The Right Murder

by Craig Rice

  Lou Silver’s orchestra was holding forth in the main room of the first floor when Jake and Malone arrived. It was a spacious, softly lighted place, in which the decorator had worked, not altogether unsuccessfully, for the effect of a formal Georgian drawing room. Instead of the usual night-club decorations, the walls were covered with a simple, almost severe paneling. The upholstery on the benches along the walls was dove gray.

  Mona McClane and her party had not yet arrived. A fair-sized crowd was on the dance floor. Lou Silver recognized Jake and Malone as they came in, waved at them, and went on leading his band through his own version of Nobody’s Baby. Eventually a waiter arrived with two double ryes.

  Malone looked around. At the table to their left was one of Chicago’s handsomer young socialites and heir to a notable fortune, in a gray business suit that badly needed pressing. With him was a red-haired girl whom Malone recognized as an ex-hat-check girl from a Dempster Street roadhouse. He had once handled a small breach-of-promise suit for her.

  To their right he saw one of the higher-ups of the city’s gambling syndicate, in impeccable evening clothes. Malone thought he was probably the only man in the place who was there with his own wife.

  Lou Silver came over for a drink and asked Jake if the band didn’t sound swell. Jake said yes, it was a swell band. Lou Silver said it was swell Jake thought so, bought another drink, and went away again.

  The cigarette girl, a plumpish brunette, recognized Malone, sold him two packages of fifteen-cent cigarettes for a dollar, and made a tentative date with him for Thursday.

  Then Mona McClane’s party arrived. There was a brief confusion of chairs being moved, and when it was over Jake found that Helene was at the end of the table farthest from him. Still, he could look at her. She was easily the best-looking girl in the place if not in the world, in that shiny black dress and the tiny black hat with its curving feather.

  Ross McLaurin was not present. “He’s vanished again,” Mona said, in answer to Malone’s question. “Since this morning. Don’t worry, he’ll turn up.”

  The early floor show, toned down for Sunday night, was brightened considerably by the presence of an internationally famous dialect comedian. Malone, who considered himself a fair judge of chorus girls, approved highly of the Casino line-up.

  More couples swarmed onto the floor after the show Subdebs, in Sunday-night dresses from Powell’s, dancing with collegiate-looking young men, business girls out with friends of the boss, two well-known movie actresses who attracted far less attention than a plain, brown-haired girl who was rumored to be the girl friend of a powerful union head.

  Malone looked at Louella White, sitting next him, and wondered about her.

  “Are you from Chicago originally?”

  “No. From the East.”

  A few drinks, Malone decided, had made her downright talkative. Maybe he could take advantage of it.

  “What part of the East?”

  “Jersey City.”

  He tried another approach. “How do you like Chicago?”

  “All right.”

  “I suppose it’s very different from the Orient.”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly he said, “I bet you never were in the Orient in your life.”

  She looked at him coldly, “So what?”

  Damn it, he thought, you couldn’t even jolt the woman. “Are you a relative of Mrs. Venning?”

  “No.”

  “Of Mr. Venning?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “All right. Let’s reverse. You ask the questions and I’ll think of the answers.”

  She turned her small, guarded eyes on him and made the longest speech of her career. “What do you want to ask questions for?”

  “I’m writing a book,” Malone said, and decided to watch the dance floor.

  Five minutes later the manager arrived, apologizing for a little trouble Pendley Tidewell had had with the bouncer. It seemed to be against the rules to try to take photographs in the chorus girls’ dressing room.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” Pendley Tidewell said, sliding his six-feet-one back into his chair. “I never had a chance to photograph a—”

  Malone looked thoughtfully at the blond youth and wondered if he really didn’t care about money, whether anybody could be so simple-minded, and what difference Michael Venning’s becoming fifty years old was going to make to him.

  The party began to wander. Helene and Michael Venning went upstairs to the gambling rooms. Pendley Tidewell took pictures of Mona McClane dancing with a sleek-haired young actor from a current Loop hit. Editha Venning vanished somewhere, followed by the watchful Louella. Malone and Jake drifted into the bar.

