The Corpse Steps Out

by Craig Rice

  “No, it really is his warehouse. All that was left from the crash. Somehow he hung onto it.”

  She drove on to the end of the street, turned around, and came slowly back.

  “Why isn’t it used for something?”

  “I don’t know. Some guy was making experiments there with a new kind of refrigeration for fruits. Built a swell freezing chamber, and then went broke and quit. We gave a party there once.”

  “The kind of party that calls for refrigeration?” she asked.

  “All of that.” He added a few details.

  She slowed down suddenly, as suddenly stopped.

  “Jake, if I’m not mistaken, there’s something going on there now that calls for refrigeration.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look.”

  He looked in the direction of the warehouse, jumped out of the car, ran across the walk, and peered in through the window. She followed him.

  “What is it, Jake?”

  “Looks like a fire. Not much of one, but a fire. We’d better go in and investigate.”

  “We’d better send an alarm.”

  “I want to take a look first.”

  He rattled the door, finally picked up a stone from the gutter, broke the window glass, reached his arm inside, and turned the latch. The door swung open. Through the darkness they could see a faint reddish flickering far in the back of the building.

  “Helene, please wait here.”

  “No. I’m coming with you.”

  There was no time to stop and argue about it. He plunged into the darkness of the deserted building, Helene close behind him. Suddenly a rat scuttled across their path, and she screamed.

  “Afraid of mice!” he flung back at her.

  “That was no mouse,” she gasped. “It was a monster. Three feet long and eyes like balls of fire—Jake!”

  “I see it,” he said. Ahead of them the reddish flickering grew higher, brighter.

  “No. On the floor!”

  In the faint light they could see that the dust on the floor had been disturbed. The trail led through the cobwebs to a great white door. Jake raced to the door, tugged at it frantically, it opened a tiny way and fell shut again. He made one more gasping, desperate effort and it suddenly opened wide, fell back against the wall, and stayed there.

  The faint reddish light, mingling with a bluish glare through the dusty windows, poured into a little white room, errie and strange with its arrangements of odd-shaped pipes and tubes. Against its glaring whiteness, the thing on the floor seemed terribly dark.

  In one swift movement Jake bent forward, turned it over. He stared at it, forgetting the fire that was crackling closer now.

  “We’ve found Paul March!”

  Chapter 23

  There was the body of Paul March on the floor, and there was the fire crackling and spreading. The thing to do, Jake agreed later, was to go away, drive away as fast as Helene’s car would go, let the fire destroy the evidence of some unknown person’s crime.

  That was what he thought later. But at the moment, the thing on the warehouse floor was the body of a man, and the fire was coming closer. Hardly conscious of what he was doing, he lifted it from the floor. If was cold, and terribly hard, like ice. For the first time, he was aware of the almost obscene coldness of the refrigerating chamber.

  “Jake, what are you going to do?”

  “Get this out of here. Race out to the car, drive it into the alley—quick, Helene.”

  She disappeared into the cavernous darkness like a frightened hare. He lifted the body over his shoulder, staggering under its weight. The smoke filled the warehouse now; choking and gasping, he made his way to a window on the alley side. As he reached it, he saw Helene’s long, sleek car turn into the alley, drive up, and stop.

  He leaned the body against the wall while he struggled with the window and finally flung it open. One cautious look into the darkness of the alley, then he lifted the body through the opening, and climbed after it.

  It was then that he began to wonder what he was doing.

  In the distance he could hear the sound of a siren. Someone else had seen the warehouse fire.

  There was no time to spend considering alternatives. Helene opened the door to the back of the car; Jake stowed the body of Paul March on the floor and carefully covered it with the rug. Then he climbed in beside Helene, slammed the door, and the big car backed down the alley. The wailing sirens were very close now.

  “We should have gone straight ahead and turned down the other street,” Helene said grimly. “But it’s too late.”

  They reached the corner in time to find it blocked by fire apparatus. A fireman swore at them irritably for being in the way. Finally, with no little maneuvering, they were free again. Beyond the corner, Helene stopped, close to the curb.

  “Helene, for the love of heaven, get out of here.”

  She switched off the engine. “No. That fireman noticed the car. If we drive away, he may get suspicious. If we park here and pretend we’re watching the fire, he’ll forget about it.”

  In a more sober moment he might have found a few flaws in her reasoning, but he could think of none at the time. He followed her down the street to where a little crowd had already gathered. The old building was blazing merrily now; great tongues of flames shot up into the night sky; dense clouds of smoke veiled the buildings near by. Now and then firemen appeared briefly on the roof and vanished again.

  “Oh boy!” said a young man next to Jake. “She’s a dandy!”

  To the indescribable delight of the crowd, the water tower came into position and shot foaming ribbons into the upper windows. There was a moment of almost unbearable excitement when a fireman, overcome by smoke, was carried down a ladder from the roof. A woman in the crowd began screaming and was led away. Picture trucks arrived from the newspapers and bursts of white light from the photographers’ flashlights illumined the burning building. A police squad car whined dismally around the corners.

