by P.J. Lozito
“He’s a lecturer at New York University and an expert on old weapons. Some of these other rats are now on the newly formed National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.”
“So, our government is willing to overlook their Nazi past if they work for us?”
“Uncle Sam wanted to get their hands on as many as these German scientists as they could. Especially since the Russians wanted them too. Von Bausen, while no scientist, was icing on the cake.”
“What are you waiting for? Go arrest him for murder.”
“It’s not that easy. I was warned off pursuing this.”
“Are you saying he’s going to get away with this?” Curtis rose.
“Calm down. I went to the commissioner. He brought it to the mayor. The mayor rallied for me. He went to the governor. The governor took it to the F.B.I. Mr. Hoover got some results. Our government is quite confident Clausen had nothing to do with these crimes. But if we can bring them a confession, the F.B.I. will act on it.”
“What can you do?”
“I’ve been making a lot of noise over this. The Feds suggested I go consult with Clausen about longbows and see if he slips up or confesses. If so, they’ll wash their hands of him and let me have him.”
“If only I could get to him!” Curtis exclaimed. “I know I could goad him into incriminating himself.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do. You know him and beat him in the war. I’m getting mighty peeved the Feds want me to butt out. I don’t like that. If this guy killed your men and that Negro doorman, I want him to fry.”
“What can we do?”
“Remember my partner is out sick? Well, acting is your racket.”
“You want me to step in the part of your partner!” Curtis noted with some delight.
Caradona shrugged. “We pay Clausen a visit with you done up like another detective. You were with the Shore Patrol, you can spout the lingo. We’ll see what he has to say. I fib that someone squealed, fingering him. I’ll make Clausen confess to being this Todeskampf.”
“O.K., I’m in. Where does he live?
“He’s got a house in Park Slope, Brooklyn. All I have to do is clear it with the local detective squad there and then we can pay him a visit. We won’t even need back up from the local cops and the Feds have to keep back. It’s just Von Bausen, his wife, and his manservant.”
“I’ll go make myself up. You won’t know me,” Curtis beamed. He was reluctant to inform Caradona the manservant might not be on duty.
*****
Later that day, Mrs. Clausen ushered Lt. Caradona and his partner into her Park Slope home. Hats in hand, the men shuffled in. Mrs. Clausen was a big woman. She certainly fit the description of the heifer that Vera gave him.
Eldon Curtis was masquerading as Caradona’s partner. He had sprouted an overbite, a cleft chin, and a pair of horn rim eyeglasses. His expertise with stage makeup had reshaped his nose with putty. He did his best to dress like a police detective, cloaking himself in a trench coat over battered separates, a wrinkled shirt, a loose tie, and a beat up fedora.
“So sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen. Our butler is off today,” she offered, with only a hint of an accent. “Wait here please. I will fetch my husband.”
Mrs. Clausen returned and led the men into a room filled with glass cases. These held all manner of archaic arms. The pair goggled at an array of swords, shields, maces, spears, knives, and longbows. Then Mrs. Clausen marched off to find her husband.
“Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” commented Curtis, when they were finally alone.
“You actors never forget your Shakespeare, do you?” muttered Caradona.
It was good that he merely muttered, for within seconds a tall man with grey hair, a scar, and a military bearing entered the room. All he needs is a monocle, thought Curtis.
Professor Clausen began with a jovial “How can I help the forces of the law?”
Clausen sat himself at a desk. Curtis noted a solitary feature on it. A human skull sat on it in a dejected manner. Beyond it, in a display case, an unusual item caught Curtis’ eye. It was not by any means ancient. It had a compact rifle-like shape with a pistol grip, cord and metal shafts folded on either side.
“We won’t keep you long, Professor Clausen,” began Caradona. “I’ve been told you’re the city’s foremost expert on ancient weapons.”
“Yes,” agreed the professor. “That is indeed true.”
“There’s been a series of deaths by arrow lately.”
“Oh, yes, I have heard of that. Piqued my professional curiosity, of course,” remarked Clausen. He didn’t seem to notice that Caradona’s partner went without an introduction.
