Death from Nowhere (13 page)

“Sure, go ahead, I guess I can listen to one more of Uncle Don's bedtime stories. What is scheduled for this broadcast? Goldilocks and the Three Bears?”

“No,” Diavolo answered wearily. “It's one you haven't heard yet. Mr. X and the Three Bodies. It was almost four bodies. I just went for a swim with my hands and feet tied. Oh, by the way, did anyone down the line pick up a Buick sedan containing a couple of gunmen and two suitcases full of snow? They couldn't have gotten very far. I drew a big swastika in the inside of one of the rear seat windows with clown white. I thought perhaps that might get them a little attention.”
7

It was Colonel Van Orman who asked, “Suitcases full of
snow?
Is the man crazy?”

“Snow, Colonel, is cocaine. And I think the Inspector knows now what the murderer's cryptic little message about the snow leopard meant. He was hinting to his victim that he knew about the dope on the leopard's cage. And Hagenbaugh, curious to find out who knew anything about that, let him come in.”

“You said this was going to be something I hadn't heard,” Church objected. “I figured that out some time back. Like Hailey said, the show has been smuggling dope down from the Canadian border. The gag was that a customs officer isn't so likely to make a real thorough job of examining the inside of a leopard's cage — especially not a cat that had this one's mean reputation. But let's hear you get down to brass tacks. That first solution of yours I'll admit was almost good in one or two places, but—”

“Almost good,” the magician objected. “Why you low-lifer! That's a fat lot of thanks. It was perfect except for—”

“Except,” Church broke in, “that it named the wrong man. What's perfect about that? And another thing. You said Belmonte might have trailed his wife in to the Emperor Theater Building and then was killed because he had seen and recognized the murderer there.

“But you tossed that out because it meant having to crack one of the solid gold 14K alibis we have too damn many of. Maybe you'd be interested to know that Belmonte was in New York, that one of the men who tailed you to Hagenbaugh's office saw him in the downstairs lobby. He recognized a photo of Belmonte I rushed back to headquarters a little while ago.”

Church leaned forward across the desk, his cold blue eyes fixed on Diavolo. “Let's hear how you squirm out of that one. I'll listen — about five minutes worth. But, I warn you, this in-the-river story sounds to me like another great big helping of your fancy misdirection.”

“Inspector,” Diavolo protested. “Won't you ever believe anything I say?”

“I doubt it. If I ever find a magician who always tells the truth, I'll let you know.”

“But even magicians tell the truth
sometimes.
Times like now — when a police inspector is bearing down.” Don shivered. “Let's get this over with. If I don't get out of these wet clothes I'll find myself without a speaking voice when my act opens Monday.” The magician took a step forward, showed the Inspector a pair of empty hands, and then, with a small flourish, produced a paper folder of matches from thin air. He dropped them on the desk before Inspector Church.

“That,” he said, “is the match folder you found this afternoon in the suit the window washer was wearing. The murderer, when he traded clothes, was careful to remove anything that might be a clue to his own identity. He overlooked the match folder and the two pennies, or possibly didn't think they were important. Yet those matches can tell us who he is.”

Church picked the folder up, opened it, turned it over, scowled and said, “All right. How?”

“If you'll bring a choice selection of those people you have cooling their heels just outside I'll match those matches with their owner. Van Orman and Hailey are already here. I want Doc Whipple, Captain Schneider, Miss Powers, and Naga, the Leopard Man.”

Church shook his head, “Oh, you do, do you?”

Don said calmly, “I do. And if you won't oblige, then I'll wait and give the story to Woody Haines. When the D.A. reads it in the
New York Press
he's going to want to know why you let the murderer escape. If we don't get him now, he may not be handy tomorrow.”

“If the D.A. knew I was sitting here listening to you pull my leg, he'd — oh well, once a sucker, always a sucker. Tell your men to shoo them in, Butterfield.”

The Inspector's teeth clamped bulldog fashion on his cigar. His fists clenched firmly behind his back seemed to indicate that he had to hang on tight to keep his fingers from fastening firmly on his adversary's throat.

