Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 11, November 1960

Ruby Martinson’s Poisoned Pen by Henry Slesar

As has been well established, the pen is mightier than the sword. Naturally, only a quill pen is as mighty as all that. For though you can tickle someone into submission with such a pen; what, for example, could you accomplish with a ball point pen?

For years, I lived in mortal terror of G-Men because of my cousin, Ruby Martinson. The three most horrifying letters in my alphabet were F.B.I. and I couldn’t see a picture of J. Edgar Hoover without wondering if it saw me. And the worst part was, the whole trauma was the result of the wildest crime that Ruby Martinson, World’s Greatest Unsuccessful Criminal, ever perpetrated.

By this time, of course, I was getting used to Ruby’s inability to make Crime pay. Even though Ruby was an accountant, he never seemed to get out of the red in all the capers we pulled together. Fortunately, he was making good money ($65 a week) for his age (23) so I never worried about his finances. But I was five years younger, a great deal poorer, and in contrast to Ruby’s iron nerves, mine were made of chicken fat.

On the evening that it started, I was poorer than usual. I had just been fired from my fourth job in the garment district, merely because I had pushed a hand truck into an open manhole on 33rd and 7th Avenue, sending half a dozen Max Teitelbaum originals into the sewer system of New York. So when I met Ruby at Hector’s Cafeteria on Broadway, I was forced to ask him for coffee-and-cruller money. Ruby, who was normally pretty tight-fisted, handed me the coins without a murmur.

“You okay, Ruby?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

He looked up at me, and his small freckled face had never appeared so tragic before.

“I’m okay,” he said bitterly. “I’ll be even better when Dorothy gets that letter tomorrow.”

“You wrote Dorothy a letter? What for?”

My astonishment was real. Dorothy, Ruby’s fiancée, lived on 76th Street, and Ruby saw her every night that wasn’t devoted to his Fiendish Activities. Not that she knew about his secret life; I was Ruby’s only confidante in crime.

“I wrote her a letter, all right,” he said, with a mocking laugh. “She’ll never forget it. She’ll be sorry for the rest of her life.”

It was obvious that the bumpy road to love was bumpier than usual.

“You know what I told her?” Ruby said. “I told her what I really think of her. And I told her what she could do with that four-eyed freak she’s so crazy about.”

I looked at him queerly, since Ruby wears the biggest eyeglasses I ever saw in my life. I mean, they were so big that an optometrist could have hung them up as a sign.

“She doesn’t know I saw her,” Ruby continued with a snarl. “I was in the delicatessen across the street from her house, the Savoy. You remember the place.”

I did, of course. We had robbed it once, and lost money on the deal.

“I was just standing there, when I see this taxi pull up in front of her place, and Dorothy gets out with this four-eyed tall guy. I mean, they were friendly. Real friendly!”

I liked Dorothy, so I rushed to her defense. “Gee, Ruby, he was probably some guy from where she works, probably gave her a lift—”

“Yeah?” Ruby said cynically. “So how come he kissed her good-bye? I mean a real passionate kiss?”

That stopped me, and I joined Ruby in a morose sip of coffee and an angry bite of cruller.

“So today,” Ruby said, “I wrote her this letter and told her off good. Women are all alike, pal, don’t trust any of ’em. They’ll two-time you the minute you turn your back. I shouldn’t have just written her a letter. I should have gone up there and leaned on her a little.”

“Gosh, Ruby, you wouldn’t really hurt her?”

Ruby didn’t answer. He picked up his coffee cup and downed the brown- stuff like it was a hooker of rye. It’s a good thing alcohol made Ruby sick, or he would have gotten potted that night. I watched him and felt an emphatic melancholy; the idea that Ruby and Dorothy might part seemed as shattering to me as if my own parents were breaking up. Big tears welled in my eyes, and I think I would have blubbered right in the middle of the cafeteria, except that a sudden thought intruded. “Hey!” I cried. “Maybe Dorothy has a brother!”

