S TO RI E S BY AN TH O N Y

&ASHIELL HAMMETT . ELLERY QUEEN WILLIAM MAC HARG.

JACtlUEj* FUTRELLE • ANNA KATHARINE G R E E N ^ C ^ S S EDGAR ALLAN POE

CORNELL'W OOUUCH • RAYMOND-CHANDLER . A N TH O N Y BOUCHER

FRANK GRUBER • PAljfe GALLICQ • STUART PALMER • T. S. STRIBLING
M elville d a v i s s o n post ,• an / C l^ u o h e ltj • craig r i 'c e
 049

GREAT AMERICAN
DETECTIVE STORIES
EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION,
BY
A N T H O N Y BOUCHER

In his spirited Introduction to a topnotch col­

lection of G reat American D etective Stories,
Anthony Boucher says: "The detective short
story belongs to us. It started in America and
it started off magnificently. In five stories,
Edgar Allan Poe created the form and almost
all its possible variants. . . . There are as
many kinds of detective short stories as there
are of detective novels— and you’ll find most
of them here, from the ethical poetry of
Melville Davisson Post to the brash foolery
of Frank Gruber.”
A glance at some of the titles of the stories
included confirms Boucher’s modest words
and guarantees that you’ll find plenty o f good
reading here.

I W on ’t Take a Minute Co r n e l l w o o l r ic h
Too Many Enemies w il l ia m m a c h a r g
Too Many Have Lived d a s h ie l l Ha m m e t t
His Heart Could Break c ra ig r ic e
The Hidden Law m e l v il l e d a v isso n p o s t
Black Murder An t h o n y b o u c h e r
The Stolen Rubens J a cq u es fu t r e l l f.
Ask Me Another f r a n k g r u bf .r
A Passage to Benares
The Stickpin
The Roman Kid
"Thou Art the Man” E

THE World PUBLISHI

CLEVELAND AND N

JACKET DESIGN BY
A TOWER MYSTERY
GREAT AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORIES
 GREAT AMERICAN

Stories by Co r n e l l w o o l r ic h • w il l ia m m a c harg

DASHIELL H A M M E T T • RAYMOND CHANDLER • CRAIG RICE

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN • M E L V IL L E DAVISSON POST

ANTHONY BOUCHER • E LL E R Y QUEEN • JA CQ U ES FU T R E LL E

STUART P A L M ER • FRANK GRUBER • T. S. STRIBLIN G

ANTONIO HELU • PAUL GALLICO • EDGAR ALLAN POE

DETECTIVE STORIES

EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

b y ANTHONY B O U C H E R

CLEVELAN D AND NEW YORK

THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

p u b l is h e d b y The World Publishing Company
2231 West 110th Street ■ Cleveland 2 ■ Ohio

AN O R IG IN A L T O W E R BO O K S P U B L IC A T IO N

First Published June 1945

Second Printing September 1945
Third Printing May 1946

Designed by Abe Lemer c

Copyright 1945 By The World Publishing Company

All rights reserved - no part o f this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission in writing from the publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America

f or F R E D DAN N AY

ch eja to guru
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks are due the following authors, publishers, and agents for
permission to use the stories indicated:
“I Won’t Take A Minute” by Cornell Woolrich. Copyright, 1940,
by Cornell Woolrich. Originally published as “Finger of Doom,” in
D etective Fiction W eekly, June 22, 1940. “Too Many Enemies” by
William MacHarg. From T h e Affairs o f O’Malley, published by
The Dial Press. Copyright, 1933, by William MacHarg. “No
Crime in the Mountains” by Raymond Chandler. Copyright,
1945, by Raymond Chandler. “Too Many Have Lived” by Dashiell
Hammett. Reprinted by permission of Leland Hayward, Inc. “The
Second Rullet” by Anna Katharine Green. From T he G olden Slipper
& O ther Problem s F or V iolet Strange, copyright, 1915, by G. P.
Putnam’s Sons. “His Heart Could Rreak” by Craig Rice. Reprinted
by permission of the author. Copyright, 1943, Ellery Q u een s Mystery
Magazine. “The Hidden Law” by Melville Davisson Post. From
Uncle Abner: Master o f Mysteries. Copyright, 1918, D. Appleton-
Century Company. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. “Elack
Murder” by Anthony Boucher. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Copyright, 1943, ELlery Q ueen s Mystery Magazine. “The Adventure
of the African Traveler” by Ellery Queen. From T he Adventures of
Ellery Queen, copyright, 1934. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Stolen Rubens” by Jacques Futrelle. Reprinted from Ellery
Q u een s Mystery M agazine, Spring, 1942. Copyright, 1907, by
Associated Sunday M agazine, Inc., and 1934, by May Futrelle. “The
Riddle of the Yellow Canary” by Stuart Palmer. Permission to reprint
granted by Paul R. Reynolds & Son, 599 Fifth Avenue, New York 17.
“Ask Me Another” by Frank Gruber. From B lack Mask, June, 1937.
Reprinted by permission of the author. “A Passage to Benares” by
T. S. Stribling. From Clues o f the C arihhees, by T. S. Stribling, copy­
right, 1929, by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. “The Stickpin”
by Antonio Helu. From Ellery Q u een s Mystery Magazine, Novem­
ber, 1944. Reprinted by permission of the author. “The Roman Kid”
by Paul Gallico. Copyright, 1944, by Paul Gallico. Reprinted by
permission of the author.
 CONTENTS

In trod u ction ANTHONY BOUCHER 11

I W o n t T a k e a M inute CORNELL WOOLRICH 17

T o o M any E n em ies W ILL IA M MAC HARG 41

N o C rim e in th e M ountains RAYMOND CHANDLER 49

T o o M any H av e L iv e d DASHIELL H A M M ETT 97

T h e S eco n d B u llet ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 113

H is H ea rt C ou ld B rea k CRAIG RICE 129

T h e H id d e n L a w M EL V IL LE DAVISSON POST 149

B la c k M u rder ANTHONY BOUCHER 159

T h e A d v en tu re o f th e A frican T rav eler e l l e r y qu een 173

T h e S tolen R u b en s JACQUES FU TR E LL E 191

T h e R id d le o f th e Y ellow C an ary STUART PA LM ER 201

A sk M e A n oth er FRANK GRUBER 221

A P assag e to B en ares T . S. STRIBLIN G 237

T h e S tickpin ANTONIO HELU 263

T h e R om an K id PAUL GALLICO 275

“T h ou A rt th e M an” EDGAR ALLAN POE 295

N o t i c e : N o anthology is a single-handed job, and every editor m u s t
happily acknowledge the assistance of a host of collaborators. In
this case, I am particularly glad to thank those splendid scholars of
the whodunit, James Sandoe, Vincent Starrett, William Targ, and
Lee Wright, for invaluable suggestions, and various of the authors
represented, especially Antonio Helu, Stuart Palmer, T. S. Stribling,
Cornell Woolrich, and above all Ellery Queen, for their helpful
kindness.
If the reader is indignant with me for the omission of his own favor­
ite, I offer him the following excuses:
one, it is too easily available elsewhere;
two, I couldn’t clear the rights to it;
three, and most probably true, the explanation which Dr. Johnson
offered to a critic of his dictionary: “Ignorance, Madam; pure
ignorance.” A.B.
INTRODUCTION

T h e O BJECT of this anthology is to give you some good reading.

It isn’t a definitive historical survey of the American detective
story; I think you’re more interested in how a story reads today than
in its place in the development of the form. It isn’t even a selection of
the absolute masterpieces; people who read one anthology are apt to
have read one or two others, and such pure gems as “The purloined
letter,” “A man called Spade,” “The Doomdorf mystery,” “Man bites
dog,” and “The problem of Cell 13” are getting just a little bit over­
familiar. So what’s aimed at here is this: a collection of topnotch stor­
ies by the best American detective story writers, chosen in the hope
that you’ve read very few of them elsewhere. (Most of these stories
appear here for the first time in any anthology and half of them for
the first time in book form.)
Now you know what you’re getting into.
The detective short story belongs to us. It started in America and it
11
12 IN T R O D U C T IO N

started off magnificently. In five stories, Edgar Allan Poe created the
form and almost all its possible variants. But then the English took
the play away from us. The detective short never quite died out in
America; even in our period of being overshadowed we were produc­
ing the exploits of e b e n e z e r g r y c e and t h e t h in k in g m a c h in e and
LUTHER TRANT and RANDOLPH MASON—to Say nothing of NICK CARTER.
But how could even these compete with d r . t h o r n d y k e and f a t h e r
b r o w n and s h e r l o c k h o l m e s ?
The detective short belonged to England up till about the middle
’20’s, when such pulps as Flyn n s and B lack M ask began to flourish.
Gradually it has become apparent, even to the most doubtful critics,
that the best of the detective pulps offer a rich field of stories, in
which Dashiell Hammett stands like Shakespeare among the Eliza­
bethan dramatists—not a giant among pygmies, but simply the tallest
of a titanic tribe. The pulps brought pace and vigor and physical and
emotional impact to the detective story; they made it approach the
crude realities of American police work and the daily routine of the
private operative.
But these pulps, the English might object, represent only one
school of the detective story ( although in fact they have influenced
all schools save possibly the ultra-slick and the ultra-sedate); and
where is the American market for detective shorts of other types?
For years it seemed almost as though there were none; magazines
aimed at the literate reader of less-than-hardboiled mystery novels
were not successful. Ellery Queen’s Mystery L eagu e folded after
four issues; and Tower’s Mystery M agazine, too, succumbed in time.
Then in 1941 there appeared on the newstands an attractive mag­
azine of 12mo format, well printed on good book paper, with a dis­
tinguished Stefan Salter cover. It was the first issue of Ellery Q u een s
Mystery Magazine, and at last the possible English objections were
answered. Queen’s editorial work in this magazine and in his an­
thologies and the public reception of both have at last established the
detective short story, in all its ramifications, as a proud American
possession.
There are as many kinds of detective short stories as there are of
detective novels—perhaps more, since it’s hard to find a novelistic
equivalent of such tight-packed capsules as the o ’m a l l e y stories—and
you’ll find most of them here from the ethical poetry of Melville
Davisson Post to the brash foolery of Frank Gruber. One omission, I
confess, is what its admirers call character-and-atmosphere and its
detractors the Had-I-But-known school; and that is because to me at
least, such sterling practitioners as Mary Roberts Rinehart and
Mignon G. Eberhart show off their wares far more attractively in
novels than in short stories.
Another omission is inevitably the detailed police-routine school
(more English than American anyway) which needs a full novel to
IN T R O D U C T IO N
function properly. That’s why you’ll find so few professional police
detectives starring in the stories that follow. The short story comes off
better with the private eye, who works by short cuts and angles;
better yet with the unofficial consultant, who is unhampered by the
formalities binding the officials who consult him; and best of all, per­
haps, with the amateur whose ingenuity or special knowledge can
pierce through the secrets of a crime without pages upon pages of
routine.
So here are the American detectives. Among them you’ll find a de­
tective with five degrees after his name and a detective with no name
at all, a detective who is in the Social Register and a detective who
swills sherry on Skid Row, a detective who was born 2000 years after
his case and a detective who died six weeks before his solution.
They’re all part of the American detective story—and the American
detective story today is something to make the most devout inter­
nationalist feel a certain stirring of chauvinistic satisfaction.
A n th o n y B o u ch er
GREAT AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORIES
 DICK G I L M A N IN

This is the only d ic k o il m a n story. But g il m a n is blood brother to

bu rg ess in Phantom Lady and d e n n y in “C ocaine” and all the other
h ard h ead ed professionals w ho have enough humanity to believe
the im possible. T he terror o f the im possible is W oolrich’s special
field; and h e’s played as many variations on the Lady-Vanishes
situation as E llery Queen has on the dying m essage or John D ick­
son Carr on th e lock ed room. You’ll find this variation one o f the
most terrible, with that enorm ous im pact o f the everyday-gone-
wrong that is peculiarly W oolrich: the story o f a man w ho simply
w atched his girl go to deliver a parcel (she wouldn’t ta ke a minute),
and then—all at once, no Steffie.
I WON’T TAKE A MINUTE

BY C O R N E L L W O O L R I C H

Q WAS ALWAYS the last one out, even on the nights I came
around to pick her up—that was another thing burned me up. Not
with her of course, but with her job there. Well, she was on the last
leg of it now, it would be over with pretty soon. We weren’t going to
be one of those couples where the wife kept on working after the
marriage. She’d already told them she was leaving anyway, so it was
all settled. I didn’t blame her for hanging on up to the very end. The
couple of extra weeks pay would come in handy for a lot of little
this-ems and that-ems that a girl about to settle down always likes to
buy herself (knowing she’s going to have a tough time getting them
afterwards). But what got me was, why did she always have to be
the last one out?
I picketed the doorway, while the cave-dwellers streamed out all
18 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

around me. Everyone but her. Back and forth and back and forth;
all I needed was a “Don’t Patronize” sign and a spiel. Finally I even
saw the slave-driver she worked for come out, but still no her. He
passed by without knowing me, but even if he had he wouldn’t have
given me any sunny smiles.
And then finally she came—and the whole world faded out around
us and we were just alone on the crowded sidewalk. I’ve heard it
called love.
She was very good to look at, which was why I’d waited until I was
twenty-five and met her. Here’s how she went: first a lot of gold all
beaten up into a froth and poured over her head and allowed to set
there in crinkly little curls. Then a pair of eyes that—I don’t know
how to say it. You were in danger of drowning if you looked into
them too deep, but, boy, was drowning a pleasure. Yes, blue. And
then a mouth with real lines. Not one of those things all smeared over
with red jam.
She had about everything just right, and believe me I was going to
throw away the sales-slip and not return the merchandise once it got
up to my house.
For trimmings, a dark-blue skirt and a short little jacket that flared
out from her shoulders, and a kind of cockeyed tam o’shanter. And a
package. I didn’t like the looks of that package.
I told her so the minute I stepped up and took off my hat, while she
was still looking down the other way for me. “What’s that?”
She said: “Oh, Kenny, been waiting long? I hurried up all I could.
This? Oh, just a package. I promised His Nibs I’d leave it at a flat on
Martine Street on my way home.”
“But you’re not going home. I’ve got two ducats for ‘Heavens-
abustin’ and I was gonna take you to Rafft’s for dinner first; I even
brought a clean collar to work with me this morning. Now this is
going to cut down our time for eating to a shadow---- ■ ”
She tucked her free hand under my arm to pacify me. “It won’t
take any time at all, it’s right on our way. And we can cut out the
fruit-cup or something.”
“Aw, out you always look so classy eating fruit-cup,” I mourned.
But she went right ahead; evidently the matter had already been
all settled between us without my knowing about it. “Wait a minute,
let me see if I’ve got the address straight. Apartment 4F, 415 Martine
Street. That’s it.”
I was still grouching about it, but she already had me under con­
trol. “What are you supposed to do, double as an errand-girl, too?”
But by that time we were halfway there, so what was the use of kick­
ing any more about it.
“Let’s talk about us,” she said. “Have you been counting the days?”
“All day. Thirteen left.”
“And a half. Don’t forget the half, if it’s to be a noon-wedding.”
I w o n ’t ta k e a m in u t e 19

She tipped her shoulders together. ‘1 don’t like that thirteen by itself.
I’ll be glad when it’s tomorrow, and only twelve left.”
“Gee you’re cute,” I beamed admiringly. “The more I know you,
the cuter you get.”
“I bet you won’t say that a year from now. I bet you’ll be calling me
your old lady then.”
“This is it, I said.
“That’s right, 415.” She backed up, and me with her. “I was sailing
right on past it. See what an effect you have on me?”
It was the kind of building that still was a notch above a tenement,
but it had stopped being up-to-date about 1918. We went in the
outer vestibule together, which had three steps going up and then
a pair of inner glass doors, to hold you up until you said who you
were.
“All right, turn it over to the hallman or whoever it is and let’s be
on our way.”
She got on that conscientious look that anything connected with
her job always seemed to bring on. “Oh no, I’m supposed to take it
right up personally and get a receipt. Besides, there doesn’t seem to
be any hallman . . .”
She was going to do it her way anyway, I could see that, so there
was no use arguing. She was bent over scanning the name-plates in
the brass letter-boxes set into the marble trim. “What’d I say that
name was again?”
“I dunno, Muller or something,” I said sulkily.
“That’s it. What would I do without you?” She flashed me a smile
for a bribe to stay in good humor, then went ahead scanning. “Here it
is. 4F. The name-card’s fallen out of the slit and gotten lost, no won­
der I couldn’t find it.” She poked the button next to it. “You wait
downstairs here for me,” she said. “I won’t take a minute.”
“Make it as fast as you can, will you? We’re losing all this good time
out of being together.”
She took a quick step back toward me. “Here,” she said, “let this
hold you until I come down again.” And that mouth I told you about,
went right up smack against mine—where it belonged. “And if you’re
very good, you may get a chaser to that when I come down again.”
Meanwhile the inner vestibule-door catch was being sprung for
her with a sound like crickets with sore throats. She pushed it open,
went inside. It swung shut again, cutting us off from one another. But
I could still sec her through it for a moment longer, standing in there
by the elevator-bank waiting to go up. She looked good even from
the back. When the car came down for her, she didn’t forget to turn
around and flash me another heartbreaker across her shoulder, before
she stepped in and set the control-button for the floor she wanted. It
was self-service, nobody else in it.
The door closed after her, and I couldn’t see her any more. I could
20 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

see the little red light that told the car was in use, gleaming for a few
minutes after that, and then that went out too. And there wasn’t any­
thing left of her.
I lit a cigarette and leaned against the right-hand wall waiting.
Then my shoulder got tired and I leaned against the left-hand wall.
Then my both shoulders got tired and I just stood up by myself in the
middle.
I’ve never timed a cigarette. I suppose they take around five min­
utes. This one seemed to take longer, but then look who I was wait­
ing for. I punched it out with my foot without bothering to throw it
out through the door; I didn’t live there after all.
I thought: “Nice and fast. I mighta known it.” I thought: “What’s
she doing, staying to tea up there?”
I counted my change, just to give myself something to do. I took off
my hat and looked it over, like I’d never seen it before.
Things happened. Nothing much, little things that were to last so
long. The postman came into the vestibule, shoved letters in here and
there. 4 F didn’t get any. He shifted his girth straps and went out
again. A stout lady in a not-very-genuine fur coat came in, one arm
full of bundles, and hauling a yowling little kid by the other. She
looked to see if there was any mail first. Then she looked for her key,
and it took a lot of juggling. Then she looked at me, kind of super­
cilious. If a look can he translated into a single word, hers said:
“Loafer!” Meanwhile the kid was beefing away. He had adenoids or
something, and you couldn’t tell if he was talking English or choking
to death. She seemed to be able to tell the difference though. She
said: “Now Dwight, I don’t want to hear another word! If pot cheese
is good enough for your father, pot cheese is good enough for you! If
you don’t hush up, I’ll give you to this man here!”
I thought: “Oh no you won’t, not with a set of dishes thrown in!”
After they’d gone in, more waiting started in. I started to trace pat­
terns with my feet, circles, diagonals, Maltese crosses. After I’d cov­
ered about a block-and-a-half that way, I stopped to rest again. I
started to talk to myself, under my breath. “Must be out of pencils up
there, to sign the receipt with, and she’s waiting while they whittle
out a new one! We’ll be in time for the intermission at the show---- ”
I lit another cigarette. That act, slight as it was, put the finishing-
touch to my self-control. I no sooner finished doing it than I hit the
opposite wall with it. “What the hell is this anyway?” It wasn’t under
my breath any more, it was a full-toned yap. I stepped over, picked
out 4F, and nearly sent the button through to the other side of the
wall.
I didn’t want to go in, of course. I just wanted to tip her off I was
still alive down here. Aging fast, but still in fairly usable shape. She’d
know who it was when she heard that blast. So when they released
the catch on the door, I intended staying right outside where I was.
I WON T TAKE A M IN U T E 21

But they didn’t. They were either ignoring the ring or they hadn’t
heaid it. I gave it a second flattening. Again the catch on the door re­
mained undisturbed. I knew the bell wasn’t out of order, because I’d
seen her give just a peck at it and the door-catch had been released
for her. This time I gave it a triple-header. Two short ones and a long
one, that went on for weeks. So long that my thumb joint got all white
down to my wrist before I let go.
No acknowledgment. Dead to the world up there.
I did the instinctive thing, even though it was quite useless in the
present case. Backed out into the street, as far as the outer rim of the
sidewalk, and scanned the face of the building. There was just a
checkerboard pattern of lighted squares and black ones. I couldn’t
tell which windows belonged to 4F, and even if I could have it
wouldn’t have done me any good unless I intended yelling her name
up from the open sidewalk—and I didn’t yet.
But being all the way out there cost me a chance to get in free, and
lost me some more valuable time in the bargain. A man came out, the
first person who had emerged from inside since I’d been waiting
around, but before I could get in there and push through in his wake,
the door had clicked shut again.
He was a scrawny-looking little runt, reminded you of an old-
clothes-man on his night off. He went on out without even looking at
me, and I tackled the 4F bell some more, gave it practically the whole
Morse Code.
I wasn’t frightened yet, just sizzling and completely baffled. The
only thing I could figure, far-fetched as it was, was that the bell-
apparatus had been on its last gasp when she rang it, and had given
up the ghost immediately afterwards. Otherwise why didn’t they hear
it, the kind of punishment I was giving it?
Then the first little trickle of fright -did creep in, like a dribble of
cold water down your back when you’re perspiring. I thought:
“Maybe there’s some guy up there trying to get funny with her, that’s
why the bell isn’t answered. After all, things like that do happen in a
big city all the time. I better get up there fast and find out what
this is!”
I punched a neighboring bell at random, just to get past the door,
and when the catch had been released for me, I streaked into the ele­
vator, which the last guy had left down, and gave it the 4-button.
It seemed to me to set a new record for slowness in getting up
there, but maybe that was just the state of mind I was in. When it
finally did and I barged out, I made a false turn down the hall first,
then when I came up against 4B and C and so on, turned and went
back the other way.
It was at the far end of the hall, at the back. The bell I’d rung was
evidently on some other floor, for none of the doors on this one
opened to see who it was. I went close against it and listened. There
22 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

were no sounds of a scuffle and I couldn’t hear her saying “Unhand

me, you brute!” so I calmed down by that much. But not all the way.
I couldn’t hear anything at all. It was stone-silent in there. And yet
these flat-doors weren’t soundproof, because I could hear somebody’s
radio filtering through one at the other end of the hall clear as day.
I rang the bell ana waited. I could hear it ring inside, from where I
was. I’d say: “Will you ask that young lady that brought a package up
here whether she’s coming down tonight or tomorrow?” No, that
sounded too dictatorial. I’d say: “Is the young lady ready to leave
now?” I knew I’d feel slightly foolish, like you always do when you
make a mountain out of a molehill.
Meanwhile, it hadn’t opened. I pushed the bell again, and again I
could hear the battery sing out on the inside. I rapped with my
knuckles. Then I rang a third time. Then I rattled the knob ( as though
that would attract their attention, if ringing the bell hadn’t ! ) Then I
pounded with the heel of my hand. Then I alternated all three, the
whole thing became a maelstrom of frenzied action. I think I even
kicked. Without getting the results I was after—admittance.
Other doors began to open cautiously down the line, attracted by
the noise I was making. But by that time I had turned and bolted
down the stairs, without waiting for the paralytic elevator, to find the
janitor. Fright wasn’t just a cold trickle any more, it was an icy torrent
gushing through me full-force.
I got down into the basement and found him without too much
trouble. He was eating his meal or something on a red-checkered
tablecloth, but I had no time to assimilate details. A glimpse of a nap­
kin tucked in collarwise was about all that registered. “Come up with
me quick, will you?” I panted, pulling him by the arm. “Bring your
passkey, I want you to open one of those flats!”
“What’s matter, something wrong?”
“I don’t like the looks of it. My girl took a package up—I’ve been
waiting for her over twenty minutes and she never came down again.
They won’t answer the bell---- ”
He seemed to take forever. First he stood up, then he finished
swallowing, then he wiped his mouth, then he got a big ring of keys,
then finally he followed me. As an afterthought he peeled off the nap­
kin and threw it behind him at the table, but missed it. He even
wanted to wait for the elevator. “No, no, no,” I groaned, steering him
to the stairs.
“Which one is it?”
“It’s on the fourth floor, I’ll show you!” Then when we got up there,
“Here—right here.”
When he saw which door I was pushing him to, he suddenly
stopped. “That one? No, now wait a minute, young fellow, it couldn’t
be. Not that one.”
“Don’t try to tell me!” I heaved exasperatedly. “I say it is!”
I WON T TA K E A M IN U T E 23

“And don’t you try to tell me! I say it couldn’t be!”

“Why?”
“I’ll show you why,” he said heatedly. He went ahead up to it, put
his passkey in, threw the door open, and flattened himself to let me
get a good look past him.
I needed more than just one. It was one of those things that register
on the eye but don’t make sense to the brain. The light from the hall
filtered in to make a threadbare half-moon, but to make sure I wasn’t
missing any of it, he snapped a switch inside the door and a dim, left­
over bulb somewhere further back went on flickeringly. You could
see why it had been left in—it wasn’t worth taking out. It threw a
watery light around, not much better than a candle. But enough to
see by.
“Now! You see why?”
The place was empty as a barn. Unfurnished, uninhabited, what­
ever you want to call it. Just bare walls, ceiling, and floor-boards. You
could see where the carpet used to go: they were lighter in a big
square patch in the middle than around the outside. You could see
where a picture used to go, many moons ago; there was a patch of
gray wool-dust adhering like fiber to the wall. You could even see
where the telephone used to go; the wiring still led in along the base­
board, then reared up to waist-level like a pothook and ended in
nothing.
The air alibied for its emptiness. It was stale, as though the win­
dows hadn’t been opened for months. Stale and dusty and sluggish.
“So you see? Mister, this place ain’t been rented for six months.”
He was getting ready to close the door, as though that ended it; pull­
ing it around behind his back, I could see it coming toward me, the
“4F” stencilled on it in tarnished gold-paint seemed to swell up, got
bigger and bigger until it loomed before me a yard high.
“No!” I croaked, and planted the flat of my hand against it and
swept it back, out of his backhand grasp. “She came in here, I tell
l »
you!
I went in a step or two, called her name into the emptiness. “Steflie!
Steflie!”
He stayed pat on the rational, everyday plane of things as they
ought to be, while I rapidly sank down below him onto a plane of
shadows and terror. Like two loading platforms going in opposite di­
rections, we were already miles apart, cut off from each other. “Now,
what’re you doing that for? Use your head. How can she be in here,
when the place is empty?”
“I saw her ring the bell and I saw the door open for her.”
“You saw this door?” He was obdurately incredulous.
“The downstairs door. I saw the catch released for her, after she
rang this bell.”
“Oh, that’s different. You must have seen her ring some other bell,
24 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

and you thought it was this one; then somebody else opened the
building-door for her. How could anyone answer from here? Six
months the peopleVe been out of here.”
I didn’t hear a word. “Lemme look! Bring more lights!”
He shrugged, sighed, decided to humor me. “Wait, I get a bulb
from the hall.” He brought one in, screwed it into an empty socket in
the room beyond the first. That did for practically the whole place. It
was just two rooms, with the usual appendages: bath and kitchenette.
“How is it the current’s still on, if it’s vacant?”
“It’s on the house-meter, included in the rent. It stays on when they
leave.”
There was a fire-escape outside one pair of windows, but they
were latched on the inside and you couldn’t see the seams of the two
halves any more through the coating of dust that had formed over
them. I looked for and located the battery that gave juice to the down­
stairs doorbell. It had a big pouch of a cobweb hanging from it, like a
thin-skinned hornet’s nest. I opened a closet and peered into it. A wire
coat-hanger that had been teetering off-balance for heaven knows
how long swung off the rod and fell down with a clash.
He kept saying: “Now listen, be sensible. What are you a child?”
I didn’t care how it looked, I only knew how it felt. “Steffie,” I said.
I didn’t call it any more, just said it. I went up close to him. He was
something human, at least. I said, “What’ll I do?” I speared my fingers
through my hair, and lost my new hat, and let it lie.
He wasn’t much help. He was still on that other, logical plane, and
I had left it long ago. He tried to suggest we’d had a quarrel and she’d
given me the slip; he tried to suggest I go to her home, I might find
her there waiting for me.
“She didn’t come out again, damn you!” I flared tormentedly. “If I’d
been down at the corner—But I was right at the front door! What
about the back way—is there a back way out?”
“Not a back way, a delivery-entrance, but that goes through the
basement, right past my quarters. No one came down there, I was
sitting there eating my supper the whole time.”
And another good reason was, the stairs from the upper floors came
down on one side of the elevator, in the front hall. Then they con­
tinued on down to the basement on the other side of it. To get down
to there anyone would have to pass in front of the elevator, for its
entire width. I’d been right out there on the other side of the glass
vestibule-door, and no one had. So I didn’t have to take his word for
it. I had my own senses.
“Is there a Muller in the house anywhere at all?”
“No, no one by that name. We never had anyone by that name in
the whole twelve years I been working here.”
“Someone may have gotten in here and been lurking in the place
when she came up— ”
I WON T TAKE A M IN U T E 25

“It was locked, how could anyone? You saw me open it with the
passkey.”
“Come on, we’re going to ask the rest of the tenants on this floor if
they heard anything, saw her at all.”
We made the rounds of the entire five flats. 4E came to the door in
the person of a hatchet-faced elderly woman, who looked like she
had a good nose—or ear—for the neighbors’ activities. It was the ad­
joining flat to 4F, and it was our best bet. I knew if this one failed us,
there wasn’t much to hope for from the others.
“Did you hear anything next-door to you within the past half
hour?” I asked her.
“How could I, it’s empty,” she said tartly.
“I know, but d id you hear anything—like anyone walking around in
there, the door opening or closing, voices, or—” I couldn’t finish it. I
was afraid to say “a scream.” Afraid she’d say yes.
“Didn’t hear a pin drop,” she said, and slammed the door. Then she
opened it again. “Yes I did, too. Heard the doorbell, the downstairs
one, ringing away in there like fifty. With the place empty like it is,
it sounded worse than a fire-alarm.”
“That was me,” I said, turning away disheartenedly.
As I’d expected after that, none of the others were any good
either. No one had seen her, no one had heard anything out of the
way.
I felt like someone up to his neck in a quicksand, and going down
deeper every minute. “The one underneath,” I said, yanking him to­
ward the stairs. “3F! If there was anything to be heard, they’d get it
quicker through their ceiling than these others would through their
walls. Ceilings are thinner than walls.”
He went down to the floor below with me and we rang. They didn’t
open. “Must be out, I guess,” he muttered. He took his passkey,
opened the door, called their name. They were out all right, no one
answered. We’d drawn another blank.
He decided he’d strung along with me just about far enough—on
what after all must have seemed to him to be a wild goose chase.
“Well,” he said, slapping his sides and turning up his palms expres­
sively. Meaning, “Now why don’t you go home like a good guy and
leave me alone?”
I wasn’t having any. It was like asking you to leave your right arm
behind you, chopped off at the shoulder. “You go up and stick there
by that empty flat. I’m going out and get a cop.” It sounds firm enough
on paper, it came out plenty shaky and sick. I bounded down the
stairs. In the vestibule I stopped short, punched that same 4F bell.
His voice sounded hollowly through the interviewer after a minute-
“Yuss?”
“It’s me. The bell works all right up there, does it?”
»
oure.
26 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

“Okay, stay there. I’ll be right back.” I didn’t know what good that
had done. I went on out, bareheaded.
The one I brought back with me wasn’t anything to rave about on
the score of native intelligence. It was no time to be choosy. All he
kept saying all the way back to the house was “All right, take it easy.”
He was on the janitor’s plane, and immediately I had two of them
against me instead of one.
“You saw her go in, did ye?”
I controlled myself with an effort. “Yes.”
“But you don’t know for sure which floor she got off at?”
“She rang 4F, so I know she got off at the fourth---- ”
“Wait a minute, you didn’t see her, did ye?”
“No, I didn’t see her.”
“That’s all I wanted to know. You can’t say for sure she went into
this flat, and the man here says it’s been locked up for months.”
He rang every bell in every flat of the building and questioned the
occupants. No one had seen such a girl. The pot-cheese lady with the
little boy remembered having seen me, that was the closest he got to
anything. And one other flat, on the fifth, reported a ring at their bell
with no follow-up.
I quickly explained I’d done that, to gain admittance to the build­
ing.
Three out of the twenty-four occupancies in the building were out;
IB , 3C and 3F. He didn’t pass them by either. Had the janitor passkey
their doors and examined the premises. Not a trace of her anywhere.
That about ended his contribution. According to his lights he’d
done a thorough job, I suppose. “All right,” he said, “I’ll phone it in
for you, that’s the most I can do.”
God knows how he expressed it over the wire. A single plain-
clothasman was dropped off at the door a few minutes later, came in
to where the three of us were grouped waiting in the inner lobby. He
looked me over like he was measuring me for a new suit of clothes.
He didn’t say anything.
“Hello, Gilman,” the cop said. “This young fellow says he brought
a girl here, and she disappeared in there.” Putting the burden of the
proof on me, I noticed. “I ain’t been able to find anyone that saw her
with him,” he added helpfully.
“Let’s see the place,” the dick said.
We all went up there again. He looked around. Better than I had,
maybe, but just as unproductively. He paid particular attention to
the windows. Every one of the six, two regular-size apiece for the two
main rooms, one small one each for the bath and kitchenette, was
latched on the inside. There was a thick veneer of dust all around the
frames and in the finger-grips. You couldn’t have grabbed them any
place to hoist them without it showing. And it didn’t. He studied the
keyhole.
I w o n ’t ta k e a m in u t e 27

He finally turned to me and gave me the axe. “There’s nothing to

show that she—or anyone else—ever came in here, bud.”
“She rang the bell of this flat, and someone released the doorcatch
for her from up here.” I was about as steady as jello in a high wind
about it. I was even beginning to think I could see a ghost in the
corner.
“We’re going to check on that right now,” he said crisply. “There’s
already one false ring accounted for, attributable to you. What we
want is to find out if there was a second one registered, anywhere in
the building.”
We made the rounds again, all twenty-four flats. Again the fifth-
floor flat reported my spiked ring—and that was all. No one else had
experienced any, for the past twenty-four hours or more. And the
fifth-floor party had only gotten the one, not two.
That should have been a point in my favor: she hadn’t rung any
of the other flats and been admitted from them, therefore she must
have rung 4 F and been admitted from there—as I claimed. Instead
he seemed to twist it around to my discredit: she hadn’t rung any of
the other flats and been admitted from them, and since there could
have been no one in 4F to hear her ring and admit her from there, she
hadn’t rung any bell at all, she hadn’t been admitted at all, she hadn’t
been with me at all. I was a wack. Which gave me a good push in the
direction of being one, in itself.
I was in bad shape by now. I started to speak staccato. “Say listen,
don’t do this to me, will you? You all make it sound like she didn’t
come here with me at all.”
He gave me more of the axe. “That’s what it does sound like to us.”
I turned northeast, east, east-by-south, like a compass on a binge.
Then I turned back to him again. “Look.” I took the show-tickets out
of my pocket, held them toward him with a shaky wrist. “I was going
to take her to a show tonight---- ”
He waved them aside. “We’re going to build this thing from the
ground up first and see what we’ve got. You say her name is Stephanie
Riska.” I didn’t like that “you say.” “Address?”
“120 Farragut.”
“What’d she look like?”
I should have known better than to start in on that. It brought her
before me too plainly. I got as far as “She comes up to here next to
me---- ” Then I stopped again.
The cop and janitor looked at me curiously, like they’d never seen
a guy cry before. I tried to turn my head the other way, but they’d
already seen the leak.
The dick seemed to be jotting down notes, but he squeezed out a
grudging “Don’t let it get you,” between his eye-tooth and second
molar while he went ahead doing it.
I said: “I’m not scared because she’s gone. I ’m scared because she's
28 CORNELL W O O L R IC H
gone in such a fairy-tale way. I can’t get a grip on it. Like when they
sprinkle a pinch of magic powder and make them disappear in thin
air. It’s got me all loose in the joints, and my guts are rattling against
my backbone, and I believe in ghosts all over again.”
My spiritual symptoms didn’t cut any ice with him. He went right
ahead with the business at hand. “And you met her at 6:15 outside
the Bailey-Goodwin Building, you say, with a package to be delivered
here. Who’d she work for?”
“A press-clipping service called the Green Star; it’s a one-man or­
ganization, operated by a guy named Hessen. He just rented one
dinky little rear room, on the ground floor of the Bailey-Goodwin
Building.”
“Whait’s that?”
“I don’t know myself. She tried to explain it to me once. They keep
a list of clients’ names, and then they sift through the papers, follow
them up. Any time one of the names appears, in connection with any
social activity or any kind of mention at all, they clip the item out,
and when they’ve got enough of them to make a little batch, they
send them to the client, ready for mounting in a scrap-book. The
price for the service is about five bucks a hundred, or something like
that.”
“HOw is there any coin in that?” he wanted to know.
“I don’t know myself, but she was getting twenty-two a week.”
“All right. Now let’s do a little checking.” He took me back with
him to where she worked, first of all. The building was dead, of
course, except one or two offices, doing night-work on the upper
floors. He got the night-watchman, showed his credentials, and had
him open up the little one-room office and let us in.
I’d never been in the place myself until now. I’d always waited for
her outside at the street-entrance at closing time. I don’t think it was
even intended for an office in the first place; it was more like a chunk
of left-over storage-space. It didn’t even have a window at all, just an
elongated vent up near the ceiling, with a blank shaft-wall about two
feet away from it.
There was a flat-topped desk taking up one side, his I guess, with a
phone on it and a wire paper-basket and nothing else. And a smaller-
size “desk,” this time a real table and not a desk at all, with nothing
on it at all. The rest was just filing cabinets. Oh yeah, and a coat-rack.
He must have been getting it for a song.
“What a telephone-booth,” remarked the dick.
He looked in the filing-cabinets; they were just alphabetized
names, with a scattering of newspaper-clippings distributed among
them. Some of the names they didn’t have any clippings for, and some
of the letters they didn’t even have any clients for—and I don’t mean
only X.
“There’s about a hundred bucks’ worth of clippings in the whole
I WON T TAKE A M IN U T E 29

kitty,” Gilman said, “at your own estimate of what the charge was.” He
didn’t follow up with what he meant by that, and I was too worried
about her to pay any attention to his off-side remarks. The only thing
that meant anything to me was, there was nothing around the place
to show him that she had ever worked here or even been here in her
life. Nothing personalized, I mean. The single drawer of the little
table just had a pair of shears for clipping and a pot of paste for
mounting, and a stack of little salmon-colored paper mounts.
The night-watchman couldn’t corroborate me, because the place
was always locked up by the time he came on-shift. And the elevator-
runners that worked the building in the daytime wouldn’t have been
able to either, I knew, even if they’d been on hand, because this hole-
in-the-wall was on a branch-off of .the main entrance-corridor, she
didn’t have to pass the cars on her way in from or out to the street, so
they’d probably never seen her the whole time she’d worked here.
The last thing he did, after he’d gotten Hessen’s name and address,
which was readily available in the place itself, was to open a penknife
and cut a notch from the under-side of the small table. At least, it
looked like he was doing that from what I could see, and he kept his
back to me and didn’t offer any explanation. He thumbed me at the
door and said, “Now we’ll go out there and hear what he has to say.”
His tone held more of an eventual threat in it toward me than toward
her employer though, I couldn’t help noticing.
It was a bungalow-type place on the outskirts, and without being
exactly a mansion, it wasn’t low-cost housing. You walked up flat
stones to get to the door, and it had dwarf Japanese fir-trees dotted
all around it.
“Know him?” he said while we were waiting.
“By sight,” I swallowed. I had a feeling of that quicksand I’d been
bogging into ever since she’d left me in the lobby at Martine Street,
being up to my eyes now and getting ready to close over the top of my
head. This dick mayn’t have taken sides yet, but that was the most
you could say; he certainly wasn’t on my side.
A guy with a thin fuzz on his head, who looked like he belonged to
some unhealthy nationality nobody ever heard of before, opened the
door, stepped in to announce us, came back and showed us in, all in
fast time.
A typewriter was clicking away busily somewhere near at hand,
and I thought it was him first, her boss, but it wasn’t. He was smoking
a porcelain-bowled pipe and reading a book under a lamp. Instead of
closing the book, he just put his finger down on the last word he’d
read to keep his place, so he could go right ahead as soon as this was
over with. He was tall and lean, with good features, and dark hair cut
so short it just about came out of his scalp and then stopped.
Gilman said; “Did you ever see this young fellow before?”
He eyed me. He had a crease under one eye; it wasn’t a scar so
30 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

much as an indentation from digging :n some kind of a rimless glass.

“No-o,” he said with a slow benevolence. A ghost of a smile pulled at
his mouth. “What’s he done?”
“Know anyone named Muller, at 415 Martine Street?” There hadn’t
been any Muller in the filing-cabinets at the office.
“No-o, I don’t know anyone by that name there or anywhere else.
I think we have a Miller, a Mrs. Elsie Miller on our list, who all the
time divorces and marries. Will that do?” He sighed tolerantly. “She
owes us twenty-nine dollars.”
“Then you didn’t send a package over to Muller, Apartment 4F,
415 Martine Street, at 6:15 this evening?”
“No,” he said again, as evenly as the other two times. I started for­
ward spasmodically. Gilman braked me with a cut of his hand. “I’m
sure I didn’t. But wait, it is easy enough to confirm that.” He raised
his voice slightly, without being boorish about it. And right there in
front of me, right there in the room with me, he called—“Stephanie.
Stephanie Riska, would you mind coming in here a moment?”
The clicking of the typewriter broke off short and a chair scraped
in the next room. “Steffie,” I said huskily, and swallowed past agony,
and the sun came up around me and it wasn’t night any more, and
the bad dream was over.
“My assistant happens to be right here at the house tonight; I had
some dictation to give her and she is transcribing it. We usually mail
out clippings however, only when there is an urgent request do I
send them around by personal messen---- ”
“Yes sir?” a velvety contralto said from the doorway.
I missed some of the rest of it. The lights took a half-turn to the
right, streaking tracks across the ceiling after them like comet-tails,
before they came to a stop and stood still again. Gilman reached over
and pulled me up short by the coatsleeve, as though I’d been flopping
around loose in my shoes or something.
She was saying, “No, I don’t believe I do,” in answer to something
he had asked her, and looking straight over at me. She was a brunette
of an exotic foreign type, and she came up as high as me, and the sun
had gone out again and it was night all over again.
“That isn’t Steffie!” I bayed. “He’s calling somebody else by her
name!”
The pupils of Hessen’s eyes never even deflected toward me. He
arched his brows at Gilman. “That is the only young lady I have
working for me.”
Gilman was holding me back with sort of a half-nelson. Or half a
half-nelson. The brunette appeared slightly agitated by my outburst,
no more. She hovered there uncertainly in the doorway, as though
not knowing whether to come in or go out.
“How long have you been working for Mr. Hessen?” Gilman asked
her.
I WON T TAKE A M IN U T E 31

“Since October of last year. About eight months now.”

“And your name is Stephanie Riska?”
She smiled rebukingly, as if at the gratuitousness of such a ques­
tion. “Yes, of course.” She decided to come a little further forward
into the room. But she evidently felt she needed some moral support
to do so. She’d brought a small black handbag with her, tucked under
her arm, when she left the typewriter. She opened it, so that the flap
stood up toward Gilman and me, and plumbed in it for something.
The two big gold-metal initials were so easy to read, even upside-
down; they were thick, bold Roman capitals, S. R. The bag looked
worn, as though she’d had it a long time. I could sense, rather than
see, Gilman’s mind’s eye turned accusingly toward me: “What about
it now?” though his physical ones were fastened on the bag.
She got what she was looking for out of it, and she got more than
she was looking for. She brought up a common ordinary stick of chew­
ing-gum in tin-foil, but she also accidentally brought up an envelope
with it, which slipped through her fingers to the floor. She was very
adroitly awkward, to coin a phrase.
Gilman didn’t exactly dive for it, but he managed to get his fingers
on it a half-inch ahead of hers. “Mind?” he said. I read the address on
it with glazed eyes, over his shoulder. It had been postmarked and
sent through the mail. “Miss Stephanie Riska, 120 Farragut Street.”
He stripped the contents out of it and read the single sheet of note-
paper. Then he gravely handed it back. Again I could feel his mind’s
eye on me.
She had broken the stick of chewing-gum in half, put part between
her lips, and the rest she was preparing to wrap up in tin-foil again for
some other time. She evidently didn’t like to chew too much at a time.
Gilman absently thumbed a vest-pocket as though he would have
liked some too. She noticed that. “May I offer you some?” she said
gravely.
“I wish you would, my mouth’s kind of dry.” He put the second
half-piece in his own trap. “And you didn’t deliver a package for Mr.
Hessen at 415 Martine Street this evening?” he said around it.
“No, sir, I did not. I’m afraid I don’t even know where Martine
Street is.”
That about concluded the formalities. And we were suddenly out­
side again, him and me, alone. In the dark. It was dark for me, any­
way. All he said when we got back in the car was: “This ‘girl’ of
yours, what kind of gum did she habitually chew, wintergreen or
licorice or what have you?”
What could I tell him but the truth? “She didn’t use gum, she de­
tested the habit.”
He just looked at me. Then he took the nugget he’d mooched from
the brunette out of his mouth, and he took a little piece of paper out
of his pocket that held another dab in it, and he compared them—by
32 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

scent. “I scraped this off that desk in the office, and it’s the same as
what she gave me just now. Tutti-frutti. Not a very common flavor in
chewing-gum. She belongs in that office, she parked her gum there.
She had a letter addressed to herself in her handbag, and the initials
on the outside checked. What’s your racket, kid? Are you a pushover
for mental observation? Or are you working off a grudge against this
guy? Or did you do something to some little blonde blue-eyed num­
ber and are you trying to pass the buck in this way before we even
found out about it?”
It was like a ton of bricks had landed all over my dome. I held my
head with both hands to keep it in one piece and leaned way over
toward the floor and said, “My God!”
He got me by the slack of the collar and snapped me back so vi­
ciously it’s a wonder my neck didn’t break.
“Things like this don’t happen,” I groaned. “They can’t. One min­
ute all mine, the next she isn’t anywhere. And no one’ll believe me.”
“You haven’t produced a single person all evening long that actu­
ally laid eyes on this ‘blonde girl’ of yours,” he said hard as flint.
“Nowhere, d’you understand?”
“Where’d I get the name from then, the address?”
He looked at me when I said that. “I’ll give you one more spin for
your money. You stand or fall by the place she lived.” He leaned for­
ward and he said “120 Farragut” to the driver. Then he kept eyeing
me like he was waiting for me to break down and admit it was a hoax
or I’d done something to her myself, whoever she was.
Once he said, “Remember, this girl at his place had a letter, three
days old, addressed to her, giving this same address w ere heading
for now. If you still want to go through with i t . .
“I took her home there,” I said.
“Parents?”
“No, it’s a rooming-house. She was from Harrisburg. But the land­
lady—He—” Then I went, “O-oh,” and let my head loll limply back
against the back of the seat. I’d just remembered he’d recommended
the place to her.
He was merciless, noticed everything. “D’ye still want to make it
there—or d’ye want to make it Headquarters? And the tougher you
are with me, the tougher I’m going to be with you, buddy.” And his
fist knotted up and his eyes iced over.
It was a case of self-preservation now. W e were only minutes
away. “Listen. Y’gotta listen to me. She took me up one night, just for
a minute, to lend me a magazine she had in the room. Y’gotta listen to
this, for heaven’s sake. Sticking in the mirror* of the dresser she’s got a
litho of the Holy Mother. On the radiator she’s got a rag doll that I
won for her at Coney Island.” I split open my collar in front trying to
bring it all back. “On a little shelf against the wall she’s got a gas-ring,
with a tube running up to the jet. From the light-fixture to that jet
I WON T TAKE A M IN U T E 33

there runs a string, and she’ll have stockings hanging from it to dry.
Are you listening? Will you remember these things? Don’t you see I
couldn’t make all these things up? Don’t you see she’s realF’
“You almost persuade me,” he said half under his breath. Which
was a funny thing coming from a detective. And then we got there.
We stepped down and went in. “Now if you open your mouth,”
he said to me, teeth interlocked, “and say one word the whole time
we’re in here, I’ll split your lip so wide open you’ll be able to spit
without opening your mouth.” He sent for the landlady. I’d never
seen her before. “Y’got a girl named Stephanie Riska living in your
house?”
“Yep. Fourth-floor front.” That was right.
“IIow long?”
“Riska?” She took a tuck in her cheek. “She’s been rooming with me
now six months.” That was right too.
“I want to know what she looks like.” He took a wicked half-turn in
my arm that dammed up the blood.
“Dark hair, sort of dark skin. About as tall as this young fellow you
got with you. She talks kind of husky.”
“I want to see her room. I’m the police.” He had to practically sup­
port me all the way up the four flights of stairs.
She threw open a door, gave it the switch. I came back to life
enough to open my eyes. On the mirror, no picture. On the radiator,
no rag doll. On the shelf no gas-ring, but a row of books. The jet had
no tube plugged-in, was soldered-over with lead. No string led from
it to the light. No nothing.
“Has she always had it fixed this way?” Gilman asked.
“Always since the first day she’s here. She’s a real clean roomer,
only one thing I got to complain about—There it is again.” She went
over to the washstand and removed a little nugget of grayish sub­
stance that had been plastered to the underside of it. But she smiled
indulgently, as though one such peccadillo were permissible.
Gilman took it from her on a scrap of paper, shifted it from left to
right across his face. “Tutti-frutti,” he said.
“Look out, you better hold your friend!” she exclaimed in sharp
alarm.
He swung me so that instead of going down flat, I landed against
him and stayed up. “Let him fold,” he said to her. “That isn’t any­
thing to the falls he’s going to be taking five or ten minutes from
now.” And we started down the stairs again, with two pairs of work­
able feet between the three of us.
“What’d he do, m urder her?” she breathed avidly on the way down.
“Not her, but I got a good hunch he murdered someone—and
picked the wrong name out of a hat.”
She went: “Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk. He don’t look like— ”
I saw some rheumatic lodger’s knotty walking-stick up-ended out
34 CORNELL W O O L R IC H
of a brass umbrella-stand at the foot of the stairs. As he marched me
by, I was on that side, luckily. I let my right arm fall behind us in­
stead of in front of us where it had been—he didn’t have me hand­
cuffed yet, remember—and the curved handle of the stick caught in
my hand, and it came up out of the holder after me.
Then I swung it and beaned him like no dick was ever beaned be­
fore. He didn’t go down, he just staggered sidewise against the wall
and went, “Uff!”
She was bringing up in the rear. She went, “Oh!” and jumped back.
I cleared the front steps at a bound. I went “Steffie! Steffie!” and I beat
it away in the dark. I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t care,
I only knew I had to find her. I came out so fast the driver of the
headquarters-car we’d left at the door wasn’t expecting me. I’d al­
ready flashed around the comer below before his belated “Hey,
you!’ came winging after me.
I made for the Martine Street flat. That was instinctive: the place
I ’d last seen her, calling me back. Either the car didn’t start right up
after me or I shook it off in my erratic zigzag course through the
streets. Anyway I got there still unhindered.
I ganged up on the janitor’s bell, my windpipe making noises like a
stuffed drainpipe. I choked, “Steffie!” a couple of times to the mute
well-remembered vestibule around me. I was more demented than
sane by now. Gilman was slowly driving me into the condition he’d
already picked for me ahead of time.
The janitor came up with a sweater over his nightshirt. He said,
“You again? What is it—didn’t you find her yet? What happened to
the other fellow that was with you?”
“He sent me back to take another look,” I said craftily. “You don’t
have to come up, just gimme the passkey.”
He fell for it, but killed a couple of valuable minutes going down to
get it again. But I figured I was safe for the night; that it was my own
place, across town, Gilman would make a beeline for.
I let myself in and fit it up and started looking blindly all around—
for what I didn’t know, where a professional detective had been over
this ground once already and gotten nothing. The story-book end­
ing, I kept looking for the story-book ending, some magic clue that
would pop up and give her back to me. I went around on my hands
and knees, casing the cracks between the floorboards; I tested the
walls for secret panels (in a $50-a-month flat!); I dug out plaster with
my bare nails where there was a hole, thinking I’d find a bullet, but
it was only a mouse-hole.
I’d been in there about ten minutes when I heard a subtle noise
coming up the hall-stairs outside. I straightened to my feet, darted
through the door, ran down the hall to the stairs. Gilman was coming
up, like thunder ’cross the China Bay, with a cop and the janitor at
his heels. It was the fool janitor’s carpet-slippers, which had no heel-
I w o n ’t t a k e a m i n u t e 35

grip, that were making more noise than the other two’s shoes put to­
gether. Gilman had tape on the back of his skull and a gun in his
hand. “He’s up there now,” the janitor was whispering. “I let him in
about ten minutes ago; he said you sent him.”
I sped up the stairs for the roof, tire only way that was open to me
now. That gave me away to them, and Gilman spurted forward with
a roar. “Come down here you, I’ll break every bone in your body!
You won’t live to get to Headquarters!” The roof-stairs ended in a
skylight-door that I just pushed through, although it should have
been latched on the inside. There was about a yard-high partition-
wall dividing the roof from the next one over. I tried to clear it too fast,
miscalculated, and went down in a mess, tearing a hole in my trouser-
knee and skinning my own knee beneath. That leg wouldn’t work
right for a minute or two after that, numb, and before I could get
upright again on it and stumble away, they were out on me. A big
splatter of white shot ahead of me on the gravelled roof from one of
their torches, and Gilman gave what can only be described as an
Iroquois war-whoop and launched himself through space in a flying
tackle. He landed crushingly across my back, flattening me a second
time.
And then suddenly the rain of blows that I’d expected was held in
check, and he just lay inert on top of me, doing nothing. We both saw
it at the same time, lying on the roof there a few yards ahead of us,
momentarily played up by the cop’s switching torch, then lost again.
I could recognize it because I’d seen it before. T he package that
she’d brought over here tonight.
“Hold that light steady!” Gilman bellowed, and got off of me. We
both got over to it at the same time, enmity forgotten. He picked it
up, tore open the brown paper around it, and a sheaf of old news­
papers slowly flattened themselves out. With squares and oblongs
scissored out of them here and there. She hadn’t been sent over with
clippings, but with the valueless remnants of papers after the clip­
pings had already been taken out. It was a dummy package, a decoy,
used to send her to her—disappearance.
The rest of it went double-quick—or seemed to. It had built up
slow; it unraveled fast.
“Someone did bring a package here tonight, kid,” was the way he
put it. “And if I give you that much, I’ll give you the whole thing on
credit alone, no matter what the odds still outstanding against it are.
Blonde, really named Stephanie Riska, works for Hessen, lives at 120
Farragut, never chews gum, and all the rest of it. Come on. My
theory in a pinch would be she was jumped from behind outside the
door of that vacant flat before she had a chance to cry out, spirited up
over this roof, down through the next house and into a waiting c a r -
while you hugged the vestibule below. Calhoun, call in and have
someone get out there fast to Hessen’s house, Myrtle Drive, and keep
36 CORNELL W O O L R IC H

it spotted until we can get out there. I want to take another crack at
that office first.”
On the way over I gasped, “D ’you think they---- ?”
“Naw, not yet,” he reassured me. “Or they would have done it right
in the empty flat and let you take the rap.” Whether he meant it or
not I couldn’t tell, so it didn’t relieve me much.
The second knot came out in the office. I went over the little table
she’d used, while he turned the filing-cabinets inside-out. Again our
two discoveries came almost simultaneously. “Look!” I breathed. It
was stuck in a crack in the floor, hidden by the shadow of the table.
A gilt hairpin she must have dropped one time at her work. Such as no
brunette like the one Hessen had showed us at his house would have
ever used in her fife. “Blonde, all right,” he grunted, and tipped me to
his own find. “I muffed this before, in my hurry: about every third
name in this card-index of ‘clients’ has a foreign mailing-address.
Neutral countries, like Switzerland and Holland. Why should they
be interested in social items appearing in papers over here? The mere
fact that they’re not living here shows the items couldn’t possibly
refer to them personally. If you ask me, the guy’s an espionage-agent
of some kind, and these ‘clippings’ are some kind of a code. With a
scattering of on-the-level ones interspersed, to cover up. But that’s a
job for the F B I. I’m only interested in this girl of yours. My lieutenant
can notify their local office about the rest of it, if he sees fit.
“The second leg of my theory,” he went on, as we beat it out of
there fast, “is she found out something, and they figured she was too
dangerous to them. Did she say anything to you like that?”
“Not a word. But she had told him she was quitting end of next
week to get married.”
“Well, then she didn’t find out anything, but he thought she did, so
it amounted to the same thing. He could not afford to let her quit.
And did he cover up beautifully, erase her existence! They only
slipped up on that package. Maybe some tenant came up on the roof
to take down her wash, before they could come back and pick it up,
so they had to leave it there, rather than risk being identified later.
Come on, we’ll stop off at that rooming-house on the way, I want that
landlady picked up. She’s obviously one of them, since he recom­
mended the girl there as a lodger in the beginning. Changed the
whole room around, even to sticking a wad of tutti-frutti gum on
the washstand.”
“Let’s go,” I cried.
A second knot came out at the rooming-house, but it was simply a
duplicate of the one at her office: confirmation of the color of her
hair. “A girl shampoos her hair once in a while,” he said to me, and
stuck a matchstick down the drain of the washbasin. He spread some­
thing on a piece of paper, showed it to me: two unmistakably blond
I WON T TAKE A M IN U T E 37

hairs. “Now why didn’t I think of that the first time?” He turned the
steel-plated landlady over to a cop to be sent in, and we were on our
way again—this time out to the Myrtle Drive house, fast.
There was no sign of the guy he’d sent out ahead of us to keep it
cased, and he swore under his breath, while my heart deflated. The
place was dark and lifeless, but neither of us was foolish enough to
believe they’d gone to bed yet. He took the front door and I took the
back, with a gun he furnished me—he was on my side now, don’t for­
get. W e blew the locks simultaneously and met in the middle of the
hall that ran through the place. In three minutes we were downstairs
again. Nothing was disturbed, but the birds had flown; suave Hessen,
and the butler, and the pinch-hitting brunette. No incriminating
papers, but a very incriminating short-wave set. Incriminatng be­
cause of the place it was located. It was built into the overhead
water-tank of a dummy toilet, not meant to hold water or be used.
Gilman made the discovery in the most natural way possible.
“Spy-ring, all right,” he grunted, and phoned in then and there
from the place itself.
That wasn’t getting me back Steffie. I was in such a blue funk that
I didn’t notice it as soon as I should have; I mean, something had
seemed to tickle my nostrils unpleasantly the whole time we were in
there. It only registered after I came out into the open again with
him, and we stood there crestfallen in front of it. Before I could call
his attention to it, headlights slashed through the dark and a car
drew up in front.
W e crouched back, but it was only the spotter that was supposed
to have been hung up there before. Gilman rushed him with a roar.
“What the hell’s the idea? You were supposed to---- ”
“I tailed ’em!” the guy insisted. “They piled into a car, locked up
the house, and lit. I tailed ’em the whole way, those were the only
orders I got!”
“Where’d they go?”
“Pier 07, North river. They boarded some kind of a fuzzy tramp-
steamer, and it shoved off in less than a quarter of an hour later. I
tried to reach you at Head---- ”
“Was there a blonde girl with them?” Gilman rapped out.
“No, just the three that were in the house here when I first made
contact; the two men and a dark-haired girl. There was no one else
smuggled aboard ahead of them either; I pumped one of the crew---- ”
Meanwhile, my heart’s eight lives had died, and its ninth was wear­
ing thin. “They’re out of our reach now,” I groaned, “we’ll never---- ”
“Oh no they’re not,” Gilman promised viciously. “They may have
cleared the pier; a police-launch can pull them off again at Quaran­
tine.” He spilled in the house again, to phone in the alarm.
I went i t e r him; that was when I again noticed that unpleasant
M CORNELL W O O L R IC H
tickling. I called his attention to it when he got through on the wire.
“Don’t it smell as though they’ve had this place fumigated or
some---- ”
He twitched the end of his nose. Then, his face got drab. “That’s
gasoline!” he snapped. “And when you smell it that heavy—indoors
like this—it’s not a good sign!” I could tell he was plenty scared all at
once—which made me twice as scared as he was. “Bill!” he hollered to
the other guy. “Come in here fast and give us a hand! That girl they
didn’t take with them must be still around these premises someplace,
and I only hope she isn’t---- ”
He didn’t finish it; he didn’t have to. He only hoped she wasn’t
dead yet. I wasn’t much good to them, in the sudden mad surge of
ferreting they blew into. I saw them dimly, rustling around, through
a sick haze.
He and I had been over the house once already—the upper part of
it—so they found the right place almost at once. The basement. A
hoarse cry from Gilman brought myself and the other guy down
there after him. I couldn’t go all the way, went into a paralysis half­
way down the stairs. She was wedged down out of sight between two
trunks, she’d been loosely covered over with sacking. I saw them lift­
ing her up between them, and she carried awfully inert.
“Tell me now,” I said, “don’t wait until you get her--- ” I waited for
the axe to fall.
“She’s alive, kid,” Gilman said. “Her chest’s straining against the
ropes they’ve got around---- ” Then he broke off, said to the other guy,
“Don’t stop to look at her now, hurry up out of here with her! Don’t
you hear that ticking down around here someplace, don’t you know
what that gasoline-reek means---- ?”
I was alive again; I jumped in to help them, and we got her up and
out of the cursed place fast. So fast we were almost running with her.
We untied her out by the car. She was half-dead with fright, but
they hadn’t done anything to her, just muffled her up. The other guy
wanted to go back in again and see if they could locate the bomb, but
Gilman stopped him. “You’ll never make it, it’ll blow before you---- ”
He was right. In the middle of what he was saying, the whole
house seemed to lift a half-foot above its foundations, it lit up all lurid
inside, there was a roar, and in a matter of minutes flame was mush­
rooming out of all the lower-story windows.
“An incendiary-bomb,” Gilman said. “Turn in a fire-alarm, Bill,
that’s about all we can do now. He went off someplace to use a phone,
and when he came back some time later, he had a mean face. A face I
wouldn’t have wanted to run up against on a dark night. I thought
he’d heard bad news. He had—but not for us. “They got ’em,” he said.
“Yanked ’em off it just as the tub was clearing the Narrows. They’re
earmarked for the F B I, but before we turn them over, I wouldn’t be
surprised if they show wear and tear---- She is pretty at that, kid.”
I w o n ’t t a k e a m i n u t e 39

She was sitting there in the car by now, talking to me and crying a
little. I was standing on the outside of it. I was standing up, that was
my mistake.
“Well, I gotta go,” I heard him say. And then something hit me. It
felt like a cement-mixer.
Our roles changed. When my head cleared, she was the one bend­
ing over me, crooning sympathetically, “-and he said to tell you, No
hard feelings, but when anyone socks Dick Gilman on the head with
a walking-stick, they get socked hack even if they’re the best of
friends. And he said he’d see us both down at Headquarters later in
the night, to be sure and get there on time if we don’t want to miss
the fun.”
I was still seeing stars, but I didn’t care, I was seeing her too. And
now it was only twelve days off, we’d licked the thirteenth.
 DAN O ’M A L L E Y IN

Tough, succinct and m em orable—those are the w ords for the

stories w hich W illiam M acH arg has b een contributing for
o ’m a l l e y

years to Collier’s. M acH arg shared in the creation o f the scientific

and intellectual l u t h e r t r a n t , then went on alone to portray the
opposite and equally essential p o le o f police work, the shrew d solid
hardw orking cop p er d a n o ’m a l l e y . (F or o f f i c e r o ’m a l l e y ’s rarely
used first nam e, see th e story “T he key man,” in w hich h e tells a
child witness to call him “Uncle D a n ”) O’M a l l e y ' s best qualities
have rarely com e through m ore clearly than in this story o f the man
w ho h ad “T oo many enem ies
TOO MANY ENEMIES

BY W I L L I A M M A C H A R G

"T ■HIS IS ONE OF THEM vengeance murders,” said O’Malley,

“and in this kind of case plenty people know who done it but they all
go blind and dumb. I’ll have no luck with it. This dead guy was
named Vanelli, and he was only twenty-three years old but already
he had so many enemies it was only a question who would get him
first. They got plenty cops working on this case.”
“How was he killed?” I asked.
“He got beat up and then stabbed.”
“Where?”
“Eight in his own home. This Vanelli got himself suspected of pass­
ing info to the cops about some guys he knew that done a little
counterfeiting; and, besides that, a guy that he had went with for a
41
 W IL L IA M M A C HARG

long time but had had trouble with got knocked off and the guy’s
family thought Vanelli had a hand in it; and when he already had two
outfits trying to shove him over, Vanelli goes to Boston and runs off
with a girl that was going to marry somebody else.”
“He sounds like a desperate character,” I said.
“The guy got himself so he couldn’t be nothing but desperate.
We’ll go and look at him.”
We went. Vanelli seemed to have been an ordinary-looking young
man, but it was not easy to tell much about that now. As O’Malley
had said, he had been badly beaten up. His nose was broken and his
face battered and he had been stabbed five times and the letter Z
had been cut on both his cheeks.
“What was the name of the man whose girl he ran away with?” I
inquired.
“Zeglio.”
“Well!” I exclaimed triumphantly. “What more do you want?”
“You’re smart.”
They had Vanelli’s clothes there and we examined them carefully.
He had been stabbed twice in the back and three times in front, but
his clothes were stabbed twice in front and three times in back.
“I suppose,” I hazarded, “that after the first stabbing there was
a struggle and his clothes got twisted around his body so that the
holes don’t correspond.”
“You can account for everything, can’t you!” O’Malley commented.
“We’ll see what Zeglio says about it.”
They had already arrested Zeglio and had him at the station house,
so we went there. The station house looked as though they were hold­
ing a convention. Vanelli’s parents were there and had identified the
body and now wanted to claim it. Besides Zeglio, they had the girl
there, and several members of the family who believed that Vanelli
had put their relative on the spot, and a number of the men who were
suspected of counterfeiting. They all talked at once and I had never
seen such excitable people, and most of them seemed to be congratu­
lating one another that Vanelli was dead.
They had Zeglio and the girl kept separate and we talked with her
first. She was a beautiful girl, about seventeen years old, with hair
black as night and dark limpid eyes, and she couldn’t make the sim­
plest statement without putting emotion into it. Her name was
Josephina.
“For why am I kept here?” she demanded passionately before we
had a chance to question her.
“They got to have you for a witness, lady.”
“But I know nothing. I have told all. For how long will I be kept?”
“It might be quite a while, girlie. You tell us over again what it was
you told them.”
“I told nothing because I know nothing. I was making dinner
TOO MANY E N E M IE S 43

and wondering when Peter would come home.” Peter was Vanelli.
“Then I heard something—like quarreling. Two people. I look out
but see no one. Then I heard something like fighting, but I can see
nobody. Again a third time I look out, wondering when Peter will
come, and Peter is in front of tire door.”
“Was he dead?” O’Malley asked.
“Certainly he was dead.”
“Was one of the voices you heard Peter’s?”
“If I had thought that I would have gone to look.”
“Was one of them Zeglio’s?”
“I don’t know. Now I have told everything, so why do you keep me
here?”
I was sorry for her.
“That’s a wonderful girl, O’Malley,” I said, after we had left her,
“and I don’t wonder there was trouble over her; it’s a shame to keep
her locked up.”
“Yeah, I saw you thought she was a knock-out. You keep on think­
ing that and you might get a knife pushed into you yourself.”
We questioned Zeglio. He was a small man, dark, quick and
muscular.
“You knock Vanelli off?” O’Malley asked him.
“Not me.” Zeglio grinned at us delightedly.
“How long ago did you come from Boston?”
“This time, ten days.”
“You’d been here before, then. When was that?”
“Two months.”
“I see. That was when Vanelli run off with your girl. You came here
and looked for them, intending to kill him, but you couldn’t find
them. So you went back and ten days ago you came again.”
“Thata right, I keela heem if I geta the chance.”
“And last night you got the chance and stuck a knife in him and left
him outside of Josephina’s door.”
“Not me. Some other guy. I looka ten days but I don’t find heem.”
“And this other guy cut your initials in his cheeks?”
Zeglio shrugged. “What a kind guy,” he answered. “He beata me
to it.”
We talked with the other people there and they all made the same
answer as Zeglio. They admitted that they had intended to kill
Vanelli and had been looking for him, but he and the girl had hidden
themselves and they had been unable to find him. Now someone else,
they said, had killed him, but they didn’t know who. We went to look
at the place where it had happened.
It was a rather nice apartment building on the West Side. Vanelli
and the girl had had an apartment in the rear. A long hall led through
the building and a shorter hall branched off to the door of Vanelli’s
apartment. There was blood on the floor of the long hall and more
44 W IL L IA M M AC HARG

blood in front of Vanelli’s door, and a uniformed cop was on post in

the hall and another one in the apartment.
We looked everything over carefully. There were two rooms with
a bathroom between them, and someone had spilled a bottle of ink
on the floor in front of the bathroom door. Otherwise the place was
spotlessly clean. Vanelli’s clothes and the girl’s clothes were hanging
in closets, and there was a table set with two places, and the dinner
Josephina had been cooking was still on the stove. Some of Josephina’s
things had been put into a suitcase. I thought she had been getting
them ready to take with her to the police station, and I was indignant
that they had hurried her away without them.
“What do you make of it, O’Malley?” I asked.
“I don’t make nothing of it. This case is like I said; everybody we
talked to has been lying, and you can’t solve a case where nobody
tells the truth.”
“At least one of them is lying,” I agreed, “because one of them
killed Vanelli. But the others, in that case, would be telling the truth,
and I am quite sure that Josephina told it.”
“Yeah? How do you figure that?”
“The quarreling she heard was in the long hall where she couldn’t
see the speakers. Vanelli was killed there. Afterward the murderer
carried or dragged him into the short hall and put him in front of the
door, and when Josephina looked out she found him.”
“You make it sound pretty good.”
I was pleased at his commendation, so I went on: “I have come to
the conclusion, O’Malley, that it was done by Zeglio.”
“All right; let’s hear it.”
“At first I thought the Z’s on Vanelli’s cheeks meant that someone
was trying to throw suspicion on Zeglio and meant he really hadn’t
done it; but this was a murder of revenge. A man seeking revenge is
willing to take a risk if there is someone whom he wants to have know
he did it. Zeglio wanted Josephina to know. What do you think of
that?”
“I guess it deserves consideration. . . . Who spilled the ink on the
floor?” O’Malley asked the officer.
“Search me,” the officer replied. “It was that way when we come
here.”
O’Malley scraped up some of the ink and put it in an envelope.
“Anything been taken away from here?” he asked the officer.
“Not a thing except the dead guy. W e was told to keep it like it
w a s .”
“What are you looking for?” I asked O’Malley.
“People like this Vanelli and Josephina always have pictures of
their folks around, and the first thing a guy like him does if he runs
away with a girl is get his picture taken with her. Well, where’s the
pictures?”
TOO MANY E N E M IE S 45

I myself was surprised a little, now that he spoke of it. There was
not a picture in the apartment. There were several photographers in
the neighborhood, and after we came out of the apartment we went
around to them and O’Malley asked them if any of them had taken a
picture of Vanelli and Josephina. None of them had. As we were leav­
ing the last place he noticed several different-sized small pictures of
a darkhaired girl and asked the photographer about them.
“You sell any of these?” he questioned.
The photographer said he could not sell them, until O’Malley
showed him his badge; then he agreed, and O’Malley picked out
two of different sizes and we took them back to the apartment and
gave them to the cop in the hall, but I couldn’t hear what O’Malley
said to him.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“There wasn’t no pictures in the place, so I told the cop to put
some there.”
“That sounds like a silly performance to me.”
“That’s right; it might turn out to be silly.”
“What I like least in this case,” I said, “is your keeping Josephina
locked up.”
“You’ll get that knife in you yet if you keep on thinking about her.”
“She hasn’t done anything,” I said, “and it is clear now that she told
the truth. I admit that she eloped with Vanelli and was living with
him without being married to him, but that was to get away from
Zeglio. She and Vanelli undoubtedly meant to get married, and I
don’t blame her for what she did under the circumstances. But now
you have her locked up, and the way you are going about it there
seems no chance of Vanelli’s murder being solved, so there is no tell­
ing how long she’ll have to stay there, or what people are going to
think about her. You’re putting a stigma on the girl which she doesn’t
deserve.”
“I was thinking maybe we’d ought to let her go.”
“If you’re afraid of losing track of her you can have her watched.”
W e went back to the police station and O’Malley went into the
captain’s office but I stayed outside. I knew he was arranging to have
Josephina released, and I would have been glad to have her know
that I had had a hand in it, but I didn’t get the chance to tell her.
When he came out we went back to the apartment, but we didn’t
go in. Instead we went into a shoe-repair place across the street. The
proprietor asked what we wanted done to our shoes, but O’Malley
told him “nothing,” and we just sat and waited.
“Are you having her watched?” I asked.
“I guess we know where she’ll go.”
Presently I saw Josephina come along the street and go into the
building opposite, and a plainclothesman who had been following
her came in and sat down with us.
46 W IL L IA M M A C HARG

“Will the cops in there interfere with her?” I asked.

