The Big Midget Murders

by Craig Rice

  “You mean—” Pen Reddick began.

  Malone waved him to silence. “I know what I mean. The way to find this blasted box is to find who murdered the midget. Because whoever murdered the midget probably has the box.”

  “I don’t see—” Pen Reddick began again.

  “Shut up,” Malone said amiably, looking into space. “That box must contain something the murderer wanted. Because the midget was blackmailing the murderer, and that’s why—”

  Pen Reddick interrupted him to say, “But as far as I know, the midget never blackmailed anybody.”

  Malone drew a long breath. “You sure do want to make it hard for me, don’t you?” He looked moodily into his glass. “What time did you and Betty Royal join forces last night, to start in this wild-brother chase?”

  “It was”—Pen Reddick frowned, thinking. “It must have been about two o’clock. I went to the Casino last night, but I went straight home after the late show. Then Betty called me from some all-night drugstore and asked me to come there right away, and I did.”

  “Fine,” Malone said. “And when did you learn that the midget had been murdered?”

  Pen Reddick blinked. “When I came into the hotel this morning,” he said, “to see Mr. Justus. The elevator boy told me. But why—”

  “Never mind why,” Malone said. “Now, do you know where Betty Royal was last night, in the hour or two before she telephoned you?”

  “No,” Pen Reddick said in a puzzled tone.

  “For that matter,” the little lawyer went on mercilessly, “does anyone know where you were between twelve and two last night?”

  The young man shook his head slowly.

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” Malone said. “You can go home now.”

  Pen Reddick rose, picked up his hat, and stood beside the table, hesitating. “Look here,” he said. “Do you think I—”

  “I don’t know,” Malone growled. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But if I do what you engaged me to do, and if I find out that you stole the box, and that you murdered the midget, then you still owe me that four thousand bucks—less two hundred,” he added hastily. “And,” he went on before Pen Reddick could speak, “if you did murder him, I’m the best defense lawyer who ever came down the pike, and we’ll talk about the size of that fee later.”

  He sat in gloomy solitude for a few minutes after Pen Reddick had gone, hoping the young man hadn’t murdered Jay Otto, the Big Midget, and wondering what the hell was in that precious box. He wondered even more what he was going to do about it.

  Well, first he was going to talk to Ruth Rawlson, and find out how she had known the midget was dead. He glanced at the clock on the wall of Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar. Ruth Rawlson would be picking out a white evening dress about twenty minutes from now. Time for one more quick one. He signaled to Joe.

  Then, after he’d talked to Ruth Rawlson—hell, he’d think about that later.

  A shadow fell across the table, and Malone looked up to see the towering figure of Lou Goldsmith, the slot-machine king.

  “I’m glad to see you,” Lou Goldsmith said. “I was just coming over to your office.” He raised his voice a trifle and said, “Joe! A double gin.” Then he leaned his elbows on the table and looked at the lawyer. “Malone, I’ve decided I’m going to kill my wife.”

  Malone downed the rest of his drink, lit a cigar, and said very thoughtfully, “Well, I’m glad you have the foresight to see a lawyer first. It always helps in court if a lawyer has helped to plant the evidence.”

  “You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” Lou Goldsmith said. “Joe, bring Mr. Malone whatever he’s drinking.” He added, “So you think I’m kidding.”

  Malone looked at the big man through a haze of cigar smoke. Lou Goldsmith’s face was lined and haggard, his eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep. The last remaining wisps of greyish hair on the top of his head were all this-way-and-that. He needed a shave.

  “No,” Malone said calmly. “I don’t think you’re kidding. And”—he regarded the end of his cigar—“I don’t know that I blame you much, either.”

  Lou Goldsmith seemed to relax a little. He lit his own cigar. “Good old Malone. I knew I could depend on you. So you’ll defend me in court?”

  “Sure,” Malone told him, “if they catch you. And I never lost a client yet.” He sipped slowly at the rye Joe had set before him, and told himself firmly that this would be his last drink before he met Ruth Rawlson at the Casino tonight.

