Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938
- Автор: Трит Лоуренс, Вулрич Корнелл
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938». Краткое содержание книги:
“He’s an engraver, sir. If you’d noticed his hands you would have seen they were discolored, the fingernails particularly. They weren’t the same color of a photographer’s fingernails who does his own developing, so I assumed he must be an engraver.”
“You’re pretty observant, aren’t you?”
Penny blushed again. “I... I’ve just been trained to look at things. My work, you know.” Penny smiled as if that explained everything. He smoothed his Coldstream Guards mustache with thumb and forefinger.
“You got the number of the license plate?”
“Oh, certainly. It was almost the first thing I did. But I’ll have to do a bit of figuring first.” He motioned to a pad of paper. “Mind putting down two numbers as I call them?”
Brow washboarded into a puzzled frown, Linn nodded.
“Put down 931,738,206,” Penny Pim instructed evenly.
Detective Captain Linn growled, but he put down the long figure in blunt numerals.
“Now,” Penny said thought fully, “take it from 932,754,744. The remainder will be the number of the car.”
“What are you handing me?” Linn snarled, his thin face blazing angrily. “I’ve a good notion to send you to St. Elizabeth’s. You’re completely nuts! What you need is a mental check-up.”
“I forgot to explain,” Penny apologized. “You see, when I walk down the street I add automobile license plates as a... a sort of pastime. The last license I added today brought the total to 931,738,206. After I saw the plate on the Pierce-Arrow I subconsciously added it to the total I already had and got 932,754,744. Naturally, the difference between the two numbers would be the license number of the Pierce-Arrow. Quite simple, eh? Er-er have you subtracted yet?”
“You mean you can carry figures like that in your head!” the detective shrilled, mouth hanging wide.
“Oh, certainly,” Penny shrugged. “That really is nothing. Wait until you try to add all the numbers on an hour’s run of twenty or fifty dollar hills. Now, that calls for concentration!”
Detective Linn busied himself with his subtraction, finally looked up. “I get the number as 1,016,538.”
“Exactly! Only it’s 1 dash 016 dash 538,” Penny explained. Then: “Now put Robin Hood in front of it.”
“Robin Hood!” Linn asked, frowning.
“I mean the initials RH,” Penny explained, again apologetically. “As it was a Pierce-Arrow and the initials in front of the license number were R and H, I put the name of Robin Hood down in my memory to tic up with the ‘Arrow’ part of the car’s make. That’s pure mnemonics and a rather amateurish method of memory.”
“I see,” Linn sneered. “Robin Hood shot arrows, eh?”
“Precisely, sir.” Penny beamed happily.
There was a knock at the door and Detective Linn pressed a button on his desk and a uniformed policeman came in. “We’ve found out who the dead man is, Cap’n,” he said. “It’s a guy by the name of Carveth. He’s an engraver, has a small plant in Baltimore. Used to be with the Bureau of Engraving here in Washington.”
“Engraver... engraver!” Linn flashed a look at Penny Pim, who nodded brightly. “Well, I’ll be damned!” Then, brusquely: “Take this number, Brophy, and see who owns it. It’s a Virginia license.” Linn tore the sheet from the stratch pad and handed it over. The policeman nodded and left the room. Linn rubbed his pointed chin, eyed Penny. “Let’s have the rest of it, Pim,” he snapped.
Penny nodded and talked while the detective put it down on the report. Across the room from him, Penny saw six rows of license tags on the wall. There were eight tags in each row, forty-eight in all, and each was from a different state. Penny assumed they were samples of the tags from every state in the union so that the Washington police could keep a check on the style and coloring used by each. Penny was always soothed by numbers, especially when they were neatly arranged in rows and readily seen. As he talked, Penny added the first row subconsiously. It took longer than ordinary, about ten seconds, because a part of his brain was talking to the detective about the murder.
He finished, sat back. Detective Linn nodded. “So you like to look at things, eh? Count ’em, too?” His eves went for the first time to the forty-eight license plates. There was a triumphant look on his face as he snapped his gaze back to Penny Pim.
In one flash of his eyes, consuming only four seconds of time, Penny added the final rows of numbers.
“Suppose,” suggested Linn, a wise smirk on his face, “you tell me the total of those license plates on the wall. I’ll give you five minutes, but no writing on paper!” He sat back, well pleased with himself.
Penny grinned to himself. He already had the correct total firmly fixed in his mind. But he wanted Detective Captain Linn to be more amazed than he would have been had the total been given at that instant. He nodded, flashed a glance up and down each row of figures, turned to the detective.
“The correct total is 5,121,952,” Penny said evenly.
“I’ll be—”
The door opened and Brophy came in. He shook his head. “No such number ever was issued in Virginia, sir.”
“I thought so,” Linn snarled. He swung on Penny Pim. “You’re just a show-off, Pim! You didn’t remember that plate number. You’re just one of those smart guys who forever run to the police when anything happens. You’re full of theories, know more about detective work than Sherlock Holmes. Just one of the mugs filled with melodrama who has to be in the limelight and get their names in the paper. Bah!” He savagely tore the end from a slim stogie, held a match to the tip. “I’ll show you up, you little punk!” He snapped up at Brophy. “Take down the numbers of those license plates and then add ’em on the machine in the outer office. I want this squirt made as sick as he looks.”
“But, sir,” Penny protested, “that is the number on the license tag! I couldn’t be wrong! I’ve never made mistakes with small numbers like these. It’s impossible—”
“Shut up!” roared Detective Linn, sitting back in his chair. He snapped: “Just because you happened to guess Carveth’s occupation doesn’t mean you’re not a show-off.” He smoked in silence while the puzzled Brophy laboriously took down the numbers, walked from the room. In five minutes he was back, excitement showing on his face. He handed the long strip from the adding machine to his superior.
Detective Captain Linn looked at the total, compared it with the one he had jotted down on the pad. He frowned, blinked, let ash from the stogie dribble to his coat without notice. He looked across at Penny Pim, said slowly:
“You’re right, by thunder! The total is 5,121,952!”
Penny Pim nodded, vastly pleased. “I can give you the total of each row, sir, or call out the individual numbers if you wish without looking. That isn’t difficult at all. It should prove I didn’t make a mistake on the license number of that black sedan.”
“Maybe... maybe,” Linn nodded, but there was a hard look now in his keen eyes. He looked up at Brophy. “You got something to tell me?”
“Yes, sir,” Brophy said. He stepped close to Penny, said: “The boys’ve been questioning that cab driver, Mike Duffy. First thing he said was the murder car was red, a Caddie sedan. Then he saw something on the ground after the dead man, this Carveth, was moved, and—”
“Yeah, Brophy, I know,” Detective Linn said from lips that did not move. “I was waiting to see if this Pim would come clean.” He glared at Penny. “I saw you wipe perspiration from your face at the scene of the murder, Pim, saw you accidentally—” he emphasized the word — “drop that handkerchief over something on the ground. That something under the dead man was a crumpled piece of paper! You tried to hide it. You gathered it in your handkerchief and put it in your coat pocket! You’re good at adding, Pim, so add that up for me! It’s all a stall to try and throw the police off the scent. You got your facts too good, my buckaroo! You’re in with the gang that bumped Carveth! Why, I don’t yet know.” Linn got to his feet. “Pim, I arrest you as an accessory to the murder of Carveth I Give me that handkerchief in your coat pocket!”