Black Is the Fashion for Dying

by Jonathan Latimer

  “I’m the horse’s ass,” Blake said.

  “Yeah.” Slightly mollified, Walsh eyed him. “That’s what makes me so sore. The stupid way you went about it.” He paused, let his jaw ease back in place. “I’m not blaming you for trying. I know how you feel.” His straw-colored eyes grow unhappy. “I don’t feel so good about her myself.”

  “Why not?”

  “Daughter about her age,” Walsh said. “Maureen.”

  Suddenly Blake caught on. The old police routine. Soften the criminal up. Phony rage followed by phony sympathy. It made him a little angry that Walsh would try it on him.

  “Where’ve you got her?” he asked. “San Quentin?”

  Walsh smiled wryly. “Only men there.” He bent, still smiling, and took a box from the desk drawer. “Teaches school. Long Beach.” The box, Blake saw, was the one the Webley had been in. “Got me and three brothers.” Walsh looked at Blake over the box. “Yours got a family?”

  “Some cousins in Galesburg, Illinois.”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said.” Frowning, Walsh removed the Webley from the box. “But kind of alone right now. And in big trouble.”

  “You should know.”

  “Not much choice.” Peering at the Webley, Walsh added, “Either her or the locked room.”

  For a moment the words made no sense. Then Blake remembered what Walsh had said earlier, when they were in the tent. Something shaping up that would make children’s riddles of the locked-room mysteries in books.

  “Why does it have to be either one?” he asked

  “I’ll tell you,” Walsh said. “Partly because she looks like Maureen. Prettier, but like her. Partly because there’s nobody but you to help her. But mostly because of a funny feeling I got.” He lifted the Webley, stared at it absently. “So, okay, the soft music has got you crying. Or else I got some trick in mind. You want to listen?”

  “I am listening.”

  “Yeah.” Walsh nodded to the Webley. “So let’s go over it once more. With this pistol here. When the prop man …”

  “Alf.”

  “When Alf first takes it out of the drawer in the wardrobe cabinet he was using. The same pistol. You heard him say so.”

  “Yes.”

  “Next he and his pal load it with blanks while you watch. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then Alf runs out on the set in front of everybody and shoves the pistol into the holster hanging from the tent pole. No chance for him to finagle anything. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Now, between the time it’s put in the holster and Miss Carson fires it, the pistol gets itself loaded with two real bullets.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Here’s how.” Taking an envelope from the cardboard box on the desk, Walsh shook out two expended shells. “These are the ones we found in the tent.”

  “I remember. But that still—”

  “Listen.” Walsh unfolded a sheet of typewritten paper. “Ballistics report on expended shells found by body. Marks left on shells by firing pin, breech face and ejector mechanism identical to marks left on test rounds fired from .325 caliber Webley submitted as exhibit A.”

  He opened the envelope, picked out two pieces of metal, put them beside the two exposed shells, and read again from the typewritten paper.

  “Ballistics report on slugs removed from body—.325 caliber ammunition. Rifling lands, depth of grooves, gouges, emery marks, pitch of rifling identical to test rounds fired from Webley submitted as exhibit A.” He folded the report, dropped it, expended shells and slugs back in the box. “Boiling it down to plain English, the boys in the lab are saying that Miss Garnet was knocked off by two bullets fired from this pistol.”

  Blake stared at the Webley unhappily, realizing that the reports made Lisa a killer, no matter how innocent her intentions were. If only she hadn’t gotten carried away in the scene, hadn’t pushed past Ashton Graves and fired point-blank at Caresse.

  Walsh was speaking again. “Now let’s see how we stand. Pistol loaded with blanks and two real bullets when fired. Pistol completely loaded with blanks when put in holster. And not more than five minutes in between.”

  “Plenty of time for somebody to make a switch.”

  “With sixty people watching?”

  Blake couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “I don’t like it either,” Walsh said. “But it seems to boil down to Miss Carson.”

