The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  * * *

  —

  Quinn came in pale and shaken. His wife could tell at a glance something had happened to him. It was more than just his feet troubling him again.

  “Tom, what’s wrong?” she said anxiously. “You look all white and disturbed! You haven’t—you haven’t lost your position, have you?” She caught him by the sleeve, stared up into his face.

  “No, thank heaven,” he said, but almost absently, as though whether he had or not didn’t matter so much any more. He glanced behind him at the door through which he had just come in, as though fearful of having been followed. He stammered, “I—I been like dazed since it happened. I can’t believe it. It’s like a dream. You hear and read about things like that happening, but I never thought it would happen to me.”

  He was fumbling agitatedly with his coat. He gave another of those looks behind him at the door. Then he brought something out of his inside pocket, tossed it down on the table before them for her to see.

  She said, “What is it?” looking from him to it, and from it to him.

  “You can see what it is,” he answered shortly. It was black and oblong. It was a wallet. “Look inside it,” he added almost fearfully.

  She did. Then her own face paled a little, like his. They’d been so down-and-out for such a long time, they’d had to do without so many things for so many years now—“Tom!” she said.

  “Two thousand and ten dollars,” he said. “I counted it just now, on the stairs outside. I was afraid to count it—where I first found it, afraid somebody’d see me. All the way home I expected to feel someone’s hand drop heavily on my shoulder, hear somebody say ‘Give that back to me—it’s mine!’ ” He wiped his sleeve across his damp brow, glanced apprehensively at the door again.

  “But how—where—?”

  “Sh!” he warned. “Talk lower. Somebody living in the house might hear you from outside. If they knew we had that much money in here….I was coming up the subway steps and—and you know how the ground’s on a level with your eyes before you get all the way to the top. Maybe that’s how I happened to see it. There were plenty of people walking past it, but they weren’t looking down, I guess. They were so thick around it, maybe that’s why none of them had a chance to see it. The man in front of me, his foot kicked it a little way and he never even felt anything, never looked down to see what it was. I reached for it, took a quick peep, and I could tell right away there was more than fifty or a hundred in it. I looked around, and no one seemed to be looking for anything they’d dropped, so I slipped it in my pocket and I—”

  She was examining it hurriedly. Not the money now, the wallet itself. “Nothing,” she said. “Not a scrap of paper, not a card, not an initial, to show whom it belongs to!”

  “No,” he assented eagerly, “that’s just the way it was when I picked it up. No marks of identification.”

  She gave him a peculiar searching look, as though asking herself if he were telling the truth or not; whether there really hadn’t been any tokens of ownership to begin with, or whether he had purposely removed them, done away with them, to give himself an excuse for not returning it.

  He was saying raptly, “We can get all the things we’ve always wanted, now. Just think, Annie.”

  “But Tom, it belongs to someone. We can’t just appropriate it. Oh, if it were a matter of twenty dollars or even fifty, all right, there wouldn’t be so much harm to it. But not this amount of money, not two thousand dollars.”

  “Sh! Pipe down, I tell you,” he warned, with another of those looks at the door. “D’you have to broadcast it?” Perhaps it was his conscience speaking and not he; the knowledge that he wasn’t really entitled to the money.

  She lowered her voice, but went on: “It may be some poor soul’s life-savings, for all we know. It may be an emergency fund; it may mean the difference between life and death. We don’t know what it was for. We have no right to spend it. My conscience wouldn’t let me.”

  “What should I have done?” he demanded indignantly. “Left it lying there—for the next one to pick up and appropriate, that has no more right to it than I have?”

  “No, I don’t say that,” she conceded. “But about spending it—that’s another matter entirely.”

  “How we going to notify the owner, even if we wanted to? There’s no mark on it to show who it belongs to.”

  She was handling the money now. “You can tell it’s been scraped together over a period of years, wasn’t just drawn out of a bank,” she commented ruefully. “Some of them are those old-fashioned large-sized bills you don’t see any more. He—or she—must have kept it by them all along, added to it little by little. That only makes it worse, don’t you see, Tom? Some poor hardworking man or woman, alone in the world—illness or something. Maybe it was needed in a hurry, they came out with it on their person—and now where are they?”

  “Ah, don’t be so sloppy,” he said crossly. “There’s just as much chance it was some well-to-do no-good, who carries that much around for spending-money and will never miss it.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Not in this kind of a wallet. Plain, cheap, turning green with age, and it’s not even real leather.”

  She had him there. He flared up unreasonably, at the ethical obstacles she was putting in the way of his enjoyment of it. Almost anyone would have resented it, probably. “So what do you want me to do with it? Go round to the police and turn it in? They’re as big a bunch of grafters as anyone else. How do we know they won’t divide it up among themselves and pocket it?”

  He didn’t really think that, and she knew it. He was just saying it as an excuse. “That’s really what you ought to do,” she said mildly. But he could tell she wasn’t going to insist, if he didn’t want to. She was only human. She would have liked to have the use of the money just as much as he, only she had more scruples. “Then if no one showed up to claim it, after a certain length of time, they’d turn it back to us. It would be rightfully ours.”

