The Man with the Lumpy Nose

by Lawrence Lariar

  Bull interrupted. “You say he came over from France originally? Did you ever get his record, Dick?”

  “Of course we got it. Funny thing was the way they mentioned his gift of gab. The guy was a genius at languages. That’s why he could pick up the New York lingo so easily. You never would have guessed No Nose to be a Frog if you ever heard him talk.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing much. Mostly political stuff.”

  This interested Bull. “You say No Nose left France about eight years ago? French politics from the middle thirties on interest me. You remember any part of his record?”

  “He was connected—let me see—” McElmore thought back. “It was something about a secret society, I think.”

  “Not Le Croix de Feu?”

  “The which? I don’t remember the name, Homer. This outfit was kind of a secret movement to overthrow the government. Some rich guy over there was promoting his own army to overthrow the government.”

  “I remember it well. What did No Nose have to do with that bunch?”

  “They didn’t have much on him. All they had was the fact that No Nose helped import those guns from Germany.”

  “Germany, hell!” snapped Dumbo. “A little maniac by the name of Schicklgruber was supplying that Fascist Outfit.”

  Homer said, “They must have made it tough for our friend No Nose when they got him. Was there a prison sentence?”

  “No record of a conviction. I guess maybe he pulled the putty nose business when he operated with the Fascists, too.”

  The sheriff finally returned with the jacket and handed it to Bull. It was a huge blue-black garment. Homer examined the linings, felt the seams. “How about his hat?”

  “We didn’t find a hat.”

  Dr. Millett bent over the dead man’s hands. “Look here, Inspector, somebody removed a ring from this fellow’s finger before he was dumped into the bay.”

  McElmore bit his lip and said nothing.

  Bull said, “Somebody was pretty thorough in removing everything that might help us. Have you checked the car?”

  “We will. But that won’t help us, Homer. That buggy was stolen. No Nose Frenchy was an expert at lifting automobiles.”

  They walked outside. Homer Bull breathed deep of the fresh Long. Island air.

  They examined the car.

  “I’m sending this crate back to town,” said McElmore. “Maybe they’ll find a few fingerprints, but I doubt it. Whoever did the job was a smart lad—too smart for leaving fingerprints.”

  Dumbo winked slyly at Bull. “Then you’ve changed your mind about Bragiotto?”

  “I didn’t change my mind about anything! The damned thing looks too simple, is all.”

  “It wasn’t,” said Bull. “Whoever dumped that car into the bay was smart enough to pick the deepest hole on the South Shore. Great South Bay is very shallow for the most part. But there are a few spots where the canals flow out and leave unnaturally deep holes for the local fishermen. Our man knew these spots. But he didn’t know that the WPA boys worked a project on the marshes near this fishing hole and filled part of it with sand.”

  On the train Dumbo busied himself with his notes while the inspector gazed out dejectedly at the flat and fertile fields.

  Bull said, “Don’t ship this story in to your paper yet, Dumbo. I’ve instructed the officials at the sheriff’s office to keep quiet until we give them the word, too. It’s important our man remains convinced that he’s covered his tracks.”

  Dumbo broke a pencil point in exasperation. “How do you expect me to act normal with a yarn like this under my belt?”

  “I don’t. But I can guarantee you a real story for tonight’s early editions.”

  McElmore came out of his trance with a grunt. “You kidding? What have you got?”

  “A hunch. I visited the library this morning before I came to your office. The library is a great place for clear thinking, Dick. I uncovered some vital research today.”

  Dumbo put away his notes. “Then you’ve narrowed the search to one man?”

  Homer Bull’s eyes were closed, but the cigar still burned with a slow glow.

  “I mean exactly that. We’ll have our man soon—very soon.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Raleigh Peters was trembling slightly as he climbed the stairs to Lincoln Winters’ studio. He trembled with a mixture of fear, awe, anticipation and indecision. He was visiting Winters because of a hunch, an impulse that had come to him only an hour ago.

  The impulse was born of the recommended research of Sim Simonson. Such a course of study is not easy for the bungling amateur. He is not built for tedious and patient research. He fumbles his pen. He examines with an enlarging glass and yet misses much. He squirms. During the squirming, the dilly-dallying novice looks for the door. He goes to the movies and pretends that a double feature will help his cartooning. He visits a friend and explains to his ego that he will find gag lines there. He eats a sandwich and tells himself that eating is good for his ink line.

  Or, if he were a Raleigh Peters, he would take a subway train on a jaunt to his master’s studio and on the way uptown invent a few semi-logical reasons for the visit.

  In his hope, Raleigh was not to be disappointed. Lincoln Winters, after a small second of incredulity, welcomed him and put him at his ease in a chair near the large easel Raleigh’s eyes devoured the half-finished oil on the easel.

  He squinted at the painting professionally, tilted his head professionally. “That’s a pip,” said he, unprofessionally. “Did you paint that, Mr. Winters?”

  “I’m not much of an oil painter,” smiled Winters. “They tell me my work lacks depth.”

  “Yeah?” said Raleigh and squinted again. “For my money it looks swell. How long after you began cartooning did you start doing that kind of stuff?”

