Mum's the Word for Murder Read online

  “I can understand that. It would leave you nothing to work on.”

  “Exactly. Ninety-nine per cent of the murder cases are solved by tracking down every person with a motive for the killing. By a process of elimination, one person is discovered with both the motive and the opportunity, and without an alibi. By piling up a mass of circumstantial evidence, a confession is obtained or a conviction is sought on those grounds alone.”

  “Strictly routine work,” I put in. “Not much material for a mystery thriller under those circumstances.”

  “True. Forget the bang-bang stuff. This case has a different aspect. There’s a reason for the advertisement. There’s a reason for everything. I have a hunch this is going to be a lot more than routine.”

  I agreed with him without saying aloud that I devoutly hoped so.

  “On the other hand,” Burke pointed out, “we have to work with whatever facts or clues come to hand. On the face of it, Malvern’s death looks like a perfect set-up—for the murderer.”

  “There’s the bullet,” I said, “and the card under the window.”

  Burke made a gesture of dismissal. “Not a chance in a thousand of tracing the card, Asa. Fingerprints are something you read about but seldom find. Typing can be traced to a particular machine, if the machine can be located. The bullet was smashed against the safe. An expert can determine the caliber and type of gun that fired it—perhaps no more.”

  “It looks like a blind alley,” I muttered.

  Burke startled me by laughing aloud. “It’ll turn out to be an alley with a thousand outlets. The papers will play it up and tips will start piling in. It’s amazing how many curious things people notice and don’t report until after a crime is committed.”

  “Exactly what do you mean?” I mixed another highball in his empty glass. I was afraid he’d tighten up and go silent on me again.

  “By tomorrow night the police will have the dope on dozens of people who are glad Malvern is out of the way. The more prominent the victim, the more enemies he is found to have made. It never fails. There will also be numberless people who have seen suspicious characters lurking about the Malvern estate at night.”

  “Each one presenting a trail which you can’t ignore?” I set his glass before him full to the brim.

  “Exactly,” Burke agreed morosely. He didn’t seem to be in a mood for further discussion.

  I prompted him: “The advertisement was addressed to you, personally. Could that mean anything?”

  “It could. And it may. Perhaps personal animosity. A desire to show me up.”

  “It appeared in the Free Press.”

  “And they’ve been after my scalp ever since I came to town.” Burke grinned amiably and took a long draught from his glass.

  “So what?”

  “Perhaps a lot—or nothing. Logically the Free Press is the paper anyone would select for the purpose. Another paper might have refused to accept the advertisement—or would at least have been likely to notify me immediately upon receipt and co-operate in every way and not have it appear in the paper at all.”

  “But being addressed to you suggests a personal basis.”

  “Not necessarily,” Burke pointed out, puffing on his pipe. “We’ve got to consider the publicity my coming brought forth. The papers were full of my exploits and what wonders I was to perform in El Paso. A lot of bosh. The worst thing that could have happened.” He lifted his glass and grimaced at it. “Don’t you see the reaction it would arouse in a criminal? The inevitable ‘Oh, yeah?’ After all that hullabaloo last month, it’s the most natural thing in the world that a man planning what he conceives to be the perfect crime would challenge me, personally, to do something about it.”

  “I get that angle. By applying a little psychology to the advertisement it should be possible to determine a great deal about the character of the murderer.”

  “Right. There’s bitterness—a hatred of law and order. An overwhelming vanity.”

  “And absolute certitude,” I added, when he paused.

  “Indicating,” he carried my thought on, “a carefully laid plan in which the murderer has perfect confidence.”

  I said excitedly, “That points out a man close to Malvern who knew he would be sitting at that window tonight at eleven forty-one.”

  Burke was silent for a time. Finally he said, “There’s Malvern’s son. He doesn’t look like a rich man’s son.”

  “No. He doesn’t. He’s a harmless sort, married, I understand, to a woman who didn’t fit into the scheme of things at the Malvern mansion.”

