The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  Last of all to arrive was young Mr. Russell, who slipped in from the dark veranda, accepted the judge’s nod, and called the meeting to order.

  “We have been investigating the strange death of a dog,” he began. “Chief Anderson, while we know your department would have done so in good time, we also know you are busy, and some of us,” he glanced at the dark windowpane, “couldn’t wait. Will you help us now?”

  The chief said, genially, “That’s why I’m here, I guess.” It was the judge and his stature that gave this meeting any standing. Naïve, young, a little absurd it might have seemed had not the old man sat so quietly attentive among them.

  “Thank you, sir. Now, all we want to know is what happened to the dog.” Russell looked about him. “First, let us demolish the tramp.” Mrs. Page’s feathers ruffled. Russell smiled at her. “Mrs. Page saw a man go down Matlin’s drive this morning. The Salvage League sent a truck to pick up rags and papers which at ten-forty-two was parked in front of the Daughertys’. The man, who seemed poorly dressed in his working clothes, went to the toolroom behind Matlin’s garage, as he had been instructed to. He picked up a bundle and returned to his truck. Mrs. Page,” purred Mike to her scarlet face, “the man was there. It was only your opinion about him that proves to have been, not a lie, but an error.”

  He turned his head. “Now, we have tried to trace the dog’s day and we have done remarkably well, too.” As he traced it for them, some faces began to wear at least the ghost of a smile, seeing the little dog frisking through the neighborhood. “Just before one,” Mike went on, “Bones ran across the judge’s yard to the Allens’ where the kids were playing ball. Up to this time no one saw Bones above Greenwood Lane or up Hannibal Street. But Miss Diane Bourchard, recovering from a sore throat, was not in school today. After lunch, she sat on her porch directly across from Mr. Matlin’s back lot. She was waiting for school to be out, when she expected her friends to come by.

  “She saw, not Bones, but Corky, an animal belonging to Mr. Daugherty, playing in Matlin’s lot at about two o’clock. I want your opinion. If poisoned bait had been lying there at two, would Corky have found it?”

  “Seems so,” said Daugherty. “Thank God Corky didn’t.” He bit his tongue. “Corky’s a show dog,” he blundered.

  “But Bones,” said Russell gently, “was more like a friend. That’s why we care, of course.”

  “It’s a damned shame!” Daugherty looked around angrily.

  “It is,” said Mrs. Baker. “He was a friend of mine, Bones was.”

  “Go on,” growled Daugherty. “What else did you dig up?”

  “Mr. Matlin left for his golf at eleven-thirty. Now, you see, it looks as if Matlin couldn’t have left poison behind him.”

  “I most certainly did not,” snapped Matlin. “I have said so. I will not stand for this sort of innuendo, I am not a liar. You said it was a conference.”

  Mike held the man’s eyes. “We are simply trying to find out what happened to the dog,” he said. Matlin fell silent.

  “Surely you realize,” purred Mike, “that, human frailty being what it is, there may have been other errors in what we were told this afternoon. There was at least one more.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Baker,” he continued, “worked in their garden this afternoon. Bones abandoned the ball game to visit the Bakers’ dog, Smitty. At three o’clock the Bakers, after discussing the time carefully lest it be too late in the day, decided to bathe Smitty. When they caught him for his ordeal, Bones was still there. So, you see, Miss May Matlin, who says she saw Bones lying by the sidewalk before three o’clock, was mistaken.”

  Matlin twitched. Russell said sharply, “The testimony of the Bakers is extremely clear.” The Bakers, who looked alike, both brown outdoor people, nodded vigorously.

  “The time at which Mr. Matlin returned is quite well established. Diane saw him. Mrs. Daugherty, next door, decided to take a nap at five after three. She had a roast to put in at four-thirty. Therefore she is sure of the time. She went upstairs and from an upper window she, too, saw Mr. Matlin come home. Both witnesses say he drove his car into the garage at three-ten, got out, and went around the building to the right of it—on the weedy side.”

  Mr. Matlin was sweating. His forehead was beaded. He did not speak.

