The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  The valet shook his head as though he had taken a long dive through very cold waters and was seeking to catch his breath as well as to clear his vision.

  “A kleptomaniac and a bloodhound-canary,” he said. “I never heard of any such thing.”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “You’ll get accustomed to the idea after a while. It’s really very logical, Scuttle.”

  The valet grunted.

  “The thief to catch the thief,” he said. “But what in heaven’s name is a bloodhound-canary?”

  Lester Leith lowered his voice.

  “The bloodhound of the air, Scuttle.”

  “Huh?” said the valet.

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “It’s the rarest breed of bird in the world, Scuttle,” he said. “I’m not at all surprised you’ve never heard of it. In fact, there’s only one specimen in this country. It belongs to a friend of mine who lives in the city—he brought it back from a dangerous trip to the tropics.

  “The chief trait of a bloodhound-canary is that it can trail things through the air—other birds, or airplanes, or falling bodies—anything that goes through the air. That’s due to its wonderful ability to recognize scents. We have canine bloodhounds to trail things across the ground. The rare bloodhound-canary does the same thing in the air a bloodhound does on the ground.”

  The valet looked thunderstruck, but for a moment he was speechless. Lester resumed.

  “And since this trunk vanished into thin air,” he said. “I’d say a man would need the help of my friend’s valuable bloodhound-canary to trail them—”

  The valet, his face purple now, whirled on his heel.

  “Very well,” he gritted. “You’ve had your little joke. I tried to give you the facts you wanted because I thought you’d be interested, and this is all the thanks I get? Being made the butt of a joke! And rather a poor joke—if you will pardon me for saying so, sir!”

  And he strode toward the door which led from the room.

  Lester Leith watched the man with laughing eyes. The spy was huge, some six feet odd of hulking strength, and he moved with a ponderous stealth, like a stalking elephant. Lester Leith, on the other hand, was closely knit, feline, well formed, quick in his motions.

  “Scuttle,” he called.

  The spy paused, his hand on the door.

  “I wasn’t making sport of you,” drawled Lester Leith. “And, since you seem inclined to doubt my statement, I’ve decided to show you just how a theoretical solution could be worked out with the aid of this wonderful canary and a kleptomaniac.

  “Would you mind getting a cab, going to a bird store and getting me a bird cage? I shall want a perfectly huge cage, Scuttle, one that has a diameter of at least four feet. And I’ll want a cover for it. Have the cover tailored to fit smoothly—something made of dark cloth so that the canary will get lots of rest. It’s very delicate, you know.

  “I’ll attend to getting the kleptomaniac myself, Scuttle. And I’ll see my friend and borrow his flying bloodhound. And you may start now. Of course you won’t breathe a word of this to Sergeant Ackley.”

  And Lester Leith arose, flipped the cigarette into the fireplace and strode toward his bedroom, leaving a gaping spy standing awkwardly, one hand on the door knob.

  “But,” stammered the spy, “I don’t understand.”

  “No one asked you to, Scuttle,” said Lester Leith, and slammed the bedroom door.

  CHAPTER III

  The Kleptomaniac

  Bessie Bigelow glanced up at the man who sat in the taxicab, faultlessly tailored, wearing his evening clothes with an air of distinction.

  “The bail,” she said, “was five grand.”

  Lester Leith nodded, as though five thousand dollars was distinctly a minor matter.

  “Plus about a thousand to pay the department store,” went on Bessie Bigelow.

  Lester Leith nodded again.

  Bessie reached over and placed a hand on his coat sleeve.

  “Now listen, guy,” she pleaded. “I’m a good scout but I’m a shoplifter and a pickpocket, and I ain’t nothing else. Don’t get me wrong. You come along and play Santa Claus for me, but that ain’t going to get you no place.

  “I’m a crook, all right. I’ve worked the department stores and pulled the pickpocket stuff for a long time. I ain’t no kleptomaniac. Kleptomaniac, my eye! That’s a line of hooey the lawyer thought up for the judge, and the newspaper boys glommed onto it and made a big splurge about the beautiful woman who was in jail because she just couldn’t keep her hands to home.”

