by Craig Rice
“Maybe we’ll know more,” the lawyer said, “after I have a couple of boys I can trust break into that grave and find out what’s there. It’ll probably turn out to be empty.”
“If it is,” Jake pointed out, “what was the idea of someone else digging it up—and incidentally, who did the first digging?”
“I just ask the questions,” Malone said. “I don’t answer them.” He scowled. “Still, there must have been a burial permit and a death certificate, when that stone was set up. A little research in the city records may tell something about Gerald Tuesday.”
“I’d feel better about the whole thing if I thought Mona McClane was lying,” Jake said thoughtfully. “But I have an uncomfortable suspicion that she’s telling the truth.”
Malone said, “Don’t forget that these Tuesday murders—and only God knows which one was Gerald Tuesday—may have nothing to do with Mona McClane and her bet.”
“You depress me,” Helene said, “but you don’t discourage me.” She lit a cigarette. “Maybe Gerald Tuesday was an assumed name.”
Jake shook his head. “No one would ever deliberately assume the name of Gerald.”
She sighed heavily. “Malone, you suggest something.”
“I suggest another beer,” the lawyer said. He signaled to the bartender “No,” he said as the latter approached. “I’m bored with beer. Bring three gins.”
“Three for each of us,” Helene said. “Malone, remember the note you found?”
“I’ve already remembered it,” he said grimly. He produced it. “‘You can’t pin a crime on a man who’s been dead for twenty years.’”
“But,” Jake demanded, “who has been dead for twenty years?”
Malone stared at him. “I forgot you couldn’t read. The name on that tombstone was Gerald Tuesday.”
Helene gazed at Malone through the smoke of her cigarette. “What are you going to do with Lotus? Leave her in the calaboose?”
“There’s worse places,” Malone said noncommittally. “Von Flanagan just has her held for questioning. No formal charges against her yet. When he cools off a little, I can get her out without any trouble. He doesn’t really think she murdered Gerald Tuesday, but he just got mad and had to arrest somebody.”
“I hope you’re right,” Helene said. “She’s a nice girl.”
Malone said, “He hasn’t enough evidence to hold her for the grand jury and he knows it. He doesn’t know any more about who murdered those two guys than we do. Trouble is,” he added gloomily, “he knows about as much.”
“Malone, could anybody have slipped into the house and murdered him and gone away again?”
“Not unless he went down the chimney,” the lawyer said. “And Christmas was over ten days ago.”
“Then either Lotus or Louella White or Ross McLaurin or Pendley Tidewell or I murdered him. Take your pick.”
Jake scowled at his gin. “Are you sure he was alive when you passed his door?”
“Positive. Besides, Malone knows he was alive when he telephoned his office.”
“That’s right,” Malone said. “That fixes the time of his death to the minute. Maggie always makes a note of the exact time when calls come in; we’ve found it damned useful sometimes in faking alibis. It was nineteen minutes after four.”
“At nineteen minutes after four,” Helene said, “I was in my room changing my dress. Ross was in his room, cold as a fish. Lotus—tell me Malone, what if she did murder him?”
“Temporary insanity,” Malone said, waving to the bartender as though he were the jury, “or self-defense. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it up.”
“She might have known him before he came to Chicago. After all, we only have people’s word for it that he was a perfect stranger to everyone except Mona McClane. Lotus might have been trying to keep her origin from Ross McLaurin so she could bring about wedding bells, and this guy knew all about her and threatened to spill the soup. So she stabbed him.”
“She did a nice neat job of it,” Malone said. He called, “Three small beers for chasers.”
Helene sighed. “Malone, what are you going to do about her?”
“Spring her from the can tomorrow, if nothing happens meanwhile.”
“And then?”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to find out who really did the stabbing before von Flanagan gets sore at something and arrests her again.” He looked alternately at the gin and the beer, deciding which to use as a chaser. “I’ll spring her first. Then I’ll just spit on my sleeves and roll up my hands and go to work.” He paused. “Roll on my hands and spit up my sleeves.”
