Fly Paper and Other Stories

  Mrs. Ringgo ran past me to her husband.

  Sherry was lying on his back now. His eyes were closed.

  He looked dead, and he had enough bullet holes in him to make death a good guess.

  Hoping he wasn’t dead, I knelt beside him—going around him so I could kneel facing Ringgo—and lifted his head up a little from the floor.

  Sherry stirred then, but I couldn’t tell whether he stirred because he was still alive or because he had just died.

  “Sherry,” I said sharply. “Sherry.”

  He didn’t move. His eyelids didn’t even twitch.

  I raised the fingers of the hand that was holding up his head, making his head move just a trifle.

  “Did Ringgo kill Kavalov?” I asked the dead or dying man.

  Even if I hadn’t known Ringgo was looking at me I could have felt his eyes on me.

  “Did he, Sherry?” I barked into the still face.

  The dead or dying man didn’t move.

  I cautiously moved my fingers again so that his dead or dying head nodded, twice.

  Then I made his head jerk back, and let it gently down on the floor again.

  “Well,” I said, standing up and facing Ringgo, “I’ve got you at last.”

  XI

  I’ve never been able to decide whether I would actually have gone on the witness stand and sworn that Sherry was alive when he nodded, and nodded voluntarily, if it had been necessary for me to do so to convict Ringgo.

  I don’t like perjury, but I knew Ringgo was guilty, and there I had him.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide.

  Ringgo believed Sherry had nodded, and then, when Marcus gave the show away, there was nothing much for Ringgo to do but try his luck with a plea of guilty.

  We didn’t have much trouble getting the story out of Marcus. Ringgo had killed his beloved capitaine. The black boy was easily persuaded that the law would give him his best revenge.

  After Marcus had talked, Ringgo was willing to talk.

  He stayed in the hospital until the day before his trial opened. The knife Marcus had planted in his back had permanently paralyzed one of his legs, though aside from that he recovered from the stabbing.

  Marcus had three of Ringgo’s bullets in him. The doctors fished two of them out, but were afraid to touch the third. It didn’t seem to worry him. By the time he was shipped north to begin an indeterminate sentence in San Quentin for his part in the Kavalov murder he was apparently as sound as ever.

  Ringgo was never completely convinced that I had ever suspected him before the last minute when I had come charging into the bungalow.

  “Of course I had, right along,” I defended my skill as a sleuth. That was while he was still in the hospital. “I didn’t believe Sherry was cracked. He was one hard, sane-looking scoundrel. And I didn’t believe he was the sort of man who’d be worried much over any disgrace that came his way. I was willing enough to believe that he was out for Kavalov’s scalp, but only if there was some profit in it. That’s why I went to sleep and let the old man’s throat get cut. I figured Sherry was scaring him up—nothing more—to get him in shape for a big-money shake-down. Well, when I found out I had been wrong there I began to look around.

  “So far as I knew, your wife was Kavalov’s heir. From what I had seen, I imagined your wife was enough in love with you to be completely in your hands. All right, you, as the husband of his heir, seemed the one to profit most directly by Kavalov’s death. You were the one who’d have control of his fortune when he died. Sherry could only profit by the murder if he was working with you.”

  “But didn’t his breaking my arm puzzle you?”

  “Sure. I could understand a phoney injury, but that seemed carrying it a little too far. But you made a mistake there that helped me. You were too careful to imitate a left-hand cut on Kavalov’s throat; did it by standing by his head, facing his body when you cut him, instead of by his body, facing his head, and the curve of the slash gave you away. Throwing the knife out the window wasn’t so good, either. How’d he happen to break your arm? An accident?”

  “You can call it that. We had that supposed fight arranged to fit in with the rest of the play, and I thought it would be fun to really sock him. So I did. And he was tougher than I thought, tough enough to even up by snapping my arm. I suppose that’s why he killed Mickey too. That wasn’t on the schedule. On the level, did you suspect us of being in cahoots?”

  I nodded.