  Mike shifted papers. “Now, we know that the kids trooped up to Phil Bourchard’s kitchen at about a quarter of three. Whereas Bones, realizing that Smitty was in for it, and shying away from soap and water like any sane dog, went up Hannibal Street at three o’clock sharp. He may have known in some doggy way where Freddy was. Can we see Bones loping up Hannibal Street, going above Greenwood Lane?”

  “We can,” said Daugherty. He was watching Matlin. “Besides, he was found above Greenwood Lane soon after.”

  “No one,” said Mike slowly, “was seen in Matlin’s back lot, except Matlin. Yet almost immediately after Matlin was there, the little dog died.”

  “Didn’t Diane…?”

  “Diane’s friends came at three-twelve. Their evidence is not reliable.” Diane blushed.

  “This—this is intolerable!” croaked Matlin. “Why my back lot?”

  Daugherty said, “There was no poison lying around my place, I’ll tell you that.”

  “How do you know?” begged Matlin. And Freddy’s eyes, with the smudges under them, followed to Russell’s face. “Why not in the street? From some passing car?”

  Mike said, “I’m afraid it’s not likely. You see, Mr. Otis Carnavon was stalled at the corner of Hannibal and Lee. Trying to flag a push. Anything thrown from a car on that block he ought to have seen.”

  “Was the poison quick?” demanded Daugherty. “What did he get?”

  “It was quick. The dog could not go far after he got it. He got cyanide.”

  Matlin’s shaking hand removed his glasses. They were wet.

  “Some of you may be amateur photographers,” Mike said. “Mr. Matlin, is there cyanide in your cellar darkroom?”

  “Yes, but I keep it…most meticulously….” Matlin began to cough.

  When the noise of his spasm died, Mike said, “The poison was embedded in ground meat which analyzed, roughly, half-beef and the rest pork and veal, half and half.” Matlin encircled his throat with his fingers. “I’ve checked with four neighborhood butchers and the dickens of a time I had,” said Mike. No one smiled. Only Freddy looked up at him with solemn sympathy. “Ground meat was delivered to at least five houses in the vicinity. Meat that was one-half beef, one-quarter pork, one-quarter veal, was delivered at ten this morning to Matlin’s house.”

  A stir like an angry wind blew over the room. The Chief of Police made some shift of his weight so that his chair creaked.

  “It begins to look…” growled Daugherty.

  “Now,” said Russell sharply, “we must be very careful. One more thing. The meat had been seasoned.”

  “Seasoned!”

  “With salt. And with…thyme.”

  “Thyme,” groaned Matlin.

  Freddy looked up at Miss Dana with bewildered eyes. She put her arm around him.

  “As far as motives are concerned,” said Mike quietly, “I can’t discuss them. It is inconceivable to me that any man would poison a dog.” Nobody spoke. “However, where are we?” Mike’s voice seemed to catch Matlin just in time to keep him from falling off the chair. “We don’t know yet what happened to the dog.” Mike’s voice rang. “Mr. Matlin, will you help us to the answer?”

  Matlin said thickly, “Better get those kids out of here.”

  Miss Dana moved, but Russell said, “No. They have worked hard for the truth. They have earned it. And if it is to be had, they shall have it.”

  “You know?” whimpered Matlin.

  Mike said, “I called your golf club. I’ve looked into your trash incinerator. Yes, I know. But I want you to tell us.”
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  Daugherty said, “Well? Well?” And Matlin covered his face.

  Mike said, gently, “I think there was an error. Mr. Matlin, I’m afraid, did poison the dog. But he never meant to, and he didn’t know he had done it.”

  Matlin said, “I’m sorry…It’s—I can’t…She means to do her best. But she’s a terrible cook. Somebody gave her those—those herbs. Thyme—thyme in everything. She fixed me a lunch box. I—couldn’t stomach it. I bought my lunch at the club.”

  Mike nodded.

  Matlin went on, his voice cracking. “I never…You see, I didn’t even know it was meat the dog got. She said—she told me the dog was already dead.”

