Homicide's Their Headache Page 3

  Webster made a signal to the uniformed cop.

  “Bring in her boy friend. Maybe we can make him talk.”

  Dave went out, too, and Morf squirmed in his seat. He pounded his horny palm on the arm of his chair.

  “Give me ten minutes alone with him,” he growled, “and I'll slug him into talking.”

  The door opened and Dave and the cop came back, with a guy between them. I sat straight up in my chair. The guy was about five-eight. He was chunky, but catlike and quick. His nose was like a button stitched in the middle of a brown face.

  I gawked at Webster and Dave. “Is this the dame's boy friend? Is this the guy that slugged me?”

  “Right,” Webster said. “Ever see him before?”

  “See him before!” I yelped. “He's the guy that Dilweg hired me to trace under the name of Charles Bryce, Junior. And all the while he was working for Dilweg under the name of Joe Briggs. Can you tie that?”

  Morf wouldn't let me steal the show. He got up and stuck his mug up close to Briggs.

  “You're on the spot, lover,” he said. “My boys nosed around back home and they found out that a guy in a four-door Chevvy picked up a dame with a classy chassis just about the time Dilweg was bumped off. And Elkins, the butler, said you was at the place in the morning. I figure you waited around for Elkins to leave the mansion so the coast was clear, then you killed Dilweg, and brought the dame down here.”

  Briggs' face didn't change. He was calm enough, for a guy faced with a murder rap.

  “Why would I want to kill the old man?” he said. “I was working for him.”

  “Elkins kind of intimated that Dilweg fired you.”

  “He hired me to landscape the oil company's property here in East St. Louis. I left some of my crew at his place to finish the job on the weeping willow.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I admit I waited across the street from Dilweg's for Lilli. I brought her down here in my car. But I didn't know the kind of business she was in, and I didn't know about her con game with Elkins. She told me Starch was a suitor who had been annoying her. That's why I slugged him.”

  I BROKE in to Webster.

  “Did you give Lilli's joint the once over?” I asked.

  I was getting anxious about Elkins' six grand. If I got that back I stood to be two Cs to the good.

  “We couldn't have done a better job with a vacuum cleaner,” Webster said. “But we didn't find hide nor hair of Elkins' dough.”

  Morf wasn't done yet and he put the coal on the fire that made me hate him.

  “So there ain't no reason why you'd kill Dilweg, eh?” he said to Briggs. “I ain't the sap that Starch is, Briggs. He trailed you all over the State of Illinois and never tumbled to the truth. I did. I checked the papers for a lot of years back. Your old man was sent to the pen by Dilweg when he was the prosecutor down here. That's why you changed your name from Charles Bryce, Junior, to Joe Briggs when you entered Aggie College. And that's why you scissored Dilweg. To get even with him for sending your old man to the pen. Revenge, pure and simple.”

  Briggs didn't scare easy. He was as calm as calm. “Why would I wait fifteen years to kill him and rob him. Revenge don't stay hot that long.”

  Morf chortled. “That's enough.” He said to Webster, “We'll hold this cookie till a better suspect comes along. The newspapers held back on the robbery angle. The only way Briggs could know that Dilweg's safe was cleaned out was because he cleaned it out himself. I'll take him back and shove him in the clink. We'll make an open and shut case.”

  “Is there anything more logical than to think that a millionaire's murder might have money connected with it?” Briggs said.

  “Morf,” I said, “I don't think Briggs stuck Dilweg.”

  Morf glared. “You'd miss clues on your upper lip, right under your nose. You didn't even know Briggs' old man was a convict, railroaded by Dilweg.”

  “Something else I do know, Big Shot. I know that Carson Roberts and I flushed a guy out of Dilweg's closet right after we found his body. That guy wasn't Briggs. Until we find that guy, we won't come up with Dilweg's killer.”

  “Phooey!” Morf snorted. “I'll pin it on Briggs and the dame.”

  “Homicide's your headache. I'm hunting for Elkins' six grand. And I've got an idea I'm going to make a chump out of you. I'll have a little talk with Carson Roberts over at the Handicap Haven and we'll come up with a dozen reasons why Briggs couldn't have killed Dilweg.”

