Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

by Gruber, Frank

  “Jessie,” said Bob Lanyard, “perhaps Mr. Quade doesn’t want to go on the stage.”

  “Why not? With his personality and that gift of gab? Say, I’ve seen hoofers with less than he’s got make good on the big time.”

  Quade pursed his lips. “You mean I’d have to take up dancing?”

  That was a bit too strong. Even Jessie Lanyard caught the sarcasm. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t know I was being funny.” She put her pretty nose into the air and went back to her covey of admirers.

  “At it again,” said Lois Lanyard.

  Quade walked to one side with her. “What’s this I hear about your brother employing a private detective?”

  Lois frowned. “Bob seemed to think Jessie’s reputation has been besmirched and he’s determined to clear it. Well, she did throw quite a scene today.”

  “When’s Buck coming?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I’ve heard he’s a very astute man-hunter. He comes high, at any rate.”

  “Hmm. You’re really going through with your marriage?”

  She looked coolly at him. “Of course I’m going to marry Freddie Bartlett. We’ve been engaged for almost a year and the date has been set for four months.”

  “I apologize, Miss Lanyard. Shall we wave the white flag?”

  “You’ll keep it white?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry I interrupted this evening. I must be going now.”

  Christopher Buck was not burdened with good manners. He banged on the door of Oliver Quade’s room at the ungodly hour of eight A.M. Quade, cursing under his breath, climbed out of the bed and opened the door.

  “I left a call for nine o’clock, not eight!” he snarled.

  “I’m Christopher Buck,” the detective announced grandly.

  “So what? I’m Oliver Quade and that gorilla yawning over in the bed is Charlie Boston. A good morning to you.” Quade started to shut the door in Buck’s face.

  But the detective must have worked his way through college selling magazines. He put a foot in the doorway. “Hey!” he yelped. “I’m Christopher Buck, the detective.”

  Quade opened the door again. “A detective?” he pretended to be amazed. “Why didn’t you say so? Come in.”

  Christopher Buck stepped angrily into the room. “Hey, Charlie,” Quade called. “Get up. There’s a cop from the local police force here.”

  “I’m not from the Westfield Police,” Buck called. “What’re you trying to do, rib me?”

  Quade blinked. Then: “I’ll be damned. Of course, I’ve read about you in the newspapers. You’re the famous detective, Christopher Buck!”

  Buck was so lean that he had to stand twice in order to cast a shadow, but he made up for it in height. He was at least six feet four and his huge, bushy eyebrows and stooped figure gave him a sinister appearance.

  “I was engaged by Robert Lanyard to solve the murder that was committed out at the dog show yesterday,” he said. “I came to you because I’ve been told you’re the chief suspect.”

  “Right to the point, that’s what I like,” said Quade. “Have a seat, Mr. Buck. You don’t mind if I dress while you grill—I mean, question me. Take a chair.”

  “Ow, oh-wuh!” said Charlie Boston, yawning and stretching.

  Quade drew his pajama coat off, then unblushing slipped off the trousers. Nude as the day he was born, he searched around for his underwear.

  “Sitting on my drawers, Mr. Buck?” he asked. “No, here they are.” Calmly he began dressing. Charlie Boston scooted for the bathroom.

  Christopher Buck drew a stubby pipe from his coat pocket and filled it. “I’ve already talked to Mr. Lanyard and Chief of Police Costello. There seems to be some difference of opinion as to just what happened yesterday.”

  “Some of the dogs got loose and raised a ruckus,” Quade said. “Of course everyone in the building gathered around. I left my stand. Then when the dog fight had been stopped and the dogs chained up, I started to go back. Charlie, here, told me then that there was a dead man in our booth.”

  Buck grunted. “You say some of the dogs got loose? I hear there was only one loose.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, he got into the next stall and tangled up with another dog. The second dog was chained, but it didn’t affect his fighting ability. It was a swell fight.”

