There was a Crooked Man

by George Worthing Yates

  The rest of it was a miserable half-of-aman, a vestige, a shocking parody. Not the fact of death appalled, but the thought that this deformed creature had once contrived to be alive.

  Bennett said, “War injuries?”

  “Looks like it,” said Tussard. “The doc figures the wounds at fifteen or twenty years ago, seeing the way muscles have developed. Tough, getting around every day in that condition.”

  Bennett nodded. The victim seemed to have had no left arm and no left shoulder. The trunk itself looked shortened, dwarfish, bulky, grotesque. The left leg was very much shorter than the right.

  “What do you say?” Tussard asked, looking up at Ben-net. “Recognize him?”

  “No,” said Bennett. “No, not at all.”

  “Ever know a man who wore a bandage like that?”

  “No.”

  “Ever hear of Christien knowing a cripple like—”

  “No.”

  Tussard shrugged, and lowered his eyes, which had found nothing in Bennett’s face. He pulled back the sheet, made it tidy, stood up and wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers. He folded his arms again, and looked blank. Bennett knew he was shrewd, and expectant. Bennett therefore leaned casually backwards against his umbrella.

  “Horrid,” he said. “I’m sure I don’t know what to say. Devilish mysterious. He was killed out there on the terrace, I believe? And Mr. Christien discovered him? Right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Had he been dead long, when Christien found him?”

  Tussard said, “He was killed when Christien found him. Christien says, just before he found him. I mean, Christien said he was dead. Then Christien went a little dead on us himself.”

  “Really. Will you charge Christien with it?”

  “Murder? No.”

  “Ah, no?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Indeed! Most explicit!”

  In other words, and in Bennett’s opinion, Christien would be safe until the police found out just a little more of what it was all about. Not reassuring, by any means; but very much worth knowing. Bennett smiled gravely, like an elderly cat with a faint dream of cream.

  2.

  Bennett took over with perfect assurance, without qualm or hesitation, and Tussard fell for it before he had time to notice an incongruity.

  “What time did it happen, pray?”

  “Quarter past eleven.”

  “Was Christien alone?”

  “No. Three or four others up here.”

  “Indeed? Quite late. Why?”

  “Some kind of meeting.”

  “Why did Christien leave it? Why did he go on the terrace?”

  “The meeting was just beginning, getting ready to begin. They don’t know why he went out. Getting a breath of air, maybe, they say—only it was raining just then. Anyhow, he went out. He came back in, all excited, talking about a body on the roof. The next minute, he swallowed his pills, and faded out of the picture.”

  “Graphic. Christien seems suspicious, then, because he discovered the body, and in consequence took an unfortunate amount of heart stimulant?”

  “Heart my eye. He took poison.”

  “And these other gentlemen at the meeting? Are they quite above suspicion?”

  “Christien took poison. The others got a doctor and called the police. I ask you.”

  “Indeed. Not implausible. And the victim. An utter stranger to everybody, I presume?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Curious.”

  “Worse than that.”

  “I only suggest the obvious. Civil desire to assist, you know. This poor chap—“ glancing at the sheet “—though striking, will be devilish hard to identify. Because he is striking.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Horribly difficult for him to walk. Impossible for him to talk. Inference, he kept in seclusion. His dress indicates sensibility and refinement, yet his appearance is shocking. Again, seclusion, as strict as possible. Would he have acquaintances? Surely not. Friends? Hardly. A wife, children? No, definitely no, unless he acquired them before he was injured. He was injured, I think, when a youngish man, and very possibly not married. However, you doubtless think of these things yourself. Do you wonder, as I do, why he came here? Extreme difficulties, wretched weather, his face hid in that makeshift mask. A letter in the post would not have served, it seems. Do you wonder? I see you do. Some frightful, urgent matter, oh, urgent until desperate, imperative, inevitable! No objection to my smoking my pipe? And now. How did he get here?”

  “Here?”

  “On the terrace, where Christien found him. Come, my dear man! Dare say I confuse you, though. A match?”

