D. L. CHAMPION
The Day Nobody Died
THE LOCKED-ROOM murder, that classic puzzle device of detective fiction, was not often used by pulp writers. Their heroes were generally much too busy chasing buxom blondes and dodging bullets to bother with such cerebral activities as piecing together puzzles. And the writers themselves were much too busy turning out reams of copy, in order to satisfy both their editors and their creditors, to bother with the construction of intricate plots, fair-play clues, and the other demanding trappings of the traditional detective story.
Cerebral sleuths were not entirely absent from the pulps, however; nor were ingenious plots that, occasionally, utilized the locked-room gambit. D. L. Champions Inspector Allhoff is one such rare sleuth. And "The Day Nobody Died," in which Allhoff solves, among other mysterious happenings, the locked-room murder of a midget, is probably his greatest case.
The Inspector Allhoff stories, which ran more or less regularly in Dime Detective from 1940 to 1946, are pulp pastiches of Rex Stout's famous Nero Wolfe (whether consciously or unconsciously on the part of the author is unknown). Allhoff, a former New York City Police Inspector, seldom leaves his apartment; his two assistants, Simmonds and Battersly, gather evidence and round up suspects for Allhoff, who then uses his superior intellect to get to the bottom of things. But series characters in the pulps had to be more unusual than that—and D. L. Champion was nothing if not an inventive writer. He took the Nero Wolfe formula and gave it a perverse twist: Allhoff has no legs, the result of a machine-gunning incident for which one of the aides, Battersly, was responsible; that is why he stays inside his apartment. Simmonds and Battersly are, quite literally, his legmen. Allhoff has also become somewhat unhinged by the loss of his lower extremities. He hates Battersly and torments him (and Simmonds, for other reasons) mercilessly; and he uses guile and some highly unorthodox methods to wrap up the loose ends in his baffling cases.
In lesser hands than Champion's, the Allhoff stories might have been grim and unappetizing fare. As written, though, they are some of the cleverest pure (if rough-edged) detective stories to be found in the pulps. As is the case with the Nero Wolfe series, the characterization of and interplay among the three principals make them especially good and worth reprinting.
Born in Australia just after the turn of the century, and educated in New York City, D. L. Champion was a soldier with the British army during World War I, a seaman in the merchant marine, and a manuscript reader for a string of magazines before turning to story-writing in the early years of the Depression. During the next two decades he produced several million words of pulp fiction. In addition to Inspector Allhoff, he created two other memorable detective characters: Mariano Mercado, the detective particular of Mexico City who lives in mortal terror of germs and whose adventures also ran in Dime Detective in the early 1940s; and Rex Sackler, the "Parsimonious Prince of Penny-Pinchers," whose genuinely funny escapades graced the pages of Black Mask from 1940 to 1950. After the collapse of the pulps, Champion published one paperback novel, Run the Wild River (1952), and then went to Hollywood to work in films and television. No particulars on the subsequent years of his life, unfortunately, have surfaced to the time of this writing.
CHAPTER ONE
ASPIRIN-PACKIN' MAMA

ALLHOFF HAD A cold.
It was utterly incredible to me that any germ, no matter how low its antecedents or moral standards, would voluntarily take up abode in Allhoff's snarling sinuses. Yet, apparently, several hundred thousand had.
His prominent corvine nose was the color of a lobster which has boiled for three hours. His lips were dry and cracked and his eyes were rheumy. Thus far I had had no external evidences of the condition of his temper. But I certainly knew the way to bet. Allhoff in the pink of condition was no beaming lover of mankind. With a running nose and a slight temperature he was going to be something more than a trial to Battersly and myself.
It was a little after nine o'clock in the morning. Allhoff was inhaling his fourth cup of coffee and cursing that it had no taste. From without, the cold gray light of a winter day oozed reluctantly through the grimy window pane.
Allhoff's tenement flat was in its customary chaotic disarray. The floor was unswept. The sink was piled with dishes. A platoon of cockroaches had established a beachhead upon the edge of the uncovered garbage can and reinforcements were arriving on the double.
A pile of dirty laundry wearily climbed the north wall and through the open door of the bedroom, the unmade bed could be seen, in all its flop-house glory.
Allhoff refilled his cup. He sneezed and expelled a thousand germs. He cursed and drained his cup with the delicate sound of a jeep passing through a swamp. Then Battersly came in.
He was tall and rather handsome in his patrolmen's uniform. He eyed Allhoff, with what I took for apprehension, as he passed on the way to his desk, took off his cap and sat down. Allhoff paid him no attention whatever. He alternated between slugs of coffee and sneezes. He cursed again and picked up a handkerchief. He buried his nose in it and the room was filled with the sound of a bomb exploding.
Battersly cleared his throat and said, deferentially: "You really ought to see a doctor, sir."
Allhoff swung his body around in his swivel chair and set his cup down with a bang. He said, "Doctors!" as if it were an obscene word. Then he drew a deep breath and let go.
"Out of every ten patients they get, five would recover anyway. Three are beyond help. The others may be remotely aided. But do they ever tell you that? Do they ever tell you they can't diagnose a case? The hell they do! I admit they can do surgery. They can set a broken leg and remove a perfectly good appendix without killing the patient. But they can't cure a cold. They don't even know its cause. But, by God, they prescribe for it. And they'll send you a bill. It's one racket where you get paid for your mistakes, too. If you're dead, they'll send your estate a bill. If you haven't an estate, they'll attach your tombstone. The bill and pill boys! By God, I'd sooner call in a Haitian voodoo man to burn a chicken wing in the full moon. His fee will be more reasonable and the result will be precisely the same. Doctors! God, they're worse than lawyers. And you know what I think of lawyers!"
I assured him hastily that we knew exactly what he thought of lawyers. He grunted furiously and turned again to his coffee cup. He thrust his nose in it and sucked in coffee.
Battersly blinked. From his expression I gathered that he had something to ask Allhoff and the query regarding the doctor had been intended as ingratiating.
Now Battersly stood up and approached Allhoff's desk with all the aplomb of? a junior office boy about to put the question of a raise to the irascible senior partner.
"Inspector," he said nervously, "how would you like to handle a murder case Homicide knows nothing about? They don't even know the man is dead yet."
Allhoff put his cup down and looked up at Battersly, mixed emotions in his face. He disliked Homicide just a fraction of an inch less than he liked Battersly. He delighted in showing up the squad across the street. He delighted even more in crushing Battersly. He hesitated for a moment, then the copper in him came to the fore.
"Who's been killed?"
"I don't know, sir."
Allhoff lifted his eyebrows. "Well, where's the body?"
"Well—I don't exactly know that either, sir."
"Then," said Allhoff, "who's the killer?"
Battersly shuffled uneasily and hesitated.
"So you don't know that, either," roared Allhoff. "Then how the devil do you know anyone's been murdered?"
Battersly licked his dry lips. "Well, sir, it's like this. I met a girl last night in a bar. And she told me she knew that someone hacl been killed and that the police didn't know of it yet."
"And what did you do about it?"
"Why, nothing, sir."
Allhoff flung his arms to heaven as if asking the Deity to bear witness to Battersly's idiocy.
"My God," he said. "He's a copper and he meets a tramp in a barroom. She tells him she knows where a corpse is. So he buys her a drink and goes home. Are you so much in the habit of meeting dames who have corpses hidden somewhere?"
Battersly's face was red now. He cleared his throat nervously, and said: "If you'll let me explain, sir. . . ."
"Let you?" roared Allhoff. "I demand that you explain."
"This girl's name is Harriet Mansfield," said Battersly. "As I told you, I met her in a bar last night. She's good looking and tough. I guess her morals aren't all they should be and she's been in one or two jams with policemen. She doesn't like them."
