Тэлмидж Пауэлл - The Corpse in the Crystal

With a grunting, heavy sigh, he turned his mind from his money problems to the maddening, crank note before him; the note that had arrived in his morning mail three hours ago.

Gregory Sloan had neither Frank Snow’s cold brutality nor Loren Cole’s blustering courage. Gregory Sloan found that the implications of that note had been growing in his mind since he’d first read it and tried to shrug it off. He found the note crowding everything else from his mind.

Mr. Sloan:

Though I have never had the pleasure of meeting you, I feel that I should warn you that my crystal, blessed by the lamas of Tibet, has foretold your death. You will die of poisoning before two o’clock this afternoon. Whether or not you eat or drink, it will make no difference. The crystal never lies!

Gregory Sloan grunted a curse. Poison — before another thirty minutes had passed, for it was now one-thirty. The devil take this fool Nostra! It was impossible, for Gregory Sloan had not been out of his office since he’d received that note. He did not intend to go out of it. Furthermore neither did he intend to touch anything that might conceivably contain poison. Death was one way out of his financial dilemma, but Gregory Sloan did not welcome that avenue of escape.

He crushed the note in his thick fingers. Few people, those few only the most trusted, even knew of the exact location of this office. Gregory Sloan was well hidden, quite alone, and he’d touched nothing that might poison him.

Yet even as the thought was going through his mind, he felt his stomach begin to burn. Eyes staring, he clutched the edge of his desk, hauled himself erect. It was exactly one-thirty. Even a slow-acting poison might do its work in the space of half an hour.

Gregory Sloan tried to cry out against the impossibility of it. It couldn’t happen — yet he fell to the floor, his body twisting, jerking in the sort of convulsion that came from the administration of strychnine...

So that’s the way things stood be-fore Abner Murder and I got our feet to the mess. We read the scare headlines, of course. As far as we could see the case would never concern us. Until the little pocket arrived from Frank Snow in the afternoon mail.

I was going through some old records while the chief sat at his battered desk, his baby-pink, Santa Glaus face lighted while he devoured cream puffs and read a magazine.

The lanky mailman came in, screwed up his eyes at Murder. The mailman had never quite reconciled himself to the fact that the dimpled, dumpy, mild, blue-eyed, little guy at the battered desk had a monicker like Murder. The mailman deposited a bundle of. mail on my desk. The first thing I noticed was the manila envelope with Frank Snow’s return address. The mailman closed the door behind him, and I picked up the envelope.

I was on the point of opening it, when the door opened again and two men came in. I knew them both by sight and police record. It only took one glance for me to reach around where my shoulder rig and thirty-eight were hanging on the back of my chair. They were that kind of lads. The short one was Rick Duvarti. The tall yegg was a bloody hophead named Burt Krile.

I didn’t get my gun. Krile had a flat automatic in his own fist. He slammed it across the back of my hand. Duvarti stood in the middle of the office, covering his pal with a wicked looking thirty-eight on a forty-five frame.

I sat very easy-like and the chief laid aside his magazine. “What is this, boys?”

“Just a sociable little call,” Duvarti said. “We been watching the mailman. He just came out of this office. We want something left here.”

Burt Krile’s eyes lighted as his gaze swept my desk. He matched the envelope with Frank Snow’s return address. “I got it, Duvarti,” Krile said with a nasty laugh that came from the bottom of his beanpole frame. Krile crammed the envelope in his coat pocket.

I knew Abner Murder would suddenly trade his eye teeth for a look at the contents of that envelope. He said, “That’s a Federal offense, Krile.”

Duvarti, short, squat, chuckled. “You wouldn’t go yelling for the Feds, would you, Murder? Later on, it might go hard with you and this Luke Jordan ape.”

I don’t like being called an ape. But there was nothing I could do about it. With another short laugh, Krile struck with his automatic like a viper. I tried to duck, but he was fast. Duvarti, I saw out of the corner of my eye, looked awful unsteady on the trigger.

My head exploded against the fiat of Krile’s gun. I felt myself falling, saw in a haze the chief trying to get to the gun in his desk drawer. Duvarti said something in a nasty tone. Krile moved fast. His automatic lashed again, right on the crown of Murder’s sandy head. Then I quietly went to sleep.

I blinked my eyes open with the chief slapping my cheeks. I sat up; the chief said, “As the strongarm half of this detective agency, Jordan, you’re a bust.”

“Nuts,” I said. “I didn’t notice you thinking your way out.” I got to my feet, nursed my head with my hand. “What did our playmates take?”

“Nothing,” Murder said, “but the letter. They conked as to give them plenty of time to make a getaway, not to have time to search the office. Finish the mail, Luke, something tells me this climate is unhealthy for two boys named Duvarti and Krile.”

He checked his gun while I ripped through a few letters. Then I handed him a square sheet of paper. I watched his face while he read:

Mr. Murder,

I have seen death in the crystal. Your death. Though it is the middle of August and the thermometer at the moment stands at ninety-nine degrees, the crystal states that you will freeze to death before noon tomorrow! The crystal never lies!

Nostra, Possessor of the Crystal

Murder folded the paper very neatly in his pudgy fingers. “It looks,” he said, “like we’re into something!”

Tim Brogardus was a headquarters dick with more brawn and vociferous lung power than brains. He motioned us to chairs when Murder and I entered his office. Tim had a harried expression on his face, a pile of filing folders on his desk, along with an afternoon paper. He was speaking into the interoffice phone with obvious control.

“Sure, Chief. Of course I’m doing everything I can! You’ve had a call from the mayor, and scared citizens are flooding the switchboard? Yes, sir! Of course — just give me a little time!” He slammed the phone down and passed hi# hand over his brow.

“I see,” Murder said, “that the crystal-gazing Nostra has upset our fair city.”

“That ain’t the word for it,” Brogardus said. “The whole damn town is afraid to go to sleep or sit down in an empty room. Those reporters—” He gritted his teeth audibly, looking at the headlines on the desk before him.

Tim’s jaw dropped as Murder shoved the little square of paper he’d received from Nostra on Tim’s desk. Tim read the note three times. “So you’re going to freeze to death in the middle of August!”

“That’s what the man says,” Murder said. “So if you’ve learned anything about this Nostra, or located him—”

“Located him!” Brogardus howled. “Listen. The guy is back in a cell right now! He walked up to a cop last night and said he wanted to be arrested. The cop laughed it off, told the guy to be on his way. Then this Nostra hauls off and slugs the cop and we tow him in.”

“So he’s been in jail since last night?”

“That’s right,” Tim nodded. “You know what I think? I think he’s trying to alibi himself.”

I expected a cutting bit of sarcasm from Murder at this obvious revelation to which Tim had struggled. But the chief had left his humor back in the office. He said, “Can I see this Nostra?”