“Naw,” Ruby said. “She’s got a lot of relatives out in the middle west, but nobody like that. Besides, that wasn’t any sisterly kiss, let me tell you.”

I stood up, and made a feeble excuse about washing my hands. I tried not to show my excitement, because I had decided to call Dorothy and see if there were some reasonable explanation for her behavior. I knew vaguely that the way of the peacemaker is hard, but I didn’t know how hard it was going to become.

In the rear of Hector’s, I put one of Ruby’s coins into the telephone and dialed Dorothy’s home number. When she answered, I didn’t know how to approach the subject delicately, so I just blurted it out.

“Hey,” I said. “Who was that guy last night?”

“What guy?” She sounded surprised.

I forced a laugh. “I was across the street yesterday, and I saw you getting out of the taxi. You better not let Ruby know about that, hah-hah.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about; I came home by subway. Are you with Ruby? Is he playing a joke on me?”

I didn’t know whether she was covering up or not. So I laughed again, in a kind of cracked debonair manner, and that made her sore.

“Look, will you stop acting so silly? If Ruby’s there, tell him to be sure and get here at seven-thirty. My cousin Ruth has to leave at nine, so we have to have dinner early.”

“Your cousin Ruth?”

“Ruby knows about it. Ruth came in last night, to see her husband off. He’s going into the Army. Would you please ask Ruby to come to the phone?”

“He’s not here!” I said wildly. “I mean, I don’t know where he is,” I stuttered. “Dorothy, does this cousin of yours look like you, even a little?”

“She does, as a matter of fact. Why?”

“Nothing,” I said miserably. “If I see Ruby, I’ll tell him to call you.” And I hung up.

I went back to the table, and told Ruby what I had done. When I got to the part about Dorothy’s cousin, his eyes glazed and realized the truth.

“Her cousin!” he said, slapping his high forehead. “I thought Dorothy looked different. Something about the hairstyle—”

“Boy, that’s a relief, huh?” I said. “But you better call her back.”

Ruby still looked stunned. I had to jog his elbow to get him to say something. When he did, the words gagged him.

“The letter!”

“What?”

“The letter I sent Dorothy! If she gets it, it’s the end!”

“Gee,” I said calmly, “why not just call her and tell her not to read it?”

“Are you nuts? Did you ever try and tell a girl not to do something? She’ll be so curious she’ll have to read it. I’ve got to get that letter back!”

“Maybe if you called the post office,” I said timidly. His glare told me what he thought of the suggestion, so I tried another. “Well, tell her the truth then. Tell her how jealous you got when you saw her cousin—”

“You don’t understand. It was a real nasty letter. I said things she could never forgive. I even said she was fat.”

I smiled pleasantly. “She is getting a little plump, isn’t she?”

Ruby groaned, and looked worse off than he had before. He slumped into his chair, and hid his face in his hands. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went and got some cheese Danish from the pastry counter. By the time I got back, Ruby looked entirely different, I had forgotten how swiftly his ingenious Criminal Brain worked.

“There’s only one thing to do,” he said. “We got to steal it back.”

“We?” I said, soprano. “Steal it?”

“It’s the only way. You’ve got to waylay the postman that comes to Dorothy’s apartment house.”

“I’ve got to? But Ruby—”

“You’re the only one who can do it. The mail comes at ten, and I’ll be at work then. I’d take tomorrow off, but we’re doing a job for our biggest client.”

“Ruby, you’re talking crazy. You can’t rob a postman. I mean, that’s a federal offense, it’s like killing somebody.”

“You’re not stealing money, just a lousy letter. Now listen carefully how it’s gonna work—”

I put my hands over my ears. “I’m not listening! I don’t want to listen! I did a lot of nutty things for you, Ruby, but you’re not getting no F.B.I. on my neck!”

“You won’t have any trouble,” Ruby said contemptuously “I’ve seen the guy who delivers the mail there. He’s about four feet high and built like a sparrow. When you shove that gun in his face, he’ll fold up.”