  “That woman!” Lou Goldsmith said. He ran a big, short-fingered hand over his jowls, pinched the nape of his neck, and then scratched his back hair. “Malone, I always give her everything she asks for.” He rested his head on his hand.

  The lawyer looked thoughtfully at Lou Goldsmith, at his Finchley suit and his barrel stomach, at his seven-dollar necktie and his drawn face and thinning hair, and remembered the tough, gangling boy of the old bootlegging and gangster days, who’d risen to become an even tougher and just as gangling bookie, and finally rolled his dough down the right alley with the slot-machine control as the prize. Lou Goldsmith hadn’t monkeyed around with women; he’d been too busy. Not until he met the hard-eyed and soft-faced, glittering blonde who called herself Mildred Montgomery, now Mildred Goldsmith.

  Tough old Lou Goldsmith, who could lick—and had—his weight in gangsters, being led, or misled, around by a shrewd, conniving little blonde he could crush with one sweep of his big hairy paw!

  “Well,” Malone said, “before you take the step, tell me when and where and how.”

  “Last night,” Lou Goldsmith began hoarsely. He gulped the rest of his gin, coughed, and said, “Strangle her. With”—He coughed again, rose to his feet, mouthed, “Pard’n me,” and staggered off in the direction of the men’s room.

  For a moment Malone sat nursing his cigar, resisting the impulse to drop everything and look after Lou Goldsmith. It was an impulse that had nothing to do with preventing a probable murder. Probable, because when Lou Goldsmith said, “I’m going to kill so-and-so,” he didn’t kid. No, that wasn’t it. Frankly, Malone explained to his cigar ash, he hoped that Lou Goldsmith would strangle his wife, with whatever came to hand. But in the meantime, someone had to look after Lou Goldsmith.

  But also in the meantime, he reminded himself someone had to find out who’d murdered the midget, someone had to locate the midget’s private strongbox, someone had to quiz Ruth Rawlson about how she’d known of the midget’s murder. “And all of those guys,” he added to himself, “are me.”

  He went up to the bar, called Joe the Angel off to one side, and pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet. “Take my check and what I owe you out of this,” he said. “And wait a minute, Joe.” His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘When Lou Goldsmith comes out of the toilet, buy him about nine drinks on the house. When he passes out, call a cab, throw him in it, and shoot him over to my hotel. I’ll call up and arrange to have the bellhop haul him up to my room and park him there.”

  “You betcha,” Joe the Angel said. He added in a half whisper, “I thought he didn’t look so good when he came in.” He performed a quick adding operation on the back of a bar check and began counting out Malone’s change. “You just leave it to me.”

  “Thanks, pal,” Malone said. He scooped up his change, slid the silver into one pocket and the bills into another, dived into the phone booth and called his hotel to arrange for the reception of Mr. Goldsmith, and went out into the street.

  The first thing to do was to talk to Ruth Rawlson and find out how she’d known of the midget’s murder. Malone looked at his watch, and waved to a cab. This time, he told himself, he was going to be tough. All through the short drive he kept on giving himself a pep talk.

  He hopped out of the cab, paid the driver, and pushed his way through the glass doors into a bewildering vista of cut-glass perfume bottles, stockings, gloves, and knickknacks. Other men might have been awed or alarmed, but not Malone. He’d been there before. He waved
familiarly at the girl at the stocking counter, and went on up to the third floor. Yes, Miss Rawlson was here, in the fitting rooms. Malone headed for them. He’d been there before, too.

  “I’m afraid you can’t see Miss Rawlson now, Mr. Malone. She’s trying on dresses.”

  “Nonsense,” Malone said cheerfully. “Which room is she in?”

  “Number three. But you can’t—”

  “Since when?” Malone said. He knocked on the door of number three, and called, “It’s me. Malone.”

  Ruth Rawlson said, “Oh!” in a startled voice, and then, “Wait a minute.”

  The little lawyer felt a sudden flash of excitement. By now Bettina’s would have finished with Ruth Rawlson’s face and hair. He could hardly wait to see how she looked.

  She looked, when the door was opened for him, like something straight out of an illustration for “Amazing Stories”. She had been between dresses when Malone knocked, and now she was wrapped in a white, sheet-like robe. Her face and hair were covered with what looked like a semi-transparent bag, through which he could only see the vaguest outlines and no colors.

