The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  He was holding it in his hand. “I—”

  “Oscar,” said Miss Withers quickly. “I’m afraid you and I have been making a grave mistake about Miss Vere de Vere. Circumstances—”

  “Circumstances fiddlesticks,” said the inspector, bracing his feet. “I gave this glove the nitrate test for powder marks—and look at it.” There was nothing to look at until he turned the glove inside out, and then the forefinger bore a telltale brown stain.

  “You fired a gun in the last forty-eight hours,” he accused the girl who watched him so calmly. “Fired it while wearing your glove inside out. Never figured we’d be smart enough to try it both ways—even though you had read of this nitrate test.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Janey Vere de Vere. “I’ve got five hundred witnesses that I was doing a dance on the stage when my husband got bumped off. You can’t bust that…”

  Piper thought he could try. But he suddenly realized that the red-haired girl was covering him with a gun which peeped over the arm of her chair. He suddenly understood Miss Withers’s hesitancy in opening the door, and the look on her face…

  “You can’t get by with this,” he said.

  “One way or another,” said the girl. “Don’t forget I learned to shoot in a Wild West show, and I can cut the buttons off your vest. I came here to get my glove. It’s my property.”

  “And the cigar—you’d like that, too?” Miss Withers hazarded. She nearly got a bullet through her mouth.

  “You’ll clown once too often,” said the girl. She had risen in her chair. “I’ll bargain—that glove for both your damn lives. How about it?”

  “Clowning!” repeated Miss Withers, foolishly. “Clowning. That’s it! That’s—”

  “Shut up!” snarled the red-haired girl. She looked her age now. “Sure I killed Dave Jones. He was a rotten husband, and I left him because I wanted to show him I could get somewheres in show-business. I got into the Follies, too—and then times got bad and I had to take this burlesque job. He found out about it, and came to New York just to sit in a box and give me the ha-ha. But it wasn’t his auto business nor his lousy insurance I wanted, see?”

  She left off her hysterical outburst, and her mouth closed like a trap. “I take that glove with me, or I leave two more stiffs here,” she said. “Without it you’ll never pin anything on me. Not with my alibi anyhow.”

  Piper was waiting his chance, poised on his toes. But the hard brown eyes never wavered, and the gun still swung between the two of them.

  * * *

  —

  For all the inspector’s poised readiness, it was Miss Withers who acted. She suddenly broke into shrill, high-pitched laughter. Head thrown back, eyes wild, she screamed mirthlessly.

  “Shut up, or I’ll—” Janey Vere de Vere backed away from the inspector, watching his every move. “If she goes nutty I’ll have to knock her out…”

  Miss Hildegarde Withers gave every evidence of having gone completely insane under the strain. Her laughter choked off, and her eyes followed a single black gnat which circled around the overhead lamp.

  “Hildegarde!” cried the inspector. He knew that her brain had snapped, for she had picked up the flit-gun from the sideboard, and was threatening the gnat with it.

  “Go away, you nasty thing!” Then more hysterical laughter…

  “By God,” cried the amazed girl who held them at bay, “I’ll—”

  She said no more, for a stream of murky white liquid struck her full in the face. The revolver fell from her fingers as she clawed at her eyes in agony.

  The inspector snatched it up. But Miss Withers still pumped the flit-gun.

  “Ammonia,” she told the inspector. “Think she’s had enough?”

  Janey Vere de Vere’s voluptuous big body was huddled in a shuddering heap on the floor. The room was thick with the strong astringent.

  “Cease firing,” said Oscar Piper.

  * * *

  —

  It was hours later, and dawn brightened in the sky over Brooklyn, when they finally were alone again. The inspector was still weak in the knees, and Miss Withers was halfway between tears and laughter—genuine laughter this time.

  “I’m a rotten actress,” she confessed. “But the Vere de Vere woman had her attention divided between us.”

  “Bother that,” said Piper. “Start at the beginning. I’m hours behind you.”

