The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 5 - August 1920)

I

The single typewritten line was undated and unsigned, but on the lower right-hand corner of the paper were three distinct finger-prints, made with such precision that, obviously, they were placed there with a purpose.

"Silent" Cass, lieutenant of detectives, read the note without visible excitement or interest.

"Looks like the real thing," he grunted, tossing it across the desk. "What do you think, Gatty?"

Sergeant Gatty glanced stolidly at the writing, arose slowly and put on his hat. Cass also stood up, shifting a small automatic from his hip to an outside coat pocket.

"Let's walk," he said. Mulberry Bend was only ten minutes from headquarters.

Anonymous letters belonged to the routine, but they rarely yielded anything worth while. Sometimes they came from revengeful crooks bent on getting even; often they were of the "poison pen" variety, written out of sheer malice and more frequently they could readily be identified as the fulminations of half-cracked persons moved by morbid obsessions.

But this letter, which had been left at the outside rail at headquarters, addressed "To the Police," did not fall within any of these categories. Not that it appealed to a "trained sixth sense" or any such nonsense. The simple fact was that Mike Molspini's place was known to both men.

In the shadowy past, when as lusty young cops on the lower East.Side they had pounded the pave together, it had been the resort of such picturesque criminals as The Wolf and The Ox and had achieved a malodorous celebrity as the scene of a "barrel murder." Latterly, however, its evil repute had waned and Molspini was conducting the place as a provision shop, falling in line with the growing respectability of the quarter.

As the detectives turned into the Bend from Centre street a policeman placidly saluted them with one hand while he jingled a handful of coins in the other.

"Anything doing, O'Hara?" asked Cass.

"Bunch of crap shooters took it on the run when they saw me coming," chuckled the uniformed man, exhibiting the spoils.

Sergeant Gatty looked appraisingly into the open palm.

"Hardly the price of a drink these days," he sighed.

"Get busy," thrust in Cass curtly. "O'Hara, you just mope along behind us and keep an eye on Molspini's place while we go inside."

A bronzed, sturdy man of about thirty, with a suggestion of the military in his garb and carriage, sauntered past them, halting for an instant as the lieutenant spoke.

Molspini was standing in the door of his shop. He greeted the detectives with an over-cordial grin.

"What 'a you got in the cellar, Mike?" Cass asked the question casually.

"Not a drop, chief, not a drop. The revenue men got me a month ago with ten gallons of claret. I was let off with a fine, but the next time — whew!"

Cass and Gatty laughed with him. The revenue men enjoyed no great popularity with the local detectives.

"You don't mind if we go downstairs and look, do you?" asked Cass good-naturedly.

"Hell no! Come right in."

As the detective followed Molspini into the store O'Hara slouched past the front door, his eyes roving over the cinder-covered playground that lay directly in front of the Bend. Any show of interest in the shop would have collected a crowd in no time. If there is anything that a good policeman hates it is an assemblage of curious citizens, mixed with the inevitable small boys and peering old ladies whom one cannot very well wallop with a nightstick.

The bronzed young man, who overheard the lieutenant's orders to the patrolman, had crossed the street and was standing at the curb directly opposite the shop. As O'Hara eyed him the man drew the "makins' " from a pocket, rolled a cigarette and walked lazily away in the direction of Worth street.

II

With care-free alacrity Molspini led the detectives into the rear room and lifted a trap door. A faint flood of light came up from the cellar.

"Must have left that lamp burnin' all night," muttered the shopkeeper fretfully, as though estimating the cost of his carelessness.

"Silent" Cass walked half way down the steps. Gatty started to follow, but his superior jerked a thumb over his shoulder and the sergeant remained upstairs.

"If you find any booze down there, save a drink for me!" called Molspini jocularly as Cass reached the bottom of the stairs.

The detective looked around the dimly-lit cellar, a vault-like chamber of masonry extending the full length and width of the building. Two small, square windows, closed now, afforded the only means of ventilation. The place was stuffy to a point of suffocation. The rear half was filled with provision cases and the usual litter of a grocery storeroom.

In a clear space well forward three men were seated at a large round table over which hung a single, dust-covered electric lamp.

