The Lady in the Morgue

by Jonathan Latimer

  Williams had been huddled in his chair, staring apprehensively at the door through which Mrs. Courtland had disappeared. “Where?” he asked, not taking his eyes from the door.

  “At the taxi-dance place. One of the players looked sort of familiar to me.”

  “Oh, ho!” exclaimed O’Malley. “That long-haired guy.” His eyes were bright with interest. “I noticed him. He can play, what I mean.”

  Crane said, “Us artists say, he can swing it.”

  “I’d like to go with you,” said Courtland. “May I?”

  “Sure.” Crane moved toward the door. “I wish you had been along last night, although O’Malley came in mighty handy.”

  Eyes rounded behind the pince-nez glasses, Uncle Stuyvesant had been watching Crane. He asked, “Have you been able to find the red-haired undertaker yet?”

  Crane said, “What?” He frowned, looked at Uncle Stuyvesant’s round, innocent face with narrowed eyes. Then he looked away, pretended to brush some lint from his trousers. “Oh, that fellow.” He rubbed the palm of his hand on his right trouser leg. “We haven’t done anything about him yet.”

  Young Courtland glanced at Crane curiously. “You didn’t tell me anything about a red-haired undertaker.”

  “It was such a silly process of reasoning,” Crane grinned derisively, as though he was ashamed to speak of it, and told them how he had deduced the occupation and left-handedness of August Liebman’s assailant. “The chances are that I’m all cockeyed,” he added.

  Uncle Stuyvesant said, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  Courtland asked, “What are you going to do this afternoon?”

  Crane hid a yawn under his hand. “I’d like to get some sleep, but I suppose I’d better do some work.”

  “Sure, let’s do some work.” Courtland’s square, boyish face was eager. “I’d like to go along. You can sleep tonight.” He squeezed out his cigarette on a brass ash tray. “You go downstairs, and I’ll meet you as soon as I fix things with Mother … that is, if you’re ready to start now?”

  “I’m ready,” said Crane, opening the hall door.

  Uncle Stuyvesant beamed at him. “That’s right, young man. No time like the present.”

  Crane held the door for O’Malley and Williams, said, “Not unless it’s daylight-saving time,” and closed the door.

  When they reached the lobby Williams said, “Phooey! What a dame!” He sank in one of the divans to the left of the reception desk.

  “That’s the high society crap,” said O’Malley.

  Crane agreed. “She was handing us a touch of the old hauteur.” He sat down beside Williams. “Doc, this business has taken a turn for the worse.”

  “You mean about Old Uncle Sty knowing we were lookin’ for the undertaker?”

  “Yeah. How in hell could he have known about him?”

  “Well, he don’t know the guy’s dead, anyway.”

  “Maybe ….”

  “Maybe! You mean …?”

  “There’s nothing to prevent him from hopping off that midnight plane and going out and killing Mr. Connell, is there?”

  It was cool in the lobby and quiet, and they sat in silence for a while, their eyes half closed. Through a shaded window they could see the sun-bathed pavement of Seventh Street, passing pedestrians in shirt sleeves, summer dresses. Traffic on Michigan Avenue made a fitful rumbling.

  Finally O’Malley asked, “But that means he must have bumped off the morgue keeper, doesn’t it?”

  Crane opened his eyes. “I don’t know. We’d better check and see if he could have been in Chicago then.” He sat up on the divan. “In fact, I think we better have a check made on the old lady, and on young Courtland, too. It won’t do any harm to find out about all of them.” He turned to Williams. “You and O’Malley better wire the colonel an account of all we’ve done so far, including my tête-à-tête with Miss Udoni, and ask him to make the check on the Courtland family. Ask him to check on the Courtland trust fund, too, and find out if young Courtland, Uncle Sty or Mrs. Courtland stand to benefit from Kathryn’s death.”

  Williams nodded.

  “Also, and this is important,” Crane continued, “ask him if he told Uncle Sty about the undertaker.” His eyes followed a slender, dark-haired girl from the reception desk to the elevators. “Then, after you write the wire, I want you two to go out to the Edgemoor Cemetery and see if you can find exactly where Miss Agnes Castle is buried. You can pretend you’re relatives and want to put flowers on the grave.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Williams.