  Suddenly the roof and part of a wall caved in with a resounding crash, sending clouds of dust and small debris to mingle with the smoke. Flames began to appear at every window, and policemen started moving the crowd farther away from the scene.

  Without warning, there was a deafening roar, a flood of blinding light, a few moments of frantic activity. A moment later a sheet of flame turned the street as bright as day. In that instant a woman in the crowd screamed suddenly and clutched at a policeman.

  “There she is!” she shrieked, pointing at Helene. “I saw her here when it started. She’s a pyromaniac. I heard a man with her say—”

  It was the black-haired waitress from Rickett’s.

  Helene turned and ran like a deer toward the car. Jake ran after her with a wild thought of stopping her and making explanations. But before he could catch up with her, she had leaped into the front seat and started the motor. He jumped in beside her and slammed the door shut just as the big car bounded forward. Looking back, he could see the policeman running hopelessly after them.

  “Helene,” he cried, “Helene, you can’t do this—”

  She paid no attention. The car raced down the dark street, swung north for a block, took a corner on two wheels, another block, and turned onto Michigan Avenue. In the distance Jake could hear the siren of the squad car.

  “Helene, stop—we can explain—”

  She said grimly, “You forget we have a passenger.”

  It was very late and Michigan Avenue was almost deserted. They sped through a stop light, reached the approach to the bridge. Suddenly ahead of them they heard bells clanging.

  “You can’t make it, the bridge is going up.”

  It was only the first warning bell, the barrier at the bridge was just beginning to move. She put on added speed, heading straight at the bridge. Someone near it ran into the street, waving at her frantically. The wailing siren was coming nearer now.

  In one last burst of speed she crossed the bridge, missing t
he last barrier by a hair’s breadth. Jake could see it settle into place as she sped on down the avenue.

  “Just like the movies,” she gasped, “they on one side of the bridge and we on the other.”

  “Helene, you can’t possibly get away—”

  “Shut up,” she said, “I’m trying to think.”

  She turned onto a side street, turned again and drove up an alley, made another turn, and entered the labyrinth of underground passages known as the lower level. Skillfully she maneuvered the big car into the cavernous street that was directly below Michigan Avenue, and drove straight to the double-decked bridge. It was still up, and she paused at the barrier.

  “When the bridge goes down, they’ll be crossing south on the top of it,” she said, “and we’ll be crossing north on the bottom. Not bad, eh? A neat trick.”

  “A neat trick,” Jake repeated angrily, “and then what? By this time a description of you and of this car is going out over the police radio into every squad car in the city.”

  “I’d leave the car somewhere,” she said thoughtfully, “but they’d find it and find the passenger.”

  A boat whistled mournfully passing the bridge, and went on down the Chicago River. The bridge began to go down, slowly, importantly, majestically; finally, it settle into place with a little shiver. The bell clanged for another moment while the barrier lifted.

  As they drove across, they could hear the police siren wailing above them.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Keep driving on streets the squad cars haven’t even heard about,” she told him.

  She turned into a dark, deserted passage just beyond the bridge, drove west a few blocks, turned north again. There was not another car in sight; the street was lined with unlighted factory buildings.

  “Jake, I’ve got to have a drink.”

  In the semidarkness he could see how pale she was. He remembered the bottle of rye, uncapped it, and held it to her lips.

  “Jake, who took him there, and why? And what are we going to do with him?”

  “I don’t know. He’s our story and we’re stuck with him.”

  “Who would have known about the refrigerating room?”

  “I knew, and Nelle, of course, and Tootz, and everybody connected with the show. You see, last year, just about this time, we gave a party for the cast. It was hotter than the hinges of hell, and somebody thought of what a bright idea it would be to throw the party in the old abandoned warehouse, with the refrigerating device going. It worked swell.”

  “But why take him there?”

  “Can you think, offhand, of a better place?”

  She thought for a moment. “Outside of a park bench, no.”

  Again he held the bottle to her lips.

  “He’s an ingenious devil,” she remarked at last.

  “Who?” Jake asked a little stupidly.

  “St. John, of course. Who else?”

  It was his turn to be silent.

  “There can’t be any doubt but what St. John shot him,” she said after a while. “You said so yourself. And the person who shot him must have been the person who moved the body. The question in my mind is, why did he bother to move it?”

  “He didn’t want the body to be found,” Jake said slowly, “because then his possession of the letters would automatically point to him as March’s murderer. He was counting on the fact that everybody would believe March had left Chicago, and nobody would know about the murder.”

  “Then why not just dispose of the body so that it wouldn’t be found?”

  “Ever try disposing of a body so it won’t be found?” Jake asked. “It isn’t as easy as it sounds. Besides, he might have had a reason for wanting the body where he could produce it.”

  “Why, Jake?”

  “So that if anything happened to the letters that were his hold over Nelle, he could use Paul March’s murder for the same purpose.”

  She shivered.

  “It was a perfect place to hide the body,” Jake said thoughtfully. “And naturally St. John would know about it, having been at the party. It would be easy as pie to break into the building, and not a Chinaman’s chance that anybody would blunder in and discover it. We never would have, if the place hadn’t caught on fire.”

