“Well, he told me this much, gents. Jones the banker, two tellers, and his wife.”
There was a vast sigh.
“Go wash your fingers and butts, and we will celebrate successful crime detection by the veteran peace officer, Barney Stoopnagle.”
“There ain’t nothing that gets this stink off me,” said Dangerous Dave.
“Burn the duds. The local merchants will be pleased to sell you fresh,” Mugs said. “Or visit the cathouse. They’ll wash you for a fee.”
“When is this unveiling?”
“When the trains come in, boy, when the whistle blows.”
“I spend a whole day poking outhouse vaults, and Stoopnagle solves it standing around somewhere. Life ain’t fair,” said Dangerous Dave.
“That’s what I like,” Mugs said. “If life was fair, I’d not be a notorious criminal.”
“It’s the notorious part that frosts me,” said Cyrus Maguire. “You got that way with advertising.”
“You’ve got me figured out,” Mugs said. “And you can take a signed Wanted dodger when you leave. It’s worth something to collectors. Two dollars the item, and there’s six or seven different ones for sale now.”
“When does this here train come in?” Maguire asked.
“Ten-fifteen. Sheriff Stoopnagle wants us all to meet at the depot baggage room for the great unveiling. Meanwhile, you can all wine and dine.”
“I never touch wine. That stuff’s for sissies,” said Joe Studebaker.
They all agreed to that, and drifted toward their rooms. The air began to freshen once they abandoned the classroom.
Mugs sure was enjoying himself. He could hardly wait for the great unveiling. He spent a pleasant evening gargling red-eye for his scratchy throat, while enjoying the sights in the Pink Palace, a joint directly across the street from the railroad station, and patronized by riffraff who drifted in to see the sights.
The westbound train was twenty minutes late, but finally chuffed in and ground to a stop with a great squeal of brakes and hiss of steam, which echoed through the deep darkness. The distinguished lawmen who were attending the Academy of Crime gathered around the baggage car, along with Sheriff Stoopnagle, who had gussied himself up in a black suit, string tie, and massive Stetson with a brim so wide it guaranteed to change the weather underneath. He sure was looking cheerful.
“Well, gents,” he said. “This is the moment.”
“Arrival of Train 67, from North Platte, Omaha, and points east,” the stationmaster proclaimed. “Boarding in five minutes for Reno.”
The baggage men slid open the door of the baggage car, which was immediately behind the tender, and they carefully lifted out a small coffin, diamond shaped and plain, and set it on a cart.
“That’s the sucker,” Stoopnagle said.
The baggage men wheeled it into the baggage room, and the assorted lawmen gathered around. They were none too sober, having drowned a day of mucking crap with spirits and steaks. But they were ready. They knew this would be an impressive moment. The sheriff would shine. At the last, the bank president himself, J. J. Jones, appeared, dressed in his best funeral suit and cravat, with polished high top shoes. He allowed a few swift smiles, but they were mixed with sadness.
Stoopnagle had a few hand tools ready for action, and discovered that the lid had been screwed down. So he calmly turned the screws loose, one by one, in the light of two kerosene lamps, which cast a buttery light over the solemn proceedings.
Ten screws in all, which he diligently removed, while the crowd watched silently.
“All right,” he said. “The perpetrator of the heist is the town’s undertaker, Alabaster Seneca, in cahoots with Mr. Jones’s estranged wife, who had the combination to the safe, and made the switch in advance of the theatrics of the next day. They are being pinched when they step off the train in Omaha just about now, and will be returned here for trial.”
The lawmen were impressed. “Good job, Bernie,” said Filibuster Smith.
Stoopnagle wiggled the lid loose, and lifted, and they all stared in.
There lay a little boy with an enormous, elongated head, attached to a withered little body, dressed in blue. There was nothing else. No false bottom, no compartments, no cloth lining. A faint malodor arose from the box.
Stoopnagle slowly deflated, and then slid the lid back on, and motioned to the baggage men. ”Close it up and return it,” he said.
The lawmen watched silently, none of them venturing an opinion. They had all been prepared to buy the sheriff a drink. Stoopnagle turned away from them, and drifted into the evening, and was soon gone from sight. Mugs felt sorry for him. He rarely felt sorry for anyone, but old Stoopnagle was worthy of a little pity.