  Lester Leith lit a cigarette. He hadn’t even glanced at the blonde who was rattling off the conversation at his side.

  “Listen,” insisted the blonde, “if you’re playin’ Santa Claus with the idea that you’re gettin’ a blond lady friend you got another guess comin’. And if you’re one of those settlement workers that always come around givin’ the girls a chance to reform, you got two more guesses comin’.

  “I ain’t goin’ to be a sweetie, and I ain’t goin’ to reform. I’m spillin’ it to you straight because you got a chance to go back an’ glom the coin you put up for bail and to reimburse the department store. I’ve done lots o’ things in my life, but I ain’t never obtained no money from a gent under false pretenses. I’m a girl that shoots right straight from the shoulder, that’s me.”

  Lester Leith nodded.

  “Very commendable, your frankness,” he muttered.

  The girl snorted.

  “Listen, guy, what do you want?”

  Lester Leith turned to face her.

  “I want your help.”

  “In what?”

  “In convincing the police that I am innocent of certain crimes they try to pin on me.”

  The girl’s blue eyes widened until they seemed like China saucers.

  “Now that,” she said judicially, “is a new one!”

  Leith nodded.

  “And what do I do?” she asked.

  “You go to a hotel with me, and we get rooms, separate rooms, but rooms which adjoin,” said Lester Leith.

  The girl yawned.

  “Pardon me,” she said wearily.

  “For yawning?” asked Lester Leith.

  “Naw,” she drawled, “for thinking your line was a new one. From there on, big boy, I know it by heart.”

  Lester Leith shook his head.

  “No,” he said, “I’m afraid you don’t.”

  She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head, the smell of the jail disinfectant still clinging to her hair.

  “Well, go on,” she said, “and don’t hesitate in the rough places. Spill it and get it over with. Exactly what is it you want?”

  “I want you to occupy this room, probably as my sister or niece,” said Lester Leith, “and I want you to come and go as you please. You will probably be followed by police, but that’s a minor matter. And I want you to curb your illicit activities as much as possible. Use a certain amount of discretion as to the pockets you pick. That’s all.”

  The girl’s eyes were narrow and hard.

  “Listen,” she said, “I hate a damned mealy-mouthed hypocrite. Now you been pretty decent to me. So come clean. If that’s all, say so, and if it ain’t, say so.”

  “That,” said Lester Leith, “is all.”

  She sighed.

  “Well,” she said, “I sure gotta hand it to you. If that’s all, you’re sure a new one.”

  “Nevertheless, that is all,” said Lester Leith. “Only I want to warn you that the police will be watching you. If you do exactly as I say they can’t convict you of anything. If you fail to follow instructions you may get yourself into rather a tight fix.”

  Bessie Bigelow nodded.

  “Guy,” she proclaimed, “I like you, and I like the way you came across with the bail money. I’m going to do it.”

  Lester Leith’s nod was rather impersonal.

  “Thanks, Bessie,” he said.

  The cab rumbled on
in silence.

  “Well,” said Bessie, rather ruefully, “if we’re going to be pals, I may as well start shooting square by giving you back your things.”

  Her hand disappeared down the front of her dress, came out with something that glittered in the reflected street lights.

  “Your watch,” she said.

  Lester Leith took it unsmilingly.

  “Thank you, Bessie.”

  She regarded him with a puzzled expression.

  “Didja know when I lifted it?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Within ten seconds after I got in the cab,” she said. “I sized you up as a settlement worker that was goin’ to pull a lot o’ hooey and wind up by having to be slapped to sleep, so I made up my mind I’d get mine while the gettin’ was good.”

  Lester Leith returned the watch to his pocket.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said.

  Her next sigh was almost a groan.

  “And your wallet,” she said. “It sure feels fat.”

  She passed him over his wallet.

  “Take that after the watch?” asked Lester Leith with a note of respect in his voice.

