The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  Indeed, the man on the couch, patting the compress a bit tighter over his eyes, was himself speaking, in a low voice.

  “So his line’s busy, eh? Because of talkin’ long-distance with Chi? Well, that means he’s making his res’vations at the Palmer House there. So ever’thing is set now f’r the Snatch. All right, then. Any questions? Before we got to begin keepin’ quiet again around here? Fire ’em—if any of you has any.”

  And now, out of the black void caused by the tight compress on the jet-haired man’s eyes, came a voice from one of the disembodied spirits.

  “I ask vun. Subbose dot dot voman she goes to der airfielt to zee him off? Afder she hass b’en off-ge-put?”

  “Why, you Heine thick-head,” snapped the man on the couch-bed, toward the so-thick voice, with all the irritability of a man feeling pains back of his eyes, “don’t you know wimmen can’t take cooriosity? Hell, a 40-mule team won’t be able to pull her there when she hears—Listen—if you want to lay part of your share of the ransom dough she won’t be there, I’ll take you—any amount. No, that’s in the bag. Next?”

  Now a new voice broke in.

  “I ask wan, Boss. Eeez thees: What eef he no can get ras’vations at that Palmer ’Ouse? Then we gonna be up the—”

  “Aw hell, you dago idiot—don’t you know this ain’t wartime no more? Hell, Chi’s lousy with hotel space. The hotels slug you at the dee-po to get you to stay with ’em. He’s only reservin’ so’s to get somethin’ de-luxy. No, ever’thing’s okay there. Next? P’fessor?”

  The voice that now answered was in some ways an educated and finished voice—but, whether or not, was completely minus any trace of an accent.

  “I’m happy to say that I have nothing—at least at this juncture.”

  “Okay,” said the man on the couch-bed quickly, and with considerable asperity. “Then maybe I c’n ask one! Of all o’ you. Here ’tis: What time do op’ry stars get t’ hell out o’ bed ev’ry day?”

  “About now, Chief,” came the same finished voice that had spoken last. “All members of the histrionic world rise about this hou—”

  “His—trionic world. Jesus, P’fessor—you slay me! Histr—but okay. For I was only tryin’ to inkle to you, in the absence of a spiked club by my side here, that the moment has come f’r you to do your stuff. Yeah, on the phone there. So call this Muriel Ordway, warbler, now, and pull your gag as you never pulled nothing before. Because on the success of how you put it over this sugar-throated dame in the high mazuma depends this hundred-grand snatch. All right, P’fessor—ring her up now—and do your stuff!”

  Chapter VII

  CALLING MR. BOYCE BARKSTONE!

  Boyce Barkstone, swinging open the hand-hammered bronze gate set in the low but modernistic wrought-iron fence facing green Van Cortlandt Park in Upper New York City, estimated that he must have made the distance from Carmine Jelelfe’s bungalow home on Knightsbridge Terrace in no more than 11 minutes flat! Afoot though he had been.

  For his watch, its crystal seemingly trying to hurl the sun, nearly overhead, back into his very eyeballs denoted the time to be but 25 minutes after 11. He hoped devoutly that he wasn’t going to find the house back of that gate—his grandfather’s!—already full of executors, appraisers, and whatnot, coolly listing Carmine Jeleffe’s Uncle McDolphus’ precious book, The Way Out, as part of Balhatchet Barkstone’s estate, and refusing to give it over for any reason whatso—

  But now inside the gate, and stepping into the short entrance path, Boyce faced the odd one-story habitation itself, which his grandfather had constructed but 5 years before. A stone house it was, made entirely of artfully mismatched stones, all cemented together by brilliant green cement which looked exactly like moss; already countless offers had been made for that little house, ranging up to twice its original cost. Rather lucky, old Josiah, Boyce reflected a bit enviously, to have the entire exclusive use, as caretaker, of this cool little place for the summer—indeed, to be exact, for the entire year of probate to come. Now, facing the round-topped maple door, Boyce rang. And waited. Listening hard for sounds, from within, of appraisers! And executors. And—

  Josiah himself, his kinky hair quite grey, answered the door. He was in his shirtsleeves—a brand new crisply-starched green-striped shirt it was, too. A towel was around his black neck, and a razor in his hand; and a dab of suds on his chin, which looked like a venerable goatee, showed he had been shaving. And proved, in a sense, that the house was executorless and appraiserless quite! Though Josiah’s ensuing words established that fact completely.

