The Right Murder

by Craig Rice

  Von Flanagan nodded and muttered something about the last show at the Grand Terrace, then said, “Too bad those friends of yours, Jake Justus and that crazy blonde wife of his, aren’t along.”

  Malone sighed and nodded. He too had been wishing for Jake and Helene. He had an uncomfortable premonition that he was going to need them.

  The late show at the Grand Terrace was all Malone had anticipated, but it didn’t seem to improve his state of mind. Switching from gin to rye didn’t help much, either. If only von Flanagan would give him a chance to examine that key! But the police officer stuck to him like a summons server.

  At the next stop, a second-rate black and tan, the floor show wasn’t as good, but it was noisier. Malone tried following the rye with beer, and felt that an upswing was beginning at last.

  Von Flanagan reminded him that if anything should be asked in the future, they’d spent the whole night attending to the matter of the murdered stranger, and added, “Boy, I wish I had a wife like the one Jake Justus got. Some guys have all the luck.”

  Malone agreed with him, and wished he would stop talking about Jake and Helene. He didn’t like to admit how much he missed them. It was forever, too. They would come back from their honeymoon and Jake would get a job, probably some nine-to-five affair, and he and Helene would settle down to quiet domesticity. In time they would move to the suburbs and he, Malone, would be occasionally invited out to dreary, interminable Sunday dinners. The old days were done now. Of course, if only Jake had won that bet with Mona McClane, and had the Casino to play with—but no use thinking about that now. Unless—He stopped and reminded himself sternly that Jake was a married man now, with responsibilities, and no time to go around mixing up in murder, even to win crazy bets.

  At the next black and tan the floor show was not as noisy, but it was dirtier. Malone tried alternating gin and rye, and began to feel that the world was almost livable again. Von Flanagan was reminded of some incident in the courtship of Jake and Helene, and Malone offered him a poke in the nose if he didn’t change the subject.

  There were no more floor shows anywhere, but at the bar on North Clark Street, Malone consented to sing three verses of Molly Darling.

  The sun rose that morning of January first at 7:24. No one of importance noticed it. Malone and von Flanagan had returned to Joe the Angel’s bar for what both agreed would be a last quick one before going home to bed.

  The police officer’s face had taken on an oddly mottled tone. Now it suddenly became grimly determined. He leaned close to the little lawyer.

  “Now,” he said in an ugly voice, “maybe you’ll tell me why that guy came in here and hollered for you after he’d been stabbed, or do I have to throw you in the can as a material witness?”

  Malone blinked once, and called von Flanagan a colorful collection of names that ran all the way down the alphabet. He dwelt on the subject of the police officer’s family tree, including the questionable behavior of two unmarried great-aunts.

  Some perfect stranger standing at the bar turned to the lawyer and said angrily, “He’s m’friend. Y’can’t say that t’him, y’drunken bum.”

  “Bum!” Malone roared wildly. His face was purple. “I’ll show you from drunken bums!” His left missed the stranger by a good two inches, but as he swung, his foot caught von Flanagan’s ankle and toppled the big man to the floor. At the same instant the stranger’s right landed on Malone’s nose.

  The lawyer let out an anguished howl, butted the stranger in the stomach, grabbed a chair, and aimed it at von Flanagan, who had got to his feet. Someone else at the bar decided the odds were unfair and joined the fray on Malone’s side. Von Flanagan slung a beer bottle at Malone with deadly intent, missed him, and knocked out the stranger who had precipitated the brawl. By that time Malone and his ally had forgotten who was fighting whom, and were scuffling on the floor. Joe the Angel called the police.

  The little lawyer, a few inches of his unknown ally’s necktie between his teeth, was still offering to fight anyone who would come within reach when he was booked for disorderly conduct. By the time he had reached the jail, however, he was peacefully quiet. All he wanted was a nice, comfortable place to sleep, and the bunk in his cell looked as good a place as any. It was even homelike.