“There ain’t no cops in there. I had ’em taken off.”
In about an hour Josephina came out of the building very hur­
riedly. She had her suitcase with her and she seemed much excited.
She got into a cab, and after she had driven away we got into another
cab and followed her. She went to the Bronx. The cab stopped in
front of a rooming-house and the cabman carried in her bag for her,
and after he had gone away we went in after her.
We could hear Josephina in one of the rooms talking loudly, and
we listened for a moment. Then O’Malley and the other plainclothes-
man kicked down the door, and a handsome, reckless-looking young
man to whom Josephina had been speaking violently jumped up at
sight of us. Pieces of the photographs which O’Malley had bought
were scattered on the floor.
“Okay, Vanelli,” O’Malley said to the young man. “We want you
for murder.”
“This is all a mystery to me, O’Malley,” I said about an hour later.
“I can’t see through it.”
“What can’t you see?” he asked. “This Vanelli was on the spot and
he knew it. Him and the girl hid out, but he had too many people
after him, and he knew wherever he went one of ’em would find him,
and they were getting closer to him all the time. He figured if they
thought he was dead they’d quit looking. We don’t know yet who the
dead guy was and we might never find out. There’s plenty guys
right now around the streets that got no jobs and their folks don’t
know where they are, and there’s nobody to ask questions if one of ’em
disappears. I guess Vanelli picked out one of ’em that looked some­
thing like himself and made some excuse to get him to go home with
him—it might be he offered him a meal. When they got to the apart­
ment Vanelli knocked him off. Then him and Josephina dressed the
guy in Vanelli’s clothes and Vanelli lit out, taking the guy’s clothes
with him, and Josephina give the alarm.”
“So Josephina was in it with him?” I asked, depressed.
“I wouldn’t wonder if Vanelli planned it all himself and she didn’t
know nothing about it till it had been done; but then she backed him
up the same as his parents did. Vanelli’s parents seen it wasn’t their
son, but they identified him anyway so that Vanelli could get away,
and whatever other people saw him didn’t know him very well and
didn’t question it being him because his parents said so. I told you
this was a case where you had to figure that everybody was lying. I
figure the murder happened inside the apartment in front of the bath­
room door. Vanelli stabbed the guy and pushed him into the bath­
room where it was all tile and the blood could be washed up. I guess
they undressed and dressed him in the bathtub. Some blood got on
the floor outside the bathroom door where he was stabbed, and it
couldn’t be washed up clean and so they poured ink on it. I got some
TOO MANY E N E M IE S 47

of the ink off the floor being analyzed now to see if they find blood
in it and I’m sure they will.”
“But,” I said, “you seem to have realized from the first that the
dead man wasn’t Vanelli. How was that?”
“Why, the guy was wearing his own clothes when he got stabbed,
and then they dressed him in Vanelli’s clothes and they had to poke
holes in them; but it was a hard job to get the holes exactly where the
wounds was, and they didn’t get it right. If he wasn’t wearing Van­
elli’s clothes when he got killed, he wasn’t Vanelli. They put blood off
the guy’s clothes in two place in the hall to make it look as if the mur­
der happened outside the apartment, and Vanelli cut the Z’s in the
guy’s cheeks so we’d think it was done by Zeglio.
“I guess Vanelli and the girl had it planned to meet later in some
other city and start over where they wasn’t known. She was alto­
gether too anxious to get released by the police so she could join him;
but we couldn’t let her go for fear she’d disappear. Then I and you
went to the apartment. They had to leave Vanelli’s clothes there so as
not to excite suspicions, and her things were there too. If she was re­
leased, she’d have to go there to get her things and when she did that
she’d go through Vanelli’s clothes to be sure there wasn’t nothing
being left in ’em.
“I didn’t know whether she knew where Vanelli was or not; but I
figured she was the kind of girl that, if she found some other girl’s
picture in Vanelli’s clothes, would forget about everything else until
she had found out about it. So I got a couple of pictures of another
girl and had one of the cops put ’em in Vanelli’s pockets. She found
’em, all right; and she went straight to Vanelli to get an explanation
about ’em.”
“It was a remarkable case,” I said, “and I’m surprised that you got
the answer to it so quickly.”
“Sure. It’s a swell case, but too many other cops was working on it.
You watch and see who they say figured this all out. It won’t be me.”
 JOHN E V A N S IN

T here’s a growing school o f thought that Raym ond C handler is a

capital-W Writer, o f significance an d im portance. I hope, selfishly,
that nothing com es o f this. Things happen (naming no nam es) to
mystery novelists w ho are adju dged W riters; fo r on e thing, they
stop writing mystery novels, and a cessation o f the p h u i p m a r l o w e
stories is an u nbearable thought. But the ugly fact remains that
C handler can write like n obody else in the business, an d is one o f
th e great exponents to date o f the poetry o f violence and justice.
You m ay never have heard o f j o h n e v a n s ; but call him m a r l o w e
an d you w o n t know th e difference. “No crim e in the mountains” is
authentic Chandler—a full m eaty novelet never b efo re printed in
b o o k form .
NO CRIME IN THE
MOUNTAINS

BY R A Y M O N D C H A N D L E R

T
I HE L E T T E R CAME just before noon, special delivery, a dime-
store envelope with the return address F. S. Lacey, Puma Point, Cali­
fornia. Inside was a check for a hundred dollars, made out to cash
and signed Frederick S. Lacey, and a sheet of plain white bond paper
typed with a number of strikeovers. It said:
M b . J ohn E v a n s,
D ea r Sib :
I have your name from Len Esterwald. My business is urgent and
extremely confidential. I inclose a retainer. Please come to Puma Point
Thursday afternoon or evening, if at all possible, register at the Indian
Head Hotel, and call me at 2306.
Yours, F red L a c ey .
There hadn’t been any business in a week, but this made it a nice
day. The bank on which the check was drawn was about six blocks
49
50 RAYMOND CHANDLER

away. I went over and cashed it, ate lunch, and got the car out and
started off.
It was hot in the valley, hotter still in San Bernardino, and it was
still hot at five thousand feet, fifteen miles up the high-gear road to
Puma Lake. I had done forty of the fifty miles of curving, twisting
highway before it started to cool off, but it didn’t get really cool until
I reached the dam and started along the south shore of the lake past
the piled-up granite boulders and the sprawled camps in the flats be­
yond. It was early evening when I reached Puma Point and I was as
empty as a gutted fish.
The Indian Head Hotel was a brown building on a comer, oppo­
site a dance hall. I registered, carried my suitcase upstairs and
dropped it in a bleak, hard-looking room with an oval rug on the
floor, a double bed in the comer, and nothing on the bare pine wall
but a hardware-store calendar all curled up from the dry mountain
summer. I washed my face and hands and went downstairs to eat.
The dining-drinking parlor that adjoined the lobby was full to
overflowing with males in sport clothes and liquor breaths and
females in slacks and shorts with blood-red fingernails and dirty
knuckles. A fellow with eyebrows like John L. Lewis was prowling
around with a cigar screwed info his face. A lean, pale-eyed cashier
in shirt sleeves was fighting to get the race results from Hollywood
Park on a small radio that was as full of static as the mashed potato
was full of water. In the deep, black comer of the room a hillbilly
symphony of five defeatists in white coats and purple shirts was try­
ing to malce itself heard above the brawl at the bar.
I gobbled what they called the regular dinner, drank a brandy to
sit on it, and went out onto the main stem. It was still broad daylight,
but the neon lights were turned on and the evening was full of the
noise of auto horns, shrill voices, the rattle of bowls, the snap of .22s at
the shooting gallery, juke-box music, and behind all this the hoarse,
hard mutter of speedboats on the lake. At a comer opposite the post
office a blue-and-white arrow said telephone. I went down a dusty
side road that suddenly became quiet and cool and piny. A tame doe
deer with a leather collar on its neck wandered across the road in
front of me. The phone office was a log cabin, and there was a booth
in the corner with a coin-in-the-slot telephone. I shut myself inside
and dropped my nickel and dialed 2306. A woman’s voice answered.
I said: “Is Mr. Fred Lacey there?”
“Who is calling, please?”
“Evans is the name.”
“Mr. Lacey is not here right now, Mr. Evans. Is he expecting you?”
That gave her two questions to my one. I didn’t like it. I said: “Are
you Mrs. Lacey?”
“Yes. I am Mrs. Lacey.” I thought her voice was taut and over­
strung, but some voices are like that all the time.
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 51

“It’s a business matter,” I said. “When wilt he be back?”

“I don’t know exactly. Sometime this evening, I suppose. What did
you— ”
“Where is your cabin, Mrs. Lacey?”
“It’s . . . it’s on Ball Sage Point, about two miles west of the village.
Are you calling from the village? Did you---- ”
“I’ll call back in an hour, Mrs. Lacey,” I said, and hung up. I
stepped out of the booth. In the other corner of the room a dark girl
in slacks was writing in some kind of account book at a little desk.
She looked up and smiled and said: “How do you like the moun­
tains?”
I said: “Fine.”
“It’s very quiet up here,” she said. “Very restful.”
“Yeah. Do you know anybody named Fred Lacey?”
“Lacey? Oh, yes, they just had a phone put in. They bought the
Baldwin cabin. It was vacant for two years, and they just bought it.
It’s out at the end of Ball Sage Point, a big cabin on high ground,
looking out over the lake. It has a marvelous view. Do you know Mr.
Lacey?”
“No,” I said, and went out of there.
The tame doe was in the gap of the fence at the end of the walk. I
tried to push her out of the way. She wouldn’t move, so I stepped
over the fence and walked back to the Indian Head and got into my
car.
There was a gas station at the east end of the village. I pulled up
for some gas and asked the leathery man who poured it where Ball
Sage Point was.
“Well,” he said. “That’s easy. That ain’t hard at all. You won’t have
no trouble finding Ball Sage Point. You go down here about a mile
and a half past the Catholic church and Kincaid’s Camp, and at the
bakery you turn right and then you keep on the road to Willerton
Boys’ Camp, and it’s the first road to the left after you pass on by.
It’s a dirt road, kind of rough. They don’t sweep the snow off in
winter, but it ain’t winter now. You know somebody out there?”
“No.” I gave him money. He went for the change and came back.
“It’s quiet out there,” he said. “Restful. What was the name?”
“Murphy,” I said.
“Glad to know you, Mr. Murphy,” he said, and reached for my
hand. “Drop in any time. Glad to have the pleasure of serving you.
Now, for Ball Sage Point you just keep straight on down this road---- ”
“Yeah,” I said, and left his mouth flapping.
I figured I knew how to find Ball Sage Point now, so I turned
around and drove the other way. It was just possible Fred Lacey
would not want me to go to his cabin.
Half a block beyond the hotel the paved road turned down toward
a boat landing, then east again along the shore of the lake. The water
52 RAYMOND CHANDLER

was low. Cattle were grazing in the sour-looking grass that had been
under water in the spring. A few patient visitors were fishing for bass
or bluegill from boats with outboard motors. About a mile or so be­
yond the meadows a dirt road wound out toward a long point covered
with junipers. Close inshore there was a lighted dance pavilion. The
music was going already, although it still looked like late afternoon
at that altitude. The band sounded as if it was in my pocket. I could
hear a girl with a throaty voice singing “The Woodpecker’s Song.”
I drove on past and the music faded and the road got rough and
stony. A cabin on the shore slid past me, and there was nothing be­
yond it but pines and junipers and the shine of the water. I stopped the
car out near the tip of the point and walked over to a huge tree fallen
with its roots twelve feet in the air. I sat down against it on the bone-
dry ground and lit a pipe. It was peaceful and quiet and far from
everything. On the far side of the lake a couple of speedboats played
tag, but on my side there was nothing but silent water, very slowly
getting dark in the mountain dusk. I wondered who the hell Fred
Lacey was and what he wanted and why he didn’t stay home or leave
a message if his business was so urgent. I didn’t wonder about it very
long. The evening was too peaceful. I smoked and looked at the lake
ana the sky, and at a robin waiting on the bare spike at the top of a
tall pine for it to get dark enough so he could sing his good-night
song.
At the end of half an hour I got up and dug a hole in the soft ground
with my heel and knocked my pipe out and stamped down the dirt
over the ashes. For no reason at all, I walked a few steps toward the
lake, and that brought me to the end of the tree. So I saw the foot.
It was in a white duck shoe, about size nine. I walked around the
roots of the tree.
There was another foot in another white duck shoe. There were
pin-stripped white pants with legs in them, and there was a torso in a
ale-green sport shirt of the kind that hangs outside and has pockets
E ke a sweater. It had a buttonless V neck and chest hair showed
through the V. The man was middle-aged, half bald, had a good coat
of tan and a line mustache shaved up from the lip. His lips were
thick, and his mouth, a little open as they usually are, showed big
strong teeth. He had the kind of face that goes with plenty of food
and not too much worry. His eyes were looking at the sky. I couldn’t
seem to meet them.
The left side of the green sport shirt was sodden with blood in a
patch as big as a dinner plate. In the middle of the patch there might
have been a scorched hole. I couldn’t be sure. The light was getting
a little tricky.
I bent down and felt matches and cigarettes in the pockets of the
shirt, a couple of rough lumps like keys and silver in his pants pockets
at the sides. I rolled him a little to get at his hip. He was still limp and
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 53

only a little cooled off. A wallet of rough leather made a tight fit in his
right hip pocket. I dragged it out, bracing my knee against his back.
There was twelve dollars in the wallet and some cards, but what
interested me was the name on his photostat driver’s license. I lit a
match to make sure I read it right in the fading daylight.
The name on the license was Frederick Shield Lacey.
I put the wallet back and stood up and made a full circle, staring
hard. Nobody was in sight, on land or on the water. In that light, no­
body could have seen what I was doing unless he was close.
I walked a few steps and looked down to see if I was making tracks.
No. The ground was half pine needles of many years past, and the
other half pulverized rotten wood.
The gun was about four feet away, almost under the fallen tree. I
didn’t touch it. I bent down and looked at it. It was a .22 automatic,
a Colt with a bone grip. It was half buried in a small pile of the
powdery, brown, rotted wood. There were large black ants on the
pile, and one of them was crawling along the barrel of the gun.
I straightened up and took another quick look around. A boat idled
off shore out of sight around the point. I could hear an uneven stutter
from the throttled-down motor, but I couldn’t see it. I started back
toward the car. I was almost up to it. A small figure rose silently be­
hind a heavy manzanita bush. The light winked on glasses and on
something else, lower down in a hand.
A voice said hissingly: “Placing the hands up, please.”
It was a nice spot for a very fast draw. I didn’t think mine would be
fast enough. I placed the hands up.
The small figure came around the manzanita bush. The shining
thing below the glasses was a gun. The gun was large enough. It
came toward me.
A gold tooth winked out of a small mouth below a black mustache.
“Turning around, please,” the nice little voice said soothingly.
“You seeing man lie on ground?”
“Look,” I said, “I’m a stranger here. I---- •
”
“Turning around very soon,” the man said coldly.
I turned around.
The end of the gun made a nest against my spine. A light, deft
hand prodded me here and there, rested on the gun under my arm.
The voice cooed. The hand went to my hip. The pressure of my wal­
let went away. A very neat pickpocket. I could hardly feel him touch
m e.
“I look at wallet now. You very still,” the voice said. The gun went
away.
A good man had a chance now. He would fall quickly to the
ground, do a back flip from a kneeling position, and come up with
his gun blazing in his hand. It would happen very fast. The good
man would take the little man with glasses the way a dowager takes
54 RAYMOND CHANDLER

her teeth out, in one smooth motion. I somehow didn’t think I was
that good.
The wallet went back on my hip, the gun barrel back into my back.
“So,” the voice said softly. “You coming here you making mistake.”
“Brother, you said it,” I told him.
“Not matter,” the voice said. “Go away now, go home. Five hun­
dred dollars. Nothing being said five hundred dollars arriving one
week from today.”
“Fine,” I said. “You having my address?”
“Very funny,” the voice cooed. “Ha, ha.”
Something hit the back of my right knee, and the leg folded sud­
denly the way it will when hit at that point. My head began to ache
from where it was going to get a crack from the gun, but he fooled
me. It was the old rabbit punch, and it was a honey of its type. Done
with the heel of a very hard little hand. My head came off and went
halfway across the lake and did a boomerang turn and came back
and slammed on top of my spine with a sickening jar. Somehow on
the way it got a mouthful of pine needles.
There was an interval of midnight in a small room with the win­
dows shut and no air. My chest labored against the ground. They put
a ton of coal on my back. One of the hard lumps pressed into the
middle of my back. I made some noises, but they must have been un­
important. Nobody bothered about them. I heard the sound of a boat
motor get louder, and a soft thud of feet walking on the pine needles,
making a dry, slithering sound. Then a couple of heavy grunts and
steps going away. Then steps coming back and a burry voice, with a
sort of accent.
“What did you get there, Charlie?”
“Oh, nothing,” Charlie said cooingly. “Smoking pipe, not doing
anything. Summer visitor, ha, ha.”
“Did he see the stiff?”
“Not seeing,” Charlie said. I wondered why.
“O. K., let’s go.”
“Ah, too bad,” Charlie said. “Too bad.” The weight got off my back
and the lumps of hard coal went away from my spine. “Too bad,”
Charlie said again. “But must do.”
He didn’t fool this time. He hit me with the gun. Come around and
I’ll let you feel the lump under my scalp. I’ve got several of them.
Time passed and I was up on my knees, whining. I put a foot on
the ground and hoisted myself on it and wiped my face off with the
back of my hand and put the other foot on the ground and climbed
out of the hole it felt like I was in.
The shine of water, dark now from the sun but silvered by the
moon, was directly in front of me. To the right was the big fallen
tree. That brought it back. I moved cautiously toward it, rubbing my
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 55

head with careful fingertips. It was swollen and soft, but not bleed­
ing. I stopped and looked beck for my hat, arid then remembered I
had left it in the car.
I went around the tree. The moon was bright as it can only be in
the mountains or on the desert. You could almost have read the paper
by its light. It was very easy to see that there was no body on the
ground now and no gun lying against the tree with ants crawling on
it. The ground had a sort of -moothed-out, raked look.
I stood there and listened, and all I heard was the blood pounding
in my head, and all I felt was my head aching. Then my hand jumped
for the gun and the gun was there. And the hand jumped again for
•my wallet and the wallet was there. I hauled it out and looked at my
money. That seemed to be there, too.
I turned around and plowed back to the car. I wanted to go back
to the hotel and get a couple of drinks and lie down. I wanted to meet
Charlie after a while, but not right away. First I wanted to lie down
for a while. I was a growing hoy and I needed rest.
I got into the car and started it and tooled it around on the soft
ground and back onto the dirt road and back along that to the high­
way. I didn’t meet any cars The music was still going well in the
dancing pavilion off to the side, and the throaty-voiced singer was
giving out “I’ll Never Smile Again.”
When I reached the highway I put the lights on and drove back to
the village. The local law hung out in a one-room pine-board shack
halfway up the block from the boat landing, across the street from
the firehouse. There was a naked light burning inside, behind a glass-
paneled door.
I stopped the car on the other side of the street and sat there for a
minute looking into the shack. There was a man inside, sitting bare­
headed in a swivel chair at an old roll-top desk. I opened the car door
and moved to get out, then stopped and shut the door again and
started the motor and drove on.
I had a hundred dollars to earn, after all.
I drove two miles past the village and came to the bakery and
turned on a newly oiled road toward the lake. I passed a couple of
camps and then saw the brovmish tents of the boys’ camp with lights
strung between them and a clatter coming from a big tent where they
were washing dishes. A little beyond that the road curved around an
inlet and a dirt road branched off. It was deeply rutted and full of
stones half embedded in the dirt, and the trees barely gave it room
to pass. I went by a couple cf lighted cabins, old ones built of pine
with the bark left on. Then the road climbed and the place got
emptier, and after a while a tig cabin hung over the edge of the bluff
looking down on the lake at its feet. The cabin had two chimneys and
a rustic fence, and a double garage outside the fence. There was a
56 RAYMOND CHANDLER

long porch on the lake side, and steps going down to the water. Light
came from the windows. My headlamps tilted up enough to catch the
name Baldwin painted on a wooden board nailed to a tree. This was
the cabin, all right.
The garage was open and a sedan was parked in it. I stopped a little
beyond and went far enough into the garage to feel the exhaust pipe
of the car. It was cold. I went through a rustic gate up a path outlined
in stones to the porch. The door opened as I got there. A tall woman
stood there, framed against the light. A little silky dog rushed out
past her, tumbled down the steps and hit me in the stomach with two
front paws, then dropped to the ground and ran in circles, making
noises of approval.
“Down, Shiny!” the woman called. “Down! Isn’t she a funny little
dog? Funny itty doggie. She’s half coyote.”
The dog ran back into the house. I said: “Are you Mrs. Lacey? I’m
Evans. I called you up about an hour ago.”
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Lacey,” she said. “My husband hasn’t come in yet.
I—well, come in, won’t you?” Her voice had a remote sound, like a
voice in the mist.
She closed the door behind me after I went in and stood there look­
ing at me, then shrugged a little and sat down in a wicker chair. I sat
down in another just like it. The dog appeared from nowhere, jumped
in my lap, swiped a neat tongue across the end of my nose and
jumped down again. It was a small grayish dog with a sharp nose and
a long, feathery tail.
It was a long room with a lot of windows and not very fresh cur­
tains at them. There was a big fireplace, Indian rugs, two davenports
with faded cretonne slips over them, more wicker furniture, not too
comfortable. There were some antlers on the wall, one pair with six
points.
’‘Fred isn’t home yet,” Mrs. Lacey said again. “I don’t know what’s
keeping him.”
I nodded. She had a pale face, rather taut, dark hair that was a
little wild. She was wearing a double-breasted scarlet coat with brass
buttons, gray flannel slacks, pigskin clog sandals, and no stockings.
There was a necklace of cloudy amber around her throat and a ban­
deau of old-rose material in her hair. She was in her middle thirties,
so it was too late for her to learn how to dress herself.
“You wanted to see my-husband on business?”
“Yes. He wrote me to come up and stay at the Indian Head and
phone him.”
“Oh—at the Indian Head,” she said, as if that meant something.
She crossed her legs, didn’t like them that way, and uncrossed them
again. She leaned forward and cupped a long chin in her hand. “What
kind of business are you in, Mr. Evans?”
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 57

“I’m a private detective.”

“It’s . . . it’s about the money?” she asked quickly.
I nodded. That seemed safe. It was usually about money. It was
about a hundred dollars that I had in my pocket, anyhow.
“Of course,” she said. “Naturally. Would you care for a drink?”
“Very much.”
She went over to a little wooden bar and came back with two
glasses. W e drank. W e looked at each other over the rims of our
glasses.
“The Indian Head,” she said. “We stayed there two nights when
we came up. While the cabin was being cleaned up. It had been
empty for two years before we bought it. They get so dirty.”
“I guess so,” I said.
“You say my husband wrote to you?” She was looking down into
her glass now. “I suppose he told you the story.”
I offered her a cigarette. She started to reach, then shook her head
and put her hand on her kneecap and twisted it. She gave me the
careful up-from-under look.
“He was a little vague,” I said. “In spots.”
She looked at me steadily and I looked at her steadily. I breathed
gently into my glass until it misted.
“Well, I don’t think we need be mysterious about it,” she said.
“Although as a matter of fact I know more about it than Fred thinks
I do. He doesn’t know, for example, that I saw that letter.”
“The letter he sent me?”
“No. The letter he got from Los Angeles with the report on the ten-
dollar bill.”
“How did you get to see it?” I asked.
She laughed without much amusement. “Fred’s too secretive. It’s
a mistake to be too secretive with a woman. I sneaked a look at it
while he was in the bathroom. I got it out of his pocket.”
I nodded and drank some more of my drink. I said: “Uh-huh.”
That didn’t commit me very far, which was a good idea as long as I
didn’t know what we were talking about. “But how did you know it
was in his pocket?” I asked.
“He’d just got it at the post office. I was with him.” She laughed,
with a little more amusement this time. “I saw that there was a bill in
it and that came from Los Angeles. I knew he had sent one of the bills
to a friend there who is an expert on such things. So of course I knew
this letter was a report. It was.”
“Seems like Fred doesn’t cover up very well,” I said. “What did the
letter say?”
She flushed slightly. “I don’t know that I should tell you. I don’t
really know that you are a detective or that your name is Evans.”
“Well, that’s something that can be settled without violence,” I
58 RAYMOND CHANDLER

said. I got up and showed her enough to prove it. When I sat down
again the little dog came over and sniffed at the cuffs on my trousers.
I bent down to pat her head and got a handful of spit.
“It said that the bill was beautiful work. The paper, in particular,
was just about perfect. But under a comparison microscope there
were very small differences of registration. What does that mean?”
“It means that the bill he sent hadn’t been made from a govern­
ment plate. Anything else wrong?”
“Yes. Under black light—whatever that is—there appeared to be
slight differences in the composition of the inks. But the letter added
that to the naked eye the counterfeit was practically perfect. It would
fool any bank teller.”
I nodded. This was something I hadn’t expected. "Who wrote the
letter, Mrs. Lacey?”
“He signed himself Bill. It was on a plain sheet of paper. I don’t
know who wrote it. Oh, there was something else. Bill said that Fred
ought to turn it in to the Federal people right away, because the
money was good enough to make a lot of trouble if much of it got into
circulation. But, of course, Fred wouldn’t want to do that if he could
help it. That would be why he sent for you.”
“Well, no, of course not,” I said. This was a shot in the dark, but it
wasn’t likely to hit anything. Not with the amount of dark I had to
shoot into.
She nodded, as if I had said something.
“What is Fred doing now, mostly?” I asked.
“Bridge and poker, like he’s done for years. He plays bridge almost
every afternoon at the athletic club and poker at night a good deal.
You can see that he couldn’t afford to be connected with counterfeit
money, even in the most innocent way. There would always be some­
one who wouldn’t believe it was innocent. He plays the races, too,
but that’s just fun. That’s how he got the five hundred dollars he put
in my shoe for a present for me. At the Indian Head.”
I wanted to go out in the yard and do a little yelling and breast
beating, just to let off steam. But all I could do was sit there and look
wise and guzzle my drink. I guzzled it empty and made a lonely
noise with the ice cubes and she went and got me another one. I took
a slug of that and breathed deeply and said:
“If the bill was so good, how did he know it was bad, if you get
what I mean?”
Her eyes widened a little. “Oh—I see. He didn’t, of course. Not that
one. But there were fifty of them, all ten-dollar bills, all new. And the
money hadn’t been that way when he put it in the shoe.”
I wondered if tearing my hair would do me any good. I didn’t
think—my head was too sore. Charlie. Good old Charlie! O. K.,
Charlie, after a while I’ll be around with my gang.
“Look,” I said. “Look, Mrs. Lacey. He didn’t tell me about the shoe.
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 59

Does he always keep his money in a shoe, or was this something

special on account of he won it at the races and horses wear shoes?”
“I told you it was a surprise present for me. When I put the shoe on
I would find it, of course.”
“Oh.” I gnawed about half an inch off my upper lip. “But you didn’t
find it?”
“How could I when I sent the maid to take the shoes to the shoe­
maker in the village to have lifts put on them? I didn’t look inside. I
didn’t know Fred had put anything in the shoe.”
A little light was coming. It was very far off and coming very
slowly. It was a very little light, about half a firefly’s worth.
I said: “And Fred didn’t know that. And this maid took the shoes to
the shoemaker. What then?”
“Well, Gertrude—that’s the maid’s name—said she hadn’t noticed
the money, either. So when Fred found out about it and had asked
her, he went over to the shoemaker’s place, and he hadn’t worked on
the shoes and the roll of money was still stuffed down into the toe
of the shoe. So Fred laughed and took the money out and put it
in his pocket and gave the shoemaker five dollars because he was
lucky.”
I finished my second drink and leaned back. “I get it now. Then
Fred took the roll out and looked it over and he saw it wasn’t the
same money. It was all new ten-dollar bills, and before it had prob­
ably been various sizes of bills and not new or not all new.”
She looked surprised that I had to reason it out. I wondered how
long a letter she thought Fred had written me. I said: “Then Fred
would have to assume that there was some reason for changing the
money. He thought of one and sent a bill to a friend of his to be
tested. And the report came back that it was very good counterfeit,
but still counterfeit. Who did he ask about it at the hotel?”
“Nobody except Gertrude, I guess. He didn’t want to start any­
thing. I guess he just sent for you.”
I snubbed my cigarette out and looked out of the open front win­
dows at the moonlit lake. A speedboat with a hard white headlight
slid muttering along in the water, far off over the water, and disap­
peared behind a wooded point.
I looked back at Mrs. Lacey. She was still sitting with her chin
propped in a thin hand. Her eyes seemed far away.
“I wish Fred would come home,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He went out with a man named Frank Luders, who
is staying at the Woodland Club, down at the far end of the lake.
Fred said he owned an interest in it. But I called Mr. Luders up a
while ago and he said Fred had just ridden uptown with him and got
off at the post office. I’ve been expecting Fred to phone and ask me to
pick him up somewhere. He left hours ago.”
60 RAYMOND CHANDLER

“They probably have some card games down at the Woodland

Club. Maybe he went there.”
She nodded. “He usually calls me, though.”
I stared at the floor for a while and tried not to feel like a heel.
Then I stood up. “I guess I’ll go on back to the hotel. I’ll be there if
you want to phone me. I think I’ve met Mr. Lacey somewhere. Isn’t
he a thickset man about forty-five, going a little bald, with a small
mustache?”
She went to the door with me. “Yes,” she said. “That’s Fred, all
right.”
She had shut the dog in the house and was standing outside herself
as I turned the car and drove away. God, she looked lonely.
I was lying on my back on the bed, wobbling a cigarette around
and trying to make up my mind just why I had to play cute with this
affair, when the knock came at the door. I called out. A girl in a work­
ing uniform came in with some towels. She had dark, reddish hair
and a pert, nicely made-up face and long legs. She excused herself
and hung some towels on the rack and started back to the door and
gave me a sidelong look with a good deal of fluttering eyelash in it.
I said, “Hello, Gertrude,” just for the hell of it.
She stopped, and the dark-red head came around and the mouth
was ready to smile.
“How’d you know my name?”
“I didn’t. But one of the maids is Gertrude. I wanted to talk to her.”
She leaned against the door frame, towels over her arm. Her eyes
were lazy. “Yeah?”
“Live up here, or just up here for the summer?” I asked.
Her lip curled. “I should say I don’t live up here. With these moun­
tain screwballs? I should say not.”
“You doing all right?”
She nodded. “And I don’t need any company, mister.” She sounded
as if she could be talked out of that.
I looked at her for a minute and said: “Tell me about that money
somebody hid in a shoe.”
“Who are you?” she asked coolly.
“The name is Evans. I’m a Los Angeles detective.” I grinned at her,
very wise.
Her face stiffened a little. The hand holding the towels clutched
and her nails made a scratching sound on the cloth. She moved back
from the door and sat down in a straight chair against the wall.
Trouble dwelt in her eyes.
“A dick,” she breathed. “What goes on?”
“Don’t you know?”
“All I heard was Mrs. Lacey left some money in a shoe she wanted
a lift put on the heel, and I took it over to the shoemaker and he didn’t
steal the money. And I didn’t, either. She got the money back, didn’t
she?”
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 61
“Don’t like cops, do you? Seems to me I know your face,” I said.
The face hardened. “Look, copper, I got a job and I work at it. I
don’t need any help from any copper. I don’t owe anybody a nickel.”
“Sure,” I said. “When you took those shoes from the room did you
go right over to the shoemaker with them?”
She nodded shortly.
“Didn’t stop on the way at all?”
“Why would I?”
“I wasn’t around then. I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I didn’t. Except to tell Weber I was going out for a guest.”
“Who’s Mr. Weber?”
“He’s the assistant manager. He’s down in the dining room a
iot.”
“Tall, pale guy that writes down all the race results?”
She nodded. “That would be him.”
“I see,” I said. I struck a match and lit my cigarette. I stared at her
through smoke. “Thanks very much,” I said.
She stood up and opened the door. “I don’t think I remember you,”
she said, looking back at me.
“There must be a few of us you didn’t meet,” I said.
She flushed and stood there glaring at me.
“They always change the towels this late in your hotel?” I asked
her, just to be saying something.
“Smart guy, ain’t you?”
“Well, I try to give that impression,” I said with a modest smirk.
“You don’t put it over,” she said, with a sudden trace of thick
accent.
“Anybody handle those shoes except you—after you took them?”
“No. I told you I just stopped to tell Mr. Weber---- ■ ” She stopped
dead and thought a minute. “I went to get him a cup of coffee,” she
said. “I left them on his desk by the cash register. How the hell would
I know if anybody handled them? And what difference does it make
if they got their dough back all right?”
“Well, I see you’re anxious to make me feel good about it. Tell me
about this guy, Weber. He been here long?”
“Too long,” she said nastily. “A girl don’t want to walk too close to
him, if you get what I mean. What am I talking about?”
“About Mr. Weber.”
“Well, to hell with Mr. Weber—if you get what I mean.”
“You been having any trouble getting it across?”
She flushed again. “And strictly off the record,” she said, “to hell
with you.”
“If I get what you mean,” I said.
She opened the door and gave me a quick, half-angry smile and
went out.
Her steps made a tapping sound going along the hall. I didn’t hear
62 RAYMOND CHANDLER

her stop at any other doors. I looked at my watch. It was after half
past nine.
Somebody came along the hall with heavy feet, went into the room
next to me and banged the door. The man started hawking and throw­
ing shoes around. A weight flopped on the bed springs and started
bounding around. Five minutes of this and he got up again. Two big,
unshod feet thudded on the floor, a bottle tinkled against a glass. The
man had himself a drink, lay down on the bed again, and began to
snore almost at once.
Except for that and the confused racket from downstairs in the
dining room and the bar there was the nearest thing you get to silence
in a mountain resort. Speedboats stuttered out on the lake, dance
music murmured here and there, cars went by blowing horns, the
.22s snapped in the shooting gallery, and kids yelled at each other
across the main drag.
It was so quiet that I didn’t hear my door open. It was half open
before I noticed it. A man came in quietly, half closed the door,
moved a couple of steps farther into the room and stood looking at
me. He was tall, thin, pale, quiet, and his eyes had a flat look of
menace.
“O. K., sport,” he said. “Let’s see it.”
I rolled around and sat up. I yawned. “See what?”
“The buzzer.”
“What buzzer?”
“Shake it up, half-smart. Let’s see the buzzer that gives you the right
to ask questions of the help.”
“Oh, that,” I said, smiling weakly. “I don’t have any buzzer, Mr.
Weber.”
“Well, that is very lovely,” Mr. Weber said. He came across the
room, his long arms swinging. When he was about three feet from me
he leaned forward a little and made a very sudden movement. An
open palm slapped the side of my face hard. It rocked my head and
made the back of it shoot pain in all directions.
“Just for that,” I said, “you don’t go to the movies tonight.”
He twisted his face into a sneer and cocked his right fist. He tele­
graphed his punch well ahead. I would almost have had time to run
out and buy a catcher’s mask. I came up under the fist and stuck a
gun in his stomach. He grunted unpleasantly. I said:
“Putting the hands up, please.”
He grunted again and his eyes went out of focus, but he didn’t
move his hands. I went around him and backed toward the far side of
the room. He turned slowly, eyeing me. I said:
“Just a moment until I close the door. Then we will go into the case
of the money in the shoe, otherwise known as the Clue of the Substi­
tuted Lettuce.”
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 63

“Go to hell,” he said.

“A right snappy comeback,” I said. “And full of originality.”
I reached back for the knob of the door, keeping my eyes on him. A
board creaked behind me. I swung around, adding a little power to
the large, heavy, hard and businesslike hunk of concrete which
landed on the side of my jaw. I spun off into the distance, trailing
flashes of lightning, and did a nose dive out into space. A couple of
thousand years passed. Then I stopped a planet with my back, opened
my eyes fuzzily and looked at a pair of feet.
They were sprawled out at a loose angle, and legs came toward me
from diem. The legs were splayed out on the floor of the room. A
hand hung down limp, and a gun lay just out of its reach. I moved
one of the feet and was surprised to find it belonged to me. The lax
hand twitched and reached automatically for the gun, missed it,
reached again and grabbed the smooth grip. I lifted it. Somebody
had tied a fifty-pound weight to it, but I lifted it anyway. There was
nothing in the room but silence. I looked across and was staring
straight at the closed door. I shifted a little and ached all over. My
head ached. My jaw ached. I lifted the gun some more and then put
it down again. The hell with it. I should be lifting guns around for
what. The room was empty. All visitors departed. The droplight from
the ceiling burned with an empty glare. I rolled a little and ached
some more and got a leg bent and a knee under me. I came up grunt­
ing hard, grabbed the gun again and climbed the rest of the way.
There was a taste of ashes in my mouth.
“Ah, too bad,” I said out loud. “Too bad. Must do. O. K., Charlie.
I’ll be seeing you.”
I swayed a little, still groggy as a three-day drunk, swiveled slowly
and prowled the room with my eyes.
A man was kneeling in prayer against the side of the bed. He wore
a gray suit and his hair was a dusty blond color. His legs were spread
out, and his body was bent forward on the bed and his arms were
flung out. His head rested sideways on his left arm.
He looked quite comfortable. The rough deer-hom grip of the
hunting knife under his left shoulder blade didn’t seem to bother him
at all.
I went over to bend down and look at his face. It was the face of
Mr. Weber. Poor Mr. Weber! From under the handle of the hunting
knife, down the back of his jacket, a dark streak extended.
It was not mercurochrome.
I found my hat somewhere and put it on carefully, and put the gun
under my arm and waded over to the door. I reversed the key,
switched the fight off, went out and locked the door after me and
dropped the key into my pocket.
I went along the silent hallway and down the stairs to the office. An
64 RAYMOND CHANDLER

old wasted-looking night clerk was reading the paper behind the
desk. He didn’t even look at me. I glanced through the archway into
the dining room. The same noisy crowd was brawling at the bar. The
same hillbilly symphony was fighting for life in the corner. The guy
with the cigar and the John L. Lewis eyebrows was minding the cash
register. Business seemed good. A couple of summer visitors were
dancing in the middle of the floor, holding glasses over each other’s
shoulders.
I went out of the lobby door and turned left along the street to
where my car was parked, but I didn’t go very far before I stopped
and turned back into the lobby of the hotel. I leaned on the counter
and asked the clerk:
“May I speak to the maid called Gertrude?”
He blinked at me thoughtfully over his glasses.
“She’s off at nine thirty. She’s gone home.”
“Where does she live?”
He stared at me without blinking this time.
“I think maybe you’ve got the wrong idea,” he said.
“If I have, it’s not the idea you have.”
He rubbed the end of his chin and washed my face with his stare.
“Something wrong?”
“I’m a detective from L. A. I work very quietly when people let
me work quietly.”
“You’d better see Mr. Holmes,” he said. “The manager.”
“Look, pardner, this is a very small place. I wouldn’t have to do
more than wander down the row and ask in the bars and eating
places for Gertrude. I could think up a reason. I could find out. You
would save me a little time and maybe save somebody from getting
hurt. Very badly hurt.”
He shrugged. “Let me see your credentials, Mr.---- • ”
“Evans.” I showed him my credentials. He stared at them a long
time after he had read them, then handed the wallet back and stared
at the ends of his fingers.
“I believe she’s stopping at the Whitewater Cabins,” he said.
“What’s her last name?”
“Smith,” he said, and smiled a faint, old, and very weary smile, the
smile of a man who has seen too much of one world. “Or possibly
Schmidt.”
I thanked him and went back out on the sidewalk. I walked half a
block, then turned into a noisy little bar for a drink. A three-piece
orchestra was swinging it on a tiny stage at the back. In front of the
stage there was a small dance floor, and a few fuzzy-eyed couples
were shagging around flat-footed with their mouths open and their
faces full of nothing.
I drank a jigger of rye and asked the barman where the White­
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 65

water Cabins were. He said at the east end of the town, half a block
back, on a road that started at the gas station.
I went back for my car and drove through the village and found
the road. A pale-blue neon sign with an arrow on it pointed the way.
The Whitewater Cabins were a cluster of shacks on the side of the
hill with an office down front. I stopped in front of the office. People
were sitting out on their tiny front porches with portable radios. The
night seemed peaceful and homey. There was a bell in the office.
I rang it and a girl in slacks came in and told me Miss Smith and
Miss Hoffman had a cabin kind of off by itself because the girls slept
late and wanted quiet. Of course, it was always kind of noisy in the
season, but the cabin where they were—it was called Tuck-Me-Inn—
was quiet and it was at the back, way off to the left, and I wouldn’t
have any trouble finding it. Was I a friend of theirs?
I said I was Miss Smith’s grandfather, thanked her and went out
and up the slope between die clustered cabins to the edge of the
pines at the back. There was a long woodpile at the back, and at each
end of the cleared space there was a small cabin. In front of the one
to the left there was a coupe standing with its lights dim. A tall blond
girl was putting a suitcase into the boot. Her hair was tied in a blue
handkerchief, and she wore a blue sweater and blue pants. Or dark
enough to be blue, anyhow. The cabin behind her was lighted, and
the little sign hanging from the roof said “Tuck-Me-Inn.”
The blond girl went back into the cabin, leaving the boot of the car
open. Dim light oozed out through the open door. I went very softly
up on the steps and walked inside.
Gertrude was snapping down the top of a suitcase on a bed. The
blond girl was out of sight, but I could hear her out in the kitchen of
the little cabin.
I couldn’t have made very much noise. Gertrude snapped down
the lid of the suitcase, hefted it and started to carry it out. It was only
then that she saw me. Her face went very white, and she stopped
dead, holding the suitcase at her side. Her mouth opened, and she
spoke quickly back over her shoulder: “Anna—achtung!”
The noise stopped in the kitchen. Gertrude and I stared at each
other.
“Leaving?” I asked.
She moistened her lips. “Going to stop me, copper?”
“I don’t guess. What you leaving for?”
“I don’t like it up here. The altitude is bad for my nerves.”
“Made up your mind rather suddenly, didn’t you?”
“Any law against it?”
“I don’t guess. You’re not afraid of Weber, are you?”
She didn’t answer me. She looked past my shoulder. It was an old
gag, and I didn’t pay any attention to it. Behind me, the cabin door
06 RAYMOND CHANDLER

closed. I turned, then. The blond girl was behind me. She had a gun
in her hand. She looked at me thoughtfully, without any expression
much. She was a big girl, and looked very strong.
“What is it?” she asked, speaking a little heavily, in a voice almost
like a man’s voice.
“A Los Angeles dick,” replied Gertrude.
“So,” Anna said. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know,” Gertrude said. “I don’t think he’s a real dick. He
don’t seem to throw his weight enough.”
“So,” Anna said. She moved to the side and away from the door.
She kept the gun pointed at me. She held it as if guns didn’t make her
nervous—not the least bit nervous. “What do you want?” she asked
throatily.
“Practically everything,” I said. “Why are you taking a powder?”
“That has been explained,” the blond girl said calmly. “It is the
altitude. It is making Gertrude sick.”
“You both work at the Indian Head?”
The blond girl said: “Of no consequence.”
“What the hell,” Gertrude said. “Yeah, we both worked at the hotel
until tonight. Now we’re leaving. Any objection?”
“We waste time,” the blond girl said. “See if he has a gun.”
Gertrude put her suitcase down and felt me over. She found the
gun and I let her take it, big-hearted. She stood there looking at it
with a pale, worried expression. The blond girl said:
“Put the gun down outside and put the suitcase in the car. Start the
engine of the car and wait for me.”
Gertrude picked her suitcase up again and started around me to
the door.
“That won’t get you anywhere,” I said. “They’ll telephone ahead
and block you on the road. There are only two roads out of here, both
easy to block.”
The blond girl raised her fine, tawny eyebrows a little. “Why
should anyone wish to stop us?”
“Yeah, why are you holding that gun?”
“I did not know who you were,” the blond girl said. “I do not know
even now. Go on, Gertrude.”
Gertrude opened the door, then looked back at me and moved her
lips one over the other. “Take a tip, shamus, and beat it out of this
place while you’re able,” she said quietly.
“Which of you saw the hunting knife?”
They glanced at each other quickly, then back at me. Gertrude had
a fixed stare, but it didn’t look like a guilty kind of stare. “I pass,” she
said. “You’re over my head.”
“O. K.,” I said. “I know you didn’t put it where it was. One more
question: How long were you getting that cup of coffee for Mr. Weber
die morning you took the shoes out? ’
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 67

“You are wasting time, Gertrude,” the blond girl said impatiently,
or as impatiently as she would ever say anything. She didn’t seem an
impatient type.
Gertrude didn’t pay any attention to her. Her eyes held a tight
speculation. “Long enough to get him a cup of coffee.”
‘They have that right in the dining room.”
“It was stale in the dining room. I went out to the kitchen for it. I
got him some toast, also.”
“Five minutes?”
She nodded. “About that.”
“Who else was in the dining room besides Weber?”
She stared at me very steadily. “At that time I don’t think anybody.
I’m not sure. Maybe someone was having a late breakfast.”
“Thanks very much,” I said. “Put the gun down carefully on the
porch and don t drop it. You can empty it if you like. I don’t plan to
shoot anyone.”
She smiled a very small smile and opened the door with the hand
holding the gun and went out. I heard her go down the steps and then
heard the boot of the car slammed shut. I heard the starter, then the
motor caught and purred quietly.
The blond girl moved around to the door and took the key from
the inside and put it on the outside. “I would not care to shoot
anybody,” she said. “But I could do it if I had to. Please do not
make me.”
She shut the door and the key turned in the lock. Her steps went
down off the porch. The car door slammed and the motor took hold.
The tires made a soft whisper going down between the cabins. Then
the noise of the portable radios swallowed that sound.
I stood there looking around the cabin, then walked through it.
There was nothing in it that didn’t belong there. There was some
garbage in a can, coffee cups not washed, a saucepan full of grounds.
There were no papers, and nobody had left the story of his life
written on a paper match.
The back door was locked, too. This was on the side away from the
camp, against the dark wilderness of the trees. I shook the door and
bent down to look at the lock. A straight bolt lock. I opened a win­
dow. Screen was nailed over it against the wall outside. I went back
to the door and gave it the shoulder. It held without any trouble at
all. It also started my head blazing again. I felt in my pockets and
was disgusted. I didn’t even have a five-cent skeleton key.
I got the can opener out of the kitchen drawer and worked a comer
of the screen loose and bent it back. Then I got up on the sink and
reached down to the outside knob of the door and groped around.
The key was in the lock. I turned it and drew my hand in again and
went out of the door. Then I went back and put the lights out. My
gun was lying on the front porch behind a post of the little railing. I
68 RAYMOND CHANDLER

tucked it under my arm and walked downhill to the place where I

had left my car.
There was a wooden counter leading back from beside the door
and a potbellied stove in the corner, and a large blueprint map of
the district and some curled-up calendars on the wall. On the counter
were piles of dusty-looking folders, a rusty pen, a bottle of ink, and
somebody’s sweat-darkened Stetson.
Behind the counter there was an old golden-oak roll-top desk, and
at the desk sat a man, with a tall corroded brass spittoon leaning
against his leg. He was a heavy, calm man, and he sat tilted back in
his chair with large, hairless hands clasped on his stomach. He wore
scuffed brown army shoes, white socks, brown wash pants held up by
faded suspenders, a khaki shirt buttoned to the neck. His hair was
mousy brown except at the temples, where it was the color of dirty
snow. On his left breast there was a star. He sat a little more on his
left hip than on his right, because there was a brown leather hip
holster inside his right hip pocket, and about a foot of .45 gun in the
holster.
He had large ears and friendly eyes, and he looked about as dan­
gerous as a squirrel, but much less nervous. I leaned on the counter
and looked at him, and he nodded at me and loosed a half pint of
brown juice into the spittoon. I lit a cigarette and looked around for
some place to throw the match.
“Try the floor,” he said. “What can I do for you, son?”
I dropped the match on the floor and pointed with my chin at the
map on the wall. “I was looking for a map of the district. Sometimes
chambers of commerce have them to give away. But I guess you
wouldn’t be the chamber of commerce.”
“We ain’t got no maps,” the man said. “We had a mess of them a
couple of years back, but we run out. I was hearing that Sid Young
had some down at the camera store by the post office. He’s the justice
of the peace here, besides running the camera store, and he gives them
out to show them whereat they can smoke and where not. W e got a
bad fire hazard up here. Got a good map of the district up there on
the wall. Be glad to direct you any place you’d care to go. We aim to
make the summer visitors to home.”
He took a slow breath and dropped another load of juice.
“What was the name?” he asked.
“Evans. Are you the law around here?”
“Yep. I’m Puma Point constable and San Berdoo deppity sheriff.
What law we gotta have, me and Sid Young is it. Barron is the name. I
come from L. A. Eighteen years in the fire department. I come up
here quite a while back. Nice and quiet up here. You up on business?”
I didn’t think he could do it again so soon, but he did. That spittoon
took an awful beating.
“Business?” I asked.
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 69
The big man took one hand off his stomach and hooked a finger in­
side his collar and tried to loosen it. “Business,” he said calmly.
“Meaning, you got a permit for that gun, I guess?”
“Hell, does it stick out that much?”
“Depends what a man’s lookin’ for,” he said, and put his feet on
the floor. “Maybe you ’n’ me better get straightened out.”
He got to his feet and came over to the counter and I put my wallet
on it, opened out so that he could see the photostat of the license
behind the celluloid window. I drew out the L. A. sheriff’s gun permit
and laid it beside the license.
He looked them over. “I better kind of check the number,” he said.
I pulled the gun out and laid it on the counter beside his hand. He
picked it up and compared the numbers. “I see you got three of them.
Don’t wear them all to onst, I hope. Nice gun, son. Can’t shoot like
mine, though.” He pulled bis cannon off his hip and laid it on the
counter. A Frontier Colt that would weigh as much as a suitcase. He
balanced it, tossed it into the air and caught it spinning, then put it
back on his hip. He pushed my .38 back across the counter.
“Up here on business, Mr. Evans?”
“I’m not sure. I got a call, but I haven’t made a contact yet. A con­
fidential matter.”
He nodded. His eyes were thoughtful. They were deeper, colder,
darker than they had been.
“I’m stopping at the Indian Head,” I said.
“I don’t aim to pry into your affairs, son,” he said. “We don’t have
no crime up here. Onst in a while a fight or a drunk driver in summer­
time. Or maybe a couple hard-boiled kids on a motorcycle will break
into a cabin just to sleep and steal food. No real crime, though.
Mighty little inducement to crime in the mountains. Mountain folks
are mighty peaceable.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And again, no.”
He leaned forward a little and looked into my eyes.
“Right now,” I said, “you’ve got a murder.”
Nothing much changed in his face. He looked me over feature by
feature. He reached for his hat and put it on the back of his head.
“What was that, son?” he asked calmly.
“On the point east of the village out past the dancing pavilion. A
man shot, lying behind a big fallen tree. Shot through the heart. I was
down there smoking for half an hour before I noticed him.”
“Is that so?” he drawled. “Out Speaker Point, eh? Past Speaker’s
Tavern. That the place?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“You taken a longish while to get around to telling me, didn’t you?”
The eyes were not friendly.
“I got a shock,” I said. “It took me a while to get myself straight­
ened out.”
70 RAYMOND CHANDLER

He nodded. “You and me will now drive out that way. In your car.”
“That won’t do any good,” I said. “The body has been moved. After
I found the body I was going back to my car and a Japanese gunman
popped up from behind a bush and knocked me down. A couple of
men carried the body away and they went off in a boat. There’s no
sign of it there at all now.”
The sheriff went over and spit in his gobboon. Then he made a
small spit on the stove and waited as if for it to sizzle, but it was sum­
mer and the stove was out. He turned around and cleared his throat
and said:
“You’d kind of better go on home and lie down a little while,
maybe.” He clenched a fist at his side. “W e aim for the summer visi­
tors to enjoy theirselves up here.” He clenched both his hands, then
pushed them hard down into the shallow pockets in the front of his
pants.
“O. K.,” I said.
“We don’t have no Japanese gunmen up here,” the sheriff said
thickly. “We are plumb out of Japanese gunmen.”
“I can see you don’t like that one,” I said. “How about this one? A
man named Weber was knifed in the back at the Indian Head a while
back. In my room. Somebody I didn’t see knocked me out with a
brick, and while I was out this Weber was knifed. He and I had been
talking together. Weber worked at the hotel. As cashier.”
“You said this happened in your room?”
“Yeah.”
“Seems like,” Barron said thoughtfully, “you could turn out to be a
bad influence in this town.”
“You don’t like that one, either?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t like this one, neither. Unless, of
course, you got a body to go with it.”
“I don’t have it with me,” I said, “but I can run over and get it for
»
you.
He reached and took hold of my arm with some of the hardest fin­
gers I ever felt. “I’d hate for you to be in your right mind, son,” he
said. “But I’ll kind of go over with you. It’s a nice night.”
“Sure,” I said, not moving. “The man I came up here to work for is
called Fred Lacey. He just bought a cabin out on Ball Sage Point.
The Baldwin cabin. The man I found dead on Speaker Point was
named Frederick Lacey, according to the driver’s license in his
pocket. There’s a lot more to it, but you wouldn’t want to be bothered
with the details, would you?”
“You and me,” the sheriff said, “will now run over to the hotel. You
got a car?”
I said I had.
“That’s fine,” the sheriff said. “W e won’t use it, but give me the
keys.”
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 71

The man with the heavy, furled eyebrows and the screwed-in cigar
leaned against the closed door of the room and didn’t say anything or
look as if he wanted to say anything. Sheriff Barron sat straddling a
straight chair and watching the doctor, whose name was Menzies,
examine the body. I stood in the corner where I belonged. The doc­
tor was an angular, bug-eyed man with a yellow face relieved by
bright-red patches on his cheeks. His fingers were brown with nico­
tine stains, and he didn’t look very clean.
He puffed cigarette smoke into the dead man’s hair and rolled him
around on the bed and felt him here and there. He looked as if he
was trying to act as if he knew what he was doing. The knife had
been pulled out of Weber’s back. It lay on the bed beside him. It was
a short, wide-bladed knife of the kind that is worn in a leather scab­
bard attached to the belt. It had a heavy guard which would seal the
wound as the blow was struck and keep blood from getting back on
the handle. There was plenty of blood on the blade.
“Sears Sawbuck Hunter’s Special No. 2438,” the sheriff said, look­
ing at it. “There’s a thousand of them around the lake. They ain’t bad
and they ain’t good. What you say, doc?”
The doctor straightened up and took a handkerchief out. He
coughed hackingly into the handkerchief, looked at it, shook his head
sadly and lit another cigarette.
“About what?” he asked.
“Cause and time of death.”
“Dead very recently,” the doctor said. “Not more than two hours.
There’s no beginning of rigor yet.”
“Would you say the knife killed him?”
“Don’t be a damn fool, Jim Barron.”
“There’s been cases,” the sheriff said, “where a man would be
poisoned or something and they would stick a knife into him to make
it look different.”
“That would be very clever,” the doctor said nastily. “You had
many like that up here?”
“Only murder I had up here,” the sheriff said peacefully, “was old
Dad Meacham over to the other side. Had a shack in Sheedy Canyon.
Folks didn’t see him around for a while, but it was kinda cold
weather and they figured he was in there with his oil stove resting up.
Then when he didn’t show up they knocked and found the cabin was
locked up, so they figured he had gone down for the winter. Then
come a heavy snow and the roof caved in. We was over there a-trying
to prop her up so he wouldn’t lose all his stuff, and by gum, there was
Dad in bed with a ax in the back of his head. Had a little gold he’d
panned in summer—I guess that was what he was killed for. We
never did find out who done it.”
“You want to send him down in my ambulance?” the doctor asked,
pointing at the bed with his cigarette.
72 RAYMOND CHANDLER

The sheriff shook his head. “Nope. This is a poor country, doc. I
figure he could ride cheaper than that.”
The doctor put his hat on and went to the door. The man with the
eyebrows moved out of the way. The doctor opened the door. “Let
me know if you want me to pay for the funeral,” he said, and went out.
“That ain’t no way to talk,” the sheriff said.
The man with the eyebrows said: “Let’s get this over with and get
him out of here so I can go back to work. I got a movie outfit coming
up Monday and I’ll be busy. I got to find me a new cashier, too, and
that ain’t so easy.”
“Where did you find Weber?” the sheriff asked. “Did he have any
enemies?”
“I’d say he had at least one,” the man with the eyebrows said. “I
got him through Frank Luders over at the Woodland Club. All I
know about him is he knew his job and he was able to make a ten-
thousand-dollar bond without no trouble. That’s all I needed to
know.”
“Frank Luders,” the sheriff said. “That would be the man that’s
bought in over there. I don’t think I met him. What does he do?”
“Ha, ha,” the man with the eyebrows said.
The sheriff looked at him peacefully. “Well, that ain’t the only
place where they run a nice poker game, Mr. Holmes.”
Mr. Holmes looked blank. “Well, I got to go back to work,” he said.
“You need any help to move him?”
“Nope. Ain’t going to move him right now. Move him before day­
light. But not right now. That will be all for now, Mr. Holmes.”
The man with the eyebrows looked at him thoughtfully for a mo­
ment, then reached for the doorknob.
I said: “You have a couple of German girls working here, Mr.
Holmes. Who hired them?” t
The man with the eyebrows dragged his cigar out of his mouth,
looked at it, put it back and screwed it firmly in place. He said:
“Would that be your business?”
“Their names are Anna Hoffman and Gertrude Smith, or maybe
Schmidt,” I said. “They had a cabin together over at the Whitewater
Cabins. They packed up and went down the hill tonight. Gertrude is
the girl that took Mrs. Lacey’s shoes to the shoemaker.”
The man with the eyebrows looked at me very steadily.
I said: “When Gertrude was taking the shoes, she left them on
Weber’s desk for a short time. There was five hundred dollars in one
of the shoes. Mr. Lacey had put it in there for a joke, so his wife
would find it.”
“First I heard of it,” the man with the eyebrows said. The sheriff
didn’t say anything at all.
“The money wasn’t stolen,” I said. “The Laceys found it still in the
shoe over at the shoemaker s place.”
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 73

The man with the eyebrows said: “I’m certainly glad that got
straightened out all right.” He pulled the door open and went out and
shut it behind him. The sheriff didn’t say anything to stop him.
He went over into the comer of the room and spit in the waste­
basket. Then he got a large khaki-colored handkerchief out and
wrapped the blood-stained knife in it and slipped it down inside his
belt, at the side. He went over and stood looking down at the dead
man on the bed. He straightened his hat and started toward the door.
He opened the door and looked back at me. “This is a little tricky,” he
said. “But it probably ain’t as tricky as you would like for it to be. Let’s
go over to Lacey’s place.”
I went out and he locked the door and put the key in his pocket.
We went downstairs and out through the lobby and crossed the street
to where a small, dusty, tan-colored sedan was parked against the
fireplug. A leathery young man was at the wheel. He looked underfed
and a little dirty, like most of the natives. The sheriff and I got in the
back of the car. The sheriff said:
“You know the Baldwin place out to the end of Ball Sage, Andy?”
“Yup.”
“We’ll go out there,” the sheriff said. “Stop a little to this side.” He
looked up at the sky. “Full moon all night, tonight,” he said. “And it’s
sure a dandy.”
The cabin on the point looked the same as when I had seen it last.
The same windows were lighted, the same car stood in the open
double garage, and the same wild, screaming bark burst on the night.
“What in heck’s that?” the sheriff asked as the car slowed. “Sounds
like a coyote.”
“It’s half coyote,” I said.
The leathery lad in front said over his shoulder, “You want to stop
in front, Jim?”
“Drive her down a piece. Under them old pines.”
The car stopped softly in black shadow at the roadside. The sheriff
and I got out. “You stay here, Andy, and don’t let nobody see you,”
the sheriff said. “I got my reasons.”
We went back along the road and through the rustic gate. The
barking started again. The front door opened. The sheriff went up on
the steps and took his hat off.
“Mrs. Lacey? I’m Jim Barron, constable at Puma Point. This here
is Mr. Evans, from Los Angeles. I guess you know him. Could we
come in a minute?”
The woman looked at him with a face so completely shadowed
that no expression showed on it. She turned her head a little and
looked at me. She said, “Yes, come in,” in a lifeless voice.
We went in. The woman shut the door behind us. A big gray­
haired man sitting in an easy-chair let go of the dog he was holding
on the floor and straightened up. The dog tore across the room, did a
74 RAYMOND CHANDLER

flying tackle on the sheriffs stomach, turned in the air and was already
running in circles when she hit the floor.
“Well, that’s a right nice little dog,” the sheriff said, tucking his
shirt in.
The gray-haired man Was smiling pleasantly. He said: “Good eve­
ning.” His white, strong teeth gleamed with friendliness.
Mrs. Lacey was still wearing the scarlet double-breasted coat and
the gray slacks. Her face looked older and more drawn. She looked at
the floor and said: “This is Mr. Frank Lude^s from the Woodland
Club. Mr. Bannon and”—she stopped and raised her eyes to look at a
point over my left shoulder—“I didn’t catch the other gentleman’s
name,” she said.
“Evans,” the sheriff said, and didn’t look at me at all. “And mine is
Barron, not Bannon.” He nodded at Luders. I nodded at Luders.
Luders smiled at both of us. He was big, meaty, powerful-looking,
well-kept and cheerful. He didn’t have a care in the world. Big,
breezy Frank Luders, everybody’s pal.
He said: “I’ve known Fred Lacey for a long time. I just dropped by
to say hello. He’s not home, so I am waiting a little while until a
friend comes by in a car to pick me up.”
“Pleased to know you, Mr. Luders,” the sheriff said. “I heard you
had bought in at the club. Didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you
yet.”
The woman sat down very slowly on the edge of a chair. I sat
down. The little dog, Shiny, jumped in my lap, washed my right
ear for me, squirmed down again and went under my chair. She lay
there breathing out loud and thumping the floor with her feathery
tail.
The room was still for a moment. Outside the windows on the lake
side there was a very faint throbbing sound. The sheriff heard it. He
cocked his head slightly, but nothing changed in his face.
He said: “Mr. Evans here come to me and told me a queer story. I
guess it ain’t no harm to mention it here, seeing Mr. Luders is a friend
of the family.”
He looked at Mrs. Lacey and waited. She lifted her eyes *slowly,
but not enough to meet his. She swallowed a couple of times and
nodded her head. One of her hands began to slide slowly up and
down the arm of her chair, back and forth, back and forth. Luders
smiled.
“I’d ’a’ liked to have Mr. Lacey here,” the sheriff said. “You think
he’ll be in pretty soon?”
The woman nodded again. “I suppose so,” she said in a drained
voice. “He’s been gone since mid-afternoon. I don’t know where he
is. I hardly think he would go down the hill without telling me, but
he has had time to do that. Something might have come up.”
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 75

“Seems like something did,” the sheriff said. “Seems like Mr. Lacey
wrote a letter to Mr. Evans, asking him to come up here quickly. Mr.
Evans is a detective from L. A.”
The woman moved restlessly. “A detective?” she breathed.
Luders said brightly: “Now why in the world would Fred do that?”
“On account of some money tnat was hid in a shoe,” the sheriff
said.
Luders raised his eyebrows and looked at Mrs. Lacey. Mrs. Lacey
moved her lips together and then said very softly: “But we got that
back, Mr. Bannon. Fred was having a joke. He won a little money at
the races and hid it in one of my shoes. He meant it for a surprise. I
sent the shoe out to be repaired with the money still in it, but the
money was still in it when we went over to the shoemaker’s place.”
“Barron is the name, not Bannon,” the sheriff said. “So you got your
money back all intact, Mrs. Lacey?”
“Why—of course. Of course, we thought at first, it being a hotel
and one of the maids having taken the shoe—well, I don’t know just
what we thought, but it was a silly place to hide money—but we got
it back, every cent of it.”
“And it was the same money?” I said, beginning to get the idea and
not liking it.
She didn’t quite look at me. “Why, of course. Why not?”
“That ain’t the way I heard it from Mr. Evans,” the sheriff said
peacefully, and folded his hands across his stomach. “They was a
slight difference, seems like, in the way you told it to Evans.”
Luders leaned forward suddenly in his chair, but his smile stayed
put. It didn’t even get tight. The woman made a vague gesture and
her hand kept moving on the chair arm. “I . . . told i t . . . told what to
Mr. Evans?”
The sheriff turned his head very slowly and gave me a straight,
hard stare. He turned his head back. One hand patted the other on
his stomach.
“I understand Mr. Evans was over here earlier in the evening and
you told him about it, Mrs. Lacey. About the money being changed?”
“Changed?” Her voice had a curiously hollow sound. “Mr. Evans
told you he was here earlier in the evening? I . . . I never saw Mr.
Evans before in my life.”
I didn’t even bother to look at her. Luders was my man. I looked at
Luders. It got me what the nickel gets you from the slot machine.
He chuckled and put a fresh match to his cigar.
The sheriff closed his eyes. His face had a sort of sad expression.
The dog came out from under my chair and stood in the middle of
the room looking at Luders. Then she went over in the corner and
slid under the fringe of a daybed cover. A snuffling sound came from
her a moment, then silence.
 RAYM OND CHANDLER

“Hum, hum, dummy,” the sheriff said, talking to himself. “I ain’t

really equipped to handle this sort of a deal. I don’t have the experi­
ence. We don’t have no fast work like that up here. No crime at all in
the mountains. Hardly.” He made a wry face.
He opened his eyes. “How much money was that in the shoe,
Mrs. Lacey?”
“Five hundred dollars.” Her voice was hushed.
“Where at is this money, Mrs. Lacey?”
“I suppose Fred has it.”
“I thought he was goin’ to give it to you, Mrs. Lacey.”
“He was,” she said sharply. “He is. But I don’t need it at the mo­
ment. Not up here. He’ll probably give me a check later on.”
“Would he have it in his pocket or would it be in the cabin here,
Mrs. Lacey?”
She shook her head. “In his pocket, probably. I don’t know. Do you
want to search the cabin?”
The sheriff shrugged his fat shoulders. “Why, no, I guess not, Mrs.
Lacey. It wouldn’t do me no good if I found it. Especially if it wasn’t
changed.”
Luders said: “Just how do you mean changed, Mr. Barron?”
“Changed for counterfeit money,” the sheriff said.
Luders laughed quietly. “That s really amusing, don’t you think?
Counterfeit money at Puma Point? There’s no opportunity for that
sort of thing up here, is there?”
The sheriff nodded at him sadly. “Don’t sound reasonable, does it?”
Luders leaned forward a little more. “Have you any knowledge
Mr. Evans here—who claims to be a detective? A private detective,
no doubt?”
“I thought of that,” the sheriff said.
Luders leaned forward a little more. “Have you any knowledge
other than Mr. Evans’ statement that Fred Lacey sent for him?”
“He’d have to know something to come up here, wouldn’t he?” the
sheriff said in a worried voice. “And he knew about that money in
Mrs. Lacey’s slipper.”
“I was just asking a question,” Luders said softly.
The sheriff swung around on me. I was already wearing my frozen
smile. Since the incident in the hotel I hadn’t looked for Lacey’s
letter. I knew I wouldn’t have to look, now.
“You got a letter from Lacey?” he asked me in a hard voice.
I lifted my hand toward my inside breast pocket. Barron threw his
right hand down and up. When it came up it held the Frontier Colt.
‘T il take that gun of yours first,” he said between his teeth. He stood
up.
I pulled my coat open and held it open. He leaned down over me
and jerked the automatic from the holster. He looked at it sourly a
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 77

moment and dropped it into his left hip pocket. He sat down again.
“N ow look,” he said easily.
Luders watched me with bland interest. Mrs. Lacey put her hands
together and squeezed them hard and stared at the floor between
her shoes.
I took the stuff out of my breast pocket. A couple of letters, some
plain cards for casual notes, a packet of pipe cleaners, a spare hand­
kerchief. Neither of the letters was the one. I put the stuff back and
got a cigarette out and put it between my lips. I struck the match and
held the flame to the tobacco. Nonchalant.
“You win,” I said, smiling. “Both of you.”
There was a slow flush on Barron’s face and his eyes glittered. His
lips twitched as he to n ed away from me.
“Why not,” Luders asked gently, “see also if he really is a detec-
tiye?”
Barron barely glanced at him. “The small things don’t bother me,”
he said. “Right now I’m investigatin’ a murder.”
He didn’t seem to be looking at either Luders or Mrs. Lacey. He
seemed to be looking at a corner of the ceiling. Mrs. Lacey shook, and
her hands tightened so that the knuckles gleamed hard and shiny and
white in the lamplight. Her mouth opened very slowly, and her eyes
turned up in her head. A dry sob half died in her throat.
Luders took the cigar out of his mouth and laid it carefully in the
brass dip on the smoking stand beside him. He stopped smiling.
His mouth was grim. He said nothing.
It was beautifully timed. Barron gave them all they needed for the
reaction and not a second for a comeback. He said, in the same almost
indifferent voice:
“A man named Weber, cashier in the Indian Head Hotel. He was
knifed in Evans’ room. Evans was there, but he was knocked out be­
fore it happened, so he is one of them boys we hear so much about
and don’t often meet—the boys that get there first.”
“Not me,” I said. “They bring their murders and drop them right at
my feet.” _
The woman’s head jerked. Then she looked up, and for the first
time she looked straight at me. There was a queer light in her eyes,
shining far back, remote and miserable.
Barron stood up slowly. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I don’t get it at
all. But I guess I ain’t making any mistake in takin’ this feller in.” He
turned to me. “Don’t run too fast, not at first, bud. I always give a man
forty yards.”
I didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything.
Barron said slowly: “I’ll have to ask you to wait here till I come
back, Mr. Luders. If your friend comes for you, you could let him go
cm. I’d be glad to drive you back to the club later.”
78 RAYMOND CHANDLER

Luders nodded. Barron looked at a clock on the mantel. It was a

quarter to twelve. “Kinda late for a old fuddy-duddy like me. You
think Mr. Lacey will be home pretty soon, ma’am?”
“I . . . I hope so,” she said, and made a gesture that meant nothing
unless it meant hopelessness.
Barron moved over to open the door. He jerked his chin at me. I
went out on the porch. The little dog came halfway out from under
the couch and made a whining sound. Barron looked down at her.
“That sure is a nice little dog,” he said. “I heard she was half coyote.
What did you say the other half was?”
“We don’t know,” Mrs. Lacey murmured.
“Kind of like this case I’m working on,” Barron said, and came out
onto the porch after me.
We walked down the road without speaking and came to the car.
Andy was leaning back in the comer, a dead half cigarette between
his bps.
We got into the car. “Drive down a piece, about two hundred
yards,” Barron said. “Make plenty of noise.”
Andy started the car, raced the motor, clashed the gears, and the
car slid down through the moonlight and around a curve of the road
and up a moonlit hill sparred with the shadows of tree trunks.
“Turn her at the top and coast back, but not close,” Barron said.
“Stay out of sight of that cabin. Turn your lights off before you turn.”
“Yup,” Andy said.
He turned the car just short of the top, going around a tree to do it.
He cut the lights off and started back down the little hill, then killed
the motor. Just beyond the bottom of the slope there was a heavy
clump of manzanita, almost as tall as ironwood. The car stopped
there. Andy pulled the brake back very slowly to smooth out the
noise of the ratchet.
Barron leaned forward over the back seat. “We’re going across the
road and get near the water,” he said. “I don’t want no noise and no­
body walkin’ in no moonlight.”
Andy said: “Yup.”
We got out. We walked carefully on the dirt of the road, then on
the pine needles. We filtered through the trees, behind fallen logs,
until the water was down below where we stood. Barron sat down on
the ground and then lay down. Andy and I did the same. Barron put
his face close to Andy.
“Hear anything?”
Andy said: “Eight cylinders, kinda rough.”
I listened. I could tell myself I heard it, but I couldn’t be sure. Bar­
ron nodded in the dark. “Watch the lights in the cabin,” he whispered.
We watched. Five minutes passed, or enough time to seem like five
minutes. The lights in the cabin didn’t change. Then there was a
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 79

remote, half-imagined sound of a door closing. There were shoes on

wooden steps:
“Smart. They left the light on,” Barron said in Andy’s ear.
We waited another short minute. The idling motor burst into a
roar of throbbing sound, a stuttering, confused racket, with a sort of
hop, skip and jump in it. The sound sank to a heavy purring roar and
then quickly began to fade. A dark shape slid out on the moonlit
water, curved with a beautiful line of froth and swept past the point
out of sight.
Barron got a plug of tobacco out and bit. He chewed comfortably
and spat four feet beyond his feet. Then he got up on his feet and
dusted off the pine needles. Andy and I got up.
“Man ain’t got good sense chewin’ tobacco these days,” he said.
“Things ain’t fixed for him. I near went to sleep back there in the
cabin. He lifted the Colt he was still holding in his left hand,
changed hands and packed the gun away on his hip.
“Well?” he said, looking at Andy.
“Ted Rooney’s boat,” Andy said. “She’s got two sticky valves and a
big crack in the muffler. You hear it best when you throttle her up,
like they did just before they started.”
It was a lot of words for Andy, but the sheriff liked them.
“Couldn’t be wrong, Andy? Lots of boats get sticky valves.”
Andy said: “What the hell you ask me for?” in a nasty voice.
“O. K., Andy, don’t get sore.”
Andy grunted. We crossed the road and got into the car again.
Andy started it up, backed and turned and said: “Lights?”
Barron nodded. Andy put the lights on. “Where to now?”
“Ted Rooney’s place,” Barron said peacefully. “And make it fast.
We got ten miles to there.”
“Can’t make it in less’n twenty minutes,” Andy said sourly. “Got to
go through the Point.”
The car hit the paved lake road and started back past the dark
boys’ camp and the other camps, and turned left on the highway.
Barron didn’t speak until we were beyond the village and the road
out to Speaker Point. The dance band was still going strong in the
pavilion.
“I fool you any?” he asked me then.
“Enough.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“The job was perfect,” I said, “but I don’t suppose you fooled
Luders.”
“That lady was mighty uncomfortable,” Barron said. “That Luders
is a good man. Harcff quiet, full of eyesight. But I fooled him some.
He made mistakes.”
“I can think of a couple,” I said. “One was being there at all. An­
80 RAYMOND CHANDLER

other was telling us a friend was coming to pick him up, to explain
why he had no car. It didn’t need explaining. There was a car in the
garage, but you didn’t know whose car it was. Another was keeping
that boat idling.”
“That wasn’t no mistake,” Andy said from the front seat. “Not if
you ever tried to start her up cold.”
Barron said: “You don’t leave your car in the garage when you
come callin’ up here. Ain’t no moisture to hurt it. The boat could have
been anybody’s boat. A couple of young folks could have been in it
getting acquainted. I ain’t got anything on him, anyways, so far as he
knows. He just worked too hard tryin’ to head me off.”
He spat out of the car. I heard it smack the rear fender like a wet
rag. The car swept through the moonlit night, around curves, up and
down hills, through fairly thick pines and along open flats where
cattle lay.
I said: “He knew I didn’t have the letter Lacey wrote me. Because
he took it away from me himself, up in my room at the hotel. It was
Luders that knocked me out and knifed Weber. Luders knows that
Lacey is dead, even if he didn’t kill him. That’s what he’s got on Mrs.
Lacey. She thinks her husband is alive and that Luders has him.”
“You make this Luders out a pretty bad guy,” Barron said calmly.
“Why would Luders knife Weber?”
“Because Weber started all the trouble. This is an organization.
Its object is to unload some very good counterfeit ten-dollar bills, a
great many of them. You don’t advance the cause by unloading them
in five-hundred dollar lots, all brand-new, in circumstances that
would make anybody suspicious, would make a much-less-careful
man than Fred Lacey suspicious.”
“You’re doing some nice guessin’, son,” the sheriff said, grabbing
the door handle as we took a fast turn, “but the neighbors ain’t
watchin’ you. I got to be more careful. I’m in my own back yard.
Puma Lake don’t strike me as a very good place to go into the
counterfeit-money business.”
“O. K.,” I said.
“On the other hand, if Luders is the man I want, he might be land
of hard to catch. There’s three roads out of the valley, and there’s half
a dozen planes down to the east end of the Woodland Club golf
course. Always is in summer.”
“You don’t seem to be doing very much worrying about it,” I said.
“A mountain sheriff don’t have to worry a lot,” Barron said calmly.
“Nobody expects him to have any brains. Especially guys like Mr.
Luders don’t.”
The boat lay in the water at the end of a short painter, moving as
boats move even in the stillest water. A canvas tarpaulin covered
most of it and was tied down here and there, but not everywhere it
should have been tied. Behind the short, rickety pier a road twisted
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 81

back through juniper trees to the highway. There was a camp off to
one side, with a miniature white lighthouse for its trade-mark. A
sound of dance music came from one of the cabins, but most of the
camp had gone to bed.
VVe came down there walking, leaving the car on the shoulder of
the highway. Barron had a big flash in his hand and kept throwing it
this way and that, snapping it on and off. When we came to the edge
of the water and the end of the road down to the pier, he put his flash­
light on the road and studied it carefully. There were fresh-looking
tire tracks.
“What do you think?” he asked me.
“Looks like tire tracks,” I said.
“What do you think, Andy?” Barron said. “This man is cute, but he
don’t give me no ideas.”
Andy bent over and studied the tracks. “New tires and big ones,”
he said, and walked toward the pier. He stooped down again and
pointed. The sheriff threw the light where he pointed. “Yup, turned
around here,” Andy said. “So what? The place is full of new cars right
now. Come October and they’d mean something. Folks that live up
here buy one tire at a time, and cheap ones, at that. These here are
heavy-duty all-weather treads.”
“Might see about the boat,” the sheriff said.
“What about it?”
“Might see if it was used recent,” Barron said.
“Hell,” Andy said, “we know it was used recent, don’t we?”
“Always supposin’ you guessed right,” Barron said mildly.
Andy looked at him in silence for a moment. Then he spit on the
ground and started back to where we had left the car. When he had
gone a dozen feet he said over his shoulder:
“I wasn’t guessin’.” He turned his head again and went on, plowing
through the trees.
“Kind of touchy,” Barron said. “But a good man.” He went down
on the boat landing and bent over it, passing his hand along the for­
ward part of the side, below the tarpaulin. He came back slowly and
nodded. “Andy’s right. Always is, dum him. What kind of tires would
you say those marks were, Mr. Evans? They tell you anything?”
“Cadillac V-12,” I said. “A club coupe with red leather seats and
two suitcases in the back. The clock on the dash is twelve and one
half minutes slow.”
He stood there, thinking about it. Then he nodded his big head. He
sighed. “Well, I hope it makes money for you,” he said, and tamed
away.
W e went back to the car. Andy was in the front seat behind the
wheel again. He had a cigarette going. He looked straight ahead of
him through the dusty windshield.
“Where’s Rooney live now?” Barron asked.
82 RAYMOND CHANDLER

“Where he always lived,” Andy said.