  “And of course,” said Mike, “in your righteous wrath, you never paused to say to yourself, ‘Wait, what did happen to the dog?’ ”

  “Mr. Russell, I didn’t lie. How could I know there was thyme in it? When I got home, I had to get rid of the hamburger she’d fixed for me—I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She tries…tries so hard….” He sat up suddenly. “But what she tried to do today,” he said, with his eyes almost out of his head, “was to poison me!” His bulging eyes roved. They came to Freddy. He gasped. He said, “Your dog saved my life!”

  “Yes,” said Mike quickly, “Freddy’s dog saved your life. You see, your step-daughter would have kept trying.”

  People drew in their breaths. “The buns are in your incinerator,” Mike said. “She guessed what happened to the dog, went for the buns, and hid them. She was late, you remember, getting to the disturbance. And she did lie.”

  Chief Anderson rose.

  “Her mother…” said Matlin frantically, “her mother…”

  Mike Russell put his hand on the plump shoulder. “Her mother’s been in torment, tortured by the rivalry between you. Don’t you think her mother senses something wrong?”

  Miss Lillian Dana wrapped Freddy in her arms. “Oh, what a wonderful dog Bones was!” she covered the sound of the other voices. “Even when he died, he saved a man’s life. Oh, Freddy, he was a wonderful dog.”

  And Freddy, not quite taking everything in yet, was released to simple sorrow and wept quietly against his friend….

  When they went to fetch May Matlin, she was not in the house. They found her in the Titus’s back shed. She seemed to be looking for something.

  Next day, when Mr. and Mrs. Titus came home, they found that although the little dog had died, their Freddy was all right. The judge, Russell, and Miss Dana told them all about it.

  Mrs. Titus wept. Mr. Titus swore. He wrung Russell’s hand. “…for stealing the gun…” he babbled.

  But the mother cried, “…for showing him, for teaching him….Oh, Miss Dana, oh, my dear!”

  * * *

  —

  The judge waved from his veranda as the dark head and the blond drove away.

  “I think Miss Dana likes him,” said Ernie Allen.

  “How do you know for sure?” said Freddy Titus.

  I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes

  CORNELL WOOLRICH

  THE STORY

  Original publication: Detective Fiction Weekly, March 12, 1938, as by William Irish; first collected in I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes by William Irish (Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1943)

  CORNELL GEORGE HOPLEY-WOOLRICH (1903–1968) was arguably the greatest suspense writer of the twentieth century. Phantom Lady (1942), the first novel he wrote under his William Irish pseudonym, is credited with inventing a staple of countless mystery and espionage films: the ticking clock. Each chapter begins with a notice about the number of days, then hours, before the innocent protagonist is due to be executed for having murdered someone. Every time James Bond or another hero in an international thriller is seen trying to prevent a bomb from exploding as we watch the seconds on the timer tick away, the screenwriter owes a word of thanks to Cornell Woolrich.

  Not as technically precise as the ticking clock, perhaps, but I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes essentially replicates that process. Unable to sleep on a hot night because his open window allows him to clearly hear the shrill screams of cats in the courtyard below, a man picks up one of his shoes to throw at them so they’ll relocate. Because that doesn’t work, he throws the other. When he goes down to search for them, they have disappeared. The next day, he is arrested for murder, the footprints of his shoes having given him away. He is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

  With mere hours before the scheduled execution, the detective on the case finally believes in the wife’s conviction of her husband’s innocence and tries to set him free. But, Woolrich being Woolrich, no reader can be confident of a happy ending.

  THE FILM

  Title: I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes, 1948

  Studio: Monogram Pictures

  Director: William Nigh

  Screenwriter: Steve Fisher

  Producer: Walter Mirisch

  THE CAST

  • Don Castle (Tom J. Quinn)

  • Elyse Knox (Ann Quinn)

  • Regis Toomey (Inspector Clint Judd)

  • Charles D. Brown (Inspector Stevens)

  Although I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes does not rank at the very top among the film noir classics of the 1940s, it closely follows much of Cornell Woolrich’s plot and is truly suspenseful. Unlike most films noir, it does not feature a bad girl who betrays the man who loves her but, instead, a young woman who believes her husband is innocent. It does feature elements of Woolrich’s commonly used device of the everyday gone wrong, and it does have a good twist that you probably will not have seen coming.

