‘I’m sure the family would prefer to have me act alone for the time being.’
Only Dr Archer realized what these words meant: that within five minutes half a dozen men would be just outside the door of the apartment, ready to break in at the sergeant’s first signal.
But Dart turned and smiled at the brother and his wife. ‘Am I right in assuming that?’ he asked courteously.
‘Yes—of course,’ Ben said, somewhat subdued.
Swiftly the courteous smile vanished. The detective’s voice was incisive and hard. ‘Then perhaps you will tell me how you knew so well that your brother was dead.’
‘Why—I saw him. I saw the knife in—’
‘When?’
‘When Petal screamed. Letty and I had gone to bed. And when Petal screamed, naturally we jumped up and rushed into Sonny’s room, where she was. She was standing there looking at him. I went over to him and looked. I guess I shook him. Anybody could see—’
‘What time was that?’
‘Just a few minutes ago. Just before the doctor was called. I told her to call him.’
‘About ten minutes ago, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many times did your sister scream?’
‘Only once.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘You had retired. You heard one scream. You jumped up and went straight to it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Extraordinary sense of direction, that’s all.—Whose knife is that?’
‘Sonny’s.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen him with it. Couldn’t miss that black pearl handle.’
‘Who else was in the house at the time?’
‘No one but Ma. She was already in the room when we got there. She’s got an extraordinary sense of direction, too.’
‘Any one else here during the evening?’
‘No—not that I know of. My wife and I have been in practically all evening.’
‘Practically?’
‘I mean she was in all evening. I went out for a few minutes—down to the corner for a pack of cigarettes.’
‘What time?’
‘About ten o’clock.’
‘And you’ve heard nothing—no suspicious sounds of any kind?’
‘No. At least I didn’t. Did you Letty?’
‘All I heard was Sonny himself coming in.’
‘What time was that?’
‘’Bout nine o’clock. He went in his room and stayed there.’
‘Just what was everyone doing at that time?’
‘The rest of us were in the back of the flat—except for Petal. She’d gone out. Ben and I were in the kitchen. I was washing the dishes, he was sitting at the table, smoking. We’d just finished eating supper.’
‘Your usual supper hour?’
‘Ben doesn’t get home from the Post Office till late.’
‘Where was Mother Dewey?’
‘In the dining-room, reading the paper.’
‘Anyone else here now?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Do you mind if we look?’
‘If I minded, would that stop you?’
Dart indulged in an appraising pause, then said:
‘It might. I should hate to embarrass you.’
‘Embarrass me!—Go ahead—I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘That’s good. Doc, if you can spare the time, will you take a look around with me?’
Dr Archer nodded with his tongue in his cheek. Dart knew very well that a cash-in-advance major operation could not have dragged the physician away.
‘Before we do, though,’ the detective said, ‘let me say this: Here are four of you, all closely related to the victim, all surely more or less familiar with his habits and associates. Yet not one of you offers so much as a suggestion as to who might have done this.’
‘You haven’t given us time,’ remarked Letty Dewey.
Dart looked at his watch. ‘I’ve given you five minutes.’
‘Who’s been doing all the talking?’
‘All right. Take your turn now. Who do you think did it?’
‘I haven’t the remotest idea.’
‘M—m—so you said before—while I was doing all the talking.’—He smiled. ‘Strange that none of you should have the remotest idea. The shock, no doubt. I should rather expect a flood of accusations. Unless, of course, there is some very good reason to the contrary.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean—’ the detective was pleasantly casual—‘unless you are protecting each other. In which case, if I may remind you, you become accessory.—Come on, Doc. No doubt the family would like a little private conference.’
During the next few minutes the two went through the apartment. Alert against surprise, they missed no potential hiding-place, satisfying themselves that nobody had modestly secreted himself in some out-of-the-way corner. The place possessed no apparent entrance or exit other than its one outside door, and there was nothing unusual about its arrangement of rooms—several bedchambers off a central hallway, with the living-room at the front end and a kitchen and dining-room at the back.