  “She wouldn’t have had time.”

  “Had anyway a minute before she ran over to the tent.” Walsh picked up the Webley. “Look.” He ejected the clip, plucked out two shells. “Blanks come out.” He put the shells back in the clip. “Real bullets go in.” He thrust the clip back in the automatic. “Ready to fire in less than thirty seconds.”

  “But you just said sixty people were watching,” Blake protested. “Somebody would have seen her.”

  “Right then everybody was watching Miss Garnet being carried out of the jungle.”

  Blake felt a sudden sinking sensation. He remembered how he and the others had turned to look at Caresse. Of course Lisa hadn’t loaded the pistol, but he could see now why the police were holding her.

  “Well, there you have it,” Walsh said. “The locked room. Or the girl. Impossible for somebody else to have stuck a couple of bullets in the pistol.” His eyes, the color of taffy now, rested somberly on Blake’s face. “But if somebody else didn’t, then it’s got to be her.”

  “But you said yourself …”

  “I said I had a funny feeling.”

  “Well, I have more than that. Lisa didn’t stick in any bullets.”

  “Who did then?”

  Blake shook his head.

  “Always a big question. Who? Answer solves most cases.” Captain Walsh smiled grimly. “But here, if it isn’t the girl, we got an even bigger question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How?”

  T. J. Lorrance

  “You? Kill?” the off-key voice babbled. “Kill Caresse?”

  It was his voice, but he couldn’t stop it.

  “You didn’t … couldn’t kill.” The voice giggled crazily. “You’re joking.”

  “I killed her.”

  “Oh, I can’t—can’t believe—”

  “Will you stop that!”

  Caught by the glowing eyes, Lorrance became silent. And with silence, mushrooming like same appalling nuclear blast seen on slow motion film, came belief. He felt his heart flutter wildly, felt a mad impulse to run, but instead, engulfed by a nauseous tide of horror, he swayed, would have fallen if he had not, somehow, caught hold of the desk. He clung there, wanting to vomit.

  “Here.”

  Karl was standing by him with a glass half filled with whiskey. He took the glass, trembling so badly he could barely hold it.

  “Drink.”

  The glass chattered against his teeth, but he managed to swallow. Smoky fire constricted his throat, burned his stomach. Gasping, he cried, “Are you sure …?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “But you were here. In the office. I was with you.”

  “I could be in New York.” Karl smiled coldly. “And still kill you, T. J.”

  Involuntarily, Lorrance recoiled, staring.

  Karl grunted. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you.” He went around the desk, lifted a cigar from the humidor. “Or anybody else.”

  Watching him slide the gold band from the cigar, Lorrance had a malarial feeling of delirium. Of fever-produced unreality. Blood fresh on Karl’s hands, a woman’s blood, Caresse’s blood, and no more reaction than a robot would reveal.

  Karl dropped the gold band, bit off the end of the cigar, spat it on the carpet. “We were talking about scruples,” he said. “Remember?”

  Lorrance nodded, barely hearing him, still gripped by unreality.

  “Well, for your information, I felt no scruples about Caresse. She was a conniving
, murderous, lying bitch, a jet-age Lucretia Borgia.” Karl tried the silver desk lighter, but it didn’t work. “You know yourself of a dozen lives she ruined And there have been dozens more. And dozens still to come.” In a drawer he found a kitchen match “I felt no more compunction killing her than I would have crushing a black-widow spider under my heel.” He lit the match, held it to the cigar. “It was an act of public service.”

  “Murder …?”

  Karl rolled the cigar in the flame, inspected it to be sure it was burning evenly, shook out the match and dropped it on the carpet. He sucked on the cigar, blew out smoke and words.

  “All right. Call it murder.”

  “But why … why tell me?”

  “Scruples.” Karl’s lips curled contemptuously around the cigar. “Those half-baked scruples that wouldn’t let you steal for an inconsequential reason.” A puff of blue-gray smoke trailed the words. “So I’ve given you just about the most consequential reason possible.”

