Robert Bloch - Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 1. September 1956

It developed, when he examined the cover of the phone book, that he was merely in Evanston, and he breathed a sigh of relief. From the borderline between Evanston and Chicago to Harry Brown’s apartment was a reasonably fast taxi ride. He looked out cautiously for signs of the pick-up truck, saw that it had gone and went in search of a taxi.

The cab driver, when he found one, looked at him sourly and with suspicion. “That’s a fairly long trip.”

Malone indignantly waved his remaining nine dollars under the driver’s nose and seriously considered taking a poke at it. No cab driver in Chicago proper would be so lamentably lacking in manners. But on this of all mornings, he had no time for lessons in etiquette, either. He brooded about it all the way into town, to the point of seriously considering giving the driver a ten cent tip. Instead, he handed him the entire bankroll and regretted it immediately.

There was no sign of von Flanagan outside Harry Brown’s apartment and, for a moment, Malone considered waiting. There was just one question he wished he had remembered to ask the Homicide captain over the telephone. But that didn’t matter now. He knew what the answer would be, because he knew what it had to be. The peephole in Sam the Finder’s front door — the tarpaulin on the potato truck — You can see them, but they can’t see you — It was as simple as that.

He took the elevator to Harry Brown’s apartment and rang the bell. It was several moments before he heard the peephole being opened, another before the door was opened.

“It’s you,” Harry Brown said joylessly. He looked tired and haggard. “Well, come in. Come in!” He slammed the door after Malone, added, “Nice of you to come all by yourself.”

Malone suddenly began to wish he hadn’t come sans escort.

“I suppose you figured it all out,” said Harry Brown, regarding the little lawyer sourly.

“I found the gun...” Malone began — and knew immediately that he had made a mistake. He tried to move fast, but Harry moved faster, chopping down Malone’s arm with one quick hand and plucking the gun from Malone’s pocket with the other.

“Nice of you to bring this along with you,” Brown said. A smile appeared on his thin mouth, but it didn’t make him look any more pleasant to his guest.

Malone began thinking frantically and hopelessly of ways to stall for time. Von Flanagan was bound to arrive momentarily. He said, “I suppose Charlie Binkley told you he’d sold out...”

“I got no time for talk,” Harry Brown said. “March, Malone.” Malone marched, still desperately trying to think of a way out. He felt numb.

“We’re going to ride up in the elevator,” Harry Brown said, almost gently. “I’m going to leave you there and walk down. I’m going to leave the lift door open, so the elevator is going to stay up there, with you in it. It will be the same gun that shot Charlie Binkley, only this time there won’t be any Malone to find it. By the time anyone gets up, I’m going to be gone a long way away from here, and it’s going to turn out that I haven’t even been near here this morning.”

He closed the elevator door. Malone wasn’t even trying to think anymore. The numbness had crept into his mind. Harry Brown extended a thumb toward the Up button.

At that instant, the elevator started down with a sudden jerk. For a split second, Harry Brown was thrown off balance and, in that split second, Malone dived for him, his numbness forgotten. The gun went off, and Malone didn’t care just then whether he had been hit or not — for Harry Brown had miraculously become the truck driver, the filling station attendant and the cab driver, all rolled into one. The little lawyer fought them all, savagely and joyously.

With a sudden bump, the elevator stopped. Malone’s head struck the floor just as he heard the door flung open, and he almost blacked out.

“He’s killed Malone!” von Flanagan yelled.

Malone sat up. “Not entirely,” he said in an indignant whisper. Then he lapsed into dignified unconsciousness...

“Stop fussing,” Malone said crossly. “There’s nothing the matter with me — nothing that a bath, breakfast and a drink won’t fix right up.” He glared savagely at the physician von Flanagan had hastily summoned.

“Shock and exposure,” the doctor murmured. “A number of contusions and a nasty crack on the head.”

Malone gave him a furious look, told him to go to hell and demanded to know if there was any rye in Harry Brown’s kitchenette.

There was, and the alcohol made him feel rapidly better. He soon was able to sit up on Harry Brown’s sofa and ignore the doctor. An anxious von Flanagan murmured something about a hospital. Then something about Malone’s lying down again. Malone ignored him, too.

Sam the Finder and Mike Medinica sat across the room, and Malone was pleased to see that they looked considerably worse than he felt. Von Flanagan had done a neat, swift job of getting them to Harry Brown’s apartment. It was not that their presence was absolutely necessary to Malone any longer, but they were still on his client list. Besides, the little lawyer liked an audience at such times.

Von Flanagan finally sent the doctor away. He gave Sam the Finder and Mike Medinica an uncomfortable look. “Harry Brown won’t...” he began. Then, “I mean, nothing must come out, but—”

“Stop worrying,” Malone said, cutting him off. “My pals here won’t say a word about your being here when Charlie Binkley was shot. In return for which, I’ll never tell you, or anyone else, how Sam the Finder got his black eye.” He observed the wan, unhappy grin on Sam the Finder’s face.

Malone looked at von Flanagan. “I had everything figured wrong. First, I figured you’d seen the shooting. Then I realized you’d only heard it. You picked up the description of a tallish man in a tan overcoat from Harry Brown.” There was a faint pink on von Flanagan’s face and Malone added hastily, “Just like witnesses always do.”

He lit his second cigar of the day and puffed on it happily, then resumed with, “I didn’t know what I was hunting for when I searched the building — I just had a feeling something was wrong. Then I found the gun. I still figured Sam the Finder had killed Charlie Binkley — in spite of the tall man in the tan overcoat, which certainly wasn’t Sam, and in spite of the fact Sam wouldn’t have ditched the gun.”

Sam said, in a tone of injured innocence, “I never carry a gun anyway, Malone. You know that.”

“You’re among friends,” Malone said. “Besides, Sam, the point is you didn’t carry this gun.” He paused to puff again happily on the cigar. “I finally spotted the flaw in the whole setup. If someone had shot through the peephole, he wouldn’t have known who he was shooting, because he couldn’t see in.”

He paused again, this time for dramatic effect, added, “Get it?” Then, “That meant someone could have been after Harry Brown as well as Charlie. And any number of people might have wanted to shoot Harry, including Sam the Finder and Mike Medinica.”

He waved down their protests, went on with, “But the point is, if the shot was fired through the peephole, whoever fired it wouldn’t have known who he was shooting. And it didn’t seem likely that anyone would shoot indiscriminately through a peephole in the hopes of hitting Charlie Binkley, or Harry Brown, or whoever happened to look out the door.”

Von Flanagan said, “But when I came out in the living room...” his voice trailed off as comprehension dawned in a rosy flush of embarrasment.

“You saw Charlie Binkley on the floor,” said Malone, “lying in front of the doorway. The door was open, and Harry was halfway down the hall — past the trash chute, by that time — supposedly chasing a murderer. Which was just what Harry Brown wanted you to see.”