"The rip is half true, anyway," muttered the detective whimsically. "The three men are here, all right, but they're not dead."

Kicking over an empty egg crate he yelled:

"Hey, you fellows, stir your stumps — what are you doing here?"

The men at the table did not move or utter a sound. "Silent" Cass walked over and jarred roughly against the one nearest him. The man rolled from the chair, fell to his back and remained motionless, one arm covering his face with a grotesque crook. The detective reached down and grasped the upturned wrist. It felt like a piece of damp rubber hose. He released it quickly and the arm oscillated stiffly, without alteration of its original position.

"Dead!" The word followed in the wake of the detective's surprised whistle.

The two men remaining at the table showed no interest. Cass gripped his automatic and glared at them, jerking the hat off the second man. The head swayed slightly and a wavering glint came from the staring, opalescent eyes.

"Dead!" This time the word was uttered in a tense staccato. An echo seemed to come from the dim recesses in the rear. "Silent" Cass wheeled and backed slowly against the masonry, his eyes darting about the cellar…

The third man was seated in the most natural position possible. His chin rested within his hands and he seemed to be asleep. Cass moved toward him cautiously and with the broadside of his left arm swept the hands from under the chin. The man lurched forward, his head striking the table with a bang. A couple of playing cards fluttered from under him and fell to the floor, face up.

"Dead — the three of them!" Cass glanced down at the cards. "Buried aces, hey? Gun or knife play, I suppose."

Again Molspini's laugh sounded through the open hatch. The detective wheeled in sudden wrath.

"Hey, Gatty," he shouted, "truss that fellow up and throw him under the pool table."

A swift scuffle, a snarl and a thud as from the impact of a billy on a skull came to the ears of the listener below, then a bleating protest from Molspini: "Don't, sergeant, don't — I'll be quiet." Cass heard the snap of handcuffs and a heavy sound as though a sack of potatoes had been tossed to the floor.

A moment later Gatty's head appeared at the top of the stairs.

"What's up, chief?" he asked eagerly.

"Lock the door and fetch the wop down," answered Cass.

Somewhere in the back of his head lurked the thought that the presence of the three dead men in the cellar would be a surprise to Molspini.

"Spanish Joe and Louie the Lawyer," he muttered, gazing into the faces of two of the dead men.

He was about to lift the head of the third when Molspini stepped gingerly down the steps, followed by Gatty.

The shopkeeper gazed in stupid bewilderment at the three inanimate figures. Cass watched him keenly. If the man was acting he certainly was a t master of dissimulation. Lifting his manacled hands above his head he yelled:

"Arrest those guys — they ain't got no business in my place!"

He had started toward the table when Gatty seized him and threw him back into a pile of crates under the steps.

"Stay there till your number is called," snarled the sergeant, leaping toward the table. Like his superior he instantly recognized the two whose faces were revealed.

"There must have been a hell of a time in hell when those birds flew in," he said grimly.

"Silent" Cass laid his hands on the third man's shoulders. As he drew back the head, the light, reflected from the oilcloth on the table, cast a ghastly green shadow across the face. Both men looked long and earnestly at the rigid features.

"I don't get that bird, do you?" said Gatty finally.

Cass shook his head and beckoned to Molspini. The shopkeeper, sprang to his feet and ran to the talkie. For a single instant his frightened eyes rested upon the dead face of the man at the table. A shriek, womanish in its intensity and shrillness, broke from him. He strained vainly for a moment at the irons, then, with incoherent gibberings, slithered around the table and kissed the dead man's forehead.

A look of loathing passed between the detectives. Neither made any effort to sustain the man as he swayed for a moment and crashed to the floor without uttering a word.

Cass drew the anonymous note from his pocket, glanced at the finger-prints, then at Gatty. The sergeant seized the right hand of the man on the floor and examined the index finger. A faint smudge appeared upon it. Similar smudges were discernible on the corresponding fingers of the other two.

"Signed their own death warrants," surmised Gatty.

"Silent" Cass shook his head. "Sealed them after death more likely," he said. "The person who left the note at headquarters probably did the job."