Characteristically, the doctor indulged in wordy and somewhat irrelevant reflection during the tour of inspection. Exchanges of comment punctuated their progress.
‘Back here,’ Dr Archer said. ‘I don’t get it. But up there where they are, I do. And in the boy’s room, I did.’
‘Get what—that smell?’
‘M—m. Peculiar—very. Curious thing, odours. Discernible in higher dilution than any other material stimulus. Ridiculous that we don’t make greater use of them.’
‘I never noticed any particular restriction of ’em in Harlem.’
On the dining-room table a Harlem newspaper was spread out. Dart glanced at the page, which was bordered with advertisements.
‘Here it is again,’ he said, pointing, ‘“Do you want success in love, business, a profession?” These “ads” are all that keep this sheet going. Your folks’ superstition—’
Dr Archer’s eyes travelled down the column but he seemed to ignore the interruption.
‘Odours should be restricted,’ he pursued. ‘They should be captured, classified, and numbered like the lines of the spectrum. We let them run wild—’
‘Check.’
‘And sacrifice a wealth of information. In a language of a quarter of a million words, we haven’t a single specific direct denotation of a smell.’
‘Oh, no?’
‘No. Whatever you’re thinking of, it is an indirect and non-specific denotation, liking the odour in mind to something else. We are content with “fragrant” and “foul” or general terms of that character, or at best “alcoholic” or “mouldy,” which are obviously indirect. We haven’t even such general direct terms as apply to colours—red, green, and blue. We name what we see but don’t name what we smell.’
‘Which is just as well.’
‘On the contrary. If we could designate each smell by number—’
‘We’d know right off who killed Sonny.’
‘Perhaps. I daresay every crime has its peculiar odour.’
‘Old stuff. They used bloodhounds in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’
‘We could use one here.’
‘Do tell?’
‘This crime has a specific smell—’
‘It stinks all right.’
‘—which I think we should find significant if we could place it.’
‘Rave on, Aristotle.’
‘Two smells, in fact. First, alcohol.’
‘We brought that with us.’
‘No. Another vintage I’m sure. Didn’t you get it in the boy’s bedroom?’
‘Not especially.’
‘It’s meaning was clear enough. The boy was stabbed while sleeping under the effect of alcohol.’
‘How’d you sneak up that answer?’
‘There was no sign of struggl
e. He’d simply drawn up his knees a little and died.’
‘Don’t tell me you smelt alcohol on a dead man’s breath.’
‘No. What I smelt was the alcoholic breath he’d expelled into that room before he died. Enough to leave a discernible—er—fragrance for over an hour afterward.’
‘Hm—Stabbed in his sleep.’
‘But that simply accounts for the lack of struggle and the tranquil posture of the corpse. It does indicate, of course, that for a boy of twenty Sonny was developing bad habits—a fact corroborated by his sister’s remark about late hours. But that’s all. This other odour which I get from time to time I consider far more important. It might even lead to the identity of the killer—if we could trace it.’
‘Then keep sniffing, Fido. Y’know, I had a dog like you once. Only he didn’t do a lot of talking about what he smelt.’
‘Too bad he couldn’t talk, Sergeant. You could have learned a great deal from him.’
As they approached the front door the bell rang. Dart stepped to the door and opened it. A large pink-faced man carrying a doctor’s bag stood puffing on the threshold. He blinked through his glasses and grinned.
‘Dr Finkelbaum!’ exclaimed the detective. ‘Some service! Come in. You know Dr Archer.’ He looked quickly out into the corridor, noted his men, grinned, signalled silence, stepped back.
‘Sure. Hello, doctor,’ greeted the newcomer. ‘Whew!’ Thank your stars you’re not the medical examiner.’
‘You must have been uptown already,’ said Dr Archer.
