The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Milton K. Ozaki (1913–1989) was born in Racine, Wisconsin, and lived much of his life in Kenosha, setting many of his books in Stillwell, a faintly disguised version of that city. His other books were set in Chicago, where he also lived for many years. Born of a Japanese father and Caucasian mother, he is probably the first American mystery writer of Japanese heritage. He lost a leg in a childhood accident, yet worked as a journalist, tax accountant, and owner of a beauty parlor on Chicago’s Gold Coast, though he claimed he mostly earned his living by playing bridge for money. His books were written in the smart-aleck school of private-eye or cop novel prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s. His first two books were set in Chicago and featured Professor Androcles Caldwell, head of the psychology department at North University, his young assistant, Bendy Brinks, and Lieutenant Percy Phelan of Homicide, who worked together in The Cuckoo Clock (1946), A Friend in Need (1947), and, a bit later, The Dummy Murder Case (1951). More than half of Ozaki’s twenty-five novels were written under the pseudonym Robert O. Saber (a pun on his name, as zaki in Japanese can be translated as “saber”), several featuring private eye Carl Good. Fast-paced and frequently sexy, the novels were also often humorous, though not always intentionally, as his mixed metaphors and peculiar similes were the subject of several pages in Bill Pronzini’s Son of Gun in Cheek (1987), an affectionate study of mystery fiction’s worst writing.

“The Corpse Didn’t Kick” was published in the November 1949 issue.

Slay-happy Henry put his wife in a triangle — to prove he was on the square.

Henry Ebbett had spent weeks perfecting his plan. He had considered it from every possible angle, and there was absolutely no flaw in it. It was complicated, of course, but the reward was worth all the trouble and patience required. Everything fitted together beautifully — and the timing was perfect.

It was too bad he had to kill Joe Carson, but Joe was the keystone of the whole idea. There had to be a fall guy — or Henry hadn’t a hope of getting away with the money. So Joe was the fall guy. It was as simple as that.

Henry soaped his hands carefully and rinsed them under the faucet. Removing his horn-rimmed glasses for a moment, he polished them thoughtfully, then replaced them on his small pudgy nose. They gave him an owlish look, but without them he would hardly have been able to see himself in the mirror over the washbasin.

“Contact lenses, that’s what I’ll get,” he thought fleetingly. “In some other town, I’ll get rid of these glasses and make a fresh start. A man can do anything with $20,000.”

The thought of the money brought a smile to his lips. He had the money — all of it! — and no one would ever figure out where it had gone.

For weeks, he’d been purchasing traveler’s checks at various banks under a fictitious name. They were waiting for him in a distant city, mailed there in care of general delivery. When everything was settled here, he’d pick them up and cash them at his convenience. He chuckled as he dried his hands. “This will fix Bertha, too,” he thought, “once and for all. No matter what she says, no one will believe her!”

Bertha, of course, was his wife...

He walked from the bathroom to the bedroom, then went slowly into the living-room, pausing in the doorway like a stage designer inspecting a new arrangement. The lamp, the table, the chair — everything was perfect, even to the convenient ashtray, the bottle of bourbon, and the highball glass. Joe liked his bourbon with plain water. The glass and fixings were there, utterly devoid of fingerprints, waiting for him.

Impatient now that the critical moment was almost upon him, Henry walked to the window and looked down the deserted street. The cold had taken a sudden drop and the weather was freezing, but, fortunately, there hadn’t been much snow. He wouldn’t have to worry about footprints on the carpets, the back stairs, or the rear sidewalk. No one had seen him come in. No one knew he was here — except Joe Carson.

Inside the room, the steam radiator hissed cheerfully, spreading its warmth. Henry was anemic and he liked it warm.

“If Bertha were here,” he thought, “she’d have the heat turned off and the window open.” Involuntarily, he shivered at the idea. “As long as I pay the rent, I’m entitled to heat. This is the way I like it, and this is the way it’s going to be — from now on.”

As though in answer to his wish that Joe hurry up, a tall man in a heavy brown overcoat turned the corner and, his face lowered into the cold wind, made his way slowly toward the building. Henry nodded approvingly. Joe was on time. Everything was working out exactly as he had planned.

A moment later the downstairs door banged and Joe’s heavy feet ascended the stairs. Henry’s heart did an excited little dance as he waited for Joe to reach the landing. Then, moving soundlessly across the room, he unlocked the door and opened it. The smile he managed was perfect — pleasant, friendly, a little abstracted.

“Hi, Joe. Pretty cold, eh?”

“Sure is!” Joe came into the room, puffing a little and slapping his hands together. “That wind must have come straight from Alaska! You’ve got it nice and warm in here, though.”

