Margery Allingham - Ellery Queen’s Anthology. 1960

“Why? What would you do?”

“I’d tell all about it.”

“You mean last night? Why not try it out on me and see how it goes? Just keep your voice down and let it flow.”

She didn’t hear a word. Her ears were disconnected. She kept her brown eyes, under the long lashes, straight at me:

“How it happened this morning. How I was going back to my booth after I finished Mr. Levinson in Philip’s chair, and he called me into Tina’s booth, and he seized me, with one hand on my throat so I couldn’t scream, and there was no doubt at all what he intended, so I grabbed the scissors from the shelf and, without realizing what I was doing, plunged them into him with all my strength, and he collapsed onto the chair. That’s what I would do if I really want a successful career. I would have to be arrested and have a trial, and then—”

“Hold it. Your pronouns. Mr. Levinson called you into Tina’s booth?”

“Certainly not. That man that got killed.” She tilted her head back. “See the marks on my throat?”

There was no mark whatever on her smooth, pretty throat.

“Bravo,” I said. “That would get you top billing anywhere.”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“Then go ahead and tell it.”

“I can’t! I simply can’t! It would be so darned vulgar.”

At the moment I could have slapped her lovely young face with pleasure. “I understand your position,” I said, “a girl as sweet and fine and strong as you, but it’s bound to come out in the end, and I want to help. Incidentally, I am not married. I’ll go to Inspector Cramer right now and tell him about it. He’ll want to take photographs of your throat. Do you know any lawyers?”

She shook her head, answering, I thought, my question about lawyers, but no. She didn’t believe in answering questions. “About your being married,” she said, “I hadn’t even thought. I think a girl must get her career established first. That s why when I see an attractive man I never wonder if he’s married; by the time I’m ready for one these will be too old. I think a girl—”

If Ed hadn’t signaled to me just then, his customer having left the chair, there’s no telling how it would have ended. No words would have been any good, since she was deaf, but surely I might have thought of something. As it was, I didn’t want to keep Ed waiting, so I got up and crossed to his chair and climbed in.

“Just scrape the face,” I told him.

He got a bib on me and tilted me back. “Did you phone?” he asked. “Did that fathead forget again?”

I told him no, that I had been caught midtown with a stubble and an unforeseen errand for which I should be presentable, and added, “You seem to have had some excitement.”

He went to the cabinet for a tube of prefabricated lather, got some on me, started rubbing. “We sure did,” he said with feeling. “Carl — you know Carl — he killed a man in Tina’s booth. Then they both ran. I’m sorry for Tina — she was all right — but Carl— I don’t know.”

I couldn’t articulate with him rubbing. He finished, went to wipe his fingers, and came with the razor. I remarked, “I’d sort of watch it, Ed. It’s a little risky to go blabbing that Carl killed him unless you can prove it.”

“Well, what did he run for?”

“I couldn’t say. But the cops are still poking around here.”

“Sure, they are; they’re after evidence. You gotta have evidence.” Ed pulled the skin tight over the jawbone. “For instance, they ask me did he show me anything or ask me anything about some article from the shop. I say he didn’t. That would be evidence, see?”

“Yes, I get it.” I could only mumble. “What did he ask you?”

“Oh, all about me — name, married or single, you know, insurance men, income tax, they all ask the same things. But when he asked about last night I told him where to get off, but then I thought, why not? And I told him.

“Of course,” he said, “the police have to get it straight, but they can’t expect us to remember everything. When he came in, first he talked with Fickler, maybe five minutes. Then Fickler took him to Tina’s booth and he talked with Tina. After that Fickler sent Philip in, and then Carl and then Jimmie, and then Tom and then me, and then Janet. I think it’s pretty good to remember that.”

I mumbled agreement. He was at the corner of my mouth.

“But I can’t remember everything and they can’t make me. I don’t know how long it was after Janet came back out before Fickler went to Tina’s booth and found him dead. They ask me was it nearer ten minutes or nearer fifteen, but I say I had a customer at the time, we all did but Philip, and I don’t know. They ask me how many of us went behind the partition after Janet came out, to the steamer or the vat or to get the lamp or something, but I say again I had a customer at the time, and I don’t know, except I know I didn’t go because I was trimming Mr. Howell at the time. I was working the top when Fickler yelled and came running out. They can ask Mr. Howell.”

“They probably have,” I said, but to no one, because Ed had gone for a hot towel.

He returned, and used the towel, and got the lilac water. Patting it on, he resumed, “They ask me exact when Carl and Tina went, they ask me that twenty times, but I can’t say and I won’t say. Carl did it, all right, but they can’t prove it by me. They’ve gotta have evidence, but I don’t. Cold towel today?”

“No, I’ll keep the smell.”

He brought a comb and brush. “Can I remember what I don’t know?” he demanded.

“I know I can’t.”

“And I’m no great detective like you.” Ed was a little rough with a brush. “And now I go for lunch but I’ve got to have a cop along. They searched all of us down to the skin, and they even brought a woman to search Janet. They took our fingerprints. I admit they’ve gotta have evidence.” He flipped the bib off. “How was the razor, all right?”

I told him it was fine as usual, stepped down, fished for a quarter, and exchanged it for my check. Purley Stebbins, nearby, was watching both of us. There had been times when I had seen fit to kid Purley at the scene of a murder, but not now. A cop had been killed.

He spoke, not belligerently: “The inspector don’t like your being here.”

“Neither do I,” I declared. “Fortunately, this didn’t happen to be Mr. Wolfe’s day for a haircut; you would never have believed. I’m just a minor coincidence. Nice to see you.”

I went and paid my check to Fickler, got my things on, and departed.

As I emerged into Lexington Avenue there were several things on my mind. The most immediate was this: If Cramer’s suspicion had been aroused enough to spend a man on me, and if I were seen going directly home from the shop, there might be too much curiosity as to why I had chosen to spend six bits for a shave at that time of day. So, instead of taking a taxi, I walked, and when I got to a five-and-ten I used their aisles and exits to make sure I had no tail. That left my mind free for other things the rest of the way home.

One leading question was whether Carl and Tina would still be where I had left them, in the front room. That was what took me up the seven steps of the stoop two at a time, and on in quick. The answer to the question was no. The front room was empty. I strode down the hall to the office, but stopped there because I heard Wolfe’s voice. It was coming from the dining room, and it was saying:

“No, Mr. Vardas, I cannot agree that mountain climbing is merely one manifestation of man’s spiritual aspirations. I think, instead, it is an hysterical paroxysm of his infantile vanity. One of the prime ambitions of a jackass is to bray louder than any other jackass, and man is not...”