  I walked over to Handicap Haven, Inc. It was only three blocks from the city hall. It was a big rambling building of unfaced brick, three stories high. Almost all of the windows in the joint were lighted, but the light seemed dim, like somebody was saving electricity. I don't suppose a blind guy, though, can tell the difference between a forty watt bulb and a thousand watter.

  I pushed the buzzer and a guy with thick glasses opened the door a little way so I could see inside. It wasn't too clean or too light. He looked funny when he saw me.

  “I thought I told you—” he said. Then he grinned and said, “I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else. Somebody who has been asking for Mr. Roberts two or three times and I don't think Mr. Roberts ought to see him. I think his life might be in danger.”

  I had butterflies inside me. “Danger? Why?”

  He opened the door wide. “Come in,” he said, “and I'll take you to Mr. Roberts.”

  I couldn't see his eyes behind those thick-lensed metal-rimmed glasses of his but I followed him down the hall to a door marked “Office.” There was a familiar look about him, but I couldn't peg him exactly. The rims on his glasses made him look like—an owl. He was as nervous as a cat on a tin roof.

  “Who is the guy that's been trying to see Roberts?” I asked.

  He said it simply, but it hit me right between the eyes. “John Elkins, Mr. Dilweg's butler.”

  He seemed to enjoy my shock. Then he said, “Follow me.”

  “What gives?” I said. “This is the office right here, ain't it?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but Mr. Roberts isn't there right now.”

  I followed him down the hall about fifteen feet and he opened a door and held it for me. I walked into a dirty room with a table and a bed and a dresser. It was empty. Roberts wasn't there. I whirled around.

  “What is this?”

  THICK Glasses had shut the door behind him and flicked the key in the lock. His hands were in the pockets of his brown jacket. The metal ring was missing from the left side at his waist. I knew well enough I'd grabbed that ring off the guy we'd flushed out of Dilweg's closet.

  I cussed myself for being such a sap. I grinned at him, but my stomach was brushing my backbone.

  “Go ahead and shoot, killer!” I said. “You can fry only once for killing Dilweg. Killing me won't raise the ante.”

  He took his hands out of his pockets. He didn't have a gun. I swallowed my heart and it started beating again.

  He smiled, but it was a nervous grimace. “I didn't kill Dilweg, Mr. Starch. I proved it to Mr. Roberts and I can prove it to you.”

  “How'd you know my name?” “I saw your picture in the paper with Mr. Roberts and Mr. Morf, and Elkins.”

  I couldn't get the proper pitch. “We found Dilweg's body and a couple minutes later we flush you out of a closet and you ran like the devil,” I said. “Were you waiting for your portal to portal pay? Or did you hide there when we came into the house and interrupted your getaway?”

  “I'll tell you the whole thing and you can use your own judgment,” Thick Glasses said. “I'm Blake Hobson. I was technician fifth class in the Army. I got burned around the eyes on Okinawa. I came back and found out that fifteen acres and a shack I owned had been bought by Dilweg for back taxes while I was in the Army.”

  “Wait a minute, bub. There was a moratorium on Service men's debts.”

  “I know. And I had eighteen months to reclaim and pay up before Dilweg got a clear title. But Dilweg took over while I was gone, sunk an oil well and brought it in. When I came back from Service I took a job with Mr. Roberts here. Then I went to see Dilweg about my land.”

  “And grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a paper shears—and stuck him with it. Losing an oil well is a good motive for murder.”

  Hobson quit grinning. “I didn't kill him, I tell you. I went to see him. I saw some guys around a weeping willow tree. They were some of Joe Briggs' crew and I recognized them. Then I went up to the house and in the side door. Dilweg was already dead on the floor. I got scared, and started to beat it, fast. In the back hall, somebody slugged me. When I woke up, I was on the floor of the closet, my glasses busted and a bump on my head.”

  He showed me a bump on his skull, back of the right ear, the same place I had been slugged by Joe Briggs in Lilli Mason's place.

  “I opened the closet,” Thick Glasses continued, “and you guys were coming at me. I beat it. You know the rest. That's the truth, so help me God.”

