Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926
- Автор: Bailey H. C., Bechdolt Jack
- Год: 1926
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926». Краткое содержание книги:
The concierge, in no wise disconcerted, said that this was nothing — that M. Bodasse often spent weeks in seclusion, in fact, come to think of it — said the concierge — he himself had not actually seen the old man for a long time.
Mace left a note for the old man and went away, very thoughtful. There had been something vaguely familiar about the tones of that mumble. He could not place it, he could not put his finger on anything and it looked as if it were absurd to trace a man who was seemingly following his usually erratic course in life, but there remained that queer sensation — in short, Detective Mace had what we now call a hunch.
He played that hunch by finding out that Bodasse had an ancient aunt down in the country. She was sent for, came to Paris, under astonished protest, but at once expressed the gravest fears when she saw the stockings which had been on the legs.
She declared that she herself had made them from the feet of men’s socks and the tops of women’s stockings, because Bodasse was a chronic sufferer from cold and pains in his legs.
Beyond Human Understanding
Mace and some of his companions thereupon returned to the room of Bodasse and demanded admittance in the name of the law. That was the time when Voibo was not on hand to make the impersonation. The room was obviously empty, and after the due warning required by law, the door was broken open.
It was at once clear that something unusual was going on in that room. There were bits of clothing that did not belong to the old man, many cigarette stubs — which he was known not to use — old food lying about, the bed not slept in.
Still, this was not enough as yet. The police began to hunt through Paris for some of the securities which the old man was thought to have had. They found some Italian securities which Voibo had sold.
The case was complete and the arrest of Voibo was ordered.
That very day Voibo called casually on Mace at police headquarters and chatted about the case. Mace agreed that the matter was a mystery, that Bodasse was undoubtedly alive, although putting in a longer period than usual of seclusion, and Voibo sorrowfully said that for a long time now he had been unable to get his old friend to come out of his room. He feared for his reason, that he might slip out some night and make away with himself.
Mace, in watching the man, was astonished at the sincerity with which he spoke. However, the fates were just about to hand Voibo the one black mark — the fatal ace — for as he was about to go he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and in doing that pulled out a card which fell to the floor.
Mace politely stooped and picked it up, and saw that it was for a passage on a boat leaving France that very day. Voibo, foreseeing that he could not keep up the impersonation of Bodasse and knowing that the long hunt was drawing to its close, had made up his mind to abandon his wife, his home, and his country and fly for his life.
Mace instantly arrested the man, knowing that it would be most unwise to allow him to slip out of sight.
Voibo’s acting then was so convincing, Mace afterward said, that if he had not had positive proof, in the finding of the Italian securities, he would have never believed it possible that it was not an amazed, indignant, and innocent man who had been accused.
As it was, Mace compelled Voibo to take him home and there to disgorge other securities, which were found hidden in the basement of the house. Voibo’s wife fainted when they were found. Up to that very moment, she refused to believe a word of the accusation.
Then Mace took Voibo, still protesting that Bodasse had given him the securities, to the old room where the murder had been done and by slowly pouring water on the floor and observing that the tilt of the room made it run trader the bed, found where there was the possibility of blood having dripped. He tore up the boards and found the dust below thick with dried and clotted blood.
Voibo broke down when he saw that, and confessed.
The case was closed, all but the actual conducting of it before the courts, but Voibo never appeared.
Some one — and who, was ever a mystery — got a small, sharp knife to Voibo, the tailor, and one night, without a cry or a sound to betray him, he cut his throat. The guards found him stiff and cold.
As a one time murder this one stands almost alone. There is no way by which one can judge this case.
Voibo lost all his assurance and his astounding nerve the instant that he saw the blood of Bodasse under his old floor. After that he was a brooding, silent figure, refusing to eat, seldom sleeping, a man ridden with fears and horrors, and hardly able to talk coherently. Every one, including Detective Mace, thought that his devoted wife, as the last service that she could do him, got him the instrument of self-destruction.
But, think of the nerve that he had before that! Think of the lonely task of cutting up the body, of spending hours and hours with the bits of flesh! Think of the solitary hours spent in the room of the victim, imitating his walk, imitating his speech — an ordeal which, imposed as a sort of third degree for a short time by the Paris police — one of their clever last resorts to compel a breakdown — has been known to bring a hardened criminal out weeping and hysterical!
Think of the open life the man seemed to lead, and think of the incessant watchfulness it must have needed in order to time the impersonations of Bodasse in his room so that Voibo, the happily married man and busy tailor, would not be missed!
Voibo seems never to have felt a quiver during his frightful crime or during the time afterward while he knew himself unsuspected, yet there was nothing in his previous life and nothing in his ancestry to suggest that even the smallest crime would be possible to him. Such crimes as these are the ones which completely baffle criminologists and psychologists.
Sackcloth
by Winston Bouve
Through a mire of passions, miscarried and vicious, Nem Parsons traced the chance marks leading to the double tragedy
I
Nem Parsons leaned back in his swivel chair, rubbed a reflective thumb across a smooth, pink jowl, and surveyed his caller with blue eyes that were wise and as innocent as an infant’s.
It was a plain, colorless little woman who faced him, hands clasped tightly in her decent black silk lap, worn face twitching with worry; but her halting story kept the old detective alert and interested.
“And there’s no trace of her, hide or hair, since she left the Suttons and started home. I’m near distracted, Mr. Parsons — not that Rose Miller was dear as a daughter to me, being only my husband’s niece and a girl who wouldn’t take a word of warning or scold from any one — but she’s young, and flighty, and hasn’t a soul but me to look after her.”
Parsons puckered his lips, squinted thoughtfully at the cabinet photograph Mrs. Miller had laid upon his desk. From the water marked sepia folder a plump, pretty face, lit by laughing, coquettish eyes that must have been blue, smiled at him.
