Cynthia Manson (ed) (25 page)

“You’re all right.” a cool voice
told me. “It’s only a flesh wound.”

“And I didn’t feel a thing.... You
mean he winged me?”

“I guess that’s what you call it.
When I told the Lieutenant I was a nurse he said I could fix you up and they
wouldn’t need the ambulance. You’re all right now.” Her voice was shaky in the
dark, but I knew it was Snow White.

“Well, anyways, that broke the case
pretty quick.”

“But it didn’t.” And she explained:
Donald had been up to his old tricks, all right; but what he had hidden in his
bill was the diamonds and the sapphire and the pearl earrings, only no emerald
and ruby necklace. Beverly Benson was wild, and Michaels and our men were
combing the house from top to bottom to see where he’d stashed it.

“There,” she said. She finished the
story and the bandaging at the same time. “Can you stand up all right now?”

I was still kind of punchy. Nothing
else could excuse me for what I said next. But she was so sweet and tender and
good I wanted to say something nice, so like a dumb jerk I up and said, “You’d
make some man a grand wife.”

That was what got her. She just went
to pieces—dissolved, you might say. I’m not used to tears on the shoulder of my
uniform, but what could I do? I didn’t try to say anything—just patted her back
and let her talk. And I learned all about it.

How she’d married Philip Newton back
in ‘29 when he was a promising young architect and she was an heiress just out
of finishing school. How the fortune she was heiress to went fooey like all the
others and her father took the quick way out. How the architect business went
all to hell with no building going on and just when things were worst she had a
baby. And then how Philip started drinking, and finally— Well, anyways, there
it was.

They’d both pulled themselves
together now. She was making enough as a nurse to keep the kid (she was too
proud to take alimony), and Philip was doing fine in this arty photographic
line he’d taken up. A Newton photograph was The Thing to Have in the smart
Hollywood set. But they couldn’t come together again, not while he was such a
success. If she went to him, he’d think she was begging; if he came to her,
she’d think he was being noble. And Beverly Benson had set her cap for him.

Then this agent Harvey Madison
(that’s Dopey), who had known them both when, decided to try and fix things. He
brought Snow White to this party: neither of them knew the other would be here.
And it was a party and it was Christmas, and some of their happiest memories
were Christmases together. I guess that’s pretty much true of everybody. So she
felt everything all over again, only—

“You don’t know what it’s done for
me to tell you this. Please don’t feel hurt; but in that uniform and everything
you don’t seem quite like a person. I can talk and feel free. And this has been
hurting me all night and I had to say it.”

I wanted to take the two of them and
knock their heads together; only first off I had to find that emerald and ruby
necklace. It isn’t my job to heal broken hearts. I was feeling O. K. now, so we
went back to the others.

Only they weren’t there. There
wasn’t anybody in the room but only the drunk. I guessed where Mickey and Dopey
were: stripped and being searched.

“Who’s that?” I asked Snow White.

She looked at the Little Pig. “Poor
fellow. He’s been going through torture tonight too. That’s Bela Strauss.”

“Bella’s a woman’s name.”

“He’s part Hungarian.” (I guess that
might explain anything. ) “He comes from Vienna. They brought him out here to
write music for pictures because his name is Strauss. But he’s a very serious
composer—you know, like...” and she said some tongue twisters that didn’t mean
anything to me. “They think because his name is Strauss he can write all sorts
of pretty dance tunes, and they won’t let him write anything else. It’s made
him all twisted and unhappy, and he drinks too much.”

“I can see that.” I walked over and
shook him. The sailor cap fell off. He stirred and looked up at me. I think it
was the uniform that got him. He sat up sharp and said something in I guess
German. Then he thought around a while and found some words in English.

“Why are you here? Why the police?”
It came out in little one-syllable lumps, like he had to hunt hard for each
sound. I told him. I tried to make it simple, but that wasn’t easy. Snow White
knew a little German, so she helped.

