The Penguin Pool Murder (The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  “Wait one minute,” said Miss Withers. “Mr. Costello here went to the door after the lights went on. It was he who found out how it squeaked….”

  “But he didn’t go through the door?”

  “No, not through the door. Just to it, and turned the knob….”

  “He didn’t go far enough to throw or drop anything?”

  Miss Withers shook her head.

  Piper strode back and forth. “You didn’t hear the sound of running water in the darkness?” He stood above the sink that was fastened against the farther wall. Its plug was in tight.

  Miss Withers was sure that she hadn’t. “All right, then,” said the Piper conclusively. “The hat-band is here. One of you three snatched it up when the lights went out, after he had kicked the cord. Then he hid it somewhere, and it would have to be somewhere close by. All right, boys, give the room the double O. Hunt till you find it.”

  He went over to the penguin, which had rested its sleek head on the rung of a chair and gone to sleep standing up.

  “It would be just like this blasted little duck to have swallowed the hat-band for the second time,” Piper said accusingly. “Only it couldn’t hop up on the table, and it wouldn’t be able to pull the light plug….”

  “Light plug!” Miss Withers had an idea. “He—” she pointed at Hemingway—“was down on the floor when the lights went on.”

  “Of course I was,” snapped the Director. “I knew where the outlet was, and as soon as I found the plug, I made a connection.”

  “You did all that,” said Miss Withers. “But maybe you did something more. Maybe you stuck that hat-band inside the fixture or somewhere before you pushed in the plug?”

  Two policemen cast their flashlights on Miss Withers as once more she turned the room into darkness by jerking the light cord. Then she unscrewed the plug and took it out of the socket, but there was no wad of cloth behind it. And that was that. They put on the light again.

  It was more than an hour later when at last the Inspector was forced to the conclusion that the missing hat-band was going to continue missing. “The thing didn’t vanish in thin air, did it?” he demanded. “It’s too big a thing for one of you to have swallowed, humans not having the distendible gullet of our penguin cousins. It didn’t walk away, did it?”

  “I suppose we’re free to go now?” Hemingway asked acidly. “I’d like to put this poor little penguin back in her own pool, with her mate. Erebus has been whimpering out there from sheer loneliness.”

  Piper nodded. He surveyed the room again. There were few hiding places possible, and every one of them had been gone through with a fine tooth comb by the best brains of the uniformed division.

  The glass tanks for specimens, both empty and full, had been taken down from the shelves. Tables, chairs, and shelves had been scrutinized from above and beneath. Every book had been turned through, the floor had been gone over for a loose board. Even the sink had been opened at the trap, and a hooked wire worked both ways to make sure that the band had not been so disposed of.

  But it was all useless. “You can all go now,” said Piper. “Beat it, and let me think. Yes, take your postcards, Fink. I’m sure I don’t want them. Put the silly little bird back into its pool, and then clear out of here.”

  He turned to Miss Withers. “Well, we nearly got somewhere, anyway. But I don’t think that hat-band is so important. After all, we don’t know for sure that it was the murderer who dropped his hat in the pool, and who came back to get it that night. It might have been someone shielding the real murderer, some man shielding Gwen …”

  “The worst part of the whole business,” Miss Withers told him, “is the fact that it’s all a mess of circumstantial evidence. You believe in it, and I don’t. What we need in this case is an eye-witness.”

  Then the phone rang. Hemingway, who had preceded Costello through the doorway, turned as if to come back and answer it, but Piper held up his hand.

  “See who it is, Calloway.” The biggest cop strode over to the desk, and lifted the receiver in one big red fist.

  “Hello? Yes, sir, he is. Yes, sir. I’ll tell him. Yes, Lieutenant.” He replaced the instrument excitedly and faced his superior officer.

  “That was Lieutenant Keller, sir, from your office. He just got a message from Warden Hyde over to the Tombs. He says that Chicago Lew, the dip, has written a note asking for you to come and see him tomorrow morning, and promising to spill something new on the Lester murder.”

  Barry Costello spoke from the doorway. “Well, ten to one there’s your eye-witness you were talking about, if he’ll only squeal….”

