Tales for a Stormy Night: Fifteen Crime Stories

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “What $20? Didn’t I pay the rent with it?”

  “Was that what you paid it with?”

  “They weren’t taking a smile on deposit, or a turn of the ankle…”

  “All right, all right. I’d the notion you hid it, and paid it out of mine. You’ve done that to me before, you know, Peg—putting away for an emergency. An emergency? Ha! A catastrophe wouldn’t pry it from you.”

  She threw her head back in impatience. “Just answer me this: didn’t we owe the twenty out of yours to the stage manager?”

  “We did and I intended to still. He’s relatives living in Bronx, Brooklyn, and Ballyqueens, and us with no more here than my cousin Richard.”

  “What again was it Richard said when you rang him up, Denny?”

  Denny paced the length of the room and back, mimicking Richard’s voice: “‘We must go out to our supper together one night while you’re here,’ he says. ‘I’ve no more than a bachelor apartment and it’s no place to be bringing your bride.’”

  “By that did he mean him taking us or us taking him out to the supper?”

  “From what I remember of Richard, all we’d do is go hungry together. Peg, are you sure about paying back the twenty? I thought…”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Was I to get a receipt from him?”

  “It’s only your temper makes me suspicious.”

  “It’s the short temper goes with the long appetite.”

  “That settles it.” He snatched his hat from the dresser. “I’m going to have a look at Richard and his bachelor apartment. If there’s a breath of prosperity about him, I’m going to claim an early inheritance.”

  “What am I to do while you’re gone?”

  He tossed his wallet on the bed beside her. “Here. There’s 50 cents in it and a St. Christopher’s medal. If I’m not back in an hour, eat on the one and pray on the other.”

  “Don’t do anything desperate, Denny,” she called as he reached the door. “And give me a kiss to sustain me.”

  “It’s me that’ll need sustaining. Ain’t I leaving you the 50 cents?” But he gathered her into his arms.

  “We’ll both have nourishment from that,” she whispered after the kiss. “And Denny, remember, our troubles are no more than’ll be behind us when this day is over.”

  “Or ahead of us till we get on the boat again.”

  A few minutes later he was halfway across town, shortening the distance between the West Fifties and the East Fifties in long determined strides. It was warmer outdoors than it was in the hotel, which was the way of a late October afternoon, he thought. To staple his courage at its peak he recalled his own boyhood and his cousin Richard’s. They were of an age, and the one woman raised them both, Denny’s mother, for Richard’s passed away when he was an infant. He reminded himself of the shoes that were bought for Richard when he got a pair, and the chop that was slivered in two when there was but one on the table. That was no more than fair in a charitable house, he thought. But Richard’s behavior in manhood was small thanks for it. He shipped on the first boat he could for America, and thereafter sent word but no evidence of his success, while Denny divided his actor’s pittance between the old lady and his own dreams.

  His small confidence in Richard rose when he reached the block of the address. It fell again when he saw the side of the street Richard lived on. He climbed the steps of the dilapidated brownstone and watched an overdressed and overweight woman come from the rear of the hall in answer to his ring. It wasn’t a bachelor apartment that one ran, he thought.

  “Is Mr. Tully at home, madame?” he asked. “Mr. Richard Tully.”

  She let the door swing open, presumably for him to enter, and went to the stairs. “Dick?” she called out like a harbor whistle. “Dicky Boy!”

  There was no answer from the dim passageway above, only a board creaking in a building that might have trembled with the trot of a mouse across the floor.

  “It’s no sign he’s not there, not answering me,” she said, turning around on Denny. “What is it you want with him?”

  “No more than a civil word,” Denny said. “I’m his cousin from Ireland.”

  She grunted. “Number Eight at the rear.” Without waiting to see him up she waddled out of sight, the lamp jingling as she passed the table on which it stood.