“Well, gents, it’s not over,” Mugs said. “Maybe Mr. Jones, here, will explain.”
Jones looked unhappy, but finally summoned his courage. “There is reason to believe my estranged wife, along with the undertaker, planned and executed a defalcation. We’ll know in due course.”
“What’s that mean?” Mugs asked.
“A misappropriation,” the banker said, looking pained. “Good evening.” The man, struggling to stand upright, walked into the night.
“Wyoming gonna extradite those two?” one of the lawmen asked.
“Beats me,” Mugs said.
And that’s how the evening ended.
The next day Mugs led his class through the basics of jewel theft, cat burglary, stickups, and forgery. Then he dealt with confidence men and crooked madams.
“I got advanced degrees in the whole lot,” he said.
But late in the afternoon, an astonishing thing happened. Old Stoopnagle walked in, along with Jill Jane Jones and Alabaster Seneca.
“The trip to Omaha was not flight; they bought round-trip tickets, fully intending to return this afternoon,” Stoopnagle said. “They were not parties to the bank robbery.”
“Then why’d they go to Omaha?” Mugs asked, reflecting the curiosity of the whole class.
“To establish grounds for a divorce,” Stoopnagle said. “Mrs. Jones wishes to be freed from Mr. Jones, and a trip with her gentleman friend was called for.”
That was a turn of events, all right.
“We sure had a fine time, Alabaster and me,” Jill Jane said. She was looking a little smirky. “My husband is not a manly man. I’m sure the judge will understand.”
That explained everything, at least to some of her auditors.
“So have you any leads?” Maguire asked.
“No, and I’d welcome any help from you fellas. You know your stuff; I don’t seem to.”
“Who was the little boy?” Maguire asked.
“Poor child. Little Pearl Perkins, born with one of those big heads and little torsos. Survived four years and was gone. Most pitiable,” Seneca said. “Sent to be buried alongside his maternal grandparents. His parents grieve.”
“Who do you think nabbed the bank money?” Filibuster Smith asked the couple.
“I doubt that anyone will ever know,” Jill Jane said.
”All right, gents, go solve the crime,” Mugs said. “Far as I know, you’re still deputized by Sheriff Stoopnagle, and there’s a big heist that needs your attention. The sheriff is a little indisposed, so it’s up to you. You get an A in course work if you nip the perp; a D-minus if you blow it. That won’t look so good on your records, now will it?”
“You got any ideas. Mugs, you old crook?”
“Shake the locals until they rattle,” Mugs said. “Make the canary sing.”
“You’re a big help, Mugs,” said Amos Turk, who normally was the most silent of that bunch. But the rest were itching to start in, and all had a shiny deputy commission giving them some muscle. If twenty fine lawmen couldn’t figure it out, no one could.
Twenty experienced lawmen spread out through Rock Springs that day. They interviewed the tellers and Jones. They studied the safe and its contents. They checked the saloons for big spenders. They checked the sto
res for big spenders. They had little visits with engineers and firemen, wondering if any had been paid to deliver a satchel somewhere. They looked into bank records, wanting to know if Jones’s bank was in trouble before the heist. They dug up the receipt for the delivery of cash from the Treasury.
As the days wore on, they began to doubt whether they’d ever figure this one out.
“This’ll pop open some day, maybe not soon, but someone who’s got eighty grand is going to spend it, and it’ll be noticed, or he’ll try again, and get caught,” said Maguire, who had become an unofficial spokesman for the bunch.
“I still think Jill Jane had a hand in it,” said Filibuster Smith. “No one’s cleared her; she had a motive—to embarrass her husband. One place we haven’t searched is Jones’s own house and carriage barn. There’s an ice house, too, and a root cellar. And the trash heap back there.”
With Jones’s reluctant permission, they raided his own house, surprising Jill Jane, and searched relentlessly, even in the rafters of the carriage barn. All of that yielded nothing.
And then the course came to an end.