  “Why'd you run? Your story was just as good then as it is now.”

  “I knew Dilweg was dead. How was I to know you guys hadn't killed him?”

  “You work for Roberts. Why run from him?”

  “You forget my glasses were broken. I didn't recognize him. It wasn't till I saw the pictures in the paper that I knew who it was in Dilweg's house.” He touched his glasses. “This is an old pair I had around before I got mustered out.”

  “I got to tell Morf, chum. I'm no sleuth for the city. I'm just a private eye.”

  “I haven't told you everything,” Hobson said.

  “Let your imagination run, bub,” I told him. “Nothing can possibly jolt me now.”

  “When I ran away from Dilweg's house, I didn't go far,” Thick Glasses said. “I hid in the timber till dark. Then a tall, skinny guy came ou
t of the house and hid something behind a loose brick in the wall in front of where I was hiding.”

  I grinned. “Bring in some false whiskers and a submarine and you got a new Perils of Pauline.”

  CHAPTER V. SURPRISE SUSPECT

  HOBSON went to the table and opened the drawer and came back with a thin, flat package, wrapped in brown paper.

  “There's the proof,” he said to me. “Read it.”

  I did. “I'll be a monkey's uncle,” I said. “Even money says this stuff was taken from Dilweg's safe.” I looked at him closely. “Is John Elkins the guy that cached this?”

  “I've only seen Elkins' picture in the paper. The guy who cached the package is the one who was here tonight asking for Mr. Roberts.”

  “Why do you think Mr. Roberts' life is in danger?”

  “I think Elkins killed Dilweg, and I think Elkins believes that Mr. Roberts knows he did and is trying to prove it. So Elkins wants to put Mr. Roberts out of the way.”

  “Have you told this story to anyone else?” I said.

  “Yes. To Mr. Roberts. That's why Mr. Roberts refused to see Elkins tonight.”

  “Where's your boss now?”

  “I don't know. He left shortly after Elkins was here the first time. I don't know where he went.”

  “Did Mr. Roberts say anything when you showed him the package that had been taken from Dilweg's safe and then cached by Elkins?”

  “He said it should be turned over to the police immediately.”

  “I think you've got something there,” I said. “We're forty miles away from Morf. Would you trust me to deliver it as evidence?”

  “I was hoping you'd offer.”

  He handed the package back to me without hesitation.

  “Now,” I said, “maybe you can let me out the side door or something. I don't want Elkins to be hanging around and slug me in the dark by mistake.”

  Hobson led me downstairs to a concrete-floored basement. It was full of work benches and machinery, and it smelled of leather. There were a half-dozen automobiles in the middle of the big room. The light was dim and I couldn't see things plainly, and he didn't offer to turn on more lights. Maybe it was a good idea, if somebody was hanging around outside with murder in his heart when he found the right victim.

  I remembered the article I'd read in the library back home.

  “How many handicapped guys actually live in Handicap Haven?” I asked Hobson.

  “About twenty-five blind men,” he said. “They live in dormitories on the second floor. But there's about a hundred and twenty-five who work here in the daytime. The blind ones make belts and billfolds and other leathercraft. The deaf and crippled and epileptic make brooms and stuff and polish automobiles.”

  “Got a list of the cars polished here in the last few days?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But only by license numbers. Mr. Roberts always took care of billing the customers. Here's the book.”

  It was a little book. One of the last entries in it was a car with license number 408-284. Dilweg had had his car polished at his pet project.

  “That was free,” Hobson said. “For other jobs we usually get ten bucks.”

  He let me out the side door of the basement. It was as dark as the inside of the eight-ball and my skin was prickling on the back of my neck. But I acted as brave as I could and walked up the alley to the sidewalk. Then I walked back to the city hall to pick up my borrowed car.

  I knew I had some pretty potent evidence in my pocket that somebody had taken out of Dilweg's safe, and I had no doubt that the same someone might get pleasure out of sticking a pair of paper shears in my gizzard to get it back.

