Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “You ‘heard’ about it? I’ll bet. And you told me you felt ill over something you ate! Oh, fine. That sort of loyalty we often read about, don’t we?”

  I GOT BACK to my office and put my feet on the desk. Ah! This is the way I liked to run a case! This was the way to live. Desks were designed especially for the feet. Yessir, feet on a desk, hat over the eyes, hands on the chest. What more could a detective want? What more . . .

  A stinkin’ little voice that I wouldn’t have given two cents for floated into my private office from the “reception” room outside.

  “Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly? Oh, there you are, Mr. Kelly!”

  “Here I am, Lord,” I conceded.

  A shocked, chubby pink face stuck itself into view. “Did you say that?” it asked.

  “I said that. I being Kelly, aforementioned.”

  The voice built into that pink face whipped up and out at me. “Never, never speak in that irreverant manner when quoting from the ‘book’ !” it told me.

  “Who are you, little man?” I wanted to know.

  Pink face came closer and lost its stern look. It almost seemed to want to smile a bit. “I am Gerald Walker, you know?” he said and asked at the same time.

  “The nephew of old William R.”

  “Yes,” he dipped his head in agreement.

  “Okay. Now we’re buddies. What can I do for you?”

  The pink face got a little pinker. “This is rather embarrassing, you know, Mr. Kelly? I believe you were out to see uncle this morning?”

  “About noon,” I admitted.

  “Oh, yes? I would have thought earlier. I’m afraid that uncle gave you a bad impression, now?”

  “No badder than I’ve ever gotten before.”

  “Excuse me. Now what?”

  “Badder. Comparative of bad.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure?” he seemed to surmount his doubts, manfully. “I’d like to apologize for uncle’s discourtesy, Mr. Kelly. You see, he’s not quite himself.”

  “Yeah, I know. Prayer’s killing him.”

  “Oh, you noticed?”

  “He told me. Have a drink?” I offered him a guest bottle usually hid in my desk for occasions like this.

  Pink face stared as though it were a rare sort of beetle. “Is—is that liquor?”

  “Used to be ink. Now I got a ball pen. Drink it, instead.”

  “I rather think we had better talk about uncle,” he said hastily.

  “Okay. What about?”

  “Well, please try to understand, Mr. Kelly. Uncle is going to die tomorrow, I’m afraid. And I must say he rather deserves it?”

  “Who’s killing him tomorrow?”

  “Not ‘who’, but ‘what’. Prayer. Prayer, Mr. Kelly!”

  I opened the bottle and sampled the ink. A nice big generous sample. “Oh, brother!” I gargled.

  This offended him. “Mr. Kelly! A gentleman shouldn’t act like that.”

  I just stared at him. “Tell me, Gerald, what do you do for a living?” This at the moment seemed important.

  He drew up his little frame in what seemed to be a pose. “I”, he announced as though he were discovering the Canadian Cataract at the Falls, “I am an attorney-at-law.”

  That did it. I could hear it tear.

  “Cripes!” I whispered.

  And that little statement of his seemed to be a flick of the switch that would begin to end this silly business. He gave me one good, chin-up look then turned on his heel and left. And I sat there, letting him go, wondering just what had brought the little man to see me. Maybe to apologize for uncle’s rudeness. It seemed likely.

  LIEUTENANT Scott called me at my office the next morning. The phone was ringing as I walked in the door. I grabbed the thing before it had a chance to change its mind.

  “Kelly?”

  “Yup.”

  “Scott, Homicide.”

  “Yup.”

  “Can you come out to William Walker’s home at once?”

  “Yup.”

  “I want you to identify something.”

  “Yup.”

  “Make it snappy—and don’t say ‘yup’.”

  I didn’t get the chance. He slammed the receiver down and I spent the next couple of minutes picking it out of my ear.

  Scott was the butler who met me at the door. He was a little grim. “C’mon in,” he said.

