ mouth shut, you was talkin’. “Sho that’s Jinx’s handkerchief.” And when you could ’a’ talked, you kep’ yo’ mouth shut. “Friend o’ mine? No ’ndeed!”—All right. Whatever you go’n’ do, get to doin’ it, ’cause these accommodations don’t suit me. Twenty years! Twenty years from now Harlem’ll be full o’ Chinamen.’
‘Don’t blame me for all of it. I never would ’a’ been in the conjure-man’s place if you hadn’t said “come on let’s go.”’
‘What you go’n’ do?’
‘I’m go’n’ do some detectin’, that’s what. What’s use o’ bein’ a private detective if I can’t help out a friend? I’m workin’ on a theory already, boy.’
‘First work you done since you quit haulin’ ashes for the city.’
‘That was good trainin’ for a detective. I used to figure out jes’ what happened the night befo’ by what I found in the ash can nex’ mornin’. If I see a torn nightgown and a empty whiskey bottle—’
‘I’ve heard all ’bout that. What’s yo’ theory?’
‘The flunky, boy. He done it, sho’s you born. I’m go’n’ find him and trick him into a confession.’
‘What makes you think he done it?’
‘’Cause he run away, first thing.’
‘But didn’t you hear the man say he was s’posed to leave by eleven o’clock?’
‘That would make it all the easier for him, wouldn’t it? If he s’posed to be gone th’ain’t nothin’ suspicious ’bout him bein’ gone, don’t you see?’
‘M-m.’
‘He figured on that.’
‘How’n hell’d he get my handkerchief?’
‘He took it out yo’ pocket. ’Member when Doty Hicks fell down in a faint and we all scrambled ’round and helped him up?’
‘Yea—’
‘That’s when he took it.’
‘He could ’a’. But what would he want to kill his boss for?’
‘Boy, ain’t you ever had a boss? They’s times when you feel like killin’ the best boss in the world, if you could get away with it.’
‘Well, whoever you hang it on, it’s all right with me.’
‘If worse comes to worse,’ Bubber’s voice sank to a whisper, ‘I can swear I seen him take yo’ handkerchief out yo’ pocket.’
‘No,’ Jinx demurred, ‘ain’ no need o’ you goin’ to hell jes’ ’cause I go to jail.’
‘I’m go’n’ get you out o’ this.’
‘When you startin’?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Don’ hurry. Nex’ week’ll be plenty o’ time.’
The Conjure-Man Dies Page 15