Daniel Stashower - The Dime Museum Murders

"Let us assume that the Graffs were killed by a single individual, as I have outlined. I wondered if these acts might suggest a pattern to you, if you perhaps recognized a certain-well-"

"Do I recognize the work," Stein said helpfully. "Isn't that what you're asking?"

"Yes. Yes, sir. This person would have to be clever enough to slip in and out of Mr. Wintour's locked study without leaving any trace, but also brutal enough to attack Mrs. Graff with such unwonted savagery."

"You say these toys are valuable?"

"They are not toys."

"Well, whatever they are. Worth a few bucks?"

"Indeed. But I do not think that is why Mr. Wintour was killed."

"I'd have to agree," Stein said. "Nobody I know would go to all that trouble for a bunch of-what was it you called them?"

"Automatons."

"Yes." He sent a cloud of smoke toward the low ceiling. "Here's my problem, Houdini. I can think of any number of punch-and-peel men who could have slipped into Wintour's study without too much trouble. And I know maybe a dozen knife artists who might have done the old lady and made it look like gang boys-if they had a reason to do it. The old man in the cell, I don't know from that. Maybe he killed himself, maybe he didn't. But you see my problem? You're asking me

if I recognize the work. If I were looking, I'd be looking for two guys. Not one."

Harry weighed this answer carefully. "In my profession," he said slowly, "one must be able to do many things. When I work in a dime museum, I am sometimes called upon to be a strong man, or a juggler, or a clown. Once I even ran a ghost show. A talented performer wears many hats."

The old man rubbed the stubble on his chin. The door opened behind us and a slight man wearing a black suit and a homburg slipped into the room. Stein did not acknowledge him. "In my business," Stein told us, "matters are different. You got a leaky pipe, you call a plumber. You got a broken door, you call a carpenter. Do you understand me?"

Harry nodded. "Two different men."

"Put it this way," he said. "Whoever killed Wintour had nothing to do with killing the old lady." He looked up at the man in the Homburg, then back at Harry. "You really think she got killed by a working man? You're sure it wasn't just gang boys?"

"I'm sure of it," Harry said.

Stein leaned back in his chair and swung his feet back onto the table. His eyes came to rest on me. "You don't say much, do you, Theodore?"

"Not a whole lot, no," I said.

"But you saw what went on in the toy shop?"

"Uh, yes, I did." I shuffled my feet, self-conscious at having been put on the spot.

"And who do you think killed her?" Stein grinned behind his cigar, enjoying my discomfiture.

I stopped shuffling and looked him straight in the eye, damned if I was going to let him stare me down. "I don't know who killed her," I said. "I don't know if it was a gang of street thugs, or someone trying to make it look like street thugs, and frankly I don't care. All I know is that she was a sweet old lady and she deserved better than to get slit up the belly like a brook trout. My brother and I are chasing all around town looking for someone who might know something. Maybe we'll find something, maybe we won't. Maybe we'll do some good, maybe not. It's better than sitting home with a book."

Harry was looking at me with an expression of interest and surprise, as though I'd just pulled a dripping octopus from a top hat, instead of the customary rabbit. Stein puffed his cigar and glanced again at Homburg man, who shook his head.

"So all you boys want to do is find who did this to the sweet old lady, is that it?"

"And her husband," said Harry.

"Mr. Stein," said Homburg man. "This is not-"

Stein held up a hand to silence him. "This thing," Stein said, "I don't like to see this sort of thing on my patch. It… doesn't look well. But I don't want to stir the pot too much. Someone might take offense. But I like you boys. I'm going to-"

Homburg man renewed his objections. Stein silenced him again with a look that could have melted iron.

"I don't know who killed your friends," Stein continued. "I'm not even sure I need to know. But I know who I'd ask about it, if I were you."

"That would be very helpful," Harry said.

Stein wrote a name and address down on a slip of paper. "This gentleman is a pretty cool bean. You want something from him, you got to have money or you got to have muscle. You two don't seem to me like the money type."

"No," Harry admitted.

Stein pushed it across the table at us. "There is one thing," he said.

"Yes?" Harry asked, reaching for the paper.

"Anyone finds out where you got this name, then you boys have got a problem with me."

"That won't happen," Harry said. "We are unusually good at keeping secrets."

"Huh," Stein snorted, still amused by my brother. "I just might have some work for you boys," he said. "I just might at that."

I looked at the cold, grinning face behind the soggy cigar. I hoped he was talking about magic lessons.

As I recall, the dream I was having found me strolling arm-in-arm along Sixth Avenue in the company of Miss Katherine Hendricks, who seemed to find me handsome and fascinating to a degree that surprised us both. We had just paused to admire the window displays at Simpson-Crawford when she turned to me with a coquettish giggle, squeezed my hand, and said, "Dash! Wake up!"

I pulled a pillow over my head. "Go away, Harry."

A hand-definitely not Miss Hendricks's-shook me by the shoulder. "Come on, Dash! The game's afoot!"

I threw the pillow aside and blocked my eyes against the light of Harry's bull's-eye lantern. "Haven't you been to bed yet, Harry? What time is it?"

"A little past midnight."

I fumbled for my Elgin on the table beside my bed. "It's three o'clock!"

"Is it? Well, that's all the better. Come on, get dressed! Mr. Cranston has finally returned!"

It seemed pointless to argue, since he would have stood there shaking my shoulder until morning anyway.

I swung my feet onto the floor and padded over to the wash basin, poured some cold water out of the jug, and splashed my face. Slowly, the events of the previous day came back into focus.

We had spent the evening lounging outside a brown-stone on Twenty-third Street, trying to look inconspicuous. The brownstone belonged to a Mr. Joshua Cranston, whose name and address had been on the slip of paper that Jake Stein had given us. For a time we idled on a wrought iron bench directly across the street, but after an hour or so we feared we would be taken for vagrants. We began strolling around the block, in the manner of two young swells seeking "healthful exercise" along a route that happened to bring them down the same street every three minutes. Soon enough we began to attract unwanted attention from the neighborhood doormen. We returned to the bench across the street, artfully concealing ourselves behind a late edition of the Herald.

Almost from the moment we left Jake Stein's presence-his goons, apparently satisfied by our vow of secrecy, had not insisted on blindfolds-I had debated with my brother over the wisdom of pursuing Joshua Cranston. I did not relish the idea of being beholden to a gangland figure, and I sensed that Stein was using us as pawns in some private agenda. Harry brushed aside my objections. "In this world," he told me, "the big thief condemns the little thief."

As night fell, and no lights came on inside the brown-stone, we began to suspect that no one was at home in the Cranston residence. We kept watch for two more hours, by which stage my complaints of hunger had reached a pitch that even Harry could not ignore. We agreed to withdraw for the night and resume our vigil in the morning.