Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 139, No. 6, September 14, 1940

Dust to Dust by Joseph Laurance Marx

There’s a right way and a wrong way to fire a gun — and the wrong way is sometimes fatal.

It was hard enough trying to sit up; standing was impossible. The floor tilted back and forth at crazy angles, the walls leaned in and then blew out again. There was a man lying on the floor.

Charlie tried closing his eyes, and then opened them again when the room seemed to have stopped whirling past him. It did no good; the man was still there. There was a hole in his head and some blood was still oozing out of it. He wasn’t breathing.

Charlie closed his eyes again, and while they were closed he talked aloud, to himself, trying to get hold of himself again. “You’re Charlie Gates,” he said to himself, but his tongue was thick and his voice sounded queer. “You’re Charles Gates. That’s Bob Blake there on the floor. Take it easy now, you’re Charlie Gates. This will be all right in a minute.”

He opened his eyes again; he looked down. It was not all right. The man was still there. It was still Bob Blake. Charlie put his hand to his forehead, feeling for the ache behind it; he ran it tenderly through his hair, feeling the lump growing over his ear. He shook his head to stop the ringing in it. It didn’t stop. The telephone? He took a faltering step towards it before he realized that the noise was the doorbell. It might have been ringing for a very long time.

He held onto the wall — it was getting steadier now — and with its help he got as far as the door. He reached it just as it slammed suddenly open, and he found he was facing a frightened elevator boy with a pass-key and the city police force. And the city police force!

They were all there; at least it looked that way. They all had revolvers in their hands; they looked as frightened as the elevator boy. All but the lieutenant. He stood in front without a gun, he was a big, blond guy, big and tired. He said “What’s going on here?”

Charlie was glad he was there; he was glad there was someone else to see this awful thing. He sat down and pointed towards the other room. He asked for a drink and they brought it to him. His voice wasn’t working so well, but his mind was worse. There was something he ought to be thinking about; he didn’t know what. He heard someone at the phone asking for an ambulance. He wanted to tell him there wasn’t any need of that, but the words wouldn’t come.

They asked him questions about himself, and an automatic sort of voice inside him started answering. His name, address, place of business. He pulled out his wallet and showed the cards in it. They wrote it all down. The lieutenant came back into the room, and stood in front of Charlie and looked down at him.

“What were you fighting about?” he said.

Charlie’s mind worked slowly for the answer. Fighting? They’d been fighting about Julie. What they always fought about, he and Bob Blake. Julie. Everyone knew that, everyone knew about Julie, about her being Charlie’s girl, about Bob liking her, about Charlie losing his job, about how it was Bob he had worked for and then he’d lost his job— And that made it all the worse, much the worse, for him to have killed Bob Blake.

His head jerked upright suddenly with a start that made him wince with the pain in it. Killed Bob Blake? He hadn’t.

Of course he hadn’t.

Or had he?

“What made you kill him?” the cop asked.

But he hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t. Bob had been shot. Charlie hadn’t shot him. He hadn’t a gun. He hadn’t ever fired a gun. He didn’t know where the gun had come from.

“What were you fighting about?” the cop persisted.

Fighting? Why, that was easy. They’d been fighting about Julie. He had come here to fight with him about Julie — to tell Bob to leave his Julie alone. But kill him? No, he certainly hadn’t killed him. He shook his head, helplessly. The cop waited, looking at him. He couldn’t keep the cop waiting any longer.

“I didn’t kill him,” he said.

Because he hadn’t, of course. Or had he?

“Look,” the cop said. “This guy here — he is the elevator boy. He brought you up. You looked as though you were mad about something; you looked like a guy who is looking for trouble. He didn’t like your looks. He is the only elevator boy. The stairs are for emergencies. He did not bring anyone else up. He heard you fighting, he heard a shot, he called us. This guy is shot. If you didn’t shoot him who did?”

