I'll Sing at Your Funeral

by Hugh Pentecost

  “There’s one screwy thing,” Cain said. “Combining his legitimate income with what he probably got illegitimately, Royce’s income must have run up into six figures. Yet he lives in this place, sleeping on a day bed. The only other known establishment of his is a cheap little apartment over a print shop on Lexington Avenue. I’ve just come from there. There’s nothing there.

  “What’s the address?”

  Cain told him.

  “Rube, have that apartment covered at once.” Bradley got up and began to pace the room.

  “If you made maybe a hundred grand a year, would you live in a dump?” Cain asked.

  “No,” said the inspector.

  “He may have used the apartment as a hideout for his sex life,” Cain said, “but that still doesn’t explain why he hasn’t living quarters outside this office that fit his income.”

  “It’s a point,” said Bradley. “A good point, Cain. The trouble with this lousy case is that it’s full of points like that needing explanation.”

  “There’s one other thing,” said Cain, “and then I will have laid my little heart bare. It seems there was a good deal more correspondence between Emily Stoddard and Summers than the three letters Margo brought you. The balance of it is missing. Like an idiot, Carol has been trying to find them on her own. It turns out Brackett knew about this apartment at Royce’s. He told Carol about it and suggested it was a love nest. She heard me talking about blackmail in connection with Royce and jumped to the conclusion that a blackmailer was the obvious person to have possession of her mother’s letters.”

  Bradley shook his head dolefully. “Go on,” he said.

  “So she climbed the fire escape and busted into the apartment. She didn’t find the letters, but she had the bejesus scared out of her because while she was there someone else started up after her. She didn’t see who it was. It may have been Royce, of course.”

  “And it may not,” said Bradley. “Listen, Cain, I’m grateful to you for all this dope. It’s a real help to me. When the job is done I’ll try to express my gratitude more thoroughly. But in the meantime you can do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Get Miss Stoddard to wheel out that sports roadster of hers and take you for a nice long ride into the country. Say six or seven hundred miles into the country. When I’ve arrested my murderer I’ll send you a postcard and you can come back and hear the whole story.”

  “You know who the murderer is?”

  “I’m as positive as a man can be, Cain. But I haven’t the evidence to make an arrest. I don’t want you and Miss Stoddard getting into a jam so that I’ll have to hold my fire. Be a good guy and evaporate, will you?”

  “I don’t like the country,” Cain grinned.

  “But you like that girl,” said Bradley urgently. “Get her away from here, Cain.”

  3

  Cain went downstairs to Summers’. Beany let him into the studio after a moment’s delay. He had an apron tied around his waist.

  “I was just whipping up a rarebit,” he said to Cain. “Personally I’m starved. I don’t know about the rest of you.”

  “Girls upstairs?” Cain asked.

  “Margo is.”

  “Carol with her?”

  Beany looked blank. “But she’s up with Bradley!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Cain snapped. He felt a sudden sharp stab of alarm. “You let her in here yourself.”

  “But they phoned down from upstairs that Bradley wanted to see her!” Beany said.

  “God damn it, nobody phoned!” Cain said. “When was this?”

  “Why, just a minute or two after she got here.”

  “And she went upstairs alone?”

  “Of course,” Beany said. “Cain, why do you look like that?”

  “Because she didn’t come up,” Cain shouted. “Because she wasn’t sent for. Now quick. Scram upstairs and tell Bradley what’s happened. Did that call come over the switchboard phone?”

  “We don’t have one,” Beany said. “Just a regular outside wire.”

  Cain groaned. No chance to trace the call. “Get going.”

  Beany unfastened his apron and went out. Cain followed him as far as the elevator. He rang impatiently. The car stopped after a moment and he questioned the colored operator. Carol hadn’t gone out. Oh, the boy remembered her all right. It was natural, with a police investigation going on, that he should know the people involved.

  Cain went back into the studio. He cursed his helplessness. He should never have left her for an instant.

  Margo came down from the second floor of the studio. “What’s wrong, Cain?”

  “Carol,” Cain said. “Did you see her after she got here?”