  “Nice of you to admit it,” said the school teacher. “Only you’re weeks, not hours. You see, Janey was ashamed of her job in burlesque, even though she was good at it. It was particularly tough for her, in spite of the admiration she got from the men who recognized something better in her than the usual strip-artist, when she saw that her husband, from whom she had separated but not legally divorced, had come to give her the laugh. She suddenly remembered that he had property and insurance—and she wanted to get out of the racket she was in.

  “Well, she started in a Wild West show, you know. She must have clung to one—no, two—of the guns she’d used in a shooting act. She got a silencer, and attached it to her .32, which was still loaded with ammunition of the old type. Last night she came back from dinner, saw that her husband as usual was alone in an opposite box, and shot him through the forehead during the wind-up of the gangster picture. There was noise enough then so nobody would notice the tiny spat that a silenced gun makes. She took the silencer off the gun, still wearing her gloves inside out as an extra-smart precaution, and left the gun in the box. That was to make it look as if someone had planted it to point to her.”

  “But the second shot—”

  “Wait. The house was dark for the movie—but she was a crack shot. The dead man slumped in his seat, and wasn’t noticed by anyone. Just as she’d planned. She hurried backstage, dropped the silencer behind the switchboard—that was the ‘piece of tin’ that poor Roscoe removed and put in his pocket—and after changing into her costume came upstairs again and planted with Durkin the story of her gun’s having been stolen.

  “She knew the gun could be traced to her. She wanted to be involved—because she knew her perfect alibi would free her. She didn’t mean the silencer to be found, but then she was ignorant of the switchboard. It all worked out better than she had planned, and while she was in her dance, the audience heard the sound of a shot in the box from which she had already killed a man. That puzzled me for a long time, Oscar. I brought home a cigar stub trying to find out if perhaps Durkin had not, after all, fired the shot and accidentally dropped a cigar butt, incriminating himself. There was a cigar butt in the box, still damp, which matched his. But he had not left it there. Just as I stole out from his office, Janey Vere de Vere got hold of one he’d smoked. I saw the whole thing when she accused me of ‘clowning’! Don’t you see—practical jokers and would-be clowns have used exploding cigars for years.”

  “You mean she left a trick cigar burning in the box?”

  Miss Withers nodded. “She must have timed it by trying experiments at home. She put in a much bigger load than the usual trick cigar has. Probably she used powder from her old cartridges, for the cigar butt smelled faintly of it. The cigar went off, the lights went on, and she pointed at the box to make sure that the fake shot and the dead man would be connected. No medical examiner in the world can set a death closer than twenty minutes or so, and it was certain the stunt would take in the doctor and the police.

  “Thus, when the ‘shot’ went off, she was under the spotlight. She had to have an alibi like that, because she was the natural person to be suspected and she knew it. There would be nothing left to show in the box except the cigar butt—and I suspect that she had sense enough to strew several there so it would not stand out.”

  Piper nodded slowly. “Then Roscoe was an accomplice? Because he must have seen her come through the door after she fired the real shot.”

  “Not a bit of it. It
was during the movie, when he was off duty. When he was across the street at the shooting gallery, as a matter-of-fact. The cigar burned quietly for ten or fifteen minutes—it wouldn’t go out, particularly if she had remembered to sprinkle a faint bit of powder in with the tobacco when she rewrapped it.”

  The Inspector heaved a sigh. “Good heavens, what a woman!” He was not praising Miss Withers. “One thing,” he asked finally. “Why did Max Durkin deny that she had mentioned her gun’s being stolen?”

  Miss Withers smiled. “Simple,” she said. “Durkin was sweet on her, and only trying out of loyalty to keep her name out of it. He was positive, like everybody else, that she was innocent because of that perfect, cast-iron alibi. The alibi was so cast-iron I couldn’t resist trying to crack it.”