"Neither do I," said Allhoff, superfluously.
"She's scared of coppers. And she doesn't trust them. But right now she's even more scared of this murderer."
"Damn it," yelled Allhoff, "what murderer?"
"I don't know exactly. She knows this murderer. She knows he's killed someone. Now she's afraid he'll kill her because she knows too much. She wants to tell about this killing to some policeman she can trust. Someone who'll investigate the killing, have the killer put away and protect her until he's in jail—protect her later from any pals of his."
"Did she know you were a copper?" asked Allhoff.
Battersly shook his head. "I was wearing civvies. But I told her I knew you. I told her to come up here this morning. I told her you'd keep her name entirely out of it, that you'd give her a fair break."
The idea of Allhoff giving anyone a fair break was something which caused my imagination to totter. Allhoff, however, beamed proudly as if he had never dreamed of doublecrossing anyone in all his career.
"When's she coming?" asked Allhoff. And the entrance of Harriet Mansfield answered the question for him.
She was a tall girl, and blond. She was under thirty, but a pair of dark circles beneath her blue eyes made her look older, and there was a shadow in their depths which indicated she knew more of life's seamy side than any woman should ever know. All in all, however, she was damned attractive.
She looked first at Battersly in his uniform. She said in a dull, expressionless tone: "So you were a copper, eh?" She turned to Allhoff. "And you're the Inspector. You don't look like no Galahad to me, but, hell, I just got to trust someone."
She sat down, sighed and opened a cavernous handbag. She withdrew a bottle of aspirin. She said to Battersly: "Son, get me a glass of water, will you?"
Battersly handed her a glass of water. She crammed half a dozen aspirin tablets in her mouth and washed them down. Allhoff emptied his coffee cup and regarded her oddly. It was obvious he disapproved of her, but if she was going to give him something which would enable him to sneer at Homicide, he was willing to listen.
She put the half-emptied glass on Allhoff's desk. In her monotonous voice, she mentioned a Greenwich Village address. She said: "Down there, in a studio on the third floor, you'll find a dead man. The studio is a big barn-like room with one window facing a blank wall. That window is locked on the inside. There's a wooden bar on the inside of the door. It's in place. It's all locked from the inside and the little guy is there with a bullet in his head."
Now, Allhoff was registering intense interest. For that matter, so was I.
"Do you know who killed him?" asked Allhoff.
Harriet Mansfield nodded. "I know who, how and why. That's what I'm here to tell you, but first I want to make a deal."
Allhoff nodded impatiently. "I understand. I'll guarantee that nothing happens to you. I'll keep you out of it altogether, if possible. Anyway, I'll see that this killer doesn't harm you. Is that enough?"
The girl nodded. "That's good enough for me. Now, this is what happened—"
She broke off for a moment and reached in her vast handbag again for the aspirin bottle. Quite obviously, she ate them. She was an aspirin addict. As she withdrew the bottle, she also took a small tin box from her purse.
"Oh, sonny," she said to Battersly, "here's that stuff I promised you. Try it. It works wonders."
Battersly stood up. His face was a fiery red. He moved toward the girl and took the tin box from her slim hand. Allhoff watched him with his shrewd little eyes.
"And what's that?" he asked.
"Nothing," said Battersly, hastily, "nothing at all."
"Oh, that," said Harriet Mansfield, dumping aspirins out into the palm of her hand. "It's corn cure. The kid was complaining to me that his corns kill him—drive him crazy with pain. Said he could hardly stand it. I got this stuff for him. It's wonderful."
Battersly sat down and closed his eyes. I drew a deep breath. Allhoff inhaled sharply. His eyes narrowed cruelly. He looked very much like a cat about to spring upon a particularly succulent mouse.
"So," he said, "his little corns hurt him? Now isn't that a damned shame? His tiny pink tootsies ache! Well, well."
Harriet Mansfield, the aspirins still in her hand stared at him in amazement. I said sharply: "Allhoff!"
He ignored me. He pushed his chair away from the desk, revealing a pair of leather stumps where his thighs should have been. His eyes, hot and frenzied, fixed themselves upon Battersly. He opened his mouth and his words filled the room like smoke from an exploding shell.
"You miserable rat! You whining, yellow dog! You dare complain about corns! What about me? Do I complain? You, who amputated my legs, have the cast-iron gall to squawk. Why, you—"
At this point Allhoff's vocabulary slid off into the sewer. He hurled slime and filth upon Battersly and all his ancestry back to Adam. Harriet Mansfield blinked at him in amazement. She stood up and said: "Hey, lay off him. What's the idea of talking like that to—"
"Shut up, you tramp," roared Allhoff, and without any punctuation at all turned his attention back to Battersly.
Harriet Mansfield, apparently, had undergone many such rebuffs as this. She shrugged her stooped shoulders, sat down again and crammed the aspirin into her mouth. She emptied the water glass, crossed her legs, and sat silent.
Allhoff went on like a man who is never going to run out of breath. From long experience I knew he would continue until he was short of lung power. I turned my head away and closed my ears as best I could.
The reason for Allhoff's insane diatribe went back several years. In those days he was an up-and-coming police officer with two good legs and first-rate brain cells. Battersly was a raw recruit.
We were tipped off one day that a pair of murderers whom we had been seeking, were holed up in a West End Avenue rooming house. We had been tipped, further, that they were in possession of a tommy gun which commanded the front door from the inner stairway.
Battersly's assignment had been to effect a rear entrance and close with the machine-gun operator at precisely the same moment Allhoff burst through the front door at the head of the raiding squad.
Battersly got in the house, all right. Then he underwent a quite understandable case of? buck fever. Instead of carrying out his task, he fled precipitately up the stairs to the roof. Allhoff came charging through the door at zero hour into a hail of machine-gun bullets.
A dozen of them lodged in his legs. Gangrene set in and after that, amputation was necessary to save his life.
Naturally, civil service rules did not permit an inspector of police minus his legs. But the commissioner, a stubborn man, was of no mind to lose his best man. By devious bookkeeping devices, he arranged it so that Allhoff was paid his old salary and continued to work under the department's sponsorship—unofficially, of course. Allhoff moved into this slum apartment across from headquarters.
He insisted that Battersly be assigned as his assistant. The commissioner, with a strong sense of poetic justice, had agreed. I had been sent along as an old hand who had come up with Allhoff, to pour oil upon the waters when they became too troubled.
I had no doubt that when Allhoff lost his legs he also lost something of his mind. He hated Battersly, unreasonably and relentlessly. He lost no opportunity to persecute the younger man.
Too often had I heard this same crazed diatribe which was pouring into my ears at this moment. Yet I had never become used to it. Were it not for a family and an impending pension I would have quit years ago.
At last Allhoff, out of breath, came to a stop. Breathing heavily, he turned to his coffee cup, filled it and lifted it to his lips.
I looked around again, glanced over at the girl to see how she had reacted to Allhoff's mania. I blinked, then looked at her more closely.
She sat slumped down in her chair. Her face seemed unnaturally bright and there was the tiniest speck of froth at the edge of her mouth. Her arms hung loosely down at the side of the chair and it seemed to me that her crossed, shapely legs were limp.
I sprang out of my chair and crossed the room. I found her pulse with my finger and there was no beat in it. I stepped back in utter amazement and said: "For God's sake, Allhoff!"
He put down his cup and said: "What's the matter?"
"She's dead."
CHAPTER TWO
MIDGET MURDER
ALLHOFF'S BROW CLOUDED . He glared at me as if I, personally, had killed her.
