Mum's the Word for Murder

by Brett Halliday

  QUES. Now, Mr. Summers, tell us what happened when the dancer, Ricardo, came to your table in the restaurant.

  ANS. I received the impression that Dorothy signaled him to join us while he was dancing. Tony—Mr. Gray—was very angry when Ricardo came up and Dorothy was nice to him. Tony said something about not caring to associate with a damned greaser, and Ricardo was all for taking him to pieces. Tony knocked him down before some waiters separated them. Then the Mexican dancer, Conchita, came flying out and there was another unholy mixup. She—flashed a knife, and was screaming that she’d kill Dorothy as the waiters dragged her away.

  QUES. What kind of a knife?

  ANS. The kind the Mexican dancers carry in their garters.

  QUES. A dagger?

  ANS. Sure. Long and slender and gleaming.

  QUES. What sort of handle did it have?

  ANS. I couldn’t see. She held it in her hand.

  QUES. Did it have a hilt or guard?

  ANS. I didn’t notice. I was excited and things were happening pretty fast.

  QUES. Was this weapon taken from her?

  ANS. She still had it the last time I saw her.

  QUES. Now, Mr. Summers, tell us very carefully everything that happened after you left the café.

  ANS. Well, we all needed some fresh air. I think it was Tony who suggested that we take a little walk. Perhaps it was Dorothy. We all started out in a group, but the sidewalk was narrow and we soon got strung out in couples. Jack Borton and my wife went ahead. Mrs. Borton and I followed. Tony and Dorothy straggled along behind. They were having it pretty hot and heavy. Tony acted crazy jealous—and he was drunk enough to be loud about it. Dorothy came right back at him and I suggested to Mrs. Borton that they might be glad to have us go on and give them a little privacy. Neither of us thought much about it. They’re always quarreling and making up. They hung back and we walked on. Pretty soon I noticed that we couldn’t hear their voices any more. Then I heard Tony give a frightful yell. They were almost a block away, and I couldn’t see very well in the dim light. I ran back and found Tony down on his knees beside her. She was dead.

  QUES. Did you see any other person?

  ANS. No. The light was pretty dim.

  QUES. Would you have seen a third person had there been one?

  ANS. I—don’t know. I think not.

  QUES. Was Mr. Gray running toward Mrs. Ullendorf when you first saw him after he yelled?

  ANS. I—don’t think so. My impression is that he was kneeling by her side. But things were blurred at the first moment, and I—well, I wasn’t in any too good condition to analyze what I saw.

  Those were the only pertinent facts brought out by Malcolm Summers’s testimony. Repeated questioning did not shake his assertion that he had seen no other person and had not seen Anthony Gray running back to the murdered girl, the two major points of deviation from Gray’s recital.

  Mrs. Summers, Jack Borton, and Mrs. Borton followed in quick succession. Their testimony produced nothing of any value. All of them were in a dazed condition and had no knowledge of actual happenings.

  A Mexican policeman came in just then with a crumpled piece of paper which had been discovered thrust down in the bosom of the slain woman’s dress. Written in ink, in Mexican: Meet me on the street after my last dance. Ricardo.

  The Juarez chief of police translated the message for Burke. The note was laid aside, and employees of El Gato Pobre were brought in to testify about the drunken fracas at the café. Their story was the same, in substance, as the one Summers had told.

  Conchita and Ricardo had been dragged from their hotel room and brought to headquarters. Ricardo was not shown the note found on Mrs. Ullendorf, but he was supplied with pen and paper and required to write the same words. He didn’t give the slightest evidence that he recognized the words or that he knew why he was required to write them.

  A comparison of the notes, however, revealed a striking similarity in the writing. Confronted with the actual note, Ricardo stoutly denied having written it, declaring that he knew nothing whatever about it. Burke took them for comparison by El Paso experts, and the examination of Ricardo and Conchita proceeded.

  Their testimony follows, translated into readable English:

  QUES. Your name?

  ANS. Ricardo Mendoza.

