by Craig Rice
“Damn you, Malone,” Jake began.
Malone waved him down. “They left because—Hazel Swackhammer called up every one of them and fired them. Because she was going out of business. But to make it up to them—she sent every one of them a thousand bucks.” He smiled benignly at them and said at last, “All right. I don’t believe it either.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“Obviously, it’s perfectly obvious,” Malone said. He paused and scowled. That didn’t seem quite like what he meant.
“We understand,” Helene said sympathetically. “Just go on.”
He smiled at her with his whole heart. “Myrdell Harris called up all five of the Deloras, making the voice like Hazel Swackhammer. Told them all she was going out of business, told them to take the little trips they’d been wanting or whatever, and sent each of them a grand by messenger. Naturally, all the Deloras took off.”
“But the hands—” Jake began.
“Malone, the feet—” Helene began.
Both of them stopped suddenly, looked at each other, and then at Malone. He realized that he’d unthinkingly said entirely too much. With all his great care to keep Jake and Helene from finding out what the other knew, he’d gone and blurted out enough himself to give the whole show away.
Neither of them said a word. He wished, miserably, that they would. At last he got up and walked back to the window, clasped his hands behind his back, and stood looking dolefully at the first snowflakes that had begun to flutter down.
There was nothing he could say now, nothing he could do. Except possibly jump out the window, and the adjoining roof was only about two feet down, and covered with snow and mud. No, nothing except to stand here until eventually they went quietly away, probably never to return.
He didn’t hear a sound behind him. He was damned if he’d turn around. He just stood there, not even hoping.
After a very, very long time, Helene’s voice said, “You might as well come back, Malone, while there’s still some of your gin left.”
He turned around, went back to his desk, took the one very small drink that was left in the bottle and said, “A fine thing. A person goes and turns his back for just a minute, and his alleged friends drink up all his gin. ” He sat down, reached for a cigar and finally said, “Well, damn it, I meant everything for the best.”
They were holding hands, he noticed with relief.
“All right,” Helene said. “Myrdell Harris called up all the Deloras and told them to take off, and sent them lavish gifts of money—pretending to be Hazel Swackhammer. Take it from there, Malone.”
“Well,” he said a little weakly, “that’s what happened.” He told them about Eva Lou’s statement and his subsequent telephone calls. He managed to get his cigar lighted on the third determined try and said, “The hands and the feet, Helene—”
“I know all about,” Helen said calmly. “I mean, what von Flanagan discovered, and all the rest of it.”
Malone stared at her. He muttered something about second sight, and a probable Welsh grandmother.
“Nothing of the sort,” Helene said calmly. “Jake told me all about it. Everything.”
The little lawyer glared at Jake. His lips formed the one word, “Judas!”
“I am not,” Jake said hotly. “I didn’t say a word until Helene told me about the visit the two of you made to Louella Frick’s apartment yesterday.”
Malone looked at Helene indignantly, and this time he couldn’t say even one word.
“All right,” he said at last. “Let’s just say you told each other. The immediate question is—what was behind Myrdell Harris’ suddenly getting rid of all the Deloras, at a total cost of five thousand dollars—an important detail for a girl who loved money just a little better than anything—and then going to all this business with the hands and the feet?”
“It’s hardly what you’d call a girlish prank,” Jake said. Helene frowned. “Maybe the word isn’t Why. It could be Who. Who was behind the whole thing?”
Malone nodded slowly. “Someone could have been in it with her. Or someone, more likely, was having her do the work. ” He paused for a little more thought, then picked up the telephone. “There’s one way to find out.”
He telephoned one Weasel Firman, an old friend and client, whose various ups and downs had ranged from selling shares in a uranium mine to running a small-time horse parlor. He’d helped Malone out more than once in the past by prying out information about the private financial affairs of clients and others. Right now, Malone wanted to know about Myrdell’s bank account. Mainly, had there been any large withdrawals in the past week or so.