“Ach!” he sighed. “And I through it
all slept!”

“That’s one word for it,” I said.

But this thief of jewels—him I have
seen.” It was a sweet job to get it out of him. but it boiled down to this:
Where he passed out was on that same couch where they took me—right in the
dressing-room. He came to once when he heard somebody in there, and he saw the
person take something out of a box. Something red and green.

“Who was it?”

“The face, you understand, I do not
see it. But the costume, yes. I see that clear. It was Mikki Maus.” It sounded
funny to hear something as American as Mickey Mouse in an accent like that.

It took Snow White a couple of
seconds to realize who wore the Mickey Mouse outfit. Then she said “Philip” and
fainted.

Officer Tom Smith laid down his
manuscript. “That’s all, Mr. Quilter.”

“All. sir?”

“When Michaels came in, I told him.
He figured Newton must’ve got away with the necklace and then the English crook
made his try later and got the other stuff. They didn’t find the necklace
anywhere: but he must’ve pulled a fast one and stashed it away some place. With
direct evidence like that, what can you do? They’re holding him.”

“And you chose, sir, not to end your
story on that note of finality?”

“I couldn’t, Mr. Quilter. I... I
like that girl who was Snow White. I want to see the two of them together again
and I’d sooner he was innocent. And besides, when we were leaving. Beverly
Benson caught me alone. She said. ‘I can’t talk to your Lieutenant. He is
not
sympathetic. But you... ‘ “ Tom Smith almost blushed. “So she went on about how
certain she was that Newton was innocent and begged me to help her prove it. So
I promised.”

“Hm,” said Mr. Quilter. “Your
problem, sir, is simple. You have good human values there in your story. Now we
must round them out properly. And the solution is simple. We have two women in
love with the hero, one highly sympathetic and the other less so; for the
spectacle of a
passée
actress pursuing a new celebrity is not a pleasant
one. This less sympathetic woman, to please the audience, must redeem herself
with a gesture of self-immolation to secure the hero’s happiness with the
heroine. Therefore, sir, let her confess to the robbery.”

“Confess to the... But Mr. Quilter,
that makes a different story out of it. I’m trying to write as close as I can
to what happened. And I promised—”

“Damme, sir, it’s obvious. She did
steal the necklace herself. She hasn’t worked for years. She must need money.
You mentioned insurance. The necklace was probably pawned long ago, and now she
is trying to collect.”

“But that won’t work. It really was
stolen. Somebody saw it earlier in the evening, and the search didn’t locate
it. And believe me, that squad knows how to search.”

“Fiddle-faddle, sir.” Mr. Quilter’s
close-cropped scalp was beginning to twitch. “What was seen must have been a
paste imitation. She could dissolve that readily in acid and dispose of it down
the plumbing. And Wappingham’s presence makes her plot doubly sure; she knew
him for what he was, and invited him as a scapegoat.”

Tom Smith squirmed. “I’d almost
think you were right, Mr. Quilter. Only Bela Strauss did see Newton take the
necklace.”

Mr. Quilter laughed. “If that is all
that perturbs you...” He rose to his feet. “Come with me, sir. One of my
neighbors is a Viennese writer now acting as a reader in German for Metropolis.
He is also new in this country; his cultural background is identical with
Strauss’s. Come. But first we must step down to the corner drugstore and
purchase what I believe is termed a comic book.”

Mr. Quilter, his eyes agleam, hardly
apologized for their intrusion into the home of the Viennese writer. He simply
pointed at a picture in the comic book and demanded, “Tell me, sir. What
character is that?”

The bemused Viennese smiled. “Why,
that is Mikki Maus.”

Mr. Quilter’s finger rested on a
pert little drawing of Minnie.

Philip Newton sat in the cold jail
cell, but he was oblivious of the cold. He was holding his wife’s hands through
the bars and she was saying, “I could come to you now, dear, where I couldn’t
before. Then you might have thought it was just because you were successful,
but now I can tell you how much I love you and need you—need you even when
you’re in disgrace....”