“Witnesses and the recovered arrows point to the murder weapon being a longbow. Not the sort of item you’d find in your average sporting goods store.”
“That is quite correct,” nodded Clausen. “It also requires quite a lot of muscle power. Perhaps more than the average man can muster.”
“How do you mean?” Caradona feigned ignorance.
“Allow me to show you.” Clausen stepped over to one of the display cases, first placing a monocle on a ribbon over his right eye. “This is a good example of a longbow. Mastering it takes years or even decades. Medieval archers found it required a real effort to use. I certainly can’t pull it easily.”
He tried with a pained moan and couldn’t do it.
“Mind if I try?” asked Caradona.
Clausen obligingly handed Caradona the longbow. It was made of yew and measured some six feet long. He couldn’t notch the arrow either. After grunting, he passed it to Curtis. Neither could he budge it.
“Besides notching it, you’d also have to aim and fire the damn thing in battle,” Clausen pointed out. “If you could manage that, you’d be able to kill across a field.”
Curtis finally spoke up. “What is this thing here, professor?”
“Oh, that? A modern crossbow,” he reached in and snapped the shafts on the side into position. “Your Central Intelligence Group gave that to me. They developed it but ultimately found it unwieldy, useless.”
“Central Intelligence Group?” Caradona questioned.
“The follow up to your wartime O.S.S,” supplied Clausen.
“They must have found a gun with a silencer might be just as effective,” tried Curtis.
“Oh, yes, I should think so,” enthused Clausen.
Mention of a silencer did not seem to rattle the professor, observed Curtis.
“But someone could use that crossbow to kill those men,” Caradona speculated. “Maybe waving around the longbow to make it look like that was used since it’s hard to pull the draw string.”
Curtis was surprised. Caradona was supposed to let Clausen implicate himself.
“Yes, I supposed someone could,” admitted the professor.
“If my partner here hadn’t mentioned that crossbow, I’d never had put it together,” theorized the detective, rubbing his jaw. “You killed those men, didn’t you?”
“Killed?” Clausen shot back, as the monocle dropped from his eye. “Are you mad?”
“You Nazis…” began Caradona, but Clausen stopped him with a gesture.
“You refer to me having once been in the German Army? I’ll have you know I never joined the Nazi Party. And I am in this country as a guest of your government.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Caradona sputtered. “You wanted your revenge on that unit that beat you. Those murdered men were all in it.”
“Ridiculous. That was war. And now it is over. Gentlemen, I assure you I can account for all of my movements. I was with members of your own government. In fact, I have a meeting with them now. I must ask you to leave. Ada,” he called. “Show these men to the door.”
“Right,” agreed Curtis. “Your butler is out.”
That remark seemed to have no impact on Clausen.
*****
“Well there goes that,” observed Caradona. “Hey, aren’t you coming?”
&
nbsp; “No, you go on ahead. I’m going to wander and think this out a bit.”
“How are you planning to get home?”
“I’ll get a cab. Don’t worry about me. I made it back from Europe.”
Caradona considered that and said, “Call me if you come up with anything.”
Curtis walked Caradona back to his car. The cop got into it and pulled away. Curtis watched Caradona drive off. It wasn’t long before a black car pulled up in front of Clausen’s house. Seconds later, the professor, now in a topcoat, came out of the house and entered the car. Curtis turned his back to it.
He walked around the block until he was behind Clausen’s house. Looking around, he strode up the alley like he belonged there. Curtis pretended to knock on the backdoor. Suddenly he turned as if he heard something back by the garage. Curtis went to it and hopped a low fence. Bent double, he padded through grass to the back of the Clausen house.
A peek in the window told him nothing. Then Ada Clausen walked by. She stopped at her husband’s desk. She was tidying it up. Curtis went to the single wooden door. He tried it gently.
“Locked, of course,” he muttered.
