The Investigations of Avram Davidson (34 page)

“But you hadn't planned on your accomplices returning to blackmail you, did you? Still, you drew up a plan soon enough for that: you lured them to dark places under pretense of payment, and there you killed them. Billy Walters was the first one. He was found with a piece of cotton in his mouth. Raw cotton—Nankeen—such as you dealt in, Jenkins. What was the cotton doing in a dead man's mouth? Here—”

Hays plucked the grey glove from the hand in which Jenkins, having taken it off, was holding it.

“Roaring Roberts, another of the lot, was found dead in the Old Brewery, and this glove at the entrance to his room. And Tim Scott, the third sailor of the crew of the sloop, was strangled to death in an alley off South-street. What is the connection in the circumstances of their deaths? Why, this—on Scott's neck were the marks of only nine fingers. Where was the tenth?”

In an instant Hays had seized the left hand of James Jenkins and held it up for all to see.

“There is no tenth,” he said. “
Jenkins has only four fingers on his left hand!
That is why he always wears gloves! Look at the little finger of this glove: it has no creases. If I were to turn it inside out you'd see how the leather is darkened by use on the other four digits—but not on this one! And to hide the fact of his missing finger even more, Jenkins always stuffs the empty digit with raw cotton fibre. Look at this—”

Hays held out the fawn-colored glove. Four of its fingers hung loosely, but the fifth stayed as plump as if it had a flesh-and-blood finger inside it. Hays fished inside and the little finger went limp as he pulled out a piece of cotton stuffing.

Some thing like a sigh went up from the crowd.

“Now, examine the little finger of this first glove again,” Hays continued. “See how the thread at the end is a lighter color? Why? The end had been mended and the thread hadn't yet worn as dark as the rest. But why did it need mending? Because when you, Jenkins, attacked Walters, he bit your hand, tearing the glove open and forcing the cotton stuffing out through the rip his teeth made! And before he could spit it out, his neck was broken, and he was a dead man! And in your fight with Roberts you lost the glove and were afraid to go back for it, weren't you?”

Jenkins, unsmiling now, said nothing.

“You had Duncan MacNab mend the first glove. He did his job well, so when you killed Captain Lem Pierce and found the palm of the glove that you had on then had been slashed by Pierce's knife, you took it to MacNab, too. And just got it back to-day. Let's see the other glove to this fawn-colored pair, Jenkins.”

Jenkins thrust both hands deep into his pockets. There was a hard, ugly expression upon his face. “Let's see your warrant—Leatherhead!” he demanded.

Hays shook his head. “None needed to apprehend a fugitive fleeing the State to avoid prosecution.”

Jenkins sneered, “You don't know much law, Leatherhead. Your jurisdiction ended back at the Battery.”

Hays said calmly that they were still in New-York State waters, and that if it became necessary, he was prepared to make a citizen's arrest. Jenkins had something to say about that, but there was an interruption.

“Damn my tripes! Are you trying to keep us talking till we're out past the three-mile limit? Belay that!” And Corneel rushed forward, seized Jenkins around the waist and threw him over the side of the ship. He fell, screaming and kicking, while the ladies shrieked and swooned. Without even waiting for the splash, Corneel clattered down the ladder, Hays behind him.

Jenkins surfaced, and screamed in terror. “I can't swim! Help me, I can't swim!” He grabbed at and caught the boat-hook and was hoisted aboard the launch, where he lay, sodden and sobbing.

“If he makes any trouble, Corneel, hit him with the boat-hook—the blunt end.” Hays craned his neck upward. “If Mrs. Jenkins wishes to come ashore,” he called, “we'll wait for her.” They waited several minutes. Then a steward pushed his head over.

“She won't come, sir. She's locked the door of her cabin and she says she won't come out.”

Jenkins's face swelled.

“Cast off,” Corneel directed.

“The trull!” Jenkins said, his voice thick. “The slut! I'd never have done it if it weren't for her. ‘When are we going to have a house of our own, Mr. Jenkins? When are we going to have a carriage of our own?' And now the dirty—”

But Corneel told him to mind his tongue and not speak that way of ladies. Jenkins looked at him with his red eyes. “Who in the devil's name are you?” he asked.

“Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Not
at your service, except as the High Constable directs. Killed five men, did he, Hays?”

“Three sailors and a sea-captain in New-York and a slave down in Georgia.”

Corneel took off his cap. “May the Lord have mercy on their souls.” He clapped it back on again and blew his whistle and damned the eyes of the pilot of the New-Brunswick ferry. There were death and evil in Jenkins's face as he looked at them, but Hays held the boat-hook, and all around them were the deep, deep waters.

The crowd at the Battery, far from having dispersed, was larger than it had been. Word of the High Constable's chase and his dash across the harbor had evidently gotten around. No one could any more believe that Old Hays had gone hunting off to Europe than they could believe it of the Battery itself. Every spy-glass in town seemed to have followed the steam-launch, and there were cheers as they stepped on shore.

They'll cheer at the hanging, too, Hays thought, for hanged Jenkins would certainly be. Not even a member of the Cotton Exchange could get away with four local murders. Cudjo would get off, though, if he turned State's evidence; as he would have to in order to avoid extradition on the Georgia charge.

There were four Constables waiting to take the prisoner into custody. One of them was young Breakstone. “Now we know the answer,” he said, “to who has nine fingers and kills sailors.” But Jenkins said not one word.

An officious, well-dressed, and over-fed man slapped Hays on the back. “A marvellous job of work, High Constable!” he crowed, as if he had directed it himself. “You may well congratulate yourself that it's done. Now it's up to the judge and jury—your job is over!”