The lieutenant had taken the pendant lamp from the hook, uncoiled the loops and was holding the light close to the face of "Spanish Joe." The countenance wore a look such as might be possible to one which in life bore the marks of all evil passions. The black, patent-leathery hair was banked smoothly down over the forehead, the clothing was undisturbed and the whole attitude of the body that of some poisonous thing suddenly bereft of life by being sealed in a vacuum. In whatever guise death had come to him, it had borne no message of terror to "Spanish Joe."

With deft fingers Gatty ran over the upper part of the body and under the clothing. There was no sign of blood. From a secret pocket in the vest under the left arm-pit he drew a poniard. It glinted in the light as he held it up.

"Clean as a hound's tooth," said Cass.

Gatty turned to examine the other two.

The search revealed no outward sign of physical violence — nothing, in fact, but the usual pocket miscellany. A bill-folder taken from the body of "Louie the Lawyer" contained nearly five hundred dollars; nothing unusual, as Louie's wealth was a matter of common knowledge on the lower East Side, if the source thereof was not.

"Silent" Cass stooped and moved the lamp slowly along the floor.

Gatty, with face close to the cement, followed the light until he came to the cards.

"Buried aces," explained Cass; "they fell out from under one of these fellows when I shook him."

"This didn't happen in a crooked game," said Gatty sagely — "not if the cards were still buried when he died." He picked up a broken Chianti flask near the table.

"Faugh!" he sputtered, thrusting it out at arm's length, "whatever was in that bottle had an awful kick in it."

Cass also thrust his nose into the broken flask, then set it gingerly down on the table.

"Kick!" he echoed. "Why, this bottle seems to be dry inside, yet it's got a kick like a South African jackass. One whiff made me dizzy — wonder if it's wood alcohol?"

The detectives were erect now and gazing at Molspini's silent figure, so much like the others that he, too, seemed dead. Gatty went to the rear, drew a bucket of water from the spigot, and, returning, threw it over the prostrate man's face. Molspini spluttered and sat up. Gatty dragged him to his feet and faced him toward the dead man whom the shopkeeper had kissed on the forehead.

"Who is he?" demanded the sergeant.

Molspini gave a frightened whimper but did not answer.

"Who is he?" repeated Gatty relentlessly, drawing back his billy.

Cass thrust out an intervening hand. The man was handcuffed; besides, the lieutenant well knew the futility of confessions made under duress when a case came to trial.

Gatty dropped the billy back into his coat pocket with a snarling laugh.

"He'll change his mind after a night in the Old Slip — we'll give him the best room in the house — nice, quiet place where nobody can hear him squawk when we throw the boots into him."

Cass turned away to conceal a grin from the prisoner. He did not like Garry's coarse third-degree work — there were grits in it.

Wheeling suddenly upon the shopkeeper, he demanded:

"When did your brother come from Italy, Mike?"

The long finger of conjecture touched the point.

"It's my brother Tony," he admitted brokenly, "but I don't know these other fellows or how they came by their death. Tony had a key to the shop. He was a deserter from the other side and had to keep under cover, so I let him use the cellar once in a while for card games with his friends."

"You lie!" snorted Gatty. Nevertheless, he turned to Cass and said gleefully: "We cleared up that point, anyway."

"Did we?" There was a sarcastic note in the lieutenant's voice. "Take this fellow over to headquarters. Better remove the irons and slip out the back way if you don't want to play drum major in front of an East Side procession."

Gatty and Molspini, both trying to look unconcerned, walked rapidly across the playgrounds toward headquarters, just as three police wagons came clang — into the Bend by way of Worth street. The bronzed young man, who had observed the detectives enter the provision shop, jumped from a bench as the two men passed him.

"What's the matter over there — pulling a raid?" he asked.

"Beat it!" snapped Gatty, pushing Molspini roughly ahead.

The young man smiled but did not resume his seat. Gatty moved along a few yards, then paused uneasily.

"Wonder if I overlooked a bet in not putting the basket over that guy," he muttered. "He's the same fellow who passed us on our way to the shop."

When he turned, however, the bronzed young man had disappeared in the crowd that was flocking toward the police wagons.

