by Craig Rice
“I don’t know,” Jake said, “unless he was referring to King Oberon.”
The operator looked blank. “Never heard of him. Still a guy can’t keep up with all these European countries. You won’t tell anybody I been gabbing to you, I hope.”
“I didn’t hear a word,” Jake said soulfully.
He stepped out of the elevator and stood for a moment in the lobby, lighting a cigarette. Maybe Mildred Goldsmith had murdered the midget. He hoped not, because it would be tough to find someone her height and weight to replace her in the Casino chorus. For the same reason, which had to do with the Casino, its music, and its floor show, he hoped Annette Ginnis hadn’t murdered the midget, nor Al Omega, nor Artie Clute, nor Angela Doll.
But who had murdered the midget, and why? And who had carried his body out of the Casino? For a moment his mind whirled with speculation. Then for a second moment, he went into a terrific wrestle with his Midwestern conscience.
If he went down to von Flanagan’s office right now, and confessed his part in the affair, and explained his reasons—von Flanagan might be sympathetic and helpful. He might say “Sure, Jake, I don’t blame you for trying to get the little stiff”—Jake smiled wryly to himself—“out of your joint. And thanks for giving me the information.” Or he might turn purple and yell something about obstructing justice, close up the Casino, and call out, “Open the jail doors for Mr. Justus, coming in, not going out!”
“You’ve got a night club to worry about,” Mr. Justus said grimly to Mr. Justus, “and tonight’s floor show, and a loan from Max Hook. And the most beautiful wife in the world, who deserves the best of everything.”
Maybe he could get hold of that comedy dance team who’d just closed at the State-and-Lake.
“It’s none of your business who murdered the midget,” Mr. Justus added to Mr. Justus. “You did nothing but try to protect your own interests, which is what any man would have done under the circumstances. Besides, you didn’t move the body, you only hid it.”
Jake finished lighting his cigarette, tossed the match into the nearest ash tray, and strode across the lobby, resolved to put the midget and his murder completely out of his mind. His mind refused to co-operate.
What could be in Pen Reddick’s box, and who had wanted it badly enough to knock him, Jake, on the head, and walk off with it? His head still throbbed, and he rubbed one hand over his brow. Why eleven silk stockings? How had Artie Clute known the midget was dead? What was he going to do about tonight’s floor show? And what had he overlooked?
He stopped dead-still in his tracks, halfway across the lobby. Something. Right there, almost within the reach of his mind. But he couldn’t coax it any nearer. And something important.
“What have I forgotten?” he said aloud.
“Your topcoat, Mr. Justus,” the hotel manager said, with what was nearly a giggle.
Jake looked blankly at the little man for a moment; then said, “No topcoat. It’s April. It’s spring.” He started to move on toward the door.
The manager moved in front of him. “I’m sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Justus,” he said, “after all that’s happened this morning. But Mrs. Justus said you’d just left the apartment when I phoned, so I took the liberty of stopping you in the lobby”—He paused and coughed apologetically. “I’m sure it isn’t anything serious, but the doctor didn’t quite seem to know what was the matter, and so I thought I’d better—”
Jake stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s Miss Doll,” the manager said weakly. “Angela Doll. We called the doctor, and then we tried to call you, but Mrs. Justus said you were on your way downstairs, and so—” His voice broke off and he looked helplessly at Jake’s back, which, along with the rest of him, was halfway to the elevator by that time.
Angela Doll’s Irish maid met Jake at the door, one finger to her lips. “If she ain’t dead, she’s dyin’,” she whispered, “and if she ain’t dyin’, she’s a mighty sick woman. And the doctor’s with her now, and don’t you go speakin’ in a loud voice.”
“What happened to her?” Jake said hoarsely, leaning his back against the door.
“She fell on her face,” the maid said, shaking her head sadly, “like she’d been struck by a bolt from heaven. When I came here the mornin’, she was up and gay and lively as a cricket. Then all at once she got up on her feet and said to me ‘Mary Margaret, I’m dyin’, and down she fell on her face.” She sniffed loudly. “And what’s to become of me? Heaven knows where I’ll find anyone so kindly and considerate as Miss Doll, the little darlin’.”