  QUES. You are an entertainer at El Gato Pobre?

  ANS. I am a dancer. The best dancer of the tango in Mexico.

  QUES. How long have you known Mrs. Ullendorf?

  ANS. She has been coming to see me dance for two or three weeks.

  QUES. Where have you met elsewhere?

  ANS. I went for lunch at her apartment in El Paso last week.

  QUES. State the other times you have seen her.

  ANS. Only at El Gato Pobre when I dance.

  QUES. What is your relationship with her?

  ANS. She admires my dancing.

  QUES. What else?

  ANS. That is all.

  QUES. What relationship exists between you and Conchita?

  ANS. She is my dancing partner.

  QUES. Are you married or engaged to be married to her?

  ANS. No. We are dance partners. That is all.

  QUES. You are living in the same hotel room?

  ANS. We are good friends.

  QUES. Is she in love with you?

  ANS. But, of course.

  QUES. Are you in love with her?

  ANS. No. Ricardo cannot love every woman that loves him.

  QUES. Tell us what happened between you and Mrs. Ullendorf tonight.

  ANS. She winked at me when I danced, and motioned for me to come to her table. I went to her and one of the men insulted me. I would have killed him if the waiters had not held me.

  QUES. Did he strike you?

  ANS. He knocked me down when I was not on guard.

  QUES. What did you do then?

  ANS. I went back to my dressing-room and said, ‘Ricardo, you are a big fool to get in trouble with gringoes. You stay on stage where you belong and there will be no trouble.’ Then I go to my hotel room.

  QUES. Alone?

  ANS. Yes.

  QUES. What time was that?

  ANS. I don’t know. Soon after the fight in the café.

  QUES. Did anyone see you?

  ANS. I don’t know. Not many people on the street.

  QUES. What time did you reach the hotel?

  ANS. A few minutes after twelve.

  QUES. Where was Conchita?

  ANS. She came in a few minutes later.

  QUES. Did you see her after the argument in the café?

  ANS. Not until she came to the hotel. She was very angry and I waited for her to get over it.

  QUES. She was jealous of your attention to Mrs. Ullendorf?

  ANS. Conchita is always jealous of some woman.

  QUES. Particularly jealous of Mrs. Ullendorf?

  ANS. No more than usual.

  QUES. But she drew a dagger in the café and threatened her?

  ANS. Yes. She has threatened to kill every woman that looks at me.

  QUES. What was her condition when she came to the hotel?

  ANS. She was very loving.

  QUES. Was she excited or upset?

  ANS. No. Only that she is sorry about making trouble and loves me.

  QUES. Did she tell you where she had been or what she had been doing?

  ANS. No. Only that she loves me.

  QUES. When did you first hear of Mrs. Ullendorf’s death?

  ANS. When the police came to bring us here.

  QUES. What were you and Conchita doing when the police came?

  ANS. We were in bed.

  QUES. Do you know whether Conchita still has the dagger she threatened Mrs. Ullendorf with?

  ANS. Yes. She put it under her pillow when she undressed.

  QUES. Did you ever see this dagger before? (Producing the death weapon.)

  ANS. No.

  QUES. Are you sure it isn’t Conchita’s
—or yours?

  ANS. I never saw it before.

  Ricardo wouldn’t commit himself further. He stuck to his story that he had gone straight from the café to the hotel. The hotel lay in the opposite direction from that taken by the American party. Ricardo could produce no one to substantiate his story, but no one could be produced to prove that he had done otherwise. He was locked in a cell on general principles, and Conchita was called.

  Conchita’s personality was invigorating and her replies were fiery and incautious. She shrugged her shoulders gracefully, her eyes blazing, and her lips curled in disdain.

  QUES. How long have you known Mrs. Ullendorf?

  ANS. I don’t know her. For weeks she has been making love to Ricardo.

  QUES. Was he in love with her?

  ANS. Ricardo loves only me—and himself.

  QUES. But he wasn’t averse to flirting with her?