O'Hara, in the meantime, had relinquished the task of handling the mob to the reserves and resumed his post. The young man who had been rebuffed by Gatty paused at his elbow. The policeman looked into, the open, smiling face and relieved his chest of a weight that had been lying there since the meaning of the whole affair began to dawn upon him.

"What chance has a harness bull got in a case like this?" he asked bitterly. "You might as well hang a red lantern on him and send him out with a fife and drum corps."

The bronzed young man smiled as O'Hara moved disconsolately away.

"Stone blind — both of 'em!" he chuckled. "The right way to escape the cops is to keep on their heels or hide in the grillroom of the Waldorf."

III

Little that was new was discovered at Headquarters. The finger-prints of "Spanish Joe" and "Louie the Lawyer" tallied with those in the archives which also contained the records of both men. There were no prints or history of the third man, whom Molspini had admitted to be his brother.

"Spanish Joe's" record was such as must have assured him a warm welcome beyond the Styx. Listed as an agent for burlesque shows, he had been twice convicted as a white slaver and once for felonious assault. It was noteworthy, however, that he had never served a full term in prison. His birthplace was given as Havana, Cuba, and his origin mixed Spanish and Carib Indian.

The record and antecedents of "Louie the Lawyer" were hardly more savory. From a shyster practice in Essex Market Court he had branched out to the dubious distinction of being considered the chief lawyer and go-between in the netherworld. It was his dark and secret operations that were responsible for the immunity from prison that "Spanish Joe" had so long enjoyed. Although he had a fine home in Riverside Drive, it was in the purlieus of the lower East Side that he found his true atmosphere, his horizon not having widened apace with his increasing wealth. In that stifling, dirty cellar in Mulberry Bend the hog had returned to his wallow and had been smothered in it.

One thing was evident from the beginning. The triple murder, if such it was, did not have its origin in a vendetta. All the fantastic earmarks usual to a Southern European feud were absent. There was no hideous marring of the bodies; indeed, no mark of any kind was found upon them. Nor did the coroner find a trace of poison after the autopsies. A chemical analysis of the organs revealed nothing. The men, apparently, had died of natural causes and simultaneously.

Brooding like three black crows over the sinister mystery, the finger-prints on the mysterious note to the police seemed to afford the only clew. Who had placed them with such care upon the clean white paper? What practiced hand had written the note itself? It was not the work of a bunglesome amateur — the nicety of spacing and general evenness of the work precluded such a conclusion.

"Silent" Cass and Sergeant Gatty went over the back trails of the three dead men, encountering nothing but blank walls everywhere and emerging from blind alleys with empty hands. From the very first Cass had been satisfied that Molspini had told the truth when he came out of his faint in the cellar.

Gatty, though he did not admit it to his superior, had beaten the shopkeeper almost to a pulp (avoiding only the bruising of his face) without getting any additional information. Nor did the sergeant say a word about his encounter with the bronzed young man in the playground. Somehow, through his turgid reasoning, the thought persisted that this smiling, open-faced stranger had not thrust himself into the case by accident. The hope grew in him that some subtle influence would draw this man to the Tombs or perhaps into the courtroom when Molspini was arraigned. But in this he was disappointed.

Although the co-operation of the entire detective and uniformed forces of the city was enlisted, the case, technically, was in the hands of "Silent" Cass. Eager reporters sought him for news of the latest developments. But as one "star" remarked in his story: "Lieutenant Cass continues to have brilliant flashes of silence." Another, in the unharnessed freedom of the editorial rooms, complained gloomily that he could "get nothing out of Cass but silence — and damn little of that."

In view of all this it is not strange that the record of the lieutenant should have become an object of curious inquiry. Nothing of outstanding brilliance was found in it. From the day he had joined the force he had been taciturn to a point of eccentricity. It was his own fellows in "the clubhouse" under the green lamp who first dubbed him "Silent" Cass.

In the days of the old red-light district on the lower East Side he had been known as a relentless pursuer of "cadets," but he had never shared in the public glory of having cleaned out these worst of human vermin. His private life was found to be equally drab and uninteresting. He owned a little home in the far reaches of the Bronx; his wife was dead and his daughter — now about eighteen — kept house for him.

