The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders

by Fredric Brown

  Checkered Suit put a hand against Mr. Smith's chest and pushed him buck into the chair. He turned to the stocky man. "Boss," he said, "I think this little guy's razzing us. Can I slug him one?"

  "Hold it," said the stocky man. He turned to Joe. "How's about—what you were seeing about? Everything going okay?"

  The tall man nodded. "Payoffs tomorrow. It's airtight." He shot a sidewise glance at the insurance agent. "We gonna have this guy on our hands until then? Let's bump him off now."

  Mr. Smith's eyes opened wide. "Bump?" he asked. "You mean murder me? But what on earth would you have to gain by killing me?"

  Checkered Suit took the automatic out of his coat pocket. "Now or tomorrow, Boss," he asked. "What's the diff?"

  Greasy Face shook his head. "Keep your shirt on," he replied. "We don't want to have a stiff around, just in case." Mr. Smith cleared his throat. "The question," he said, "seems to be whether you kill me now or tomorrow. But why should the necessity of killing me arise at all? I may as well admit that I recognized Mr. Kessler's name and have deduced that you are holding him here. But if you collect the ransom tomorrow for him, you can just move on and leave me tied up here. Or release me when you release him. Or-"

  "Listen," said Greasy Face, "you're a nervy little guy and I'd let you go if I could, but you can identify us, see? The bulls would show you galleries and you'd spot our mugs and they'd know who we are. We've been photo-graphed, see? We ain't amateurs. But we'll let you stick around till tomorrow if you'll only shut up and—" "But hasn't Mr. Kessler seen you also?" The stocky man nodded. "He gets it, too," he said calmly. "As soon as we've collected."

  Mr. Smith's eyes were wide. "But that's hardly fair, is it? To collect a ransom with the agreement that you will release him, and then fail to keep your part of the con-tract? To say the least, it's poor business. I thought that there was honor among—er—it will make people distrust you."

  Checkered Suit raised a clubbed revolver. "Boss," he pleaded, "at least let me conk him one."

  Greasy Face shook his head. "You and Joe take him down to the cellar. Cuff him to that iron cot and he'll be all right. Yeah, tap him one if he argues about it, but don't kill him, yet."

  The little man rose with alacrity. "I assure you I shall not argue about it. I have no desire to be—"

  Checkered Suit grabbed him by an arm and hustled him toward the cellar steps. Joe followed.

  At the foot of the steps, Mr. Smith stopped so suddenly that Joe almost stepped on him. Mr. Smith pointed ac-cusingly at a pile of red cans.

  "Is that gasoline?" He peered closer. "Yes, I can see that it is, and smell that it is. Keeping cans of it like that in a place like that is a fire hazard, especially when one of the cans is leaking. Just look at the floor, will you? Wet with it."

  Checkered Suit yanked at his arm. Mr. Smith gave ground, still protesting. "A wooden floor, too! In all the houses I've examined when I've issued fire policies, I've never seen—

  "Joe," said Checkered Suit, "I'll kill him if I sock him, and the boss'll get mad. Got your sap?"

  "Sap?" asked the little man. "That's a new term, isn't it? What is a—?" Joe's blackjack punctuated the sentence.

  It was very dark when Mr. Smith opened his eyes. At first, it was a swirling, confused, and thunderous dark-ness. But after a while it resolved itself into the everyday damp darkness of a cellar, and there was a little square

  of moonlight coming in at a window over his head. The thunder, too, resolved itself into nothing more startling than the sound of footsteps on the floor above.

  His head ached badly, and Mr. Smith tried to raise his hands to it. One of them moved only an inch or two be-fore there was a metallic clank, and the hand couldn't be moved any farther. He explored with the hand that was free and found that his right hand was cuffed to the side of the metal cot with a heavy handcuff.

  He found, too, that there was no mattress on the bed and that the bare metal springs were cold as well as un-comfortable.

  Slowly and painfully at first, Mr. Smith raised himself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and began to examine the possibilities of his situation.

  His eyes were by now accustomed to the dimness. The metal cot was a very heavy one. Another one just like it stood on end against the wall at the head of the cot to which Mr. Smith was handcuffed. At first glance it ap-peared ready to crash down on Mr. Smith's head, but he reached out his left hand and found that it stood there quite solidly.