“Why, that’s just a piece up the Bascomb road.”
“I ain’t said different,” Andy growled.
“Let’s go there,” the sheriff said, getting in. I got in beside him.
Andy turned the car and went back half a mile and then started to
turn. The sheriff snapped to him: “Hold it a minute.”
He got out and used his flash on the road surface. He got back into
the car. “I think we got something. Them tracks down by the pier
don’t mean a lot. But the same tracks up here might turn out to mean
more. If they go on into Bascomb, they’re goin’ to mean plenty. Them
old gold camps over there is made to order for monkey business.”
The car went into the side road and climbed slowly into a gap. Big
boulders crowded the road, and the hillside was studded with them.
They glistened pure white in the moonlight. The car growled on for
half a mile and then Andy stopped again.
“O. K., Hawkshaw, this is the cabin,” he said. Barron got out again
and walked around with his flash. There was no light in the cabin. He
came back to the car.
“They come by here,” he said. “Bringing Ted home. When they left
they turned toward Bascomb. You figure Ted Rooney would be
mixed up in something crooked, Andy?”
“Not unless they paid him for it,” Andy said.
I got out of the car and Barron and I went up toward the cabin. It
was small, rough, covered with native pine. It had a wooden porch, a
tin chimney guyed with wires, and a sagging privy behind the cabin
at the edge of the trees. It was dark. W e walked up on the porch and
Barron hammered on the door. Nothing happened. He tried the knob.
The door was locked. We went down off the porch and around the
back, looking at the windows. They were all shut. Barron tried the
back door, which was level with the ground. That was locked, too. He
pounded. The echoes of the sound wandered off through the trees
and echoed high up on the rise among the boulders.
“He’s gone with them,” Barron said. “I guess they wouldn’t dast
leave him now. Prob’ly stopped here just to let him get his stuff-
some of it. Yep.”
I said: “I don’t think so. All they wanted of Rooney was his boat.
That boat picked up Fred Lacey’s body out at the end of Speaker
Point early this evening. The body was probably weighted and
dropped out in the lake. They waited for dark to do that. Rooney was
in on it and he got paid. Tonight they wanted the boat again. But they
got to thinking they didn’t need Rooney along. And if they’re over in
Bascomb Valley in some quiet little place, making or storing counter­
feit money, they wouldn’t at all want Rooney to go over there with
them.”
“You’re guessing again, son,” the sheriff said kindly. “Anyways, I
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 83

don’t have no search warrant. But I can look over Rooney’s dollhouse
a minute. Wait for me.”
He walked away toward the privy. I took six feet and hit the door
of the cabin. It shivered and split diagonally across the upper panel.
Behind me, the sheriff called out, “Hey,” weakly, as if he didn’t
mean it.
I took another six feet and hit the door again. I went in with it and
landed on my hands and knees on a piece of linoleum that smelled
like a fish skillet. I got up to my feet and reached up and turned the
key switch of a hanging bulb. Barron was right behind me, making
clucking noises of disapproval.
There was a kitchen with a wood stove, some dirty wooden shelves
with dishes on them. The stove gave out a faint warmth. Unwashed
pots sat on top of it and smelled. I went across the kitchen and into
the front room. I turned on another hanging bulb. There was a nar­
row bed to one side, made up roughly, with a slimy quilt on it. There
was a wooden table, some wooden chairs, an old cabinet radio, hooks
on the wall, an ashtray with four burned pipes in it, a pile of pulp
magazines in the comer on the floor.
The ceiling was low to keep the heat in. In the comer there was
a trap to get up to the attic. The trap was open and a stepladder
stood under the opening. An old water-stained canvas suitcase lay
open on a wooden box, and there were odds and. ends of clothing
in it.
Barron went over and looked at the suitcase. “Looks like Rooney
was getting ready to move out or go for a trip. Then these boys come
along and picked him up. He ain’t finished his packing, but he got his
suit in. A man like Rooney don’t have but one suit and don’t wear that
’less he goes down the hill.”
“He’s not here,” I said. “He ate dinner here, though. The stove is
still warm.”
The sheriff cast a speculative eye at the stepladder. He went over
and climbed up it and pushed the trap up with his head. He raised
his torch and shone it around overhead. He let the trap close and
came down the stepladder again.
“Likely he kept the suitcase up there,” he said. “I see there’s a old
steamer trunk up there, too. You ready to leave?”
“I didn’t see a car around,” I said. “He must have had a car.”
“Yep. Had a old Plymouth. Douse the light.”
He walked back into the kitchen and looked around that and then
we put both the fights out and went out of the house. I shut what was
left of the back door. Barron was examining tire tracks in the soft
decomposed granite, trailing them back over to a space under a big
oak tree where a couple of large darkened areas showed where a car
had stood many times and dripped oil.
84 RAYMOND CHANDLER

He came back swinging his flash, then looked toward the privy and
said: “You could go on back to Andy. I still gotta look over that doll­
house.”
I didn’t say anything. I watched him go along the path to the privy
and unlatch the door, and open it. I saw his flash go inside and the
light leaked out of a dozen cracks and from the ramshackle roof. I
walked back along the side of the cabin and got into the car. The
sheriff was gone a long time. He came back slowly, stopped beside
the car and bit off another chew from his plug. He rolled it around in
his mouth and then got to work on it.
“Rooney,” he said, “is in the privy. Shot twice in the head.” He got
into the car. “Shot with a big gun, and shot very dead. Judgin’ from
the circumstances I would say somebody was in a hell of a hurry."
The road climbed steeply for a while following the meanderings of
a dried mountain stream the bed of which was full of boulders. Then
it leveled off about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet above the level
of the lake. W e crossed a cattle stop of spaced narrow rails that
clanked under the car wheels. The road began to go down. A wide
undulating flat appeared with a few browsing cattle in it. A lightless
farmhouse showed up against the moonlit sky. W e reached a wider
road that ran at right angles. Andy stopped the car and Barron got
out with his big flashlight again and ran the spot slowly over the road
surface.
“Turned left,” he said, straightening. “Thanks be there ain’t been an­
other car past since them tracks were made.” He got back into the
car.
“Left don’t go to no old mines,” Andy said. “Left goes to Worden’s
place and then back down to the lake at the dam.”
Barron sat silent a moment and then got out of the car and used his
flash again. He made a surprised sound over to the right of the T in­
tersection. He came back again, snapping the light off.
“Goes right, too,” he said. “But goes left first. They doubled back,
but they been somewhere off west of here before they done it. W e go
like they w ent”
Andy said: “You sure they went left first and not last? Left would
be a way out to the highway.”
“Yep. Right marks overlays left marks,” Barron said.
We turned left. The knolls that dotted the valley were covered
with ironwood trees, some of them half dead. Ironwood grows to
about eighteen or twenty feet high and then dies. When it dies the
limbs strip themselves and get a gray-white color and shine in the
moonlight.
We went about a mile and then a narrow road shot off toward the
north, a mere track. Andy stopped. Barron got out again and used his
flash. He jerked his thumb and Andy swung the car. The sheriff got in.
“Them boys ain’t too careful,” he said. “Nope. I’d say they ain’t
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 85

careful at all. But they never figured Andy could tell where that boat
come from, just by listenin’ to it.”
The road went into a fold of the mountains and the growth got so
close to it that the car barely passed without scratching. Then it
doubled back at a sharp angle and rose again and went around a spur
of hill and a small cabin showed up, pressed back against a slope with
trees on all sides of it.
And suddenly, from the house or very close to it, came a long,
shrieking yell which ended in a snapping bark. The bark was choked
off suddenly.
Barron started to say: “Kill them---- •
” but Andy had already cut the
lights and pulled off the road. “Too late, I guess,” he said dryly.
“Must’ve seen us, if anybody’s watchin’.”
Barron got out of the car. “That sounded mighty like a coyote,
Andy.”
“Y up.”
“Awful close to the house for a coyote, don’t you think, Andy?”
“Nope,” Andy said. “Lights out, a coyote would come right up to
the cabin lookin’ for buried garbage.”
“And then again it could be that little dog,” Barron said.
“Or a hen laying a square egg,” I said. “What are we waiting for?
And how about giving me back my gun? And are we trying to catch
up with anybody, or do we just like to get things all figured out as
we go along?”
The sheriff took my gun off his left hip and handed it to me. “I ain’t
in no hurry,” he said. “Because Luders ain’t in no hurry. He coulda
been long gone, if he was. They was in a hurry to get Rooney, because
Rooney knew something about them. But Rooney don’t know noth­
ing about them now because he’s dead and his house locked up and
his car driven away. If you hadn’t bust in his back door, he could be
there in his privy a couple of weeks before anybody would get curi­
ous. Them tire backs looks kind of obvious, but that’s only because
we know where they started. They don’t have any reason to think we
could find that out. So where would we start? No, I ain’t in any hurry.”
Andy stooped over and came up with a deer rifle. He opened the
left-hand door and got out of the car.
“The little dog’s in there,” Barron said peacefully. “That means
Mrs. Lacey is in there, too. And there would be somebody to watch
her. Yep, I guess we better go up and look, Andy.”
“I hope you’re scared,” Andy said. “I am.”
We started through the trees. It was about two hundred yards to
the cabin. The night was very still. Even at that distance I heard a
window open. We walked about fifty feet apart. Andy stayed back
long enough to lock the car. Then he started to make a wide circle, far
out to the right.
Nothing moved in the cabin as we got close to it, no light showed.
86 RAYM OND CHANDLER

The coyote or Shiny, the dog, whichever it was, didn’t bark again.
We got very close to the house, not more than twenty yards. Barron
and I were about the same distance apart. It was a small rough cabin,
built like Rooney’s place, but larger. There was an open garage at the
back, but it was empty. The cabin had a small porch of fieldstone.
Then there was the sound of a short, sharp struggle in the cabin
and the beginning of a bark, suddenly choked off. Barron fell down
flat on the ground. I did the same. Nothing happened.
Barron stood up slowly and began to move forward a step at a time
and a pause between each step. I stayed out. Barron reached the
cleared space in front of the house and started to go up the steps to
the porch. He stood there, bulky, clearly outlined in the moonlight,
the Colt hanging at his side. It looked like a swell way to commit
suicide.
Nothing happened. Barron reached the top of the steps, moved
over tight against the wall. There was a window to his left, the door
to his right. He changed his gun in his hand and reached out to bang
on the door with the butt, then swiftly reversed it again, and flattened
to the wall.
The dog screamed inside the house. A hand holding a gun came
out at the bottom of the opened window and turned.
It was a tough shot at the range. I had to make it. I shot. The bark
of the automatic was drowned in the duller boom of a rifle. The hand
drooped and the gun dropped to the porch. The hand came out a little
farther and the fingers twitched, then began to scratch at the sill.
Then they went back in through the window and the dog howled.
Barron was at the door, jerking at it. And Andy and I were running
hard for the cabin, from different angles.
Barron got the door open and light framed him suddenly as some­
one inside lit a lamp and turned it up.
I made the porch as Barron went in, Andy close behind me. We
went into the living room of the cabin.
Mrs. Fred Lacey stood in the middle of the floor beside a table
with a lamp on it, holding the little dog in her arms. A thickset blond-
ish man lay on his side under the window, breathing heavily, his
hand groping around aimlessly for the gun that had fallen outside
the window.
Mrs. Lacey opened her arms and let the dog down. It leaped and
hit the sheriff in the stomach with its small, sharp nose and pushed
inside his coat at his shirt. Then it dropped to the floor again and ran
around in circles, silently, weaving its hind end with delight.
Mrs. Lacey stood frozen, her face as empty as death. The man on
the floor groaned a little in the middle of his heavy breathing. His
eyes opened and shut rapidly. His lips moved and bubbled pink
froth.
“That sure is a nice little dog, Mrs. Lacey,” Barron said, tucking his
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 87

shirt in. “But it don’t seem a right handy time to have him around—
not for some people.”
He looked at the blond man on the floor. The blond man’s eyes
opened and became fixed on nothing.
“I bed to you,” Mrs. Lacey said quickly. “I had to. My husband’s
life depended on it. Luders has him. He has him somewhere over
here. I don’t know where, but it isn’t far off, he said. He went to bring
him back to me, but he left this man to guard me. I couldn’t do any­
thing about it, sheriff. I’m—I’m sorry.”
“I knew you fled, Mrs. Lacey,” Barron said quietly. He looked
down at his Colt and put it back on his hip. “I knew why. But your
husband is dead, Mrs. Lacey. He was dead long ago. Mr. Evans here
saw him. It’s hard to take, ma’am, but you better know it now.”
She didn’t move or seem to breathe. Then she went very slowly to a
chair and sat down and leaned her face in her hands. She sat there
without motion, without sound. The little dog whined and crept
under her chair.
The man on the floor started to raise the upper part of his body. He
raised it very slowly, stiffly. His eyes were blank. Barron moved over
to him and bent down.
“You hit bad, son?”
The man pressed his left hand against his chest. Blood oozed be­
tween his fingers. He lifted his right hand slowly, until the arm was
rigid and pointing to the corner of the ceiling. His bps quivered, stiff­
ened, spoke.
“Heil Hitler!” he said thickly.
He fell back and lay motionless. His throat rattled a little and then
that, too, was still, and everything in the room was still, even the dog.
“This man must be one of them Nazis,” the sheriff said. “You hear
what he said?”
“Yeah,” I said.
I turned and walked out of the house, down the steps and down
through the trees again to the car. I sat on the running board and bt a
cigarette, and sat there smoking and thinking hard.
After a httle while they all came down through the trees. Barron
was carrying the dog. Andy was carrying his rifle in his left hand. His
leathery young face looked shocked.
Mrs. Lacey got into the car and Barron handed the dog in to her. He
looked at me and said: “It’s against the law to smoke out here, son,
more than fifty feet from a cabin.”
I dropped the cigarette and ground it hard into the powdery gray
soil. I got into the car, in front beside Andy.
The car started again and we went back to what they probably
called the main road over there. Nobody said anything for a long
time, then Mrs. Lacey said in a low voice: “Luders mentioned a name
that sounded like Sloat. He said it to the man you shot. They called
88 RAYMOND CHANDLER

him Kurt. They spoke German. I understand a little German, but

they talked too fast. Sloat didn’t sound like German. Does it mean
anything to you?”
“It’s the name of an old gold mine not far from here,” Barron said.
“Sloat’s Mine. You know where it is, don’t you, Andy?”
“Yup. I guessed I killed that feller, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did, Andy.”
“I never killed nobody before,” Andy said.
“Maybe I got him,” I said. “I fired at him.”
“Nope,” Andy said. “You wasn’t high enough to get him in the
chest. I was.”
Barron said: “How many brought you to that cabin, Mrs. Lacey? I
hate to be asking you questions at a time like this, ma’am, but I just
got to.”
The dead voice said: “Two. Luders and the man you killed. He ran
the boat.”
“Did they stop anywhere—on this side of the lake, ma’am?”
“Yes. They stopped at a small cabin near the lake. Luders was driv­
ing. The other man, Kurt, got out, and we drove on. After a while
Luders stopped and Kurt came up with us in an old car. He drove the
car into a gully behind some willows and then came on with us.”
“That’s all we need,” Barron said. “If we get Luders, the job’s all
done. Except I can’t figure what it’s all about.”
I didn’t say anything. We drove on to where the T intersection was
and the road went back to the lake. We kept on across this for about
four miles.
“Better stop here, Andy. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. You
stay here.”
“Nope. I ain’t going to,” Andy said.
“You stay here,” Barron said in a voice suddenly harsh. “You got a
lady to look after and you done your killin’ for tonight. All I ask is you
keep that little dog quiet.”
The car stopped. Barron and I got out. The little dog whined and
then was still. We went off the road and started across country
through a grove of young pines and manzanita and ironwood. We
walked silently, without speaking. The noise our shoes made couldn’t
have been heard thirty feet away except by an Indian.
We reached the far edge of the thicket in a few minutes. Beyond
that the ground was level and open. There was a spidery something
against the sky, a few low piles of waste dirt, a set of sluice boxes built
one on top of the other like a miniature cooling tower, an endless belt
going toward it from a cut. Barron put his mouth against my ear.
“Ain’t been worked for a couple of years,” he said. “Ain’t worth it.
Day’s hard work for two men might get you a pennyweight of gold.
This country was worked to death sixty years ago. That low hut over
yonder’s a old refrigerator car. She’s thick and damn near bullet­
NO C R I M E IN T H E M O U N T A IN S 89

proof. I don’t see no car, but maybe it’s behind. Or hidden. Most like
hidden. You ready to go?”
I nodded. We started across the open space. The moon was almost
as bright as daylight. I felt swell, like a clay pipe in a shooting gallery.
Barron seemed quite at ease. He held the big Colt down at his side,
with his thumb over the hammer.
Suddenly light showed in the side of the refrigerator car and we
went down on the ground. The light came from a partly opened door,
a yellow panel and a yellow spearhead on the ground. There was a
movement in the moonlight and the noise of water striking the
ground. W e waited a little, then got up again and went on.
There wasn’t much use playing Indian. They would come out of
the door or they wouldn’t. If they did, they would see us, walking,
crawling or lying. The ground was that bare and the moon was that
bright. Our shoes scuffed a little, but this was hard dirt, much walked
on and tight packed. We reached a pile of sand and stopped beside it.
I listened to myself breathing. I wasn’t panting, and Barron wasn’t
panting either. But I took a lot of interest in my breathing. It was
something I had taken for granted for a long time, but right now I
was interested in it. I hoped it would go on for a long time, but I
wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t scared. I was a full-sized man and I had a gun in my hand.
But the blond man back in the other cabin had been a full-sized man
with a gun in his hand, too. And he had a wall to hide behind. I
wasn’t scared though. I was just thoughtful about little things. I
thought Barron was breathing too loud, but I thought I would make
more noise telling him he was breathing too loud than he was making
breathing. That’s the way I was, very thoughtful about the little
things.
Then the door opened again. This time there was no light behind
it. A small man, very small, came out of the doorway carrying what
looked like a heavy suitcase. He carried it along the side of the car,
grunting hard. Barron held my arm in a vise. His breath hissed
faintly.
The small man with the heavy suitcase, or whatever it was,
reached the end of the car and went around the comer. Then I
thought that although the pile of sand didn’t look very high it was
probably high enough so that we didn’t show above it. And if the
small man wasn’t expecting visitors, he might not see us. We waited
for him to come back. We waited too long.
A clear voice behind us said: “I am holding a machine gun, Mr.
Barron. Put your hands up, please. If you move to do anything else,
I fire.”
I put my hands up fast. Barron hesitated a little longer. Then he
put his hands up. We turned slowly. Frank Luders stood about four
feet away from us, with a Tommy-gun held waist high. Its muzzle
90 RAYMOND CHANDLER

looked as big as the Second Street tunnel in L. A.

Luders said quietly: “I prefer that you face the other way. When
Charlie comes back from the car, he will light the lamps inside. Then
we shall all go in.”
We faced the long, low car again. Luders whistled sharply. The
small man came back around the corner of the car, stopped a
moment, then went toward the door Luders called out: “Light the
lamps, Charlie. W e have visitors.”
The small man went quietly into the car and a match scratched
and there was light inside.
“Now, gentlemen, you may walk,” Luders said. “Observing, of
course, that death walks close behind you and conducting yourselves
accordingly.”
We walked.
“Take their guns and see if they have any more of them, Charlie.”
We stood backed against a wall near a long wooden table. There
were wooden benches on either side of the table. On it was a tray
with a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses, a hurricane lamp
and an old-fashioned farmhouse oil lamp of thick glass, both lit, a
saucer full of matches and another full of ashes and stubs. In the end
of the cabin, away from the table, there was a small stove and two
cots, one tumbled, one made up as neat as a pin.
The little Japanese came toward us with the light shining on his
glasses.
“Oh having guns,” he purred. “Oh too bad.”
He took the guns and pushed them backward across the table to
Luders. His small hands felt us over deftly. Barron winced and his
face reddened, but he said nothing. Charlie said:
“No more guns. Pleased to see, gentlemen. Very nice night, I think
so. You having picnic in moonlight?”
Barron made an angry sound in his throat. Luders said: “Sit down,
please, gentlemen, and tell me what I can do for you.”
We sat down. Luders sat down opposite. The two guns were on
the table in front of him and the Tommy-gun rested on it, his left
hand holding it steady, his eyes quiet and hard. His was no longer a
pleasant face, but it was still an intelligent face. Intelligent as they
ever are.
Barron said: “Guess I’ll chew. I think better that way.” He got his
plug out and bit into it and put it away. He chewed silently and then
spit on the floor.
“Guess I might mess up your floor some,” he said. “Hope you don’t
mind.”
The Jap was sitting on the end of the neat bed, his shoes not touch­
ing the floor. “Not liking much,” he said hissingly, “very bad smell.”
Barron didn’t look at him. He said quietly: “You aim to shoot us
and make your getaway, Mr. Luders?”
NO C R I M E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 91
Luders shrugged and took his hand off the machine gun and leaned
back against the wall.
Barron said: “You left a pretty broad trail here except for one thing.
How we would know where to pick it up. You didn’t figure that out
because you wouldn’t have acted the way you did. But you was all
staked out for us when we got here. I don’t follow that.”
Luders said: “That is because we Germans are fatalists. When
things go very easily, as they did tonight—except for that fool, Weber
—we become suspicious. I said to myself, ‘I have left no trail, no way
they could follow me across the lake quickly enough. They had no
boat, and no boat followed me. It would be impossible for them to find
me. Quite impossible.’ So I said, ‘They will find me just because to
me it appears impossible. Therefore, I shall be waiting for them.’ ”
“While Charlie toted the suitcases full of money out to the car,” I
said.
“What money?” Luders asked, and didn’t seem to look at either of
us. He seemed to be looking inward, searching.
I said: “Those very fine new ten-dollar bills you have been bring­
ing in from Mexico by plane.”
Luders looked at me then, but indifferently. “My dear friend, you
could not possibly be serious?” he suggested.
“Phooey. Easiest thing in the world. The border patrol has no
planes now. They had a few coast guard planes awhile back, but
nothing came over, so they were taken off. A plane flying high over
the border from Mexico lands on the field down by the Woodland
Club golf course. It’s Mr. Luders’ plane and Mr. Luders owns an in­
terest in the club and lives there. Why should anybody get curious
about that. But Mr. Luders doesn’t want half a million dollars’ worth
of queer money in his cabin at the club, so he finds himself an old
mine over here and keeps the money in this refrigerator car. It’«
almost as strong as a safe and it doesn’t look like a safe.”
“You interest me,” Luders said calmly. “Continue.”
I said: “The money is very good stuff. We’ve had a report on it.
That means organization—to get the inks and the right paper and the
plates. It means an organization much more complete than any gang
of crooks could manage. A government organization. The organiza­
tion of the Nazi government.”
The little Jap jumped up off the bed and hissed, but Luders didn’t
change expression. “I’m still interested,” he said laconically.
“I ain’t,” Barron said. “Sounds to me like you’re tryin’ to talk your­
self into a vestful of lead.”
I went on: “A few years ago the Russians tried the same stunt.
Planting a lot of queer money over here to raise funds for espionage
work and, incidentally, they hoped, to damage our currency. The
Nazis are too smart to gamble on that angle. All they want is good
American dollars to work with in Central and South America. Nice
92 RAYMOND CHANDLER

mixed-up money that’s been used. You can’t go into a bank and de­
posit a hundred thousand dollars in brand-new ten-dollar bills.
What’s bothering the sheriff is why you picked this particular place,
a mountain resort full of rather poor people.”
“But that does not bother you with your superior brain, does it?”
Luders sneered.
“It don’t bother me a whole lot either,” Barron said. “What bothers
me is folks getting killed in my territory. I ain’t used to it.”
I said: “You picked the place primarily because it’s a swell place to
bring the money into. It’s probably one of hundreds all over the
country, places where there is very little law enforcement to dodge
but places where in the summertime a lot of strange people come and
go all the time. And plr.ces where planes set down and nobody checks
them in or out. But that isn’t the only reason. It’s also a swell place to
unload some of the money, quite a lot of it, if you’re lucky. But you
weren’t lucky. Your man Weber pulled a dumb trick and made you
unlucky. Should I tell you just why it’s a good place to spread queer
money, if you have enough people working for you?”
“Please do,” Luders said, and patted the side of the machine gun.
“Because for three months in the year this district has a floating
population of anywhere from twenty to fifty thousand people, de­
pending on the holidays and week-ends. That means a lot of money
brought in and a lot of business done. And there’s no bank here. The
result of that is that the hotels and bars and merchants have to cash
checks all the time. The result of that is that the deposits they send
out during the season are almost all checks and the money stays in
circulation. Until the end of the season, of course.”
“I think that is very interesting,” Luders said. “But if this opera­
tion were under my control, I would not think of passing very much
money up here. I would pass a little here and there, but not much. I
would test the money out, to see how well it was accepted. And for a
reason that you have thought of. Because most of it would change
hands rapidly and, if it was discovered to be queer money, as you say,
it would be very difficult to trace the source of it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That would be smarter. You’re nice and frank
about it.”
“To you,” Luders said, “it naturally does not matter how frank I
am.”
Barron leaned forward suddenly. “Look here, Luders, killin’ us
ain’t going to help you any. If you come right down to it, we don’t
have a thing on you. Likely you killed this man Weber, but the way
things are up here, it’s going to be mighty hard to prove it. If you
been spreading bad money, they’ll get you for it, sure, but that ain’t a
hangin’ matter. Now I’ve got a couple pair of handcuffs in my belt,
so happens, and my proposition is you walk out of here with them on,
you and your Japanese pal.”
NO C R IM E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 93

Charlie the Jap said: “Ha, ha. Very funny man. Some boob I guess
yes.
Luders smiled faintly. “You put all the stuff in the car, Charlie?”
“One more suitcase coming right up,” Charlie said.
“Better take it on out, and start the engine, Charlie.”
“Listen, it won’t work, Luders,” Barron said urgently. “I got a man
back in the woods with a deer rifle. It’s bright moonlight. You got a
fair weapon there, but you got no more chance against a deer rifle
than Evans and me got against you. You’ll never get out of here unless
we go with you. He seen us come in here and how we come. He’ll give
us twenty minutes. Then he’ll send for some boys to dynamite you
out. Them were my orders.”
Luders said quietly: “This work is very difficult. Even we Germans
find it difficult. I am tired. I made a bad mistake. I used a man who
was a fool, who did a foolish thing, and then he killed a man because
he had done it and the man knew he had done it. But it was my mis­
take also. I shall not be forgiven. My life is no longer of great impor­
tance. Take the suitcase to the car, Charlie.”
Charlie moved swiftly toward him. “Not liking, no,” he said
sharply. “That damn heavy suitcase. Man with rifle shooting. To
h e f f .”
Luders smiled slowly. “That’s all a lot of nonsense, Charlie. If they
had men with them, they would have been here long ago. That is why
I let these men talk. To see if they were alone. They are alone. Go,
Charlie.”
Charlie said hissingly: “I going, but I still not liking.”
He went over to the comer and hefted the suitcase that stood there.
He could hardly carry it. He moved slowly to the door and put the
suitcase down and sighed. He opened the door a crack and looked
out. “Not see anybody,” he said. “Maybe all lies, too.”
Luders said musingly: “I should have killed the dog and the
woman, too. I was weak. The man Kurt, what of him?”
“Never heard of him,” I said. “Where was he?”
Luders stared at me. “Get up on your feet, both of you.”
I got up. An icicle was crawling around on my back. Barron got up.
His face was gray. The whitening hair at the side of his head glistened
with sweat. There was sweat all over his face, but his jaws went on
chewing.
He said softly: “How much you get for this job, son?”
I said thickly: “A hundred bucks, but I spent some of it.”
Barron said in the same soft tone: “I been married forty years.
They pay me eighty dollars a month, house and firewood. It ain’t
enough. By gum, I ought to get a hundred.” He grinned wryly and
spat and looked at Luders. “To hell with you, you Nazi bastard,” he
said.
Luders lifted the machine gun slowly and his lips drew back over
94 RAYMOND CHANDLER

his teeth. His breath made a hissing noise. Then very slowly he laid
the gun down and reached inside his coat. He took out a Luger and
moved the safety with his thumb. He shifted the gun to his left hand
and stood looking at us quietly. Very slowly his face drained of all
expression and became a dead gray mask. He lifted the gun, and at
the same time he lifted his right arm stiffly above shoulder height.
The arm was as rigid as a rod.
“Heil, Hitler!” he said sharply.
He turned the gun quickly, put the muzzle in his mouth and fired.
The Jap screamed and streaked out of the door. Barron and I
lunged hard across the table. We got our guns. Blood fell on the back
of my hand and then Luders crumpled slowly against the wall.
Barron was already out of the door. When I got out behind him, I
saw that the little Jap was running hard down the hill toward a clump
of brush.
Barron steadied himself, brought the Colt up, then lowered it again.
“He ain’t far enough,” he said. “I always give a man forty yards.”
He raised the big Colt again and turned his body a little and, as the
gun reached firing position, it moved very slowly and Barron’s head
went down a little until his arm and shoulder and right eye were all
in a line.
He stayed like that, perfectly rigid for a long moment, then the gun
roared and jumped back in his hand and a lean thread of smoke
showed faint in the moonlight and disappeared.
The Jap kept on running. Barron lowered his Colt and watched him
plunge into a clump of brush.
“Hell,” he said. “I missed him.” He looked at me quickly and
looked away again. “But he won’t get nowhere. Ain’t got nothing to
get with. Them little legs of his ain’t hardly long enough to jump him
over a pine cone.”
“He had a gun,” I said. “Under his left arm.”
Barron shook his head. “Nope. I noticed the holster was empty. 1
figured Luders got it away from him. I figure Luders meant to shoot
him before he left.”
Car lights showed in the distance, coming dustily along the road.
“What made Luders go soft?”
“I figure his pride was hurt,” Barron said thoughtfully. “A big
organizer like him gettin’ hisself all balled to hell by a couple of little
fellows like us.”
We went around the end of the refrigerator car. A big new coupe
was parked there. Barron marched over to it and opened the door.
The car on the road was near now. It turned off and its headlights
raked the big coupe. Barron stared into the car for a moment, then
slammed the door viciously and spat on the ground.
“Caddy V-12,” he said. “Red leather cushions and suitcases in the
NO C R IM E IN THE M O U N T A IN S 95
back.” He reached in again and snapped on the dashlight. “What
time is it?”
“Twelve minutes to two,” I said.
“This clock ain’t no twelve and a half minutes slow,” Barron said
angrily. “You slipped on that.” He turned and faced me, pushing his
hat back on his head. “Hell, you seen it parked in front of the Indian
Head,” he said.
“Right.”
“I thought you was just a smart guy.”
“Right,” I said.
“Son, next time I got to get almost shot, could you plan to be
around?”
The car that was coming stopped a few yards away and a dog
whined. Andy called out: “Anybody hurt?”
Barron and I walked over to the car. The door opened and the little
silky dog jumped out and rushed at Barron. She took off about four
feet away and sailed through the air and planted her front paws hard
against Barron’s stomach, then dropped back to the ground and ran
in circles.
Barron said: “Luders shot hisself inside there. There’s a little Jap
down in the bushes we got to round up. And there’s three, four suit­
cases full of counterfeit money we got to take care of.”
He looked off into the distance, a solid, heavy man like a rock. “A
night like this,” he said, “and it’s got to be full of death.”
 S A M S P A D E IN

A p oet in a D ashiell H am m ett story seem s as unlikely as a m obster

in M ichael lnnes. But som e poets have contacts outside the ivory
tower, th e corner bistro, or the w om en s clubs; and these contacts
can lead them to s a m s p a d e . Hard, devil-faced, tough-m inded s p a d e
can crack a case keenly, as Bogart fans know, even when his private
revenge and his love hinge on the solution. W atch him here, w here
his only interest is a fe e . . . and then pause at the en d and wonder
w hether h e collected that fe e , and w hether h e m ay not b e m oved
by as pure a sense o f righteousness as u n c l e a b n e r —who might
understand s p a d e better than you’d think.
TOO MANY HAVE LIVED

BY D A S H I E L L H A M M E T T

T h e MAN’S T IE was as orange as a sunset. He was a large man,

tall and meaty, without softness. The dark hair parted in the middle,
flattened to his scalp, his firm, full cheeks, the clothes that fit him
with noticeable snugness, even the small, pink ears flat against the
sides of his head—each of these seemed but a differently colored part
of one same, smooth surface. His age could have been thirty-five or
forty-five.
He sat beside Samuel Spade’s desk, leaning forward a little over
his Malacca stick, and said, “No. I want you to find out what hap­
pened to him. I hope you never find him.” His protuberant green eyes
stared solemnly at Spade.
Spade rocked back in his chair. His face—given a not unpleasantly
97
98 D A SH IE LL HAMMETT

S a ta n ic c a s t b y t h e v ’s o f h is b o n y c h in , m o u t h , n o s t r ils , a n d t h ic k is h
“Why?”
b r o w s —w a s a s p o lit e ly in t e r e s t e d a s h is v o i c e .
The green-eyed man spoke quietly, with assurance: “I can talk to
you, Spade. You’ve the sort of reputation I want in a private detec­
tive. That’s why I’m here.”
Spade’s nod committed him to nothing.
The green-eyed man said, “And any fair price is all right with me.”
Spade nodded as before. “And with me,” he said, “but I’ve got to
know what you want to buy. You want to find out what’s happened to
this—uh—Eli Haven, but you don’t care what it is?”
The green-eyed man lowered his voice, but there was no other
change in his mien: “In a way I do. For instance, if you found him and
fixed it so he stayed away for good, it might be worth more money
to me.”
“You mean even if he didn’t want to stay away?”
The green-eyed man said, “Especially.”
Spade smiled and shook his head. “Probably not enough more
money—the way you mean it.” He took his long, thick-fingered hands
from the arms of his chair and turned their palms up. “Well, what’s it
all about, Colyer?”
Colyer’s face reddened a little, but his eyes maintained their un­
blinking cold stare. “This man’s got a wife. I like her. They had a row
last week and he blew. If I can convince her he’s gone for good,
there’s a chance she’ll divorce him.”
“I’d want to talk to her,” Spade said. “Who is this Eli Haven? What
does he do?”
“He’s a bad egg. He doesn’t do anything. Writes poetry or some­
thing.”
“What can you tell me about him that’ll help?”
“Nothing Julia, his wife, can’t tell you. You’re going to talk to her.”
Colyer stood up. “I’ve got connections. Maybe I can get something
for you through them later. . . .”
A small-boned woman of twenty-five or -six opened the apartment
door. Her powder-blue dress was trimmed with silver buttons. She
was full-bosomed but slim, with straight shoulders and narrow hips,
and she carried herself with a pride that would have been cockiness
in one less graceful.
Spade said, “Mrs. Haven?”
She hesitated before saying “Yes.”
“Gene Colyer sent me to see you. My name’s Spade. I’m a private
detective. He wants me to find your husband.”
“And have you found him?”
“I told him I’d have to talk to you first.”
Her smile went away. She studied his face gravely, feature by fea­
ture, then she said, “Certainly,” and stepped back, drawing the door
back with her.
TOO MANY HAVE LIV E D 99

When they were seated in facing chairs in a cheaply furnished

room overlooking a playground where children were noisy, she asked,
“Did Gene tell you why he wanted Eli found?”
“He said if you knew he was gone for good maybe you’d listen to
reason.”
She said nothing.
“Has he ever gone off like this before?”
“Often.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s a swell man,” she said dispassionately, “when he’s sober; and
when he’s drinking he’s all right except with women and money.”
“That leaves him a lot of room to be all right in. What does he do
for a living?”
“He’s a poet,” she replied, “but nobody makes a living at that.”
“Wen?”
“Oh, he pops in with a little money now and then. Poker, races, he
says. I don’t know.”
“How long’ve you been married?”
“Four years, almost”—she smiled mockingly.
“San Francisco all the time?”
“No, we lived in Seattle the first year and then came here.”
“He from Seattle?”
She shook her head. “Some place in Delaware.”
“What place?”
“I don’t know.”
Spade drew his thickish brows together a little. “Where are you
from?”
She said sweetly, “You’re not hunting for me.”
“You act like it,” he grumbled. “Well, who are his friends?”
“Don’t ask me!”
He made an impatient grimace. “You know some of them,” he in­
sisted.
“Sure. There’s a fellow named Minera and a Louis James and
somebody he calls Conny.”
“Who are they?”
“Men,” she replied blandly. “I don’t know anything about them.
They phone or drop by to pick him up, or I see him around town with
them. That’s all I know.”
“What do they do for a living? They can’t all write poetry.”
She laughed. “They could try. One of them, Louis James, is a—
a member of Gene’s staff, I think. I honestly don’t know any more
about them than I’ve told you.”
“Think they’d know where your husband is?”
She shrugged. “They’re kidding me if they do. They still call up
once in a while to see if he’s turned up.”
“And these women you mentioned?”
100 D A SH IE LL HAMMETT

“They’re not people I know.”

Spade scowled thoughtfully at the floor, asked, “What’d he do be­
fore he started not making a living writing poetry?”
“Anything—sold vacuum cleaners, hoboed, went to sea, dealt
blackjack, railroaded, canning houses, lumber camps, carnivals,
worked on a newspaper—anything.”
“Have any money when he left?”
“Three dollars he borrowed from me.”
“What’d he say?”
She laughed. “Said if I used whatever influence I had with God
while he was gone he’d be back at dinnertime with a surprise for me.”
Spade raised his eyebrows. “You were on good terms?”
“Oh, yes. Our last fight had been patched up a couple of days be­
fore.”
“When did he leave?”
“Thursday afternoon; three o’clock, I guess.”
“Got any photographs of him?”
“Yes.” She went to a table by one of the windows, pulled a drawer
out, and turned towards Spade again with a photograph in her hand.
Spade looked at the picture of a thin face with deep-set eyes, a
sensual mouth, and a heavily fined forehead topped by a disorderly
mop of coarse blond hair.
He put Haven’s photograph in his pocket and picked up his hat.
He turned towards the door, halted. “What kind of poet is he? Pretty
good?”
She shrugged. “That depends on who you ask.”
“Any of it around here?”
“No.” She smiled. “Think he’s hiding between pages?”
“You never can tell what’ll lead to what. I’ll be back some time.
Think things over and see if you can’t find some way of loosening up
a little more. ’By.”
He walked down Post Street to Mulford’s book store and asked for
a volume of Haven’s poetry.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I sold my last copy last week”—she
smiled—“to Mr. Haven himself. I can order it for you.”
“You know him?”
“Only through selling his books.”
Spade pursed his lips, asked, “What day was it?” He gave her one
of his business cards. “Please. It’s important.”
She went to a desk, tinned the pages of a red-bound sales-book,
and came back to him with the book open in her hand. “It was last
Wednesday,” she said, “and we delivered it to a Mr. B.oger Ferris,
1981 Pacific Avenue.”
“Thanks a lot,” he said.
Outside, he hailed a taxicab and gave the driver Mr. Roger Ferris’s
address. . . .
TOO MANY HAVE LIV E D 101

The Pacific Avenue house was a four-story, graystone one set be­
hind a narrow strip of lawn. The room into which a plump-faced
maid ushered Spade was large and high-ceiled.
Spade sat down, but when the maid had gone away he rose and be­
gan to walk around the room. He halted at a table where there were
three books. One of them had a salmon-colored jacket on which was
printed in red an outline drawing of a bolt of lightning striking the
ground between a man and a woman, and in black the words C olored
Light, by Eli Haven.
Spade picked up the book and went back to his chair.
There was an inscription on the flyleaf—heavy, irregular characters
written with blue ink:

To g ood old Buck, who knew his colored lights,

in m em ory o f them there days.
Eli

Spade turned pages at random and idly read a verse:

STATEMENT

Too many have lived

As w e live
For our lives to b e
Proof o f our living.
Too many have d ied
As w e die
F or their deaths to b e
Proof o f our dying.
He looked up from the book as a man in dinner clothes came into
the room. He was not a tall man, but his erectness made him seem tall
even when Spade’s six feet and a fraction of an inch were standing be­
fore him. He had bright blue eyes undimmed by his fifty-some years,
a sunburned face in which no muscle sagged, a smooth, broad fore­
head, and thick, short, nearly white hair. There was dignity in his
countenance, and amiability.
He nodded at the book Spade still held. “How do you like it?”
Spade grinned, said, “I guess I’m just a mug,” and put the book
down. “That’s what I came to see you about, though, Mr. Ferris. You
know Haven?”
“Yes, certainly. Sit down, Mr. Spade.” He sat in a chair not far from
Spade’s. “I knew him as a kid. He’s not in trouble, is he?”
Spade said, “I don’t know. I’m trying to find him.”
Ferris spoke hesitantly: “Can I ask why?”
“You know Gene Colyer?”
“Yes. Ferris hesitated again, then said, “This is in confidence. I’ve
102 D A SH IE LL HAMMETT

a chain of picture houses through northern California, you know, and

a couple of years ago when I had some labor trouble I was told that
Colyer was the man to get in touch with to have it straightened out.
That’s how I happened to meet him.”
“Yes,” Spade said dryly. “A lot of people happen to meet Gene that
way.”
“But what’s he got to do with Eli?”
“Wants him found. How long since you’ve seen him?”
“Last Thursday he was here.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Midnight—a little after. He came over in the afternoon around
half past three. We hadn’t seen each other for years. I persuaded
him to stay for dinner—he looked pretty seedy—and lent him some
money.”
“How much?”
“A hundred and fifty—all I had in the house.”
“Say where he was going when he left?”
Ferris shook his head. “He said he’d phone me the next day.”
“Did he phone you the next day?”
“No.”
“And you’ve known him all his life?”
“Not exactly, but he worked for me fifteen or sixteen years ago
when I had a carnival company—Great Eastern and Western Com­
bined Shows—with a partner for a while and then by myself, and I
always liked the kid.”
“How long before Thursday since you’d seen him?”
“Lord knows,” Ferris replied. “I’d lost track of him for years. Then,
Wednesday, out of a clear sky, that book came, with no address or
anything, just that stuff written in the front, and the next morning he
called me up. I was tickled to death to know he was still alive and
doing something with himself. So he came over that afternoon and
we put in about nine hours straight talking about old times.”
“Tell you much about what he’d been doing since then?”
“Just that he’d been knocking around, doing one thing and another,
taking the breaks as they came. He didn’t complain much; I had to
make him take the hundred and fifty.”
Spade stood up. “Thanks ever so much, Mr. Ferris. I---- ■ ”
Ferris interrupted him: “Not at all, and if there’s anything I can
do, call on me.”
Spade looked at his watch. “Can I phone my office to see if any­
thing’s turned up?”
“Certainly; there’s a phone in the next room, to the right.”
Spade said “Thanks” and went out. When he returned he was roll­
ing a cigarette. His face was wooden.
“Any news?” Ferris asked.
“Yes. Colyer’s called the job off. He says Haven’s body’s been
TOO MANY HAVE LIV E D 103
found in some bushes on the other side of San Jose, with three bullets
in it.” He smiled, adding mildly, “He told me he might be able to find
out something through his connections. . .

Morning sunshine, coming through the curtains that screened

Spade’s office windows, put two fat, yellow rectangles on the floor
and gave everything in the room a yellow tint.
He sat at his desk, staring meditatively at a newspaper. He did not
look up when Effie Perine came in from the outer office.
She said, “Mrs. Haven is here.”
He raised his head then and said, “That’s better. Push her in.”
Mrs. Haven came in quickly. Her face was white and she was
shivering in spite of her fur coat and the warmth of the day. She came
straight to Spade and asked, “Did Gene kill him?”
Spade said, “I don’t know.”
“I’ve got to know,” she cried.
Spade took her hands. “Here, sit down.” He led her to a chair. He
asked, “Colyer tell you he’d called the job off?”
She stared at him in amazement. “Pie what?”
“He left word here last night that your husband had been found
and he wouldn’t need me any more.”
She hung her head and her words were barely audible. “Then he
did.”
Spade shrugged. “Maybe only an innocent man could’ve afforded
to call it off then, or maybe he was guilty, but had brains enough and
nerve enough to---- ”
She was not listening to him. She was leaning towards him, speak­
ing earnestly: “But, Mr. Spade, you’re not going to drop it like that?
You’re not going to let him stop you?”
While she was speaking his telephone bell rang. He said, “Excuse
me,” and picked up the receiver. “Yes? . . . Uh-huh. . . . So?” He
pursed his lips. “Ill let you know.” He pushed the telephone aside
slowly and faced Mrs. Haven again. “Colyer’s outside.”
“Does he know I’m here?” she asked quickly.
“Couldn’t say.” He stood up, pretending he was not watching her
closely. “Do you care?”
She pinched her lower lip between her teeth, said “No” hesitantly.
“Fine. I’ll have him in.”
She raised a hand as if in protest, then let it drop, and her white
face was composed. “Whatever you want,” she said.
Spade opened the door, said, “Hello, Colyer. Come on in. We were
just talking about you.”
Colyer nodded and came into the office holding his stick in one
hand, his hat in the other. “How are you this morning, Julia? You
ought to’ve phoned me. I’d’ve driven you back to town.”
“I—I didn’t know what I was doing.”
104 D A SH IE LL HAMMETT

Colyer looked at her for a moment longer, then shifted the focus of
his expressionless green eyes to Spade’s face. “Well, have you been
able to convince her I didn’t do it?”
“We hadn’t got around to that,” Spade said. “I was just trying to
find out how much reason there was for suspecting you. Sit down.”
Colyer sat down somewhat carefully, asked, “And?”
“And then you arrived.”
Colyer nodded gravely. “All right, Spade,” he said; “you’re hired
again to prove to Mrs. Haven that I didn’t have anything to do with
it.”
“Gene!” she exclaimed in a choked voice and held her hands out
toward him appealingly. “I don’t think you did—I don’t want to think
you did—but I’m so afraid.” She put her hands to her face and began
to cry.
Colyer went over to the woman. “Take it easy,” he said. “We’ll kick
it out together.”
Spade went into the outer office, shutting the door behind him.
Effie Perine stopped typing a letter.
He grinned at her, said, “Somebody ought to write a book about
people sometime—they’re peculiar,” and went over to the water bot­
tle. “You’ve got Wally Kellogg’s number. Call him up and ask him
where I can find Tom Minera.”
He returned to the inner office.-
Mrs. Haven had stopped crying. She said, “I’m sorry.”
Spade said, “It’s all right.” He looked sidewise at Colyer. “I still got
my job?”
“Yes.” Colyer cleared his throat. “But if there’s nothing special
right now, I’d better take Mrs. Haven home.”
“O.K., but there’s one thing: According to the Chronicle, you iden­
tified him. How come you were down there?”
“I went down when I heard they’d found a body,” Colyer replied
deliberately. “I told you I had connections. I heard about the body
through them.”
Spade said, “All right; be seeing you,” and opened the door for
them.
When the corridor door closed behind them, Effie Perine said,
“Minera’s at the Buxton on Army Street.”
Spade said, “Thanks.” He went into the inner office to get his hat.
On his way out he said, “If I’m not back in a couple of months tell
them to look for my body there. . . .”
Spade walked down a shabby corridor to a battered green door
marked “411.” The murmur of voices came through the door, but no
words could be distinguished. He stopped listening and knocked.
An obviously disguised male voice asked, “What is it?”
“I want to see Tom. This is Sam Spade.”
A pause, then: “Tom ain’t here.”
TOO MANY HAVE LIV E D 105

Spade put a hand on the knob and shook the frail door. “Come on,
open up," he growled.
Presently the door was opened by a thin, dark man of twenty-five
or -six who tried to make his beady dark eyes guileless while saying,
“I didn’t think it was your voice at first.” The slackness of his mouth
made his chin seem even smaller than it was. His green-striped shirt,
open at the neck, was not clean. His gray pants were carefully
pressed.
“You’ve got to be careful these days,” Spade said solemnly, and
went through the doorway into a room where two men were trying to
seem uninterested in his arrival.
One of them leaned against the window sill filing his fingernails.
The other was tilted back in a chair with his feet on the edge of a
table and a newspaper spread between his hands. They glanced at
Spade in unison and went on with their occupations.
Spade said cheerfully, “Always glad to meet any friends of Tom
Minera’s.”
Minera finished shutting the door and said awkwardly, “Uh—yes—
Mr. Spade, meet Mr. Conrad and Mr. James.”
Conrad, the man at the window, made a vaguely polite gesture
with the nail file in his hand. He was a few years older than Minera,
of average height, sturdily built, with a thick-featured, dull-eyed
face.
James lowered his paper for an instant to look coolly, appraisingly
at Spade and say, “How’r’ye, brother?” Then he returned to his read­
ing. He was as sturdily built as Conrad, but taller, and his face had a
shrewdness the other’s lacked.
“Ah,” Spade said, “and friends of the late Eh Haven.”
The man at the window jabbed a finger with his nail file, and
cursed it bitterly. Minera moistened his lips, and then spoke rapidly,
with a whining note in his voice: “But on the level, Spade, we hadn’t
none of us seen him for a week.”
Spade seemed mildly amused by the dark man’s manner.
“What do you think he was killed for?”
“All I know is what the paper says: His pockets was all turned in­
side out and there wasn’t as much as a match on him.” He drew down
the ends of his mouth. “But far as I know he didn’t have no dough. He
didn’t have none Tuesday night.”
Spade, speaking softly, said, “I hear he got some Thursday night.”
Minera, behind Spade, caught his breath audibly.
James said, “I guess you ought to know. I don’t.”
“He ever work with you boys?”
James slowly put aside his newspaper and took his feet off the
table. His interest in Spade’s question seemed great enough, but
almost impersonal. “Now what do you mean by that?”
Spade pretended surprise. “But you boys must work at something?”
106 D A SH IE LL HAMMETT

Minera came around to Spade’s side. “Aw, listen, Spade,” he said.

“This guy Haven was just a guy we knew. We didn’t have nothing to
do with rubbing him out; we don’t know nothing about it. You know,
97
we----
Three deliberate knocks sounded at the door.
Minerva and Conrad looked at James, who nodded, but by then
Spade, moving swiftly, had reached the door and was opening it.
Roger Ferris was there.
Spade blinked at Ferris, Ferris at Spade. Then Ferris put out his
hand and said, “I am glad to see you.”
“Come on in,” Spade said.
“Look at this, Mr. Spade.” Ferris’s hand trembled as he took a
slightly soiled envelope from his pocket.
Ferris’s name and address were typewritten on the envelope.
There was no postage stamp on it. Spade took out the enclosure, a
narrow slip of cheap white paper, and unfolded it. On it was type­
written:
You h ad better com e to R oom N o 411 Buxton H otel on Army St at
5 PM this afternoon on account o f Thursday night.
There was no signature.
Spade said, “It’s a long time before five o’clock.”
“It is,” Ferris agreed with emphasis. “I came as soon as I got that. It
was Thursday night Eli was at my house.”
Minera was jostling Spade, asking, “What is all this?”
Spade held the note up for the dark man to read. He read it and
yelled, “Honest, Spade, I don’t know nothing about that letter.”
“Does anybody?” Spade asked.
Conrad said “No” hastily.
James said, “What letter?”
Spade looked dreamily at Ferris for a moment, then said, as if
speaking to himself, “Of course, Haven was trying to shake you
down.”
Ferris’s face reddened. “What?”
“Shake-down,” Spade repeated patiently; “money, blackmail.”
“Look here, Spade,” Ferris said earnestly; “you don’t really believe
what you said? What would he have to blackmail me on?”
“ ‘To good old Buck’ ’’—Spade quoted the dead poet’s inscription—
“ ‘who knew his colored fights, in memory of them there days.’ ” He
looked somberly at Ferris from beneath slightly raised brows. “What
colored fights? What’s the circus and carnival slang term for kicking
a guy off a train while it’s going? Red-lighting. Sure, that’s it—red
fights. Who’d you red-light, Ferris, that Haven knew about?”
Minera went over to a chair, sat down, put his elbows on his knees,
his head between his hands, and stared blankly at the floor. Conrad
was breathing as if he had been running.
Spade addressed Ferris: “Well?”
TOO MANY HAVE LIVE D 107

Ferris wiped his face with a handkerchief, put the handkerchief in

his pocket, and said simply, “It was a shake-down.”
“And you killed him.”
Ferris’s blue eyes, looking into Spade’s yellow-gray ones, were
clear and steady, as was his voice. “I did not,” he said. “I swear I did
not. Let me tell you what happened. He sent me the book, as I told
you, and I knew right away what that joke he wrote in the front
meant. So the next day, when he phoned me and said he was coming
over to talk over old times and to try to borrow some money for old
times’ sake, I knew what he meant again, and I went down to the
bank and drew out ten thousand dollars. You can check that up. It’s
the Seamen’s National.”
“I will,” Spade said.
“As it turned out, I didn’t need that much. He wasn’t very big-time,
and I talked him into taking five thousand. I put the other five back
in the bank next day. You can check that up.’
“I will,” Spade said.
“I told him I wasn’t going to stand for any more taps, this five thou­
sand was the first and last. I made him sign a paper saying he’d
helped in the—in what I’d done—and he signed it. He left sometime
around midnight, and that’s the last I ever saw of him.”
Spade tapped the envelope Ferris had given him. “And how about
this note?”
“A messenger boy brought it at noon, and I came right over. Eli
had assured me he hadn’t said anything to anybody, but I didn’t
know. I had to face it, whatever it was.”
Spade turned to the others, his face wooden. “Well?”
Minera and Conrad looked at James, who made an impatient gri­
mace and said, “Oh, sure, we sent him the letter. Why not? We was
friends of Eli’s, and we hadn’t been able to find him since he went to
put the squeeze to this baby, and then he turns up dead, so we kind
of like to have the gent come over and explain things.”
“You knew about the squeeze?”
“Sure. We was all together when he got the idea.”
“How’d he happen to get the idea?” Spade asked.
James spread the fingers of his left hand. “We’d been drinking
and talking—you know the way a bunch of guys will, about all
they’d seen and done—and he told a yam about once seeing a guy
boot another off a train into a canon, and he happens to mention the
name of the guy that done the booting—Buck Ferris. And somebody
says, ‘What’s this Ferris look like?" Eli tells him what he looked like
then, saying he ain’t seen him for fifteen years; and whoever it is
whistles and says, ‘I bet that’s the Ferris that owns about half the
movie joints in the state. I bet you he’d give something to keep that
back trail covered!’
“Well, the idea kind of hit Eli. You could see that. He thought a
108 D A SH IE LL HAMMETT

little while and then he got cagey. He asked what this movie Ferris’s
first name is, and when the other guy tells him, ‘Roger,’ he makes out
he’s disappointed and says, ‘No, it ain’t him. His first name was
Martin.’ We all give him the ha-ha and he finally admits he’s thinking
of seeing the gent, and when he called me up Thursday around noon
and says he’s throwing a party at Pogey Hecker’s that night, it ain’t
no trouble to figure out what’s what.”
“What was the name of the gentleman who was red-lighted?”
“He wouldn’t say. He shut up tight. You couldn’t blame him.”
“Uh-huh,” Spade agreed.
“Then nothing. He never showed up at Pogey’s. W e tried to get
him on the phone around two o’clock in the morning, but his wife
said he hadn’t been home, so we stuck around till four or five and
then decided he had given us a run-around, and made Pogey charge
the bill to him, and beat it. I ain’t seem him since—dead or alive.”
Spade said mildly. “Maybe. Sure you didn’t find Eli later that
morning, take him riding, swap him bullets for Ferris’s five thou,
dump him in the---- ?”
A sharp double knock sounded on the door.
Spade’s face brightened. He went to the door and opened it.
A young man came in. He was very dapper, and very well propor­
tioned. He wore a fight topcoat and his hands were in its pockets.
Just inside the door he stepped to the right, and stood with his back
to the wall. By that time another young man was coming in. He
stepped to the left. Though they did not actually look alike, their
common dappemess, the similar trimness of their bodies, and their
almost identical positions—backs to wall, hands in pockets, cold,
bright eyes studying the occupants of the room—gave them, for an
instant, the appearance of twins.
Then Gene Colyer came in. He nodded at Spade, but paid no at­
tention to the others in the room, though James said, “Hello, Gene.”
“Anything new?” Colyer asked Spade.
Spade nodded. “It seems this gentleman”—he jerked a thumb at
Ferns— was----
“Any place we can talk?”
“There’s a kitchen back here.”
Colyer snapped a “Smear anybody that pops” over his shoulder at
the two dapper young men and followed Spade into the kitchen. He
sat on the one kitchen chair and stared with unblinking green eyes at
Spade while Spade told him what he had learned.
When the private detective had finished, the green-eyed man
asked, “Well, what do you make of it?”
Spade looked thoughtfully at the other. “You’ve picked up some­
thing. I’d like to know what it is.”
Colyer said, “They found the gun in a stream a quarter of a mile
TOO MANY HAVE LIVE D 109

from where they found him. It’s James’s—got the mark on it where
it was shot out of his hand once in Vallejo.”
“That’s nice,” Spade said.
“Listen. A kid named Thurber says James comes to him last
Wednesday and gets him to tail Haven. Thurber picks him up Thurs­
day afternoon, puts him in at Ferris’s, and phones James. James tells
him to take a plant on the place and let him know where Haven goes
when he leaves, but some nervous woman in the neighborhood puts
in a rumble about the kid hanging around, and the cops chase him
along about ten o’clock.”
Spade pursed his lips and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.
Colyer’s eyes were expressionless, but sweat made his round face
shiny, and his voice was hoarse. “Spade,” he said, “I’m going to turn
him in.”
Spade switched his gaze from the ceiling to the protuberant green
eyes.
“I’ve never turned in one of my people before,” Colyer said, “but
this one goes. Julia’s got to believe I hadn’t anything to do with it if
it’s one of my people and I turn him in, hasn’t she?”
Spade nodded slowly. “I think so.”
Colyer suddenly averted his eyes and cleared his throat. When he
spoke again it was curtly: “Well, he goes.”
Minera, James, and Conrad were seated when Spade and Colyer
came out of the kitchen. Ferris was walking the floor. The two
dapper young men had not moved.
Colyer went over to James. “Where’s your gun, Louis?” he asked.
James moved his right hand a few inches towards his left breast,
stopped it, and said, “Oh, I didn’t bring it.”
With his gloved hand—open—Colyer struck James on the side of
the face, knocking him out of his chair.
James straightened up, mumbling, “I didn’t mean nothing.” He
put a hand to the side of his face. “I know I oughtn’t’ve done it, Chief,
but when he called up and said he didn’t like to go up against Ferris
without something and didn’t have any of his own, I said, ‘All right,’
and sent it over to him.”
Colyer said, “And you sent Thurber over to him, too.”
“We were just kind of interested in seeing if he did go through with
it,” James mumbled.
“And you couldn’t’ve gone there yourself, or sent somebody else?”
“After Thurber had stirred up the whole neighborhood?”
Colyer turned to Spade. “Want us to help you take them in, or want
to call the wagon?”
‘W e ’ll do it regular,” Spade said, and went to the wall telephone.
When he turned away from it his face was wooden, his eyes dreamy.
He made a cigarette, lit it, and said to Colyer, “I’m silly enough to
110 D A S H 1E L L HAMMETT

think your Louis has got a lot of right answers in that story of his.”
James took his hand down from his bruised cheek and stared at
Spade with astonished eyes.
Colyer growled, “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” Spade said softly, “except I think you’re a little too anx­
ious to slam it on him.” He blew smoke out. “Why, for instance,
should he drop his gun there when it had marks on it that people
knew?”
Colyer said, “You think he’s got brains.”
“If these boys killed him, knew he was dead, why do they wait till
the body’s found and things are stirred up before they go after Ferris
again? What’d they turn his pockets inside out for if they hijacked
him? That’s a lot of trouble and only done by folks that kill for some
other reason and want to make it look like robbery.” He shook his
head. “You’re too anxious to slam it on them. Why should they---- ?”
“That’s not the point right now,” Colyer said. “The point is, why
do you keep saying I’m too anxious to slam it on him?”
Spade shrugged. “Maybe to clear yourself with Julia as soon as
possible and as clear as possible, maybe even to clear yourself with
the police, and then you’ve got clients.”
Colyer said, “What?”
Spade made a careless gesture with his cigarette. “Ferris,” he said
blandly. “He killed him, of course.”
Colyer’s eyelids quivered, though he did not actually blink.
Spade said, “First, he’s the last person we know of who saw Eli
alive, and that’s always a good bet. Second, he’s the only person I
talked to before Eli’s body turned up who cared whether I thought
they were holding out on me or not. The rest of you just thought I
was hunting for a guy who’d gone away. He knew I was hunting for
a man he’d killed, so he had to put himself in the clear. He was even
afraid to throw that book away, because it had been sent up by the
book store and could be traced, and there might be clerks who’d seen
the inscription. Third, he was the only one who thought Eli was just a
sweet, clean, lovable boy—for the same reasons. Fourth, that story
about a blackmailer showing up at three o’clock in the afternoon,
making an easy touch for five grand, and then sticking around till
midnight is just silly, no matter how good the booze was. Fifth, the
story about the paper E li signed is still worse, though a forged one
could be fixed up easy enough. Sixth, he’s got the best reason for any­
body we know for wanting Eli dead.”
Colyer nodded slowly. “Still---- •
”
“Still nothing,” Spade said. “Maybe he did the ten-thousand-out-
five-thousand-back trick with his bank, but that was easy. Then he
got this feeble-minded blackmailer in his house, stalled him along
until the servants had gone to bed, took the borrowed gun away from
TOO MANY HAVE LIV E D 111

him, shoved him downstairs into his car, took him for a ride—maybe
took him already dead, maybe shot him down there by the bushes-
frisked him clean to make identification harder and to make it look
like robbery, tossed the gun in the water, and came home---- ”
He broke oif to listen to the sound of a siren in the street. He looked
then, for the first time since he had begun to talk, at Ferris.
Ferris’s face was ghastly white, but he held his eyes steady.
Spade said, “I’ve got a hunch, Ferris, that we’re going to find out
about that red-lighting job, too. You told me you had your carnival
company with a partner for a while when Eli was working for you,
and then by yourself. We oughtn’t to have a lot of trouble finding out
about your partner—whether he disappeared, or died a natural death,
or is still alive.”
Ferris had lost some of his erectness. He wet his bps and said, “I
want to see my lawyer. I don’t want to talk till I’ve seen my lawyer.”
Spade said, “It’s all right with me. You’re up against it, but I don’t
like blackmailers myself. I think Eli wrote a good epitaph for them
in that book back there—‘Too many have lived.’ ”
 V I O L E T S T R A N G E IN

society-girl turned professional detective for secret

v io l e t s t r a n g e ,

reasons o f h er own, is to many o f us as charming as she is astute.

Certain heretics decry her as dated, and sh e is—exactly as dated,
say, as E dith W harton s stories o f N ew York, m i s s s t r a n g e ’s prob­
lem s ap p eared in 1915, w hen the w orld in w hich she was bred was
already crumbling. Perhaps her own breaking aw ay from that w orld
is even an unconscious sym bol, or symptom. L ik e th e H olm es
Canon, if to a lesser extent, h er problem s are an unintended
chronicle o f an era. They are also extraordinary in their own right
as problem s, as you can see from “T he second bullet,” w hich offers
a puzzle with as m acabre a solution as you’ll find outside of
Simenon.
THE SECOND BULLET

BY A N N A KATHARINE GREEN

"Ylo OU MUST SEE HER.”

“No. No.”
“She’s a most unhappy woman. Husband and child both taken
from her in a moment; and now, all means of living as well, unless
some happy thought of yours—some inspiration of your genius-
shows us a way of re-establishing her claims to the policy voided by
this cry of suicide.”
But the small wise head of Violet Strange continued its slow shake
of decided refusal.
“I’m sorry,” she protested, “but it’s quite out of my province. I’m
too young to meddle with so serious a matter.”
“Not when you can save a bereaved woman the only possible com­
pensation left her by untoward fate?”
“Let the police try their hand at that.”
113
114 ANNA K A T H A R IN E GREEN

“They have had no success with the case.”

“Or you?”
“Nor I either.”
■“And you expect---- ”
“Yes, Miss Strange. I expect you to find the missing bullet which
will settle the fact that murder and not suicide ended George Ham­
mond’s life. If you cannot, then a long litigation awaits this poor
widow, ending, as such litigation usually does, in favour of the
stronger party. There’s the alternative. If you once saw her---- ”
“But that’s what I’m not willing to do. If I once saw her I should
yield to her importunities and attempt the seemingly impossible. My
instincts bid me say no. Give me something easier.”
“Easier things are not so remunerative. There’s money in this affair,
if the insurance company is forced to pay up. I can offer you---- ■ ”
“What?”
There was eagerness in the tone despite her effort at nonchalance.
The other smiled imperceptibly, and briefly named the sum.
It was larger than she had expected. This her visitor saw by the
way her eyelids fell and the peculiar stillness which, for an instant,
held her vivacity in check.
“And you think I can earn that?”
Her eyes were fixed on his in an eagerness as honest as it was un­
restrained.
He could hardly conceal his amazement, her desire was so evident
and the cause of it so difficult to understand. He knew she wanted
money—that was her avowed reason for entering into this uncon­
genial work. But to want it so much! He glanced at her person; it
was simply clad but very expensively—how expensively it was his
business to know. Then he took in the room in which they sat. Sim­
plicity again, but the simplicity of high art—the drawing-room of one
rich enough to indulge in the final luxury of a highly cultivated taste,
viz.: unostentatious elegance and the subjection of each carefully
chosen ornament to the general effect.
What did this favoured child of fortune lack that she could be
reached by such a plea, when her whole being revolted from the
nature of the task he offered her? It was a question not new to him;
but one he had never heard answered and was not likely to hear
answered now. But the fact remained that the consent he had
thought dependent upon sympathetic interest could be reached
much more readily by the promise of large emolument,—and he
owned to a feeling of secret disappointment even while he recog­
nized the value of the discovery.
But his satisfaction in the latter, if satisfaction it were, was of very
short duration. Almost immediately he observed a change in her.
The sparkle which had shone in the eye whose depths he had never
been able to penetrate, had dissipated itself in something like a tear
THE SECOND BULLET 115

and she spoke up in that vigorous tone no one but himself had ever
heard, as she said:
“No. The sum is a good one and I could use it; but I will not waste
my energy on a case I do not believe in. The man shot himself. He
was a speculator, and probably had good reason for his act. Even his
wife acknowledges that he has lately had more losses than gains.”
“See her. She has something to tell you which never got into the
papers.”
“You say that? You know that?”
“On my honour, Miss Strange.”
Violet pondered; then suddenly succumbed.
“Let her come, then. Prompt to the hour. I will receive her at three.
Later I have a tea and two party calls to make.”
Her visitor rose to leave. He had been able to subdue all evidence
of his extreme gratification, and now took on a formal air. In dismiss­
ing a guest, Miss Strange was invariably the society belle and that
only. This he had come to recognize.
The case (well known at the time) was, in the fewest possible
words, as follows:
On a sultry night in September, a young couple living in one of the
large apartment houses in the extreme upper portion of Manhattan
were so annoyed by the incessant crying of a child in the adjoining
suite, that they got up, he to smoke, and she to sit in the window for
a possible breath of cool air. They were congratulating themselves
upon the wisdom they had shown in thus giving up all thought of
sleep—for the child’s crying had not ceased—when ( it may have been
two o’clock and it may have been a little later) there came from
somewhere near, the sharp and somewhat peculiar detonation of a
pistol-shot.
He thought it came from above; she, from the rear, and they were
staring at each other in the helpless wonder of the moment, when
they were struck by the silence. The baby had ceased to cry. All was
as still in the adjoining apartment as in their own—too still—much too
still. Their mutual stare turned to one of horror. “It came from there!”
whispered the wife. “Some accident has occurred to Mr. or Mrs.
Hammond—we ought to go----”
Her words—very tremulous ones—were broken by a shout from
below. They were standing in their window and had evidently been
seen by a passing policeman. “Anything wrong up there?” they heard
him cry. Mr. Saunders immediately looked out. “Nothing wrong
here,” he called down. (They were but two stories from the pave­
ment.) “But I’m not so sure about the rear apartment. We thought
we heard a shot. Hadn’t you better come up, officer? My wife is
nervous about it. I’ll meet you at the stair-head and show you the
way.”
The officer nodded and stepped in. The young couple hastily
116 ANNA K A TH A R IN E GREEN

donned some wraps, and, by the time he appeared on their floor, they
were ready to accompany him.
Meanwhile, no disturbance was apparent anywhere else in the
house, until the policeman rang the bell of the Hammond apartment.
Then, voices began to be heard, and doors to open above and below,
but not the one before which the policeman stood.
Another ring, and this time an insistent one;—and still no response.
The oflicer’s hand was rising for the third time when there came a
sound of fluttering from behind the panels against which he had laid
his ear, and finally a choked voice uttering unintelligible words. Then
a hand began to struggle with the lock, and the door, slowly open­
ing, disclosed a woman clad in a hastily donned wrapper and giving
every evidence of extreme fright.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, seeing only the compassionate faces of her
neighbours. “You heard it, too! a pistol-shot from there—there my
husband’s room. I have not dared to go—I—I—O, have mercy and see
if anything is wrong! It is so still—so still, and only a moment ago the
baby was crying. Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Saunders, why is it so still?”
She had fallen into her neighbour’s arms. The hand with which she
had pointed out a certain door had sunk to her side and she appeared
to be on the verge of collapse.
The officer eyed her sternly, while noting her appearance, which
was that of a woman hastily risen from bed.
“Where were you?” he asked. “Not with your husband and child,
or you would know what had happened there.”
“I was sleeping down the hall,” she managed to gasp out. “I’m not
well—I—Oh, why do you all stand still and do nothing? My baby’s in
there. Go! go!” and, with a sudden energy, she sprang upright, her
eyes wide open and burning, her small well-featured face white as
the linen she sought to hide.
The officer demurred no longer. In another instant he was trying
the door at which she was again pointing.
It was locked.
Glancing back at the woman, now cowering almost to the floor, he
pounded at the door and asked the man inside to open.
No answer came back.
With a sharp turn he glanced again at the wife.
“You say that your husband is in this room?”
She nodded, gasping faintly, “And the child!”
He turned back, listened, then beckoned to Mr. Saunders. “We
shall have to break our way in,” said he. “Put your shoulder well to
the door. Now!”
The hinges of the door creaked; the lock gave way (this special
officer weighed two hundred and seventy-five, as he found out, next
day), and a prolonged and sweeping crash told the rest.
Mrs. Hammond gave a low cry; and, straining forward from where
THE SECOND BULLET 117

she crouched in terror on the floor, searched the faces of the two men
for some hint of what they saw in the. dimly-lighted space beyond.
Something dreadful, something which made Mr. Saunders come
rushing back with a shout:
“Take her away! Take her to our apartment, Jennie. She must not
>»
see----
Not see! He realized the futility of his words as his gaze fell on
the young woman who had risen up at his approach and now stood
gazing at him without speech, without movement, but with a glare of
terror in her eyes, which gave him his first realization of human
misery.
His own glance fell before it. If he had followed his instinct he
would have fled the house rather than answer the question of her
look and the attitude of her whole frozen body.
Perhaps in mercy to his speechless terror, perhaps in mercy to
herself, she was the one who at last found the word which voiced
their mutual anguish.
“Dead?”
No answer. None was needed.
“And my baby?”
O, that cry! It curdled the hearts of all who heard it. It shook
the souls of men and women both inside and outside the apartment;
then all was forgotten in the wild rush she made. The wife and
mother had flung herself upon the scene, and, side by side with the
not unmoved policeman, stood looking down upon the desolation
made in one fatal instant in her home and heart.
They lay there together, both past help, both quite dead. The
child had simply been strangled by the weight of his father’s arm
which lay directly across the upturned little throat. But the father
was a victim of the shot they had heard. There was blood on his
breast, and a pistol in his hand.
Suicide! The horrible truth was patent. No wonder they wanted
to hold the young widow back. Her neighbour, Mrs. Saunders, crept
in on tiptoe and put her arms about the swaying, fainting woman;
but there was nothing to say—absolutely nothing.
At least, they thought not. But when they saw her throw herself
down, not by her husband, but by the child, and drag it out from un­
der that strangling arm and hug and kiss it and call out wildly for
a doctor, the officer endeavoured to interfere and yet could not find
the heart to do so, though he knew the child was dead and should not,
according to all the rules of the coroner’s office, be moved before
that official arrived. Yet because no mother could be convinced of
a fact like this, he let her sit with it on the floor and try all her little
arts to revive it, while he gave orders to the janitor and waited him­
self for the arrival of doctor and coroner.
She was still sitting there in wide-eyed misery, alternately fondling
118 ANNA K A TH A R IN E GREEN

the little body and drawing back to consult its small set features
for some sign of life, when the doctor came, and, after one look at
the child, drew it softly from her arms and laid it quietly in the
crib from which its father had evidently lifted it but a short time be­
fore. Then he turned back to her, and found her on her feet, upheld
by her two friends. She had understood his action, and without a
groan had accepted her fate. Indeed, she seemed incapable of any
further speech or action. She was staring down at her husband’s
body, which she, for the first time, seemed fully to see. Was her look
one of grief or of resentment for the part he had played so unin­
tentionally in her child’s death? It was hard to tell; and when, with
slowly rising finger, she pointed to the pistol so tightly clutched in
the other outstretched hand, no one there—and by this time the
room was full—could foretell what her words would be when her
tongue regained its usage and she could speak.
What she did say was this:
“Is there a bullet gone? Did he fire off that pistol?” A question so
manifestly one of delirium that no one answered it, which seemed
to surprise her, though she said nothing till her glance had passed
all around the walls of the room to where a window stood open to
the night,—its lower sash being entirely raised. “There! look there!”
she cried, with a commanding accent, and, throwing up her hands,
sank a dead weight into the arms of those supporting her.
No one understood; but naturally more than one rushed to the
window. An open space was before them. Here lay the fields not yet
parcelled out into lots and built upon; but it was not upon these
they looked, but upon the strong trellis which they found there,
which, if it supported no vine, formed a veritable ladder between
this window and the ground.
Could she have meant to call attention to this fact; and were
her words expressive of another idea than the obvious one of
suicide?
If so, to what lengths a woman’s imagination can go! Or so their
combined looks seemed to proclaim, when to their utter astonish­
ment they saw the officer, who had presented a calm appearance up
till now, shift his position and with a surprised grunt direct their
eyes to a portion of the wall just visible beyond the half-drawn cur­
tains of the bed. The mirror hanging there showed a star-shaped
breakage, such as follows the sharp impact of a bullet or a fiercely
projected stone.
“He fired two shots. One went wild; the other straight home.”
It was the officer delivering his opinion.
Mr. Saunders, returning from the distant room where he had
assisted in carrying Mrs. Hammond, cast a look at the shattered
glass, and remarked forcibly:
“I heard but one; and I was sitting up, disturbed by that poor
THE SECOND BULLET 119
infant. Jennie, did you hear more than one shot?” he asked, turning
toward his wife.
“No,” she answered, but not with the readiness he had evidently
expected. “I heard only one, but that was not quite usual in its tone.
I ’m used to guns,” she explained, turning to the officer. “My father
was an army man, and he taught me very early to load and fire a
pistol. There was a prolonged sound to this shot; something like an
echo of itself, following close upon the first ping. Didn’t you notice
that, Warren?”
“I remember something of the kind,” her husband allowed.
“He shot twice and quickly,” interposed the policeman senten-
tiously. “We shall find a spent bullet back of that mirror.”
But when, upon the arrival of the coroner, an investigation was
made of the mirror and the wall behind, no bullet was found either
there or anywhere else in the room, save in the dead man’s breast.
Nor had more than one been shot from his pistol, as five full cham­
bers testified. The case which seemed so simple had its mysteries, but
the assertion made by Mrs. Saunders no longer carried weight, nor
was the evidence offered by the broken mirror considered as in­
dubitably establishing the fact that a second shot had been fired in
the room.
Yet it was equally evident that the charge which had entered the
dead speculator’s breast had not been delivered at the close range of
the pistol found clutched in his hand. There were no powder-marks
to be discerned on his pajama-jacket, or on the flesh beneath. Thus
anomaly confronted anomaly, leaving open but one other theory:
that the bullet found in Mr. Hammond’s breast came from the win­
dow and the one he shot went out of it. But this would necessitate his
having shot his pistol from a point far removed from where he was
found; and his wound was such as made it difficult to believe that
he would stagger far, if at all, after its infliction.
Yet, because the coroner was both conscientious and alert, he
caused a most rigorous search to be made of the ground overlooked
by the above mentioned window; a search in which the police joined,
but which was without any result save that of rousing the attention
of people in the neighbourhood and leading to a story being circu­
lated of a man seen some time the night before crossing the fields in
a great hurry. But as no further particulars were forthcoming, and
not even a description of the man to be had, no emphasis would have
been laid upon this story had it not transpired that the moment a re­
port of it had come to Mrs. Hammond’s ears (why is there always
some one to carry these reports?) she roused from the torpor into
which she had fallen, and in wild fashion exclaimed:
“I knew itl I expected it! He was shot through the window and by
that wretch. He never shot himself.” Violent declarations which
trailed off into the one continuous wail, “O, my baby! my poor baby!”
120 ANNA K A T H A R IN E GREEN

