My Kingdom for a Hearse

by Craig Rice

  “Oh,” Malone said, wondering if Dennis Dennis had said exactly what he meant. “Well, as I remarked, it isn’t anything too serious.”

  “Maybe one of the Deloras did it herself,” Dennis Dennis said. “Just to heckle poor old Hazel.”

  That was a new idea, and Malone turned it over a few times in his mind. “Possible,” he said a little dubiously.

  “Rita’s the only one who would think of it, though,” Dennis Dennis said, running a thin, nervous hand through his sandy hair. “And now that it comes to mind, I wouldn’t put it past her.” He took off his rimless glasses, began polishing them, and chuckled. “Next time I take her out on the town, I’ll beat the truth out of her and let you know.”

  Malone muttered something about biting the hand that fed, and immediately wished he hadn’t mentioned the subject of hands. But it seemed to go right past Dennis Dennis without making an impression.

  “Not too well fed,” Dennis Dennis said. “Hazel isn’t one for conspicuous waste, even where fancy decorations for the joint are concerned. Always wonder if she doesn’t slip down here at night and sling a paint brush herself.” He put the glasses back on.

  “But these column stories,” Malone began, getting doggedly back to the subject or at least, he reflected, one subject.

  “Could be one of the Deloras, yes, could be.” The ex-poet began pleating a scrap of notepaper. “Not all sweetness and light around here. Just the other day Hazel got sore and threatened to fire all the Deloras. They made the mistake of asking for more dough. In fact, that’s what the big confab was about yesterday morning.”

  “Did they get it?” Malone asked.

  “No,” Dennis Dennis said. Before Malone could think of anything else to ask, he went on, “Say, you’re a friend of the television producer, Jake Justus, aren’t you?”

  Malone nodded.

  “Like to meet him,” Dennis Dennis said. “Like to very much. I can write other things besides cosmetics advertising, you know.”

  The little lawyer murmured that he was sure Jake would be more than delighted.

  “Too bad all the Deloras aren’t combined in one girl. She’d be a natural for television.”

  Malone said that yes, it was indeed too bad.

  Dennis Dennis tossed the pleated paper at the wastebasket and said suddenly, “How do you like this to go with Furlong’s pink bathtub, spoken in Rita’s maple-syrup voice? ‘Silken soft—and sweeter than your sweetest dreams.’ ”

  “Swell,” said Malone, getting into the spirit of it.

  “Just so Rita doesn’t develop a lisp overnight.”

  Or a cut throat, Malone thought. And that reminded him that he had to be up and doing. Just what, he wasn’t at all sure, but doing.

  He finished his cigar, said his good-by, and went away, pausing at the door leading to the reception room to admire the golden-haired doll-like girl behind the gilt-and-ivory desk.

  “My dear, how did you get such a delightful name?” he inquired in the tender tones he reserved for golden-haired, doll-like girls.

  “I picked letters out of a hat,” Tamia Tabet said. He noticed happily that she had a pert dimple in one cheek. “And no, I haven’t any plans for the evening.”

  Fifteen minutes later Malone went out into Oak Street with her address in his pocket and a warmer glow in his being than he’d had all day.

  He wondered if it had occurred to Hazel Swackhammer to put a special delivery stamp on the envelope that held that check.

  With an important evening ahead of him—all, he told, himself, in the interests of business and Delora Deanne— something immediate was going to have to be done about the financial situation. Quite possibly Joe the Angel would consider it a worthwhile investment.

  He’d get to that problem later. He ignored the beckoning nods of several taxi drivers, crossed Michigan Boulevard and took a bus to the border of Evanston. The snow was coming down steadily now, and in Lincoln Park it lay silvery and crisp and soft.

  It hadn’t made his life any materially brighter to learn that Cuddles Swackhammer was a mortician by trade. Rather than making any pattern emerge, it had only added more confusion.

  If there was any pattern, he reflected. The matter of the Delora Deannes was beginning to seem more and more like several jigsaw puzzles mixed together, with new pieces, of a strange color and design, being added every few minutes. And also, more and more he was beginning to feel that he wasn’t going to like the picture if it ever did finally appear.