  He heard the cellar door open and footsteps starting down. A light flashed on back by the steps and another at a work bench on the opposite side of the cellar. Checkered Suit appeared, and crossed to the work bench. He glanced over toward the dark corner where Mr. Smith was, but Mr. Smith was lying quietly on the cot.

  After a moment at the bench he went back up the stairs. The two lights remained on.

  Mr. Smith rose to a sitting position again, this time slowly so the springs of the cot would make no noise. Once erect, however, he went to work rapidly. What he was about to attempt was, he knew, a long-shot chance, but he had nothing to lose.

  With his free hand he pushed and pulled at the iron cot leaning against the wall, first grasping the frame as high as he could reach, then as low. It was heavy and hard to shift, but finally he got it off balance, ready to topple over on his head if he had not held it back. Then he got it back on balance again, by a hair. He moved his hand away experimentally. The cot stood, a sword of Damocles over his head.

  Then lifting a foot up to the edge of the cot on which he sat, he took out the lace of one of his shoes. It wasn't easy, with one hand, to tie an end of the shoelace to the frame of the upended cot, but he managed. Holding the other end of the shoelace, he lay down again.

  He had worked more rapidly than had been necessary. It was a full ten minutes before Checkered Suit returned to the cellar.

  Through slitted eyes, the insurance agent saw that he carried several objects—a cigar box, a clock, dry-cell bat-teries. He put them down on the bench and started to work.

  "Making a bomb?" Mr. Smith asked pleasantly.

  Checkered Suit turned around and glowered. "You talking again? Keep your lip buttoned, or I'll—"

  Mr. Smith did not scorn to hoar. "I take it you intend to plant the bomb near that pile of gasoline cans tomorrow?" he asked. "Yes, I can sec now that I was hasty in criticiz-ing it as a fire hazard. It's all in the point of view, of course. You want it to be a fire hazard. Seeing things from the point of view of an insurance man, I can hardly approve. But from your point of view, I can quite ap-preciate—"

  "Shut up!" Checkered Suit's voice was exasperated.

  "I take it you intend to wait until you have collected the ransom money for Mr. Kessler, and then, leaving him and me in the house—probably already dead—you will set the little bomb and take your departure."

  "That sock Joe gave you should have lasted longer," said Checkered Suit. "Want another?"

  "Not particularly," Mr. Smith replied. "In fact, my head still aches from the last one I had from that—did you call it a 'sap'?" He sighed. "I fear my knowledge of the slang of the underworld to which you gentlemen belong is sadly lacking—"

  Checkered Suit slammed the cigar box back on the bench and took the automatic from his pocket. Holding it by the barrel, he stalked across the cellar toward Mr. Smith.

  The little man's eyes appeared to be closed, but he rambled on, "It is rather a coincidence, isn't it, that I should call here to sell insurance—life and fire—and that you should be so sadly ill-qualified to receive either one? Your occupation is definitely hazardous. And—"

  Checkered Suit had reached the bed. He bent over and raised the clubbed pistol. But apparently the little man's eyes hadn't been closed. He jerked up his free hand to ward off the threatened blow, and the hand held the shoestring. The heavy metal cot, balanced on end, toppled and fell.

  It had gained momentum by the time a corner of it struck the head of Checkered Suit. Quite sufficient mo-mentu
m. Mr. Smith's long-shot chance had come off. He said "Oof as Checkered Suit fell across him and the cot came on down atop Checkered Suit.

  But his left hand caught the automatic and kept it from clattering to the floor. As soon as he caught his breath, he wormed his hand, not without difficulty, be-tween his own body and that of the gangster. In a vest pocket, he found a key that unlocked the handcuff.

  He wriggled his way out, trying to do so quietly. But the upper of the two cots slipped and there was a clang of metal against metal.

  There were footsteps overhead and Mr. Smith darted around behind the furnace as the cellar door opened. A voice—it seemed to be the voice of the man they had called Joe-called out, "Larry!" Then the footsteps started down the stairs.