Such words, even though the fruit of delirium, merited some sort
of attention, or so this good coroner thought, and as soon as oppor­
tunity offered and she was sufficiently sane and quiet to respond to
his questions, he asked her whom she had meant by that wretch, and
what reason she had, or thought she had, of attributing her husband’s
death to any other agency than his own disgust with life.
And then it was that his sympathies, although greatly roused in
her favour began to wane. She met the question with a cold stare fol­
lowed by a few ambiguous words out of which he could make noth­
ing. Had she said wretch? She did not remember. They must not be
influenced by anything she might have uttered in her first grief. She
was well-nigh insane at the time. But of one thing they might be
sure: her husband had not shot himself; he was too much afraid of
death for such an act. Besides, he was too happy. Whatever folks
might say he was too fond of his family to wish to leave it.
Nor did the coroner or any other official succeed in eliciting any­
thing further from her. Even when she was asked, with cruel insist­
ence, how she explained the fact that the baby was found lying on
the floor instead of in its crib, her only answer was: “His father was
trying to soothe it. The child was crying dreadfully, as you have
heard from those who were kept awake by him that night, and my
husband was carrying him about when the shot came which caused
George to fall and overlay the baby in his struggles.”
“Carrying a baby about with a loaded pistol in his hand?” came
back in stern retort.
She had no answer for this. She admitted when informed that the
bullet extracted from her husband’s body had been found to corre­
spond exactly with those remaining in the five chambers of the pistol
taken from his hand, that he was not only the owner of this pistol but
was in the habit of sleeping with it under his pillow; but, beyond
that, nothing; and this reticence, as well as her manner which was
cold and repellent, told against her.
A verdict of suicide was rendered by the coroner’s jury, and the
life-insurance company, in which Mr. Hammond had but lately in­
sured himself for a large sum, taking advantage of the suicide clause
embodied in the policy, announced its determination of not paying
the same.
Such was the situation, as known to Violet Strange and the general
public, on the day she was asked to see Mrs. Hammond and learn
what might alter her opinion as to the justice of this verdict and the
stand taken by the Shuler Life Insurance Company.
The clock on the mantel in Miss Strange’s rose-coloured boudoir
had struck three, and Violet was gazing in some impatience at the
door, when there came a gentle knock upon it, and the maid ( one of
the elderly, not youthful, kind) ushered in her expected visitor.
“You are Mrs. Hammond?” she asked, in natural awe of the too
THE SECOND BULLET 121

black figure outlined so sharply against the deep pink of the sea-shell
room.
The answer was a slow lifting of the veil which shadowed the fea­
tures she knew only from the cuts she had seen in newspapers.
“You are—Miss Strange?” stammered her visitor; “the young lady
who---- ”
“I am,” chimed in a voice as ringing as it was sweet. “I am the per­
son you have come here to see. And this is my home. But that does not
make me less interested in the unhappy, or less desirous of serving
them. Certainly you have met with the two greatest losses which can
come to a woman—I know your story well enough to say that—; but
what have you to tell me in proof that you should not lose your antici­
pated income as well? Something vital, I hope, else I cannot help
you; something which you should have told the coroners jury—and
did not.”
The flush which was the sole answer these words called forth did
not take from the refinement of the young widow’s expression, but
rather added to it; Violet watched it in its ebb and flow and, seriously
affected by it (why, she did not know, for Mrs. Hammond had made
no other appeal either by look or gesture), pushed forward a chair
and begged her visitor to be seated.
“We can converse in perfect safety here,” she said. “When you feel
quite equal to it, let me hear what you have to communicate. It will
never go any further. I could not do the work I do if I felt it necessary
to have a confidant.”
“But you are so young and so-so---- ”
“So inexperienced you would say and so evidently a member of
what New Yorkers call ‘society.’ Do not let that trouble you. My in­
experience is not likely to last long and my social pleasures are more
apt to add to my efficiency than to detract from it.”
With this Violet’s face broke into a smile. It was not the brilliant
one so often seen upon her lips, but there was something in its quality
which carried encouragement to the widow and led her to say with
obvious eagerness:
“You know the facts?”
“I have read all the papers.”
“I was not believed on the stand.”
“It was your manner---- ”
“I could not help my manner. I was keeping something back, and,
being unused to deceit, I could not act quite naturally.”
“Why did you keep something back? When you saw the unfavour­
able impression made by your reticence, why did you not speak up
and frankly tell your story?”
“Because I was ashamed. Because I thought it would hurt me more
to speak than to keep silent. I do not think so now; but I did then—
and so made my great mistake. You must remember not only the
122 ANNA K A T H A R IN E GREEN

awful shock of my double loss, but the sense of guilt accompanying

it; for my husband and I had quarreled that night, quarreled bitterly
—that was why I had run away into another room and not because I
was feeling ill and impatient of the baby’s fretful cries.”
“So people have thought.” In saying this, Miss Strange was per­
haps cruelly emphatic. “You wish to explain that quarrel? You think
it will be doing any good to your cause to go into that matter with
me now?”
“I cannot say; but I must first clear my conscience and then try to
convince you that quarrel or no quarrel, he never took his own life.
He was not that kind. He had an abnormal fear of death. I do not like
to say it but he was a physical coward. I have seen him turn pale at
the least hint of danger. He could no more have turned that muzzle
upon his own breast than he could have turned it upon his baby.
Some other hand shot him, Miss Strange. Remember the open win­
dow, the shattered mirror; and 1 think I know that hand.”
Her head had fallen forward on her breast. The emotion she
showed was not so eloquent of grief as of deep personal shame.
“You think you know the m an ?’ In saying this, Violet’s voice sunk
to a whisper. It was an accusation of murder she had just heard.
“To my great distress, yes. When Mr. Hammond and I were mar­
ried,” the widow now proceeded in a more determined tone, “there
was another man—a very violent one—who vowed even at the church
door that George and I should never live out two full years together.
We have not. Our second anniversary would have been in Novem­
ber.”
“But---- ”
“Let me say this: the quarrel of which I speak was not serious
enough to occasion any such act of despair on his part. A man would
be mad to end his life on account of so slight a disagreement. It was
not even on account of the person of whom I’ve just spoken, though
that person had been mentioned between us earlier in the evening,
Mr. Hammond having come across him face to face that very after­
noon in the subway. Up to this time neither of us had seen or heard
of him since our wedding-day.”
“And you think this person whom you barely mentioned, so mind­
ful of his old grudge that he sought out your domicile, and, with the
intention of murder, climbed the trellis leading to your room and
turned his pistol upon the shadowy figure which was all he could see
in the semi-obscurity of a much lowered gas-jet?”
“A man in the dark does not need a bright fight to see his enemy
when he is intent upon revenge.”
Miss Strange altered her tone.
“And your husband? You must acknowledge that he shot off his
pistol whether the other did or not.”
THE SECOND BULLET 123

“It was in self-defence. He would shoot to save his own life—or the
baby’s.”
“Then he must have heard or seen---- ”
“A man at the window.”
“And would have shot there?”
“Or tried to.”
“Tried to?”
“Yes; the other shot first—oh, I’ve thought it all out—causing my
husband’s bullet to go wild. It was his which broke the mirror.”
Violet’s eyes, bright as stars, suddenly narrowed.
“And what happened then?” she asked. “Why cannot they find the
bullet?”
“Because it went out of the window;—glanced off and went out of
the window.” Mrs. Hammond’s tone was triumphant; her look spirited
and intense.
Violet eyed her compassionately.
“Would a bullet glancing off from a mirror, however hung, be apt
to reach a window so far on the opposite side?”
“I don’t know; I only know that it did,” was the contradictory, al­
most absurd, reply.
“What teas the cause of the quarrel you speak of between your
husband and yourself? You see, I must know the exact truth and all
the truth to be of any assistance to you.”
“It was—it was about the care I gave, or didn’t give, the baby. I feel
awfully to have to say it, but George did not think I did my full duty
by the child. He said there was no need of its crying so; that if I gave
it the proper attention it would not keep the neighbours and himself
awake half the night. And I—I got angry and insisted that I did the
best I could; that the child was naturally fretful and that if he wasn’t
satisfied with my way of looking after it, he might try his. All of
which was very wrong and unreasonable on my part, as witness the
awful punishment which followed.”
“And what made you get up and leave him?”
“The growl he gave me in reply. When I heard that, I bounded out
of bed and said I was going to the spare room to sleep; and if the
baby cried he might just try what he could do himself to stop it.”
“And he answered?”
“This, just this—I shall never forget his words as long as I live—‘If
you go, you need not expect me to let you in again no matter what
happens.’ ”
“He said that?”
“And locked the door after me. You see I could not tell all that.”
“It might have been better if you had. It was such a natural quarrel
and so unprovocative of actual tragedy.”
Mrs. Hammond was silent. It was not difficult to see that she had
124 ANNA K A TH A R IN E GREEN

no very keen regrets for her husband personally. But then he was not
a very estimable man nor in any respect her equal.
“You were not happy with him,” Violet ventured to remark.
“I was not a fully contented woman. But for all that he had no
cause to complain of me except for the reason I have mentioned. I
was not a very intelligent mother. But if the baby were living n o w -
0 , if he were living now—with what devotion I should care for him.”
She was on her feet, her arms were raised, her face impassioned
with feeling. Violet, gazing at her, heaved a little sigh. It was perhaps
in keeping with the situation, perhaps extraneous to it, but whatever
its source, it marked a change in her manner. With no further check
upon her sympathy, she said very softly: “It is well with the child.”
The mother stiffened, swayed, and then burst into wild weeping.
“But not with me,” she cried, “not with me. I am desolate and
bereft. I have not even a home in which to hide my grief and no pros­
pect of one.”
“But,” interposed Violet, “surely your husband left you something?
You cannot be quite penniless?”
“My husband left nothing,” was the answer, uttered without bit­
terness, but with all the hardness of fact. “He had debts. I shall pay
those debts. When these and other necessary expenses are liqui­
dated, there will be but little left. He made no secret of the fact that
he lived close up to his means. That is why he was induced to take on
a life insurance. Not a friend of his but knows his improvidence. I—I
have not even jewels. I have only my determination and an absolute
conviction as to the real nature of my husband’s death.”
“What is the name of the man you secretly believe to have shot
your husband from the trellis?”
Mrs. Hammond told her.
It was a new one to Violet. She said so and then asked:
“What else can you tell me about him?”
“Nothing, but that he is a very dark man and has a club-foot.”
“Oh, what a mistake you’ve made.”
“Mistake? Yes, I acknowledge that.”
“I mean in not giving this last bit of information at once to the
police. A man can be identified by such a defect. Even his footsteps
can be traced. He might have been found that very day. Now, what
have we to go upon?”
“You are right, but not expecting to have any difficulty about the
insurance money I thought it would be generous in me to keep still.
Besides, this is only surmise on my part. I feel certain that my hus­
band was shot by another hand than his own, but I know of no way
of proving it. Do you?”
Then Violet talked seriously with her, explaining how their only
hope lay in the discovery of a second bullet in the room which had
THE SECOND BULLET 125

already been ransacked for this very purpose and without the
shadow of a result.
A tea, a musicale, and an evening dance kept Violet Strange in a
whirl for the remainder of the day. No brighter eye nor more con­
tagious wit lent brilliance to these occasions, but with the passing of
the midnight hour no one who had seen her in the blaze of electric
lights would have recognized this favoured child of fortune in the
earnest figure sitting in the obscurity of an uptown apartment, study­
ing the walls, the ceilings, and the floors by the dim light of a lowered
gas-jet. Violet Strange in society was a very different person from
Violet Strange under the tension of her secret and peculiar work.
She had told them at home that she was going to spend the night
with a friend; but only her old coachman knew who that friend was.
Therefore a very natural sense of guilt mingled with her emotions at
finding herself alone on a scene whose gruesome mystery she could
solve only by identifying herself with the place and the man who had
perished there.
Dismissing from her mind all thought of self, she strove to think
as he thought, and act as he acted on the night when he found him­
self (a man of but little courage) left in this room with an ailing
child.
At odds with himself, his wife, and possibly with the child scream­
ing away in its crib, what would he be apt to do in his present emer­
gency? Nothing at first, but as the screaming continued he would
remember the old tales of fathers walking the floor at night with cry­
ing babies, and hasten to follow suit. Violet, in her anxiety to reach
his inmost thought, crossed to where the crib had stood, and, taking
that as a start, began pacing the room in search of the spot from
which a bullet, if shot, would glance aside from the mirror in the
direction of the window. (Not that she was ready to accept this
theory of Mrs. Hammond, but that she did not wish to entirely dis­
miss it without putting it to the test.)
She found it in an unexpected quarter of the room and much
nearer the bed-head than where his body was found. This, which
might seem to confuse matters, served, on the contrary to remove
from the case one of its most serious difficulties. Standing here, he
was within reach of the pillow under which his pistol lay hidden, and
if startled, as his wife believed him to have been by a noise at the
other end of the room, had but to crouch and reach behind him in
order to find himself armed and ready for a possible intruder.
Imitating his action in this as in other things, she had herself
crouched low at the bedside and was on the point of withdrawing
her hand from under the pillow, when a new surprise checked her
movement and held her fixed in her position, with eyes staring
straight at the adjoining wall. She had seen there what he must have
126 ANNA K A TH A R IN E GREEN

seen in making this same turn—the dark bars of the opposite window-
frame outlined in the mirror—and understood at once what had hap­
pened. In the nervousness and terror of the moment, George Ham­
mond had mistaken this reflection of the window for the window
itself, and shot impulsively at the man he undoubtedly saw covering
him from the trellis without. But while this explained the shattering
of the mirror, how about the other and still more vital question, of
where the bullet went afterward? Was the angle at which it had been
fired acute enough to send it out of a window diagonally opposed?
No; even if the pistol had been held closer to the man firing it than
she had reason to believe, the angle still would be oblique enough to
carry it on to the further wall.
But no sign of any such impact had been discovered on this wall.
Consequently, the force of the bullet had been expended before
reaching it, and when it fell----
Here, her glance, slowly travelling along the floor, impetuously
paused. It had reached the spot where the two bodies had been
found, and unconsciously her eyes rested there, conjuring up the pic­
ture of the bleeding father and the strangled child. How piteous and
how dreadful it all was. If she could only understand---- Suddenly
she rose straight up, staring and immovable in the dim light. Had the
idea—the explanation—the only possible explanation covering the
whole phenomena come to her at last?
It would seem so, for as she so stood, a look of conviction settled
over her features, and with this look, evidences of a horror which for
all her fast accumulating knowledge of life and its possibilities made
her appear very small and very helpless.
A half-hour later, when Mrs. Hammond, in her anxiety at hearing
nothing more from Miss Strange, opened the door of her room, it was
to find, lying on the edge of the sill, the little detective’s card with
these words hastily written across it:
I do not feel as well as I could wish, and so have telephoned to my
own coachman to come and take me home. I will either see or write
you within a few days. But do not allow yourself to hope. I pray you
do not allow yourself the least hope; the outcome is still very
problematical.
When Violet’s employer entered his office the next morning it was
to find a veiled figure awaiting him which he at once recognized as
that of his little deputy. She was slow in lifting her veil and when it
finally came free he felt a momentary doubt as to his wisdom in giv­
ing her just such a matter as this to investigate. He was quite sure of
his mistake when he saw her face, it was so drawn and pitiful.
“You have failed,” said he.
“Of that you must judge,” she answered; and drawing near she
whispered in his ear.
“No!” he cried in his amazement.
THE SECOND BULLET 127
“Think,” she murmured, “think. Only so can all the facts be ac­
counted for.”
“I will look into it; I will certainly look into it,” was his earnest
reply. “If you are right---- But never mind that. Go home and take a
horseback ride in the Park. When I have news in regard to this I will
let you know. Till then forget it all. Hear me, I charge you to forget
everything but your balls and your parties.”
And Violet obeyed him.
Some few days after this, the following statement appeared in all
the papers:
“Owing to some remarkable work done by the firm o f ---- & ----- ,
the well-known private detective agency, the claim made by Mrs.
George Hammond against the Shuler Life Insurance Company is
likely to be allowed without further litigation. As our readers will
remember, the contestant has insisted from the first that the bullet
causing her husband’s death came from another pistol than the one
found clutched in his own hand. But while reasons were not lacking
to substantiate this assertion, the failure to discover more than the
disputed track of a second bullet led to a verdict of suicide, and a re­
fusal of the company to pay.
“But now that bullet has been found. And where? In the most
startling place in the world, viz.: in the larynx of the child found
lying dead upon the floor beside his father, strangled as was sup­
posed by the weight of that father’s arm. The theory is, and there
seems to be none other, that the father, hearing a suspicious noise at
the window, set down the child he was endeavoring to soothe and
made for the bed and his own pistol, and, mistaking a reflection of
the assassin for the assassin himself, sent his shot sidewise at a mirror
just as the other let go the trigger which drove a similar bullet into
his breast. The course of the one was straight and fatal and that of
the other deflected. Striking the mirror at an oblique angle, the bullet
fell to the floor where it was picked up by the crawling child, and, as
was most natural, thrust at once into his mouth. Perhaps it felt hot to
the little tongue; perhaps the child was simply frightened by some
convulsivce movement of the father who evidently spent his last mo­
ment in an endeavour to reach the child, but, whatever the cause, in
the quick gasp it gave, the bullet was drawn into the larynx, strang­
ling him.
“That the father’s arm, in his last struggle, should have fallen di­
rectly across the little throat is one of those anomalies which con­
founds reason and misleads justice by stopping investigation at the
very point where truth lies and mystery disappears.
“Mrs. Hammond is to be congratulated that there are detectives
who do not give too much credence to outward appearances.
“We expect soon to hear of the capture of the man who sped home
the death-dealing bullet.”
 JOHN J. M A L O N E IN

1 have discovered as a review er that it is im possible to write a note

on a Craig R ice story that doesn’t turn into a love letter. Miss Rice
has a co ckey ed warmth, a screw ball humanity that rem inds you of
W illiam Saroyan—to w hich she adds a sense o f form and discipline
that rem inds you o f anyone else but. Of all the detectives she has
(under assorted names) created, my special fondness is fo r that
rumpled, plum p legal eagle j o h n j . m a l o n e (blood brother to
Jackeen J. O’Malley), w ho has long deserved a story to him self, un­
cluttered by J u s t u s e s . H ere it is, haunting as it is clever—the only
detective story on record w hich cries out to b e sung by Burl Ives.
HIS HEART COULD BREAK

BY C R A I G RICE

“As I passed by the oT state’s prison,

Ridin on a stream-line’ train----”

J OHN J. MALONE shuddered. He wished he could get the insidi­

ous melody out of his mind—or, remember the rest of the words. It
had been annoying him since three o’clock that morning, when he’d
heard it sung by the janitor of Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar.
It seemed like a bad omen, and it made him uncomfortable. Or
maybe it was the cheap gin he’d switched to between two and four
a.m. that was making him uncomfortable. Whichever it was, he felt
terrible.
“I bet your client’s happy today,” the guard said cordially, leading
the way towards the death house.
“He ought to be,” Malone growled. He reminded himself that he
too ought to be happy. He wasn’t. Maybe it was being in a prison that
129
130 C RAIG R ICE

depressed him. John J. Malone, criminal lawyer, didn’t like prisons.

He devoted his life to keeping his clients out of them.
“Then the w arden told m e gently— ”
That song again! How did the next line go?
“Well,” the guard said, “they say you’ve never lost a client yet.” It
wouldn’t do any harm, he thought, to get on the good side of a smart
guy like John J. Malone.
“Not yet,” Malone said. He’d had a close call with this one, though.
“You sure did a wonderful job, turning up the evidence to get a
new trial,” the guard rattled on. Maybe Malone could get him a bet­
ter appointment, with his political drag. “Your client sure felt swell
when he heard about it last night, he sure did.”
“That’s good,” Malone said noncommittally. It hadn’t been evi­
dence that had turned the trick, though. Just a little matter of know­
ing some interesting facts about the judge’s private life. The evidence
would have to be manufactured before the trial, but that was the
least of his worries. By that time, he might even find out the truth of
what had happened. He hummed softly under his breath. Ah, there
were the next lines!
“Then the w arden told m e gently,
H e seem ed too young, too young to die,
W e cut the rope and let him down— ”
John J. Malone tried to remember the rhyme for “die.” By, cry, lie,
my and sigh. Then he let loose a few loud and indignant remarks
about whoever had written that song, realized that he was entering
the death house, and stopped, embarrassed. That particular ceil
block always inspired him with the same behavior he would have
shown at a high class funeral. He took off his hat and walked softly.
And at that moment hell broke loose. Two prisoners in the block
began yelling like banshees. The alarms began to sound loudly, caus­
ing the outside siren to chime in with its hideous wail. Guards were
running through the corridor, and John J. Malone instinctively ran
with them toward the center of disturbance, the fourth cell on the
left.
Before the little lawyer got there, one of the guards had the door
open. Another guard cut quickly through the bright new rope from
which the prisoner was dangling, and eased the limp body down to
the floor.
The racket outside was almost deafening now, but John J. Malone
scarcely heard it. The guard turned the body over, and Malone
recognized the very young and rather stupid face of Paul Palmer.
“He’s hung himself,” one of the guards said.
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 131

“With me for a lawyer?” Malone said angrily. “Hung himself,— ”

He started to say “hell,” then remembered he was in the presence of
death.
“Hey,” the other guard said excitedly. “He’s alive. His neck’s broke,
but he’s breathing a little.”
Malone shoved the guard aside and knelt down beside the dying
man. Paul Palmers blue eyes opened slowly, with an expression of
terrible bewilderment. His bps parted.
“It wouldn’t break,” Paul Palmer whispered. He seemed to recog­
nize Malone, and stared at him, with a look of frightful urgency. “It
wouldn’t break,” he whispered to Malone. Then he died.
“You’re damned right I’m going to sit in on the investigation,”
Malone said angrily. He gave Warden Garrity’s wastebasket a vicious
kick. “The inefficient way you run your prison has done me out of a
client.” Out of a fat fee, too, he reminded himself miserably. He
hadn’t been paid yet, and now there would be a long tussle with the
lawyer handling Paul Palmer’s estate, who hadn’t wanted him en­
gaged for tire defense in the first place. Malone felt in his pocket,
found three crumpled bills and a small handful of change. He wished
now that he hadn’t got into that poker game last week.
The warden’s dreary office was crowded. Malone looked around,
recognized an assistant warden, the prison doctor—a handsome grey­
haired man named Dickson—the guards from the death house, and
the guard who had been ushering him in—Bowers was his name, Ma­
lone remembered, a tall, flat-faced, gangling man.
“Imagine him hanging himself,” Bowers was saying incredulously.
“Just after he found out he was gonna get a new trial.”
Malone had been wondering the same thing. “Maybe he didn’t get
my wire,” he suggested coldly.
“I gave it to him myself,” Bowers stated positively. “Just last night.
Never saw a man so happy in my life.”
Dr. Dickson cleared his throat. Everyone turned to look at him.
“Poor Palmer was mentally unstable,” the doctor said sadly. “You
may recall I recommended, several days ago, that he be moved to the
prison hospital. When I visited him last night he appeared hilariously
—hysterically—happy. This morning, however, he was distinctly de­
pressed.”
“You mean the guy was nuts?” Warden Garrity asked hopefully.
“He was nothing of the sort,” Malone said indignantly. Just let a
hint get around that Paul Palmer had been of unsound mind, and he’d
never collect that five thousand dollar fee from the estate. “He was
saner than anyone in this room, with the possible exception of my-
s e l f .”
Dr. Dickson shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t suggest that he was
insane. I only meant he was subject to moods.”
132 C RAIG R IC E

Malone wheeled to face the doctor. “Say. Were you in the habit of
visiting Palmer in his cell a couple of times a day?”
“I was,” the doctor said, nodding. “He was suffering from a serious
nervous condition. It was rjecessary to administer sedatives from
time to time.”
Malone snorted. “You mean he was suffering from the effect of
being sober for the first time since he was sixteen.”
“Put it any way you like,” Dr. Dickson said pleasantly. “You re­
member, too, that I had a certain personal interest.”
“That’s right,” Malone said slowly. “He was going to marry your
niece.”
“No one was happier than I to hear about the new trial,” the doctor
said. He caught Malone’s eye and added, “No, I wasn’t fond enough
of him to smuggle in a rope. Especially when he’d just been granted a
chance to clear himself.”
“Look here,” Warden Garrity said irritably. “I can’t sit around
listening to all this stuff. I’ve got to report the result of an investiga­
tion. Where the hell did he get that rope?”
There was a little silence, and then one of the guards said, “Maybe
from the guy who was let in to see him last night.”
“What guy?” the warden snapped.
“Why-— The guard paused, confused. “He had an order from
you, admitting him. His name was La Cerra.”
Malone felt a sudden tingling along his spine. Georgie La Cerra
was one of Max Hook’s boys. What possible connection could there
be between Paul Palmer, socialite, and the big gambling boss?
Warden Garrity had recognized the name too. “Oh, yes,” he said
quickly. “That must have been it. But I doubt if we could prove it.”
He paused just an instant, and looked fixedly at Malqne, as though
daring him to speak. “The report will read that Paul Palmer obtained
a rope, by means which have not yet been ascertained, and com­
mitted suicide while of unsound mind.”
Malone opened his mouth and shut it again. He knew when he was
licked. Temporarily licked, anyway. “For the love of mike,” he said,
“leave out the unsound mind.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” the warden said coldly.
Malone had kept his temper as long as he could. “All right,” he
said, “but I’ll start an investigation that’ll be a pip.” He snorted.
“Letting a gangster smuggle a rope in to a guy in the death house!”
He glared at Dr. Dickson. “And you, foxy, with two escapes from the
prison hospital in six months.” He kicked the wastebasket again, this
time sending it halfway across the room. “I’ll show you from investi­
gations! And I’m just the guy who can do it, too.”
Dr. Dickson said quickly, “We’ll substitute ‘temporarily depressed’
for the ‘unsound mind.’ ”
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 133

But Malone was mad, now. He made one last, loud comment re­
garding the warden’s personal life and probably immoral origin, and
slammed the door so hard when he went out that the steel engraving
of Chester A. Arthur over the warden’s desk shattered to the floor.
“Mr. Malone,” Bowers said in a low voice as they went down the
hall, “I searched that cell, after they took the body out. Whoever
smuggled in that rope smuggled in a letter, too. I found it hid in his
mattress, and it wasn’t there yesterday because the mattress was
changed.” He paused, and added “And the rope couldn’t of been
there last night either, because there was no place he could of hid it.”
Malone glanced at the envelope the guard held out to him—pale
grey expensive stationery, with “Paul Palmer” written across the
front of it in delicate, curving handwriting.
“I haven’t any money with me,” the lawyer said.
Bowers shook his head. “I don’t want no dough. But there’s gonna
be an assistant warden’s job open in about three weeks.”
“You’ll get it,” Malone said. He took the envelope and stuffed it in
an inside pocket. Then he paused, frowned, and finally added, “And
keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Because there’s going to
be an awful stink when I prove Paul Palmer was murdered.”

The pretty, black-haired girl in Malone’s anteroom looked up as he

opened the door. “Oh, Mr. Malone,” she said quickly. “I read about it
in the paper. I’m so sorry.”
“Never mind, Maggie,” the lawyer said. “No use crying over spilled
clients.” He went into his private office and shut the door.
Fate was treating him very shabbily, evidently from some obscure
motive of personal spite. He’d been counting heavily on that five
thousand buck fee.
He took a bottle of rye out of the fifing cabinet marked “Personal,”
poured himself a drink, noted that there was only one more left in the
bottle, and stretched out on the worn red leather davenport to think
things over.
Paul Palmer had been an amiable, stupid young drunk of good
family, whose inherited wealth had been held in trust for him by an
uncle considered to be the stingiest man in Chicago. The money was
to be turned over to him on his thirtieth birthday—some five years off
—or on the death of the uncle, Carter Brown. Silly arrangement, Ma­
lone reflected, but rich men’s lawyers were always doing silly things.
Uncle Carter had cramped the young man’s style considerably, but
he’d managed pretty well. Then he’d met Madelaine Starr.
Malone fit a cigar and stared dreamily through the smoke. The
Starrs were definitely social, but without money. A good keen eye for
graft, too. Madelaine’s uncle was probably making a very good thing
out of that political appointment as prison doctor.
134 C RAIG RICE

Malone sighed, wished he weren’t a lawyer, and thought about

Madelaine Starr. An orphan, with a tiny income which she aug­
mented by modelling in an exclusive dress shop—a fashionable and
acceptable way of making a living. She had expensive tastes. (The
little lawyer could spot expensive tastes in girls a mile away.)
She’d had to be damned poor to want to marry Palmer, Malone
reflected, and damned beautiful to get him. Well, she was both.
But there had been another girl, one who had to be paid off. Lil­
lian Claire by name, and a very lovely hunk of girl, too. Lovely, and
smart enough to demand a sizable piece of money for letting the
Starr-Palmer nuptials go through without a scandalous fuss.
Malone shook his head sadly. It had looked bad at the trial. Paul
Palmer had taken his bride-to-be night-clubbing, delivering her back
to her kitchenette apartment just before twelve. He’d been a shade
high, then, and by the time he’d stopped off at three or four bars, he
was several shades higher. Then he’d paid a visit to Lillian Claire,
who claimed later at the trial that he’d attempted—unsuccessfully—
to talk her out of the large piece of cash money, and had drunk up all
the whiskey in the house. She’d put him in a cab and sent him home.
No one knew just when Paul Palmer had arrived at the big, gloomy
apartment he shared with Carter Brown. The manservant had the
night off. It was the manservant who discovered, next morning, that
Uncle Carter had been shot neatly through the forehead with Paul
Palmer’s gun, and that Paul Palmer had climbed into his own bed,
fully dressed, and was snoring drunk.
Everything had been against him, Malone reflected sadly. Not
only had the jury been composed of hard-working, poverty-stricken
men who liked nothing better than to convict a rich young wastrel of
murder, but worse still, they’d all been too honest to be bribed. The
trial had been his most notable failure. And now, this.
But Paul Palmer would never have hanged himself. Malone was
sure of it. He’d never lost hope. And now, especially, when a new
trial had been granted, he’d have wanted to live.
It had been murder. But how had it been done?
Malone sat up, stretched, reached in his pocket for the pale grey
envelope Bowers had given him, and read the note through again.

My dearest Paul:
I’m getting this note to you this way because I’m in ter­
rible trouble and danger. I need you—no one else can help
me. I know there’s to be a new trial, but even another week
may be too late. Isn’t there any way?
Your own
M.
H IS HEART COULD BREAK

“M,” Malone decided, would be Madelaine Starr. She’d use that

kind of pale grey paper, too.
He looked at the note and frowned. If Madelaine Starr had
smuggled that note to her lover, would she have smuggled in a rope
by the same messenger? Or had someone else brought in the rope?
There were three people he wanted to see. Madelaine Starr was
one. Lillian Claire was the second. And Max Hook was the third.
He went out into the anteroom, stopped halfway across it and said
aloud, “But it’s a physical impossibility. If someone smuggled that
rope into Paul Palmer’s cell and then Palmer hanged himself, it isn’t
murder. But it must have been murder.” He stared at Maggie with­
out seeing her. “Damn it, though, no one could have got into Paul
Palmer’s cell and hanged him.”
Maggie looked at him sympathetically, familiar from long experi­
ence with her employer’s processes of thought. “Keep on thinking
and it’ll come to you.”
“Maggie, have you got any money?”
“I have ten dollars, but you can’t borrow it. Besides, you haven’t
paid my last week’s salary yet.”
The little lawyer muttered something about ungrateful and heart­
less wenches, and flung himself out of the office.
Something had to be done about ready cash. He ran his mind over
a fist of prospective lenders. The only possibility was Max Hook. No,
the last time he’d borrowed money from the Hook, he’d got into no
end of trouble. Besides, he was going to ask another kind of favor
from the gambling boss.
Malone went down Washington Street, turned the corner, went
into Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar, and cornered its proprietor at the
far end of the room.
“Cash a hundred dollar check for me, and hold it until a week
from,”—Malone made a rapid mental calculation—“Thursday?”
“Sure,” Joe the Angel said. “Happy to do you a favor.” He got out
ten ten-dollar bills while Malone wrote the check. “Want I should
take your bar bill out of this?”
Malone shook his head. “I’ll pay next week. And add a double rye
to it.”
As he set down the empty glass, he heard the colored janitor’s voice
coming faintly from the back room.

“T hey hanged him for the thing you dene,

You knew it was a sin,
”
You didn’t know his heart could break----■

The voice stopped suddenly. For a moment Malone considered

calling for the singer and asking to hear the whole thing, all the way
136 C RAIG R IC E

through. No, there wasn’t time for it now. Later, perhaps. He went
out on the street, humming the tune.
What was it Paul Palmer had whispered in that last moment? “It
wouldn’t break!" Malone scowled. He had a curious feeling that
there was some connection between those words and the words of
that damned song. Or was it his Irish imagination, tripping him up
again? “You didn’t know his heart could break." But it was Paul
Palmer’s neck that had been broken.
Malone hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to the swank
Lake Shore Drive apartment-hotel where Max Hook lived.
The gambling boss was big in two ways. He took in a cut from
every crooked gambling device in Cook County, and most of the
honest ones. And he was a mountain of flesh, over six feet tall and
three times too fat for his height. His pink head was completely bald
and he had the expression of a pleased cherub.
His living room was a masterpiece of the gilt-and-brocade school
of interior decoration, marred only by a huge, battle-scarred roll-top
desk in one corner. Max Hook swung around from the desk to smile
cordially at the lawyer.
“How delightful to see you! What will you have to drink?’’
“Rye,” Malone said, “and it’s nice to see you too. Only this isn’t ex­
actly a social call.”
He knew better, though, than to get down to business before the
drinks had arrived. (Max Hook stuck to pink champagne.) That
wasn’t the way Max Hook liked to do things. But when the rye was
down, and the gambling boss had lighted a slender, tinted (and,
Malone suspected, perfumed) cigarette in a rose quartz holder, he
plunged right in.
“I suppose you read in the papers about what happened to my
client, Palmer,” he said.
“I never read the papers,” Max Hook told him, “but one of my boys
informed me. Tragic, wasn’t it.”
“Tragic is no name for it,” Malone said bitterly. “He hadn’t paid
me a dime.”
Max Hook’s eyebrows lifted. “So?” Automatically he reached for
the green metal box in the left-hand drawer, “tlow much do you
need?”
“No, no,” Malone said hastily, “that isn’t it. I just want to know if
one of your boys—Litte Georgie La Cerra—smuggled the rope in to
him. That’s all.”
Max Hook looked surprised, and a little hurt. “My dear Malone,”
he said at last, “why do you imagine he’d do such a thing?”
“For money,” Malone said promptly, “if he did do it. I don’t care, I
just want to know.”
“You can take my word for it,” Max Hook said, “he did nothing of
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 137

the kind. He did deliver a note from a certain young lady to Mr. Pal­
mer, at my request—a bit of nuisance, too, getting hold of that admit­
tance order signed by the warden. I assure you, though, there was
no rope. I give you my word, and you know I’m an honest man.”
“Well, I was just asking,” Malone said. One thing about the big
gangster, he always told the truth. If he said Little Georgie La Cerra
hadn’t smuggled in that rope, then Little Georgie hadn’t. Nor was
there any chance that Little Georgie had engaged in private enter­
prises on the side. As Max Hook often remarked, he liked to keep a
careful watch on his boys. “One thing more, though,” the lawyer said,
“if you don’t mind. Why did the young lady come to you to get her
note delivered?”
Max Hook shrugged his enormous shoulders. “We have a certain-
business connection. To be exact, she owes me a large sum of money.
Like most extremely mercenary people she loves gambling, but she is
not particularly lucky. When she told me that the only chance for that
money to be paid was for the note to be delivered, naturally I
obliged.”
“Naturally,” Malone agreed. “You didn’t happen to know what was
in the note, did you?”
Max Hook was shocked. “My dear Malone! You don’t think I read
other people’s personal mail!”
No, Malone reflected, Max Hook probably didn’t. And not having
read the note, the big gambler probably wouldn’t know what kind of
“terrible trouble and danger” Madelaine Starr was in. He decided to
ask, though, just to be on the safe side.
“Trouble?” Max Hook repeated after him. “No, outside of having
her fiance condemned to death, I don’t know of any trouble she’s in.”
Malone shrugged his shoulders at the reproof, rose and walked to
the door. Then he paused, suddenly. “Listen, Max. Do you know the
words to a tune that goes like this?” He hummed a bit of it.
Max Hook frowned, then nodded. “M m m -I know the tune. An
entertainer at one of my places used to sing it.” He thought hard, and
finally came up with a few fines.
“H e was leaning against the prison bars,
D ressed up in his new prison clothes---- ”
“Sorry,” Max Hook said at last, “that’s all I remember. I guess those
two fines stuck in my head because they reminded me of the first
time I was in jail.”
Outside in the taxi, Malone sang the two fines over a couple of
times. If he kept on, eventually he’d have the whole song. But Paul
Palmer hadn’t been leaning against the prison bars. He’d been hang­
ing from the water pipe.
Damn, and double damn that song!
138 C RAIG R IC E

It was well past eight o’clock, and he’d had no dinner, but he didn’t
feel hungry. He had a grim suspicion that he wouldn’t feel hungry
until he’d settled this business. When the cab paused for the next
red light, he flipped a coin to decide whether he’d call first on Made-
lame Starr or Lillian Claire, and Madelaine won.
He stepped out of the cab in front of the small apartment building
on Walton Place, paid the driver, and started across the sidewalk
just as a tall, white-haired man emerged from the door. Malone recog­
nized Orlo Featherstone, the lawyer handling Paul Palmer’s estate,
considered ducking out of sight, realized there wasn’t time, and
finally managed to look as pleased as he was surprised.
“I was just going to offer Miss Starr my condolences,” he said.
“I’d leave her undisturbed, if I were you,” Orlo Featherstone said
coldly. He had only one conception of what a lawyer should be, and
Malone wasn’t anything like it. “I only called myself because I am, so
to speak and in a sense, a second father to her.”
If anyone else had said that, Malone thought, it would have called
for an answer. From Orlo Featherstone, it sounded natural. He
nodded sympathetically and said, “Then I won’t bother her.” He
tossed away a ragged cigar and said “Tragic affair, wasn’t it.”
Orlo Featherstone unbent at least half a degree. “Distinctly so.
Personally, I cannot imagine Paul Palmer doing such a thing. When I
visited him yesterday, he seemed quite cheerful and full of hope.”
“You—visited him yesterday?” Malone asked casually. He drew a
cigar from his pocket and began unwrapping it with exquisite care.
“Yes,” Featherstone said, “about the will. He had to sign it, you
know. Fortunate for her,” he indicated Madelaine Starr with a ges­
ture toward the building, “that he did so. He left her everything, of
course.”
“Of course,” Malone said. He lighted his cigar on the second try.
“You don’t think Paul Palmer could have been murdered, do you?”
“Murdered!” Orlo Featherstone repeated, as though it was an ob­
scene word, “Absurd! No Palmer has ever been murdered.”
Malone watched him climb into a shiny 1928 Rolls Royce, then
started walking briskly toward State Street. The big limousine
passed him just as he reached the comer, it turned north on State
Street and stopped. Malone paused by the newsstand long enough to
see Mr. Orlo Featherstone get out and cross the sidewalk to the cor­
ner drug store. After a moment’s thought he followed and paused at
the cigar counter, from where he could see clearly into the adjacent
telephone booth.
Orlo Featherstone, in the booth, consulted a little notebook. Then
he took down the receiver, dropped a nickel in the slot, and began
dialling. Malone watched carefully. D -E-L—9-6-0----It was Lillian
Claire’s number.
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 139
The little lawyer cursed all sound-proof phone booths, and headed
for a bar on the opposite comer. He felt definitely unnerved.
After a double rye, and halfway through a second one, he came to
the heartening conclusion that when he visited Lillian Claire, later
in the evening, he’d be able to coax from her the reason why Orlo
Featherstone, of all people, had telephoned her, just after leaving the
late Paul Palmer’s fiancee. A third rye braced him for his call on the
fiancee herself.
Riding up in the self-service elevator to her apartment, another
heartening thought came to him. If Madelaine Starr was going to in­
herit all the Palmer dough—then it might not be such a trick to collect
his five thousand bucks. He might even be able to collect it by a week
from Thursday.
And he reminded himself, as she opened the door, this was going
to be one time when he wouldn’t be a sucker for a pretty face.
Madelaine Starr’s apartment was tiny, but tasteful. Almost too
tasteful, Malone thought. Everything in it was cheap, but perfectly
correct and in exactly the right place, even to the Van Gogh print
over the midget fireplace. Madelaine Starr was in exactly the right
taste, too.
She was a tall girl, with a figure that still made Malone blink, in
spite of the times he’d admired it in the courtroom. Her bronze-
brown hair was smooth and well-brushed, her pale face was calm and
composed. Serene, polished, suave. Malone had a private idea that if
he made a pass at her, she wouldn’t scream. She was wearing black
rayon house-pajamas. He wondered if they were her idea of mourn­
ing.
Malone got the necessary condolences and trite remarks out of the
way fast, and then said, “What kind of terrible trouble and danger
are you in, Miss Starr?”
That startled her. She wasn’t able to come up with anything more
original'than “What do you mean?”
“I mean what you wrote in your note to Paul Palmer,” the lawyer
said.
She looked at the floor and said, “I hoped it had been destroyed.”
“It will be,” Malone said gallantly, “if you say so.”
“Oh,” she said. “Do you have it with you?”
“No,” Malone lied. “It’s in my office safe. But I’ll go back there and
bum it.” He didn’t add when.
“It really didn’t have anything to do with his death, you know,” she
said.
Malone said, “Of course not. You didn’t send him the rope too, did
your
She stared at him. “How awful of you.”
“I’m sorry,” Malone said contritely.
140 C RAIG R IC E

She relaxed. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m a little
unnerved, naturally.” She paused. “May I offer you a drink?”
“You may,” Malone said, “and I’ll take it.”
He watched her while she mixed a lot of scotch and a little soda in
two glasses, wondering how soon after her fiance’s death he could
safely ask her for a date. Maybe she wouldn’t say Yes to a broken-
down criminal lawyer, though. He took the drink, downed half of it,
and said to himself indignantly, “Who’s broken-down?”
“Oh, Mr. Malone,” she breathed, “you don’t believe my note had
anything to do with it?”
“Of course not,” Malone said. “That note would have made him
want to live, and get out of jail.” He considered bringing up the mat­
ter of his five thousand dollar fee, and then decided this was not the
time. “Nice that you’ll be able to pay back what you owe Max Hook.
He’s a bad man to owe money to.”
She looked at him sharply and said nothing. Malone finished his
drink, and walked to the door.
“One thing, though,” he said, hand on the knob. “This—terrible
trouble and danger you’re in. You’d better tell me. Because I might
be able to help, you know.”
“Oh, no,” she said. She was standing very close to him, and her per­
fume began to mingle dangerously with the rye and scotch in his
brain. “I’m afraid not.” He had a definite impression that she was
thinking fast. “No one can help, now.” She looked away, delicately.
“You know—a girl—alone in the world---- ”
Malone felt his cheeks reddening. He opened the door and said,
“Oh.” Just plain Oh.
“Just a minute,” she said quickly. “Why did you ask all these ques­
tions?”
“Because,” Malone said, just as quickly, “I thought the answers
might be useful—in case Paul Palmer was murdered.”
That, he told himself, riding down the self-service elevator, would
give her something to think about.
He hailed a cab and gave the address of the apartment building
where Lillian Claire lived, on Goethe Street. In the lobby of the
building he paused long enough to call a certain well-known poli­
tician at his home and make sure that he was there. It would be just
as well not to run into that particular politician at Lillian Claire’s
apartment, since he was paying for it.
It was a nice apartment, too, Malone decided, as the slim mulatto
maid ushered him in. Big, soft modernistic divans and chairs,
panelled mirrors, and a built-in bar. Not half as nice, though, as
Lillian Claire herself.
She was a cuddly little thing, small, and a bit on the plump side,
with curly blonde hair and a deceptively simple stare. She said, “Oh,
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 141

Mr. Malone, I’ve always wanted a chance to get acquainted with

you.” Malone had a pleasant feeling that if he tickled her, just a little,
she’d giggle.
She mixed him a drink, lighted his cigar, sat close to him on the
biggest and most luxurious divan, and said, “Tell me, how on earth
did Paul Palmer get that rope?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said. “Did you send it to him, baked in a
cake?”
She looked at him reprovingly. “You don’t think I wanted him to
kill himself and let that awful woman inherit all that money?”
Malone said, “She isn’t so awful. But this is tough on you, though.
Now you’ll never be able to sue him.”
“I never intended to,” she said. “I didn’t want to be paid off. I just
thought it might scare her away from him.”
Malone put down his glass, she hopped up and refilled it. “Were
you in love with him?” he said.
“Don’t be silly.” She curled up beside him again. “I liked him. He
was much too nice to have someone like that marry him for his
money.”
Malone nodded slowly. The room was beginning to swim—not un­
pleasantly—before his eyes. Maybe he should have eaten dinner after
all.
“Just the same,” he said, “you didn’t think that idea up all by your­
self. Somebody put you up to asking for money.”
She pulled away from him a little—not too much. “That’s perfect
nonsense,” she said unconvincingly.
“All right,” Malone said agreeably. “Tell me just one thing---- ”
“I’ll tell you this one thing,” she said. “Paul never murdered his
uncle. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t Paul. Because I took him
home that night. He came to see me, yes. But I didn’t put him in a cab
and send him home. I took him home, and got him to his own room.
Nobody saw me. It was late—almost daylight.” She paused and lit a
cigarette. “I peeked into his uncle’s room to make sure I hadn’t been
seen, and his uncle was dead. I never told anybody because I didn’t
want to get mixed up in it worse than I was already.”
Malone sat bolt upright. “Fine thing,” he said, indignantly and a
bit thickly. “You could have alibied him and you let him be con­
victed.”
“Why bother?” she said serenely. “I knew he had you for a lawyer.
Why would he need an alibi?”
Malone shoved her back against the cushions of the davenport and
glared at her. “Aright,” he said. “But that wasn’t the thing I was
gonna ask. Why did old man Featherstone call you up tonight?”
Her shoulders stiffened under his hands. “He just asked me for a
dinner date,” she said.
142 C RAIG R IC E

“You’re a liar,” Malone said, not unpleasantly. He ran an experi­

mental finger along her ribs. She did giggle. Then he kissed her.

All this time spent, Malone told himself reprovingly, and you
haven’t learned one thing worth the effort. Paul Palmer hadn’t killed
his uncle. But he’d been sure of that all along, and anyway it wouldn’t
do any good now. Madelaine Starr needed money, and now she was
going to inherit a lot of it. Orlo Featherstone was on friendly terms
with Lillian Claire.
The little lawyer leaned his elbows on the table and rested his
head on his hands. At three o’clock in the morning, Joe the Angel’s
was a desolate and almost deserted place. He knew now, definitely,
that he should have eaten dinner. Nothing, he decided, would cure
the way he felt except a quick drink, a long sleep, or sudden death.
He would probably never learn who had killed Paul Palmer’s
uncle, or why. He would probably never learn what had happened to
Paul Palmer. After all, the man had hanged himself. No one else
could have got into that cell. It wasn’t murder to give a man enough
rope to hang himself with.
No, he would probably never learn what had happened to Paul
Palmer, and he probably would never collect that five thousand
dollar fee. But there was one thing that he could do. He’d leam the
words of that song.
He called for a drink, the janitor, and the janitor’s guitar. Then he
sat back and listened.
“As I passed by the oY S tates prison,
Ridin on a stream-lin train---- ”
It was a long, rambling ballad, requiring two drinks for the janitor
and two more for Malone. The lawyer listened, remembering a fine
here and there.
“W hen they han ged him in the m ornin,
His last w ords w ere fo r you,
T hen the sheriff took his shiny knife
An cut that oY rope through.”
A sad story, Malone reflected, finishing the second drink. Person­
ally, he’d have preferred “My Wild Irish Rose” right now. But he
yelled to Joe for another drink, and went on listening.
“They hanged him fo r th e thing you done,
You knew it was a sin,
H ow w ell you knew his heart could break,
Lady, why did you turn him in---- ”
The little lawyer jumped to his feet. That was the line he’d been
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 143

trying to remember! And what had Paul Palmer whispered? “It

wouldn't break.”
Malone knew, now.
He dived behind the bar, opened the cash drawer, and scooped
out a handful of telephone slugs.
“You’re drunk,” Joe the Angel said indignantly.
“That may he,” Malone said happily, “and it’s a good idea too. But
I know what I’m doing.”
He got one of the slugs into the phone on the third try, dialled Orlo
Featherstone’s number, and waited till the elderly lawyer got out of
bed and answered the phone.
It took ten minutes, and several more phone slugs to convince
Featherstone that it was necessary to get Madelaine Starr out of bed
and make the three-hour drive to the state’s prison, right now. It
took another ten minutes to wake up Lillian Claire and induce her to
join the party. Then he placed a long-distance call to the sheriff of
Statesville County and invited him to drop in at the prison and pick
up a murderer.
Malone strode to the door. As he reached it, Joe the Angel hailed
him.
“I forgot,” he said, “I got sumpin’ for you.” Joe the Angel rum­
maged hack of the cash register and brought out a long envelope.
“That cute secretary of yours was looking for you all over town to
give you this. Finally she left it with me. She knew you’d get here
sooner or later.”
Malone said “Thanks,” took the envelope, glanced at it, and
winced. “First National Bank.” Registered mail. He knew he was
overdrawn, but----
Oh, well, maybe there was still a chance to get that five thousand
bucks.
The drive to Statesville wasn’t so bad, in spite of the fact that Orlo
Featherstone snored most of the way. Lillian snuggled up against
Malone’s left shoulder like a kitten, and with his right hand he held
Madelaine Starr’s hand under the auto robe. But the arrival, a bit
before seven a.m., was depressing. The prison looked its worst in the
early morning, under a light fog.
Besides, the little lawyer wasn’t happy over what he had to do.
Warden Garrity’s office was even more depressing. There was the
warden, eyeing Malone coldly and belligerently, and Madelaine
Starr and her uncle, Dr. Dickson, looking a bit annoyed. Orlo
Featherstone was frankly skeptical. The sheriff of Statesville County
was sleepy and bored, Lillian Claire was sleepy and suspicious. Even
the guard, Bowers, looked bewildered.
And all these people, Malone realized, were waiting for him to
pull a rabbit out of his whiskers.
144 C R A IG R IC E

He pulled it out fast. “Paul Palmer was murdered,” he said flatly.

Warden Garrity looked faintly amused. “A bunch of pixies
crawled in his cell and tied the rope around his neck?”
“No,” Malone said, lighting a cigar. “This murderer made one try
—murder by frame-up. He killed Paul Palmer’s uncle for two reasons,
one of them being to send Paul Palmer to the chair. It nearly worked.
Then I got him a new trial. So another method had to be tried, fast,
and that one did work.”
“You’re insane,” Orlo Featherstone said. “Palmer hanged himself.”
“I’m not insane,” Malone said indignantly, “I’m drunk. There’s a
distinction. And Paul Palmer hanged himself because he thought he
wouldn’t die, and could escape from prison.” He looked at Bowers
and said, “Watch all these people, someone may make a move.”
Lillian Claire said, “I don’t get it.”
“You will,” Malone promised. He kept a watchful eye on Bowers
and began talking fast. “The whole thing was arranged by someone
who was mercenary and owed money. Someone who knew Paul Pal­
mer would be too drunk to know what had happened the night his
uncle was killed, and who was close enough to him to have a key to
the apartment. That person went in and killed the uncle with Paul
Palmer’s gun. And, as that person had planned, Paul Palmer was
tried and convicted and would have been electrocuted, if he hadn’t
had a damn smart lawyer.”
He flung his cigar into the cuspidor and went on, “Then Paul Pal­
mer was granted a new trial. So tire mercenary person who wanted
Paul Palmer’s death convinced him that he had to break out of prison,
and another person showed him how the escape could be arranged—
by pretending to hang himself, and being moved to the prison hos­
pital—watch her, Bowers!"
Madelaine Starr had flung herself at Dr. Dickson. “Damn you,”
she screamed, her face white. “I knew you’d break down and talk.
But you’ll never talk again---- ”
There were three shots. One from the little gun Madelaine had car­
ried in her pocket, and two from Bowers’ service revolver.
Then the room was quite still.
Malone walked slowly across the room, looked down at the
two bodies, and shook his head sadly. “Maybe it’s just as well,”
he said. “They’d probably have hired another defense lawyer
anyway.”

“This is all very fine,” the Statesville County sheriff said. “But I still
don’t see how you figured it. Have another beer?”
“Thanks,” Malone said. “It was easy. A song tipped me off. Know
this?” He hummed a few measures.
“Oh, sure,” the sheriff said. “The name of it is, ‘The Statesville
Prison.’ ” He sang the first four verses.
H IS HEART COULD BREAK 145

“Well, I’ll be double-damned,” Malone said. The bartender put

the two glasses of beer on the table. “Bring me a double gin for a
chaser,” the lawyer told him.
“Me too,” the sheriff said. “What does the song have to do with it,
Malone?”
Malone said, “It was the crank on the adding machine, pal. Know
what I mean? You put down a lot of stuff to add up and nothing hap­
pens, and then somebody turns the crank and it all adds up to what
you want to know. See how simple it is?”
“I don’t,” the sheriff said, “but go on.”
“I had all the facts,” Malone said, “I knew everything I needed to
know, but I couldn’t add it up. I needed one thing, that one thing.”
He spoke almost reverently, downing his gin. “Paul Palmer said ‘It
wouldn’t break’—just before he died. And he looked terribly sur­
prised. For a long time, I didn’t know what he meant. Then I heard
that song again, and I did know.” He sang a few lines. “The sheriff
to ok his shiny knife, and cut that o f rope through.” Then he finished
his beer, and sang on “They han ged him for the thing you done, you
kn ew it was a sin. You didn’t know his heart could break, L ady why
d id you turn him in.” He ended on a blue note.
“Very pretty," the sheriff said. “Only I heard it, "You knew that his
p oor heart could break.’ ”
“Same thing,” Malone said, waving a hand. “Only, that song was
what turned the crank on the adding machine. When I heard it
again, I knew what Palmer meant by ‘it wouldn’t break.’ ”
“His heart?” the sheriff said helpfully.
“No,” Malone said, “the rope.”
He waved at the bartender and said “Two more of the same.” Then
to the sheriff, “He expected the rope to break. He thought it would be
artfully frayed so that he would drop to the floor unharmed. Then he
could have been moved to the prison hospital—from which there had
been two escapes in the past six months. He had to escape, you see,
because his sweetheart had written him that she was in terrible
trouble and danger—the same sweetheart whose evidence had
helped convict him at the trial.
“Madelaine Starr wanted his money,” Malone went on, “but she
didn’t want Paul. So her murder of his uncle served two purposes. It
released Paul’s money, and it framed him. Using poor old innocent
Orlo Featherstone, she planted in Lillian Claire’s head the idea of
holding up Paul for money, so Paul would be faced with a need for
ready cash. Everything worked fine, until I gummixed up the whole
works by getting my client a new trial.”
“Your client shouldn’t of had such a smart lawyer,” the sheriff said,
over his beer glass.
Malone tossed aside the compliment with a shrug of his cigar.
“Maybe he should of had a better one. Anyway, she and her uncle,
146 C RAIG RICE

Dr. Dickson, fixed it all up. She sent that note to Paul, so he’d think
he had to break out of the clink. Then her uncle, Dickson, told Paul
he’d arrange the escape, with the rope trick. To the world, it would
have looked as though Paul Palmer had committed suicide in a fit of
depression. Only he did have a good lawyer, and he lived long
enough to say ‘It wouldn’t break.’ ”
Malone looked into his empty glass and lapsed into a melancholy
silence.
The phone rang—someone hijacked a truck over on the Springfield
Road—and the sheriff was called away. Left by himself, Malone cried
a little into his beer. Lillian Claire had gone back to Chicago with
Orlo Featherstone, who really had called her up for a date, and no
other reason.
Malone reminded himself he hadn’t had any sleep, his head was
splitting, and what was left of Joe the Angel’s hundred dollars would
just take him back to Chicago. And there was that letter from the
bank, probably threatening a summons. He took it out of his pocket
and sighed as he tore it open.
“Might as well face realities,” Malone said to the bartender. “And
bring me another double gin.”
He drank the gin, tore open the envelope, and took out a certified
check for five thousand dollars, with a note from the bank to the
effect that Paul Palmer had directed its payment. It was dated the
day before his death.
Malone waltzed to the door, waltzed back to pay the bartender
and kiss him good-bye.
“Do you feel all right?” the bartender asked anxiously.
“All right!” Malone said. “I’m a new man!”
What was more, he’d just remembered the rest of that song. He
sang it, happily, as he went up the street toward the railroad station.
“As I passed by the oT State’s prison,
Ridin on a stream-lin train
I w aved my hand, and said out loud,
I ’m never cornin’ back again,
I’m never cornin’ back a—gain!”
 U N C L E A B N E R IN

T he u n c l e a b n e r stories, written 1911-1917, w ere first collected in

b oo k form in 1918. That volum e has never ap p eared as a reprint,
but was kept in print for a quarter century in its original trade
edition. This is a unique record am ong detective stories, and an
extraordinary record in any field. Though the general pu blic is
som etim es surprisingly ignorant o f u n c l e a b n e r (when I recently
ordered a copy in a bookstore, the clerk giggled and asked “L i’l
A bnerF’), there has been a steady dem and from a persistent and
perceptive minority w ho realize that this is, in Ellery Q ueens
words, “the finest boo k o f detective short stories written by an
American since Poe.” D orothy Sayers, to b e sure, calls th e stories
“strictly sen sation ar and unfair (an objection justified in a fe w o f
the eighteen tales); but this caviling seem s petty beside the poetic
portrayal o f early nineteenth-century Virginia, the delightful char­
acter o f s q u i r e R a n d o l p h (certainly one o f the three or four great
Watsons), the brilliance o f the plot-puzzles, and above all the m oral
grandeur o f a b n e r him self, voice and arm o f the Lord. I f the
prophet d a n i e l , w ho solved the locked-room problem o f B el and
th e Dragon, is the father o f detectives, surely the prophet a b n e r
is his favorite son.
THE HIDDEN LAW

BY MELVI LLE D A V I S S O N POST

w HAD COME OUT to Dudley Betts’ house and were

standing in a bit of meadow. It was an afternoon of April; there had
been a shower of rain, and now the sun was on the velvet grass and
the white-headed clover blossoms. The sky was blue above and the
earth green below, and swimming between them was an air like lotus.
Facing the south upon this sunny field was a stand of bees, thatched
with rye-straw and covered over with a clapboard roof, the house of
each tribe a section of a hollow gumtree, with a cap on the top for
the tribute of honey to the human tyrant. The bees had come out
after the shower was gone, and they hummed at their work with the
sound of a spinner.
Randolph stopped and looked down upon the humming hive. He
lifted his finger with a little circling gesture.
“ ‘Singing masons building roofs of gold,’ ” he said. “Ah, Abner,
William of Avon was a great poet.”
My uncle turned about at that and looked at Randolph and then
at the hive of bees. A girl was coming up from the brook below with
a pail of water. She wore a simple butternut frock, and she was
clean-limbed and straight like those first daughters of the world who
wove and spun. She paused before the hive and the bees swarmed
about her as about a great clover blossom, and she was at home
and unafraid like a child in a company of yellow butterflies. She
went on to the spring house with her dripping wooden pail, kissing
the tips of her fingers to the bees. We followed, but before the
150 M E L V ILLE D A V ISSO N PO ST

hive my uncle stopped and repeated the line that Randolph had
quoted:
“ ‘Singing masons building roofs of gold,’ . . . and over a floor of
gold and pillars of gold.” He added, “He was a good riddle maker,
your English poet, but not so good as Samson, unless I help him out.”
I received the fairy fancy with all children’s joy. Those little men
singing as they laid their yellow floor, and raised their yellow walls,
and arched their yellow roof! Singing! The word seemed to open up
some sunlit fairy world.
It pleased Randolph to have thus touched my uncle.
“A great poet, Abner,” he repeated, “and more than that; he drew
lessons from nature valuable for doctrine. Men should hymn as they
labor and fill the fields with song and so suck out the virus from the
curse. He was a great philosopher, Abner—William of Avon.”
“But not so great a philosopher as Saint Paul,” replied Abner, and
he turned from the bees toward old Dudley Betts, digging in the
fields before his door. He put his hands behind him and lifted his
stem bronze face.
“Those who coveted after money,” he said, “have ‘pierced them­
selves through with many sorrows.’ And is it not the truth? Yonder is
old Dudley Betts. He is doubled up with aches; he has lost his son; he
is losing his life, and he will lose his soul—all for money—‘Pierced
themselves through with many sorrows,’ as Saint Paul said it, and
now, at the end he has lost the horde that he slaved for.”
The man was a by-word in the hills; mean and narrow, with an
economy past belief. He used everything about him to one end and
with no thought but gain. He cultivated his fields to the very door,
and set his fences out into the road, and he extracted from those
about him every tithe of service. He had worked his son until the boy
had finally run away across the mountains. He had driven his daugh­
ter to the makeshifts of the first patriarchal people—soap from ashes,
linen from hemp, and the wheel and the loom for the frock upon her
limbs.
And like every man under a single dominating passion, he grew in
suspicion and in fear. He was afraid to lend out his money lest he lose
It. He had given so much for this treasure that he would take no
chance with it, and so kept it by him in gold.
But caution and fear are not harpies to be halted; they wing on.
Betts was dragged far in their claw-feet. There is a land of dim things
that these convoys can enter. Betts arrived there. W e must not press
the earth too hard, old, forgotten peoples believed, lest evil things
are squeezed out that strip us and avenge it. And ancient crones,
feeble, wrapped up by the fire, warned him: The earth suffered us to
reap, but not to glean her. W e must not gather up every head of
wheat. The earth or dim creatures behind the earth would be
offended. It was the oldest belief. The first men poured a little wine
THE H ID D E N LAW 151

out when they drank and brought an offering of their herds and the
first fruits of the fields. It was written in the Book. He could get it
down and read it.
What did they know that they did this? Life was hard then; men
saved all they could. There was some terrible experience behind this
custom, some experience that appalled and stamped the race with a
lesson!
At first Betts laughed at their warnings; then he cursed at them,
and his changed manner marked how far he had got. The laugh
meant disbelief, but the curse meant fear.
And now, the very strangest thing had happened: The treasure
that the old man had so painfully laid up had mysteriously vanished
clear away. No one knew it. Men like Betts, cautious and secretive,
are dumb before disaster. They conceal the deep mortal hurt as
though to hide it from themselves.
He had gone in the night and told Randolph and Abner, and now
they had come to see his house.
He put down his hoe when we came up and led us in. It was a
house like those of the first men, with everything in it home-made—
hand-woven rag-carpets on the floor, and hand-woven coverlets on
the beds; tables and shelves and benches of rude carpentry. These
things spoke of the man’s economy. But there were also things that
spoke of his fear: The house was a primitive stockade. The door was
barred with a beam, and there were heavy shutters at the windows;
an ax stood by the old man’s bed and an ancient dueling pistol hung
by its trigger-guard to a nail.
I did not go in, for youth is cunning. I sat down on the doorstep
and fell into so close a study of a certain wasp at work under a sill
that I was overlooked as a creature without ears; but I had ears of the
finest and I lost no word.
The old man got two splint-bottom chairs and put them by the
table for his guests, and then he brought a blue earthen jar and set it
before them. It was one of the old-fashioned glazed jars peddled by
the hucksters, smaller but deeper than a crock, with a thick rim and
two great ears. In this he kept his gold pieces until on a certain night
they had vanished.
The old man’s voice ran in and out of a whisper as he told the story.
He knew the very night, because he looked into his jar before he slept
and every morning when he got out of his bed. It had been a devil’s
night—streaming clouds drove across an iron sky, a thin crook of a
moon sailed, and a high bitter wind scythed the earth.
Everybody remembered the night when he got out his almanac
and named it. There had been noises, old Betts said, but he could not
define them. Such a night is full of voices; the wind whispers in the
chimney and the house frame creaks. The wind had come on in gusts
at sunset, full of dust and whirling leaves, but later it had got up into
152 M E L V IL L E D A V ISSO N P O S T

a gale. The fire had gone out and the house inside was black as a pit.
He did not know what went on inside or out, but he knew that the
gold was gone at daylight, and he knew that no living human crea­
ture had got into his house. The bar on his door held and the shutters
were bolted. Whatever entered, entered through the keyhole or
through the throat of a chimney that a cat would stick in.
Abner said nothing, but Randolph sat down to an official inquiry:
“You have been robbed, Betts," he said. “Somebody entered your
house that night.”
“Nobody entered it,” replied the old man in his hoarse, half-
whispered voice, “either on that night or any other night. The door
was fast, Squire.”
“But the thief may have closed it behind him.”
Betts shook his head. “He could not put up the bar behind him, and
besides I set it in a certain way. It was not moved. And the windows—
I bolt them and turn the bolt at a certain angle. No human touched
them.”
It was not possible to believe that this man could be mistaken. One
could see with what care he had set his little traps—the bar across
the door precisely at a certain hidden fine; the bolts of the window
shutters turned precisely to an angle that he alone knew. It was not
likely that Randolph would suggest anything that this cautious old
man had not already thought of.
“Then,” continued Randolph, “the thief concealed himself in your
house the day before the robbery and got out of it on the day after.”
But again Betts shook his head, and his eyes ran over the house and
to a candle on the mantelpiece.
“I look,” he said, “every night before I go to bed.”
And one could see the picture of this old, fearful man, looking
through his house with the smoking tallow candle, peering into every
nook and corner. Could a thief hide from him in this house that he
knew inch by inch? One could not believe it. The creature took no
chance; he had thought of every danger, this one among them, and
every night he looked! He would know, then, the very cracks in the
wall. He would have found a rat.
Then, it seemed to me, Randolph entered the only road there was
out of this mystery.
“Your son knew about this money?”
“Yes,” replied Betts, “ ’Lander knew about it. He used to say that a
part of it was his because he had worked for it as much as I had. But
I told him,” and the old man’s voice cheeped in a sort of laugh, “that
he was mine.”
“Where was your son Philander when the money disappeared?”
said Randolph.
“Over the mountains,” said Betts; “he had been gone a month.”
Then he paused and looked at Randolph. “It was not ’Lander. On
THE H ID DE N LAW 153

that day he was in the school that Mr. Jefferson set up. I had a letter
from the master asking for money . . . I have the letter,” and he got
up to get it.
But Randolph waved his hand and sat back in his chair with the
aspect of a brooding oracle.
It was then that my uncle spoke.
“Betts,” he said, “how do you think the money went?”
The old man’s voice got again into that big crude whisper.
“I don’t know, Abner.”
But my uncle pressed him.
“What do you think?”
Betts drew a little nearer to the table.
“Abner,” he said, “there are a good many things going on around a
man that he doesn’t understand. We turn out a horse to pasture, and
he comes in with hand-holts in his mane. . . . You have seen it?”
“Yes,” replied my uncle.
And I had seen it, too, many a time, when the horses were brought
up in the spring from pasture, their manes twisted and knotted into
loops, as though to furnish a hand-holt to a rider.
“Well, Abner,” continued the old man in his rustling whisper,
“who rides the horse? You cannot untie or untwist those hand-holts
—you must cut them out with shears—with iron. Is it true?”
“It is true,” replied my uncle.
“And why, eh, Abner? Because those hand-holts were never knotted
in by any human fingers! You know what the old folk say?”
“I know,” answered my uncle. “Do you believe it, Betts?”
“Eh, Abner!” he croaked in the gutteral whisper. “If there were no
witches, why did our fathers hang up iron to keep them off? My
grandmother saw one burned in the old country. She had ridden the
king’s horse, and greased her hands with shoemakers’ wax so her
fingers would not slip in the mane. . . . Shoemakers’ wax! Mark you
that, Abner!”
“Betts,” cried Randolph, “you are a fool; there are no witches!”
“There was the Witch of Endor,” replied my uncle. “Go on, Betts.”
“By gad, sir!” roared Randolph, “if we are to try witches, I shall
have to read up James the First. That Scotch king wrote a learned
work on demonology. He advised the magistrates to search on the
body of the witch for the seal of the devil; that would be a spot
insensible to pain, and, James said, ‘Prod for it with a needle.’ ”
But my uncle was serious.
“Go on, Betts,” he said. “I do not believe that any man entered
your house and robbed you. But why do you think that a witch did?”
“Well, Abner,” answered the old man, “who could have got in but
such a creature? A thief cannot crawl through a keyhole, but there
are things that can. My grandmother said that once in the old country
a man awoke one night to see a gray wolf sitting by his fireside. He
154 M E L V ILLE D AVISSO N PO ST

had an ax, as I have, and he fought the wolf with that and cut off
its paw, whereupon it fled screaming through the keyhole. And the
paw lying on the floor was a woman’s hand!”
“Then, Betts,” cried Randolph, “it’s damned lucky that you didn’t
use your ax, if that is what one finds on the floor.”
Randolph had spoken with pompous sarcasm, but at the words
there came upon Abner’s face a look of horror.
“It is,” he said, “in God’s name!”
Betts leaned forward in his chair.
“And what would have happened to me, Abner, do you think, if I
had used my ax? Would I have died there with the ax in my hand?”
The look of horror remained upon my uncle’s face.
“You would have wished fpr that when the light came; to die is
sometimes to escape the pit.”
“I would have fallen into hell, then?”
“Aye, Betts,” replied my uncle, “straightway into hell!”
The old man rested his hands on the posts of the chair.
“The creatures behind the world are baleful creatures,” he mut­
tered in his big whisper.
Randolph got up at that.
“Damme!” he said. “Are we in the time of Roger Williams, and is
this Massachusetts, that witches ride and men are filched of their gold
by magic and threatened with hell fire? What is this cursed foolery,
Abner?”
“It is no foolery, Randolph,” replied my uncle, “but the living
truth.”
“The truth!” cried Randolph. “Do you call it the truth that crea­
tures, not human, able to enter through the keyhole and fly away,
have Betts’ gold, and if he fought against this robbery with his ax he
would have put himself in torment? Damme, man! In the name of
common sense, do you call this the truth?”
“Randolph,” replied Abner, and his voice was slow and deep, “it
is every word the truth.”
Randolph moved back the chair before him and sat down. He
looked at my uncle curiously.
“Abner,” he said, “you used to be a crag of common sense. The
legends and theories of fools broke on you and went to pieces.
Would you now testify to witches?”
“And if I did,” replied my uncle, “I should have Saint Paul
behind me.”
“The fathers of the church fell into some errors,” replied Randolph.
“The fathers of the law, then?” said Abner.
Randolph took his chin in his hand at that. “It is true,” he said,
“that Sir Matthew Hale held nothing to be so well established as the
fact of witchcraft for three great reasons, which he gave in their order,
THE H ID D E N LAW 155

as became the greatest judge in England: First, because it was as­

serted in the Scriptures; second, because all nations had made laws
against it; and, third, because the human testimony in support of
it was overwhelming. I believe that Sir Matthew had knowledge of
some six thousand cases. . . . But Mr. Jefferson has lived since then,
Abner, and this is Virginia.”
“Nevertheless,” replied my uncle, “after Mr. Jefferson, and in
Virginia, this thing has happened.”
Randolph swore a great oath.
“Then, by gad, sir, let us bum the old women in the villages until
the creatures who carried Betts’ treasures through the keyhole bring
it back!”
Betts spoke then.
“They have brought some of it back!”
My uncle turned sharply in his chair.
“YVhat do you mean, Betts?” he said.
“Why this, Abner,” replied the old man, his voice descending into
the cavernous whisper; “on three mornings I have found some of my
gold pieces in the jar. And they came as they went, Abner, with every
window fastened down and the bar across the door. And there is
another thing about these pieces that have come back—they are mine,
for I know every piece—but they have been in the hands of the
creatures that ride the horses in the pasture—they have been handled
by witches!” He whispered the word with a fearful glance about
him. “How do I know that? Wait, I will show you!”
He went over to his bed and got out a little box from beneath his
comhusk mattress—a worn, smoke-stained box with a sliding lid. He
drew the lid off with his thumb and turned the contents out on the
table.
“Now look,” he said; “look, there is wax on every piece! Shoe­
makers’ wax, mark you. . . . Eh, Abner! My mother said that—the
creatures grease their hands with that so that their fingers will not
slip when they ride the barebacked horses in the night. They have
carried this gold clutched in their hands, see, and the wax has come
off!”
My uncle and Randolph leaned over the table. They examined
the coins.
“By the Eternal!” cried Randolph. “It is wax! But were they clean
before?”
“They were clean,” the old man answered. “The wax is from the
creatures’ fingers. Did not my mother say it?”
My uncle sat back in his chair, but Betts strained forward and put
his fearful query:
“What do you think, Abner; will all the gold come back?”
My uncle did not at once reply. He sat for some time silent, looking
156 M E L V ILLE D A V ISSO N PO ST

through the open door at the sunny meadowland and the far off hills.
But finally he spoke like one who has worked out a problem and got
the answer.
“It will not all come back,” he said.
“How much, then?” whispered Betts.
“What is left,” replied Abner, “when the toll is taken out.”
“You know where the gold is?”
“Yes.”
“And the creatures that have it, Abner,” Betts whispered, “they
are not human?”
“They are not human!” replied my uncle.
Then he got up and began to walk about the house, but not to
search for clews to this mysterious thing. He walked like one who
examines something within himself—or something beyond the eye—
and old Betts followed him with his straining face. And Randolph
sat in his chair with his arms folded and his chin against his stock,
as a skeptic overwhelmed by proof might sit in a house of haunted
voices. He was puzzled upon every hand. The thing was out of reason
at every point, both in the loss and in the return of these coins upon
the table, and my uncle’s comments were below the soundings of all
sense. The creatures who now had Betts’ gold could enter through
the keyhole! Betts would have gone into the pit if he had struck out
with his ax! A moiety of this treasure would be taken out and the
rest returned! And the coins testified to no human handling! The
thing had no face nor aspect of events in nature. Mortal thieves
enjoyed no such supernal powers. These were the attributes of the
familiar spirit. Nor did the human robber return a per cent upon
his gains!
I have said that my uncle walked about the floor. But he stopped
now and looked down at the hard, miserly old man.
“Betts,” he said, “this is a mysterious world. It is hedged about and
steeped in mystery. Listen to me! The Patriarchs were directed to
make an offering to the Lord of a portion of the increase in their
herds. Why? Because the Lord had need of sheep and heifers? Surely
not, for the whole earth and its increase were His. There was some
other reason, Betts. I do not understand what it was, but I do under­
stand that no man can use the earth and keep every tithe of the
increase for himself. They did nofftry it, but you did!”
He paused and filled his big lungs.
“It was a disastrous experiment. . . . What will you do?”
“What must I do, Abner?” the old man whispered. “Make a sacrifice
like the Patriarchs?”
“A sacrifice you must make, Betts,” replied my uncle, “but not like
the Patriarchs. What you receive from the earth you must divide into
three equal parts and keep one part for yourself.”
“And to whom shall I give the other two parts, Abner?”
THE H ID DE N LAW 157

“To whom would you wish to give them, Betts, if you had the
choice?”
The old man fingered about his mouth.
“Well,” he said, “a man would give to those of his own household
first—if he had to give.”
“Then,” said Abner, “from this day keep a third of your increase
for yourself and give the other two-thirds to your son and your
daughter.”
“And the gold, Abner? Will it come back?”
“A third part will come back. Be content with that.”
“And the creatures that have my gold? Will they harm me?”
“Betts,” replied my uncle, “tire creatures that have your gold on
this day hidden in their house will labor for you as no slaves have
ever labored—without word or whip. Do you promise?”
The fearful old man promised, and we went out into the sun.
The tall straight young girl was standing before the springhouse,
kneading a dish of yellow butter and singing like a blackbird. My
uncle strode down to her. We could not hear the thing he said, but
the singing ceased when he began to talk and burst out in a fuller
note when he had finished—a big, happy, joyous note that seemed to
fill the meadow.
We waited for him before the stand of bees, and Randolph turned
on him when he came.
“Abner,” he said, “what is the answer to this damned riddle?”
“You gave it, Randolph,” he replied—“ ‘Singing masons building
roofs of gold.’ ” And he pointed to the bees. “When I saw that the
cap on one of the gums had been moved I thought Betts’ gold was
there, and when I saw the wax on the coins I was certain.”
“But,” cried Randolph, “you spoke of creatures not human—crea­
tures that could enter through the keyhole—creatures----”
“I spoke of the bees,” replied my uncle.
“But you said Betts would have fallen into hell if he struck out
with his ax!”
“He would have killed his daughter,” replied Abner. “Can you
think of a more fearful hell? She took the gold and hid it in the bee
cap. But she was honest with her father; whenever she sent a sum
of money to her brother she returned an equal number of gold pieces
to old Betts’ jar.”
“Then,” said Randolph, with a great oath, “there is no witch here
with her familiar spirits?”
“Now that,” replied my uncle, “will depend upon the imagery of
language. There is here a subtle maiden and a stand of bees!”
 N I C K N O B L E IN

W e are happy to announce that, as the result o f many months o f

pressure on our part, b acked up by the protests o f Ellery Queen,
Vincent Starrett and other aficionados, w e have finally prevailed
upon Mr Boucher to include in this anthology one o f his own d e­
tective stories. (B efore w e turned on the pressure, he was going to
include two.) t h e e d it o r s o f t o w e r b o o k s
BLACK MURDER

BY A N T H O N Y BOUCHER

l N PEACETIM E the whole Shaw case could never have happened.

