The Right Murder
Page 22
Lotus Allen, nee Angelo, said “Thank you,” and was out of the room almost before the sound of her voice had died away.
A light came into Mona McClane’s eyes. “It’s going to be fun. There hasn’t been a wedding in the house in years.” She paused, smiled. “Though there does seem to have been everything else!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“All murder is a form of self-defense,” Malone said dreamily. “People defend themselves against other things than death. Murder is a defense against some condition that has become intolerable. In the case of the murder of Michael Venning, twenty years ago, Tuesday was defending himself against the intolerable condition of not having five million dollars. When he murdered his two brothers and attempted to murder Ross McLaurin, he was defending himself against the intolerable condition of losing five million dollars that was within his grasp. When Mona McClane murdered him tonight—” He paused, and realized that his audience was paying no attention, was not, in fact, even hearing him.
He sighed deeply and called, “Joe! Three more of the same.”
They were sitting in Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar. The preceding hours had been spent moving Helene’s luggage from Mona McClane’s to the apartment Jake had been living in alone.
Now Jake and Helene were just sitting, looking at each other.
Malone cleared his throat. “Self-defense—” he began.
Helene looked up suddenly. “Damn you, Malone. Everything is not explained. I want to know which Tuesday was which. Was Gerald Gordon, or was Gordon George, or was—Oh hell, Malone, straighten it out or I won’t be able to sleep for weeks.”
The little lawyer drew a long breath. “Who cares, now?”
“I do,” she said firmly.
“There were two reasons,” Malone said. “The first was explained in the note I found at the time of the second murder.” He drew it from his pocket and looked at it thoughtfully.
“No one can pin a crime on a man who’s been dead for twenty years.”
“Evidently,” Malone said, “that was part of a note he was writing to his brother—the false Michael Venning. When the two brothers came to Chicago, they must have decided to assume the name of a man who had—presumably—been dead for over twenty years. Then the false Venning couldn’t call any attention to them—without also calling attention to that tombstone out in Rosedale cemetery. There was a second reason, too. They must have figured that if two men turned up, calling themselves Gerald Tuesday, it would scare the real Gerald Tuesday into doing what they demanded. Do I make myself clear?”
“Not very,” she said, “but it’ll do.”
Malone cleared his throat. “All murder—” he began again.
Jake said, “Say, have you got any money?”
The little lawyer felt in his pockets, produced two crumpled one-dollar bills and a handful of small change. Helene dumped ninety cents in nickels and dimes out of her handbag. Jake dug up three dollars and a half.
“Hell,” Malone said, “we’re rich. Besides, my credit is good with Joe the Angel, and from now on I’m in the bucks.”
“What do you mean, you’re in the bucks?”
“Wait till you see the bills I’m sending Mona McClane and Editha Venning for legal services.”
Jake muttered something under his breath.
“Blackmail is a nasty word,” Malone said indignantly. “Besides, I earned every nickel of it.”
“They’ll agree with you, too,” Helene said.
The dreamy look came into Malone’s eyes again. “She was justified, if anyone ever was,” he began. “Mona McClane was not only defending herself against bullets when she killed him, but against the intolerable condition of—” He paused and saw that his audience had tuned him out again.
He sighed once more. He could foresee exactly how the evening was going to end. Jake and Helene would go home, leaving him alone. He was going to be drawn into conversation with some of the men at the bar. People would start buying drinks for each other. He would borrow twenty bucks from Joe the Angel. He would assist in an impromptu quartette arrangement of There’s a Little Bit of Heaven, after which no one could stop him from reciting the “Elegy of Robert Emmet.” He and his newfound friends, none of whom he would remember later, would move to a number of other bars, ending up in some obscure place, probably in Cicero. There would be a fight, and he would get the collar torn off his shirt by some perfect stranger from St. Louis, and he would end up either jailed for disorderly conduct or waking up in some woman’s apartment that would turn out to be a forty-five-minute train ride from the Loop.
He knew the night was going to end that way because that was the way it always did.
Before all that started happening, there was one thing still to be done.
He reached in his pocket and drew out the long white envelope Mona McClane had given him just before they left the house and gave it to Jake.
Jake took his hand off Helene’s warm shoulder just long enough to open it.
It was the deed to the Casino.
THE END
About the Author
Craig Rice (1908–1957), born Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, was an American author of mystery novels and short stories described as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction.” In 1946, she became the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Best known for her character John J. Malone, a rumpled Chicago lawyer, Craig’s writing style was both gritty and humorous. She also collaborated with mystery writer Stuart Palmer on screenplays and short stories, as well as with Ed McBain on the novel The April Robin Murders.
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