  “Courtland and I will see if we can find where Sam, the plumber, hangs his derby.”

  “You better keep your eyes open,” O’Malley said. “I’ll bet them thugs of Paletta’s are still looking for you.”

  “How can they when they’re in jail?”

  “Hell, I bet he’s got more guys workin’ for him than Harry Hopkins,” said Williams scornfully. “He’s a big shot.”

  “How do you spell shot?” asked Crane. He watched a small, compact girl in a tight-fitting custard-colored linen suit descend the Michigan Avenue stairs. She was in a hurry and her buttocks moved in petulant jerks. He sighed, said, “Seems like I have to work all the time.”

  Williams and O’Malley stared at the girl until her head disappeared. Williams said, “You couldn’t get to first base with a dame like that. She’s got class.”

  “I got class myself,” said Crane. “You should have seen those babies in the taxi-dance hall fight to get a chance to step around with me.”

  O’Malley said, “It was either you or a Filipino.”

  Crane’s indignant reply was halted by the sight of Courtland coming from one of the elevators. “What do we do first?” he wanted to know.

  “Eat,” said Crane.

  Chapter Thirteen

  O’MALLEY AND Williams decided to go about their business, so Crane and Courtland ate lunch alone at Henrici’s. Crane had a double martini, very dry, and then astonished the management by consuming seven Vienna rolls with an order of combination salad. He also drank three fifty-cent bottles of imported Pilsener beer.

  “I can hardly remember back to the last meal I ate,” he sighed, buttering the final piece of the seventh roll. “And then this weather gives you an appetite.”

  Courtland peered out at the sweltering street and grinned. “Nothing like a crisp spell to tone a fellow up,” he agreed. His eyes crinkled at the corners. He was having a club sandwich and three bottles of beer.

  The restaurant was air-cooled and dark, and Crane wished he could slide under the table and take a nap. He resisted the impulse, however, paid the bill and said gloomily, “I suppose we better be going.”

  Courtland appeared to have plenty of energy. He stood up and said, “Sure. As Uncle Sty would say, don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

  Crane looked up at him sourly. “Yes, but does Uncle Sty know this one?” he demanded. “A rolling stone gathers no Ross?”

  Courtland’s face was appropriately pained, and Crane followed him out the door. They took a cab to the Clark-Erie Dance Hall.

  “You better go up and inquire about Sam,” Crane said. “I don’t think they like me so well.”

  Courtland was gone only two minutes. “Nobody around at all,” he said. “The place is locked up.”

  “The hell!” said Crane. “I wonder if the management was pinched last night.”

  He took Courtland around to show him the fire escape he and Miss Udoni had descended. They were both staring at it when three men came down the alley behind them. One of the men walked up beside Crane and stuck a pistol into the small of his back. “We want to talk to you, buddy,” he said. His voice rumbled like a truck crossing a wooden bridge.

  Crane straightened his back, said, “O.K. What do you want?”

  “Just button your gabber,” said the man, “an’ come along.”

  Another of the three men had a high, metallic voice. “What’l
l we do with this other mug?” he asked. “Conk him one?”

  “Naw, we better bring him along,” said the man with the rumbling voice. “Frankie might want to talk to him.” He shoved the gun into Crane’s back. “Come on.”

  “Don’t do that,” said Crane. “I’m ticklish.”

  They prodded him and Courtland into the back seat of a Lincoln sedan parked across the mouth of the alley. A fourth man, squat and with a bulge of flesh over his collar, was in the driver’s seat. One of the men got in front with him, and the other two got in back. The man with the rumbling voice had his pistol in his coat pocket. He sat in one of the folding seats and kept the pistol pointed at Crane. His nose had been broken and badly set, his face was pockmarked, his teeth were stained with tobacco juice.

  Crane asked, “Where are we going?”

  The man’s voice sounded as though he were talking around a hot boiled potato. “The duke wants t’ know where we’re goin’, Charley,” he said.