The girl’s face was shallow; her beauty may have lacked distinction; but Nem knew that those soft, big eyes, that curved mouth and dimpled chin, spelled allure to most men. There was something pitiful about the photograph. It was so like a challenge to a game already won.
For that sweet, come-hither look would attract men who could best Rose Miller so easily, so willingly; that rustic beauty, fresh and lovely now, was destined to early ripeness and decay.
“Must have been a mighty pretty girl,” Nem said softly.
The inadvertent past tense caught the woman up with a gasp.
“Must have been — then you think what I do! Rose never ran away, Mr. Parsons. She’d no reason to, winding me ’n’ her uncle around her finger as she did. I thought of that first off. And if she’d run away she’d never have left all her good clothes, her savings, like she did.
“And who’d she run away with? She liked George Link best of all the fellows she had hangin’ around. But she didn’t like him well enough for that — a fickle, changeable girl was Rose! Besides, he’s as worried as I am. Clean crazy about her, George is.”
Nem grunted, passing an enormous hand tenderly over the graying fluff that fringed his baldness and made him look like an elderly cherub.
“George Link, who has the garage, corner of State and Elm? Nice looking young fellow.”
He hadn’t been on Bridgehaven’s police force for twenty-seven years without knowing a good deal about every one in the small manufacturing city and its environs. Link, he knew, was a hard-working, efficient young mechanic, who had become owner of the garage he had spoken of, in spite of his wild ways.
For George Link was wild, in the parlance of Bridgehaven; attractive to women, with his black hair and ruddy coloring and splendid physique; attracted by them; able to hold a vast amount of bootleg liquor after a grilling day’s work, and still beat all comers at Kelly pool.
Nem felt a sudden prescience of tragedy. The instinct that made him as good a detective as he was told him that Rose Miller was in sore need of aid — or possibly beyond it.
“Yes,” her aunt in law said dully. “If only she hadn’t played fast and loose with him she’d be better off now. Something’s happened to her, Mr. Parsons — something terrible!”
Nem patted her shrunken shoulder reassuringly.
“Now, don’t go imagining things, Mis’ Miller. I’ll go see Link, and then I’ll drop in on the Suttons, where she works. They might know something they didn’t think to tell you over the phone.”
Nem regretted, as he heaved his vast bulk up out of the chair that encompassed it, that Arthur Sutton and his wife had to be involved in the affair, and all that it foreboded.
For the Suttons had had their share of tragedy already. Sutton had brought his wife to Bridgehaven seven years before, when he became professor of economics at the Industrial College on the outskirts of the city. They had not occupied the pretty timbered-brick bungalow two years when an automobile accident left Alice Sutton a cripple for life, paralyzed from the waist down, chained to bed or wheelchair.
Sutton had dedicated his life to the care of the invalid; and, whatever the cost to the man, he had fulfilled his tragic obligation beyond the letter.
When Nem had parted from the troubled little woman on the steps of the red brick building that was headquarters he turned up State Street toward Link’s garage.
During the short walk in the April sunshine he checked off all that he had been told, all that he had gleaned, from Rose Miller’s aunt. And when he faced handsome George Link as that individual crawled out from under a truck, it was with conviction.
“My name’s Parsons,” Nem began, mildly. “Rose Miller’s aunt came down to headquarters this afternoon, feelin’ real worried about Rose—”
Link flung down the greasy wrench he held, wiped his hands on his overalls.
“If she hadn’t, I would have.” His dark eyes glittered. “Want to step into the office? We’ll be more private there.”
He preceded Nem into a cluttered, dingy little room, cleared off one of the two chairs with a sweep of his elbow for his caller, and dropped into the other.
“I suppose you think I know something about her. Ask any one who was at Riordan’s pool parlor last night if I wasn’t there from half past nine till midnight, missing most of my shots, waiting for her!”
He ripped out the words savagely.
Nem dug a leisurely thumb into the bowl of his veteran pipe, waited for Link to vent that which was boiling up within him.
“A little after ten I called up Sutton’s house, and Mr. Sutton said she’d just left. Wherever she went she didn’t come here, as she said she would. And that’s all I know — except—”
His brown jaw clamped in a sort of violent indecision. Nem spoke:
“Except that you’ve got some idea of what might have happened to her.”
The young man’s black eyes flickered, fell. He was obviously ridden by fear; not for himself, but for the girl. Ridden too with a gnawing uncertainty.
“Just that, Mr. Parsons; I’m not saying it did happen — God knows! But the housekeeper where Rose works — Rose is sort of companion nurse to Mrs. Sutton, who can’t walk — has it in for Rose, and on my account.” He hung his dark head, struck the battered oak desk with the flat of his hand.
“Reckon I’d better come clean with you. The housekeeper up there — Ellen Clarke her name is — and I, well, we kept company until Rose came along. Ellen’s older than I am; she’s forty anyway, and I guess she likes me a lot. Women her age get sort of batty about a man, sometimes.
“I’m not holding any brief for myself, but it wasn’t all my fault. Then when I met up with Rose, it was all off. Ellen took it hard, all right. But she soon saw that her ranting around wouldn’t do any good. So she took it out in being nasty to the girl.”
Nem, squinting through his smoke, filled in to his own satisfaction the gaps in the jerky, sordid story.
“And last night — Ellen’s night off it was — she came down here to the garage right after supper, and made an awful rumpus. She was wild, all right. She cried, and raged, and — threatened.” Link’s voice was low, toneless as he recounted the scene. “She swore she’d kill Rose if I didn’t stop seeing her, even if she had to swing for it! I laughed, and she took herself off. And Rose never showed up. That’s all I know.”