  Denny climbed the stairs two at a time. In the upstairs hall there was the smell of dust and disinfectant, and only enough light from a wall fixture to be reflected on the tarnished numerals. He knocked at Number Eight, and then called out his cousin’s name. His own voice bounced back at him. He thought himself a fool then to expect that any man would stay in a place like this when he could be out of it. Since nothing stirred within or without, he tried the door. It opened as though it recognized him.

  The whole feeling of Richard came back to him when he touched the wall switch and saw the room. For all its tacky furnishings it was as neat as a star, and he could hear his mother’s pleading with him as he had heard it so often as a boy: “Denny, just look at Richard’s room. Couldn’t you take a page from his book and gather your things in a piece?”

  “To hell with Richard’s room,” he said aloud and laughed at his childishness. He moved from one piece to the next trying to feel comfortable and thinking about what he should say at that moment if Richard walked in—or anyone else for that matter. There was only one reason to leave a door open: you were expecting someone who hadn’t a key. “I’m just leaving,” he said, testing the words. “I’m looking for a scrap of paper to leave Richard a note.”

  With that intention he went to the one table in the room with a drawer in it and drew it open. He found a writing tablet and a stub of a pencil. Flipping open the cover of the tablet, he found a note already on the first page, and in the neat round letters Richard had mastered while he was making O’s the shape of raisins.

  With no other thought save that it might reveal the hour of Richard’s return, Denny read the note. Indeed, he had read it before he had time for intentions:

  Jimmie

  Sweet William in the second

  Dick

  Well, he thought: there’s small change in Richard. He had come to America on a horse—a 40-to-l shot in the Grand National, and without so much as paying back the pound he had borrowed to put on her nose.

  He was about to tear a back sheet from the tablet when something fluttered from between the pages. Fascinated, he watched it waft to the floor: a $20 bill.

  In an instant he blessed temptation and pocketed the money. He grabbed the pencil and scribbled:

  Dear Richard

  I’ll be home ahead of Sweet William. But don’t wait up for me or the twenty.

  Your cousin,

  Poor Dennis

  He reached the street without sight or protest of the landlady. Striding across Manhattan again he began to think of how he would explain to Peg. She did not know Richard, and was therefore entitled to her qualms. Altogether, he decided, his best chance would be if she had not tempered her hunger. He had not been gone the hour yet.

  When he reached Eighth Avenue and turned down it toward the hotel, he found himself heading straight into a man who seemed to have no more power to avoid their colliding than he did. They dodged and swayed as though one was the mirror to the other until they were noses apart. Even their recognition of each other was simultaneous. “Dennis!”

  “Richard!”

  “How the hell are you?” cried Richard.

  “Were you visiting us?” Denny asked, thinking of more than his health.

  “I stopped by for a minute’s palaver with your lovely lady.” He nudged Denny with his elbow. “Ah, laddie, you must’ve plucked her from the very top of the tree.” Denny began to think of the fun it would be to treat Richard on his own $20. Before he got the invitation out, however, his cousin added: “Well, I must be off till the next time. I’m in a terrible rush to see a man on a transaction.”

  You’ll be in a greater rush after seeing him, Denny
thought, but he said: “You’ll be getting in touch with us Richard.”

  “Oh, I will that. Or you with me, Dennis. Good day to you. And welcome to New York.”

  Denny watched him hurry out of sight, and then quickened his own pace. New York was half the size of Dublin, he thought, for all its population. He tipped his hat to an old lady selling flowers at the hotel entry and gathered his thoughts again to the persuasion of Peg on the twenty. He was halfway through the lobby when it occurred to him that she would be easier persuaded if the money were not in one piece, and a flower for her hair would ease the introduction. He turned around and started back to the door. But the old flower woman was not likely to have that much change. He swung across the lobby to the cigar stand and asked the clerk to break down a $20 note for him.

  The clerk snickered. “It’s a bill,” he said. “In this country, my friend, you call it a $20 bill.”