  “There’ll be a close check-up on the son, of course. From the servants we learned that it was Malvern’s almost invariable custom to sit there at night. An outsider could have spied upon him and learned that fact.”

  “But the man who advertised was positive he would be there tonight. He knew Malvern was going to be at home. Perhaps because he had an engagement to meet him there at ten-thirty or eleven.”

  “Perhaps,” Burke agreed unemotionally. “Or he might have had knowledge that someone else was to meet him there.”

  “That ties up with the mysterious visitor Mr. and Mrs. Perkins mentioned.”

  “It does.” Burke knocked his pipe out and sighed.

  “Did you,” I asked him cautiously, “feel anything peculiar in Mrs. Perkins’s manner when she spoke of the visitor?”

  Burke shot a quick glance at me and began to chuckle. “So you saw that, too? I don’t believe there’s any doubt the old lady knows more about the visitor than she told us. We’ll get it out of her.”

  “Which seems to be your best approach.”

  He nodded grimly. My own glass was empty. I mixed myself a refill. Glancing behind me, I saw my typewriter waiting with that sheet of blank paper in the roller. It no longer taunted me as it had for weeks. I knew that no matter how the Malvern case came out, I was going to make my story out of what had already happened.

  “There’s one thing I can’t forget,” I told Burke when the contents of my glass stood satisfactorily at the brim. “That’s the killer’s calling card. Number 1.”

  Burke nodded with grimly compressed lips. “Now you’ve really said something. There’s no use kidding ourselves. The murderer will strike again.”

  I wet my lips. “You mean that—Malvern is the first?”

  He set his glass down with finality. “One of the first things you learn in this business is not to cross any bridges until you get to them. The next thing you learn is to look as far ahead as possible and try to checkmate the next move.”

  “But it’s ghastly to think that a killer may have planned a series of murders. That—” I shivered and looked about the quiet room.

  “—no man, woman, or child in El Paso will dare sit near an open window until the killer is apprehended,” Burke carried the thought on for me musingly. “It has happened before. An entire city reduced to a state of panic. There was the Gabriel case in New York. Remember? An ex-minister who heard voices in the night appointing him to pinch-hit for the archangel and go about the city slaughtering those who lived in sin.”

  “He had a tin horn, didn’t he?”

  “A silver trumpet. He blew three blasts on it each time he made a kill. That’s the way we eventually ran him down. His death toll added up to forty-seven.”

  I couldn’t help it. I got up and went to the windows and pulled down the shades. Jerry Burke was grinning at me when I came back and sat down.

  “There’s another angle to the ‘series’ type of crime,” he went on seriously. “It has been adopted quite often by persons intent on committing a murder for which they alone have a motive and will be immediately suspected.”

  “I don’t get you.” I sat down with my drink again.

  “It’s like this. Suppose you and I have quarreled violently. You have threatened my life. You are the first person who will be suspected if I am killed. You hate me like the very devil, but you’ve got too much sense to kill me and go to the chair f
or it.”

  “Thanks,” I said grimly.

  He didn’t pay any attention to my sarcasm. He was deadly serious. “You conceive the plan of killing a number of people whom you don’t hate and for whose deaths you will not be suspected—leaving traces at the scene of each crime to show that all are linked together and the work of one man.”

  “Something like a card signed the same way each time?”

  “That’s it. See what happens? The authorities start out by carefully checking each murder for a motive. After two or three in a series it becomes evident that the crimes are not motivated in the usual way and that line of investigation is dropped. When you finally get around to killing me, I’m no more than one of the series. The idea has been so securely planted in the minds of the authorities that they don’t connect you with it at all. Do you get it?”

  “Good heavens! It’s monstrous!” I ejaculated.

  “Monstrous or not, there are records of that very situation.” Burke stood up and yawned. “Just a vagrant idea—something for you to think about, Asa, while you’re mulling over that book you’re going to write.”

  “The only way to break a case like that,” I said as he got his hat, “would be eternal vigilance. You’d never know which death was the one toward which the others pointed.”