  “Lots of matches. He came through the main theatre entrance. He came just about half past ten, he didn’t buy a ticket, he was all muffled up, he used a pass—”

  “Ah! Pass?”

  “He had a regular company pass. The outfit that runs the theatre gives away these passes to important people, with their names written on them. Thing like an engraved invitation, only smaller. Good for a whole year. You show the pass, they give you a ticket, and let you in.”

  “Go on.”

  “He didn’t get a ticket. He flashed the pass on the door man, and just walked in. He should have gone to the ticket window and got a reserved seat. He didn’t. He had a kind of important air, he was in a hurry, he was crippled, maybe he wanted to see the picture and the last show was started—anyhow, the door man let him go in. The door man looked at the pass but he didn’t get the name on it. And that’s how he got in. Next thing, he was dead up here.”

  “Is there some convenient passage between the theatre and this terrace?”

  “Sure. Convenient, like the inside of a cuckoo clock. You need a map. Two maps and a guide.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, there’s an elevator that comes up to these offices from the lobby. But he didn’t take the elevator. So he probably came back-stage and around and up and through till he got here.”

  “Interesting.”

  “In other words, he knew the place.”

  “To be sure. And the pass? He kept it, no doubt, in a pocket. It had his name, or some name, inscribed on it. Where is this pass?”

  “Gone.”

  “Of course.”

  Tussard passed his hand over his eyes. “Gone,” he said, “because somebody went through his pockets before we got here. Stuff thrown all over the place out there. What’s left is on that desk in back of you. You might take a look at it, just for luck. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  3.

  Tussard went into Levison’s office and shut the door. From there, he got out through the window to the terrace. Bennett listened, and heard him.

  The portable property of the dead man had been spread out neatly on the secretary’s desk. It consisted of:

  A gold ring, very old, heavy and handsome.

  A watch in a hunting case, likewise old and handsome. (Though uncommon enough, both watch and ring appeared to be at least three generations in use. They would be difficult to trace, Bennett appreciated, unless they had lately been in pawn. And not a few indications made the victim out to be anything but a haunter of pawnbrokers.)

  Three ordinary keys, of the Yale type, not on a ring.

  A fine leather note-case, damp, but little used.

  Two-hundred-seventy-two dollars—thirteen twenties, one five, seven ones. Twenty-two cents—two dimes, two coppers. (The paper money, like the note-case, was damp. Bennett accounted for it thus: the murderer, rifling the dead man’s pockets for marks of identity and working in utmost haste, had flung aside in the rain these things that seemed unimportant.

  A neat leather memorandum book holding a metal pencil; its pages scored so that they might easily be tom out; and over half of them missing. (The dead man, unable to talk, had obviously been forced to carry on conversations in writing. Therefore, this book, and the missing pages. That it was dry, suggested that the murderer h
ad not even bothered to take it out of his victim’s pocket, and perhaps, had known quite well its innocent use. Indeed, very intimately acquainted, the killer and the killed; so it seemed to Bennett.)

  A typed message on a damp slip of paper. It read:

  “The Executive Committee will hold its meeting Tuesday, May 22, 11 p.m., in my office.

  F. CHRISTIEN,

  Controller.”

  A curious printed advertisement, which read:

  “DEAR SIR OR MADAM,

  “You can pay less for better honey. Rockland County Apple Blossom Honey, direct from farm to you, postpaid 10 cents per lb. in bulk, or 25 cents per comb.

  “Also fresh eggs by mail at less than city prices, as advertised in American Lady, the Cultured Periodical.

  “Let me supply you. You will be delighted. Reply card enclosed, or telephone orders or visit ‘THE BASQUE SHOP,’ Moore House Square, Chelsea Buildings, New York.

  EMMA WHITTACKER,

  Editor of American Lady

  Serving the Fastidious American Household.”

  (And marked in the margin of this, against the name of Emma Whittacker, was an exaggerated exclamation mark, a sign, Bennett thought, of astonished recognition.)