  “Bill,” Denny mused aloud, fondling the crisp money for an instant. “Sweet William.”

  Before the clerk took the money from his hand, Denny felt a hard clap on his shoulder.

  “Come into the manager’s office, buddy.”

  He stuck the money in his pocket and swung around on the man who had spoken.

  “Come quiet unless you want to be carted,” he added flatly.

  Looking up at him, Denny realized his muscles were as thick as his brogue and he had never heard one thicker in Ireland. He did as he was told. In that small office, he was almost in a chair when the big man yanked him up again.

  “Let’s have your identification.”

  “Let’s have yours,” Denny said, trying for boldness.

  “I’m the house detective,” the big one roared glaring at him angrily.

  Denny shook himself free. “What the hell is this all about? I’m with the Irish Players here on a visit.”

  “Isn’t that lovely. You’re an actor, are you?”

  “I am.”

  “Then let’s see you act. Gimme your wallet.”

  “It’s upstairs with my wife. Keep your fist out of my pocket.”

  “I’ll put it down your throat in a minute. You’re a fine credit to Ireland.” He pulled the bill from Denny’s pocket.

  “That’s mine,” Denny cried.

  “Is it now? All that money on an actor.” He picked up the phone on the desk. “Gimme the woman who put in the complaint.” He looked Denny over with contempt. “They’re raising the fine ones over there now, for all they’re learning them Gaelic.”

  Denny stared at the $20 as the detective pressed it smooth on the desk. “Madame,” he said into the phone, “I’ve got him and your $20.”

  Denny’s heart leaped at the sound of her voice. Even from where he sat he could hear the fine, crooning lilt of it: “That was wonderful quick, officer. Just take the twenty off him for me and let him go.”

  Peg called into the phone as though she were trying for an echo across the hills. The detective had to hold the instrument at near arm’s length. But he brought it up quick to say: “It isn’t that easy, ma’am. You’ll have to identify him. Come down now to the office.”

  “Will it take long?” Peg crooned. “My husband’ll soon be home, and I’d as soon he didn’t know. It’s his family, you know.”

  So, Denny thought, Richard had more with Peg than palaver.

  The detective was as soft as butter with her. “There’s a rogue in my wife’s family, too,” he purred, “but I never cast it up to her though it was me turned him in.” He hung up the phone and glowered at Denny. “A nice little girl like that. You’re the fine bucko.”

  Denny sat very still and thought about it all until Peg arrived. She looked from one to the other of the men, speechless.

  “Well?” the detective demanded.

  “That’s my husband,” she burst out.

  For only a second did the detective waver. He fitted the tips of his fingers together as he added one thing to another. His face lengthened in sympathy. “You can thank your stars you found him out before you had a string of childer’ to worry about.”

  “You don’t understand,” Peg said.

  The detective threw his arms in the air. “Didn’t you tell me he threatened you? Didn’t you say he promised to stand up in the Crown Theatre and proclaim you a wanton woman if you didn’t cough up?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “And didn’t you say he was mad to match a twenty he’d lost on a horse?”

  “That was his cousin Richard said that,” Peg cried.

  Denny grinned, having the gist of it. Sweet William had run and lost early, but whoever was collecting from Richard was late on his rounds.

  The detective smashed his fist down on the desk. “But this is the one I caught placing the bet! Right out there.” He waved his hand toward the lobby. ‘Sweet William,’ he says, holding out the twenty and I nabbed him.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Denny shouted. “Sweet William ran in the second race. What would I be doing betting on a horse already in the pasture?”

  “There! That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” the detective triumphantly cried. “They were in it together!”

  “Oh,” Peg said, after a second, a look of great understanding lighting her face. “They were in it together, were they? What mischief, the two of them.”

  What mischief indeed, Denny thought. “I was not placing a bet,” he said with great deliberateness. “I wouldn’t know a bookmaker from a cobbler in this country. I was getting change of the twenty.”

  “And where, love, did you get the twenty?” said Peg.