  “He’ll squeal when the time comes,” Inspector Piper promised.

  16

  The Dumb Man is Silent

  IT WAS BRIGHT AND early when Inspector Piper sat down to the breakfast table next morning. Perhaps it was earlier than it was bright, since December mornings in New York City are not full blown at seven-thirty. But the Inspector was cheerful, unwontedly cheerful. He donned his best and brightest suit, and attacked the limp bacon and brittle toast which his housekeeper set before him with a definite feeling of optimism.

  “Good mornin’, Sergeant,” said Mrs. McFeeters as she slopped a cup of coffee at his elbow. Mrs. McFeeters had been “doing” for the Inspector so many years that sometimes her none too active mind failed to grasp the extent of his rise in the world. She had come to work for him because it was the only way the Inspector could keep the dear old lady from getting into trouble via shop-lifting, and she stayed because he never had the heart to tell her to go.

  “Good morning,” said the Inspector. “Fine morning. Well, Mrs. McFeeters, this is a big day for your truly. Yes, ma’m. Today I settle a little business which has been on my mind a bit lately.”

  “Is it the Lester case, sir?”

  “Nothing else. We’ve dug up a witness to the crime, Mrs. McFeeters, or at least a man who was in the neighborhood at the time it was committed. And that man has promised to talk, or at least to write his story, this very morning.”

  “Has he, now?”

  “He has. And why not? The nasty little pickpocket will be getting his freedom for remembering in time. He’ll be set loose from the jail, Mrs. McFeeters. Which is more than a couple of other people will have happen to them, I’m thinking. In spite of these smart amateur detectives. Bah!”

  The Inspector stirred his coffee savagely and thought of Miss Withers. “I guess an eye-witness will settle any doubts in the matter. The Lester case was reopened last night, but today it closes again as far as my department is concerned. Bring me some more coffee, will you? I’ve got to get down to the Tombs, because it’s after opening time down there.”

  “I suppose this pickpocket you’ve got in a cell down there will be just as eager to tell his story and get out as you are to hear it,” observed the housekeeper. “Will you have the morning paper?”

  “Bother the paper,” said the Inspector. “What the devil is that?”

  The telephone in the bedroom rang noisily. “Bother the telephone, too,” he added.

  “Now I wonder who that can be?” said Mrs. McFeeters, with detached interest.

  “You’ll never know by standing there,” Piper observed. “Leap thither.”

  “It’s a gentleman for you and he says it’s on business and it’s very important,” he was told breathlessly in another moment. “Shall I tell him you’ve gone down to Headquarters?”

  “Here,” interrupted Piper. “Hello? What in the …” His voice changed. “Who? Costello? Well, what …”

  “I’m down at the Tombs,” came the voice of the Irish lawyer. “Wait for me there at your place, I’ve got vital news for you.”

  “I’m coming down there …”

  “It’s about the Lester case,” explained the voice at the other end of the wire. “I just had another interview with the pickpocket. Wanted to see him before the hue and cry, just for Gwen’s protection, you know. And he’s confessed to killing Lester!�
��

  “Nonsense! Impossible!”

  “I’ve got the written confession in my pocket,” said Costello. “I’m bringing it up to you now, so wait for me.” And he hung up.

  Piper clicked the receiver angrily. “Damn his Mick impudence,” he grumbled. “The nerve of his rushing down there as soon as the doors opened in the morning, so as to be the first to hear whatever it was that the dip was willing to say.” He looked thoughtfully at his hat, across the room, and then sank into a chair. “If he’s coming up here I suppose I might as well wait for him and see what sort of a confession he’s dug up,” Piper decided. He took up the morning paper.

  “Mrs. McFeeters,” he observed as he begun to read, “an Irishman is bad enough, and a lawyer is worse, but when the two are combined in one person there’s positively hell to pay.”

  Eight o’clock struck, and eight thirty. The Inspector cast aside the scattered remains of his paper and reached for his hat. “That fresh Mick,” he told the doorknob, “is worse to deal with than Miss Withers herself. At least she keeps her appointments.”