  ANS. He would flirt with any woman.

  QUES. Did he see her often outside the café?

  ANS. He went to El Paso often during the past two weeks. He swears he did not see her, but he always lies, so I do not believe him.

  QUES. You think he visited her in El Paso?

  ANS. I think so.

  QUES. You made no attempt to stop him?

  ANS. I promised to cut his heart out and hers if they did not stop.

  QUES. Which one did you plan to cut out first?

  ANS. Hers. I love Ricardo. I do not mean my threats to him.

  QUES. So you killed her tonight?

  ANS. I try to in the café. They took me away before I could kill her.

  QUES. So you slipped out and followed them? And killed her on the street?

  ANS. No. I was too angry to think of that. Someone else thought of it first.

  QUES. Ricardo, perhaps?

  ANS. Did he?

  QUES. Didn’t he tell you he did when you came to the hotel?

  ANS. No, I am glad if he did.

  QUES. When did you last see him with this knife? (Producing death weapon.)

  ANS. I never saw him with that knife.

  QUES. Come, now, Conchita. We know this is his knife.

  ANS. Then why do you ask me, if you know?

  QUES. We want to know when you saw him with it last?

  ANS. I never saw him with it.

  QUES. What did you do after the quarrel in the café?

  ANS. I stayed in my dressing-room for a while and then went to the hotel.

  QUES. Who saw you?

  ANS. No one, I guess. I didn’t see anybody on the street.

  That was all that could be learned from the witnesses to events immediately preceding the murder. The death-knife remained unidentified. No witness could be found who recalled seeing it before. There were no witnesses to corroborate either Ricardo’s or Conchita’s story. The Juarez police said they would hold them under arrest while they proceeded with the investigation. Burke told them to use their own judgment, but that he did not believe the solution lay there.

  It was three o’clock when we recrossed the bridge. The Free Press had another murder extra on the streets. We each bought a copy, and Burke dropped me at my house with the agreement that I would meet him at his office early in the morning. I went in, set the alarm, and went to sleep. That’s how callous I was becoming to murder.

  Chapter Twelve

  JERRY BURKE WAS IN HIS PRIVATE OFFICE surrounded by old copies of local newspapers when I walked in a little before eight o’clock the following morning. He was jotting something down in a memorandum book. I sat down and waited until he finished.

  He laid the paper aside and said, “I’ve been reading up on our lady of the evening.”

  “She’s been in and out of the headlines,” I agreed. “Have you dug up anything pertinent?”

  Burke frowned and consulted his book. “I’m not sure, Asa. I’ve sifted a few facts out of the newspaper stories. She was originally Dorothy Harris, the only daughter of a pioneer Texas rancher. He died here when Dorothy was fourteen, leaving her a huge estate in trust until she was eighteen. I gather she spent money better than she did anything else.”

  “I don’t remember much about her until she married Dick Devoe. She must have been about twenty-one.”

  Burke consulted his book. “Twenty-two. She seems to have pretty well run through her inheritance by that time.”

  I nodded. “Didn’t Devoe lose the rest of it in some sort of speculative venture?”

  “The papers don’t state. She popped into the headlines two years later with a suit for divorce, charging Devoe with non-support and desertion. Mention is made of her poverty in contrast to former affluence.”

  “There were some ugly rumors flying around,” I offered. “I think Devoe threatened to enter a cross-suit, naming Herman Ullendorf as co-respondent. Nothing came of it, however, and we were denied what promised to be a juicy scandal.”

  That got Burke’s attention. He consulted his book again. “Those rumors aren’t mentioned, but I noted that a news account of her wedding to Ullendorf after the divorce took particular pains to name her former husband as an invited guest at the wedding. I wonder—” He tapped his fingers on the desk.

  “I remember that. A lot of people wondered at the time—coming on the heels of the other rumor. If there were any difficulties, they seem to have been well patched up by the time she remarried.”