“Gun?” I said, spraying the landscape with the cheese crumbs in my mouth. “Ruby, I’m not sticking up any postman with a gun!”

“What else you gonna use, a bow and arrow? It’ll be a fake, of course, we’ll pick one up at Woolworth’s. All you have to do is wait around the hallway until he shows up. When he’s about to put the letter in Dorothy’s mailbox, you jump out and grab it.” He studied me reflectively. “Better wear a mask,” he said. “Nobody could forget a face like yours.”

I stood up and folded my arms. I had been browbeaten, coaxed, and cajoled into plenty of capers with Ruby Martinson, but this time I was going to be firm.

“I won’t do it,” I said, with manly simplicity.

Then I waited for Ruby’s barrage. It didn’t come. He just put his thumbnail between his teeth, looked dejected, and turned his head away.

“Oh, heck,” I said. “All right, Ruby.”

I had nothing but nightmares in my dream life during those years with Ruby Martinson, and that night was no different. James Cagney was after me with a machine-gun, and wouldn’t even let me surrender. I went down in a hail of G-Man bullets, and woke up clutching my stomach. My mother heard my groans and suggested castor oil. I said no, but from the fishy taste of my orange juice, I suspected that she had her way.

I showed up at Dorothy’s apartment house a little before nine. In the hallway, I scouted the best hiding place; it was easy enough to find. Behind the staircase was a dark, damp corner used for the storage of baby carriages, discarded tricycles, and a large piece of nude sculpture. It was embarrassing to be around the thing, so I sat on the seat of the tricycle and tried not to see it. While I waited, I checked the artillery that Wool-worth had provided: it was a small, menacing pistol that went clickety-chuck when you pressed the trigger, and emitted, a small hard piece of sickening candy. I hoped I would remember not to fire the darned thing; I might actually hurt the guy.

It was a long wait. For an hour, I sat there with nothing to do but eat the revolting candy and try not to stare at the naked stone lady. After awhile, I got so bored and reckless that I not only stared at the statue, but started firing little hard pieces of candy at it.

Then I heard the shuffling footsteps and the out-of-key whistle. The postman was here.

I peeked out to size up the opposition, and felt just a bit better. Ruby had been correct, if not precise. The postman was a little guy not much over five feet, and so frail that I didn’t see how he carried that heavy mailpouch on his pack. He had already sorted out the building mail, and now he was opening the bank of boxes against the wall.

I fixed my eyes on Dorothy’s mailbox, and tied my handkerchief around my face. Then I took out the gun, put my finger on the trigger, and got ready to pounce. I really amazed myself that day; I wasn’t even nervous.

Then it was time to act. He had an envelope in his hand and was about to drop it in the box; once he locked it, it would be irretrievable. I jumped out, waved the gun, and shouted:

“Stick ’em up!”

To tell you the truth, I didn’t shout anything. I just jumped out and opened my mouth. Not a sound came out. I wasn’t nervous, but my mouth was. We looked at each other stupidly for a moment, and I wondered if I would have to write it out for him. Can you imagine borrowing a guy’s pencil and writing “stick ’em up?”

We were at an impasse. He didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t know how to tell him. Then I fixed everything by snatching the letter out of his hand.

He knew what I was up to then, all right. He yelled and called me something that I never saw in print, and then he picked up that big mail pouch of his like it was a pillow, and whopped me right in the head. I mean, that bag must have weighed a hundred pounds and he just slung it at me! I staggered against the wall and he raised the thing again. It must have felt heavier this time, because he wasn’t so fast anymore. I had time to duck underneath his arm and make it to the front door of the apartment house.

I didn’t even look back to see if I was followed. I just tore the. handkerchief from my face and ran. If there’s one thing I could do, it was run. I ran so hard that my shirttails came right out of my trousers. I didn’t stop until I reached Sixty-eighth Street.

But I had the letter! Panting but triumphant, I stopped in the doorway of a hardware store and looked at the envelope.

It was neatly typed, and in the upper left-hand corner were the words: FRESH AIR FUND.