Butterfield's men began herding the
dramatis personæ
of the case into the room. Church glowered darkly when the Leopard Man shuffled in, but refrained from comment. Slowly the group assembled.

Don Diavolo waited until the persons he had asked for were all present. Then he put his hand in his coat pocket and drew forth a cased deck of playing cards. He opened the case and removed the pack. The cards were wet and they stuck together. Diavolo tried to shuffle them without much success.

Church growled, “Dammit, I knew there'd be monkey business.”

“Relax, Inspector,” Diavolo said, “But keep one hand on your gun. This trick has a socko finish.” He fanned the cards as well as he could considering their condition, and then offered them to Miss Powers.

“Take a card, please.”

The girl looked at the Inspector and then back at Diavolo. Then, hesitantly, she put out her hand and drew one from the fan.

“Don't let me see it,” Don directed. “Look at it, hold it to your forehead and concentrate on it. That's fine. You have the seven of hearts. Am I correct? Thank you.”

He repeated this same maneuver five times. Van Orman, Whipple, Schneider, Hailey, and with the captain's aid as a translator, the Leopard Man.

As he named the last card, the ace of spades, he turned to Church and said, “You see, Inspector? Now you know why the claw marks on Hagenbaugh and the window washer were on the left sides of their faces. And you know why the two words,
Snow leopard
, in that note were so awkwardly written even though the man with the bandaged face did write with his right hand.
Two of these people are left-handed!
We can easily eliminate one. The other is the murderer!”

He permitted his glance to rove around the room, resting briefly on each of the two who had drawn cards with their left hands.

“Yeah. I caught that. Two of them drew their cards with their left hands. But …” Church glanced down at the match folder again and then his eyes lighted as he saw it.

“Compare that match folder,” Diavolo went on, “with some of your own. You are right-handed, and you'll find that you invariably tear out matches from the right-hand side of the booklet and work toward the left. But the ones missing from the folder the murderer left behind have all been taken from the left side!”

Inspector Church dug into a pocket and brought three half-full packets of paper matches. In each, the matches had been pulled from the right-hand end. “You see?” Don murmured.

Church was really interested now. He stood up, gun in hand. “And, since Butterfield had Whipple in jail all afternoon, we can eliminate him.
Schneider, put up your hands!
” The Inspector's gun leveled on the animal trainer's chest.

Schneider's slender frame seemed to contract, as if something had sharply tightened a set of springs within him. He pushed his hands flat against the arms of his chair and half rose.

Diavolo's voice cut through the tense silence that was like a palpable thing in the room. “No. We can eliminate Schneider because he had no chance to poison Belmonte. But Doc Whipple did! He was alone with Belmonte for a few moments after Woody and Hailey carried the body to the trailer. He sent the rest of us away on errands. And what's more, if Schneider had tried to imitate the clawmarks of an animal on his victims, he would have known better than to use five scratches. A leopard — any cat's paw in fact — has but four claws.”

The Inspector's gun hand wavered, not sure which man to aim at.

There was not a sound in the room, and the silence was electric, supercharged. Don Diavolo felt a sudden warning tingle in his palms.

Don Diavolo took his eyes from Whipple long enough to give the white-faced chief of police a glance. “Butterfield,” he added, “now that you know what it really was that Whipple wanted that alibi for, now that you realize that you're an accessory before the fact to murder, don't you think you had better talk? How much did Whipple pay you?”

It was Chief Butterfield's gun that suddenly spurted flame. It was Doc Whipple who fell.

His knees buckled; an expression of pure amazement crossed his face. He took one lurching step forward, and collapsed. No one else had moved.

Butterfield let his gun drop to the floor. Hopelessly he said, “He gave me too much. I should have guessed it wasn't for what he said it was.”