  “It’s to protect Miss Rawlson’s hair and make-up,” the girl explained in answer to Malone’s questioning look, “when she slips dresses over her head.” She smiled tactfully, said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” and left.

  “You dear man!” Ruth Rawlson said throatily. “I was just thinking about you.” The head covering gave her voice an odd, muffled quality.

  “Be tough, now,” Malone reminded himself. He drew a long breath. “Ruth,” he said firmly. “Miss Rawlson. You told Angela Doll the midget was dead, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. The head covering rattled faintly. “Not anyone else, just Angela. She’s always been such a dear, dear friend. And I thought that after the takeoff on her act, she’d be glad to know he was dead.”

  “Was she?” Malone asked very casually.

  “She didn’t seem to be interested,” Ruth Rawlson said, shaking her head.

  “Now,” Malone said. “What time did you call her up?”

  “Oh gracious,” Ruth Rawlson said, in a small voice, “I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ve always had such a poor sense of time. All my life. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve been late for appointments—”

  “I’m sure you were forgiven,” Malone said. “Last night”—He paused, looking thoughtful. “It must have been before Jake sent you home in a cab.” She nodded, and he went on, “That means it was—quite a while before the murder was officially discovered. So how did you find out about it?”

  There was a moment’s silence before she said angrily, “Are you accusing me of murdering him?”

  “No, no, no,” Malone said hastily. “But it’s damned important to know how you found out.”

  “Oh,” Ruth Rawlson said. Her voice was very small. “Because the person who told me must have been the murderer.”

  “Something like that,” Malone said.

  “In that case,” she declared, “I won’t tell you who it was. I may be shielding a criminal from justice, but I simply couldn’t do it. It would haunt me all my life if I did such a thing, Mr. Malone. All my life.”

  Malone sighed. “Now look here,” he said firmly. “You wouldn’t be turning anyone over to the police if you told me. All you’d be doing is help me out of a difficulty. I’m not a policeman: I’m a lawyer.”

  “Oh dear!” she said. “I don’t know what to do. If I do tell you, will you promise and cross your heart and hope to die that you won’t go right away and tell the police?”

  “I promise,” Malone said. “I won’t tell them a damned word. Now, who was it?”

  Ruth Rawlson said, “I don’t know.”

  “Damn it,” Malone began.

  “It was a voice,” she added.

  “A—for the love of Mike!” He caught himself just in time, and went on in his gentlest voice, “I thought you trusted me.”

  “I do,” she said unhappily. “Mr. Malone, I’ll tell you the truth, the whole truth.” Her tone was that of a worried child. “It was that bottle of liquor on the midget’s dressing table. I knew he wouldn’t mind if I went in and helped myself, but I felt funny about doing it without asking him. You can understand that, can’t you, Mr. Malone?”

  “Of course,” Malone said sympathetically.

  “So I went into the telephone booth and called him up at the hotel. At least I meant to call him up, but the most awful voice answered the telephone.”

  “What kind of a voice?” Malone asked. There was a sudden excitement in his eyes.

  “Oh, a simply terrible voice. Crude, and hoarse, and—well, just frightful. And I asked to speak to Mr. Otto and the voice said, ‘Mr. Otto can’t come to the phone because he’s been murdered,’ and then laughed—Oh, horribly!” She shuddered. “Can you imagine what I felt?”

  “I can indeed,” Malone said. He wished that her hands weren’t covered by the robe. He’d have liked to pat one of them.

  “I just stood there and thought about it, and then I called up Angela. Oh Mr. Malone, that voice! I’m afraid it’s going to haunt me, always.” She gave a little gasp.

  “Now never mind,” Malone soothed her. “It’s all over with. Try to forget it.” He rose. “I’m sorry to have had to bother you again, but it was important. Remember—tonight, at the Casino.”

  “I’ll remember,” she breathed.

  Malone stood for a moment in front of the store, looking at the still cloudy sky, thinking the whole thing over. A hoarse, crude-sounding voice. That didn’t tell him much. But it cleared up the matter of how Ruth Rawlson had learned about the murder.

