The Lady in the Morgue

by Jonathan Latimer

  Crane swung himself back on the table, crossed his legs again and lit a cigarette.

  “Courtland and the undertaker had already arranged to have the body buried in the Edgemoor Cemetery as an Agnes Castle, but with the killing of Liebman, the excitement over the body’s theft in the newspapers, and the burial permit he had been forced to forge, I imagine the undertaker was pretty nervous. So he was killed.

  “We came along six hours later and found the body. We left a note calling Captain Grady’s attention to the red hair and saw the notation of Agnes Castle’s burial in the record book, on the very day the body of Miss Ross was stolen from the morgue.

  “Our next step was to go to the cemetery early Sunday morning and dig up the grave of Agnes Castle. However, it was empty. This didn’t surprise us so much, as we had already found the attendant tied up in his lodge by the gates and knew somebody had been in the cemetery before us. Williams, invite the attendant to join us.”

  Angus Orr was the attendant’s name, and he nodded respectfully to Captain Grady. He said he remembered Crane, remembered his loosening his bonds the night he was tied up.

  “Now, Mr. Orr,” said Crane, “do you see the man who struck you over the head anywhere in this room?”

  Finally the finger of Mr. Orr’s right hand pointed at Courtland. “That’s the man. I had a good look at him before he struck me.”

  “You see,” continued Crane when Orr had gone, “Courtland had beat us to it, had dug up the body and hidden it. He thought that would end our search, especially since his mother had received a second letter from Miss Courtland, but he didn’t know how persistent we were.”

  Crane gave the second letter to State’s Attorney Darrow and continued:

  “This letter is in Miss Courtland’s handwriting, all right, but the address is typewritten, a fact which caused me considerable thought.”

  Assistant State’s Attorney Burman fingered his glasses, said, “You mean the girl actually wrote the letter, but somebody else typed the address and mailed it.”

  Crane smiled at him. “As for the empty grave, I finally figured out that whoever took the body wouldn’t risk carrying it far. I decided that it must be hidden somewhere in the cemetery. The problem was to determine the hiding place among all the tombs.”

  Crane halted while O’Malley crossed the room with a large white-enameled basin and a towel, gingerly balanced the basin on the reporters’ table. “There’s your bath,” said O’Malley.

  “Thanks,” said Crane. “Well, with the help of Lady Luck we found the tomb, broke open the door and found the body. We still didn’t know whose body it was, and Courtland, who was with us, said it wasn’t his sister’s. So we brought the body to the morgue and placed it in the receiving room. We got Udoni to identify it as the Miss Ross he had known. I wanted Stuyvesant Courtland to look at it, but Courtland telephoned the Blackstone and informed me his uncle had mysteriously checked out. This was a lie, as we found out a few minutes ago.

  “I thought possibly the body might be that of Mrs. Paletta, but after Mike had refused to come to the morgue and Frankie French had failed to identify it I gave up the idea, though I did have a faint feeling that French might be concealing the identity from me.”

  One of the homicide men showed Uncle Stuyvesant into the room. He had on an Oxford gray suit, a stiff collar with an ascot tie, a white carnation in his buttonhole. He had evidently heard from the homicide man that Courtland had been arrested. He was angry.

  “On what grounds do you charge my nephew with murder?” he demanded.

  “He hasn’t been charged with anything yet,” said Crane. “A lot depends on whether or not you can identify the body we are having brought in here.”

  “We’re sorry to trouble you, Mr. Courtland,” said the state’s attorney, “but your nephew won’t identify the body, and we must have somebody who will.”

  While two detectives were bringing the body upstairs Uncle Stuyvesant tried to talk to Courtland. It wasn’t any good. Courtland simply stared at the floor. Mrs. Udoni was seated in such a way on a window sill that her slender legs were exposed above the knees; her face was turned toward the street outside. She had on very sheer silk stockings. Udoni was apprehensively watching the door where Miss Ross’s body would appear.

  Noiseless, on rubber tires, the operating table glided into the room. One of the detectives pushed, the other pulled. The man who pushed checked the table, flipped off the white sheet. The coroner’s physicians had sewn Miss Ross’s head onto her neck again, and there were stitch marks on her throat. Her face was still heavily, gaudily painted.