  Bundled together at the far end of the desk were a black overcoat, a black felt hat and a black silk scarf. Beneath these lay a stout malacca walking stick with a curved handle. The stick bore no mark; the hat had been made for Brooks Brothers; the coat, on a small white label inside the inner breast pocket, carried the name, Plenderby & Co., Tailors.

  Bennett stuck the bit of his pipe between his favorite and most trustworthy teeth. Fortunately, he had kept Tussard’s matches.

  He realized that the notice of the Executive Committee meeting, and the advertisement, were of greatest importance. He realized that the murderer could have been careless enough to leave them in the dead man’s pockets, only because he found himself in dreadful haste. He also realized that Tussard had been standing in the darkness outside the window looking in at him for the past minute or so. This amused him a little. He took pleasure in crooking a deliberate finger at the man.

  Tussard came in again by the way he had gone out. He was brisk and impatient. Perhaps it had worked in his mind that Bennett, with nothing more than great size and a manner of authority, had caught him in a dejected and deeply thoughtful moment, and had managed to give him a fairly thorough pumping. Nothing, he consoled himself, that the papers wouldn’t print tomorrow. Just the same...

  “Well, make anything out of it?”

  “A poor hotch-potch. It was culled, I think you said, by the murderer.”

  “Maybe it was. Right now I got some other business—”

  “The matter of the pass, I hope.”

  “Maybe it is, Mr. Bennett. I’m not saying. So if you’ll—”

  “Of course. Police never do say, do they? A pity, I think.”

  Tussard had gone to the other door, the one into Christien’s private office. He was getting rid of Bennett. At the same time he, and Bennett too, were noticing a puzzling distraction at the door to the passage. It had been growing, working itself up. The door opened a crack, let in sounds of whispering, shut again. It opened again, revealed an eye, and then shut. It opened again to let in a policeman’s red face. The policeman evidently had doubts about the merits of his interruption. Gruff and plaintive, the policeman said, “Guy out here. Says it’s important.”

  “Who?” asked Tussard.

  “Holcomb.”

  “Yes.”

  Then Holcomb came in, breaking through the formalities. He came in glowing with controlled excitement. Bennett stood his ground, blandly inquisitive. Tussard seemed a little annoyed in passing, but the annoyance vanished when Holcomb spoke. Holcomb spoke, in fact, as he brushed through the policeman and the door.

  “All bets are off. We can’t find the night watchman.”

  “What night watchman?”

  “There’s only one. Disappeared. Last seen about eleven o’clock or a little after. He was coming up for a look at the terrace. Now he’s not in the building.”

  “What do you mean, not in the building?”

  “He didn’t go out in the regular way. He ought to be here on duty. I just had a look for him. Can’t find him. Just not here, that’s all.”

  “What about it?”

  “I just found out,” said Holcomb, “that the watchman was sent up here to have a look around at eleven o’clock, because something funny was going on. He came up. He never came down again. He isn’t where he ought to be. He didn’t make his rounds. Something screwy about it, isn’t there. Because it looks to me he may have been out there on the terrace just about the time this guy was—”

  Tussard said, “Come in a minute,” and took hold of Holcomb’s arm, and whisked him into the privacy of Levison’s office, and closed the door on Bennett.

  Bennett lifted an eyebrow at the thud of the closing door, found a comfortable chair, and philosophically composed himself to wait.

  4.

  Holcomb, had it not been for the murder, would have been out of his uniform by this time, and safely home in Stapleton, Staten Island, where very probably he would have been playing pinochle with two men from next door. Louis Holcomb was one of the assistants to John Boxworth, the House Director. He looked outstandingly efficient. He happened (this Tuesday night) to be at hand when he was needed. He thought this a stroke of the worst luck, a sharp injustice, and thinking so made him frown and hurry, and so in the end look all the more clever, reliable, and outstandingly efficient.

  He was a young man, sleek, smart and intelligent, and ordinary. He wore a uniform, because his position was approximately that of a colonel in command of the ushers, as well as adjutant to Boxworth. The uniform—gray striped trousers, black morning coat, stiff turndown collar and black tie—fitted him as smoothly as his marvelously smooth black hair. He seemed faintly tired,’wise, and prematurely aged by disillusion. This was in fact only the consequence of chronic lack of sleep. And this in turn was due only to pinochle. On the whole, he was very willing to oblige, and very likable; and he had a manner of understanding subtle allusions whether he really did so or not; and with these virtues he was making a not unpromising way towards success in the sly world.

