by Robert Bloch
Then I sat and waited. I waited as the Krauss sequence came on. I might have known what it would be. The Ripper, of course. The Ripper following me everywhere. The Ripper and the knives, following the two lovers now, through the deserted carnival. Peering around the merry-go-round, leering through the spokes of the ferris wheel. And the scene was distorted, and doors opened of their own accord, and the lovers fled slowly while the Ripper pursued them to inevitable doom.
Halfway through the sequence Mingo spoke for the first time. His voice was quite soft.
“You know, of course, that I never informed my office I wasn’t leaving town. Or did you bother to call at all?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t even try.”
“You came out here expecting to break into my home?”
“That was the idea, yes,” I admitted.
“Might I ask why?”
“You might. But perhaps you’d rather answer my question first.”
“Proceed.”
“Why didn’t you claim your stamp album? You must have known it was your collection.”
“Is that all you wanted to know?” Mingo’s head turned in the darkness, but I doubted if he could see my face, any more than I could see his. And Jack the Ripper prowled across the screen, across both our brains.
“Not entirely. Because I think I can guess the answer. You were afraid the album would tie you to Joe Calgary. Was he a client of yours, Mingo?”
No answer.
“Was he a client? Or were you his client?”
“What do you mean by that? Who told you? Nobody knows, nobody could know—”
“It’s pretty obvious, Mingo. You’re a practicing sadist. You like the whistle of whips, you like the sight of the marks they leave. Oh, I’m not condemning you, I’m not even shocked. I’ve heard of such things before. But you had to be careful. It didn’t work out, trying such tricks with girls like Kit. So you got them elsewhere. Joe Calgary furnished them, I believe. I think he’d pick them out, pick them up, get them drunk, and then bring them here to you. And you’d pay them—and him—off.”
“Go on.”
“What more is there to say? Perhaps the last time he was here you had a quarrel. Maybe he wanted more money. In any case, he stole your album and tried to sell it. Then, when the murder broke, you were afraid to claim it. Because the album would establish a connection between you and Calgary, and the police would find out.”
The drama on the screen was coming to a close. Here in the room it was still going on. The Ripper and his victim—but which was which?
I didn’t know. Even when he cracked, I didn’t know.
“All right, Tom. All right. It’s true, all of it’s true. You don’t understand what it is to be like this—to want to hurt and to know that you can’t really. I never really hurt any of them, Tom. It was all more of a make-believe, like the movies, like collecting the relics and reading the books. You know that, don’t you, Tom? I never tortured, I couldn’t bear the sight of blood. But if anyone found out, I’d be ruined. Can’t you see that, Tom? Can’t you—”
“Yes.” I sighed. “I can see that. And I wish that was all I could see.”
The nightmare was almost over on the screen. But only on the screen. I had to go on.
“But there’s more, Mingo. More.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing that you don’t already know. I’m telling you that when Calgary got mixed up in these killings, he came to you. After all, he only had about thirty-five dollars and he wanted to get out of town because he was frightened. Do you know why he was frightened, Mingo?”
“No. He wouldn’t tell me.” The little man gasped. He’d said too much, but it was too late now.
I kept on. “So he asked for money. And you gave it to him, to get out of town.”
“All right.” Mingo stood up. “Now you know, Tom. You know everything. And what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I still want to locate Joe Calgary.”
The film flickered off. Mingo moved toward the light switch on the wall. “He wouldn’t tell me where he was going,” he said.
It was my turn to take a deep breath. I could leave it like this and promise Mingo I’d never say a word. He’d believe that was all I knew and take my promise, and things would go on.
But things mustn’t go on any more. I let the air out of my lungs as I spoke.
“Wouldn’t tell you where he was going?” I asked. “Or couldn’t?”
Mingo’s hand hesitated on the switch.
I kept on, because there was no other way. “You didn’t give him the money after all, did you? You knew that if you paid him off, sooner or later he’d be back for more. That’s the way blackmail works. Sooner or later something would slip, and you’d be implicated. And meanwhile you’d always have it hanging over your head, as long as he was alive.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Mingo told me.