The actor pulled out his Swiss Army knife, blessing the day Sergeant Miller had affixed a lock pick to the array. Taking a furtive look around, Curtis went to work on the lock. It gave.
He entered the kitchen. From further in the house, he could hear Ada humming along with Ravel’s “Bolero” on the Victrola. He knew it increased in volume as it went along. That was good. Curtis scrunched up against the wall to the study. What he saw startled him.
Ada Clausen finished tidying up the desk, took the skull, and put it on her head! Todeskampf stood before him. She was Todeskampf!
The woman turned and went to the adjacent trophy room. When Mrs. Clausen had her back to him, Curtis tiptoed behind her. She stopped at the display case that held the mechanical crossbow. She removed it.
Since the average person could not draw the bowstring back enough to make the weapon useful, the crossbow was used. She used the crossbow for the killings but by displaying the longbow, made that the obvious weapon. It hadn’t been Clausen!
“Where do you keep the red robe?” he asked, projecting his best stage voice.
Ada Clausen turned, eyes blazing in the skull.
“You!” she accused.
Curtis reached out, grasped the crossbow firmly and jammed it into Mrs. Clausen’s solar plexus. That staggered her. He managed to flick it up to her chin. It connected solidly. She staggered. Curtis tried pulling it out of her hands, but she held on tightly
If she got an arrow into that thing, his goose was cooked. Curtis found a battleaxe and with the flat of it, smashed down on the crossbow. He wasn’t planning on dismembering her. It clattered to the floor.
“The schweinhund actor, Herr Curtis!” Ada Clausen accused.
Curtis bowed, saying, “From one performer to another, you were excellent. Brava! You avenged your husband’s defeat. If anyone suspected him, the U.S. government was his perfect alibi.”
Mrs. Clausen reached back and blindly snatched up another weapon. This proved to be a massive mace. One swing both dented Curtis’ battleaxe and swept it away. The woman approached menacingly.
“You will not leave this house alive,” she warned. “And you will find it is quite soundproof!”
Curtis had to scramble for a new weapon. His hand fell upon a round shield. Getting it up just in time, the thing resounded with a clang as the mace found it. Mrs. Clausen pulled back for another deadly arc, leaving herself open. Curtis jammed the shield into her face.
He let it go, spotting a better weapon. But he had to distract her to get it. The woman tossed the shield aside. Curtis grasped a sword that, curiously, had a female Roman centurion as the hand guard. The work momentarily distracted him. When he turned back, Ada Clausen found the sword’s mate. As she thrust, he parried.
“You must not have seen many of my films,” he taunted. “I did my own fencing.”
“Did you?” challenged Mrs. Clausen. “Before the war, I was Germany’s top-rated swordswomen!”
“Touché!” the actor allowed.
Curtis found her slashing attack difficult to defend. She danced forward, amazingly light on her feet for a big woman. She’s better than me, Curtis thought. Ada Clausen was moving in for the kill when salvation appeared.
“Halt!” ordered Lt. Caradona from the door. “Drop that pig sticker.”
Almost reflexively, Ada Clausen flicked the sword at Caradona’s arm.
“Argh,” the detective choked out.
Blood splattered. His revolver went crashing. Then with Caradona disarmed, Ada Clausen stepped forward and stabbed him through the stomach. The pair was frozen in a tableau of death for long seconds.
She turned to Curtis, grinning, “You’re next.”
Curtis didn’t stop to think. He simply ran Ada Clausen through the heart. His sword pierced her before her own was fully free of Caradona. Her grin faded to surprise, as she shrieked and collapsed. Weapons in their cases rattled. Curtis stood there with the two bodies, in shock. This was different from war. He hadn’t run a sword into the enemy in the war, much less a woman. Nor had he seen buddies slashed down by sword in war. Curtis rushed to Caradona. The detective was still breathing.
“Take it easy, Bob. I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Figured you …come back,” he gasped. “Dawned on me, skull on desk, crossbow…”
“Hang on,” Curtis soothed.
