Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

By force of habit, he called the Telegraph Bureau first, to get the alarm out for the dark-haired youth. The description was complete now. Teccard was good at estimating weight, height, age. Long experience in the Criminal Identification Bureau made him remember points that the average policeman wouldn’t have noticed. “His ears are funny. Kind of pointed, at the top of the helix. He brushes his hair to cover them as much as he can. And his chin looks as if somebody had started to drive a wedge into it. And don’t forget, this man is sure to be armed and dangerous.”

Then he called Captain Meyer, repeated the description.

“Send a car around to check every man on beat, will you, Cap? Odds are good he hangs out in this parish somewhere. Have ’em keep an eye out for Sergeant Dixon, she’ll be with him.”

He had half expected to find a report from her, waiting for him when he called his office. He was wrong about that. The office didn’t have much — there hadn’t been any prints on the cellophane, too many on the knobs and furniture in the Eighty-eighth Street room. They hadn’t been able to find any of record, though.

Talking with the Telegraph Bureau had given him an idea. He called Western Union, located the night traffic manager. “There was a bunch of flowers wired from this city to Miss Marion Yulett in Algers, upstate, sometime this a.m. Chances are, they went through Floral Telegraph Delivery. Find out what shop put in the order, will you? Buzz me back.”

He fumed and stewed in the drugstore phone booth for what seemed like an hour. When he passed the clock over the soda fountain, on his way out, he found it had been seven minutes.

The address the telegraph company had given him was only a few blocks away. He didn’t bother with a cab, but went on the run. Over to Second, up to Eighty-seventh. There it was, next to the undertaker’s place in the middle of the block.

Potted ivy and cactus in the window, flanked by lilies and dried grasses in tin vases — inside, a glass-front icebox with cut flowers, roses and carnations.

Carnations! Now he knew why that fragrance in the closet had reminded him of church, there had always been a big bunch of white carnations in front of the pulpit, when he was a kid. “Willard” must have had a carnation in the buttonhole of the coat he hung up in the closet...

A girl stood talking to the shirt-sleeved man behind the counter. As Teccard walked in she was saying: “You’ll send those wreaths over to the sexton right away? He’s waiting for them.”

The florist nodded impatiently. “I’ll get ’em right over, right away.” He turned inquiringly toward the lieutenant. “What can I do for you, sir?”

Teccard drew a deep breath. This was the man in the snapshot! Round face, goatee, receding hair! “You can tell me who ordered some lilies of the valley wired to a lady up in Algers, New York.”

“Was there some complaint?” asked the florist.

“Just checking up on the person who sent them. I’m from the police department.”

The girl paused, on her way out, to stare at him out of stolid blue eyes set deep in a square, pleasant face.

“Police! What’s the matter the police should come around?” The man waved his arms, excitedly.

Teccard said softly: “You have a duplicate record of your F.T.D. orders. Let’s see it.”

The florist ran stubby fingers through his hair, dug a flat, yellow book out of the debris on a bookkeeping desk. He ruffled the pages. “It ain’t against the law, sending flowers like this!”

The carbon copy of the wired order wasn’t helpful. All it indicated was that Peter Forst had paid two dollars and fifty cents to have a corsage delivered to Miss Marion Yulett at Algers.

“Who took the order?”

“Nobody. The envelope was under the door when I’m opening the shop this morning. With the cash. What’s the matter, eh?”

Teccard’s hand clamped on the other’s wrist. “ You sent those posies yourself, Mr. Forst.”

“Forst! What’s it, Forst?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “I’m George Agousti, I run this business, no nonsense. I pay taxes.”

The lieutenant’s grip remained firm. “Then someone’s been framing you, Agousti.”

“Framing me? For what!”

“Murder.” Teccard spoke quietly.

Agousti recoiled as from a blow. “It’s terrible mistake you making. So much as a single flea, I ain’t ever hurt.”

“You don’t know this Peter Forst?”

“The first time I ever hear his name, so help me!”

“What about Harold Willard? Heard of him?”

The florist shook his head.

“You don’t feel like talking, do you? Maybe you’d feel more like it if you came down to headquarters with me.”

Agousti shrugged. “I’m telling you. There ain’t nothing on my conscience. I ain’t afraid to go anywhere you like.”

Teccard made one more try. He described the man Helen had gone with.

“Know him?”

Recognition crept into the florist’s eyes. “I ain’t dead sure. But from how you putting it, this one might be Stefan.”

“Who’s Stefan?”

“Stefan Kalvak. He’s no good, a low life, sure.”

“Yair, yair. Who is he? What’s he do? Where’s he live?”

“He’s Miss Kalvak’s brother, she really owns this shop. I run it for her. She’s O.K., fine. But Stefan’s a bum, a stinker. Always stealing dough out the cash register when I don’t watch. Or getting girls into trouble, you know.”

“He’s done his best to get you in trouble. He sent your picture to this girl up in Algers — so she’d come to New York to get married.”

“Holy Mother!”

“Where’s he live?”

“You got me. His sister threw him out of her apartment. But you could phone her—”

A freckle-faced boy burst into the shop. “My pa sent me for the ivy for ma’s birthday, Mr. Agousti.”

“All right, Billy. Excuse me, one second.” The florist whisked out of sight, back of the showcase.

The boy jingled seventy-five cents on the counter, an elevated roared overhead — and Teccard began to sweat, thinking of Helen Dixon and Stefan Kalvak.

The youngster called. “Pa says you needn’t bother to wrap it up, Mr. Agousti.”

There was no answer from the rear of the shop, though the sound of the elevated had died away.

Teccard stepped quickly around the glass case.

Agousti was leaning, face down, over a wooden bench — his head under the spreading fronds of a potted palm. There was a dark puddle on the boards of the bench, it widened slowly as drops splashed into it from the gash in the florist’s neck.

A sharp-bladed knife that had evidently been used to cut flower stems lay with its point in the glistening disk of crimson. There was blood on Agousti’s right hand, too. Teccard lifted the limp wrist, saw the slash across the base of the fingers.

That settled it! A man didn’t cut his hand that way, when he slashed his own throat! The florist had been attacked from behind, while he was putting the ivy in a flowerpot. He had tried to block off the blade that was severing his jugular — and had failed.

Not five feet from the dead man’s back was a rear delivery door, with a wire screen nailed over the glass. The door was closed, but not locked.

Teccard tore a piece of green, glazed paper from the roll fixed to the end of the bench, wrapped it around the knob and twisted it. Then he opened the door.

A narrow alley ran behind the two-story building. It was floored with cement. There wouldn’t be any footprints on it — and there wasn’t anyone in sight.

He came inside, shut the door. He stuck his nailfile through the oval handle of the key, turned it until the bolt shot home.