John Baer - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5 — August 1922)

Spencer, absolutely devoid of nerves, crossed to the inner door, opened it, and peered into the bathroom, uttering an exclamation as he did so. On the floor was the body of a well-dressed young woman, and a bullet wound in the side of her head showed clearly the cause of death. Spencer satisfied himself that life was extinct, emerged into the main room again, closed the bathroom door, went back to the settee, and roughly shook Wilson to attract his attention.

“The first thing to do,” declared the house detective, “is to start a hue and cry for this man Henderson. The matter of motives and ways and means can wait. You’d better wait here until I can send some reliable person to relieve you. I’ll attend to the important part of the work.”

And he hurried out, while the clerk, a bundle of nerves in his most placid moments, moaned and sobbed, but did not dare to desert his post.

Fifteen minutes later Spencer was holding a furtive conversation in the lobby with a man who had “city detective” marked on him as plainly as if he carried a sign. Marty O’Donohue was a Headquarters sleuth and possessed the additional distinction of being a cousin and pal of Hotel Detective Spencer,

“It’s lucky I located you at the club, Marty,” whispered Spencer. “Here’s your chance to make good, big, but you’ve got to cover me, of course. Remember, you just dropped in for a chin-chin on your way home, and found me about to notify the police. So you told me that while you wouldn’t interfere, you’d just scout around while waiting for the precinct men. See?”

“Naw, I don’t see,” was the sulky response. “What’s the use of letting the station guys in on this? If they fool around they may get some of the credit.”

“It would cost me my job to let Captain Mahoney and his sleuths know I played favorites,” Spencer retorted impatiently. “You’ll get the gravy, all right, for I’m going to put you wise to a line of stuff that you must seem to find out for yourself. Get me? Well, I happened to be at the front door when this guy Henderson left, and was lucky enough to see which taxi he picked out. ‘Slimy’ Foley, who’s always hanging around here, was the chauffeur, and he’s probably out there now, unless his trip with Henderson was a long one. Dig Foley up and you ought to get on that murderer’s trail in no time.”

“Thanks. That’s good dope,” whispered O’Donohue; then, in a louder tone, for the benefit of the loungers in the lobby, “Call up the precinct, Spencer. It’s their job. Good-night.”

And he walked off.

The late editions of the morning papers carried brief reports of the “Monolith Mystery.” The victim’s identity had been established. She was a guest of the hotel, Mrs. Kenneth Johnson, who, with her husband, occupied suite 819. Johnson, it appeared, was down in "the writing-room on the mezzanine floor and had known nothing of the tragedy until long after the discovery of the body. The accounts concluded with the statement that Detective Desmond, of the West Forty-seventh Street Station, was trying to locate Henderson and had several clues as to his whereabouts.

But the afternoon journals carried scareheads narrating the unusual sleuthing of Marty O’Donohue, of Headquarters. O’Donohue, it appeared, had dropped into the hotel by accident and, learning of the murder, decided to institute an immediate search for the fugitive while the trail was still hot. Scouting around, he found a taxi driver who had taken a fare from the Monolith at about 11 P.M., and left him at the Grand Central Station. Most luckily the chauffeur — his name was Foley — remembered that the red cap who had taken the passenger’s baggage was a black individual known as “Limpy Sam.” “Limpy,” it developed, had gone with the man to the ticket office, and recalled that he had purchased a ticket and Pullman accommodations on the 11:20 express for Buffalo. Also, an additional piece of luck, “Limpy” was ready to swear that the berth was lower 7 in car 11. This was not surprising, for “Limpy Sam,” being a devotee of craps, would naturally remember the “lucky numbers.”

The train had departed long before O’Donohue arrived at the station, but the detective acted with promptness and intelligent decision. He got the Albany police on the long-distance telephone and the suspect was dragged from his berth, handcuffed and led to a cell. O’Donohue hustled up to Albany on the early morning newspaper train, claimed his prisoner and got back to New York with him by noon.

The District Attorney, then in office, saw a chance to make a grandstand play. Too long had the people spoke in praise of “Jersey justice.” The Monolith case was clear-cut and conclusive. It afforded a chance to establish a new record. So, while the prisoner was being arraigned in a police court on a short affidavit, the necessary witnesses were taken before the grand jury, then in session, and Daniel Henderson, indicted for murder in the first degree, was in the Tombs awaiting trial, less than eighteen hours after the body of his victim had been discovered.

It was the day of days for Marty O’Donohue and the District Attorney. Everybody forgot about Detective Desmond, and it was not known that he was still busily engaged on the case, a problem that, to all appearances, had been most brilliantly cleared up. The only person who did waste any thought on the energetic precinct detective was “Big Jim” Mahoney, the captain at that time in command at West Forty-seventh Street. When Mahoney reached the station that Wednesday morning he found a note from. Desmond saying he was working on a startling new lead in the case. Mahoney waited impatiently for his subordinate’s return, scowled when he read the newspaper eulogies of Marty O’Donohue, and cursed bitterly when the extras came in with the news of Henderson’s indictment. The captain went out for supper at six o’clock, and when he came back, Desmond, all one broad grin, was waiting in his office to report to him.

“Desmond, there’s some tall explaining coming from you,” Mahoney began savagely. “Headquarters has put it all over us on this case, and is giving us the merry laugh. What have you done? Nothing! What has this big stiff, Marty O’Donohue, done? Everything! Located the murderer, pinched, arraigned and indicted him, all in jig time. I wonder at your nerve in coming back here at all. A detective who falls down as bad as you have done ought to jump into the river.”

“Just a minute, Cap!” interrupted the happy detective. “O’Donohue thinks he put something over on me. That false alarm at the hotel, Spencer, tipped him off, I guess. I’ll attend to Spencer later. O’Donohue doesn’t know he’s alive. Never did know. And the joke of it is that, in this case, he’s pinched the wrong man.

“Anybody with common sense would know that this poor boob, Henderson, is telling a straight story. He claims that after dinner Tuesday night he went to his room, snoozed on his bed until late, then got up, went to the bathroom, found the woman’s body, got scared and beat it. That was the theory I had all along, Cap, that Henderson was just the innocent goat. And why did I feel that way? Because, right off the bat, I suspected the victim’s husband. The story he told me when I first hit the hotel sounded fishy, mighty fishy. He claimed be had been in the writing-room on the mezzanine floor for several hours — his wife was taking a nap and he didn’t want to annoy her. That’s his story. But, if Mrs. Johnson was taking a nap, why did she have on her hat when the body was found? Did you ever hear of a woman lying down and going to sleep with her hat on — unless, of course, she was drunk?”

The captain’s rage had departed. He was giving close attention to the story being told him, and his interest was growing all the time.