The Lady in the Morgue

by Jonathan Latimer

  Through a steaming washcloth Williams said, “Seven dollars’ worth of porterhouse steak.”

  A hand on each porcelain side, Crane hoisted himself from the tub. “You mugs’ll have to eat on the run. I got some work for you to do.” He jerked a towel off the wall rack.

  “Work!” O’Malley’s face was pained. “My God! What is there left for us to do?”

  “Plenty.”

  “The hell!” Williams was drying himself with a face towel. “The dame ain’t Kathryn Courtland, and she ain’t Mrs. Paletta, so why are you interested any more?”

  Crane asked, “How do you know it isn’t Kathryn Courtland?”

  “The letter——” Williams held the towel in his hands. “You don’t think it could be her, after all, do you?”

  “I don’t know.” Crane dried a foot, then said, “Yes. I do.”

  “Well, how do you explain the letter?”

  “I don’t. I just ignore it.”

  Williams was completely exasperated. “You’re a hell of a fine detective, you are. Any piece of evidence you can’t fit in with your theory you just ignore.”

  “Sure.” Crane tossed the towel across the silvered radiator. “I find it makes things much easier.” He looked around the floor. “What’d you do with my underwear?”

  Williams snorted.

  O’Malley grinned at Crane, asked, “What do you want us to do?”

  Crane found his underwear under the bathmat. “If Doc isn’t too, too disgusted with me, I’d like to have him get hold of a pair of Miss Ross stockings and her hairbrush at the Princess Hotel. They’ve probably got her clothes locked away somewhere, and he can bribe the night clerk, or the night bellboy, Edgar, to let him get the stuff.” He turned to Williams. “The stockings’ll have to be some she’s worn; new ones are no good.”

  Williams’ eyes were amazed. “A hairbrush and stockings?”

  “A hairbrush and used stockings.”

  “And me?” asked O’Malley, putting on a blue wash tie.

  “You remember that bulldog we saw last night in Brahma’s saloon?” O’Malley nodded and Crane continued, “Well, we’ll want him for an hour or two.” Crane went into his bedroom and picked a roll of bills from the dresser. “Here’s four c-notes,” he said, handing the money to O’Malley. “Get the dog, if you have to buy or steal him.” He saw Williams was putting on his coat. “You both can pick up some food on the way. Come back here as soon as you can.”

  In the living room Williams asked, “What are you going to do while we’re out treasure huntin’?”

  “I’m going to call Courtland and ask him to join us.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’m going to look up a guy.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m going to do some thinking.”

  They paused at the hall door, looked at him respectfully. Finally O’Malley said, “Well, don’t strain nothing.”

  The man Crane wanted to see was named Frankie Thomas and he was a musician in Udoni’s band. He played the saxophone, and Crane located him after making a telephone call to the waiter at the Cavern. He was having supper alone in the grill of his hotel, the Bedford. He was perfectly willing to answer Crane’s questions.

  “Yeah,” he said, “Udoni played with us at the Clark-Erie from twelve on both Wednesday and Thursday nights.”

  “Could he have slipped out for, say, half an hour on Thursday night without your knowing it?” asked Crane.

  “Not a chance.” Thomas had a long, thin face, and there were pockets under his black eyes. “There are only six of us in the band, and one guy couldn’t get away. He was there, all right.” He looked at Crane through narrowed eyes. “Are you trying to connect him with that girl who was stolen from the morgue?”

  “The hell! How did you know?”

  “Well, Udoni told me he knew the girl. We had some coffee together after finishing work the morning she was stolen, and he damn near fainted when he read about it in the paper. That’s when he told me he knew her.” Thomas thrust a piece of celery in his mouth. “He said ‘slightly,’ but I figured there was more to it than that.”

  “Well, it looks as though he couldn’t have snatched her body, though.”

  “Not unless he hired somebody to do it,” said Thomas, “and, if he did, why should he have been so surprised to read about it in the papers?”

  “I give up,” said Crane, “but thanks.”