  “W’y hullo dah, Mist’ Boyce,” he exclaimed. “Ah suah is glad dat you come ’round. Mah goo’ness—but it awful lonesome since I hatter lib heah alone.”

  “Well, you don’t have to, Josiah,” said Boyce, stepping inside. “According to Grandfather’s will—and I understand Attorney Tydings has talked to you on the phone about it?—you have the privilege of staying here, which ought to save you a bit of rent. I suppose,” he added facetiously, as Josiah closed the hall door, “that you’ve already moved—bag and baggage—into the best room in the place, eh? The parlor?”

  “De pahlah, Mist’ Boyce?” said Josiah, wide-eyed, for Josiah was one who never had a sense of humor. “Law’ sakes no! Whahfo’d Ah move mah tings into de pahlah? I des’ keepin’ mah li’l room whut I had—da’s plenty ’nough good fo’ ol’ me.”

  “We-ell, Josiah, I’ll go on back there, if you don’t mind. So’s that if those inventoriers and appraisers barge in on us, I won’t be charged with loitering on other people’s premises.”

  “Ah don’ quite get whut yo’ mean, suh,” said Josiah, painfully helpless. “An’ who you mean by invento’iahs bargin’ in on us? An’ whut you mean by—but go ’haid. I’ll whop dis last whiskah off’n mah chin, wipe off mah face—den I’s done, and I’ll be j’inin’ you.”

  So Boyce threaded his way back through the comfortable house to the little room off the kitchen. And it was, indeed, a very little room. The old mahogany four-poster bed which his grandfather had, in a manner of speaking, “given” to Josiah a couple of years back—but which was now officially Josiah’s, by actual bequest—standing in one corner away from the window, with, however, a vivid Negro quilt atop it, almost filled the room. The colorful rag rug which his grandfather had once had for a brief while in his sun parlor—and which Josiah had so admired—was on the floor. Josiah had always thought it to be just a cheap “negro rug”—probably did today; but Boyce, who had been with his grandfather at Wanamaker’s when the latter had bought it, knew it to be made of bits of silks imported from Araby and woven together in France. It had moved quite naturally into Josiah’s realm, because, as Boyce also personally knew, Balhatchet Barkstone had deemed it too “confounded Ethiopian”; just as the mahogany four-poster had evidently moved in there because, as Balhatchet Barkstone had put it to his grandson: “The thing’s so big it swallows me at night like an amoeba swallowing a microbe!” A beautiful chiffonier, with glass handles, which—as Boyce remembered now so vividly—his grandfather had discarded for a plain tier of mahogany drawers placed in front of a magnificent huge 10-foot-high mirror, stood against one wall of Josiah’s small room—looking extremely lonely with only Josiah’s tinny alarm clock, thin 5-cent aluminum comb and 10-cent-store brush atop it.

  A small-sized kitchen table, with a stiff uncomfortable-looking kitchen chair in front of it, near the window, the table itself carrying an extension cradle phone, showed wherein Josiah had functioned as “secretary”—talking to those who called the house any time after Balhatchet Barkstone had retired, and shut off the main phone—and a pad of gargantuan pink sheets on it, crossed by a huge pencil, revealed upon what Josiah used painfully to put down necessary names and telephone numbers. Sheets that now would never be used again!

  After some consideration as to the hardness of that stiff chair, Boyce sat down in the one piece of furni
ture which Josiah had not received by either allotment, assignment, or bequest—the spring-rocker, made of gaudy striped awning cloth, which Josiah had brought to Van Cortlandt Park with him; and within a surprisingly brief time Josiah was back, all cleanly shaven, tying a thick velvet tie, with yellow polka dots, under his striped green collar—seating himself, at the same time, on the side of the bed.

  Boyce came straight to his point.

  “What I specifically came here for, Josiah, is this: Inventoriers and appraisers—that means men who list furniture and all items of every nature, and those who assign ’em a value—will be up here ’most any time—maybe in an hour—maybe within 24 hours—maybe even not yet for a week, since the value of everything here is only a modest proportion of Grandfather’s complete wealth. Anyway, they’ll list every item—no matter how insignificant—in this house—including, of course, each and every book on Grandfather’s open shelves, for some of those books are collector’s items, and worth $5 to $10 a copy. These men will come in here, too, of course, and list everything—including those books up on your shelf there, for some of those are Grandfather’s—I note his copy of ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ How come, Josiah, you have all those books? I thought you could scarcely read?”