“Throw your coat on the couch, Joe. Make yourself at home.”

Unconsciously, Henry kept his voice low, moving softly about the room in his old felt slippers so Mrs. Pettigrew, downstairs, wouldn’t hear two pairs of feet above her. She undoubtedly was sitting out in front on her glass-enclosed porch, watching the goings and comings of her neighbors, but there was no sense taking chances. Henry liked things to be perfect.

Waving Joe toward the chair beside the table, Henry said: “Pour yourself a drink, Joe. I knew you’d be needing one, so I got the fixings ready.”

“Thanks, Henry.” Joe sighed and stretched his legs comfortably. “Bertha get to the train all right?”

“You know Bertha. Always ready and always on time. This is the first time she’s been away in a coon’s age.”

“Uh-huh. You’re a lucky guy, Henry, having a wife like Bertha.”

“Don’t I know it?”

Once again, Henry surveyed the room. No, everything was perfect. The stage was set for death. With a confident smile, he went quietly into the bedroom and put on his overcoat, muffler, and hat. He buttoned the coat, drew on a pair of light flannel gloves, then went to his dresser and, removing two guns from a drawer, slid them into his coat pocket — the revolver on the right, the automatic on the left. Bending carefully, he picked up a pair of black oxfords from the floor and tucked them under his arm.

When he walked into the living-room, Joe was smoking a cigarette and sipping a highball. He raised one eyebrow in surprise as he saw Henry dressed to go out.

“Hey, going some place?” he asked. He set down his drink and started to get up, but Henry waved him back.

“Need a few things from the grocery,” Henry explained briefly, “and I want to drop these shoes at the repair shop before it closes. Won’t take a minute. Sit still and make like a guest, Joe.”

“Glad to go for you, Henry, if—”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

Henry wondered if Joe would notice he was wearing his felt slippers. Even if he did notice, of course, it wouldn’t make any difference. But Joe wouldn’t notice — and he didn’t.

As smoothly as an actor going through a well-practiced role, Henry walked to the door, snapped his fingers to show he’d remembered something, and came back. With one gloved hand, he picked up the telephone and dialed Mrs. Pettigrew’s number. The phone buzzed repeatedly, indicating that the phone was ringing. When it had buzzed four times, he set the receiver back onto its cradle. Mrs. Pettigrew would be on her way to answer it — and the phone was in the rear of her flat.

“No one home,” Henry said cryptically. He shrugged and started for the door again.

This time he opened the door and went quietly downstairs. At the foot of the stairs, he sat down, removed the slippers and put on the oxfords. In a matter of seconds, he opened the front door, stepped onto the porch, and closed the door. He stamped his feet loudly on the boards of the porch, opened the door, banged it shut, shuffled his feet in the hallway. Hesitating only an instant, he rapped on Mrs. Pettigrew’s door.

He heard her slow, dragging footsteps come from the rear of her flat. The slippers! With a whispered curse, he bent and snatched them from the hallway floor. With one swift jerk of his arm he tossed them up the stairs. What if he hadn’t remembered them? What if Mrs. Pettigrew had seen them? He shivered at the thought, and, when old Mrs. Pettigrew opened her door, he looked exactly like a man who’d tramped several blocks through freezing weather.

“Hello!” he said, smiling cheerily into the aged woman’s face. “Cold, isn’t it? Did my groceries arrive?”

“Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Ebbett. Winter’s here, all right!” The old woman nodded her head and peered at him over her spectacles. “Thought you’d forgotten the groceries, Mr. Ebbett, when I saw that friend of yours come and go right up. Thought you’d come home without my noticing and—”

“Friend?” Henry’s face as he stood in the cold, drafty hallway was a masterpiece of puzzlement. “You say one of my friends came — and is upstairs?”

“Sure is. The tall, thin one. Works the same place you do, I believe.”

“Joe Carson?” Henry shook his head. “Didn’t know he was coming.” Bending quickly, he picked up the large bag of groceries sitting just inside the door. He grunted as he lifted the bag. The flour was heavier than he’d expected. “Well, thanks for taking care of these for me, Mrs. Pettigrew. I’ll go right up. Perhaps Bertha returned, and—”

“No, she ain’t been back,” the old lady assured him. “I been watching for her.”

“Oh.” He mumbled a few words, then shook his head worriedly and started up the stairs like a weary little man whose wife had unaccountably left him and who now had to cook his own dinner. When he heard her door close, he sighed with relief.

At the top of the stairs, he shifted the weight of the bag onto his left arm and put his right hand into his coat pocket. A curious thrill trembled the length of his arm as his fingers closed about the hard steel of the revolver, and he stood there a moment, breathing heavily.

This was power. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. Death for Joe — but freedom and ease for him...