  “But murder! I couldn’t involve—”

  “Nobody will be involved.”

  “When the police …?”

  “They’ll never come within light years of a solution.” Karl removed the cigar from his mouth, eyed it sardonically. “You could tell them I did it. I could go to them, tell them I did it. And still they’d never solve it.”

  “If you told them?”

  “As long as I didn’t tell how.”

  “But how …?” Lorrance stuttered, gripped by a reluctant, horrible fascination. “How did you …?”

  Karl chuckled, “I ought to patent it.”

  “Did someone else?”

  “No. No accomplices.”

  “Some mechanical means?”

  “None.”

  “Then I don’t see …”

  Karl chuckled again. “The perfect crime. No swarthy gunmen. No witnesses. No opportunity. No apparent motive. No clues. No evidence of any sort anywhere.” His face hardened. “With one possible exception.”

  “Exception?”

  “Those ledgers.” He scowled implacably at Lorrance. “Which you’re going to get.”

  Suddenly reality was back again, and it was worse than any delirium. “No!” Lorrance heard himself cry shrilly, a sea bird lost in a night storm. “Oh, no!”

  Karl put down the cigar, rose from his chair and started unhurriedly around the desk. “You’re elected, T. J.”

  “I can’t be! Not murder!” In an agony of terror and revulsion, Lorranee stumbled backwards across the carpet. “I’ll forget. Go away if you want.” His voice broke hysterically. “But never—”

  The slap echoed like a pistol shot. He found himself sprawled on the leather couch, head against the arm rest, his hands fluttering in front of his face. But there was no second blow. Karl merely stood there, looking down impassively, a scientist watching the death struggle of a beetle.

  His hands stopped fluttering, went to the pain in his cheek.

  Karl said, “Time you learned the facts of life.”

  He sat up, nursing the pain. In his mouth he could taste blood.

  “Or maybe I should say fact,” Karl said. “Because basically, life depends …” Head turning slowly, he broke off, growled, “What are you doing here?”

  Dazedly, Lorrance swung around, saw a plump, tremulously smiling woman in a fawn-colored suit that didn’t quite fit. For an instant he thought she was someone, maybe a tourist, who had wandered into the office by mistake, and then the mist of pain and confusion cleared.

  “Irene!”

  She was standing by the door, her face at once warm and puzzled and concerned. Karl growled again. “Well, what is it?”

  “Caresse …”

  “What about her?”

  The soft brown eyes went to Lorrance. “I thought if there was anything I could do, I …”

  The “I” hung there, a hummingbird suspended in air. Karl promptly shot it down. “What could you do? Take her place in the picture?”

  “The funeral …?”

  “The studio is taking care of it.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do.”

  The brown eyes went to Karl, then came back, asking a question to which Lorrance had no answer. But when she spoke, it was to Karl.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  She turned away, was reaching for the door when Karl spoke. “One thing you can bother about.” Hand on the bronze knob, she paused. “I want some people in the house tonight. Dinner and gin-rummy. Ed Colmar. The Klaubers. Anybody you can think of.”

  “T.J.?” she asked softly.

  “No.” Karl’s voice was amused. “T. J. has other plans.”

  Submissively, she said, “Yes, Karl,” and then the door, closing shut her out. Karl cleared his throat derisively, asked, “Where was I?”

  Hunched down on the couch, still feeling Irene’s eyes on him, concerned, compassionate, almost tender, Lorrance shook his head. He knew now that he was trapped.

  “I remember,” Karl said. “Survival. The basic fact of life. Boiled down, the only fact.”

  There was no escape. Not if Irene was to escape.

  Words, now only half heard, continued to come from Karl. “I killed … to survive. And you’re going to steal …”

  And she must escape. Escape from being the wife of a known murderer. Escape from ever knowing she had given herself to a murderer. A hideous picture rose in Lorrance’s mind, of Irene in bed, unclad, and Karl’s thick hands tightening around her neck. He could see the soft white body struggling, could almost hear the agonized breathing. But no, Karl would never do that, if only because, as Benjy’s daughter, she represented power.