  Steve Fisher, the writer of this B movie, was a popular crime novelist and screenwriter, mostly famous for I Wake Up Screaming (1941), the novel that was adapted as a noir classic of the same title. He was also a prolific writer for pulp magazines, as was Woolrich, and a successful Hollywood screenwriter with such titles as Johnny Angel (1945), Lady in the Lake (1946), and Song of the Thin Man (1947) to his credit.

  Don Castle, who closely resembled Clark Gable, went on to produce the widely popular Lassie television series.

  I WOULDN’T BE IN YOUR SHOES

  Cornell Woolrich

  IT STARTED IN low and rolling each time, like a tea-kettle simmering, or a car-engine turning over, or a guy gargling mouthwash. Then it went high. Higher than the highest scream. Higher than a nail scratching glass. Higher than human nerves could stand. Eeeee-yow. Then it wound up in a vicious reptilian hiss, with a salivary explosion for a finale. Hah-tutt! Then it started all over again.

  Tom Quinn pulled the bedcovers from his ears at the sound of the window-sash slamming down. His face was steaming from the ineffective sound-proofing that had only managed to smother him without toning down the performance any.

  “How we going to sleep on a hot night like this with the window closed?” he said irritably.

  “Well, how we going to sleep with that going on?” his wife demanded, not unreasonably. “Are they making love, or are they sore at each other, or are they just suffering down there?”

  The floodgates of his pent-up wrath burst at that. It had been going on ever since they’d retired. He reared up with the violence of an earthquake, scattering the bedding all over the floor. He snatched up something from the floor, took two quick, slapping, barefooted steps over to the window, jerked it up, wound up his right arm like a big league pitcher, let fly into the obscured backyard five stories below.

  His wife didn’t see what the object was in time to stop him. There was a complete lack of any answering impact or thud from below to show that the missile had found a mark. There was not even a hitch in the caterwauling. To Quinn’s inflamed ears it even seemed to take on an added derisive note, as though the felines were razzing him.

  “—— cats!” he panted hoarsely. He jumped back to the bed again, stooped for the mate to what
he’d flung the first time, returned to the window, and again wound up.

  This time she saw what it was, tried to catch his arm in time, just missed as he let go.

  “Tom!” she wailed. “Not your shoes! What’s the matter with you?”

  There was as complete a lack of results as the first time. The heavy-soled object might have taken wings, gone up into the air instead of down, for all the sound of striking that reached them. The vocal pyrotechnics went on unabated.

  “Well, that was a smart stunt!” his wife commented acidly. “How are you going to work tomorrow? In your stocking feet?”

  His anger had turned to sheepishness, the way it does when a man has made a fool of himself. “I got another pair in the closet, haven’t I?” he defended himself.

  “I don’t care, you’re not throwing a perfectly good pair of shoes out of the window like that! They cost ten dollars, with those special built-in arches for your flat feet! You go down there and bring them back.”

  “At this hour?”

  “You march down there and get them before one of the janitors picks them up in the morning!” she insisted.

  He thrust a moth-eaten robe around him unwillingly, found a pair of carpet slippers, and started out, mumbling: “Didn’t even hear them hit anything. I’ve got an aim like a—”

  It was a full quarter of an hour before he came back. When he did, he looked more crestfallen, sheepish, than ever. His wife didn’t need to be told. She could see that his hands were empty. “I thought so!” she said scathingly. “Couldn’t find them, now could you?”

  “I looked all around in both yards, ours and the next one over,” he said shamefacedly. “Not a sign of them anywhere.”

  “They must be down there somewhere!” she insisted. “There hasn’t been anyone else down there. I’ve been watching from the window the whole time. Why didn’t you take that flashlight with you?”