  “Your analysis is perfect,” Burke grunted. “Keep that in mind if a ‘Number 2’ pops up in the future. I’m going home to bed. There’ll be a thousand things to do tomorrow.”

  I went to the door with him and watched him get in his car and drive away. It was a serene, cloudless night. After the sound of his motor died away, it seemed as though the events of the night could not possibly have happened. The idea of a murderer stalking the streets was too absurd for further thought. I went inside and let up my shades as a gesture back toward reality. Then I asked Nip and Tuck if they wanted to go for an early morning walk in the park across the way.

  Tuck sat up on his hind legs and vigorously barked his approval. Nip did her ecstatic dance around the room. I took them for a long walk and resolutely put all thoughts of murders and crime detection out of my mind.

  On my return I cleared up the litter we had made in the living-room, undressed and got into my pajamas. The telephone rang while I was turning back the covers on my bed.

  I don’t mind admitting that the jangle of the phone startled me. I wasn’t accustomed to calls at three o’clock in the morning. I jumped to it with quivers running up and down my spine.

  Jerry Burke’s voice came over the wire. Somehow, that was a relief. He said curtly, “We’re going to Juarez. The Malvern case. I’ll be by for you in five minutes.” He hung up.

  I slammed the receiver down and jumped for my clothes. I’m not generally a speedy dresser, but I was waiting on the curb for Burke when he drove up five minutes later.

  Chapter Four

  “DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING about an El Gato Pobre café in Juarez?” were the first words Burke spoke as I got onto the seat with him.

  “Sure. I’ve been there. A block and a half on the other side of the Santa Fe bridge.”

  “That’s where we’re headed.” He swung away from the curb. “I just had an anonymous telephone call. A man told me in broken English that I could get the dope on the Malvern killing by coming to El Gato Pobre at once.”

  “But the bridge is closed!” I protested. “They won’t let you across tonight.”

  “I’ve arranged that. I called the Immigration authorities before coming for you.” He was driving through the downtown streets toward the bridge. He took his right hand off the wheel and pulled a folded newspaper from his coat pocket.

  “Here’s an extra the Free Press had on the streets at midnight,” he said.

  I took it from him and switched on the dome light of the car. Four-inch headlines leaped at me from the front page: MURDER BY THE CLOCK.

  The story of the Malvern murder was spread all over the page. I ran my eye over the account hastily. The incident of the advertisement was enlarged upon with gusto, the story sneeringly pointing out that Burke had been unable to prevent a crime about which he had been notified in advance. There was really nothing about the Malvern murder except the name of the victim and the manner of death. Throughout the column were many slurring allusions to Burke.

  The inside sheets of the Free Press extra were taken up with a detailed history of Burke’s life, done in a sarcastic manner to detract as much as possible from his reputation. In large type the Free Press related how he had been summoned to El Paso and hailed as a savior, followed by a scathing comment on tonight’s crime, and drawing the inference that Burke had failed utterly to live up to expectations.

  “How could they have got it out by midnight?” I protested after glancing through the inflammatory text. “They can’t print an extra in nineteen minutes.”

  “They had it all set up in type, waiting for the murder,” Burke said grimly. “All they had to do was drop in the man’s name and how he was killed. Look through it carefully and you’ll see that his name is just mentioned once.”

  “That looks as though they had inside information that it was actually going to be pulled off.”

  “Either that, or they were playing a long hunch. Newspapers do that. You’ve got to give the Free Press crowd credit for playing it to the limit if it was a hunch. They scooped the city and mopped up plenty with their extra.”

  I refolded the paper thoughtfully and gave it back to Burke. He was driving down Santa Fe Street at a good clip. The streets were deserted save for a stray pedestrian or a cruising taxi.

  The broad ribbon of the Rio Grande gleamed ahead of us. Vagrant lights glimmered on the International Bridge. Burke stopped at the north end and parked his car.