When he pushed the door open, Joe was sprawled comfortably in the chair with a half-finished cigarette drooping between his lips. He straightened sluggishly as Henry came into the room.

Henry said, “Take this bag a minute, will you, Joe?”

Joe was almost on his feet when the gun in Henry’s hand exploded. A surprised expression crossed his face. The gun crashed again, and, without a sound, Joe collapsed.

Swiftly, Henry set the bag on a chair, crossed the room, got the automatic out of his pocket and pressed it into Joe’s right hand. He grunted, straining mightily, as he forced Joe’s body and arm up to the correct height.

With his finger over Joe’s he pointed the automatic at the bag and pumped two bullets into it — and then, for good measure, another one into the wall, toward the bedroom doorway and at about the level of his own head. That done, he pushed Joe away, recovered his slippers from the hallway, and deliberately sent a lamp crashing to the floor.

Everything was crystal-clear in his mind. He moved swiftly and surely, setting the stage. First, the groceries. He lifted the bag, from which a trickle of flour was already coming, and let some of the flour stream onto his coat. Then he dropped the bag onto the floor.

The bag burst and a can of corn fell to the floor, to be followed an instant later by a bottle of catsup. The bullet hole in the flour sack tore wide and a white Niagara of flour cascaded onto the carpet. He overturned the chair on which the bag had rested.

Next, the bedroom — he made it in a single stride, jerked open the top drawer, rumpled its contents. He tossed the slippers under the bed. Was that all?

He scanned the room quickly. The ticket! Frantically, he got the envelope from his pocket, making certain that only his gloved hand touched it. Carefully, he slid it into Joe’s breast pocket. As a final touch, he got one of the extra door keys from Bertha’s dresser and laid it on the table beside Joe’s highball glass.

The whole thing, from the first crash of the revolver to the final planting of the key, had taken merely seconds, yet already Mrs. Pettigrew was screaming in the hallway. “Mr. Ebbett! Mr. Ebbett!”

He’d done it!

Henry sucked his lungs full of air and walked to the telephone. He dialed a number and stood there, a slight smile on his round face as he waited for the connection to be made.

A metallic voice came over the wire: “Police headquarters.”

Henry swallowed carefully and stared owlishly at the wall through his horn-rimmed glasses. Making his voice tremble, he said:

“Please come to 107 Pinegrove Avenue. I’ve shot a man... He tried to kill me...”

The police lieutenant was a heavy-set, dour-faced man in a rumpled blue serge suit. He eyed the body unhappily, almost as though he resented its presence, then looked at Henry. “Well, let’s hear the story,” he said heavily.

“He was here, waiting for me,” Henry told him, remembering to shiver realistically. “I picked up a bag of groceries downstairs, then came right up. He was sorta crouched there in front of the chair, as though he’d heard me and was getting up, and as soon as I stepped into the room, he began shooting. I guess I reacted automatically, because as soon as I saw him with the gun in his hand, I dropped the groceries and ran for the bedroom. I got my gun out of the dresser drawer and I fired back at him — twice, I think.” He shook his head dazedly. “I got him, thank God, before he got me!”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Joe Carson. He works the same place I do.”

“Any idea why he wanted to kill you?”

“I’m not sure, but I think perhaps — well, I was sitting here, thinking, after I phoned police headquarters, and a lot of things I couldn’t understand before began to make sense. My wife didn’t come home last night, and now with Joe trying to kill me, it seems as if maybe—”

“Triangle, eh?”

Henry nodded weakly and bent his head. The lieutenant shook his head sympathetically and gestured to the other officers in the doorway.

“Well, get to work, boys,” he said gruffly. “The usual photos, diagram, and so on. Keep a sharp eye out for prints.” He walked over to the body, glanced shrewdly at Henry. “You touch anything?”

“No, sir.” Henry’s face became a picture of horror at the thought. “I called you, then sat down, right here in this chair, until you came. I was completely stunned, I guess, but the — well, you know.”

A young man with a black bag strode in, his thin face flushed from hurrying. He nodded to the lieutenant and bent over the body.

“Dead,” he said promptly. “One bullet passed between fourth and fifth ribs. Not long ago, either.” As he got up, he loosened his heavy overcoat and added: “Lord, it’s hot in here!”

The lieutenant grunted. “We called you ten minutes ago. Where do you docs hide during the day? You must have been holding a full house.”

The coroner’s physician smiled good-naturedly. “No game today, darn it. I was taking a shower and O’Brien wasn’t available.” He nodded toward the body. “It’s okay for you to proceed. I’ll have him picked up. Suppose you want the autopsy rushed through?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Be seeing you.” He picked up his bag, winked at one of the other officers, and went out. His feet clattered loudly as he descended the stairs.

