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CHAPTER V
DETECTIVE Dart, Dr Archer, and Officer Brady made a rapid survey of the basement and cellar. The basement, a few feet below sidewalk level, proved to be one long, low-ceilinged room, fitted out, evidently by the undertaker, as a simple meeting-room for those clients who required the use of a chapel. There were many rows of folding wooden chairs facing a low platform at the far end of the room. In the middle of this platform rose a pulpit stand, and on one side against the wall stood a small reed organ. A heavy dark curtain across the rear of the platform separated it and the meeting-place from a brief unimproved space behind that led through a back door into the back yard. The basement hallway, in the same relative position as those above, ran alongside the meeting-room and ended in this little hinder space. In one corner of this, which must originally have been the kitchen, was the small door of a dumbwaiter shaft which led to the floor above. The shaft contained no sign of a dumbwaiter now, as Dart’s flashlight disclosed: above were the dangling gears and broken ropes of a mechanism long since discarded, and below, an empty pit.
They discovered nearby the doorway to the cellar stairs, which proved to be the usual precipitate series of narrow planks. In the cellar, which was poorly lighted by a single central droplight, they found a large furnace, a coal bin, and, up forward, a nondescript heap of shadowy junk such as cellars everywhere seem to breed.
All this appeared for the time being unimportant, and so they returned to the second floor, where the victim had originally been found. Dart had purposely left this floor till the last. It was divided into three rooms, front, middle and back, and these they methodically visited in order.
They entered the front room, Frimbo’s reception room, just as Bubber sidled belligerently up to Jinx. Apparently their entrance discouraged further hostilities, for with one or two upward, sidelong glares from Bubber, neutralized by an inarticulate growl or two from Jinx, the imminent combat faded mysteriously away and the atmosphere cleared.
But now the younger woman’s eyes lifted to recognize Dr John Archer. She jumped up and went to him.
‘Hello, Martha,’ he said.
‘What does it mean, John?’
‘Don’t let it upset you. Looks like the conjure-man had an enemy, that’s all.’
‘It’s true—he really is—?’
‘I’m afraid so. This is Detective Dart. Mrs Crouch, Mr Dart.’
‘Good-evening,’ Mrs Crouch said mechanically and turned back to her chair.
‘Dart’s a friend of mine, Martha,’ said the physician. ‘He’ll take my word for your innocence, never fear.’
The older woman, refusing to be ignored, said impatiently, ‘How long you ’spect us to sit here? What we waitin’ for? We didn’ kill him.’
‘Of course not,’ Dart smiled. ‘But you may be able to help us find out who did. As soon as I’ve finished looking around I’ll want to ask you a few questions. That’s all.’
‘Well,’ she grumbled, ‘you don’t have to stand a seven-foot cop over us to ask a few questions, do you?’
Ignoring this inquiry, the investigators continued with their observations. This was a spacious room whose soft light came altogether from three or four floor lamps; odd heavy silken shades bore curious designs in profile, and the effect of the obliquely downcast light was to reveal legs and bodies, while countenances above were bedimmed by comparative shadow. Beside the narrow hall door was a wide doorway hung with portières of black velvet, occupying most of that wall. The lateral walls, which seemed to withdraw into the surrounding dusk, were adorned with innumerable strange and awful shapes: gruesome black masks with hollow orbits, some smooth and bald, some horned and bearded; small misshapen statuettes of near-human creatures, resembling embryos dried and blackened in the sun, with closed bulbous eyes and great protruding lips; broad-bladed swords, slim arrows and jagged spear-heads of forbidding designs. On the farther of the lateral walls was a mantelpiece upon which lay additional African emblems. Dr Archer pointed out a murderous-looking club, resting diagonally across one end of the mantel; it consisted of the lower half of a human femur, one extremity bulging into wicked-looking condyles, the other, where the original bone had been severed, covered with a silver knob representing a human skull.