  “You nearly cracked me with that scene in your apartment,” he admitted. “I thought you had gone clean crazy with the flit-gun…”

  “An invention of my own,” she admitted proudly. “Heaven knows I need some protection now that I’m mixing myself up continually in other people’s business. And I can’t abide guns. I didn’t get my start in a Wild West show, you see.”

  The Inspector was thinking of Janey Vere de Vere. Miss Withers stared at him, coldly. “Oscar! Don’t start admiring the woman. It will make it all the harder for you to send her to the electric chair.”

  He smiled. “The chair? With her brains and her looks? You don’t know juries, my dear Hildegarde. They’ll never give her a death sentence.”

  But a chill March evening, nine months and five days later, showed Miss Withers was right, as usual.

  The Making of O’Malley

  GERALD BEAUMONT

  THE STORY

  Original publication: The Red Book Magazine, October 1924

  GERALD BEAUMONT (1880?–1926) was born in London and had a remarkably prolific writing career for the short time that he was active. He wrote scores of short stories for The Red Book Magazine, all between 1920 and 1926, when he died.

  He wrote at least two books, the first of which, Hearts and the Diamond (1921), is a short story collection that provides an inside look at the world of professional baseball. His second, Riders Up! (1922), also a collection of stories, centered around characters at the racetrack, received exceptionally positive reviews. It was also published in England and, ironically, the only caveat came from the (London) Times when it cautioned, “This book contains much American slang which is unintelligible to English readers,” perhaps unexpected from a British-born author. It is not known when Beaumont came to the United States. He died in Hollywood at the age of forty-six.

  His career in the motion picture industry was remarkably prolific as well, with approximately fifty of his stories serving as the basis for films, mostly silent, with nineteen released in 1924 alone.

  Beaumont’s story “The Making of O’Malley” had such a heartwarming quality that it was filmed twice, first in 1925 as a silent and then again in 1937. It is the story of a policeman who believes in the letter of the law but feels guilty when his strict interpretation of it results in a decent man being sent to prison.

  THE FILM

  Title: The Great O’Malley, 1937

  Studio: Warner Brothers Pictures

  Director: William Dieterle

  Screenwriters: Milton Krims, Tom Reed

  Producers: Hal B. Wallis (executive), Jack L. Warner (executive), Harry Joe Brown (associate)—all uncredited

  THE CAST

  • Pat O’Brien (James Aloysius O’Malley)

  • Sybil Jason (Barbara Phillips)

  • Humphrey Bogart (John Phillips)

  • Ann Sheridan (Judy Nolan)

  • Frieda Inescourt (Mrs. Phillips)

  • Donald Crisp (Captain Cromwell)

  The film version follows Beaumont’s story religiously, tugging at the heartstrings when a desperate man commits a robbery in order to take care of his wife and disabled child. The strictly by-the-book cop, O’Malley, sends him to prison but, guilt-ridden, befriends the family.

  The Making of O’Malley had a surprisingly all-star cast for such a relatively low-budget film.

  O’Brien’s long and successful Hollywood career was essentially based on his screen image of being a warm, kindly Irishman, often in roles as a policeman or Catholic cleric, though he was born and raised in America. He was without accent in real life but often put on a believable brogue in films.

  Sybil Jason (born Jacobson in South Africa) received credit above Bogart, as she was enormously talented and Warner Brothers had expected her to be a star. A precocious child performer (she reportedly did a remarkably accurate imitation of Maurice Chevalier at the age of five), she had been put under contract to compete with Shirley Temple, who was one of the biggest box office attractions in America in the 1930s. She did not enjoy similar success and, by 1940, her career was over.

  Bogart, as one of Hollywood’s all-time icons, played in twenty-eight films between 1936 and 1940, almost always as a gangster, although clearly John Phillips did not fit the description. Bogart’s success began with his role as escaped convict Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role he had played on Broadway.

  First National Pictures had previously made a silent version of Beaumont’s story, titled The Making of O’Malley, in 1925. It was directed by Lambert Hillyer, with a screenplay by Eugene Clifford, and starring Milton Sills, Dorothy Mackaill, and Helen Rowland.

