by Craig Rice
Bill Smith said, “Oh—” He swallowed the last word.
“Shush-cash-rur-a-mum,” April whispered.
Dinah fled up the rest of the steps, clutching the Manila envelope and Wallie Sanford’s clean shirt and socks. April leaned over the railing, looked at Bill Smith, and said, coldly, “Don’t be rude.” She moved up a couple of steps and added, “Especially about our Mother. I’m sorry you don’t like her, because we do.”
Bill Smith pulled a couple of dead leaves from the back of his collar and said, “I do like your mother. She’s a fine, brilliant woman. Only, she doesn’t know anything about how to bring up children.”
“Now,” Sergeant O’Hare murmured soothingly. “If you’d raised nine of your own—”
April pressed the advantage. She leaned over the railing and said anxiously, “Oh, Captain O’Hare. Do you really suppose the murderer really set that fire on purpose so he could draw the police away and search the Sanford house? Really?”
Bill Smith and Sergeant O’Hare glanced at each other. Then they shoved through the arbor, quick. The last April saw of them, they were racing across the Sanford lawn.
Dinah was tiptoeing down the stairs. She looked more serene now. She said, “They’re in the bag. The laundry bag.” She giggled, and then sobered. “We’ll take the shirt and socks to poor Mr. Sanford in the morning, with his breakfast.”
“And his razor,” April said. “And some soap, and a mirror. That’s tomorrow. This is now. Let’s get the gang together. We’re supposed to be having a party, remember?”
Dinah said, “How’d you get rid of—them?”
“Simplest thing jn the world,” April said. “I just burned down a house.”
“Don’t joke about that,” Dinah said. “Look. We gotta find Archie. He may be in trouble.”
April paled, remembering. She ran down the steps beside Dinah, saying, “We’ll give him an alibi. He was with us all the time, until the fire broke out.”
“Maybe they caught him in the act,” Dinah said. “That darned O’Hare guy said somebody set the fire.”
“He didn’t say who,” April panted. “And even if they have caught Archie, we’ll fix it somehow.”
“We’ll have to,” Dinah panted, “he’s our brother.” She added, “Thank goodness he picked a vacant house.”
From the foot of the steps they could see the scene of the fire clearly. Red puffs of smoke, a few occasional flames, five fire engines, and a dark ring of spectators. They began running down the sidewalk.
Half a block from the steps, a small, excited, breathless figure ran into them. “Hey,” Archie said. “I came back to getcha. You’re missing the whole fire. You’re gonna miss the whole thing.” He jumped up and down. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
“Oh, Archie,” Dinah said. “How could you!”
Archie stared at her, looked scared, and almost tearful. He said, “Well, heck.”
“Did anybody see you?” Dinah demanded.
“Sure,” Archie said, bewildered. “Everybody.”
April nudged Dinah. It was no good, she knew, trying to get anything out of Archie by direct questioning. She said calmly, “Say, where were you when the fire started?”
“Well, gosh,” Archie said in a hurt voice. “You wanted to get those cops away from that house. So me’n the Mob were down in the bushes, making a trip-trap. We were gonna fix it, and then Goony was gonna yell. That woulda got ’em. Only then the fire engines went by and the whole Mob beat it on me. But that Bill Smith fell in the trip-trap, anyway. And I seen that O’Hare going down the road. So I figured I might as well go, too. Heck, we don’t have a fire here every day.”
“Oh, gosh,” Dinah said to April, with a gasp of relief. “He didn’t do it!”
“Praise be,” April added.
“Didn’t do what?” Archie demanded.
“Set that house on fire,” Dinah said.
Archie stared at them. “Hey. Me? Are you loony? That would be against the law. That would be arsenic.”
April kissed him and Dinah hugged him. Archie wriggled loose and said, “Hey. Hey. You better hurry up, or you won’t get there before the roof falls in.”
The three of them raced down the hill. Firemen were spraying streams of water on the house that had displayed a FOR RENT sign for the past five years. Other firemen were wetting down the shrubbery and surrounding buildings. Just as the three young Carstairs reached the scene, there was a shrill blast on a whistle, and the firemen fell back. One instant later the roof fell in, with a resounding crash, and sparks flew skyward. A cloud of smoke shot up, like a big balloon. The firemen raced back with their hoses. “See, I tole ya,” Archie said. “I tole ya, I tole ya!”
