Fredric Brown - The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders

"No, we can't. Walter Perry wrote it and mailed it to his uncle. We traced the typewriter he used and the stationery. And he admits writing it."

"Dear me," declared Mr. Smith earnestly. "Does he say why?"

"He does, but it's screwy. Look, you want to see him anyway, so why don't you get his story from him?"

"An excellent idea, Sheriff. And thank you very much."

"It's all right. I thought maybe thinking out loud would give me some idea how it was done, but it ain't. Oh, well. Look, tell Mike at the jail I said you could talk to Walter. If Mike don't take your word for it, have him phone me here. I'll be around for a while."

Near the open skylight, Mr. Henry Smith paused to take a last look at the surrounding country. He saw a tall, thin man wearing denim coveralls ride out into the field from the far side of the barn.

"Is that Merkle, the trainer?" he asked. "Yep," said the sheriff. "He exercises those horses like they was his own kids. A good guy, if you don't criticize his horses--don't try that."

"I won't," said Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith took a last lingering look around, then went down the ladder and the stairs and got back into his car. He drove slowly and thoughtfully to the county seat.

Mike, at the jail, took Mr. Smith's word that Sheriff Osburne had given permission for him to talk to Walter Perry.

Walter Perry was a slight, grave young man who wore horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses. He smiled rue-fully at Mr. Smith. He said, "It was about renewing my policy that you wanted to see me, wasn't it? But you won't want to now, of course, and I don't blame you."

Mr. Smith studied him a moment. He asked, "You didn't ... ah ... kill your uncle, did you?"

"Of course not."

"Then," Mr. Smith told him, "just sign here." He pro-duced a form from his pocket and unscrewed the top of his fountain pen. The young man signed, and Mr. Smith folded the paper carefully and put it back in his pocket.

"But I wonder, Mr. Perry," said Mr. Smith, "if you would mind telling me just why you ... ah--Sheriff Osburne tells me that you admit sending a letter threatening your uncle's life. Is that right?"

Walter Perry sighed. He said, "Yes, I did."

"But wasn't that a very foolish thing to do? I take it you never intended to carry out the threat."

"No, I didn't. Of course it was foolish. It was crazy. I should have seen that it would never work. Not with my uncle." He sighed again and sat down on the edge of the cot in his cell. "My uncle was a crook, but I guess he wasn't a coward. I don't know whether that's to his credit or not. Now that he's dead, I hate to--"

Mr. Smith nodded sympathetically. He said, "Your uncle had, I understand, cheated a great many song writers out of royalties from their creations. You thought you might frighten him into making restitution to the ones he had cheated?"

Walter Perry nodded. "It was silly. One of those crazy ideas one gets. It was because he got well."

"Got well! I'm afraid I don't--"

"I'd better tell you from the beginning, Mr. Smith. It was two years ago, about the time I graduated from col-lege--I worked my way through; my uncle didn't foot the bill--that I first learned what kind of an outfit Whistler and Company was. I happened to meet some former friends of my uncle--old-time vaudeville people who had been on the circuits with him. They were plenty bitter. So I started investigating, and found out about all the law-suits he'd had to fight, and--well, I was convinced.

"I was his only living relative, and I knew I was his heir, but if his money was crooked money--well, I didn't want it. He and I had a quarrel and he disinherited me, and that was that. Until a year ago, I learned--"

He stopped, staring at the barred door of the cell. "You learned what?" Mr. Smith prompted.

"I learned, accidentally, that my uncle had some kind of cardiac trouble and didn't have long to live, according to the doctor. Probably less than a year. And--well, it's probably hard for anybody to believe that my motives were good, but I decided that under those circumstances I was missing a chance to help the people my uncle had cheated--that if I was still his heir, I could make restitu-tion after his death of the money he had stolen from them. You see?"

Walter Perry looked up at the little insurance agent from his seat on the cot, and Mr. Smith studied the young man's face, then nodded.

"So you effected a reconciliation?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Smith. It was hypocritical, in one way, but I thought it would enable me to square off those crimes. I didn't want his money, any of it. But I was sorry for all those poor people he'd cheated and--well, I made myself be hypocritical for their sake."

"You know any of them personally?"

"Not all, but I knew I could find most of the ones I didn't know through the records of the old lawsuits. The ones I met first were an old vaudeville team by the name of Wade and Wheeler. I met a few others through them, and looked up a few others. Most of them hated him like poison, and I can't say I blame them."

Mr. Smith nodded sympathetically. He said, "But the threatening letter. Where does that fit in?"

"About a week ago, I learned that his heart trouble was much better. They'd discovered a new treatment with one of the new drugs, and while he'd never be in perfect health, there was every chance he had another twenty years or so to live--he was only forty-eight. And, well, that changed things."

The young man laughed ruefully. He went on, "I didn't know if I could stand up under the strain of my hypocrisy for that long, and anyway, it didn't look as though restitu-tion would come in time to do any good to a lot of the people he owed money to. Wade and Wheeler, for in-stance, were older than my uncle, a few years. He could easily outlive them, and some of the others. You see?"

"So you decided to write a letter threatening his life, pretending to come from one of the people he'd cheated, thinking it might scare him into giving them their money now?"

"Decided," said Walter Perry, "is hardly the word. If I'd thought about it, I'd have realized how foolish it was to hope that it would do any good. He just hired detectives. And then he was murdered, and here I am in a beautiful jam. Since he knows I wrote that letter, I don't blame Osburne for thinking I must have killed him, too."

Mr. Smith chuckled. He told him, "Fortunately for you, the sheriff can't figure out how anybody could have killed him. Ah... did anyone know about your hoax, the threaten-ing letter? That is, of course, before the sheriff traced it to you and you admitted writing and sending it?"

"Why, yes. I was so disappointed in my uncle's reaction to receiving it that I mentioned it to Mr. Wade and Mr. Wheeler, and to a few of the others my uncle owed royal-ties to. I hoped they could suggest some other idea that might work better. But they couldn't."

"Wade and Wheeler--they live in the city?" "Yes, they're out of vaudeville now, of course. They get by doing bit parts on television."

"Um-m-m," said Mr. Smith. "Well, thank you for signing the renewal on your policy. And when you are out of here, I'd like to see you again to discuss the possibility of your taking an additional policy. You are planning to be mar-ried, you mentioned yesterday?"

"I was, yesterday," replied Walter Perry. "I guess I still am, unless Osburne pins a murder on me. Yes, Mr. Smith, I'll be glad to discuss another policy, if I get out of this mess."

Mr. Smith smiled. He said, "Then it seems even more definitely to the interest of the Phalanx Insurance Company to see that you are free as soon as possible. I think I shall return and talk to the sheriff again."

Mr. Henry Smith drove back to the Perry house even more slowly and thoughtfully than he had driven away from it. He didn't drive quite all the way. He parked his ancient vehicle almost a quarter of a mile away, at the point where the road curved around the copse of trees that gave the nearest cover.