I stood up, quietly. “You killed him,” I said. “That’s why you gave out that you were leaving town tonight. You wanted time to dispose of the body. Where is it, Mingo?”
“No,” he said. “No.”
“The movie was just a cover-up, in case somebody happened to come in. You had other business in the basement tonight. I saw the dirt on your hands, and you aren’t the kind of a man to soil your fingers unless you have to. But there’s dirt on them now. Where’s the body, Mingo?”
He snapped on the switch. He was all ready for me; the pretty little automatic was cocked and aimed. “I’ll take you there,” he said.
I took one step forward, then raised the knife—the knife I’d sneaked down from the wall behind the bar while he watched the film.
The light glittered on the blade. I could see the reflection in his eyes, as he stared at it. He forgot about the gun. All he could see was the knife.
“You!” he whispered. “I knew it. You’re the one, after all. You’re the Ripper!”
I moved forward. His hands began to shake. “Don’t come near me,” he whimpered. “Don’t! Don’t rip me. I can’t stand the sight of blood. I can’t stand it—”
I took another step, pulled the knife back, and let it go.
It didn’t hit him. I didn’t intend for it to hit him. I only wanted him to flinch and duck—just long enough for me to reach his side and grab the gun out of his hand. Then I twisted his arm behind his back.
“I’m not the Ripper,” I said. “But you’d better show me the body, now.”
I kept hold of him as we went out the door, down the length of the basement, past the oil-heating unit, into the little storage room. Originally it had been intended as a fruit cellar, but Mingo had changed all that. He’d made it into a wine cellar.
A wine cellar, and now, a tomb. He’d just started digging, apparently, when I came, and he hadn’t gotten very far. He was frail and delicate, and the job of smashing through concrete with a pickax wouldn’t have been easy. Cementing everything over again might have presented another problem. In fact the whole setup was slipshod and hastily contrived—like something out of one of those early Victorian case histories Mingo gloated over.
I stared at the preparations for interment while Mingo whimpered beside me. He wasn’t looking at the hole in the floor. He was looking at the hole in Joe Calgary’s forehead.
He’d shot him with the little automatic and dragged him down here. Now Calgary lay face up on the floor and his face was dead white—but no whiter than Anthony Mingo’s face as he watched and whimpered.
“I didn’t hurt him,” he whined. “Believe me, I didn’t hurt him. Just the one shot, and it was all over. And there wasn’t any blood. I couldn’t have gone through with it if there was blood.”
I had Mingo’s automatic in my hand now, and I used the muzzle to prod him over to one corner.
“Stay there,” I said.
“What are you going to do?”
I moved back to the door.
; “I’m calling the police, of course.”
“No—you can’t—don’t leave me in here with him—for the love of God—”
How did Poe phrase it in The Cask of Amontillado? “For the love of God, Montresor!”
I locked him in the wine cellar with Calgary’s body and went upstairs to call Lieutenant Cohen.
FOURTEEN
“I guess that washes everything up,” Lieutenant Cohen told me. We were riding downtown now, to headquarters. Ming wasn’t in the car; he was in a police ambulance, behind us.
I still don’t like to think about that part—the way he really went to pieces when the police came and we opened the wine-cellar door. We found him sitting there mumbling, and at first we thought he was talking to himself. But he was talking to Calgary’s body, explaining that he wasn’t really a killer, he just liked to pretend, and he’d never hurt anyone to draw blood.
Cohen hadn’t wasted much time trying to talk to him. He called for an ambulance, we went upstairs, and I told him what I knew, and how I’d come to know it.
Then we got rolling. Cohen was still shaking his head, now, in the car.
“Hard to figure a smart guy like him planning to bury a body in the cellar,” the Lieutenant said. “He’s been around enough to know it never works.”