“All right, you told us,” April said. “Shush-u-tut u-pup.”
“Oh, boney!” Archie said. He ran down among the spectators, calling, “Hey, Slukey! Hey, Goony! Hey, Admiral!”
“The Mob!” Dinah said scornfully. “We missed the whole darn fire. Look, it’s almost out now. And where is everybody?”
The smoke had changed color, and the flames had died away. A few last sparks shot up from time to time. One of the fire engines pulled itself together and drove away, with a loud motor noise and a mild clanging of its bell. The crowd began to go home.
The kids departed from the crowd and moved toward Dinah and April. Joella said, “Where were you?”; Bunny said, “Did you miss any of it?”; Joe said, “Hey, April, I been looking all over for you,”; Pete said, “How did you kids get lost?”; Eddie said, “Didya see the roof fall in?”; and, finally, Mag embraced Dinah and said, “Oh, gosh! That was simply a super fire!”
“We’re glad you liked it,” Dinah said politely. “We always try to entertain our friends. Next time we give a party, we’ll try to arrange an explosion.”
Mag giggled, and ran ahead to join Eddie. Bunny called back, “Hey, you kids, let’s go on up and dance.”
“I’m hungry!” one of the Mob yelled.
The fire chief’s red roadster was parked beside the walk. The fire chief himself was standing there talking to a subordinate, as Dinah and April reached the car. “—no doubt about it,” he was saying. “Kerosene all over everything. Some kind of time charge, I think. Pure case of—”
“Di-nah,” Pete called.
“Coming,” Dinah called back.
“Ap-ril!” Joe called.
“We’ll catch up,” April called. But she held Dinah back. “Listen. Archie’s Mob didn’t set that fire.”
“Well, gosh no,” Dinah said. “Archie can lie, but not that convincingly.”
“But the fire did draw the cops away from the Sanford house,” April went on.
“For Pete’s sake,” Dinah said. “I got my eyes open when I was ten days old, too. What of it?”
“Just”—April drew a long breath—“something was planned to happen at the Sanford house tonight. Not by us. We saw some of it. Maybe it went wrong. But that fire was set by somebody.”
“Not Archie,” Dinah said.
“Sure it wasn’t Archie,” April said. “But who was it?”
A voice ahead of them called, “Hey, Di-nah. Hey, April!”
“Hash-e-lul-square with i-tut,” Dinah said. “We’ve done all we can right now. The food’s waiting, and there’s all those super records we borrowed from Joella. Let’s get going. After all, it’s our party.”
Chapter Eleven
It was about two o’clock in the morning when April stirred, half woke, sat up in bed, and said cautiously, “Dinah! Dinah!”
Dinah turned over in her twin bed, opened one eye, and said, “Huh?”
“Dinah, I heard a siren.”
Dinah raised up on one elbow, blinking, and listened. The world was still, save for a mockingbird that sat in the sycamore tree and repeated, “Purty-purty-purty-purty.”
“You had a bad dream,” Dinah said. “Go to sleep.”
“I am asleep,” April muttered, burying her face in her pillow.
Din
ah listened for another minute. There did seem to be a lot of cars going down the road. And then—yes, there was a siren, not very loud, and very far away. She started to whisper “April!” and then stopped. Maybe it had been her imagination.
The bedroom door opened softly, and a small, pajama-clad figure tiptoed in. “Hey, kids,” Archie whispered. “I heard a siren.”
Dinah sighed and sat up in bed. “So did I,” she told him, “and so did April. Look, we’ve already been to one fire tonight, and that’s enough.”
“But this wasn’t a fire siren,” April said, her voice half muffled in her pillow. “It was a police siren.”
“Probably some motorcycle cop chasing a speeder,” Dinah said. She didn’t say it with conviction, though.
“It was pretty close,” April said.
“I wanna go to the murder,” Archie said.