The Inspector finally had to give in and let Pat Collins, The Horseshoe Kid and Chan out of clink. He had too much evidence to the contrary. From then on it rolled in on him like a circus parade. Chief Butterfield's confession, in itself, was plenty; and then, when a search of Doc Whipple's car revealed the money and the glove, it was all over but the shouting,

A show's legal adjuster, in the circus lingo, is known as “the patch,” “the mender” or “the fixer.” A big part of his work, on a grift show, consists in fixing the local cops so that they will look the other way when the lucky boys go to work on the towners with their crooked concessions — the shell game, the gaffed roulette wheels, and spot-the-spot joints.

Butterfield was a “right” cop who didn't mind as long as the fixer gave him his little cut. He liked to hear the clink of cold cash in his hand, or as a con-man would say, he had “tin-mittens.” Doc Whipple, of course was well aware of this and when the show had hit Lakewego he sold the Chief a proposition that really did make Butterfield's palm itch.

Butterfield, it turned out later, was the kind of honest citizen who cleaved to the side of strict ethics until the moment of the big chance for easy money. If Whipple hadn't come along with his sure-thing scheme, Butterfield might have remained a conscientious plodding official for the rest of his days.

Whipple had told him first that this year the show was a “Sunday School” outfit, that Hagenbaugh had cut out the grift joints.
8
Then, while Butterfield was growling because no grift meant no rake-off for him, Whipple explained that Hagenbaugh was going in for bigger things.

He had a gilt-edged sucker all lined up for the pay-off in a sure-fire con game. The score would run into real money and if Butterfield wanted to cut in for ten grand it might be done. The con-game wrinkle R.J. had worked out had only one flaw. The sucker, once he'd been trimmed, might catch wise unless Doc could furnish a gilt-edged alibi for a certain three or four hours in the afternoon.

If the chief would pretend to land on the show about noon with an attachment, and jail Whipple until the show paid up, it would look legitimate enough and insure them against a squawk. All the chief had to do was see that Whipple could secretly come and go as he pleased.

Whipple had done some high-pressure talking at that point. After all giving a man the use of the jail as base of operations for a con-game was a tough one.

Butterfield had had to think that one over a bit, but the ten-grand bait finally hooked him. It wasn't until after the murders began happening too thick and fast and a swarm of New York dicks had descended on Lakewego like a plague of locusts that the Chief realized that what Doc Whipple had really been buying was Butterfield's services as an accessory to murder.

“And even then,” Diavolo commented after the Chief had been locked in one of his own cells, “Whipple had the man in a cleft stick. Doc could prove that the attachment on the show was a phony and that the posting of the bond was only a cover for the paying of a bribe. If Butterfield had let on that Whipple wasn't really in his jail during the crucial times, he'd only have found himself under fire on bribery charges.”

Inspector Church finished his count of the bulky packet of bills the narcotic mobsmen had given Whipple on delivery of the shipment and which had just been found in a search of Whipple's car. He placed them in a large envelope and marked it Exhibit B.

“The price of narcotics being what they are,” he said, “Whipple certainly wasn't playing the game for marbles. That ten grand Butterfield was to get wasn't a drop in the bucket.”

The Inspector looked at Exhibit A which had been found with the money. It was a glove — a left-handed one — whose finger ends had been fitted with sharp, curved steel points and then dipped in a solution of alcohol and the poison scraped from Schneider's arrows.
9

“I wonder why he used that dingus instead of something nice and simple like a gun or our old friend the ‘blunt instrument'? Was it just a play to throw suspicion on the leopard man?”

“No,” Don said, “I don't think so. Whipple was the smart type of murderer — the type that are so often so smart they fool themselves. He'd fooled himself into thinking he could commit murder without laying himself open to suspicion at all. That glove suggests that he intended originally to kill Hagenbaugh off on the circus lot and leave his body near the cat cages so that, together with the scratches, it would look like accident — not murder at all.

“It was a pretty sweet scheme, all right. From Whipple's point of view there was no chance in the world that it could miss. All he had to do was wait for the proper moment, and not get stampeded.

“But something went wrong — he didn't get the right opportunity perhaps and Hagenbaugh left the show and made a trip to his office in town before Whipple got at him. R.J. probably had to arrange the transfer of the dope with the narcotic mob.