Satisfied, he hung up and said, “Good old Weasel. He says he can get it with one quick telephone call, and he’ll call me right back.”
“But whoever it was,” Helene said, “Myrdell Harris or someone else—Malone, what was the reason, the idea, the purpose behind this awful—this awful, awful thing?”
“As Dennis Dennis would put it,” Malone said, “this awful, awful, awful thing.” He relit his cigar.
She ignored that. “It’s like—” She paused. “I don’t know what it’s like. Maybe like voodoo. Or—” Her lovely face was pale. “Something you simply can’t bear to think about.”
Jake squeezed her hand tight.
“Well,” Helene said, “at least I accomplished one thing today.” She indicated the frivolously wrapped box. “I thought it was about time someone did something practical. Such as finding out who bought those fancy gloves Hazel got yesterday.”
“So that’s why you went to that store,” Malone said.
She gave him an impish grin. “You don’t think I’d spend seventy-five dollars on three pairs of underpants just because they came from Paris, do you?”
Jake muttered something about having an unemployed husband, and she pointed out that it was a worthwhile investment, in the circumstances.
“But who was it, damn it?” Malone demanded.
“I don’t know yet. The girl who made that sale wasn’t in yet. A shop of that size remembers such details. So I’m going back in a little while.”
“Not, heaven forbid,” Jake said fervently, “at seventy-five bucks a throw!”
Conversation languished until the telephone rang. It was Weasel Firman. Malone listened, and Jake and Helene kept very still.
“That was it,” he said, as he hung up. “There haven’t been any big withdrawals from either Myrdell Harris’ very sizable checking or savings accounts. Just the usual number of fairly large deposits.” He sighed. “I’m going to make this even harder,” he said. “Two of the Deloras I called—Eula Stolz and Louella Frick—mentioned one thing. That the voice that fired them didn’t sound exactly like Myrdell Harris imitating Hazel Swackhammer.”
Helene said, “Oh Lord. Now we have someone imitating Myrdell Harris imitating Hazel Swackhammer.”
“All we need,” Jake said, “is to have it turn out to be Hazel Swackhammer imitating someone imitating Myrdell Harris imitating Hazel Swackhammer. Lord, my head aches.”
Malone said unsympathetically, “You’re making mine ache too. What did you find out about the camera?”
“Camera? Camera? Oh, yes,” Jake said, “the camera.”
“The camera with five eyes,” Helene said.
Something began to stir in Malone’s mind. “Go on,” he said, leaning comfortably back in his chair and half-closing his eyes. “I’m hearing every word.”
“Well,” Jake said, “it’s like this. The trouble is, this camera, which looks like a good idea otherwise, is just the reverse of what we need. It goes in five directions, like this—” he held out one hand—“and it takes five different pictures simultaneously. Whereas what we need is one camera that will take five girls—” He paused, looked at Malone accusingly.
“Eyes,” Malone said, sitting up.
“You didn’t hear a word,” Jake said accusingly.
“I heard enough,” Malone told him. He called Maggie and said
, “Call up the Medical Association, or the Herald-Examiner, or somebody, and find out Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher’s exact age.”
“Malone,” Jake demanded, “are you out of your mind?”
“I think I’m just beginning to get into it,” Malone said. “If there’s room.”
Maggie came back in a very few minutes with the information that Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher was eighty-two years old on his last birthday, and did Malone want to know what day that was.
“Make a note of it,” Malone growled. “We’ll send him a birthday present of an ear-trumpet.” He turned to Jake and Helene and said, “All this time we’ve all gone on the premise that Myrdell Harris died a natural death because Dr. Stone-cypher had been treating her previously for the same ailment that he said killed her, that he was in attendance and signed the certificate, and that Dr. Stonecypher is more above reproach than rubies, or whatever it is I mean.” He paused for breath.
