by Otto Penzler
Lester Leith nodded.
“They carried this fat woman away in the ambulance, Scuttle?”
The valet shook his head.
“Three stretcher bearers, all clad in white, came into the room. They tried to lift the woman and failed, and they sent out for the driver.”
“Then what?”
“Then it happened, sir. The guests were all bunched together. The detectives were bending over the woman, trying to get her on the stretcher. The ambulance men were at very strategic positions. Then the woman sat upright and conked the detectives on the bean!”
“Conked, Scuttle?”
“Yes, sir. That is, tapped them with a heavy object. In this case it was the barrel of a gun. The detectives went to the mat, sir, and the woman swung the business end of the gun toward the guests. The ambulance men got guns out and herded the guests against the wall. They piled all the jewelry and cash on the stretcher, took the most expensive of the gifts, piled them on the stretcher, loaded the stretcher in the ambulance and all drove away.”
Lester Leith sighed, a long drawn sigh of utter satisfaction.
“Scuttle, it is perfect!”
“Yes, sir. The loot was worth two hundred thousand—perhaps more.”
Lester Leith nodded. “Yes, indeed, Scuttle. It would be. Of course, the success of the whole scheme depended on the fat woman. They couldn’t lift her. They couldn’t do a thing with her. And a fat woman who has fainted is such an awkward thing to handle. A gentleman is supposed to scoop the delicate form of a lady into iron-muscled arms and convey her to a couch. But in this case it would take a block and tackle.”
The valet nodded.
“Yes, indeed, Scuttle. It was artistic. I presume they telephoned the police at once, Scuttle?”
“Yes, sir, and that’s the peculiar part of it, sir. You see the ambulance was distinctive. It couldn’t have escaped discovery, sir. It had the sign painted right on its side—a very large sign, almost distastefully large. The police realized at once that the ambulance was the point they should concentrate on. They dispatched police cars to form a cordon about the district; but no ambulance left the district. That’s why the police feel certain the ambulance drove into a nearby garage.”
Lester Leith nodded. “The police, of course, telephoned Proctor & Peabody—to find out if an ambulance had been stolen?”
“Naturally.”
“And found out that none had. The ambulance was a complete imitation all the way through. Right?”
“How did you guess that, sir?”
“Simple, Scuttle. It’s as simple as the solution to the whole affair. The police simply failed to see the obvious thing, Scuttle.”
The valet teetered back and forth on his large feet.
“You mean to say you have deduced a solution to the crime—that is, a knowledge of the identity of the parties who are guilty—from a mere recital of the facts?”
Leith shrugged his shoulders.
“Let us say, a tentative solution, Scuttle. Now, for instance, the social secretary of Mrs. Demarest?”
“Was instantly suspected of complicity, sir. She was taken to headquarters and grilled. It appears that she had been very careless with the engraved invitations. She’d shown them to several people in advance of mailing, although she had been instructed not to do so. And the list of engraved invitations sent out and those remaining in her hands didn’t tally. There were two unaccounted for. She said she had spilled ink on them and destroyed them, but didn’t tell Mrs. Demarest. She got the artist to fix new ones.”
Leith nodded again.
“You think it’s the social secretary who’s guilty?” asked the undercover man. “The police do. They’ve let her out, but they’re shadowing her.”
Lester Leith pursed his lips, blew a smoke ring, traced its perimeter with a well-manicured forefinger.
“Tell me, Scuttle. This social secretary. Is she very thin, perhaps?”
“No, sir. She’s rather inclined to beauty of figure, sir. She has wonderful curves, and her eyes are quite expressive. She’s the sort of a girl the newspapers like to photograph. Her name is Louise Huntington. There’s her picture, sir.”
Lester Leith stared at the newspaper picture of a beautiful girl. The face was smiling, happy. The well-turned limbs were crossed in such a manner as to show a tantalizing expanse of silken hose.
“Taken before the accusation?”