“Never mind,” Helene said, “I liked it better the first time. Then you don’t think she did do it?”
“Hell no,” Malone said, “I’ve never thought so.” He downed the gin and ignored the beer.
“You keep overlooking Louella White,” Jake complained. “I bet she’d murdered half a dozen people before she was ten years old. She isn’t getting half enough attention. She could have slipped into that guy’s room, stabbed him, and slipped out again without any one noticing her.”
“Besides,” Helene said, “I’m very doubtful about her. She claims to have been Editha Venning’s companion for a number of years. But I’d be willing to place a small bet she’s never been in the Orient.”
“Why?” Jake demanded.
“I’ll tell you why,” Helene said. “I had a chance to snoop around her room this morning before breakfast, and I took it. There isn’t one single imitation jade Buddha or fancy-carved ash tray. Not even a hand-embroidered kimono in five natural colors. You can’t tell me that woman would spend even a week in the Orient without bringing home mementoes.” She lit a cigarette. “I’m even willing to bet there is no such person as Louella White.”
“I saw her myself,” Jake objected. “I have occasional nightmares, but I don’t have delusions.”
“I mean her name may not be Louella White. It may be something else.”
“Probably Geraldine Tuesday,” Jake muttered.
She ignored him. “Another thing, she’s about as companionable to Editha Venning as a Frigidaire. All she does is watch her all the time. But why? Editha Venning seems of sound mind. She drinks, but she’s not a dipso.”
“Maybe she’s a dopey,” Jake said.
“I don’t think so,” Malone said, “she hasn’t any of the behavior. No, Helene’s right. This companion business is some kind of gag, but I’m damned if I know what kind.”
Helene frowned. “In the rush back to this country during the war, a lot of identities may have gotten scrambled. Lotus Angelo turns up as Lotus Allen. Louella White might be anybody. These two guys turn up as Gerald Tuesday, and now this grave—”
“It might even be coincidence,” Jake said. “One of them is Oscar Q. McOscarvitz from Australia, and the other one is Richard Roe from Sturgeon’s Bay. For reasons best known to themselves, they both decide to change their names, and pick names out of books. Both of them happen to read the same book, and so we have two Gerald Tuesdays. Then both of them get murdered, and by the long arm of coincidence—way back in 1921—”
Helene said acidly, “Coincidence has a long arm, but not quite that many elbows. One of them slipped Malone a key marked 114, which he immediately got drunk and lost, and the other one tried to telephone Malone before he died, and had a paper with 114 written on it in his hand Both of them were killed in exactly the same manner with a knife—”
“Or maybe one of Louella White’s knitting needles,” Jake put in.
She ignored him. “Malone, what’s happened to the knife? Where’s the weapon?”
“The murderer kept it,” Malone said, finishing his gin. “He’s saving it.”
“What for?”
“To murder more Gerald Tuesdays. Put your coat on, were going to my office. Murder or no murder, I’ve got to write a nice letter to the building manager promising to pay the rent some day.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was snow
ing again, great white, wet feathers that clung to the window in Malone’s office. While the little lawyer peeled off his overcoat, and Helene settled down in the most comfortable chair, Jake stared moodily out across the roofs that were being rapidly buried in white.
“This damned snow,” he said angrily. “Now we’ll never be able to find out where those footprints led out in Maple Park.”
“Forget it,” Malone snapped. “I don’t have enough trouble on my mind, but you want me to go look at footprints. What do you expect me to do—take a gander at them with a magnifying glass, and tell you right off who murdered Gerald Tuesday and—Gerald Tuesday?”
Jake said, “Let’s go out to Maple Park anyway. I want you to see that grave.”
“Thanks,” Malone said. “I’ve just seen one. Besides, von Flanagan has phoned me five times in the three hours since I was there, and I’d better call him back.” He dialed the number and leaned back in his chair, the telephone in his hand.