  Just as the door clanged shut, however, he had one last flash of sober thought. At last he was going to have a minute to himself. He waited artfully until the last footsteps had died away, and then felt in his pocket for the mysterious key.

  It was gone.

  Chapter Three

  It was thirty minutes past eleven on Thursday, the second of January, when John J. Malone arrived at his office, pale and a trifle shaken, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

  Extricating Captain Daniel von Flanagan of the homicide squad from the clutches of the law had taken a little doing. On leaving his office that New Year’s Eve, the police official had carefully removed his credentials and other identification from his pockets, explaining to Malone that the force was fairly crawling with his relatives nowadays, and that you never knew what might happen. The desk sergeant who had booked them had failed to recognize the officer, but von Flanagan had spotted him immediately as a friend of his brother-in-law, and had announced himself as one Junius P. McGillicuddy of Little Rock, Arkansas.

  Another desk sergeant with no personal connections with von Flanagan’s wife’s kin, had refused to accept any further explanation. He stated that von Flanagan was the fourteenth guy that night who had claimed to be an official of the police department.

  The result had been that the chief of the homicide division had remained in jail until Malone managed to locate identification that would release him without incriminating him in the eyes of his in-laws.

  The little lawyer’s pretty, black-haired secretary looked at him with grim disapproval as he came in the door. Sixteen hours’ sleep, a shave, and a fresh suit had helped his appearance a little, but not much.

  “Never mind the remarks,” Malone said, kicking the door shut behind him. “Just add up my check stubs again and make sure what my balance is. You may have had it wrong the last time.”

  “I doubt it,” she said gloomily. “And Captain von Flanagan has been calling you for the past two hours.”

  “If he calls again, tell him I’ll keep my mouth shut for ten dollars cash,” the lawyer said. He went on into his private office.

  He tossed his hat and overcoat on the sofa, rummaged through a file marked “Information,” and located a tumbler and a half-full bottle of rye. After a moment’s indecision he put the tumbler back in the drawer, put the bottle to his lips, and drank deeply. Then he replaced the bottle, and sat down at his desk.

  On top of the heap of correspondence that had been collecting for the last four days was a pile of postcards. Malone ran a finger over them, saw that they all bore the same picture; an overcolored reproduction of sea, sky, and two trees. He counted them. There were exactly forty-eight.

  He turned them over, noted that all forty-eight had the same postmark and the same message: “Having wonderful time, wish you were here.” Twenty-four of them were signed “Jake,” the other twenty-four were signed “Helene.”

  The little lawyer laid them in a neat stack, sighed deeply, and turned his attention to the rest of the mail. Advertisements went in the wastebasket, so did three smallish envelopes, addressed in three different feminine handwritings. He opened four business letters, noted the dates and the signatures, and placed them in the file marked “Unread Correspondence.” He glanced through a fifth business letter and placed it in the file marked “Unanswered Correspondence.” The rest were bills.

  He opened the bill from Saks, saw that the long-legged brunette from Chez Paree had put six pairs of stockings and a girdle on his charge account before going to New York with an unemployed clarinet player, crumpled the bill into a tight little wad, and threw it under the worn leather couch. He took a quick look at the bill sent by the building management, read the polit
ely worded note written in fine, Spencerian handwriting, and made a resolution to pay up the rent as soon as he had some money. He stuffed that bill in his coat pocket, swept the rest into the wastebasket, folded his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair to think things over.

  The pretty, black-haired secretary stuck her head in the door and said, “I’ve gone over all the check stubs and the bank statement. You’re overdrawn exactly seventeen dollars and fifty cents.”

  “That’s just dandy,” Malone said icily. “Call up all the people who owe me money and see where we stand.”

  She sniffed at him. “If you didn’t run around with women all the time—”

  “I don’t spend money on women,” Malone roared.

  She made a rude, horselike noise, said, “You spend more money on women accidentally than most men do on purpose,” and slammed the door.

