The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  I brought the car to a halt underneath a high Colonial portico. A moment later Sackler pressed the doorbell. After another moment the door was opened by a liveried butler.

  The first thing I heard was Wolley’s familiar voice. We found him in the living-room, a glass of brandy in his hand, a cigar in his mouth, holding forth on his police adventures to a politely bored audience. We were introduced all around and informed that Rawson hadn’t arrived yet, although he was expected soon.

  Without delay we went into our usual routine. Sackler demanded he be assigned a room in which to mastermind. I whipped out my notebook and proceeded to do the rounds, picking up bits of information I thought might be useful. Since Sackler was actually starting to work before he had negotiated about the check, I became more certain that he wasn’t really worried much about it.

  I snooped around the house for a good hour. I questioned Wolley, the servants and everybody else. I went out into the windy night and personally examined the caretaker’s lodge where they’d found Capek’s body.

  came back cold as hell, commandeered a pint of brandy from the butler’s pantry and went up to the second-floor study which had been assigned to Sackler. I took out my notebook and sat down.

  Sackler was having one hell of a time with a humidor of cigars he had found. His pocket was stuffed and he was rolling one around lusciously in his mouth. Since they were free the taste, I presume, was much improved.

  “All right,” he said. “What have we got?”

  “Not Rawson,” I told him. “He phoned a little while ago. He’ll be another half-hour. Business held him up.”

  “What else?”

  “First, those guys downstairs. That watery-eyed young blond guy is a relative of Capek’s. Name of Crosher. Only living relative as far as anyone knows. He’s been here for a month. He’s broke and was trying to get some dough from the old guy. Came from Chi. Never seen his cousin before. In fact, he only just found out he was Capek’s cousin. He’s in direct line for the estate.”

  I thought maybe I had something there. But as I glanced quickly at Sackler he seemed more interested in his cigar.

  “Next, the Union League Club stuffed shirt in the wing collar is Granville S. Colby, of whom you may have heard.”

  “Often,” said Sackler. “Lawyer. Old family. Blue-blood stock. Stiff-necked. Don’t like him.”

  “Then there’s that guy Benjamin. He’s the skinny one with the thin face. Another lawyer. Colby’s assistant. They’ve both been here for a little over a month. Colby’s supposed to be resting. Doctor’s orders. But he was handling some legal stuff for Capek and Rawson. Was doing it out here.”

  Sackler looked up. “Notice anything funny about that Benjamin?”

  “Yeah. Face seems familiar. Can’t quite place it. Maybe I’ve seen him somewhere around in court. Why?”

  “Keep talking,” said Sackler. “What about Capek?”

  “There’s a caretaker’s lodge out there in the forest,” I told him. “They don’t use it anymore. It was all boarded up. That’s where they found Capek. A revolver was in his hand and his brains were on the floor. There was a portable typewriter there with a suicide note in it. Capek’s fingerprints were on the keys. The doc said he’s been dead three days.”

  “He was missing two weeks,” said Sackler. “What was he doing the rest of the time? Contemplating suicide?”

  “You think you’re kidding,” I told him, “but you’re dead on. That’s exactly what he said in the suicide note.”

  For the first time, Sackler appeared interested. “What’s exactly what he said in the note?”

  “I got it from Wolley. He didn’t have a copy of it with him. Gave it to me from memory. Something about being tired of life, retiring to the lodge alone to think things over. Deciding finally to die. Wolley seems to think it’s on the level. Thinks Rawson’s crazy for asking him to come out here tonight.”

  “Don’t bother me with Wolley’s opinions. Anything else?”

  “Well, there was the faucets.”

  “The faucets? What about the faucets?”

  “The ones in the lodge. They were smashed. There was a stove lid on the floor. I guess that’s what had been used. There was one faucet over the kitchen sink, another in a washroom just off the kitchen.”

  Sackler frowned. “And they were smashed?”

  “They’d been battered about a hell of a lot. But that might have happened a long while ago.”