All this was water on Gatty's wheel. While Cass had been silent and colorless, the sergeant had always been garrulous and spectacular. Now he was playing true to form. Hardly a day passed without some new development from this energetic and ambitious officer. He combed the underworld for suspects and dragged bloodied and disheveled prisoners into Headquarters for the line-up. He was always "on the eve of an important arrest."

The Commissioner looked with tolerant, if skeptical eye, upon these activities and with growing impatience at the lieutenant's failure to produce results.

In the midst of all this a reporter journeyed to the Bronx with the dimly burning hope that he might be able "to smoke Cass out" right in his own home. He found the lieutenant in overalls, spading the garden, and young Miss Cass pruning the vines around the porch. An ironic description of this bucolic scene was duly printed the next morning, coupled with the news of another "important arrest" by Sergeant Gatty.

Then things began to happen around Headquarters.

In a special order by the Commissioner, Lieutenant Cass was reduced to the rank of patrolman and assigned to duty in the Bronx — with a post at the Zoological Park. This play to the gallery met with instant applause. One smart paragrapher remarked that Cass would find congenial companionship among his simian brethren in the zoo. A few days later the promotion of Sergeant Gatty to the rank of lieutenant was announced.

Molspini and a few other mysterious prisoners were transferred to the detention house as material witnesses and "the triple murder in Mulberry Bend" began to wear down in public interest.

Cass accepted his reduction without protest. The day he had been caught in the garden was the first one he had taken off in a month, but he did not urge the point. Instead, he left his measure for a new uniform and soon was pounding the pavement around the buffalo entrance of the Zoo. The larger measure of leisure he enjoyed in his humbler task was spent in the garden with his daughter. So things went on for another week.

One morning, when "Silent" Cass was putting down his radishes, a bronzed young man swung from the rear platform of a trolley car directly in front of the house and walked briskly over to the fence. Cass looked up and nodded pleasantly.

"Is this Lieutenant Cass?" asked the stranger abruptly.

"Patrolman Cass," corrected the gardener.

"I want to give myself up," said the stranger.

Cass made a trench with his stick and sowed a handful of seed.

"Come in," he said, standing erect and looking squarely at the newcomer. "What have you been up to?"

"I'm the man who killed those three rats in Mulberry Bend," explained the bronzed young man coolly.

Cass bent down on one knee, made another shallow little trench and sprinkled it with seed.

"Oh, yes, the Mulberry Bend case," he said reflectively. "I've been expecting you."

Turning to his daughter, he continued:

"You don't mind leaving us alone for a few minutes, do you, Nellie?"

The girl smiled at the stranger and walked to the porch.

The policeman nodded toward a bench under a magnolia that was just bursting into blossom.

"Tell me about it," he said as the two were seated.

If the newcomer found anything strange in this reception he made no sign.

"I read in the papers that you had been broken for not finding the murderer," he said quietly, "and I've been off my feed and sleep since then — I couldn't stand it any longer. I want you to lock me up."

"Silent" Cass glanced at him swiftly.

The newcomer spoke up quickly. "No, the ghosts of the dead men were not roosting on my pillow — damn them — they were not the kind that come back to haunt honest men, although they seem to have done it to you — that is, in a way."

Cass nodded. "I knew them — they're snug at home in Hell."

He looked toward the porch and Nellie smiled back at him.

"I'm a service man myself," resumed the stranger, "Medical Corps — I was on the other side for two years, and it was during that time these three dogs earned their death over here."

The record of "Spanish Louie," the white slaver, flashed through the mind of the listener.

"Girl?" he queried casually.

"Yes, a girl!"

The words snapped brokenly from the stranger's lips.

It was the first sign of emotion that he had shown.

"Sweetheart, I suppose," murmured Cass pityingly.

The young man's face had dropped into his hands and he was shaking violently.

"Worse than that," he groaned — "a sister."

Cass looked again toward the porch and laid his hand gently on the man's shoulder.

"Go on," he said.

IV

The tale came out in a torrent of anguished, broken words. The girl was an only sister and both had been orphaned since childhood. Out of his earnings as a chemist he had been able to support and educate her until he entered the service and went abroad. She was pretty — had a sweet soprano voice and a turn for the stage. She had smothered his misgivings with the assurance that she was able to care for herself and so they had parted. After he had been in France six months her letters, always regular theretofore, ceased abruptly.