Hays looked at the man's pompous and moon-like face. Then he looked out over the teeming harbor, and then back to the city almost hid behind the forest of masts along the waterfront; the city ever growing, thronged with new-comers from Europe and America.

As he thought of its swarming and wretched tenements and its corrupt administration, the High Constable reflected that crime—as witness Jenkins—was found in high places as well as low, and that greed and vice would go always hand in hand. Hays shook his head sadly.

“No,” he said, “it's not done. It's not even begun.”

The plump citizen seemed to feel a response was expected of him. He chuckled. But a slight blankness on his bland countenance seemed to indicate that he did not quite take in the High Constable Hays's meaning.

OTHER BOOKS BY AVRAM DAVIDSON

NOVELS

Joyleg
(with Ward Moore)

And on the Eighth Day
(as Ellery Queen)

The Fourth Side of the Triangle
(as Ellery Queen)

Mutiny in Space

Rork!

The Enemy of My Enemy

Masters of the Maze

The Kar-Chee Reign

Rogue Dragon

Clash of Star-Kings

The Phoenix and the Mirror, or the Enigmatic Speculum

Peregrine: Primus

Peregrine: Secundus

The Island Under the Earth

Ursus of Ultima Thule

Vergil in Averno

Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty
(with Grania Davis)

The Boss in the Wall, A Treatise on the House Devil
(with Grania Davis)

COLLECTIONS

Or All the Seas with Oysters

What Strange Stars and Skies

Strange Seas and Shores

The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy
(World Fantasy Award Winner)

The Redward Edward Papers
edited by Michael Kurland

The Best of Avram Davidson
edited by Michael Kurland

Collected Fantasies
edited by John Silbersack

Crimes and Chaos
(nonfiction)

Adventures in Unhistory: Conjectures on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends
(nonfiction)

The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy

The Avram Davidson Treasury
edited by Grania Davis and Robert Silverberg

CHAPBOOKS

And Don't Forget the One Red Rose

Polly Charms the Sleeping Woman

AVRAM DAVIDSON RESOURCES

The Avram Davidson Website

An evolving electronic compendium of biographical, bibliographical, and ephemeral material. A work of love and sweat by Henry Wessells.

http://www.kosmic.org/members/dongle/henry/

The Nutmeg Point District Mail

(ISSN 1089-764X)

A newsletter about Avram Davidson and his work. Write to:

Temporary Culture

Post Office Box 43072

Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072

Also available in electronic form at the above URL.

 

G
RANIA
D
AVIS
has lived around a lot. She has dwelled in a mountain in Mexico, on a primitive sandbar in Belize, and on a beach in Hawaii. She has taught in Tibetan refugee settlements in India, and worked as a military historian in neon-lit Tokyo.

Her extensive travels inspired a series of fantasy novels based on the myths of the Orient.
The Rainbow Annals
is based on Tibetan legends.
Moonbird
uses Balinese myths.
Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty,
written with Avram Davidson (who is himself a legend), is set in China. Her many short stories reflect her sojourns abroad.

She was married to Avram Davidson, and collaborated with him on short stories and novels, and a son. Since Avram Davidson's passing in 1993, she has devoted herself to publishing his immortal works.

She has settled down recently, dividing her time with her family between Marin County, California, and on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

R
ICHARD
A. L
UPOFF
is the author of more than thirty popular books, including science fiction novels, histories of popular culture, biographies, fantasy novels, an elusive paperback penned under the name “Del Marston,” and seven Marvia Plum/Hobart Lindsey mystery novels. He is also a veteran of the radio industry: he began his broadcast career writing the evening news at WIOD, Miami, in 1955, and recently passed the twenty-year mark as a talk-show host at KPFA, in Berkeley, California.

M
ICHAEL
K
URLAND
has been the editor of a magazine even more idiosyncratic than himself, a seeker of absent persons, and guest lecturer at numerous unrelated events. He has also written over thirty books straddling a variety of fields. His nonfiction works cover topics as diverse as forensic science, criminal law, espionage, amateur radio, and the history of crime in America. Currently in print are
How to Solve a Murder: The Forensic Handbook
and
How to Try a Murder: The Handbook for Armchair Lawyers.

Kurland's crime novels include
The Infernal Device,
which was nominated for an Edgar and an American Book Award, and the Alexander Brass mysteries
Too Soon Dead
and
The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes.

 

 

The stories in this volume first appeared in the following publications:

“The Necessity of His Condition”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
April 1957 (copyright renewed, 1985)

“Thou Still Unravished Bride”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
October 1958 (copyright renewed, 1986)

“The Ikon of Elijah”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
December 1956 (copyright renewed, 1984)

“The Cost of Kent Castwell”:
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine,
July 1961 (copyright renewed, 1989)

“The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
April 1964 (copyright renewed, 1992)

“A Quiet Room with a View”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
August 1964 (copyright renewed, 1992)

“The Third Sacred Well of the Temple”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
May 1965 (copyright renewed, 1993)

“Captain Pasharooney”:
The Saint Mystery Magazine,
May 1967

“The Importance of Trifles”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
January 1969

“The Lord of Central Park” [also titled “Manhattan Night's Entertainment”]:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
October 1970

“Murder Is Murder”:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,
June 1973

“The Deed of the Deft-Footed Dragon”:
Night Cry,
1986

“Mr. Folsom Feels Fine”:
Ellery Queen's Prime Crimes 4,
Fall 1986

THE INVESTIGATIONS OF AVRAM DAVIDSON
. Copyright © 1999 by Grania Davis. Foreword and RAL story introductions copyright © 1999 by Richard A. Lupoff. Michael Kurland's excerpts appear by kind permission of the author. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.