  Thoughtfully, he crushed his cigar out in a silver ash tray. I took a cigarette from behind my ear and lit it. A moment later Sackler sniffed and said: “That’s a fancy brand for you, isn’t it? What is it, Egyptian?”

  “Right,” I told him. “And from the exalted case of Granville S. Colby.”

  Sackler grunted. “Must cost a lot of dough.”

  “The way he smokes them it does. He’s a chain smoker. Lights one from the butt of the last.”

  Sackler stood up. “Well,” he said, “since there’s nothing more to do until Rawson gets here, I guess I’ll go downstairs and bum one from him. Come along, Joey.”

  followed him down the winding staircase. In the living-room Wolley was still holding forth to Crosher and Benjamin. They didn’t appear very interested. Colby’s eardrums must have revolted already. Sackler and I found him alone in the library on the other side of the foyer, with a half-smoked Egyptian cigarette in his hand.

  Sackler, who wouldn’t hesitate to ask the President for a match, put the bite on Colby for a smoke. Colby patted his pockets, looked up and said coldly: “My cigarette case is in my overcoat pocket. It’s hanging in the hall closet.”

  I took that to mean why in hell didn’t Sackler buy his own butts but that spendthrift said casually, “Don’t get up. I’ll find it,” and walked out into the hall.

  I followed along aimlessly; then I turned into the living-room just in time to catch Wolley’s recital of the time he raided the murderer’s nest single-handed. Just then there came the sound of a wounded banshee and the cook ran into the living-room, her mouth wide open and her larynx vibrating like an off-key harp.

  Sackler and Colby came racing into the room. We got the cook into a chair and poured a slug of brandy into her. At that she became coherent enough to shriek: “The garage! Mr. Rawson! For heaven’s sake—”

  There was more to it than that but we didn’t wait to hear. I was in the lead with Sackler and Wolley on my heels. We rushed out into the bitter night, across the sweeping back lawn to the garage. The door was open and the light was turned on. There was a car inside, its headlights aglow.

  At the wheel slumped Rawson. There was a gun in his hand and an ugly hole in his head. He was as dead as hope in Poland. Wolley, Sackler and I did some routine looking around and found nothing.

  Behind us, young Crosher said: “My God, this is awful. There’s a murderer in this house.”

  “Maybe,” said Colby’s deep bass, “it wasn’t murder.”

  Wolley seized on that. “My idea, too,” he said, his voice thickened by the brandy he’d been drinking. “Rawson worshiped Capek. Brooded about his death. Killed himself.”

  “The only virtue in that theory,” said Sackler, “is its convenience. Everybody commits suicide so the coppers can go home. Otherwise it stinks.”

  Wolley turned on him angrily. “Maybe you got a theory, wise guy.”

  “Maybe,” said Sackler. “Has anyone been outside the house tonight?”

  “I have,” I reminded him.

  “I don’t suspect you, Joey,” he said magnanimously. “Anyone else?”

  Individually, everyone denied having left the house since dinnertime. We trooped back to the Capek mansion. Wolley went to the telephone to call headquarters. Colby used his best courtroom persuasion on the cook, assuring her it would be quite safe for her to sleep in her quarters above the garage. Sackler, registering heavy thought, retired again to the second-floor study. I trailed along behind him.

  Sackler sat down at the desk and rested
his head in his hands. There was utter despair on his face. It was hardly customary for Sackler to take violent death so seriously and I commented upon it.

  He looked up at me. “Joey,” he said, and his voice was drenched in gloom, “don’t you see what this does to my check? It may never be good now.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but now that I did I brightened considerably. It would be an edifying spectacle to see Rex Sackler solve a case free.

  He looked up again and now there was an odd light in his eyes. He slapped his fist on the desk.

  “Joey,” he said, “I think I’ve got something. Go and see that Benjamin guy. Ask him what a writ of replevin is.”

  That didn’t sound very sensible to me. But I went downstairs and did it. I came back and reported: “He says he’s a little rusty on it but he believes it’s something like a habeas corpus.”

  “Good,” said Sackler. “I thought so.”