“What we all missed,” he said, “was the fact that Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher is eighty-two years old, so nearly blind that he mistook me for Jake, and has to be taken around by his nephew, and that he’s as deaf as a whole fence full of posts.”
There was a little silence.
“Well,” Jake said, “I always did think she was murdered.”
“You thought nothing of the kind,” Malone said. “Like everybody else, you were surprised that it wasn’t murder. But also like everybody else, you took the venerable doctor’s word for it.” He reached for the telephone.
Helene said, “But what are we going to do?”
“First of all,” Malone said, “I’m going to call von Flanagan.”
“Oh no, you’re not,” an indignant voice said from the door. “Save your money, Malone. Because I got tired of your stalling me along, and came up here to get the truth if I have to—oh, hello! I didn’t see you!”
As the indignation faded out of von Flanagan’s voice, Malone closed his eyes and breathed a quiet thanksgiving for Jake Justus and the whole television industry.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“And so,” von Flanagan said, half an hour later, “for just those reasons, Jake, I have every reason to believe that a new kind of quiz show could be a success.”
“You may have something there,” Jake said, very solemnly and judiciously.
They’d listened to von Flanagan’s life story—Malone for the second time that day and the fourth time in a week—to a discussion of the entire television industry in general, to the probable great advantages of a quiz program, also in general, and to von Flanagan’s personal ambitions in particular.
“Soon as I get organized a little bit more,” Jake told him. “Soon as I get a few programs going. Then we’ll get together and really work this out.” He felt a hundred per cent safe in saying that. By the time that stage of the Jake Justus Television Productions was reached, von Flanagan would either have found another ambition or, the way things looked right now, be eighty-two years old and not really care any more.
“Sure thing,” the big police officer said, beaming. “Wonderful thing, having friends like you.” He turned to Malone then, and his face became an odd combination of serious and puzzled. “And you, Malone—” He seemed to be trying to remember exactly what he had come there about.
“I was just about to call you,” the little lawyer said quickly. “It’s about that body that was found up in Lincoln Park.”
“Sitting against a tree,” von Flanagan added, his broad face darkening. “With a magazine.” He scowled heavily. “The things people do to make my job hard for me. Now a nice simple murder I can understand—”
“The body’s been identified, of course,” Malone went right on, still quickly.
“You’re damned right it has,” von Flanagan said. His face was turning crimson now. “Malone, if you’d only told me about it in the first place. An old friend—”
Malone listened while von Flanagan went into one of his minor dissertations on friendship, and then said, “How was I to know who it was? Not until Rico di Angelo told me.” He didn’t mention just when Rico had told him, or just what. No point in stirring up unnecessary trouble when there was enough right now.
“Well—” von Flanagan said, about one-tenth mollified. “That’s why I was going to telephone to you,” Malone said. He added, “If you don’t believe me, just ask them.”
Von Flanagan might pride himself on being the most skeptical man in Chicago, possibly in the hemisphere, but he would believe anything Helene told him, any time and under any circumstances.
“Well—” he said again. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. “And anyway, since it isn’t my concern any more anyway, seeing as how she wasn’t murdered—”
“But she was,” Helene said explosively, and then looked worried about it.
Von Flanagan looked at her, and then at Jake, and then at Malone. “But—her doctor—”
“We know all about that,” Malone said patiently.
“So,” von Flanagan said. “The doctor signed the certificate. Too bad Doc Flynn had started work already.”
“Better call him and tell him to keep right on,” Malone said in a grim voice. “That’s the whole point. In spite of the doctor’s certificate. Myrdell Harris was murdered.”
He went on into details, dwelling on Dr. Alonzo Stone-cypher, his age, his eyesight, and his hearing.
Von Flanagan listened and finally, convinced, nodded unhappily. “But Dr. Stonecypher, he ain’t going to like it, us going ahead with the autopsy which we would have done if we hadn’t of found out who the corpse was and all.”
“Tell him,” Helene said, with her sweetest smile, “that you didn’t know who she was until the autopsy was all finished.”