  “You’ve got the cart before the horse, Peters. When I started to study this stuff I thought I’d become another Daumier, even went to Paris to get the right approach. It’s a far cry from Daumier, don’t you think?”

  Raleigh squirmed uneasily in his chair. There was a long gap of nothingness in his art education between Leonardo da Vinci and Whistler.

  “On the other hand,” continued Winters, “there are a few art experts who claim that a thorough groundwork in oils is important to a cartoonist. If you want my opinion, I’d say stay away from the long hair approach to cartooning—it doesn’t earn you any bread and butter.”

  “That,” said Raleigh with animation, “is just what I came up here to talk to you about. I sent away for some mail order courses, but when they came I threw ’em in the basket.”

  Winters eyed the youth speculatively. “What’s wrong with mail order courses?”

  “Wrong? They send you a bunch of sheets with fancy diagrams, but the finished stuff all looks alike, you know what I mean?”

  Winters looked at his watch. “Just what do you mean?”

  “This, said Raleigh, standing so that he could use his arms. “You see a picture done by one of these mail order cartoonists and what does it look like? Corn. Then you look at another course and you find this other course has the same kind of technique. Well, who wants to draw like those mail order teachers anyhow? If they were any good they’d be selling to the magazines or the syndicates or something, wouldn’t they? Well, who wants to draw funny pictures in a crazy style the magazines won’t buy? I’ve got my own theory about study. That’s what I came up to see you about.”

  Winters sat down beaming tolerantly. “Let’s have it, but make it snappy; I’ve got an important date.”

  “Well, it’s just this. I got the idea that I could get to be a professional quicker if I just picked out the cartoonist I liked best and sort of copied his stuff until I learned some tricks.” Raleigh struggled for words. “Look at it this way—say I like your work be
st of all, for example. I start clipping your stuff and studying it, you see, until I have a couple of your tricks learned.”

  “My tricks?” Winters laughed. “Are you copying my work? Good grief, man, there are hundreds of really fine artists you could copy.”

  “Sure. Sure, I know, Mr. Winters. Like I said, I’ve been studying them all. I even have a collection of the old time English masters. I’ve been collecting all of them, just for a background, you might say.”

  “Good idea for a kid your age to look at things seriously. Who do you like among the old timers? Daumier, I’ll bet. All students pretend to love the old French maestro, but shy away from the studying behind his art.”

  Raleigh brightened. “Well, here’s one student who doesn’t follow Daumier. Me, I’m a Rowlandson fan. I sort of feel like we have something in common, I mean admiring him like you do.”

  Outside, the sun had fallen behind the red building beyond the yard. The blue and purple shadows of twilight spread silently through the room. A clothesline creaked. A woman shouted to her child from the next street. Small sounds were flat and unreal in the growing gloom.

  Winters walked to the window and the dull light caught his face, a sombre mask. “How do you know I admire Rowlandson?”

  Raleigh caught his idol’s change of mood, but the fat was in the fire. “Well, I thought I found one of your drawings where you did the job just like Rowlandson used to do them. It was in a little booklet, sort of.”

  Winters glowered at the youth. “Booklet? What kind of a booklet was it?”

  “Well, actually I don’t really know—”

  “Don’t know?” Anger sharpened Winters’ words. He stepped closer to the chair and leaned over Peters. “You’ve got too good a memory to forget, sonny. Who did you tell about this booklet?”

  Raleigh squirmed. “I don’t get you. I didn’t tell anybody.”

  “Where is this booklet?”

  “I lost it. I wasn’t very much interested in the thing, anyhow. It was full of German stuff.”

  “You’re lying!” Winters’ voice was low. His face darkened with rage. “You took that booklet and gave it to somebody.” He reached his hands out and they found Peters’ neck. The boy’s eyes bunged with terror. “Now tell me who has the booklet before I choke the life out of your stupid throat!”

  “No!” Raleigh gasped. “I tell you I didn’t do anything with it. I—”

  The phone rang. Winters walked to the door, locked it and put the key in his pocket.

  Then he picked up the phone.

  At half-past seven Hank MacAndrews turned the corner on Seventh Avenue. He walked quickly. He had given the man with the red face a good start before following him.

  The man with the red face entered a drugstore. He went immediately to the phone booth and flipped the pages of a book. He dialed the number slowly. He spoke softly, close to the mouthpiece.

  “Hello. This is Brower.”

  “I thought I warned you about phoning me!” The voice was sharp with irritation.

  “I couldn’t help it. I had to call you; I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

  “What do you want?”

  “There was a fight—”

  “A fight? With Bull?”

  “Yes—but he didn’t see me. It was dark.” The man in the phone booth scowled. “But didn’t Frenchy tell you about all this?”

  A pause. “Not all of it—he didn’t have time. I sent him out on a job.”

  “Is that so? Where have you sent him?”

  “That is none of your business.”

  The man with the red face sneered. “You’re lying when you say that Frenchy told you about my fight with Bull. I haven’t seen Frenchy since I had the fight. What have you done with him? And Holtzmann—have you sent him on a job, too?”

  “What are you talking about, Brower? Stop talking in circles!”