  Nor had it brightened his life to learn that Hazel Swackhammer was one for stringent economy He remembered Myrdell Harris’ chance remark about creditors. Or had it been chance?

  He tried to dismiss the matter of that check from his mind, and concentrate on Louella Frick. The address Hazel Swackhammer had given him was just over the boundary line of Evanston, one of a series of comfortable, homey-looking apartment buildings, all more or less alike. In the summertime, Malone reflected, there would be green leaves on the vines and window boxes at all the windows. Right now the vines were brown, and there was snow on the little square of lawn, hut the effect was still a pleasing one.

  One effect, however, was not as pleasing, and for a moment he stood still, staring. The big, two-tone convertible in front of the building could belong to no one but Helene Justus.

  Chapter Twelve

  The plain-faced, graying-haired woman who opened the door smiled at him agreeably and said, “Miss Frick’s not home. Are you a friend of hers?”

  Malone said, “Yes,” and waited hopefully.

  “Well, come right on in and get warm. There’s another friend of hers just got here. My, but isn’t it getting cold outside!”

  Malone agreed that yes, it certainly was cold outside, as he gratefully stepped into an apartment that was as comfortable and as homey-looking as its outside had been. There were bright potted plants in the glassed-in sunparlor, and invitingly cushioned wicker chairs. Helene looked at him serenely from one of them.

  The little lawyer sank down in the nearest chair and told himself he might have known. Just how Helene had gotten into the act he didn’t know, but there she was, not only with every intention of staying there but probably taking center stage.

  “We’re old friends,” Helene said brightly to the smiling-faced woman.

  Malone nodded agreement, and looked around him. Just good old-fashioned comfy and cozy, with a restful, soothing warmth. The furniture showed signs of wear, and none of it had cost very much in the first place, but it seemed exactly right for where it was, as did the friendly little clutter of family photographs on the old-style radio.

  “I’m Mrs. Titchner,” the gray-haired woman said cordially. “Mrs. Florence Titchner. I’ve been a friend of Lou’s for years and years. Why, she’s been living here with me ever since she first came to Evanston, and my, I’m going to miss her something terrible. Did you know she decided to go back to the farm?”

  Malone said cautiously, “She’s been thinking of it for some time, hasn’t she?” Helene was gazing dreamily out the window.

  “Oh, my, yes, ever since she first came to Evanston, she just didn’t talk about anything else. Evanston’s my home, really, you know, I came here when I married Mr. Titchner in 1919, I lived in Grand Forks before that, and I’ve gone right on living here in this apartment ever since he died in 1940 of a heart attack. I just don’t know what I’m going to do without Lou, but I suppose I’ll get along all right somehow. Yes, she was always talking about going hack, you know, she used to say to me, ‘Floss, I’m just going to stay here long enough to save a little money, and then I’m going hack to Ohio where I belong. ’ She never did get married, you know, and my, she did miss all her old friends something terrible, so I guess I ought to be glad for her sake that she’s gone. Did you say you’d been a friend of hers long, Mr.—”

  “Malone,” he said hastily. He felt a little out of breath. “No, not very long.”

  “Well, Lou was a wonderful woman, it’s too bad
she never did save up as much money as she’d intended to, hut then you know, she never did make very much. I never did figure out what she did, but she said it was something to do with cold cream, though my, she never used very much of that stuff any more’n I do. But I’ve known her and her family all my life. I’m quite a hit older’n she is, and my. I’ve known her ever since she was born, I guess. Used to visit back in Ohio every summer, that’s how I come to know her folks. ” She paused just long enough to smile. “Well, I don’t know how many times she’s said to me, ‘Floss, I’ve made up my mind that someday I’ll just get on a train and go hack whatever happens, and when I do, as far’s my things are concerned you just give ’em away, I won’t need ’em down on the farm.’ The furniture’s mine, you know, and she never did have very much of her own, poor dear, just a few dresses and the one good coat she wore this morning, except for shoes. My goodness, I never saw anybody had so many pairs of shoes, and such nice ones, too, but she always said she wouldn’t ever need them where she was going to go, Mr.—”

  “Malone,” the little lawyer repeated feebly. Helene was still staring out the window, even more dreamily.