  A discreet block from the cemetery entrance they halted the rented Drive-yur-self sedan. O’Malley and Crane, with the white English bulldog, Champion, between them, sat in the rear seat, Williams was driving, and Courtland sat beside him. When the headlights were turned off they found the night was as black as the inside of a closet. Somewhere in the distance a clock was striking, and Crane said in a sepulchral voice:

  “It is the witching hour of midnight, when graveyards yawn and …”

  “What are we doing back here?” Williams interrupted plaintively. “I don’t like this place.”

  The clock hit a last brassy note and there was silence.

  Crane climbed out of the car, said to O’Malley, “You stay here with the dog, Tom, until we see if the way is clear.” He motioned to the others to follow him.

  They found a sheltered place along the wall, and the two of them raised Crane to their shoulders. He found that glass had been imbedded on the wall, and he took off his coat and placed it over a portion of the top. He climbed onto the wall, bent down and hoisted up Courtland, and whispered, “Doc, get O’Malley and the dog.”

  In five minutes they were all within the cemetery. Crane, carrying Champion in his arms, led the way to the grave marked with Agnes Castle’s name. When he set the dog down Champion licked his hand to show that he was not offended by being carried.

  “Are we going to dig this place up again?” asked Williams.

  “No,” said Crane. “Where are the stockings and the hairbrush?”

  Williams pulled the articles out of his coat pocket, handed them to Crane. “It cost me ten bucks to get them.”

  Champion was sniffing tentatively at the white cross with Agnes Castle marked on it. Crane said, “Hey! none of that.” He pulled the dog away from the cross, put the stockings and brush in front of him. “Take a good whiff of those, Champ,” he said.

  O’Malley said, “Ah-ha! I get the idea.”

  “What idea?” asked Williams.

  “You’ll see,” said O’Malley.

  Heat lightning flickered irritably on the horizon. There was an odor of damp mold about the graveyard. Clouds cloaked the sky, hid the moon. The night was a blindfold on their eyes.

  Champion’s wheezy sniffing had an interrogative note. Crane felt his harness to make sure the leash was secure and said, “Find her, boy; find her.” He held the stockings in front of the dog.

  Champion snorted to show he understood, pulled the leash taut.

  Thrusting the stockings and the hairbrush in his trouser pocket, Crane followed. He pulled out a small flashlight from his hip pocket, trained it on the bulldog. They moved away from the grave at a trot, the others following closely. Champion was delighted with the game. His yellow teeth gleamed in a droll grin; his sailorlike gait was jaunty; he hurried from tomb to tomb. His breath wheezed through his flat nose.

  Stumbling over mounds, barking his shins on headstones, sinking ankle-deep in soft earth, Crane flew after him, his right wrist held by the leather leash. His flashlight yellowly illuminated a succession of marble and stone vaults. He caught flashes of inscriptions, dates, names; encountered wreaths and flowers with his shoulders and head. He could hear the others pounding along behind him. He could feel the sweat roll down his back.

  Whenever Champion slowed his pace Crane would hold the hairbrush and stockings under his nose and encourage him by saying, “Come on, Champ, let’s find her,” and Champion would race on with renewed energy. Finally Williams, then O’Malley, and at last Courtland gave up the pursuit and rested on headstones, watch
ing the flashlight circle the graveyard like an eccentric firefly.

  The three were seated some distance from one another, and when Crane himself tired he put out the flashlight and led the dog over to where Williams was sitting. In the south thunder muttered. He tapped Williams on the shoulder. Williams leaped to his feet and hollered, “Yow-eee!” Startled, Crane jumped backward, fell over Champion and landed flat on his back. An uncontrollable giggle surged up through his throat; he began to laugh. Champion barked hoarsely at him.

  Courtland and O’Malley arrived on the run. “What the hell’s the matter?” demanded O’Malley.

  “The damn fool came up and tapped my shoulder like a spook,” complained Williams. “He scared me silly.”

  Between gasps of laughter Crane said, “Not half as much as you scared me.”

  “For the love of God,” said O’Malley, “shut up. You’ll have an army of cops out here in a minute.”

  Crane was rubbing soil off the seat of his trousers. “With a mysterious light, a dog barking, a voice going yow-eee! and a laughing spook you aren’t going to be troubled with Irish cops out here.”

  Williams said, “I don’t think it’s so goddamn funny.”

  O’Malley said, “You’re certainly a daffy sort of detective. I wish old man Pinkerton could see you.”