  I needled him by deliberately misunderstanding. “You mean you think it’s like habeas corpus, too?”

  “No, you idiot. I mean that guy’s not a law clerk at all. He’s Benny Bagel. I’ve been trying to place him all night. But now I’m certain.”

  “Bagel?” I said. “Benny Bagel? Sounds vaguely familiar, but it still doesn’t click.”

  “Forger,” said Sackler, and there was a little tremor of excitement in his tone. “Indicted twice. Never convicted. I’ve seen his picture in the tabloids. Considered the best guy in the field.”

  “What’s he doing here as Colby’s law clerk?”

  “It’ll take me all night to figure that,” said Sackler. “But at last I’m beginning to see the light. Hey, get me the phone number of that bank Rawson’s check was drawn on. I want to call them early in the morning. Tell Wolley he better stay over tonight, too. Then get the hell out of my sight and let me think.”

  I let him think for the rest of the night. In the morning, Wolley, sticking stubbornly to his double suicide theory, was anxious to get back to town. Sackler insisted he stay. I saw little of either Sackler or Colby before lunch. When neither of them appeared then I went up to the study to find Sackler still sitting at the desk.

  “Well,” I said, “what have you got?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Plenty,” he said. “Do you realize, Joey, that Capek never made a will, never owned a driving license, that Rawson held his complete power-of-attorney in every deal?”

  “So,” I said, “what? Maybe Rawson killed him, then got the horrors about it and killed himself.”

  Sackler snorted. “That sounds like a Wolley theory,” he said. “You get to the phone, Joey. Call Postal Union. Tell them to send me their most trusted messenger. And tell him to hurry. Then tell Wolley I’ll be right down to solve his case for him.”

  “Free?” I asked maliciously. But to my surprise even the mention of his lost dough didn’t get a rise out of him. He smiled benignly.

  “By the way,” I said as I went to the door, “where’s Colby? I thought he was with you.”

  “Somewhere around,” said Sackler vaguely. “Hurry with that messenger, will you?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  MADMAN’S MILLIONS

  t was two thirty in the afternoon and Wolley was getting impatient. He paced the broad living-room floor, scowling at Sackler, who sat at his ease before the fire and smoked a cigar he’d cadged from Crosher. Crosher stood by the window twining his fingers about each other like nervous snakes.

  Benny Bagel, the forger law clerk, avidly conned a stack of old-fashioned stereopticon views. At last Wolley stopped his pacing. He came to a guardsman’s halt in front of Sackler and spoke his vehement piece.

  “Damn it, Sackler. Last night you said you’d have something this morning. This morning’s gone. So’s half the afternoon. Capek was a suicide. Quite obviously he was something of a wack and he killed himself. Can you improve on that theory?”

  “Infinitely,” said Sackler.

  “Well, go ahead.”

  “I’m waiting for my messenger boy,” said Sackler. “I can’t do a thing until he arrives.”

  “My God,” said Wolley, “what the hell can a messenger boy have to do with the death of Karl Capek?”

  “Nothing,” said Sackler. “But he may have a great deal to do with the solution.”

  The doorbell jangled then. Benny turned to answer it but Sackler stayed him with a gesture. He strode out into the foyer and admitted a Postal Union boy. He spoke to him earnestly for a moment and in a tone so low I couldn’t hear him.

  I admit I tried.

  There was an expression of relief on his face when he returned to the living-room. He drew a Windsor chair up to a table and sat facing us all.

  “Now,” he said with a businesslike air, “how do you figure this Capek case, Wolley?”

  Wolley glared at him. If he’d told him how he figured the Capek case once, he’d told him a dozen times. Now he lifted his voice and told it again—loud.

  “Capek was an eccentric. A nut, as I figure it. His typewritten note gave that away. He went out to that unused lodge to think things over. After a few days of brooding, he killed himself. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Sackler. “And what about Rawson?”

  “Rawson was devoted to the old guy. Capek gave him everything he had. He was so broken up at Capek’s death that he killed himself, too.”

