My Kingdom for a Hearse

by Craig Rice

  Delilah was her name—

  Malone leaned back contentedly and gazed at his glass. Delilah—Delora—what did it matter. Everything was all right. Everything was going to be all right. Rita was all right. Rita was right here across from him, purring like a tickled kitten, and showing no evidence of murder or mayhem.

  Another thing struck him. Gus Madrid had vanished, sometime between the Casino and Rickett s. That could mean only one thing. Eva Lou had come home. Eva Lou had finally answered his phone call. Somehow, Eva Lou had turned up, as alive and well as Rita Jardee. True, there was the matter of repaying Gus Madrid, the enforcer, his five hundred dollars, since he, Malone, hadn’t done the finding of Eva Lou. But he’d worry about that later.

  A smart man like Otis Furlong would certainly find some way of piecing together a Delora Deanne on a television screen. There was no doubt that all the Delora Deannes would be happy to be television stars, even if each one was only one-fifth of a star.

  And the question of the column items was satisfactorily accounted for. And the little matter of the hands and feet sent to Hazel Swackhammer was something that must have some perfectly simple, logical, understandable and obvious explanation. It was just a small problem now of finding it, and he’d attend to that first thing in the morning. Meanwhile—

  Rita Jardee gave another, and louder, hog-calling imitation, and the little lawyer took advantage of the resulting confusion to grasp Tamia Tabet firmly by the arm, slip quietly away and head for the door.

  She looked at him admiringly and said, “My, but you’re a busy man!”

  “Not half as busy as I’m going to be,” Malone said.

  At that moment a waiter signaled to him. “Mr. Malone?”

  Malone reached for his wallet, nodded toward the table, and said, “My guests.”

  It seemed that wasn’t it. Mr. Malone was wanted, and urgently, on the telephone.

  It was Jake’s voice. And it sounded hoarse, desperate, and more than a little frightened.

  “Malone—I’ve been trying all over to reach you. I traced you to Ricketts, and then someone said they’d heard someone say you were going to—”

  “Calm down,” Malone said, chewing his cigar. “Calm down! Where are you, and what’s happened?”

  “I’m in Myrdell Harris’ apartment,” Jake said. “And she’s dead. Malone, you’d better get right over here.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Just when everything was going so smoothly. Too smoothly. He should have realized that and been wary. The little lawyer urged the cab driver to go faster, and leaned glumly back against the cushions.

  Dennis Dennis and Henry had been delighted to take Tamia home. Too delighted. Malone scowled. There would be Other nights, of course, but just the same—

  He reminded himself sharply that Jake was the one to be thinking about now.

  Finding Rita Jardee, plus the disappearance of Gus Madrid, had convinced him that the Delora Deannes were merely missing. Now he wasn’t so sure. Rita Jardee might not have been included in whatever devilish plan there was to ruin Delora Deanne. Or she might have been later on the list, and simply picked this inopportune time to have an attack of hogcalling. Gus Madrid—anything might have happened to him.

  Just as anything might have happened to Eva Lou Strauss, and Louella Frick, and Eula Stolz, and Gertie Bragg.

  Another thought struck him. He felt certain that Rita Jardee wasn’t going to be the silky voice of Delora Deanne any more, come what might. Even allowing for temperament, he knew determination when he met it face to face. And apparently Myrdell wasn’t going to do any broadcasting either.

  He was halfway up the elevator before he realized that the Jake Justus Television Production Company wasn’t the only thing involved. There was, also, the matter of murder.

  Jake met him at the door, his freckled face pale. “Thank God you’re here,” he said. “Thank God Helene isn’t here. Thank God the doctor got here.”

  “Stop babbling,” Malone said firmly, “and tell me what happened. Is Myrdell—”

  “She’s dead, all right,” Jake said. “I was just sitting here. I was just talking with her. And suddenly she looked funny and died. Hazel Swackhammer called the doctor. They’re in there now.” He nodded toward the bedroom.

  “Wait a minute,” Malone said. He felt a little confused. He sat down and said, “Relax and begin at the beginning.”