  Burke looked at his book again. “Dorothy Harris evidently wasn’t cut out for matrimony. She was in the headlines again before the wedding trip was over. Divorce proceedings seem to have been instituted immediately after their return. The second divorce was a nasty affair. All sorts of charges and countercharges. Ullendorf is said to have made a cash settlement of a half a million on her as an end to the mess.”

  I nodded. That had been common gossip at the time. Burke closed his book and I asked him about the note signed with Ricardo’s name.

  A puzzled, faraway look came into his eyes. “Absolutely nothing doing in the way of identification. All of our experts agree that Ricardo did not write the note. They call it a rather clever forgery of his writing.”

  I waited until the faraway look vanished from his eyes before I asked him about the dagger and card.

  “Nothing.” He shook his head wearily. “We needn’t expect anything along that line. Our man isn’t going to leave any fingerprints around.”

  “Anything new?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about the dance team of Ricardo and Conchita?”

  He made a wry face. “You know they’re out. They went out as soon as we found the card attached to the dagger. Either one of them might have knifed her in a sudden fit of temperament, but it’s impossible to conceive either of them cold-bloodedly planning Malvern’s murder and then the girl’s.”

  I nodded. I knew he was right. That brought up another train of thought. “How about this switching of weapons that Mum pulled on us last night? That’s hardly sporting, is it?”

  He frowned. “It’s an important clue. It takes our murderer out of the insane class. An unbalanced mentality follows one idea unswervingly. A maniac who once killed with a rifle would be extremely unlikely to realize there was any other satisfactory method of committing murder.”

  “Which means—?” I prompted.

  “A diabolically clever killer. One who suits his method to the time, place, and victim.”

  “What about Anthony Gray?”

  Burke grunted and studied my face. “So far, he’s our only bet. It’s barely possible that Gray might have had a grudge against Malvern. The Juarez police detained him last night. I’ve arranged for them to bring him to his apartment at nine. I’ll interview him there. Sober, he might break down and give us something.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes after eight. “Anything else?”

  “I’m on the point of dropping over to the Obispo Apartments to talk to the manager and go through Mrs. Ullendorf’s apartment. Want to go along? I stationed a man at her s
uite as soon as I got back last night.”

  The Obispo was only six blocks away, and Burke suggested we walk. “It’s going to be a nasty job, digging back into Mrs. Ullendorf’s life,” he muttered. “I’m interested in knowing what became of her former husbands—and what becomes of her estate.”

  “Devoe is around town,” I offered. “I heard someone speaking of him not long ago. He’s mixed up in some sort of shady real estate promotion, I believe. Ullendorf couldn’t stand the gaff and cleared out after the divorce.”

  Burke said quietly, “I’m interested in finding out whether Devoe’s financial status took any decided change immediately after his divorce.”

  I screwed on my thinking cap. Jerry Burke was a little too fast for me. “Are you suggesting that Ullendorf paid him off to let the divorce go through and not name him as co-respondent?”

  “Something like that. Every angle will bear investigating. From the outside, that Devoe divorce looks very much like collusion of some kind. Once mixed up in a thing like that, it’s sometimes difficult to extricate oneself. I’m very much interested in knowing whether Devoe has been seeing his ex-wife either while she was married to Ullendorf or after she divorced him.”

  “There was something fishy about the ex-husband attending the wedding of his divorced wife and a man whom he suspected of being intimate with her,” I agreed. “Devoe’s reputation isn’t any too good all the way down the line.”

  The Obispo Apartments was an imposing six-story structure with four luxurious suites on each floor. We found the manager’s office on the ground floor. The manager was a plump, placid man whose placidity deserted him when Burke introduced himself.

  “This publicity is terrible,” moaned the manager, twisting his white hands together. “Nothing like this has occurred during my tenure here. The only blemish upon our spotless record.”

  Burke said dryly, “It was rather tough on the lady also.” He sat down opposite the manager and went on without further preamble: “I want any information you can give me about Mrs. Ullendorf’s manner of living. Later, I’ll want a complete record of incoming and outgoing telephone calls to and from her apartment.”