Again Cass's mind reverted to "Spanish Joe."

The man on the bench had grown calm. A gentle breeze swept through the tree overhead and a few blossoms fluttered downward.

"If she had only died before it happened!" he said, gazing at the broken petals.

Cass patted him on the shoulder and he resumed:

"It was a long time after I came back before I was able to trace her — it was down in New Orleans — in a place that was worse than the deepest gulf of Hell. Her mind and soul were gone — gone completely with whisky and cocaine — that and—"

He pressed his hands over his eyes.

"Dad!" called the girl on the porch. "It's time for you to go on post."

Cass stood up mechanically and pulled off his overalls.

"Wait here until I get into uniform," he said, walking into the house.

He was gone fully five minutes, but when lie returned the young man was still seated on the bench. The policeman dropped to a place beside him with a trace of disappointment in his manner.

The young man had not seemed to notice the long absence.

"I was able to get the story out of her before she finally broke away from me." he continued, "then she ran upstairs and drank poison. It was the only thing left. I brought her back here and buried her beside her mother. There was a post-card picture, taken at Coney Island, in her trunk. She was sitting in an automobile with 'Spanish Joe' and Tony Molspini. She was smiling in all the innocence that I had known before I left her."

His jaws came together with a snap. "It was on that day she got the 'theatrical engagement,' with Louie the Lawyer posing as a producer of musical comedy."

"How did you get them into the cellar and what did you use to kill them?" asked Cass prosily enough.

"I palled with them for a month and let them win a month's salary from me one night right down there in that hole. They had it all arranged to trim me again when—"

He paused and there was a sudden ferocity in his tone when he burst forth again:

"The death I gave them was too easy. I was watching across the street when they entered the store together. When I saw a light in the cellar I knew I had them. It was just a matter of walking in, lifting the trapdoor and tossing down the flask of gas."

"Gas!" shouted Cass, jumping to his feet. "There was no trace of gas poisoning found in the examination of the organs."

"It was a formula of my own" — the answer came with a touch of pride — "I had been working on it in France, but the armistice came before the use of it became necessary. The action is negative — absorbs the oxygen from the air you know." He chuckled grimly. "I simply sealed the three of them up with it — a horned toad, a centipede and a tarantula all in one bottle."

"Why did you make the fingerprints?" The question seemed natural enough. But the answer came in a tone of surprise.

"I wanted to let the authorities know I had done the world a favor — why not?"

Cass smiled approvingly and stood up.

The bronzed young man also got to his feet.

"I'm ready," he said.

On the way to the gate he drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the policeman. Cass read the contents curiously. Under the caption "Army Orders" appeared a brief paragraph: "Captain Franklin Hines, medical corps, is hereby relieved from duty at Camp Merritt and transferred to Panama."

"Silent" Cass carefully folded the official order, put it back in the envelope, and handed it to the army man.

"Assignment in the yellow fever squad, eh?" he remarked. "When are you going to sail?"

Captain Hines stared at him.

"Aren't you going to arrest me?" he demanded stupidly. "Don't you want to make good and get your old job back?"

Cass shook his head.

"Not at that price," he said. His hand was on the gate-latch and his eyes roaming down the street toward an approaching trolley car.

"Wait, father!" called Nellie from the porch. She ran down into the garden, plucked a white crocus and pinned it to his coat.

"Against regulations," he laughed, "but I've earned the right to wear it today." In a moment he had bounded across the pavement and boarded the car, leaving the army man and the girl together.

Captain Hines glanced down the street. Another car was coming.

"Won't you have a flower, too?" asked the girl, stooping to pluck a red blossom from the garden.

"Yes, thank you," he said huskily. "Won't you give me a white one — the same as you gave to your dad?"

She fastened a white flower in his coat and in a moment he was scrambling aboard the second car. As the rear door slammed on him, Gatty swung off from the front and walked over to the fence.

Nellie greeted him familiarly.

"You just missed dad," she said. "He's gone out on post."

"Oh, has he?" said Gatty. "I just came out here to tell him that I got another promotion today — I'm Captain Gatty now."