  “Well, I’m damned if I’m going to!” he said stubbornly. “I need a break once in awhile as well as the next guy, and I’m going to give myself one!”

  “Mark my words, Tom,” she said sorrowfully, “we won’t have any luck if we help ourselves to that money without at least giving the owner a chance to claim it. I’m funny that way. I have a feeling it’ll bring us misery. Call it feminine intuition, if you want to.”

  Then, taking pity at the disappointment that showed plainly on his face, she suggested a compromise. Women are good at compromises. “All right, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll keep it here with us intact, say for a week. We’ll watch the lost-and-found ads in the papers. If there’s no mention made of its loss at the end of that time, we’ll consider it ours to do with as we want.”

  His face brightened immediately at that. He was probably thinking there was not much danger of anyone who had lost currency, actual cash, on a crowded city street, being optimistic enough to advertise for its return. That would be just throwing good money after bad. If it had been jewelry or even negotiable securities, that would have been another matter. They wouldn’t advertise for money.

  “Okay,” he agreed, “that’s a bargain.”

  He found a good hiding-place for it—the cardboard box his Supporta shoes had originally come in, full of tissue paper, down on the floor of the clothes closet. Who would look for anything valuable in an old shoe-box? His wife did not examine it a second time after he had once put it in; she had seen him put it in, wallet and all, at the time. If she had looked later, she would have found the money there but the wallet strangely missing. The sole connecting link with its former ownership was gone. Tom Quinn was loading the dice in his own favor, or thought he was. But it’s the gods who do the casting.

  The next day, which was the earliest it could possibly have been advertised for, he brought home the evening paper with him
as usual. But she could tell just by the sanguine look on his face that he’d already taken a peek at the lost-and-found section and—much to his relief—had failed to find the item. He’d probably been very much afraid he would.

  Quinn’s wife was a scrupulous woman, however. “All the papers, Tom,” she insisted, “not just one,” and sent him out again to the corner newsstand.

  He came back with a whole sheaf of papers tucked under his arm. It wasn’t in any of them.

  A law of increasing returns, so to speak, was working in their favor. If it wasn’t published the first day after the loss, it was far less likely to show up the second day. And if it wasn’t in by the second day, the chances of its being in the third day were almost non-existent. And so on. In other words, it would have been advertised for almost immediately—or not at all.

  It wasn’t in the second day either. She made him scan all other parts of the papers as well, in search of a possible small filler or news-item dealing with a report of its loss to the police. There wasn’t that either.

  Emboldened, mentally keeping his fingers crossed, he began to talk tentatively of the things they were going to get. “I haven’t had a new suit in five years. I’d like to be able to stick things in my pocket without having them drop through to the ground.”

  She tried conscientiously to keep to the spirit of their bargain. “Now wait, don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched—just let’s make sure first.” But her heart wasn’t in the job of squelching him.

  It wasn’t in the third day either. He was wearing down her resistance now. “There’s that Fall coat you’re needing, Annie; you could get one with a fur collar. We could get a radio, too.”

  She tried to keep the shine out of her eyes. “We could move out of this crummy place, to a better neighborhood—live like real people for a change.” She went over to the window, parted the curtains, peered discontentedly down. “I’m so sick of the sight of that dingy street down there! Baby-carriages. Fire-escapes. Some loafer or other always standing in a doorway sizing you up every time you come and go. There’s one across the way there who hasn’t budged for hours.”

  He was too busy building air castles to pay attention to what she was saying.

  It wasn’t in the fourth day either.

  “There’s no use waiting any more, Annie,” he coaxed, when they got through examining the assorted newspapers on the table. “They don’t advertise half a week after a thing is lost. They do it right away or not at all. We’ve played fair. We’ve waited. Come on, what do you say? Let’s get started.”

  She gave in reluctantly, but she gave in. Her qualms weren’t downed without an effort, but they were downed. “All right, Tom,” she said slowly. “I guess they’ve given it up for lost by now, whoever they are. I still feel funny about it. I only hope it doesn’t bring us misfortune. But all right—if you say so.”

  “Thatta girl!” he cried, and he slapped her delightedly on the shoulder, as he got up and went toward the closet where the shoe-box was.

  Fortune’s smile was a crooked one, just then.

  They subtracted a tenth of the money, two hundred, and divided that evenly between them. Then they each went on a separate buying spree the next day, because Quinn had to work until five, couldn’t get off any earlier. He got back to the flat after she did. She couldn’t see him at first, just a pyramid of cardboard boxes coming in the door. Behind them, when he’d set them down, he was resplendent in a complete new outfit from head to foot—or rather ankles. His shoes alone remained unchanged; they were too much like a medical prescription for there to be any kick in buying new ones. But everything else was brand-new—hat, suit, shirt, tie, socks.

  “I picked out a radio too, a beaut, made a down payment on it.” He chuckled. “I unloaded all those old-style large bills on them everywhere I went, weeded them out. They’re too bulky. I didn’t want to be bothered with them.”