  “Sherry had worked the game up for you, had done everything possible to draw suspicion on himself, and then, the day before the murder, had run off to build himself an alibi. There couldn’t be any other answer to it: he had to be working with you. There it was, but I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t prove it till you were trapped by the thing that made the whole game possible—your wife’s love for you sent her to hire me to protect you. Isn’t that one of the things they call ironies of life?”

  Ringgo smiled ruefully and said:

  “They should call it that. You know what Sherry was trying on me, don’t you?”

  “I can guess. That’s why he insisted on standing trial.”

  “Exactly. The scheme was for him to dig out and keep going, with his alibi ready in case he was picked up, but staying uncaught as long as possible. The more time they wasted hunting him, the less likely they were to look elsewhere, and the colder the trail would be when they found he wasn’t their man. He tricked me there. He had himself picked up, and his lawyer hired that Weeks fellow to egg the district attorney into not dropping the case. Sherry wanted to be tried and acquitted, so he’d be in the clear. Then he had me by the neck. He was legally cleared forever. I wasn’t. He had me. He was supposed to get a hundred thousand dollars for his part. Kavalov had left Miriam something more than three million dollars. Sherry demanded one-half of it. Otherwise, he said, he’d go to the district attorney and make a complete confession. They couldn’t do anything to him. He’d been acquitted. They’d hang me. That was sweet.”

  “You’d have been wise at that to have given it to him,” I said.

  “Maybe. Anyway I suppose I would have given it to him if Miriam hadn’t upset things. There’d have been nothing else to do. But after she came back from hiring you she went to see Sherry, thinking she could talk him into going away. And he lets something drop that made her suspect I had a hand in her father’s death, though she doesn’t even now actually believe that I cut his throat.

  “She said you were coming down the next day. There was nothing for me to do but go down to Sherry’s for a showdown that night, and have the whole thing settled before you came poking around. Well, that’s what I did, though I didn’t tell Miriam I was going. The showdown wasn’t going along very well, too much tension, and when Sherry heard you outside he thought I had brought friends, and—fireworks.”

  “What ever got you into a game like that in the first place?” I asked. “You were sitting pretty enough as Kavalov’s son-in-law, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but it was tiresome being cooped up in that hole with him. He was young enough to live a long time. And he wasn’t always easy to get along with. I’d no guarantee that he wouldn’t get up on his ear and kick me out, or change his will, or anything of the sort.

  “Then I ran across Sherry in San Francisco, and we got to talking it over, and this plan came out of it. Sherry had brains. On the deal back in Cairo that you know about, both he and I made plenty that Kavalov didn’t know about. Well, I was a chump. But don’t think I’m sorry that I killed Kavalov. I’m sorry I got caught. I’d done his dirty work since he picked me up as a kid of twenty, and all I’d got out of it was damned little except the hopes that since I’d married his daughter I’d probably get his money when he died—if he didn’t do something else with it.”

  They hanged him.

  Death and Company

  Blac
k Mask, November 1930

  The Continental Op turns in a Case.

  The Old Man introduced me to the other man in his office—his name was Chappell—and said: “Sit down.”

  I sat down.

  Chappell was a man of forty-five or so, solidly built and dark-complexioned, but shaky and washed out by worry or grief or fear. His eyes were red-rimmed and their lower lids sagged, as did his lower lip. His hand, when I shook it, had been flabby and damp.

  The Old Man picked up a piece of paper from his desk and held it out to me. I took it. It was a letter crudely printed in ink, all capital letters.

  MARTIN CHAPPELL

  DEAR SIR—

  IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR WIFE ALIVE AGAIN YOU WILL DO JUST WHAT YOU ARE TOLD AND THAT IS GO TO THE LOT ON THE CORNER OF TURK AND LARKIN ST. AT EXACTLY 12 TONIGHT AND PUT $5000 IN $100 BILLS UNDER THE PILE OF BRICKS BEHIND THE BILL BOARD. IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS OR IF YOU GO TO THE POLICE OR IF YOU TRY ANY TRICKS YOU WILL GET A LETTER TOMORROW TELLING YOU WHERE TO FIND HER CORPSE. WE MEAN BUSINESS.