“Gents, ya done a good job, good as anyone could do,” Mugs said. “You’re all getting a B-minus, and this here diploma saying you’re a Master of Criminal Detection from the Mugs Birdsong Academy of Crime, Rock Springs, Wyoming.”
Chapter Eleven
Mugs settled into great quietness, awaiting the next class in a few weeks. He took an interest in costume jewelry, especially the hobbyist variety. He wanted to learn how to make it, and where to get the stuff. A catalog issued by a Kansas City outfit offered what he needed, and soon he had a lot of junk, including jeweler’s tools and a tiny bench vise, and lots of baubles, all sent to Harry Karpov, general delivery, Rock Springs.
He debated whether to pursue Jill Jane Jones, since it turned out she was already stolen by Seneca, and he wouldn’t get much satisfaction out of stealing her from someone who didn’t want her. That was a disappointment. But he still wanted to add wife-stealing to his criminal record, and thought that stealing her would be good practice, and he’d learn a few things about copping wives if he gave her a whirl.
The bank had settled back into grudging business, with very little cash on hand, but it seemed to survive somehow. Jones was testy, and no longer welcomed him. And of course there would be no more gaudy bank robberies to celebrate the opening day of his crime school courses. It would all be theoretical stuff in classrooms from now on, and no practical experience knocking over banks or trains.
So one chill day he knocked on the Jones door, and was met by Jill Jane herself.
“You,” she said. “I’m disappointed in you. I was expecting a real wife-stealer, and you haven’t shown up for weeks.”
“I’ve been learning a new trade,” he said. “And I wasn’t sure there would be anything in it for me, now that you’ve been stolen by the undertaker.”
“Oh, him. I just used him so J. J., my dear old poobah, could go to court and get a divorce. Adultery’s the one thing that works, you know.”
“Yeah, well, if you want to get stolen, come by the orphanage this evening.”
“That sounds like an invitation,” she said.
She knocked on his orphanage suite about seven that evening and he let her in. She was wearing a gorgeous translucent summer frock, which buttoned down its front and looked about right for burglary.
“Little booze, little wine?” he asked.
“Wine’s for sissies. Lay some real stuff on this old gal, you old crook, and don’t cheat.”
So he poured her some bourbon and added a little pond ice he had purloined from a sawdust-lined ice house he discovered on the north side of town.
“Old Jones still keeping you under lock and key?” he asked.
“The poor old pooh. He knows he’s not a manly man, and he knows I’m a wild mare, but he’s not interested in getting rid of me. He sort of wants me around.”
Mugs sipped a tiny bit of the booze, but he had watered it down because he needed to stay nimble.
The evening proceeded handsomely. Mugs told her that the next class might even include some famous lawmen who were handier with firearms than he would ever be. She told him that her dear old hubby was grouchy, drank hot chocolate each evening, and went to bed at eight-thirty, and that she was bored stiff.
He poured a couple more, and she smiled a lot, and he judged the time was ripe, so he fixed her one with a Mickey Finn, and she sipped it.
“Oh!” she said, smiled, and passed out.
That was perfect. He stretched her out on the sofa, worked the wedding ring off her finger, and examined it. The ring had a one-carat blue sparkler, which couldn’t be better. He set up his little jeweler’s workshop, with the tiny vise clamped to a table, and anchored the ring in it. Then he carefully pried up the prongs, released the superb blue diamond, removed it, and dug around in his box of glass baubles until he found just the right stone. With a little wiggling and working, he slid it into place, and then pressed the clamps down. When he was finished, the ring looked very much like it did before, except the stone was glass. It would probably be a long time before she discovered the switcheroo. He slid it onto her bony finger, jammed the purloined diamond into a tin of chewing tobacco, and put away all his costume jewelry supplies and equipment.
He had to wait a while for her to come around. It was getting late, and she was annoying, but he had to finish the rosy scenario. Eventually she did stir, her eyes opened, she beheld Mugs, and groaned.
“I drank a little more than I intended,” she said.
“That’s all right, Jill Jane.”
She stared at her clothing. “Why didn’t you take advantage of me?”
“I’m too tired,” he said.
“I knew you’d disappoint me,” she said.