  The Casino bar was small, intimate, and informal. There were two or three tiny tables, all occupied. A cheerful young man sat at a half-pint piano, singing impudent and picturesque ballads of his own composition to a highly appreciative group of listeners. Malone pushed his way to the bar, shook hands with a star of the legitimate stage, slapped the back of the mayor’s left-hand man, and said, “Hello, chum,” ordered two ryes, and said to Jake, “This is a very nice joint. You’re going to have a wonderful time when you own it.”

  Jake grunted, nodded a greeting to half a dozen acquaintances, downed his rye, and said, “Let’s go upstairs.”

  The staircase of the Casino had been part of the original mansion, a wide, massive affair, with magnificently carved balustrades and newel posts. Malone looked at it critically and said, “I do think, though, if I were you, I’d have that mauve carpeting changed to something nearer mulberry.”

  Jake’s answer was something nearer raspberry.

  The gambling rooms of the Casino were crowded. Malone argued Jake out of a crap game and resisted an impulse to see what he could do with the rest of his bankroll.

  Mona McClane appeared beside him. He looked at her admiringly. She was just the right size to wear Chinese red.

  “Tomorrow’s such an important day for so many people,” she said confidingly, smiling at him.

  Before he could answer, she had moved up to the roulette table. For a while he watched and tried to keep track of her winnings. He had an uncomfortable premonition that tomorrow might be an important day for himself.

  Editha Venning came upstairs, looking interestingly haggard, and entirely sober. Louella White seemed to have disappeared.

  A thin girl in a blue dress borrowed a dollar from Malone for taxi fare home, and Malone won ten dollars at the 26-Game table. Pendley Tidewell was politely put out of the room for trying to photograph a crap game. Michael Venning lost his temper with a waiter. Malone was considering trying just one fling at the wheel, when Helene tapped him on the arm and led him off to a quiet corner.

  “I think we have a little trouble.”

  “I think we have a lot, but what now?”

  “Louella White. I just went into the ladies’ room. She was lying down on the couch. The maid thought that she’d passed out. But I knew she hadn’t had more than two drinks, so I managed a quick and inconspicuous look.”

  “Well?”

  “She’s dead, Malone.”

  Not a muscle moved in the little lawyer’s face. After a moment he said. “Don’t make a fuss. Tell Mona quietly, and let Jake know. No one else. I’ll go talk to the manager.”

  Five minutes later, when Helene brought Mona McClane and Jake downstairs, the frightened colored maid was standing in front of the door marked LADIES, informing everyone very unconvincingly that the plumber was inside making a minor repair, and the door would be opened in just a minute.

  A moment later the manager came out, his face pale. “Mrs. McClane, I don’t know what—”

  “That’s all right,” Mona McClane said. Jake was reminded suddenly that she owned the Casino.

  “Mr. Malone thinks she’ll be all right—”

  “Then she’s not dead?” Helene gasped.

  The manager stared at her. “Dead? No. Unconscious. Mr. Malone thinks it was kno
ckout drops. Just a minute—” He dived back into the ladies’ room.

  Jake reached for Helene’s hand and held it tightly.

  Another moment and Malone appeared, mopping his brow.

  “Everything’s O. K. No need for any fuss.” He looked at Mona McClane. “Just have your car brought around, get your party together, and we’ll have her quietly carried out to the car. In twelve hours she’ll be as good as new.”

  Mona McClane nodded and walked away quickly. She didn’t seem to want any explanations. Helene followed her.

  The manager, still pale, said, “I don’t know how to thank—”

  “That’s all right,” Malone said. “I’ll have one on the house.” He led Jake toward the bar.

  “Is she really O. K.,” Jake demanded, “or are you saving the Casino from a nasty jam?”

  “She’s really O. K. Somebody slipped her a Mickey Finn. Wait for the rest till we get outside.”