  She said very slowly, “By this time Essie has swiped the letters. Essie is away from home, and she told you the maid was away for the night. St. John is still deep in a drugged sleep.”

  “Helene, just what do you propose doing?”

  The big car leaped forward in a sudden burst of speed.

  “We’re going to take the body up to St. John’s house and leave it with him,” she said happily. “It’ll just be our own little present to him, yours and mine!”

  Chapter 24

  But you can’t do that,” Jake said in a dazed voice. “It’s wrong. It’s—it’s arson.”

  “You’ve got the wrong crime,” she told him. “That’s what they’re chasing me for.”

  “Well damn it,” he said, “anyway it’s illegal.”

  “So is driving around with a murder victim in the back of the car,” Helene observed.

  He could find no answer to that one.

  “Besides,” she said after a pause, “it’s dangerous. Driving around, I mean.”

  “True,” Jake agreed. “But suppose St. John didn’t murder Paul March,” he said after a little serious thought.

  “Have you the faintest shadow of a doubt about it?” Helene asked.

  “Well,” Jake said reflectively, “well, no.”

  She said, “You’d better take a drink.”

  “That’s the first really good idea you’ve had,” Jake said.

  “Where does St. John live?” she asked, a few blocks later.

  He told her, adding, “But suppose someone catches us in the act of presenting St. John with a frozen stiff. A stiff, frozen stiff,” he muttered after a little pause.

  “You didn’t think of that when you presented Lincoln Park with the late Mr. Givvus,” she said irritably.

  That was when Jake gave up the argument.

  “I hope this fixes St. John’s wagon once and for all,” she said virtuously. “It’s not that I object to his going around murdering people, but I’m getting tired of driving the victims around.”

  She drove north through an intricate maze of dark and deserted streets, miraculously escaped becoming hopelessly lost, and finally turned into the street where St. John lived. It was quiet and very peaceful. Half a dozen cars were parked in front of buildings here and there, but there were few lights, little motion.

  “There’s the house, Helene.”

  The big car slid noiselessly up the driveway, and stopped beside the back porch. Jake stole softly up the steps and tried the door. It was unlocked.

  “Where would be a good place to put it?” Helene whispered.

  “Somewhere so that the maid will be the one to find him, in the morning. It would be better if someone else rather than St. John discovered the body.”

  “In the kitchen, then.”

  Jake looked up and down the street, saw that no one was in sight. Carefully and very quietly, he carried the body of Paul March up the back steps, across the narrow porch, and into the kitchen. On a sudden inspiration he propped it up beside the kitchen door so that it would fall across the floor the instant the door was opened. Then he closed the door silently, and tiptoed back to the car.

  “Drive away as quietly as you can.”

  She backed the car very slowly and gingerly down the driveway, almost without sound.

  “Helene, stop a minute.”

  She obeyed. He laid one hand on her shoulder and pointed toward a lighted window. Through it they could see John St. John, huddled in an easy chair before his radio. In the still night, they could hear the faint sound of dance music coming from the loudspeaker.

  “All right—drive on.”

  She turned out of the driveway and into the dimly lighted street. Jake laughed a
little bitterly.

  “What amuses you?”

  “I was thinking of St. John, imagining that he has Nelle’s letters in his pocket, Paul March’s body safely hidden away where it will never be found, and everything all serene. Picture him waking up tomorrow to find that the letters are gone, heaven knows how or where, and the maid coming in saying, ‘’Scuse me fo’ disturbin’ you, Mist’ St. John, but they’s a daid man in the kitchen.’”

  “Your blackface accent is terrible,” she commented. “Picture Essie St. John finding out that St. John has gone to the jug, and she won’t have to live with him any more. Picture Nelle finding out that the letters are out of the way. Jake, do you feel like a boy scout?”

  “I feel like a troop of boy scouts.”

  “I’m beginning to feel like a fugitive,” she said meditatively. “What are we going to do about all these policemen looking for me?”

  He swore irritably. “I’d forgotten that for the moment.” He was silent, thinking fast. “The first thing is to get rid of the car. This fancy gas buggy of yours can be spotted a mile away.”

  “So if you think I’m going to sink it in the lake, you’re crazy.”

  “Don’t interrupt me. I know a garage where it’ll be safe. Know the garage man.” He gave her the address, near Lincoln Park.

  “I hate to do this,” she said. “I feel like a lost child without the car.”

  “You’ll get it back in a day or so. Malone can straighten this out for you. As I’ve said before, what have we got a lawyer for?”

  She drove to the address Jake had given her, parked the car in an alley while he went in to make arrangements. A few minutes later he returned, accompanied by a heavy-set man in overalls who nodded to Helene and slid into the driver’s seat. She rescued a package of hairpins and the remains of Jake’s bottle of rye from the side pocket and watched forlornly while the overalled man drove the car into the darkened garage.

  “It’ll be safe there,” he consoled her. “He’ll never let anyone find it as long as the police are out looking for it.”

  “How did you explain things to him?”

  “I told him you’d just assisted in the hijacking of a truck and the cops had gotten a description of the car.”