  The state’s attorney said, “This is the body, Mr. Courtland.”

  Uncle Stuyvesant bent over Miss Ross’s face, then jerked around to the state’s attorney. “Why, I’ve never seen this woman before.”

  “You mean it’s not Kathryn Courtland?”

  “Of course not.”

  Crane, still seated on the deputy coroner’s table, felt the outraged eyes of everyone upon him.

  The state’s attorney said, “Well, Mr. Crane, that shoots your case to hell.”

  Sliding smoothly off the table, Crane crossed to the windows, seized Mrs. Udoni by the waist, the back of the neck. There was a heady odor of perfume about her. He pulled her over to the reporters’ table, thrust her face, her head, in the basin of liquid.

  “What the hell!” shouted Captain Grady.

  His body blocking Udoni’s attempts to reach the table, O’Malley said, “No, you don’t.”

  Courtland was struggling with the detective he was handcuffed to, was trying to jerk his arm free.

  Mrs. Udoni kicked Crane’s ankles with her heels, threw her body from side to side, but he held her head in the oxide rinse.

  Udoni shouted, “Let me go, you fool. Let me go.”

  Crane jerked the woman upright, dried her face and hair with the towel, holding her tight to him with his left arm. With the disappearance of the heavy makeup her face became younger. Her hair was blonde with black streaks of dye in it.

  “Jeeze!” exclaimed Williams. “She was a blonde after all.”

  Uncle Stuyvesant said, “Kathryn!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “NOW YOU get the idea,” said Crane. “The dead woman is Mrs. Udoni. She was murdered by her husband because she wouldn’t divorce him so he could marry Miss Courtland. And in the murder he was helped by Miss Courtland.” Crane was watching Courtland. “That makes her equally guilty.”

  Udoni, held lovingly by Williams and O’Malley, shouted wildly, “You can’t prove I killed anybody.”

  Courtland, beside the detective, said, “My sister didn’t know anything about it. Udoni did the murder by himself.”

  “Good,” said Crane. “I’m glad you’re willing to talk.”

  “I want to save Kathryn,” said Courtland. “I don’t care about myself.” His face was alert now, his eyes bright.

  Kathryn Courtland was sobbing in Uncle Stuyvesant’s arms. Her hair left black smudges on his stiff collar.

  “How do you know Udoni killed his wife?” asked Crane.

  “He told me he did.”

  Udoni spat, “He lies.” O’Malley slapped the musician’s face, said, “Speak when you’re spoken to, Dago.”

  Crane turned to Captain Grady and the state’s attorney. “Courtland’s the best witness the state will have.” Their faces were bewildered. “I don’t think you can pin anything but second degree murder on him, anyway.” He looked at Courtland. “Your sister ask you for help in the first place?”

  “Yes. She had been living with Udoni, was expecting to marry him. But on Wednesday night, or rather Thursday morning, when Udoni told her his wife, who had been following them, had committed suicide, it frightened her. So she telephoned me to come to Chicago. She didn’t suspect it was murder; she was just upset about the death.”

  Crane asked, “Then you would have come to Chicago anyway, even if Colonel Black and your mother and uncle hadn’t had th
at conference?”

  “Yes. But when Kathryn told me over the telephone about the bathroom scales and the footmarks on the door I knew Udoni had murdered his wife. I knew then we had to do something desperate to keep Kathryn out of scandal. I accused Udoni privately of killing his wife, and he admitted it. He seemed to think there wasn’t a chance of it being found out.

  “But I knew if the body was identified as that of Mrs. Udoni, as was likely with all the newspaper publicity, Udoni would be in trouble and also Kathryn. I remembered an undertaker friend of mine and persuaded Mm to help me remove the body from the morgue.”

  Crane asked, “And you accidentally killed Liebman when he tried to stop you.”

  “Yes, just as you said. And Jackson had the body buried as Agnes Castle, as you saw in the record book.”

  “But how did Jackson get killed? Udoni?”