“So I believe, sir. I understand she was all broken up over the affair. She seems to think she’ll never be able to get another position.”
“Mrs. Demarest discharged her?”
“Of course, sir. She would, you know.”
“Yes, indeed, Scuttle, she would.”
“Was there anything else about the crime you wished to know, sir?”
Lester Leith did not answer for several minutes. He blew a succession of smoke rings.
“No,” he said, at length, “nothing else,” and then he chuckled.
“Something amuses you, sir?”
“Yes, Scuttle.”
“May I ask what it is, sir?”
“Yes, indeed. I was thinking how perfectly ludicrous you would seem teaching a fat woman how to faint.”
The valet’s mouth opened and closed several times before his tongue got traction on the words that he sought to utter.
“Me! Teaching a fat woman how to faint! Good lord, sir, what an idea!”
“It is an idea, isn’t it, Scuttle? Do you know, I think I should get a deep mattress to place on the floor. Then I’d have her fall over there in the corner.”
“But…but…sir…I don’t understand. Who is this fat woman, and where do we get her?”
“Ah, Scuttle, there you’ve placed your finger upon the point I wished to discuss. We advertise for her, of course. I would suggest a more mature woman, one who is about forty years of age, Scuttle. Experience has taught me that women of that age have adjusted themselves to the wear and tear of life. In short, Scuttle, such a woman would be much more likely to wear tights.”
“Wear tights, sir!”
“Precisely. I would suggest green tights particularly if you are able to get a blonde. The advertisement should be worded something like this:
“WANTED: Fair, Fat, and Forty. Good-Natured Woman Who Weighs at Least Three Hundred and Fifty Pounds. Should Know Something About Horses.”
“Know something about horses! Have you gone stark, raving crazy, sir?”
“I think not, Scuttle. Evidently you have failed to consider certain elements of the Demarest robbery.”
“Yes, sir. Such as?”
“Such as the fact that a woman who weighs three hundred and fifty pounds and deliberately falls downstairs, knowing in advance she won’t be hurt, must have had some circus or stage training. Then, when you add the fact that she is rather handy with a gun…well, Scuttle, the answer is obvious. She has probably done work with a Wild West show.”
“I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”
“She fainted and fell, Scuttle. Yet they all knew—that is, those on the inside of the scheme—that she wouldn’t be hurt.”
“How do you reason that, sir?”
“Because the conking of the detectives was an important part of the scheme. The reasonable time to conk them was when they were bending over to assist the lady to a stretcher, and the person who could most effectively start the conking process was the woman herself.”
The police spy stroked his mustache with what was intended to be a thoughtfully meditative gesture. But his washboarded forehead and twisted lips gave evidence of deep perplexity.
“And you want to put in an advertisement, get a fat woman?”
“Precisely.”
“Because you think the same woman might answer the ad?”
Lester Leith shrugged his shoulders.
The valet pressed the point.
“Yet that’s why you mentioned horses. A circus woman would know horses. You must admit that.”
Leste
r Leith smiled. “Skip along, Scuttle, and insert that want ad. We should start getting replies almost at once.”
“But what’s the idea of teaching her how to faint?”
“That, Scuttle, is one of the things I must keep absolutely secret. It’s between the lady and myself.”
“But you don’t even know who she is yet…Is it that you want to see from the way she acts if she’s accustomed to faint? Is that it? A trap?”
Lester Leith glanced at his watch.
“Do you know, Scuttle, there are times when your reasoning powers absolutely surprise me?”
The valet flushed. “Is that so, sir?”
“Absolutely,” remarked Lester Leith in a tone of finality. “And, may I add, Scuttle, that this is not one of those times.”
Scuttle inserted the ad, but not until he had made an appointment with Sergeant Ackley. Scuttle, known as Beaver on the force, walked from the newspaper offices to find the sergeant, parked in his official red roadster, waiting for him.
