Winner's Loss

by Mel Bradshaw

  “Ever been to Bill Templeton’s zoo in Whitby?” I asked.

  “Wild Bill? Certainly.” Used to my declining his smokes, he put them away without insisting. “We went a lot when the kids were teenagers. There was a shark tank then, a whole aquarium in fact, as well as animals from raccoon-size on up. Then we didn’t go for a few years, until last summer when some of the grandchildren were old enough.”

  “What was it like?” I asked.

  “Pared down — more exciting, though, in a way. Wild Bill had got rid of the fish altogether. He’d taken to strutting around in khaki jodhpurs with a bullwhip clipped to his belt. Said he was concentrating on dangerous animals he fancied he could train. He put on a pretty good show for the kids. There weren’t enough visitors to bring in much money, he told me, but he thought he could use the bears and big cats to make movies. He involved in a case of yours?”

  “Just as a witness.”

  Parsons chuckled. “Then you better hope that lion of his doesn’t close its mouth while his head’s inside.”

  Chapter 18

  Harry O’Brian sat slouched in his chair looking about as relaxed as a hungry tiger on a short chain. I was perched on the edge of his desk. The clock hands stood at six ten, half an hour past sunset. Rudy had been back from Templeton’s menagerie less than five minutes, and you can bet we didn’t give him time to treat us to any local colour. He pulled his chair up to Harry’s desk and, still dusty from his motorcycle ride, told us that Wild Bill had recognized the purchaser of his pufferfish when shown the photograph of Oscar Craig. With a flourish, Rudy handed me the bill of sale.

  “Do we have enough to get an arrest warrant?” Harry asked.

  “Doubt it,” I said.

  “We know Oscar was Nora’s lover.”

  “Yes.”

  “She was dumping him, so he killed her. Come on, Paul. Craig’s our man. I never thought it was Koch.”

  “At one time you thought our ‘man’ was Ernestine. We know she had an affair with Craig. What if they stayed in touch? Suppose she heard about fugu poison from Oscar, and when Oscar acquired his very own pufferfish, she bought or stole it from him for the purpose of eliminating Nora.”

  “Ah, phooey,” said Harry. “You don’t believe that.”

  “I can’t disprove it.”

  “Why did Craig buy that fish in the first place, Paul? It’s not a normal pet.”

  “My short immersion in the world of artists,” I said, “makes me think they haven’t much use for normal. But if you’re saying Oscar bought the puffer in February for the purpose of poisoning Nora, then you’ll have to come up with another theory of his motive. It was September before Nora formed the intention of returning to Herman. Read her letter.”

  I produced the document from my inside jacket pocket, but Harry waved it away.

  “Folks get a thrill,” I went on, “out of cozying up to dangerous creatures.”

  “That’s Templeton’s stock-in-trade,” Rudy put in.

  “Detective Sergeant Parsons was just reminding me. Wild Bill sold the puffer because he couldn’t fit it into an act the way he could his cats. For Oscar, though, it could well have been exciting enough to share his apartment with a poison more deadly than cyanide.”

  “Even if he never contemplated using that poison?”

  “I think so, Harry. Maybe. But the question for us is not whether he contemplated using it someday, but whether he used it on Nora Britton. Suppose we jump to the conclusion he did, then arrive at Oscar’s apartment to find his finny friend swimming around in a big tank of water. We don’t have proof yet that parts of Oscar’s fish got into Nora’s picnic — or even that she ingested pufferfish poison at all. They’re still analyzing her puke over at the University.”

  Neither Harry nor Rudy put up an argument.

  “Based on what we have,” I went on, “I can’t ask for a warrant against Oscar. I would like to question him, though.”

  “I’ll come along,” said Harry.

  “Good. Rudy, you’ve been jostled around quite a bit today. Go on home if you like.”

  “No need. I keep a razor in my desk. I’ll just have a shave and a wash and be good as new.”

  While Rudy was freshening up, I gave Ned a call. Unsurprisingly he wanted to come too. The four of us amounted to an excess of manpower for a simple interview, but I had a reason beyond team loyalty for excluding nobody.