  “Yes.” Courtland was watching his sister with somber eyes. “I read your report to Colonel Black and later told Udoni that we’d have to send Jackson away to protect ourselves. He told me he’d see to it, and the next thing I heard Jackson was dead.” Courtland shook his head angrily. “I should have handed Udoni over to the police, but I was too involved myself. Besides, I still wanted to protect the family. So when you told me—you remember, right after I saved you from Frankie French?—that you knew where the body was I got Udoni, and we dug up the grave and hid the body in the tomb where your persistence later found it.”

  Crane said, “You didn’t know I was really Bulldog Crane, the never-say-die detective, did you?”

  Courtland shook his head, managed a weak smile. “I can’t imagine how I ever worked myself into trying to kill you.”

  “The hell!” Crane made a vertical, sweeping motion with the palm of his hand, as though he were polishing a window. “All the best people have tried to kill me at one time or another.”

  State’s Attorney Darrow said, “I’m beginning to get this straightened around, all right, but I’m curious to know how you figured it out, and how you happened to be hiding in the room downstairs.”

  “It just seemed to work out.” Crane returned to the table, sat on it. “I believed the murderer, whoever he was, would still like to get hold of the body, and I wanted to be around in case he tried. I had already sent O’Malley off after Udoni, and I told Williams and Johnson, whom I had asked to help me, I would write down some addresses where they might find Mrs. Udoni.

  “While I was giving them the piece of paper Courtland announced that he was tired and was going home in a few minutes. This was for the purpose of establishing an alibi, since as soon as the others had left with my piece of paper he suggested that we try to trap the murderer by hiding in the receiving room with the corpses, each of us on a table under a sheet.

  “This was exactly up my alley, so we went downstairs and hid. I got off my table, pushed it to one side and put in its place one carrying a woman’s body. I put my shoes on the woman’s feet, so it would look as though I were lying on the table, and climbed under the table and waited. After a time I saw the driveway door open, and I thought someone, maybe Udoni, had entered the room. I know now it was Courtland trying the door to make sure it was open for his escape. Next, using the sound of thunder to hide his movements, he cut off Mrs. Udoni’s head and then came over to kill me. He knew he couldn’t take the head, which would effectively prevent Mrs. Udoni ever being identified, without putting me out of the way. He flashed his light on the table, caught sight of my shoes, then jerked down the sheet at the other end and thrust in his knife at the point where he thought my neck ought to be.

  “I suppose, even if at the last minute he saw the woman, he couldn’t stop the blow. Anyway, I grabbed his legs and pulled him to the floor, and shouted for help. It was a good thing I did shout, too, because he came within a few seconds of throttling me. Johnson and Williams arrived just in time to save me.”

  Mr. Darrow frowned. “I get the idea, but how did your friends happen to be on hand? I thought they were looking for Mrs. Udoni.”

  Crane waved a hand at Williams. “Doc, show him the envelope I wrote the addresses on.”

  The state’s attorney looked at the envelope, then laughed. He read aloud:

  “You guys pretend to scram, but stick around under cover.”

  Crane smiled at O’Malley, beside Udoni, and said, “I had to catch somebody red-handed, as I didn’t have enough proof to convict Udoni. Now, with Courtland’s testimony, Mr. Darrow, you ought to have an easy job.” Crane crossed his legs, found that his left foot was asleep. “The motive, of course, was money. Udoni knew Miss Ross was Miss Courtland and wanted to marry her for her fortune. His wife was in the way, and he killed her. He seems to be a pretty coldblooded guy.

  “On the other hand, Courtland was trying to protect his sister. He killed the morgue keeper accidentally, his only crime.”

  “How about trying to stab you?” asked Captain Grady. “That’s a crime out in Illinois.”

  Crane said, “It isn’t a crime if there isn’t any complaint. I figure Courtland and I are all square. He saved my life when Frankie French had me, then he tried to kill me. What could be fairer than that?”

  Johnson asked, “Why’d French want Mrs. Paletta’s body, anyway?”

  “She double-crossed him.” Crane lit a cigarette. “I think he was going to have his revenge, dead or alive.” He blew out the match. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he would have put her through a sausage grinder, or something. Anyway, she’s got Mister Paletta to protect her now.”