  “I wanted to talk with her,” Jake said. “I used the show as a reason. I thought I might find out more from her than you did. I mean, Malone—”

  “Never mind what you mean,” Malone said. “Go on.”

  “I telephoned her,” Jake said. He paused to wipe his face with a crumpled damp handkerchief. “She said she was busy earlier, but she’d meet me here.”

  Then that was the appointment Myrdell had left to keep. With Jake. And incidentally with death.

  “She was here when I got here. And so was Hazel Swackhammer. She gave me a hint that Hazel Swackhammer would go away. She lives in the same building. Hazel Swackhammer, I mean. A—an awesome kind of woman.” He wiped his face again. “I waited for Hazel Swackhammer to go. Meanwhile we sat and we talked.”

  Malone asked, “What about?”

  “Orchids,” Jake said.

  Malone opened his mouth and shut it again.

  “It was all I could think of to talk about,” Jake said defensively. “I wrote an article about them once and I happened to remember. Do you know how many different kinds of orchids there are? Or that some orchids—”

  “Shut up,” Malone said. He remembered where Myrdell Harris had kept her liquor, and poured Jake a stiff one. To be on the safe side, he poured a stiff one for himself.

  “All right,” he said, “you were all three talking about orchids. And then—?”

  “She looked—funny,” Jake said weakly. “For just a minute. And then she sort of—fell over. She was dead.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Hazel Swackhammer said she was. She said she’d better call the doctor. Myrdell Harris’ doctor. He’s right here in the same building. She called the doctor and I put the—put her— in on her bed. Then Hazel Swackhammer went in to stay with her. Then the doctor got here. Then I got worried and I called you.”

  “And a good thing you did,” Malone said. He took out a cigar, looked at it, put it away again. “How did she look the first time you saw her?”

  “Hazel Swackhammer?”

  “No, no, no,” Malone said. He took the cigar out again, but he didn’t light it.

  “Oh,” Jake said. He scowled. “She looked alive.”

  Malone sighed. “Jake, you’d better go home. Straight home.”

  Jake looked even more worried, and glanced at the bedroom door. “I don’t know—”

  “I do,” Malone said. “No law says you can’t leave a place where a person is taken ill. I’ll explain for you. Just get out of here, go home and calm down. If there are any questions to be asked, you’ll do better answering them later.”

  And there would be questions asked, he told himself. He felt certain of that. He fairly shoved Jake out the door.

  After all, he told himself, there was no reason why Jake shouldn’t leave. Myrdell wasn’t even officially dead yet, to say nothing of being murdered. Jake had been here when she died, but so had Hazel Swackhammer, and as far as Jake officially knew, Myrdell Harris had simply been taken very ill, very suddenly.

  His cigar had gone out, and he didn’t bother to relight it, chewing on it savagely as he paced up and down the room. It had to be poison, some slow-acting poison. If she’d been stabbed, or shot, or strangled, Jake would have noticed it. He discarded that as a second-best thought, and decided it didn’t have to be a slow-acting poison. Something she’d taken after she returned home? Had the three been having a drink when she suddenly toppled over? There weren’t any glasses around.

  Hazel Swackhammer had been with her before Jake arrived. He peered into the kitchen. No glasses in evide
nce there either. But someone could have been there ahead of Hazel Swackhammer. And if glasses had been used, Myrdell Harris could have tidily washed them and put them away, though she didn’t seem like the domestic type. Of course, her unknown visitor could have done the washing up. Or Myrdell might have done it, undomestic type or not, because she didn’t want it noticed that anyone had been there.

  And there were so many different ways of poisoning, so infernally many different ways. Of course, once it was known what the poison was, things would be vastly simpler.

  So much depended too on when Mydrell had arrived home. On what time Hazel Swackhammer had come in, and then Jake. The last two could be found out easily. The elevator boy would probably remember when Myrdell Harris had come home. Come home to die. The little lawyer shivered.

  He tried to remember just when she had left Ricketts. Somewhere between eight and ten or eleven. He hadn’t exactly been keeping track of time during the evening. But perhaps somebody had.

  Then too, she might not have come straight home, might have made a stop on the way.