  He tore the door open savagely, and almost rammed into Barry Costello, who stood with his hand ready to knock. The Irishman was attired in full morning clothes, with gardenia, topper and all, and twirled a cane around his slender fingers.

  “It’s you, is it?” The Inspector’s voice was icy. “Come in, my friend. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, so talk fast. What do you mean sneaking down there and talking to that dummy before I could get there….”

  Costello placed his hat carefully on the table and lit a cigarette. “I’ll explain,” he said slowly. “You’ll remember that you gave your permission, in front of the Warden, for me to talk with the pickpocket, some days ago? I was a little afraid that his testimony would incriminate Gwen, you see, so since I heard last night about his note to you, I rushed down and got in first across the line. Sorry, as it turned out. But the results are great. They speak for themselves. Here you are, Inspector.”

  With a bow, Costello laid a folded note before his host. Piper snatched it, but hesitated before he opened it.

  “You got this from the pickpocket?”

  Costello nodded. “He asked me to give it to you, poor fellow. He’s pretty well worn down, you know. Talks of ending it all and beating the noose that way.”

  “Beating what noose? You mean the Chair?” Without waiting for an answer, the Inspector slowly opened the folded bit of coarse lined paper.

  The message was printed in letters bold enough, and in itself was bolder still. “I KILLED THE BIG GUY BECAUSE HE CAME TO WHEN I GOT HIS WATCH BECAUSE I WAS AFRAYED HE WOULD SQUEAL AND MY NEXT OFFENSE MEANS LIFE UNDER BAUMES LAW I RATHER DIE.”

  “No signature, huh?” Piper gave the note the closest scrutiny.

  “He said he’d sign any confession you bring to him,” Costello announced. “But he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, now. I guess this is a new slant on the case. Are you beginning to see eye to eye with me now?”

  “About saving Gwen? I believe I am,” said Piper heartily. “I don’t like your methods, Costello, but somehow I feel that you do want to save Gwen Lester’s life. You’d do pretty near anything to save her, wouldn’t you?”

  “Just about, yes,” Costello confessed. “I’m crazy about her, Inspector, and I think she could learn to care for me. So it’s not the usual case of lawyer and client. Our being thrown together like that, when I wandered into the Aquarium so calmly to while away an hour or two, and then stumbled on a beautiful woman in trouble … well, it appealed to the romantic in me.”

  “Um,” said Piper. He had little time for young love. “Wait a minute.” From his pocket he took a thin bill-fold, and carefully folded the note from the pickpocket inside.

  “And now do you think you can order Gwen’s freedom?”

  The Inspector laughed. “Freedom? Not until I get a better confession than this one. I’ve had confessions and confessions before, you know. Maybe, after Chicago Lew scribbles his signature at the bottom of a nice legal document, then we’ll see. But I don’t figure the dip as a murderer, somehow. Yet something happened to change him plenty in the time he was hidden behind the tanks with the penguins. I can tell more about it all when I see him, which will be pronto.”

  “Come on then, Inspector. I feel that we’re nearing the end of this tangle, do you know? Gwen Lester is going to be out of that cell in a day or two. Maybe this afternoon. It was because I hoped you’d have her turned out today that I came rushing up here so early, calling you so you’d be sure and wait. But if getting to the Tombs will speed things up, let’s go.”

  “Sure we’ll go,” said the Inspector. He stepped to the telephone and called a number.

  “What’s that for?” asked Costello.

  “I’m going to let that school-teacher, Miss Withers, come in on this,” said Piper above the mouthpiece. “Trafalgar three four three three—she’s been pretty well mixed up in it so far, and I want her to be in at the death.”

  Costello looked up. “In at the what?”

  “In at the death, like a fox hunt, you know. In case this business with the pickpocket turns out as you hope.”

  Costello was puzzled. “But why, Inspector? Why let an outsider in on this? It will only cause delay.”