“How are you coming?” the lieutenant asked, breaking the silence.

“Not bad, sir,” one of the men replied. He paused to wipe his perspiring face. “A few more pictures, then I’ll start in on the sketch. Would it be okay to turn off the radiator?”

“Leave everything as is,” the lieutenant said shortly.

Walking slowly about the room, he peered at the bottle of bourbon, the highball glass, the ashtray, and the key on the table. Turning, he pushed his hands in his pockets and stared at the opposite wall. His eyes found the bullet hole and, evincing no surprise, he went over and examined it casually.

“Bullet in here,” he announced. Swinging toward Henry, he said: “So you think he and your wife were trying to deal you out, eh?”

Henry wet his dry lips. “Yes, sir.”

“Where do you work?”

“I’m a bookkeeper at the Safeway Loan Company.”

“He a bookkeeper there, too?” The lieutenant nodded toward the body.

“No, he was a cashier.”

The lieutenant shrugged and walked over to the bookcase in the corner. He scanned the titles, peered at the dust on top of the case, came back. As though he had all the time in the world, he stood and watched one of the officers pick the two guns up upon rods which he inserted down their barrels. “Might have a look in his pockets, Pete,” he suggested mildly.

“Sure, Lieutenant.” The officer deposited the guns in a cardboard box and carefully set the box on the couch. He knelt beside Joe’s body then and slid his fingers into the pockets, expertly removing the contents.

“Coat, right pocket — nothing,” he droned mechanically. “Left pocket — two theatre ticket stubs dated November 7th. Outside pocket — one clean white handkerchief, no initial. Inside pocket — a notebook, a bank book, an envelope, and—”

“Anything in the envelope?” the lieutenant asked.

Silence for a moment. “Yes, sir. There’s a one-way ticket to Hot Springs, Arkansas.”

The lieutenant’s eyebrows flicked upward. He extended his hand. “Let’s see.” Frowning, he examined the ticket, then handed it back. “Be careful of that envelope,” he warned. “There may be some prints on it.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer nodded and went back to his search. “Trousers, right pocket — a dollar and thirty cents in change. Left pocket — $46 in bills.” With a soft grunt, he rolled the body over. “Right, rear — a soiled white handkerchief and a key ring with six keys. Left, rear — a card case containing a few receipts for payments on a suit and several identification cards.”

The lieutenant pursed his lips, nodded, and studied the neat piles of objects on the floor. He picked up the notebook, turned its pages carelessly, dropped it on the floor again.

“Make a list, Pete,” he said.

He started pacing around the room again, stopped at the table, picked up the key which lay there. He walked to the door with it, pushed it into the keyhole, turned it. The lock snapped back. With a pleased expression on his face, he tossed the key to the officer named Pete.

“Be sure to label this. No prints, of course.” More to himself than anyone in the room, he added: “They shouldn’t be allowed to put that fancy engraving on keys.” He looked at Henry suddenly. “Know anybody in Hot Springs?”

“No, sir.”

“Your wife got friends or relatives there?”

“Well, I don’t really know, sir. I don’t think so. She did mention it once, but only to say that it’d be a nice place to go to for a vacation someday.”

“Where was Carson from?”

“Some town in Wisconsin, I think.”

Apparently satisfied, the lieutenant turned away. “How’re you coming?” he asked. “Any prints?”

“Yeah, quite a few.” The officer with the short curly brown hair stood up and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “There’s a good set on the glass and the bottle.”

“Hey, what do you know!” another officer exclaimed suddenly. “Look at this!” He held up a lead slug. “It was in the flour, Lieutenant! Why, if it hadn’t been for that bag, it’d have killed him sure!”

Henry’s eyes widened. “Good Lord!” he gasped. “Why, he — almost—!” He quivered so realistically that his glasses came very near to sliding off his nose.

“Very nice,” the lieutenant commented. “In which arm were you carrying the bag?”

“My left. Like this.” Henry bent his arm so the lieutenant could see how he’d carried the heavy bag of groceries.

The lieutenant nodded, studied the pile of spilled cans and flour, then announced: “I’m going down to talk to the old lady. Wait here until I get back.” At the door, he added: “Give the bathroom and bedroom a going-over, too, boys.”

He was gone fifteen minutes, during which time an ambulance arrived, two men climbed the stairs with a wicker basket, and the body of Joe Carson was removed, leaving only a chalked outline to show where his corpse had lain.

Henry sat hunched in his chair through all this, his eyes following the careful, methodical work of the officers as they took measurements, labeled and packed items in boxes, and dusted powder over various surfaces. From time to time the faintest suggestion of a smile touched his lips fleetingly as he saw them checking the details which he had anticipated. He had nothing to worry about. He’d read and studied dozens of detective stories and he knew what they were looking for. But let them look. He had thought of everything.