  Harry seemed to read my mind. “This bird liable to give us trouble?” he asked.

  “Could do.”

  “Take your Colt, Paul. I’ll have mine, but I want to know you’re armed as well.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t contemplated gunplay inside Oscar’s apartment. Judging by the flimsiness of the partition walls in my own building, stray bullets could easily pass through and into an unsuspecting neighbour. Still, Harry was asking no more than that I follow the rules.

  I didn’t doubt Harry’s courage. Harry, though, had what I did not — a family to go home to — and that rightly made him less reckless. I went to my own desk and unlocked the side drawer where my Police Positive rested in its shoulder holster. I had the revolver cleaned and loaded by the time Ned arrived at headquarters.

  “We don’t know how close we are to wrapping up this investigation,” I told my three teammates when we were all assembled. “But, just in case, we all want to be in on this next task. Oscar Craig’s building has two outside doors, one in front and one up from the basement into the side alley. I’m suggesting that Rudy and Ned each stand guard at one of these doors and stop Oscar if he gets away from Harry and me. When I say stop, I don’t mean arrest.”

  “The common law right of investigative detention,” said Rudy.

  “We’ll quote you. Now, if Oscar’s not in, there’s the Night Owl coffee shop across Queen Street where we can wait.”

  The four of us got off the Queen car at Lansdowne and walked west. It was just a few degrees above freezing; I turned up the collar of my trench coat. When I spied Oscar’s building, there was a slim woman with frizzy hair going in the door to the upstairs apartments. She had well-shaped legs and, to show them off, was wearing a jacket too short for the season. I ran and caught up to her while she was looking at the names on the mail boxes.

  “Hi, Ruth.”

  She gave me a more than friendly smile. “Hello, Paul.”

  “What a coincidence!”

  “That Oscar should invite us both for the same time?”

  “Don’t go.”

  Harry joined us in the vestibule. Through the glass door I could see Ned and Rudy waiting outside.

  “What do you mean don’t go?” said Ruth. “I have an interview arranged. Say, are all these he-men with you?”

  “Interview about what?”

  A steely firmness came into her jaw; her emerald eyes turned hard as diamonds. “I’m going to get him to admit to having busted up Jack Wellington — the story that scoops me right out of the women’s pages. Don’t get in my way.”

  Harry gave her an admiring look, but left the play to me.

  “Wait with one of the detective sergeants in that coffee place and I promise, Ruth, you’ll have a bigger scoop before you go home.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “One of us will hail you a cab now if you prefer.”

  “Damn you, Paul. Break your word and while you advance your career I’ll be writing about hat shapes and hem lengths till I’m a hag of sixty. Then, believe you me, I’ll tell the world in my haggish croak that it was Chief Shenstone that ruined my life.”

  Rudy took Ruth to the Night Owl, from where he could keep an eye on the front door of Oscar’s building while Ned went down the alley to cover the side door. Harry and I went up to the second floor and found the door marked twenty-one.

  Harry knocked, not hard like a cop.

  “Come in. It’s open.”

  Oscar must have thought it was Ruth.

  He was occupied with a corkscrew and a bottle of red wine, perhaps un
aware that she didn’t drink. He was wearing a new-looking white pullover tucked into the waist of freshly pressed tweed trousers. All gratifyingly neat and fitted with no place to hide a weapon. His room was swept and tidy, sparely furnished, with nearly all available wall space displaying his own paintings and sketches. Some of the landscapes looked African, some European, both featuring scenes of wartime devastation. Three or four large canvases were of boxing matches. In all of these the gloves and faces of the combatants bore traces of blood.

  When Oscar looked up, an expression of annoyance crossed his face and disappeared. “Paul — I was expecting someone else.”

  “A last-minute complication prevented her from coming. I know she wanted to. Oscar, this is Harry O’Brian.”

  “You a policeman, Harry?”

  “And a friend,” I said, jumping in. “I was hoping he’d have a chance to see some of your art. This is an impressive display.”