‘Yea. Little love affair over on Lenox Avenue. I always phone in before leaving the neighbourhood—they don’t do things by halves up here. Where’s the stiff?’
‘In the second room,’ said Dart. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
‘At least,’ murmured Dr Archer, ‘it was in there a moment ago.’
Despite his scepticism, which derived from sudden mysterious disappearances of corpses on two previous occasions in his experience, they found the contents of Sonny’s bedchamber unchanged.
‘Who did this?’ inquired the medical examiner.
‘At present,’ Dart said, ‘there are four denials—his mother, his sister, his brother, and his brother’s wife.’
‘All in the family, eh?’
‘I haven’t finished talking to them yet. You and Dr Archer carry on here. I’ll go back and try some more browbeating.’
‘Righto.’
Now Dart returned to the living-room. The four people seemed not to have moved. The brother stood in the middle of the floor, meditating. The wife sat in a chair, bristling. The girl was on the arm of another chair in which her elderly mother still slumped, staring forward with eyes that saw nothing—or perhaps everything.
The detective looked about. ‘Finished your conference?’
‘Conference about what?’ said Ben.
‘The national debt. What’s happened since I left here?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No conversation at all?’
‘No.’
‘Then who used this telephone?’
‘Why—nobody.’
‘No? I suppose it moved itself? I left it like this, with the mouthpiece facing the door. Now the mouthpiece faces the centre of the room. One of the miracles of modern science or what?’
Nobody spoke.
‘Now listen.’ There was a menacing placidity in the detective’s voice. ‘This conspiracy of silence stuff may make it hard for me, but it’s going to make it a lot harder for you. You people are going to talk. Personally, I don’t care whether you talk here or around at the precinct. But whatever you’re holding out for, it’s no use. The circumstances warrant arresting all of you, right now.’
‘We’ve answered your questions,’ said Letty angrily. ‘Do you want us to lie and say one of us did it—just to make your job easier?’
‘Lawd—Lawd!’ whispered the old lady and Petal’s arm went about her again, vainly comforting.
‘Who else lives here?’ Dart asked suddenly.
As if sparing them the necessity of answering, the outside door clicked and opened. Dart turned to see a young man enter the hallway. The young man looked toward them, his pale face a picture of bewilderment, closed the door behind him, mechanically put his key back into his pocket, and came into the living-room.
‘What’s up,’ he asked. ‘What do those guys want outside?’
‘Guys outside?’ Ben looked at Dart. ‘So the joint’s pinched?’
‘Not yet,’ returned Dart. ‘It’s up to you people.’ He addressed the newcomer. ‘Who are you?’
‘Me?—I’m Red Brown. I live here.’
‘Really? Odd nobody’s mentioned you.’
‘He hasn’t been here all day,’ said Letty.
‘What’s happened?’ insisted Red Brown. ‘Who is this guy?’
‘He’s a policeman,’ Petal answered. ‘Somebody stabbed—Sonny.’
‘Stabbed Sonny—!’ Dart saw the boy’s wide eyes turn swiftly from Petal and fix themselves on Ben.
‘A flesh wound,’ the detective said quickly.
‘Oh,’ said Red, still staring with a touch of horror at Ben. His look could not have been clearer had he accused the elder brother in words.
‘You and Sonny are good friends?’ pursued Dart.
‘Yea—buddies. We room together.’
‘It might make it easier for Ben if you told me why he stabbed his brother.’
Red’s look, still fixed, darkened.
‘Why should I make it easier for him?’
There was silence, sudden and tense. Ben drew a deep, sharp breath, amazement changing to rage.
‘Why—you stinking little pup!’
He charged forward. Letty yelled, ‘Ben!’ Red, obvious child of the city, ducked low and sidewise, thrusting out one leg, over which his assailant tripped and crashed to the floor. Dart stepped forward and grabbed Ben as he struggled up. There was no breaking the detective’s hold.
‘Easy. What do you want to do—prove he’s right?’