  “I was upstairs. I heard her talking to Beany. Then the phone rang and, I heard him tell her Bradley wanted her…”

  “God almighty what a cluck I am! I should have expected someone to sucker her out of here,” Cain reached in his pocket for a cigarette and found he’d smoked the last. He asked Margo for one.

  “We’re fresh out,” she said. “But I think Beany has some in his coat there.”

  Cain bent over the chair where Beany’s coat hung and slapped the side pockets. They were empty, but then he felt the flat shape of a case in the inner pocket. He turned back the flap of the coat to get at it, and stood there, his eyes fixed, the blood pounding in his temples.

  The silver case was there, but what held Cain’s attention was a fountain pen clipped to the pocket with a name engraved on the clip. It was Joe Egan’s pen!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1

  Beany! It had never entered Cain’s head. But how else could you explain that pen if he wasn’t the one who had blackjacked Joe, left the phony note, and placed the gas-filled cone over Joe’s face.

  Cain whirled on Margo. Did Beany go out with Carol when she left?”

  “No,” said Margo. “At least I’m sure I heard him in the kitchenette!”

  There was no time to make it check. Beany was probably already trying to get out of the building.

  Cain ran out into the hall. As he rounded the corner he heard Beany’s footsteps, mincing and quick, coming back down the stairs from the eleventh floor.

  Whether it was on Cain’s face or in his movements, some warning transferred itself to Beany. He saw Cain just as he reached the landing and he stopped in his tracks.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked sharply.

  “What did you do with her?” Cain said.

  “What are you talking about?” Beany’s voice rose.

  “What have you done with Carol, you little twerp!”

  For answer Beany’s right hand moved with lightning speed toward his hip pocket. Cain had expected that. He lunged forward.

  Out came the hand holding a flat pistol that just fitted into the palm. “Why you God-damned, dirty, interfering lout!” Beany screamed. “You stupid, clumsy jerk!”

  There was a flash and Cain staggered, a searing pain in the shoulder of his injured arm. But he kept going and he had a grotesque picture of himself reflected in Beany’s spectacles. A second shot went wild and then Beany went dashing on down the stairs, Cain after him, half a flight behind. Beany was screaming at the top of his lungs as he ran, a mixture of filth and profanity such as Cain had never heard in his life.

  Cain was clutching at his shoulder where he could feel a warm trickle of blood. Beany was gaining, but there was a chance Maynard could nail him. Cain stopped long enough to whistle, and yell Maynard’s name.

  But Beany didn’t make for the lobby. Two floors down, he cut off the stairway and along the corridor. Cain sprinted after him. At the end of the hall he saw Beany tugging at a fire door. The gun flared again and Cain heard the bullet whine as it ricocheted off the plaster walls. Then Beany was through the door and gone.

  Cain came to the door, pulled it open, and went through. He stumbled and nearly fell, as steps led down directly from the door. He was in the gallery of the gre
at music hall. It was dark except for one bare white light burning in the center of the stage.

  Beany had ducked to the right. He was running over the backs of the seats like a mountain goat. He reached one side box, jumped down into the next, and then the next. And all the time he screamed at Cain.

  Cain couldn’t follow with anything like the necessary agility. From somewhere came a memory that in big theaters there was usually a stairway from the upper boxes to the stage. Across the rear aisle he found what he was looking for.

  Just as he started down he saw Beany leap from the last box onto the stage.

  Near the bottom Cain stumbled again but fell against the door jamb, remaining on his feet. He pushed through the door into the white light of the stage.

  Beany had crossed to the exit on the left. He was tugging at a door there. It wouldn’t open. Cain made for him.

  Beany swung around. “Stay where you are, Cain! Don’t come any nearer, God damn you! You’ll never find her if you do. Never!”

  Cain, feeling dizzy and unreal, kept going. He could see the gun in Beany’s hand. He could see the sweat pouring down Beany’s face, yellow with fear.

  Then the little gun spoke again. “You bastard!” Beany shrieked. “You bastard! You bastard!”