“Now, now, now,” Jake said absentmindedly and comfortingly. First the midget, then Angela Doll. Tonight’s floor show. The Casino. Max Hook. Helene.
The house physician, looking professional and bored, came out from the bedroom, locking his case.
“She’s dead, is it?” the maid moaned, sniffing again. “Should I be going in and closing her eyes?”
“No,” the doctor snapped, “but you could be going in and putting cold towels on her head.” He glared at Jake. “There’s nothing the matter with her, Mr. Justus, except that she must have taken some kind of dope last night. One of those things that wear off, and then come back and hit you again. She’ll be all right. All she needs is sleep.” He started to open the door.
“Wait a minute,” Jake said desperately. “Will she come to in time for tonight’s show?”
The doctor opened the door. “She may,” he said crisply, “and she may not. Time will tell.” He closed the door quietly.
Jake dug his fingernails into his hat brim. “The next thing,” he told himself, “is for the whole Casino chorus to come down with measles.”
He tiptoed into the bedroom. Angela Doll lay in the exact center of the big bed, dead to this or any other world, looking like just what her name implied, a mixture of angel and doll.
The maid came in from the bathroom, a cold wet cloth in her hand, and looked down at the sleeping girl. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she sobbed, “since my aunt Bridie’s wake.” She laid the cloth over Angela Doll’s forehead.
“You take good care of her,” Jake said. He drew a long breath and said, “You take damned good care of her.” He tiptoed into the living room, picked up the telephone and called Malone to tell him what had happened. What was he going to do if, on top of the midget’s murder, he had to fill in an act to replace Angela Doll!
Malone’s answer, just before he hung up, was hardly helpful.
“All right,” Jake said grimly to himself, going out in the hall, “I’ll find two acts for tonight’s show—one bad, and the other worse.”
He hailed a taxi in front of the hotel and drove to the Casino. Al Omega’s band was there holding rehearsal, and Artie Clute waved the bow of his bull fiddle at Jake as he passed by the door.
The overturned chair still lay on the floor in Jake’s office. He picked it up, swearing under his breath. Someday he hoped to meet the guy who’d conked him on the head. But right now—He sat down in the chair, picked up the phone, and began dealing with the problem of tonight’s show.
After a half hour of telephoning, he’d gotten nowhere.
Jake lit a cigarette and glared at the offending telephone.
“I’ll have a show tonight,” he said indignantly, “if I have to go out there myself and juggle plates.” He rubbed the aching spot on his head with one hand. “Of course,” he reflected, “Angela Doll may still be able to make it. The doctor said”—He paused in his thought, staring into space.
“Just one more thing,” he said grimly to himself, “will be the camel that tries to grasp at a straw.” He smiled wryly and thought, “Malone should have said that.”
The phone rang.
Jake stared at it for a moment before he picked up the receiver. He had a hunch that, whatever the message was, he didn’t want to know about it.
It was a hoarse, ugly voice that spoke to him. “I’m calling for Max Hook,�
� the voice said. Max Hook never talked on the telephone himself.
Jake cast one despairing glance around the Casino office and thought, “Well, it was a nice night club. I did enjoy owning it.” He said, “Yes, this is Mr. Justus,” as pleasantly as he could, into the phone, and waited.
Max Hook, the voice explained, would like to see Mr. Justus right away. And the matter was urgent.
Chapter Twenty-One
Four hundred and ninety-nine sheep had jumped over the fence. The five hundredth, a particularly silly-looking old sheep with a long, sad face, balked and refused to jump.
Helene sat up in bed, ran her hands through her blonde hair, and said, “The hell with it.”
Not that she wasn’t tired. It seemed to her that her bones were fairly shuddering with tiredness. But that had nothing to do with dropping off into a nice, peaceful slumber.
“After all,” she said to an imaginary Jake, “Lord knows I tried to sleep. I did all the things you told me to do. I took a bath, and washed my face, and brushed my hair, and went to bed just as though it was two o’clock at night and not two in the afternoon.”