  DEATH & CO.

  I put the letter back on the Old Man’s desk.

  He said: “Mrs. Chappell went to a matinée yesterday afternoon. She never returned home. Mr. Chappell received this in the mail this morning.”

  “She go alone?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Chappell said. His voice was very tired. “She told me she was going when I left for the office in the morning, but she didn’t say which show she was going to or if she was going with anybody.”

  “Who’d she usually go with?”

  He shook his head hopelessly. “I can give you the names and addresses of all her closest friends, but I’m afraid that won’t help. When she hadn’t come home late last night I telephoned all of them—everybody I could think of—and none of them had seen her.”

  “Any idea who could have done this?” I asked.

  Again he shook his head hopelessly.

  “Any enemies? Anybody with a grudge against you, or against her? Think, even if it’s an old grudge or seems pretty slight. There’s something like that behind most kidnapings.”

  “I know of none,” he said wearily. “I’ve tried to think of anybody I know or ever knew who might have done it, but I can’t.”

  “What business are you in?”

  He looked puzzled, but replied: “I’ve an advertising agency.”

  “How about discharged employees?”

  “No, the only one I’ve ever discharged was John Hacker and he has a better job now with one of my competitors and we’re on perfectly good terms.”

  I looked at the Old Man. He was listening attentively, but in his usual aloof manner, as if he had no personal interest in the job. I cleared my throat and said to Chappell: “Look here. I want to ask some questions that you’ll probably think—well—brutal, but they’re necessary. Right?”

  He winced as if he knew what was coming, but nodded and said: “Right.”

  “Has Mrs. Chappell ever stayed away over night before?”

  “No, not without my knowing where she was.” His lips jerked a little. “I think I know what you are going to ask. I’d like—I’d rather not hear. I mean I know it’s necessary, but, if I can, I think I’d rather try to tell you without your asking.”

  “I’d like that better too,” I agreed. “I hope you don’t think I’m getting any fun out of this.”

  “I know,” he said. He took a deep breath and spoke rapidly, hurrying to get it over: “I’ve never had any reason to believe that she went anywhere that she didn’t tell me about or had any friends she didn’t tell me about. Is that”—his voice was pleading—“what you wanted to know?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I turned to the Old Man again. The only way to get anything out of him was to ask for it, so I said: “Well?”

  He smiled courteously, like a well-satisfied blank wall, and murmured: “You have the essential facts now, I think. What do you advise?”

  “Pay the money of course—first,” I replied, and then complained: “It’s a damned shame that’s the only way to handle a kidnaping. These Death and Co. birds are pretty dumb, picking that spot for the pay-off. It would be duck soup to nab them there.” I stopped complaining and asked Chappell: “You can manage the money all right?”

  “Yes.”

  I addressed the Old Man: “Now about the police?”

  Chappell began: “No, not the police! Won’t they—?”

  I interrupted him: “We’ve got to tell them, in case something goes wrong and to have them all set for action as soon as Mrs. Chappell is safely home again. We can persuade them to keep their hands off till then.” I asked the Old Man: “Don’t you think so?”

  He nodded and reached for his telephone. “I think so. I’ll have Lieutenant Fielding and perhaps someone from the District Attorney’s office come up here and we’ll lay the whole thing before them.”

  Fielding and an Assistant District Attorney named McPhee came up. At first they were all for making the Turk-and-Larkin-Street-brick-pile a midnight target for half the San Francisco police force, but we finally persuaded them to listen to reason. We dug up the history of kidnaping from Ross to Parker and waved it in their faces and showed them that the statistics were on our side: more success and less grief had come from paying what was asked and going hunting afterwards than from trying to nail the kidnapers before the kidnaped were released.

  At half past eleven o’clock that night Chappell left his house, alone, with five thousand dollars wrapped in a sheet of brown paper in his pocket. At twenty minutes past twelve he returned.

  His face was yellowish and wet with perspiration and he was trembling.

  “I put it there,” he said difficultly. “I didn’t see anybody.”

  I poured out a glass of his whiskey and gave it to him.