  Mr. Smith leaned around the furnace and pointed Checkered Suit's automatic at the descending gangster. "You will please raise your hands," he said. Then he noticed that smoke curled upward from a lighted cig-arette in Joe's right hand. "And be very careful of that—"

  With an oath, the cadaverous-faced man reached for a shoulder holster. As he did so, the cigarette dropped from his hand.

  Mr. Smith's eyes didn't follow the cigarette to the floor, for Joe's revolver had leaped from its holster almost as though by magic and was spitting noise and fire at him. A bullet nicked the furnace near Mr. Smith's head.

  Mr. Smith pulled at the trigger of the automatic, but nothing happened. Desperately, he pulled harder. Still nothing—

  At the foot of the staircase a sheet of bright flame, started by Joe's dropped cigarette, flared upward from the wooden floor, saturated with gasoline from the leaky can.

  The sheet of flame leaped for the stack of cans, found the hole in the leaky one. Mr. Smith had barely time to jerk his head back behind the furnace before the explo-sion came.

  Even though he was shielded from its force, the concus-sion sent him sprawling back against the steps that led to the outer door of the cellar. Behind him, as he got to his feet, half the cellar was an inferno of flames. He couldn't see Joe—or Checkered Suit.

  He ran up the steps and tried the slanting outside cellar door. It seemed to be padlocked from the outside. But he could see where the hasp of the padlock was. He put the muzzle of the automatic against the door there, and tried the trigger again. He brought up his other hand and tried the gun with both hands. It wouldn't fire.

  He glanced behind him again. Flames filled almost the entire cellar. At first he thought he was hopelessly trapped. Then through the smoke and flame he saw that there was an outside window only a few yards away, and a chair that would give him access to it.

  Still clinging to the gun that wouldn't shoot, he got the window open and climbed out. A sheet of flame, drawn by the draft of the opened window, followed him out into the night.

  He paused only an instant for some cool air and a quick look, to be sure his clothing wasn't afire, and then ran around the house and up onto the front porch. Already the fire was licking upward. Through the first-floor win-dows he could see its red glare.

  He ran up onto the front porch. The gun that wouldn't shoot came in handy to knock the glass, already cracked by explosion, out of the front door so he could reach in and turn the key.

  As he went into the hallway, Mr. Smith heard the back door of the house slam, and surmised that Greasy Face was making his getaway. But Mr. Smith's interests lay upstairs; he didn't believe that the fleeing criminal would have untied his captive.

  The staircase was ablaze, but still intact. Mr. Smith took a handkerchief from his pocket, held it tightly over his mouth and nose, and darted up through the flames.

  The hallway on the second floor was swirling with smoke, but not yet afire. He stopped only long enough to beat out the little flame that was licking upward from one of his trouser cuffs, and then began to throw open the doors that led from the hallway.

  In the center room on the left, just down the hallway from the stairs, a bound and gagged man was lying on a bed. Hurriedly Mr. Smith took off the gag and began to work on the ropes that were knotted tightly about his feet and ankles.

  "You're Mr. Kessler?" he asked.

  The gray-haired man took a deep breath and then nodded weakly. "Are you the police or—?"

  Mr. Smith shook his head. "I'm an agent for the Phalanx Life and Fire Insurance Company, Mr. Kessler. I've got to get you out of here, because the house is burning down and we've got a big policy on your life. Two hundred thousand, isn't it?"

  The ropes at the wrists of the prisoner gave way. "You rub your wrists, Mr. Kessler," said Mr. Smith, "to get back your circulation, while I untie your ankles. We'll have to work fast to get out of here. I hope we haven't a policy on this house, because there isn't going to be a house here in another fifteen or twenty minutes."

  The final knots parted. Over the crackling of flames, Mr. Smith heard the cough of an automobile's engine. He ran to the open window and looked out, while Mr. Kessler stood up.

  Through the windshield of the car nosing out of the garage behind the house, he could see the face of the leader of the trio of kidnapers. The driveway ran under the window.

  "The last survivor of your three acquaintances is leav-ing us," said Mr. Smith over his shoulder. "I think the police would appreciate it if we slowed down his de-parture."

  He picked up a heavy metal-based lamp from the bureau beside the window and jerked it loose from its cord.

