The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues

by Ellen Raskin

  The chief fingered a sideburn that stopped just short of his earlobe. “These aren’t long; no longer than anybody else’s these days. You should see some of my street detectives; one of them even wears a ponytail. Why, you got a complaint about hairy cops or something?” Quinn stopped his anxious pacing before the black-dot painting and almost swallowed his cigar stub. “So this is your portrait of the perpetrator. No wonder you couldn’t describe it over the phone. What did you paint it with, invisible ink?”

  “That is not a portrait,” Garson replied evenly, “it is the solution. Let me lead you step by step, clue by clue, to the indisputable result of my astounding logic.”

  “Just get to the point, Garson. Do you know where to find the hairdresser, or don’t you?”

  Garson sighed. “The hairdresser is either still working the con game or, having made enough money to go straight, now owns a beauty shop.”

  “Brilliant.” Quinn raised his eyes to the skylight in prayer for salvation from such fools.

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Garson continued. “Now, listen carefully, Chief. The perpetrator is now using a name of a different color, like Francis Brown or Francis Gray. And the mole is on the left cheek, not the right. Oh, and one more thing, if she is using her real name, Frances will be spelled with an e.”

  “She?” both the chief and Dickory exclaimed.

  “That’s right,” Garson replied. “The horrible hairdresser is a woman.”

  The chief’s sudden exit brought the curtain down in the middle of Garson’s dramatic monologue. He slouched in his chair, a pose of disappointment and defeat. His hand shook.

  “That was an amazing feat of deduction, Inspector Noserag,” Dickory said, placing the deerstalker hat on his head. “It may seem elementary to you, but I still don’t know how you did it.”

  Garson rose, poured himself a drink, lit his pipe and, eyes twinkling, was once again transformed into the inspector. “Ah, yes, The Case of the Horrible Hairdresser,” he said meditatively. “One of my most difficult and intriguing puzzlements, and perhaps my most brilliant success. You remember, Sergeant Kod, my original misgivings about the sky-blue shirt and lavender bow tie. Those atrocious colors provided me with my first clue: each witness reported the identical attire. Now, there is something quite odd about a man who owns but one necktie. I, myself, wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a tie, unless I were applying for a bank loan or facing a jury, yet there must be twenty-five ties hanging in my closet.” He meant Garson’s closet.

  “I see,” Dickory replied. “One bow tie—a woman’s disguise.”

  “Precisely, Sergeant. A bow tie is hardly a proper disguise for a man. The second clue was the hair: crew cut / very short / just short. The hairdresser’s hair was growing, no disguise there, but why would a man in this day and age, especially a man in that profession, wear his hair so unfashionably short? My deduction: because long hair would look ridiculous with no sideburns.”

  “Maybe he went bald trying out his own formula,” Dickory offered, “and his hair was just growing in again.”

  “I thought of that, Sergeant Kod, and it is very likely the case. But if he were a man he would have worn a wig until his hair grew back. After all, he would not have lost his facial hair.”

  “Skin disease?” Dickory guessed weakly.

  Noserag shook his head. “Skin: smooth, creamy. No, my con man is a con woman who, naturally enough, could not grow a beard, and hence, could not grow sideburns.”

  “Very good, Inspector.”

  Inspector Noserag blew a smoke ring before continuing. “The third clue was the perfect manicure. Never, in my long and illustrious career of investigating human foibles, have I heard of a male manicurist. Have you?”

  Dickory sat on her hands to hide their ragged cuticles. “No.”

  “One bow tie, no sideburns, perfect manicures. I had no doubt, no doubt whatever, that I was dealing with a dashingly clever and dangerous woman. Eureka, I said to myself....”

  “What about the mole?” Dickory was tiring of the ham acting. “All three widows agreed that the mole was on Frances’ right cheek, but you said left cheek.”

  “And so I did, so I did. I immediately rejected the notion that the mole was anything but real. Not only was it raised, but it is a most difficult feat of disguise to paste a mole always in exactly the same spot. As for being on the right cheek, come with me, Sergeant.”

