Rudolph Fisher - The Conjure-Man Dies - A Harlem Mystery

The voice of a man struck suddenly blind could not have been imbued with greater horror. So swift and definite was the transition that the alarmed Jinx could only grip the arms of his chair and stare hard. And despite the glaring beam, he saw a change in the figure beyond the table. That part of the shadow that had corresponded to the head seemed now to be but half its original size.

In a sudden frenzy of terror, Jinx jumped up and reached for the hanging light. Quickly he swung it around and tilted it so that the luminous shaft fell on the seated figure. What he saw was a bare black head, inclined limply sidewise, the mouth open, the eyes fixed, staring from under drooping lids.

He released the light, wheeled, and fled back to summon Bubber.

All this Jinx rehearsed in detail, making clear by implication or paraphrase those ideas whose original wording he was otherwise unable to describe or pronounce. The doctor emitted a low whistle of amazement; the detective, incredulous, said:

‘Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You mean to say that Frimbo actually talked to you, as you have related?’

‘’Deed he did.’

‘You’re sure that it was Frimbo talking to you?’

‘Jest as sure as I am that you’re talkin’ to me now. He was right where you is.’

‘And when he tried to prophesy what would happen to you a few days hence, he couldn’t?’

‘Look like sump’m come over him all of a sudden—claim he couldn’t see. And when he seen he couldn’t see, he got scared-like and hollered out jes’ like I said: “Frimbo—why don’t you see?”’

‘Then you say you tried to see him, and it looked as though his head had shrunken?’

‘Yes, suh.’

‘Evidently his head-piece had fallen off.’

‘His which?’

‘Did you hear any sound just before this—like a blow?’

‘Nope. Didn’t hear nothin’ but his voice. And it didn’t stop like it would if he’d been hit. It jes’ stopped like it would if he’d been tellin’ ’bout sump’m he’d been lookin’ at and then couldn’t see no more. Only it scared him sump’m terrible not to be able to see it. Maybe he scared himself to death.’

‘Hm. Yea, maybe he even scared up that wound on his head.’

‘Well, maybe me and Bubber did that.’

‘How?’

‘Carryin’ him downstairs. We was in an awful hurry. His head might ’a’ hit sump’m on the way down.’

‘But,’ said Dart, and Jinx couldn’t know this was baiting, ‘if he was dead, that wound wouldn’t have bled, even as little as it did.’

‘Maybe,’ Jinx insisted, ‘it stopped because he died jes’ about that time—on the way down.’

‘You seem very anxious to account for his death, Jenkins.’

‘Humph,’ Jinx grunted. ‘You act kind o’ anxious yourself, seems like to me.’

‘Yes. But there is this difference. By your own word, you were present and the only person present when Frimbo died. I was half a mile away.’

‘So what?’

‘So that, while I’m as anxious as you are to account for this man’s death, I am anxious for perhaps quite a different reason. For instance, I could not possibly be trying to prove my own innocence by insisting he died a natural death.’

Jinx’s memory was better than Bubber’s.

‘I ain’t heard nobody say for sho’ he was killed yet,’ said he.

‘No? Well then, listen. We know that this man was murdered. We know that he was killed deliberately by somebody who meant to do a good job—and succeeded.’

‘And you reckon I done it?’ There was no surprise in Jinx’s voice, for he had long had the possibility in mind.

‘I reckon nothing. I simply try to get the facts. When enough facts are gathered, they’ll do all the reckoning necessary. One way of getting the facts is from the testimony of people who know the facts. The trouble with that is that anybody who knows the facts might have reasons for lying. I have to weed out the lies. I’m telling you this to show you that if you are innocent, you can best defend yourself by telling the truth, no matter how bad it looks.’

‘What you think I been doin’?’

‘You’ve been telling a queer story, part of which we know to be absolutely impossible—unless—’ The detective entertained a new consideration. ‘Listen. What time did you come into this room—as nearly as you can judge?’

‘Musta been ’bout—’bout five minutes to eleven.’

‘How long did Frimbo talk to you?’

‘’Bout five or six minutes I guess.’

‘That would be eleven o’clock. Then you got Bubber. Dr Archer, what time were you called?’

‘Three minutes past eleven—according to the clock on my radio.’

‘Not a lot of time—three minutes—Bubber took three minutes to get you and get back. During those three minutes Jenkins was alone with the dead man.’

‘Not me,’ denied Jinx. ‘I was out there in the hall right at the head o’ the stairs where the doc found me—wonderin’ what the hell was keepin’ ’em so long.’ This was so convincingly ingenuous that the physician agreed with a smile. ‘He was certainly there when I got here.’

‘During those few minutes, Jenkins, when you were here alone, did you see or hear anything peculiar?’

‘No, ’ndeed. The silence liked to drown me.’

‘And when you came back in this room with the doctor, was everything just as you left it?’

‘Far as I could see.’

‘M-m. Listen, doc. Did you leave the body at all from the time you first saw it until I got here?’

‘No. Not even to phone the precinct—I had the two men do it.’

‘Funny,’ Dart muttered. ‘Damn funny.’ For a moment he meditated the irreconcilable points in Jinx’s story—the immobility of Frimbo’s figure, from which nevertheless the turban had fallen, the absence of any sound of an attack, yet a sudden change in Frimbo’s speech and manner just before he was discovered dead; the remoteness of any opportunity—except for Jinx himself—to reach the prostrate victim, cram that handkerchief in place, and depart during the three minutes when Jinx claimed to be in the hall, without noticeably disturbing the body; and the utter impossibility of any man’s talking, dead or alive, when his throat was plugged with that rag which the detective’s own eyes had seen removed. Clearly Jenkins was either mistaken in some of the statements he made so positively or else he was lying. If he was lying he was doing so to protect himself, directly or indirectly. In other words, if he was lying, either he knew who committed the crime or he had committed it himself. Only further evidence could indicate the true and the false in this curious chronicle.

And so Dart said, rather casually, as if he were asking a favour, ‘Have you a handkerchief about you, Mr Jenkins?’

‘’Tain’t what you’d call strictly clean,’ Jinx obligingly reached into his right-hand coat pocket, ‘but—’ He stopped. His left hand went into his left coat pocket. Both hands came out and delved into their respective trousers pockets. ‘Guess I must ’a’ dropped it,’ he said. ‘I had one.’

‘You’re sure you had one?’

‘M’hm. Had it when I come here.’

‘When you came into this room?’

‘No. When I first went in the front room. I was a little nervous-like. I wiped my face with it. I think I put it—’

‘Is that the last time you recall having it—when you first went into the front room?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Can you describe it?’

Perhaps this odd insistence on anything so unimportant as a handkerchief put Jinx on his guard. At any rate he dodged.

‘What difference it make?’

‘Can you describe it?’

‘No.’