  “Naw,” she said. “I took that while you was talking with the bail clerk, right after you put up the six grand … listen, guy, you ain’t lost nothing but a thousand bucks, that’s what the department store took to square up the charge account. The rest of the money is simply bail, and they can’t make that shoplifting charge stick. They can’t identify the goods. I’ll stick right around and demand trial, and they’ll dismiss the case. Then your five grand comes back.”

  Lester Leith muttered a word of thanks.

  “And if you let me work that hotel we’re goin’ to, I’ll have your thousand back for you inside of a couple of weeks.”

  Lester Leith shook his head.

  “No, Bessie. While you’re with me, your play is to be the sad, penitent kleptomaniac who is taking medical treatments from a psychiatrist, having, however, occasional symptoms.”

  “Okay,” she said. “You shoot square with me and I’ll shoot square with you. Where we headed for now?”

  “The Palace Hotel,” said Lester Leith.

  “The Palace, eh?”

  “Yes. Ever been in trouble there?”

  The young woman knitted thoughtful brows.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “There was a rap there a coupla years ago, but I beat it.”

  “That’s fine,” said Lester Leith. “I’d hate to cause the hotel any embarrassment. Why don’t you reform and go straight, Bessie?”

  She stared at him as though he had made some astoundingly new suggestion.

  “Now, that’s an idea!” she said. “The only trouble with it is that I’ve heard it somewhere before!”

  And then she laughed, a low, purring laugh.

  “Why don’t you?” insisted Lester Leith.

  “Baloney,” she said. “Why should I? It’s a crooked world. I’m enjoying myself, le’me alone. You promised you weren’t going to try and reform me. Gimme one of those cigarettes. The Palace, eh? That place gives me a pain. They try to put on lots of dog so they can stick you on the bill.”

  The cab drew up in front of the hotel.

  Lester Leith assisted the girl to the ground. He indicated some three bags to the doorman, stalked into the lobby. The clerk bowed obsequiously and spun the register, handed him the desk pen.

  “I believe,” said Lester Leith, with dignity, “that you have a reservation for me?”

  “Yes?” asked the clerk. “What was it?”

  “The name,” said Lester Leith, “is Frank Millsap. I wired about rooms. I was to have 407 reserved for me, and 405 for a friend of mine.”

  And Lester Leith scrawled a signature across the hotel register.

  “Frank Millsap,” he wrote.

  Had he slapped the clerk in the face with a wet towel, that individual could not have shown greater astonishment or dismay.

  “Mill … Millsap … Frank Millsap … 405!” he stammered, then ceased speaking to gasp for air, no sound whatever coming from his pale lips.

  “Yes,” snapped Lester Leith, “Millsap, and I fail to see any reason for excitement or comment. I made the reservation over the telephone several days ago.”

  The clerk took a deep breath, gripped the sides of the counter.

  “But Mr. Cogley came here …”

  “Mister Cogley!” snapped Lester Leith. “Who the devil said anything about a Mister Cogley? The room was reserved for Miss Cogley, my niece. And I want to warn you that she’s suffering from a certain type of nervous disorder and any commotion is quite likely to raise the devil with her nerves. Now get busy and assign us to those rooms.”

  The clerk was gaping.

  “You mean to say …”

  “I mean to say,” snapped Lester Leith, “that I have come here to secure treatment for my niece, that she’s highly nervous, and that I wanted rooms on the fourth floor because she prefers the fourth floor, and that I wanted rooms back from the street to be away from the noise. I secured the assurance of the manager that 405 and 407 would be reserved, and I want those rooms.”

  The clerk nodded.

  “Just one moment,” he said. “I’ll have to consult the manager!”

  “Very well. Consult him then!” snapped Lester Leith. “While you’re doing that I’ll bring in the rest of my baggage, a very valuable bloodhound-canary, and I don’t want him subjected to any undue jar or noise. He’s very delicate. In fact I’ll carry the cage myself!”

  He stalked to the door, where a second taxicab had drawn to the curb. Inside that cab was an enormous cage tightly covered with a black cloth which had been tailored to fit over the bars like a glove.

  Lester Leith pushed aside the curious doorman, the eager bell boys, gently lifted the big cage from the cab, raised it to his shoulder, carried it into the hotel.

