The Collection (109 page)

"Cap," McCracken asked, "could that have any
connection with this case, maybe?"

"No. Simple theft case, and the guy's up now, doing
three years. He was a stranger to the rest of the mob there, anyway."

McCracken glanced at Perley for confirmation, and got it.

"None of us knew him well," the whistler said.
"He wasn't an artist like the rest of us. He painted pictures."

McCracken closed his eyes for a second, then opened them
and asked the bird imitator:

"What do you know about Jim Lee's affairs? I've heard
he was broke, or nearly so. If you're
a.
friend of his, you ought to
know about that."

"I do, Mr. McCracken. He was hard up, that is, for
him. He ran a lot of bookie places, you know, or rather he backed them. Then
the syndicate--the Garvey-Cantoni group that runs the numbers game--moved in
and took them over. He didn't fight them about it. He wasn't a gangster and he
didn't want to start a war. And that's what it would have been if he'd tried to
buck them."

Zehnder cut in.

"Perley's right about that. We're working on that
syndicate, and we close a place now and then, but we haven't got much on them
yet. They're bad boys, though."

"Then why," McCracken wanted to know,
"suspect Perley when you've got some really tough mugs that might have a
motive?"

"But they haven't," said Perley. "Jim Lee
wasn't fighting them. Of course, they could have killed him for his ring,
but--" He shrugged.

"What about that crochet needle Lee was killed with,
Perley?" McCracken asked. "Was it one of yours? The captain says
crocheting is your hobby."

For the first time, the little man seemed on the defensive
as he answered.

"The police seem to think it's funny that I should
like to crochet," he complained. "That's silly. Why, lots of men do.
And it's good for the nerves, and it gave me something to do when Jim and I
played chess. He took so long between moves."

"Was
it one of
your needles?" McCracken demanded.

"It could have been." Perley shrugged again.
"I have lots of them."

"It was exactly like others in his room," said
Zehnder.

Jerold Bell was getting restless.

"The devil with crocheting needles," he said.
"I just dropped in here to see if there was any news on the ring. I think
I'll go on around to Vermont Street and help the boys there look for it.
Coming, McCracken?"

"In a minute, Jerry." He turned to Zehnder.
"Listen, Cap, the main thing I want to know, is why you're holding Mr.
Essington? Thus far there isn't any evidence against him, except that he hasn't
an alibi he can prove."

Zehnder grinned. "It ain't that he can't prove he
wasn't there. It's that we can prove he was, see? He says he didn't get home
before two. But two people there heard him in his room, between half past
eleven and half past twelve."

"You mean they heard someone in his room?"

"Nope. Him. Like always when he's in his room alone,
they said, he was whistling to himself. Bird calls and stuff. Even a dog
imitation."

Perley Essington whirled indignantly.
"Dog
imitations!"
His voice was shrill with indignation. "Why, I--"

"How do you know it wasn't Slimjim Lee they heard,
waiting for Perley?" McCracken asked Zehnder. "If he was learning how
to whistle --?”

Again Perley, still indignant, interrupted.

"Mr. McCracken, that isn't possible," he said.
"Nobody would mistake Jim Lee's whistling for mine. They couldn't. He was
just learning, and he just whistled straight,
whistled,
not bird
calls."

His voice rose now:

"No, nor anybody else whistling, either. Nor a
phonograph record, or anything like that. One young whippersnapper of a
policeman suggested that. There isn't another artist in the country who could
possibly have been mistaken for me by the people who room there and who know my
work."

"Fine," said Captain Zehnder. "Then it must
have been you they heard?"

"I don't know," said Perley. "But they
couldn't have mistaken anybody else for me. Listen, have you ever heard anybody
else who can do this?"

He pursed his lips and began to run a gamut of bird calls
that sounded like feeding time in an aviary. The calls tumbled upon one
another's heels so rapidly, that McCracken could almost have sworn that two or
three birds were singing simultaneously.

The insurance man, standing behind the little bird
imitator, looked at McCracken over Perley's head and winked. He circled his
forefinger at his temple, than reached forward at Perley's bald head, and--with
the exaggerated gesture of a stage magician--pretended to pluck something from
Perley's scalp. He held it up so McCracken could see that it was a tiny
feather.

It
was
funny, but Perley was looking, and whistling,
directly at McCracken and the private detective couldn't laugh without hurting
Perley's feelings.

He wondered if Bell was right, and if Perley had really
passed the borderline between eccentricity and outright screwiness. If he
hadn't, he was putting himself in a bad spot by refusing to admit that his
fellow-roomers could have been mistaken about whom they had heard.

Zehnder tapped Perley on the shoulder to stop him.

"Anything else you want to tell McCracken?" he
said.

Perley stopped whistling and shook his head. He looked at
Tim McCracken.

"You'll take the case?" he said. "I'm sorry
I can't pay you more than--"

"Sure," said McCracken, "I'll take it."
He looked at Zehnder. "You going around with us, Cap?"

Zehnder crossed and opened the door before he answered, and
nodded to the turnkey who had been waiting outside. After shaking hands with
McCracken, Perley was led down the hallway toward his cell. Mingling with his
footsteps, there floated back the trilling notes of a thrush.

Zehnder grinned at McCracken. "That's the
answer," he said. "The crackpot doesn't even know he's doing that.
It's a habit, a reflex. Last night, in his room, he probably didn't even know
he was whistling." He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out an
envelope, and handed it to McCracken. "Well, here's your retainer, Mack.
You can't get him in any deeper than he is, so I wish you luck."

McCracken put it in his pocket, grateful to Zehnder for not
having embarrassed him by mentioning the amount.