As Officer Mulroon said later: the first attack would have been passed
off as natural illness, and besides there never would have been a
first attack.
But police work in the spring of 1943 was full of cases that could
never have happened in peacetime. Detective Lieutenant Donald
MacDonald ( Homicide, L.A.P.D.) was slowly becoming reconciled
159
160 ANTHONY BOUCHER

to the recruiting officer who had dissuaded him from joining the
Navy. He was necessary here on his job, even though he sometimes
wished that he were back in a patrolman’s uniform. His plain clothes
did draw occasional sardonic stares.
Even the stripe and a half of Lieutenant ( j.g .) Warren Humphreys
made him uniform-conscious and reminded him of his frustrated en­
listment. But the slight bitterness was effaced by the knowledge that
in this case the Navy had had to turn to him because he was a trained
specialist who knew about murderers.
“We don’t believe in coincidence in the Navy,” Lieutenant Hum­
phreys had barked over the phone. “When I’m sent out here to pick
up specifications on a sub detector, and find the inventor’s suddenly
come down with an attack having all the symptoms of arsenic poison­
ing, I want police action. And quick.”
Lieutenant MacDonald remembered when Warren Humphreys
had been his favorite political commentator, and hoped that he
diagnosed poisonings more accurately than he had the strength of
the Red Army.
Apparently he did. At least the police doctor made the same snap
diagnosis after an examination of the comatose inventor, and com­
mended the naval officer for his prompt administration of a mustard
emetic followed by milk of magnesia.
“Best I could do with what’s in an ordinary house,” Lieutenant
Humphreys said with gruff modesty. “Got to know a thing or two
about poison treatment in Naval Intelligence. You never know . . .”
“You’ve made a good start; he ought to pull through. Keep him
quiet and give him lots of milk. I’ll send out a male nurse. You can
call the lab about six, MacDonald. I’ll try to have a full report on
these specimens by then.”
It was now one forty-five. Humphreys had arrived at one and
phoned the police almost immediately. The attack, which the house­
hold had taken for ordinary digestive trouble, had struck Harrison
Shaw at twelve-thirty, after his usual lunch: a tartar sandwich and
a bottle of beer.
“The dietetics boys’d say he had it coming to him,” MacDonald
observed.
“But it was what he always ate, Lieutenant,” the blind man said.
“And it seemed to sustain his energy admirably—enough at least to
interest the Navy, if not to bring in any marked practical rewards.”
The slight note of bitterness toward the—professional habit made
him think “deceased”—toward the victim caused MacDonald to look
at the blind man more closely. He saw a tall, lean man of fifty, with
a marked resemblance to the poisoned inventor save for the sightless
stare and the one-sided smile that never left his face. He wore a gray
suit of unusually fine tailoring and unusually great age.
BLACK MURDER 161

The suit was like the house. One of those old family mansions in
the West Adams district near U.S.C. You saw it from the outside and
expected sumptuous furnishings and a flock of servants. You came
in and found a barn, and not a servant in sight.
“Let me get the picture straight,” MacDonald said. “The medical
report was the first essential. Now that that’s given us something to
sink our teeth into, pending the lab analysis, there’s plenty more to
cover. I gather you’re Mr. Shaw’s cousin?”
The blind man went on smiling. “Second cousin, yes. Ira Beaumont,
at your service, Lieutenant.”
“You’ve been living with Mr. Shaw for how long?”
“Mr. Shaw has been living with me for some three years. Ever
since I inherited this house from a distant relative of ours. He felt,
and with some justice, that he had as great a right to the inheritance
as I, and I was glad to give him some of the space I could not possibly
use up in this white elephant.”
“And the rest of the household?”
“First my cousin’s mother came to look after him. Then his labora­
tory assistant joined our happy household. I began to feel a trifle like
the old woman who is so horribly moved in on in the play Kind Lady.”
“That’s all in the house?”
“There was a couple who cooked and kept house, but we could not
compete with Lockheed and Vega in wage scales. Mrs. Shaw now
takes their place.” He rose and crossed the room to a humidor. “Do
you gentlemen care for cigars?”
“No thanks, not now.” MacDonald noted admiringly the ease with
which the blind man moved unaided about his own house. There’s
something splendid about the overcoming of handicaps . . . a
splendor, he reflected, that we’ll have many chances to watch in the
years to come. . . . “Then Mrs. Shaw prepared your cousin’s lunch
today?”
“As usual. I believe you’ll find her in the kitchen now; I know she’ll
be thinking that the family must eat tonight, whatever has happened.”
Lieutenant Humphreys tagged along. The prospect of a Watson
from Naval Intelligence somewhat awed the police detective.
“There can be only one motive,” the Naval Watson muttered.
“Somebody had to keep him from delivering those specifications to
me. And if you can find them, officer, I’d almost be willing to write
off the murder as unsolved.”
“We don’t even know yet that they’re lost,” MacDonald pointed
out. “When Shaw’s himself again, he may hand them straight over.”
But Humphreys shook his head. “They’re good,” he said cryptically.
“They wouldn’t slip up on that.”
There was a sudden slam of a door as they entered the kitchen.
Mrs. Shaw, MacDonald thought, was almost too good to be true.
162 ANTHONY BOUCHER

Aged housedress, apron, white hair and all, she was the casting
director’s dream of Somebody’s Mother. But at the moment she was
nervous, flustered—almost guilty-looking.
Wordlessly the Lieutenant crossed the kitchen and opened a pantry
door. He saw, at a rough count, a good hundred cans of rationed
goods. He laughed. “You needn’t worry, Mrs. Shaw. This isn’t my
brand of snooping; I shan’t report you for hoarding.”
Mrs. Shaw straightened her apron, poked at her escapist hair, and
looked relieved. “It’s really all for the good of the war,” she explained.
“My boy’s doing important work that’ll save thousands of lives, and
he’s going to get what he wants to eat whether somebody in Washing­
ton says so or not. Why, if he was a Russian inventor they’d be making
him take it.”
“We didn’t see a thing, did we, Lieutenant?”
Humphreys made a gruff noise. It was obviously hard for him to
resist a brief official lecture.
“Now about this attack of your son’s, Mrs. Shaw . . .”
“I just can’t understand that, Lieutenant. I simply can’t. Harry
never was a one to complain about his food. He liked lots of it, but
it always set right fine.”
“Mr. Beaumont said he always ate this same lunch?”
“Yes, sir. A white bread sandwich with raw ground round, with a
little salt and Worcestershire sauce, and some slices of raw onion.
And he drank beer with it. I can’t say I’d cotton to it myself, but it’s
what Harry liked.”
“Where was the beer kept?”
“In a little icebox in his laboratory. He always opened it himself.
All I did was fix the sandwich.”
“And bring a glass for the beer?”
“No. He liked it out of the bottle, just like his father before him.”
“And where did you keep the meat, Mrs. Shaw?”
“I didn’t. I mean not today. It didn’t get kept anyplace. I didn’t
get out to shop till late and I bought it down at the little market on
the corner and brought it right back here and made the sandwich.”
“And the onion?”
“I peeled a fresh one, of course.”
“And the salt and the sauce?”
MacDonald impounded the shaker and bottle indicated. “We’ll
analyze these, of course. Although no one would take the chance of
leaving them here in the kitchen where anybody m ight.. . . And what
did you do with the sandwich after you made it?”
“What should I do, officer? I took it right up to Harry and now
he’s . . . Oh, officer, he is going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“He will be. And you can thank Lieutenant Humphreys here that
he will.”
BLACK MURDER 163

“Oh, I do thank you, Lieutenant. I didn’t know what to think at first

with Harry so sick and you running around here and wanting mustard
and things, but now I see the good Lord sent you to save my Harry.”
Humphreys looked relieved when MacDonald cut through her
embarrassing gratitude. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Shaw. Now do
you know where we’d find your son’s assistant?”
As they walked down the long empty hall to a crudely improvised
laboratory, MacDonald said, “Did you ever see such deliberate
suicide before?”
“Suicide? But great Scott, man, you don’t mean that Shaw—”
“Lord no! I mean Mrs. Shaw. She’s told a specific, detailed story
that doesn’t leave a single loophole. Unless analysis turns up some­
thing in those seasonings, there’s only one person who could conceiv­
ably have poisoned Shaw. And that, by her own admission, is his
mother.”
The assistant, so far nameless, introduced himself as John Fire-
brook. He was a little man with a thick neck and a round, worried
face. “I don’t believe it, Lieutenant,” he began flatly. “Nobody could
want to kill a fine man like Mr. Shaw. It must have been something
he ate.”
“Sure. It was with Mrs. Crippen too.”
“And there are too many people at large in this world,” the naval
officer added, “who think killing fine men is just what the doctor
ordered. Especially fine men who invent sub detectors. And how
much do you know about that detector, Firebrook?”
“I know the principles, of course, sir. I helped to work them out,
though Mr. Shaw didn’t trust even me with the final details. You
remember the man recently who made a seventy-nine cent bombsight
out of junk? Well, ours is not perhaps quite in that class, but com­
parable. It consists of
(censored)
Humphreys nodded happily. “Brilliant, Firebrook. Brilliant. What
we need is men like Shaw who can make something out of apparently
nothing. If this lives up to expectations, I think the Navy can promise
him plenty more jobs.”
“If the Navy will promise us a decent laboratory and materials, we
will be happy. It’s fine to make something out of nothing, Lieutenant,
but it is nice to work with something too. We have kept hoping that
Mr. Shaw would receive a large sum of money from a great-uncle;
but the old gentleman has defied all the statistics of life-expectancy.
If this detector is a failure . . . I do not know what will become of us,”
he added simply.
“Do you know where these specifications are?” MacDonald asked.
“I do not. We could not afford a safe that would be any real pro­
tection. Mr. Shaw had his own plans which even I did not know.”
164 ANTHONY BOUCHER

“It’ll be simple,” said Humphreys. “Call your men, Lieutenant, and

we’ll search the whole place, starting with this lab.”
“No!” said Firebrook sharply.
“And why not?”
“You see this laboratory? It is cheap, it is insufficient. But it is in
perfect working order. I keep it so. I will not have hordes of police
trampling through it and destroying that order.”
“Even with warrants?” MacDonald murmured.
“Even with warrants.” Firebrook’s little eyes flashed. “Gentlemen,
you will not search this laboratory.”
The officers stared at him for a moment, but his defiant gaze was
steady. “My, my!” Lieutenant Humphreys said at last. “The racial
passion for order . . . Very well. You’ll be seeing me again—Herr
Feuerbach.”

And that was the end of the first phase of the Shaw case.
There was nothing more that Lieutenant MacDonald could ac­
complish at the rundown mansion of Ira Beaumont until he had the
report from the laboratory and could talk to the inventor himself. He
stationed Mulroon to watch the sickroom pending the arrival of the
police nurse, and Shurman and Avila to guard the outside of the
house. Lieutenant Humphreys appointed himself part of the guard
too.
“I’m not leaving this house till I hear from Shaw’s own lips where
the specifications are. And I’m keeping an eye on that German.”
MacDonald drove slowly back to headquarters. He didn’t like this
Shaw business. It was too wrongly simple. There was only one pos­
sible suspect, and that one was impossible.
Greed can do strange things to people (was there a lead in that leg­
acy expected from the great-uncle?), and perverted political fanati­
cism can do even stranger; but could a mother kill her son even from
such motives? Worse yet, psychologically, could she kill him by means
of her own food, while she calmly broke all rationing regulations to
provide him with that food?
He didn’t like it. And he found, as he mused, that he had overshot
headquarters. He was driving out North Main Street. He was, in fact,
just about opposite the Chula Negra Cafe.
Lieutenant MacDonald grinned at himself. It was that kind of a
case, wasn’t it?

The Noble scandal had been long before MacDonald’s time on the
force. He’d gathered it piecemeal from the older men: a crooked cap­
tain who had connections, and a brilliantly promising detective lieu­
tenant who’d taken the rap for him when things broke, losing his job
just when his wife needed money for an operation . . .
BLACK MURDER 165

Nick Noble had been devoted to his wife and his profession. When
both were gone, there was nothing left. Nothing but cheap sherry that
dulled the sharpness of reality enough to make it bearable. Nothing
but that and the curious infallible machine that was Nick Noble’s
mind.
That couldn’t stop working, even when Noble’s profession no longer
needed it. Present it with a problem, and the gears meshed into action
behind those pale blue eyes. A few of the oldtimers on the force were
wise enough to know how invariably right the answers were. Twice
MacDonald himself had seen the Noble mind trace pattern in chaos.
And this was just what Noble would like: only one possibility, and
that impossible. The screwier the better.
Screwball Division, L.A.P.D., they called him.
He was in the third booth on the left, as usual. So far as MacDonald
had ever learned, he lived, ate, and slept there . . . if indeed he did
ever eat or sleep. There was a water glass of sherry in front of him. His
hair and his skin were white as things that live in caves. A white hand
swatted at the sharp thin nose. Then the pale blue eyes slowly focused
on the detective and he smiled a little.
“MacDonald,” he said softly. “Sit down. Trouble?”
“Right up your alley, Mr. Noble. A screwball set-up from way
back.”
“They happen to you.” He swallowed some sherry and took another
swipe at his nose. “Fly,” he said apologetically.
MacDonald remembered that fly. It wasn’t there. It never had been.
He slipped into the seat across the booth and began his story. Once
the Mexican waitress came up and was waved away. Once the invisi­
ble fly returned to interrupt. The rest of the time Nick Noble listened
and drank and listened. When MacDonald had finished, he leaned
back and let his eyes glaze over.
“Questions?” MacDonald asked.
“Why?” Nick Noble said.
“The motive, you mean? Humphreys thinks spy work. He must be
right, but a mother . . . ”
“Uh uh.” Noble shook his head. “Why questions? All clear. Let
Humphreys hocus you. Awed by the gold braid you wanted, Mac­
Donald.”
The detective shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe. But what do you
mean? What’s clear?”
Nick Noble turned sideways and slid his pipestem legs from under
the table. “Come on,” he said. “Take me out there.”
He didn’t say a word on the drive out Figueroa. His eyes were shut:
not glazed over, as they were when he worked on a problem, but
simply shut, as though he were done with it. He opened them as they
turned off the boulevard. In a moment he said, “Almost there?”
166 ANTHONY BOUCHER

“Yes. We turn again at the next, then were there.”

“Stop here,” Nick Noble said.
MacDonald was beginning to wonder what he’d let himself in for.
Conferences at the Chula Negra were one thing, b u t. . . He pulled up
in front of the small market and said, “What goes?”
“Need some meat,” Noble said. “Supper. Come on in.”
MacDonald followed, frowning. At least this was a clue as to how
Noble lived outside the Chula Negra . . . The butcher’s counter was
sparsely filled. Not so bad as before rationing, but still not overflow-
ing.
Nick Noble said, “I wanted about a pound of ground round.”
The butcher had red hair and a redder face. “Don’t know’s I’ve got
any left to grind, but I’ll see. Got your red stamps?”
Noble’s face fell as he groped in his pocket. He muttered something
about his other suit.
The butcher said, “Sorry, brother.”
Nick Noble said, “It’s what the doctor said the baby ought to have
. . . ” He took out a wallet and held it open. It was far from empty.
The butcher said, “Hold on, brother. With a baby . . .” He went
into the refrigerating room.
MacDonald stared at the greenbacks in the wallet. It wasn’t possi­
ble that Nick Noble should flash such a roll.
The butcher came back with a package in heavy paper. He didn’t
weigh it. He said, “One pound. That’ll be ninety cents.”
Noble’s pale eyes rested on the posted list of ceiling prices. “Kind
of high,” he said.
“Take it or leave it, brother.”
Nick Noble took it. As he turned to go, a woman came in with a
heavy shopping bag. She said, “Frank, I’d like to ask you about that
meat I got in here yesterday. My husband’s been . . . ”
Frank began talking loudly about the meat quota problem. Nick
Noble went on out. On his way he stopped at the grocery department
and picked up a quart of sherry.
Back in the car he handed the meat to MacDonald. “Lab,” he said.
Then he went to work on the seal of the bottle, and broke off to swat
at the fly.
MacDonald grinned. “The Noble touch! So you’ve done it again.
Black market, huh?”
Noble nodded. “Food poisoning symptoms pretty much like arse­
nic.” The bottle glurked and its contents diminished. “Mother hoards
for son. She’d buy on black market for him too. But she poisoned him.
Same like woman’s husband.”
“ ‘All clear,’ ” MacDonald quoted. “I guess it is. Humphrey’s pro­
fession gives him a naturally melodramatic outlook, and it sucked in
the doctor and me. W e expected poisoning, so we saw it. The lab
BLACK MURDER 167

tests’ll be the final check. All clear but one thing: how come you have
all that folding money?”
“Oh,” said Nick Noble. “Sorry.” He handed over the wallet.
MacDonald felt in his own empty pocket and swore goodhumor-
edly. “In a good cause,” he said.
He was still grinning when they drove up to Ira Beaumont’s man­
sion. Shurman wasn’t in front of the house as he should have been.
Instead he answered the door. His broad face fit up. “Jeez, Loot, we
been tryna get you everywheres.”
“It’s all O.K., Shurman. All cleared up. There never was an attempt
at murder.”
“Maybe there wasn’t no attempt. But somebody sure’s hell did mur­
der Mr. Shaw about fifteen minutes ago.”
It was the first time MacDonald had ever seen Nick Noble sur­
prised.

This was the most daring murder that MacDonald had ever en­
countered or heard of. The murderer had slipped up behind Mulroon,
on guard before the sickroom, and slugged him with a heavy vase.
Then he had entered the sickroom and slit the throat of the sleeping
invalid, leaving the heavy butcher knife ( printless, MacDonald knew
even before dusting it) beside the bed.
It was a crime as risky as it was simple, but it had succeeded. Har­
rison Shaw would contrive no more somethings out of nothing for
the Navy.
“The method doesn’t even eliminate anybody,” MacDonald com­
plained. “The knife was sharp enough and the vase heavy enough for
even a woman to have succeeded. And that damned wheeze Mulroon
has from his cold could’ve guided the blind man. Method means
nothing.”
“Motive,” said Nick Noble.
The motive seemed indicated by the scrawl on the plaster near the
bed. At first glance it looked like blood. A closer examination showed
it was red ink. The bottle and a pastry brush ( taken from the same
drawer as the butcher knife) lay under the bed. The scrawl read:

So sterben alle F ein de d es Reiches!

Firebrook had translated this as, Thus m ay all enem ies o f the R eich
perish! The mere fact of his knowing the language had caused Lieu­
tenant Humphreys to glower on him with fresh suspicion.
“And so what?” MacDonald complained when he and Noble were
168 ANTHONY BOUCHER

alone again with the body of Harrison Shaw. “So he is a German and
his name used to be Feuerbach. That doesn’t convict him.”
Nick Noble said nothing. His pale blue eyes studied the room.
“What have we got?” MacDonald recapitulated. “Nobody in this
house alibies anybody else. And it must be one of them. Avila and
Shurman swear nobody came in. One of three people is a Nazi agent
who took advanatge of Shaw’s illnessi and the confusion to steal his
plans and now to kill him so he can’t reproduce them. Mrs. Shaw, the
assistant Firebrook, the blind cousin Beaumont: one of these three

“Four,” said Nick Noble. He stood teetering on his thin legs. One
hand swiped at the fly. Then his eyes fixed on the wall inscription and
slowly glazed over.
He rocked back and forth while his last word echoed in MacDon­
ald’s mind. Four . . . That was true. There was a fourth suspect. And
who had planted the notion of murder in the first place? Who had
forcibly established himself in this house? Who had created the very
confusion by which—
“Lieutenant!” It was Firebrook in the doorway, and his round face
was aglow. “Lieutenant. . . ! ” And he thrust a set of papers into Mac­
Donald’s hands. “I did not wish your men to search, but myself I can
search and respect the order of things. I have searched. . . and found!”
MacDonald’s eyes lit up. “Then at least the killing was in vain.
We’ve got the detector! Humphreys will have to see these,” he de­
cided, his momentary suspicions rejected as absurd. “Come on, No­
ble.”
Nick Noble took a swig from his bottle before he followed. His eyes
had come unglazed now.

“In this room,” Lieutenant MacDonald announced, “is a traitor.”

He looked around the shabby room. The naval officer was happily
absorbed in contemplating the recovered plans. Firebrook looked as
though his pleasure in the discovery was fading at the realization of
the death of the man he had worked with. Mrs. Shaw was crying
quietly and paying no heed to anything. It was impossible to read the
sightless eyes and permanent half-smile of Ira Beaumont.
But it was Beaumont who spoke. “Isn’t it obvious who the traitor
must be, Lieutenant? Mrs. Shaw is a dear sweet woman who knows
nothing of the world beyond her kitchen and her family. Lieutenant
Humphreys is an officer of Naval Intelligence. I lost my sight in the
Argonne; that does not predispose me toward our country’s enemies.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Beaumont, we need some proof beyond what you
think obvious. We have a traitor here, and he is a traitor who failed.
He killed Shaw, and to that potential extent harmed our war effort.
But the plans of Shaw’s detector he has failed to find.”
BLACK MURDER 169

“Did he?” Beaumont insisted. “Is Lieutenant Humphreys certain

that those plans which he holds—?”
“Well, Lieutenant?” MacDonald asked.
Humphreys grunted. “Can’t be positive till they’ve been checked
by experts. Seem damned plausible, just the same.”
“Beaumont’s right,” said Nick abruptly.
No one had been paying any attention to him, beyond the first ob­
vious glance of wonder as to why the detective lieutenant should drag
along such a companion. Now all the faces turned to him. The blind
man’s smile widened with gratification. He said, “Thank you.”
“Beaumont’s right,” Noble went on. “Obvious who’s traitor: No-
1 1 »
body.’
The room gasped. Lieutenant Humphreys snorted.
“Private murder. Clear pattern: Humphreys started spy scare; mur­
derer took advantage.”
“But the scrawl on the plaster . . . ?” It was Firebrook’s question.
“Proves it. Clumsy trick to mislead. Swastika wrong.”
“Ach s o . . . ! ” Firebrook made a click of belated realization.
“Wrong?” MacDonald asked.
“Pencil,” Nick Noble said.
The officer handed him pencil and notebook. He drew for a min­
ute, then showed the results as he spoke. “Old Indian swastika was
straight. So’s swastika on wall. Like so:

alle F einde

Nazi swastika slants. Always slants. See any pictures. If Nazi made
wall scribble, it’d have to be:

alle F einde

So fake.”
“You’re right,” Humphreys said grudgingly. “Should’ve seen it my­
self. They always slant like that.”
Beaumont, unable to see the illustrations, looked puzzled.
170 ANTHONY BOUCHER

“So who’d go wrong?” Nick Noble went on. “Who but man who’s
never seen Nazi swastika. Heard about swastika, naturally thought it
same as old Indian. Man who hasn’t seen anything since long before
there were Nazis . . . since Argonne.”
Even the half-smile was gone from Ira Beaumont’s face. He said,
“Nonsense! My cousin was, I confess, a burden to me, but I was will­
ing to tolerate him for the work he was doing. Why should I kill him?”
“Check,” said Nick Noble to MacDonald. “Great-uncle Shaw was
expecting fortune from. See if Beaumont’s next of kin.”
MacDonald knew he wouldn’t have to check. The momentary twist
of Beaumont’s lips, the little choking cry of realization from Mrs.
Shaw were enough.
“If not spy, who else but Beaumont?” Noble went on. “Only possi­
ble pattern. Humphreys total stranger. Mrs. Shaw devoted to son.
Firebrook too likely to know right swastika; besides wouldn’t pull
German fake pointing straight at him. Who else?”
Ira Beaumont regained his smile. “Lieutenant, your drunken friend
is amusing enough, but you surely must realize what pure tosh he is
babbling.”
“Must I?” said MacDonald.
“Of course. I defy you to arrest me.”
As MacDonald hesitated, Nick Noble spoke. “O.K. Don’t. With­
draw police. Leave him here.”
MacDonald’s eyes opened in amazement at the advice. Then he
looked at the faces in the tense room.
They were all fixed on Beaumont. Humphreys was thinking, H e
killed a man w ho could help the Navy. Firebrook was thinking, H e
killed my frien d and tried to fram e m e fo r it. Mrs. Shaw was think­
ing, H e killed my son.
Ira Beaumont could not see the faces, but he could feel them. He
could think of a blind man left helpless and alone with those faces
when the police guard was withdrawn.
He rose slowly to his feet. “Shall we go, Lieutenant?”
As the wagon took away Beaumont, with the aching-headed Mul-
roon and the rest, MacDonald and Noble climbed into the Lieuten­
ant’s car.
On the seat lay a package wrapped in heavy butcher’s paper. Nick
Noble pointed at it. “Another murderer for you.”
MacDonald nodded. “That butcher, plus Humphreys’ suspicions,
set the stage for this murder all right. And God knows what else the
black market and the racketeers behind it are responsible for. Black
market? Black murder . . . ”
He held the butcher’s parcel in his hand and stared at it as though
it were a prize exhibit in the Black Museum. “I may not have had the
heart to report Mrs. Shaw’s hoarding, but it’ll be a pleasure to turn in
BLACK MURDER 171

that market. And to see that the first part of this case gets enough
publicity to cut some ice with the meat-buying public.”
Nick Noble uptilted his bottle. “I’ll stick to this,” he said. “Safer.”
His pale blue eyes closed as MacDonald drove off.
 ELLERY Q U E E N IN

Though often reprinted in England, “T he African traveler” has

never b efore visited an American anthology. Cheers, at least this
once, for British perceptiveness: the story adds a new profession to
mr q u e e n ’s long list (novelist, scholar, screen writer, detective—

and now colleg e professor!); it offers a fresh and beautiful variant

on th e w atch-that-stopped-to-m ark-tim e-of-death; it provides the
87th Street Irregulars (a tribe noted for their desperate con­
sumption o f Bromo-Seltzer) with the interesting clue that the still
youthful El l e r y graduated from Harvard at least 26 years ago;
and it’s a lively and lovely yarn. G o to it—an d w atch out for that
watch!
THE ADVENTURE OF THE
AFRICAN TRAVELER

BY ELLERY Q U E E N

M R. ELLER Y QUEEN, wrapped loosely in English tweeds and

reflections, proceeded—in a manner of speaking—with effort along the
eighth-floor corridor of the Arts Building, that sumptuous citadel of
the University. The tweeds were pure Bond Street, for Ellery was
ever the sartorial fellow; whereas the reflections were Americanese,
Ellery’s ears being filled with the peculiar patois of young male and
female collegians, and he himself having been Harvard, ’Teen.
This, he observed severely to himself as he lanced his way with the
ferrule of his stick through a brigade of yelling students, was higher
education in New York! He sighed, his silver eyes tender behind the
lenses of his pince-nez; for, possessing that acute faculty of observa­
tion so essential to his business of studying criminal phenomena, he
could not help but note the tea-rose complexions, the saucy eyes, and
173
174 ELLERY QUEEN

the osier figures of various female students in his path. His own Alma
Mater, he reflected gloomily, paragon of the educational virtues that
it was, might have been better, far better off had it besprinkled its
muscular classes with nice-smelling co-eds like these—yes, indeed!
Shaking off these unprofessorial thoughts, Mr. Ellery Queen edged
gingerly through a battalion of giggling girls and approached Room
824, his destination, with dignity.
He halted. A tall and handsome and fawn-eyed young woman was
leaning against the closed door, so obviously lying in wait for him
that he began, under the buckling tweeds, to experience a—good lordl
—a trepidation. Leaning, in fact, on the little placard which read:
C R IM IN O L O G Y , A P P L IE D
M R . QUEEN

This was, of course, sacrilege. . . . The fawn-eyes looked up at him

soulfully, with admiration, almost with reverence. What did a mem­
ber of the faculty do in such a predicament? Ellery wondered with a
muted groan. Ignore the female person, speak to her firmly—?
The decision was wrested from his hands and, so to speak, placed
on his arm. The brigand grasped his left biceps with devotional vigor
and said in fluty tones: “You’re Mr. Ellery Queen, himself, aren’t
you?”
“I—”
“I knew you were. You’ve the nicest eyes. Such a queer color. Oh,
it’s going to be thrilling, Mr. Queen!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, I didn’t say, did I?” The hand, which he observed with some
astonishment was preposterously small, released his tingling biceps.
She said sternly, as if in some way he had fallen in her estimation:
“And you’re the famous detective. Hmm. Another illusion blasted.. . .
Old Icky sent me, of course.”
“Old Icky ? ’
“You don’t know even that. Heavens! Old Icky is Professor Ick-
thorpe, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., and goodness knows what else.”
“Ah!” said Ellery. “I begin to understand.”
“And high time, too,” said the young woman severely. “Further­
more, Old Icky is my father, do you see. . . .” She became all at once
very shy, or so Ellery reasoned, for the black lashes with their im­
possible sweep dropped suddenly to veil eyes of the ultimate brown­
ness.
“I do see, Miss Ickthorpe.” Ickthorpe! “I see all too clearly. Be­
cause Professor Ickthorpe—ah—inveigled me into giving this fantastic
course, because you are Professor Ickthorpe’s daughter, you think
you may wheedle your way into my group. Fallacious reasoning,” said
Ellery, and planted his stick like a standard on the floor. “I think not.
No.”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 175

Her slipper-toe joggled his stick unexpectedly, and he flailed

wildly to keep from falling. “Do come off your perch, Mr. Queen.
. . . There! That’s settled. Shall we go in, Mr. Queen? Such a nice
name.”
“B u t-”
“Icky has arranged things, bless him.”
“I refuse abso—”
“The Bursar has been paid his filthy lucre. I have my B.A., and I’m
just dawdling about here working for my Master’s. I’m really very
intelligent. Oh, come on—don’t be so professorish. You’re much too
nice a young man, and your devastating silv’ry eyes—”
“Oh, very well,” said Ellery, suddenly pleased with himself. “Come
along.”
It was a small seminar room, containing a long table flanked with
chairs. Two young men rose, rather respectfully, Ellery thought.
They seemed surprised but not too depressed at the vision of Miss
Ickthorpe, who was evidently a notorious character. One of them
bounded forward and pumped Ellery’s hand.
“Mr. Queen! I’m Burrows, John Burrows. Decent of you to pick me
and Crane out of that terrific bunch of would-be manhunters.” He
was a nice young fellow, Ellery decided, with bright eyes and a thin
intelligent face.
“Decent of your instructors and record, Burrows, I’d say. . . . And
you’re Walter Crane, of course?”
The second young man shook Ellery’s hand decorously, as if it
were a rite; he was tall, broad, and studious-looking in a pleasant way.
“I am, sir. Degree in chemistry. I’m really interested in what you and
the Professor are attempting to do.”
“Splendid. Miss Ickthorpe—rather unexpectedly—is to be the fourth
member of our little group,” said Ellery. “Rather unexpectedly! Well,
let’s sit down and talk this over.”
Crane and Burrows flung themselves into chairs, and the young
woman seated herself demurely. Ellery threw hat and stick into a
corner, clasped his hands on the bare table, and looked at the white
ceiling. One must begin.. . . “This is all rather nonsensical, you know,
and yet there’s something solid in it. Professor Ickthorpe came to me
some time ago with an idea. He had heard of my modest achievements
in solving crimes by pure analysis, and he thought it might be inter­
esting to develop the faculty of detection by deduction in young uni­
versity students. I wasn’t so sure, having been a university student
myself.”
“We’re rather on the brainy side these days,” said Miss Ickthorpe.
“Hmm. That remains to be seen,” said Ellery dryly. “I suppose it’s
against the rules, but I can’t think without tobacco. You may smoke,
gentlemen. A cigarette, Miss Ickthorpe?”
She accepted one absently, furnished her own match, and kept
176 ELLERY QUEEN

looking at Ellery’s eyes. “Field work, of course?” asked Crane, the

chemist.
“Precisely.” Ellery sprang to his feet. “Miss Ickthorpe, please pay
attention. . . . If we’re to do this at all, we must do it right. . . . Very
well. We shall study crimes out of the current news—crimes, it goes
without saying, which lend themselves to our particular brand of de­
tection. W e start from scratch, all of us—no preconceptions, under­
stand. . . . You will work under my direction, and we shall see what
happens.”
Burrows’ keen face glowed. “Theory? I mean—won’t you give us
any principles of attack first—classroom lectures?”
“To hell with principles. I beg your pardon, Miss Ickthorpe. . . .
The only way to learn to swim, Burrows, is to get into the w ater.. . .
There were sixty-three applicants for this confounded course. I
wanted only two or three—too many would defeat my purpose; un­
wieldy, you know. I selected you, Crane, because you seem to have
the analytical mind to a reasonable degree, and your scientific train­
ing has developed your sense of observation. You, Burrows, have
a sound academic background and, evidently, an excellent top-piece.”
The two young men blushed. “As for you, Miss Ickthorpe,” continued
Ellery stiffly, “you selected yourself, so you’ll have to take the con­
sequences. Old Icky or no Old Icky, at the first sign of stupidity out
you go.”
“An Ickthorpe, sir, is never stupid.”
“I hope—I sincerely hope—n o t.. . . Now, to cases. An hour ago, be­
fore I set out for the University, a flash came in over the Police Head­
quarters’ wire. Most fortuitously, I thought, and we must be properly
grateful. . . . Murder in the theatrical district—chap by the name of
Spargo is the victim. A queer enough affair, I gathered, from the
sketchy facts given over the tape. I’ve asked my father—Inspector
Queen, you know—to leave the scene of the crime exactly as found.
We go there at once.”
“Bully!” cried Burrows. “To grips with crime! This is going to be
great. Shan’t we have any trouble getting in, Mr. Queen?”
“None at all. I’ve arranged for each of you gentlemen to carry a
special police pass, like my own; I’ll get one for you later, Miss Ick­
thorpe. . . . Let me caution all of you to refrain from taking anything
away from the scene of the crime—at least without consulting me first.
And on no account allow yourselves to be pumped by reporters.”
“A murder,” said Miss Ickthorpe thoughtfully, with a sudden
dampening of spirits.
“Aha! Squeamish already. Well, this affair will be a test-case for all
of you. I want to see how your minds work in contact with the real
thing. . . . Miss Ickthorpe, have you a hat or something?”
“Sir?”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 177

“Duds, duds! You can’t traipse in there this way, you know!”
“Oh!” she murmured, blushing. “Isn’t a sport dress au fait at mur­
ders?” Ellery glared, and she added sweetly: “In my locker down the
hall, Mr. Queen. I shan’t be a moment.”
Ellery jammed his hat on his head. “I shall meet the three of you in
front of the Arts Building in five minutes. Five minutes, Miss Ick-
thorpe!” And, retrieving his stick, he stalked like any professor from
the seminar room. All the way down the elevator, through the main
corridor, on the marble steps outside, he breathed deeply. A remark­
able day! he observed to the campus. A really remarkable day.
The Fenwick Hotel lay a few hundred yards from Times Square.
Its lobby was boiling with policemen, detectives, reporters and, from
their universal appearance of apprehension, guests. Mountainous
Sergeant Velie, Inspector Queen’s right-hand man, was planted at
the door, a cement barrier against curiosity-seekers. By his side stood
a tall, worried-looking man dressed somberly in a blue serge suit,
white linen, and black bow-tie.
“Mr. Williams, the hotel manager,” said the Sergeant.
Williams shook hands. “Can’t understand it. Terrible mess. You’re
with the police?”
Ellery nodded. His charges surrounded him like a royal guard—a
rather timid royal guard, to be sure, for they pressed close to him as if
for protection. There was something sinister in the atmosphere. Even
the hotel clerks and attendants, uniformly dressed in gray—suits, ties,
shirts—wore strained expressions, like stewards on a foundering ship.
“Nobody in or out, Mr. Queen,” growled Sergeant Velie. “In­
spector’s orders. You’re the first since the body was found. These
people okay?”
“Yes. Dad’s on the scene?”
“Upstairs, third floor, Room 317. Mostly quiet now.”
Ellery leveled his stick. “Come along, young ’uns. And don’t—” he
added gently, “don’t be so nervous. You’ll become accustomed to this
sort of thing. Keep your heads up.”
They bobbed in unison, their eyes a little glassy. As they ascended
in a policed elevator, Ellery observed that Miss Ickthorpe was trying
very hard to appear professionally blase. Ickthorpe indeed! This
should take the starch out of her. . . . They walked down a hushed
corridor to an open door. Inspector Queen, a small birdlike gray little
man with sharp eyes remarkably like his son’s, met them in the
doorway.
Ellery, suppressing a snicker at the convulsive start of Miss Ick­
thorpe, who had darted one fearful glance into the death-room and
then gasped for dear life, introduced the young people to the In­
spector, shut the door behind his somewhat reluctant charges, and
looked about the bedroom.
178 ELLERY QUEEN

Lying on the drab carpet, arms outflung before him like a diver,
lay a dead man. His head presented a curious appearance: as if some
one had upset a bucket of thick red paint over him, clotting the brown
hair and gushing over his shoulders. Miss Ickthorpe gave vent to a
faint gurgle which certainly was not appreciation. Ellery observed
with morbid satisfaction that her tiny hands were clenched and that
her elfin face was whiter than the bed near which the dead man lay
sprawled. Crane and Burrows were breathing hard.
“Miss Ickthorpe, Mr. Crane, Mr. Burrows—your first corpse,” said
Ellery briskly. “Now, dad, to work. How does it stand?”
Inspector Queen sighed. “Name is Oliver Spargo. Forty-two, sepa­
rated from his wife two years ago. Mercantile traveler for a big dry-
goods exporting house. Returned from South Africa after a year’s
stay. Bad reputation with the natives in the outlying settlements—
thrashed them, cheated them; in fact, was driven out of British Africa
by a scandal. It was in the New York papers not long ago. . . . Regis­
tered at the Fenwick here for three days—same floor, by the w ay -
then checked out to go to Chicago. Visiting relatives.” The Inspector
grunted, as if this were something justifiably punished by homicide.
“Returned to New York this morning by ’plane. Checked in at 9:30.
Didn’t leave this room. At 11:30 he was found dead, just as you see
him, by the colored maid on this floor, Agatha Robins.”
“Leads?”
The old man shrugged. “Maybe—maybe not. We’ve looked this
bird up. Pretty hard guy, from the reports, but sociable. No enemies,
apparently; all his movements since his boat docked innocent and
accounted for. And a lady-killer. Chucked his wife over before his
last trip across, and took to his bosom a nice blonde gal. Fussed with
her for a couple of months, and then skipped out—and didn’t take her
with him. We’ve had both women on the pan.”
“Suspects?”
Inspector Queen stared moodily at the dead traveler. “Well, take
your pick. He had one visitor this morning—the blonde lady I just
mentioned. Name of Jane Terrill—no sign of occupation. Huh! She
evidently read in the ship news of Spargo’s arrival two weeks ago;
hunted him up, and a week ago, while Spargo was in Chicago, called
at the desk downstairs inquiring for him. She was told he was ex­
pected back this morning—he’d left word. She came in at 11:05 this
a.m., was given his room-number, was taken up by the elevator-boy.
Nobody remembers her leaving. But she says she knocked and there
was no answer, so she went away and hasn’t been back since. Never
saw him—according to her story.”
Miss Ickthorpe skirted the corpse with painful care, perched herself
on the edge of the bed, opened her bag and began to powder her
nose. “And the wife, Inspector Queen?” she murmured. Something
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 179

sparkled in the depths of her fawn-brown eyes. Miss Ickthorpe, it was

evident, had an idea and was taking heroic measures to suppress it.
“The wife?” snorted the Inspector. “God knows. She and Spargo
separated, as I said, and she claims she didn’t even know he’d come
back from Africa. Says she was window-shopping this morning.”
It was a small featureless hotel room, containing a bed, a wardrobe
closet, a bureau, a night-table, a desk, and a chair. A dummy fireplace
with a gas-log; an open door which led to a bathroom—nothing more.
Ellery dropped to his knees beside the body. Crane and Burrows
trooping after with set faces. The Inspector sat down and watched
with a humorless grin. Ellery turned the body over; his hands ex­
plored the rigid members, stiff in rigor mortis.
“Crane, Burrows, Miss Ickthorpe,” he said sharply. “Might as well
begin now. Tell me what you see.—Miss Ickthorpe, you first.” She
jumped from the bed and ran around the dead man; he felt her hot
unsteady breath on the back of his neck. “Well, well? Don’t you see
anything? Good lord, there’s enough here, I should think.”
Miss Ickthorpe licked her red lips and said in a strangled voice:
“He—he’s dressed in lounging-robe, carpet-slippers and—yes, silk
underwear beneath.”
“Yes. And black silk socks and garters. And the robe and underwear
bear the dealer’s label: Johnsons, Johannesburg, U.S.Afr. What else?”
“A wrist-watch on his left wrist. I think”—she leaned over and with
the shrinking tip of a finger nudged the dead arm—“yes, the watch
crystal is cracked. Why, it’s set at 10:20!”
“Good,” said Ellery in a soft voice. “Dad, did Prouty examine the
cadaver?’’
“Yes,” said the Inspector in a resigned voice. “Spargo died some
time between 11:00 and 11:30, Doc says. I figure—”
Miss Ickthorpe’s eyes were shining. “Doesn’t that mean—?”
“Now, now, Miss Ickthorpe, if you have an idea keep it to yourself.
Don’t leap at conclusions. That’s enough for you. Well, Crane?”
The young chemist’s brow was ridged. He pointed to the watch, a
large gaudy affair with a leather wrist-strap. “Man’s watch. Con­
cussion of fall stopped the works. Crease in leather strap at the
second hole, where the prong now fits; but there’s also a crease, a
deeper one, at the third hole.”
“That’s really excellent, Crane. And?”
“Left hand splattered and splashed with dried blood. Left palm
also shows stain, but fainter, as if he had grabbed something with his
bloody hand and wiped most of the blood off. There ought to be
something around here showing a red smudge from his clutching
hand. . . . ”
“Crane, I’m proud of you. Was anything found with a blood-smear
on it, dad?”
180 ELLERY QUEEN

The Inspector looked interested. “Good work, youngster. No, El,

nothing at all. Not even a smear on the rug. Must be something the
murderer took away.”
“Now, Inspector,” chuckled Ellery, “this isn’t your examination.
Burrows, can you add anything?”
Young Burrows swallowed rapidly: “Wounds on the head show he
was struck with a heavy instrument many times. Disarranged rug
probably indicates a struggle. And the face—”
“Ah! So you’ve noticed the face, eh? What about the face?”
“Freshly shaved. Talcum powder still on cheeks and chin. Don’t
you think we ought to examine the bathroom, Mr. Queen?”
Miss Ickthorpe said peevishly: “I noticed that, too, but you didn’t
give me a chance. . . . The powder is smoothly applied, isn’t it? No
streaks, no heavy spots.”
Ellery sprang to his feet. “You’ll be Sherlock Holmeses yet .. . . The
weapon, dad?”
“A heavy stone hammer, crudely made—some kind of African
curio, our expert says. Spargo must have had it in his bag—his trunk
hasn’t arrived yet from Chicago.”
Ellery nodded; on the bed lay an open pigskin traveling-bag. Be­
side it, neatly laid out, was an evening outfit: tuxedo coat, trousers,
and vest; stiff-bosomed shirt; studs and cuff-finks; a clean wing-collar;
black suspenders; a white silk handkerchief. Under the bed were two
)airs of black shoes, one pair brogues, the other patent-leather. Ellery
!ooked around; something, it seemed, disturbed him. On the chair
near the bed lay a soiled shirt, a soiled pair of socks, and a soiled suit
of underwear. None exhibited bloodstains. He paused thoughtfully.
“We took the hammer away. It was full of blood and hair,” con­
tinued the Inspector. “No fingerprints anywhere. Handle anything
you want—everything’s been photographed and tested for prints.”
Ellery began to puff at a cigarette. He noticed that Burrows and
Crane were crouched over the dead man, occupied with the watch.
He sauntered over, Miss Ickthorpe at his heels.
Burrows’ thin face was shining as he looked up. “Here’s something!”
He had carefully removed the timepiece from Spargo’s wrist and had
pried open the back of the case. Ellery saw a roughly circular patch
of fuzzy white paper glued to the inside of the case, as if something
had been rather unsuccessfully torn away. Burrows leaped to his feet.
“That gives m e an idea,” he announced. “Yes, sir.” He studied the
dead man’s face intently.
“And you, Crane?” asked Ellery with interest. The young chemist
had produced a small magnifying-glass from his pocket and was
scrutinizing the watch-works.
Crane rose. “I’d rather not say now,” he mumbled. “Mr. Queen, I’d
like permission to take this watch to my laboratory.”
Ellery looked at his father; the old man nodded. “Certainly, Crane.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 181

But be sure you return it___ Dad, you searched this room thoroughly,
fireplace and all?"
The Inspector cackled suddenly. “I was wondering when you’d get
to that. There’s something almighty interesting in that fireplace.” His
face fell and rather grumpily he produced a snuff-box and pinched
some crumbs into his nostrils. “Although I’ll be hanged if I know
what it means."
Ellery squinted at the fireplace, his lean shoulders squaring; the
others crowded around. He squinted again, and knelt; behind the
manufactured gas-log, in a tiny grate, there was a heap of ashes.
Curious ashes indeed, patently not of wood, coal, or paper. Ellery
poked about in the debris—and sucked in his breath. In a moment he
had dug out of the ashes ten peculiar objects: eight flat pearl buttons
and two metal things, one triangular in outline, eye-like, the other
hook-like—both small and made of some cheap alloy. Two of the
eight buttons were slightly larger than the rest. The buttons were
ridged, and in the depression in each center were four thread-holes.
All ten objects were charred by fire.
“And what do you make of that?” demanded the Inspector.
Ellery juggled the buttons thoughtfully. He did not reply directly.
Instead, he said to his three pupils, in a grim voice: “You might think
about these. . . . Dad, when was this fireplace last cleaned?”
“Early this morning by Agatha Robins, the mulatto maid. Some one
checked out of this room at seven o’clock, and she cleaned up the
place before Spargo got here. Fireplace was clean this morning, she
says.”
Ellery dropped buttons and metal objects on the night-table and
went to the bed. He looked into the open traveling-bag; its interior
was in a state of confusion. The bag contained three four-in-hand
neckties, two clean white shirts, socks, underwear, and handkerchiefs.
All the haberdashery, he noted, bore the same dealer’s tab—Johnson’s,
Johannesburg, U.S.Afr. He seemed pleased, and proceeded to the
wardrobe closet. It contained merely a tweed traveling suit, a brown
topcoat, and a felt hat.
He closed the door with a satisfied bang. “You’ve observed every­
thing?” he asked the two young men and the girl.
Crane and Burrows nodded, rather doubtfully. Miss Ickthorpe was
barely listening; from the rapt expression on her face, she might have
been listening to the music of the spheres.
“Miss Ickthorpe!”
Miss Ickthorpe smiled dreamily. “Yes, Mr. Queen,” she said in a
submissive little voice. Her brown eyes began to rove.
Ellery grunted and strode to the bureau. Its top was bare. He went
through the drawers; they were empty. He started for the desk, but
the Inspector said: “Nothing there, son. He hadn’t time to stow any­
thing away. Except for the bathroom, you’ve seen everything.”
182 ELLERY QUEEN

As if she had been awaiting the signal, Miss Ickthorpe dashed for
the bathroom. She seemed very anxious indeed to explore its interior.
Crane and Burrows hurried after her.
Ellery permitted them to examine the bathroom before him. Miss
Ickthorpe’s hands flew over the objects on the rim of the washbowl.
There was a pigskin toilet-kit, open, draped over the marble; an un­
cleansed razor; a still damp shaving-brush; a tube of shaving cream;
a small can of talcum and a tube of tooth-paste. To one side lay a
celluloid shaving-brush container, its cap on the open kit.
“Can’t see a thing of interest here,” said Burrows frankly. “You,
Walter?”
Crane shook his head. “Except that he must have just finished
shaving before he was murdered, not a thing.”
Miss Ickthorpe wore a stem and faintly exultant look. “That’s be­
cause, like all men, you’re blinder’n bats. . . . I’ve seen enough.”
They trooped by Ellery, rejoining the Inspector, who was talking
with someone in the bedroom. Ellery chuckled to himself. He lifted
the lid of a clothes-hamper; it was empty. Then he picked up the cap
of the shaving-brush container. The cap came apart in his fingers,
and he saw that a small circular pad fitted snugly inside. He chuckled
again, cast a derisive glance at the triumphant back of the heroic Miss
Ickthorpe outside, replaced cap and tube, and went back into the
bedroom.
He found Williams, the hotel manager, accompanied by a police­
man, talking heatedly to the Inspector. “We can’t keep this up forever,
Inspector Queen,” Williams was saying. “Our guests are beginning
to complain. The night-shift is due to go on soon, I’ve got to go home
myself, and you’re making us stay here all night, by George. After
a ll - ”
The old man said: “Pish!” and cocked an inquiring eye at his son.
Ellery nodded. “Can’t see any reason for not lifting the ban, dad.
We’ve learned as much as we can___ You young people!” Three pairs
of eager eyes focused on him; they were like three puppies on a leash.
“Have you seen enough?” They nodded solemnly. “Anything else you
want to know?”
Burrows said quickly: “I want a certain address.”
Miss Ickthorpe paled. “Why, so do I! John, you mean thing!”
And Crane muttered, clutching Spargo’s watch in his fist: “I want
something, too—but I’ll find it out right in this hotel!”
Ellery smoothed away a smile, shrugged, and said: “See Sergeant
Velie downstairs—that Colossus we met at the door. He’ll tell you
anything you may want to know.”
“Now, follow instructions. It’s evident that the three of you have
definite theories. I’ll give you two hours in which to formulate them
and pursue any investigations you may have in mind.” He consulted
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 183

his watch. “At 6:30, meet me at my apartment on West Eighty-seventh

Street, and I’ll try to rip your theories apart. . . . Happy hunting!”
He grinned dismissal. They scrambled for the door, Miss Ick-
thorpe’s turban slightly awry, her elbows working vigorously to clear
the way.
“And now,” said Ellery in a totally different voice when they had
disappeared down the corridor, “come here a moment, dad. I want
to talk to you alone.”

At 6:30 that evening Mr. Ellery Queen presided at his own table,
watching three young faces bursting with sternly repressed news. The
remains of a dinner, barely touched, strewed the cloth.
Miss Ickthorpe had somehow contrived, in the interval between
her dismissal and her appearance at the Queens’ apartment, to change
her gown; she was now attired in something lacy and soft, which set
off—as she obviously was aware—the whiteness of her throat, the
brownness of her eyes, and the pinkness of her cheeks. The young
men were preoccupied with their coffee-cups.
“Now, class,” chuckled Ellery, “recitations.” They brightened, sat
straighter and moistened their lips. “You’ve had, each of you, about
two hours in which to crystallize the results of your first investigation.
Whatever happens, I can’t take credit, since so far I’ve taught you
nothing. But by the end of this little confabulation, I’ll have a rough
idea of just what material I’m working with.”
“Yes, sir,” said Miss Ickthorpe.
“John—we may as well discard formality—what’s your theory?”
Burrows said slowly: “I’ve more than a theory, Mr. Queen. I’ve the
solution!”
“A solution, John. Don’t be too cocky. And what,” said Ellery, “is
this solution of yours?”
Burrows drew a breath from the depths of his boots. “The clue that
led to my solution was Spargo’s wristwatch.” Crane and the girl
started. Ellery blew smoke and said, encouragingly: “Go on.”
“The two creases on the leather strap,” replied Burrows, “were
significant. As Spargo wore the watch, the prong was caught in the
second hole, so that there was a crease across the second hole. Yet a
deeper crease appeared across the third hole. Conclusion: the watch
was habitually worn by a person with a smaller wrist. In other words,
the watch was not Spargo’s!”
“Bravo!” said Ellery softly. “Bravo.”
“Why, then, was Spargo wearing someone else’s watch? For a very
good reason, I maintain. The doctor had said Spargo died between
11:00 and 11:30. Yet the watch-hands had apparently stopped at
10:20. The answer to this discrepancy? That the murderer, finding
no watch on Spargo, took her own watch, cracked the crystal and
184 ELLERY QUEEN

stopped the works, then set the hands at 10:20 and strapped it about
Spargo’s dead wrist. This would seem to establish the time of death
as 10:20 and would give the murderer an opportunity to provide an
alibi for that time, when all the while the murder actually occurred
about 11:20. How’s that?”
Miss Ickthorpe said tartly: “You say “her.’ But it’s a man’s watch,
John—you forget that.”
Burrows grinned. “A woman can own a man’s watch, can’t she?
Now whose watch was it? Easy. In the back of the case there was a
circular patch of fuzzy paper, as if something had been ripped out.
What made of paper is usually pasted in the back of a watch? A
photograph. Why was it taken out? Obviously, because the murder­
er’s face was in that photograph.. . . In the last two horns I followed
this lead. I visited my suspect on a reportorial pretext and managed
to get a look at a photograph-album she has. There I found one
photograph with a circular patch cut out. From the rest of the photo
it was clear that the missing circle contained the heads of a man and
a woman. My case was complete!”
“Perfectly amazing,” murmured Ellery. “And this murderess of
yours is—?”
“Spargo’s wife! . . . Motive—hate, or revenge, or thwarted love, or
something.”
Miss Ickthorpe sniffed, and Crane shook his head. “Well,” said
Ellery, “we seem to be in disagreement. Nevertheless a very interest­
ing analysis, John. . . . Walter, what’s yours?”
Crane hunched his broad shoulders. “I agree with Johnny that the
watch did not belong to Spargo, that the murderer set the hands at
10:20 to provide an alibi; but I disagree as to the identity of the
criminal. I also worked on the watch as the main clue. But with a
vastly different approach.”
“Look here.” He brought out the gaudy timepiece and tapped its
cracked crystal deliberately. “Here’s something you people may not
know. Watches, so to speak, breathe. That is, contact with warm flesh
causes the air inside to expand and force its way out through the
minute cracks and holes of the case and crystal. When the watch is
laid aside, the air cools and contracts, and dust-bearing air is sucked
into the interior.”
“I always said I should have studied science,” said Ellery. “That’s
a new trick, Walter. Continue.”
“To put it specifically, a baker’s watch will be found to contain
flour-dust. A bricklayer’s watch will collect brick-dust.” Crane’s voice
rose triumphantly. “D’you know what I found in this watch? Tiny
particles of a woman’s face-powder!”
Miss Ickthorpe frowned. Crane continued in a deep voice: “And a
very special kind of face-powder it is, Mr. Queen. Kind used only by
women of certain complexions. What complexions? Negro brown!
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 185

The powder came from a mulatto woman’s purse! I’ve questioned her,
checked her vanity-case, and although she denies it, I say that
Spargo’s murderess is Agatha Robins, the mulatto maid who ‘found’
the body!”
Ellery whistled gently. “Good work, Walter, splendid work. And
of course from your standpoint she would deny being the owner of
the watch anyway. That clears something up for m e. . . . But motive?”
Crane looked uncomfortable. “Well, I know it sounds fantastic,
but a sort of voodoo vengeance—reversion to racial type—Spargo had
been cruel to African natives . . . it was in the papers. . . . ”
Ellery shaded his eyes to conceal their twinkle. Then he turned to
Miss Ickthorpe, who was tapping her cup nervously, squirming in
her chair, and exhibiting other signs of impatience. “And now,” he
said, “we come to the star recitation. What have you to offer, Miss
Ickthorpe? You’ve been simply saturated with a theory all afternoon.
Out with it.”
She compressed her lips. “You boys think you’re clever. You, too,
Mr. Queen—you especially. . . . Oh, I’ll admit John and Walter have
shown superficial traces of intelligence. . . .”
“W ill you be explicit, Miss Ickthorpe?”
She tossed her head. “Very well. The watch had nothing to do with
the crime at all!”
The boys gaped, and Ellery tapped his palms gently together.
“Very good. I agree with you. Explain, please.”
Her brown eyes burned, and her cheeks were very pink. “Simple!”
she said with a sniff. “Spargo had arrived from Chicago only two
hours before his murder. He had been in Chicago for a week and a
half. Then for a week and a half he had been living by C hicago time.
And, since Chicago time is on e hour earlier than New York time, it
merely means that nobody set the hands back; that they were stand­
ing at 10:20 when he fell dead, because he’d neglected to set his
watch ahead on arriving in New York this morning!”
Crane muttered something in his throat, and Burrows flushed a
deep crimson. Ellery looked sad. “I’m afraid the laurels so far go to
Miss Ickthorpe, gentlemen. That happens to be correct. Anything
else?”
“Naturally. I know the murderer, and it isn’t Spargo’s wife or that
outlandish mulatto maid,” she said exasperatingly. “Follow me. . . .
Oh, this is so easy! . . . We all saw that the powder on Spargo’s dead
face had been applied very smoothly. From the condition of his
cheeks and the shaving things in the bathroom it was evident that
he’d shaved just before being murdered. But how does a man apply
powder after shaving? How do you powder your face, Mr. Queen?”
she shot at him rather tenderly.
Ellery looked startled. “With my fingers, of course.” Crane and
Burrows nodded.
186 ELLERY QUEEN

“Exactly!” chortled Miss Ickthorpe. “And what happens? 1 know,

because I’m a very observant person and, besides, Old Icky shaves
every morning and I can’t help noticing when he kisses me good­
morning. Applied with the fingers on cheeks still slightly moist, the
powder goes on in streaks, smudgy, heavier in some spots than others.
But look at my face!” They looked, with varying expressions of ap­
preciation. “You don’t see powder streaks on my face, do you? Of
course not! And why? Because I’m a woman, and a woman uses a
powder-puff, and there isn’t a single powder-puff in Spargo’s bedroom
or bathroom!”
Ellery smiled—almost with relief. “Then you suggest, Miss Ick­
thorpe, that the last person with Spargo, presumably his murderess,
was a woman who watched him shave and then, with endearment
perhaps, took out her own powder-puff and dabbed it over his fa c e -
only to bash him over the head with the stone hammer a few minutes
later?”
“Well—yes, although I didn’t think of it that way. . . . But—yes!
And psychology points to the specific woman, too, Mr. Queen. A
man’s wife would never think of such an—an amorous proceeding.
But a man’s mistress would, and I say that Spargo’s lady-love, Jane
Terrill, whom I visited only an hour ago and who denies having
powdered Spargo’s face—she would!—killed him.”
Ellery sighed. He rose and twitched his cigarette-stub into the
fireplace. They were watching him, and each other, with expectancy.
“Aside,” he began, “from complimenting you, Miss Ickthorpe, on the
acuteness of your knowledge of mistresses”—she uttered an outraged
little gasp—“I want to say this before going ahead. The three of you
have proved very ingenious, very alert; I’m more pleased than I can
say. I do think we’re going to have a cracking good class. Good work,
all of you!”
“But, Mr. Queen,” protested Burrows, “which one of us is right?
Each one of us has given a different solution.”
Ellery waved his hand. “Right? A detail, theoretically. The point is
you’ve done splendid work—sharp observation, a rudimentary but
promising linking of cause and effect. As for the case itself, I regret
to say—you’re all wrong!”
Miss Ickthorpe clenched her tiny fist. “I knew you’d say that! I think
you’re horrid. And I still think I’m right.”
“There, gentlemen, is an extraordinary example of feminine psy­
chology,” grinned Ellery. “Now attend, all of you.
“You’re all wrong for the simple reason that each of you has taken
just one line of attack, one clue, one chain of reasoning, and com­
pletely ignored the other elements of the problem. You, John, say
it’s Spargo’s wife, merely because her photograph-album contains a
picture from which a circular patch with two heads has been cut
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 187

away. That this might have been sheer coincidence apparently never
occurred to you.
“You, Walter, came nearer the truth when you satisfactorily es­
tablished the ownership of the watch as the mulatto maid’s. But sup­
pose Maid Robins had accidently dropped the watch in Spargo’s room
at the hotel during his first visit there, and he had found it and taken
it to Chicago with him? That’s what probably happened. The mere
fact that he wore her watch doesn’t make her his murderess.
“You, Miss Ickthorpe, explained away the watch business with the
difference-in-time element, but you overlooked an important item.
Your entire solution depends on the presence in Spargo’s room of a
powder-puff. Willing to believe that no puff remained on the scene
of the crime, because it suited your theory, you made a cursory search
and promptly concluded no puff was there. But a puff is there! Had
you investigated the cap of the celluloid tube in which Spargo kept
his shaving-brush, you would have found a circular pad of powder-
puff which toilet-article manufacturers in this effeminate age provide
for men’s traveling-kits.”
Miss Ickthorpe said nothing; she seemed actually embarrassed.
“Now for the proper solution,” said Ellery, mercifully looking away.
“All three of you, amazingly enough, postulate a woman as the
criminal. Yet it was apparent to me, after my examination of the
premises, that the murderer must have b een a man.”
“A man!” they echoed in chorus.
“Exactly. Why did none of you consider the signficance of those
eight buttons and the two metal clips?” He smiled. “Probably because
again they didn’t fit your preconceived theories. But everything must
fit in a solution.. . . Enough of scolding. You’ll do better next time.
“Six small pearl buttons, flat, and two slightly larger ones, found
in a heap of ashes distinctly not of wood, coal or paper. There is only
one common article which possesses these characteristics—a man’s
shirt. A man’s shirt, the six buttons from the front, the two larger
ones from the cuffs, the debris from the linen or broadcloth. Some­
one, then, had burned a man’s shirt in the grate, forgetting that the
buttons would not be consumed.
“The metal objects, like a large hook and eye? A shirt suggests
haberdashery, the hook and eye suggest only one thing—one of the
cheap bow-ties which are purchased ready-tied, so that you do not
have to make the bow yourself.”
They were watching his lips like kindergarten children. “You,
Crane, observed that Spargo’s bloody left hand had clutched some­
thing, most of the blood coming off the palm. But nothing smudged
with blood had been found. . . . A man’s shirt and tie had been
burned. . . . Inference: In the struggle with the murderer, after he
had already been hit on the head and was streaming blood, Spargo
188 ELLERY QUEEN

had clutched his assailant’s collar and tie, staining them. Borne out
too by the signs of struggle in the room.
“Spargo dead, his own collar and tie wet with blood, what could
the murderer do? Let me attack it this way: The murderer must have
been from one of three classes of people: a rank outsider, or a guest
at the hotel, or an employee of the hotel. What had he done? He had
burned his shirt and tie. But if he had been an outsider, he could
have turned up his coat-collar, concealing the stains long enough to
get out of the hotel—no necessity, then, to burn shirt and tie when
time was precious. Were he one of tire hotel guests, he could have
done the same thing while he went to his own room. Then he must
have been an employee.
“Confirmation? Yes. As an employee he would be forced to remain
in the hotel, on duty, constantly being seen. What could he do? Well,
he had to change his shirt and tie. Spargo’s bag was open—shirt inside.
He rummaged through—you saw the confusion in the bag—and
changed. Leave his shirt? No, it might be traced to him. So, boys and
girls, burning was inevitable. . . .
“The tie? You recall that, while Spargo had laid out his evening-
clothes on the bed, there was no bow-tie there, in the bag, or
anywhere else in the room. Obviously, then, the murderer took the
bow-tie of the tuxedo outfit, and burned his own bow-tie with the
shirt.”
Miss Ickthorpe sighed, and Crane and Burrows shook their heads
a little dazedly. “I knew, then, that the murderer was an employee of
the hotel, a man, and that he was wearing Spargo’s shirt and black or
white bow-tie, probably black. But all the employees of the hotel
wear gray shirts and gray ties, as we observed on entering the Fen­
wick. Except”—Ellery inhaled the smoke of his cigarette—“except one
man. Surely you noticed the difference in his attire? . . . And so, when
you left on your various errands, I suggested to my father that this
man be examined—he seemed the best possibility. And, sure enough,
we found on him a shirt and bow-tie bearing Johannesburg labels
like those we had observed on Spargo’s other haberdashery. I knew
we should find this proof, for Spargo had spent a whole year in South
Africa, and since most of his clothes had been purchased there, it was
reasonable to expect that the stolen shirt and tie had been, too.”
“Then the case was finished when we were just beginning,” said
Burrows ruefully.
“But—who?” demanded Crane in bewilderment.
Ellery blew a great cloud. “We got a confession out of him in three
minutes. Spargo, that gentle creature, had years before stolen this
man’s wife, and then thrown her over. When Spargo registered at
the Fenwick two weeks ago, this man recognized him and decided to
revenge himself. He’s at the Tombs right now—Williams, the hotel
manager!”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE A FR IC A N TRAVELER 189

There was a little silence. Burrows bobbed his head back and forth.
“We’ve got a lot to learn,” he said. “I can see that.”
“Check,” muttered Crane. “I’m going to like this course.”
Ellery pshaw-pshawed. Nevertheless, he turned to Miss Ickthorpe
who by all precedent should be moved to contribute to the general
spirit of approbation. But Miss Ickthorpe’s thoughts were far away.
“Do you know,” she said, her brown eyes misty, “you’ve never asked
me my first name, Mr. Queen?”
 PROFESSOR AUGUSTUS S. F. X. VAN DUSEN,
P H .D ., L L .D ., F .R .S ., M .D ., M .D .S . ( “ T H E T H IN K IN G M A C H IN E ” ) |j\J

Jacq u es Futrelle d ied in the Titanic disaster in 1912. I f h e had

lived, it is not im possible that A m erica rather than England might
have brought about the civilized lightening o f the overponderous
detective story. F or Futrelle, as American as his nam e is French,
was one o f the first mystery practitioners anyw here to realize that
a light d eft touch never hurt any kind o f writing. T he m ost “m od­
ern” o f any American detective shorts b efo re u n c l e a b n e r , the
adventures o f t h e t h i n k i n g m a c h i n e are still minor classics; and
it’s a pleasure to present you with one that appears in neither o f
th e collected volumes o f p r o f e s s o r v a n d u s e n ’ s cases.
THE STOLEN RUBENS

BY J A C Q U E S FUTRELLE

M ATTHEW KALE made fifty million dollars out of axle grease,

after which he began to patronize the high arts. It was simple enough:
he had the money, and Europe had the old masters. His method of
buying was simplicity itself. There were five thousand square yards,
more or less, in the huge gallery of his marble mansion which were
to be covered, so he bought five thousand yards, more or less, of art.
Some of it was good, some of it fair, and much of it bad. The chief
picture of the collection was a Rubens, which he had picked up in
Rome for fifty thousand dollars.
Soon after acquiring his collection, Kale decided to make certain
alterations in the vast room where the pictures hung. They were all
taken down and stored in the ballroom, equally vast, with their faces
191
192 JA C Q U E S FUTRELLE

toward the wall. Meanwhile Kale and his family took refuge in a
near-by hotel.
It was at this hotel that Kale met Jules de Lesseps. De Lesseps was
distinctly the sort of Frenchman whose conversation resembles calis­
thenics. He was nervous, quick, and agile, and he told Kale in con­
fidence that he was not only a painter himself, but a connoisseur in
the high arts. Pompous in the pride of possession, Kale went to a good
deal of trouble to exhibit his private collection for de Lesseps’
delectation. It happened in the ballroom, and the true artist’s delight
shone in the Frenchman’s eyes as he handled the pieces which were
good. Some of the others made him smile, but it was an inoffensive
sort of smile.
With his own hands Kale lifted the precious Rubens and held it
before the Frenchman’s eyes. It was a “Madonna and Child,” one of
those wonderful creations which have endured through the years
with all the sparkle and color beauty of their pristine days. Kale
seemed disappointed because de Lesseps was not particularly en­
thusiastic about this picture.
“Why, it’s a Rubens!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I see,” replied de Lesseps.
“It cost me fifty thousand dollars.”
“It is perhaps worth more than that,” and the Frenchman shrugged
his shoulders as he turned away.
Kale looked at him in chagrin. Could it be that de Lesseps did not
understand that it was a Rubens, and that Rubens was a painter? Or
was it that he had failed to hear him say that it cost him fifty thousand
dollars. Kale was accustomed to seeing people bob their heads and
open their eyes when he said fifty thousand dollars; therefore, “Don’t
you like it?” he asked.
“Very much indeed,” replied de Lesseps; “but I have seen it before.
I saw it in Rome just a week or so before you purchased it.”
They rummaged on through the pictures, and at last a Whistler was
turned up for their inspection. It was one of the famous Thames
series, a water color. De Lesseps’ face radiated excitement, and
several times he glanced from the water color to the Rubens as if
mentally comparing the exquisitely penciled and colored newer work
with the bold, masterly technic of the older painting.
Kale misunderstood his silence. “I don’t think much of this one
myself,” he explained apologetically. “It’s a Whistler, and all that, and
it cost me five thousand dollars, and I sort of had to have it, but still
it isn’t just the kind of thing that I like. What do you think of it?”
“I think it is perfectly wonderful!” replied the Frenchman enthusi­
astically. “It is the essence, the superlative, of Whistler’s work. I
wonder if it would be possible,” and he turned to face Kale, “for me
to make a copy of that? I have some slight skill in painting myself, and
dare say I could make a fairly creditable copy of it.”
THE STOLEN RUBENS 193

Kale was flattered. He was more and more impressed each moment
with the picture. “Why certainly,” he replied. “I will have it sent up
to the hotel, and you can—”
“No, no, no!” interrupted de Lesseps quickly. “I wouldn’t care to
accept the responsibility of having the picture in my charge. There is
always a danger of fire. But if you would give me permission to come
here—this room is large and airy and light—and besides it is quiet—”
“Just as you like,” said Kale magnanimously. “I merely thought the
other way would be most convenient for you.”
De Lesseps laid one hand on the millionaire’s arm. “My dear
friend,” he said earnestly, “if these pictures were my pictures, I
shouldn’t try to accommodate anybody where they were concerned. I
dare say the collection as it stands cost you—”
“Six hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars,” volunteered
Kale proudly.
“And surely they must be well protected here in your house during
your absence.”
“There are about twenty servants in the house, while the workmen
are making the alterations,” said Kale, “and three of them don’t do
anything but watch this room. No one can go in or out except by the
door we entered—the others are locked and barred—and then only
with my permission, or a written order from me. No sir, nobody can
get away with anything in this room.”
“Excellent—excellent!” said de Lesseps admiringly. He smiled a
little. “I am afraid I did not give you credit for being the far-sighted
businessman that you are.” He turned and glanced over the collection
of pictures abstractedly. “A clever thief, though,” he ventured, “might
cut a valuable painting, for instance the Rubens, out of the frame,
roll it up, conceal it under his coat, and escape.”
Kale laughed and shook his head.
It was a couple of days later at the hotel that de Lesseps brought
up the subject of copying the Whistler. He was profuse in his thanks
when Kale volunteered to accompany him into the mansion and
witness the preliminary stages of the work. They paused at the
ballroom door.
“Jennings,” said Kale to the liveried servant there, “this is Mr. de
Lesseps. He is to come and go as he likes. He is going to do some work
in the ballroom here. See that he isn’t disturbed.”
De Lesseps noticed the Rubens leaning carelessly against some
other pictures, with the holy face of the Madonna turned toward
them. “Really, Mr. Kale,” he protested, “that picture is too valuable
to be left about like that. If you will let your servants bring me some
canvas, I shall wrap it and place it up on this table off the floor.
Suppose there were mice here!”
Kale thanked him. The necessary orders were given, and finally the
picture was carefully wrapped and placed beyond harm’s reach,
194 JA C Q U E S FUTRELLE

whereupon de Lesseps adjusted himself, paper, easel, stool, and all,

and began his work of copying. There Kale left him.
Three days later Kale found the artist still at his labor.
“I just dropped by,” he explained, “to see how the work in the
gallery was getting along. It will be finished in another week. I hope
I am not disturbing you?”
“Not at all,” said de Lesseps; “I have nearly finished. See how I am
getting along?” He turned the easel toward Kale.
The millionaire gazed from that toward the original which stood
on a chair near by, and frank admiration for the artist’s efforts was in
his eyes. “Why, it’s fine!” he exclaimed. “It’s just as good as the other
one, and I bet you don’t want any five thousand dollars for it—eh?”
That was all that was said about it at the time. Kale wandered about
the house for an hour or so, then dropped into the ballroom where de
Lesseps was getting his paraphernalia together, and they walked back
to the hotel. The artist carried under one arm his copy of the Whistler,
loosely rolled up.
Another week passed, and the workmen who had been engaged in
refinishing and decorating the gallery had gone. De Lesseps volun­
teered to assist in the work of rehanging the pictures, and Kale gladly
turned the matter over to him. It was in the afternoon of the day this
work began that de Lesseps, chatting pleasantly with Kale, ripped
loose the canvas which enshrouded the precious Rubens. Then he
paused with an exclamation of dismay. The picture was gone; the
frame which had held it was empty. A thin strip of canvas around the
inside edge showed that a sharp penknife had been used to cut out
the painting.
All of these facts came to the attention of Professor Augustus S.F.X.
Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine. This was a day or so after Kale
had rushed into Detective Mallory’s office at police headquarters with
the statement that his Rubens had been stolen. He banged his fist
down on the detective’s desk, and roared at him.
“It cost me fifty thousand dollars! Why don’t you do something?
What are you sitting there staring at me for?”
“Don’t excite yourself, Mr. Kale,” the detective advised. “I will put
my men at work right now to recover the—the—What is a Rubens,
anyway?”
“It’s a picture!” bellowed Kale. “A piece of canvas with some paint
on it, and it cost me fifty thousand dollars—don’t you forget that!”
So the police machinery was set in motion to recover the picture.
And in time the matter fell under the watchful eye of Hutchinson
Hatch, reporter. He learned the facts preceding the disappearance of
the picture and then called on de Lesseps. He found the artist in a
state of excitement bordering on hysteria; an intimation from the re­
porter of the object of his visit caused de Lesseps to burst into words.
“Mon Dieu! It is outrageous! What can I do? I was the only one in
THE STOLEN RUBENS 195

the room for several days. I was the one who took such pains to pro­
tect the picture. And now it is gone! The loss is irreparable. What
can I do?”
Hatch didn’t have any very definite idea as to just what he could
do, so he let him go on. “As I understand it, Mr. de Lesseps,” he inter­
rupted at last, “no one else was in the room, except you and Mr. Kale,
all the time you were there?”
“No one else.”
“And I think Mr. Kale said that you were making a copy of some
famous water color; weren’t you?”
“Yes, a Thames scene by Whistler,” was the reply. “That is it,
hanging over the fireplace.”
Hatch glanced at the picture admiringly. It was an exquisite copy,
and showed the deft touch of a man who was himself an artist of
great ability.
De Lesseps read the admiration in his face. “It is not bad,” he said
modestly. “I studied with Carolus Duran.”
With all else that was known, and this little additional information,
which seemed of no particular value to the reporter, the entire matter
was laid before The Thinking Machine. That distinguished man
listened from beginning to end without comment.
“Who had access to the room?” he asked finally.
“That is what the police are working on now,” said Hutchinson
Hatch. “There are a couple of dozen servants in the house, and I
suppose, in spite of Kale’s rigid orders, there was a certain laxity in
their enforcement.”
“Of course that makes it more difficult,” said The Thinking Machine
in the perpetually irritated voice which was so characteristic a part of
himself. “Perhaps it would be best for us to go to Mr. Kale’s home and
personally investigate.”
Kale received them with the reserve which rich men usually show
in the presence of representatives of the press. He stared frankly and
somewhat curiously at the diminutive figure of the scientist, who
explained the object of their visit.
“I guess you fellows can’t do anything with this,” the millionaire
assured them. “I’ve got some regular detectives on it.”
“Is Mr. Mallory here now?” asked The Thinking Machine curtly.
“Yes, he is upstairs in the servants’ quarters.”
“May we see the room from which the picture was taken?” inquired
the scientist, with a suave intonation which Hatch knew well.
Kale granted the permission with a wave of the hand, and ushered
them into the ballroom, where the pictures had been stored. From
the center of this room The Thinking Machine surveyed it all. The
windows were high. Half a dozen doors leading out into the hallways,
the conservatory, quiet nooks of the mansion offered innumerable
possibilities of access. After this one long comprehensive squint, The
196 JA C Q U E S FU TRELLE

Thinking Machine went over and picked up the frame from which
the Rubens had been cut. For a long time he examined it. Kales
impatience was evident. Finally the scientist turned to him.
“How well do you know M. de Lesseps?”
“I’ve known him for only a month or so. Why?”
“Did he bring you letters of introduction, or did you meet him
merely casually?”
Kale regarded him with displeasure. “My own personal affairs have
nothing whatever to do with this matter! Mr. de Lesseps is a gentle­
man of integrity, and certainly he is the last whom I would suspect of
any connection with the disappearance of the picture.”
“That is usually the case,” remarked The Thinking Machine tartly.
He turned to Hatch. “Just how good a copy was that he made of the
Whistler picture?”
“I have never seen the original,” Hatch replied; “but the workman­
ship was superb. Perhaps Mr. Kale wouldn’t object to us seeing—”
“Oh, of course not,” said Kale resignedly. “Come in; it’s in the
gallery.”
Hatch submitted the picture to a careful scrutiny. “I should say the
copy is well-nigh perfect,” was his verdict. “Of course, in its absence,
I can’t say exactly; but it is certainly a superb work.”
The curtains of a wide door almost in front of them were thrown
aside suddenly, and Detective Mallory entered. He carried something
in his hand, but at sight of them concealed it behind him. Unrepressed
triumph was in his face.
“Ah, professor, we meet often; don’t we?” he said.
“This reporter here and his friend seem to be trying to drag de
Lesseps into this affair somehow,” Kale complained to the detective.
“I don’t want anything like that to happen. He is liable to go out and
print anything. They always do.”
The Thinking Machine glared at him unwaveringly for an instant,
then extend his hand toward Mallory. “Where did you find it?” he
asked.
“Sorry to disappoint you, professor,” said the detective sarcastically,
“but this is the time when you were a little late,” and he produced tire
object which he held behind him. “Here is your picture, Mr. Kale.”
Kale gasped in relief and astonishment, and held up the canvas
with both hands to examine it. “Fine!” he told the detective. “I’ll see
that you don’t lose anything by this. Why, that thing cost me fifty
thousand dollars!”
The Thinking Machine leaned forward to squint at the upper right-
hand corner of the canvas. “Where did you find it?” he asked again.
“Rolled up tight, and concealed in the bottom of a trunk in the
room of one of the servants,” explained Mallory. “The servant’s name
is Jennings. He is now under arrest.”
“Jennings!” exclaimed Kale. “Why, he has been with me for years.”
THE STOLEN RUBENS 197

“Did he confess?” asked the scientist imperturbably.

“Of course not,” said Mallory. “He says some of the other servants
must have hidden it there.”
The Thinking Machine nodded at Hatch. “I think perhaps that is
all,” he remarked. “I congratulate you, Mr. Mallory, upon bringing
the matter to such a quick and satisfactory conclusion.”
Ten minutes later they left the house and took a taxi for the
scientist’s home. Hatch was a little chagrined at the unexpected
termination of the aifair.
“Mallory does show an occasional gleam of human intelligence,
doesn’t he?”
“Not that I ever noticed,” remarked The Thinking Machine crustily.
“But he found the picture,” Hatch insisted.
“Of course he found it. It was put there for him to find.”
“Put there for him to find!” repeated the reporter. “Didn’t Jennings
steal it?”
“If he did, he’s a fool.”
“Well, if he didn’t steal it, who put it there?”
“De Lesseps.”
“De Lesseps!” echoed Hatch. “Why the deuce did he steal a fifty
thousand dollar picture and put it in a servant’s trunk to be found?”
The Thinking Machine twisted around in his seat and squinted at
him coldly for a moment. “At times, Mr. Hatch, I am absolutely
amazed at your stupidity. I can understand it in a man like Mallory,
but I have always given you credit for being an astute, quick-witted
man.”
Hatch smiled at the reproach. It was not the first time he had heard
it. But nothing bearing on the problem in hand was said until they
reached The Thinking Machine’s house.
“The only real question in my mind, Mr. Hatch,” said the scientist
then, “is whether or not I should take the trouble to restore Mr. Kale’s
picture at all. He is perfectly satisfied, and will probably never know
the difference. So—”
Suddenly Hatch saw something. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Do
you mean that the picture Mallory found was—”
“A copy of the original,” snapped the scientist. “Personally I know
nothing whatever about art; therefore, I could not say from observa­
tion that it is a copy, but I know it from the logic of the thing. When
the original was cut from the frame, the knife swerved a little at the
upper right-hand corner. The canvas remaining in the frame told me
that. The picture that Mr. Mallory found did not correspond in this
detail with the canvas in the frame. The conclusion is obvious.”
“And de Lesseps has the original?”
“De Lesseps has the original. How did he get it? In any one of a
dozen ways. He might have rolled it up and stuck it under his coat.
He might have had a confederate. But I don’t think that any ordinary
198 JA C Q U E S FUTRELLE

method of theft would have appealed to him. I am giving him credit

for being clever, as I must when we review the whole case.
“For instance, he asked for permission to copy the Whistler, which
you saw was the same size as the Rubens. It was granted. He copied
it practically under guard, always with the chance that Mr. Kale him­
self would drop in. It took him three days to copy it, so he says. He
was alone in the room all that time. He knew that Mr. Kale had not
the faintest idea of art. Taking advantage of that, what would have
been simpler than to have copied the Rubens in oil? He could have
removed it from the frame immediately after he canvased it over, and
kept it in a position near him where it could be quickly concealed if
he was interrupted. Remember, the picture is worth fifty thousand
dollars; therefore, was worth the trouble.
“De Lesseps is an artist—we know that—and dealing with a man
who knew nothing whatever of art, he had no fears. W e may suppose
his idea all along was to use the copy of the Rubens as a sort of decoy
after he got away with the original. You saw that Mallory didn’t know
the difference, and it was safe for him to suppose that Mr. Kale
wouldn’t. His only danger until he could get away gracefully was of
some critic or connoisseur, perhaps, seeing the copy. His boldness we
see readily in the fact that he permitted himself to discover the theft;
that he discovered it after he had volunteered to assist Mr. Kale in the
general work of rehanging the pictures in the gallery, just how he put
the picture in Jenning’s trunk I don’t happen to know. W e can imagine
many ways.” He lay back in his chair for a minute without speaking,
eyes steadily turned upward, fingers placed precisely tip to tip.
“But how did he take the picture from the Kale home?” asked
Hatch.
“He took it with him probably under his arm the day he left the
house with Mr. Kale,” was the astonishing reply.
Hatch was staring at him in amazement. After a moment the
scientist rose and passed into the adjoining room, and the telephone
bell there jingled. When he joined Hatch again he picked up his hat
and they went out together.
De Lesseps was in when their cards were sent up, and received
them. They conversed about the case generally for ten minutes, while
the scientist’s eyes were turned inquiringly here and there about the
room. At last there came a knock on the door.
“It is Detective Mallory, Mr. Hatch,” remarked The Thinking
Machine. “Open the door for him.”
De Lesseps seemed startled for just one instant, then quickly re­
covered. Mallory’s eyes were full of questions when he entered.
“I should like, Mr. Mallory,” began The Thinking Machine quietly,
“to call your attention to this copy of Mr. Kale’s picture by W histler-
over the mantel here. Isn’t it excellent? You have seen the original?”
Mallory grunted. De Lesseps face, instead of expressing apprecia­
THE STOLEN RUBENS 199
tion of the compliment, blanched, and his hands closed tightly.
Again he recovered himself and smiled.
“The beauty of this picture lies not only in its faithfulness to the
original,” the scientist went on, “but also in the fact that it was painted
under extraordinary circumstances. For instance, I don’t know if you
know, Mr. Mallory, that it is possible so to combine glue and putty
and a few other commonplace things into a paste which will effectu­
ally blot out an oil painting, and offer at the same time an excellent
surface for water color work!”
There was a moment’s pause, during which the three men stared
at him silently—with conflicting emotions.
“This water color—this copy of Whistler,” continued the scientist
evenly—“is painted on such a paste as I have described. That paste in
turn covers the original Rubens picture. It can be removed with
water without damage to the picture, which is in oil, so that instead
of a copy of the Whistler painting, we have an original by Rubens,
worthy fifty thousand dollars. That is true; isn’t it, M. de Lesseps?”
There was no reply to the question—none was needed.
It was an hour later, after de Lesseps was safely in his cell, that
Hatch called up The Thinking Machine and asked one question.
“How did you know that the water color was painted over the
Rubens?”
“Because it was the only absolutely safe way in which the Rubens
could be hopelessly lost to those who were looking for it, and at the
same time perfectly preserved,” was the answer. “I told you de
Lesseps was a clever man, and a little logic did the rest. Two and two
always make four, Mr. Hatch, not sometimes, but all the time.”
 H I L D E G A R D E W I T H E R S IN

T here hasn’t b een a h i l d e g a r d e w i t h e r s novel in fou r years, nor a

m ovie in even longer; and E dna M ae Oliver, magnificent creator o f
th e role, is dead. But h i l d e g a r d e remains the horse-faced and acidu­
lous dean o f American w om en detectives, incom parable and inim­
itable (as many imitators have proved). H ere is som ething different
in th e way o f w i t h e r s exploits: a before-the-fact story in w hich th e
read er know s from the start the m urderer with w hom th e school­
teach er m atches wits—and life. (W hen once 1 asked Captain Palm er
i f h e h ad a m odel for m i s s w i t h e r s , h e replied, “O f course: my
fa th e r ” T here’s another riddle fo r you.)
THE RIDDLE OF THE
YELLOW CANARY

BY S T U A R T PALMER

SO FT APRIL RAIN was beating against the windows of

Arthur Reese’s private office, high above Times Square. Reese himself
sat tensely before his desk, studying a sheet of paper still damp from
the presses. He had just made the most important decision of his life.
He was going to murder the Thorens girl.
For months he had been toying with the idea, as a sort of mental
chess problem. Now, when Margie Thorens was making it so neces­
sary that she be quietly removed, he was almost surprised to find that
the idle scheme had reached sheer perfection. It was as if he had
completed a jig-saw puzzle while thinking of something else.
Beyond his desk was a door. On the glass Reese could read his own
name and the word “Private” spelled backwards. As he watched, a
shadow blotted out the light, and he heard a soft knock.
201
202 STUART PALM ER

“Yes?" he called out.

It was plump, red-haired Miss Kelly—excellent secretary, Kelly, in
spite of her platinum finger nails. “Miss Thorens is still waiting to see
you,” said Kelly.
She had not held her job long enough to realize just how often, and
how long, Margie Thorens had been kept waiting.
“Oh, Lord!" Reese made his voice properly weary. He looked at his
watch, and saw that it was five past five. “Tell her I’m too busy," he
began. Then—“No, I’ll stop in the reception room and see her for just
a moment before I go. Bad news for her again, I’m afraid.”
Miss Kelly knew all about would-be song writers. She smiled.
“Don’t forget your appointment with Mr. Larry Foley at five-thirty.
G-night, Mr. Reese.” She closed the door.
Reese resumed his study of the sheet of music. “May Day—a song
ballad with words and music by Art Reese, published by Arthur Reese
and Company.” He opened the page, found the chorus, and hummed
a bar of the catchy music. “I met you on a May day, a wonderful okay
day. . . . ”
He put the song away safely, and reached into his desk for a large
flask of hammered silver. He drank deeply, but not too deeply, and
shoved it into his hip pocket.
The outer office was growing suddenly quiet as the song pluggers
left their pianos. Vaudeville sister teams, torch-singers, and comics
were temporarily giving up the search for something new to interest
a fretful and jaded public. Stenographers and clerks were covering
their typewriters. The day’s work was over for them—and beginning
for Reese.
From his pocket he took an almost microscopic capsule. It was
colorless, and no larger than a pea. Yet it was potentially more
dangerous than a dozen cobras . . . a dark gift of fortune which had
started the whole plot working in his mind.
Three years ago an over-emotional young lady, saddened at the
prospect of being tossed aside “like a worn glove,” had made a de­
termined effort to end her own life under circumstances which would
have been very unpleasant indeed for Arthur Reese. He had luckily
been able to take the cyanide of potassium from her in time. She was
married and in Europe now. There would be no way of tracing the
stuff. It was pure luck.
The capsule was his own idea, a stroke of genius. He rolled it in his
fingers, then looked at his watch. It was fifteen minutes past five. The
lights of Times Square were beginning to come on, clashing with the
fingering dullness of the April daylight. Reese picked up a brown
envelope which lay on his desk, crossed to his top-coat, and pocketed
a pair of fight gloves. Then he stepped out into the brilliantly lighted
but deserted outer office.
The first door on his right bore only the figure “1” on the glass. It
THE R ID D L E OF TH E YELLOW CANARY 203
was unlocked, and he stepped quickly through. It did not matter if
anyone saw him, he knew, yet it would be safer if not.
Margie Thorens leaped up from the piano stool—the room was
furnished so that it could be used by Reese’s staff if necessary, and
came toward him. Reese smiled with his mouth, but his eyes stared
at her as if he had never seen her before.
There had been a time not so long ago when Arthur Reese had
thought this helpless, babyish girl very attractive, with her dark eyes,
darker hair, and the hot sullen mouth. Rut that time was ever and
done. He steeled himself to bear her kiss, but he was saved from
completing that Jud^s gesture. She stopped, searching his face.
“Sit down, Margie,” he said.
She dropped to the stool. “Sit down yourself,” she told him. Her
voice was husky. “Or do you have to rush away? Making another trip
to Atlantic City this week-end?” Her words dripped with meaning.
She played three notes on the black keys.
“Forget your grouch,” said Reese. “I’ve got news.”
“You’d better have!” She swung on him. “You’ve got to do some­
thing about me. I’m not going to sit out in the cold. Not with what I’ve
got on you, Lothario.”
She had raised her voice, and he didn’t want that. “Good news,”
he said hastily. Her eyes widened a little. “Oh, it’s not the Tennessee
song. That stuff is passe. Rut I finally got Larry Foley to listen to May
Day, and he thinks it’s great. Another E cho in the Valley, he says. So
I’m going to publish it. He’s willing to plug it with his band over the
air, and he’ll make a play to get it in the picture he’s going to do in
Hollywood. You’re a success! You’re a song writer at last!”
Margie Thorens looked as though she might fall. “It’s all true,” he
assured her. As a matter of fact it was. Reese had known that it would
be easier to tell the truth than to invent a lie. And it wouldn’t matter
afterward. “I’m rushing publication, and there’ll be a contract for
you in the morning.”
She was still dizzy. “You—you’re not going to horn in as co-author
or anything? Truly, Art?”
“You look dizzy,” he said. He pulled out his flask. “How about a
drink to celebrate?”
Margie shook her head. “Not on an empty stomach,” she pleaded.
“I’d like a glass of water, though.”
The carefully designed plan of Arthur Reese rearranged itself, like
a shaken kaleidoscope. He hurried to the water-cooler in the corner,
and after a second’s pause returned with a conical paper cup nearly
full. “This will fix you up,” he told her.
Margie drained it at one gulp, and he breathed again. He looked
at his watch, and saw that it was five-twenty. The capsule would hold
for four to six minutes. . . .
“Better still,” he rushed on. “I got an idea for a lyric the other day,
204 STUART PA LM ER

and Foley likes it. If you can concoct a good sobby tune to go with
it . . .”
He fumbled at his pockets. “I’ve lost the notes,” he said. “But I can
remember the lyric if you’ll write it down.” He handed her a yellow
pencil and the brown envelope which held her rejected manuscript
of Tennessee Sweetheart. “It begins—Good-bye, good-bye---- ”
He dictated, very slowly, for what seemed to him an hour. He stole
a glance at his watch, and saw that four minutes had elapsed. He
found himself improvising, repeating a line. . . .”
“You gave me that once,” protested Margie. “And the rhymes are
bad.” She raised her head as if she had suddenly remembered some
unspeakable and ancient secret. “Turn on the lights!” she cried. “It’s
getting—Art! I can’t see you!” She groped to her feet. “Art—oh, God,
what have you done to m e .. . . ”
Her voice trailed away, and little bubbles were at her lips. She
plunged forward, before he could catch her.
Reese found himself without any particular emotion except grati­
tude that her little body had not been heavy enough to shake the
floor. He left her there, and went swiftly to the door. There was no
sign that anyone had been near to hear that last desperate appeal. He
congratulated himself on his luck. This sort of thing was far simpler
than the books had made him suppose.
He closed the door, and shot the bolt which was designed to insure
privacy for the musicians. Then he began swiftly to complete his
picture—a picture that was to show to the whole world the inevitable
suicide of Margie Thorens.
He first donned his light gloves. It was no effort at all to lift the
girl to the wicker settee, although he had to resist a temptation to
close the staring dark eyes.
He reached for the tiny gold-washed strap-watch that Margie
Thorens wore around her left wrist. Here he struck a momentary
snag. Reese had meant to set the hands at five of six, and then smash
the thing in order to set the time of the “suicide,” but the crystal had
broken when she fell.
The watch was not ticking. He removed one glove, and carefully
forced the hands of the little timepiece ahead. The shards of broken
glass impeded their movement, but they moved. He put his glove
back on.
Reese did not neglect to gather up the fragment or two of glass
which had fallen on the oak floor, and place them where they would
naturally have been if the watch had been broken against the arm of
the settee in her death agony. Luckily the daylight lingered.
The paper cup was on the floor. He was not sure that finger-prints
could be wiped from paper, so he crumpled it into his pocket. Taking
another from the rack, he sloshed a bit of water into it, and then
dropped in a few particles of the poison which he had saved for some
THE K ID D L E OF TH E YELLOW CANARY 205

such purpose. The mixture he spilled about the dead mouth and
face, and let the cup fall where it would have fallen from the
nerveless fingers. On second thought, he picked it up, placed it in
the limp hand of Margie Thorens, and crumpled it there with his
gloved hand.
It was finished—and water-tight, he knew that. Who could doubt
that a young and lonely girl, stranded in New York without friends or
family, disappointed in her ambitions and low in funds, might be
moved to take her own life?
Reese looked at his watch. The hands had barely passed the hour
of five-thirty-five. He had twenty minutes to establish a perfect alibi,
if he should ever need one.
There still remained a ticklish bit of fine work. He unlocked the
door and looked out into the main office. It was still deserted. He
stepped out, leaving the door ajar, and put his arm inside to turn the
brass knob which shot the bolt.
Pressing the large blade of his jack-knife against the spring lock, he
withdrew his arm and swung the door shut. Then he pulled away the
knife, and the latch clicked. Margie Thorens was dead in a room
which had a window without a fire escape, and a door locked on the
inside.
In two minutes Reese was laughing with the elevator boy on his
way down. In five more he stepped out of the men’s room at the Roxy
Grill, washed and groomed, and with the paper cup and the folded
paper which had held poison and capsule all gone forever via the
plumbing. When the big clock above the bar pointed to ten of six,
Reese had already stood Larry Foley his second round of drinks. He
was softly humming May Day.
Inspector Oscar Piper called Spring 7-3100 b efo re h e put on his
slippers. “Anything doing, Sergeant?”
“Nothing bu t a lousy suicide o f a dam e up in Tin Pan A lley ” the
phone sergeant said. “Scrub woman fou nd her, an d the precinct boys
are there now.”
“I’ll stop in and h ave a look in the morning,” d ecid ed the Inspector.
"These things are all alike.”
The morrow was a Saturday, and Miss Hildegarde Withers was
thus relieved of the necessity of teaching the young how to sprout
down in Jefferson School’s third grade. But if she had any ideas of
lying abed in luxurious idleness, they were rudely shattered by the
buzzing of the telephone.
“Yes, Oscar,” she said wearily.
“You’ve often asked me how the police can spot a suicide from a
murder,” Piper was saying. “Well, I’m on the scene of a typical
suicide, perfect in every detail but one and that doesn’t matter. Want
to have a look? If you hurry you’ll have a chance to see the stiff before
she goes to the morgue.”
206 STUART PALM ER

“I’ll come,” decided the school teacher. “But I shall purposely

dawdle in hopes of missing your exhibit.”
Dawdle as she did, she still rode up the ten stories in the elevator
and entered the offices of Arthur Reese, Music Publisher, before the
white-clad men from the morgue arrived. Her long face, somewhat
resembling that of a well-bred horse, made a grimace as the Inspector
showed her the broken lock of the little reception and music room,
and what lay beyond.
“Scrub women came in at midnight, and found the door locked.
They got the night watchman to break it, since it couldn’t have been
locked from the outside, and thought somebody was ill inside or
something. Somebody was. The medical examiner was out on Long
Island over that latest gang killing, and couldn’t get here till a couple
of hours ago, but he found traces of cyanide on her mouth. The
autopsy will confirm it, he says.” Miss Withers nodded. “She looks
awfully—young,” she said.
“She was,” Piper told her. “We’ve checked up on the kid. Ran away
from an Albany high school to make her fortune as a song-writer, so
she’s even younger than you thought. Been in New York five months
and got nothing but rejections. Yesterday afternoon she got another
one and she waited until everyone else had gone, and bumped herself
off. Left a suicide note on the piano, too.” The Inspector handed over
the brown envelope. “Wrote it on the envelope which held the bad
news—her rejected manuscript. And notice how firm and steady the
writing is, right to the last word almost.”
Miss Withers noticed. She bent to squint over the rhymed note.
She saw:
“Good-bye, good-bye I cry
A long and last good-bye
Good-bye to Broadway and the lights
Good-bye sad days and lonely nights
I’ve waited alone
To sing this last song
Good-bye . .

She read it through again. “She didn’t sign it,” Piper went on. “But
it’s her handwriting all right. Checks with the manuscript of the re­
jected song in the envelope, and also with a letter in her handbag
that she was going to mail.”
“A letter?” Miss Withers handed back the envelope. But the letter
was a disappointment. It was a brief note to the Metropolitan Gas
THE RID D LE OF THE YELLOW CANARY 207

Company, promising that a check would be mailed very shortly to

take care of the overdue bill, and signed “Margery Thorens.”
Miss Withers gave it back. She took the tiny handbag that had been
the dead girl’s, and studied it for a moment. “She had a miniature
fountain pen, I see,” said the school teacher. “It writes, too. Wonder
why she used a pencil?”
“Well, use it she did, because here it is.” Piper handed her the long
yellow pencil which had lain on the floor. The school teacher looked
at it for a long time.
“The picture is complete,” said Piper jovially. “There’s only one tiny
discrepancy, and that doesn’t matter.”
Miss Withers wanted to know what it was. “Only this,” said the
Inspector. “We know the time she died, because she smashed her
wrist watch in her death throes. That was five minutes to six. But at
that hour it’s pretty dark—and this is the first time I ever heard of a
suicide going off in the dark. They usually want the comfort of a
light.”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Withers, “perhaps she died earlier, and the
watch was wrong? Or it might have run a little after she died?”
The Inspector shook his head. “The watch was too badly smashed
to run a tick after she fell,” he said. “Main stem broken. And she must
have died after dark because there was somebody here in the offices
until around five-thirty. I tell you . .
He was interrupted by a sergeant in a baggy blue uniform. “Reese
has just come in, Inspector. I told him you said he should wait in
his office.”
“Right!” Oscar Piper turned to Miss Withers. “Reese is the boss of
this joint, and ought to give us a fine on the girl. Come along if you
like.”
Miss Withers liked. She followed him into the outer office and
through a door marked “Arthur Reese, Private.” The Inspector, as
was their usual fiction, introduced her as his stenographer.
Reese burst out, a little breathlessly, with “What a thing to happen
—here! I came down as soon as I heard. What a—”
“What a thing to happen anywhere,” Miss Withers said under her
breath.
“Poor little Margie!” finished the man at the desk.
Piper grew suddenly Inspectorish. “Margie, eh? You knew her
quite well, then?”
“Of course!” Reese was as open as a book. “She’s been hounding the
life out of me for months because I have the reputation of sometimes
publishing songs by beginners. But what could I do? She had more
ambition than ability. . .
“You didn’t know her personally, then?”
Reese shook his head. “Naturally, I took a friendly interest in her,
208 STUART PALM ER

but anyone in my office will tell you that I never run around with
would-be song writers. It would make things too difficult. Somebody
is always trying to take advantage of friendship, you know.”
“When did you last see the Thorens girl?” Piper cut in.
Reese turned and looked out of the window. “I am very much
afraid,” he said, “that I was the last person to see her alive. If I had
only known . . .”
“Get this, Hildegarde!” commanded Piper.
“I am and shall,” she came back.
“Several weeks ago,” began Reese, “Margie Thorens submitted to
me a song called T ennessee Sweetheart, in manuscript form. It was
her fifth or sixth attempt, but it was a lousy—I beg your pardon, a
terrible song. Couldn’t publish it. Last night she came in, and I gave
her the bad news. Made it as easy as I could, but she looked pretty
disappointed. I had to rush off and leave her, as I had an appointment
for five-thirty with Larry Foley, the radio crooner. So I saw her last
in the reception room where she died—it must have been five-thirty
or a little earlier.”
Miss Withers whispered to the Inspector. “Oh,” said he, “how did
you know that the Thorens girl died in the reception room?”
“I didn’t,” admitted Reese calmly. “I guessed it. You haven’t got
that cop standing guard at the broken door for exercise. Anyway, I
was a few minutes later for my date because of the rain, but I met
Foley at about twenty to six. He’ll testify to that, and fifty others.”
Piper nodded. He took a glittering gadget from his pocket. “Can
you identify this, Mr. Reese?”
Reese studied the watch. “On first glance, I should say that it was
Margie’s. But I wouldn’t know . . .”
“You wouldn’t know, then, if it was usually on time?”
Reese was thoughtful. “Of course I wouldn’t. But Margie was
usually on time, if that is anything. I said when she phoned me
yesterday morning that I’d see her if she came in at quarter to five,
and on the dot she arrived. I was busy, and she had to wait.”
The Inspector started to put the watch back into its envelope, but
Miss Withers held out her hand. She wrinkled her brows above it, as
the Inspector put his last question.
“You don’t know, then, anything about any private love affairs
Miss Thorens might have had?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t even know where she lived, or anything
except that she came from somewhere upstate—Albany I think it was.
One of her attempts at song-writing was titled A m ble to Albany.”
Piper and the music publisher walked slowly out of the office,
toward where a wicker basket was being swiftly carried through a
broken door by two brawny men in white. Miss Withers lingered
behind to study the wrist watch which had been Margie Thorens’. It
THE RID D LE OF THE YELLOW CANARY 209

was a trumpery affair with a square modernistic face. Miss Withers

found it hard to tell time by such a watch. She noted that the minute
hand pointed to five before the hour, and that the hour hand was in
the exactly opposite direction. She put it safely away, and hurried
after the Inspector.
With the departure of the mortal remains of Margie Thorens, the
offices of Arthur Reese and Company seemed to perk up a bit. The
red-haired Miss Kelly returned to her desk outside Reese’s office,
wearing a dress which Miss Withers thought cut a bit too low in front
for business purposes. The clerks and stenographers were permitted
to fill the large room again, somewhere a man began to bang very
loudly upon a piano, and an office boy rushed past Miss Withers with
a stack of sheet music fresh from the printer’s.
“Well, we’ll be off,” said the Inspector suddenly, in her ear.
Miss Hildegarde Withers jumped. “Eh? Well what?”
“We’ll leave. This case is plain as the nose—I mean, plain as day.
Nothing here for the Homicide Squad.”
“Naturally,” said Miss Withers. But her thoughts were somewhere
else.
The Inspector had learned to heed her suggestions. “Anything
wrong? You haven’t found anything that I’ve missed, have you?”
Hildegarde Withers shook her head. “That’s just the trouble,” she
said. “I ’m beginning to suspect myself of senility.”
“T ell m e ” said Miss W ithers that evening, “just w hat are the clues
w hich sp ell suicide so surely?”
“First, th e locked door to insure privacy,” said the Inspector.
“Second, th e suicide note, for it’s human nature to leave w ord behind.
Third, th e m otive—in this case, m elancholy. Fourth, the suicide must
b e an em otional, neurotic person. G et m er
“C lear as crystal,” said H ildegarde Withers. “But granted that a
girl chooses to d ie in darkness, why d oes she write a suicide note in
darkness? And w hy d oes she ben d a pencil? ’
“But the pen cil wasn’t bent!”
“Exactly!” said H ildegarde W ithers, thoughtfully.
To all intents and purposes, that ended the Thorens case. Inspector
Oscar Piper turned his attention to weightier matters. Medical Ex­
aminer Bloom reported, on completion of the autopsy, that the de­
ceased had met death at her own hands through taking a lethal dose
of cyanide of potassium, probably obtained in a college or high school
laboratory, or perhaps from a commercial orchard spray.
Miss Hildegarde Withers attended to her usual duties down at
Jefferson School, and somewhere in the back of her mind a constant
buzzing continued to bother her. The good lady was honestly be­
wildered by her own stubbornness. It was perfectly possible that the
obvious explanation was the true one. For the life of her she could
210 STUA RT PALM ER

think of no other that fit even some of the known facts. And yet—
On Tuesday, the fourth day after the death of Margie Thorens,
Miss Withers telephoned to Inspector Piper, demanding further in­
formation. “Ask Max Van Donnen how long the girl could have lived
after taking the poison, will you?”
But the old German laboratory expert had not analyzed the re­
mains, said Piper. Dr. Bloom had summarized the findings of the
autopsy—and Margie Thorens had died an instant death. In her vital
organs was a full grain of cyanide of potassium, one of the quickest
known poisons.
“She couldn’t have taken the poison and then written the note?”
asked Miss Withers.
“Impossible,” said the Inspector. “But what in the name of—”
Miss Withers had hung up. Again she had struck a stone wall. But
too many stone walls were in themselves proof that something was a
little wrong in this whole business.
That afternoon Miss Withers called upon a Mrs. Blenkinsop, the
landlady who operated the rooming house in which Margie Thorens
had lived. She found that lady fat, dingy, and sympathetic.
“I read in the papers that the poor darling is to be sent home to her
aunt in Albany, and that her class is to be let out of high school to be
honorary pall-bearers,” said Mrs. Blenkinsop. “Such a quiet one she
was, the poor child. But it’s them that runs deep.”
Miss Withers agreed to this. “Do you suppose I could see her
rooms?”
“Of course,” agreed the landlady. “Everything is just as she left it,
because her rent was paid till the end of April, and that’s a week yet.”
She led the way up a flight of stairs. “You know, the strangest thing
about the whole business was her going off that way and making no
provision for her pets. You’d a thought—”
“Pets?”
The landlady threw open a door. “Yes’m. A fine tortoise shell cat,
and a bird. A happy family if ever I saw one. I guess Miss Thorens
was lonesome here in the city, and she gave all her love to them. Feed
and water ’em I’ve done ever since I heard the news . . She snapped
her fat fingers as they came into a dark, bare room furnished with
little more than the bare necessities of life. It was both bedroom and
sitting room, with the kitchenette in a closet and a bath across the
hall. One large window looked out upon bare rooftops. One glance
told Miss Withers that the room existed only for the rented grand
piano which stood near the window.
Mrs. Blenkinsop snapped her fingers again, and a rangy, half-grown
cat arose from the bed and stretched itself. “Nice Pussy,” said Mrs.
Blenkinsop.
Pussy refused to be patted, and as soon as she had made sure that
THE RID D LE OF TH E YELLOW CANARY 211
neither visitor carried food she returned to her post on the pillow.
Both great amber eyes were staring up at the gilt cage which hung
above the piano, in the full light of the window. Inside the cage was
a small yellow canary, who eyed the intruders balef ully and muttered,
“Cheep, cheep.”
“I’ve got no instructions about her things, poor darling,” said the
landlady. “I suppose they’ll want me to pack what few clothes she
had. If nobody wants Pussy, I’ll keep her, for there’s mice in the
basement. I don’t know what to do with the bird, for I hate the
dratted things. I got a radio, anyhow. . . .”
The woman ran on interminably. Miss Withers listened carefully,
but she soon saw that Mrs. Blenkinsop knew less about Margie
Thorens than did she herself. The woman was sure, she insisted, that
Margie had never had men callers in her room.
More than anything, Miss Withers wanted a look around, though
she knew the police had done a routine job already. She wondered if
she must descend to the old dodge of the fainting spell and the request
for a glass of water, but she was saved from it by a ring at the bell
downstairs.
“I won’t be a minute,” promised Mrs. Blenkinsop. She hastened out
of the door. Miss Withers made a hurried search of bureau drawers,
of the little desk, the music on the piano . . . and found nothing that
gave her an inkling. There were reams of music paper, five or six
rejected songs in manuscript form . . . that was the total. The room
had no character.
Miss Withers sat down at the piano and struck a chord. If only this
instrument, Margie’s one outlet in the big city, could speak! There
was a secret here somewhere . . . for the understanding eye and
heart to discover. Miss Withers let her fingers ramble over the keys,
in the few simple chords she knew. And then the canary burst into
song!
“Dickie!” said the school teacher. “You surprise me.” All canaries
are named Dickie, and none of them know it. The bird sang on, im­
provising, trilling, swinging gaily by its tiny talons from the bottom
of its trapeze. Miss Withers realized that there was a rare singer
indeed. Her appreciation was shared by Pussy, who dug shining claws
into the cover of the bed and narrowed his amber eyes. The song
went on and on . . .
Miss Withers thought of something. She had once read that the
key to a person’s character lies in the litter which accumulates be­
neath the paper in his bureau drawers. She hurried back to the
bureau, and explored again. She found two dance programs, a stub
of pencil, pins, a button, and a smashed cigarette, beneath the lining.
She was about to replace the paper when she heard someone
ascending the stairs. That would be Mrs. Blenkinsop. Hastily she
212 STUART PALM ER

jammed the wearing apparel back in the drawer, and thrust the
folded newspaper which had lined it into her handbag. When the
door opened she was talking to the still twittering canary.
She took her departure as soon as she could, leaving Mrs. Blenkin-
sop completely in the dark as to the reasons for her call. “I hope
you’re not from a tabloid,” said the landlady. “I don’t want my house
to get a bad name. . .
Down the street Miss Withers paused to take the bulky folded
newspaper from her bag. But she didn’t throw it away. It was a
feature story clipped from the “scandal sheet” of a Sunday paper—a
story which dealt with the secrets behind some of America’s song hits,
how they were adapted from classics, revamped every ten years and
put out under new names, together with photographs of famous
song writers.
But the subject of the story was not what attracted Miss Withers’
eagle eye. Across the top margin of the paper a rubber stamp had
placed the legend—“With the compliments of the Hotel Rex—
America’s Riviera—Boardwalk.”
“Dr. Bloom? This is H ildegarde W ithers. Yes, Withers. I have a
very delicate question to ask you, doctor. In m aking your autopsy of
the Thorens girVs body, did you happen to notice w hether or not she
was—er, enceinte? It is very important, doctor, or I wouldn’t bother
you. I f you say yes, it will turn suicide into murder.”
“I say no,” said crusty Dr. Bloom . “I did an d she wasn’t.” And that
was the highest stone wall of all for Hildegarde Withers.
“Where in heaven’s name have you been hiding yourself?” inquired
die Inspector when Miss Withers entered his office on Friday of that
week after the death of Margie Thorens.
“I’ve been cutting classes,” she said calmly. “A substitute is endur­
ing my troop of hellions, and I’m doing scientific research.”
“Yeah? And in what direction?” The Inspector was in a jovial
mood, due to the fact that both his Commissioner and the leading
gangster of the city were out of town—not together, but still far
enough out of town to insure relative peace and quiet to New York
City.
“I’m an expert locksmith,” Miss Withers told him. ‘Tve spent three
horns learning something about poisons from Max Van Donnen, who
has forgotten more than the Medical Examiner ever knew! He says
you can’t swallow a lethal dose of cyanide without dying before it
gets to the stomach—unless it’s in a capsule.”
“You’re not still hopped up about the Thorens suicide?” The In­
spector was very amused. “Why, that’s the clearest, open and shut
case . . .”
“Oscar, did you ever hear of a murder without the ghost of a
motive?”
T H E R ID D L E OF TH E YELLOW CANARY 213

He shook his head. “Doesn’t exist,” he told her. She nodded slowly.
“See you later,” she said.
Miss Withers rode uptown on the subway, crossed over to Times
Square, and came into the offices of Arthur Reese, Music Publisher.
The red-headed Miss Kelly looked up with a bright smile. “Mr.
Reese is very busy just now,” she said. Miss Withers took a chair, and
stared around the long office. It was a scene of redoubled activity
since her last visit, with vaudevillians, song-pluggers, office boys and
radio artists rushing hither and yon. On the wall opposite her was an
enlargement in colors of the cover of the new song, May Day—by
Art R eese. On every desk and table were stacks of copies of the new
song, May Day.
“So Mr. Reese is a composer as well as a publisher?” Miss Withers
asked conversationally.
Miss Kelly was in a friendly mood. “Oh, yes! You know, he wrote
that big hit, Sunny Jim , which is how he got started in the music
business. Of course, that was before I came here. . . . ”
“When was it?” asked Miss Withers.
“Two years ago, at least. But May Day is going to be a bigger hit
than any of them. It’s going to be the sensation of the season. All the
crooners want it, and the contracts for records are being signed
this week.”
Miss Withers nodded. “There’s a lot of money in writing a song,
isn’t there?”
“A hit—oh, yes. Berlin made a quarter of a million out of Russian
Lullaby.” Miss Kelly had to raise her voice, as a dozen pianos in a
dozen booths were clashing out lilting, catchy music. A door opened
somewhere, and Miss Withers heard a sister team warbling soft,
close-harmony . . . “I met you on a May Day, a wonderful okay day,
and that was my hey-hey d ay . . . a day I can’t forget.. . . ”
“It’s published the first of May,” Miss Kelly went on chattily.
“And that’s why Mr. Reese is so busy. He’s got to go out of town this
afternoon, and I’m afraid he won’t be able to see you today without
an appointment.”
“Eh?” Miss Withers started. “Yes, of course. No, he won’t. I mean
. . . I mean . . .” She rose suddenly to her feet, humming the lilting
music of May Day. It was familiar, hauntingly familiar. Of course,
she had read of how popular tunes were stolen. And yet—suddenly
the mists cleared and she knew. Knew where she had heard those
first few bars of music—knew what the meaning of it all must be—
knew the answer to the riddle. She turned and walked swiftly from
the room.
She rode down in the elevator somehow, and stumbled out of it
into the main hall. There she stopped short. She could waste no
energy in walking. Every ounce of her strength was needed to think
214 STUART PALM ER

with. The whole puzzle was assembling itself in her mind—all the
hundred odd and varied bits flying into place. Everything—
She stood there for a long time, wondering what to do. Should she
do anything? Wasn’t it better to let well enough alone? Nobody would
believe her, not even Oscar Piper. Certainly not Oscar Piper.
She stood there until one o’clock struck, and the hall was filled with
luncheon-bound clerks and stenographers. Her head was aching and
her hands were icy-cold. There was a glitter in her eyes, and her
nostrils were extraordinarily wide.
Miss Withers was about to move on when she stopped, frozen into
immobility. She saw the elevator descend, saw the doors open . . .
and out stepped the plump, red-haired Miss Kelly.
She was laughing up into the face of Arthur Reese. Reese was talk­
ing, softly yet clearly, oblivious of everything except the warm and
desirable girl who smiled at him. . . .
Miss Withers pressed closer, and caught one sentence—one only.
"‘You’ll be crazy about the American Riviera . . .” he was promising.
Then they were gone.
Miss Withers had three nickels. She made three phone calls. The
first was to Penn Station, the second to Mrs. Elenkinsop, and the third
to Spring 7-3100. She asked for Inspector Piper.
“Quick!” she cried. “Oscar, I’ve got it! The Thorens suicide wasn’t
---- 1 mean it was murder!”
“Who?” asked Piper sensibly.
“Reese, of course,” she snapped. “I want you to arrest him quick... .”
“Rut the locked door?”
Miss Withers said she could duplicate that trick, given a knife and
the peculiar type of lock that Reese had installed on his music-
reception room.
“But the suicide note?”
Miss Withers gave as her opinion that it was dictated, judging by
the spaces between words and the corrections made by the writer.
“But—but, Hildegarde, you can’t force a person to take poison!”
Miss Withers said you could give them poison under the guise of
something more innocent.
“You’re still crazy,” insisted the Inspector. “Why—”
Miss Withers knew what he was thinking. “The alibi? Well, Oscar,
the murder was committed at a time when Reese was still in his office,
which explains the daylight. He smashed the girl’s watch, and then
set the hands ahead. But you didn’t have sense enough to know that
with the minute hand at five of six, the hour hand cannot naturally be
exactly opposite! Particles of glass interfered, and the hands of her
watch were at an impossible angle!”
Piper had one last shot in his locker. “But the motive?”
“I can’t explain, and the train leaves in twenty minutes!” Miss
THE R ID D LE OF THE YELLOW CANARY 215

Withers was a bit hysterical. “She’s a nice girl, Oscar, even if she has
platinum finger-nails. She mustn’t go with him, I tell you. If they get
out of the state, it means extradition and God knows what—it’ll be
too late. . . . ”
“Take an aspirin and go to bed,” said the Inspector kindly. “You’re
too wrought up over this. My dear woman . . .” He got the receiver
crashed in his ear.
Mr. Arthur Reese was out to enjoy a pleasant week-end. The first
balmy spring weather of the year had come, aptly enough, on the
heels of his first happy week in many a month. To have May Day
showing such excellent signs of becoming a hit upon publication day
was almost too much.
He made no mistakes. He did not try to kiss Kelly in the taxi, not
even after they had picked up her suitcase and were approaching
Penn Station. There would be time enough for that later.
“This trip is partly pleasure as well as business,” he said to Miss
Kelly. “We both need a rest after everything that’s happened this
week—and I want you to play with me a little. Call me Art. . . .”
“Sure,” said Kelly. “You can call me Gladys, too. But I like Kelly
better.” She snuggled a little closer to her employer. “Gee, this is
thrilling,” she said. “I’ve never been to Atlantic City even—let alone
with a man and adjoining rooms and everything . . . what my mother
would say!”
“Very few people would understand about things like this,” said
Reese comfortably. “About how a man and a girl can have a little
adventure together like this—really modern. . . .”
“If you say so,” said Kelly, “it’s true. You know I’ve had a crush on
you ever since I came to work for you, Mr. Reese—Art. . . . ”
“Sure,” he said. “And I’m crazy about you, too.” He paused, and
his eyes very imperceptibly narrowed. “How old are you, Kelly?”
“Twenty,” she said wonderingly. “Why?”
“Nice age, twenty,” said Reese, taking a deep breath. “Well, Kelly
—here we are.”
Reese had a stateroom on the Atlantic City Special, and Kelly was
naturally pleased and excited by that. She was greener than he had
thought. Well, he owed this to himself, Reese thought. A sort of
reward after a hard week. It was a week ago today that—
“What are you thinking of?” asked Kelly. “You look so mad.”
“Business,” Reese told her. He took a hammered silver flask from
his pocket. “How about a stiff one?” She shook her head, and then
gave in.
He took a longer one, because he needed it even worse than Kelly.
Then he took her hungrily in his arms. “I mustn’t let him know how
green I am,” thought Kelly.
The door opened, and they sprang apart.
216 STUA RT PALM ER

A middle-aged, fussy school teacher was coming into the stateroom.

Both Kelly and Reese thought her vaguely familiar, but the world is
full of thinnish elderly spinsters.
“This is a private stateroom,” blurted Reese.
“Excuse me,” said Hildegarde Withers. When she spoke, they knew
who she was.
She neither advanced nor retreated. She had a feeling that she had
taken hold of a tiger’s tail and couldn’t let go.
“Don’t go with him,” she said to Kelly. “You don’t know what
you’re doing.”
Kelly, very naturally, said, “Why don’t you mind your own
business?”
“I am,” said Miss Withers. She shut the door behind her. “This man
is a murderer, with blood on his hands . . .”
Kelly looked at Reese’s hands. They had no red upon them, but
they were moving convulsively.
“He poisoned Margie Thorens,” said Miss Withers conversation­
ally. “He probably will poison you, too, in one way or another.”
“She’s stark mad,” said Arthur Reese nervously. “Stark, staring
mad!” He rose to his feet and advanced. “Get out of here,” he said.
“You don’t know what you’re saying . .
“Be quiet,” Miss Withers told him. “Young lady, are you going to
follow my advice? I tell you that Margie Thorens once took a week­
end trip with this man to Atlantic City—America’s Riviera—and she’s
having her high school class as honorary pallbearers as a result of it.”
“Will you go?” cried Reese.
“I will not.” There was a lurch of the car as the train got under way.
Shouts of “all aboard” rang down the platform. “This man is going to
be arrested at the other end of the line—arrested for murdering
Margie Thorens by giving her poison and then dictating a suicide
note to her as—”
Reese moved rather too quickly for Miss Withers to scream. She
had counted on screaming, but his hands caught her throat. They
closed, terribly . . .
The murderer had only one thought, and that was to silence forever
that sharp, accusing voice. He was rather well on to succeeding when
he heard a clear soprano in his ear. “Stop! Stop hurting her, I tell you!”
He pressed the tighter as the train got really under way. And then
Kelly hit him in the face with his own flask. She hit him again.
Reese choked, caught the flask and flung it wildly through the
window, and dropped his victim. He was swearing horribly, in a low
and expressionless voice. He shoved Kelly aside, stepped over Miss
Withers, and tore out into the corridor. The porter was standing there,
his sepia face gray-green from the sounds he had heard. Reese threw
him aside and trampled on him. He fought his way to the vestibule,
THE R ID D L E OF TH E YELLOW CANARY 217
and. found that a blue-clad conductor was just closing up the doors.
Reese knocked him down, and leaped for the end of the platform.
One foot plunged into the recess between train and platform, and
his hands clawed at the air. He fell sidewise, struck a wooden partition
which bounded the platform, and scrambled forward.
He leaped to his feet. He was free! It would take a minute for the
train to stop. He whirled and ran back along the platform.. . .
He knocked over a child, kicked a dog savagely because its leash
almost tripped him, and flung men and women out of his way. The
train was stopping with a hissing of air-brakes. He ran the faster.. . .
He saw his way cleared, except for a smallish middle-aged man in
a gray suit who was hurrying down the stairs—a man who blinked
stupidly at him. Arthur Reese knocked him aside—and was then very
deftly flung forward in a double somersault. Deft hands caught his
arm, and raised it to the back of his neck, excruciatingly.
“What’s all this?” said Inspector Oscar Piper. “What’s your blasted
hurry?”
Miss Withers came to life to find a porter splashing water in her
face, and red-haired Miss Kelly praying unashamed. The train had
stopped. “I’m all right,” she said. “But where did he go—he got away!”
They came out on the platform to find the Inspector sitting on his
captive. “This was the only train that left any station in twenty
minutes,” said Piper. “I changed my mind and thought I’d better rally
around. Somebody better send for the wagon.”
An hour or so later Miss Withers sat in an armchair, surrounded by
the grim exhibits which fine the walls of the Inspector’s office in
Center Street. She still felt seedy, but not too seedy to outline her
deductions as to the manner in which Reese had committed the
“suicide” of Margie Thorens. One by one she checked off the points.
"T knew that a girl who had a fountain pen in her handbag wouldn’t
use a pencil to write something unless it was given to her,” she said.
“It wasn’t her own, because it was too long to fit into the bag, unless
it miraculously bent. From then on the truth came slowly but
surely . . .”
“But the motive!” insisted Piper. “We’ve got to have a motive. I’ve
got Reese detained downstairs, but we can’t book him without a
motive.”
Miss Withers nodded. Then—“Did a woman come down to see you,
a Mrs. Blenkinsop?”
The Inspector shook his head. “No—wait a minute. She came
and went again. But she left a package for you with the desk
lieutenant.. . . ”
“Good enough,” said Miss Withers. “If you’ll call Reese in here
I’ll produce the motive.”
Arthur Reese, strangely enough, came quietly and pleasantly, with
218 STUA RT PALM ER

a smile on his face. There was an officer on either side, but Piper had
them go outside the door.
“I’m sorry, madam,” said Reese when he saw Miss Withers. “But I
lost my head when you said those terrible things. I didn’t know what
I was doing. If I’d realized that you were a policewoman. . . .”
“You’re under arrest for the murder of Margie Thorens,” cut in
Piper. “Under the law, you may make a confession but you may not
make a plea of guilty to a charge of murder . .
“Guilty? But I’m not guilty! This woman here may have made a
lot of wild guesses as to how I might have killed Margie Thorens, but
man alive—where’s my motive? Just because I made love to her
months ago . . . ”
“And took her to Atlantic City—before she was eighteen,” cut in
Miss Withers. “That gave her a hold over you, for she was under the
age of consent. Being an ambitious and precocious little thing, she
tried desperately to blackmail you into publishing one of her songs.
And then you found that she had accidently struck a masterpiece of
popular jingles—this famous May Day. So you took the song, and
made it your own property by removing Margie. She wrote May Day
—not you! That’s my motive!”
Reese shook his head. “You haven’t got any proof,” he said con­
fidently. “Where’s one witness? That’s all I ask! Just one—”
“Here’s the one,” said Hildegarde Withers calmly. From behind
the desk she took up a paper-wrapped bundle. Stripping the news­
papers away, she brought out a gilt cage, in which a small yellow bird
blinked and muttered indignantly.
Miss Withers put it on the desk. “This was Margie Thorens’ family,”
she said. “One of her only two companions in the long days and
nights she spent, a bewildered little girl, trying to make a name for
herself in an adult’s world.” She clucked to the little bird, and then,
as the ruffled feathers subsided, Miss Withers began to whistle. Over
and over again she whistled the first bar of the unpublished song hit,
M ay Day.
“I met you on a May d ay .. .
“Who-whew whew-whee whee whee,” continued Dickie happily,
swelling his throat. On through the second, through the third bar . . .
The Inspector gripped the table top.
“Reese, you said yourself that you never called on Miss Thorens
and never knew where she lived,” said Hildegarde Withers triumph­
antly. “Then 1 wish you’d tell me how her canary learned the chorus
of your unpublished song hit!”
Arthur Reese started to say something, but there was nothing to
say. “I talked to a pet store man this morning,” said Miss Withers,
“and he said that it’s perfectly possible to teach a clever canary any
tune, provided he hears it over and over and over. Well, Dickie here
is first witness for the prosecution!”
THE RID D LE OF THE YELLOW CANARY 219

Arthur Reese’s shrill hysterical laughter drowned out anything else

she might have said. He was dragged away, while the canary still
whistled.
“I’m going to keep him,” said Miss Withers impulsively. She did
keep Dickie, for several months, only giving him away to Mrs.
Macfarland, wife of her Principal, when she learned that he would
never learn any other tune but May Day. . . .
It was December when Inspector Oscar Piper received an official
communication. “You are invited to attend, as a witness for the State
of New York, the execution of Arthur Reese at midnight, January
7 t h . . . . Sing Sing, Ossining, New York per L. E. I.”
“With pleasure,” said the Inspector.
OLIVER QUADE ( “the human encyclopedia” ) IN

R em em ber jo h n n y f l e t c h e r and s a m c r a g g , the wandering book

salesm en o f the G ruber novels, w ho lead a life plagu ed by hotel
managers, th e Law , and murderers? Now m eet their prototypes,
OLIVER QUADE (“THE HUMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA”) and llis S tO O g e CHARLIE
b o s t o n as they solve m urder at the chicken show in a short story

that is a com plete Gruber novel in miniature. (Under the m ore for­
m al nam e o f C harles K. Boston, Ch a r l ie once pu blished a detective
story w hich has b een thought by experts to have the Gruber touch.)
ASK ME ANOTHER

BY F R A N K G R U B E R

o LIV ER QUADE was reading the morning paper, his bare feet
on the bed and his chair tilted back against the radiator. Charlie
Boston was on the bed, wrapped to his chin in a blanket and reading
a copy of Exciting Confessions.
It was just a usual, peaceful, after-breakfast interlude in the lives
of Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia, and Charlie Boston, his
friend and assistant.
And then Life intruded itself upon the bit of Utopia. Life in the
form of the manager of the Eagle Hotel. He beat a tattoo upon the
thin panels of the door. Quade put down his newspaper and sighed.
221
222 FRANK GRUBER

“Charles, will you please open the door and let in the wolf?”
Charlie Boston unrolled himself from the blanket. He scowled at
Quade. “You think it’s the manager about the room rent?”
“Of course, it is. Let him in before he breaks down the door.”
It was the manager. In his right fist he held a ruled form on which
were scrawled some unpleasant figures. “About your rent, Mr.
Quade,” he said severely. “W e must have the money today.”
Quade looked at the manager of the Eagle Hotel, a puzzled ex­
pression on his face. “Rent? Money?”
“Of course,” snapped the manager. “This is the third time this
week I’ve asked for it.”
A light came into Quade’s eyes. He made a quick movement and
his feet and the front legs of the chair hit the carpeted floor
simultaneously.
“Charles!” he roared in a voice that shook the room and caused the
hotel manager to cringe. “Did you forget to get that money from the
bank and pay this little bill?”
Charlie Boston took up Quade’s cue.
“Gosh, I’m awful sorry. On my way to the bank yesterday afternoon
I ran into our old friend John Belmont of New York and he dragged
me into the Palmer House Bar for a cocktail. By the time I could
tear myself away, the bank was closed.”
Quade raised his hands and let them fall hopelessly. “You see, Mr.
Creighton, I just can’t trust him to do anything. Now I’ve got to go
out into the cold this morning and get it myself.”
The hotel manager’s eyes glinted. “Listen, you’ve stalled—” he
began, but Quade suddenly stabbed out a hand toward him. “That
reminds me, Mr. Creighton, I’ve a couple of complaints to make.
W e’re not getting enough heat here and last night the damfool next
door kept us awake half the night with his radio. I want you to see
that he keeps quiet tonight. And do something about the heat. I can’t
stand drafty, cold rooms.”
The manager let out a weary sigh. “All right, I’ll look after it. But
about that rent—”
“Yes, of course,” cut in Quade, “and your maid left only two towels
this morning. Please see that a couple more are sent up. Immediately!”
The manager closed the door behind him with a bang. Oliver
Quade chuckled and lifted his newspaper again. But Charlie Boston
wouldn’t let him read.
“You got away with it, Ollie,” he said, “but it’s the last time. I know
it. I’ll bet we get locked out before tonight.” He shook his head sadly.
“You, Oliver Quade, with the greatest brain in captivity, are you
going to walk the streets tonight in ten below zero weather?”
“Of course not, Charles,” sighed Quade. “I was just about to tell
you that we’re going out to make some money today. Look, it’s here
in this paper. The Great Chicago Auditorium Poultry Show.”
ASK ME ANOTHER 223

Boston’s eyes lit up for a moment, but then dimmed again. “Can
we raise three weeks’ rent at a poultry show?”
Quade slipped his feet into his socks and shoes. “That remains to
be seen. This paper mentions twenty thousand paid admissions.
Among that many people there ought to be a few who are interested
in higher learning. Well, are you ready?”
Boston went to the clothes closet and brought out their overcoats
and a heavy suit-case. Boston was of middle height and burly. He
could bend iron bars with his muscular hands. Quade was taller and
leaner. His face was hawk-like, his nose a little too pointed and
lengthy, but few ever noticed that. They saw only his piercing,
sparkling eyes and felt his dominant personality.
The auditorium was almost two miles from their hotel, but lacking
carfare, Quade and Boston walked. When they reached their des­
tination, Quade cautioned Boston:
“Be sharp now, Charlie. Act like we belonged.”
Quade opened the outer door and walked blithely past the ticket
windows to the door leading into the auditorium proper. A uniformed
man at the door held out his hand for the tickets.
“Hello,” Quade said, heartily. “How’re you today?”
“Uh, all right, I guess,” replied the ticket-taker. “You boys got
passes?”
“Oh, sure. We’re just taking in some supplies for the breeders. Brrr!
It’s cold today. Well, be seeing you.” And with that he breezed past
the ticket-taker.
“H’are ya, pal,” Boston said, treading on Quade’s heels.
The auditorium was a huge place but even so, it was almost com­
pletely filled with row upon row of wire exhibition coops, each coop
containing a feathered fowl of some sort.
“What a lot of gumps!” Boston observed.
“Don’t use that word around here,” Quade cautioned. “These
poultry folks take their chickens seriously. Refer to the chickens as
‘fine birds’ or ‘elegant fowls’ or something like that. . . . Damn these
publicity men!”
“Huh?”
Quade waved a hand about the auditorium. “The paper said
twenty thousand paid admissions. How many people do you see in
here?”
Boston craned his neck around. “If there’s fifty I’m countin’ some of
’em twice. How the hell can they pay the nut with such a small
attendance?”
“The entry fees. There must be around two thousand chickens in
here and the entry fee for each chicken is at least a dollar and a half.
The prize money doesn’t amount to much and I guess the paid ad­
missions are velvet—if they get any, which I doubt.”
“Twenty thousand, bah!” snorted Boston. “Well, do we go back?”
224 FRANK GRUBER

“Where? Our only chance was to stay in our room. I’ll bet the
manager changed the lock the minute we left it.”
“So what?”
“So I get to work. For the dear old Eagle Hotel.”
Quade ploughed through an aisle to the far end of the auditorium.
Commercial exhibits were contained in booths all around the four
sides of the huge room, but Quade found a small spot that had been
overlooked and pushed a couple of chicken coops into the space.
Then he climbed up on the coops and began talking.
The Human Encyclopedia’s voice was an amazing one. People who
heard it always marveled that such a tremendous voice could come
from so lean a man. Speaking without noticeable effort, his voice
rolled out across the chicken coops.
“I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” he boomed. “I have
the greatest brain in the entire country. I know the answers to all
questions, what came first, the chicken or the egg, every historical
date since the beginning of time, the population of every city in the
country, how to eradicate mice in your poultry yards, how to mix
feeds to make your chickens lay more eggs. Everything. Everything
under the sun. On any subject; history, science, agriculture, and
mathematics.”
The scattered persons in the auditorium began to converge upon
Quade’s stand. Inside of two minutes three-fourths of the people in
the building were gathered before Quade and the rest were on their
way. He continued his preliminary build-up in his rich, powerful
voice.
“Ask me a question, someone. L et me prove that I’m the Human
Encyclopedia, the man who knows the answers to all questions. Try
me out, someone, on any subject; history, science, mathematics,
agriculture—anything at all!”
Quade stabbed out his lean forefinger at a middle-aged, sawed-off
man wearing a tan smock. “You, sir, ask me a question?”
The man flushed at being singled out of the crowd. “Why, uh, I
don’t know of any___ Yes, I do. What’s the highest official egg record
ever made by a hen?”
“That’s the stuff,” smiled Quade. He held out his hand dramatically.
“That’s a good question, but an easy one to answer. The highest
record ever made by a hen in an American official egg-laying contest
is three hundred and forty-two eggs. It was made in 1930 at the
Athens, Georgia, Egg-Laying Contest, by a Single-Comb White
Leghorn. Am I right, Mister?”
The sawed-off man nodded grudgingly. “Yeah, but I don’t see how
you knew it. Most poultry folks don’t even remember it.”
“Oh, but you forget I told you I had the greatest brain in the coun­
try. I know the answers to all questions on any subject. Don’t bother
ASK ME ANOTHER 225

to ask me simple poultry questions. Try me on something hard. You—”

he picked out a lean, dour looking man. “Ask me something hard.”
The man bit his lip a moment, then said:
“All right, what State has the longest coast line?”
Quade grinned. “Ah, you’re trying the tricky stuff. But you can’t
fool me. Most folks would say California or Florida. But the correct
answer is Michigan. And to head off the rest of you on the trick
geography questions let me say right away that Kentucky has the
largest number of other States touching it and Minnesota has the
farthest northern point of any State. Next question!”
A young fellow wearing pince-nez put his tongue into his cheek
and asked,
“Why and how does a cat purr?”
“Oh-oh!” Quade craned his neck to stare at the young fellow. “I
see we have a student with us. Well, young man, you’ve asked a
question so difficult that practically every university professor in this
country would be stumped on it. But I’m not. It so happens that I
read a recent paper by Professor E. L. Gibbs of the Harvard Medical
School in which he gave the results of his experiments on four hun­
dred cats to learn the answer to that very same question. The first part
of the question is simple enough—the cat purrs when it is contented,
but to explain the actual act of purring is a little more difficult. Con­
tentment in a cat relaxes the infundicular nerve in the brain, which
reacts upon the pituitary and bronchial organs and makes the purring
sound issue from the cat’s throat. . . . Try that one on your friends,
sometime. Someone else try me on a question.”
“I’d like to ask one,” said a clear, feminine voice. Quade’s eyes fit up.
He had already noticed the girl, the only female in his audience. She
was amazingly pretty, the type of girl he would scarcely have ex­
pected to find at a poultry show. She was young, not more than
twenty-one, and she had the finest chiseled features Quade had ever
seen. She was a blonde and the rakish green hat and green coat she
wore, although inexpensive, looked exceedingly well on her.
“Yes, what is the question?” he asked, leaning forward a bit.
The girl’s chin came up defiantly. “I just want to know why certain
poultry judges allow dyed birds to be judged for prizes!”
A sudden rumble went up in the crowd and Quade saw the sawed-
off man in the tan smock whirl and glare angrily at the girl.
“Oh-oh,” Quade said. ‘"You seem to have asked a delicate question.
Well, I’ll answer it just the same. Any judge who allows a dyed Rhode
Island Red to stay in the class is either an ignorant fool—or a crook!”
“Damn you!” roared the little man, turning back to Quade. “You
can’t say that to me. I’ll—I’ll have you thrown out of here. He started
pushing his way through the crowd, heading in the direction of the
front office.
226 FRANK GRUBER

“If the shoe fits, put it on,” Quade called after him. Then to the girl:
“Who’s he?”
“A judge here. Stone’s his name.”
“Well, let’s go on with the show,” Quade said to the crowd. “Next
question?”
Quade had lost nothing by his bold answer to the girl’s question.
The audience warmed to him and the questions came fast and furious.
“Who was the eleventh president of the United States?”
“What is the Magna Charta?”
“Who was the 1896 Olympic 220-meter champion?”
“How do you cure scaly legs in chickens?”
“How far is Saturn from the earth?”
Quade answered all questions put to him, with lightning rapidity.
But suddenly he called a dramatic halt. “That’s all the questions,
folks. Now let me show you how you can learn all the answers your­
selves to every question that has just been, asked—and ten thousand
more.”
He held out his hands and Charlie Boston tossed a thick book into
them which he had taken from the suit-case they had brought with
them. Quade began ruffling the pages.
“They’re all in here. This, my friends, is the ‘Compendium of Hu­
man Knowledge,’ the greatest book of its kind ever published. Twelve
hundred pages, crammed with facts, information every one of you
should know. The knowledge of the ages, condensed, classified, ab­
breviated. A complete high-school education in one volume. Ten
minutes a day and this book will make you the most learned person
in your community.”
Quade lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. “Friends, I’m going
to astonish you by telling you the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever
heard: The price of this book. What do you think I’m asking for it?
Twenty-five dollars? No, not even twenty . . . or fifteen. In fact, not
even ten or five dollars. Just a mere, paltry, insignificant two dollars
and ninety-five cents. But I’m only going to offer these books once at
that price. Two-ninety-five, and here I cornel”
Quade leaped down from his platform to attack his audience, sup­
posedly built up to the buying pitch. But he was destined not to sell
any books just then. Charlie Boston tugged at his coat sleeve.
“Look, Ollie!” he whispered hoarsely. “He got the cops!”
Quade raised himself to his toes to look over the chicken coops. He
groaned. For the short man in the tan smock was coming up the center
aisle leading a small procession of policemen.
Quade sighed. “Put the books back into the suit-case, Charlie.” He
leaned against a poultry coop and waited to submit quietly to the
arrest.
But the policemen did not come toward him. Reaching the center
aisle the man in the tan smock wheeled to the left, away from Quade,
and the police followed him.
A SK M E ANOTHER 227

Suade’s audience saw the police. Two or three persons broke away
started toward the other side of the building. The movement
started a stampede and in a moment Charlie Boston and Quade were
left alone.
“Something seems to have happened over there,” Quade observed.
“Wonder what?”
“From the mob of cops I’d say a murder,” Boston replied dryly.
The word “murder” was scarcely out of Boston’s mouth than it was
hurled back at them from across the auditorium.
“It is a murder!” Quade gasped.
“This is no place for us, then,” cried Boston. “Let’s scram!”
He caught up the suit-case containing the books and started off.
But Quade called him back. “That’s no good. There’s a cop at the
door. We’ll have to stick.”
“Chickens!” howled Boston. “The minute you mentioned them at
the hotel I had a hunch that something was going to happen. And
I’ll bet a plugged dime, which I haven’t got, that we get mixed up
in it.
“Maybe so, Charlie. But if I know cops there’s going to be a lot of
questioning and my hunch is that we’ll be better off if we’re not too
upstage. Let’s go over and find out what’s what.”
He started toward the other side of the auditorium. Boston fol­
lowed, lugging the suit-case and grumbling.
All of the crowd had gathered in front of a huge, mahogany cabinet
—a mammoth incubator. The door of the machine was standing open
and two or three men were moving around inside.
Quade drew in his breath sharply when he saw the huddled body
lying on the floor just inside the door of the incubator. Gently he
began working his way through the crowd until he stood in front of
the open incubator door.
The small group came out of the incubator and a beetle-browed
man in a camel’s hair overcoat and Homburg hat squared himself off
before the girl in the green hat and coat. The man in the tan smock,
his head coming scarcely up to the armpits of the big man, hopped
around like a bantam rooster.
“I understand you had a quarrel with him yesterday,” the big man
said to the girl. “What about?”
The girl drew herself up to her full height. “Because his birds were
dyed and the judge—the man behind you—refused to throw them out.
That’s why!”
The bantam sputtered. “She—why, that’s a damn he!”
The big detective turned abruptly, put a ham-like hand against the
chest of the runt and shoved him back against the incubator with so
much force that the little man gasped in pain.
“Listen, squirt,” the detective said. “Nothing’s been proved against
this girl and until it is, she’s a lady. Up here we don’t call ladies bars.”
228 FRAN K GRUBER

He turned back to the girl and said with gruff kindness, “Now,
Miss, let’s have the story.”
“There’s no story,” declared the girl. “I did quarrel with him,
just like I did with Judge Stone. But—but I haven’t seen Mr. Tupper
since yesterday evening. That’s all I can tell you because it’s all I
know.”
“Yesterday, huh.” The detective looked around the circle. “Any­
body see him here today?”
“Yes, of course,” said a stocky man of about forty-five. “I was talk­
ing to him early this morning, before the place was opened to the
public. There were a dozen or more of us around then.”
“You’re the boss of this shebang?”
“Not exactly. Our poultry association operates this show. I’m Leo
Cassmer, the secretary, and I ’m in charge of the exhibits, if that’s
what you mean.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean ” replied the detective. “You’re the boss.
You know these exhibitors then. All right, who were here early this
morning when this Tupper fellow was around?”
Cassmer, the show secretary, rubbed his chin. “Why, there was
myself, Judge Stone, Ralph Conway, the Wyandotte man, Judge
Welheimer and several of the men who work around here.”
“And Miss Martin—was she here?”
“She came in before the place was officially opened, but she wasn’t
around the last time I saw Tupper.”
“Who’re Welheimer and Conway?”
A tall, silver-haired man stepped out of the crowd. “Conway’s my
name.”
“And the judge?” persisted the detective.
A long-nosed man with a protruding lower lip came grudgingly
out of the crowd. “I’m Judge Welheimer.”
“You a real judge or just a chicken judge?”
“Why, uh, just a poultry judge. Licensed by the National Poultry
Association.”
“And you don’t hold any public office at all? You’re not even a
justice of the peace?”
The long-nosed chicken judge reddened. He shook his head.
The detective’s eyes sparkled. “That’s fine. All that talk about
judges had me worried for a bit. But listen, you chicken judges and
the rest of you. I’m Sergeant Dickinson of the Homicide Squad of
this town. There’s been a murder committed here and I’m investigat­
ing it. Which means I’m boss around here. Get me?”
Quade couldn’t quite restrain a snicker. The sergeant’s sharp ears
heard it and he singled out Quade.
“And who the hell are you?”
“Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” Quade replied glibly.
“I know the answers to all questions—”
ASK ME ANOTHER 229

Sergeant Dickinson’s face twisted. “Ribbing me, ha? Step up here

where I can get a good look at you.”
Quade remained where he was. “There’s a dead man in there. I
don t like to get too close to dead people.”
The sergeant took a half step toward Quade, but then stopped
himself. He tried to smooth out his face, but it was still dark with
anger.
“I’ll get around to you in a minute, fella.” He turned belligerently
to the show secretary. “You, who found the body?”
Cassmer pointed to a pasty-faced young fellow of about thirty.
The man grinned sickly.
“Yeah, I got in kinda late and started straightening things around.
Then I saw that someone had stuck in that long staple in the door
latch. I didn’t think much about it and opened the door and there—
there he was lying on the floor. Deader’n a mackerel!”
“You work for this incubator company?” the sergeant asked.
The young fellow nodded. “I’m the regional sales manager. Charge
of this exhibit. It’s the finest incubator on the market. Used by the
best breeders and hatcherymen—”
“Can the sales talk,” growled the detective. “I’m not going to buy
one. Let’s go back on your story. What made you say this man was
murdered?”
“What else could it be? He was dead and the door was locked on
the outside.”
“I know that. But couldn’t he have died of heart failure? There’s
plenty of air in that thing and besides there’s a ventilator hole open
up there.”
“He was murdered,” said Quade.
Sergeant Dickinson whirled. “And how do you know?”
“By looking at the body. Anyone could tell it was murder.”
“Oh yeah. Maybe you’ll tell me how he was killed. There ain’t a
mark on his body.”
“No marks of violence, because he wasn’t killed that way. He was
killed with a poison gas. Something containing cyanogen.”
The sergeant clamped his jaws together. “Go on! Who killed him?”
Quade shook his head. “No, that’s your job. I’ve given you enough
to start with.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” said the sergeant. “So much so that I’m
going to arrest you!”
Charlie Boston groaned into Quade’s ears. “Won’t you ever learn
to keep your mouth shut?”
But Quade merely grinned insolently. “If you arrest me I’ll sue you
for false arrest.”
“I’ll take a chance on that,” said the detective. “No one could know
as much as you do and not have had something to do with the
murder.”
230 FRANK GRUBER

“You’re being very stupid, Sergeant,” Quade said. “These men told
you they hadn’t seen Tupper alive for several hours. He’s been dead
at least three. And I just came into this building fifteen minutes ago.”
“He’s right,” declared Anne Martin. “I saw him come in. He and
his friend. They went straight over to the other side of the building
and started that sales talk.”
“What sales talk?”
The little poultry judge hopped in again. “He’s a damn pitchman.
Pulls some phony question and answer stuff and insults people.
Claims he’s the smartest man in the world. Bah!”
“Bah to you,” said Quade.
“Cut it,” cried Sergeant Dickinson. “I want to get the straight of
this. You,” he turned to Cassmer. “Did he really come in fifteen
minutes ago?”
Cassmer shrugged. “I never saw him until a few minutes ago. But
there’s the ticket-taker. He’d know.”
The ticket-taker, whose post had been taken over by a policeman,
frowned. “Yeah, he came in just a little while ago. I got plenty reason
to remember. Him and his pal crashed the gate. On me! First time
anyone crashed the gate on me in eight years. But he was damn
slick. He—”
“Never mind the details,” sighed Sergeant Dickinson. “I can
imagine he was slick about it. Well, Mister, you didn’t kill him. But
tell me—how the hell do you know he was gassed with cy—cyanide?”
“Cyanogen. It’s got prussic acid in it. All right, the body was found
inside the incubator, the door locked on the outside. That means
someone locked him inside the incubator. The person who killed him.
Right so far?”
“I’m listening.” There was a thoughtful look in the sergeant’s eyes.
“There’s broken glass inside the incubator. The killer heaved in a
bottle containing the stuff and slammed the door shut and locked it.
The man inside was killed inside of a minute.”
“Wait a minute. The glass is there all right, but how d’you know it
contained cyanogen? There’s no smell in there.”
“No, because the killer opened the ventilator hole and turned on
the electric fans inside the incubator. All that can be done from the
outside. The fans cleared out the fumes. Simple.”
“Not so simple. You still haven’t said how you know it was
cyanogen.”
“Because he’s got all the symptoms. Look at the body—pupils di­
lated, eyes wide, froth on the mouth, face livid, body twisted and stiff.
That means he had convulsions. Well, if those symptoms don’t mean
cyanogen, I don’t know what it’s all about.”
“Mister,” said the detective. “Who did you say you were?”
“Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. I know everything.”
“You know, I’m beginning to believe you. Well then, who did the
killing?”
ASK ME ANOTHER 231

“That’s against the union rules. I told you how the man was killed.
Finding who did it is your job.”
“All right, but tell me one thing more. If this cyanogen has prussic
acid in it, it’s a deadly poison. Folks can’t usually buy it.”
“City folks, you mean. Cyanogen is the base for several insecticides.
I don’t think this was pure cyanogen. I’m inclined to believe it was a
diluted form, probably a gas used to kill rats on poultry farms. Any
poultry raiser could buy that.”
“Here comes the coroner’s man,” announced Detective Dickinson.
“Now, we’ll get a check on you, Mr. Quade.”
Dr. Bogle, the coroner’s physician, made a rapid, but thorough ex­
amination of the body. Kfis announcement coincided startlingly with
Quade’s diagnosis.
“Prussic acid or cyanide. He inhaled it. Died inside of five minutes.
About three and a half hours ago.”
Quade’s face was twisted in a queer smile. He walked off from the
group. Charlie Boston and Anne Martin, the girl, followed.
“Do you mind my saying that you just performed some remarkable
work?” the girl said admiringly.
“No, I don’t mind your saying so,” Quade grinned. “I was rather
colossal.”
“He pulls those things out of a hat,” groused Boston. “He’s a very
smart man. Only one thing he can’t do.”
“What’s that?”
Boston started to reply, but Quade’s fierce look silenced him. Quade
coughed. “Well, look—a hot dog stand. Reminds me, it’s about lunch
time. Feel like a hot dog and orangeade, Anne?”
The girl smiled at his familiarity. “I don’t mind. I’m rather hungry.”
Boston sidled up to (^uade. “Hey, you forgot!” he whispered. “You
haven’t got any money. ’
Quade said, “Three dogs and orangeades!”
A minute later they were munching hot dogs. Quade finished his
orangeade and half-way through the sandwich suddenly snapped his

,t reminds me, I forgot something. Excuse me a moment. . . .”