‘That would deliver a nasty crack.’
‘Wonder if it did?’ said the detective.
They passed now through the velvet portières and a little isthmus-like antechamber into the middle room where the doctor had first seen the victim. Dr Archer pointed out those peculiarities of this chamber which he had already noted: the odd droplight with its horizontally focused beam, which was the only means of illumination; the surrounding black velvet draping, its long folds extending vertically from the bottom of the walls to the top, then converging to the centre of the ceiling above, giving the room somewhat the shape of an Arab tent; the one apparent opening in this drapery, at the side door leading to the hallway; the desk-like table in the middle of the room, the visitors’ chair on one side of it, Frimbo’s on the other, directly beneath the curious droplight.
‘Let’s examine the walls,’ said Dart. He and the doctor brought their flashlights into play. Like two off-shoots of the parent beam, the smaller shafts of light travelled inquisitively over the long vertical folds of black velvet, which swayed this way and that as the two men pulled and palpated, seeking openings. The projected spots of illumination moved like two strange, twisting, luminous moths, constantly changing in size and shape, fluttering here and there from point to point, pausing, inquiring, abandoning. The detective and the physician began at the entrance from the reception room and circuited the black chamber in opposite directions. Presently they met at the far back wall, in whose midline the doctor located an opening. Pulling the hangings aside at this point, they discovered another door but found it locked.
‘Leads into the back room, I guess. We’ll get in from the hallway. What’s this?’
‘This’ proved to be a switch-box on the wall beside the closed door. The physician read the lettering on its front. ‘Sixty amperes—two hundred and twenty volts. That’s enough for an X-ray machine. What does he need special current for?’
‘Search me. Come on. Brady, run downstairs and get that extension-light out of the back of my car. Then come back here and search the floor for whatever you can find. Specially around the table and chairs. We’ll be right back.’
They left the death chamber by its side door and approached the rearmost room from the hallway. Its hall door was unlocked, but blackness greeted them as they flung it open, a strangely sinister blackness in which eyes seemed to gleam. When they cast their flashlights into that blackness they saw whence the gleaming emanated, and Dart, stepping in, found a switch and produced a light.
‘Damn!’ said he as his eyes took in a wholly unexpected scene. Along the rear wall under the windows stretched a long flat chemical work-bench, topped with black slate. On its dull dark surface gleamed bright laboratory devices of glass or metal, flasks, beakers, retorts, graduates, pipettes, a copper water-bath, a shining instrument-sterilizer, and at one end, a gleaming black electric motor. The space beneath this bench was occupied by a long floor cabinet with a number of small oaken doors. On the wall at the nearer end was a glass-doored steel cabinet containing a few small surgical instruments, while the far wall, at the other end of the bench, supported a series of shelves, the lower ones bearing specimen-jars of various sizes, and the upper, bottles of different colours and shapes. Dart stooped and opened one of the cabinet doors and discovered more glassware, while Dr Archer went over and investigated the shelves, removed one of the specimen-jars, and with a puzzled expression, peered at its contents, floating in some preserving fluid.
‘What’s that?’ the detective asked, approaching.
‘Can’t be,’ muttered the physician.
‘Can’t be what?’
‘What they look like.’
‘Namely?’
Ordinarily Dr Archer would probably have indulged in a leisurely circumlocution and reached his decision by a flank attack. In the present instance he was too suddenly and wholly absorbed in what he saw to entertain even the slightest or most innocent pretence.
‘Sex glands,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Male sex glands, apparently.’
‘Are you serious?’
The physician inspected the rows of jars, none of which was labelled. There were other preserved biological specimens, but none of the same appearance as those in the jar which he still held in his hand.
‘I’m serious enough,’ he said. ‘Does it stimulate your imagination?’
‘Plenty,’ said Dart, his thin lips tightening. ‘Come on—let’s ask some questions.’