"Dead?" he roared. "She can't be dead. Not here in my office. Besides, she was going to tell me about this murder."
His attitude was the epitome of all the arrogance in the world.
No one could die in his office. No one could die if they were about to tell him about a murder case.
"Have it your own way," I said ironically, "but if you're going to get any information from her you'll need a priest or a spiritualist. Or you might try cutting your own throat. Then you can join her in Heaven and get the whole story. After that, you can come back to earth and haunt the murderer. You—"
"Shut up!" yelled Allhoff. "Revive her."
"Are you crazy?" I shouted, losing my temper. "I tell you she's dead! She must have had a stroke or something."
Allhoff pushed his chair out and slid to the floor. He clumped over to the girl. He felt her pulse and listened to her heart. Across the room, Battersly toyed with the box of corn cure and watched interestedly.
Allhoff picked up the aspirin bottle from his desk and peered into it. He went back to the girl, put his face close to hers and sniffed.
"Stroke, hell," he said. "Cyanide."
"You mean among the aspirin tablets?"
Allhoff nodded. "That's right. Someone must have planted one poisoned tablet. It was just a question of time until she ate it. Of course, it had to happen here just when she was going to tell me about this killing!"
"Good old Allhoff," I murmured. "Sympathy drips from his heart like water from a spring. The fact that the girl is dead doesn't seem to bother you."
"Of course, it bothers me," he snapped. "I wanted to hear about this killing. It sounded fascinating, if it's true. Door barred, window locked and a corpse inside."
He clumped back to his chair and climbed into it. A thoughtful frown wrinkled his brow. He snatched up the aspirin bottle and put it in a desk drawer.
"Battersly," he said, "call the morgue. Have this body put on ice and tell them to keep it under cover for a couple of days. Don't let the newspaper stringers know anything about it."
"You can't do that," I began. "Maybe she's got relatives. Maybe—"
"Maybe," said Allhoff, "you're sucking around for a fine. Do as I say. Then you guys get down to that Greenwich Village address and see if there really is a little guy who's been murdered."
I shrugged my shoulders. Battersly called the morgue. As I saw it, Allhoff was merely trying to cover up the fact that the girl had been killed in his office. That, he knew, would be the cause of raucous laughter across the street at headquarters. Harriet Mansfield had come to him for protection because she didn't trust ordinary policemen and she had died in Allhoff's chair. Well, I had been in Allhoff's company long enough to have learned that minding one's own business was a most profitable pastime.

It was a little before noon when Battersly and I went down the rickety staircase, hailed a bus and journeyed uptown to Greenwich Village. The address the girl had given us was that of a little crooked alley off MacDougal Street. The sidewalks were unswept and garbage cans lined the pavement. The street itself was cold and deserted.
We entered the building and climbed to the third floor. At the head of the stairway was a door. Battersly rapped on it hard with his knuckles. There was no answer. He tried the knob. It turned but the door did not open.
We exchanged a glance. Under the circumstances it was quite possible that a wooden bar did block the doorway. I nodded at Battersly. He moved a few feet away from the door and smashed into it with his shoulder. The door trembled but did not open.
"I think there is a bar there," said Battersly. "And I think it's a thick one. I nearly broke my shoulder."
"Wait here," I said. "There's a fire house down the block. I'll borrow an axe from them."
I went down to the fire house, returned a few minutes later with the axe. Battersly swung it against the door panels three times. The door broke down—it did not open.
The bar across its center was a solid two inches thick. We crawled under it into the room. My nostrils told me of the dead man's presence before my eyes. The stench of death permeated the studio. The room was stuffy and it seemed to me almost devoid of oxygen. At one end a huge stone fireplace had been built into the wall. It was piled up with ashes attesting to the fact that a tremendous fire had been burning there some time ago.
Lying before the fireplace on a mangy scatter rug was the corpse.
"My God," said Battersly, "it's a kid. Who the hell would want to kill a kid?"
I moved closer and knelt at the side of the decomposing body. It wasn't a kid. It was a midget. He was, or had been, something well under four feet in height. He had been dead, I judged, for some time.
The method of murder would have been obvious to a ten-year-old. The midget had an ugly bullet hole in his head. Dried blood clung to the skin of his temple, stained the scatter rug and formed a winding streak upon the floor.
Battersly spoke from the window. "Say, sergeant, the window is locked. And the door certainly was barred. How do you figure it?"
I stood up. I examined the window. The catch was in place and beyond the pane, as Harriet Mansfield had said, there was a blank windowless wall. I shrugged my shoulders and looked around the room.
I found nothing much save candle grease. There was no electric light in the studio. There were, however, a hundred candles. Candle grease was everywhere. Smeared on the table and mantel-piece, all over the floor and spattered on the walls. Even the panels of the door were covered with it.
Battersly sat at a battered desk going through the papers in the drawers. "Find anything?" I asked.
"Routine stuff. It seems this dead guy's name is Robert Daintley. He's a partner in an antique shop on Greenwich Avenue. There's nothing beside that."
I sighed. I looked from the bar across the door to the locked window. "This," I announced, "is a beauty. We'll dump it in Allhoff's lap with pleasure. You wait here while I go out and call him for instructions."
I went down the stairs to the corner drugstore. From there I phoned Allhoff. I gave him what meager details we had picked up. Then, following his orders, I reported the murder to Homicide. After that, I went back to the studio.
"Homicide's coming down here," I said. "We'll send the beat copper up to stand by. In the meantime, Allhoff wants us to visit this antique shop, have a little chat with this Daintley's partner."
Battersly nodded. He did exactly what I had done a few minutes before. He looked from the bar across the doorway to the latch on the window.
"For Heaven's sake, sergeant, how in the name of—"
"Don't worry about it," I told him. "It's Allhoff's baby. For years I've been waiting to see him outwitted. I think this is it."
We pounded down the stairs over to Greenwich Avenue. Within ten minutes we entered a gloomy antique shop which bore the legend on its window: Daintley and Grimes.
The first thing I noticed was the portly special copper sitting in a chair which may or may have not been an antique. It certainly was old. He stood up as we came in, peered through the crepuscular light of the shop, and looked relieved when he saw the uniforms.
"Oh, Mr. Grimes," he called. "Someone here to see you."
Mr. Grimes emerged from the darkness at the rear of the shop. He reminded me very much of a mole. Weak blue eyes blinked from behind a pair of thick-lensed glasses. He was almost bald. His manner was fussy, his teeth obviously false. Mr. Grimes, I figured, was no man to stand up in the face of adversity. I found myself hoping he wouldn't be too upset about the death of his partner.
"Yes?" he said in a high pitched voice. "What can I do for you? I assure you we have no building violations here. We—"
"Where," I said, "is Mr. Daintley?"
Grimes blinked and looked rather like a helpless, fluttering hen.
"That's what I'd like to know," he said. "I haven't seen him for days. I simply can't understand it. I—"
"He's dead," I said, watching him closely for the effect of my words. "Murdered."
Grimes uttered a little cry and wrung his hands. "No," he said. "Why, I've been to his studio time and again knocking on the door, and receiving no answer."
"The reason was that he's dead," I told him. "Have you any idea who could have killed him?"
Grimes shook his head. "None at all. He had no enemies. God knows he had no money."
"What about this place?" I asked. "Does it yield a profit?"
Grimes shrugged. "We split perhaps eighty to a hundred dollars a week. You can check the books if you like. Certainly Daintley had no money. There's no sense in his murder."
We snooped around for a little while. The special copper buried his nose in the Racing Form while Grimes, apparently overcome by the news of Daintley's fate, sat down in a Windsor chair and mopped his brow with an effeminate lace handkerchief.