  The lawyer shook his head sadly, glanced toward the window, saw that it was raining outside, and sighed. The postcards on his desk caught his eye, and he sat staring gloomily at the brilliantly blue sky and sea. At least Jake and Helene were happy. There they were right at this moment, basking in the sunshine, thinking only of each other, while he was here all alone. He sighed again.

  The stranger and the key. The stranger who had breathed his last in Joe the Angel’s bar. Malone scowled. That key had been in his right-hand pocket all through the evening, and he hadn’t had a chance to examine it. Now it was gone, and he would never know what it might unlock.

  The hell with the whole thing! He had been jumping over conclusions, that was all. Or was it “up” conclusions? Anyway, the truth was probably something like this. The stranger, realizing that he was dying, had headed for the first door in sight, which had turned out to be Joe the Angel’s. Staggering in, he had tried to say “telephone,” meaning, of course, to telephone for help. As far as the key was concerned, the stranger had meant to hand a nickel, or a slug, to the first person he saw, and had got his key by mistake, being, even then, in his last moment of consciousness.

  Obviously that was the explanation. The stranger had been a dying man; he couldn’t have spoken clearly. He Malone, had been drinking; he couldn’t have been expected to hear clearly. Between those two facts, it was easy to see how the word “telephone” had sounded like “Malone.” The lawyer muttered the two words over a few times. “Malone, ’lphone. Malone. ’lphone.” Of course that was it. Finally the stranger had slipped the key, believing it to be a coin, into his hand because it had been the first hand offered him.

  John J. Malone felt so pleased with this entirely reasonable explanation that he reopened the file drawer marked “Information” and took down half the remaining rye. Life was not altogether bad. He hummed a few bars of Just a Garden in the Rain, returned to his desk, remarked to the forty-eight postcards, “I wouldn’t be in Bermuda for five million bucks,” and bawled loudly for Maggie.

  The black-haired secretary appeared in the doorway.

  “When that bank statement showing the overdraft came, did you tear the envelope open?”

  “No. I lifted up the flap with a penknife. You told me always to do that with letters from the bank.”

  He nodded approvingly. “Bring me the statement and the envelope.”

  He took one glance at the bank statement, shuddered, and replaced it in the envelope. Reaching for a bottle of mucilage, he carefully resealed the flap, making sure that to all appearances it had never been opened. Then he dipped a small sponge in the ink bottle, squeezed just enough ink on the envelope to obscure the street address and the initials of his name, waited for the blot to dry, and then, in pencil, wrote the word “misdirected” across the front of the envelope.

  “Drop this in the mail box just after the last pickup. By the time it’s gone through the post office, back to the bank, and back again to me, three days will have gone by.”

  “And then?”

  “A lot can happen in three days,” he told her happily.

  The little lawyer looked gravely at a postcard signed “Helene” and told it, “The trouble with being born rich is that you miss all the fun of being broke.”

  When von Flanagan called again, he decided to answer. The police officer deserved to know the explanation of the events of New Year’s Eve.

  Von Flanagan spoke first. “It’s about time you got to your office. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.” Before Malone could answer, he added in an outraged tone, “Will you come over here and talk, or do I have to have you picked up and brought in for questioning?”

  Malone scowled at the telephone. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  A low, indignant growl came from the receiver. “I knew you were holding out on me. I followed up your hunch about that guy who was stabbed, and checked all the bars within three blocks of Joe the Angel’s. He’d been in eight of ’em, all hangouts of yours. No one had seen him before in any of ’em. Bought himself four drinks altogether. In every single place he went, he asked if you’d been there or where he might find you.”