“Don’t let crooks like that take over…working with Feds…”
And then he was gone. Curtis arose. He knew what he had to do. Carefully he placed his sword into Caradona’s hand. Now it would look like Caradona had stabbed Ada Clausen when she attacked. Curtis took one last look around and then left by the front door. He had an idea and left it unlocked.
Curtis walked to a candy store, found a phone booth. He consulted the directory there and dialed The New York Enquirer.
“Bodies in a house in Park Slope,” he whispered solemnly and gave the address. Next he called the police and reported Caradona dead at the same location. This way, the crime could not be covered up by the cops or the Feds. In some anguish, he headed for the subway, discarding into various trash bins the putty nose, false teeth, eyeglasses, and cleft chin as he went.
*****
Mayor William O’Dwyer entered his office and clicked on the electric light. Only nothing happened. He toggled the switch several more times to the same effect.
“What the hell is wrong with this damned light?” he grunted.
“I disconnected it,” came a voice from behind him. The door was shut and locked. “Sit down, Mr. Mayor. And please don’t make any untoward sound.”
The man added just a hint of an Irish brogue to his voice, to play on O’Dwyer’s own immigrant heritage.
The mayor squinted into the dark. He beheld a dark shape, darker than the gloom of the office. That shape seemed to be holding something pointed right at his heart. He decided it might be best to comply for now.
“You some friend of Murder, Incorporated? I thought I put a stop to all that.”
“Indeed you did. That’s why I wanted to see you.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” O’Dwyer declared. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the mayor made out a man in evening clothes with a hat.
“Quite the contrary, Your Honor,” the man held. “I’m a concerned citizen, here to help with problems of that nature.”
“Are you? You have a name?”
“Call me …Griffin.”
“Is that the mythical beast, a first name or the proud Irish surname?”
“Take your pick. You are aware of the death of Lt. Robert Caradona? Killed in the line of duty?”
“Yes!” the mayor said loudly. “You have something to do with that? By God…”
“Quite the contrary.”
“What?”
“He had an unofficial partner who could
do things he himself couldn’t officially do.”
“What the devil do you mean? Who?”
“Me.”
“To what investigation do you refer?”
“Ada Clausen, found dead with him, was responsible for that spate of arrow killings. She used the mechanical crossbow recovered at the scene. But she made sure witnesses saw an ancient longbow. The Feds covered all that up, didn’t they? They need her husband.”
“They still do, from what I understand,” admitted the mayor.
“Prof. Clausen happens to have been unaware of what she was up to.”
“Caradona was a good cop! Those other men were veterans.”
“And I’m sorry they got killed. I plan to carry on Caradona’s work. But to do that, I will need help from you.”
“Why would I help you? You claim to be some sort of vigilante. That’s not how it works. Caradona, God rest his soul, was out of line to go to you. We have due process in this country.”
“Did the victims of Murder, Inc. get due process?”
“That’s what the police are for!”
“And a bang up job they are doing.”
“An investigation takes time.”
“Come now, Mr. Mayor. You were a policeman. You know how hard it is. Often your hands are tied by the very laws you swore to uphold. I’m here to do some untying.”
“That wouldn’t be right!” protested O’Dwyer. “How would such vigilantism be kept under control? Why should I trust you, giving you free reign to run roughshod over the law?”
“Ada Clausen kidnapped a woman. Vera Curtis. I rescued her. She was about to be killed. Why don’t you check with her?”
An index card with Vera Curtis’ typed phone number was tossed over to the mayor.
“That was covered up, too. But she’ll tell you the truth.”
“Why, this is fantastic! Are you saying the federal government would have let Mrs. Curtis’ kidnappers go unpunished because they need Clausen? They didn’t tell me that!”
“To their credit, they were going to prosecute if Caradona and I could get some proof. When we went looking for it, he got killed. I wished it could be have been me and not him.”
“But he finished her!”
“Since you used to be a cop, you know even a wounded cop wouldn’t pick up an unfamiliar weapon because he was disarmed. He’d still grab for his gun, not a sword.”
“Are you saying you finished her and made it look…?”