  Just the same—what next?

  He took out a cigar and began slowly unwrapping it. There was one angle to this he hadn’t followed up yet: Johnny Oscar, one of Max Hook’s gunmen. He had been involved in the marriage-annulment scheme the midget had been working. Chances were that he hadn’t murdered the midget himself, since he’d apparently been accompanying Ned Royal and Annette Ginnis at the time of the murder. Though of course the chronology of that trio’s peregrinations was still uncertain. But in any case—he might be the lead for Malone to follow, straight to the murderer and to Pen Reddick’s box, and to Malone’s $4000 fee.

  The thing to do was to see Max Hook. Johnny Oscar might not prove to be talkative, but Malone had a shrewd hunch that Max Hook wouldn’t like it if he learned what had been going on. It was a cinch Max Hook wasn’t mixed up in it himself, as it was entirely out of his line. He wouldn’t like it, and he was an expert at making people talk.

  At least, Malone reflected, it was something worth trying. He hailed a cab, and directed the driver to take him to the Lake Shore drive building that housed the gambling czar’s palatial apartment.

  On the way, he began thinking over what Ruth Rawlson had told him. Unfortunately, he had gotten too far to turn back and question her again before he remembered that there hadn’t been any telephone calls for the midget at his apartment before two o’clock.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I’ll have to call the police,” the hotel manager said, looking helplessly at Helene.

  “It’s customary,” she said, between cold lips.

  She sat down on the couch where, a few hours before, she’d talked with Annette Ginnis.

  Annette Ginnis hadn’t murdered Mildred Goldsmith. She was sure of that. Because Annette hadn’t murdered the midget, and only the murderer of the midget—and Jake, Malone, and herself—knew that the midget had been hanged with a rope made of long silk stockings.

  The manager reached for the telephone. Helene held up a restraining hand. “Wait a minute.”

  She frowned. “Before you call the police, call downstairs and find out if anyone here happened to notice Miss Ginnis leaving the hotel.”

  The manager stared at her for a moment, then obeyed.

  No, no one had seen Miss Ginnis leave.

  She could have slipped out by the freight elevator, Hel
ene reflected. But there had been a third person in the room—the murderer of the midget and of Mildred Goldsmith. Somehow she doubted that Annette Ginnis had left that room of her own volition.

  She picked up the telephone and called Malone’s office.

  Mr. Malone was out. No, the girl didn’t know where he was, nor when he’d be back, if he came back at all.

  She tried the hotel and the Casino. No one seemed to know where Jake was.

  Meantime, something had to be done about Annette Ginnis. And done fast.

  She slammed down the telephone, stood up, and picked up her purse.

  “Call the police,” she said, “and tell them about this.”

  “But,” he said helplessly, “you can’t leave here now.”

  “Oh yes I can,” Helene told him, “and I’ve got to.” She opened the door.

  “But—the police—”

  “Will raise particular hell,” she finished for him. “I’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

  The elevator boy was helpful, but vague. He hadn’t seen Mrs. Goldsmith that morning. Nor had he noticed anyone getting off at Annette Ginnis’ floor. A dozen people might have gotten off there, but he hadn’t paid much attention.

  She hailed a taxi in front of the hotel, and said, “Just drive slowly up Michigan avenue. I want to think.”

  Four people had known about the multiple-marriage racket of which Annette had been the key person, up to the time of the midget’s death. Those four were Annette herself, the midget, Mildred Goldsmith, and Johnny Oscar.

  The midget and Mildred Goldsmith had been murdered, hanged by long silk stockings—Mildred, by her own stockings. Annette was missing. That left Johnny Oscar.

  She called to the driver, “Stop at the nearest place where I can telephone.”

  From a drugstore phone booth she called von Flanagan, using her extra-sweetest voice as she asked where Johnny Oscar lived.

  He told her, naming an address on West Schiller street, before suddenly catching himself and saying, “Hey? What do you want to know for?” As she started to answer something about idle curiosity, he said, “Wait a minute, there’s a call coming in.”