  “… iron lung?” Karl’s voice demanded.

  “What?”

  “For Pamela,” Karl growled. “Your daughter. How much for nurses and the iron lung?”

  “Eight hundred a month, but what has that …?”

  “Survival, you idiot! Maybe you don’t care. You don’t look as if you do.” Karl smiled cunningly. “But how will Pamela survive if you lose your job?”

  Shock brought Lorrance upright on the couch. “You’d actually use Pamela to force me … I”

  “I merely asked how she would survive.”

  “I have insurance.”

  “Suicide?” Karl asked incredulously. “You’d commit suicide not to steal?”

  For a frenzied instant Lorrance grasped at the idea. It could be the solution. Pamela would be safe then, and so in a way would he.

  But not Irene.

  Karl was chuckling. “You haven’t the guts, and you know it,” he said. “We both know it.”

  No escape, Lorrance thought wearily. Not if Irene was to escape. He rose slowly from the couch, said, “I guess you’re right.”

  “And so?”

  “Where am I to take them?”

  “My house. I’ll wait up.” Karl’s heavy face was mockingly triumphant. “Want me to give you Caresse’s layout again?”

  “No.” Head down, Lorranee went past him towards the door. “I’ve been there.” He fumbled for the knob, found it, pulled open the door and stumbled blindly into the faceless crowd outside.

  Richard Blake

  A shadow nibbled at the table where he sat with Josh Gordon under the grape arbor that made a ceiling for the court in back of Luigi’s. He had been at the table only a few minutes since his arrival by taxi from police headquarters, but in that time Gordon had told him about the new ending for Tiger in the Night, the sun had slid part way down the tile roof on the apartment building across the street and he had begun a disjointed report on his own experiences.

  “Thing is,” he declared, “I should have gone after the blanks.”

  “Why?”

  “Key to the whole business.”

  “The blanks?”

  “Instead of the bullets.”

  Lifting his rye old-fashioned. Gordon studied it reflectively. “I don’t seem to follow you.”


  “I’m trying to explain.”

  “Try from the start.”

  The start was Orthman’s. Blake told about the ammunition there, told how Mr. Orthman had converted one box into blanks. He mentioned the late Colonel Mortimer. He found his mind was still jumny, but he managed to get in most of the relevant details. He told how the detective had found a live cartridge in his pocket.

  “What live cartridge?” Gordon asked.

  “Didn’t I say I opened a box?”

  “What for?”

  “I guess to see if it was full.”

  “But why take a cartridge?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go on.”

  Blake went on. While he described being taken to the detective bureau, Gordon waved at Gary Cooper, walking with two men across the court. Gary Cooper called, “Tough break, Josh,” and went into Luigi’s with the two men. Blake told how the ballistic tests had proved the two bullets fired from the Webley were the ones that had killed Caresse. From there he went into Walsh’s theory. Either Lisa or the locked room, impossible as it seemed.

  Gordon said, “Locked room, obviously.”

  “Why?”

  “Always is in detective stories.”

  “This is a police story.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.” Gordon eyed his half-filled glass, emptied it. “Where do the blanks come in?”

  “Well, just before he let me go Walsh talked about them. The real bullets, too, for that matter.”

  “Stay with the blanks.”

  “Two blanks,” Blake said. “The ones taken out of the Webley to make room for the real bullets.”

  “They haven’t found them?”

  Blake shook his head. “Checked everybody, Walsh says. With that electronic gadget we saw. Even had a doctor search Lisa. Searched the whole stage, too.”

  “Boggles the imagination.”

  “Sure does.”

  Gordon ordered two more old-fashioneds. He waved at Bob Hope, walking with four men across the court. Bob Hope called, “Tough break, Josh,” and went into the bar with the four men. Gordon said, “Possible solution.”

  “What?”