I opened the letter, praying that Ruby had used a second-hand envelope. But the worst was immediately evident. The letter had been run off on a duplicating machine, and it’s opening line was:

“YOU CAN SEND A BOY TO CAMP THIS SUMMER!”

Right then, I fervently wished the boy could be me. In my haste, I had snatched the first letter the postman had destined for the mailbox. Ruby’s letter was still in the pouch; by now it was nestling snugly in the mailbox where it belonged. And that night, Dorothy would open it blissfully, and all would be over.

My first thought was to go down to the docks and see what ships were leaving. Then I decided it wasn’t fair to Ruby to tell him anything but the truth; his fertile brain might still hatch another scheme for the letter’s recovery. I phoned him at his office, and he called me exactly what the mailman had called me. Then he said to meet him at Hector’s Cafeteria at noon.

I showed up, expecting to be tongue-lashed. Instead, I found Ruby looking crafty. The Great Mind had arrived at another solution.

“It’s all, fixed,” he said cheerfully. “It took some figuring out, but I did it.”

“That’s great,” I said. “I knew you could do it!”

“It came to me in a flash. What would stop somebody from opening their own letter?”

I concentrated, and tried to match Ruby’s uncanny powers, but I got no place.

He laughed. “Would you open a letter that might kill you?”

“Kill me? How could a letter do that?”

“If it was contaminated! Don’t you see?”

I wasn’t even sure what contaminated meant.

“I called Dorothy at the office,” Ruby said, chuckling happily. “I told her she’d get a letter from me in the mail today, but she wasn’t to open it under any circumstances.”

“Wasn’t she curious why?”

“Sure she was. But I told her the letter wasn’t anything important, just a poem I wrote for her.”

It was like hearing that Dillinger did needlework.

“You write poems?” I said.

Ruby scowled. “So what? Anyway, I told her that I was over at a chemical laboratory, visiting a friend of mine yesterday, and I had the poem in my pocket. I sat down at one of the counters and started to read it, when all of a sudden I accidentally knocked this beaker over. Some white liquid got spilled on the letter, but it dried fast so I didn’t think anything of it, and put the poem in the mail.”

“What a screwy story,” I said.

“Let me finish,” Ruby snapped. “Anyway, after I mailed the poem, I got to talking to one of the guys in the laboratory, and mentioned about spilling the beaker. He got real excited, because he said the beaker contained a virulent-type disease germ. If you just touch the stuff, you curl up and die.”

“Wow!” I said. “Are you sure it didn’t get on you, Ruby?”

He punched my arm. “This is what I told Dorothy, you dope, it didn’t really happen.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I told Dorothy the letter should be burned before she opens it, to make sure she doesn’t get infected. She got real upset, of course, and said maybe she ought to leave work and go to the apartment. She’s got this cleaning woman who brings up the mail every day, and who knows? But I told her not to worry, that I’d go up there and burn the letter for her. So that’s your agenda for the afternoon, pal.”

“Me? Aw, gosh, Ruby, I don’t want to go back there.”

“Don’t give me any arguments. Nothing can go wrong this time. All you got to do is let yourself into Dorothy’s apartment — the key’s under the mat — and get hold of that letter and burn it. Even you can handle that.”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “I guess that won’t be so hard.”

Ruby looked at his watch. “Call me at the office and let me know how things went. And I’ll meet you here at six. Check?”

“Check,” I said.

This time, the trip to 76th Street wasn’t nearly so depressing. It was a simple enough assignment; all I had to do was burn a letter. I liked fires.

I walked up the street to the apartment house, whistling nonchalantly. To this day, I can’t explain the cockeyed confidence which made me believe that a white handkerchief was an impenetrable disguise. Even if I had suspected that the two burly types lingering in the doorway of Dorothy’s building were officers of the law, I think I would have merely gulped hard and kept on going, secure in the belief that I was unrecognizable. Only let me tell you what I was wearing. A pink sports shirt with a picture of a hula dancer on the back. A leather belt with a nickle-plated buckle the size of a cantaloupe. A pair of bleached denim pants, and orange shoes. Orange. They had been tan to begin with, but my shoe polish went rancid or something, and they turned orange.