When the lieutenant returned, he glanced around the room and gestured impatiently. “Hurry it up, boys. I’m taking Mr. Ebbett to the station. When you finish, seal the door and report to my office.”

Riding downtown in the squad car, the lieutenant explained: “It looks open-and-shut to me, Mr. Ebbett, but we have a certain routine we have to go through. I’m taking you to the station, where you’ll be formally booked on a charge of murder. There’ll be a coroner’s inquest tomorrow morning, and then, following that, a hearing in Felony Court. If your story checks, you’ll be released by the court. But first, of course, I have to get a detailed, signed statement from you.”

Henry hadn’t expected to be charged with murder. Somehow, he’d thought the police, knowing he was innocent, would simply take his statement and let him go.

But he didn’t protest. He nodded quietly and looked sad, like a man utterly crushed by the fact that his wife had deserted him and that his best friend had plotted his murder.

At police headquarters, he was most cooperative. He gave the lieutenant a detailed statement, signed it, and let them take his fingerprints.

The coroner’s inquest was called the following morning at nine o’clock, but, at Lieutenant Barr’s request, it was adjourned for two days to permit the police time to locate Bertha Ebbett.

In the meantime, a score of detectives attached to the homicide detail began checking Henry Ebbett’s statement. They found it to be surprisingly exact; in fact, in combing the city they learned details which Henry, though he had planned them, had not been able to mention.

They learned, for instance, that Joe Carson’s accounts at the Safeway Loan Company were short. A hasty audit, made overnight by a crew of accountants, established that, over a period of months, a sum exceeding $20,000 had been cleverly embezzled. Many of the records were in the neat handwriting of Henry Ebbett, but that was to be expected. Ebbett was only a bookkeeper. Joe Carson, on the other hand, had been a cashier and had had direct charge of the money.

What had happened to the money? The Safeway Loan Company, fortunately, was protected by insurance. Insurance investigators pored over the records and delved into Carson’s habits, hobbies, and bank account, but there was nothing to suggest that Carson had ever possessed more than $450 at one time.

One of the investigators, a radical, thought of Ebbett and made a thorough inquiry regarding him. But Ebbett, it developed, was even more spotless than Carson. Ebbett didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t gamble, and had never been known to pause to look at a well-turned ankle. His bank account was small, he possessed no jewelry, had indulged in no luxuries of any kind. Obviously, Carson had stolen the money as well as poor Mr. Henry Ebbett’s wife.

The investigators were helped to that conclusion by the discovery that a man resembling Carson had, a week earlier, purchased two tickets to Hot Springs, Arkansas. On learning this, Lieutenant Barr wired the Hot Springs, Arkansas, authorities to locate and hold Bertha Ebbett — age 26, height 5–8, weight 120, dark hair, brown eyes, regular features, probably registered at a local hotel.

That done, the lieutenant sighed, rubbed his brow, and sank back in his swivel chair. He raised his eyes wearily when the door of his office opened. “Well, Sergeant?”

“The ballistic reports are in, Lieutenant,” his aide reported. “They check with Ebbett’s statement. Carson’s prints — and only his — were on the glass and liquor bottle. He evidently opened the door with the key we found, threw his hat and coat on the couch, and made himself at home. Ebbett can thank his lucky stars that he was carrying that sack of flour. They found a second slug in it, which accounts for all the empty cartridges.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Well, Peterson checked those theatre ticket stubs we found in his pocket. They were to a neighborhood movie. The cashier recognized Carson’s photo. Said he came there often, sometimes with a woman who wore a cheap silver fox jacket. There was that sort of a jacket in Ebbett’s wife’s closet.”

“Uh-huh. Go on.”

“That’s about it. The revolver was Ebbett’s. Bought it several years ago. The automatic was Carson’s. His landlady saw it in his closet once when she was cleaning.”

“How is Ebbett doing?”

“About the same. He keeps asking how long he’s to be kept locked up.”

“Asked for a lawyer yet?”

“No.”

“Funny.” The lieutenant rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You’d think he’d be hollering habeas corpus, or something, at the top of his lungs.”

“Huh! That guy, he’s too tight! Says he can’t afford to waste money on a lawyer where there’s no doubt of his innocence.”

“Well, maybe he’s right, at that.” The lieutenant, in dismissal, swung his chair so he could gaze out the window. “Let me know if anything comes through from Hot Springs.”

“Yes, sir.” And the sergeant, knowing Lieutenant Barr’s mood, closed the door gently.

An hour later the phone in Barr’s office rang. The operator announced that a long-distance call from Hot Springs was waiting, charges to be reversed. Growling his acceptance, Barr waited expectantly.

