“Well, once in her life—just once—she wasn’t. This man knew about it and stole the letters which showed she wasn’t; and after that she had to pay him so that Grandfather wouldn’t know. He would disappear for quite a long while and she would think she was rid of him, and then he would come back and she would have to pay him again. After she died, he came to me. He showed me copies of the letters, but I wouldn’t believe him. So then he gave me one of them—there were four letters at first, and he kept three. Then I knew it was true, and I had to pay him so that Grandfather would never know.”
“Yeah,” said O’Malley, “I thought it might be like that. Tell us the rest of it.”
“Last week, after I hadn’t seen him for a long while, he came back and wanted a thousand dollars. I didn’t have that much money. I gave him two hundred dollars and told him I’d try to get the rest, but I couldn’t do that without telling why I needed it. My brother Bob was home from college for the week-end, and finally I had to tell him and ask him if he could get it; and he tried to get it through his room-mate who was here with him, but they couldn’t.
“I’d always met that man outside the house, but that night I didn’t meet him. I knew he wouldn’t come here unless I was home, so we stayed out as late as we could. He came as soon as we got home; I guess he’d been watching for us. He was all dressed up in things he’d bought with the money I’d given him and he was very angry because I hadn’t met him, and very threatening.
“I wanted to see the man alone, because my brother has a violent temper, but the boys wouldn’t let me. When he got violent Bob got violent too. Then the man took a revolver out of his pocket and threatened Bob with it and Bob tried to put him out of the house. Bob had him from behind, pushing him, and the man tried to reach around his own body under his other arm and point the gun at Bob, and it went off and he shot himself.”
“I’m listening,” O’Malley said.
“We just stood and looked at one another. Then the boys said they would take the man out and leave him in the street and maybe nobody would ever know. So they got one on each side of him and walked with him down the steps as if he were still alive and walked with him along the street; because we were afraid to leave him in front of the house.
“There was a policeman up the street, walking the other way, and so he didn’t see us, but I was afraid he would; and then I saw a cab I said to the boys. ‘Sing! Sing and act drunk!’ So we all acted drunk and got into the cab. We told the driver a number on Park Avenue and John and I got out there; and Bob went on farther, and then he got out too and we all came back here to the house.
“In the morning Grandfather said he didn’t have the right hat. He’d put his hat down on the stand when he came home and the servants hadn’t put it away. Then the man had put his hat there too, and when we were taking him out of the house I’d picked up the wrong hat. There’s a restaurant near here where Grandfather sometimes eats, and he had been there that evening, and I convinced him that the hats must have been changed in the restaurant.”
“You know what became of the gun, Miss Cairn?” O’Malley asked her.
“Yes. I have it. We were so excited we forgot all about the gun and when we got back to the house I found it lying on the rug where he had dropped it.”
“I want the gun. Don’t you go and got it. You just show me where it is.”
We followed her upstairs and, in a dresser drawer, hidden among silk underthings, she showed us a cheap nickel-plated revolver. O’Malley picked it up carefully in a handkerchief.
“I don’t know how this is coming out, Miss Cairn,” he told her, “but I got an idea, if there ain’t, no fingerprints on this gun but Klein’s and yours, and yours are over his and yours ain’t on the trigger, the medical examiner might pronounce this accidental death and that will be the end of it.”
* * * *
“Was it the hat that kept you on the right track, O’Malley?” I inquired when we had left the house.
“Sure. Would a guy like T. O. Annan, who was used to wearing a comfortable old hat, put on a brand-new hat a couple of sizes too small for him and walk home without knowing the difference? So the hats must have been changed there in the house. Then they identified this Klein and, remembering how he was dressed, I knew what I might have to look for. I went to the Bowery and picked up the letters where he’d parked ’em with another bum for safety. But can you beat my bad luck? Do I ever get put on a good case but what it blows up on me?”
“You’re blowing this case up yourself,” I told him. “All you’ve got to do is make a hint of what we just heard public and your name will be on the front page of every newspaper in New York tomorrow morning.”
“But would I sleep at night? It’s my bad luck that when I get a swell case, a philanthropic old guy like T. O. Annan and a kid like Miss Cairn get in the works, and I have to keep my mouth shut. Because I was born unlucky.”
SOILED DIAMONDS
Originally published in Collier’s, September 17, 1932.
“What we got now,” said O’Malley, “is a jewelry salesman got murdered and robbed. They tell me they got the case as good as solved, but still they put me on it. What good I should go around and ask a lot of questions when they already got the answers? This was a salesman named Alliday and he worked for a jewelry house downtown called Morant & Company. Well, they had to send fifty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds to a jewelry store in the Bronx, so Alliday took ’em in a cab and another guy went with him.
“When they was in Central Park the driver heard a shot fired in his cab and slowed up to find out what was wrong, and the other guy jumped out and run away into the bushes. A lot of people and cars got around, and they got a cop, and the cop went in the taxi with Alliday to the hospital, but by the time they got there the guy was dead.”
“Have they got the man who did the shooting?”