A few minutes later we took our leave and returned to Allhoff's office. He was blowing his nose furiously as we entered. He removed the handkerchief from his face and lifted his coffee cup.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Nothing," I said. "Everything the girl told us is true. The door was barred. The window was locked. There was absolutely no way for the killer to leave the room. Grimes, Daintley's partner, is a fussy old woman. I'm sure he knows nothing about it."
"I don't want your opinion," snapped Allhoff. "Give me the facts. Give me each detail your hazy brain can recall. Battersly, you listen and check him on it. Now, get going."
He picked up a pencil and held it poised above a pad as I began my recital. He made an occasional note as I unfolded my story. When I concluded, he grunted and refilled his cup.
Battersly got up from his desk and approached Allhoff with shining eyes. "Inspector," he said, "I have a theory."
Allhoff looked at him as if he'd announced he had leprosy.
"Look," said Battersly, "anything can happen in an antique shop. Suppose they got hold of something really valuable, worth a lot of dough? Suppose Grimes knocked his partner off so he'd own this thing all by himself?"
"This is positively brilliant," said Allhoff. "Army Intelligence needs men like you."
"Wait a minute," I said, "maybe it's more brilliant than you think. What about that special copper? Is it likely they'd employ a guy like that unless there was something valuable in the joint?"
"I was considering that," said Allhoff, "but from an entirely different angle. Did you notice which agency that cop was from?"
I nodded and mentioned the name of the agency.
"Call 'em. Find out how long he's been on the job. I'd guess it hasn't been more than a few days."
I checked that on the telephone and rather to my surprise discovered that Allhoff was right. The special copper had been on duty at the antique shop for precisely three days.
Allhoff nodded with such smug satisfaction when I told him this that I became nettled.
"So," I said, "I suppose you now know who killed the midget, why, and how the murder was committed."
He beamed at me. "You over-rate me," he said with false modesty. "I don't know who did it. I don't know the motive. All I know is how it was done."
I stared at him. "You mean you can explain that barred door, that locked window?"
"Sure," said Allhoff blandly, picking up his coffee cup. "That's easy."
I wracked my brains for a moment, then came up with the only answer I could get. "You mean the killer escaped through the chimney?"
Allhoff revealed his discolored teeth in an unpleasant grin.
"Simmonds," he said," aren't you thinking of Santa Claus?"
Battersly and I arrived together the following morning. We halted upon the threshold, stared transfixed at Allhoff. Here it was, nine by the clock. Certainly, he had not yet imbibed over a pint of coffee. Yet he was grinning.
Battersly and I looked at each other. We came warily into the office, each of us suspecting a trap. Allhoff said heartily: "Good morning."
"Do you feel well?" I asked solicitously. "Or has some dear friend just died?"
"Neither," said Allhoff equably. "I'm amused by the fact that Homicide is up to its neck in the midget murder. They've combined your theory with Battersly's."
"And come to what conclusion?"
"They figure, in line with your Santa Claus theory, that the guy went out through the chimney, and that it was Grimes who killed him to gain possession of some invaluable antique. They've got an expert casing the shop now to find the priceless article."
He went off into a paroxysm of laughter which was shattered abruptly by a sneeze.
Well, I still thought there was something to that theory, though I had no intention of saying so and ruining Allhoff's astounding merry mood.
"Have they found anything else?" I asked him.
"Yeah. The M.E. says the guy was dead about four days. And after combing the neighborhood they found a saloon where this Daintley and another guy had a drink on what appears to be the day of the murder."
"Do they know who the guy was?"
"Yes. The bartender knew him. Didn't know Daintley, though. But he remembers this other guy was in there with a midget. This guy's name is Strouse. He's on the way up here now."
Allhoff returned to the matter of brewing fresh coffee. I gave my attention to the onionskin reports which were sent over from headquarters each day, while Battersly sighed with pleasure and scanned the adventures of Dick Tracy, a vice I could never understand in a professional copper.
About eleven o'clock footsteps sounded on the creaking stairs outside. There was a rap at the door and two men entered.
CHAPTER THREE
WATCH HUNT
THE FIRST WAS slim, clean-shaven, clad in a double-breasted suit. His eyes were dark, his face intelligent. He approached Allhoff's desk and said: "I'm Dan Strouse. You sent for me?"
Allhoff nodded and waved him to a chair. Strouse half turned and indicated his companion. "This is a friend of mine, Dr. Warburton."
Warburton bowed. He was portly, gray, and exuded success. I had heard of Warburton. He was an M.D. who had made a fortune in the past few years. Moreover, he was a famous collector of Washingtonia. His private museum was said to contain more relics of the Washington estate than any other collection. He owned more letters written by George and his half-brother, Lawrence, than once were believed extant.
He seated himself beside Strouse and looked at Allhoff. Allhoff sniffled with the sound of a weary vacuum cleaner.
"Ought to do something about that cold, Inspector," the doctor said.
Allhoff regarded him hostilely. "Why?"
"Might get worse. I'll examine you if you like."
Allhoff laughed unpleasantly. "What the devil do you know about colds?"
Warburton bristled. "Something more than a layman," he said coldly.
"I don't believe it," said Allhoff. "I will, however, concede you know more about corpses. I may have seen as many of them as you, but I never made any, save in the line of duty."
The doctor opened his mouth to reply. Strouse came pacifically into the breach.
"Now, then, Inspector," he said, "suppose you question me."
"I shall," said Allhoff. "Why did you bring him along?"
"Well," said Strouse, "at the moment the doctor and I are engaged in a business deal. Besides, he's my alibi, just in case you might accuse me in that midget matter."
"Your alibi?" said Allhoff. "What do you mean?"
"Last Tuesday I went to a barroom with Daintley. We sat around for about an hour. Daintley went away, leaving me there. The bartender, a friend of mine, gave me a lift to Doctor Warburton's. I remained at the doctor's house all night playing cards."
Allhoff nodded slowly. "So if Daintley was killed on Tuesday, you couldn't possibly have done it. Is that it?"
"That's it."
"You knew him well?"
"Fairly well."
"Any idea who killed him?"
Strouse shook his head. Allhoff took a long time to think it over. Then he jerked his head contemptuously in Warburton's direction.
"What's this business deal you're in? Is he trying to talk you out of a perfectly good appendix?"
Warburton flushed. "Damn it, sir," he said, "I decline to be insulted! I am about to buy from Mr. Strouse a most valuable document written by George Washington regarding the death of
his half-brother, Lawrence, some six weeks after the latter died."
Unimpressed, Allhoff gulped more coffee. Warburton, carried away by his subject, went on.
"Yes," he said, "there are no other known letters written by Washington upon that subject. Lawrence died in the Barbados in 1752 where George—"
"He would have died sooner if he'd had a modern physician," snapped Allhoff. "All right, Strouse, that's all. Leave the sergeant there your address in case I want you."
Strouse gave me his address. A moment later he and the doctor walked to the door. As they gained the threshold, Allhoff said sharply: "Do either of you guys know a woman named Harriet Mansfield?"
I watched their faces carefully. They both registered a perfect blank.
"Never heard of her," said Warburton. "Who is she?"
Allhoff shrugged. "I don't know. She phoned me from New Jersey about an hour ago. Made a date with me for tomorrow morning. Said she knew something about Daintley."
Strouse shook his head. "I don't know anyone of that name," he said.
The door closed and our two visitors went down the creaking stairway. I looked over at Allhoff with interest.
"What's up your ragged sleeve?" I asked him. "What was the idea of that story about Mansfield?"
"You'll find out," said Allhoff, "tonight. Battersly, you go down to that antique shop at once. Chat with Grimes and that special copper. Let drop, casually, that same lie I just told about Harriet Mansfield. Do you think you can do that?"