  As though she could be persuaded now. “I shook it out of Richard.”

  “After he shook down your wife for it,” the detective put in harshly.

  “She was a hell of a lot more shakeable for him than ever she was for me then,” Denny shouted. He turned on the big man and faced up to him. “Since you’re so set on patching us up, let me ask you a question: who carries the purse in your house?”

  The detective’s mouth fell open. “My wife Norah does,” he said in no more than a whisper.

  “And I suppose your pockets are bulging?”

  The detective smiled wanly. “The sad truth is, she’s so tight she could squeeze a ha’penny out of a mouse.”

  Peg reached for the money, but Denny clamped his hand over it first. “I’ve earned this twice,” he said. “I want to spend it before I’ve got to go out and earn it over again.”

  Peg threw her head back. “I suppose we’re treating Richard on it, too, since he was such a help to you getting it out of me?”

  “No,” Denny said, “but you might say we’re treating each other.”

  “That was a mean prank,” Peg said. “I’d never’ve suspected you of conspiring like that, Denny.”

  “Nor did I think you’d tell me the story you did, love, of paying the rent with it.”

  “’Twas just for today, dear, to save the money. Tomorrow I’d have told you the truth.”

  “Then tomorrow I’ll tell it to you,” said Denny. “Tonight we’ll celebrate the conspiracy.”

  1953

  Backward, Turn Backward

  SHERIFF ANDREW WILLETS STOOD at the living-room window and watched his deputies herd back from the lawn another surge of the curious, restive people of Pottersville. Some had started out from their houses, shops, or gardens at the first sound of his siren, and throughout the long morning the crowd had swelled, winnowed out, and then swelled again.

  Behind him in the kitchen, from which the body of Matt Thompson had been recently removed, the technical crew of the state police were at work with microscope and camera, ultraviolet lamp and vacuum cleaner. He had full confidence in them but grave doubts that their findings would add much weight to, or counterbalance by much, the spoken testimony against Phil Canby. They had not waited, some of those outside, to give it to police or state’s attorney; they passed it to one another, neighbor to stranger, stranger sometimes back again to neighbor.

  It
was possible to disperse them, the sheriff thought, just as a swarm of flies might be waved from carrion; but they would as quickly collect again, unless it were possible to undo murder—unless it were possible to go out and say to them: “It’s all a mistake. Matt Thompson fell and hit his head. His daughter Sue got hysterical when she found him…” Idle conjecture. Even had he been able to say that to the crowd they would not have dispersed. They would not have believed it. Too many of them were now convinced that they had been expecting something like this to happen.

  There was one person in their midst responsible in large measure for this consensus, a lifetime neighbor of both families, Mrs. Mary Lyons, and she was prepared also to give evidence that Phil Canby was not at home with his grandson the night before, at the hour he swore he was at home and asleep.

  Sheriff Willets went outdoors, collected Mrs. Lyons, and led her across the yard between the Thompson house and the house where Phil Canby lived with his daughter and son-in-law, and up her own back steps. From the flounce of her skirts and the clack of her heels he could tell she didn’t want to come. She smiled when she looked up at him, a quick smile in which her eyes had no part.

  “I hope this won’t take long, Andy,” she said when he deliberately sat down, forcing her hospitality. “I should give the poor girl a hand.”

  “In what way, Mrs. Lyons?”

  “With the house,” she said, as though there would be nothing unusual in her helping Sue Thompson with the house. “It must be a terrible mess.”

  “You’ve got lots of time,” he said. “There’s nobody going to be in that house for quite a while except the police.”

  Mrs. Lyons made a noise in her throat, a sort of moan, to indicate how pained she was at what had happened across her back yard.

  “You were saying over there,” Willets went on, “that you knew something terrible was going to happen.”

  “Something terrible did happen, even before this,” she said, “Phil Canby taking after that girl. Sue Thompson’s younger than his own daughter.”