‘Let me go and I’ll prove plenty! I’ll make him—’
‘It’s a lie!’ breathed Letty. ‘Ben didn’t kill him.’
Unexpectedly Dart released Ben.
‘All right,’ said he. ‘Get to proving. But don’t let me have to bean you.’
The impulse to assault was spent. Ben pulled himself together.
‘What’s the idea?’ he glowered at Red. ‘I even call up the poolroom where you work, trying to keep you out of this. And you walk in and try to make me out a murderer.’
‘Murderer?’ Red looked about, engaged Dart. ‘You—you said—flesh wound.’
‘Yes,’ the detective returned drily. ‘The flesh of his heart.’
‘Gee! Gee, Ben. I didn’t know you’d killed him.’
‘I didn’t kill him! Why do you keep saying so?’
Red looked from Ben to Letty, encountering a glare of the most intense hatred Dart had ever seen. The woman would obviously have tried to claw his eyes out had not circumstances restrained her.
‘Go on,’ she said through her teeth. ‘Tell your tale.’
Her menace held the boy silent for an uncertain moment. It was outweighed by the cooler threat of Dart’s next words:
‘Not scared to talk, are you, Red?’
‘Scared? No, I ain’t scared. But murder—gee!’
‘You and Sonny were buddies, weren’t you?’
‘Yea—that’s right.’
‘Slept in the same bed.’
‘Yea.’
‘Supposing it had been you in that bed instead of Sonny?’
‘Yea—it might ’a been.’
‘Sonny wouldn’t have let you down, would he?’
‘He never did.’
‘All right. Speak up. What do you know?’
‘I know—I mean—maybe—maybe Ben figured there was somethin’ goin’ on between Sonny and—.’ He did not look at Letty now.
‘Was there?’
>
‘Wouldn’t matter whether there was or not—if Ben thought so.’
‘True enough. Well, Mr Dewey, what about that?’
Ben Dewey did not have an answer—seemed not to have heard the detective’s last word. His mouth hung open as he stared dumbfounded at his wife.
His wife, however, still transfixed Red with gleaming eyes.
‘It should have been you instead of Sonny,’ she said evenly. ‘You rat.’
Abruptly Dart remembered the presence of the old lady and the girl. He turned toward them, somewhat contrite for not having spared them the shock of this last disclosure, but got a shock of his own which silenced his intended apology: The girl’s face held precisely the expression of stunned unbelief that he had expected to find. But the old lady sat huddled in the same posture that she had held throughout the questioning. Her steadfast gaze was still far away, and apparently she had not heard or seen a single item of what had just transpired in the room.
Dart stepped into the hall to meet Dr Archer and the medical examiner as they returned from the death room.
‘I’m through,’ said Dr Finkelbaum. ‘Immediate autopsy on this. Here’s the knife.’ He handed Dart the instrument, wrapped in a dressing. ‘I don’t believe—’
Dart interrupted him with a quick gesture, then said loudly enough to be heard by those in the living-room:
‘You don’t believe it could have been suicide, do you, doctor?’
‘Suicide? I should say not.’ The medical examiner caught Dart’s cue and matched his tone. ‘He wasn’t left-handed, was he?’
Dart turned back, asking through the living-room doorway, ‘Was your brother left-handed, Mr Dewey?’
Ben had not taken his eyes off Letty.
‘Seems like he was,’ he said in a low voice, which included his wife in his indictment.
‘Is that true, Miss Petal?’
‘No, sir. He was right-handed.’
‘Then it wasn’t suicide,’ said the medical examiner. ‘The site of the wound and the angle of the thrust rule out a right hand. The depth of it makes even a left hand unlikely.’
‘Thanks, doctor. We can forget the fact that it was his own knife.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And,’ Dart winked as he added, ‘we can expect to find the killer’s fingerprints on this black pearl handle, don’t you think?’
The Conjure-Man Dies Page 26