  “I’m not interested in the dog fight,” said Buck, severely. “I’m interested in the man who was killed. He was an old sweetheart of the wife of my client. Tell me more about this Peters fellow. How long had you known him?”

  Quade sighed. “He was in the audience when I made my first pitch out there, but that’s the only time I ever saw him alive. I know nothing about the murder. And I think I’ll have breakfast now.”

  Christopher Buck scowled. “I don’t like it. No one seemed to know this Peters fellow, yet someone hated him enough to kill him. Why?”

  “You said you were the detective,” Quade reminded him. “Me, I’m only a book salesman.”

  “Yes, but I’ve heard about your bragging yesterday. About what a smart fellow you were. Claim to know the answers to everything. Well, who killed Wes Peters?”

  “I don’t belong to the detectives’ union.”

  Buck started to get up from the chair. It was quite a job, because he was so lean and tall. “You’re not leaving Westfield, are you, Quade?”

  “No, I’m going out to the dog show today and make a few dollars. Any time you think you’ve got the goods on me you’ll know where to collar me!”

  Christopher Buck closed the door ungently behind him.

  “I think I’ll blow myself and have about four eggs and some ham,” Boston said dreamily, coming out of the bathroom.

  “O.K., Charlie, better fatten up while you can. It’s been a lean stretch. I think we’ll get us each a hand-me-down, too.”

  “Gonna get yourself a nice blue serge?” asked Boston, looking wisely at Quade.

  “Why blue?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Just thought maybe a loud suit was undignified.”

  Quade made a pass at Boston, which the big fellow ducked easily. “She’s getting married today, you sap.”

  “Going to the wedding?”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  But Quade did buy a blue serge, after all. It fitted him well and changed his appearance considerably. He finished the job by getting some black oxfords, a blue striped shirt and brown felt hat.

  He had a good day at the auditorium, running out of books when there were still some prospective purchasers in the crowd. His pockets stuffed with money, he closed his pitch and strolled out of the building.

  He saw a hamburger stand nearby and went over to it. As he stuffed the last of a sandwich into his mouth a voice behind him said:

  “Ah, Mr. Quade, I was hoping to find you here this morning.” It was Jessie Lanyard, wearing a floppy picture hat and a flowered organdy dress. Her blonde hair was smartly coiffured.

  “How d’you do, Mrs. Lanyard?” Quade greeted her. “Won’t you have a hamburger?”

  “Why, I don’t mind if I do. It’s a long time since I’ve eaten one. Not since I got married.” She laughed. “You know, one time, when I was out of work I ate nothing but hamburgers for a solid month.”

  “They didn’t spoil your figure,” Quade complimented her. He ordered a couple of hamburgers.

  “I’ve decided to overlook your kidding last night,” Jessie Lanyard said brightly. “I really like you, Mr. Quade. You’re—you’re my sort of people.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You know some of the people out here in Westfield are awful snobs,” Jessie prattled on. “My in-laws still don’t treat me any too well. But I don’t care. Even if the in-laws and some of Lois’ girl friends give me the turned-up nose, the men like me. You saw them last night.”

&
nbsp; “I did. You were pretty well surrounded.”

  Jessie sighed. “Yes, they always rush me. Some of them even—well, that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s about this detective Bob hired.”

  “Didn’t you urge him to do that?”

  Jessie smiled prettily. “Well, I did suggest it, I guess. But Bob was so worked up. Seemed to think I had been carrying on with Wes—Mr. Peters. Goodness, I hadn’t seen Wesley Peters for a long time. Not alone, that is. Of course he hung around a lot out here in Westfield, but I couldn’t very well chase him away, could I?”

  “No, of course not. By the way, what’d Peters do for a living?”

  “He was on the stage. I played with him in a show about five years ago. I was just beginning then,” Jessie hastened to say. “I started very young, you know.”

  Quade took a deep breath. Then he said, “Mrs. Lanyard, how long is it since you saw Bill Demetros?”

