The Corpse Steps Out

by Craig Rice

  “Thoughtful of you.”

  “Now we stop at a drugstore and phone Nelle.”

  They stopped at the first corner. He called Nelle’s apartment; no one answered.

  “Must be Bigges’ night off,” he commented. “But I can find Nelle.” He thought for a moment, called Baby, found that Nelle was there, and got her on the phone.

  “I can’t say anything over the phone,” he told her, “but I wanted you to know all your troubles are over.”

  “Jake, are you drunk?” she asked over the wire.

  “That’s beside the point. Your property, if you know what I mean, has been safely recovered from a gentleman that it didn’t belong to.”

  “Oh, darling!”

  “Don’t call me darling,” he said righteously. “Helene can hear you. Furthermore, another object that was lost has been found, and a crime that was committed will be blamed on the individual who committed it.”

  “You talk like a swami,” she complained.

  He caroled happily into the phone. “Way down upon the swami river,” and said hastily, “Don’t hang up. I just wanted to warn you to be surprised when you read the morning newspapers.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to get married. Good-by.” He hung up, called Malone’s hotel, was told that the little lawyer was not in his room nor in the lobby, though a bellhop remembered seeing him sitting in the lobby earlier in the evening.

  He looked at his watch. It was nearly three hours past the time when he had promised to meet Malone. He joined Helene at the newscounter, found her reading an account of the chase of a blond woman believed to be a pyromaniac. According to the paper, the woman’s car had last been seen on Michigan Avenue, going south, and was believed headed for Hammond, Indiana.

  “Nice, fast work,” he said admiringly, “both by the papers and by ourselves, though heaven knows why everything gets blamed on Hammond.”

  “Heaven knows why everything gets blamed on me,” she complained.

  He looked at her. The pale gray dress was dusty and stained, a cobweb clung to the deep gray wrap. Her hair was pleasantly disheveled; there was a small smudge of dirt across her beautiful nose.

  “Your face is dirty and you look like hell, but I still love you. Let’s get out of here and into a taxi.”

  They found a taxi near Lincoln Park, gave the driver the Erie Street address. As they neared the building, a police car passed them, driving slowly. Jake tapped on the glass partition.

  “Let us out in the alley. Her husband doesn’t know she’s out.”

  The driver nodded sympathetically, turned up the alley, and let them out near the rear of the building.

  “Jake, can you get me in safely?”

  “I think so. There’s any number of ways of getting into this place.”

  He helped her over a board fence, across a narrow back yard, and through a door that led into the basement. They went a little cautiously past a coalbin and through a furnace room to a narrow flight of wooden stairs.

  “Better let me go first to smell out the way. The place might be crawling with cops.”

  He tiptoed to the top of the stairs. No one was in the halls; the building was quiet and deserted. He motioned to Helene to follow him. There was a light showing faintly above Molly’s door, he rapped softly.

  “Come in,” Molly called.

  He led Helene into the room. Molly was sitting by the window, talking with a plump, brunette girl who was dressed lightly and simply in a bright-colored cotton kimono.

  “This is Rose,” Molly said by way of introduction. “She couldn’t sleep and came down to talk to me. My God, what’s happened to you? Do you know the police are looking for you?”

  “Know it!” Jake said bitterly.

  Helene sank into a chair.

  Jake told the story of his unfortunate remark in Rickett’s, explained that they had innocently gone to watch what looked like a good fire, and gave a few details of the subsequent chase. The plump brunette seemed to find it amusing.

  “Thank God it’s nothing worse!” Molly said with feeling. “The cops have been all over this place. Someone told them she lived here. They looked at everybody in the building, and made a note of all the apartments where the occupant was out, and said they’d be back later. In fact,” she said very calmly, looking out the window, “they are back.”

  Helene turned pale. “Oh God. All that chasing around for nothing!”