She hadn’t slept, but she had dreamed. A restless, half-waking, half-sleeping dream made up of the past night’s experiences, the anxieties of the present, and the terrors still to come in the future. She’d thought of Allswell McJackson and his dilemma, and suddenly Allswell had appeared, a magician’s cloak over his shoulders, saying, “I couldn’t have done this trick if I weren’t twelve feet tall.” Then she’d turned over, trying to find a softer spot in the pillow and to think of something else. The melody of “The Object of My Affections” began to run insanely through her head, and Artie Clute played it over and over on his bull fiddle, which suddenly turned into Annette Ginnis and, as suddenly, turned into a small grey kitten which began to spin around like a top in the center of the room.
Helene had turned over in bed and murmured, “The object of my affection. But the kitten couldn’t have been Annette.” Then she had been entirely awake for a moment, wondering how soon Jake would call. Her eyelids closed and she drowsed again. Allswell McJackson came into the room carrying a basket of eggs which he turned into a multitude of small grey kittens. He said, “The midget can’t be dead. Because I am the midget.”
There hadn’t been any dreams after that, only a long period of lying with her eyes closed, pretending she was asleep, while thoughts raced through her brain. Jake. Tonight’s show at the Casino. Annette Ginnis. Eleven silk stockings, all different sizes. Allswell McJackson. Betty Royal. The fiddle case standing empty outside their door. Annette Ginnis. The drugged whiskey. Annette Ginnis, Annette Ginnis.
She began counting sheep then, and the five-hundredth sheep, the one who’d refused to leap over the fence, leered at her and said, “I’m Annette Ginnis, and I’m probably dead by now.”
That was when Helene sat up in bed, swung her feet down to the carpet, stared at her bare toes, and said, “The hell with it.”
What on earth could be in that box Pen Reddick had to find? A secret in Pen Reddick’s life, something too terrible to tell? If the midget had been doing a little fancy blackmail, it might have led to murder. But Pen Reddick had told Jake, “It wasn’t blackmail. Something more damnable. Something deadlier.”
Helene yawned, stretched, and said, “I can make up lost sleep any time. But to go to bed in the middle of the afternoon is downright silly.”
She reached for a cigarette, lit it, stared at the pale-grey smoke curling up toward the lampshade, and tried to remember all of her half-waking dream. She had an uneasy feeling that it had told her something, reminded her of some one important fact that had been buried in her thoughts under the layers and layers of other thoughts. But all she could think of was the kitten, the grey kitten, and the sheep that had leered at her, and said, “I’m Annette Ginnis. And I’m probably dead by now!”
Helene gasped. That was it! Facts began to pile up in her mind. Annette Ginnis knew about the midget’s racket. Annette Ginnis knew who’d been helping the midget. And there had been a look of mute terror in her eyes when Helene had left, after Mildred Goldsmith had arrived.
She picked up the phone and called the Casino. No one answered. She called Malone. He snapped, “Go to sleep. And if you’ve got to worry about someone, worry about me,” and hung up before she could say another word.
It took Helene thirty seconds to make up her mind, and two minutes to dress. The last touch of lipstick was applied in the taxi.
At the door of Annette Ginnis’s apartment, she paused. Suppose the whole thing had been her imagination running wild? Suppose she were to find Mildred Goldsmith and Annette having a pleasant little feminine chat, with everything quiet and serene?
In that case, she could always be looking for a lost cigarette case. She tapped lightly at the door.
There was no answer. She knocked again, louder, finally pounded. Still no answer.
For a moment she stood there in the hall, trying to convince herself that Annette and Mildred Goldsmith had gone out to the beauty parlor, or to lunch, or to the movies. But there was a cold, uncomfortable sensation at the back of her neck. Annette had been in no condition to go out. And there had been that look of terror in her childlike eyes!
One good thing about being the wife of a night club owner, she told herself grimly on her way down in the elevator, was that you know all the apartment-hotel managers on the near-North Side!