He started off suddenly toward the group around the incubator,
ignoring Charlie Boston’s startled protest.
Boston suddenly had no appetite. He chewed the food in his mouth
as long as he could. The girl finished her sandwich and smiled at him.
“That went pretty good. Guess I’ll have another. How about you?”
Boston almost choked. “Uh, no, I ain’t hungry.”
The girl ordered another hot dog and orangeade and finished them
while Boston still fooled with the tail end of his first sandwich.
The concessionaire mopped up the counter all around Boston and
Anne Martin and finally said, “That’s eighty cents, Mister!”
Boston put the last of the sandwich in his mouth and began going
232 FRANK GRUBER

through his pockets. The girl watched him curiously. Boston went
through his pockets a second time. “That’s funny,” he finally said. “I
must have left my wallet at the hotel. Quade.. . . ”
“Let me pay for it,” said the girl, snapping open her purse.
Boston’s face was as red as a Harvard beet. Such things weren’t
embarrassing to Quade, but they were to Boston.
“There’s Mr. Quade,” said Anne Martin. “Shall we join him?”
Boston was glad to get away from the hot dog stand.
The investigation was still going on. Sergeant Dickinson was on his
hands and knees inside the incubator. A policeman stood at the door
of it and a couple more were going over the exterior.
Quade saluted them with a piece of wire. “They’re looking for
clues,” he said.
The girl shivered. “I’d like it much better if they’d take away
Exhibit A.”
“Can’t. Not until they take pictures. I hear the photographers and
the fingerprint boys are coming down. It’s not really necessary either.
Because I know who the murderer is!”
The girl gasped: “Who?”
Quade did not reply. He looked at the piece of wire in his hands.
It was evidently a spoke from a wire poultry coop, but it had been
twisted into an elongated question mark. He tapped Dickinson’s
shoulder with the wire.
The sergeant looked up and scowled. “Huh?”
“Want this?” Quade asked.
“What the hell is it?”
“Just a piece of wire I picked up.”
“What’re you trying to do, rib me?”
Quade shrugged. “No, but I saw you on your hands and knees and
thought you were looking for something. Thought this might be it.”
Dickinson snorted. “What the hell, if you’re not going to tell me
who did the killing let me alone.”
“O. K.” Quade flipped the piece of wire over a row of chicken
coops. “Come,” he said to Boston and Anne Martin. “Let’s go look at
the turkeys at the other end of the building.”
Boston shuffled up beside Quade as the three walked through an
aisle. “Who did it, Ollie?”
“Can’t tell now, because I couldn’t prove it. In a little while,
perhaps.”
Boston let out his pent-up breath. “If you ain’t the damnedest
guy ever!”
Anne Martin said, “You mean you’re not going to tell Sergeant
Dickinson?”
“Oh yes, but I’m going to wait a while. Maybe he’ll tumble himself
and I’d hate to deprive him of that pleasure. . . . What time is it?”
ASK ME ANOTHER 233

“I don’t know,” Boston said. “I lost my watch in Kansas City. You

remember that, don’t you, Ollie?”
Quade winced. Boston had “lost” his watch in Uncle Ben’s Three
Gold Ball Shop. Quade’s had gone to Uncle Moe in St. Louis.
“It’s twelve-thirty,” the girl said, looking at her wrist watch.
Quade nodded. “That’s fine. The early afternoon editions of the
papers will have accounts of the murder and a lot of morbid folks will
flock around here later on. That means I can put on a good pitch and
sell some of my books.”
“I wanted to ask you about that,” said Anne Martin. “You answered
some really remarkable questions this morning. I don’t for the life of
me see how you do it.”
“Forsaking modesty for the moment, I do it because I really know
all the answers.”
“All?”
“Uh-huh. You see, I’ve read an entire encyclopedia from cover to
cover four times.”
Anne looked at him in astonishment. “An entire encyclopedia?”
“Twenty-four volumes. . . . Well, let’s go back now. Charlie, keep
your eyes open.”
“Ah!” Charlie Boston said.
Dr. Bogle’s men were just taking away the body of the murdered
man. Sergeant Dickinson, a disgusted look on his face, had rounded
up his men and was on the verge of leaving.
“Not going, Captain Dickinson?” Quade asked.
“What good will it do me to hang around?” snorted the sergeant.
“Everyone and his brother has some phony alibi.”
“But your clues, man?”
“What clues?”
Quade shook his head in exasperation. “I told you how the murder
was committed, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, sure, the guy locked the bloke in the incubator and tossed
in the bottle of poison gas, then opened the ventilator and turned on
the fans. But there were more than a dozen guys around and almost
any one of them could have done it, without any of the others even
noticing what he was doing.”
“No, you’re wrong. Only one person could have done it.”
A hush suddenly fell upon the crowd. Charlie Boston, tensed and
crouching, was breathing heavily. The police sergeant’s face became
bleak. Quade had demonstrated his remarkable deductive ability a
while ago and Dickinson was willing to believe anything of him, now.
Quade stepped lazily to a poultry coop, took hold of a wire bar and
with a sudden twist tore it off. Then he stepped to the side of the
incubator.
“Look at this ventilator,” he said. “Notice that I can reach it easily
234 FRANK GRUBER

enough. So could you, Lieutenant. W ere about the same height—five

feet ten. But a man only five-two couldn’t reach it even by standing
on his toes. Do you follow me?”
“Go on,” said Sergeant Dickinson.
Quade twisted the piece of wire into an elongated question mark.
“To move a box or chair up here and climb up on it would be to
attract attention,” he went on, “so the killer used a piece of wire to
open the ventilator. Like this!” Quade caught the hook in the venti­
lator and pulled it open easily.
“That’s good enough for me!” said Sergeant Dickinson. “You
practically forced that wire on me a while ago and I couldn’t see it.
Well—Judge Stone, you’re under arrest!”
“He’s a liar!” roared the bantam poultry judge. “He can’t prove
anything like that on me. He just tore that piece of wire from that
coop!”
“That’s right,” said Quade. “You saw me pick up the original piece
of wire and when I threw it away after trying to give it to the sergeant
you got it and disposed of it.”
“You didn’t see me!”
“No, I purposely walked away to give you a chance to get rid of the
wire. But I laid a trap for you. While I had that wire I smeared some
ink on it to prove you handled it. Look at your hands, Judge Stone!”
Judge Stone raised both palms upward. His right thumb and fingers
were smeared with a black stain.
Sergeant Dickinson started toward the little poultry judge. But the
bantam uttered a cry of fright and darted away.
“Ha!” cried Charlie Boston and lunged for him. He wrapped his
thick arms around the little man and tried to hold on to him. But the
judge was suddenly fighting for his life. He clawed at Boston’s face
and kicked his shins furiously. Boston howled and released his grip
to defend himself with his fists.
The poultry judge promptly butted Boston in the stomach and
darted under his flailing arms.
It was Anne Martin who stopped him. As the judge scrambled
around Boston she stepped forward and thrust out her right foot. The
little man tripped over it and plunged headlong to the concrete floor
of the auditorium. Before he could get up Charlie Boston was on him.
Sergeant Dickinson swooped down, a Police Positive in one hand and
a pair of handcuffs in the other. The killer was secured.
Stone quit then. “Yes, I killed him, the damned lousy blackmailer. •
For years I judged his chickens at the shows and always gave him the
edge. Then he double-crossed me, got me fired.”
“What job?” asked Dickinson.
“My job as district manager for the Sibley Feed Company,”
replied Stone.
ASK ME ANOTHER 235

“Why’d he have you fired?” asked Quade. “Because you were

short-weighing him on his feed? Is that it?”
“I gave him prizes his lousy chickens should never have had,”
snapped the little killer. “What if I did short-weigh him twenty or
thirty per cent? I more than made up for it.”
“Twenty or thirty per cent,” said Quade, “would amount to quite a
bit of money in the course of a year. In his advertising in the poultry
papers Tupper claimed he raised over eight thousand chickens a
year.”
“I don’t need any more,” said Sergeant Dickinson. “Well, Mr.
Quade, you certainly delivered the goods.”
“Not me, I only told you who the murderer was. If it hadn’t been
for Miss Martin he’d have got away.”
Quade turned away. “Anne,” he said, “Charlie and I are flat broke.
But this afternoon a flock of rubbernecks are going to storm this place
and I’m going to take quite a chunk of money from them. But in the
meantime.. . . That hot dog wasn’t very filling and I wonder if you’d
stake us to a lunch?”
Anne Martin’s eyes twinkled. “Listen, Mr. Quade, if you asked me
for every cent I’ve got I’d give it to you right away—because you’d
get it from me anyway, if you really wanted it. You’re the world’s
greatest salesman. You even sold Judge Stone into confessing.”
___ 1 —: ______1 “ V O TJT O”
■uade grinned. “Yes? How?’
e pointed at Quade’s hands. “You handled that first wire hook
with your bare hands. How come your hands didn’t get black?”
Quade chuckled. “Smart girl. Even the sergeant didn’t notice that.
Well, I’ll confess. I saw the smudge on Judge Stone’s hands away
back when I was putting on my pitch. He must have used a leaky
fountain pen or something.”
“Then you didn’t put anything on it?”
“No. But I knew he was the murderer and h e knew i t . . . only he
didn’t know his hands were dirty. S o . . . . ”
The girl drew a deep breath. “Oliver Quade, the lunches are on

“And the dinner and show tonight are on me,” grinned Oliver
Quade.
 H E N R Y P O G G I O L I , PH. D. IN

T. S. Stribling is a m an o f unique distinctions. In addition to being

the only Pulitzer Prize winner w ho w rote 'pulp scientifiction, h e is
the only detective story writer who ever su cceed ed in view ing his
detective with com plete objectivity. No sleuth has ever b een lim ned
with such m erciless accuracy as h e n r y p o g g io l i , nor so skilfully
portrayed as that mixture o f pettiness an d sublimity w hich is Man.
p o g g io l i has another distinction too; but you can discover that for

yourself in “A passage to Benares ” the ending o f w hich Charles

H once has justly called “positively thunderous.”
A PASSAGE TO BENARES

BY T. S. S T R I B L I N G

S N PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, at half past five in the morning, Mr.

Henry Poggioli, the American psychologist, stirred uneasily, became
conscious of a splitting headache, opened his eyes in bewilderment,
and then slowly reconstructed his surroundings. He recognized the
dome of the Hindu temple seen dimly above him, the jute rug on
which he lay; the blur of the image of Krishna sitting cross-legged on
the altar. The American had a dim impression that the figure had not
sat thus on the altar all night long—a dream, no doubt; he had a faint
memory of lurid nightmares. The psychologist allowed the thought to
lose itself as he got up slowly from the sleeping rug which the cicerone
had spread for him the preceding evening.
237
238 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

In the circular temple everything was still in deep shadow, but the
gray light of dawn filled the arched entrance. The white man moved
carefully to the door so as not to jar his aching head. A little distance
from him he saw another sleeper, a coolie beggar stretched out on a
rug, and he thought he saw still another farther away. As he passed
out of the entrance the cool freshness of the tropical morning caressed
his face like the cool fingers of a woman. Kiskadee birds were calling
from palms and saman trees, and there was a wide sound of dripping
dew. Not far from the temple a coolie woman stood on a seesaw with
a great stone attached to the other end of the plank, and by stepping
to and fro she swung the stone up and down and pounded some rice
in a mortar.
Poggioli stood looking at her a moment, then felt in his pocket for
the key to his friend Lowe’s garden gate. He found it and moved off
up Tragarette Road to where the squalid East Indian village gave
way to the high garden walls and ornamental shrubbery of the
English suburb of Port of Spain. He walked on more briskly as the
fresh air eased his head, and presently he stopped and unlocked a
gate in one of the bordering walls. He began to smile as he let himself
in; his good humor increased as he walked across a green lawn to a
stone cottage which had a lower window still standing open. This
was his own room. He reached up to the sill and drew himself inside,
which gave his head one last pang. He shook this away, however, and
began undressing for his morning shower.
Mr. Poggioli was rather pleased with his exploit, although he had
not forwarded the experiment which had induced him to sleep in the
temple. It had come about in this way: On the foregoing evening the
American and his host in Port of Spain, a Mr. Lowe, a bank clerk, had
watched a Hindu wedding procession enter the same temple in which
Poggioli had just spent the night. They had watched the dark-skinned
white-robed musicians smiting their drums and skirling their pipes
with bouffant cheeks. Behind them marched a procession of coolies.
The bride was a little cream-colored girl who wore a breast-plate of
linked gold coins over her childish bosom, while anklets and bracelets
almost covered her arms and legs. The groom, a tall, dark coolie, was
the only man in the procession who wore European clothes, and he,
oddly enough, was attired in a full evening dress suit. At the incongru­
ous sight Poggioli burst out laughing, but Lowe touched his arm and
said in an undertone:
“Don’t take offense, old man, but if you didn’t laugh it might help
me somewhat.”
Poggioli straightened his face.
“Certainly, but how’s that?”
“The groom, Boodman Lai, owns one of the best curio shops in
town and carries an account at my bank. That fifth man in the pro­
A PA SSA G E TO BENARES 239

cession, the skeleton wearing the yellow kapra, is old Hira Dass. He
is worth something near a million in pounds sterling.”
The psychologist became sober enough, out of his American respect
for money.
"Hira Dass,” went on Lowe, “built this temple and rest house. He
gives rice and tea to any traveler who comes in for the night. It’s an
Indian custom to help mendicant pilgrims to the different shrines. A
rich Indian will build a temple and a rest house just as your American
millionaires erect libraries.”
The American nodded again, watching now the old man with the
length of yellow silk wrapped around him. And just at this point
Poggioli received the very queer impression which led to his night’s
adventure.
When the wedding procession entered the temple the harsh music
stopped abruptly. Then, as the line of robed coolies disappeared into
the dark interior the psychologist had a strange feeling that the pro­
cession had been swallowed up and had ceased to exist. The bizarre
red-and-gold building stood in the glare of sunshine, a solid reality,
while its devotees had been dissipated into nothingness.
So peculiar, so startling was the impression, that Poggioli blinked
and wondered how he ever came by it. The temple had somehow
suggested the Hindu theory of Nirvana. Was it possible that the
Hindu architect had caught some association of ideas between the
doctrine of obliteration and these curves and planes and colors glow­
ing before him? Had he done it by contrast or simile? The fact that
Poggioli was a psychologist made the problem all the more intriguing
to him—the psychologic influence of architecture. There must be
some rationale behind it. An idea how he might pursue this problem
came into his head. He turned to his friend and exclaimed:
“Lowe, how about staying all night in old Hira Dass’s temple?”
“Doing what?” with a stare of amazement.
“Staying a night in the temple. I had an impression just then, a—
“Why, my dear fellow!” ejaculated Lowe, “no white man ever
stayed all night in a coolie temple. It simply isn’t done!”
The American argued his case a moment:
“You and I had a wonderful night aboard the Trevem ore when we
became acquainted.”
“That was a matter of necessity,” said the bank clerk. “There were
no first-class cabin accommodations left on the Trevem ore, so we had
to make the voyage on deck.”
Here the psychologist gave up his bid for companionship. Late
that night he slipped out of Lowe’s cottage, walked back to the
grotesque temple, was given a cup of tea, a plate of rice, and a sleep­
ing rug. The only further impression the investigator obtained was a
series of fantastic and highly colored dreams, of which he could not
240 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

recall a detail. Then he waked with a miserable headache and came

home.
Mr. Poggioli finished his dressing and in a few minutes the break­
fast bell rang. He went to the dining room to find the bank clerk
unfolding the damp pages of the Port of Spain Inquirer. This was a
typical English sheet using small, solidly set columns without flaming
headlines. Poggioli glanced at it and wondered mildly if nothing
worth featuring ever happened in Trinidad.
Ram Jon, Lowe’s Hindu servant, slipped in and out of the breakfast
room with peeled oranges, tea, toast, and a custard fruit flanked by
a half lemon to squeeze over it.
“Pound sterling advanced a point,” droned Lowe from his paper.
“It’ll reach par,” said the American, smiling faintly and wondering
what Lowe would say if he knew of his escapade.
“Our new governor general will arrive in Trinidad on the twelfth.”
“Surely that deserved a headline,” said the psychologist.
“Don’t try to debauch me with your American yellow journalism,”
smiled the bank clerk.
“Go your own way if you prefer doing research work every morning
for breakfast.”
The bank clerk laughed again at this, continued his perusal, then
said:
“Hello, another coolie kills his wife. Tell me, Poggioli, as a
psychologist, why do coolies kill their wives?”
“For various reasons, I fancy, or perhaps this one didn’t kill her at
all. Surely now and then some other person—”
“Positively no! It’s always the husband, and instead of having
various reasons, they have none at all. They say their heads are hot,
and so to cool their own they cut off their wives’!”
The psychologist was amused in a dull sort of way.
“Lowe, you Englishmen are a nation with fixed ideas. You genu­
inely believe that every coolie woman who is murdered is killed by
her husband without any motive whatever.”
“Sure, that’s right,” nodded Lowe, looking up from his paper.
“That simply shows me you English have no actual sympathy with
your subordinate races. And that may be the reason your empire is
great. Your aloofness, your unsympathy—by becoming automatic you
become absolutely dependable. The idea, that every coolie woman
is murdered by her husband without a motive!”
“That’s correct,” repeated Lowe with English imperturbability.
The conversation was interrupted by a ring at the garden-gate bell.
A few moments later the two men saw through the shadow Ram Jon
unlock the wall door, open it a few inches, parley a moment, and
receive a letter. Then he came back with his Amber, gliding gait.
Lowe received the note through the open window, broke the
envelope, and fished out two notes instead of one. The clerk looked
A PASSAGE TO BENARES 241

at the inclosures and began to read with a growing bewilderment in

his face.
“What is it?” asked Poggioli at last.
“This is from Hira Dass to Jeffries, the vice-president of our bank.
He says his nephew Boodman Lai has been arrested and he wants
Jeffries to help get him out.”
“What’s he arrested for?”
“Er—for murdering his wife,” said Lowe with a long face.
Poggioli stared.
“Wasn’t he the man we saw in the procession yesterday?”
“Damn it, yes!” cried Lowe in sudden disturbance, “and he’s a
sensible fellow, too, one of our best patrons.” He sat staring at the
American over the letter, and then suddenly recalling a point, drove
it home English fashion.
“That proves my contention, Poggioli—a groom of only six or eight
hours’ standing killing his wife. They simply commit uxoricide with­
out any reason at all, the damned irrational rotters!”
“What’s the other letter?” probed the American, leaning across
the table.
“It’s from Jeffries. He says he wants me to take this case and get the
best talent in Trinidad to clear Mr. Hira Dass’s house and consult
with him.” The clerk replaced the letters in the envelope. “Say, you’ve
had some experience in this sort of thing. Won’t you come with me?”
“Glad to.”
The two men arose promptly from the table, got their hats, and
went out into Tragarette Road once more. As they stood in the in­
creasing heat waiting for a car, it occurred to Poggioli that the details
of the murder ought to be in the morning’s paper. He took the
Inquirer from his friend and began a search through its closely
printed columns. Presently he found a paragraph without any
heading at all:
“Boodman Lai, nephew of Mr. Hira Dass, was arrested early this
morning at his home in Peru, the East Indian suburb, for the alleged
murder of his wife, whom he married yesterday at the Hindu temple
in Peru. The body was found at six o’clock this morning in the temple.
The attendant gave the alarm. Mrs. Boodman Lai’s head was severed
completely from her body and she lay in front of the Buddhist altar
in her bridal dress. All of her jewelry was gone. Five coolie beggars
who were asleep in the temple when the body was discovered were
arrested. They claimed to know nothing of the crime, but a search of
their persons revealed that each beggar had a piece of the young
bride’s jewelry and a coin from her necklace.
“Mr. Boodman Lai and his wife were seen to enter the temple at
about eleven o’clock last night for the Krishnian rite of purification.
Mr. Boodman, who is a prominent curio dealer in this city, declines
to say anything further than that he thought his wife had gone back
242 T. S. S T R IB L IN G

to her mother’s home for the night after her prayers in the temple.
The young bride, formerly a Miss Maila Ran, was thirteen years old.
Mr. Boodman is the nephew of Mr. Hira Dass, one of the wealthiest
men in Trinidad.”
The paragraph following this contained a notice of a tea given at
Queen’s Park Hotel by Lady Henley-Hoads, and the names of her
guests.
The psychologist spent a painful moment pondering the kind of
editor who would run a millionaire murder mystery, without any
caption whatever, in between a legal notice and a society note. Then
he turned his attention to the gruesome and mysterious details the
paragraph contained.
“Lowe, what do you make out of those beggars, each with a coin
and a piece of jewelry?”
“Simple enough. The rotters laid in wait in the temple till the hus­
band went out and left his wife, then they murdered her and divided
the spoil.”
“But that child had enough bangles to give a dozen to each man.”
“Ye-es, that’s a fact,” admitted Lowe.
“And why should they continue sleeping in the temple?”
“Why shouldn’t they? They knew they would be suspected, and
they couldn’t get off the island without capture, so they thought they
might as well He back down and go to sleep.”
Here the street car approached and Mr. Poggioli nodded,
apparently in agreement.
“Yes, I am satisfied that is how it occurred.”
“You mean the beggars killed her?”
“No, I fancy the actual murderer took the girl’s jewelry and went
about the temple thrusting a bangle and a coin in the pockets of each
of the sleeping beggars to lay a false scent.”
“Aw, come now!” cried the bank clerk, “that’s laying it on a bit too
thick, Poggioli!”
“My dear fellow, that’s the only possible explanation for the coins
in the beggars’ pockets.”
By this time the men were on the tramcar and were clattering off
down Tragarette Road. As they dashed along toward the Hindu
village Poggioli remembered suddenly that he had walked this same
distance the preceding night and had slept in this same temple. A
certain sharp impulse caused the American to run a hand swiftly into
his own pockets. In one side he felt the keys of his trunk and of
Lowe’s cottage; in the other he touched several coins and a round
hard ring. With a little thrill he drew these to the edge of his pocket
and took a covert glance at them. One showed the curve of a gold
bangle; the other the face of an old English gold coin which evidently
had been soldered to something.
With a little sinking sensation Poggioli eased them back into his
A PASSAG E TO BENARES 243

pocket and stared ahead at the coolie village which they were ap­
proaching. He moistened his lips and thought what he would better
do. The only notion that came into his head was to pack his trunk
and take passage on the first steamer out of Trinidad, no matter to
what port it was bound.
In his flurry of uneasiness the psychologist was tempted to drop
the gold pieces then and there, but as the street car rattled into Peru
he reflected that no other person in Trinidad knew that he had these
things, except indeed the person who slipped them into his pocket,
but that person was not likely to mention the matter. Then, too, it was
such an odd occurrence, so piquing to his analytic instinct, that he
decided he would go on with the inquiry.
Two minutes later Lowe rang down the motorman and the two
companions got off in the Hindu settlement. By this time the street
was full of coolies, greasy men and women gliding about with bundles
on their heads or coiled down in the sunshine in pairs where they
took turns in examining each others head for vermin. Lowe glanced
about, oriented himself, then started walking briskly past the temple,
when Poggioli stopped him and asked him where he was going.
“To report to old Hira Dass, according to my instructions from
Jeffries,” said the Englishman.
“Suppose we stop in the temple a moment. We ought not to go to
the old fellow without at least a working knowledge of the scene of
the murder.”
The clerk slowed up uncertainly, but at that moment they glanced
through the temple door and saw five coolies sitting inside. A police­
man at the entrance was evidently guarding these men as prisoners.
Lowe approached the guard, made his mission known, and a little
later he and his guest were admitted into the temple.
The coolie prisoners were as repulsive as are all of their kind. Four
were as thin as cadavers, the fifth one greasily fat. All five wore
cheesecloth around their bodies, which left them as exposed as if
they had worn nothing at all. One of the emaciated men held his
mouth open all the time with an expression of suffering caused by a
chronic lack of food. The five squatted on their rugs and looked at
the white men with their beadlike eyes. The fat one said in a low
tone to his companions:
“The sahib.”
This whispered ejaculation disquieted Poggioli somewhat, and he
reflected again that it would have been discretion to withdraw from
the murder of little Maila Ran as quietly as possible. Still he could
explain his presence in the temple simply enough. And besides, the
veiled face of the mystery seduced him. He stood studying the five
beggars: the greasy one, the lean ones, the one with the suffering face.
“Boys,” he said to the group, for all coolies are boys, “did any of
you hear any noises in this temple last night?”
244 T. S. S T R IB L IN G

“Much sleep, sahib, no noise. Police-y-man punch us ’wake this

morning make sit still here.”
“What’s your name?” asked the American of the loquacious fat
mendicant.
“Chuder Chand, sahib.”
“When did you go to sleep last night?”
“When I ate rice and tea, sahib.”
“Do you remember seeing Boodman Lai and his wife enter this
building last night?”
Here their evidence became divided. The fat man remembered;
two of the cadavers remembered only the wife, one only Boodman
Lai, and one nothing at all.
Poggioli confined himself to the fat man.
“Did you see them go out?”
All five shook their heads.
“You were all asleep then?”
A general nodding.
“Did you have any impressions during your sleep, any disturbance,
any half rousing, any noises?”
The horror-struck man said in a ghastly tone:
“I dream bad dream, sahib. When police-y-man punch me awake
this morning I think my dream is come to me.”
“And me, sahib.”
“Me, sahib.”
“ M e .”
“Did you all have bad dreams?”
A general nodding.
“What did you dream, Chuder Chand?” inquired the psychologist
with a certain growth of interest.
“Dream me a big fat pig, but still I starved, sahib.”
“And you?” at a lean man.
“That I be mashed under a great bowl of rice, sahib, but hungry.”
“And you?” asked Poggioli of the horror-struck coolie.
The coolie wet his dry bps and whispered in his ghastly tones:
“Sahib, I dreamed I was Siva, and I held the world in my hands and
bit it and it tasted bitter, like the rind of a mammy apple. And I said
to Vishnu, ‘Let me be a dog in the streets, rather than taste the
bitterness of this world,’ and then the policeman punched me, sahib,
and asked if I had murdered Maila Ran.”
The psychologist stood staring at the sunken temples and withered
chaps of the beggar, amazed at the enormous vision of godhood which
had visited the old mendicant’s head. No doubt this grandiloquent
dream was a sort of compensation for the starved and wretched
existence the beggar led.
Here the bank clerk intervened to say that they would better go
on around to old Hira Dass’s house according to instructions.
A PASSAG E TO BEN A RES 245

Poggioli turned and followed his friend out of the temple.

“Lowe, I think we can now entirely discard the theory that the
beggars murdered the girl.”
“On what grounds?” asked the clerk in surprise. “They told you
nothing but their dreams.”
“That is the reason. All five had wild, fantastic dreams. That sug­
gests they were given some sort of opiate in their rice or tea last night.
It is very improbable that five ignorant coolies would have wit
enough to concoct such a piece of evidence as that.”
“That’s a fact,” admitted the Englishman, a trifle surprised, “but I
don’t believe a Trinidad court would admit such evidence.”
“We are not looking for legal evidence; we are after some indica­
tion of the real criminal.”
By this time the two men were walking down a hot, malodorous
alley which emptied into the square a little east of the temple. Lowe
jerked a bell-pull in a high adobe wall, and Poggioli was surprised
that this could be the home of a millionaire Hindu. Presently the
shutter opened and Mr. Ilira Dass himself stood in the opening. The
old Hindu was still draped iir yellow silk which revealed his emaci­
ated form almost as completely as if he had been naked. But his face
was alert with hooked nose and brilliant black eyes, and his wrinkles
did not so much suggest great age as they did shrewdness and
acumen.
The old coolie immediately led his callers into an open court
surrounded by marble columns with a fountain in its center and white
doves fluttering up to the frieze or floating back down again.
The Hindu began talking immediately of the murder and his
anxiety to clear his unhappy nephew. The old man’s English was very
good, no doubt owing to the business association of his latter years.
“A most mysterious murder,” he deplored, shaking his head, “and
the life of my poor nephew will depend upon your exertions, gentle­
men. What do you think of those beggars that were found in the
temple with the bangles and coins?”
Air. Hira Dass seated his guests on a white marble bench, and
now walked nervously in front of them, like some fantastic old
scarecrow draped in yellow silk.
“I am afraid my judgment of the beggars will disappoint you, Mr.
Hira Dass,” answered Poggioli. “My theory is they are innocent of
the crime.”
“Why do you say that?” queried Hira Dass, looking sharply at the
American.
The psychologist explained his deduction from their dreams.
“You are not English, sir,” exclaimed the old man. “No Englishman
would have thought of that.”
“No, I’m half Italian and half American.”
The old Indian nodded.
246 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

“Your Latin blood has subtlety, Mr. Poggioli, but you base your
proof on the mechanical cause of the dreams, not upon the dreams
themselves.”
The psychologist looked at the old man’s cunning face and gnome­
like figure and smiled.
“I could hardly use the dreams themselves, although they were
fantastic enough.”
“Oh, you did inquire into the actual dreams?”
“Yes, by the way of professional interest.”
“What is your profession? Aren’t you a detective?”
“No, I’m a psychologist.”
Old Hira Dass paused in his rickety walking up and down the
marble pavement to stare at the American and then burst into the
most wrinkled cachinnation Poggioli had ever seen.
“A psychologist, and inquired into a suspected criminal’s dreams
out of mere curiosity!” the old gnome cackled again, then became
serious. He held up a thin finger at the American. “I must not laugh.
Your oversoul, your atman, is at least groping after knowledge as the
blindworm gropes. But enough of that, Mr. Poggioli. Our problem
is to find the criminal who committed this crime and restore my
nephew Boodman Lai to liberty. You can imagine what a blow this
is to me. I arranged this marriage for my nephew.”
The American looked at the old man with new ground for
deduction.
“You did—arranged a marriage for a nephew who is in the thirties?”
“Yes, I wanted him to avoid the pitfalls into which I fell,” replied
old Hira Dass seriously. “He was unmarried, and had already begun
to add dollars to dollars. I did the same thing, Mr. Poggioli, and now
look at me—an empty old man in a foreign land. What good is this
marble court where men of my own kind cannot come and sit with
me, and when I have no grandchildren to feed the doves? No, I have
piled up dollars and pounds. I have eaten the world, Mr. Poggioli,
and found it bitter; now here I am, an outcast.”
There was a passion in this outburst which moved the American,
and at the same time the old Hindu’s phraseology was sharply remi­
niscent of the dreams told him by the beggars in the temple. The
psychologist noted the point hurriedly and curiously in the flow of
the conversation, and at the same moment some other part of his
brain was inquiring tritely:
“Then why don’t you go back to India, Mr. Hira Dass?”
“With this worn-out body,” the old Hindu made a contemptuous
gesture toward himself, “and with this face, wrinkled with pence!
Why, Mr. Poggioli, my mind is half English. If I should return to
Benares I would walk about thinking what the temples cost, what
was the value of the stones set in the eyes of Krishna’s image. That is
A PASSAGE TO BEN A RES 247

why we Hindus lose our caste if we travel abroad and settle in a

foreign land, because we do indeed lose caste. We become neither
Hindus nor English. Our minds are divided, so if I would ever be
one with my own people again, Mr. Poggioli, I must leave this
Western mind and body here in Trinidad.”
Old Hira Dass’s speech brought to the American that fleeting
credulity in transmigration of the soul which an ardent believer
always inspires. The old Hindu made the theory of palingenesis ap­
pear almost matter-of-fact. A man died here and reappeared as a
babe in India. There was nothing so unbelievable in that. A man’s
basic energy, which has loved, hated, aspired, and grieved here, must
go somewhere, while matter itself was a mere dance of atoms. Which
was the most permanent, Hira Dass’s passion or his marble court?
Both were mere forms of force. The psychologist drew himself out
of his reverie.
“That is very interesting, or I should say moving, Hira Dass. You
have strange griefs. But we were discussing your nephew, Boodman
Lai. I think I have a theory which may liberate him.”
“And what is that?”
“As I have explained to you, I believe the beggars in the temple
were given a sleeping potion. I suspect the temple attendant doped
the rice and later murdered your nephew’s wife.”
The millionaire became thoughtful.
“That is good Gooka. I employ him. He is a miserably poor man,
Mr. Poggioli, so I cannot believe he committed this murder.”
‘Tardon me, but I don’t follow your reasoning. If he is poor he
would have a strong motive for the robbery.”
“That’s true, but a very poor man would never have dropped the
ten pieces of gold into the pockets of the beggars to lay a false scent.
The man who did this deed must have been a well-to-do person
accustomed to using money to forward his purposes. Therefore, in
searching for the criminal I would look for»a moneyed man.”
“But, Mr. Hira Dass,” protested the psychologist, “that swings
suspicion back to your nephew.”
“My nephew!” cried the old man, growing excited again. “What
motive would my nephew have to slay his bride of a few hours!”
“But what motive,” retorted Poggioli with academic curtness,
“would a well-to-do man have to murder a child? And what chance
would he have to place an opiate in the rice?”
The old Hindu lifted a finger and came closer.
“I’ll tell you my suspicions,” he said in a lowered voice, “and you
can work out the details.”
“Yes, what are they?” asked Poggioli, becoming attentive again.
“I went down to the temple this morning to have the body of my
poor murdered niece brought here to my villa for burial. I talked to
248 T. S. S T R IB L IN G

the five beggars and they told me that there was a sixth sleeper in the
temple last night.” The old coolie shook his finger, lifted his eyebrows,
and assumed a very gnomish appearance indeed.
A certain trickle of dismay went through the American. He tried
to keep from moistening his lips and perhaps he did, but all he could
think to do was to lift his eyebrows and say:
“Was there, indeed?”
“Yes—and a white man!”
Lowe, the bank clerk, who had been sitting silent through all this,
interrupted. “Surely not, Mr. Hira Dass, not a white man!”
“All five of the coolies and my man Gooka told me it was true,”
reiterated the old man, “and I have always found Gooka a truthful
man. And besides, such a man would fill the r61e of assailant exactly.
He would be well-to-do, accustomed to using money to forward his
purposes.”
The psychologist made a sort of mental lunge to refute this rapid
array of evidence old Hira Dass was piling up against him.
“But, Mr. Hira Dass, decapitation is not an American mode of
murder.”
“American!”
“I—I was speaking generally,” stammered the psychologist, “I mean
a white man’s method of murder.”
“That is indicative in itself,” returned the Hindu promptly. “I
meant to call your attention to that point. It shows the white man was
a highly educated man, who had studied the mental habit of other
peoples than his own, so he was enabled to give the crime an ex­
traordinary resemblance to a Hindu crime. I would suggest, gentle­
men, that you begin your search for an intellectual white man.”
“What motive could such a man have?” cried the American.
“Robbery, possibly, or if he were a very intellectual man indeed
he might have murdered the poor child by way of experiment. I read
not long ago in an American paper of two youths who committed
such a crime.”
“A murder for experiment!” cried Lowe, aghast.
“Yes, to record the psychological reaction.”
Poggioli suddenly got to his feet.
“I can’t agree with such a theory as that, Mr. Hira Dass,” he said
in a shaken voice.
“No, it’s too far-fetched,” declared the clerk at once.
“However, it is worth while investigating,” persisted the Hindu.
“Yes, yes,” agreed the American, evidently about to depart, “but I
shall begin my investigations, gentlemen, with the man Gooka.”
“As you will,” agreed Hira Dass, “and in your investigations, gentle­
men, hire any assistants you need, draw on me for any amount. I want
my nephew exonerated, and above all things, I want the real crim­
inal apprehended and brought to the gallows.”
A P A SSA G E TO BENARES 249

Lowe nodded.
“We’ll do our best, sir,” he answered in his thorough-going English
manner.
The old man followed his guests to the gate and bowed them out
into the malodorous alleyway again.
As the two friends set off through the hot sunshine once more the
bank clerk laughed.
“A white man in that temple! That sounds like pure fiction to me to
shield Boodman Lai. You know these coolies hang together like
thieves.”
He walked on a little way pondering, then added, “Jolly good thing
we didn’t decide to sleep in the temple last night, isn’t it, Poggioli?”
A sickish feeling went over the American. For a moment he was
tempted to tell his host frankly what he had done and ask his advice
in the matter, but finally he said:
“In my opinion the actual criminal is Boodman Lai.”
Lowe glanced around sidewise at his guest and nodded faintly.
“Same here. I thought it ever since I first saw the account in the
Inquirer. Somehow these coolies will chop their wives to pieces for
no reason at all.”
“I know a very good reason in this instance,” retorted the American
warmly, taking out his uneasiness in this manner. “It’s these damned
child marriages! When a man marries some child he doesn’t care a
tuppence for---- What do you know about Boodman Lai anyway?”
“All there is to know. He was born here and has always been a
figure here in Port of Spain because of his rich uncle.”
“Lived here all his life?”
“Except when he was in Oxford for six years.”
“Oh, he’s an Oxford man!”
“Yes.”
“There you are, there’s the trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“No doubt he fell in love with some English girl. But when his
wealthy uncle, Hira Dass, chose a Hindu child for his wife, Boodman
could not refuse the marriage. No man is going to quarrel with a
million-pound legacy, but he chose this ghastly method of getting
rid of the child.”
“I venture you are right,” declared the bank clerk. “I felt sure
Boodman Lai had killed the girl.”
“Likely as not he was engaged to some English girl and was
waiting for his uncle’s death to make him wealthy.”
“Quite possible, in fact probable.”
Here a cab came angling across the square toward the two men as
they stood in front of the grotesque temple. The Negro driver waved
his whip interrogatively. The clerk beckoned him in. The cab drew up
at the curb. Lowe climbed in but Poggioli remained on the pavement.
250 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

“Aren’t you coming?”

“You know, Lowe,” said Poggioli seriously, “I don’t feel that I can
conscientiously continue this investigation, trying to clear a person
whom I have every reason to believe guilty.”
The bank clerk was disturbed.
“But, man, don’t leave me like this! At least come on to the police
headquarters and explain your theory about the temple keeper,
Gooka, and the rice. That seems to hang together pretty well. It is
possible Boodman Lai didn’t do this thing after all. We owe it to
him to do all we can.”
As Poggioli still hung back on the curb, Lowe asked:
“What do you want to do?”
“Well, I—er—thought I would go back to the cottage and pack my
things.”
The bank clerk was amazed.
“Pack your things—your boat doesn’t sail until Friday!”
“Yes, I know, but there is a daily service to Curagao. It struck me
to g o -”
“Aw, come!” cried Lowe in hospitable astonishment, “you can’t
run off like that, just when I’ve stirred up an interesting murder
mystery for you to unravel. You ought to appreciate my efforts as a
host more than that.”
“Well, I do,” hesitated Poggioli seriously. At that moment his
excess of caution took one of those odd, instantaneous shifts that come
so unaccountably to men, and he thought to himself, “Well, damn it,
this is an interesting situation. It’s a shame to leave it, and nothing
will happen to me.”
So he swung into the cab with decision and ordered briskly: “All
right, to the police station, Sambo!”
“Sounds more like it,” declared the clerk, as the cab horses set out
a brisk trot through the sunshine.
Mr. Lowe, the bank clerk, was not without a certain flair for making
the most of a house guest, and when he reached the police station he
introduced his companion to the chief of police as “Mr. Poggioli a
professor in an American university and a research student in criminal
psychology.”
The chief of police, a Mr. Vickers, was a short, thick man with a
tropic-browned face and eyes habitually squinted against the sun.
He seemed not greatly impressed with the titles Lowe gave his friend
but merely remarked that if Mr. Poggioli was hunting crimes,
Trinidad was a good place to find them.
The bank clerk proceeded with a certain importance in his manner.
“I have asked his counsel in the Boodman Lai murder case. He
has developed a theory, Mr. Vickers, as to who is the actual murderer
of Mrs. Boodman Lai.”
“So have I,” replied Vickers with a dry smile.
A PASSAG E TO BENARES 251

“Of course you think Boodman Lai did it,” said Lowe in a more
commonplace manner.
Vickers did not answer this but continued looking at the two taller
men in a listening attitude which caused Lowe to go on.
“Now in this matter, Mr. Vickers, I want to be perfectly frank with
you. I’ll admit we are in this case in the employ of Mr. Hira Dass, and
are making an effort to clear Boodman Lai. We felt confident you
would use the well-known skill of the police department of Port of
Spain to work out a theory to clear Boodman Lai just as readily as
you would to convict him.”
“Our department usually devotes its time to conviction and not to
clearing criminals.”
“Yes, I know that, but if our theory will point out the actual
murderer—”
“What is your theory?” inquired Vickers without enthusiasm.
The bank clerk began explaining the dream of the five beggars and
the probability that they had been given sleeping potions.
The short man smiled faintly.
“So Mr. Poggioli’s theory is based on the dreams of these men?”
Poggioli had a pedagogue’s brevity of temper when his theories
were questioned.
“It would be a remarkable coincidence, Mr. Vickers, if five men
had lurid dreams simultaneously without some physical cause. It
suggests strongly that their tea or rice was doped.”
As Vickers continued looking at Poggioli the American continued
with less acerbity:
“I should say that Gooka, the temple keeper, either doped the rice
himself or he knows who did it.”
“Possibly he does.”
“My idea is that you send a man for the ricepot and teapot, have
their contents analyzed, find out what soporific was used, then have
your men search the sales records of the drug stores in the city to
see who has lately bought such a drug.”
Mr. Vickers grunted a noncommittal uh-huh, and then began in
the livelier tones of a man who meets a stranger socially:
“How do you like Trinidad, Mr. Poggioli?”
“Remarkably luxuriant country—oranges and grapefruit growing
wild.”
“You’ve just arrived?”
“Y e s .”
“In what university do you teach?”
“Ohio State.”
Mr. Vickers’s eyes took on a humorous twinkle.
“A chair of criminal psychology in an ordinary state university—is
that the result of your American prohibition laws, Professor?”
Poggioli smiled at this thrust.
252 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

“Mr. Lowe misstated my work a little. I am not a professor, I am

simply a docent. And I have not specialized on criminal psychology.
I quiz on general psychology.”
“You are not teaching now?”
“No; this is my sabbatical year.”
Mr. Vickers glanced up and down the American.
“You look young to have taught in a university six years.”
There was something not altogether agreeable in this observation,
but the officer rectified it a moment later by saying, “But you
Americans start young—land of specialists. Now you, Mr. Poggioli—
I suppose you are wrapped up heart and soul in your psychology?”
“I am,” agreed the American positively.
“Do anything in the world to advance yourself in the science?”
"I rather think so,” asserted Poggioli, with his enthusiasm mounting
in his voice.
“Especially keen on original research work—”
Lowe interrupted, laughing.
“That’s what he is, Chief. Do you know what he asked me to do
yesterday afternoon?”
“No, what?”
The American turned abruptly on his friend.
“Now, Lowe, don’t let’s burden Mr. Vickers with household
anecdotes.”
“But I am really curious,” declared the police chief. “Just what did
Professor Poggioli ask you to do yesterday afternoon, Mr. Lowe?”
The bank clerk looked from one to die other, hardly knowing
whether to go on or not. Mr. Vickers was smiling; Poggioli was very
serious as he prohibited anecdotes about himself. The bank clerk
thought: “This is real modesty.” He said aloud: “It was just a little
psychological experiment he wanted to do.”
“Did he do it?” smiled the chief.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t hear of it.”
“As unconventional as that!” cried Mr. Vickers, lifting sandy brows.
“It was really nothing,” said Lowe, looking at his guest’s rigid face
and then at the police captain.
Suddenly Mr. Vickers dropped his quizzical attitude.
“I think I could guess your anecdote if I tried, Lowe. About a half
hour ago I received a telephone message from my man stationed at
the Hindu temple to keep a lookout for you and Mr. Poggioli.”
The American felt a tautening of his muscles at this frontal attack.
He had suspected something of the sort from the policeman’s manner.
The bank clerk stared at the officer in amazement.
“What was your bobby telephoning about us for?”
“Because one of the coolies under arrest told him that Mr.
Poggioli slept in the temple last night.”
A PASSAGE TO BENARES 253

“My word, that’s not true!” cried the bank clerk. “That is exactly
what he did not do. He suggested it to me but I said No. You
remember, Poggioli—”
Mr. Lowe turned for corroboration, but the look on his friend’s
face amazed him.
“You didn’t do it, did you Poggioli?” he gasped.
“You see he did,” said Vickers dryly.
“But, Poggioli—in God’s name—”
The American braced himself for an attempt to explain. He lifted
his hand with a certain pedagogic mannerism.
“Gentlemen, I—I had a perfectly valid, an important reason for
sleeping in the temple last night.”
“I told you,” nodded Vickers.
“In coolie town, in a coolie temple!” ejaculated Lowe.
“Gentlemen, I—can only ask your—your sympathetic attention to
what I am about to say.”
“Go on,” said Vickers.
“You remember, Lowe, you and I were down there watching a
wedding procession. Well, just as the music stopped and the line of
coolies entered the building, suddenly it seemed to me as if—as if—
they had—” Poggioli swallowed at nothing and then added the odd
word, “vanished.”
Vickers looked at him.
“Naturally, they had gone into the building.”
“I don’t mean that. I’m afraid you won’t understand what I do
mean—that the whole procession had ceased to exist, melted into
nothingness.”
Even Mr. Vickers blinked. Then he drew out a memorandum book
and stolidly made a note.
“Is that all?”
“No, then I began speculating on what had given me such a strange
impression. You see that is really the idea on which the Hindus base
their notion of heaven—oblivion, nothingness.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that before.”
“Well, our medieval Gothic architecture was a conception of our
Western heaven; and I thought perhaps the Indian architecture had
somehow caught the motif of the Indian religion; you know, sug­
gested Nirvana. That was what amazed and intrigued me. That was
why I wanted to sleep in the place. I wanted to see if I could further
my shred of impression. Does this make any sense to you, Mr.
Vickers?”
“I dare say it will, sir, to the criminal judge,” opined the police
chief cheerfully.
The psychologist felt a sinking of heart.
Mr. Vickers proceeded in the same matter-of-fact tone: “But no
254 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

matter why you went in, what you did afterward is what counts.
Here in Trinidad nobody is allowed to go around chopping off heads
to see how it feels.”
Poggioli looked at the officer with a ghastly sensation in his midriff.
“You don’t think I did such a horrible thing as an experiment?”
Mr. Vickers drew out the makings of a cigarette.
“You Americans, especially you intellectual Americans, do some
pretty stiff things, Mr. Poggioli. I was reading about two young
intellectuals—”
“Good Lord!” quivered the psychologist with this particular
reference beginning to grate on his nerves.
“These fellows I read about also tried to turn an honest penny by
their murder—I don’t suppose you happened to notice yesterday that
the little girl, Maila Ran, was almost covered over with gold bangles
and coins?”
“Of course I noticed it!” cried the psychologist, growing white,
“but I had nothing whatever to do with the child. Your insinuations
are brutal and repulsive. I did sleep in the temple—”
“By the way,” interrupted Vickers suddenly, “you say you slept
on a rug just as the coolies did?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You didn’t wake up either?”
“N ° .”
“Then did the murderer of the child happen to put a coin and a
bangle in your pockets, just as he did the other sleepers in the temple?”
“That’s exactly what he did!” cried Poggioli, with the first ray of
hope breaking upon him. “When I found them in my pocket on the
tram this morning I came pretty near throwing them away, but
fortunately I didn’t. Here they are.”
And gladly enough now he drew the trinkets out and showed them
to the chief of police.
Mr. Vickers looked at the gold pieces, then at the psychologist.
“You don’t happen to have any more, do you?”
The American said No, but it was with a certain thrill of anxiety
that he began turning out his other pockets. If the mysterious criminal
had placed more than two gold pieces in his pockets he would be in
a very difficult position. However, the remainder of his belongings
were quite legitimate.
“Well, that’s something,” admitted Vickers slowly. “Of course, you
might have expected just such a questioning as this and provided
yourself with these two pieces of gold, but I doubt it. Somehow, I
don’t believe you are a bright enough man to think of such a thing.”
He paused, pondering, and finally said, “I suppose you have no
objection to my sending a man to search your baggage in Mr. Lowe's
cottage?”
“Instead of objecting, I inyite it, I request it.”
A PASSAG E TO BENARES 255

Mr. Vickers nodded agreeably.

“Who can I telegraph to in America to learn something about your
standing as a university man?”
“Dean Ingram, Ohio State, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.”
Vickers made this note, then turned to Lowe.
“I suppose you’ve known Mr. Poggioli for a long time, Mr. Lowe?”
“Why n-no, I haven’t,” admitted the clerk.
“Where did you meet him?”
“Sailing from Barbuda to Antigua. On the Trevem ore.”
“Did he seem to have respectable American friends aboard?”
Lowe hesitated and flushed faintly.
“I—can hardly say.”
“Why?”
“If I tell you Mr. Poggioli’s mode of travel I am afraid you would
hold it to his disadvantage.”
“How did he travel?” queried the officer in surprise.
“The fact is he traveled as a deck passenger.”
“You mean he had no cabin, shipped along on deck with the
Negroes!”
“I did it myself!” cried Lowe, growing ruddy. “We couldn’t get a
cabin—they were all occupied.”
The American reflected rapidly, and realized that Vickers could
easily find out the real state of things from the ship’s agents up the
islands.
“Chief,” said the psychologist with a tongue that felt thick, “I
boarded the T revem ore at St. Kitts. There were cabins available. I
chose deck passage deliberately. I wanted to study the natives.”
“Then you are broke, just as I thought,” ejaculated Mr. Vickers,
“and I’ll bet pounds to pence we’ll find the jewelry around your
place somewhere.”
The chief hailed a passing cab, called a plain-clothes man, put the
three in the vehicle and started them briskly back up Prince Edward’s
Street, toward Tragarette Road, and thence to Lowe’s cottage beyond
the Indian village and its ill-starred temple.

The three men and the Negro driver trotted back up Tragarette,
each lost in his own thoughts. The plain-clothes man rode on the
front seat with the cabman, but occasionally he glanced back to look
at his prisoner. Lowe evidently was reflecting how this contretemps
would affect his social and business standing in the city. The Negro
also kept peering back under the hood of his cab, and finally he
ejaculated:
“Killum jess to see ’em die. I declah, dese ’Mericans—” and he
shook his kinky head.
A hot resentment rose up in the psychologist at this continued
recurrence of that detestable crime. He realized with deep resent­
256 T. S. ST R IB L IN G

ment that the crimes of particular Americans were held tentatively

against all American citizens, while their great national charities and
humanities were forgotten with the breath that told them. In the
midst of these angry thoughts the cab drew up before the clerk’s
garden gate.
All got out. Lowe let them in with a key and then the three walked
in a kind of grave haste across the lawn. The door was opened by
Ram Jon, who took their hats and then followed them into the room
Lowe had set apart for his guest.
This room, like all Trinidad chambers, was furnished in the sparest
and coolest manner possible; a table, three chairs, a bed with sheets,
and Poggioli’s trunk. It was so open to inspection nothing could have
been concealed in it. The plain-clothes man opened the table drawer.
“Would you mind opening your trunk, Mr. Poggioli?”
The American got out his keys, knelt and undid the hasp of his
wardrobe trunk, then swung the two halves apart. One side held
containers, the other suits. Poggioli opened the drawers casually;
collar and handkerchief box at the top, hat box, shirt box. As he did
this came a faint clinking sound. The detective stepped forward and
lifted out the shirts. Beneath them lay a mass of coins and bangles
flung into the tray helter-skelter.
The American stared with an open mouth, unable to say a word.
The plain-clothes man snapped with a certain indignant admiration
in his voice: “Your nerve almost got you by!”
The thing seemed unreal to the American. He had the same un­
canny feeling that he had experienced when the procession entered
the temple. Materiality seemed to have slipped a cog. A wild thought
came to him that somehow the Hindus had dematerialized the gold
and caused it to reappear in his trunk. Then there came a terrifying
fancy that he had committed the crime in his sleep. This last clung
to his mind. After all, he had murdered the little girl bride, Maila Ran!
The plain-clothes man spoke to Lowe:
“Have your man bring me a sack to take this stuff back to head­
quarters.”
Ram Jon slithered from the room and presently returned with a
sack. The inspector took his handkerchief, lifted the pieces out with
it, one by one, and placed them in the sack.
“Lowe,” said Poggioli pitifully, “you don’t believe I did this, do
you?”
The bank clerk wiped his face with his handkerchief.
“In your trunk, Poggioli—”
“If I did it I was sleepwalking!” cried the unhappy man. “My God,
to think it is possible—but right here in my own trunk—” he stood
staring at the bag, at the shirt box.
The plain-clothes man said dryly: "We might as well start back, I
suppose. This is all.”
A PASSAG E TO BENARES 257

Lowe suddenly cast in his lot with his guest.

“I’ll go back with you, Poggioli. I’ll see you through this pinch.
Somehow I can’t, I won’t believe you did it!”
“Thanks! Thanks!”
The bank clerk masked his emotion under a certain grim facetious­
ness.
“You know, Poggioli, you set out to clear Boodman Lai—it looks as
if you’ve done it.”
“No, he didn’t,” denied the plain-clothes man. “Boodman Lai was
out of jail at least an hour before you fellows drove up a while ago.”
“Out—had you turned him out?”
“Yes.”
“How was that?”
“Because he didn’t go to the temple at all last night with his wife.
He went down to Queen’s Park Hotel and played billiards till one
o’clock. He called up some friends and proved that easily enough.”
Lowe stared at his friend, aghast.
“My word, Poggioli, that leaves nobody but—you.” The psycholo­
gist lost all semblance of resistance.
“I don’t know anything about it. If I did it I was asleep. That’s all
I can say. The coolies—” He had a dim notion of accusing them again,
but he recalled that he had proved to himself clearly and logically
that they were innocent. “I don’t know anything about it,” he repeated
helplessly.
Half an hour later the three men were at police headquarters once
more, and the plain-clothes man and the turnkey, a humble, gray sort
of man, took the American back to a cell. The turnkey unlocked one
In a long row of cells and swung it open for Poggioli.
The bank clerk gave him what encouragement he could.
“Don’t be too downhearted. I ’ll do everything I can. Somehow I
believe you are innocent. I’ll hire your lawyers, cable your friends—”
Poggioli was repeating a stunned “Thanks! Thanks!” as the cell
door shut between them. The bolt clashed home and was locked. And
the men were tramping down the iron corridor. Poggioli was alone.

There was a chair and a bunk in the cell. The psychologist looked
at these with an irrational feeling that he would not stay in the prison
long enough to warrant his sitting down. Presently he did sit down
on the bunk.
He sat perfectly still and tried to assemble his thoughts against the
mountain of adverse evidence which suddenly had been piled against
him. His sleep in the temple, the murder, the coins in his shirt b o x -
after all he must have committed the crime in his sleep.
As he sat with his head in his hands pondering this theory, it grew
more and more incredible. To commit the murder in his sleep, to put
the coins in the pockets of the beggars in a clever effort to divert
258 T. S. S T R IB L IN G

suspicion, to bring the gold to Lowe’s cottage, and then to go back

and lie down on the mat, all while he was asleep—that was impossible.
He could not believe any human being could perform so fantastic,
so complicated a feat.
On the other hand, no other criminal would place the whole booty
in Poggioli’s trunk and so lose it. Xhat too was irrational. He was
forced back to his dream theory.
When he accepted this hypothesis he wondered just what he had
dreamed. If he had really murdered the girl in a nightmare, then the
murder was stamped somewhere in his subconscious, divided from
his day memories by the nebulous associations of sleep. He wondered
if he could reproduce them.
To recall a lost dream is perhaps one of the nicest tasks that ever
a human brain was driven to. Poggioli, being a psychologist, had had
a certain amount of experience with such attempts. Now he lay down
on his bunk and began the effort in a mechanical way.
He recalled as vividly as possible his covert exit from Lowe’s
cottage, his walk down Tragarette Road between perfumed gardens,
the lights of Peru, and finally his entrance into the temple. He
imagined again the temple attendant, Gooka, looking curiously at
him, but giving him tea and rice and pointing out his rug. Poggioli
remembered that he lay down on the rug on his back with his hands
under his head exactly as he was now lying on his cell bunk. For a
while he had stared at the illuminated image of Krishna, then at the
dark spring of the dome over his head.
And as he lay there, gazing thus, his thoughts had begun to waver,
to lose beat with his senses, to make misinterpretations. He had
thought that the Krishna moved slightly, then settled back and be­
came a statue again—here some tenuous connection in his thoughts
snapped, and he lost his whole picture in the hard bars of his cell
again.
Poggioli lay relaxed a while, then began once more. He reached the
point where the Krishna moved, seemed about to speak, and then—
there he was back in his cell.
It was nerve-racking, tantalizing, this fishing for the gossamers of
a dream which continually broke; this pursuing the grotesqueries of
a nightmare and trying to connect it with his solid everyday life of
thought and action. What had he dreamed?
Minutes dragged out as Poggioli pursued the vanished visions of
his head. Yes, it had seemed to him that the image of the Buddha
moved, that it had even risen from its attitude of meditation, and
suddenly, with a little thrill, Poggioli remembered that the dome of
the Hindu temple was opened and this left him staring upward into
a vast abyss. It seemed to the psychologist that he stared upward,
and the Krishna stared upward, both gazing into an unending space,
and presently he realized that he and the great upward-staring
A PASSAGE TO BEN A RES 259

Krishna were one; that they had always been one; and that their
oneness filled all space with enormous, with infinite power. But this
oneness which was Poggioli was alone in an endless, featureless space.
No other thing existed, because nothing had ever been created; there
was only a creator. All the creatures and matter which had ever been
or ever would be were wrapped up in him, Poggioli, or Buddha. And
then Poggioli saw that space and time had ceased to be, for space and
time are the offspring of division. And at last Krishna or Poggioli
was losing all entity or being in this tranced immobility.
And Poggioli began struggling desperately against nothingness. He
writhed at his deadened muscles, he willed in torture to retain some
vestige of being, and at last after what seemed millenniums of effort
he formed the thought:
“I would rather lose my oneness with Krishna and become the
vilest and poorest of creatures—to mate, fight, love, lust, kill, and be
killed than to be lost in this terrible trance of the universal!”
And when he had formed this tortured thought Poggioli remem­
bered that he had awakened and it was five o’clock in the morning.
He had arisen with a throbbing headache and had gone home.
That was his dream.

The American arose from his bunk filled with the deepest satisfac­
tion from his accomplishment. Then he recalled with surprise that
all five of the coolies had much the same dream; grandiloquence and
power accompanied by great unhappiness.
“That was an odd thing,” thought the psychologist, “six men
dreaming the same dream in different terms. There must have been
some physical cause for such a phenomenon.”
Then he remembered that he had heard the same story from an­
other source. Old Hira Dass in his marble court had expressed the
same sentiment, complaining of the emptiness of his riches and
power. However—and this was crucial—Hira Dass’s grief was not a
mere passing nightmare, it was his settled condition.
With this a queer idea popped into Poggioli’s mind. Could not these
six dreams have been a transference of an idea? While he and the
coolies lay sleeping with passive minds, suppose old Hira Dass had
entered the temple with his great unhappiness in his mind, and
suppose he had committed some terrible deed which wrought his
emotions to a monsoon of passion. Would not his horrid thoughts
have registered themselves in different forms on the minds of the
sleeping men!
Here Poggioli’s ideas danced about like the molecules of a crystal
in solution, each one rushing of its own accord to take its appointed
place in a complicated crystalline design. And so a complete under­
standing of the murder of little Maila Ran rushed in upon him.
Poggioli leaped to his feet and halloed his triumph.
260 T. S. S T R IB L IN G

“Here, Vickers! Lowe! Turnkey! I have it! I’ve solved it! Turn me
out! I know who killed the girl!”
After he had shouted for several minutes Poggioli saw the form of
a man coming up the dark aisle with a lamp. He was surprised at the
lamp but passed over it.
“Turnkey!” he cried, “I know who murdered the child—old Hira
Dass! Now listen—” He was about to relate his dream, but realized
that would avail nothing in an English court, so he leaped to the
physical end of the crime, matter with which the English juggle so
expertly. His thoughts danced into shape.
“Listen, turnkey, go tell Vickers to take that gold and develop all
the finger prints on it—he’ll find Hira Dass’s prints! Also, tell him to
follow out that opiate clue I gave him—he’ll find Hira Dass’s servant
bought the opiate. Also, Hira Dass sent a man to put the gold in my
trunk. See if you can’t find brass or steel filings in my room where
the scoundrel sat and filed a new key. Also, give Ram Jon the third
degree; he knows who brought the gold.”
The one with the lamp made a gesture.
“They’ve done all that, sir, long ago.”
“They did!”
“Certainly, sir, and old Hira Dass confessed everything, though
why a rich old man like him should have murdered a pretty child is
more than I can see. These Hindus are unaccountable, sir, even the
millionaires.”
Poggioli passed over so simple a query.
“But why did the old devil pick on me for a scapegoat?” he cried,
puzzled.
“Oh, he explained that to the police, sir. He said he picked on a
white man so the police would make a thorough investigation and
be sure to catch him. In fact, he said, sir, that he had willed that you
should come and sleep in the temple that night.”
Poggioli stared with a little prickling sensation at this touch of the
occult world.
“What I can’t see, sir,” went on the man with the lamp, “was why
the old coolie wanted to be caught and hanged—why didn’t he
commit suicide?”
“Because then his soul would have returned in the form of some
beast. He wanted to be slain. He expects to be reborn instantly in
Benares with little Maila Ran. He hopes to be a great man with
wife and children.”
“Nutty idea!” cried the fellow.
But the psychologist sat staring at the lamp with a queer feeling
that possibly such a fantastic idea might be true after all. For what
goes with this passionate, uneasy force in man when he dies? May
not the dead struggle tp reanimate themselves as he had done in his
dream? Perhaps the numberless dead still will to five and be divided;
A PASSAGE TO BENARES 261

and perhaps living things are a result of the struggles of the dead,
and not the dead of the living.
His thoughts suddenly shifted back to the present.
“Turnkey,” he snapped with academic sharpness, “why didn’t you
come and tell me of old Hira Dass’s confession the moment it
occurred? What did you mean, keeping me locked up here when you
knew I was an innocent man?”
“Because I couldn’t,” said the form with the lamp sorrowfully,
“Old Hira Dass didn’t confess until a month and ten days after you
were hanged, sir.”
And the lamp went out.

E d it o r ’s a f t e r n o t e : Y ou now perceive h e n r y p o g g io l i ’s other dis­

tinction. To put in the form o f a C lerihew :
Henry Poggioli
P erished wholly.
T h ere is m uch to b e said
F or solving m urders w hen dead.
This death (Mr Stribling elsew ere dates it exactly as January 20,
1929) m akes th e docent all but unique am ong detectives. W e may
b e quite certain that u n c l e a b n e r is d ea d b y now, and w e m ay fe e l
sure that t h e t h in k in g m a c h in e is either d ea d or senile; but the
fa ct o f a d etectiv es death has alm ost n ever b een recorded. Sh e r ­
l o c k h o l m e s , l o r d p e t e r w i m s e y and h il d e g a r d e w i t h e r s w ere

each reported dead, but w ere resurrected. F reem an s in s p e c t o r

b a d g e r was a subsidiary character, and Carr’s g a u d e n c r o s s ap ­

p eared in only on e book. (H ow ard H aycraft’s statem ent that Ben

Ray R ed m an s d r h a r r is o n t r e v o r is a detective-w ho-died is not
supported by th e one brilliant story in w hich d r t r e v o r appears.)
p o g g io l i ’s definite death is, to my know ledge, th e only one recorded

am ong short-story detectives; an d in the field o f novels I can find

a parallel only in the tragic dem ise o f d r u r y l a n e .
 M A X I M O R O L D A N IN

M eet th e first Latin American detective to appear in English:

m Ax i m o r o l d Xn , am ateur o f crim e both in its detection an d in its

commission, with th e audacity o f a l u p i n and th e logic o f a d u p in .

H e is also, to my know ledge, the first and only (w ith th e exception
o f his frien d and collaborator c a r l o s M ir a n d a ) Mexican detective
even in Spanish; and in all Latin Am erica I know o f only tw o
others: d o n is id r o p a r o d i and b e r n a l c h e s t e , both o f w hom func­
tion adroitly in Buenos Aires. (Additions to the list will b e w elcom ed
by th e editor.) But r o l d An w ould b e unique anyw here an d in any
language; w ho else could, ivith such casual casuistry, solve a mur­
d er as a m ere step tow ard committing a theft?
THE STICKPIN

BY A N T O N I O HELU
TRANSLATED BY ANTHONY BOUCHER

|t WAS, OF COURSE, those two details that gave Maximo Roldan

the key to the whole affair: the garter that belonged to the nephew
and the stickpin that didn’t belong to anyone. But, as he so often
asked himself afterwards, if it hadn’t been for those 10,000 pesos in
jewels, would he ever have paid any attention to either garter or
stickpin?
If the reader has ever passed along the Calle de los Millones, the
Street of Millions in that district of Mexico City known as the Colonia
Roma, he may have observed that it is composed of no less than
twenty houses all nearly identical. He may have seen the gardens
that surround each of them on all four sides. And he may have
noticed that only one of these homes violates the uniformity of
gardens and facades---- one house which has, instead of the railings
264 A N T O N IO H E L tJ

which surround the others, a very high and thick wall which hides it
almost completely from the street. He may have been astonished,
not so much that this house is protected by such a wall as that the
others, all belonging to millionaires, are surrounded only by easily
climbed railings. And most of all he may have been startled to learn
that the house with the wall is perhaps the only one on the Calle de
los Millones which is not inhabited by a millionaire.
But it is unlikely that the reader knows the street at all. It is reserved
exclusively to millionaires (always excepting the house with the
wall), and millionaires avoid social intercourse with anyone below
their financial level. And the reader, so far as I know, has something
less than a million on hand at the moment.
Thus when the crime in the Calle de los Millones became the talk
of the town, there were few men, if any, who had a clear idea of the
locale or of the circumstances in which it was committed. You had to
be content with the details which the afternoon papers brought out
on the very day of the crime. And these were hardly detailed enough.
This is roughly what the papers said:
In th e hou se with th e w all ( a w all five m eters high, crow ned with
steel spikes another m eter long, sp aced ten centim eters ap a rt) the
man o f the house h ad b een fou nd dead. His hou sehold consisted o f
his sister, his daughter Isabel, his n ephew , a hou sekeeper, and his
chauffeur A lfredo. T h e n ephew and the chauffeur w ere w ont to spen d
th e night aw ay from hom e occasionally; this h ad b een on e o f those
nights. T h e man o f th e house w as fou nd in his b ed , his heart p ierced
by a knife. T here w ere no signs o f a struggle in th e room . T h e kn ife
belon g ed to th e victim, w ho habitually p laced it on his night ta ble b e ­
fore retiring. B esides the knife, the follow ing articles w ere fou n d in
th e room: A pair o f cufflinks, belonging to th e n ephew ; a pair o f
gloves and a garter, also belonging to the n ephew ; a belt an d a n eck­
tie, belonging to th e chauffeur; and a stick pin w hich d id not belong
to th e nephew , th e chauffeur, nor the victim. Finally the old man
kep t 10,000 pesos in jew els in his night table; they w ere still there,
proving that robbery had not been the m otive o f the crime.
That was all.

But among all these facts there were two items which aroused
Maximo Roldan’s attention as soon as he had read the details. Two
items which caused him to seize the telephone, call the victim’s home,
ask for the Chief of the Security Commission, and say ( at the risk of
being taken for a madman):
“Hello? . . . The Chief of the Security Commission? . . . If you
please, sir, do they have a dog in the house? . . . I said, is there a dog
in the house where the murder took place? . . . Yes, a dog. . . . No.
THE ST IC K P IN 265

this is not a gag; I’m completely serious. Is there a dog in the house?
. . . Hello? . . . H elloF’
The Chief had hung up. Maximo Roldan called back.
“Chief of the Commission? . . . Please listen, sir; if I am to discover
the murderer, you must tell me if there is a dog in the house.. . . No,
you don’t know me. . . . Indeed you don’t. . . . Please! It all depends
on this. Because there must NOT h e a dog, don’t you see? . . . I tell
you no, you don’t know m e . . . . Yes, of course I can tell you who the
murderer is---- providing there is no d og . . . . I’ll come over in person
and tell you.. . . Right away.. . . Now: is there a dog?. . . No? Bravo!
I’ll be right over to tell you the murderer’s name.”
And Maximo Roldan left at once for the scene of the crime.

In one of the rooms in the upper story of the murder house, the
Chief of the Security Commission was listening to Maximo Roldan:
“Of course, Chief, you will have noticed the curious thing about
your discovery: a garter has no logical reason for appearing as an
incriminating clue on the scene of a crime. Generally speaking, in­
criminating clues are left as the result of a struggle, of forgetfulness,
or of the nervous excitement of the moment. You might forget your
gloves, your cufflinks might come loose or even your necktie; but
there is no reason whatsoever that you should lose a garter. There’s
only one explanation: it was left here intentionally. And if the garter
is a deliberate plant, so probably are the other clues. You follow,
Chief?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“But the garter is the only one of the clues that is definitely and
conclusively masculine. The gloves, the cufflinks, the necktie, the
stickpin—a woman might wear any or all of these in certain en­
sembles; but she could never wear a man’s garter. These clues were
planted here to distract suspicion from the real murderer; the others
seemed insufficient proof of sex, so the murderer added the indispu­
tably male garter to prove that the criminal must have been a man.”
“But there are only two men in the household; it would have to
incriminate one of them.”
“I’m coming to that. Now we have the murderer trying to avert
suspicion, planting various objects chosen at random, belonging to
the nephew or the chauffeur or, like the stickpin, to neither of them,
but always masculine objects—never feminine. At first glance these
objects seem to incriminate their owners. But their mute accusation is
so weak and confused that the police would never make an arrest on
the strength of them. The murderer, then, was not trying to frame
either individual. He was trying to fram e a sex. A man in the same
position would have scattered earrings and bobby pins. You
understand?”
266 A N T O N IO HELU

“Yes ' • ”
“It leaps to the eye, then, that the murderer is a woman.”
“A woman?”
“A woman, Chief.”
“Mm.” The Chief of the Commission meditated for a moment. Then
he said, “A woman who had ready access to the rooms of the nephew
and the chauffeur.”
“Perhaps.”
“Or of course the housekeeper. She does the daily cleaning in their
rooms.”
“Possibly.”
“ ‘Possibly’! Can’t you be sure?”
“If you’ll let me examine the room, by myself with no one to bother
me, and let me question the three women who live in the house—then
I’ll tell you which is the murderess.”
The Chief stared at Maximo Roldan, dubiously weighing the ir­
regularity of his intervention against the convincing clarity of his
logic thus far. He began to pace meditatively around the room. At
last he made his decision.
“You may do as you please.”
“Thanks, Chief. I’ll be right back.”
Maximo Roldan opened the door and left. “Senora!” he called to
the housekeeper who was passing in the hall. “Where is the young
lady? Quick! Take me to her. Matter of life and death!”
The housekeeper stood gaping at him. She whispered in a tremu­
lous voice, “Come along. This way.” She traversed the length of the
hall and stopped before the last door. “In here.”
“Thanks a lot. You may go now.” The old woman did not budge.
“Don’t be afraid, senora. It’s for her best interests. I swear it.”
The housekeeper withdrew somewhat distrustfully. When she had
vanished, Maximo Roldan knocked on the door and without waiting
for an answer turned the knob and entered. Isabel stood in the center
of the room, her eyes fixed on the opening door.
“What do you want?” she asked. Her voice shook a little.
Maximo Roldan took a card from his wallet, proffered it to the girl,
and said, “Here is my address. If you trust me, go to my house and
show this card. They’ll let you in. Lie low until I get there.”
The girl turned pale. She stared at Maximo Roldan, trying to
penetrate to the depths of his character.
“Run along. F lee, I believe, is the proper word in this situation.
Here’s a note for a hundred pesos. You have your choice: my card or
the banknote. Either way you can make a safe getaway. Rut flee you
must, and at once.”
Isabel made no answer. She kept her eyes fixed on those of Maximo
Roldan. His gaze did not waver. She extended her hand and took the
card.
THE ST IC K P IN 267

“Thank you. I trust you.”