  “Nothing, my eye!” Molly said indignantly. She rose very leisurely, and said, “Rose, you go up in 215 and get into this young lady’s bed. Look as if you lived there. And you two—” She looked at them speculatively for the barest moment, and opened a door that led into a little linen closet. “Get in there and keep quiet.”

  The plump brunette ran through the door and down the hall with surprising speed and agility. Molly Coppins shoved Jake and Helene into the little linen closet, shut the door, locked it, and withdrew the key.

  “Hope she doesn’t forget where she hides the key,” Jake whispered. He put his arms around Helene and held her close, realized that she was shivering from head to foot, and patted her comfortingly.

  They could hear a thunderous knock at the door.

  “I’m coming,” Molly called crossly.

  There was the sound of an opening door, a brief babble of voices in the distance, voices that grew slowly fainter, and then silence for a very long time. They stood waiting in the stuffy darkness, clinging to each other, hardly daring to breathe.

  Then there were the voices again, coming to a slow crescendo outside Molly’s door and fading once more into a silence disturbed a moment later by the faint wailing of a police siren that was, in its turn, swallowed up by the quiet night. Molly unlocked and opened the door. They stood for a minute blinking at the light.

  “It’s all over,” Molly told them. “They wanted to look in 215 because it was empty when they were here before, and it looked like a woman lived there. It’s all right. They won’t look there again.”

  “Why not?” Jake asked, one arm around Helene.

  The fat woman chuckled. “Rose peeled off her kimono and was in bed when they knocked. She didn’t answer the door and I unlocked it for them. She sat bolt upright in bed, mother naked, and cursed us out for waking her. Boy, did she give those cops an earful!” She chuckled again. “I bet they’re blushing yet. They still think their blond firebug lives in the building, but they won’t look in 215 again. You’ll be safe there, Miss Brand.”

  Jake looked at Helene. She was very pale, swaying ever so little. He picked her up like a child.

  “Help me get her to bed, Molly. She’s all in.”

  “And no wonder,” Molly said sympathetically.

  Jake carried her up the stairs; Molly helped her to undress and tucked her in bed. Jake washed the soot from her face and hands, and patted the covers up under her chin. She lay there like an exhausted child.

  “Poor little thing,” Molly said, adding, “too bad she’s so tired, Jake. This would be a wonderful time to get up a party.”

  Jake looked up at the windows, saw just a faint gray light coming through. He reached down and patted Helene’s cheek, she opened her eyes for a moment and smiled at him.

  “You may have forgotten it,” he told her, “but this was the night we were going to go to Crown Point and get married!”

  “One of the nights,” said Helene, and was asleep before Jake could answer.

  Chapter 25

  Jake inquired at the hotel desk for John J. Malone, was told that the little lawyer had come in a few hours before and gone up to his room. He looked at his watch, riding up in the elevator, and reflected that this was an ungodly hour to wake anyone. Still, what was the use of having a lawyer if you couldn’t wake him up before dawn to get you out of a jam. Especially a jam like this one.

  The door to Malone’s room was ajar. The lawyer was fast asleep in a chair by the window, a little avalanche of cigar ashes on his v
est. Jake shook him into wakefulness.

  “What the hell?” Malone said, blinking, “what the hell? Where did you go? I waited here an hour or so, and then I drove to Erie Street and couldn’t find you, so I stopped to watch a fire for a while, and came back here.”

  “That was our fire,” Jake said proudly, “too bad you didn’t stick around longer.”

  He told Malone of the pursuit of Helene.

  “Just our luck,” he finished, “that damned waitress saw Helene and me around the place.”

  “What were you doing there, for the love of God?”

  “Carrying Paul March’s body out, so we could take it up to St. John’s house,” Jake said, lighting a cigarette and snapping the match toward the wastebasket.

  The lawyer bounded to his feet, wide-awake now.

  “Jake Justus, you’re drunk.”

  “That may be,” Jake agreed, “and it’s been said earlier tonight, too, but I know what I’m talking about.”