  She showed him her acquisitions. The goose hung high. “I treated myself to a permanent, went for the whole works. Oh, Tom, isn’t it a wonderful feeling, to be able to spend what you please? The hair-wave must have made me look good, all right. Some lizard or other followed me all the way home, right up to the very door. I couldn’t shake him off. He didn’t try to come up to me or anything, but I know I’m not mistaken.”

  He smiled tolerantly. Just like a woman; probably it was only her imagination.

  “Oh—and most important of all! I found a new apartment, and paid a deposit on it. Way over across town. Elevator, steam heat and everything. The moving men are coming the first thing in the morning.”

  “Well, we haven’t much time, in that case. Let’s start packing, so we’ll be ready for the van when it gets here.”

  They were very happy as they started to dismantle their old home. He was whistling, shirtsleeves rolled up, as he dropped things into a pair of old valises in the middle of the room. She was humming as she went around taking things out of drawers and cupboards.

  There was a knock at the door. Sepulchral, knell-like. They both stopped, looked at each other. “The transfer company must have misunderstood me; I distinctly told them to come in the morning, not—” She went over and opened the door, and a man walked past her into the middle of the room. Then another man, then a third. They didn’t have aprons, or sleeve-guards, or truckmen’s caps.

  “You’re Thomas J. Quinn, aren’t you?” It wasn’t a question.

  Quinn nodded, whitened a little at the way it was said. He straightened, let the armful of things he had been holding slide down into the open valise.

  “You’re under arrest for murder!”

  And the whole bottom seemed to fall out of the world, and leave the two of them suspended there.

  * * *

  —

  “But I don’t even know who. How could I when I don’t even know who?” Huddled there on a chair in the back room at dawn, he’d been saying that hopelessly, at intervals, all night long.

  “You don’t know who?” The inspector spoke quietly. They had too good a case, too perfect a case against him, to have to bother with a third degree. That almost always reacted in court, anyway; all a lawyer had to do was whisper “police brutality” to prejudice a jury in favor of a defendant. “Then why did you buy a copy of every single evening paper published in the city, three nights running, if not to follow the developments of the case? Find out when it was cool enough to spend the money that was burning a hole in your pocket.”

  “But I’ve told you what I wanted the papers for. I’ve told you how I came into possession of the money.”

  “You expect us to believe that? A twelve-year-old kid could think up a better alibi than that. Found it on the street, did you? Then why didn’t you turn it over to us? Where’s the wallet you say you found it in? Now you listen to me, Quinn. I’ve been on the police force thirty-five years. I’ve sent some beauties in for indictment. But I never yet in all that time—are you listening?—I never yet got hold of such an airtight unbeatable case as we’ve got on you. Yes, you can well get pale. I’m not saying it just to frighten you. Why, the very place the money was found is—is a kind of poetic justice. It went around in a circle. Your shoes betrayed you to us and when we traced them there was the money in the very box they came in. Yes, you unloaded nearly every one of the large-size bills, but you might as well have handed them direct to us. We’ve impounded every single one of them.”

  “My shoes,” Quinn groaned. “You keep saying my shoes. All night long you keep saying my shoes.” He closed his eyes and put his fists up beside them. “How could they go where I’ve never gone? How could they leave a print where I’ve never put my foot? I’m telling you again, gentlemen, like I told you at midnight when you dragged me to that awful place, like I’ll tell you with my dying breath—I never saw that house before, I never set eyes on it before, I never walked there, I’ve never been within blocks of
it.”

  The inspector said, almost compassionately: “Don’t lie, Quinn. You can’t get around those shoes of yours.”

  The suspect half rose from his chair, as if in intolerable rebellion. One of the detectives put out a hand, pressed him back again.

  He kept shaking his head helplessly. “There’s something about my shoes I gotta remember—and I can’t! Something I gotta remember—and I don’t know what it is! I can’t think straight, there’s so many of you around me, you’ve got me so scared and rattled. It’s such a little bit of a thing, but if I could only remember—”

  “I’ll tell you something to remember about them!” said the inspector stonily. “Remember this about them: that they’ve walked you straight into the electric chair!” He swept the unsigned confession impatiently aside. “Take him out, boys. He’s such a goner there’s no reason why we even have to waste our time on him. Darrow himself couldn’t get him off this.”

  Quinn lurched from the room, half-supported by two of the detectives. He was still mumbling dazedly, as the door closed after him, “Something I gotta remember—something I gotta remember—”

  “Bring her in,” said the inspector.

  Bob White, who was taking part in the questioning, asked: “What are you going to do with her, hold her as an accessory?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to, the way she backs him up on every flimsy statement. I’ll tell you frankly, though, I’d rather not if I could avoid it. If anything could weaken our case against him, it would be sending her up for trial along with him. You see, she’s not the type. She’s so honest and respectable to look at—oh, I know that don’t mean a thing in one way, and yet in another it does. She’ll draw sympathy, and automatically he’ll get the benefit of some of it. If I could be sure she wasn’t in on it, innocently swallowed the cock-and-bull story he told her about where the money came from, I’d take a chance and let her go, just concentrate on him.”