“He wasn’t thinking like Anthony Mingo the attorney,” I answered. “In his own mind he was acting out the role of one of those perverted monsters he was so fond of reading about.”
“He pulled a pretty childish stunt,” Cohen sighed.
“Murder is always childish,” I told him. “Real murder. Think about it a while, Lieutenant, and you’ll see it’s true. The smart boys—the ones who write the movies and the TV shows are always ready to supply their fictional murderers with clever gimmicks. But your real killer seldom is rational or mature enough to reason things out—particularly when he kills suddenly, unexpectedly, on impulse. Oh, there are exceptions. Only by and large, you cops will go on finding bodies under coal piles and culverts, corpses tossed hastily into the river, or just left lying where they fell as the murderer fled.”
“I just can’t figure it out,” Cohen sighed. “A guy like Mingo pulling a stunt like this.” Another sigh. “I suppose if he doesn’t calm down, we won’t even get a conviction. They’ll stick him in the fun-house for keeps.”
“That’s the key to the whole thing,” I said. “Anthony Mingo hasn’t been really sane for years. He’s been dramatizing himself in the role of a murderer for a long, long time. And then, when he actually faced the act, he bungled it. He killed like an amateur, covered up like one. Because he told the truth when he said that none of it was real to him. All the stories of violence and bloodshed were just extensions of his own fantasies. He didn’t learn anything from the celebrated criminals he admired. He just bungled.”
We pulled up in front of headquarters.
“Lucky for you he did, Kendall,” Cohen remarked. “You weren’t too smart, either, going down there that way. Seeing how it turned out, I’m not going to make an issue of it. But you disobeyed orders twice today, running out on us, and you’re going to give the whole Department a black eye when the story breaks.” He started to chew his mustache, then stopped. “That’s on the record, Kendall,” he muttered. “Off the record, I admire your guts. And I’m glad it’s all over.”
“Is it?” I said, and followed him inside.
Bronson and Howard were both waiting. They spent only a minute or so with Mingo. Some doctor went in with them and they came out shaking their heads.
I caught the phrase “catatonic reaction” and heard the doctor issuing orders to the attendants. They took Mingo away, then, and turned to me.
“Well, Kendall, congratulations.” The District Attorney’s smile was wry, but genuine. “I understand you took matters into your own hands. We won’t say anything about that now, because it’s all turned out for the best. But I’d appreciate as full a statement as you can give us, before we admit any reporters.”
“You’re going to be quite a celebrity tomorrow,” said Mr. Bronson. He didn’t seem too happy about it.
“All right,” I said. “Here’s your statement. But before I give it, you’d better send somebody down to Otis Street. Either the Court Hotel Bar or the Blue Jay. Pick up Mrs. Helen Calgary. She’s the one who gave me the tip.”
I described Helen Calgary to Cohen. He went out and relayed the description, sent the order on down.
Then I sat back and told my story from the beginning. They listened quietly, and every word was taken down.
There were only two interruptions. The first came when Henley stepped in for a moment. “What’ll I tell those guys?” he asked. “They’re getting antsy for a chance to interview Kendall, here.”
“Ten more minutes and we throw him to the lions,” Howard said. Henley went out.
I finished what I had to say.
“So you see,” I concluded, “it isn’t really over. All we can do is guess. Calgary could have killed Trixie Fisher with my knife. But I doubt if he killed the Schuyler girl, and you seem to think both murders were the work of the same man.”
“Or woman,” Cohen muttered.
“True. It might have been a woman.”
“It might have been Mingo,” suggested Bronson.
“Impossible. The man who fumbled with Calgary couldn’t conceivably have executed such crimes.” I was suddenly quite an authority—look who was going around telling assistant D.A.’s about murder! I shook my head. “No, this doesn’t really solve anything. It’s my belief that the Ripper is still at large.”
Howard stood up. “Belief,” he said. “Have you anything tangible to back it up with?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing.”
“You aren’t holding back any further evidence?”
“I’m through with that. I’ve had it tonight.”