  “Very.” Harry moved away from me as if he wanted to look more closely at the pictures, all the time keeping an eye on Oscar.

  A couple of table lamps lit the room unevenly. A fixture in the middle of the ceiling was turned off.

  “Have some wine,” said our host, producing a third glass. “French. Pity to waste it.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks. Did they give you good wine in the Foreign Legion?”

  Oscar snorted disdainfully. He’d been expecting a flirtatious evening, maybe more, and still couldn’t see how it had turned into a police interrogation.

  “Odd Ruth didn’t tell me herself,” he said. “You’re mistaken, you know, if you think she’s your girl.”

  “Smart cookie, Ruth.” I took one glass of wine to hand to Harry and one for myself. “She figured it out that you’re the one that gave Wellington a lesson in fighting clean.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t be modest, Oscar. You know — but Harry may not. Last Thursday, a quick and promising middleweight threw a fight Oscar and I were at. I wanted to have a word with the lad afterwards, but Oscar got to him first and used his boots to such effect that the gambler that bought Master Jack had to send a nurse to his bedside.”

  “Am I being accused of a crime?” said Oscar.

  “Not at all. I understand Wellington struck first.”

  “Why don’t we sit down then and enjoy our Bordeaux?”

  “You sit, Oscar. We’ll look at the art.”

  None of us sat.

  Oscar took his first sip of wine. I followed suit. I could feel Harry’s disapproving glare, but I’d seen the bottle opened and watched the wine poured. And I was thirsty.

  Harry set down his glass. “Say, Oscar,” he said, “mind if I use your jakes?”

  “Follow me.”

  There could be no possibility of Harry’s losing his way, but by walking ahead Oscar was able to close a bedroom door as he passed. I understood that my job would be to take up enough of Oscar’s attention to keep him from supervising Harry’s return trip.

  “You know, Oscar,” I said when our host returned, “your bout with Wellington was outside my jurisdiction anyway — but I wish I’d been there to see it. I’ll bet Jack was too busy watching your fists to notice your feet. Perhaps he’d been drinking Lariviere’s liquor.”

  “Jack’s used to dancing around the canvas surface of a boxing ring.”

  “Whereas the floors of the club …?”

  “Polished and smooth with little throw rugs here and there.”

  “Did he step on one and slip?”

  “Something like that. Come clean, Paul. What are you playing at here?”

  “I wanted to congratulate you on the sale of Dawn Muster. That must feel fine. I guess Friday night they were still keeping you in suspense, maybe trying to drive down your price. That’s why you seemed tense.”

  “It’s all bushwa, Paul. You wanted to show Harry my art. You wanted to talk about Wellington. You wanted to congratulate me on the sale. Lots of reasons — and none of them makes sense.”

  “In that newspaper article, you referred to me as a friend. If I’m your friend, why so suspicious?”

  Oscar didn’t answer, his attention taken by a movement in the back hall. “Don’t open that,” he called, charging after Harry. “You’ve no business in there.”

  “Sorry,” said Harry. “I just wanted to see your pufferfish. It’s not everyone has one of those. But she’s not there. There’s just a big, empty glass tank.”

  “Do you have a search warrant?” Oscar growled. “If you do, I want to see it. And if you don’t, I want you both to leave.”

  “You invited us in, remember?” I said. “Now let’s all cool down. Oscar probably took the puffer to show his students at Central Technical School. Shall we all go and look at it there?”

  “I was inviting Ruth Stone in, not a pair of bulls.”

  “You mentioned no names. We believed in good faith we had leave to enter. Now about that fish — it is at Central Tech, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t own a fish.”

  “You bought one from Wild Bill Templeton in Whitby on Tuesday, February 8. He identified you from a photograph.” I took the paper I’d got from Rudy from my jacket pocket and held it up. “Here’s the bill of sale.”

  “That fish died.”

  “Really? She was only two years old. Pufferfish live a lot longer than that.”

  “Maybe my tank was too small.”

  “It must have been an incredible experience, Oscar, sharing a bedroom with the source of such a deadly poison. Part of the thrill must have been knowing how easy it would be to execute anyone you decided needed execution. Of course, you had to choose carefully. Who offended you enough for you to be willing to carve up the fish with the toxic ovary?”