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You did it yourself, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know, who does?” the cop said. He was not cross, he was not being mean. He was tired, he was patient, he was positive. He was not unfriendly; there was no blame in his voice. But he knew a fact when he saw one.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I just don’t know.”

The ambulance pulled up outside, whining like a frenzied cat. The elevator boy went out and got into the car and went down and came back up again in a minute. A little man came into the room; a dark little man in a white suit carrying a small black bag. His face was a chalky mask, but his eyes were black and restless and lively. He said “Hi.”

The lieutenant sighed, he shifted his weight from one big foot to the other. He said, “You again — all the time they send you. The doctor who thinks he should be a detective. You the only doctor they got?”

“I guess I am,” the little man said. “All the time I find you here already. You the only copper they got?”

“I certainly am,” the lieutenant said, and he smiled a little. “Look, Rollo. Listen to Papa. There is nothing here for you to poke your inquisitive nose into. This is a very simple matter. There is a guy in there with a bullet in his head. There is a gun. There is a guy here who was fighting with him. He was all alone with him. He says he doesn’t know who killed him. He says he doesn’t know did he do it or not. Is that right?”

The little man turned and looked at Charley. He smiled. “Did you do it?” he said.

Charlie looked at him. He thought a long time. “I don’t know,” he said.

“He don’t know,” the cop said. “Look, Rollo. I do not intend to do anybody any harm. On the other hand I hate to waste my time. Is it all right to go ahead and arrest this guy now, or don’t you know either?”

“I don’t know,” the little man said, and he made it sound very different from the way Charlie said it. “And until I do know you can just go on wasting your time.”

He went through the door into the bedroom; they went in after him. He knelt down by the dead man and looked at him a long time; he raised his right arm and looked down at the hand and sleeve.

“Leave him alone,” the lieutenant said.

“Shut up,” said Rollo cheerfully. He looked in the half-open desk drawer; he drew it out a little wider and studied it for a long time. He bent down and looked at the gun. Then he went back and looked into the drawer again. “No finger prints,” the cop said. “They’re all messed up.”

“So I’m finding out,” said Rollo.

“And on the taxpayers’ money, too,” the lieutenant said.

“Shut up,” said Rollo.

He looked again at the gun, so long and so lovingly that it seemed as though he must have forgotten what he was looking at. Then he got up and came over and ran his hands gently over Charlie’s head. His fingers found the lump, fingered it delicately, expertly, without hurting it. He looked back at the gun.

“I don’t think,” he said, not even looking at the lieutenant, “I’d arrest this fellow here, if I were you.”

“You wouldn’t?” the lieutenant said. “You wouldn’t, eh? Tell me why. Tell me just one good reason why.”

“He didn’t do it.”

Charlie sat up, his heart in his mouth, his hand clutching pleadingly at the doctor’s white sleeve. “I didn’t do it,” he said, but it was a prayer, not a statement.

“No, you didn’t do it,” Rollo said. “Mr. Blake did it. He shot himself.”

“A suicide,” the lieutenant said, heavy with sarcasm.

“An accidental one,” the doctor said. “Did you feel this man’s head, officer? Do you see this bump here?”

“Sure I see it,” the cop said. “And I know where he got it. He got it in the fight.”

“He got it from the butt of a revolver,” the doctor said. “Blake’s revolver — that was usually kept in that drawer there. He didn’t open the drawer very often, it’s sort of dusty on the bottom. But he opened it last night when they got to fighting, and he grabbed it by the barrel and he hit our friend here with the butt. Hit him hard enough to knock him out. Hit him hard enough to discharge the revolver — and shoot himself. It wasn’t a very good gun anyway.”

“It’s a nice theory,” the officer said. “And what’s to prove it?”

“Dust,” the doctor said. “Just plain dust. Look again at the revolver, my good friend. The barrel is as clean as a whistle, no dust on there. But the other end, and the trigger especially — all over dust. It’s awfully hard to fire a gun, you know, except by accident, without touching the trigger.”