  “That,” remarked Sackler to me, “is typical modern police work. When you can’t solve a killing you call it suicide in a loud authoritative voice, then go back to a nice warm station-house and finish reading the comic papers.”

  There was confidence in his manner. As a matter of fact he seemed so assured I began to think he’d cooked up some way to save his twenty-five hundred dollars.

  “All right,” said Wolley, annoyed. “I’ve told you. Now you tell me. What did happen to Capek?”

  “What was the first official police theory?” asked Sackler. “Two weeks ago when Capek was first reported missing?”

  “Kidnaping. But we exploded that.”

  “Ah,” said Sackler gently, “did you? This may be incredible to you, Inspector, but you were right the first time.”

  “Hooey,” said Wolley. “Who the hell would kidnap a guy and hold him prisoner on his own estate?”

  “A very bright guy indeed,” said Sackler. “The coppers never looked for him there, did they?”

  “There were no ransom notes, were there? What the hell sort of a kidnaping would it be without any ransom notes?”

  “An extremely unusual one,” said Sackler.

  I watched Sackler closely. This talking in circles wasn’t like him at all. When he had a case broken he usually threw it in everyone’s face abruptly and without waste of words. But now his eyes kept straying to the big clock on the mantelpiece and his manner was that of a man who is just trying to use up time.

  looked around the room. Our old pal Benny now stood a graven image by the fireplace. Crosher had turned his back to the window and stared at Sackler. I reflected that had I killed Capek and Rawson, I would have made a point of appearing less apprehensive than Crosher.

  Wolley’s face was ruddier than usual. Sackler invariably irritated him and today’s circumlocution was angering him even more than was customary.

  “Sackler,” he said, “will you stop horsing around? If you’ve any evidence, present it.”

  “All right,” said Sackler. “Let’s begin with the kidnaping premise. There’s a guy, a certain guy who knows Capek. He’s in a jam—a financial jam. He needs dough badly. So he takes Capek down to that boarded-up lodge and demands a juicy check. Capek won’t give it to him. So he kills him.”

  That was too much even for me. Wolley was just two points this side of apoplexy.

  “That’s the screwiest thing I ever heard,” he yelled. “What good is Capek to him dead if he needs dough?”

  “None whatever,” said Sackler, “but the killer didn’t know that at the time.” He paused for a long moment;
then he glanced over at the fireplace and added: “Did he, Benny?”

  Benny Bagel almost fell over the fire tools. His face was suddenly pale. His eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped so quickly I expected it to bounce off his chest. Wolley noted his expression and some of his doubt left him.

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  Sackler turned to Crosher, who viewed the proceedings blankly.

  “You see,” he said, “there’s your police department for you. Benny’s a forger. He’s served two raps and is considered by his pals the top man in the business. Right, Benny?”

  Benny had recovered somewhat by now. “I’m afraid you’re making a mistake,” he said politely. “I’ve been in law or law school all my life. You’re confusing me with some criminal.”

  “Of course,” said Wolley hopefully. “Of course.”

  “Sure,” said Sackler. “Did you see him register when I threw it in his face? He’s Benny Bagel. You’ve got his fingerprints downtown, Wolley. You’ve got his Bertillons and everything else. In a very short while you’re going to have him in person.”

  Wolley looked from Benny, who appeared very uncomfortable, to Sackler, who didn’t.

  “What’s it all about?” he asked. “Are you saying this guy killed him?”

  “Accessory,” said Sackler. “After and during the fact of murder.”

  “Well, for the love of God,” roared Wolley, “who did the actual killing?”

  Sackler looked at the clock again before answering. It was two minutes to three.

  “First,” said Sackler, “let me tell you why and how.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” snapped Wolley, “tell me something.”

  “This certain guy I mentioned a little while ago—let’s call him Smith. Well, he was in trouble. So he took Capek out to that caretaker’s lodge and proceeded to put the bite on him. He demanded that Capek write a letter asking for a hell of a lot of ransom. A note which would be delivered to Rawson, who, being quite fond of the old guy, would undoubtedly pay. Colby was named as the intermediary.”