  Malone paced the floor a minute or so. “I might have known better than to let you two wander around alone, even for an hour or two. It’s God’s mercy you didn’t think of dynamiting the city hall. Did you really find Paul March’s body, and how did you do it, and where was it, and where is it now?”

  “We really did, and it was in the freezing chamber of the old warehouse, and right now it’s leaning against the door of John St. John’s kitchen.”

  He added the details of the night’s adventures.

  Malone stared out the window, biting savagely at a cigar. “It would have been simpler if you’d just gone ahead and gotten married, as you originally intended.”

  “How was I to know?” Jake asked innocently.

  “God only knows what’s going to happen now,” Malone said gloomily, sinking into a chair. He looked at Jake. “You’d better get some sleep.”

  “Hell, I can sleep anytime. How are we going to get Helene out of this mess? It’s my fault in the first place, and that doesn’t make me feel any better about it either.”

  “For two cents,” Malone said irritably, “for two cents I’d drop the whole thing and let you get her out of it yourself.”

  “Filthy moneygrubber,” said Jake admiringly. “What are you going to do, Malone?”

  The lawyer sighed deeply. “Oh hell, I’ll fix it up. But Helene will have to lie low until I do. The police captain at the Chicago Avenue station is a friend of mine. He knows you two, as you might have remembered. I’ll tell him how it happened, and get the whole thing dropped. Now get some sleep.”

  “What’s going to happen when the body is discovered tomorrow? Paul March’s body?”

  “Hell will pop,” Malone said darkly. “I hope to God your pal Essie was able to get away with those letters.”

  “I hope so too,” Jake said. “I should have gone in and made sure, but I was too afraid of waking the guy.” He yawned and stretched. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’d better go home and get some sleep.”

  “Maybe you’d better stay right where you are,” Malone told him. “The police might have a description of the blond pyromaniac’s companion. You wouldn’t be able to get much sleep in the jailhouse.”

  Jake said wearily, “I guess not.” He walked to the window and looked out. Grant Park was misty and mysterious in the vapors that rolled in from the lake. Like Helene’s dress, he thought. Cloud color. Beyond the lake a faint line of rose marked where the sun was going to rise in a few minutes.

  “This looks like a good day for getting married,” he said. He stretched again and lay down on the bed. “Is there a drink in the house?”

  Malone unearthed a bottle of gin from under a pile of shirts, and poured some into a glass. Jake drank it gratefully.

  “My God, I’m tired. Malone, you don’t think St. John’s implication in the Paul March murder is going to involve Nelle, do you?”

  “How the hell would I know?” the lawyer growled, pulling off his shirt. “You go to sleep. I’m going to take a shower and get some breakfast and go find out about things.”

  “Wouldn’t it be one hell of a note if St. John hadn’t really shot the guy?”

  “Wouldn’t it,” Malone said coldly.

  “Well, you can’t expect me to think of everything. I don’t like St. John anyway. If he didn’t do it, let him prove it.”

  “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  The lawyer went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  The sound of the shower running made a pleasant accompaniment to Jake’s thoughts. Scenes floated before his mind in unordered succession: Helene, the broadcast, the bruise on Essie St. John’s shoulder, Helene, the moment when they had crossed the bridge one shuddering second before the barrier fell, lines of dialogue from next week’s script, Helene again.

  He slept.

  Hours later he woke, looked around him, tried to remember what had happened and why he was sleeping on Malone’s bed with all his clothes on. Something strange, something far from normal, had happened to his head. He wondered what it could have been, and if he would ever feel the same again.

  He reached for the telephone, inquired about the time. It was half-past eleven. He laid down the telephone, wondering why he hadn’t simply looked at his watch.

  One by one the events of the past night came back to his mind. He sat up and swung his long legs to the floor, watched the floor tilt sideways, spin a little, tremble, and settle back to normal. It was a little unnerving.

  If Malone had any gin left, a drink would either make him feel better or worse.