"You didn't answer me, Cap," he said. "Coming
with us?"

"Part way. Just for routine I want to see the Bijou's
doorman, to check on that call Perley says he got."

"What call? He didn't say anything about a.
call."

Zehnder snorted. "He did last night, but he probably
decided it sounded too thin and to forget about it. Come on, I'll tell you on
the way. You follow us in your car, Jerry. We'll just stop there a
minute."

As he drove north on 24th Street, the captain explained
about the call:

"It was from a fan, Perley told us. Wanted him to
listen to something he thought was a pink-crested tootwhistle, or something."

"A what?"

"I dunno what, but it doesn't matter. Perley says the
guy said he was a fan of his and a member of some Audubon society, and he'd
heard a night-singing bird in Winslow Park he thought was something or other
that's rare. He wanted Perley to meet him there and help identify it."

"So that's why he went to the park instead of home?
And the guy didn't show up?"

"Not unless it was that nightingale that called Perley
up . . . Here's where the doorman lives."

Zehnder swung the car into the curb and climbed out.
McCracken followed him into a rooming house where a brief conversation with a
half-awake old man in a nightshirt brought out nothing of interest. As far as
the doorman knew, Perley Essington might have got a call just after the show,
or might not have. Lots of the performers got calls. He didn't remember.

Zehnder drove on to the Vermont Street address. It was a
brownstone front just like its neighbors, except that there was a cop in front.
Jerold Bell parked just behind Zehnder's car and joined them.

"I'm going back," the captain told them,
"but I'll get you past Regan here. Are the Homicide boys still here,
Regan?"

"Just left, fifteen minutes ago, Captain,"
answered Regan. "Don't think they got anything new. I heard one of them
say something about grilling Essington again."

"Okay, Regan. Let these fellows mosey around inside.
You know Mack. This other guy's from the insurance company."

Zehnder got back into his car. McCracken, following Bell,
turned back a moment.

"Who all's here, Regan?" he asked.

"This LaVarre dame, for one. She's asleep. Want me to
go wake her up for you?" There was a faint note of hopefulness in the
voice of the policeman.

McCracken shook his head. "Who else?"

"The landlady. And this Carson guy, the comic. He's
one of the two that heard Essington in his room. He's in Number Two.
Essington's is Number Six, right across the hall from the parlor where they
found the stiff. It's unlocked."

"How's the LaVarre woman fixed for alibis?"
McCracken asked.

Regan grinned. "Triple-barreled. She was out with
three guys all at once. I heard the Homicide gang questioning her. Sure you
don't want me to wake her up for you?"

"Keep your mind on your work, Regan. I suppose
somebody's in back, on guard there?"

"Sure. Kaplan. You know him, don't you?"

McCracken went down along the dark hallway to the parlor.
Bell was looking around painstakingly. McCracken's gaze went about the room
quickly, noted the position of the body that had been marked in chalk on the
floor before the sofa that stood diagonally across one corner of the room.
There were half a dozen flash bulbs in the wastepaper basket in the corner.

"He must have been sitting there," said Bell,
pointing to the sofa. "If he was stabbed and fell off, that'd put him in
about the position those chalk marks show. The killer could have been hidden
right behind that sofa when he came in and sat down. Then he stood up, reached
over his shoulder and stabbed him."

McCracken nodded. "That's about it. And if it is, that
means he was killed early, almost as soon as he got here. Say, a crocheting
needle isn't so long, is it? Must have been fitted into some sort of a handle,
like an ice pick. Well, we can find about that later. You don't think you'll
find the ring in here, do you?"

Bell shrugged. "Probably not. Probably never find it,
but I've got to turn in a report to the company. I want to be able to tell 'em
I went over things with a fine-tooth comb."

McCracken crossed over and looked out the window.

"Whoever hid behind that sofa could have come and gone
this way," he mused. "And come and gone by the alley. There's a
cellar door right outside. You can come in this way easy."

Bell nodded. "There's fingerprint powder on the sill
there. The Homicide boys thought of that, too. But what about Perley? He's too
screwy on his story to figure out of it. Why'd he lie about not having been
here until two o'clock?"

McCracken grunted. "That's the only thing against him,
really. I want to talk to one of the persons who heard him, or say they
did."

He walked out into the hall, down two doors, and knocked.
After a minute, a tall man in a worn bathrobe came to the door and said,
"Yeah?" He had the sad, bored air most comedians have when they
aren't working at the trade.

"Carson?" McCracken asked.

"That's me, yeah."

"You like this Perley Essington? Was he a friend of
yours?"

"Huh? Sure, he's a swell little guy. A bit nuts,
maybe. But he's good on the boards."

"As good as he thinks he is?"

"Well, maybe not
that
good," Carson said.
"Maybe none of us are. It's an occupational disease. What do you
want?"

"I want to hear your side of what happened last
night." The tall man put a hand to his head. "Oh, Lord! Again?"
He started to close the door. "Four cops, and three reporters, and
--"

McCracken caught the door and held it. "Then once more
won't hurt you," he said. "Besides, I'm on Perley's side. I'm working
for him, trying to punch some holes in the case against him."

"Why
didn't you say so? Come on in." He walked back to the dresser to get the
bottle standing on it. "Have a drink?"

"Two fingers. The main thing is are you sure it was
Perley you heard?"

"Yes and no. I wouldn't swear it was him, but if it
wasn't, it was somebody pretty good. There aren't many that can come close to
him on that warble stuff. I've heard lots of imitators. Straight whistling,
yes, but not on the imitations."

"What time did you hear it first, and what time
last?"

Carson lifted a glass and clinked it against the one he'd
handed McCracken. When he'd downed the glass' contents, he said: