Murder on the Blackboard

by Stuart Palmer

  “So we’re arrested, huh?”

  Swarthout shook his head. “I’ve no authority to arrest you, and no warrant. You don’t have to come over to Bellevue. The only one in the whole party who has to come is Anderson the janitor, because he is already under arrest on suspicion of homicide. But of course, anybody who refused to come would be in a pretty tough spot. It would be sort of confessing that he or she was afraid to….”

  Bob Stevenson looked at Janey, whose wide eyes were filled with panic. “Steady, girl. There’s nothing for us to be afraid of.” He turned to Georgie. “I suppose there isn’t any chance that the Inspector, on account of the blow on the head and the resulting illness, would make a faulty identification?”

  “I doubt it,” Georgie told him. “Piper has been identifying crooks and criminals and murderers for years. He’s got a photographic eye. Don’t worry, he won’t pick you by accident. Besides, he says that the face of the person who hit him was engraved in his memory as if burned in with acid. It’s been hazy until now, but he says it is clearing. The doctor doesn’t know when he may have a relapse, as his condition is still very serious, and that’s why the order has gone out for the party being tonight.”

  “In that case, Janey and I will go with you,” Bob Stevenson accepted. “I suppose you have the police wagon downstairs?”

  Georgie shook his head. “Nothing like that. I’m not even going to take you over there, because I’ve still got a few calls to make. This whole thing is very sub rosa, and Sergeant Taylor and I are working the round-up alone. Hop in a taxi, and get over to Bellevue before ten o’clock. And remember, this is just a little formality—except for one person!”

  Janey opened the door for the departing detective. “I’ll be glad,” she said, her voice trembling, “I’ll be glad—glad—to get it all over with! I don’t much care how!”

  “Will you ditch the boyfriend and have a bowl of chop-suey with me afterward?” Georgie whispered.

  But she closed the door, gently and firmly. Georgie Swarthout hitched up his pants, and plunged down the stairs. He had work to do tonight.

  Waldo Emerson Macfarland was next on his list. A taxi rolled him swiftly north along Amsterdam Avenue, cutting toward the park along 96th Street. The residence of the Principal of Jefferson School was certainly dark and seemingly deserted, but Georgie leaned on the bell with a hearty good will.

  Just as he was about to give it up as a bad job, a light went on over his head, and he saw a face peering through the glass of the door. “Let me in,” Georgie shouted.

  Then the face disappeared, and the light went out. Georgie leaned on the bell again. Finally he took the badge from his pocket, and with it rapped resoundingly upon the pane.

  At last the door swung inward into darkness, and Georgie stepped gingerly through in response to a throaty “Come in.”

  The door swung shut behind him. At that moment something hard was pressed against the small of his back.

  “I have you covered,” came the Principal’s voice. “One false move and I’ll shoot.”

  Georgie made no moves of any description. After a long interval, the pressure was momentarily removed from his back, and the lights in the foyer snapped on. Georgie looked over his shoulder and stared with disfavor into the pale eyes of Waldo Emerson Macfarland, watery and red without their accustomed glasses. The Principal was attired simply but modestly in a brown woolen bathrobe and narrow ladylike patent-leather slippers.

  Macfarland returned his stare, also without enthusiasm or welcome. They stood thus for a few minutes, and then Georgie spoke.

  “It won’t do, you know,” he observed.

  “What won’t do?”

  “Trying to palm off a pipe as a revolver. The mouthpiece doesn’t feel the same, even through an overcoat, as the muzzle of a gat. What is that, a Peterson’s? I thought so.”

  Georgie moved away, and Macfarland stared blankly after him. “What’s the idea of treating the law this way?” Georgie flashed his badge.

  “So? I have made a mistake, I am afraid. But the events of the past week have been very unsettling. I was of the opinion that perhaps someone might come seeking my own life. Besides, this evening I was locked in my study, engaged in writing one of my daily essays, this time upon the subject of Assassination….”