  Dennis Dennis and Henry had been with her at Rickett’s and during and before the broadcast. Any number of people could have been with her during the broadcast and long before that. Jake and Hazel Swackhammer and possibly some unknown person had been with her after she left Ricketts. She just could have seen Rita Jardee sometime along the course of the evening. Or Otis Furlong. Or anybody.

  It was all going to depend on how long it had taken whatever poison it was to take effect.

  There was a handful of telephone call slips left on the desk and he looked at them idly. They were all dated this evening, they were spaced at ten-minute intervals, and all of them requested Miss Myrdell Harris to call Mr. Dennis Dennis immediately at a number Malone concluded was the number of the saloon where he’d left Dennis Dennis a while ago. He wondered if she’d ever made the call back.

  The bedroom door opened and Hazel Swackhammer came out, her ordinary face composed in what came close to a polite expression of regret. Behind her came a tall, rangy, loose-jointed man with a thick mane of snow-white hair, and watery blue eyes behind thick glasses. He carried a doctor’s bag, and with him was a pleasant-faced, middle-aged man with graying dark hair and a professional smile.

  “Too bad,” the tall man was saying. “But it wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d been called earlier. So don’t distress yourself, Mr. Justus.”

  “I’m not Mr. Justus,” the lawyer said. “I’m Malone. John J. Malone.”

  “Eh?” the doctor said. “You say Mr. Justus has gone home?” One hand cupped his ear.

  “No,” Malone shouted. “I mean, yes, I mean, I’m John J. Malone.”

  Hazel Swackhammer said helpfully, “This is Dr. Stone-cypher. And his nephew Alvin.” She roared, “Dr. Stonecypher, this is Mr. Malone. My lawyer.”

  Dr. Stonecypher peered at him. “Must say you got a lawyer here fast. Heard of you, Mr. Malone.”

  “I just happened to drop in,” Malone shouted. “Mr. Justus went home. He was worried about his wife.” Which was certainly true.

  He looked interestedly at the tall, white-haired doctor. Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher was more than merely famous, he was practically a legend. He’d been president of goodness knew how many medical associations, he’d lectured everywhere an audience could be rounded up, he’d been for years head of an important medical school, and the Stonecypher Coronary Clinic, as well as a wing of an impressive hospital, had been named for him.

  “Well, he doesn’t need to worry about her life,” Dr. Stone-cypher said. “She’s gone. I’ve expected it for a long time. Warned her any number of times. Nothing could have been done even if I’d been here earlier.”

  A new and incomprehensible idea was growing in Malone’s mind. He stared at the elderly doctor and said, “Do you mean she died a natural death?”

  “Eh?” the doctor said, and then, “I beg pardon?”

  “He said, did she die a natural death?” nephew Alvin screamed into Dr. Stonecypher’s ear. He said helpfully to Malone, “Of course she died a natural death.”

  Malone wiped his brow with the palm of his hand. He caught a chair and sat down. “Are you a doctor too?” he asked.

  “No,” Alvin Stonecypher said. “I’m an insurance salesman. I just take Uncle ’Lonzo around.”

  Dr. Stonecypher glared at Malone and said, “Are you implying that I don’t know my profession, young man?”

  “Oh, no,” Malone said hastily. “No, no, no. Nothing like that.” He tried to remember how long it had been since anybody called him “Young man,” and couldn’t.

  “She had a congenital intra-atrial septal defect,” Dr. Stonecypher said. He looked at Malone with pitying condescension for a layman’s ignorance and said, “A defective heart.” Malone said, “No!”

  This, curiously enough, seemed to mollify the white-haired doctor. “These cases go just like—that.” He snapped his fingers and launched into a lengthy medical explanation, full of words Malone didn’t grasp and tried desperately to remember. Then the doctor turned to Hazel Swackhammer. “Anything more you need? Notify her folks? Make the—arrangements?” Hazel Swackhammer shook her head. “I’ll do it,” she shouted. Even her shout sounded efficient.

  Dr. Stonecypher nodded, placated. “Well, everything’s in order.” He looked at his watch and said querulously, “Alvin, I want to go home.”