  “Never fear,” said Piper. “We won’t have to wait for Miss Withers. And as for outsiders mixing in, I don’t know but that would apply to you too. Remember, young man, I’m running this show. You’re only a defense lawyer, and maybe you’ve dug up something to help your client and maybe you haven’t. Besides, Miss Withers is a very good friend of mine. She has more sense than most men.”

  “She’s a charming lady,” said the Irishman. “Don’t misunderstand me, Inspector. I’d be charmed to have her here.”

  The Inspector spoke briefly into the phone, and then dropped it. For the second time that morning he grabbed his hat, and then led the way out of the building and into a taxi. “Now you can tell me all about your interview with the dip,” he told Costello. “And tell it all, from start to finish. You wanted to get there ahead of me, for fear the dip would spill something unfavorable to Gwen?”

  “Not exactly that, Inspector. But I wanted to be forewarned, in case there was something in the situation which could hurt her. So I took pains to be the first visitor to the place, and went straight to call on Mr. Chicago Lew.”

  “You didn’t stop to talk with Seymour?”

  Costello was thoughtful. “No, I didn’t stop in front of his cell. I’d been in to see him yesterday, you know. And he was asleep in his bunk, or pretending to be asleep, as we passed. Schmaltz unlocked the door of the pickpocket’s cell and left me there.”

  “He stayed outside the door, on his chair there, as an extra witness, in case the dip should refuse to own this confession?”

  “No, he didn’t. Schmaltz grumbled about my coming in so early when he had a lot to do in the upstairs part of the prison. So he locked me in, and left me there. I started to talk to the dip …”

  “But man, that’s in defiance of regulations!”

  “No, it isn’t, Inspector. Remember that you vouched for me yourself a week or so ago. And of course he searched me thoroughly at the door.”

  “Go on,” said Piper. “Every rule of procedure seems to have been upset in this case, but go ahead.”

  “I made the plea of my life to that pickpocket,” said Costello. “I painted a picture for him of what might happen to an innocent woman, and of how he could save her. I knew he could hear me, and I knew that he could be touched. I don’t like to praise myself, Inspector, but before I’d gotten really into the swing of my stride, I had that pickpocket almost in tears. And he broke down completely. He reached for the pad of paper and the pencil that you left in his cell in case he should want to make his wishes known, and wrote down this note, practically in the torments of the damned. I made him realize the enormity of his crime, Inspector, not so much in killing Lester as in letting someone el
se rot in prison for it. I knew all along that he was guilty, Inspector. And as soon as he had printed the last line of the note—printed I suppose because he’s an illiterate sort—he toppled over onto his bunk and lay there sobbing, with his face in his hands. He was still carrying on when I shouted for the turnkey to come and let me out, as my time was up.

  “Even then I stayed outside the cell door for awhile trying to cheer the man up a bit, you know. But even after I’d gone on to stop outside Seymour’s cell and tell him the good news, I could hear the pickpocket making a fuss. I believe he’d kill himself if he had the means, Inspector.”

  “Quite possibly,” said Piper. “Chicago Lew is the suicide type, not the murder type. He might kill himself, but I doubt if he could ever come to killing another man. That takes more guts than Chicago Lew McGirr ever had.”

  “Even if the man to be killed were lying helpless and unconscious in his power?”

  “Maybe that would make a difference, at that. Well, here we are at the Tombs. And there, if I’m not mistaken, is Miss Withers standing on the steps waiting for us. I told you we wouldn’t have to wait for that lady, Costello. But she looks upset …”

  Miss Withers was upset, plenty. She came running down the flight of stone steps and threw herself at the taxi.

  “I thought you’d never get here, Inspector,” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell me what had happened here? I walked in, all unsuspecting …”

  “So what, my dear lady? I thought you might like to be in the last act of our little playlet. I figured that you might like to see Chicago Lew sign his name at the bottom of another of our famous confessions, that’s all.”

  “Confessions?” Miss Withers drew back. “Then you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know what?” queried Piper testily, as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “And I thought that was why you called me to come down, because of what happened in the pickpocket’s cell. Chicago Lew isn’t going to sign any confession …”

  “And why not, pray?” put in Barry Costello.