CHAPTER VI
THEY returned to the middle chamber. Officer Brady had plugged the extension into a hall socket and twisted its cord about the chain which suspended Frimbo’s light. The strong white lamp’s sharp radiance did not dispel the far shadows, but at least it brightened the room centrally.
Brady said, ‘There’s three things I found—all on the floor by the chair.’
‘This chair?’ Dart indicated the one in which the victim had been first seen by Dr Archer.
‘Yes.’
The three objects were on the table, as dissimilar as three objects could be.
‘What do you think of this, doc?’ Dart picked up a small irregular shining metallic article and turned to show it to the physician. But the physician was already reaching for one of the other two discoveries.
‘Hey—wait a minute!’ protested the detective. ‘That’s big enough to have finger prints on it.’
‘My error. What’s that you have?’
‘Teeth. Somebody’s removable bridge.’
He handed over the small shining object. The physician examined it. ‘First and second left upper bicuspids,’ he announced.
‘You don’t say?’ grinned Dart.
‘What do you mean, somebody’s?’
‘Well, if you know whose just by looking at it, speak up. Don’t hold out on me.’
‘Frimbo’s.’
‘Or the guy’s that put him out.’
‘Hm—no. My money says Frimbo’s. These things slip on and off easily enough.’
‘I see what you mean. In manipulating that handkerchief the murderer dislodged this thing.’
‘Yes. Too bad. If it was the murderer’s it might help identify him.’
‘Why? There must be plenty of folks with those same teeth missing.’
‘True. But this bridge wouldn’t fit—really fit—anybody but the person it was made for. The models have to be cast in plaster. Not two in ten thousand would be identical in every respect. This thing’s practically as individual as a finger print.’
‘Yea? Well, we may be able to use it anyhow. I’ll hang on to it. But wait. You looked down Frimbo’s throat. Didn’t you notice his teeth?’
‘Not especially. I didn’t care anything about his teeth then. I was looking for the cause of death. But we can easily check this when the medical examiner comes.’
‘O.K. Now—what’s this?’ He picked up what seemed to be a wad of black silk ribbon.
‘That was his head cloth, I suppose. Very impressive with that flowing robe and all.’
‘Who could see it in the dark?’
‘Oh, he might have occasion to come out into the light sometime.’
The detective’s attention was already on the third object.
‘Say—!’
‘I’m way ahead of you.’
‘That’s the mate to the club on the mantel in the front room!’
‘Right. That’s made from a left femur, this from a right.’
‘That must be what crowned him. Boy, if that’s got finger prints on it—’
‘Ought to have. Look—it’s not fully bleached out like the specimens ordinarily sold to students. Notice the surface—greasy-looking. It would take an excellent print.’
‘Did you touch it, Brady?’
‘I picked it up by the big end. I didn’t touch the rest of it.’
‘Good. Have the other guys shown up yet? All right. Wrap it—here’—he took a newspaper from his pocket, surrounded the thigh bone with it, stepped to the door and summoned one of the officers who had arrived meanwhile. ‘Take this over to the precinct, tell Mac to get it examined for finger prints pronto—anybody he can get hold of—wait for the result and bring it back here—wet. And bring back a set—if Tynie’s around, let him bring it. Double time—it’s a rush order.’
‘What’s the use?’ smiled the doctor. ‘You yourself said the offender’s probably in Egypt by now.’
‘And you said different. Hey—look!’
He had been playing his flashlight over the carpet. Its rays passed obliquely under the table, revealing a greyish discolouration of the carpet. Closer inspection proved this to be due to a deposit of ash-coloured powder. The doctor took a prescription blank and one of his professional cards and scraped up some of the powder onto the blank.
‘Know what it is?’ asked Dart.
‘No.’
‘Save it. We’ll have it examined.’
‘Meanwhile?’
‘Meanwhile let’s indulge in a few personalities. Let’s see—I’ve got an idea.’
‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised. What now?’