  They paused at the bar on the way out. Malone seemed to need that drink. The McClane party had gone when they reached the sidewalk, but a taxi, its door open, was waiting in front of the door. The two men were inside it before they discovered Helene sitting back in the shadows.

  “I ducked away,” she explained. “What happened, Malone?”

  He gave her the explanation he had given Jake. “But that’s not all. Louella White is a he.”

  “How’s that again?” Jake said.

  “I looked through her—his—handbag while I was in there. He’s Lou White, from a shady New York detective agency.”

  The taxi had gone half a block before Jake said, “Well, I always thought no woman could be as untalkative as that. But who was he working for?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” the lawyer said. “All I know is that he was watching Editha Venning, God knows why.”

  Helene leaned forward, her eyes blazing. “Then she doped her—him, I mean. Because for some reason she wanted to be free tonight.” She was silent for a moment. “Now we sure as hell are going out to Maple Park.”

  “No,” both men said simultaneously.

  “Oh yes we are. There’s something out there—I don’t know what it is—but the first time she was able to slip away from her watchdog—yesterday—she headed straight out there. She’ll do it again tonight, and we’ll be out there to find out why.”

  “I’d hate to be mistaken for a rabbit again,” Jake said gloomily.

  “All right, you two big strong men go home to bed. I’m going out to Maple Park.” She leaned forward and said to the cab driver, “The Adams Street North Shore station, and hurry.”

  “What do you expect to find out there?” Malone growled.

  “I don’t know. But I hope it’s Mona’s murder.”

  Jake sighed. “All right, we’ll go along. But I have an uncomfortable premonition of what we’ll find.”

  “All right,” Malone grunted, “you tell us, and we won’t have to go.”

  “We’ll find Pendley Tidewell,” Jake said, “with his camera. He’s never had a chance to photograph a grave before.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The North Shore train was almost deserted. A few late commuters slept in their seats, or glanced uninterestedly at tomorrow’s Tribune. Jake fingered the pocket flashlight they had picked up at an all-night drugstore and wondered if this would turn out to be a wild-goose chase.

  “Perhaps,” he said as he passed through Evanston, “we’re going the wrong way. Perhaps we ought to go back to Mona McClane’s and pick up the dame’s trail there.”

  “Hell no,” Malone growled. “I’ve bought a round-trip ticket to Maple Park, and I’m going to get my money’s worth.” He scowled. “I wonder who Lou White was working for.”

  “Mona McClane, Michael Venning, or Pendley Tidewell.” Helene said promptly.

  The lawyer grunted. “Or Gerald Tuesday or Gerald Tuesday.”

  The platform at the Maple Park station nearest the Venning and McClane estates was desolate and deserted. The sky was clear and brilliant with stars now, but occasional flurries of loose snow still blew across the dingy boards of the platform and whitened the walks that had been cleared earlier in the evening.

  It was well past midnight, and Maple Park was like a ghost town. Malone looked hopefully around for a taxi and saw none. The streets were empty, as were the sidewalks. Only a few lights burned here and there in houses seen dimly through the trees.

  Jake looked at his watch. “There’ll be a Loop-bound train along in about five minutes,” he began wistfully.

  Helene shook her head. “We’re out here and we’re not going to turn back.”

  They started walking up a winding street in the direction of the Venning estate. Streets in Maple Park turned, curved, straightened out, and turned again with no apparent rhyme or reason, and this one was no exception. By the time they had gone two blocks, Malone began looking expectantly around every corner they came to, half wondering when he was going to meet himself headed in the other direction.

  “That’s Mona McClane’s,” Jake said, as they came to the iron fence.

  “Do we turn in here?”

  “Not yet. This damned snow will have covered any tracks there were, and I’d never find that opening in the wall from this side.”

  He led the way to the high stone wall that bordered the Venning estate. The small, service gateway was unlocked, and he pushed through it, holding it open for Helene and the lawyer.

  The Venning house, in the starlight and the drifted snow, looked like a gingerbread house, fantastic and incredible, against the sky. Touches of white clung to cornices and lines of iron lacework and outlined the curious angles and cupolas of the huge wooden structure.