That’s how the evening ended. She vanished into the night. He felt happy. Nipping a diamond was far better than wife-stealing, and likely to go undiscovered for years. There was a whole future in it. With a little refining of techniques, he could live on easy street the rest of his days. He hit the sack a happy man.
He was awakened early in the morning by an ominous knocking on the orphanage door. He discovered Sheriff Stoopnagle there, bristling with importance. But the sheriff also was carrying a large black leather Gladstone bag.
“Well, well, well,” the sheriff said, and let himself in.
“The bag addressed to Charles Zinfandel, Principality of Monaco, got as far as New York and got sent back here. It lacked transit papers. And guess what? I rifled the lock, and guess what? Eighty thousand in nice new Treasury notes. And guess what? Nobody around here is named Zinfandel. There’s not a bottle of it in Rock Springs, and I had to ask Charley, the barkeep, what it was. White wine. Trouble is, I don’t know who sent it. Well, I know, but I can’t prove a damned thing. No one saw you nip it and ship it. But the shipping tag was out of sequence. It was an older tag; newer tags have higher numbers. So here we are, Birdsong. I’ve been thinking real hard about it.”
“You can actually think?” Mugs asked.
“Here’s the scoop, Birdsong. Everything in Rock Springs was real quiet until you arrive and started up your school. Then the peace got disturbed. And the bank got robbed. Now, I’m not saying you done it, but I’m saying that I’m shutting down this here Crime College. It’s done. It’s over. You got twenty-four hours to close her up and get out of Rock Springs.”
“Fine with me,” Mugs said. “Kind of a desperate place, nothing but rock around here, and not a good saloon. Lots of men in overalls. You got a good reason to shut down my school?”
“I don’t need a reason,” Stoopnagle said. “I’m shutting it down without any reason at all. Go hire a lawyer if you don’t like it.”
“Well, I’ll pursue another occupation,” Mugs said. “I liked teaching, but it’s hard work. I have an aversion to work. I want life to flow by easily. Maybe I’ll move to Los Angeles.”
“Wherever,” Stoopnagle
said. “Just do it now.”
“You on your way to J. J. Jones? Mind if I come along?”
“Suit yourself.”
They hiked to the bank, where Jones was busy rearranging furniture in the lobby.
“Well, well, well,” said Stoopnagle. He handed the Gladstone to Jones, who peered in, lifted a packet of twenties, a packet of fifties, and then began whipping out packets of greenbacks in great number.
“Eighty grand,” Stoopnagle said. “I counted it. All yours. How’s that for law enforcement?”
Jones smiled, and then sighed. “Jill Jane did it, you know. Omaha was only the first stop. They were off to the French Riviera. Now I’ll have to change the combination on the safe. Sheriff, you’re a gem. Oh, what a glorious day in Rock Springs, the most sublime city in the United States.”
“Yeah, well, we’re going to get rid of Birdsong here, and shut down his crime school. No more trouble in Rock Springs.”
“That’s a pity. He’s been an outstanding citizen and help, and the school has improved the economy.”
“Yeah, I’m a diamond in the rough,” Birdsong said.
“What are your plans, Birdsong?”
“The contemplative life, J. J. I’m heading for a Trappist monastery in upstate New York. I’m in debt to the universe, and I need to make amends.”
“I’ll let Jill Jane know. She’s rather fond of you.”
They shook on it.
“Twenty-four hours,” said Stoopnagle. “Or you’re off to Rawlins.”
Mugs headed for the Tattler and found Typhoid Mary breaking up old pages.
“I hate this,” she said. “Breaking down old type’s not my idea of a good life. Look at me, full of ink. A life of stained fingers.”
“Yeah, well, I need to borrow a lot of money,” Mugs said.
“For what? You got the bank loot. Don’t tell me otherwise.”
“Nah, the sheriff’s got it, and he’s returning it to Jones. Say, that’s a scoop. You’ve got a story. Sheriff Recovers Loot.”
“How’d he get it?”
“He’ll tell you all about it. In fact you’ll hear more about it than you want to hear. He’ll come in here and talk your ear off. He’s booted me out of Rock Springs. I’ve thanked the saints and angels for it. But I got no place to go.”
Mugs Birdsong's Crime Academy Page 7