  “The duke wants t’ know where we’re goin’, does he?” said Charley. He was sitting between Crane and Courtland, and his voice sounded as though he had a tin larynx.

  “Yeah, the duke wants t’ know where we’re going,” said the man with the rumbling voice.

  That seemed to end the matter. There was silence until the car drove up in front of a two-story stucco building with a green-and-white canvas canopy over the entrance. A sign on the building read: LIBERTY CLUB. In a small window by the entrance were photographs of young ladies with shawls draped in different places over their bodies. Printed on a card below the photographs was: “Eight Gorgeous Beauties.”

  “Come on, duke,” said the man with the rumbling voice to Crane. He climbed out of the car and waited on the sidewalk, holding his pocket in such a way that the pistol’s outline was visible. Crane and Courtland followed him into the bulding, up a narrow flight of steps, and into a large room with a square dance floor and an orchestra platform. Close on their heels came the other three men.

  Around the dance floor were bare tables and chairs; around the room were vivid green and red and blue and orange murals of naked South Sea islanders bathing, dancing and carrying baskets of fruit. Eight girls, in various types of shorts, stood on the dance floor in two lines of four. A frowsy man with a cigarette dangling from his lips sat at the grand piano on the orchestra platform; another man wearing patent-leather shoes, violet trousers pulled up almost under his armpits, and a baby-blue polo shirt stood in front of the girls, his hands, knuckles inward, pressed against his sides just above his hips. All of these people stared wonderingly at the six men.

  “Where’s Frankie?” the man with the rumbling voice asked.

  “He’th back in hith offith,” said the man with the violet trousers. As he spoke he shook his body from side to side like a woman.

  They went through a door beside the orchestra stand into a room with a large roulette table. There were no windows and there was a gray carpet on the floor. Next they went into a smaller room equipped with one window and a set of moderne office furniture made of steel tubes. Frankie French was seated at a red-surfaced desk, his darkly handsome face turned toward them impassively. Light from a chromium desk lamp slid from his sleek hair.

  “Who is the other gentleman?” he asked.

  The man with the rumbling voice said, “He was with the duke here, so we brung him, too.”

  “Very unfortunate,” said French. “It means we will have to dispose of two of them.”

  “Listen,” said Crane. “This man is Chauncey Courtland of New York. He’s a client of our firm. We’re looking for a relative of his. He hasn’t anything to do with Miss Ross.”

  Frankie French gazed at Crane with his golden eyes. “Search them, please,” he said. His lips were full, cruel, contemptuous.

  Roughly, two of the men went through Crane’s pockets, two through Courtland’s. They piled the wallets, keys and change they found on the red table. French went through the wallets, handed Courtland’s back to him, said:

  “I’m sorry, but I shall have to detain you. If Mr. Crane will answer my questions I shall let you both depart. If he doesn’t I shall be forced to …”

  Frankie French shrugged his shoulders.

  Courtland’s face was angry. He stepped toward French, said, “Crane’s a friend of mine. If anything happens to him I’ll see that you …”

  “Can that stuff,” said one of the men. He seized Courtland’s arm, shook him.

  Frankie French said, “Take him outside and tie him up. I may want him later.” His golden eyes regarded Crane speculatively. “Charley, you stay here and help me talk to Mr. Crane.”

  Courtland left, escorted by the other three men. Charley closed the door in back of them, his thin face expressing anticipation. French adjusted the desk light so that the rays fell on one of the chairs.

  “Sit down,” he said. His voice was polite, frigid.

  Crane said, “I don’t want to sit down.”

  “Sit down!”

  “No,” said Crane.

  Charley hit him on the head with a pistol butt. Blue-white light blinded his eyes; his ears rang; he sank to the floor. He lay there for a time, the two men silently watching him. He wasn’t knocked out, but he was badly dazed. From the floor he could see the men’s faces. Charley’s eyes glistened, his tongue kept wetting his lips. A vein vibrated just behind the jagged scar on Frankie French’s jawbone, but his expression was coldly composed.

  Finally Frankie French said, “Now sit in that chair.”

  Crane got onto his hands and knees, then onto his feet. He sat in the chair. The light dazzled his eyes, sent stabs of pain through his head, made him dizzy.