  Ten minutes later he decided that it had made him feel decidedly better.

  Again he picked up the telephone, and called Molly Coppins. She reported that Helene was still sleeping soundly and that she would not, under any circumstances, let anyone bother her, including Jake Justus.

  He helped himself to Malone’s razor, shaved, and took a shower. He was just tying the mildest of Malone’s neckties, his own being beyond repair, when the lawyer walked into the room.

  “Everything fixed up?” he asked.

  “No,” the lawyer said sourly. “Everything is in a mess. Perhaps this will be a lesson to you. Perhaps this will teach you to let well enough alone. I doubt it, but I can’t help hoping it will.”

  “Have the police arrested St. John for murder yet?”

  “No. And they won’t. Not now, or at any future time.”

  Jake spun around. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because St. John is dead,” Malone said, tossing a folded newspaper on the dresser. “Because someone shot St. John last night.”

  “Malone, for the love of God!”

  “This morning the St. John maid walked in the back door, knocked over Paul March’s body, and was scared out of seven years’ growth. In the living room the radio was blatting away with some good-morning-cheer-up program. She rushed into the living room and there sat St. John in front of the radio, a bullet through his bean.”

  “Malone,” Jake said desperately, “Malone, he must have been dead when we were there last night.”

  He picked up the paper. A smudged and unflattering picture of John St. John adorned the front page.

  Double Slaying In

  Radio Executive’s Home

  Director Found

  Shot to Death

  Beside Radio Set

  Jake glanced hastily through the story. The police, it seemed, were somewhat puzzled by the condition of Paul March’s body. He wondered how much it had thawed out before they arrived. The police had likewise fixed the time of the murder at some hour before midnight. This had been decided when it was found that the radio set was turned to a station which went off the air at twelve. Smart of them, he thought.

  Another headline caught his eye.

  Blond Pyromaniac

  Sought by Police

  “Malone, what have you done about this damned mess Helene is in?”

  “Nothing yet. I can’t be everywhere at once, and this St. John murder comes first. I’d rather
get you out of a murder rap than an arson charge.”

  Jake remembered something very suddenly. “Malone! The letters. Nelle’s letters. Did Essie get them before the murder?”

  “Before the murder, or after it, or at the time of it,” Malone said. “At least the police didn’t find them in his pocket—I was able to learn that much, anyway. So I stopped at your hotel to find out if she’d left them for you, and she hadn’t. But I learned that announcer, Bob Bruce, has been trying to reach you since four o’clock this morning. You’d better call him right away.”

  Jake stared at him. “Bob Bruce? Why does he want to get in touch with me?”

  “Probably wants to confess to the murders, and thinks you have a sympathetic face,” the lawyer said crossly. “Why don’t you call him up and find out?”

  Jake picked up the telephone and called Bob Bruce.

  “Oh thank God,” the announcer said, his smooth, overtrained voice harsh and desperate. “Get over here right away, will you? I can’t tell you over the phone. But there’s one hell of a jam.”

  “Wait, Bob. Let me bring Malone with me. Malone, the lawyer. You know him.”

  “Lord yes. He’s just the man we need. But hurry, will you? This is an awful mess!”

  Chapter 26

  Bob Bruce’s apartment was on the top floor of a building only a few blocks north of Erie Street, overlooking the lake. The handsome young announcer, his face pale with anxiety and loss of sleep, ushered them into a large living room that was a confused horror of modernistic furniture and paintings.

  Essie St. John sat near the window on a contortion of chromium-plated gas pipe and pink leather.

  “Fancy meeting you here!” Jake said pleasantly.

  She had the appearance of one who has been holding back hysteria for unnumbered hours. At the sound of Jake’s voice she immediately burst into frantic tears.

  “Essie, please, darling, please, Essie,” Bob Bruce said, kneeling beside her.

  She buried her face in her hands, shaking from head to foot. In a minute, Jake saw, she would begin screaming.

  “Bob, where’s the bathroom?”