“They got one they think is him. Burrel his name is, and he was a friend of Alliday’s. They got him at headquarters and the taxi guy, too, who they’re holding for a witness.”
“Well, what’s to be worked on, then,” I asked, “if they’ve already got him?”
“That’s what I told you in the first place.”
“Did they get back the diamonds?”
“He had got rid of the diamonds and the gun. I got to go and talk with him, but I don’t expect he’ll tell me anything.”
We went to headquarters and saw Burrel. He was an undersized young fellow of unpleasant appearance and had, I thought, a particularly evil face.
“How long had you known Alliday?” O’Malley asked him.
“A couple of months.”
“Got acquainted with him, did you, because you knew his business and thought you’d stick him up?”
“I was at a picture show when this thing happened.”
“Yeah, I heard you said that. You’re out of luck that there don’t none of the attendants at the picture theater remember seeing you.”
The taxi-driver’s name was Durman. He was about twenty-five years old and looked like any other taxi-driver.
“You’re sure this Burrel is the guy that was in your cab?” O’Malley asked him.
“He looks like the guy,” the taxi-driver answered, “but I never seen him but that one time, so maybe I couldn’t really swear to him.”
“You tell us about Burrel getting in the cab.”
“Why, I was waiting in the cab when Alliday came out of the office building, and this other guy—Burrel, if he’s the right one—was standing near the corner. He seen Alliday and came up and spoke to him, and they talked for a minute, friendly, and then both got into the cab. They kept on talking but I didn’t pay attention or even hear what they was saying; and in the park I heard the shot.”
He described the rest of the event just as O’Malley had already told it to me.
“Say, listen,” he said j
ust as we were leaving him, “how long are you guys going to keep me here?”
“I got nothing to do with that,” O’Malley told him.
“Well, somebody has. You treat a guy that’s just a witness like he had done something. I got a wife, and she’s worrying her heart out and the cops are bothering her.”
“They got no business to do that,” O’Malley said. “I’ll see they quit it. You got any message you want I should give your wife?”
“If you see her, tell her to stop worrying.”
“Get anything from either of them?” I asked after we had left them.
“Not a thing; and now I got to go and see Morant & Company, and it ain’t likely I’ll get anything there, either.”
We went downtown. Morant & Company’s offices were on an upper floor of a tall building, and Morant himself, the senior partner, saw us.
“Anything unusual, Mr. Morant,” O’Malley asked, “about the way them diamonds were being sent?”
“Nothing whatever. It was all in accordance with our usual custom. We continually receive requests from jewelers to show them diamonds from which they can make selections, and one of our salesmen takes the diamonds to them in a cab. It was unusual, however, that Alliday took anyone with him. He was supposed to go alone.”
“Yeah? Well, this time it seems he didn’t. I don’t suppose you know what time he left here?”
“We know exactly. We keep a record when stones are sent out and returned. I’ll get it for you.”
Morant sent for the record. Alliday had left the company’s offices a little after three.
“I see,” said O’Malley. “So it was this way: Alliday took the diamonds, went down in the elevator to the street and found a cab—”
“Oh, not that way at all,” Morant told him. “We don’t care to have a salesman with a pocketful of diamonds wandering about the streets looking for a cab. One of the boys went down and got the cab for him.”
“I’d like to see that boy.”
* * * *
The boy proved to be a frank-faced and intelligent young fellow.
“You see anybody hanging around the building entrance like they was watching for Alliday when you went down to get the cab?” O’Malley asked him.
“I didn’t notice anybody in particular. There were plenty of people in the entrance and on the street, of course.”
“Tell us how you done it, son.”
“Why, the way I always do it. There’s a cab stand at the corner and I went and got a cab and came back in it and told the man to wait, and then I came up and told Mr. Alliday it was there, and he went down to it.”
“Know the cab-driver?”
“By sight. He’s carried salesmen plenty times before.”
We went down to the street. There was a cigar store in the building entrance and O’Malley went into it and telephoned headquarters.
“What did you tell headquarters?” I inquired of him.
“Told ’em I wasn’t learning nothing. Well, here we take a cab.”
We went to the cab stand on the corner and got a cab, and O’Malley looked at his watch as we got into it. Then we drove north through the downtown district and along Fifth Avenue and turned into the park.
“Here’s where it happened,” O’Malley told me finally.
The murderer had picked out an excellent place for it. Bushes on both sides hid the road, and there was less traffic on this road than on most of the park driveways. We got out and spent some time examining the locality, but we didn’t find anything. Then we drove to the hospital and, on reaching it, O’Malley again looked at his watch.
“O. K.,” he stated. “Alliday left Morant’s at three-five o’clock and they got him here, according to the hospital records, at five minutes of four. It’s about the same time of day and traffic is about the same, and he done the trip in one minute less than we did, but we might have spent more time in the park.”
“What does that show?” I asked.
“Shows the taxi-driver told the truth and didn’t go nowhere but where he said he did. That being the case, I guess I’ll give his message to his wife.”
