A. Fair - The Bigger They Come

‘Make it two-thirds,’ I said, ‘if you’re going in for fractions.’

‘All right. Call it two-thirds. Hell, I don’t care. Call it a hundred per cent. She’s in a jam. You’re going to try and save her. Now don’t get excited. Keep your shirt on, and look at the facts. She lied to you about the shooting.’

I said, ‘I’m not certain that she did.’

‘No,’ Mrs. Cool observed dryly, ‘you wouldn’t be.’

There was another interval of silence.

‘You had some plan?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

She said, ‘We’ll pin the killing on Bleatie.’

‘Not so hot,’ I objected. ‘We’ve just established that there isn’t any Bleatie.’

‘That makes it swell,’ she said. ‘It gives the police a hard nut to crack. The way the thing stands now, there were two persons — Bleatie and Morgan Birks. We are the only outsiders who know Morgan Birks and Bleatie were the same people. Morgan Birks is dead. Therefore Bleatie is dead too. No one knows Bleatie is dead. They can’t ever prove it because they can’t ever find his body. We pin everything on Bleatie — if she pays us enough.

‘Now, you walk in there and spill what you know, and everyone says, “That’s right. Clever of the boy, but we were right on the verge of reasoning it out ourselves. Another half hour and we’d have had it.’ But we go in there and start asking where Bleatie is, and pretty quick some damn flatfoot gets the idea Bleatie’s guilty of murder. Play it that way and you’ve got something.’

‘But how could any flatfoot figure Bleatie’d killed anyone when Alma Hunter admits she raised the gun and pulled the trigger?’

‘That’s where our ingenuity comes in,’ she said. ‘If Sandra wants us to clear Alma Hunter of the charge, and I think she does, and pays enough for it, and I hope she will, we drag Bleatie into it by the ears. Alma Hunter was hysterical. She was excited. She doesn’t know what happened. She heard a shot, and she thought it came from the gun she was holding in her hand. Really it didn’t. It was fired by Bleatie, who was in the room.’

‘What was he doing in her room?’ I asked.

‘Looking at her etchings.’

‘And Alma didn’t know he was there?’

‘No.’

‘And Alma didn’t shoot at all?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘But suppose it’s her gun that’s on the floor?’

‘No, it wasn’t her gun. She screamed, dropped her gun and ran. Bleatie picked up her gun, left the gun with which the killing had been done, and walked out into the night.’

‘That,’ I said, ‘is a pretty tall order.’

‘We can make it sound plausible.’

‘I don’t think I like your way,’ I said. ‘I think I like mine. What’s more, the police won’t like yours.’

‘The police have hands, ears, eyes, legs, noses, and mouths just the same as we do. They can gather the facts and draw conclusions just the same as we can. It isn’t up to us to prove that girl innocent. It’s up to the police to show that she’s guilty. If we can account for the circumstances by some other explanation which doesn’t leave any loose threads dangling, that’s all we need to offer to a jury. That’s the law.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s not an exact statement of the law, but it’s close enough.’

‘Now then,’ she demanded, ‘Do you want to get Alma Hunter out of this or not?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right then. Keep your mouth shut, and let Auntie Bertha do the talking.’

The cab pulled up in front of Sandra’s apartment house. A police guard was stationed in the lobby. Apparently the few early morning stragglers had no inkling of what had happened. There was no outward indication of a homicide.

Bertha Cool paid off the cab and barged up the apartment house. The officer said, ‘Just a moment. Do you live here?’

‘No.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To call on Sandra Birks.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Bertha Cool, head of the Cool Detective Agency. This is one of my operatives.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To see Sandra Birks.’

‘What do you want to see her about?’

‘I don’t know. She wants to see me. What’s the matter? Is she under arrest?’

‘No, not under arrest.’

‘It’s her apartment, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, go on up,’ he said.

‘Thanks. I intend to,’ Mrs. Cool announced.

I tried to be polite about the door, but she beat me to it, grabbed the knob and flung the heavy door back as though it had been made of cardboard. She strode on in, and I came along in her wake. We took the elevator to the fourth floor. Sandra Birks flung open the door as I tapped gently on the panels.

‘It took you long enough to get here.’

Bertha Cool said, ‘We didn’t want to run into the police.’

‘There’s a guard downstairs.’

‘I know.’

‘Did he try to stop you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you get by?’

‘Walked by.’

‘You told him you were a detective?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would he let anyone in who wasn’t a detective?’

‘How the hell do I know, dearie? He’s a cop. You can’t tell what a cop will do.’

Sandra bit her lip and frowned. ‘I’m expecting a young man — a friend of ours — I wonder if they’ll take him into custody—’

‘Better call him up and head him off,’ I said.

‘I think they have my line tapped. I think they’re leaving me here as bait for a trap.’

‘What sort of a trap?’

‘I don’t know.’

Bertha Cool said, ‘Let’s take a look in the bedroom, then we’ll j talk.’

Sandra Birks opened the bedroom door. A chalked outline on the carpet showed where the body had lain. A section had been sawed from the door, a small square piece cut out of the wood.

‘What’s that?’ Bertha Cool wanted to know. ‘Where the bullet was embedded?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are they sure the bullet came from that gun?’

‘That’s what they’re going to find out.’

Bertha Cool said, ‘Where did she get the gun?’

‘That’s what I can’t understand. I’m absolutely certain she didn’t have one yesterday morning.’

Bertha Cool looked at me. Her eyes were steady, thoughtful, and filled with rebuke.

‘Where’s your brother?’ she asked.

Sandra Birks shifted her eyes. ‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

‘Where was he when the shooting occurred?’

‘In his room, I guess. He was supposed to be there.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Had his bed been slept in?’

‘No, he evidently hadn’t retired.’

‘Rather late for him to be up, wasn’t it?’ Mrs. Cool asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Sandra said, with a flare of temper. ‘I was out myself. Of course, if I’d known my husband was going to be shot, I might have planned the evening differently. But no one told me; therefore, I didn’t sit by my brother’s bedside to see what time he retired or what his plans were.’

‘Anything else?’ Mrs. Cool asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is there anything else you want to say?’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ Bertha Cool said calmly, ‘it’s costing you money to talk to me. If you want to spend your money trying to stand between your brother and the consequences of his act, it’s all right with me. I’ll listen as long as you want to talk, dearie.’

Sandra had been talking with that swift, vehement articulation which a woman of her type uses when she’s putting on a counter offensive, trying to cover something up. Now her eyes showed puzzled surprise. ‘What do you mean, standing between him and the consequences of his act?’