  Oscar stood facing us in a loose but wary stance. He must have felt the tightness of the spot he was in, but with his six feet two or three inches of height, broad shoulders, and thick neck he looked strong and tough.

  “You call me a poisoner,” he said with a wry smile, “and yet you drink my wine.”

  “I don’t think you’re suicidal,” I said. “You’re a punisher, and I don’t imagine you think you deserve punishment. The army made you the unwilling killer of that young deserter, and now you want to judge and punish by your own rules. Besides, Harry has drunk none of your wine and will want words with you if I fall dead.”

  “What a lot of blather!”

  “I’ll happily shut up and let you talk, Oscar. I’m sure you’d like to tell your own story in your own words.”

  “Get out, both of you.”

  “Reticent as always, eh? You know, Harry, when I asked him on Friday Oscar said he didn’t know Nora Britton. Now it turns out he was her lover. It’s hard to be discreet — isn’t it? — when you’ve got a car the colour of no other.”

  “You’re trespassing, officers. The only talking I’ll be doing will be to a lawyer.”

  “When was the last time you saw Nora?”

  “Out now. I need to use the pay phone on the corner, and I’m not leaving you here.” Oscar no longer looked so cool and loose. A vein was standing out on his forehead as he struggled to control the exasperation in his voice.

  “Did you see her after the evening of Sunday, October 9?” I asked.

  “Let me past.”

  “Certainly. I just want to know if you saw Nora Britton at all after you went to her studio a week ago Sunday.”

  “No! Now …” Seeing that I was not moving from my place in front of the door to the stairs, Oscar turned and took a step towards the darker side of the room.

  “So you admit to climbing up the rope ladder to Nora Britton’s studio that evening?”

  “I admit nothing.”

  “I heard you.” I glanced at Harry.

  “So did I,” said the detective.

  “I take it back.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Harry added, “I saw a rope ladder just now rolled up in a corner of Mr. Craig’s bedroom.�
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  “I wonder,” I said, “if you have any cookies to go with the wine. I hear you make ones that combine chocolate and chili. They sound mouth-watering, eye-watering too. Chili and chocolate — what else is in the recipe?”

  “Shall I have a look around the kitchen?” asked Harry. “See if there are any left?”

  Shadows hid half Oscar’s face. No matter. More lights could have done nothing to strengthen the impression of hostility it conveyed.

  “Maybe later,” I said. “You took some cookies to Nora that night, didn’t you, Oscar? The night before she died. She told a neighbour she was looking forward to trying them. By then she’d told you she was finished with you and going back to Herman. I guess when you heard Nora had been cremated before a post-mortem could be done you thought you were home free. But Nora threw up. The nasty stuff from your late pufferfish will be found in her vomit.”

  Oscar Craig’s hand shot out towards one of the paintings on the dimly lit wall, a picture of a revolver. Only it wasn’t a picture, but the wall-mounted weapon itself.

  Harry and I were standing too far apart for him to cover us both. Harry was shot before he could draw. Oscar’s pistol was swinging towards me when I dropped to a crouch and put a bullet into his right arm. I don’t believe his gun had hit the floor before Harry shot him twice in the chest. Oscar went down on his back.

  Sitting on the floor, Harry kept his gun on Oscar while I got a chair cushion to press over Harry’s leg wound. From the meagre flow of blood, it was clear the artery hadn’t been hit. Oscar hadn’t been as lucky. His arm was bleeding badly — but not for long. Almost immediately his heart stopped pumping altogether. He was dead from Harry’s two bullets. Harry had done as he had been trained and aimed for the larger target.

  I left him to go downstairs and call for a couple of ambulances.

  Chapter 19

  I asked Harry if he’d like me to go to the hospital with him. “Someone to explain the circumstances in case you pass out,” I said.

  “Hell no! You’d be a chump to stand up that red-haired newsgirl. Besides, I need you to tell her it’s O’Brian A-N, not E-N.”