Miss Ginnis had been ill, she explained suavely to the manager, and now she didn’t answer her door. There was probably no cause for alarm, but just in case—
The manager understood, and was politely obliging. He rode up in the elevator with her himself, carrying the passkey.
“Has Miss Ginnis had any visitors this morning?” she asked. Keeping one’s voice steady wasn’t such a trick, when you knew how to do it.
The elevator boy shook his head. “Not as far as I know. Just yourself. ’Course, I can’t keep track of everybody gets off at the twelfth floor.”
Mildred Goldsmith could have slipped up to Annette’s room and slipped away again, unnoticed. She could have gotten off at another floor and walked up or down a few flights. And too, there was always the self-service freight elevator at the far end of the building.
But she, Helene, had seen her. Helene shivered, and wondered if Mildred Goldsmith was out gunning for her, right at this moment.
It was an unpleasant feeling to walk down the carpeted hall of an apartment hotel, chatting idly with the manager and knowing that you’d find a murdered girl at the end of your walk. They paused for a moment outside the door. The hotel manager knocked several times; finally looked questioningly at Helene.
“Of course,” Helene said, between cold lips, “she might have gone out. But since she was ill, I thought it would be best to make sure.”
“Yes indeed,” the manager said uneasily. He slipped the passkey into the door, opened it, and stepped inside. Helene drew a long breath, and followed.
“She must have gone out,” Helene said. The cold began to flow over her entire body. “I’m afraid I’ve bothered you for nothing.”
“Quite all right,” the manager said, smiling. Then, “Mrs. Justus!”
“I’m not going to scream,” Helene said.
Through the half-open closet door she could see the feet in their absurd little suède shoes, hanging limp against a rose satin evening dress. She could see the noose and, even from where she stood, she knew it was made of long, honey-colored silk stockings.
“The other eleven stockings,” she whispered. “The rest of them.”
But where was the twelfth pair?
“I’d better call the police,” the hotel manager said.
“Yes,” Helene said quietly. “I think you’d better.”
Suddenly she found herself staring at those dangling feet. Black suède shoes with absurd high heels, elaborately studded with nail-heads. But no stockings.
“Just a minute,” she said hoarsely.
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The noose was slender, delicate. Not like the knotted one that had suspended the tiny body of the midget.
“Please, Mrs. Justus!” the hotel manager said. “Don’t distress yourself. I’ll call the police, and—”
Helene didn’t hear him. She swung open the closet door. The noose was not made of eleven silk stockings, but only two.
She felt a strange, cold spasm in her stomach as she spun the body around from where it faced the wall.
It was not Annette Ginnis. It was Mildred Goldsmith.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“No, my boy,” Malone repeated for about the tenth time, “you haven’t a thing to worry about. You couldn’t be in better hands.”
He looked thoughtfully over the rim of his glass of rye at Pen Reddick.
“Of course,” he added slowly, “you’d make it a lot easier for me if you’d tell me what’s in that damned box.”
Pen Reddick shook his head. “Outside of what I’m interested in, I don’t know what’s in the box. And as far as my personal interest is concerned, I told you, I’ll show it to you as soon as the box is in my hands, and I won’t tell you any more about it until then.”
The little lawyer sighed. “You’re a stubborn guy, aren’t you? All right then, we’ll do it the hard way.” He frowned into his glass.
“I’ve told you everything I can,” Pen Reddick said. “The rest is up to you.” He glanced at his watch, and reached for his hat.
“Just a minute,” Malone said, motioning him to stay put. “One more, before you go.” He raised his voice and called, “Joe. Two more ryes.” As an afterthought, he said, “Two double ryes.”
“One thing more,” Pen Reddick said. “If the box doesn’t come to me unopened, the deal is off.”
“Oh, sure, sure, sure,” Malone said quickly. He waited while the bartender brought the two more ryes to their table, and then said, “Under the circumstances, I guess the only way to deal with this is to put the cart before the stable door.” He paused. “I mean lock the cart after the stable door is stolen.”