“Well, Beaver, you got him working on that Demarest affair. That’s fine! We’ll tail along and let him lead us to the culprits, if he solves the crime. And then we’ll nab both him and them. If he misses fire, nothing will be lost.”
Beaver grunted.
“I got him started all right; but no one knows where he’ll finish. He gets my goat with his Scuttling me this and his Scuttling me that.”
“There, there, Beaver,” soothed Ackley. “It won’t be but a short time more and then we’ll have the goods on him. When we do, you can start in working him over. I promise you fifteen minutes alone in the cell with him. If he resists an officer that’ll just be too bad.”
“There won’t be enough left of him to arraign in court.”
Ackley nodded.
“Now tell me about the set-up,” he said, fitting a cigar to his lips with that perfect precision which characterizes a man who is about to enjoy some very welcome information.
“Well, I did just as you told me. When he called for the crime clippings I spoke of a couple of things I knew he wouldn’t be interested in, then I pulled that Demarest affair and he fell for it right away. He’s got an idea that’s very logical, too.
“He says the fat woman had to be a tumbler from a circus, probably a Wild West show, and he pointed out reasons that are ironclad. Then he wants me to insert an ad for a fat woman of about the age of this Mrs. Pensonboy Forster. He says I’ve got to teach her how to faint.”
Sergeant Ackley’s lips snapped the cigar to an abrupt angle.
“Teach her how to faint!” he exclaimed through clenched teeth. “What does he want to do that for?”
The undercover man assumed an air of sophisticated wisdom.
“Tut, tut, Sergeant. It’s simple.”
Sergeant Ackley’s big hand ripped the cigar from his mouth. He hurled it to the pavement with such force that the wrapper cracked into fragments.
“Where do you get that tut-tut stuff? And what gave you the idea you can drool over me with that air of superiority Leith puts on? Have you been battin’ around him so long you think you’re one of those masterminds? Because, if you have, I’ll bust you so flat you’ll make wrapping for a picnic sandwich, you bull-necked, fat-headed, cinder-eyed—”
Beaver made haste to mollify the sergeant.
“No, no. I didn’t mean it that way. You got your nerves worked up. What I meant to say was that I’ve put two and two together from workin’ with him so long. Gimme a chance to explain, will you?”
The sergeant took another cigar from his pocket.
“Well, get busy,” he growled. “You tut-tut me again and you’ll go back to pavements.”
“Yes, Sergeant, but remember I’ve lived with that drawling stuff so long I can’t help using some of it. It’s unconscious…but let’s look at the case. I gotta be gettin’ back. He’ll have more fool things for me to do.
“You see, he figures that one of the fat women who answers his ad will be either someone who has had circus experience, or, perhaps, the very one who pulled the faint on the Demarest job.”
Sergeant Ackley’s lip curled.
“What a boob you are, Beaver. It ain’t nothing like that at all. In the first place, they made a good haul on the Demarest job. The woman who pulled that stunt is sittin’ pretty right now. She’s out of the picture, and as for finding anybody who’d know her and squeal, that’s foolish. If any of the profesh knew her they’d have tipped us off by this time.
“No. It’s something else, something deeper. I have an idea he’s going to lift the idea and train this fat dame to pull the same stunt for him. It’s just the sort of a stunt he’d have thought up. Wonder is that he didn’t. Maybe he was back of it all the time.”
The spy shook his head. “I’ll keep you posted. But it’s some funny scheme. Remember, he don’t ever rob anybody except thieves. I wish to thunder he’d tip his hand just once! Too bad he smelled out that dictograph we had planted—makes it hard for me to report. But I’ll keep you in touch with the situation. How about planting a woman to answer his ad?”
“No. There ain’t a woman in the department who could answer the description. All of our lures are the vamping type.”
—
Lester Leith was up early the next morning to receive applications for the position mentioned in his want ad. There were six of them, no more. Some of them were, perhaps, in the three-hundred-pound class, but there were only two who seemed to come anywhere near three hundred and fifty pounds.
