Footprints on the Ceiling
Page 26
“Ross Harte!” he screamed. “What the thundering, infernal, blasted, pestilential, smoking hinges of everlasting hell do you mean by running out on me? We open the day after tomorrow! The scene-painters union is on strike! The costumes aren’t ready! That erotomaniac leading man has a shiner where the danseuse popped him one defending her honor! The publicity department is a complete shambles because they broke our biggest news release today and it was swamped by these two-penny, insignificant, piddling murders you’re mixed up in! Then I have to chase you! Stop standing there like an addlewitted loon. Get your hat!”
The Inspector, not having sidestepped far enough, almost got a poke in the eye from the frantic arm-waving that accompanied this volcanic eruption.
“Ross,” he demanded, “who is this dithering lunatic?”
“And,” the director of Love Over Broadway wanted to know, “who the splitting hell are you? If you’re the infidel son of a spavined camel that seduced Harte into—”
Right there I saved the show. I knew all his other troubles could be fixed. They were just the usual ones. But with the director gibbering behind bars, I wasn’t so sure we would open. I yanked at him as I would at a live bomb and rushed him out of the house, out from under the awful stare of the majesty of the law. Gavigan was not in a lenient mood.
Love Over Broadway opened on time, and it ticked like a clock. I managed to stay on deck until the morning papers arrived with the first reviews.
The whirlwind brought them to my room, singing all down the corridor, “God bless Atkinson! God bless Watts! God bless Walter Winchell!”
I reached for the phone, called Room Service, and said, “Two strait-jackets, please. At once!” Then I went to bed. Two days later I was sitting up and tackling a solid diet again. Merlini came in just after I’d finished my luncheon tray, refused to take no for an answer, and shanghaied me. He pushed me into a taxi and ordered, “The D.A.’s office.”
On the way, he brought me up to date. Lamb had been extradited to Chicago and had hired a standing army of lawyers. Ira and Rappourt, had been indicted for trial. Arnold, after a night in the cooler, had been released with a lecture by the Police Commissioner on the subject of falsifying evidence and moving bodies without an official permit. And Merlini had managed to get Mr. Sandor X. Svoboda out on bail so that the circus could go on.
Then I told him something. “Anyway,” I said, “there’s one thing about this case that I did figure out on my own.”
“What?”
“The answer to that wine and water puzzle you had the nerve to propound when I was suffering from concussion. I gave it some thought while I was recuperating. There’s exactly the same amount of water in the wine glass as wine in the water glass. And don’t try to argue.”1
He didn’t. At that point, we arrived at our destination; and I managed to evade the issue. The D.A. stopped just short of kissing Merlini on both cheeks, made him an honorary member of the homicide squad, and announced that Gavigan had been promoted to Assistant Chief Inspector. Merlini festively poured drinks as called for—Scotch and soda, sidecars, old-fashioneds, beer with a collar on it, and a few drinks that no one wanted—tomato juice, india ink, pink lemonade, and a Bromo Seltzer—all from the D.A.’s water carafes!
Leaving the D.A.’s office, we went up Centre Street to headquarters and dropped in on Gavigan.
His voice was gruff, but it had the old chuckle in it. “Hawkshaw,” he said, “why is it you always fall into such screwy upside-down cases? Do you realize this one has made Homicide Bureau history? The case is closed, and yet, instead of having arrested the murderer, we arrested everybody else, or damn near it. All except Gail and Verrill, and I came close to that. Ross and Burt didn’t miss by much, and you’ll never know how close I came to putting leg irons on you.”
“Leg irons, Inspector?” Merlini moved one Satanic eyebrow up. “You should see Item No. 126 in my catalogue. The Little Gem Improved Handcuff and Leg-iron Escape Method—$1.00 postpaid. Tell me something. Do cops carry their guns to the Policeman’s Benefit Ball?”
“Do they—” Gavigan was startled. “No. Why?”
“Good,” Merlini said, “I’m relieved. The D.A. asked me to present the bullet-catching trick, and I was just a bit worried about having an armed audience. A magician did that once, out West in the gold rush days, before a crowded house of cowboys and miners. He’d finished the trick successfully, caught, the bullet in his teeth, and was taking his bow when a bushy-bearded and baffled desperado in the balcony jumped to, his feet, drew both six shooters, and yelled, Here, dammit! Catch these!’ ”
Chief Inspector Gavigan laughed and said, “Here’s my chance to arrest both you and the D.A. Paragraph 2 of Section 831 of the Penal Law distinctly states that any exhibition in which a person aims or discharges any bowgun, pistol, or firearm of any description whatever, or allows one to be aimed or discharged at or toward any human being, is unlawful and those persons are guilty of a misdemeanor.”
“Killjoy,” Merlini said as Gavigan turned, grinning widely, to answer the phone.
The Inspector listened a moment, grew an expression of astonishment, and then burst out laughing.
“The police force is batting 1000 percent,” he said. “It’s Doc Gail. He and Miss Verrill were in such an all-fired hurry to reach the marriage license bureau that they went through four stop lights and down a one-way street. They’ve been booked for reckless driving and would I please come to the rescue!”
1 See page 18. If, at the start each glass contains 1 tsp. of liquid, it is obvious that, at the finish, each will hold ½ tsp. of wine and ½ tsp. of water. With 2 tsps. to start, each glass will finally hold 1 1/3 tsps. of its original liquid and 2/3 tsp. of the other. With 30 tsps. the proportion will be 29 1/31 tsps. to 30/31 tsps. If X equals the original amount of liquid the amount of contaminating matter is always
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copyright © 1939 by Clayton Rawson
cover design by Heather Kern
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