  The man called Brower laughed softly. “It is you who are talking in circles, my friend. You must tell me what you have done to these two. Something has happened to them, no?”

  “You’re crazy. What could have happened to them?”

  “You might have put them out of the way.”

  The voice at the other end chuckled. “What a fool you are, Brower, after all. I had no reason for putting them out of the way. They did their jobs well. Am I the sort to go around butchering good soldiers?”

  “I have no knowledge of all your butcherings,” said Brower, “but I am worried about those two. Frenchy was to meet me this afternoon, as usual. I waited for him for two hours and he didn’t come. I have never known him to break an appointment this way. As for Holtzmann, I am not much concerned. He is a beast, after all.”

  “Set your mind at rest, Brower. Frenchy is probably in Brooklyn.”

  “No. I have checked in Brooklyn. They report that he was out all last night. Nobody has seen him since last night.”

  “I have.”

  “Where?” Brower leaned even closer to the phone.

  “He was here this morning. I sent him somewhere, but he will be back. Why don’t you come up here to meet him?”

  Brower grunted. “I have already tried that, but changed my mind. Let me tell you something, my friend. You are being watched.”

  “You’re crazy! How do you know?”

  “I am not always crazy,” laughed Brower. “I tell you I saw it not fifteen minutes ago. You see, I was about to pay you a visit, whether you liked it or not. I felt that I wanted to talk to you about leaving.”

  “Leaving? Why should you leave?”

  “My health. I felt that I should like to be with Emma, perhaps. They say it is nice in California—much healthier for people like me in such a climate. Well, at any rate, I started for your place. It was then that I saw your house being watched. They are across the street from you, in that barber shop, two of them. They have sat in the barber chairs for a long time, I tell you. I circled the block three times, at intervals of fifteen minutes. There are two of them in the barber chairs and they are getting the longest shaves you have ever seen. Go to your window and see for yourself.”

  There was a pause.

  “They are still there?” smiled Brower.

  “You dirty dog! You told them, didn’t you?”

  “I told nobody. But I would suggest that you find a way out of your little place, my friend. Perhaps through the back window and into the next street. But be quick about it. Maybe if you are quick enough, we shall meet in California, no?”

  “I’ll see you before you reach California, Brower!”

  Brower turned his head at the sound of footsteps near the phone booth. There were two tall men standing nearby. They were facing the booth, staring at him. These men were heavy set, they were solid looking. There was something about these men that reminded Brower of the police.

  When Brower left the phone booth the two men blocked his way to the door. He accepted the handcuffs without a struggle.

  CHAPTER 21

  On the way uptown Bull said, “Doctor Millett reported finding morphine in Bragiotto. He called me an hour ago.”

  “You think Dino was a dope fiend?”

  “Nonsense.” Bull laughed softly. “Think back a bit, Dumbo. We’ve been led along a devious path, but we can get our bearings if we think back to the last time Dino Bragiotto was seen alive.”

  “At The Quill?”

  “At The Quill. You remember how it happened? Our most expert witness was Tim Alfonte. He told us that he saw a shortish gent approach Dino’s table and drink with him. It was the same small man who led Dino into the street and to his death. We must assume then that this small man was not a cartoonist, for if he had been Alfonte would have recognized him immediately. Again, we can approach the truth, I think, if we assume that the small man was a stranger to Dino himself.” Dumbo opened his mouth to
talk, but Homer held up a hand. “You will ask now why it was that Dino could be so easily duped? There’s a simple answer to that question. Dino was drunk. Dino was blind. He was heavy with liquor. It was the knowledge of this drunkenness that made him an easy mark for his murderer.”

  Dumbo shifted uneasily on his haunches. “Then the little guy did the job?”

  “Not at all. The little man was following instructions. But the little man was instructed by somebody who knew Dino well. He was told to wait until Dino was well lit before approaching that table.”

  “In other words, the real killer spotted Dino in The Quill first?”

  “Exactly. He saw that Dino was out on a bender and would drink himself stiff. He then instructed our small friend to enter the bar and await the right moment for dragging Bragiotto out to the street. It worked all too well. Dino was led away from The Quill and into the black sedan. There he was drugged handily and driven out to Long Island for his suicide act.”

  Waddell shivered. “A grisly idea. I’d give my left arm for a crack at the small guy who led him out of the bar.”

  “The small man has been well punished already.”

  “You’ve got him?”

  “He got himself. You saw his body out on the Island on a slab. His name was No Nose Frenchy.”

  The cab stopped. On the curb McElmore awaited them impatiently, surrounded by a dozen plainclothesmen and police. There were more men stationed on the opposite corner and a squad car idled in the shadows off Seventh Avenue.

  Bull said, “Have you surrounded the entire block?”

  “Take a look,” said McElmore, waving an angry hand around him. “These men are just the reserves, Homer. This will be the classiest pinch since Two Gun Crowley. What are we arresting—a man or an organization?”

  Homer held up one finger. “We’re taking one man, Dick. But I want to see him taken. I would suggest, however, that you spread these men a bit thinner around the block, or we’ll be surrounded ourselves in a few minutes.”

  McElmore shipped the police to their new posts.

  “How many men do we take with us, Homer?”