It never occurred to me that the postman would take any action, and describe my outfit to the Law. After all, what was one Fresh Air Fund letter, more or less? But when I went up the elevator to Dorothy’s apartment, the two big guys went with me. When I found the key under the mat, they stood at the end of the hallway and acted indifferent. When I entered the apartment, and found Ruby’s letter on the coffee table, I was smugly certain my troubles were over.

Just to make doubly certain that I had the right letter this time (and because I was so curious), I opened the envelope and took a look at the contents.

The letter wasn’t very long, but neither is a stick of dynamite.

Dear Dorothy, it said, I saw you with that ugly four-eyed boyfriend of yours, and you can have him. Please send me back my ring on account of our engagement is off. If you can get it off your finger, which I doubt, since you’ve been getting pretty fat lately. You look lousy. And it was signed, Yours Sincerely, Ruby Martinson.

I chuckled to myself, and was about to leave when I saw them standing in the doorway.

“You live here, son?” one of them said. He had a nose like a piece of modeling clay.

“Who, me?” I said. “No, my friend lives here. She wanted me to get something for her. A letter.”

“A letter, huh?” the second one grunted, looking at his buddy sideways. “You got quite a thing about letters, don’t you, kid?”

“What’s that?” I said, starting to shake.

The first one took out a wallet the size of a club. For a minute, I thought he was going to sock me with it, but he was only flashing his identification. “I’m Lieutenant Jakes,” he said. “This is Lieutenant Cochran.”

“Hello there,” I said. I started to grin. That’s my worst symptom when I’m nervous. I grin so hard my jaw hurts. “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I was just doing my friend a favor. You could call and ask her.”

“We just might do that,” Jakes said. “Only there’s something else we wanted to talk to you about. Were you in the building this morning?”

“Me?” I said, grinning and shaking.

“Mr. Finchley, the postman who works this building, he got attacked this morning. Somebody snatched a letter from him. You know anything about that?”

“Me?” I said.

“Is that all you can say?” Cochran growled. “Did you take that letter? The postman described you and that outfit you got on to a T, so no use acting coy.”

I was about to say “Me?” again, but I figured he must have meant Me. My legs went rubbery and my eyes blurred. I held up Ruby’s letter and tried to croak out an explanation.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “wait. I had a reason, a very good reason!”

“You know what the penalty for mail theft is?” both of them asked, seemed like both of them.

“I know, I know,” I squealed. “But I had to do it. So help me! I was looking for this letter — this letter’s poisoned—”

That stopped them. They stepped back from the envelope I was waving in my hand, as if it were a hand grenade.

“What are you giving us?” Jakes said gruffly. “What do you mean, poisoned?”

“It is, it is!” I shrieked. “That’s why I was trying to get it from the postman, so he shouldn’t get infected. My friend sent it to his girl friend from some chemical laboratory. A test tube got spilled on it — it’s full of deadly germs—”

They looked at each other, and I could see they were uncertain about what to do next. That made three of us.

Then Cochran twisted his mouth sourly. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Then how come you’re touching it, kid?”

“I was going to burn it!” I shouted wildly. “I’m immune to this kind of thing, I’ve had shots!”

“It’s a nutty story,” Jakes muttered. “But who knows? Maybe we better check on it.”

“Please,” I stammered, “call Dorothy. The girl who lives here. She’ll tell you it’s true. She’ll prove it.”

“We’ll do better than that. We’ll take you and that letter into our lab. Then we’ll get this thing straightened out.”

“No!” I yelled. “You can’t do that! I have to burn it—”

“Come on,” Jakes said.

He jerked his thumb at me, and failing to think of anything else to say, I preceded them out. It was at times like these that I wished (a) to have Ruby’s power of invention, or (b) to have never met Ruby at all.