  Ketchup dripped from the hamburger to Jessie Lanyard’s organdy dress, but she didn’t notice it. She was staring too intently at Oliver Quade. “Where did you hear about—him?” she asked, slowly.

  “I’ve always been a great newspaper reader and I never forget anything I read. Your name was mentioned with his several years ago. They even ran your photos together. You were Janet Jackson then.”

  “I haven’t seen him—for five years,” she said, looking relieved.

  “Since he went to jail? You haven’t seen him since he got out?”

  “No, and I—I hope I never see him again. I don’t even want him to know where I am.”

  “You changed your name even before you married Bob. Demetros probably wouldn’t know where to look for you if he wanted to.”

  “No, but there wouldn’t be any reason for him to look me up. The newspapers were wrong. We were never more than casual acquaintances. I—I must go now.”

  Quade looked thoughtfully after Jessie Lanyard as she walked to the dog building. Then he left and caught a taxi. Charlie had taken his car to replenish their supply of books.

  Quade rode back to Westfield, paid off on the main street of the village, then stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes. A five-and-ten-cent store across the street caught his eye. Smiling grimly, he bought an ordinary toy, shaped roughly like a mature, lethal gun. He had the clerk wrap it in paper and put it in a mailing box. At the stationery counter he bought a box of adhesive address labels.

  Then Quade went back to his hotel room. He got a jar of Vaseline from the bathroom, smeared a light coat of it on the water pistol, then wrapped it in paper and put it in the box. He tied the package, addressed a label and stuck it to the package.

  He walked with it to the post-office, had the box weighed there, then mailed it first-class.

  Returning to the dog show he found Boston fuming because he had been unable to find Quade.

  “I brought the books back here an hour ago,” he exclaimed. “Where you been?”

  “Attending to some business,” Quade replied shortly.

  Quade made a pitch to a small noon-day crowd and took in thirty-five dollars. He and Boston drove to the hotel and had a late lunch. When they got the key for their room the clerk handed Quade a package. “Mailman just brought this.”

  “Who’d be sending us a package?” asked Boston as they rode in the elevator to their floor.

  “One of my female admirers probably,” Quade said.

  In the room he cut the string of the package. Quade opened the box, lifted out the paper-wrapped contents and unwrapped it. He exhibited the water pistol.

  Boston examined the gun, then snorted. “Someone’s ribbin’ you!”

  Quade scarcely looked at the gun. He was examining the inside of the wrapping paper. The Vaseline on the gun had made recognizable outlines on the paper. He nodded in satisfaction.

  “Look, Charlie,” he said “run down to the telegraph office and send a wire to the Blake Publishing Company in New York. Have ’em rush us two hundred more copies of our book. We’re going to need them before this dog show is over.”

  “But what about the gun?” protested Boston. “Why would anyone send it to you? I don’t like it, I tell you. It’s—it’s a threat.”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty head about the gun, Charlie. Go ahead, send that telegram.”

  The moment Boston had left the room Quade took out a knife and scraped the address label from the box in which the gun had been mailed. He addressed another label, glued it to the box, then left the hotel.

  He threw the toy pistol into an ashcan a couple of blocks from the hotel. Then he walked three blocks more, entered an alley and sought another ashcan behind the third building from the corner. Into it he tossed the paper box and the wrapping paper in which he had mailed the gun to himself. He’d torn the address label from the box, but left the postmark.

  He chuckled. “Maybe a smart detective can make something of a box with a local postmark and paper bearing a little oil and imprint of a gun.”

  Quade rejoined Boston at the hotel an hour later and the big fellow had his finger-nails chewed half-way to his wrists. “What’s all the mysterious stuff, Ollie?” he cried. “You got rid of me on a phony excuse, then you go off somewhere.”

  “Can’t a man attend to his private business affairs?

  “Yeah, sure, but—ah, never mind. What do we do now?”

  “You can take the afternoon off, Charlie. I think I’ll do some visiting.”

  “At the Lanyard place? … Well, I hope you don’t get burned.”