  “Oh yes, Malone. I never was much good at remembering names. Don’t you feel well, Mr. Malone? You want to take care of yourself in this kind of weather. You know, I feel real guilty about her leaving all those shoes behind, I couldn’t wear any of ’em myself of course, and my, I just don’t know who could, and I wonder, would you like to take a look at them, seeing you’re right here. Maybe you know somebody they’d fit, and seeing you’re an old friend of Lou’s I know she’d like you folks to have them if you do know somebody they’d fit, and if you’d like to look at them I’d be glad to show them to you—”

  Malone said, “Yes, I would,” and regretted it even while he was saying it. But Helene was already on her feet.

  Mrs. Titchner led the way into a cheerful little bedroom bright with chintz, and opened a closet door. The back of it was one enormous shoe-rack that held enough shoes, Malone reflected, to make even a centipede happy. All were delicate, all were graceful, and all had cost enough to make a Texas oil man think twice.

  “My land, it does seem such a shame, spending all that money just on shoes, why you know I believe there’s pairs there she never wore more’n once or twice, and then going off and leaving them all behind, but then, I don’t suppose she would need that kind of shoes where she’s gone, would she?”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Helene said softly. Malone glanced quickly at her. There was a kind of hushed look on her face, and he knew she was thinking the same as he. Eva Lou, and a satin-lined drawer of beautiful, beautiful gloves. Louella, and a closet rack filled with beautiful, beautiful shoes.

  Or did Helene know about Eva Lou? Malone had an unpleasant suspicion that she did, that she knew all about the gloves and shoes being left behind because they weren’t going to be needed any more.

  He managed to avoid the reproachful look he expected from her eyes. Somehow he made his escape, explaining that the shoes, unfortunately, were far too small to fit the party he had in mind. Mrs. Titchner was effusively sorry, also sorry that they had missed seeing her old friend Lou, and that they didn’t have time for a nice hot cup of tea.

  Outside, Malone and Helene said, “What are you doing here?” simultaneously, and then Helene beat him to the next punch.

  “You might have known better than to team me up with your gangster friend last night. Though I’d have figured it out myself anyway.”

  He hedged with, “What did he have to do with it?”

  Helene sniffed. She motioned to Malone to get in the convertible and slid in herself under the wheel. “Simple. Walking away from your office, I turned my ankle. He gallantly helped me down to the drugstore. There it turned out the damage wasn’t serious, but I wanted a cup of coffee to calm my nerves.”

  “An old trick,” Malone said scornfully.

  “Still one of the best,” she told him serenely. “Anyway, he told me he was looking for his girl, Eva Lou Strauss, and he had to keep an eye on you because you knew where she was.” She looked at the miserable Malone coldly and thoughtfully. “Naturally I remembered the name. Naturally I remembered your mentioning that one of the models was missing. So naturally, I told him that I was looking for Eva Lou Strauss myself but that I was keeping an eye on you because you didn’t know where she was.”

  The little lawyer looked unhappily out the window.

  “After all,” Helene said, “I had to protect Jake’s interests. So we settled down to keeping two eyes on you, one for each of us. Then Jake turned up and both of you went up to her apartment.” She paused meaningfully.

  “We just went to see if she’d come back,” Malone said, wishing he were anywhere else in the world, preferably Bermuda. “And she hadn’t.”

  “I know she hadn’t,” Helene said. “We went up too, after you’d gone. Then Mr. Madrid took me home.”

  Malone managed to hide a sigh of relief. At least, Helene only thought Eva Lou Strauss and now, Louella Frick, were missing. She didn’t know about the packages that had arrived, and might still be arriving, at Hazel Swackhammer’s desk. It turned out, though, that he was congratulating himself too soon.