"Yes, sir," said Battersly. "Of course, sir."
"Then get going," said Allhoff, "if it isn't too hard on your delicate little corns. If the pedal anguish isn't too much for you to—"
Battersly left the room like a gust of wind before Allhoff could get started. He put down his coffee cup and turned to me.
"You," he said, "are not going home tonight."
"Now, listen—" I began.
"You listen. They've got that Mansfield broad's address over at
the morgue. Get it. She lived with another girl. When you leave here tonight, go up there. Introduce yourself and stay there."
"For how long?"
"All night."
"All night? Are you crazy? I'm a married man. What's my wife going to say if I stay at the apartment of some dame all night?"
Allhoff grinned oilily. "She'll probably praise you for your devotion to duty."
That was a beautiful thought, indeed.
"What am I supposed to do there?"
"Wait," said Allhoff.
"For what?"
"For whatever happens. I'm leaving the method of coping with things up to your own judgment."
"Why the devil can't Battersly do it? He's single."
"That's just why. He's a sucker for a girl. I want a man who'll stick to business. I figure you're too damned old to be concerned with sex."
That complimentary remark ended the conversation.

At six o'clock I called my wife and told a wild and blatant lie about some special duty to which the commissioner had assigned me. From her tone I judged I hadn't quite got away with it. I sighed, hung up, and took the subway to Broadway and 96th Street.
Betty Wasmuth was a suspicious brunette with a magnificent figure and skin as soft as her eyes were hard. She admitted me when I showed my badge and sat nervously on the edge of a sofa while I explained my mission.
Which wasn't easy since I hadn't the slightest idea what it was.
But the instant I mentioned Harriet Mansfield she was on me like a cat.
"Where is she?" she shrilled. "You lousy coppers got her? And for what? You ain't got no right—"
I decided that if she was scared she would be more inclined to have me hanging around.
"She's dead."
The shrew oozed out of her. Her face became deathly pale beneath her rouge. She sat down again and her hard eyes were suddenly softened with tears.
"Oh, my God, the poor kid. I knew she was scared of something. But I never thought—"
She was a pathetic figure in that moment. Clumsily, I leaned over and patted her shoulder. I uttered a half dozen idiotic consoling words and cursed Allhoff for putting me in this unreasonable position.
After a while she calmed down and went into the bedroom. She came out shortly before midnight and offered me a cup of coffee which I gratefully accepted. We chatted hesitantly. She wondered why I was here, why I was going to stay. I did not enlighten her, for the simple reason that I did riot know myself.
About one o'clock the girl went to bed. I lolled on the living room sofa, smoking, killing time and wondering what the devil my vigil had to do with a midget who had been murdered down in Greenwich Village.
At three o'clock my eyes grew heavy. The room was filled with smoke and the neighborhood seemed as quiet as a sleeping child. I stretched out on the couch, put out the light and lay there in the dark resting my eyes.
Heaven only knows just when I dropped off to sleep. I came back to consciousness at the same moment the creaking of a floor board sounded in my ears. For a moment I lay absolutely still. I heard furtive, creeping footfalls in the dark. I heard the sound of tense, labored breathing.
I swung my feet down to the floor and sat up. My hand reached out for the chain on the floor lamp. I missed badly and the lamp went crashing to the floor. Something flashed in the darkness. The room was filled with the sound of a shot and a bullet whizzed past my ear.
I knelt down and reached for my Police Special. Footfalls raced toward me. A flashlight shone full in my face. I thought, for an instant, that this was my last moment on earth. I ducked my head down and charged into the flashlight.
How that second bullet missed me, I shall never know. I swung a wild fist into the darkness and it found its mark on a human jaw. The flashlight clattered to the floor. I clawed out at my adversary's right wrist, found it, and held on grimly in order to render his gun useless.
It suddenly became an out-and-out test of strength. Somehow I had hold of both his wrists— right and left. We grunted and strained against each other. Then suddenly he wrenched his right hand free. He brought the barrel of his gun down on my skull. I was aware of nothing except the abrupt buckling of my knees.

I regained consciousness to find Betty Wasmuth wiping blood from my brow with a wet towel. Her face was pale and there was terror in her eyes.
"I heard the brawl," she said, "but I was scared to come out of the bedroom. I remembered what happened to Harriet. Who was it? What did he want?"
Of that I had no idea. I got up, took my throbbing head to the bathroom, pulled myself together and left the house. I figured that what Allhoff had sent me up here to cope with had already happened. I took a cab downtown to his place.
Allhoff slept like a cat. He was awake before I had even turned the knob of his bedroom door. He pulled himself up in the bed, looked at the bump on my head, and said: "You fool. Did you let him get away?"
I sat down and unfolded my story. His little eyes grew hotter and hotter as I went on. When I had finished, he banged his fists on the muddy counterpane and cursed me bitterly.
"You idiot," he snarled. "You and Battersly have the intelligence of a pair of rather bright lice. You just let the killer get through your clumsy hands."
"What killer?"
"Daintley's killer. I planted the fact that the Mansfield girl was calling on me tomorrow to spill what she knew. No one knew she was dead. The murderer went uptown to kill her tonight. He figured that somehow his poisoned aspirin didn't work. He went to her flat to attend to it personally. I figured you'd bring him back with you."
"Well," I said defensively, "why the devil don't you tell me what's going on in your head when you send us out on an assignment like that? How the devil did I know what was going to happen?"
Allhoff shook his head. He clumped out of the bed into the other room, climbed into his desk chair and flicked on the switch beneath the coffee pot.
"All right," he said at last, "call Battersly. Get him here right away. Then I want you two guys to go out and pay early morning calls upon Strouse, Grimes and Warburton."
"For what?"
"Collect their wrist watches. Bring them back to me."
"Their what?"
"Watches. Their wrist watches."
We had no trouble with Grimes. He wrung his hands a little and fluttered around the shop. But he handed over his watch after we promised it would be returned to him in its original condition.
While we were still in the antique shop the phone jangled. It was Allhoff asking for me. His harsh voice drilled over the wire: "Simmonds, ask that Grimes if his partner drank much."
He clicked the receiver back on the hook without waiting for my answer. Dutifully, I put the question.
Grimes nodded his head dubiously. "Well," he said, weighing the question, "he wasn't a drunkard, if that's what you mean. But he did drink more than I thought was good for him. I told him often enough."
Taking Grimes' information and his wrist watch along with us, Battersly and I set out for Strouse's place. We got him out of bed and he raised hell. I argued with him for half an hour. Then by delicately pointing out that Allhoff was a bad man to have as an enemy, that refusal to let us borrow his watch might be construed as a tacit admission of guilt, we got it.
A taxi took us uptown to Doctor Warburton's. He was easier than I expected. I gathered that he regarded Alhoff as a somewhat amusing charlatan, which, incidentally, was just about Allhoff's opinion of him. He gave us his watch with a sort of amused tolerance.
Battersly and I returned to Allhoff's bearing the loot. Allhoff downed a cup of coffee, took the watches from us and made a telephone call. A moment later, a messenger came over from across the street and took the watches which Allhoff had carefully packed in an envelope. He handed the runner a second envelope in which he had enclosed a note.
For the next twenty minutes he drank coffee earnestly and noisily. Then he swung around in his chair and said: "Hey, I called that bar where Strouse and Daintley were on the day of the killing."
"So?" I said.
"So," said Allhoff, "he tells me that Daintley was drinking root beer and kept an unlighted cigarette in his mouth."
"Well, well," I said. "And did he tell you what kind of a hat Daintley was wearing?"