  The lawyer held his breath and counted ten before he said, “Listen, von Flanagan, so help me I never saw—”

  “He was out looking for you,” von Flanagan bellowed. “I’ve put up with a lot from you, but this is too much. Will you come over here and talk, or shall I send Kluchetsky over to—”

  Malone said quickly, “Do you want me to call your house and leave a message for you that I’ve found your gloves that you left at Bertha Daly’s—”

  “I never in my life!” von Flanagan roared, stopped abruptly, and said in a milder tone, “Have a heart, Malone. If you’ll only drop in at your convenience and give me the low-down on this guy. I’ll see to it you’re not involved in any way. Damn it. I’m only trying to do the best I can, and with the newspapers on my tail and the police commissioner—”

  “All right,” Malone said wearily. “I’ll be in as soon as I can.” He banged down the receiver before the police officer could say another word.

  A beautiful theory all shot to hell. It had seemed so wonderfully logical, too.

  If he only knew what had happened to that damned key. It had been in his pocket until just before the fight, he was fairly sure of that. At least, as sure as he was of anything that had gone on in the last few hours before daylight. Had the fight been deliberately started to enable somebody to get it away from him? He wrinkled up his brow, closed his eyes, and tried to remember the stranger who had precipitated the brawl. No one he knew. He opened his eyes again, shook his head sadly, and reflected that Joe the Angel might know.

  It was possible, too, that the police had lifted it, on von Flanagan’s orders, while he was in the wagon.

  Whatever had happened, the key was gone.

  What good would the key be to him anyway, when he didn’t know what it unlocked?

  Malone was till staring moodily into space, trying to find some reason why the man who still lay unidentified in the Cook County morgue had called his name with his last breath, when Maggie came to the door.

  “There’s a collect cable for you from Bermuda.”

  “Collect?”

  “That’s right.”

  Malone blinked, swore under his breath, and took out his wallet. It contained one crumpled dollar bill, a United Cigar Store coupon, and a slip of paper marked “Louise, SHEL-7466.”

  “Is there anything in the petty cash?” he asked sheepishly.”

  “Nothing but receipts.” She looked at him disapprovingly for a moment, finally said, “It’s lucky I brought some money with me this morning,” and went back to the reception room. A minute later she reappeared, put the cable on his desk, said, “I’ll add the cable charge to my back salary,” and went away again.

  Malone tore open the cable and saw that it was from Jake.

  WIRE ME RETURN FARE TO CHICAGO IMMEDIATELY WILL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING ON ARRIVAL

  “He could have gotten it into five words,” the lawyer growled.

  The cable didn’t ma
ke sense. He stared at it angrily. Jake had gone to Bermuda with all the money he needed for any reasonable purposes. Besides that, he had just married Helene Brand, who had half the money in Chicago. “Will explain everything on arrival.” Malone thought of every possible explanation, found none that seemed to fit, and decided the only thing to do was raise the money somewhere and wait till Jake could explain.

  He had just reached that decision when he heard a mild commotion in the reception room. There were voices, one of them feminine and with a familiar ring. He raced across the office and opened the door.

  Helene Brand—no, Helene Justus now—stood by Maggie’s desk, exquisitely gowned and furred, her blonde hair beautifully and perfectly in place. Her small-boned, patrician face was deathly pale, her ocean-blue eyes were shadowed, and heavy with weariness. What worried Malone most, however, was the fact that she seemed entirely sober.

  There was a cab driver in the office, too.

  “Hello, Malone,” she said calmly. “It’s nice to see you. Would you mind paying the cab driver, so he’ll go away?”

  It was Maggie who rose to the occasion. “You go on in Mr. Malone’s office, Mrs. Justus,” she said. “I’ll take care of the taxi.” She reached for her pocketbook.

  In the office, Malone stared at his visitor. “Where’s Jake?” He wondered if his voice really squeaked or if it only felt that way.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Helene said, peeling off her gloves. “As far as I’m concerned, he can stay there. Is there a drink in the house?”

  Chapter Four

  “But you can’t have left Jake,” Malone said stupidly. “You’ve just married him.”

  “I had to, in order to be able to leave him,” Helene said coldly. “And I have left him.” She sat down on a corner of the desk and lit a cigarette.