  “For all you guys know,” said Crane indignantly, “I may be founding a new school of detection tonight. The bulldog school of detection.” He flashed the light on Champion, who blinked his beady eyes. “Come on, pal; we’ll show ’em.”

  Courtland asked, “Do you want me to take him for a while?”

  “I better do it. I know where we’ve already been.”

  As Crane started off O’Malley called, “If you need help send up a flare.”

  At first Champion didn’t go very fast, and Crane was able to keep up for a time by walking. They passed a crypt with white pillars and he read the words, “beloved wife” and “Agnes” and one date, “1874.” He let the bulldog smell the hairbrush again. They passed a white cenotaph on which was inscribed “Richard Scott” and “resurgam.” Occasionally lightning sheeted a portion of the sky, and he was able to see the immensity of the cemetery. He knew the idea of the bulldog was the most ridiculous he had ever had, but he was determined to give it a fair try. He could at least cover the portion of the cemetery nearest the grave of Agnes Castle. He whispered, “Come on, Champion; where’s that girl?”

  Champion responded gallantly. They pounded across new grass, circled tombstones, galloped along cinder paths, slid down grassy inclines, broke through hedges, trampled flower beds, tore past countless tombs. Air raced through Crane’s throat, water oozed from his body; in his mouth there was a taste of ashes. Suddenly Champion barked, wheeled to the right and began to pull heavily on the leash. Crane pointed the flashlight beam ahead of the dog, gasped, “Attaboy, Champ.”

  Champion’s whiskey bass sounded again and he came to a frantic stop in front of a small grave. On the top of the headstone, regarding them through scornful yellow eyes, was an orange-colored Persian cat. Champion leered proudly at Crane, wagged his stumpy tail.

  “Why, you old lecher, you,” said Crane. “You drunken old lecher.”

  He led the dog away from the cat, back to the others, and sat on a grave. He felt a sudden outflow of energy. He felt very tired. “It’s no good,” he said. “We’re sunk.” He wiped his forehead. “The hell with this stuff.” He handed the leash to O’Malley. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They walked slowly toward the graveyard wall. Presently Crane became aware that O’Malley was no longer with them. He flashed the light futilely, then turned back alone. He finally encountered O’Malley standing beside a large marble crypt.

  “Can I help it,” asked O’Malley, “if Champ’s gotta see a dog about a man?”

  Crane flashed the light on the bulldog and saw that he was indeed busy.

  “He don’t know a tomb from a tree,” said O’Malley apologetically.

  The beam from the flashlight moved across a black iron gate at the crypt’s entrance, and Crane’s heart felt as though it were in his throat, blocking his breath. There was a brand-new padlock on the gate! He pointed the light at the inscription above the entrance. It read:

  “IN MEMORY OF THEIR BELOVED MOTHER,

  ELIZABETH,

  THIS MONUMENT WAS RAISED IN 1923

  BY HER FIVE SONS, ROBERT, JAMES …”

  Crane spoke the date, 1923, aloud exultantly. “Nineteen twenty-three. Hot damn!” The padlock should have rusted by that time. He raced back to the others, whispered loudly, “Come on. I think I’ve got something.”

  The padlock broke under the heavy impact of a boulder, the gate opened groaningly and they walked up two steps to the narrow marble door of the vault. Back of them thunder drummed a muffled march for the dead. Under O’Malley’s shoulder the marble door gave part way, and a cloying odor of dead flowers clogged their nostrils. Champion whined and Crane said, “Shush!” and followed O’Malley into the vault. The shuffle of their leather soles, the clicking of the bulldog’s toenails on the stone floor, their excited breathing filled the chamber.

  As pale as lime juice, the fan-shaped ray from the flashlight illuminated a raised marble sarcophagus in the center of the floor. Below it were artificial wreaths, bright green, and on the lid were withered flowers. Black silk ribbons embraced some of the flowers.

  Champion was half sniffing, half whining at something behind the door. Crane swung the light in a slow arc from the sarcophagus to the dog on the floor. Under Champion’s ugly muzzle was the face of Miss Ross, cheeks rouged and powdered, lips scarlet, eyes blue-shadowed, dust-colored hair swept back from a pale brow. A gaudy necklace made of pieces of wood lacquered red and green and blue circled her neck. She was lying on her back. Her dress, made of cheap cotton, was too large for her slender body. Her legs were covered by black lisle stockings; her black pumps were too big for her feet. Her face was composed and tragic and inscrutable.…

  Crane let the flashlight beam rest on her. “Well …?” he asked.

