Харлан Эллисон - Murder Plus - True Crime Stories From The Masters Of Detective Fiction

The detective looked into a clothes closet, and saw a small rattan suitcase.

He rushed to telephone and told Captain Halpin:

“I’ve located Spencer, sure!”

The captain arrived in ten minutes with an automobile load of heavily armed detectives. Quickly he posted his men, one at the rear door, another in a doorway forty feet from the house, two in doorways across the street, out of sight. One took a position in a dark corner of the living room. Halpin and one sleuth stayed in the man’s room.

At midnight the front door downstairs slammed, and a man hurried up the stairs with heavy steps. Halpin heard the doorknob turn. He took one step forward quietly, with his .38 ready. The door swung open and Halpin thrust his gun forward.

There was a gasp and a scuffle. Halpin and his man hurled the newcomer to the floor, and handcuffs were snapped on his wrists.

In the light of the downstairs hall the detectives studied their prisoner. He was short, with thick neck and heavy shoulders. He wore a high collar and a black suit. Brown hair, blue eyes. Halpin fished a pair of gold eyeglasses from the prisoner’s vest pocket and put them on his nose.

“Just like a preacher,” Halpin said. “You could pass for a Madison Street evangelist.”

“Say, you dicks have the wrong man,” the prisoner whimpered. The voice was a drawl, low and soft.

“We’ve got the man who killed Mildred Allison Rexroat, and that’s the one we’ve been looking for!”

At the detective bureau that night Oleson and Mildred’s landlady identified the prisoner as the mysterious Mr. Spencer; and the suitcase was identified as the one carried by Mildred Allison Rexroat on her journey to death.

Then Spencer talked.

“Sure, I killed her.”

“You planned it all long before, didn’t you?”

“Sure, I did. I used to dance with the girl, and, believe me, I sure could do the tango with her. I liked her at first and soon fell head over heels in love with her. I asked her not to dance with other fellows and go around with them. I wanted her for my own. She didn’t mind me, and I got mad about it. I figured if I couldn’t have her I would put her away, and while I was doing it I would get her money and her ring.

“You know, I heard about that place out in the country. Remember, about a year ago, a woman was killed out there with a rock by somebody and they never got a line on the guy that did it? I picked that spot, I like a hammer for that kind of work, so I got a big one and went out there and put it where I could have it handy.

“I made a date with Millie and kidded her along about some people in Wheaton wanting to learn the tango. I said we had to go to Wayne to meet one of them on a farm, and she might need some money to rent a hall and make other arrangements.

“Millie fell for it. On the train I made love to her and promised her a lot, and she believed me. Women are soft for me!

“When we got off the train I said we had to walk along a dark road near the tracks. Millie didn’t mind. She said it was a fine night for a walk in the country. I tried to lead her along to the spot where I had the hammer hidden, but she didn’t want to go there, so I decided I wouldn’t make her suspicious. I didn’t want her to yell for help. I like a hammer; it’s quiet.

“I stopped near the tracks, anyway, and decided to do the work right there. I put my arm around her and held her close while I pulled out my gun. Then I stepped back a little and gave it to her, right in the face.

“She fell right over without saying a word, and I grabbed her purse and her ring. I didn’t take the bracelet. I didn’t think I could sell it for much.

“I had this train idea all figured out. I dragged Millie onto the rail and dropped her there. I figured people would say it was just another train accident. I thought for sure the train would hit her head. It was a tough break for me that I didn’t make sure her head was on the rail.”

Halpin listened grimly to the horrifying story.

As the day for the trial at Wheaton drew near, Spencer obtained a lawyer and said he would fight the charge. Meanwhile he revealed that his real name was Henry Spencer and that he had served a ten-year term at Joliet Prison for burglary.

The trial was one of the most amazing spectacles seen in an Illinois courtroom. State’s Attorney Hadley led the state’s fight to get a swift verdict and a death sentence.

Among the spectators in the crowded courtroom were the two men who had loved and married the murdered tango dancer.

Spencer lighted a cigar as he sat at the defense table, a red ribbon in the lapel of his coat.

The judge rapped his gavel and ordered him to stop smoking.

“I won’t,” he said, and continued puffing until a bailiff took the cigar from him.

When a lawyer began a plea, talking of “irresponsibility” and “mental weakness,” Spencer stood and shouted:

“Cut out all this red tape! Get twelve men to say I killed my pal Millie and then take me out and hang me. Don’t waste all this time. Send somebody out to build a scaffold. String me up!”

He gripped his throat to illustrate the hanging.

Spencer was a prophet. Twelve men did rule that he killed Mildred Allison Rexroat, and that he was guilty of murder in the first degree.

“I’ll appeal,” his lawyer said.

“Cut out the appeals,” yelled Spencer. “Let’s get this rope party over!”

He turned to the spectators and said:

“I hope you people all enjoyed this trial, and got what you came for. I want you all to come and see me swing!”

The judge decreed that Spencer must hang on December 21st.

Defense counsel appealed to the Supreme Court, and there was a reprieve after Wheaton officials objected to a hanging during Christmas week.

Hanging was scheduled for January 22nd, but a new delay was granted for review of the evidence. Then the Supreme Court ruled that Spencer must die for his crime.

On July 31st, 1914, Spencer stood on the scaffold, a red flower pinned to his shirt. The white cap was fitted over his head and the noose adjusted.

He was dead a minute later, his body on the ground — a few miles from the place where he shot Mildred Allison Rexroat and placed her body on the railroad track.

From the late 1940s until about 1960, publicity-shy Bruno Fischerwas one of the most successful mystery writers in the field. Along with top-shelf talent like Jim Thompson, Lionel White, Day Keene, Harry Whittington, Gil Brewer, Charles Williams, James M. Cain, John D. McDonald, and David Goodis, Fischer’s books were a mainstay in the Fawcett Gold Medal paperback line, his stories a fixture in Manhunt , the finest of the postwar crime fiction digests. And he was good. Read More Deaths than One, Her Flesh Was Cold , or The Girl Between , and you’ll know what I mean. Today, one must search dusty shelves at secondhand bookstores and flea markets to find his books. But the effort is worth it. His lean, pared-down writing style, his somber, often-brutal observations about small-town America, and inventive storytelling techniques (check out his 1947 More Deaths than One , a novel presented through the eyes of seven people: six suspects and a detective) make for powerful reading indeed. This little lost gem is from earlier in his career. It is about a radio singer’s mysterious death — and the clues detectives pieced together to bring her unlikely killer to justice.

Dawn was trickling through the frosted bedroom windows when the persistent jangling of the telephone awoke Chief of Police Edward K. Herrick. His wife stirred, muttered, “Who can that be at this hour?” and snuggled deeper under the covers. Reluctantly Herrick left the warmth of his bed and groped his way drowsily downstairs to the telephone.