  Swarthout explained why he had come. “I’ve still got one more call to make,” he told Macfarland. “So the less fireworks you pull the better I’ll like it. You understand, this is just a formality in your case. But you’re to show up over at Bellevue, on the third floor, just as quick as you can. Unless, of course, you want to stand on your constitutional rights. I won’t make you go—but of course we’ll draw our own conclusions of why you aren’t willing.”

  Macfarland smiled. “But why should I refuse? No one could be more anxious to have this case cleared up than I am. Besides, I might very possibly secure material for the last few paragraphs of my essay on Assassination!”

  Swarthout thought it was very likely. “Then I can count on your being there within the hour?”

  “Absolutely! You couldn’t keep me away with a squad of strong-arm men,” promised Macfarland. “I’ll go and dress at once….”

  The taxi was still waiting outside. Georgie leaped in, and gave the Martha Washington Hotel as an address to the driver. That gentleman looked surprised.

  “Say, you don’t want to go to that dump,” he objected. “Leave me steer you to a place I know over on One Hundred and Tent’—the dames is better.”

  Georgie leaned forward and scrutinized the chauffeur’s identification card which hung in a little frame on the rear of the front seat. “Roscoe Doolittle” was the name beneath the unflattering photograph. He spoke to the driver, his voice heavy with reproof.

  “Roscoe! I’m ashamed of you! What do you take me for?”

  “I take you for a guy who wants to go to the Martha Washington,” said Mr. Doolittle resignedly. “But don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

  Down through the city they plunged, and up a side street to the canopy bearing the familiar cameo representation of her who had been Martha Custis before she became the stepmother of her country.

  “Stick around,” said Swarthout to Mr. Doolittle. He went swiftly up the steps and came face to face with the stern-visaged lady at the desk. Georgie Swarthout had known and worked with many police-matrons in his short but busy career as a detective, but never had he met a lady who looked more like one than this.

  “I want to see Miss Pearson,” he announced.

  The police-matron looked pointedly at the clock. “It’s nine-thirty,” she reminded him. “No callers after ten, and no gentlemen allowed upstairs at any hour.” She made it clear that while the classification might not include him, the rule did.

  Georgie was in a hurry. “You can get her down here so I can talk to her, can’t you?” He toyed with the badge for a moment, which seemed to have a salutary effect.

  “I think she went out to a movie,” admitted the Cerebus. “But maybe she’s come in.” She lifted a telephone from the desk beside her, and pushed a plug into the switchboard.

  “Four-eleven? Miss Pearson? There’s a gentleman down here to see you.” The telephone was replaced. “Says she’ll be down in a few minutes,” Swarthout was told. “You can wait in the parlor.” She indicated a room to the left. “No smoking.”

  “Thanks,” Georgie said. He leaned against the counter, and wondered if once more he had been unlucky enough to disturb a lady in her bath. But it was only a few minutes before the bulky form of Miss Pearson, art teacher at Jefferson School, appeared on the stairs. She had been hurrying, and she was out of breath.

  Miss Pearson came directly to the desk. “A gentleman to see me?”

  “This.” Cerebus indicated Georgie with a nod. “He’s got a badge.”

  Miss Pearson’s face may not have fallen, but it slipped considerably. “Oh,” she said vacantly. “I remember you. You’re the detective. I thought it was a gentleman to s
ee me, and I ran all the way down stairs because the elevator was in use.”

  “I want to take you for a ride,” Georgie explained.

  “What?” She stared at him curiously. “Gangster, social—or what?”

  “Just a ride,” said Georgie. “I’ll tell you about it in the taxi.”

  XIX

  Final Examination

  (11/20/32—10:30 P.M.)

  “IS EVERYBODY HERE?” SERGEANT Taylor stood by the doorway of the Bellevue Hospital reception room, checking names against a list which he held in his hand.

  “All okay,” Swarthout answered him. “We were lucky to find everybody in town and at home.”

  “They had instructions to stay in town, and as a rule on Sunday evening nobody who has a job stays out very late. That’s the advantage of having the party at this hour. Another thing, since regular visiting hours are over here, there’ll be nobody butting in. Well, we seem to be set.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Swarthout wanted to know. His question was taken up and echoed by a dozen voices inside the waiting room.