“Then all you’re offering now is your opinion. Is that correct?”
“Right.”
“Under the circumstances, then, I am going to ask you to refrain from airing that opinion. Because some of us here are inclined to think otherwise. Despite what you say, it is by no means impossible that Anthony Mingo is the Ripper. We shall, of course, check back on his movements during the times when the crimes were committed. And we shall question him as soon as he is in a condition to talk. Meanwhile, our Department is still following up other leads—”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You want me to go out there and tell those reporters I think the Ripper murders are solved?”
“You don’t have to tell them that. Just tell them the truth—tell them you don’t know.”
“Now, wait a minute.” I was on my feet.
District Attorney Howard waved his hand. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I want you to cover up for us. Well, that’s not true. There’s more to this case than that.” He walked over to the window. “Kendall, take a look out there.”
I joined him and gazed down at the city by night, flaunting its neon necklace.
“Three hundred thousand people,” he said. “Three hundred thousand human beings. Old folks, young folks, women and kids—and tonight they’re all afraid of one man. The Ripper. They all read the papers. They’ve all got theories. We’ve had over fifty phone calls and another fifty anonymous letters. They’re seeing Rippers everywhere. And we’re checking everything that comes in, no matter how screwy it sounds.
“Yes, Kendall, they’re all afraid and they’ve all got theories. But because of what you did tonight, they’ll listen to you. Tomorrow they’ll be reading your theory. What are you going to tell them? Are you going to keep them frightened, keep those kids crying whenever they see a shadow? And if you do, what possible good can you accomplish?”
“Suppose I don’t,” I murmured. “What good will that do?”
“It might do a lot.” Howard faced me. “It might give us just what we’re looking for—a chance to catch the real killer with his guard down. Once
he thinks we’ve accepted Calgary or Mingo as the Ripper, he may grow careless.
“You understand, I can’t coerce you. This is still a free country, and there’s still a free press—and I like it that way. I can’t even hold out a promise that my theory will pay off. It’s only a chance, but I’d like to have it. Not for my sake, but for everybody’s.
“Well, Kendall, it’s up to you. What do you say?”
I stood there, ready to give him my answer, when the second interruption came. Henley again.
“Yes?”
“We got Mrs. Calgary.”
“Bring her in.”
Henley shook his head. “Can’t move her yet. Got to check for prints and take the pictures.”
The room started to spin. I could see the open mouths, hear the sudden, sharp inspiration of the gasps.
Somebody, I don’t know who, asked the inevitable question.
Henley nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “It’s the Ripper, again.”
FIFTEEN
Reporters are a fickle tribe. It turned out that none of them were really waiting to see me, after all. They were all anxious to get down to the Blue Jay, to the little upstairs room off the back hall where Helen Calgary had learned the secret of the Ripper.
A secret she’d never share, now.
Lieutenant Cohen left for Otis Street right away. Henley stayed around and told us what he knew. It wasn’t much.
Helen Calgary, after my departure, went back to the Court Hotel. Her sailor was gone (Cohen put him in a cell until he sobered up, then turned him loose without charges), and she decided it was time for supper. She ate alone across the street at some greasy spoon. And she came back alone, to the Court Bar.
Around seven, according to the bartender—not the man I’d seen, but a night man—she struck up a conversation with a young Mexican gentleman named Jesus Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez, who was available for testimony, was anxious to improve his acquaintance, and to this end accompanied Helen Calgary up the stairs leading to the second floor of the Court Hotel. According to Pop, they were occupied in Room Four for the better part of an hour. Whereupon Mr. Ramirez returned to the Court Bar below and Mrs. Calgary, pleading slight fatigue—“I’m getting out of here, I’m sick of this crummy joint”: these were her last recorded words—left by the rear exit and presumably went directly to her own room upstairs over the Blue Jay. Her entrance through the back way was unobserved. That was not unusual, for the Blue Jay was crowded and the bartender busy. He habitually paid no attention to the comings and goings in back.