  “It isn’t there,” Malone complained. “It’s painted on a piece of scenery. Painted damned badly, too, if you ask me. Now where do we go?”

  Jake led him around the old house and through the archway in the yew hedge, now a deep, mysterious blue in the starlight. Beyond it, the wide lawn was a startling, almost blinding expanse of unbroken white, smooth and crusted over. Jake turned on the flashlight, and it reflected on the snow as though it shone on powdered glass.

  “There’s where Editha Venning stood,” Jake said, “right over there.” He pointed the flashlight in the direction of the trees.

  Malone looked quickly, half expecting to see some dim, shadowy figure waiting for them. He was a little reassured to see only trees, but not very much.

  “Heaven only knows what kind of reception committee may be waiting for us out here,” he complained. “I’m not at all nervous about being shot at, but the sound of gunfire always gives me an earache.”

  “Put cotton in your ears,” Helene said grimly.

  They picked their way gingerly across the snow to the point where the path entered the woods. The path seemed narrower now than it had by day, a white ribbon of snow winding on into the grove. The entrance was like the door to a cave of black and white, dark old trees, bent here and there by the weight of snow on their branches, thick, shadowy bushes feathered with whiteness, and only an occasional star showing overhead through the treetops.

  Jake turned the flashlight on the path, said, “Watch your step,” and went on ahead. Helene and Malone followed, the latter muttering about the snow in his shoes.

  At the point where the footprints had joined the path, Jake paused and knelt to look for them. There was only the unbroken snow, drifted back and forth over the surface.

  “I knew that snow would have wiped them out,” Jake said bitterly. “I think I could find my way back to where I parted company with them, but that’s about all, and it wouldn’t tell us anything, anyway.”

  He rose, brushing the snow off his knees, and led the way in the direction of the open grave. The flashlight added an eerie touch to the scene, casting unexpected shadows over the snow, lighting up curious cavernlike little clearings in the trees, and reflecting a weird glow on small, snow-frosted twigs and branches. They came to the obstructio
n across the path formed by the cluster of bushes, and for a moment Malone stood stamping his feet and muttering indignant profanities under his breath, while Jake and Helene hunted for the opening.

  Jake found it suddenly and pushed his way through with a loud crackling of twigs and underbrush, Helene at his heels. Malone drew a long breath and followed, striking aimlessly at branches that scratched his face.

  The little clearing in the grove was fantastic and unreal in the glow from the flashlight, like something from a half-forgotten dream. In the center of it, piles of snow-covered earth indicated the location of the open grave.

  “This is it,” Jake said calmly, picking his way carefully over the frozen ground.

  Malone came up beside him, stumbling once or twice and paused at the edge. Jake turned his flashlight down into it.

  “That’s a grave all right,” Malone said quietly. “But it isn’t empty now.”

  For only a moment he stood looking into it, at the snow that had blown in and frosted the rough sides, at the little drifts that had formed in curious shapes and designs, and at what had first appeared to be a dark shadow at the bottom. Then, carefully and laboriously, he let himself down into it, took off his muffler and used it as a broom to sweep away the drifted snow, and made a quick examination of the body of Ross McLaurin.

  Above him, Jake put an arm around Helene, who buried her face in his shoulder.

  The lawyer climbed up out of the pit. “Stabbed in the back, just like the others,” he reported. “Stabbed right through an overcoat, suit coat, vest, and shirt. Somebody has a fairly powerful arm.” The flashlight caught his face for a moment, and Jake saw that it was gray white and very tired.

  “I shouldn’t have let this happen,” Malone said slowly. “I should have known. The right number of drinks and he would go out looking for someone to listen to his story, friend or stranger, just as he started talking to Helene the other night. This time he just happened to start talking to the wrong guy, and here he is. I never should have let him out of my sight.” He drew a long breath. “I’m to blame. This one is on me.”

  Jake shivered uncomfortably. He had suddenly become conscious of the January cold. Helene lifted her head from his shoulder.