  “Then you think it was Mrs. Paletta we found at the penthouse party?” asked Williams.

  “Sure. Mike would have come to the morgue in half a minute if it wasn’t.”

  State’s Attorney Darrow moved nearer Crane. “One more thing. How did Udoni manage to pass off his dead” wife as Miss Ross?”

  “That was easy. Both Miss Courtland and Mrs. Udoni checked into the Princess Hotel early Wednesday morning. They had rooms next to one another. Both slept until late Wednesday afternoon, and therefore the hotel staff didn’t have much of a chance to see them. Both were blondes, and both looked somewhat alike. Moreover, neither of them were ever together, so nobody had a chance to compare them. So, when Udoni killed his wife Wednesday night before going to work with his orchestra, it was an easy matter to move her into Miss Ross’ (Miss Courtland’s) room, string her up on the bathroom door and leave the unidentifiable Marshall Field’s clothes in the room. Naturally, if you find a dead blonde in a room, you think it is the blonde who lived in that room.”

  Mr. Darrow nodded, asked, “But why was the body wet? Why the filled bathtub?”

  “Mrs. Udoni was taking a bath when her husband called on her, murdered her. He strangled her and dragged her wet body from her room through the connecting door into Miss Courtland’s room. She was still wet when he hung her on the bathroom door. Then, when he got through the job of exchanging the clothes, he found that her body had made wet marks on the door and that there were water marks where he had pulled her across the carpet. I saw those marks myself, and wondered about them. So he filled the bathtub to explain them.”

  Captain Grady asked, “But what was Miss Courtland doing all this time?”

  Courtland had been looking at her sister. He said, “She wasn’t there at all. She’d been working in the Clark-Erie so as to be near Udoni, and when they came home together that morning he told her his wife had killed herself in her room but that he had removed all the clothes so she wouldn’t be involved. That’s one of the things that frightened Kathryn, made her call me.”

  Mr. Darrow asked, “How in the devil did you work this all out, Crane?”

  “Mostly by just blundering along. But when I found that our two best suspects, Courtland and Udoni, each had perfect alibis for different parts of the business—Courtland was in New York when the murder took place, and Udoni was working when the body was stolen from the morgue, and again Courtland was with his mother when Jackson, the undertaker, was murdere
d—I wondered if they hadn’t been helping each other.”

  Mr. Darrow rested a hand on Crane’s shoulder. “I guess that pretty well ties everything up. You did a remarkable job, even though you sailed pretty close to the law.”

  “Pretty close.” Captain Grady snorted. “I could pinch him on a dozen counts.” Strong white teeth gleamed in his turkey-red face. “But I won’t.” He shook Crane’s hand, nearly shattered his knuckles.

  Crane said, “I’m glad somebody realizes what a hell of a fine detective I am.”

  The others were moving out of the room. Two homicide men were half supporting, half dragging Udoni. His face was yellow; his eyes wild; he started to hiss something at Crane, but one of the homicide men jerked him away. Kathryn Courtland watched him disappear through the door with no change in her expression. Crane moved over to Uncle Stuyvesant, said, “I’m sorry to get the Courtland name involved, but I think Udoni will be the only one convicted.” Uncle Stuyvesant had his arm around Kathryn’s waist. He said, “To hell with the family name.”

  The anger was gone from Kathryn Courtland’s face. “Thank you for being so good about my brother,” she said, touching Crane’s arm.

  On the other side of Crane was young Courtland. “Yes,” he said, “I owe a lot to you.”

  “The hell,” said Crane. “I’m sorry I was so bright.”

  “I don’t think you were so bright,” said Kathryn Courtland. “You might have seen that I was a blonde the first night you met me.”

  “You mean—when I was in bed with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh!” Crane pretended to be shocked. “I’m a gentleman. I didn’t peek.”

  Jaw gaping in amazement, Uncle Stuyvesant stared at Crane’s departing back. Williams and O’Malley were discussing a plan involving a party with the airline stewardess and friends. Crane tenderly massaged his bruised knuckles, said, “Count me in.”