  I followed him into the hall and through a doorway into the same room where I had met William Walker yesterday. The thing lay flat on its back, arms stretched out on the floor like a crucifix, the face looking at the ceiling but not seeing it. And from the little chest of the thing, stuck at right angles to it, was a slick-looking paper knife. The handle of a paper knife, rather. My paper knife, from my desk, in my office. And the thing on the floor was chubby pink-face who, I guessed, had got his prayers short-circuited.

  “He doesn’t look natural,” I told Scott.

  He’d been watching me. “How’d you know that?” he asked.

  I grinned at him. “Pretty boy paid me a visit yesterday afternoon. I see he had fetching ways.”

  “Yeah?” Scott said, watching me. “My paper knife, that, sticking amidst the ribs.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yup.”

  “I thought so; your name stamped on the handle, anyway. Just wanted to be sure. We’ll have prints taken off it, if any.”

  Looking at Gerald’s cadaver on the floor, I related to Scott the visit of the former on the previous day.

  He eyed me carefully. Finally he said: “Do you have any idea why he came to the office?”

  “I’m not sure, of course. But since last night I’ve had a feeling that the little fellow just wanted to see what sort of a fraud a detective really was. Why, I don’t know.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I really wouldn’t know. Just a feeling.”

  Then I had another idea. “Where’s old man Walker?”

  “Upstairs. Lying down. He discovered his nephew’s body. Quite a shock, I imagine.”

  “Could I talk to him?”

  From this I got the deep-freeze. “You’re off the case, remember, Kelly? Today you’re sending the two hundred dollars back to Miss Farnam.”

  “I’ve changed my mind again,” I decided.

  “Change it once more, then. I called you over to identify that paper knife. Later, you’ll sign a statement to that effect. And that,” here Scott laid his brown eyes on me like a kindly father, “is that.”

  I got out the needle and gave it to him. “Okay, Inspector,” I said. But the needle was dull. He never even felt it.

  I BUZZED across town and pulled my little Plymouth coupe up in front of the Farnam house. Miss Phyllis Farnam was on her hands and knees on the lawn with a little instrument in her hand. As I walked close to her I saw she was pulling weeds. Today she was dressed in a plain black dress covered by a Hoover apron that was a little soiled. Her small figure resembled a child’s as she yanked patiently at the dandelions.

  “Good morning, Miss Farnam,” I said.

  She looked up and wiped a little film of perspiration from her forehead. “Good morning, Mr. Kelly.”

  “Today is the 25th, Miss Farnam.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “The 25th.”

  “Here’s your money, Miss Farnam.”

  The little lady looked up at me questioningly. “Money, Mr. Kelly?”

  “Yes. I’m returning it. Deal’s off.”

  “But, Mr. Kelly! The 25th, you know!”

  I gave her a stony glance, but it didn’t do any good. It wasn’t working this morning. “Miss Farnam, will you take the two hundred or won’t you?”

  She didn’t like that one bit. “Mr. Kelly! An agreement is an agreement. It’s too late for me to get another detective now so you’ll just have to go through with it! I must say you’re a fine man. A body can’t depend on you for one minute—”

  She might have got real wound up if I hadn’t stopped it. “Miss Farn
am,” I said. Then I got fresh. “Phyllis!” That did it. She stopped like gas when you don’t pay the bill. “I’ll keep my end of the bargain on one condition.”

  She just looked but didn’t say anything, so I continued. “I’ll go through with it if you’ll tell me why you swiped my paper knife—and what’s more, where it is now.”

  Gentle rain falling with a caress on her tender cheek would have disturbed her more than I did. She never even blinked. “All right, Mr. Kelly. You see, Gerald Walker would never have believed that I actually went to your office without some proof to present to him. Therefore, since you weren’t there to write a note of proof, I simply stole the least valuable object I could find. I gave the paper knife to him and I suppose he has it now.”

  “You can be sure he has,” I said grimly. “It’s sticking in his chest. Is that the way you gave it to him?”