  “It’s a cold world without some heat,” Quade said reflectively. “I’ve just discovered that I’ve been cold all my life.”

  A couple of cars were parked in the curved drive of the Lanyard estate. Quade parked his own car, then circled the house to the kennels. The dogs started a terrific barking and Quade was about to retreat when Lois Lanyard called from a window in the rear of the house. “Look out! Those sheep dogs bite.”

  “Ever hear of a man biting a dog?”

  Lois disappeared from the window but reappeared at a rear door a moment later. She was dressed in a pink and yellow sport sweater suit and her eyes were dancing with mischief. Quade tightened about the mouth.

  “Did you come here to see the dogs?” she asked. “There are more of them at the dog show, you know.”

  “The dog show? Oh, you mean the dog show where you said you’d be today.”

  She sobered for a moment. “I couldn’t very well get away. Some last minute fittings and—other things.”

  “Ah! The marriage, of course.”

  The moment was a tense one, but then a Gordon pointer came dashing out of a dog kennel and bounced up to the wire fence, putting his nose between the mesh. Quade snapped his fingers at the dog.

  “Who does he belong to? Bob?”

  “Yes, that’s Duke, his favorite. I’ve got the sheep dogs that are at the show. And Jessie has two Eskimo Dogs, huskies. Come, take a look at them.”

  She led Quade to a pen and whistled. A tawny face appeared in the door of a kennel and after a careful examination was followed by a head. Another dog followed.

  “They’re beautiful, I think,” said Lois, “But pretty shy.”

  A voice called from the house. “Lois!”

  “Yes, Mother?” Lois replied.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to come in for that last fitting.”

  “I’ll be right in.” Lois turned to Quade. “I have to go now. It’s been nice seeing you. Come and see us when we get back.”

  “From Borneo?” he couldn’t help cracking.

  She laughed and ran into the house.

  Quade drove thoughtfully back to the dog show. Charlie Boston wasn’t around the booth and had probably gone to see the rest of the show. Quade ran into Christopher Buck and Chief of Police Costello, engaged in heavy conversation.


  The chief did not look cordially at Quade. “Ah, here you are,” he said in greeting. “What’s the big brain man know today?”

  “I know that the prenadilla is a South American fish that travels for hours on dry land,” he retorted. “And I know other things. What do you know? About the police business, for instance. Have you pinched the murderer yet?”

  “When I do, maybe you won’t be so cocky,” hinted the chief.

  “Still barking up my alley, eh? Well, just for that I’ll let you worry over the thing by yourself.”

  He walked off, but less than two minutes later Christopher Buck popped out in front of him. “Say, Quade, what did you mean about letting us worry by ourselves? You know something?”

  Quade looked around mysteriously. “I got an anonymous phone call at the hotel this noon. A man’s voice told me to take a look around Bartlett’s house—the ashcan for example. What do you suppose he meant by that?”

  Buck’s lean, lank frame quivered with excitement. “The killer’s thrown something away, something important. A clue!”

  “What sort of clue would he throw away? The murder gun was found here. It’s just an ordinary .32. Peters’ own gun. But maybe Peters loaned the gun to someone else and that person loaned it to Fred—to the murderer.”

  There was no holding Buck after that. He tore off in a lather of excitement. Quade looked at his watch, then sought out Charlie Boston.

  “Look, Charlie, in the city the poor people hang around the church door to get a look at the bride. Let’s go down to the church in Westfield and get a gander at the folks.”

  “I could smell that coming,” said Boston. “How about the rice, you want to throw some?”

  They drove down. The wedding was scheduled for five in the afternoon but curious townsfolk had gathered around the church at a quarter to the hour. Quade parked his car directly across the street, then, throwing one foot across the car door, settled down to wait.

  At ten minutes to five a closed sedan pulled up to the chapel door and several people got out. Quade had a glimpse of Lois Lanyard wearing a black silk cape that did not quite cover the white dress underneath. The party moved quickly into the church.