We drove to Durman’s apartment. It was in an unattractive building in the Bronx. A smell of cooking greeted us. Mrs. Durman was in the kitchen, cooking a chop and some potatoes, and a pot of soup was simmering on the stove. She was about twenty-two years old and poorly dressed, but I have never seen a more startlingly beautiful young woman.
“I got a message from your husband,” O’Malley told her. “He said to tell you not to worry.”
“I’m not worrying. But the police keep coming here and I don’t like it because of the neighbors.”
“They got no business to. I’ll put a stop to it.”
He sat down as if he wanted to keep up the conversation and I was amused to see that he was attracted by the woman. They talked for a while.
“You wouldn’t want to go to a picture show tonight?” O’Malley asked her bashfully.
“Not with my husband being held.”
I was sorry for her, but I felt like laughing at O’Malley.
“Well, O’Malley,” I kidded him after we had got outside, “you certainly fell for that woman. She had you going. It’s the first time I ever saw you fall for one of them, but I don’t blame you. She’s a knock-out. Put that girl in the right clothes and the right surroundings and she’d have it over all of them.”
“That’s right,” O’Malley agreed. “But it wouldn’t do me no good if I was to fall for her, because she’s married to this taxi guy. It’s a pity he don’t make enough to dress her up.”
We parted and I did not see him till the next day.
“Anything new?” I asked him.
“Sure. They found the gun in the park where the guy threw it.”
“Fingerprints on it?”
“It had been rained on. They tried to trace it by the number, but it had been stole a month ago from the guy that had a right to own it; so there’s no clue.”
“You better trace it,” I urged, “because it will be the best evidence you can have against Burrel.”
“You’re smart,” O’Malley said.
“How did they connect Burrel with the murder in the first place?” I inquired. “You haven’t told me that.”
“That was simple. Alliday wouldn’t have taken nobody in the cab with him unless he knew him, and this taxi-driver gave a pretty good description of the guy. They looked for who among Alliday’s friends answered that description, and Burrel did and couldn’t prove where he was when the murder happened.”
“They got the right man,” I declared. “I knew that when I looked at him. Did you take Mrs. Durman to a picture show?” I asked derisively.
“I went out there but she wouldn’t go with me. I’m going out there now.”
There was a uniformed policeman in front of Durman’s door and Mrs. Durman asked at once the meaning of it.
“I put him there,” O’Malley told her, “to keep the other cops away. You ain’t been bothered since, have you?”
“No,” she replied, “but it makes me wonder what the other tenants in the building think about it.”
“I’ll have him taken off then.”
* * * *
Everything in the place was exactly as it had been the day before. Mrs. Durman was getting her luncheon ready and soup was simmering on the stove.
“You’re certainly some cook!” O’Malley told her. “Your soup ain’t healthy for a hungry man to smell. It makes him hungrier. You wouldn’t let me taste it, would you?”
“I’ll give you some,” she offered.
“Don’t bother. I’ll get it myself.”
Before she could prevent him he had dipped a ladleful from the bottom of the pot, inspecting it closely. Then he took the kettle from the stove and, following his direct
ions, I helped him strain the soup through a dish-towel, and I saw unset diamonds glistening among the meat and vegetables that were left.
“Were you kidding me into believing that Burrel had done it, O’Malley?” I asked, after we had taken Mrs. Durman to the station-house, “or did you believe it yourself?”
“Sure I believed it,” he replied. “The first I thought it might not be that way was when Morant & Company’s boy says Durman had drove their salesmen on them trips before; then when I seen Mrs. Durman I got sure of it. You said yourself she’d be a knock-out if she had the clothes; and she knew that a lot better’n you and figured she’d get ’em any way she could.
“Durman knew that when he carried salesmen on them trips they were loaded up with jewels and him and his wife fixed the job up between ’em. After the boy had got Durman’s cab and Durman was waiting for Alliday to come down, he went in the cigar store and telephoned his wife, and she went and waited for him in the place they had picked out in the park. Of course there wasn’t nobody but Durman and Alliday in the cab. Durman knocked Alliday off. Mrs. Durman was there and he slipped her the diamonds and the gun before the crowd begun to gather.
“Mrs. Durman threw away the gun, so it couldn’t be connected with ’em, and Durman took the cop into his cab and beat it for the hospital to tell his story. He’s a smart guy, and so he described as the third man in the cab a fellow he’d once seen with Alliday. It was his luck that Burrel didn’t have no alibi.”
“But what made you think the diamonds were in the soup?”
“Why, there was always the question, if Burrell done the job, whether Durman had been in on it with him; and if he was, Burrel might have took the diamonds out to Durman’s place. So they searched Durman’s place but they didn’t find nothing. I guess Mrs. Durman didn’t expect it would be searched and put the diamonds in the soup when the cops came, because it was the quickest and safest place to hide ’em; and afterward she never had a chance to dispose of ’em.
“After I got the hunch Durman might have done the job alone, you and I went out and talked with Mrs. Durman and I looked the place over and I couldn’t see nowhere in them two rooms where the stones could have been hidden that the guys searching wouldn’t have found ’em. If I could have got her to go to a picture show we’d have searched the place again.
The Detective O'Malley MEGAPACK Page 5