Fredric Brown - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 6. Whole No. 211, June 1961

The great wave of scarlet receded a trifle from Gill’s face, leaving it almost gaunt.

“Yes, sir.”

“Carry on, Mastermind.” Dane leaned back smugly. “I daresay there’s more to this Sherlock Holmes business than just that?”

“Y-yes, sir. The table was laid for a left-handed man. Just for confirmation I looked at the dead man’s trouser pockets — the edge of the right one was worn more than the left, which meant he was a right-handed man.” Gill swallowed; the evidence still seemed terribly unconvincing. “Farrar coshed the other chap and killed him, and then set the table for his alibi — you’ll have noticed Farrar is left-handed?”

“H’m. Well, I have to admit that our prisoner told me the dead man is Farrar, the real Farrar.”

Gill cheered up at the faint softening in Dane’s voice.

“I didn’t know that, sir. Well, as I saw it, he arranged the corpse to fit his story in case anything went wrong, which it did — meaning his meeting me on the doorstep.”

“I see.” Dane looked Gill slowly up and down. “Sheer gambling from beginning to end, and you’re damned lucky, Constable. Bankan, as we should call him, was after the diamond. He was slightly acquainted with the real Farrar — oh, you can guess the plot.”

“Yes, sir.” Gill’s face was red again. “There was something else, too, sir.”

“Indeed? I seem to be learning things. And what else was there?”

“The little dog — Bankan made a fuss over it while I was telephoning. It was a friendly little dog, sir, and he pretended it was his to keep up the illusion of being the true householder.”

“You seem to make the oddest deductions, Constable.”

“Yes, sir. The way he behaved, it was all so very natural that I never had any doubts that he was Farrar — and yet…"

Dane was growing bored. “Have you another stunning revelation up your sleeve?”

“Not — not exactly, sir. I talked to the little dog on the way back to my beat. That’s when I decided I ought to do something, you being too busy for my silly ideas, sir.”

“You’ve exceeded your duties, but perhaps I merit the reprimand. I’ll speak for you, though you don’t deserve it.” Dane’s voice was not unkind because he was a reasonably fair-minded man, but he could not hide an edge of sarcasm as he added, “And what did the dog have to say?”

“Oh, it didn’t speak, sir. But Bankan said, ‘Down, old boy, down’ when I was telephoning. It was a little female dog, you see, sir. .”

The station Inspector could hold it no longer. His stifled chuckle became outright laughter.

Hot water is two things, in slang it means getting into trouble; in geography it means a gambling joint just across the California state-line in Mexico. Agua Caliente means hot water in Spanish. It means both kinds to yours truly, after what happened that time. I never want to hear the name again.

Ten o’clock Friday night, and all is quiet in Fay North’s forty rooms and swimming pool, out in Beverly Hills. Fay has just finished a picture that afternoon and has said something about going to bed early and sleeping until next Tuesday. I have been all around, upstairs and down, seeing that the doors and windows are all locked and that the electric burglar alarm is in working order, and I am in my own room just off the main entrance, peeling to pajamas and ready to pound the ear, when there is a knock at my door. It is the butler.

“Miss North has changed her mind,” he announces; “she is spending the week end at Agua Caliente. Please be ready in ten minutes.”

I am not asked to go, you notice, I am told I am going. That is part of my job. Miss North parts with n generous helping of her salary each week, in my direction, and it is up to me to stick close and see that no bodily harm comes to her.

It really isn’t an unpleasant job for this reason: on the screen Miss North has become famous for playing tough, rowdy characters, but in real life she isn’t like that at all. She doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and never goes to parties or even night clubs; so all I really have to do is ride back and forth to work with her and shoo salesmen and newspaper guys away from the door.

But she has one great weakness: she is crazy for gambling. She never wins, but that doesn’t seem to stop her. I feel sorry for her, but it is her money and none of my business what she does with it.

Anyway, she has stayed away from Agua for some time now, after dropping so much there the last time; so she is entitled to blow off steam, I guess, after working so hard. I shake my head about all the good sleep I’m going to miss, but I sling on my shoulder-holster, pack a couple of clean shirts, and go out and wait for her in the car without saying a word. A plane would get us there quicker, but that is another thing about Fay: she won’t get in one, so it means we have to drive all night to be there when the border opens at nine.

Well, she comes out of the house in about five or ten minutes and it seems just the three of us are going — her, me and the driver. For once she is giving Timothy the slip. He is her manager and a very good one, too, but he raised Cain about her losses the last time he was down there with her, and I guess she doesn’t want him around to rub it in. He doesn’t like the place anyway, doesn’t think it’s safe for her to go down there carrying so much money. She has brought several big bags with her, enough to stay for a month, but I guess that is because she is a woman and you have to dress up down there. She gets in back and away we go.

“Well, Shad,” she says, “I guess you could kill me for this.”

“No, ma’m,” I say, “you haven’t had a day off in quite some stretch.”

Shad isn’t my name, but she calls me that because when I was new on the job she got the habit of speaking about me as her Shadow.

“Timothy doesn’t need to find out,” she says. “We’ll be back by Monday morning, and if he calls up tomorrow I told the butler to say I have a bad headache and can’t come to the phone.”

It doesn’t sound to me like that is very wise; Timothy might come over twice as quick if he thinks anything is the matter with her, on account of she is such an important investment; but she doesn’t ask for my opinion, so I keep it to myself.

Then she says, “This time I can’t lose! I’ll show him when I come back whether I’m jinxed or not, like he always says. I’ll make up all my losses, because I know now just what to do. I consulted an astrologer in my dressing-room during lunch today, and she gave me a grand tip. I’m dying to see if it’ll work or not.”

First-off I figure she means just another new system; every time we go down there she has a new system, none of which ever works; but later I’m to find out it isn’t that at all.

The funny part of it is that with me it’s just the other way around: I don’t give a rap about betting or games of chance — in fact, don’t believe in it at all; but I never yet chucked down four bits or a dollar on any kind of a table at all without it collected everyone else’s dough like flypaper and swept the board clean. So then I always picked the nearest sucker with a long face and made him a present of the whole wad — minus the original buck, of course — and he went right back and lost it. The wages I get from Miss North are enough for me; I’m no hog.

Well, we drive all night, pass through San Diego about seven in the morning, and roll up to the bridge across the Mexican border just as they’re getting ready to open it for the day. Miss North only has to show her face and we clear it, only as usual one of the guardsmen can’t resist hollering after us, “Drop around, don’t be bashful!” which is the catch-phrase from one of her pictures. She’s so used to hearing it she just smiles.