  Noserag removed the manikin in the housedress and placed Dickory in the chair before the mirror. “Now tell me, Sergeant Kod, on what cheek is the mole?”

  For the first time Dickory noticed that Garson had painted a black spot, not only on his canvas, but on the face of the hairdresser dummy. “On the right cheek,” she said, looking into the mirror. Then she turned to the wooden Frances behind her. “I mean the left cheek.” She, too, had been confused by the mirror’s reversed image. “Brilliant, Inspector Noserag.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Kod.”

  ? ? ?

  The Case of the Face on the Five-Dollar Bill

  1

  Dickory had fallen in love with the paintings of Piero della Francesca; even more, she had fallen in love with herself as one of his haunted angels. Unlike the usual flying Kewpie dolls, Piero’s angels stood tall in a calm and noble beauty. Feet planted solidly on earth, their eyes stared dreamily upon unimaginable visions of heaven.

  Only the blind man seemed unaware of the wingless angel that floated into Cobble Lane that afternoon. Head held high, eyes focused on inward beauty, Dickory entered the house oblivious to the sodden sins of the sprawling drunk on the stoop and the fleshy excess of Manny Mallomar. Had Shrimps been in the hall at that moment, he would have been crunched under the tread of the visiting angel whose one mighty stride could rid the world of all pestilence and vermin forever.

  “Hey, brat. No more asking my visitors’ names, you hear?” Mallomar yelled from his doorway. “Did you hear me, you lousy snoop?”

  She did not hear. The angel wafted up the stairs, ears sealed to secular profanities.

  “Have you heard anything I said, Dickory?” Garson asked, having explained the workings of the slide projector to his glassy-eyed apprentice for the second time. “You’re not on drugs, are you?”

  “No,” she replied dreamily.

  “Then answer the front door. The bell has rung twice already.”

  It was impossible to be an unearthly angel face-to-face with an earthly jellybean like Mrs. Julius B. Panzpresser.

  “Just call me Cookie,” she said, bursting with cheerfulness right out of the seams of her shocking-pink pants suit. “And what is your name, pretty one?”

  “Dick. . . .” She stopped short. If ever Dickory had seen a nursery-rhyme spouter, this was she.

  “Dick?” Cookie Panzpresser exclaimed. “How very unusual; but it’s better than Kimberly; everybody I know has a grandchild named Kimberly; never even heard that name when I was growing up; I have six myself, not Kimberlys, grandchildren: there’s Susie, she’s the oldest, then there’s Jason and. . . .”

  Manny Mallomar was so bored he closed his door.

  “The studio is upstairs, Mrs. Panzpresser,” Dickory said after the list of grandchildren was completed.

  “Cookie. Everyone calls me Cookie.” Cookie jogged up the stairs, her bleached-blonde hair becoming more tousled with each plump bounce. At the top she leaned against the door frame, panting. Garson, wearing his blue silk turtleneck and dirty jeans, led his client to the wing chair.

  “The years are catching up with little Cookie.” She gasped, plopped down, and fanned herself with his mail.

  “You don’t look a day over thirty-five,” Garson said, his voice dripping with charm.

  “None of that, you big fraud,” Cookie replied. “If you’re going to lie, lie with your paintbrush, not with your mouth.” Her remark was delivered with such good humor that Garson let her prattle on while he searched her face for the lost youthfulness he would restore in her portrait.

 
“Did you have a chance to meet the Big Cigar at my dinner party the other night? That’s what I call him; his real name is Chief of Detectives Joe Quinn. Julius, that’s my husband, asked him to help find a missing artist.”

  “Who’s missing?” Dickory asked.

  “Edward Sonnenblum, or something like that. There’s only one painting by him in the whole world—Julius owns that one, but he wants another one. Julius has had a private detective looking for the artist for years, but he quit.”

  “Now about your portrait, Cookie,” Garson said abruptly.

  “Oh, yes, my portrait. It’s for Julius, for his birthday, to add to his collection, you know. It’s going to be a surprise.”