  Frankie French asked, “What did you do with Miss Ross’ body?” His hands, palms down on the table, were in a patch of light. They were slender and nervous, like a violinist’s, and the nails were glossy.

  “I didn’t take her body,” Crane said. He put his hands on the arms of his chair to keep from toppling over. “I’ve been trying to find out who did.”

  Frankie French repeated his question. “What did you do with her body?”

  “I didn’t take it.”

  The slender fingers drummed on the table. “Mr. Crane, I think you will do better to tell me.” French’s voice was lazy, faintly amused. “You will spare yourself needless pain.”

  “But I really don’t know where the body is.”

  Charley opened a drawer in the red-topped desk, drew out a pair of black pliers. “Which nail will I start on, Mr. French?” he asked.

  French’s thin eyebrows, his lips, made parallel lines. “I believe the loss of a thumbnail is quite painful,” he said.

  Charley had some rope. He advanced on Crane.

  “Wait a minute,” said Crane. “Wait a minute.” He leaned forward in his chair, toward French. “I’ve told you I don’t know where Miss Ross’ body is, but there’s nothing to prevent my lying to you to get myself set free. Why don’t you take my word for it that I don’t know who took the body?”

  “It will do you no good to lie, Mr. Crane. I intend to hold you here while my men check on whatever story you tell. I imagine there is little need to remind you that some very unpleasant things will happen if the story proves to be false.”

  “All right,” said Crane. “I do know where the body is.” He half closed his eyes, let his chin rest on his chest. “But I’m damned if I’ll tell you.”

  Golden flecks swam in French’s eyes. “Go ahead, Charley,” he whispered, barely moving his lips.

  Crane pushed himself from the chair, drove his right hand into Charley’s face, sent the man spinning against the wall. Frankie French pushed a finger on an ivory button set in a black-lacquered wooden block on his desk. Crane hurled his chair at him, but French ducked and the chair crashed against the wall. Crane seized the block from the desk, tore it loose from a wire, threw it in French’s face as he came up from behind the table, turned just in time to avoid a kick aimed at his groin by Charle
y. He caught Charley’s foot with both hands, twisted it until something cracked with the hollow report of a popgun.

  Charley lay face upward on the rug, screaming horribly.

  Hands fluttering, shoulders hunched, French came around his desk, grappled with Crane. As they fell to the floor Crane swung his body on top, broke French’s hold, punched him twice on his neck, on his Adam’s apple. Turning on his right side, French caught hold of Crane’s left arm and bit the wrist to the bone. Crane pulled his arm away, heard someone behind him, turned his head …

  A man was kicking him in the ribs, not violently, but hard enough to make them thump. The man kept saying: “Get up, you son of a bitch; get up.”

  Crane opened his eyes, struggled to a sitting position on the floor.

  The man kicked his hip, said, “Ah-ha! The duke’s on tap again.”

  Frankie French was seated beside his desk, daubing at his lips with a red-stained handkerchief. “Tie him in a chair,” he ordered the man. His face was grim, his voice no longer amused.

  Two men jerked him into a chair, tied his hands and feet. One of them was the driver; the other was the man with the rumbling voice. Charley had disappeared. The rope tore the flesh on Crane’s wrist where French had bitten him, sent warm blood trickling between his fingers. Blinding flashes of pain, like sheet lightning, crossed his head irregularly; his ribs hurt with every breath; his face was numb on the right side.

  “Where are the pliers?” demanded French.

  The driver located them on the carpet.

  “Pull out one of his thumbnails,” ordered French.

  The man approached Crane, the pliers held tightly in his right hand. His breath was strong with garlic. Crane closed his eyes.

  “Wait a minute,” said a voice from the doorway. “All of you put up your hands.”

  It was young Courtland. He had an automatic pistol, was pointing it at the pit of Frankie French’s stomach. The three men raised their hands above their heads.

  “Now go over and face that wall,” said Courtland. “And keep those hands in the air.” As they obeyed he slid behind Crane’s chair, unfastened his hands. “You better undo your feet,” he said.