Von Flanagan complained loudly into the telephone that murder was bad enough, but the things that people would do—“You know that guy that was murdered up at Mona McClane’s. Well, we got a report on him from a Loop bank. The morning he came to town—yesterday—he went to this bank to deposit a big check and open an account. And what do you think he used for identification?”
“Don’t tell me,” Malone begged. “Let me read about it in the papers.”
“A passport,” the police official said. “And what name do you think was on the passport?”
“I can’t guess,” the lawyer said wearily.
“Gerald Tuesday.”
“Listen,” Malone said, “I’ll tell you something. I’m getting very psychic. No, no, no, I never felt better in my life. I mean I can tell what’s going to happen in the future. I can tell you the name of the man who murdered those two guys.”
“What is it?” von Flanagan asked suspiciously.
Malone said, “Gerald Tuesday,” and hung up quick. He reported the whole conversation to Jake and Helene.
“It would be a swell joke on you if the murderer really was named Gerald Tuesday,” Helene said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Malone told her. “This business is driving me nuts. Every time I think of Gerald Tuesday I start seeing double.”
“Nothing makes sense,” Jake complained. “Two guys named Gerald Tuesday, both murdered the same way. Some drunk thinking he murdered both of them, and not able to remember any details. This dame looking for her husband’s grave, and then trotting off downtown to meet her husband. And the grave being there, and some dope shooting at me from the trees. The key, and those two guys trying to talk to you before they cashed in. And Gerald Tuesday buried in Rosedale cemetery in 1921. None of it makes any sense.”
“I’m afraid it does,” Malone said meditatively. “I almost wish it didn’t, but it does. Diabolical sense, and in the working of some sane mind, too. Anything that seems as crazy as this is bound to make sense.”
“In the meantime.” Jake demanded, “who the hell did Mona McClane murder?”
The lawyer sighed. “There must be some connection between these two murders and Mona McClane,” he said. “All we need to do is find out what it is.”
He scowled at the paper on his desk. It was a copy of the death certificate of one Gerald Tuesday, born in Elkhart. Indiana, in 1892, and dead of heart disease in Chicago in 1921.
“The name of the doctor who signed that certificate seems familiar,” Jake said, frowning.
“It should,” Malone said. “He was sent to jail about five years ago for performing a facial operation on an escaped convict. The name of the undertaker should seem familiar, too. He was messed up with the gang war, and got himself shot about 1930. A nice brace of lowlifes.”
“Meantime.” Helene said, “what is in that grave in Rosedale cemetery?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said. “But maybe I will tomorrow—after a couple of boys I can trust break in there tonight and find out. Meantime,” he sighed again, “maybe I can find out more about these Gerald Tuesdays—if the birthplace named on this certificate is correct.”
“If only you hadn’t lost that key,” Helene wailed. “Malone, isn’t there any chance of finding it?”
“I might have lost it in a taxi, or on the street, or in any of a dozen places,” Malone said gloomily. “It would take a miracle to find it again.”
“Have you thought of the want ads?”
“No. No, I haven’t.”
“Well, do,” Jake said cordially. “It’s an easy way to start that giant brain working.”
Malone sat thinking for a few minutes, then called for Maggie.
“Run this want ad in all the papers. Lost, on New Year’s Eve, key marked 114. Large reward.”
She wrote it down. “You’d better give some idea of where you lost it.”
“We couldn’t afford the space,” Malone said. “Go on, run it the way it is.” After she had gone, he said, scowling, “Suppose we do get the key back. What the hell do you think we’re going to unlock with it?”
“Something marked 114,” Jake said smugly.
Malone snorted. “Sure. That clears it all up.” He frowned. “Venning is mixed up in this, too. The business of the grave, and that frozen-faced companion who watches his wife every minute, and a crack Mona McClane made—wait a minute, let me think.” For a few minutes he stared dreamily into space. “We were talking about Pendley Tidewell. She said he was Editha Venning’s nephew. She said—he’d feel greatly relieved that Michael Venning was going to be fifty day after tomorrow—that’s tomorrow now—although he, meaning Pendley, didn’t seem to care anything about money.”