  “And that’s not all,” she said almost accusingly. “I did a little bit of arithmetic all by myself. Eva Lou Strauss posed for Delora Deanne’s hands. And Joe the Angel said you asked Rico de Angelo about—about—”

  “You’re a bright little girl,” Malone said. He threw the remains of his cigar savagely out the window. He unwrapped another one and lit it slowly and carefully. Then he explained it all to her, leaving out only a few personal plans that were nobody’s business but his own.

  Helene started the motor and drew a long, sighing breath. “Thank God, Jake doesn’t know anything about all this!”

  Malone thanked God and several saints that Jake didn’t know Helene knew about all this. He foresaw an immediate future that was not only going to be difficult, but fraught with peril. His last hope was that Jake and Helene could keep secrets from each other better than he’d ever been at keeping secrets from either of them.

  “Malone, what are we going to do?” Before he could say a word she added quickly, “I think, first of all, we’d better start looking for Eva Lou Strauss. And fast. Because that’s a very familiar-looking car parked down the block.”

  Malone looked. Difficult and fraught with peril, he reflected.

  Suddenly Helene started the convertible and slid alongside the black sedan. She waved a cheerful greeting to Gus Madrid. “How did you get here?”

  The smile that almost invariably answered one of Helene’s appeared on the dour face. “Same like you did. The dame that lives here used to work where my girl did. I found her name in the phone book. It was easy.” He looked extremely proud. “Only I saw you was here.”

  “Well, I can tell you,” she said with disarming frankness, “your girl isn’t here. And nobody here knows anything about her.” She leaned a little out the window and added a little more candlepower to the smile. “I think we ought to join forces. You see, Malone here is looking for Eva Lou Strauss too. And so am I. Because my husband wants to use her in a big television show. In fact,” she added, “I think you ought to hire Malone to find her for you. He’s wonderful at finding people.”

  Gus Madrid looked thoughtful and said, “Oh.” He was thoughtful for a few more minutes and then said, “You could maybe be right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” Helene told him warmly.

  This time, after another period of intense thinking, Madrid said, “Well.” And at last he sighed and said, “How much?”

  Malone sighed too, and it was with relief. “I’ll meet you at the office and we’ll talk it over.”

  “You see?” Helene told Gus Madrid. “Now you haven’t a thing to worry about.” She gave him one more smile as a clincher. Helene had convinced far more skeptical men than Gus Madrid would ever be.

  “It’s as simple
as that, ” Helene said a few blocks later. “In fact, I ought to ask you for a cut.”

  The little lawyer was silent. He had a feeling he was going to get a fee—assuming he got it—for promising to do something that he already suspected couldn’t be done.

  Halfway to the Loop he asked Helene to drop him at the Wrigley Building. He realized immediately it was a mistake, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

  “I’m going there myself,” Helene said. She gave Malone a suspicious glance from the corner of her eye. “I want to be along and make sure you don’t say the wrong thing to Jake.”

  Malone reflected that all he wanted was to make sure Jake didn’t say the wrong thing to her. He pointed out that there were other people in the Wrigley Building, and he might want to see any one of them. Helene answered him with a scornful sniff.

  “Jake mustn’t know anything,” she said firmly. “It’s bad enough he knows that Delora Deanne is five girls. Otis Furlong may come up with a solution for that. It’s worse he knows one of them is missing. But if he knew two of them were missing, and that somebody apparently has started murdering them—”

  “That’s enough,” Malone said. He muttered aloud that too many cooks made light work.

  “You mean,” Helene told him, “too many hands and we’ll all be in the soup.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You’ll be all right,” Malone said reassuringly, “as soon as you can keep your balance.”

  They helped Jake to his feet. He stood swaying for a minute and then fell flat on his face again.

  “The trouble is,” he complained, “I can’t seem to keep my balance even lying down.”

  “Concussion!” Helene said in a horrified voice. Obviously, she declared, Jake had to be rushed to a hospital, and at once.

  Jake sat up and began rubbing his head gingerly. “Water,” he whispered. “Next office.”