  When Tussard came flying out of Levison’s office, Holcomb came flying in his wake. Tussard flung open the door to the passage, and cried at the policeman there,• “Where’s McGrath?”

  “In where them people are.”

  “Where’s Mighetto?”

  “Out on the roof.”

  Tussard moved like an outfielder in an emergency. He went to the door of Christien’s office (where the people were) and flung it open. He went inside. Holcomb still followed in his wake, as if he weren’t sure what else he might be expected to do. Bennett followed with more dignity in Holcomb’s wake. Tussard exchanged a remark with another policeman without slowing his charge, and then slid out the window. Holcomb and Bennett followed, losing ground. They, too, passed through Christien’s office, which had a good collection of people in it, and a remarkably thick cloud of tobacco smoke, and so out another French window like that in the outer office. They found themselves on the roof, in comparative darkness and a faint drizzle. Tussard had outdistanced them badly. There was no use following him. Holcomb slowed and stopped, in doubt. Bennett, in two more strides, reached his side. In a most natural fashion, their glances met when they had finished looking into the darkness after Tussard for a moment.

  “I guess I’ve started something,” said Holcomb.

  “My word!” said Bennett. “What is this bother about the watchman?”

  “I don’t know. This is the damnedest night I ever went through in my life. Are you a friend of that guy’s? Tussard’s?”

  “Not at all...A friend of Christien’s.”

  “Oh,”, said Holcomb, altering his attitude. “He didn’t do it.”

  “Of course hot.”

  “It’s damn funny about
this watchman,” said Holcomb, assured of his ground. “If you look down that way—“ he pointed towards Eighth Avenue and a set of lighted windows, gleaming on the terrace “—you can see where the infirmary is.”

  “Quite. I came from there,” said Bennett.

  “As far as I can figure,” Holcomb continued, “the night watchman must have come out of the hospital window too, just about ten or fifteen minutes past eleven, just about when Tussard figures the murder happened. And now the watchman has blown up in smoke or something. He’s gone, that’s all. He can’t be found.”

  “How extraordinary,” murmured Bennett, encouragingly.

  “It’s absolutely crazy. There’s only two nights a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, when-there isn’t a nurse in the hospital. Tonight’s Tuesday, or was Tuesday before midnight. Anyhow, tonight the hospital was empty, and somebody entered it without any business being there. The nurse, you see, has to be on duty down in the lower lounge in place of the other nurse. Somebody opened the door, and went through the hospital, and came out on the terrace. We know that—”

  “By the way,” Bennett interrupted, “how could you know the hospital door and that window were opened, if the hospital was unoccupied?”

  “By the lights on the control board.”

  “What lights, pray, on what control board?”

  “The doors in the building, most of them, are wired so that the stage manager when he’s on stage, can tell what rooms are being used. He can keep track of actors in dressing rooms and that kind of thing. The hospital is wired that way, and opening the door there makes the light go on down below, on the control board where the stage manager sits. This time of the night, or I should say, that time of the night, when the feature picture is on, the man on duty at the control board hasn’t much to do. Naturally, when somebody went in the hospital about ten to eleven, the light for the hospital lit up, and the man back-stage wondered about it. He called up the Eighteenth Street stage door to ask the door man to send somebody up to take a look at the hospital. The door man was talking to Lutz—he’s the night watchman and he happened to be in early because he hadn’t anything to keep him home. So Lutz said he’d go up to the hospital and have a look, in case somebody was breaking in to steal. Lutz went up. And he never came down again. He left the stage door about a minute or two before eleven. Say he got as far as the hospital at ten after eleven, and say he found the terrace door open and came here, which he’d naturally do. He’d walk out here just about quarter past eleven. And that was when they think the murder happened. What I’m asking myself is, what happened to Lutz?”