  THE MAKING OF O’MALLEY

  Gerald Beaumont

  “WHEREFORE IT IS THE JUDGMENT of the Court in compliance with the law that you be confined in the State’s prison at Greenbow for a period of five years.”

  A woman screamed. The courtroom buzzed. Police Officer O’Malley had scored again!

  No more would the historic confines of Tar Flat resound to the turbulent clamor of battle, the tinkle of broken glass and the Saturday night slogan of Danny the Dude: “Follow me, boys, and you’ll see action!”

  Gone was the glory of the Tar Flat gang, smashed by the brilliant single-handed campaign of a cop from Killarney! The battle was over now. Danny was going up to join his defeated pals. Tar Flat had caught a Tartar in James Patrick O’Malley. Deliberately they had set out to get him; and instead their scalps now adorned his belt, and their bruised ears still rang to the roar of Erin go Bragh!

  Danny the Dude had boasted that he would beat the case. Him go up! Not a chance! But this was one time when public opinion offset the District’s political pressure. Nor did the presence of Danny’s wife and baby avail him anything. O’Malley had prepared his case well. He was too honest to be “squared,” and too stubborn in his testimony to be shaken. Arrest and conviction were both his work.

  “Five years in Greenbow!”

  Danny the Dude, slim and sartorially elegant, bade a nonchalant farewell to his family and sauntered from the courtroom in the custody of a deputy jailer. On the way out, he brushed shoulders with the arresting officer, and for the space of a second looked deep into the latter’s eyes.

  “I’ll—see—you—later!” said Danny, and there was no mistaking what lay behind the promise.

  Officer O’Malley, who feared neither God, man, nor devil, answered quietly: “Fine, my boy—I’ll be right on my beat waiting for you.”

  Thus was born the seed of future reckoning. Young Danny, who was not old enough to have learned discretion, marched off, determined by good behavior to cut down considerably the time in which Police Officer O’Malley had yet to live. As for the latter, he hitched at his belt, patted his gun and ’cuffs, and strolled back to the station conscious of a duty well performed, and eager now to maintain his reputation as an arresting officer.

  O’Malley was a harness bull if there ever was one! Heavy of hand and foot, slow of thought, and very red of face, he considered that day lost whose low descending sun saw
no man imprisoned and no battle won! His mother, having given one husky son to the priesthood and another to the police force, considered she had done her duty by God and the community.

  Captain Collins, kindly, gray-haired veteran of the Central Station, was not so sure that the community had been blessed by the acquisition of Patrolman O’Malley; and as time went on, he became more and more dubious.

  “The breaking up of the Tar Flat gang was a feather in Jim’s bonnet,” admitted Captain Collins, “but now the lad wants an Indian headdress. Sergeant, how many men did he bring in yesterday?”

  “ ’Twas bargain day,” said Sergeant Patterson. “He found a Chink lottery on his beat and grabbed forty-four. He was displeased because three got away.”

  “Tomorrow it will be something else,” sighed the Captain. “Since we gave him a day beat, he goes to bed with a copy of the city ordinances, and he knows ’em all from the time they ruled the first cow off the street. Give him time, and he’ll have half the city behind bars. You see what publicity does to a young cop!”

  Captain Collins was right. It is a bad thing for a patrolman to see his name in the papers too frequently, or to be held long in a district where he is called upon to use his stick and ’cuffs to any great extent. He is like a horse that once attuned to the clang of fire-bells or the smell of gunpowder is satisfied thereafter with nothing else.

  Even a discreet officer, and the departments are full of them, has a hard enough time making friends. For the statute-books are full of unpopular and obnoxious laws, passed by inexperienced and impractical commissioners. The poor patrolman is always between the slippery curb and the chasm. If he enforces the ordinances as they are written, he is a pest; if he doesn’t, he is a grafter. To retain both prestige and popularity, he must combine the qualities of Solomon, Chesterfield, and Sherlock Holmes.