They were kissing through the bars
when Michaels came with the good news. “She’s admitted it, all right. It was
just the way Smith reconstructed it. She’d destroyed the paste replica and was
trying to use us to pull off an insurance frame. She cracked when we had
Strauss point out a picture of what he called ‘Mikki Maus. ‘ So you’re free
again, Newton. How’s that for a Christmas present?”

“I’ve got a better one. officer.
We’re getting married again.”

“You wouldn’t need a new wedding
ring, would you?” Michaels asked with filial devotion. “Michaels, Fifth between
Spring and Broadway—fine stock.”

Mr. Quilter laid down the final
draft of Tom Smith’s story, complete now with ending, and fixed the officer
with a reproachful gaze. “You omitted, sir, the explanation of why such a
misunderstanding should arise.”

Tom Smith shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Quilter. I couldn’t remember all that straight.”

“It is simple. The noun
Maus
in German is of feminine gender. Therefore a
Mikki Maus
is a female. The
male, naturally, is a
Mikki Mäserich
. I recall a delightful Viennese
song of some seasons ago, which we once employed as background music, wherein
the singer declares that he and his beloved will be forever paired, ‘
wie die
Mikki Mikki Mikki Mikki
Mikki Maus und der Mikki Mäserich
.‘ “

“Gosh.” said Tom Smith. “You know a
lot of things.”

Mr. Quilter allowed himself to beam.
“Between us, sir, there should be little that we do not know.”

“We sure make a swell team as a
detective.”

The beam faded. “As a detective? Damme,
sir, do you think I cared about your robbery? I simply explained the inevitable
denouement to this story.”

“But she didn’t confess and make a
gesture. Michaels had to prove it on

her.”

“All the better, sir. That makes her
mysterious and deep. A Bette Davis role. I think we will first try for a
magazine sale on this. Studios are more impressed by matter already in print.
Then I shall show it to F. X., and we shall watch the squirmings of that genius
Aram Melekian.”

Tom Smith looked out the window, frowning.
They made a team, all right; but which way? He still itched to write, but the
promotion Michaels had promised him sounded good, too. Were he and this strange
lean old man a team for writing or for detection?

The friendly red and green lights of
the neighborhood Christmas trees seemed an equally good omen either way.

Sir Leo Persuivant, the Chief
Constable, had been sitting in his comfortable study after a magnificent lunch
and talking shyly of the sadness of Christmas while his guest, Mr. Albert
Campion, most favored of his large house party, had been laughing at him
gently.

It was true, the younger man had
admitted, his pale eyes sleepy behind his horn-rimmed spectacles, that, however
good the organization, the festival was never quite the same after one was
middle-aged, but then only dear old Leo would expect it to be. and meanwhile,
what a truly remarkable bird that had been!

But at that point the Superintendent
had arrived with his grim little story and everything had seemed quite spoiled.

At the moment their visitor sat in a
highbacked chair, against a paneled wall festooned with holly and tinsel, his
round black eyes hard and preoccupied under his short gray hair. Superintendent
Bussy was one of those lean and urgent countrymen who never quite lose their
fondness for a genuine wonder. Despite years of experience and disillusion, the
thing that simply can’t have happened and yet indubitably
has
happened,
retains a place in their cosmos. He was holding forth about one now. It had
already ruined his Christmas and had kept a great many other people out in the
sleet all day; but nothing would induce him to leave it alone even for five
minutes. The turkey sandwiches, which Sir Leo had insisted on ordering for him,
were disappearing without him noticing them and the glass of scotch and soda
stood untasted.

“You can see I had to come at once,”
he was saying for the third time. “I had to. I don’t see what happened and
that’s a fact. It’s a sort of miracle. Besides,” he eyed them angrily, “fancy
killing a poor old
postman
on Christmas morning! That’s inhuman, isn’t
it? Unnatural.”