  Dickory pictured the art collector’s surprise at receiving a Garson painting. Horror was a better word. But Garson reacted as though his paintings did, indeed, belong among the greats. “A splendid idea, Cookie; and you will be a splendid subject. I don’t have any portraits to show you, you understand—they are all in their happy owners’ hands—but I can show you slides to give you an idea of pose and dress. My assistant, Ms. Dock, will. . . .”

  “Dock? I thought she said ‘Dick.’ ”

  There was no way out of it. “Dickory Dock,” said Dickory Dock.

  “Dickory Dock? How cheerful,” Mrs. Panzpresser exclaimed. “Let’s see, now, how does that go?

  “Hickory Dickory Dock,

  The mouse ran up the clock,

  The clock struck one,

  And down he come. . . .

  “One—come; that doesn’t rhyme, does it?”

  Garson quickly drew the blinds and raised the screen. Dickory turned on the slide projector and read from a list of sitters’ names with each corresponding click. Cookie Panzpresser oohed and aahed and burbled about how much younger and handsomer her friends looked in their portraits.

  “Mrs. Juanita Chiquita Dobson,” Dickory read.

  “Next!” Garson shouted, and she clicked to the next slide before Cookie had a chance to study the banana heiress’ portrait.

  “That was one of my first attempts and not up to my standards,” Garson explained. “Now, here is my most recent painting; I think you are acquainted with my lawyer.”

  “That’s too good for the old slob,” Mrs. Julius B. Panzpresser remarked, but when the next slide flashed she cheered. “That’s what I want my picture to look like. That’s just how Julius would like me to look, like a lady pouring tea.”

  Cookie wanted Garson to begin her portrait right away, but she had to juggle club dates and charity functions to find time for the preliminary sitting. “Ta-ta, everybody,” she sang, bouncing down the stairs. “I’ve got to run and get my hair done for tonight’s benefit.”

  “One minute, Cookie,” Garson called after her. “Your hairdresser’s name isn’t Francis, is it?”

  “No, Antoine. Why?”

  “Nothing. Have a nice evening.”

  2

  Dickory left with a shopping bag full of half-used tubes of oil paint left over from the lawyer’s portrait, four slightly frayed brushes, and the large, stretched canvas with the small black dot. “Get rid of them for me,” Garson had said.

  Arms loaded with bounty, Dickory could barely maneuver through the front door, especially with Shrimps Marinara trying to enter at the same time.

  “Out of my way, punk,” he growled when the canvas brushed against his drooping overcoat.

  Shrimps did not like to be touched.

  No matter, neither did the Piero della Francesca angel.

  “What a stink,” her brother complained. He was stretched out on the living room sofa (Dickory’s bed) , watching television. “Somebody open a window.”

  Dickory swished her paintbrush in the offensive turpentine, opened a window, and returned to her painting.

  “Somebody close the window, quick,” shouted her sister-in-law Blanche, bent over the ironing board. “The dirt’s flying all over my clean uniform.”

  “Back and forth, back and forth,” Dickory muttered in imitation of her brother as she closed the window. Once again she picked up her brush and contemplated the canvas propped against the wall. Her composition consisted of a single object balanced against a mass. If done right, the eye will always come to rest on the isolated object, Professor D’Arches had explained. She was working on the mass, covering the entire bottom third of the canvas with blocks of overlapping color, thinking out each brushstroke carefully so that no one color would pop out more than the others. Now she knew why Garson wanted a quiet assistant; even painting a mass of colors in oils took intense concentration.

  “And just what do you know about back and forth, Miss Pablo Picasso?” her brother asked. “Maybe if someone had supported me when I was your age, I’d be doing something better than driving a bus back and forth, back and forth.”

  “I pay my way,” Dickory replied. In generosity she did not mention that her brother had lost the hock shop to his bookie; but then, she had lied about her salary, telling them the twenty dollars a week she paid for room and board was half of her wages. She was saving her money to move out of this crummy walk-up railroad flat. She wanted her own crummy walk-up studio, all to herself. She wanted to become an important artist—or would she rather be a rich hack artist, like Garson, and live and work in a fine house?

  “Well, I’ll say this,” Blanche said, ironing ruffles on her nurse’s cap. “I’d rather be driving back and forth, back and forth, than doing what I’m doing. How’d you like to be drooled on by senile great-grandfathers?”