"Sure," said Allhoff, "a derby."
"And that, of course, clears up some important points about the killing," I said sarcastically.
"Of course," said Allhoff. "I'm surprised you noticed it, though."
Naturally, I had noticed nothing at all. I said so, but Allhoff had relapsed again to mysterious silence.
A little before noon, he looked up and said: "You fellows go down to Noonan's now and get your lunch. By the time you come back I'll have the -principals in the case here and we can get to work."
"To work on what?"
"The murder solution, of course. Now get out and leave me alone."
CHAPTER FOUR
CHOOSE YOUR POISON
WHEN I FOLLOWED Battersly back from lunch, the guests had gathered. Doctor Warburton, pompous and obviously annoyed, had difficulty arranging his bulk comfortably on one of our narrow-bottomed chairs. He fidgeted and glared at Allhoff through his glasses.
Even so, however, he seemed more at home than Grimes. Grimes appeared as nervous as an aspen leaf with financial troubles. He perched on the edge of his chair like a bird. He never took his watery eyes off Allhoff.
Allhoff drank coffee, ignoring the company. On the far side of his desk, Strouse smoked a cigarette blandly. Of the three of them he was most at ease. Battersly was at his desk, regarding the entire scene expectantly. He nodded to me as I came in and cast a significant glance across the room.
I followed his gaze and found that my own swivel chair was occupied by Sergeant Sligo. That fact occasioned some surprise in my breast. Sligo was a tough copper. He was built like a brick wall and his hands were like a pair of red boxing gloves. His nose had been broken in two places and there was a scar on his cheek from a knife cut.
Sligo had broken a number of tough cases in this town—all by the same method. With a baseball bat, a rubber hose and a soundproof room, Sligo was almost as effective as Allhoff himself. Sligo was strictly strong-arm. There was a sadistic streak in him and he would knock a citizen's teeth out with as little compunction as I would step on one of the cockroaches beneath the Allhoff sink.
I got myself a chair from the bedroom and sat down, puzzled. Allhoff decried the strong-arm boys. He invariably boasted that his brain was more valuable than every rubber hose in any precinct house basement. Why he had called Sligo in baffled me.
However, my being baffled by Allhoff no longer came under the heading of spot news.
Allhoff set his cup down with a bang. There was a frown upon his brow and a glare in his eyes. These, I well knew, were symptoms that he was angry. I watched him closely to see upon whom his wrath would fall.
It fell on me.
He swung about in his swivel chair and glared at me, "I regret," he said, in tones which indicated that he regretted nothing at all, "that I have been compelled to drag all of you down here to my office. It is only because I am saddled with moronic assistants."
Everyone, including Battersly, looked at me. Allhoff took a deep breath and called me a name that you shouldn't call your sergeant.
"Imbecile!" he roared. "I sent you uptown to catch the killer. I knew he'd go to Harriet Mansfield's apartment after I planted the fact that she was going to call on me the following day. But you go to sleep! Moreover, you didn't even hold the killer's wrist steadily when you fought with him."
That one dazed me. "I didn't what?"
"Hold his wrist steadily. You told me that at one period during
the brawl you had hold of each of his wrists. If that were true. I figured there'd be a good chance of your fingerprints being on his wrist watch. That's why I collected them. There are prints there, but they're all too damned blurred to tell us anything."
"Oh," I said weakly.
"So," said Allhoff, "I had to figure out something else."
"You mean," I said incredulously, "that you now have the answer to the why's, how's, and who's of the murder?"
"I have the why's and the how's. I will have the who's before anyone leaves here today."
I glanced over at Sligo. "You mean you're resorting to Sligo's methods of detection?"
Warburton blew his nose into a silk handkerchief with a blast that sounded like Allhoff roaring at Battersly. He said: "I didn't come here to listen to you quarrel with a subordinate, Inspector. In fact, I don't know why I'm here at all. I don't—"
"Look," said Allhoff, "I'm very much afraid you'll thank me before this is all over. I was going to let you take your beating. However, my moronic subordinate has forced me to help you out."
"Help me out?" said Warburton. "Why—"
"Look," said Allhoff again, "this gadget you're buying. This letter from George Washington regarding the death of his half-brother— you say it was written some six weeks after Lawrence Washington died?"
"That's right."
"And Lawrence died on July 26th, 1752?"
"That, too, is correct."
"And what is the exact date on that letter?"
"September 8th, 1752. But what in the name of God all this has to do with—"
"Suppose," said Allhoff, "you shut up and let me do the talking. We are all gathered here to discuss the murder of Daintley. First, let me tell you how he was killed."
I screwed up my brow. To my certain knowledge, Allhoff had not left his apartment for weeks. If, while seated at his desk, he had figured out how the murderer had killed Daintley, barred a door and locked a window after the deed was done, I was prepared to admit that he was about fifty per cent as good as he actually believed he was.
He spilled coffee into his cup and drained it with the sound of a Saint Bernard lapping up a bowl of water.
"All right," he said, "this is what happened. Daintley knew his life was in danger. He knew from what direction, too. That is why Harriet Mansfield shilled him into opening the door."
"How can you know that?" I asked. "How can you know the Mansfield girl was even in that studio?"
"How the devil did she know a murder had been committed?" yelled Allhoff. "The killer was obviously no fool. Do you think he went around confiding to everyone that he'd killed a guy? It was impossible for the girl to have looked through the window and seen the corpse. There was nowhere to look from. Obviously, she was there."
He was still sore at me. He glared at me like a headlight. I decided to let him tell it in his own circuitous way.
"She got the door open," he went on. "Then the killer came in and blasted Daintley through the head. Simple, isn't it?"
Grimes wrung his hands and looked bewildered. "But anyone could have figured that out," he said. "The point is, how did the killer get away?"
"Through the door," said Allhoff, picking up the percolator.
Despite my resolve to keep my mouth shut, I came in again. "How?" I said. "Metempsychosis? Or did he float through the panels?"
Allhoff set the percolator down with a crash. "He went out on his feet," he roared. "He walked out—on two legs." He turned his head an inch and stared at Battersly.
This time I came in quick to cut him off. "But how?" I asked. "How could he bar the door after him?"
To my relief, Allhoff did not pursue the matter of people who walked out of rooms on their own two legs.
"The grease," he said. "The candle grease."
Warburton blew his nose again and blinked. "Candle grease?"
"Of course," said Allhoff. "He melted some candle grease. He smeared the entire length of the wooden bar with it. He stuck the bar to the door with the grease, held it there until the grease hardened."
I thought that over for a moment and felt like all the morons Allhoff had ever called me when Battersly, who was no Einstein, got it before me.
"Click," he said, "the fireplace."
"Right," said Allhoff. "Before he left the room he piled up the fireplace with kindling-wood and coal and lighted it. Then he closed the door and left. The fire lifted the temperature of the room high enough to soften the candle grease. The weight of the bar pulled it down and it dropped into its sockets."
Warburton nodded in Allhoff's direction with reluctant admiration. Allhoff sniffled, reached for a handkerchief and blew his nose. Warburton leaned forward professionally. But if he had been about to offer medical advice he thought better of it.
Allhoff replaced his handkerchief. He regarded Warburton maliciously. "God," he said, "I'd like to take you. It's a damned shame—" He broke off and shook his head sadly.
There was a long silence while he gulped more coffee. Strouse lit another cigarette. He said, politely: "You say you figured all this, Inspector? I thought you said you were about to obtain the information from Harriet Mansfield?"
"She's in the hospital," said Allhoff. "Nervous breakdown. The doctors say she's evidently scared to death of something. She's unable to talk. May remain in that condition for a couple of weeks."