  He walked the floor most of the night. I dozed in a sofa. Half a dozen times at least I heard him go to the street door to open it and look out. Detective-sergeants Muir and Callahan went to bed. They and I had planted ourselves there to get any information Mrs. Chappell could give us as soon as possible.

  She did not come home.

  At nine in the morning Callahan was called to the telephone. He came away from it scowling.

  “Nobody’s come for the dough yet,” he told us.

  Chappell’s drawn face became wide-eyed and open-mouthed with horror. “You had the place watched?” he cried.

  “Sure,” Callahan said, “but in an all right way. We just had a couple of men stuck up in an apartment down the block with field-glasses. Nobody could tumble to that.”

  Chappell turned to me, horror deepening in his face. “What—?”

  The door-bell rang.

  Chappell ran to the door and presently came back excitedly tearing a special-delivery-stamped envelope open. Inside was another of the crudely printed letters.

  MARTIN CHAPPELL

  DEAR SIR—

  WE GOT THE MONEY ALL RIGHT BUT HAVE GOT TO HAVE MORE TONIGHT THE SAME AMOUNT AT THE SAME TIME AND EVERYTHING ELSE THE SAME. THIS TIME WE WILL HONESTLY SEND YOUR WIFE HOME ALIVE IF YOU DO AS YOU ARE TOLD. IF YOU DO NOT OR SAY A WORD TO THE POLICE YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT AND YOU BET YOU WILL GET IT.

  DEATH & CO.

  Callahan said: “What the hell?”

  Muir growled: “Them ¾ ¾ at the window must be blind.”

  I looked at the postmark on the envelope. It was earlier that morning. I asked Chappell: “Well, what are you going to do?”

  He swallowed and said: “I’ll give them every cent I’ve got if it will bring Louise home safe.”

  At half past eleven o’clock that night Chappell left his house with another five thousand dollars. When he returned the first thing he said was: “The money I took last night is really gone.”

  This night was much like the previous o
ne except that he had less hopes of seeing Mrs. Chappell in the morning. Nobody said so, but all of us expected another letter in the morning asking for still another five thousand dollars.

  Another special-delivery letter did come, but it read:

  MARTIN CHAPPELL

  DEAR SIR—

  WE WARNED YOU TO KEEP THE POLICE OUT OF IT AND YOU DISOBEYED. TAKE YOUR POLICE TO APT. 313 AT 895 POST ST. AND YOU WILL FIND THE CORPSE WE PROMISED YOU IF YOU DISOBEYED.

  DEATH & CO.

  Callahan cursed and jumped for the telephone.

  I put an arm around Chappell as he swayed, but he shook himself together and turned fiercely on me.

  “You’ve killed her!” he cried.

  “Hell with that,” Muir barked. “Let’s get going.”

  Muir, Chappell, and I went out to Chappell’s car, which had stood two nights in front of the house. Callahan ran out to join us as we were moving away.

  The Post Street address was only a ten-minute ride from Chappell’s house the way we did it. It took a couple of more minutes to find the manager of the apartment house and to take her keys away from her. Then we went up and entered apartment 313.

  A tall slender woman with curly red hair lay dead on the living-room floor. There was no question of her being dead: she had been dead long enough for discoloration to have got well under way She was lying on her back. The tan flannel bathrobe—apparently a man’s—she had on had fallen open to show pinkish lingerie. She had on stockings and one slipper. The other slipper lay near her.

  Her face and throat and what was visible of her body were covered with bruises. Her eyes were wide open and bulging, her tongue out: she had been beaten and then throttled.

  More police detectives joined us and some policemen in uniform. We went into our routine.

  The manager of the house told us the apartment had been occupied by a man named Harrison M. Rockfield. She described him: about thirty-five years old, six feet tall, blond hair, gray or blue eyes, slender, perhaps a hundred and sixty pounds, very agreeable personality, dressed well. She said he had been living there alone for three months. She knew nothing about his friends, she said, and had not seen Mrs. Chappell before. She had not seen Rockfield for two or three days but had thought nothing of it as she often went a week or so without seeing some tenants.