  But somehow I just couldn't add up all the angles to the case to make sense. If Elkins had killed his boss I couldn't figure where the con game on Elkins' six grand fitted into the picture. I don't believe in duplex mysteries. I believe that all murders are solved by finding the single thread of motive that is responsible for letting a human out of this world.

  IT WAS nearly one o'clock in the morning before I hit the hay, and I slept like a hammered steer. When I got up, at about eleven bells, I phoned Morf, to tell him about the package Hobson had given me.

  “Which one of your two suspects is gonna fry for killing Dilweg?” I said.

  “A guy named John Elkins,” he said. “Carson Roberts brought in a stooge of his by the name of Blake Hobson. Hobson seen Elkins cache a package that was taken from Dilweg's safe. And Hobson tells me you took the package. You better bring it down here pronto or I'll put you in the clink for holding back evidence.”

  “Last night, Genius, you swore you were going to hang the garland of guilt around the necks of Lilli Franner and Joe Briggs. How come you changed your mind?”

  “We never found no six grand no place, did we? And they come up with an alibi and they got witnesses to prove that they was at the Hog Hip eating lunch at the very minute Dilweg was stuck. They're in the clear. But I'm holding them here, along with Roberts and Hobson. When you bring that cache down here, I'm going out and put the heat on Elkins, and I'm taking the whole kit and kaboodle along with me. I'll get this thing down in black and white and Elkins will sign his John Henry.”

  Something close to inspiration clicked in my brain.

  “I'll be down as soon as I shave,” I said. “And I'll bet the one you put the bracelets on will surprise you.”

  I went down to the city hall and Morf grabbed the cache out of my hand like it was engraved with gold.

  “Put the whole gang in squad cars and bring them along!” he roared at a couple of stooges. He frowned at me. “We don't need any more help from you.”

  “Give me a break,” I said. “Elkins is a client of mine. I get two hundred bucks if I get his six grand back.”

  “All right. Come on.”

  We all drove out to Dilweg's mansion in three squad cars piloted by Morf's stooges. Morf pounded on the front door like he was storming the walls of Jericho. Nobody answered. The house was quiet as the tomb. Elkins didn't show up.

  No wonder. When we finally got in the joint we found out why. Elkins was on his bedroom floor upstairs. He was flat on his back in some loud-striped pajamas. There was a bullet-hole in his right temple and a .45 automatic in his right hand. He was dead.

  Morf did a lot of strutting around like the hero in the last act of a melodrama. He looked the body over. He handled the gun with a handkerchief and gave it to one of his stooges. Then he looked around at his audience and spoke like an oracle, and he spat most of his words in my direction.

  “He's been dead for eight or ten hours. I'd say he shot himself a little after midnight or thereabouts. He probably woke up to the fact that somebody had discovered his cache of the stuff he took out of his boss' safe and he knew the jig was up. Our whole murder mystery is all washed up. Elkins killed his boss and now he's bumped himself off.”

  “Why don't you come out of the kindergarten, Big Shot?” I said. “Elkins didn't kill himself. A schoolboy ought to know that.”

  Morf got red. “Huh?” “That's a forty-five automatic, bub. If Elkins killed himself, where's the ejected shell?”

  Morf got still redder and his stooges looked all over the joint for a cartridge case. They couldn't find it.

  “Somebody bumped Elkins off,” I said. “Somebody that Elkins knew pretty well or he wouldn't have been in his bedroom in his pajamas. Maybe the ejected shell got stuck some place on the killer. I read about a case once where a murderer got trapped because he stepped on an ejected shell and it stuck in his rubber heel. They hung him.” Then I said, “Bring the herd downstairs, Big Shot, and I'll name the killer. I had a hunch about the solution this morning. Now I'm sure of it. Too bad I didn't figure it out last night. I could have saved Elkins' life and made myself two hundred bucks.”

  “Who are you, to order people around?” Joe Briggs said plenty ugly. “You're only a private gumshoe, and a punk one at that.”

  Lillie Franner was putting lipstick on her full lips. “That's telling him, honey,” she drawled.

  Briggs had lost his yen for Lilli. “Shut up!” he snapped.

  “Mr. Starch is doing his best,” Carson Roberts said, in that aristocratic voice of his. “The least we can do is cooperate.”