“Oh, for gosh sakes,” Dinah said crossly. She paused.
“Well,” she added thoughtfully, “maybe we had better get dressed and find out what it is.”
There were quick, determined steps in the hall, and Mother in the doorway. She still had on her working clothes. “Why haven’t you gone to sleep yet?” Mother said.
“We were asleep,” Dinah said.
“We woke up,” April added.
“We heard a siren,” Archie said. “There’s been a murder somewhere!”
“Pure imagination,” Mother said briskly and cheerfully. “You’ve been seeing too many of the wrong kind of movies. Now, settle down.” She gave Archie a playful slap and said, “Get to bed. Scoot.”
Archie scooted down the hall.
“And you two Indians,” Mother said, “go to sleep.” She closed the door firmly.
“Well,” Dinah whispered a moment later, “that settles that!”
She stayed awake for a minute or two, still listening. Yes, it had been a siren. What? If the police had found Mr. Sanford, the siren would have been a lot nearer. Could it have been another murder? After witnessing the events in the Sanford villa, Dinah was ready to believe that anything could happen. She listened a few seconds more and then whispered, “April!”
April was asleep. Dinah murmured, “The heck with it,” and went to sleep herself.
It was the smell of bacon frying that woke her the second time. It woke April at the same instant. They sat up in bed, blinking at each other. Dinah looked at the clock. Half-past ten.
“Oh, April!” Dinah gasped. “Mother worked late last night! We should have been up to make coffee for her!”
They scrambled out of bed, washed their faces fast, put on bathrobes, and headed for the stairs. Archie raced past them, similarly clad, washed, but slightly tousled. “Hey!” he yelled as he took the last three steps in one jump, “whadda I smell!”
Mother, in the kitchen, was cheerfully whistling The Wreck of the Old Ninety-seven. Bacon was turning a crispy brown in the skillet, and pancakes were bubbling on the griddle. The percolator was going “bup-bup-bup-bup” and there was a saucepan of cocoa on the warming plate. The table was set, Henderson was tied out in the back yard contentedly eating dandelion heads, and Jenkins was licking his chops over an empty plate.
“Oh, Mother,” Dinah exclaimed. “We meant—”
“Hullo,” Mother said. “I was just about to wake you.” She had on her working slacks, and her face looked tired.
“How come you’re up so early?” April demanded.
“Haven’t been to bed yet,” Mother said, sliding pancakes onto a warm platter. She added, in a very matter-of-fact voice, “Book’s done.”
“Mother!” Dinah said. “Oh, gosh!”
“Oh, super,” April said.
Archie said, “Yipes!”
“Stop hugging me,” Mother said, pretending to be furious. “You’ll upset the cocoa. And get the newspaper, the butter, the maple sirup, and an ash tray. Git, now.”
Breakfast was on the table in sixty seconds flat.
Halfway through her fourth pancake April looked up critically. “Now I hope you’ll get your hair done. Honest, Mother, that upswept hair-do of yours is strictly from cyclone.”
“Monday,” Mother said. “I’ve already made the appointment.”
“Manicure too,” Dinah said firmly.
“Absolutely,” Mother said. “Why, I might even blow myself to a facial.”
“Glamour girl,” Archie said, sneaking a piece of bacon rind to Jenkins, and reaching for his fifth pancake.
At last Mother began the regular postbreakfast procedure, a last cup of coffee, a cigarette, and the newspaper. She started to unfold the paper, and then yawned. “Sleepy,” she announced. She rose and went to the stairs. The three young Carstairs followed. She pointed to a fat brown-paper package on the coffee table and said, “When the man from the express company comes, that’s it. Good night.” Halfway up the stairs she paused. “I’m sorry your party last night wasn’t a success.”
Dinah blinked, and April said, “Huh?”
“Well,” Mother said, “everything was so quiet I was afraid you weren’t having a very good time.”
“It was a wonderful party,” Dinah said.
“Good,” Mother said. She went on up the stairs. “See you later.”
The three young Carstairs stared at each other. “Either Mother is getting deaf,” Dinah said solemnly, “or she certainly was busy last night.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Let’s get going. We’ve got to feed Mr. Sanford, wash the dishes, and go downtown and buy a Mother’s Day present.”