‘This guy Frimbo was smart. He put his people in that spotlight and he stayed in the dark. All right—I’m going to do the same thing.’
‘You might win the same reward.’
‘I’ll take precautions against that. Brady!’
Brady brought in the two officers who had not yet been assigned to a post. They were stationed now, one on either side of the black room toward its rear wall.
‘Now,’ said Dart briskly. ‘Let’s get started. Brady call in that little short fat guy. You in the hall there—turn off this extension at that socket and be ready to turn it on again when I holler. I intend to sit pat as long as possible.’
Thereupon he snapped off his flashlight and seated himself in Frimbo’s chair behind the table, becoming now merely a deeper shadow in the surrounding dimness. The doctor put out his flashlight also and stood beside the chair. The bright shaft of light from the device overhead, directed away from them, shone full upon the back of the empty visitors’ chair opposite, and on beyond toward the passageway traversed by those who entered from the reception room. They waited for Bubber Brown to come in.
Whatever he might have expected, Bubber Brown certainly was unprepared for this. With a hesitancy that was not in the least feigned, his figure came into view; first his extremely bowed legs, about which flapped the bottom of his imitation camels’ hair overcoat, then the middle of his broad person, with his hat nervously fingered by both hands, then his chest and neck, jointly adorned by a bright green tie, and finally his round black face, blank as a door knob, loose-lipped, wide-eyed. Brady was prodding him from behind.
‘Sit down, Mr Brown,’ said a voice out of the dark.
The unaccustomed ‘Mr’ did not dispel the unreality of the situation for Bubber, who had not been so addressed six times in his twenty-six years. Nor was he reassured to find that he could not make out the one who had spoken, so blinding was the beam of light in his eyes. What he did realize was that the voice issued from the place where he had a short while ago looked with a wild surmise upon a corpse. For a moment his eyes grew whiter; then, with decision, he spun about and started away from the sound of that voice.
He bumped full into Brady. ‘Sit down!’ growled Brady.
Said Dart, ‘It’s me, Brown—the detective. Take that chair and answer what I ask you.’
‘Yes, suh,’ said Bubber weakly, and turned back and slowly edged into the space between the table and the visitors’ chair. Perspiration glistened on his too illuminated brow. By the least possible bending of his body he managed to achieve the mere rim of the seat, where, with both hands gripping the chair arms, he crouched as if poised on some gigantic spring which any sudden sound might release to send him soaring into the shadows above.
‘Brady, you’re in the light. Take notes. All right, Mr Brown. What’s your full name?’
‘Bubber Brown,’ stuttered that young man uncomfortably.
‘Address?’
‘2100 Fifth Avenue.’
‘Age?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘Occupation?’
‘Suh?’
‘Occupation?’
‘Oh. Detective.’
‘De—what!’
‘Detective. Yes, suh.’
‘Let’s see your shield.’
‘My which?’
‘Your badge.’
‘Oh. Well—y’see I ain’t the kind o’ detective what has to have a badge. No, suh.’
‘What kind are you?’
‘I’m a family detective.’
Somewhat more composed by the questioning, Bubber quickly reached into his pocket and produced a business card. Dart took it and snapped his light on it, to read:
BUBBER BROWN, INC., Detective
(formerly with the City of New York)
2100 Fifth Avenue
Evidence obtained in affairs of the heart, etc.
Special attention to cheaters and backbiters.
Dart considered this a moment, then said:
‘How long have you been breaking the law like this?’
‘Breaking the law? Who, me? What old law, mistuh?’
‘What about this “Incorporated”? You’re not incorporated.’
‘Oh, that? Oh, that’s “ink”—that means black.’
‘Don’t play dumb. You know what it means, you know that you’re not incorporated, and you know that you’ve never been a detective with the City. Now what’s the idea? Who are you?’
Bubber had, as a matter of fact, proffered the card thoughtlessly in the strain of his discomfiture. Now he chose, wisely, to throw himself on Dart’s good graces.