I stared at him. Not because he had lied. But Allhoff was no character to pass up an opportunity for bluff. And if the killer was in the room, why hadn't Allhoff pretended that Mansfield had talked—that she had told him everything?
"Then," said Grimes, "you really don't know who killed my partner?"
"I have a damned good idea," said Allhoff. "However, I'm a soft-hearted fool. I like to be sure in capital cases. Sligo!"
Sligo pulled his vast girth out of my chair. He grinned happily. He pounded his huge right fist into the open palm of his huge hand.
"Are you ready?" asked Allhoff.
"All ready, Inspector."
"You understand thoroughly what you are to do?"
"Thoroughly."
Allhoff nodded. He jerked his thumb in Warburton's direction. "All right, doctor, you first. Go into the bedroom with the sergeant."
Warburton looked mildly astonished. "What for?"
Allhoff did not find it necessary to reply. He signaled Sligo with his eyes. Sligo laid his heavy hand upon the doctor's collar, dragged him to his feet. He pulled the vigorously protesting Warburton into the bedroom. The closing door shut off the doctor's enraged sputtering.
Battersly and I looked at each other. Was Allhoff directing Sligo to beat a confession out of Warburton? Grimes glanced around the room and wrung his hands again. He knew as little about what was going on as I, but he was a damned sight more worried. You didn't have to know Sligo's reputation to realize he was a bruiser. It was written all over his face.
Strouse sighed and lit another cigarette. Allhoff busied himself refilling the top of the percolator with fresh coffee.
In less than three minutes, Sligo and the doctor reappeared. The doctor wore an expression of utter amazement. Sligo seemed somewhat disappointed. I examined Warburton carefully. His face bore no mark. Apparently, Sligo had not hit him.
Allhoff caught Sligo's eye and the latter nodded. "O.K.," said Allhoff. "Grimes, you're next."
Grimes fluttered his eyes. "Inspector," he said, "I am an innocent man. Besides, I'm not quite sure that all this is legal. I—"
Sligo smiled without mirth. He put his fist under Grimes' nose and said: "Will you come quietly?"
Grimes swallowed something in his throat. He went quietly.
We sat around in complete silence, all save Allhoff utterly baffled. Then the sound of Sligo uttering a hearty curse emanated from the bedroom. A moment later he came out with Grimes behind him.
Again it occurred to me that Sligo wore that same expression of disappointment. Grimes, like Warburton, looked unharmed but a little stunned. He sat down again on the edge of the chair. I observed that Warburton was watching Allhoff much in the manner of a psychiatrist staring at a patient who may well become violent.
"All right," said Allhoff, after noting Sligo's nod. "You, Strouse."
Strouse shrugged his shoulders calmly, got out of the chair and followed Sligo into Allhoff's bedroom. The door slammed shut behind him.
A minute ticked by. Suddenly, we heard a thudding sound, followed by a louder thudding sound. A yell of pain burst through the panels of the door. A minute later, the door flew open and Strouse ran into the room.
One of his front teeth was missing. There was a darkening mouse beneath his right eye. Blood dripped from his split lip down on to his tie. Sligo strode along behind him, his little eyes glinting and an expression of vast satisfaction upon his face.
Strouse pointed his right index finger at Allhoff, his left at Sligo. "This is illegal," he shouted. "It's third degree. Besides, it's insane. You've invaded the rights of a private citizen. I'll have you all broken. I'll have you—"
"Sit down," said Allhoff.
Strouse opened his mouth as if to toss around a few more threats. Sligo advanced happily upon him. Strouse shut up and sat down. "Do I understand," asked Warburton of Allhoff, "that Mr. Strouse was given the same proposition in the bedroom as were Grimes and myself?"
"Exactly," said Allhoff. "But he refused to take one."
"Why?" said Warburton. "The entire procedure was ridiculous. Any man would prefer to take a harmless aspirin tablet than a beating."
"An aspirin tablet?" said Battersly and myself simultaneously.
"Of course," said Allhoff. "You wrecked my plan to have you take Strouse red-handed uptown. So I had to resort to chicanery."
"I'm listening," I said.
"Well," said Allhoff, "since he didn't know that Harriet Mansfield was dead, he figured the poisoned aspirin would still be in the bottle where he planted it. Sligo simply took each one of them into the bedroom. He offered them a choice of taking one aspirin tablet, which was taken from a bottle found in Harriet Mansfield's bag, or a beating. Naturally, Grimes and the doctor were outraged. But to any sane or innocent man, there is only one choice. They took the pill."
"But," I said, "Strouse didn't. He knew one of them meant sudden death. He'd rather take a beating than risk dropping dead."
"Too, too apparent," said Allhoff, affecting jaded boredom. "And equally apparent that Strouse murdered Daintley and Harriet Mansfield."
CHAPTER FIVE
NOT A LEG TO STAND ON
STROUSE STARED AT him. He patted his handkerchief to his bleeding mouth. He didn't get panicky. There was shrewd calculation in his eyes. He said: "You're as dumb as that palooka who slugged me, Allhoff. You're stuck with a few lovely textbook theories. You haven't got a thing on me that the D. A. would bother to keep in his files."
It seemed to me that this was true talk indeed. Allhoff's experiment with the aspirins and Sligo's heavy fist may have been conclusive as hell to us, but it wouldn't get into a court record even if Strouse had the dumbest lawyer in the country as his counsel. And that was a fact Allhoff must well know.
"You see," said Allhoff blandly, as if the case was tied up and in the bag, "Mansfield was probably Strouse's girl, or ex-girl. He prevailed on her to get Daintley to open his door. After that she got panicky. She knew Strouse was a tough, ruthless character. She knew her life wasn't safe as long as she knew what she knew. That's why she tried to get me to help her. But Strouse's lethal aspirin beat her to it."
"It all sounds wonderful," said Strouse, "but what are you going to do with it? You can't pin a murder on me with that aspirin gag. And I got an alibi for Daintley."
I recalled that Strouse had been in the saloon with the midget and was completely covered until after the killing. I nodded my head sagely.
"My God," said Allhoff, "do you think, Strouse, I haven't seen through that one?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Strouse. It was quite obvious he did.
"If I was right about the killer having to get the Mansfield girl to induce Daintley to open the studio door because he feared Strouse, it was obvious the midget wouldn't casually visit saloons with Strouse. No, that, like the ingenious device of locking the studio door, was put in to make it harder."
"I don't see it," I said. "Daintley was in the saloon with Strouse, wasn't he?"
"No," said Allhoff. "The instant the bartender said Strouse was accompanied by a midget we leaped to the conclusion that it was Daintley. Midgets aren't too common. However, it wasn't a midget, at all. It was a child."
"A child?" I said.
"A child," said Allhoff firmly. "Probably hired from a theatrical agency, dressed in long pants and a derby hat. You will note the midget drank root beer, although Grimes stated his partner drank pretty heavily. You'll note also that he held an unlighted cigarette in his mouth. Cigar smokers do that often. Cigarette smokers don't. After baffling us with his locked room murder, Strouse figured on baffling us further with a perfect alibi."
Allhoff reached for the percolator. There was a long silence in the room. I turned everything he had said over in my brain. It sounded good. It sounded perfect. But it still didn't sound legal. Strouse's point was as well taken as Allhoff's. There was plenty of good theory and damned little good evidence.
Across the room Strouse smiled confidently and I knew thoughts similar to mine were passing through his head.
"Inspector," he said, "I don't think you can convict me of disorderly conduct. You can't lay conjecture before a jury, you know."
"And there's another thing," said Warburton. "I don't know much about law—"
"Or medicine," Allhoff interrupted blandly.