Leith made his selection with a judgment that was almost intuitive. He jabbed his forefinger at a woman who stood in a corner.
“Name?”
“Sadie Crane.”
“Come in,” he said.
The woman was about forty. She weighed well into the three hundreds, yet there was about her a certain feminine attraction. Her figure was wadded with fat, yet gave the suggestion of curves. Her eyes were bright. Her flabby lips twisted in a perpetual smile.
“Side show?” she asked, as soon as she had entered the room where Lester Leith indicated a specially constructed armchair.
The police spy, hovering near the doorway, listened intently.
“Not exactly a side show. You’ve been in one?”
“Sure. When I started putting on fat I dieted for a while. After I passed two hundred pounds I decided I’d better go the other way and make some money out of it. So I made up for lost time on the sweets…and here I am. Been in side shows from Keokuk to breakfast and back.”
“Married?”
She shook her head. A tender light came in her eyes. “Widow. I married the Human Skeleton out of Selig’s Super Shows. He was at Denver. Poor Jim, he caught cold the second week we’d been married, and he went quick.”
Lester Leith bowed his head gravely, silent comment upon the match-like man who had been the love of this mountain of flesh.
“You’d wear tights?”
“No.”
Lester Leith gravely regarded the tip of a smoldering cigarette.
“Perhaps your modesty—”
“Modesty, heck!” she interrupted. “It ain’t modesty. I’ve showed my figure from Maine to California, from Mexico to Canada, and I’ve showed more skin area than any other woman in the world. I’ll wear some professional clothes I’ve got, a jacket and shorts. That’s the way I used to sit in the side shows. That’s the way I’m willing to work.”
Lester Leith nodded.
“That is reasonable. The salary will be twenty-five dollars a day. You will have to learn how to faint.”
The fat woman leaned over and looked at Leith earnestly. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Fainting. You’ll have to learn to drop over to one side, or flat on your back in a faint. You’ll have to learn to take the fall without hurting yourself. We’ll have mattresses and sofa pillows to break the fall at first. Later on we’ll gradually take them away and you can fall on the floor.”
She sighed. “Living
around a side show for fifteen years, I’ve naturally seen lots of freaks—but you’re a new type.”
“But you’re willing?”
“Sure, I’m willing. Only I don’t want to take any exercise that’s going to get rid of any fat. This fat is my stock in trade. At my present weight I’m an attraction. If I should drop a hundred pounds or so I wouldn’t be anything but a fat mommer.”
Lester Leith motioned to the valet.
“Will you please explain to the other applicants that their services are not wanted, Scuttle? And you’d better get their names and addresses. That will make them feel better. Tell them the position is temporarily filled.”
The valet nodded, took pencil and paper, and oozed through the door.
Lester Leith glanced significantly at the grinning fat girl who reclined in the specially constructed chair.
“You can keep your mouth shut?”
“Like a clam.”
“Now is a good time to begin.”
“From now on, Mr. Leith, you don’t hear anything out of me except clam-talk.”
Leith reached for a checkbook. “I will advance your salary for the first week.” He wrote and signed a check.
“You’ll be expected to be available at all times. And I’d prefer to have you keep off the streets. So I’ve arranged to rent the adjoining apartment. It’s all furnished, ready for you to move in. Your living expenses are, of course, to be paid by me.”
The fat hand folded along the tinted oblong of paper. The twinkling eyes regarded the figures.
“Two hundred and fifty bucks!”
Lester Leith nodded. “I like round figures.”
She caught the point, stretched out her legs and let her eyes drift over her form.
“When that guy with the mustache comes back, get him to give me a pull, and I’ll get out of this chair an’ go look the apartment over. Better order two quarts of whipping cream and lots of candy. I drink pure cream. Seems to agree with my stomach. The candy I eat for a pick-up. A fat person has lots of body to keep fed.”
The door opened. The valet appeared with a list of addresses.
“Got them all, Scuttle?”