‘Well, y’see times is been awful hard, everybody knows that. And I did have a job with the City—I was in the Distinguished Service Company—’
‘The what?’
‘The D.S.C.—Department of Street Cleaning—but we never called it that, no, suh. Coupla weeks ago I lost that job and couldn’t find me nothin’ else. Then I said to myself, “They’s only one chance, boy—you got to use your head instead o’ your hands.” Well, I figured out the situation like this: The only business what was flourishin’ was monkey-business—’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Monkey-business. Cheatin’—backbitin’, and all like that. Don’t matter how bad business gets, lovin’ still goes on; and long as lovin’ is goin’ on, cheatin’ is goin’ on too. Now folks’ll pay to catch cheaters when they won’t pay for other things, see? So I figure I can hire myself out to catch cheaters as well as anybody—all I got to do is bust in on ’em and tell the judge what I see. See? So I had me them cards printed and I’m r’arin’ to go. But I didn’t know ’twas against the law sho’ ’nough.’
‘Well it is and I may have to arrest you for it.’
Bubber’s dismay was great.
‘Couldn’t you jes’—jes’ tear up the card and let it go at that?’
‘What was your business here tonight?’
‘Me and Jinx come together. We was figurin’ on askin’ the man’s advice about this detective business.’
‘You and who?’
‘Jinx Jenkins—you know—the long boy look like a giraffe you seen downstairs.’
‘What time did you get here?’
‘’Bout half-past ten I guess.’
‘How do you know it was half-past ten?’
‘I didn’t say I knowed it, mistuh. I said I guess. But I know it wasn’t no later’n that.’
‘How do you know?’
Thereupon, Bubber told how he knew.
At eight o’clock sharp, as indicated by his new dollar watch, purchased as a necessary tool of his new profession, he had been walking up and down in front of the Lafayette Theatre, apparently idling away his time, but actually taking this opportunity to hand out his new business cards to numerous theatre-goers. It was his first attempt to get a case and he was not surprised to find that it promptly bore fruit in that happy-go-lucky, care-free, irresponsible atmosphere. A woman to whom he had handed one of his announcements returned to him for further information.
‘I should ’a’ known better,’ he admitted, ‘than to bother with her, because she was bad luck jes’ to look at. She was cross-eyed. But I figure a cross-eyed dollar’ll buy as much as a straight-eyed one and she talked like she meant business. She told me if I would get some good first-class low-down on her big boy, I wouldn’t have no trouble collectin’ my ten dollars. I say “O.K., sister. Show me two bucks in front and his Cleo from behind, and I’ll track ’em down like a bloodhound.” She reached down in her stockin’, I held out my hand and the deal was on. I took her name an’ address an’ she showed me the Cleo and left. That is, I thought she left.
‘The Cleo was the gal in the ticket-box. Oh, mistuh, what a Sheba! Keepin’ my eyes on her was the easiest work I ever did in my life. I asked the flunky out front what this honey’s name was and he tole me Jessie James. That was all I wanted to know. When I looked at her I felt like givin’ the cross-eyed woman back her two bucks.
‘A little before ten o’clock Miss Jessie James turned the ticket-box over to the flunky and disappeared inside. It was too late for me to spend money to go in then, and knowin’ I prob’ly couldn’t follow her everywhere she was goin’ anyhow, I figured I might as well wait for her outside one door as another. So I waited out front, and in three or four minutes out she come. I followed her up the Avenue a piece and round a corner to a private house on 134th Street. After she’d been in a couple o’ minutes I rung the bell. A fat lady come to the door and I asked for Miss Jessie James.
‘“Oh,” she say. “Is you the gentleman she was expectin’?” I say, “Yes ma’am. I’m one of ’em. They’s another one comin’.” She say, “Come right in. You can go up—her room is the top floor back. She jes’ got here herself.” Boy, what a break. I didn’ know for a minute whether this was business or pleasure.