When he put down the phone, his thick brows were knitted in a curious frown. In brief, he had been informed that Mrs. Bertha Ebbett had registered the previous morning at a local hotel under her own name, had paid in advance for a room, and, when told that her husband was being held for the murder of Joe Carson, had demanded permission to return home immediately. Barr had told the Hot Springs police to put her on a plane immediately and to wire him the exact time of the plane’s departure...

Later that afternoon, Lieutenant Barr phoned the coroner’s office and advised the coroner that the witness he had been waiting for had been located and that the inquest could be resumed the following morning.

When Bertha Ebbett was shown into his office, Lieutenant Barr studied her with interest. She seemed slimmer and prettier than the girl whose photograph he had in a folder on his desk. Her pale face was attractive, though her eyes were faintly shadowed with gray. Her step was firm and brisk, and, when they shook hands across his desk, her grasp was cool but sincere.

“What is it about Henry?” she demanded anxiously. “I asked and asked, but all they’d tell me is that he’s supposed to have killed Joe. It isn’t true, is it?”

“Yes, it’s true,” Barr told her gravely, “but it isn’t as bad as it sounds. You needn’t worry about Henry. He’ll undoubtedly be released as soon as the coroner’s inquest is completed.”

“Henry really... killed Joe?”

“Yes.” Barr studied her with his eyes, then said: “I need to know many things about this case, Mrs. Ebbett, which only you can tell me. I’m going to put my questions to you bluntly, without any fancy trimming, and I want you to answer them truthfully.”

“Of course! If there’s anything—”

“Is it true, Mrs. Ebbett, that you and Carson were friendly and that he was to meet you in Hot Springs as soon as—” He paused, stopped by the look of absolutely incredulity which flooded her face.

“What!”

“Is it true or not, Mrs. Ebbett?”

“Of course it isn’t true!”

“Isn’t it true that Mr. Carson was a frequent visitor at your home, even when your husband wasn’t there, and that he often took you to the movies in the evening?”

“Why, yes — but not the way it sounds! The whole idea is fantastic!”

“Why is it fantastic, Mrs. Ebbett? According to your husband, you were unhappy and fought with him continually. Mr. Carson was more nearly your own age, unmarried, attractive, with many interests similar to yours.”

“Henry told you that?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes and sank back in her chair. Barr knew by the way her teeth sank into the red of her lips that she was shocked and fighting desperately for control. When she opened her eyes, her voice was a hoarse whisper: “Tell me... please tell me what happened!”

Barr hesitated, then reached for the folder on his desk. He removed a typed copy of Ebbett’s statement. In a dry, expressionless voice, he read it to her.

“It’s a lie!” she gasped, when he finished. “I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s like a dream, a nightmare. But that” — she pointed at the typewritten sheets — “that’s not true!” Her eyes stared into his, dark and hollow, like two great holes in a loaf of uncooked bread. “Henry couldn’t have said anything like that!”

“He did say it, though,” Barr assured her. “It’s signed, sealed, and sworn to.”

“But don’t you see, I didn’t run away from him! Henry knew I was going to Hot Springs. He gave me the money, bought the ticket!”

“Carson bought the tickets, Mrs. Ebbett. The ticket-seller at the station remembers him. He bought two one-way tickets to Hot Springs last week.”

“But—” She shook her head helplessly. “Then he bought them because Henry asked him to. Joe often did little things like that for Henry, just as he took me to a movie, once in a while, when Henry had extra work to do at home. I tell you there was nothing to it.”

“The second ticket was found in Carson’s pocket,” Barr said gently.

She didn’t get the significance of his statement immediately; when she did, her hands clenched so fiercely that her knuckles stood out.

“Then Henry put it there!” she exclaimed. “When I left, the other ticket was in an envelope on Henry’s dresser. That’s why I engaged a double room. Henry was to have followed me in a couple of days.”

“Did any of your friends know about that arrangement?”

“Joe Carson did.”

“Anyone else?”

“I... don’t know. I’m afraid not. Henry didn’t want anyone at his office to know. You see, he asked for a vacation and was refused. But he was to receive a bonus this week, and, as soon as it was paid to him, he was going to quit his job and come to Hot Springs. I’ve had a bad cough for several months, and he was going to look for work there, so we could stay permanently.”

“In that case, wouldn’t it have been better for you to wait until he received his bonus before leaving? The two of you could have traveled together.”

“Henry insisted that I go on ahead and look for an apartment. He said he’d pack our things and arrange to have the furniture shipped. I didn’t argue because, as I said, I haven’t been well and it seemed like a sensible arrangement.”