  There was a thunderous roar. Cain felt no pain, but he was sure he had been hit because his eyes were playing tricks on him. Beany was writhing and dancing like a man who had hold of a live wire. The gun popped out of his hand.

  Cain hurled himself forward and went crashing to the floor with Beany under him. His fingers fumbled for Beany’s throat. But Beany wasn’t struggling. Cain rolled free and scrambled to his feet. Beany lay still. There was blood soaking through the white of his shirt.

  Then Cain realized the place was filled with many voices that sounded like men shouting in a tunnel.

  He turned away, trying to see out into the auditorium past the glare of light. A man vaulted up onto the stage. It was Bradley. There was a police automatic in his right hand and a wisp of smoke spiraled upwards from the barrel.

  “Well, Cain, it looks as though your luck had held out to the end,” he said coldly.

  “Luck!” Cain’s voice seemed hysterical in his own ears. “Why, God damn you, Bradley, you’ve killed him. Now we’ll never find Carol.”

  “Take your coat off,” Bradley ordered.

  Cain didn’t even hear him. “We’ve got to find out what he’s done with her.”

  “Take your coat off, you damned fool! You’re bleeding!”

  Rube Snyder and a uniformed cop were bending over Beany. Cain slipped out of his coat and Bradley examined his arm.

  “Fortunately just a flesh wound,” Bradley said. He tied a clean handkerchief around the arm. “Now come on. Only keep your fresh mouth shut and your fist in your pocket if you want us to catch the murderer and get your girl back for you.”

  “But you’ve got the murderer!” Cain said.

  Bradley looked down at Beany’s body and for an instant a kind of fury blazed in his eyes. “I’ve been a sucker, Cain. Cook did the actual killings. He was the tool, but the real murderer, the one who thought this out and gave the orders, is still at large.”

  2

  They walked across the stage and out into the wings. There Bradley pushed the button for a freight elevator to take them upstairs.

  “I am going to have to exact a promise from you, Cain,” he said. “One that may be too difficult for you to keep”’ he added dryly.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m going to do the talking,” said Bradley. “You’re to say nothing. Not anything! Whether I make sense to you or not, whether I misrepresent facts, you are to keep your mouth shut. No gags, no comments, no questions. And you might try to look properly impressed.”

  “I’ll keep still,” Cain said, “But Carol … for God’s sake, Inspector—”

  “I think I know where to find her, Cain. I think she’s all right. I think I’ll know before this show is over. The minute I do, I’ll pass you the high sign. Can you take it or had I better send you away somewhere?”

  “I can take it,” Cain said, between his teeth. “But by God, if anything’s happened to her …”

  “I hope nothing has,” said Bradley, “with all my heart.”

  The elevator took them to Summers’ floor. They walked along the corridor in silence. Just before they reached the studio door Maynard approached them. He looked at Cain.

  “You okay, sir?”

  “Just a flesh wound,” said Cain.

  “And Cook?”

  “Curtains,” said Bradley.

  “I was just coming to find you, Inspector. They brought Royce in a moment ago. Picked him up in a West Side hotel. He’s in there now.”

  “Perfect,” Bradley said with satisfaction, “That’s going to make things easier. And the others?”

  “They’re all here, sir.”

  “You know what to do?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then hop to it,” Bradley said. He turned to Cain. “Last chance to exercise your vocal cords, Cain.”

  “Let’s go,” Cain said. “And for God’s sake, make this good!”

  As they came into the studio Edgar, his face gray, spoke to Bradley. “You’ve found her, Inspector?”

  “Not yet, Mr. Stoddard. But take it easy.”

  The Rosokovs were huddled together on the couch. They looked anxiously at Cain as if trying to read in his face whether their secret had been told. Margo sat at her desk, looking white and ill. Emily, her eyes on the floor, was in the big chair by the door. Royce, disheveled and dirty, sat with his face buried in his hands. Mrs. Wilder, her bangles glittering, the big persian cat in her lap, fluttered her hands.

  “This is so dreadful, Inspector, so unbelievable. Yet I warned Carol! I warned her! And Beany! What’s happened to him?”