“Try thinking some more,” Helene advised. “You sound a little confused.”
The lawyer paid no attention to her. “Pendley Tidewell is Venning’s nephew by marriage, and he should be glad that his uncle is going to be fifty tomorrow. Something to do with money. I wonder,” he said thoughtfully, “how much money Venning has and who is going to inherit it.”
“He has plenty,” Jake said. “It’s one of the big Chicago fortunes.”
Again Malone called Maggie. “Find out who Michael Venning’s lawyer is, and pray to heaven that I know him.”
“I’ll find out,” she said tartly, “but you handle your own prayers.”
“Why do you care?” Jake asked.
“A large-sized inheritance might be an adequate reason for murdering him.”
“He hasn’t been murdered,” Helene pointed out.
“No, but his grave has been dug.”
Five minutes later Maggie returned. “I called the office of the Venning estate and asked for the correct spelling of the name of Mr. Venning’s lawyer.”
“Thank you,” Malone said. “I hope it turned out to be Smith.”
“It turned out to be Featherstone,” she said, “O. O. Featherstone.”
Malone drew a sigh of relief. “Heaven be praised, I do know him. He was old lady Inglehart’s lawyer. Call him up, Maggie, and make an appointment for me.”
“I remember him,” Jake said. “He was the lawyer that had the ethic.”
Maggie made the call and reported that Mr. Featherstone was just leaving his office for the day, but he would be glad to see Mr. Malone at ten in the morning.
“We adjourn till ten in the morning,” Malone said “Maybe by that time we’ll have an answer to my want ad, and I can see Mr. Featherstone. In the meantime, there’s not one damned thing we can do.”
“We could go out and show you Michael Venning’s grave,” Helene said.
“I’m glad to take your word for it that it’s there,” Malone said.
“Don’t be a defeatist,” Helene said. “We could go try to pump something more out of Lotus Allen.”
“She doesn’t know anything I haven’t already learned.”
Jake said, “We could see if Mona’s personal maid couldn’t be bribed to talk about her past.”
“She doesn’t b
ribe,” Helene said. “It’s been tried.”
“We could go out looking for that key.”
“With a pocket flashlight and a small broom, up and down the streets of Chicago,” Malone said scornfully.
“We could get hold of Ross McLaurin again and see if we could get him drunk enough to remember some more about the murders.”
Malone’s silence was more than eloquent.
Jake sighed heavily. “All right, damn you,” he said crossly, “we’ll get drunk ourselves. That’s always good.”
Helene rose. “I’ll tell you what we are going to do. Mona’s taking her household to the Casino tonight, partly to celebrate Michael Venning’s coming birthday and partly to take their minds off the homicides in the house. She asked me to bring you two along.”
“Why?” Malone asked. “Is she expecting another homicide?”
“If she has one,” Jake said, “I hope it’s Louella White. That woman worries me.”
“I know how you feel,” Malone said, “but I’m afraid it’ll be someone else. All right, Helene, we’ll go.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Helene said, fastening her furs around her throat. “Sometime around nine.”
“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “In the meantime—”
“You forgot we’re still officially separated,’ she told him.
“But Helene—”
“I’ve got to go on staying at Mona McClane’s and you know it. Wait until the bet is settled. And then—I’ll be looking for you with the deed to the Casino in your hand.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Casino was a large establishment, occupying all of a completely remodeled mansion. The exterior, save for a coat of white paint, a chaste neon sign, and two artificial trees placed on either side of the entrance, had suffered the least change. Inside, however, the ghost of the original owner would have wandered around lost. On the third floor, in the gambling rooms, the old marble fireplaces remained, and the original staircase still led up from the ground floor, but that was all.