  “Where’s that Hildegarde Withers?”

  “Has she got anything to do with this—I might have known!” The voice was Miss Rennel’s.

  “Why don’t they let us parade in front of the Inspector and get it over?”

  “We can’t stay all night. Officer—OFFICER! What are we waiting for?”

  The Sergeant poked his head in the doorway. “Be easy,” he advised them. “It won’t be long now. We’re only waiting for another guest or two.” Swarthout showed his surprise, but the Sergeant kicked him forcefully.

  “I’ll go upstairs and see how things are coming on,” promised the Sergeant. “Everybody sit tight till I come back. Swarthout, you stay here and keep an eye on things in general.”

  The Sergeant disappeared down the hall, and Georgie Swarthout entered the waiting room, much after the fashion of Mr. Clyde Beatty going into his cage of mixed lions and tigers. The only difference, Georgie thought, was the fact that the famous lion-tamer had a chair and a blank-cartridge pistol to protect himself with.

  They were a mixed lot, these men and women who awaited their turn at being identified as the Inspector’s attacker and, naturally following, as Anise Halloran’s murderer. But they shared one emotion at the present moment, and that was impatience. If one among them was guilty, he or she concealed it most effectively, Swarthout thought.

  He leaned against the door, and waited.

  Across the room Janey Davis and Bob Stevenson were whispering. Georgie saw the young manual training instructor reach for Janey’s hand, and was wickedly happy when he saw her withdraw it.

  Miss Cohen, ever bent upon self-improvement, was trying to read a copy of The Modern Instructor, but she turned very few pages. Beside her Miss Mycroft, she of the first grade, was staring with a worried expression at the design of the carpet. Miss Jones and Miss Casey were looking out of the window, which opened onto a rolling sea of fog that might have concealed the East River somewhere far beneath its blanket.

  Betty Curran Rogers was busily engaged in rolling the new wedding ring around and around the third finger of her left hand. Her face showed, perhaps, the least excitement of anyone present, for she and she alone could prove a perfect alibi for the afternoon of the murder. But all the same, she was here.

  Waldo Emerson Macfarland sat alone in a corner, as befitted the Principal of the school. He was smiling, a very nervous and insincere smile, and his mild and vacant stare implied that he was not particularly intent upon gathering material for his essay on Assassination, after all.

  Miss Rennel, as usual, was talking, with only a tearful Miss Murchison as a listener. Alice Rennel considered the whole matter an imposition, and said so.

  Beyond her, Miss Hopkins and Miss Pearson sat together upon a divan, both looking remarkably uncomfortable in spite of the fact that they had the most comfortable spot in the room. Miss Pearson now and then made a remark indicative of her admiration and respect for the dead girl, no doubt under the natural impression that this was a wake.

  Across the room Miss Strasmick walked up and down, eyeing her fellow teachers and Georgie alike with an alien eye.

  At that moment the door opened and a newcomer entered, somewhat urged from behind by the strong arm of the Sergeant, who immediately withdrew. It was Tobey, a very unhappy and seemingly bewildered Tobey. Away from his musty candy-shop, he was like a strange species of spider plucked from its web. He immediately scuttled toward the most distant corner and remained there, as if hoping to be ignored and unnoticed.

  His arrival, instead of causing a general outbreak, had the strange result of bringing the conversation in the room, sketchy as it had been, to a complete stop. Only the low whispers of Janey and Bob Stevenson continued.

  “I suppose that was who we were waiting for,” Alice Rennel finally observed. “Why don’t they do something?”

  “Any minute now,” said Georgie Swarthout.

  “That’s what you said half an hour ago!”

  “Well, I’m not the sort of a man to say one thing one minute, and another the next.” Georgie leaned back against the door. He remained there, undisturbed, for another twenty minutes or so. Finally it opened again, this time to produce the denim-clad figure of no less a personage than Anderson, the janitor!