Lieutenant Barr shook his head slowly. “It may have seemed sensible to you, Mrs. Ebbett — but I doubt if the coroner’s jury will believe it.”

The coroner’s jury convened the following morning and made short work of the case. Dr. Felix Adelman, the coroner’s physician, testified to the approximate time of death, described the bullet wounds, and stated the results of the autopsy on Carson’s body. Then Henry Ebbett’s signed statement was read.

Experts testified that the bullets found in Carson’s body were from a revolver admittedly owned by Ebbett, and that three bullets, fired from an automatic pistol registered in Carson’s name and found in his hand, had been located in the apartment: two in the sack of flour which Ebbett had been carrying, and one in the wall adjoining the bedroom. Their angles of entrance and trajectory had been established and were in agreement with Ebbett’s statement.

The experts further testified that Carson’s — and only Carson’s — fingerprints had been found on the highball glass, the bottle of liquor, and ashtray. A paraffin test revealed that Carson had actually fired the automatic. The envelope containing the railroad ticket had borne Carson’s and Mrs. Ebbett’s fingerprints — but not Henry Ebbett’s. The ticket-seller identified a photograph of Carson and stated that Carson was the man who had purchased two one-way tickets to Hot Springs from him. A certified public accountant appeared in behalf of the Safeway Loan Company and testified that Carson had embezzled the sum of $21,125 from his employer. A locksmith identified the key found on the table as one made by him for Mrs. Ebbett. The ticket stubs were introduced as evidence, duly identified, and the theatre cashier repeated her story about Carson and Mrs. Ebbett.

Then old Mrs. Pettigrew was called. She stated that, on the day previous to the murder, Mrs. Ebbett had left the house in the middle of the afternoon with two suitcases, and, when Mr. Ebbett returned home from work, he had been obviously shocked at discovering his wife was gone.

On the day of the murder, she had seen Carson enter the building at least fifteen minutes before Mr. Ebbett came in. Yes, Mr. Ebbett had knocked on her door and picked up a bag of groceries. He had gone directly upstairs. And had Mrs. Pettigrew heard the shots? Yes, indeed. Mr. Ebbett had hardly stepped into his apartment when the first shot rang out, to be followed quickly by four others. Mrs. Pettigrew had screamed, but, being a victim of arthritis, had been unable to go upstairs.

Henry Ebbett, called to clarify and amplify his statement, testified in a quiet, self-possessed tone in which his grief was evident.

His wife, Bertha Ebbett, on the other hand, testified that everything presented to the jury was a lie, was twisted, was utterly impossible. She admitted that she had attended movies with Carson, that she had been located by police in a Hot Springs hotel, where she had engaged a room, but she denied vehemently the implications which the admissions inferred. She also admitted that she had admired and liked Carson.

Throughout her testimony, Bertha Ebbett spoke in a low, reluctant tone, which the jury was quick to note. They took the indistinctness of her voice to be from shame. In fact, the general tone of her charges and testimony only made them the more certain of her embarrassment and guilt.

It took the jury hardly any time at all to reach a verdict: “Justifiable homicide, with a recommendation that Mrs. Bertha Ebbett be referred to the grand jury for possible indictment as accessory-before-the-fact to an attempted homicide.”

Ten minutes after the jury’s verdict was rendered, Lieutenant Barr and Sergeant Jablonsky entered a lunchroom across the street from police headquarters. They sat at the counter and ordered coffee.

“You taking Ebbett up to Felony Court this afternoon?” Jablonsky asked after a while.

“I suppose so,” Barr admitted.

“You don’t seem too happy about it.”

Barr took a sip from his steaming cup, then set it down on the counter. He grimaced, as though the coffee had left a bad taste in his mouth. “Frankly, between you and me, I’m not.”

“You think Ebbett could have framed it?”

“I don’t know,” Barr said heavily. “Ebbett is intelligent. Seems to me, if his wife had been playing around with Carson, he’d have known about it and been prepared. I’m not saying she didn’t, because it’s hard to tell a thing like that about a woman — but I’m not saying she did, either. She says she didn’t, and she certainly was shocked when I suggested the setup to her, but the evidence is all the other way. But I will say this: Ebbett is nobody’s fool. He wasn’t as surprised as he said he was.”

“But if Ebbett framed the murder, then he framed the embezzlement, too, and where’s the dough?”

“Let the insurance investigators worry about that. I’m a homicide man, and I hate being outsmarted. If Ebbett is working a frame, I want to get him.”

“Yeah.”

“The thing is,” Barr said slowly, “the whole darned thing seems to have gone off like clockwork. I’ve studied it from every angle, and it must have happened exactly like he said it did. That old woman having seen him coming home after Carson is the sticker. She saw him go up, then heard the shots fired. At that, I don’t see how Carson missed plugging him. I’d have emptied my gun into Ebbett before he got to that bedroom.”