  As he leaned out of the window, the car, gathering speed, was almost directly below him. Mr. Smith poised the lamp and slammed it downward.

  It struck the hood just in front of the windshield. There was the sound of breaking glass, and the car swerved into the side of the house and jammed tightly against it. One wheel kept on rolling, but the car itself didn't.

  Greasy Face came out of the car door, and there was a long red gash across his forehead from the broken glass. He squinted up at the window as he stepped back, then raised a revolver and fired. Mr. Smith ducked back as a bullet thudded into the house beside the window.

  "Mr. Kessler," he said, "I'm afraid I made a mistake. I should have permitted him to depart. We'll have to leave by the other side of the house."

  Kessler was stamping his foot to help bring his cramped leg muscles back to normal. Mr. Smith ran past him and opened the door to the hallway. He staggered back and slammed it shut again as a sheet of flame burst in.

  The room was thick with smoke now, and on the in-side edge, flames were beginning to lick through the floor-boards.

  "The hallway is quite impassable," said the insurance agent. "And I fear the stairs are gone by now, anyway. I fear we shall have to—" He coughed from the smoke and looked around. There was no other door.

  "Well," he said cheerfully, "perhaps our friend has—"

  Two shots, as he appeared at the window, told him that Greasy Face was still there. One of them went through the upper pane of the window, near the top.

  Mr. Smith leaped to one side, then peered cautiously out again. The leader of the kidnapers stood, revolver in hand, twenty feet back from the house, beyond the wrecked car under the window. His face was twisted with anger.

  "Come out and get it, damn you," he yelled. "Or stay in there and sizzle."

  The gray-haired man was coughing violently now. "What can we—?"

  Mr. Smith took the automatic from his pocket and glanced at it regretfully. "If only this thing—Mr. Kessler, do you know how many bullets a revolver holds? He's shot three times. And lie's nearsighted. Maybe—"

  "Six, most of them, I think. But—" The gray-haired man was gasping now. Mr. Smith took a deep breath and stepped to the window, started to climb through it. If he could get the kidnaper to empty his revolver, probably he could bluff him with the automatic that wouldn't shoot.

  The gun below him barked and a bullet thudded into the window sill. Another; he didn't know where it landed. The third shot went just over his head as he let go and dropped to the top of the wrecked car.

  He whirled, jumped to the grass. It
was farther than he thought and he fell, but still clung to the automatic. He was flat on his face in the grass only a few steps from the kidnaper.

  Greasy Face didn't wait to reload. He clubbed the re-volver and stepped in. Mr. Smith rolled over hastily, bringing the automatic up, held in both hands. "Raise your—" His grip on the weapon was tight with despera-tion and one thumb chanced to touch and move the safety lever. The automatic roared so loudly and suddenly that the unexpected recoil knocked it out of the insurance agent's hands.

  But there was a look of surprise on the face of the stocky man, and there was a hole in his chest. He turned slowly as he fell, and Mr. Smith felt slightly ill to see that there was a hole, much larger, in the middle of the kid-naper's back.

  Mr. Smith rose a bit unsteadily and hurried back to the car to help Mr. Kessler down to the ground. Over the crackling roar of the flames they could now hear the wail of approaching sirens.

  The gray-haired man glanced apprehensively at the fallen kidnaper. "Is he—?"

  Mr. Smith nodded. "I didn't mean to shoot—but I told them they were in a hazardous occupation. Someone must have seen the blaze and reported it. Some of those sirens sound like police cars. They'll be glad to know you're safe, Mr. Kessler. They've been—"

  Five minutes later, the gray-haired man was surrounded by a ring of excited policemen. "Yes," he was saying, "three of them. The insurance chap says the other two are dead in the cellar. Yes, he did it all. No, I don't know his name yet but that reward—"

  The police chief turned and crossed the grass toward the little man in the rumpled banker's-gray suit and the gold-rimmed glasses. Outlined in the red glare of the blazing house, he was talking volubly to the fireman on the front end of the biggest hose.

  "And because we sell both life and fire insurance, we have special consideration for firemen. So instead of charging higher rates for them, as most companies do, we offer a very special policy, with low premiums and double indemnities, and—"