“First,” April said, “I want to see what the paper says about our fire.” She spread the paper out on the table, looked at it, and gasped, “Hey! Dinah!”
There wasn’t anything about the fire on page one. (Later, they found an obscure paragraph about it on page seventeen.) But there was something far more interesting.
“It’s him!” Dinah said.
It had been dark in the Sanford villa, and the man with the gun had been standing all the way down the stairs. But there wasn’t any possible doubt about the dark, thin face under the snap-brim hat.
“Le’ me see,” Archie demanded. He stared at the picture and said, “I know him! He was around here day before yesterday.”
“He was!” Dinah exclaimed. “What was he doing here?”
“He was asking how to get to Mrs. Cherington’s house,” Archie said, “and I told him, and he gave me two bits.”
“Oh, Archie,” April said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Well, heck,” Archie said defensively. “I didn’t know he was gonna go get murdered.”
“No, I don’t suppose he mentioned it to you.” April said coldly. “But you ought to tell us everything.”
“Oh, yeah?” Archied yelped indignantly. “I could tell you plenty—”
“Such as?” April taunted him.
“Oh, boney!” Archie said. “Oh, shambles!”
“Shut up, you kids,” Dinah snapped. “I want to read this.
“Me too, me too,” Archie said.
The bullet-riddled body of Frankie Riley, alleged small-time racketeer and petty blackmailer, was discovered early this morning in an abandoned swimming pool at …
“We did hear sirens,” April said. “Dinah, that’s the swimming pool at the old Harris place. It’s only three blocks from here. The Harrises used to keep ducks in it.”
“Let’s go see it,” Archie said. “Right now!”
“You make too much noise,” Dinah said, in an absent-minded tone. She sniffed. “Bullet-riddled! My gosh! There was only one shot!”
“Don’t be in such a rush,” April said. She pointed to a paragraph halfway down the first column.
… appeared at first that Riley, well known to the police and the underworld, had been taken for a ride. The findings of Dr. William Thackleberry, medical examiner, that all but one of the wounds had been inflicted several hours after death, suggested that an attempt might have been made to make the slaying appear to be the work of a gang.
“Sure!” April said. “That’s how it was done. He was murdered in the Sanford house, and then he was moved and dumped in the swimming pool.”
“Keep still” Dinah said. “I’m reading.”
The murder was discovered when Mrs. Peter Williamson was awakened by the sound of shots and telephoned a complaint to the police department that neighbors were shooting at her cat.…
Dinah giggled. “She would!”
“Hey, I know that cat,” Archie said. “Jenkins beat him up last week. Good ol’ Jenkins.”
“Quiet,” April said.
Riley had recently served a term for robbery. At one time he was held for questioning in connection with the kidnap-murder of Bette LeMoe, but was subsequently released for insufficient evidence.…
“Wait a minute,” April said. “I read about that in Real Crime Cases. About two months ago. This guy’s picture was in it, too. That’s why his face looked familiar!” She, drew a quick breath. “She was a singer—no, a burlesque star, a really important one. She was kidnapped from right in front of the theater and then she sent a note which turned out to be really in her own handwriting, and it said if the ransom money was paid she would be back at the theater at noon Friday, only—”
“Slow down,” Dinah said. “You’ll blow a fuse.”
“Well, the money was paid,” April said stiffly. “Fifteen thousand dollars. And she arrived at the theater at noon Friday in a coffin, with a note on top of it that said the kidnapers were sorry they had to murder her, but she could have identified them. And the police never found the kidnapers. The article started to tell about the investigation afterward, but Mother took it away from me before I could finish reading it, and I never could find another copy.”
“Mother did,” Dinah said. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” April said. “She just said it wasn’t suitable reading matter and took it away.”
“Well, my gosh,” Dinah said, “that’s dam funny. Because she usually lets us read anything we want to.”
“She lets me read all the comic books,” Archie said.
“I thought it was funny,” April said, “because she never minded before when I read Real Crime Cases. Heck, she used to borrow the copies from me and read ’em herself.”