  Courtland was bending over the body. “No! No!” he said. “That’s not my sister. That’s not Kathryn.”

  His voice sounded like an untuned violin.

  Chapter Twenty

  HIS CHIN in the palm of his hand, his elbow on his thigh, Crane sat on the stone steps of the tomb. His face, lighted fitfully by lightning, was angry. “I’ll be damned if this business hasn’t got me,” he said. At his feet lay Champion, tongue out, breath wheezing.

  Williams, as usual, was practical. “What are you going to do now?” he wanted to know.

  The glowing coal on the end of O’Malley’s cigarette quivered as he spoke. “Let’s bury the dame again and go back to New York. There ain’t anything in this for us.”

  Courtland held his cigarette between his fingers. “It is peculiar. Are you certain this is the girl you saw in the morgue, Bill?”

  “I’m positive.”

  A spear-thrust of blue-white lightning split the sky, was followed in eight seconds by a clap of thunder. Champion stirred uneasily. Against their cheeks the air was damp.

  “What’ve you got to gain by going on with this business?” inquired Williams. “You’ve got the girl, and she isn’t Miss Courtland, and that’s all you wanted to find out.”

  Crane gently pulled Champion’s ears. “That’s all I wanted to find out at first.” His voice was low. “Now I’d like to find out who murdered her.”

  The thunder sounded like a trunk being moved in an attic.

  At last O’Malley asked, “You mean she didn’t kill herself?”

  “Exactly.”

  Courtland’s cigarette was an unwinking red eye in the darkness. “How do you know she was murdered?” he asked.

  “A lot of things point to murder.” Crane ran his fingers under Champion’s collar. “In the first place, a girl isn’t apt to climb out of a bath and hang herself without dressing, or at least drying herself. It
looks more as though she was disturbed by someone while she was taking a bath and slipped on a bathrobe to open the door.” Champion groaned luxuriously. “She must have known the caller, because there were no signs of a struggle, either in the room or on her body.”

  Crane put a Camel in his mouth and lit it with O’Malley’s cigarette, and went on:

  “The caller must have twisted a rope around her neck as she turned to go back to the bathroom, and strangled her. Then, to conceal the crime, he fastened the rope over the bathroom door, which was ajar, and strung her up. In the meantime the wrapper had slipped off, and she was naked. He put the wrapper away and completed the suicide picture by taking the scales out of the bathroom and placing them beside the door under her feet.” Crane let smoke slide through his nose. “Next problem was to prevent, if possible, the body being identified.

  “Well, the caller came prepared to do that very thing. He must have had two large suitcases, and in these he stowed all of Miss Ross’ clothes—that is, all her clothes which might provide some clue to her identity. Especially clothes with laundry marks, because a laundry mark is just about the easiest way to identify someone.”

  Williams objected, “Yeah, but if he took all her clothes there wouldn’t have been any in the room.”

  “He brought some with him—brand-new dresses, undergarments and coats without a single mark on them except the name of the store from which they were bought. And in this case the store was Marshall Field’s, where you pay cash and where the volume of business is so great that no clerk is going to remember the sale of one cheap dress, or one cheap coat.”

  A zigzag of brilliant lightning made them all duck, but the thunder was still seconds behind the flash.

  “The murderer hung the new clothes in the closet, packed the old clothes except the stockings which, though expensive, offered no clue to anybody but me, and got ready to leave,” Crane continued.

  “But Udoni …” interrupted O’Malley. “He said they were her clothes. I remember you asking him.”

  “I think Udoni lied.” Crane tamped his cigarette on the stone step. “The murderer was ready to leave when he discovered something. He hadn’t provided for Miss Ross’s shoes. They must have been expensive shoes—if they weren’t he wouldn’t have bothered to take them. But he was afraid they could be traced, and he hadn’t thought to bring cheap shoes (you wouldn’t think of shoes in connection with laundry marks), so he packed them, too, and left Miss Ross without any at all.”