  From the interior sounded little fluttering noises.

  CHAPTER IV

  Scuttle Warns the Sergeant

  Sergeant Arthur Ackley, bull-necked, grim-jawed, sat at the battered desk at headquarters which had been the scene of many a stormy interview.

  The side of the desk bore scratches made with the nails of police shoes where they had been elevated from time to time in moments of relaxation. The surface was grooved with various charred lines, marking the places where cigarettes had been parked and forgotten.

  Across this desk, facing the sergeant, was Edward H. Beaver, the man who worked under cover as valet for Lester Leith, and upon whom Leith had bestowed the nickname of Scuttle.

  “I know a canary has got something to do with it,” Beaver was saying. “It sounds goofy, and it is goofy. A bloodhound-canary! But when you stop to think it over, it ain’t so goofy after all. He’s always getting some fool thing that don’t make sense, and then using it to …”

  He broke off as the telephone shrilled its summons.

  Sergeant Ackley grunted as his vest pressed against his diaphragm in the process of leaning over the desk, then scooped the telephone to him, raised the receiver and grunted an inarticulate sound into the instrument.

  He twisted the cigar to one side of his mouth, sighed wearily.

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  There was a moment of silence, then a metallic, rasping sound from the receiver.

  “Yeah!” growled Sergeant Ackley. “Him talkin’ right now. Spill it!”

  The receiver rattled like a tin can tied to the tail of a fleeing canine. Sergeant Ackley gradually hitched himself bolt upright. His eyes popped wide open. The sagging lips caused the end of the cigar to droop.

  “Huh?” said Sergeant Arthur Ackley.

  The receiver rattled in repetition of its almost hysterical sounds.

  Sergeant Ackley cleared his throat, by a conscious effort tightened his lips and raised the cigar back to its former angle of belligerency.

  “Okay. Now get this straight. Play right into his hands. Let him
get away with it, with anything. And rush ten of the boys right down there. Let ’em register as guests. Stick a dick on the elevator. Put one of our men at the desk. But keep the whole thing under cover. Don’t let him think there’s a plain-clothes man in the place. Get me? Let him think he ain’t tailed.

  “But keep a watch on his door, and keep a watch on that fire escape. Don’t let him make a move that ain’t reported. And if he ever tries to leave that hotel have one of the boys pretend to be a sucker from the sticks that’s had his pockets picked. See?

  “Let him make a squawk and there’ll be a man in uniform always within call. Let them hang the pickpocket rap on this guy for a hurry up search. Get me? This is once I ain’t taking no chances.

  “Now get busy!”

  Sergeant Ackley slammed the receiver back on the hook, banged the telephone down on the desk and glowered at his undercover man.

  “The crust of the damned fool!” he exploded.

  “What’s he done now?” asked Beaver.

  “Gone to the Palace Hotel and claimed he was the Millsap that telephoned in the reservation for Millsap and Cogley, and that the broad he’s got with him is his niece.”

  Beaver wet his lips.

  “You mean the kleptomaniac?”

  “That’s the baby. He put up the bail and squared the department store charge account for a thousand bucks, cash money. Then he shows up at the hotel and says her name’s Cogley and that she’s suffering from a nervous trouble.

  “The clerk stalled him along while he telephoned in, and now I’m going to get enough men on the job to cover the case right. I ain’t going to let that damned, supercilious, smirking …”

  Beaver interrupted.

  “Has he got the canary?” he asked.

  “He sure as hell has. He’s got the thing all wrapped up in a cage that’s big enough for an eagle.”

  Beaver furrowed his brows.

  “What the devil does he want with a canary? And why does he insist it’s a ‘bloodhound-canary’?”

  Sergeant Ackley waved his hand, the gesture of one who brushes aside an unimportant detail.

  “Forget it. He’s just got that canary to kid us along. He wants to sidetrack us. Concentrate your attention on the main problem, Beaver. We gotta find out what he’s doing in that hotel … Not that we don’t know. It’s simple as hell. What I mean is that we gotta do like the Japs do with their pelicans.”