The young man bowed and brushed Isabel’s hand with his lips. He
murmured, “Why? Because you did it?”
The girl came slowly toward him, took both his hands in hers, and
closed them over a bulky object.
“A notebook. Written by me. Read it. Goodbye.”
Maximo Roldan left the room on the run and entered the bedroom
where the murder had taken place. There was no one there. He went
to the night table, opened the drawer, and took out the jewels. He
wrapped them in a handkerchief and tied it up by its four corners.
He thrust the small bundle into the rear pocket of his trousers, left
the bedroom, and returned to the room where he had talked to the
Chief of the Security Commission.
“Well?” the Chief demanded as soon as Maximo Roldan appeared.
“Did you manage to learn anything?”
“I think so,” Maximo Roldan answered. He stood by the window,
from which he could see the street door in the wall. “I think I can tell
you who the murderer is.”
“All right,” the other said impatiently. “Let’s have it.”
Maximo Roldan kept his eyes on the garden. “You will recall, Chief,
that in addition to the clues which belonged to the nephew and the
chauffeur, there was one—the stickpin—which belonged to neither.
You remember?”
“Yes.”
“Very well,” Maximo Roldan went on. His fingers drummed nerv­
ously against the windowpane. “The stickpin did not belong to the
victim either.”
“So . . . ?”
“So, since it did not belong to any of the three men in the house­
hold, the stickpin—”
“—must have come from outside,” the other interrupted.
A woman’s figure scurried across the garden, opened the street
door, and disappeared. Maximo Roldan gave a little sigh and turned
to the Chief of the Security Commission. “Exactly; it must have come
from outside.”
“Then it teas an outside job, and the murderer is a man after
a ll”
“Not at all. We established that it is a woman; I don’t need to go
over that. There are three women here: the victim’s sister, his daugh­
ter Isabel, and the housekeeper. On the night of the murder all three
of them had ready access to the rooms of the two men, since all three
knew that the nephew and the chauffeur would be out all night. One
of them is guilty. That one had in her possession a stickpin—an article
of jewelry generally affected by young men who dandify themselves
for one purpose: to please the girls.”
“Caramba! Then—”
268 A N T O N IO HELU

“Yes, Chief. Neither the dead man’s sister nor the housekeeper is
young enough to be in touch with such a youth, who might, say, give
a girl such a stickpin as a memento or let her take it in a playful
moment. There is only one woman in this house who fulfills the
conditions: the youngest.”
“The daughter Isabel?”
“Excellent, Chief. T he daughter Isabel, exactly.”
An impressive silence followed this announcement. The Chief had
no comment. He seemed to balance the enormity of the unknown’s
accusation against the inevitability of his reasoning. At last he opened
the door, cast a glance along the empty hall, took a whistle from his
pocket, and blew three blasts. Then he closed the door and returned
to Maximo Roldan.
“There’s something I still don’t understand. Will you tell me why
you asked me on the telephone if there was a dog in the house?”
“It’s very simple. The existence of a dog would have torn down all
my structure of logic. Who could be sure that a playful puppy might
not have dragged to the scene of the crime the garter, the necktie,
the gloves, and even a stranger’s stickpin? This may seem a childish
hypothesis; but it had to be disproved. Once it could be struck out,
my deductions were established as certain.”
The door opened and a man in uniform came in. “You want some­
thing, Chief?” he asked.
“Yes. Call together all the women in the house.”
“Very well.”
“Put a man on the street door with orders to stop any woman who
tries to leave.”
“Very well.”
“That’s all.”
“Very well, Chief.” The policeman left.
The Chief of the Security Commission walked up to Maximo
Roldan. He contemplated him for a moment. Then he put his. hands
on Maximo Roldans shoulders and asked, “You still insist on not
giving me your name?”
“No use, Chief. It won’t do you any good—at the moment.”
“And later?”
“Later . . . ? You’ll know some day.”
“It’s up to you. But I should like to know now.”
They were silent a moment. Suddenly Maximo Roldan said,
“Doesn’t it strike you as strange, Chief, that the daughter Isabel
should be the murderer? Have you any idea what can have been
the motive f o r . . . parricide?”
The Chief thought a moment. “You’re right,” he said, with a cer­
tain astonishment. “It’s terrible!” Then after another pause for
thought, “It’s impossible!”
THE ST IC K P IN 269

Maximo Roldan smiled. “I thought my reasoning seemed logical

to you.”
“Yes, b u t . . . ”
“But now you’re beginning to have your doubts; is that it?”
“All right,” the Chief of the Security Commission demanded
brusquely. “Can you explain the motive?”
“If you’ll allow me, I think I can.”
“I’m listening,” said the other.
Maximo Roldan took from his pocket the notebook which the girl
had given him. “Always, at all times, from every source—in the news­
paper articles, in the statement of the housekeeper, in the sister’s
statement—you have heard that girl called the daughter Isabel, until
finally you’ve grown so used to it that you call her that yourself;
never once has she been mentioned as the daughter o f the m urdered
man or simply his daughter. Everyone, including the newspapers, in­
fluenced by the manner in which the witnesses made their statements,
has referred to the household as the sister, the nephew, and added:
th e daughter Isabel, th e C hauffeur A lfredo. This omission of names
in the first group, dealing with indisputable relatives—remember this
is all from the point of view of those who, like the housekeeper, knew
the dead man and his relationships intimately—this omission of names
in the first group indicates the necessity, in the second group, of add­
ing their names to the title of the position which they held in the
household: Alfredo held th e position o f chauffeur, Isabel held the
position o f daughter. The housekeeper, referring to each of them,
says, ‘This lady is the dead man’s sister, this gentleman is his nephew,’
just like that, without having to add a name; but she comes to the
others and says, ‘This man is the chauffeur Alfredo, this young lady
is th e daughter Isabel.’ ”
The Chief of the Security Commission listened attentively. He
neither moved nor breathed. He drank in the words that flowed from
the lips of Maximo Roldan.
“The dead man himself calls our attention to it. Take a careful look
at the account book which you found in his room and which you
showed me when I arrived here. There he writes, to quote from
memory, ‘Daily allowance to my sister . . .’, ‘Monthly allowance to
my nepbew . . ‘Expenses of my daughter Isabel.’ And observe that
he did not do so to distinguish between one daughter and another,
because we know of no daughter other than the girl who passed as
such, Isabel. You follow me, Chief?”
“Yes. But I still don’t see—”
“—the motive?”
“Yes. I should think, on the contrary, that Isabel would be deeply
grateful to the dead man. Didn’t he take her in and educate her and
love her as though she were his own daughter?”
270 A N T O N IO H E L tJ

“But that was not the case. Isabel was not taken in by the old man,
nor did she have any cause for gratitude. The surface picture was
simply contrived to conceal the true facts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Here the true drama begins, Chief. Some ten or twelve years ago
a certain Procurator of Justice issued an edict authorizing crim es
passionels as ‘the legitimate defense of honor.’ In accordance with
this edict, a man could kill his wife and her lover with impunity. He
was not punished, he was not even tried. Rather he was all but urged
to commit the crime. And murders, in the name of ‘the legitimate
defense of honor,’ increased. You must remember.”
“Perfectly. But why should you? Surely you were only a little boy
then.”
“I was indeed. But of late I’ve been looking through the news­
papers of those days for reports of famous crimes. And around that
time there occurred one of these crim es passionels, endorsed by the
edict of the honorable Procurator. It was on this street, in this house.
Instead of the large wall there was then a railing around the garden.
The master of the house came home one night unexpectedly and
found his wife in the arms of another man, under one of those orange
trees in the garden. He did not lose his equanimity, he did not get
excited. With complete control of his nerves, with an astonishing
sangfroid, he took his revolver from his pocket and fired. The first to
fall was his wife. The lover tried to climb the railing and flee, but a
second shot brought him down. Later the master of the house had
the railing torn down and this wall erected to protect him from the
curiosity-seekers who gathered around the place to make their
comments on the site where the lovers fell.
“That’s as much of the story as you can learn from the newspapers.
But it seems that the husband managed to find out that the little girl,
whom he had always considered his daughter, was not his. Partly to
avoid even more scandal than he was already enduring, partly to
continue his revenge, he kept this fact secret from the public. And
thus it was that he had living at his side the daughter Isabel, whom
he humiliated and tortured, little by little slaking his thirst for
revenge.”
“Anyone would say you’d seen it all happen,” the Chief of Security
observed.
“The girl for her part slowly became aware that that man was not
her father. She began to hate him. Even when she was a child she
felt that she was unjustly treated. And once she knew that she was
not obliged to feel for him the natural affection which a child owes
its father, she was filled with such a fierce joy that she could find only
one means of expressing her emotion without danger: she wrote over
and over again in her little notebook:
THE ST IC K P IN 271
My daddy isn’t my daddy
as when children discover a particular way of jumping that delights
them and go on jumping until they’re exhausted.”
The Chief of the Commission of Security fixed his gaze on the
little notebook which Maximo Roldan had taken out of his pocket
when he began to talk.
Maximo Roldan nodded. “This is the notebook, Chief. You may
observe the development that was going on in the girl as the years
went by. That first phrase was followed by another:
I don’t love him because he’s not my daddy
and then others that indicate progressively the state of her spirit:
H e is not my father
That man is not my father
Not my father
and later on these others, still more terrible, marking a new discovery:
H e killed my father and m other
1 must hate him
until we reach the last, which decided the old man’s fate:
I must kill him
All these phrases constantly reiterated, taking possession of the girl,
flowing through her very being, ever feeding her hatred and intensi­
fying her decision to kill the man who had murdered her parents and
was mistreating her—And then came the denouement.”
“Where did you find this notebook?” the Chief asked.
“In the girl’s room, when I went to question her.”
“You managed to take it without her noticing?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“What?” the Chief of the Security Commission exclaimed.
“She wasn’t there,” Maximo Roldan repeated.
The Chief of the Security Commission leaped for the door. Maximo
Roldan held him back for a moment.
“Just a minute, Chief. I meant to tell you something else: the
jewels have disappeared.”
“What!”
“Yes. They aren’t in the night table any more.”
This time the Chief of the Commission waited no longer. He
opened the door and started running down the hall.
Maximo Roldan left in his turn. Tranquilly he descended the stairs,
reached the garden, strolled across it, and stopped before the police­
man who was stationed at the street door.
272 A N T O N IO H E L t;

“The Chief says you’re not to leave this spot for a single moment.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Under penalty of arrest, you’re not to let any woman leave, for
any reason.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. And if you need it, call for help. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. Oh—as soon as you see the Chief, tell him not to worry.”
“Not to worry, sir?”
“Everything’s all right; I have the jewels with me.”
“Oh. Yes, sir.”
“See you later.”
And Maximo Roldan went on to the corner, tinned it, and vanished.
 TOMMY THOMPSON IN

H ere is a different kind o f detective story, a different kind o f d etec­

tive, and a fresh new style in the telling—for all w hich w e give loud
thanks to Mr Gallico. t o m m y T h o m p s o n , boxing expert w ho can
m ake th e dry d ea d facts o f archeology live and b leed b efo re your
eyes, is an authentic detective in the great tradition; but never
b efo re has detectival m ethod tied a statue to a MS and m ade the
Colosseum throng with slugging ghosts. You’ll rem em ber “T he
Rom an k id ’—even though h e’s 2000 years old w hen you m eet him.
THE ROMAN KID

BY P A U L G A L L I C O

"D
U o N GIORNO,” said Tommy Thompson. “Ubi est the---- ” He
paused and then concluded that he had made sufficient concession to
what he thought was the Italian language, and finished: “Could a guy
take a gander at the Tertullan Fragment?”
The girl at the desk of the Antiquity Room of the Museo Romano
flinched a little and then cocked her bright head to one side and re­
peated slowly, with a reflective pause after each word: “Could . . . a
. . . guy . . . take . . . a . . . gander . . . g u y . . . ta k e . . .gander. ‘Gander’
is the male of ‘goose’---- ■ ” She stopped and looked at Tommy with the
comers of her mouth drawn down and a sort of despair in her eyes.
275
276 PAUL G A L LIC O

Tommy suddenly realized that she had a face of infinite humor,

and that the humor somehow managed to disguise its beauty, or
rather made you less conscious of it. Unlike the Italian women to
whom he had already grown accustomed during his short time in
Rome, she had masses of soft hair the color of early-morning sunlight,
large light blue eyes and a small nose. But Tommy felt that here was
a person with whom one instinctively wanted to laugh. So he laughed.
“Excuse it, please,” he said. “Maybe I ought to talk English. My
Italian is terrible. I wanted to get a squint at that fragment of manu­
script by the first Roman boxing writer. I read a piece about it in the
Paris Herald. They’re supposed just to have dug it up, and it’s the
only existing description of an early boxing match. Some Greek fed a
Roman plenty of left hands and stopped him.”
The girl shook her head and said plaintively, “Why did they not
teach to me the right kind of English?” Her mouth was thin, wide,
mobile and slightly pathetic. She was tiny and dressed in a long blue
smock. “I have taken very high marks in English, but it is the wrong
kind. You are an American. Are you an archaeologist?”
“Who—me?” Tommy grinned again. He was a pleasant-looking
man in his late twenties, with a broad, wide-open face and a funny
two-inch patch of gray that ran through his dark hair from front to
back. "I’m a sports writer. You know—boxing, baseball and stuff. I
do a column on the Blade in New York. But I’m a sucker for this
ancient history. I’m supposed to be digging up a team of Italian
amateur boxers to take back to fight our Golden Glovers, but I’ve
been spending most of my time trying to find out what sports were
like in ancient Rome.”
The girl gazed at him, her face alive with intense interest. Finally
she said, flatly, “Americans are wonderful people. Come. I show you.”
She led him down an aisle between massive bronzes and pieces of
ancient frescoes to a small alcove where there was a little pedestal
holding up a flat glass frame. Under the glass was a small triangle of
stained brown manuscript that looked like a piece of old rag. It was
six inches across the top and about four down one side.
“That,” said the girl, “iss the Tertullan Fragment.”
Tommy stared at it a moment, and then said, “Oh, oh! I knew that
there’d be a catch to it. It’s written in Latin, isn’t it?”
The thing Tommy liked about the girl was that she didn’t crack.
An American girl would have said, “What did you expect it would be
in—eight-point Bodoni, with subheads?”
Instead, she said gently, “I will translate it for you.”
“ ‘Falernus, the senator, in his accusations, pointed to the scandal
of the Emperor’ ’’—Titus, the girl explained—" ‘who saved the life of
Sinistrus, his defeated boxer, because of his love for Aula, the sister of
the vanquished gladiator. All Rome, he said, knew that Sinistrus de­
served to die because by his defeat at the hands of the Greek, Phistra,
TH E ROMAN K ID 277

a small but nimble boxer, who, by the quickness of eye and hand and
die agility of his legs, remained uninjured during the combat, while
inflicting many wounds upon his taller, stronger opponent, the Em­
peror’s gladiator drew the laughter of the multitude, thus bringing
discredit upon the purple. Nevertheless, the Emperor, with a glance
at the box of the Patrician Regius, where sat the girl Aula, and in the
face of the tumult of the mob demanding death for Sinistrus, who lay
bleeding from many wounds, as well as exhausted by his efforts,
signified that his life should be spared. These things, declared
Falernus, were common knowledge.’ ”
The girl looked up. “It ends there,” she said.
“Gee,” said Tommy, “the little guy just stepped around and popped
him. A sort of a Fancy Dan. I’ll bet it was a lousy fight. T never saw
one of those that wasn’t. Maybe it was a splash. Titus sends his bum
into the tank and then coppers on the bets. There was a dame angle
in those days, too, eh? Gosh, you know, you’re wonderful. You
translated that at sight.”
“Perhaps,” said the girl, “you will return the compliment, and
translate for me too.”
“I apologize,” said Tommy. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Whenever
I start to talk fight, I fall into that jargon. They were funny guys, those
old reporters. They didn’t care a hang about the sports and never
wrote about them unless there was some political angle to it—like this
guy Tertullus. I guess when your space was limited and there weren’t
any printing presses, you had to stick to things that were important.
Nobody seems to know much about what a show was really like at
the Colosseum, because nobody ever wrote about them. I guess they
just stuck up a copy of the results and the box score somewhere in the
Forum, and let it go at that.”
A tall stoop-shouldered man came through a door that opened from
a small office at the rear of the little alcove, and spoke to the girl in
German. He was gray-haired, gray-faced and weary looking. He wore
a gold pince-nez attached to a black ribbon. The girl answered him,
and then turned to Tommy. “This is my father, Professor Lisschauer,
the curator of the museum. Papaclien, this is an American gentleman
who is interested in the sports of antiquity.”
Tommy shook hands. “Thompson is my name, sir. The Blade, New
York. Sports writer. Your daughter was kind enough to translate the
fragment for me.”
The old man had a pronounced accent. He said, “Ja, ja. Leni haff
just tolt me. You do not read Greek and Latin?”
Tommy shook his head. “I—I’m afraid what little education I have,
I got the hard way. I mean I had to go to work when I was a kid.”
The old man looked at him, puzzled, and then glanced sharply at
his daughter.
“Then how can you be a student of antiquitation? It iss impossible.”
278 PAUL G A L LIC O

Tommy felt uncomfortable. There was a detachment about the

professor that shut him out completely.
He tried to explain, “I—I’m trying to get the feel of things. I mean,
the people of those days and what they were like. Behind all these
inscriptions and statuary and stuff, there were people—you know,
human beings. They couldn’t have been such a lot different from us.
That fighter, for instance, I saw in one of those wall paintings in
Tarquinia, squared off with his thumb stuck out ready for a left lead
to the eyeball. You could just see him getting ready to say, ‘Excuse
me, pal,’ and then cross the right while the other guy is still blinking.
He must have been the Gentleman Jones of Etruria. Gentleman Jones
is a fight heavy we have around New York. Polite, smooth and very
sporting in the ring, but he loves to stick that thumb in the other
guy’s eye. What I mean is maybe those old-time guys were just
like that.”
Professor Lisschauer looked baffled, shook his head and said, “The
reading of the ancients requires years of study.” He sighed. “And
then sometimes it iss nod enough. You are wasting your time. You
will excoose me, please.”
He turned and shambled away. On his daughter’s face were pain
and concern.
“Did I say something?” said Tommy. “I didn’t mean---- ■ ”
The girl shook her head. There was a brightness in her eyes.
Tommy saw that they were close to tears. “Papachen iss in some
trouble. He did not wish to be impolite. Ach, if I could only help him.”
“Is it anything serious? I mean is there anything I could——”
Leni smiled. “You are kind. I am afraid you would not understand.
His integrity. His years of hard work. And then to lose everything.”
She stopped. “Forgive me. It iss private trouble. I should not bore
you.”
She hesitated, and then suddenly asked, “Have you seen the fa­
mous statue of the Resting Boxer? It iss in the Museo delle Balineum.”
She raised her head proudly, with a significance which Tommy did
not understand at the time. “It iss a discovery of my papa.”
“I haven’t,” said Tommy. “But I will. Do you suppose you—I mean
would you go along with me sometime, to—to--- ”
“---- take . . . a . . . gander at it,” finished Leni.
“The once-over,” said Tommy.
“The once-over,” repeated Leni.
“A quick peek.”
“A quick peek.”
“You’re on.”
“You’re on? Does that mean yes’?” Leni said.
“Yes.”
“Yes. You’re on.”
Their laughter joined and echoed from the quiet caverns of the
THE ROMAN K ID 279

museum. They took each other’s hands on it. Something told Tommy
that this was not the time to kiss her. But there was nothing to stop
him from wanting to.

They met, two days later, on a spring Sunday, and went to

Alfredo’s, where Tommy, entranced, watched Alfredo’s showman­
ship as he manipulated the fetuccini in the melted butter, and later
they ate his famous sole in white wine sauce and exchanged bits of
information about their lives.
The Lisschauers were Viennese. Leni’s father, a famous archae­
ologist, was the curator of the Museo Romano. Leni had studied with
him many years.
“I knew there was something,” said Tommy. “My mother came
from Vienna. My father was an American. And you can read the past
as though it were a book. And yet you’re sweet and simple, f ve never
met anyone like you. Shut up, Thompson, you’re gagal”
“Gaga?” said Leni.
“Soft in the head,” explained Tommy, and then added under his
breath, “about you,” continuing aloud, “You must learn our beautiful
language. I’ll teach you if you’ll help me with my ancient history.”
Leni looked at him curiously with her large eyes. “You are a strange
boy, are you not? You write about the sports and you are interested
in antiquity. I thought Americans only cared about to make money.”
“I love it,” confessed Tom m y-m aking money, I mean—but I don’t
let it get me down. What do you like to do besides read old Latin
manuscripts at sight?”
“Oh,” said Leni, thinking seriously and counting on the fingers of
one hand, “I like to dance, to play tennis, to ski, to---- •
”
“That’s done it,” interrupted Tommy. “There’s a tea dance at my
hotel at five. What do you say?”
Leni nodded her head violently. They toasted each other in
Lachryma Christi on that.
They kept meaning to go to the Museo delle Balineum all through
the afternoon. But there was such a fine, blue Roman sky, and the
smell of flowers in the air—Tommy could not be sure whether it was
flowers or Leni, who was dressed in a simple white frock with a
little girl’s sash at the waist, and a big straw hat—and also they ac­
quired a cab driver named Pietro Dandolo, whose fine brown horse
was named Ginevra. Pietro sang snatches of operatic arias as he
drove—sang them very quietly to himself. And although it was warm,
he still wore his rusty blue coat and shoulder cape and battered silk
hat, and he sang his orders to Ginevra instead of speaking them,
which was why Tommy and Leni grew to love him. Tommy engaged
him for the whole day.
Tommy told Leni something about himself. At fifteen he had had
to quit school and start in as an office boy in the sports department
280 PAUL G A L LIC O

of The Blade. His father had been a singing teacher. Tommy had a
talent for writing and had become sports editor and columnist, and
lived in an atmosphere of athletes, competition and sweat. But in
Tommy was an artist’s reaching for beauty, and a tremendous sensi­
tivity to human beings and what made them tick. The bright girl at
his side was stirring a yearning in him—one that he felt unable to
express, except in the language of his life and his trade. On her part,
the girl was fascinated by the strangeness of this American, his vitality
and animation, but with her feminine intuition, she already felt the
hungry, incompleted side of his nature and was drawn to it.
They recrossed the Tiber by the Ponte Palatino and drove back
through the wonderful, shining city to the Ambassadeurs, where they
went down to the little cafe below and danced Viennese waltzes,
and Tommy taught Leni American slang, and she came to look witb
a fond joy for the wide grin that spread over his face when he
interpreted.
“You’re the tops. Get it? It means there was never anybody like
you ever before. You’re the Number One gal.”
Leni repeated after him solemnly, “I . . . am . . . the . . . tops.”
“Here’s another one: Carrying the torch. When you’re crazy about
someone—like ‘Baby, am I carrying the torch for you?’ Get it?”
“I get it,” said Leni, copying Tommy’s intonation exactly. “Can I
carry the torch for you, too, or is the torch only for gentlemen?”
By the time they went to the famous Ulpia Restaurant hard by the
Trajan Forum, for dinner, they were in love. They sat close together
in the damp cool of the grotto below, with the magic upon them,
their hands tightly clasped, listening to the little orchestra, the guitars
and mandolins and the blind violinist with the wonderful throbbing
tone. The old grotto was carved out of the tufa of the buildings of
the Forum. Dim lanterns faintly showed the garlands of spring
flowers, the hanging-basket bottles of Chianti and the bits of old
marbles and pieces of ancient friezes.
Tommy said, “Gee, Leni. I’ve got a nerve to spring this on you this
way, but I can’t help it. I’m going for you. I’ve never gone for a gal
this way in my life. Do—do I have to translate that for you too?”
Leni took Tommy’s hand and held it to her cheek, and shook her
head that way, holding it. She said, simply and directly, “Oh, strange
American Tommy. I am afraid that I am going for you too.”
“I want to kiss you,” said Tommy flatly. “Would anybody care?”
Leni looked at him with her eyes dancing like wood sprites. “This
is Rome,” she said. “The old gods would like it very much.”
They kissed each other. They kissed each other again until the
sweetness was no longer bearable. “I heard the gods cheering,” said
Tommy.
“I did, too,” said Leni, “only I think it was Benedetto.”
Benedetto, the enormous proprietor, waddled over to the table
T H E R O M A N K ID 281

with a bottle of wine. He said, “Bravo! Bravo! Signor, signorina, per­

mit me; the compliments of the Ulpia.”
“Looka,” said Tommy, after they had drunk a toast with Benedetto;
‘le t’s get this straight now. I love you. I’ll never love anybody but
you. I want to marry you. But quick. I want to take you back to New
York with me. I never want you out of my sight from now on.”
Leni took his hand and said, “Oh, Tommy. I think perhaps I want
to do so, so much.”
And then the dancing went out of her eyes and she caught her
breath sharply and let go of Tommy’s hand. He could see that some­
thing inside her had gone limp.
“Oh-oh,” he said, “trouble. What is it, Leni? Is there another guy?”
The girl suddenly was frightened and a little panicky. “Oh,
Tommy, I should not have let myself go so. It iss so different with us
here. It has been understood for so long that I will be the wife of
Professor Zanni. He iss papa’s associate. I know that Papachen wishes
it. And we here are different with our families. Papa is everything.
He would not understand you. And just now, when he is in such deep
trouble---- Oh, Tommy, Tommy, I shall die.”
Tommy spoke a little grimly, “I get it. When I walk into Madison
Square Garden or Twenty-One, I ’m a big shot, but in this setup, Mr.
Thompson, of the New York Blade, is just John Mugg.” He paused,
and when he caught Leni looking baffled again, said, “Never mind,
sweet; that’s one I didn’t want you to understand. Look, what is the
trouble your dad’s in? Tell me about it, Leni.”
Leni said, “Oh, Tommy,” again, and then replied, “It iss about the
statue of the Resting Boxer. The one—the one we did not see. Papa
discovered it near the Fossa delle Tre Fontane. It was his great dis­
covery. It is one of the most perfect bronzes ever found. Papa has
written that it is in the style and manner of the Greek sculptor,
Praexus, in the time of the Emperor Titus. Mussolini made papa a
commenclatore, because the statue is of the Golden Age of Rome.”
“And so---- •”
“And so a Professor Guglielmo in Napoli has published a paper on
the statue, against papa. He iss a very important man in archaeology.
He has written that the statue is—how do you say?—a--- ”
Tommy whistled. “I get it. A phony.”
“Is false. Is a fraud. Three years ago, the Manzini brothers were
put into jail because they had made and buried many statues that
were—that were phony, as you say. Now they are both dead. Pro­
fessor Guglielmo has written that the statue my father has discovered
is a fraud of the Manzini brothers.”
“Well, isn’t your dad’s word as good as his?”
“Guglielmo iss an important man in Italy. He is high in the party.
And we are Austrians. And proof? What is there but that which papa
has from his years of study, from his knowledge?”
282 PAUL G A L LIC O

Tommy chewed on his lower lip. “And unless he can prove he’s
right, he loses his job. Nice. This guy you’re supposed to marry—
where does he figure in this setup?”
Leni frowned.
“He iss terrible unhappy. He iss afraid that Professor Guglielmo
may be right.”
“Just a pal,” said Tommy. “And if your father goes out, he goes in.”
“Oh, Tommy!” cried Leni. “How did you know?”
“It’s got a familiar ring to it, sweet.” Tommy sighed. “At this point,
enter our hero. And what does he do? He does nothing. On account
of he’s just a dumb sports writer. It’s a fine plot, up to there.”
“Plot, Tommy?”
“M’m’m’m. Boy loves girl. Girl’s father does not love boy. In fact,
he does not know boy exists. Girl’s father is in jam. Buckety, buckety,
here comes boy on a white horse, rescues father. Father says, ‘Bless
you, my children.’ Boy gets girl. Only this one has me stopped. Let’s
get out of here, Leni, and go for a drive. I want to cool my head off.”
They filled their pockets with sugar for Ginevra, the horse. Pietro
Dandolo was sitting on the box, singing the M’apari aria from Martha
to himself, so they fed Ginevra until he had finished. Pietro said
something in Italian to Leni and started off.
“Where is he going?” asked Tommy. “Not that it matters on a
night like this.”
“He says because there is so big a moon, he is driving us to the
Colosseo.”
The indeed-so-big moon shone through the skeleton of the Colos­
seum and illuminated the simple, wonderful white cross erected on
the spot where the Christian martyrs died. Leni and Tommy wan­
dered in through the main entrance, their arms about each other’s
waists, picking their way around the pieces of fallen pillars and slabs
of tufa and marble cornices. The great shell of the ancient arena was
deserted, except for the many huge Colosseum cats that lived there.
Sometimes the moonlight picked up their eyes and made them glitter.
Leni and Tommy sat close together on a drum-shaped slab of
broken pillar and soaked in the beauty and ancient quiet of the place.
Leni began to speak, “There in the center is the box where the
Emperor sat. There was a great purple cloth that hung from it. The
patricians and the senators were in the near-by boxes, according to
their rank. In that little gallery above sat the courtesans. The plebs,
the common people, were up at the top.”
“The gallery boys,” said Tommy. “I guess a chump had no chance
of getting a ringside seat at this show.”
“On days when the sun was too hot, or there was rain, there was a
great canopy erected that covered the whole arena like a roof, a
canopy of many colors.”
THE ROMAN K ID 283

Tommy grunted. “We re civilized. We let our customers sit out in

the rain at Palmer Stadium and the Yale Bowl.”
“They could let in water and cover the whole floor of the arena
enough to stage sea battles, of which the Emperor was very fond.
Have you seen the excavations at the other end? In the time of Titus,
the floor of the arena was many levels below this one. We are sitting
on the dust of twenty centuries.”
“I looked at them. You know what they reminded me of? The base­
ment of Madison Square Garden, our big indoor arena in New York,
at circus time. Runways for the animals, cages, dressing rooms. And
nobody really knows very much about the shows they put on here,
or what it was like, do they, Leni? There is the Emperor’s box. There
sat the big shots; there the girls. There was a canopy. Men fought
with weapons and with their hands. Christians and slaves and con­
demned prisoners were torn to pieces by wild animals. And that’s all.”
Leni sighed. “It iss all so long dead, Tommy. One must be so careful
of the records one reads into stones.”
Tommy sprang up suddenly from the drum of the pillar and took
a few steps into the arena. The floor was white with moonlight, and
the gray patch that ran through his hair looked like solid silver.
He spread his arms wide with his fists clenched, and shook them
and cried, “But it isn’t dead, Leni. Can’t you feel it? All the people?
There were people here. Thousands of them. Human beings. The
place was alive with them. What’s two thousand years? They must
have been just like us. Leni, I want to see them. I want to bring this
place to life.”
He stopped suddenly, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and
began to pace, and the dark shapes of the cats scattered to the deeper
shadows. He spoke again, “This couldn’t have been so different from
what we know—World Series day, or fight night at the Polo Grounds,
or the Harvard-Yale game at New Haven. Crowds coming in to see
the show, pushing and gabbing. If you’ll listen, you can hear the
scrape of thousands of sandals on the ramps and that excited hum
and chatter of a crowd going to a show. You would hear snatches of
conversation. They must have talked in Roman slang, as they went to
their seats, the same way we do: ‘Who do you like tonight? What do
you hear? I’ve got a good tip on the third prelim. A new guy down
from the north. They say he’s a honey, fast and shifty. He’s fighting
for the Blues. Is it true that Decius, or whatever he was called, is out
of shape? They say he didn’t train a lick. A wise guy. I heard the main
go was in the bag. I got it from the inside. Friend of mine who knows
the guy who trains the gladiators. I’m gonna have a couple of bucks
riding on Drusus. He’s a house fighter. Those guys haven’t blown a
decision yet.’ Pushing and shoving, and sweating and laughing.”
Leni was standing, too, now, her face pale, reflected from the white
284 PAUL G A LLIC O

ball of the nearly full moon that now hung directly over the black
shell of the old arena. Her lips were parted with excitement. She did
not understand much of what Tommy was saying, but the feeling of
it was reaching her.
“Oh, Tommy. Please go on.”
“Crooks, gamblers, sports, pick-pockets, actors, writers, just plain
people out for fun, guys with their dolls, and the dolls dressed and
made up to kill—I’ve seen their paint pots in the museums—big-shot
gangsters, lawyers—Rome was lousy with lawyers—politicians, the
regular fight crowd. Why, you can work right back from the numbers
on the portals, Leni. If they numbered the portals they must have
had tickets that corresponded to the numbers.”
“Yes. Yes, Tommy. They were made of bone, I think.”
“Then they must have had ticket takers and directors and ushers.
It was probably a political job. Maybe they even had programs.” He
grinned suddenly, widely. “Can’t you see the program sellers stand­
ing under those arches and on the ramps and by the stairways, holler­
ing, ‘Get your programs here. You can’t tell the gladiators without a
program. Names and numbers of the Christian martyrs.’ ”
He threw up his head and gazed around the great amphitheater to
the entrance arcades. “And what about grub and concessionaires?
There never yet was a sports crowd that didn’t get hungry and thirsty.
There must have been venders selling things to eat and drink. What
would the Roman equivalent have been of our hot dogs and peanuts
and beer and pop?”
“Meat on a stick, probably,” said Leni; “yes, and fruit.”
“They probably hollered just the same as ours, ‘Get it red hot here!’
And w ine---- ”
“The vinarii” interrupted Leni, almost breathless, “the wine mer­
chants. They carried it around in skins.”
“Red wine and white. Didn’t they used to cart snow down from
the mountains to cool it? Ice cold, ice cold, ice cold! Get your ice-cold
vino here, ten cents a cup. Who’ll have a cup? Sweet or sour, sir?
Noise, cries, excitement, and maybe the bums up in the two-bit seats
stamping their feet, because they wanted the show to begin. And the
guys selling souvenirs.”
“And girls selling garlands of flowers to throw into the arena to the
victors,” Leni said. “There they stand, with flowers in their dark hair
and the garlands over their arms.”
Tommy put his arm around Leni’s shoulder in glee and pointed to
the vast floor of the arena. “They had to get ready, didn’t they? Set
the arena for the show? There are the roustabouts—slaves, I suppose—
marking off the combat areas, looking after the props, preparing the
boxes of sand to cover up the bloodstains. There’d be the officials—
judges and referees and masters of ceremony—dressed up to kill and
strutting like an A. A. U. official in his hard hat at a big track meet.
THE ROMAN KID 285

Officials are all alike. The crowd is sifting to its seats. People are vis­
iting from box to box, laughing and making bets. Whistling breaks
out from the top tiers as a gladiator comes out to try the footing and
look at the direction of the sun, so that if he wins the toss he can get
it to his back. I guess man could whistle from the time he had a mouth.
“And can you get an idea of the dressing rooms below? The taping
and bandaging and last-minute advice to the fighters, and the swords­
men limbering up and doing knee flexes and lunges, and making
passes with their short swords, and the boxers shadow-boxing to warm
up, the way every fighter has since guys first put up their dukes, and
whistling their breath out of their noses as they punch at the air. And
I guess maybe down in the dungeons the Christians were on their
knees, quietly praying, and the other doomed stood by and watched
them. And sometimes over the noise of the crowd and the cries of the
candy butchers and wine sellers and hawkers, you would hear from
deep down the awful impatient roaring of the hungry beasts, the way,
sometimes when the circus is in the Garden and there is a sudden
lull, you hear the lions from down below.”
Leni was crying, “Oh, Tommy, Tommy! You have made this place
of the long ago so alive!” Her eyes were shining, and now she, too,
stood with her head thrown back and her arms outstretched toward
the slender white cross. “These things were so. They were. Oh, they
were. They---- ” Suddenly she stopped short and spun around, facing
the man, and cried out sharply, “Tommy!” and again, “Tommy!”
Tommy was startled. There was such a strange look on her face.
Her eyes were so wide.
“Sweet, what is it?”
The girl suddenly placed both hands to her temples and held them
and spoke in German, “Ach, lieber Herrje! Es ist nicht m oglich! A ber
d o c k — d o c k ---- ”
“Honey, what’s happened?”
Leni ran to him. “Tommy, you must come with me at once. But at
once. It is still early. You will come with me. I have had —— Oh, how
do you say it? Something inside of me, all through m e ---- ”
Tommy held her off. “Is it a hunch, honey?”
“Oh, yes, yes, Tommy. Is that the word? Something inside of me
that has told me something.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Leni shook her head. “N-no. Not yet. But you will come.”
She took him by the hand and together they ran out of the arena.
“Trenta, Via Palestro, e rapido, rapido,” ordered Leni.
They scrambled into the carriage, and a surprised and startled
Ginevra rattled them over the cobblestones and onto the smooth
asphalt of the Via del Impero, at what, to the best of her recollection,
was a gallop.
Leni said, “I do not want to say yet, Tommy. Just hold me, please.”
286 PAUL G A LL IC O

The address was a private house not far from the Museo Romano.
“Our home,” Leni said. She still had Tommy by the hand as she rang
the bell. A pleasant-faced elderly woman came to the door. Leni said
breathlessly in German, “Ach, Liesel. Is papa still up?”
The woman replied, “He is not at home, Miss Leni. The Conte
Alberini came. They both went away together. I believe they were
to go to the Museo delle Balineum.”
Leni wasted no time. She cried, “Come! Oh, if it is not too late.
R apido, rapido, Pietro, al Museo d elle Balineum
Ginevra, thoroughly outraged, clattered them past the huge gray
Stazione Centrale, whipped them around a corner on two wheels and
deposited them before a tiny iron door in a high, thick wall. Leni
seized a bell pull and jangled a bell wildly, and then pounded with
her little fist so that the iron door rattled and clanged.
The door was finally opened by an ancient attendant in a faded
blue uniform coat.
“I am Leni Lisschauer, Professor Lisschauer’s daughter,” Leni said.
“Is my papa here?”
The attendant nodded. “Si, si, signorina. It is a little irregular. We
are closed, but you may come.”
He had an old lantern, and by its dim rays he led them, Leni still
clinging to Tommy’s hand, through a garden in which were many
shadowy statues, to the dark and gloomy museum. It grew lighter
as they went up the stairs to the second floor. The room at the far end
of the museum was illuminated and they heard voices coming from it.
They burst into the room. The four men there turned and stared.
One of them was Professor Lisschauer. He looked very old. The
second was tall and dignified, with a black Vandyke beard and a
monocle. With him stood a short, fussy, bald-headed little man wear­
ing pince-nez attached to a black ribbon. The fourth was a thin man
with a narrow face and long black hair combed back from a high
forehead.
But the thing that caught Tommy’s eye was not so much the men
as the magnificent bronze on a marble pedestal in the center of the
room. It was the figure of a naked man, seated, his arms resting on
upper legs, his hands encased in the iron-studded, hard-leather cestus
worn by the ancient pugilists, with thongs extending half-way up to
his elbows and ending in a tight leather cuff.
His head was turned to the right, looking up over his right shoulder.
He was curly-headed and bearded, heavy-muscled. He had been
through a terrific battering. On his right shoulder, right elbow and
in the crisscrossed thongs of the right forearm were three deep and
gaping cuts. His ears were cauliflowered, ballooned and cut. His
nose had been smashed to one side and cut, his lips puffed and cheek­
bone swollen and gashed. His eyes showed the heavy ridges of the
THE ROMAN KID 287

professional prize fighter, and traces of old scars as well as new

wounds. The cestus, which were thick and about two and a half
inches wide, covering the knuckles and letting the fingers protrude,
had sharp cutting edges and the two halves were held together around
the hand with narrow strips of iron.
The thin man with the lank black hair made a little movement
toward Leni, but her father was the first to recover.
He spoke to her in German: “Leni! What are you doing here? Who
is this man? Ah, yes, he was at the museum. I remember. But why?”
He stopped, turned to the group and said in Italian, “Forgive me.
Count Alberini, I believe you have met my daughter. . . . Professor
Guglielmo, my daughter Leni.”
Leni introduced Tommy. The bearded monocled man was Count
Alberini, State Director of Museums and Art, the fussy little bald-
headed man was Guglielmo. The thin, narrow-faced one with the
long hair was Armando Zanni, Lisschauer’s assistant. Then she turned
to her father. “Papachen, what has happened?”
“It is all over, my child. Count Alberini has accepted the statement
and the testimony of Professor Guglielmo. The Manzini brothers were
once known to have made a statue of a boxer. Zanni has had no alter­
native but to agree with him. I have given my resignation. The count
has been very kind. He brought Professor Guglielmo here from
Naples to confront me and give me a last chance to prove my case. I
could not.”
Leni turned to Tommy quickly and translated what her father had
said, in pain and in panic. The count was coughing discreetly, and
then spoke softly and deprecatingly in English, “Your pardon. But
this is indeed a very private matter. This young m an---- • ” He looked
inquiringly at Leni.
\ The girl turned. “He is an expert.” She was very close to tears.
Professor Guglielmo removed his pince-nez and cocked his head
to one side and asked, “Of antiquity?”
“No!” cried Leni, her young voice ringing bravely and defiantly
through the room. “No! Of life!” Suddenly she turned to Tommy and
wailed, “Oh, Tommy! Tommy! Do something! Make him live! Bring
him to life for me the way you did the old people of the Colosseo.
Tommy!”
Tommy caught her by the shoulders and said, “I get it. Keep your
chin up. I get the picture.” He faced the group of men. “Do all of you
gentlemen understand English?”
They all bowed. Zanni said, “But naturally. It is a part of educa­
tion.”
“Good,” said Tommy. “Anything you don’t understand, Leni will
translate for you. She’s on to my jargon.” He grinned pleasantly at
Zanni. “Education sometimes has its limits. . . . Leni, tell all these
288 PAUL G A L L IC O

guys to keep their shirts on. I want five minutes with this old chap.
Maybe I can help.”
He stepped out of the circle and walked slowly over to the statue
while the four men and the girl stood watching him.
He spoke to himself very slowly as he stood in front of the great
bronze, his hands in his pockets, his head cocked a little to one side:
“The Roman Kid, eh? What a licking you took. Gee, shave off those
whiskers, and you could be Paulino sitting on the rubbing table in
the dressing room at the Yankee Stadium after Max Schmeling got
through with him. What a pasting. That’s a lovely pair of tin ears
you’ve got, my friend. You just never bothered to duck, eh? What a
job! What a job!”
He commenced to circle the statue slowly, examining it minutely.
He fingered the three cuts on the right side, went suddenly to the
other side and examined the left arm, whistled and said, “Oh, oh,
sidewinder!” He inspected the hands carefully, and then hopped up
onto the pedestal, fingered and examined the cuts on the face, the
bruises and abrasions and scars. He jumped down to the floor again,
and suddenly fell into a boxing stance, looked at the statue again
and changed it, and .then walked rapidly around it again. Once he
addressed himself to Count Alberini. “These cuts,” he said, “are
definitely cuts? Not accidents? Ages of being buried or being tossed
around?”
“We do not believe it has been buried for ages,” the count replied
with a little smile, “but the cuts and marks were all placed there by
the sculptor.”
“Thanks,” said Tommy. “That’s all I wanted to know.” He made one
more circle around the statue and then backed away from it with a
little gesture of salute, and said, “Thanks, pal. There’s been many a
guy since your time who’s had his ears pinned back just the way yours
were.” He turned and faced the group, uttered something out of the
corner of his mouth to Leni that sounded like “Buckety, buckety,”
and then said, with a fine, studied, dramatic carelessness which de­
lighted him, “Gentlemen, what would you like to know about this
guy?
It was old Professor Lisschauer who grasped at the straw. He said,
“What ---- Iss there anything you can tell us?” There was deep
despair in his voice that made Tommy suddenly ashamed of his fine
pose. He dropped it.
“Plenty,” he said grimly. “In the first place, the guy was a south­
paw.”
“A which?” inquired Professor Guglielmo politely.
“Port-sider. He was left-handed. I’ll bet most guys hated to fight
him. Nobody likes to fight a southpaw.”
Count Alberini looked to be much interested.
“So?” he said. “How do you determine this?”
THE ROMAN KID 289

“Looka,” said Tommy. “You can’t miss it.” He stepped up to the

statue, took a pencil from his pocket and used it as a pointer. “Here!
Deep cut on right shoulder. Another on the arm just below the elbow.
Another on the forearm inside the lacings. No cuts on the left shoulder
or arm whatsoever. Here’s how the orthodox boxer stands.” Tommy
fell into the regular stance, left hand, left foot forward. “Here’s how
this guy stood.” He reversed his position and stood with his right foot
forward, right arm extended and curled, left arm bent at his side.
“Get it?” he said. “The reason he has those cuts on the right arm is
because that is the part of him that was closest to his opponent.”
For the first time, light came back to Leni’s face.
The count solemnly walked over to the statue, inserted his monocle
in his eye, inspected the three cuts, one after the other, assumed the
left-handed boxing stance that Tommy had taken, straightened up,
slapped his thigh and said, “Per Bacco!”
“Uh-huh!” said Tommy. “And anyway, the guy’s had a busted left
duke—hand, I mean. That artist didn’t miss a thing. Here, you can
see the swelling where it knit badly. He used the left for the Sunday
punch. That would be the one most likely to go. All right. He
wasn’t a boxer. He was a slugger. All he wanted to do was to get in
close enough to lay in that left and—curtains. Get it?”
Gugliclmo walked over, adjusted his pince-nez and said, “You can
explain that?”
“Lookit the ears on him,” said Tommy. “Guys who can box don’t
get marked up that way. This guy’s had a hell of a licking. All those
bums who take five to give one, wind up with pretzel ears and scarred
eyebrows. He’s got the musculature of a slugger, too, and the legs.
Here, look at all these heavy muscles behind the shoulders and down
the back and on the arms. The fast boxer and snap hitter has slender
shoulders and tapering muscles. And anyway, the cuts on the arm
again tell you th a t.. . . Look here, professor; let me show you. Square
off in front of me.”
He got Guglielmo in a boxerlike attitude. The little old man
seemed to like it and tried to look fierce. Tommy ranged himself
opposite him in the left-handed stance, but with his right arm and
fist completely extended in front of him, and the left cocked at his
breast.
“I can keep you off in this way. But this guy fought with his right
arm curled in front of his face like a shield as he shuffled in. That’s
how he got those cuts where he got them.”
Guglielmo practiced a little, transformed himself into a slugger,
examined the statue, went into a pose again, straightened up, looked
at Alberini and said, “M irabile! E vero!”
Leni clapped her hands. “Oh, Tommy. Bravo!”
Professor Zanni shrugged his shoulders and said, “In the realm of
pure conjecture.”
290 PAUL G A LLIC O

Tommy threw him a look, licked his lips and spoke again. “Now, if
you’d like,” he said, “I think I can tell you something about the guy
who whipped him. The sculptor who did this made his sketches in
the dressing room, or in the arena immediately after the fight.
N ow ---- •”
Zanni suddenly showed even white teeth. “Just a moment, my
friend. How do you know he lost the fight? Perhaps he was the win­
ner, no?”
“Zanni,” said Tommy, “you ought to read a book. It’ll broaden you.
Do you admit that he was sketched immediately after a fight?”
“If the statue were genuine, I would. The artist has been so careful
to include every mark, with nothing omitted. But he might still have
been the winner.”
“Then the sculptor would also have been careful enough to include
the victor’s chaplet, or garland, which would have been on this guy’s
head if he’d won,” said Tommy with his most charming smile.
“Bravo!” said Alberini and Guglielmo in unison.
“Herrlich!” said Professor Lisschauer. He moved over toward Al­
berini and Guglielmo. There was a little gleam of hope in his tired
eyes.
“Thanks,” said Tommy. “All right, then. The little guy who licked
him was probably a Greek. H e ---- ”
It was Zanni who interrupted again, with a laugh, “Hah! No, no,
no, my friend. That is now pure fancy. You have the true American
imagination.”
“You sure root for the home team, don’t you, Zanni?” Tommy said.
“I do not understand this expression.”
“Leni does,” suggested Tommy. “Maybe you’ve read a book, but
not the right one. There’s one over in the iibrary of the American
Academy I can refer you to. Professor Stoddard gave it to me. It
tells how the Greeks never punched for the body. They were purely
head punchers. This guy hasn’t a mark on his body. But look at his
kisser. The Greeks, from all I can find out, were much better boxers
than the Romans. And make no mistake; the guy who gave The
Roman Kid his pasting was a little sweetheart; he fought on a bicycle,
and---- ”
Even Leni joined in the unison chorus. “A bicycle?” They were all
hypnotized.
Tommy grinned.
“Excuse me. That’s one I haven’t taught you yet, Leni. He fought
in retreat. He knew he had to stay away from this guy or get killed.”
“Why do you say a small man?” asked Guglielmo.
“Figure it out,” replied Tommy. “Small men are fast. Big guys are
slow. This guy here is still alive, isn’t he? If his opponent had been a
big, fast guy with a punch he’d be dead instead of sitting there. You
could cave in the side of a guy’s head with one of those things he
THE ROMAN KID 291

has on his hands. But the Greek was fast enough to keep away, and
probably smaller. He either didn’t have a punch or he was afraid to
get close enough to let one go. And the direction of the cuts and
bruises on The Kid’s face indicate that the Greek hooked, or punched
up at him, and therefore was smaller. Look at the condition of the
right side of The Kid’s face, compared to the left. The Greek probably
let him have a few right-hand smashes when he had him woozy. But
he was a smart little guy and he knew how to fight a southpaw, which
is more than most of our fighters do today. He kept moving, circling
to his own left, and The Kid’s right, away from that deadly left hand,
and as he circled and back-pedaled, he kept popping him with left
hooks. Look at the way his nose is bent, the size of his right ear, and
the mess he made out of the right side of his face. Even so, he didn’t
want to risk getting close enough to finish him. He had the fight won,
so why take a chance? He just popped him with that left until the
southpaw collapsed from the accumulation of punches, loss of blood
and exhaustion. Afterwards---- ”
Leni suddenly placed her hand to her face and screamed. Her cry
echoed through the high vaults of the deserted museum. “Tommy!
Tommy! Papa!” She was staring. “The Tertullan Fragment! The
description! Tommy! Papa!”
They were all talking and shouting at once; Alberini crying, “C orpo
di B acco”; Guglielmo saying over and over, “Si, si, si, si, m a si, si-si”;
and Professor Lisschauer, “L ieb er H err Gott! A ber gewiss!”
“I don’t get it,” said Tommy.
“The Fragment!” cried Leni. “The description of the boxing match
before Titus!”
“Holy smokes!” said Tommy. “I had forgotten it!”
“The name—the name!” cried Professor Lisschauer. “Sinistrus, the
Left-Handed One! It iss! It iss! You half here before you, Sinistrus,
Roman boxer of the Emperor Titus, defeated by the little Greek,
Phistra, and granted his life because of the love of the Emperor for
his sister Aula.”
It was not strange that Leni and Tommy should be hugging each
other, but it was a little unusual that Lisschauer and Guglielmo
should be in each other’s arms, and patting each other on the back,
until the little man suddenly stepped back and cleared his throat and
said, “I must have leave to speak. Count Alberini. Professor Lis­
schauer. I withdraw. I apologize. I have done a great injustice,
though my intent was honest. I was wrong. The Manzini brothers
have been dead two years. The Tertullan Fragment was discovered
less than six months ago. They could not possibly have known of its
contents. I hope that I will be forgiven. For my friend Professor Lis­
schauer I have the greatest esteem and admiration.”
The count adjusted his monocle and said, “Professor Guglielmo, it
is no more than I expected from a man of your attainments and
292 PAUL G A L L IC O

generosity. The resignation of Professor Lisschauer is of course, not

accepted.”
Professor Lisschauer somehow made a magnificent job of not seeing
where Leni had just been. He came to Tommy and said, “I wish to
thank you from the bottom uff my heart, and to make to you my
apologies for my attitude and my ignorance in the museum that
morning. We are all too far from the realities of life. You have shamed
us all.”
Tommy said, “Gee, don’t! It catches me in the throat. I’m—I’m just
a dumb guy who happens to have been around fights and fighters all
his life.”
There was a pause. “I am so happy,” said Professor Lisschauer, “I
could sing and cry. W e will go to my house, all, and drink some wine.
Mr. Thompson, Count Alberini, Guglielmo, Zanni---- ” He stopped
“Where has gone Zanni?”
“Zanni,” said Tommy succinctly, “has taken a powder.”
They all looked blank, but Tommy didn’t explain. They moved off
down the aisles of glass cases and marbles and bronzes toward the
stairs. When they reached the darker portions and the attendant went
ahead with his lantern, Tommy did what was requisite.
“You know,” said Leni, when she could speak again, “I—I think
perhaps boy is going to get girl.”
This tim e th e com m ent follow s the story, in order not to spoil the
savor o f w hat may b e fo r many readers a brand-new Poe. O ne w ord
in advance, how ever: R em em ber you’re up against the first great
m aster o f trick technique, and read it carefully.
"THOU ART THE MAN"

BY E D G A R A L L A N POE

l W IL L NOW PLAY the CEdipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I

will expound to you—as I alone can—the secret of the enginery that
effected the Rattleborough miracle—the one, the true, the admitted,
the undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to
infidelity among the Rattleburghers and converted to the orthodox of
295
296 EDGAR A LLA N POE

the grandames all the carnal-minded who had ventured to be skep­

tical before.
This event—which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of unsuit­
able levity—occurred in the summer of 18—. Mr. Barnabas Shuttle­
worthy—one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of the
borough—had been missing for several days under circumstances
which gave rise to suspicion of foul play. Mr. Shuttleworthy had set
out from Rattleborough very early one Saturday morning, on horse­
back, with the avowed intention of proceeding to the city o f ------ ,
about fifteen miles distant, and of returning the night of the same day.'
Two hours after his departure, however, his horse returned without
him, and without the saddle-bags which had been strapped on his
back at starting. The animal was wounded, too, and covered with
mud. These circumstances naturally gave rise to much alarm among
the friends of the missing man; and when it was found, on Sunday
morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the whole borough
arose en masse to go and look for his body.
The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the
bosom friend of Mr. Shuttleworthy—a Mr. Charles Goodfellow, or,
as he was universally called, “Charley Goodfellow,” or “Old Charley
Goodfellow.” Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether
it is that the name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the char­
acter, I have never yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is unques­
tionable, that there never yet was any person named Charles who
was not an open, manly, honest, good-natured, and frank-hearted
fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did you good to hear it, and an
eye that looked you always straight in the face, as much as to say:
“I have a clear conscience myself, am afraid of no man, and am alto­
gether above doing a mean action.” And thus all the hearty, care­
less, “walking gentlemen” of the stage are very certain to be called
Charles.
Now, “Old Charley Goodfellow,” although he had been in Rattle-
borough not longer than six months or thereabouts, and although no­
body knew anything about him before he came to settle in the neigh­
borhood, had experienced no difficulty in the world in making the
acquaintance of all the respectable people in the borough. Not a man
of them but would have taken his bare word for a thousand at any
moment; and as for the women, there is no saying what they would
not have done to oblige him. And all this came of his having been
christened Charles, and of his possessing, in consequence, that in­
genuous face which is proverbially the very “best letter of recom­
mendation.”
I have already said that Mr. Shuttleworthy was one of the most
respectable and, undoubtedly, he was the most wealthy man in Rat­
tleborough, while “Old Charley Goodfellow” was upon as intimate
terms with him as if he had been his own brother. The two old
“t h o u art th e man” 297
gentlemen were next-door neighbors, and, although Mr. Shuttle­
worthy seldom, if ever, visited “Old Charley,” and never was known
to take a meal in his house, still this did not prevent the two friends
from being exceedingly intimate, as I have just observed; for “Old
Charley” never let a day pass without stepping in three or four times
to see how his neighbor came on, and very often he would stay to
breakfast or tea, and almost always to dinner; and then the amount
of wine that was made way with by the two cronies at a sitting, it
would really be a difficult thing to ascertain. “Old Charley’s” favorite
beverage was C hateau Margaux, and it appeared to do Mr. Shuttle-
worthy’s heart good to see the old fellow swallow it, as he did, quart
after quart; so that, one day, when the wine was in and the wit, as a
natural consequence, somewhat out, he said to his crony, as he slapped
him upon the back: “I tell you what it is, ‘Old Charley,’ you are, by
all odds, the heartiest old fellow I ever came across in all my born
days; and, since you love to guzzle the wine at that fashion, I’ll be
darned if I don’t have to make thee a present of a big box of the
Chateau Margaux. Od rot me,”—(Mr. Shuttleworthy had a sad habit
of swearing, although he seldom went beyond “Od rot me,” or “By
gosh,” or “By the jolly golly,” )—“Od rot me,” says he, “if I don’t send
an order to town this very afternoon for a double box of the best that
can be got, and I’ll make ye a present of it, I will!—ye needn’t say a
word now—I will, I tell ye, and there’s an end of it; so look out for it—
it will come to hand some of these fine days, precisely when ye are
looking for it the least!” I mention this little bit of liberality on the
part of Mr. Shuttleworthy, just by way of showing you how very
intimate an understanding existed between the two friends.
Well, on the Sunday morning in question, when it came to be
fairly understood that Mr. Shuttleworthy had met with foul play, I
never saw any one so profoundly affected as “Old Charley Good-
fellow.” When he first heard that the horse had come home without
his master, and without his master’s saddle-bags, and all bloody
from a pistol-shot, that had gone clean through and through the poor
animal’s chest without quite killing him,—when he heard all this, he
turned as pale as if the missing man had been his own dear brother
or father, and shivered and shook all over as if he had had a fit of the
ague.
At first he was too much overpowered with grief to be able to do
anything at all, or to decide upon any plan of action; so that for a long
time he endeavored to dissuade Air. Shuttleworthy’s other friends
from making a stir about the matter, thinking it best to wait awhile
—say for a week or two, or a month, or two—to see if something
wouldn’t turn up, or if Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn’t come in the
natural way, and explain his reasons for sending his horse on before.
I dare say you have often observed this disposition to temporize, or
to procrastinate, in people who are laboring under any very poignant
298 EDGAR A LLA N POE

sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to be rendered torpid, so that

they have a horror of anything like action, and like nothing in the
world so well as to lie quietly in bed and “nurse their grief,” as the old
ladies express it—that is to say, ruminate over the trouble.
The people of Rattleborough had, indeed, so high an opinion of
the wisdom and discretion of “Old Charley,” that the greater part of
them felt disposed to agree with him, and not make a stir in the busi­
ness “until something should turn up,” as the honest old gentleman
worded it; and I believe that, after all, this would have been the
general determination, but for the very suspicious interference of Mr.
Shuttleworthy’s nephew, a young man of very dissipated habits,
and otherwise of rather bad character. This nephew, whose name
was Pennifeather, would listen to nothing like reason in the matter
of “lying quiet,” but insisted upon making immediate search for the
“corpse of the murdered man.” This was the expression he employed;
and Mr. Goodfellow acutely remarked at the time, that it was “a
singular expression, to say no more.” This remark of “Old Charley’s,”
too, had great effect upon the crowd; and one of the party was heard
to ask, very impressively, “how it happened that young Mr. Penni­
feather was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances con­
nected with his wealthy uncle’s disappearance, as to feel authorized
to assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle w as ‘a murdered
man.’ ” Hereupon some little squibbling and bickering occurred
among various members of the crowd, and especially between “Old
Charley” and Mr. Pennifeather—although this latter occurrence was,
indeed, by no means a novelty, for little good-will had subsisted be­
tween the parties for the last three or four months; and matters had
even gone so far that Mr. Pennifeather had actually knocked down
his uncle’s friend for some alleged excess of liberty that the latter
had taken in the uncle’s house, of which the nephew was an inmate.
Upon this occasion “Old Charley” is said to have behaved with ex­
emplary moderation and Christian charity. He arose from the blow,
adjusted his clothes, and made no attempt at retaliation at all—merely
muttered a few words about “taking summary vengeance at the first
convenient opportunity,”—a natural and very justifiable ebullition of
anger, which meant nothing, however, and, beyond doubt, was no
sooner given vent to than forgotten.
However these matters may be (which have no reference to the
point now at issue), it is quite certain that the people of Rattlebor­
ough, principally through the persuasion of Mr. Pennifeather, came
at length to the determination of dispersion over the adjacent country
in search of the missing Mr. Shuttleworthy. I say they came to this
determination in the first instance. After it had been fully resolved
that a search should be made, it was considered almost a matter of
course that the seekers should disperse—that is to say, distribute
“t h o u art t h e man” 299
themselves in parties—for the more thorough examination of the
region round about. I forgot, however, by what ingenious train of
reasoning it was that “Old Charley” finally convinced the assembly
that this was the most injudicious plan that could be pursued. Con­
vince them, however, he did—all except Mr. Pennifeather; and, in
the end, it was arranged that a search should be instituted, carefully
and very thoroughly, by the burghers en masse, “Old Charley” him­
self leading the way.
As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer
than “Old Charley* whom everybody knew to have the eye of a
lynx; but, although he led them into all manner of out-of-the-way
holes and corners, by routes that nobody had ever suspected of exist­
ing in the neighborhood, and although the search was incessantly
kept up day and night for nearly a week, still no trace of Mr. Shuttle­
worthy could be discovered. When I say no trace, however, I must
not be understood to speak literally; for trace, to some’ extent, there
certainly was. The poor gentleman had been tracked, by his horse’s
shoes (which were peculiar), to a spot about three miles to the east
of the borough, on die main road leading to the city. Here the track
made off into a by-path through a piece of woodland—the path com­
ing out again into the main road, and cutting off about half a mile of
the regular distance. Following the shoe-marks down this lane, the
party came at length to a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the
brambles, to the right of the lane, and opposite this pool all vestige
of the track was lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of
some nature had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and
heavy body, much larger and heavier than a man, had been drawn
from the by-path to the pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice,
but nothing was found; and die party were upon the point of going
away, in despair of coming to any result, when Providence suggested
to Mr. Goodfellow the expediency of draining the water off alto­
gether. This project was received with cheers, and many high com­
pliments to “Old Charley” upon his sagacity and consideration. As
many of the burghers had brought spades with them, supposing that
they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse, the drain was
easily and speedily effected; and no sooner was the bottom visible,
than right in the middle of the mud that remained was discovered a
black silk velvet waistcoat, which nearly every one present imme­
diately recognized as the property of Mr. Pennifeather. This waist­
coat was much torn and stained with blood, and there were several
persons among the party who had a distinct remembrance of its
having been worn by its owner on the very morning of Mr. Shuttle-
worthy’s departure for the city; while there were others, again, ready
to testify upon oath, if required, that Mr. P. did not wear the garment
in question at any period during the rem ainder of that memorable
300 EDGAR A L L A N POE

day; nor could any one be found to say that he had seen it upon Mr.
P.’s person at any period at all subsequent to Mr. Shuttleworthy’s
disappearance.
Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr. Pennifeather, and
it was observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions
which were excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and
when asked what he had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of
saying a word. Hereupon, the few friends his riotous mode of living
had left him deserted him at once to a man, and were even more
clamorous than his ancient and avowed enemies for his instantaneous
arrest. But, on the other hand, the magnanimity of Mr. Goodfellow
shone forth with only the more brilliant lustre through contrast. He
made a warm and intensely eloquent defence of Mr. Pennifeather,
in which he alluded more than once to his own sincere forgiveness
of that wild young gentleman—“the heir of the worthy Mr. Shuttle-
worthy,”—for the insult which he (the young gentleman) had, no
doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper to put upon him ( Mr.
Goodfellow). “He forgave him for it,” he said, “from the very bottom
of his heart; and for himself (Mr. Goodfellow), so far from pushing
the suspicious circumstances to extremity, which he was sorry to say,
really h ad arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow)
would make every exertion in his power, would employ all the little
eloquence in his possession, to—to—to—soften down, as much as he
could conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceed­
ingly perplexing piece of business.”
Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain,
very much to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your
warm-hearted people are seldom apposite in their observations—they
run into all sorts of blunders, contre-tem ps and m al apropos-isms, in
the hot headedness of their zeal to serve a friend—thus, often with
the kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice
his cause than to advance it.
So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of
“Old Charley”; for, although he labored earnestly in behalf of the
suspected, yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable
he uttered of which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt
the speaker in the good opinion of his audience, had the effect of
deepening the suspicion already attached to the individual whose
cause he plead, and of arousing against him the fury of the mob.
One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator
was his allusion to the suspected as “the heir of the worthy old gentle­
man Mr. Shuttleworthy.” The people had really never thought of this
before. They had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance
uttered a year or two previously by the uncle (who had no living
relative except the nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked
upon this disinheritance as a matter that was settled—so single-minded
“t h o u art th e man” 301
a race of beings were the Rattleburghers; but the remark of “Old
Charley” brought them at once to a consideration of this point, and
thus gave them to see the possibility of the threats having been noth­
ing m ore than a threat. And straightway, hereupon, arose the natural
question of cut bon o?—a question that tended even more than the
waistcoat to fasten the terrible crime upon the young man. And here,
lest I may be misunderstood, permit me to digress for one moment
merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and simple Latin phrase
which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and miscon­
ceived. “Cut bon oF ’ in all the crack novels and elsewhere,—in those
of Mrs. Gore, for example, ( the author of “Cecil,” ) a lady who quotes
all tongues from the Chaldman to Chickasaw, and is helped to her
learning, “as needed,” upon a systematic plan, by Mr. Beckford,—in
all the crack novels, I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens to those
of Turnapenny and Ainsworth, the two little Latin words cut bono
are rendered “to what purpose?” or, ( as if qu o b o n o ) “to what good?”
Their true meaning, nevertheless, is “for whose advantage.” Cut, to
whom; bon o, is it for a benefit? It is a purely legal phrase, and appli­
cable precisely in cases such as we have now under consideration,
where the probability of the doer of a deed hinges upon the prob­
ability of the benefit accruing to this individual or to that from the
deed’s accomplishment. Now in the present instance, the question
cut bono? very pointedly implicated Mr. Pennifeather. His uncle had
threatened him, after making a will in his favor, with disinheritance.
But the threat had not been actually kept; the original will, it ap­
peared, had not been altered. H ad it been altered, the only supposable
motive for murder on the part of the suspected would have been the
ordinary one of revenge; and even this would have been counter­
acted by the hope of reinstation into the good graces of the uncle.
But the will being unaltered, while the threat to alter remained sus­
pended over the nephew’s head, there appears at once the very strong­
est possible inducement for the atrocity; and so concluded, very saga­
ciously, the worthy citizens of the borough of Rattle.
Mr. Pennifeather was, accordingly, arrested upon the spot, and the
crowd, after some further search, proceeded homeward, having him
in custody. On the route, however, another circumstance occurred
tending to confirm the suspicion entertained. Mr. Goodfellow, whose
zeal led him to be always a little in advanca of the party, was seen
suddenly to run forward a few paces, stoop, and then apparently pick
up some small object from the grass. Having quickly examined it, he
was observed, too, to make a sort of half attempt at concealing it in
his coat pocket; but this action was noticed, as I say, and consequently
prevented, when the object picked up was found to be a Spanish knife
which a dozen persons at once recognized as belonging to Mr. Pen­
nifeather. Moreover, his initials were engraved upon the handle. The
blade of this knife was open and bloody.
302 EDGAR A LLA N POE

No doubt now remained of the guilt of the nephew, and immedi­

ately upon reaching Rattleborough he was taken before a magistrate
for examination.
Here matters again took a most unfavorable hum. The prisoner,
being questioned as to his whereabouts on the morning of Mr. Shut-
tleworthy’s disappearance, had absolutely the audacity to acknowl­
edge that on that very morning he had been out with his rifle deer
stalking, in the immediate neighborhood of the pool where the blood­
stained waistcoat had been discovered through the sagacity of Mr.
Goodfellow.
This latter now came forward, and, with tears in his eyes, asked
permission to be examined. He said that a stern sense of the duty he
owed his Maker, not less than his fellow-men, would permit him no
longer to remain silent. Hitherto, the sincerest affection for the young
man ( notwithstanding the latter’s ill-treatment of himself, Mr. Good-
fellow ) had induced him to make every hypothesis which imagina­
tion could suggest, by way of endeavoring to account for what ap­
peared suspicious in the circumstances that told so seriously against
Mr. Pennifeather; but these circumstances were now altogether too
convincing—too damning; he would hesitate no longer—he would
tell all he knew, although his heart ( Mr. Goodfellow’s ) should abso­
lutely burst asunder in the effort. He then went on to state that, on
the afternoon of the day previous to Mr. Shuttleworthy’s departure
for the city, that worthy old gentleman had mentioned to his nephew,-
in his hearing (Mr. Goodfellow’s), that his object in going to town
on the morrow was to make a deposit of an unusually large sum of
money in the “Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank,” and that, then and
there, the said Mr. Shuttleworthy had distinctly avowed to the said
nephew his irrevocable determination of rescinding the will originally
made, and of cutting him off with a shilling. He ( the witness) now
solemnly called upon the accused to state whether what he (the
witness) had just stated was or was not the truth in every substantial
particular. Much to the astonishment of every one present, Mr. Penni­
feather frankly admitted that it was.
The magistrate now considered it his duty to send a couple of
constables to search the chamber of the accused in the house of his
uncle. From this search they almost immediately returned with the
well-known steel-bound russet leather pocket-book which the old
gentleman had been in the habit of carrying for years. Its valuable
contents, however, had been abstracted, and the magistrate in vain
endeavored to extort from the prisoner the use which had been made
of them, or the place of their concealment. Indeed, he obstinately
denied all knowledge of the matter. The constables, also, discovered,
between the bed and the sacking of the unhappy man, a shirt and
neck-handkerchief both marked with the initials of his name, and
both hideously besmeared with the blood of the victim.
“t h o u art th e m an ” 303

At this juncture, it was announced that the horse of the murdered

man had just expired in the stable from the effects of the wound he
had received, and it was proposed by Mr. Goodfellow that a post­
m ortem examination of the beast should be immediately made, with
the view, if possible, of discovering the ball. This was accordingly
done; and, as if to demonstrate beyond a question the guilt of the
accused, Mr. Goodfellow, after considerable searching in the cavity
of the chest, was enabled to detect and to pull forth a bullet of very
extraordinary size, which, upon trial, was found to be exactly adapted
to the bore of Mr. Pennifeather’s rifle, while it was far too large for
that of any other person in the borough or its vicinity. To render the
matter even surer yet, however, this bullet was discovered to have a
flaw or seam at right angles to the usual suture, and upon examination,
this seam corresponded precisely with an accidental ridge or eleva­
tion in a pair of moulds acknowledged by the accused himself to be
his own property. Upon finding of this bullet, the examining magis­
trate refused to listen to any further testimony, and immediately com­
mitted the prisoner for trial—declining resolutely to take any bail in
the case, although against this severity Mr. Goodfellow very warmly
remonstrated, and offered to become surety in whatever amount
might be required. This generosity on the part of “Old Charley” was
only in accordance with the whole tenor of his amiable and chivalrous
conduct during the entire period of his sojourn in the borough of
Rattle. In the present instance the worthy man was so entirely carried
away by the excessive warmth of his sympathy, that he seemed to
have quite forgotten, when he offered to go bail for his young friend,
that he himself (Mr. Goodfellow) did not possess a single dollar’s
worth of property upon the face of the earth.
The result of the committal may be readily foreseen. Mr. Penni-
feather, amid the loud execrations of all Rattleborough, was brought
to trial at the next criminal sessions, when the chain of circumstantial
evidence ( strengthened as it was by some additional damning facts,
which Mr. Goodfellow’s sensitive conscientiousness forbade him to
withhold from the court) was considered so unbroken and so thor­
oughly conclusive, that the jury, without leaving their seats, returned
an immediate verdict of “Guilty o f m urder in the first degree.” Soon
afterward the unhappy wretch received sentence of death, and was
remanded to the county jail to await the inexorable vengeance of the
law.
In the meantime, the noble behavior of “Old Charley Goodfellow”
had doubly endeared him to the honest citizens of the borough. He
became ten times a greater favorite than ever; and, as a natural result
of the hospitality with which he was treated, he relaxed, as it were,
perforce, the extremely parsimonious habits which his poverty had
hitherto impelled him to observe, and very frequently had little rd-
unions at his own house, when wit and jollity reigned supreme—
304 EDGAR A LL A N POE

dampened a little, o f course, by the occasional remembrance of the

untoward and melancholy fate which impended over the nephew of
the late lamented bosom friend of the generous host.
One fine day, this magnanimous old gentleman was agreeably sur­
prised at the receipt of the following letter:
“Charles Goodfellow, Esquire:
bO o “Dear Sir—In conformity with an order transmitted to our firm
3
so ^2 about two months since, by our esteemed correspondent, Mr.
CD
Barnabas Shuttleworthy, we have the honor of forwarding this
5 -3 morning, to your address, a double box of Chttteau-Margaux, of
=3 33 the antelope brand, violet seal. Box numbered and marked as per
margin.
Kl -a “We remain, sir,
-fa ® “Your most ob’nt ser’ts,
is
o • „l
“ H o g g s , F r o g s , B o g s , & C o.
^ 6
sa is?
“City o f ------- , June 2 1 , 18— .

ca s “P . S.—The box will reach you, by wagon, on the day after

uour receipt of this letter. Our respects to Mr. Shuttleworthu.
'
X
u < rt
“H., F., B., & Co."
u
The fact is, that Mr. Goodfellow had, since the death of Mr.
Shuttleworthy, given over all expectation of ever receiving the prom­
ised Chateau-Margaux; and, he, therefore, looked upon it now as a
sort of especial dispensation of Providence in his behalf. He was
highly delighted, of course, and in the exuberance of his joy invited
a large party of friends to a petit souper on the morrow, for the pur­
pose of broaching the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy’s present. Not that
he said anything about “the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy” when he
issued the invitations. The fact is, he thought much and concluded to
say nothing at all. He did not mention to any one—if I remember
aright—that he had received a present of Chateau-Margaux. He
merely asked his friends to come and help him drink some of a re­
markably fine quality and rich flavor that he had ordered up from the
city a couple of months ago, and of which he would be in the receipt
upon the morrow. I have often puzzled myself to imagine why it was
that “Old Charley” came to the conclusion to say nothing about hav­
ing received the wine from his old friend, but I could never precisely
understand his reason for the silence, although he had som e excellent
and very magnanimous reason, no doubt.
The morrow at length arrived, and with it a very large and highly
respectable company at Mr. Goodfellow’s house. Indeed, half the
borough was there—I myself among the number,—but, much to the
vexation of the host, the Chateau-Margaux did not arrive until a late
“ t h o u ART the man” 305

hour, and when the sumptuous supper supplied by “Old Charley”

had been done very ample justice by the guests. It came at length,
however,—a monstrously big box of it there was, too—and as the
whole party were in excessively good humor, it was decided, nem.
con., that it should be lifted upon the table and its contents disem­
boweled forthwith.
No sooner said than done. I lent a helping hand; and, in a trice, we
had the box upon the table, in the midst of all the bottles and glasses,
not a few of which were demolished in the scuffle. “Old Charley,”
who was pretty much intoxicated, and excessively red in the face,
now took a seat, with an air of mock dignity, at the head of the board,
and thumped furiously upon it with a decanter, calling upon the
company to keep order “during the ceremony of disinterring the
treasure.”
After some vociferation, quiet was at length fully restored, and, as
very often happens in similar cases, a profound and remarkable
silence ensued. Being then requested to force open the lid, I com­
plied, of course, “with an infinite deal of pleasure.” I inserted a chisel,
and giving it a few slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box
flew suddenly off, and, at the same instant, there sprang up into a
sitting position, directly facing the host, the bruised, bloody, and
nearly putrid corpse of the murdered Mr. Shuttleworthy himself. It
gazed for a few seconds, fixedly and sorrowfully, with its decaying
and lack-lustre eyes, full into the countenance of Mr. Goodfellow;
uttered slowly, but clearly and impressively, the words—“Thou art the
man!” and then, falling over the side of the chest as if thoroughly
satisfied, stretched out its limbs quiveringly upon the table.
The scene that ensued is altogether beyond description. The rush
for the doors and windows was terrific, and many of the most robust
men in the room fainted outright through sheer horror. But after the
first wild, shrieking burst of affright, all eyes were directed to Mr.
Goodfellow. If I live a thousand years, I can never forget the more
than mortal agony which was depicted in that ghastly face of his, so
lately rubicund with triumph and wine. For several minutes he sat
rigidly as a statue of marble; his eyes seeming, in the intense vacancy
of their gaze, to be turned inward and absorbed in the contemplation
of his own miserable, murderous soul. At length their expression ap­
peared to flash suddenly out into the external world, when, with a
quick leap, he sprang from his chair, and falling heavily with his
head and shoulders upon the table, and in contact with the corpse,
poured out rapidly and vehemently a detailed confession of the
hideous crime for which Mr. Pennifeather was then imprisoned and
doomed to die.
What he recounted was in substance this:—He followed his victim
to the vicinity of the pool; there shot his horse with a pistol; des­
patched its rider with the butt end; possessed himself of the pocket-
306 EDGAR A L L A N POE

book; and, supposing the horse dead, dragged it with great labor to
the brambles by the pond. Upon his own beast he slung the corpse of
Mr. Shuttleworthy, and thus bore it to a secure place of concealment
a long distance off through the woods.
The waistcoat, the knife, the pocket-book, and bullet, had been
placed by himself where found, with the view of avenging himself
upon Mr. Pennifeather. He had also contrived the discovery of the
stained handkerchief and shirt.
Toward the end of the blood-chilling recital, the words of the
guilty wretch faltered and grew hollow. When the record was finally
exhausted, he arose, staggered backward from the table, and f e l l-
dead.
The means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted,
although efficient, were simple indeed. Mr. Goodfellow’s excess of
frankness had disgusted me, and excited my suspicions from the first.
I was present when Mr. Pennifeather had struck him, and the fiendish
expression which then arose upon his countenance, although momen­
tary, assured me that his threat of vengeance would, if possible, be
rigidly fulfilled. I was thus prepared to view the manoeuvring of
“Old Charley” in a very different light from that in which it was
regarded by the good citizens of Rattleborough. I saw at once that
all the criminating discoveries arose, either directly or indirectly,
from himself. But the fact which clearly opened my eyes to the true
state of the case, was the affair of the bullet, fou nd by Mr. G. in the
carcass of the horse. I had not forgotten, although the Rattleburghers
had, that there was a hole where the ball had entered the horse, and
another where it went out. If it were found in the animal then, after
having made its exit, I saw clearly that it must have been deposited
by the person who found it. The bloody shirt and handkerchief con­
firmed the idea suggested by the bullet; for the blood on examination
proved to be capital claret, and no more. When I came to think of
these things, and also of the late increase of liberality and expendi­
ture on the part of Mr. Goodfellow, I entertained a suspicion which
was none the less strong because I kept it altogether to myself.
In the meantime, I instituted a rigorous private search for the
corpse of Mr. Shuttleworthy, and, for good reasons, searched in
quarters as divergent as possible from those to which Mr. Goodfellow
conducted his party. The result was that, after some days, I came
across an old dry well, the mouth of which was nearly hidden by
brambles; and here, at the bottom, I discovered what I sought.
Now it so happened that I had overheard the colloquy between the
two cronies, when Mr. Goodfellow had contrived to cajole his host
into the promise of a box of Chateau-Margaux. Upon this hint I acted.
I procured a stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the
corpse, and deposited the latter in an old wine box—taking care so
to double the body up as to double the whalebone with it. In this
“t h o u art t h e man” 307

manner I had to press forcibly upon the lid to keep it down while I
secured it with nails; and I anticipated, of course, that as soon as
these latter were removed, the top would fly off and the body up.
Having thus arranged the box, I marked, numbered, and addressed
it as already told; and then writing a letter in the name of the wine-
merchants with whom Mr. Shuttleworthy dealt, I gave instructions
to my servant to wheel the box to Mr. Goodfellow’s door, in a barrow,
at a given signal from myself. For the words which I intended the
corpse to speak, I confidently depended upon my ventriloquial
abilities; for their effect, I counted upon the conscience of the
murderous wretch.
I believe there is nothing more to be explained. Mr. Pennifeather
was released upon the spot, inherited the fortune of his uncle, profited
by the lessons of experience, turned over a new leaf, and led happily
ever afterwards a new life.

: From the very beginning, “Thou art the man”

e d it o r ’s a f t e r n o t e

has b een a n eglected story. P oe him self did not include it am ong the
tw elve stories in th e 1845 Tales, although it h ad ap p eared in Godey’s
Lady’s Book a year earlier. (Its first b o o k appearan ce was in volum e
tw o o f Griswold’s The works of the late Edgar Allan Poe, N ew York,
1850.) A current edition o f th e “com plete stories” o f P oe omits it, as
do alm ost all selected volum es; an d critical referen ces to Poe’s d e­
tective stories usually list only three (th e d u p i n stories) or four (in­
cluding “T he g old -bu g ’).
It’s hard to understand this neglect. Now that you’ve read “Thou
art th e m a n ” you can see that not only is it m ost definitely a detective
story, but it is also an extraordinary m asterpiece o f historical antici­
pation. It contains ( as d o none o f Poe’s other m ysteries) the first use
o f th e LSP, or L east Suspected Person device, w hich alone would
m ake it a landm ark; an d to top that, it also em ploys the to this day
m uch rarer device o f the LSD , or L east Suspected D etective—a d e ­
vice brilliantly exploited by Q. Patrick, w hereby the reader, up to the
last m om ent, has no notion w ho is th e m urderer or w ho is going to
denounce him. It contains the first fram ing o f an innocent person by
the criminal, th e first confession ev ok ed by psychological shock, and
( perhaps m ost significant) the first use o f ballistic clues—long b efo re
they w ere in use outside o f fiction.
T here has b een m uch loose talk about th e “unfairness” o f “Thou
art th e man.” T h e charge was lev eled by H ow ard H aycraft in Mur-
308 EDGAR ALLAN POE

der for pleasure and carelessly rep eated by Vincent Starrett (in a
forthcom ing article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica) and Ellery
Q ueen (in his Bibliography of the detective short story). Mr Queen
has since publicly recan ted (in an adm irable article in Good House­
keeping) and w e m ay h op e that th e legend is dispelled. Mr Hay-
craft’s statem ent that “th e all-important factor o f the bullet w hich
passed through th e horse” is con cealed from th e reader n eeds no dis­
p roof bey on d a rereading o f paragraph six: . a pistol-shot, that had
gone clean through and through the poor an im als c h e s t . . .”
T here’s yet another point o f argument abou t this highly d ebatable
story. Q ueen refers to “its literary failings” and Sayers to its “un­
pleasantly flip p a n t. . . treatm ent,” and H ay craft goes so far as to call
it “by any purely literary stan d ard s. . . one o f Poe’s saddest d ebacles.”
T here’s an unanswerable m atter o f taste involved here; but I think
it’s possible to take a different view. M urder in English literature,
from the E lizabethan dramatists up through M onk L ew is and C harles
B rockden Brown, was a terribly earnest m atter, very black-and-red
and hair-raising. In “Thou art th e man,” P oe discovered that even
m urder can b e treated with casual irony; and this story can b e con­
sidered the forerunner o f such im portant m odern writers ( who have
also b een accu sed occasionally o f unpleasant flippancy) as Edwin
G reenw ood, R ichard H ull and Francis lies.
No juster judgm ent could b e passed on this story than that o f Mr
Q ueen in th e article referred to: “H ad P oe never written ‘T he Mur­
ders in th e Rue M orgue,’ ‘T he Mystery o f Marie Roget,’ an d ‘T he
Purloined L e tte r —h ad h e written only ‘Thou Art th e M an —critics
th e w orld over w ould b e mashing on e another in the rush to acclaim
it literature’s first detective story and a herculean tour de force.”
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