  “He’s dead,” said Bradley quietly.

  Royce’s head jerked up out of his hands. Cain, watching Margo, saw the breath go out of her in a long, shaken sigh.

  “He is dead,” Bradley repeated, “and there is no longer any question that it was he who poisoned Brackett’s drink and then so brutally murdered Mr. Summers. It was he, also, who tried to finish Joe Egan. There was a concert in the main hall this afternoon and it seems likely that he got past our men by slipping into the audience and going out and coming back on a door check.

  “I must confess that I blundered. I had this thing taped as a woman’s crime. I was so sure of it that I overlooked the fact that Beany’s twisted and perverted brain would give a feminine touch to anything he might do.

  “I must also confess that this has been a wild goose chase from start to finish. You see, we have to have more than suspicion to make an arrest. We can’t have unexplained loose ends. In the beginning I let you all believe that I thought the motive for the murders was an attempt to conceal the identity of Lydia Egan’s lover. In a sense it was, but not because that man had murdered Lydia. She wasn’t murdered. She committed suicide, as advertised. The murders were done to hide, not the identity of the man, but something else which that disclosure would expose.

  “Mr. Cain supplied the answer to that for me. Blackmail.”

  The Rosokovs looked at each other. Royce opened his mouth and then closed it with a snap.

  “Highly organized blackmail,” said Bradley. “Some of you here know the identity of the blackmailer from bitter experience. It was Royce. But while Royce was collecting huge sums of money both legitimately and illegitimately, where was the money? He didn’t spend it on living. What became of it? Mr. Cain had no explanation for this. I had to find one, and I think I did. Mr. Royce was only fronting for the real blackmailer. He was a victim himself. It’s because he was caught that he had to put the screws on others. You were afraid of Beany, weren’t you, Royce?”

  “He was fiend,” Royce said quickly. “A dangerous, sadistic lunatic. So help me God, I had no, choice, Inspector.”

  “That’s what I thou
ght,” said Bradley. He gave Cain a warning glance. “And it’s true, isn’t it, Royce, that you were Lydia Egan’s lover?”

  Royce nodded wearily.

  “Why did you break off with Lydia?”

  “I … I had to,” Royce said. He was looking down at his hands. “He … he was afraid if I got on intimate terms with someone that sooner or later our operations would be discovered.”

  “And when she committed suicide and the police took an interest … ”

  “He couldn’t risk my facing a murder charge,” Royce said. “There were too many people anxious to come forward with evidence against me once they thought I was in a jam.”

  “And Brackett found out?”

  “About Lydia,” said Royce. “But not about the blackmail.”

  “And he located your love nest,” said Bradley.

  “What love nest? What are you talking about?”

  “The apartment you kept over the print shop on Lexington Avenue.”

  It seemed as if Royce were going to deny the existence of the apartment. Then his shoulders sagged and he said nothing.

  “Brackett had to be silenced,” said Bradley, “so Beany killed him. Then Summers heard the blackmail story from Julie Rosokov. Undoubtedly Beany was listening. It was simple for him to doctor the eyewash and to be on hand to finish the job when Summers had blinded himself. Finally Joe Egan began to get dangerously close to the truth. Beany was on the merry-go-round then and he couldn’t stop.”

  “Don’t you see, I couldn’t come forward,” Royce said. “He would have killed me, too, before I ever got to you.”

  Bradley shook his head. “I suspected all of you from time to time. You, Mrs. Stoddard, when I saw those letters. And you, Mr. Stoddard, for much the same reason. But you simply wouldn’t fit into the blackmail picture, either of you. Hell, what would you want with more money?”

  He looked at the Rosokovs. “I thought one or both of you in collusion might have done it. It wasn’t impossible that you had been Lydia’s lover, Rosokov. Then Mr. Cain unearthed the fact that you were one of the blackmailer’s victims. That let you out.

  “And you, Mrs. Wilder, I even suspected you.” He smiled. “After all, the astrology and numbers racket is a fine cover-up for gathering intimate facts about people’s lives. An excellent front for a blackmail scheme.”