  After they had gone, Malone turned to his client. “I’m sorry—I must apologize for what I said. But—a sudden death—coming on top of—everything else—”

  She lifted her shoulders slightly. “It’s all right. I’d have thought the same thing if I hadn’t known about Myrdell’s illness.”

  “Well—” Malone looked at his dead cigar, laid it in a little blue porcelain ash tray. “Her family—”

  “She hadn’t any,” Hazel Swackhammer said. “Known her for years. All alone in the world.”

  None of the girls who worked for Hazel Swackhammer seemed to have any family, Malone thought suddenly. He wondered if it had been planned that way. “Well—” he said again, and paused. “Well, I’ll be glad to take care of the—the arrangements,” he finished lamely, wondering why people didn’t come right out and say what they meant, and be done with it.

  “That,” Hazel Swackhammer said, “will be very kind of you.”

  At least some little good might come of this totally—well, almost totally—ruined evening, he thought. Perhaps he would get back in the good graces of Rico di Angelo. He went to the telephone.

  At first, Rico was angry at being wakened at such an hour. Then he was angry at being called by Malone.

  “Whatever it is, Malone,” he said firmly, “I—will—not— do—it!” He threatened to hang up.

  “Wait a minute,” Malone said hastily. “You don’t understand—”

  Things were straightened out at last. Rico promised to be over immediately. Indeed, he thanked Malone. But he hung up with, “Only, no monkey business, Malone, I warn you.”

  Hazel Swackhammer agreed that there was no need for Malone to wait with her until Rico di Angelo arrived. The little lawyer glanced at his watch and decided there was a bare chance he might still be able to salvage some of the evening. Dennis Dennis and Henry might not yet have gotten around to taking Tamia home.

  He hurried down the elevator and ran right into Helene in the lobby.

  “Malone! I’ve been looking all over for you. I finally trailed you here. Then I saw Jake come out, but he didn’t see me. What’s going on?”

  “It’s gone on,” Malone said. “Jake came to see Myrdell Harris because he thought she might be an inside track to Hazel Swackhammer and selling the show—”

  “I know that,” Helene said impatiently. “And is she?”

  “She isn’t,” Malone said. “Not any more.” He told her, briefly and hastily, what had happened.

  “And it was really a natural death?”

  “Dr. Stonecypher said so,” Malone said.
“Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher.”

  She nodded, thoughtfully. “I know him. Malone—”

  “I know,” Malone said impatiently. “It’s a shock. It’s being natural, I mean. I thought the same thing. In a situation like this—a sudden death—” He began walking to the door, Helene right along with him. “Well, a murder wouldn’t have been unexpected. But, Dr. Alonzo Stonecypher—”

  She looked at him coldly, and had nothing to say.

  “And a good thing, too,” Malone said. “Because I have a date. I mean, I had a date. I may still have, if I can catch up with her in time.”

  Helene walked to her car, got in and slammed the door. “You! A time like this, and you worry about a date!”

  She was gone, without even offering him a ride.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was a thoroughly disreputable hour when Malone arrived at Joe the Angel’s City Hall Bar. His search for Tamia Tabet had been long, tiresome, expensive, and unsuccessful and had involved buying drinks in a great many places. Now it was practically time to go home.

  The place was deserted save for Joe the Angel himself behind the bar, a different city hall janitor at his regular table, brooding into his beer, and von Flanagan sitting on a bar stool and gazing moodily into his untouched drink.

  The big police officer wheeled around as Malone came in and growled, “High time! I’ve been looking for you. Called your office three times. Called your hotel five times. Been here eight times. Looked in six different saloons in between times. Scared the daylights out of two floating crap games. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Oh, just here and there,” Malone said. He leaned on the bar, looked at his watch, and said, “Just gin now, no beer.”

  “Damn you, Malone. Where are they?”

  “Should all be home and in bed by now,” Malone said. “It’s about time, too. Drink up, von Flanagan, and I’ll buy.” There were still two untouched hundred-dollar bills in his wallet. Maggie had doubtless made good use of one, and he had nearly half of another left. Perhaps Gus Madrid would accept that and wait a few days for the rest. Perhaps. Oh well, it still wasn’t quite tomorrow, and the check from Hazel Swackhammer was in the mail.