“One shot would have been enough,” the sergeant pointed out, “if it hadn’t been for the sack of flour. Carson still had to make a getaway. Maybe he didn’t want to fire any more than necessary.”

“Maybe,” Barr agreed.

“You don’t think so?”

“I think Ebbett had to move darned fast, faster than a man surprised could ordinarily move. He had to see Carson, size up the situation, and get started for the bedroom almost before the first shot was fired. The evidence all says that that’s what happened, but somehow it doesn’t sound reasonable.”

They sat there, sipping their coffee and looking out the lunchroom windows into the street. A car drove past, its radiator billowing steam.

“Really cold today again,” Jablonsky commented. “Zero, at least.”

“Uh-huh.”

A man came in from the street and slammed the door. He wore a pair of rimless glasses on his sharp beak of a nose, and a red woolen muffler about his neck almost concealed his chin. He stopped just inside the door, stomped his cold feet, and began to grope in a pocket of his coat for a handkerchief.

Barr’s cup hit the counter with a loud thud. “Good Lord!”

“Huh?” Jablonsky looked up.

“Get Ebbett and take him to that apartment of his,” Barr ordered. “Don’t tell him anything except that we want to check a few details before ordering his release. Take a couple of the boys with you.”

Barr hesitated, then added grimly: “I’ll take the other squad car and pick up his wife. I have an idea she’ll enjoy being in on this!”

Bertha Ebbett stared stonily at her husband, but Henry refused to look at her. He sat in a chair near the telephone, his small eyes studying a wall through his thick horn-rimmed glasses. Lieutenant Barr appeared very much at ease. With his long legs stretched before him, he sat slumped in the chair Carson had occupied beside the table.

“This probably seems peculiar to you, Mr. Ebbett,” Barr said conversationally, “but now that the coroner’s jury has exonerated you, it’s my responsibility to take you before the Felony Court for a hearing. That may only take a few minutes, but sometimes the judge asks for details and I like to have everything in apple-pie order before proceeding. Understand?”

“Of course, Lieutenant. If it’s anything that isn’t in my statement, I’ll—”

“Just a detail, Mr. Ebbett. You said that, on the day of the shooting, you spent most of the afternoon calling at the railroad stations, airport, and bus depots, trying to trace your wife.”

“Yes, sir, I did. I went—”

Barr waved one hand airily. “Yes, we checked on that, and you really did. But we forgot one thing. When you started back home, you came by streetcar and got off on the corner of Farwell and Elson. You walked from that corner to this building, a distance of three blocks.”

“That’s correct.”

“How long did it take you to walk that distance?”

“Why—” For an instant, Henry’s eyes flickered. “I don’t know, exactly. Not more than a minute or two. Is that important?”

“It may be — and it may not,” Barr said succinctly. “But I want to check on it, just to make sure. Jablonsky, suppose you take Mr. Ebbett to the corner of Farwell and Elson in the squad car and put him on the corner. Note the time he starts walking back, then drive slowly along beside him. You, Mr. Ebbett, I want to walk at about the same speed you did the other day. When you reach this building, knock on Mrs. Pettigrew’s door, say a few words, and then come right upstairs. Maybe you’d better pretend you’ve got a bag of groceries in your arm, too.”

“But, I don’t understand,” Henry said. “What possible bearing can that have on—”

“It’s just a detail, like I told you,” Barr informed him gruffly. “Remember, walk at about the same speed you did the other day.”

For the first time, a worried frown creased Henry’s forehead. But he went out with Sergeant Jablonsky, and a moment later those sitting in the small apartment heard the engine of the squad car roar into action.

Minutes ticked by, the silence broken only by the quiet hissing of the steam radiator in the corner. Barr sat with his head leaning comfortably against the back of his chair. Once Bertha Ebbett moved restlessly and glanced at the window. She got up and started toward it.

Without opening his eyes, Barr said: “Better leave the window alone, Mrs. Ebbett.”

Her lips trembled, but she went back to her chair and sank into it with a helpless little sigh. More minutes passed; then they heard the sound of the downstairs door opening.

Henry’s rap on Mrs. Pettigrew’s door was loud and distinct. “Just wanted to tell you I was back, Mrs. Pettigrew,” he was saying. “Thank you very much for speaking up for me at the inquest...”

Then they heard Henry’s feet on the tread. The apartment door began to swing open.

Barr leaned forward intently.

Bertha Ebbett stifled a scream...

For as Henry came into the warm room, he stopped and stood utterly still before them, blinded by the vapor which immediately condensed on the lenses of his thick horn-rimmed glasses...