Warburton glared at him and went on: "I don't know much about law, but it seems to me the prosecution must establish a motive for a crime. You've completely overlooked that, Inspector."
I realized that I'd overlooked it myself. "That's right, Allhoff, you've given Strouse no motive for killing Daintley."
Allhoff banged the percolator down upon its electric base. "Idiots," he snarled. "The motive is so damned obvious, I didn't bother mentioning it. It's that damned letter. The George Washington letter."
"You mean the letter belonged to Daintley and Strouse killed him and stole it?"
"Obviously."
"My God, is the letter worth that much?"
"Ask Warburton what he intends to pay for it."
I looked inquiringly at the doctor.
"The price agreed upon," he said, "is one hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
Battersly whistled. I was impressed. Allhoff turned to the doctor.
"And despite the fact that I tell you murder was committed to gain possession of this letter, you'll still pay that price. You will, in short, finance Strouse's trial. You may well enable him to go free."
Warburton shrugged. "That's your business, Inspector, not mine. I want that letter. I'm willing to pay a good price for it. I don't care how Strouse got it. All I care about is its authenticity."
"And are you sure it's authentic?"
"Quite. Two experts have assured me so. One, a man who knows paper and ink—the other, a handwriting expert."
Allhoff inhaled deeply. "I wish I had a better case," he said slowly. "I just hate to do you a favor, doctor, but I guess my hand is forced."
He heaved a regretful sigh and turned to Grimes. "You," he said. "You knew your partner had this letter, didn't you?"
Grimes swallowed something in his throat and shook his head wildly.
"I had no idea," he said. "I knew nothing about it. I—"
"You're a liar," said Allhoff amiably. "But you wouldn't be a liar for nothing, would you?"
Grimes was bewildered. "I wouldn't be a liar for nothing?" he repeated dazedly.
"Look," said Allhoff, "you engaged a private copper as soon as you knew Daintley was killed. Why? There was nothing of any value in that store. At least, nothing any of Homicide's antiquarian experts could find. You hired that special to keep Strouse from killing you, too. He made a financial agreement with you to keep your mouth shut. You're getting a piece of Warburton's dough, aren't you?"
Grimes shook his head again. Not very convincingly, I thought.
"So that's what I mean," said Allhoff. "You wouldn't be a liar for nothing, would you? But you would be a liar for a slice of a hundred and fifty grand."
He looked over at Sligo, who returned his glance hopefully.
"I even believe you'd take a bad beating for that kind of dough. You're no hero, Grimes, but for a pile of money a man can steel himself to keep his mouth shut even under the pressure of Sligo's fists."
Allhoff leaned forward in his chair and fixed Grimes with a reptilian gaze.
"But would you do it for nothing?"
Grimes did not look happy. He bit his lip and wriggled in his chair. "I still don't understand what you mean, Inspector."
"I'll clear it up," said Allhoff. "I concede Sligo couldn't make you talk if you knew you'd make a fortune by suffering in silence. But would you still keep your mouth shut if you weren't getting a cent? Would you keep quiet merely out of your great love for Strouse here?"
Grimes patted a handkerchief against the cold sweat on his forehead.
"What I'm asking," continued Allhoff, "is what would you do if Warburton welshed on the deal—it he refused to buy the letter?"
Grimes didn't answer.
"I'll tell you," said Allhoff. "Without the incentive of money you'd talk like a back fence gossip the instant Sligo lifted his bullying hand. So, as you all see quite plainly now, in order to obtain a key witness, all I must do is prevent Doctor Warburton from buying that letter."
Warburton took a cigar from his vest pocket and lit it. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.
"Inspector," he said, "you appear to be as bad a detective as you claim I am a doctor. Your job has nothing to do with me. I am buying that letter. You do what you will."
Allhoff shook his head sadly. "This is like cutting off my right arm," he said. "I just hate to do you a favor, doc, but justice demands it."
Warburton exhaled smoke happily. He was putting one over on Allhoff. He was getting even for the insults he had suffered. Better
than even, I decided. For if he bought that letter, Allhoff's case wasn't worth the paper the indictment was written on.
"Very well, doctor," said Allhoff. "Suppose I told you that letter was a fake?"
"A fake?"
"A forgery. A damned skillful forgery."
Warburton took the cigar from his mouth and laughed. "Rot. What about my experts? My parchment man? My handwriting expert?"
"Your parchment man is a fool. Your handwriting expert is an ignoramus. You, doctor, are a sucker."
"Very well," said Warburton calmly. "Since you possess so much knowledge of these matters, suppose you prove it's a forgery."
"All right," said Allhoff. "Now what is the date on that letter?"
"September 8th, 1752."
"That's what I thought," said Allhoff. "Now, do any of you bright boys know what happened on September 8th, 1752?"
"Sure," said Warburton. "George Washington wrote a letter to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, concerning the death of his half-brother, Lawrence."
"He did not!" yelled Allhoff.
"Well," I put in, "what did happen on September 8th, 1752?" "Nothing," said Allhoff. "Nothing at all!"
"That's a rather ridiculous statement," said Strouse. "How could nothing happen on any date?"
"Nothing happened," said Allhoff, "because there wasn't any September 8th in 1752. There were not dates at all from September 3rd until September 14th."
We all looked at him as if his mind had gone. He grinned back at us, evilly and triumphantly.
"You fools!" he yelled. "You ignorant fools! On September 3rd, 1752 in all the British possessions, of which we were one at the time, the calendar was changed from the Julian of the Caesars to the Gregorian calendar of Pope Gregory. In order to make up for the lost days of the inaccurate Julian calendar, the dates September 3rd to the 14th were omitted. So, George Washington never dated a letter September 8th. There wasn't any! So nothing happened on that day. No one was born and no one died."
Warburton took the cigar from his mouth. His face was white as its ash. He said: "Is this true?"
"There's an encyclopedia in my bedroom," said Allhoff. "Look it up."
I went into the bedroom and did so. I brought the volume out to Warburton.
"Show it to Grimes," said Allhoff.
I showed it to Grimes. He read it blinking and trembling. Allhoff said: "O.K., Sligo. See if he'll lie for nothing."
Sligo took one step toward Grimes when he cracked.
"No," he yelled. "No, I'll talk. The Inspector is right—"
Strouse sprang our of his chair and headed with great speed toward the door. Sligo's speed was even greater. His hamlike fist hit Strouse on the side of the face. Strouse spun around like a top, then Sligo had him by the throat.
"Don't butcher him here," said Allhoff. "Take him across the street. Book him for murder. Take Grimes, too."
Sligo took the pair of them and dragged them out the door. Warburton stood up.
"I don't know what to say—" he began.
"That's fine," said Allhoff. "We won't have to listen. Boy, I sure would have enjoyed seeing you clipped for all that dough. You know what I think of doctors? They—"
Warburton got out at top speed to avoid hearing again what Allhoff thought of doctors. Deprived of that victim, Allhoff thought for a moment, then grinned. He opened his desk drawer and took out a small container.
"Oh, Battersly," he said, "I asked the morgue to send me over the contents of Harriet Mansfield's pocketbook. There was another tin of corn plasters in it. Doubtless, she intended it for you. Her dying wish, you might say. Here."
He held it out. His eyes met those of Battersly. Battersly averted his head.
"Don't want it, eh?" said Allhoff. "Well, I'll keep it myself. You never can tell. With wet weather coming, I might need it myself. Never know when my old corns are going to bother me. Never can tell when—"
"Allhoff," I said, "for God's sake, shut up. Lay off the kid for once. This constant harping is unjustified. It's—"
"Ah," said Allhoff, who always got the last word, "are you telling me I haven't got a leg to stand on?"