  “Well, Mist’ Boyce, Ah cain’t sca’cely, but I didn’ lak de shelf bein’ so empty, so yo’ grandfadah say Ah kin fill it out wid some ob dem fiction books o’ his’n whut git displace’ off’n his shelves w’en he buy dat small privik lib’erry on Nachuh an’ Sci’nce what he buy in Westchestah. ‘Membah dat pu’chase? An’way, dem up dah is mos’ly his’n. Some has got his book-plate in—an’ some ain’t.”

  “Well, that’s just it. Those books show up, rather definitely, as a part of Grandfather’s personal property which is not furniture. Which—if any—do you claim as your own?”

  “Oh—on’y des a book on dreams near de middle—de fat black one—and dat t’in purple book, on t’other end, whut tell how to win wid dices.”

  “I see. At least I see the jet black one! Well, they’ll ask you first which are yours. Maybe make you sign a paper to that effect. Then they’ll ask you, sure as shooting, whether you’ve disposed of anything in this house—sold it—given it away—or taken it away—since Grandfather died. Meaning, in short, whether you got off bright and early on any day to a second-hand store to unload a lot—for a nice bit of change! And unfortunately for that question, I see up there—still wrapped, and still tied as well—that book I put up there the night I stopped off here to—well, the night I told you decorators would be in my room next morning, and I was going to stay with a friend. Now that book is a book on Chinese Wisdom which Carmine loaned me, and it wasn’t hers, and she wants it back, to return it to an uncle, even though its cost may have been but a dollar or so. Anyway, to make this brief, I want to ‘snake’ that book out o’ here—in the very face of the fact that I haven’t a legal right to remove a single item from this house. Are you willing for me to take it?”

  “Why, sho’—sho’. ’Tain’t yo’ grandfathah’s book, an’ tain’t mine. So w’y shouldn’ you hab it?”

  “‘Why’ is right! Only you see—but listen—didn’t those men give you some instructions, at the funeral?”

  “On’y,” declared Josiah painfully, “dat Ah ’uz to gib ’eem yo’ grandfaddah’s key to dis house—which Ah done.” He shook his kinky head deploringly. “’Pon mah life, Mist’ Boyce, Ah cain’t see why yo grandfaddah p’inted coupla men whut th’ows de ’lectric chair switch at Sing-Sing to win’ up his ’state. Ah des cain’t—”

  “Electric chair men—from Sing Si—”

  “Why, dey tol’ me dey was Ex’cutionists—and showed me a papah said dat dey was p’inted.”

  “Oh Josiah! Executors—not hangmen. That’s—that’s a legal term. Meaning they execute his will; later, they’ll be Administrators—and administer his estate.”

  “W-well, fo’ Ian’s sake. What a ou’rageous term: Ex-ex-cute-ors! Soun’s to me des lak hangin’. Ah don’ lak it. An’way, goin’ back to yo’ book, what dem Excutionists keer ’bout one little fool book, an’way?”

  “Well, Josiah, those men, you know, get paid on a basis of a percentage of the personal property. Though the real point at issue is this: When they ask you, even casually, whether anything was removed from this house since Grandfather’s death, and you tell ’em I removed something, either wrapped or unwrapped—well, Josiah, there’ll be hell to pay. For you—for permitting it. For me—for doing it. And me particularly—of all persons, Josiah. For—for I’m a—er—bit in Dutch on—on certain matters. And it would take just this to put me in the dog-house. Not that I won’t be in a stone-walled dog-house anyway, but—”

  “Now lissen, Mist’ Boyce,” said Josiah, obviously not getting the full drift of matters. “Ah ain’ eben ebah made a reco’d ob what titles is up dah on mah shelf, fo’ w’en yo’ gran’faddah say I c’ld tek a a’mful, Ah des did, an’ put ’em up dah. So w’en you goes out ob heah today, I kin well say dat none ob dem titles is removed, so fa’s Ah know. Howebbah, Ah won’ be heah to tell dem nuffin w’en dey comes an’ stahts invitoryin’—fo’ mah lil bag, undah mah bed heah, is packed wid a coupla shirts an’ b.v.d’s, an’ w’en ah puts in mah comb an’ bresh yandah, whut’s suttin’ly mine, Ah’m leabin’.”