  “They told me over the phone we’d have to walk across,” he explained as we got out and went toward the bridge.

  A man in khaki uniform came bustling forward to meet us. Burke engaged him in low-toned conversation while I waited. I was rather dubious about his being able to get permission to cross. I know the authorities on both sides of the boundary are inflexibly strict about closing the bridge at the appointed time.

  But Jerry Burke had whatever influence it took. He beckoned to me after a moment’s conversation, and the khaki-clad man escorted us to the center of the bridge, afoot. We were halted briefly there by a Mexican officer, and Burke and I waited while our guide talked to him.

  He came back to tell us that it was all right, and the Mexican officer courteously escorted us to the territory of our Sister Republic.

  Juarez Avenue was dark and deserted. The Lobby Café, the Crystal Palace, and all the others were dark and shuttered. I hadn’t realized how completely the closing of the Border affects the gay night life on Juarez Avenue.

  “How about this El Gato Pobre?” Burke asked. “Will it be open and all these others closed?”

  “It’s around the corner,” I told him. “I’ve an idea it stays open all night. It’s much more a native gathering-place. These joints along here depend entirely on American patronage. El Gato Pobre hasn’t been discovered by the tourists yet.”

  We went around the corner and saw lights in the windows of El Gato Pobre. There were several cantinas open on the side street. There were a few automobiles parked in front of our objective, and a scattering of Mexican pedestrians on the sidewalk.

  Inside the café, we looked over the interior of the place. A low-ceilinged, intimate dining-room. Not at all the typical Border cabaret. Perhaps fifty tables, half of them occupied at this early morning hour. A small number of the diners were Americans, the remainder being prosperous-appearing Mexicans. El Gato Pobre, by the way, serves the finest food available in Juarez. I make it a point to eat there whenever I go to Juarez for food instead of seeing the sights.

  A heavy pall of smoke hung over the room, and the babble of Mexican conversation was ceaseless. Two drunken American couples sat at a table directly in front of us. They evidently had missed getting across the bridge before
it closed, and were making a night of it. Otherwise, the clientele was as sedate and well-mannered as that of any first-class American restaurant.

  A Mexican waiter came toward us in a rumpled tuxedo, and I asked Burke what we were supposed to do next.

  “I was told over the telephone to take a table in a corner and wait.” He was studying the room alertly as he spoke.

  I led the way to a small table in the corner at the left, and we ordered beer. When the waiter was out of hearing, I asked Burke to tell me more about the call.

  “There’s not much to tell.” He was loading his pipe and his gaze roved over the room. “A strongly accented voice, asked for me when I answered the phone. He wouldn’t tell me who he was or what he knew, but insisted that he could name the murderer of Charles Malvern if I would come here, sit at a corner table, and wait for him to approach me. The beggar seemed in a great hurry, and hung up as soon as I agreed to come.”

  Our beer was good. There is none better than Monterrey. We drank it slowly from our mugs and waited. The diners were gradually leaving the café. The two American couples started an acrimoniously drunken argument which ended with the smaller of the men taking a wild swing at his companion, missing, and landing under the table. The trio went on drinking and left him there.

  Burke didn’t have much to say. His face hardened grimly as we finished our mugs of beer and ordered more.

  “It begins to look like a wild-goose chase,” he admitted. “I’m always leery about anonymous tips, but this fellow knew my name and private telephone number, and seemed to know all about the Malvern case and my interest in it. He sounded sincere enough over the phone.”

  “I wonder if it could have been a plant to get you out of El Paso?”

  Burke stiffened and grunted. “I fell for it like a schoolgirl, if it was that.” Then he set his mug down gently and said out of the side of his mouth, “Get a load of this fellow on my left. Ten to one he’s our man.”

  I looked past Burke and saw a tall Mexican youth threading his way between the tables toward us. Dank black hair fell forward over his brown cheeks. He was dressed in the extremely flashy style which the Mexican youth affects when he can afford it. His beady eyes were fixed on us as he made his way toward our table.