“Don’t seem right,” the police officer muttered, “but—” One hand picked up the telephone. “Mind if I use your phone?” He waited a minute on the wire and then said. “Doc? Go right ahead on that Lincoln Park babe. Yes, I know about that. Yes, I know he did. But officially you don’t know he did. Yes, I do know what I’m doing. I hope I do. Oh, some kind of poison, I guess, that would make it look like whatever it was the doc said she died of. Yes, of course I take the whole responsibility.”
He hung up, mopped his face again, and growled. “Always, I’m the one who has to take the responsibility. See what I mean about people making things hard for me on purpose?”
“Cheer up,” Helene said. “This time, someone tried to make things easy for you.”
“Who?” The look von Flanagan directed at Malone made it very plain that whoever it was, it wasn’t Malone.
“The person who moved the body into Lincoln Park,” Helene told him sweetly. “The person who thoughtfully rescued it from Mr. di Angelo’s wagon, thereby preventing a murder from being concealed and a murderer going unpunished.”
Von Flanagan looked skeptical and as though he wished the unknown thoughtful person had quietly stayed at home and watched television instead of messing around exposing murders and making more work for the whole police department.
“Sure,” Jake added with enthusiasm. “Otherwise, you’d never have known about it.”
Von Flanagan’s expression said that would have suited him just fine.
Malone said, “Obviously, somebody knew Myrdell Harris had been murdered, or at least suspected it. But for some reason, unknown at this time, that person couldn’t or wouldn’t come forward. Or perhaps, simply couldn’t prove anything. But this somebody did know that if an unidentified body turned up under rather unusual circumstances, the police department would have to do something about it. And that an immediate autopsy would be in order.” He began unwrapping a fresh cigar.
“And just who,” von Flanagan said suspiciously, “might this very thoughtful somebody be?”
“Who knows?” Malone said airily, lighting the cigar. He was beginning to have an unpleasant suspicion of his own, but he was keeping it strictly to himself.
Von Flanagan expressed his past, present and p
robable future opinion of Malone in no uncertain terms, and immediately apologized to Helene.
“Don’t apologize,” Helene said serenely, “you may be right.”
Malone glared at them both and said nothing.
“This person—” Von Flanagan scowled. “This person couldn’t be the murderer, because the murderer would be the one who didn’t want the murder discovered. Therefore, the person who swiped the body and stuck it in Lincoln Park is somebody else.”
“Naturally,” Malone said. He aimed a smoke ring at the ceiling, and wished he felt as calm as he hoped he looked.
“So,” von Flanagan finished in a roar, “that means I’ve got to find two different persons. And I don’t even know yet how the babe was murdered, or why, or anything about it.”
“Don’t worry,” Helene said consolingly, “we’ll all help.”
“That’s why I’m worrying,” he said indignantly. “The last time you three helped—” Suddenly he remembered the reason he was in Malone’s office.
“Another thing,” he snapped at Malone. “The other murder. Except that it wasn’t a murder. Because it was a natural death.”
“Stop being confusing,” Helene said.
He paid no attention to her. “Malone, you swore—”
“And I will,” Malone said. “Today.” He didn’t know how he was going to manage it or, at that moment, anything, but he did know he had to, and he would.
“Thank goodness,” von Flanagan said, mopping his brow the third time, “it wasn’t the head.”
“The head,” Malone said slowly. “It wouldn’t have been the head.” A new and somehow terrible note had come into his voice. He stared at them for a moment, not seeing them, not seeing anything. He rose and walked back to the window and looked out.
“Malone—” Helene began.
“Leave me alone,” he murmured. “I’ve got to think.” They left him alone. It was one of those times when everyone felt Malone knew what he was doing, and Malone hoped he did.
Suddenly he turned around. “I should have known all along.” He drew a long, slow breath. “I would have, if only so many extraneous things hadn’t kept popping up to confuse me.”