  “Leaving? With a change of clothes? Where ya goin’, Josiah?”

  “Ah’s goin’ to Balt’mo’ fo’ couple days—on de one-thutty ’clock train—to see mah granny fo’ she dies.”

  “Your granny? Good heavens, Josiah, don’t tell me you’ve got a grandmother?”

  “Suah hab. She’s hun’ed and th’ee. An’ say she wan to see de baby bad. Da’s me. Nebbah got chance to go befo’.”

  “Well, you’d better step on it. Oh, not to make the train—no—you’ve plenty of time on that. But to get there before your granny—whew!—a hundred and three—I’d say you’re racing neck and neck with time! Well, that sort of fixes everything okay, I guess. I’ll follow you out by 2 minutes, and lock up the house. And I guess you won’t know whether I had a book in my mitt or not.” He rose up and got down from the shelf the wrapped book.

  He stripped off its wrappings so that, at least, if any questions were asked of the neighbors by the inventoriers, the neighbors wouldn’t report that a man went out with a sealed valuable express package worth $50,000! With it in his hands, he dropped back into his chair. A bright red book it was. With its title, THE WAY OUT, stamped on its front cover in gold letters covering two lines in all—strange, Chinesey, brush-stroke-like letters they were, too—and, on its backbone, the same thing ever so smaller, but with the author’s last name supposedly below. Boyce opened the book, however, to its title page. Which proved to be unusually voluminous, so far as title pages went. And the very opening lines of which revealed it to present a somewhat self-assured, to say the least, description of its own contents—its own applicability to Life! Indeed, with ever-increasing skepticism, Boyce read:

  THE WAY OUT

  A Collection and Collation of All the Wisdom of Ancient China, so Classified and Sub-Classified as to be made Applicable to All sorts of Situations and Categories thereof, and to Prove that the Chinese Have Antedated All Knowledge of All Races of All Ages, and Possess—in the Totality of their Recorded Sayings—the Answers to Every Problem and Question: Moral, Enigmatic, Economic, Sociological, Physiological, Financial, etc., etc. by

  GORDON HIGHSMITH

  Researchist in Sinological Literature and History, and ex-Resident of Shanghai, China.

  Copyrighted

  [Copyright covers both text

  and Logical Arrangement]

  But here Boyce’s eyes dropped to the bottom of the page. To see who on earth were the entrepreneurs who had offered the Public this all-inclusive compendium of “solutions” to mankind’s modern woes! But the two lines there read merely:

  VINNEDGE BROTHERS />
  Philadelphia

  “Certainly never heard of them,” he commented to himself. “In the publishing racket. For racket it sure must be, if it offers ox-cart-days wisdom for modern day probl—”

  He said no more, but leafed the book through rapidly from back to front, gazing dourly at the flow of quaint items embracing what purported to be the Answer for all the World’s woes! And reaching the end without having even read one through, he closed the book with a sharp clap, and deposited it on the bed within safe range of his eyes. “I suppose, Josiah,” he now queried, “you feel pretty happy—eh?—about Grandfather’s leaving you that 10 grand?”

  “10 gran’? What dat?”

  “10 thousand berries.”

  “Oh—dollahs? Well, Ah naturally sho’ am glad to git a bunch o’ money lak dat ag’ine mah ol’ age—on’y Ah wish t’ God he wuz back. I gonna be lonesome as de debbil—spite ob de ten tousan’—what I ain’t git yit, you know. Lissen, Mist’ Boyce, atter dey git done ’ventoryin’ dis furn’-chure, could Ah tek some ob de better pieces, do you t’ink—sence it’s mine, on’way—and git me a flat wid it down in Hahlem, whah Ah won’ feel so out ob place?”

  Boyce shook his head. “No, Josiah, you can’t! You see, the Law figures that always theoretical debts could arise against Grandfather’s estate, which it would take all his estate, real and personal, to wipe off, and hence the personal property has to stay where ’tis for a year—a year called ‘The Year of Probate.’ So you can’t take anything away, even if ’tis to be yours, till that year is over. All purely technical, of course, but that’s why it has to stay here, and you too—if, that is, you really want free rent, and free use of all that nice furniture in the whole house.”