  “Yeah,” Donald argued. “Yeah, well I’ll give you just one day driving back and forth, back and forth. . . .”

  Professor D’Arches brushed the back of his hand over the expensive linen canvas, thick with pure oil pigments. “What did you do, Dickory, rob a bank?” That was all he had to say about her single object versus mass. He spent the rest of the period castigating the cluttered, poorly designed street signs.

  “I thought your composition was really fantastic,” George III said, trying to slow his long-legged stride to the angel’s serene pace. “The mass of color was really good, and the single object—that was a stroke of genius. Just one little black dot.”

  “Thank you, George. I found your design quite original, too,” she replied with heavenly charity. “Imagine, balancing a watermelon on top of a pea.”

  “Wow, is this where you live?” They had reached Number 12. “Is that your father in the window?”

  Dickory uttered a haughty laugh. “Of course not, that’s our janitor.”

  “Really?” Even gullible George was incredulous. “That fat man in white, your janitor?”

  Dickory was about to explain that they had very clean garbage when Shrimps appeared next to Mallomar. “That little man in black is our janitor; the fat one in the white suit is our cook.”

  Pleased that the derelict was not around to spoil the elegance of Cobble Lane, Dickory unlocked the door to her house, leaving George on the sidewalk gawking at her wealth.

  “Who’s the character outside, the one eyeing the joint?” Mallomar’s questions always sounded like threats.

  Head held high, Dickory floated through the hall in an aura of silent sanctity.

  “I’m talking to you, you snotty kid; and I’m expecting an answer.” The angry fat man spun her around and grabbed her nose between two greasy knuckles.

  Dickory kicked him in the shins and escaped up the stairs, praying that the steep flight was too great a challenge to Mallomar’s corpulence.

  It was. “I’ll get you, if you don’t stop that snooping. Just you wait.” From the bottom of the stairs he shook a white-knuckled fist at her.

  “Get stuck in the bathtub, you fat greaseball,” the Piero della Francesca angel shouted down. “You fat blackmailer, you.”

  Mallomar’s bulging eyes glared. Dickory glared back, realizing the truth of what she had said. He was a blackmailer. He was blackmailing the Smiths and the Joneses. And Garson.

  Dickory tore herse
lf away from the ugliness below and walked into the studio, caressing her sore nose. What did Mallomar have on Garson? What dark crime blackened Garson’s past? No questions, no questions; she couldn’t ask Garson or dare touch on the subject even if he had been home.

  “Garson?” she called. No answer. She looked out of the front window. No one was in Cobble Lane, just George still gaping. He saw her, smiled brightly, waved, and walked away.

  Maybe she should quit this job, in spite of the good pay. It wasn’t the ugly tenants or the blackmail that troubled Dickory as much as what she was learning from Garson. She was learning to be a phony.

  The canvas on Garson’s easel told the beginnings of the Cookie Panzpresser portrait, the underpainting already shaping the dignity of the sitter.

  The second easel was again draped. Next to it sat a manikin dressed as a drum majorette, a plumed hat atilt on its blonde curly wig.

  “Garson?” Dickory called again to make certain he was not around. Cautiously, she lifted a corner of the red velvet drape and nearly jumped out of her sneakers when the doorbell rang. Deciding to let Mr. Smith or Mrs. Jones wait, she raised the drape.

  The canvas was primed, but unpainted. Blank.

  Disappointed that her transgression had led to nothing but a nervous sweat, Dickory ran down the stairs to answer the insistent bell. The suspicious Shrimps peeked into the hallway, reminding her of her sore nose. She opened the front door.

  “I’m sorry, Garson isn’t home,” she said, on hearing that the crippled man’s name was Fetlock.

  “I will wait, thank you.” Fetlock spoke in a high, piping voice. His hair was black. His eyes were hidden under bushy brows. His bent body was disguised by a long, collared cape. One boot had a sole three inches thicker than the other. Slowly, painfully, he dragged his deformed leg up the steps, his left hand clutching the banister, his right hand quivering on a gold-handled cane.