  There was an immediate uproar, as a result of which Georgie went outside where the Sergeant was talking to detectives Allen and Burns, who had brought the prisoner down.

  “You boys can wait outside in the car,” the Sergeant was saying.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” objected Swarthout. “I don’t want to speak out of turn, Sergeant. But that janitor will make a break for it as sure as God made little apples, if you leave him around unguarded.”

  “You don’t say so?” Taylor nodded sagely. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right, kid. Okay, boys, go on and wait in the car.” The two precinct detectives departed, and Georgie shook his head sadly.

  “This is too fast for me,” he remarked. “I don’t savvy.”

  “You don’t have to,” he was told by his immediate superior. “Go back and tell your palsy-walsies that it’ll be only a minute now.”

  “I don’t dare to,” said Georgie. But he reentered the room, all the same. The janitor, pariah-like, had been left the far corner of the room for himself, and Tobey and the others were grouped near the windows.

  “If something doesn’t happen immediately, I’m going home,” announced Alice Rennel savagely. “I don’t fancy being locked up here with”—she glanced at the dejected figure of Anderson—“with a murderer! Even if he is at the other end of the room.”

  “He may not be at the other end of the room, Miss Rennel,” Swarthout reminded her happily.

  The teachers all moved a little away from one another, as if the sudden change of electric current had caused them to repel. Suspicion, hitherto aimed at Anderson, flashed right and left. No one spoke, and for the first time that evening, even Janey Davis and Bob Stevenson were not carrying on a whispered conversation.

  The minutes dragged by. Georgie went out into the hall again, but the Sergeant had disappeared. The young detective returned, and to keep his guests busy, began to assign them numbers according to their initials.

  “Anderson, you’re first on the list,” he announced. “Then Miss Casey, Miss Cohen, and Miss Curran. Then you, Janey—I mean Miss Davis. Then …”

  He was interrupted by the opening of the door. For the first time that evening, Miss Hildegarde Withers came in view. She was followed very closely by Sergeant Taylor and a portly gentleman in a white coat who looked like a doctor, and was.

  Miss Withers showed weariness in both her posture and voice. “It’s no use,” she announced after a moment. “The party is off, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve been arguing with Dr. Horman here for almost an hour, but he says no.”

  There was a gasp from her audience, but Miss Withers held up her hand. “The Doctor ref
uses to permit us to go ahead with the little plan that Sergeant Taylor and I worked out. You see, Inspector Piper is in a very serious condition, and the excitement was too much for him. Merely remembering the face of his assailant was a great shock, and now he is asleep and the Doctor refuses to permit us to waken him. We shall have to postpone the party until tomorrow.”

  There was a long minute of silence. One person in that group was relieved by her announcement, but there was no sign of it.

  “Miss Withers asked me to speak to you myself,” said the Doctor after a moment. “She was afraid that you might blame her for the postponement. Rest assured that she had nothing to do with it. The Inspector is in a very weak condition, and the slightest shock might be too much for him tonight. I have given him a hypo, which has put him into such a sound sleep that I think it best he remain so until morning. Perhaps then it will be possible to attempt the identification, but now—impossible. I shall not waken him even to give him his necessary medicine at midnight—it remains by his bedside to be taken only when he wakens. So you see how important I consider this sleep?”

  They saw. Instead of relief at the avoidance of an unpleasant event, the group seemed to be disappointed. Macfarland particularly stressed this point.

  “I did want to finish my essay tonight,” he complained. “Tomorrow I must take a new subject, as I have not failed to do every day for years. And now—everything goes flat like yesterday’s ginger ale.”

  “Sorry, but it can’t be helped,” cut in the Sergeant. He crossed the room and took Anderson’s arm. “Come on, Olaf. It’s back to the cell for you.”

  The others watched while the Sergeant led his prisoner out through the door. Then they began a confused bustling, and making ready to don coats and hats, which was rudely interrupted by the sound of a distant crash, followed by shouts of “There he goes! Stop him, somebody …!”