  “Of course not!” Then she got the implication. “You mean Gerald’s hurt?”

  “Gerald’s dead. He was killed last night.”

  “Oh, no!” the breath left her with the words.

  I reached down and took the weeding implement from her. She was automatically digging a hole with it. She seemed to be surprised at the hole for a while. “Dead?” she said to herself.

  “You see, Miss Farnam, this matter isn’t just a game any longer. Lieutenant Scott of Homicide has warned me to keep out of it. However, if you are still determined to carry on with your original intention, I’ll keep the money—and either give it back to you later when you want it, or apply it toward any services I can perform aside from this death.”

  She raised herself quickly like a small girl. “I must see how father is. It’s time for his warm milk, I think. You’ll excuse me, please, Mr. Kelly.” And with that she quickly walked into the house, leaving me with a weeder and some droopy dandelions. I placed the weeder on the steps of the house and walked back to the car.

  This thing had me thinking for a change. First, I hadn’t quit, like Scott told me to. Second, I had more or less promised Miss Farnam to carry on. How? The solution to that lay in a session at the office.

  I HAD BEEN dreaming it over for about ten minutes when the phone rang. It was Scott again. He seemed curiously interested in speaking to me for some reason.

  “Kelly?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, no. Not that routine again, Kelly.”

  “Okay,” I said. I felt agreeable.

  “A question I’d like to ask you, Kelly.”

  “Fine. Shoot.”

  “When Gerald Walker was in your office yesterday would you say he’d had a chance to take your paper knife, without your knowledge?”

  Scott was pumping a dry well but didn’t know it yet.

  “I might say so, Lieutenant,” I said softly; “but I won’t.”

  The line was quiet for a moment. I could almost hear Scott thinking that over. Finally: “Like that, eh?”

  “Well,” I told him, “consider; you told me to get out and stay out. You also told me to return that two hundred to Miss Farnam. I’ve just come back from there. And you want information.”

  “I see. Well, Kelly, maybe you have a point and maybe you haven’t. That’s up to you. My question was merely in the line of a favor, really.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant. But look; you got a steady job—not me. Each little case I get means milk and pie for a few more days. When I see the milk and pie go whispering away, just because somebody else says to scat—well, you can see what I mean.”

  I’ll say one thing more for Scott. He was decent inside of him. He proved it with the next words: “k can understand that, Kelly. Perhaps I didn’t see it that way at first. I’m sorry you lost the money.”

  “Save the sorrow,” I said; “maybe we can make a deal.”

  There was a sudden chill on the line. “Deal?”

  “Sort of. How about me carrying on with this investigation but with your approval of everything I do—before I do it?”

  “Hmm. Any mental reservations behind the—deal?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right. I’ll take your word for it. You report to me what you want to do; if it’s okay, you can do it.”

  “You’re a gentleman, Scott. And now for your question. No, sir, Gerald Walker didn’t have a ghost of a chance to remove my paper knife without my knowledge yesterday. I’ve thought that over. He stayed only a moment, and never got close enough to the desk.”

  “Hmm. There were prints on the knife, but blurred. No soap. That means only one other thing, doesn’t it?”

  “Exactly what, Lieutenant?”

  “One other person could have removed that knife, Kelly.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Farnam.”

  “Yes. She could have.”

  “Did she?”

  “I should know?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay, then. Yes, I think she stole the knife.”

  “Why would she kill Gerald?”

  “Bud, you’re on the wrong road. That old lady cries her heart out when she has to decapitate a dandelion. She didn’t kill Gerald. One thing I’ll tell you for sure. Walker—I mean the old man—felt he’d be knocked off by ‘potent prayer’.”

  “By what?”

  “Potent prayer.”

  Scott was having a hard time with that one. “Yeah?” he said at last.

  “Yeah. Miss Farnam’s father was doing the prayers for this season, it seems. He didn’t quite like Walker. Wanted him to die. Practically asked him to.”

  “Are you serious?” Scott asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied; “I’m repeating what Walker told me.”