I thought there would be a prowl car in the street, but there wasn’t. Instead, they prodded me into a nondescript gray Buick. I was put in the back with my diseased letter, and Cochran sat beside me, well away from me and it. The officer named Jakes drove, but I don’t think he was happy having me behind him. I felt like Typhoid Mary.

I thought this lab would be in a precinct house, but it wasn’t; it was located in a quiet brownstone house on East 48th Street. As they led me into the place, I kept pleading with them to call Dorothy. I didn’t mention anything about Ruby Martinson; some crazy sense of honor kept me from dragging his name into the mess. I guess I figured that once he was in the hands of the Law, his whole Criminal Career might be exposed.

The fellow in the lab was named Fusco. He listened to their story with interest, looked queerly at me with Ruby’s letter in my hot little hand, and then beckoned us into an inner office.

Fusco was one of these kindly white-haired types; he didn’t look like a cop or an F.B.I. man at all. He listened calmly to my own version of what had happened, and asked if I knew what kind of virulent germ Ruby had spilled on the letter. I said I didn’t know, but that I thought Ruby had said that its victims turned blue. He then examined my face, my throat, my pulse, and took my temperature.

“Well,” he said, “if you’ve caught anything, there’s no sign of it. But maybe we’d better see that letter.”

I held it behind my back. “We have to burn it,” I said. “I was told to burn it.”

Fusco smiled gently. “I’d like to take a look at it under the microscope.”

“No!” I yelled. “You can’t do that! I mean, you might catch it yourself—”

He took a pair of forceps out of a drawer, and held them toward me. With a sinking feeling, I let him take the letter.

When Fusco disappeared into a back room, I looked at my captors and wondered what my mother would say when she learned that I was going to jail. I began thinking about prison life. I hoped she wouldn’t mail me a lot of cakes and cookies and stuff like that. I mean, I wouldn’t want the other prisoners to think I was a sissy.

Five minutes later, Fusco reappeared. There was no letter in his hand, and he was looking grave. I shut my eyes and waited for the worst.

Then I heard him say:

“The young man was right. There were deadly disease germs on that letter, but fortunately, he didn’t become infected. You really can’t blame him for trying to steal it — he was only protecting the mailman.”

“You see?” I said ecstatically. “You see?”

Jake grunted. “What do we do, give him a medal?”

“Gee, you don’t have to do that,” I said.

“I’ve burned the letter as instructed,” Fusco said, looking at me with a funny kind of twinkle. “So you can forget the whole thing.”

“What kind of germs were they, Doc?” Cochran asked.

“One of the deadliest,” Fusco smiled. “I’m not sure of the exact name, but I think it’s something like zelus excessus. But everything’s fine now.”

“Then can I go?” I said eagerly. “Will you let me go?”

Jakes rubbed his jaw, and then looked at his buddy.

“I guess so. If the doctor says it’s okay.”

I made the door so fast that I think I broke Nurmi’s record. But something stopped me before I turned the knob. I looked back at the doctor, and said:

“Say, you sure I didn’t get infected? I’ve got an awful weak constitution. I mean, I can catch anything.”

“You’re absolutely fine,” the doctor said.

But I wasn’t so fine by the time I met Ruby Martinson at Hector’s Cafeteria that night. I was seeing spots before my eyes, my head was feverish, and my tongue felt two inches thick.

“Ruby,” I said, trembling. “Ruby I’m feeling sick. Why didn’t you tell me it was the truth?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said.

“Ruby, you heard about what the doctor said. I think I’m coming down with this zelus excessus. Do I look blue to you?”

He laughed happily. “You dope! Don’t you see what happened? This Fusco must be an all right guy; he read the letter and figured out what had happened. So he just played along with the gag, and pretended that there were deadly germs on the letter.”

“He did?”

“Of course! You know what zelus excessus means in Latin? Too much jealousy!”

Ruby was feeling so good that he bought me a slab of lemon meringue pie. But I was too sick to enjoy it.