‘When I got to the head o’ the stairs I walked easy. I snook up to the front-room door and found it cracked open ’bout half an inch. Naturally I looked in—that was business. But, friend, what I saw was nobody’s business. Miss Jessie wasn’t gettin’ ready for no ordinary caller. She look like she was gettin’ ready to try on a bathin’ suit and meant to have a perfect fit. Nearly had a fit myself tryin’ to get my breath back. Then I had to grab a armful o’ hall closet, ’cause she reached for a kimono and started for the door. She passed by and I see I’ve got another break. So I seized opportunity by the horns and slipped into her room. Over across one corner was—’
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted Dart. ‘I didn’t ask for your life history. I only asked—’
‘You ast how I knowed it wasn’t after half-past ten o’clock.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m tellin’ you, mistuh. Listen. Over across one corner was a trunk—a wardrobe trunk, standin’ up on end and wide open. I got behind it and squatted down. I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes past ten. No sooner’n I got the trunk straight ’cross the corner again I heard her laughin’ out in the hall and I heard a man laughin’, too. I say to myself, “here ’tis. The bathin’-suit salesman done arrived.”
‘And from behind that trunk, y’see, I couldn’t use nothin’ but my ears—couldn’t see a thing. That corner had me pretty crowded. Well, instead o’ goin’ on and talkin’, they suddenly got very quiet, and natchelly I got very curious. It was my business to know what was goin’ on.
‘So instead o’ scronchin’ down behind the trunk like I’d been doin’, I begun to inch up little at a time till I could see over the top. Lord—what did I do that for? Don’ know jes’ how it happened, but next thing I do know is “wham!”—the trunk had left me. There it was flat on the floor, face down, like a Hindu sayin’ his prayers, and there was me in the corner, lookin’ dumb and sayin’ mine, with the biggest boogy in Harlem ’tween me and the door.
‘Fact is, I forgot I was a detective. Only thing I wanted to detect was the quickest way out. Was that guy evil-lookin’? One thing saved me—the man didn’t know whether to blame me or her. Before he could make up his mind, I shot out o’ that corner past him like a cannon-ball. The gal yelled, “Stop thief!” And the guy started after me. But, shuh!—he never had a chance—even in them runnin’-pants o’ his. I flowed down the stairs and popped out the front door, and who was waitin’ on the sidewalk but the cross-eyed lady. She’d done followed me same as I followed the Sheba. Musta hid when her man went by on the way in. But when he come by chasin’ me on the way out, she jumped in between us and ast him where was his pants.
‘Me, I didn’t stop to hear the answer. I knew it. I made Lenox Avenue in nothin’ and no fifths. That wasn’t no more than quarter past ten. I slowed up and turned down Lenox Avenue. Hadn’ gone a block before I met Jinx Jenkins. I told him ’bout it and ast him what he thought I better do next. Well, somebody’d jes’ been tellin’ him ’bout what a wonderful guy this Frimbo was for folks in need o’ advice. We agreed to come see him and walked on round here. Now, I know it didn’t take me no fifteen minutes to get from that gal’s house here. So I must ’a’ been here before half-past ten, y’see?’
Further questioning elicited that when Jinx and Bubber arrived they had made their way, none too eagerly, up the stairs in obedience to a sign in the lower hallway and had encountered no one until they reached the reception-room in front. Here there had been three men, waiting to see Frimbo. One, Bubber had recognized as Spider Webb, a number-runner who worked for Harlem’s well-known policy-king, Si Brandon. Another, who had pestered Jinx with unwelcome conversation, was a notorious little drug-addict called Doty Hicks. The third was a genial stranger who had talked pleasantly to everybody, revealing himself to be one Easley Jones, a railroad man.