  “At any rate, prayer was left out in Gerald’s case.”

  “Looks like it. Prayer was too slow, I guess.”

  “You think Mr. Farnam killed Gerald?”

  “Did I say that? I must be getting careless.”

  “Well, no. I assumed you meant that.”

  “Hey, Scott.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to talk with old man Walker. Can do it?”

  He thought that over. “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Alone?”

  “All right. I’d like a report from you later, though.”

  I SNUCK over to Walker’s house.

  Some of the Homicide men were there. They didn’t object to me so I guessed Scott had called about me. It was easier than I had thought. Walker was up and about. In fact, he was very much about. He was screaming at the department men for messing up his living room.

  I tried to bust into it but for a while it looked like I was going to get pasted by both sides. Finally however, Walker seemed to quiet down. He looked at me anew as though I had just walked into the room.

  “What do you want here?”

  “Ah, that’s more like the old Walker tone,” I said cheerily. “Nothing important; just wanted to ask you a curious question or two.”

  “Well, ask then.”

  I raised my left eyebrow. “What? In front of all these snoopy department boys?”

  He seemed to agree instantly with that one. “Yes, you’re right; come into my den.”

  I followed him in and he shut the door. We both walked over to his snuggy fireplace in the far corner and sat down.

  I got at him before he could start on his own. “You’re not too cut up over Gerald’s death?” I asked mildly.

  It jolted him and I could see the blood pressure mounting again. Just as suddenly, though, he calmed down again.

  “Why should I be?” he asked suspiciously.

  That one jolted me. “Wasn’t he your nephew?”

  “He was not.”

  I managed to say, “Oh,” and then waited, like waiting for an explosion you know will occur. Only, in this case it didn’t ever.

  “He lost the right to call himself my nephew when he married that woman last month.”

  I scratched my chin. “He did, eh? Last month. What was her name, again?”
<
br />   “Linda Raleigh, she called herself. Now she’s Linda Walker, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s nobody. She’ll never get a penny out of me. Gerald didn’t know it, but I had my will changed last week.”

  I decided to try my luck some more. “What you got against Linda, Mr. Walker?” I said casually.

  He bit. “My Lord, what wouldn’t I have against her? She’s nothing but a nightclub female cockroach. One of those girls who crawl out of the woodwork, and the next thing you’re trying to brush her off your coat. Only Gerald was too much of a blind fool to see it. He thought she was ‘pretty’. Hmmph. Pretty!”

  “Like that, huh? How’s she feel since Gerald got—er, ah, since something happened to him?”

  The old man snorted. “How should I know? She might not even know it, for all I care.”

  I thought of something. “She doesn’t live here?”

  “She does not. And neither did Gerald since he tied himself to that—that . . .”

  I thought of something else. It bothered me. “What was Gerald doing here when he got killed?”

  Seemed like I was annoying the old boy. He ran his hand through his sparse hair and growled: “I don’t know that, either. I’ve told the police that a hundred times already, and now you. How do I know what Gerald was doing here? He still had his key to the house, I suppose. Anyway, I was asleep and I didn’t even hear him come in.”

  “I see,” I said. “And he didn’t have any enemies at all, eh?”

  “I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t know, but I’d guess he’d have plenty; he was always so damned pious he must have rubbed somebody the wrong way.”

  “Uh huh. I can understand that. Well, I won’t be bothering you any more today—today that is. Only one thing, though. You still afraid of being killed?”

  He stopped the hair polishing for an instant. “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  He was in a totally different mood now. The thoughtful mood. It didn’t brook any disturbance, so I left him.

  4

  SCOTT WASN’T in when I called on the phone, so I decided to go over to headquarters and wait for him. Ten minutes cooling myself in his office finally brought him in. “Hot out, huh?” I asked.

  He was sweating. “Hot, my dear Kelly, is not the right word. And not only the weather. I have just had the painful pleasure of talking to Gerald’s wife.”