After a short wait, Frimbo’s flunky appeared from the hallway and ushered the railroad man, who had been the first to arrive, out of the room through the wide velvet-curtained passage. While Jones was, presumably, with Frimbo, the two ladies had come in—the young one first. Then Doty Hicks had gone in to Frimbo, then Spider Webb, and finally Jinx. The usher had not himself gone through the wide doorway at any time—he had only bowed the visitors through, turned aside, and disappeared down the hallway.
‘This usher—what was he like?’
‘Tall, skinny, black, stoop-shouldered, and cock-eyed. Wore a long black silk robe like Frimbo’s, but he had a bright yellow sash and a bright yellow thing on his head—you know—what d’y’ call ’em? Look like bandages—’
‘Turban?’
‘That’s it. Turban.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Don’t ask me, mistuh. I ain’t seen him since he showed Jinx in.’
‘Hm.’
‘Say!’ Bubber had an idea.
‘What?’
‘I bet he done it!’
‘Did what?’
‘Scrambled the man’s eggs!’
‘You mean you think the assistant killed Frimbo?’
‘Sho’!’
‘How do you know Frimbo was killed?’
‘Didn’t—didn’t you and the doc say he was when I was downstairs lookin’ at you?’
‘On the contrary, we said quite definitely that we didn’t know that he was killed, and that even if he was, that blow didn’t kill him.’
‘But—in the front room jes’ now, didn’t the doc tell that lady—’
‘All the doctor said was that it looked like Frimbo had an enemy. Now you say Frimbo was killed and you accuse somebody of doing it.’
‘All I meant—’
‘You were in this house when he died, weren’t you? By your own time.’
‘I was here when the doc says he died, but—’
‘Why would you accuse anybody of a crime if you didn’t know that a crime had been committed?’
‘Listen, mistuh, please. All I meant was, if the man was killed, the flunky might ’a’ done it and hauled hips. He could be in Egypt by now.’
Dart’s identical remark came back to him. He said less sharply:
‘Yes. But on the other hand you might be calling attention to that fact to avert suspicion from yourself.’
‘Who—me?’ Bubber’s eyes went incredibly large. ‘Good Lord, man, I didn’t leave that room yonder—that waitin’-room—till Jinx called me in to see the man—and he was dead then. ’Deed that’s the truth—I come straight up the stairs with Jinx—we went straight in the front room—and I didn’t come out till Jinx called me—ask the others—ask them two women.’
‘I will. But they can only testify for your presence in that room. Who says you came up the stairs and went straight into that room? How can you prove you did that? How do I know you didn’t stop in here by way of that side hall-door there, and attack Frimbo as he sat here in this chair?’
The utter unexpectedness of his own incrimination, and the detective’s startling insistence upon it, almost robbed Bubber of speech, a function which he rarely relinquished. For a moment he could only gape. But he managed to sputter: ‘Judas Priest, mistuh, can’t you take a man’s word for nothin’?’
‘I certainly can’t,’ said the detective.
‘Well, then,’ said Bubber, inspired, ‘ask Jinx. He seen me. He come in with me.’
‘I see. You alibi him and he alibis you. Is that it?’
‘Damn!’ exploded Bubber. ‘You is the most suspicious man I ever met!’
‘You’re not exactly free of suspicion yourself,’ Dart returned dryly.
‘Listen, mistuh. If you bumped a man off, would you run get a doctor and hang around to get pinched? Would you?’
‘If I thought that would make me look innocent I might—yes.’
‘Then you’re dumber’n I am. If I’d done it, I’d been long gone by now.’
‘Still,’ Dart said, ‘you have only the word of your friend Jinx to prove you went straight into the waiting-room. That’s insufficient testimony. Got a handkerchief on you?’
‘Sho’.’ Bubber reached into his breast pocket and produced a large and flagrant affair apparently designed for appearance rather than for service; a veritable flag, crossed in one direction by a bright orange band and in another, at right angles to the first, by a virulent green one. ‘My special kind,’ he said; ‘always buy these. Man has to have a little colour in his clothes, y’see?’
