The Case of the Crime King

Chapter 22

The section Frank and I drew was in the Hollywood district. We spent the rest of that day trudging from rooming house to rooming house, asking landlords and landladies if they had seen two men of Big Julie’s and Harry Strife’s descriptions on the afternoon or evening of Tuesday, April 22nd.

At 4:00 p.m. we stopped for a break in a little coffee shop on Franklin. We sat at the counter and ordered coffee.

As Frank stirred his coffee he said, “These are a couple of guys I’ll never forget.”

“Big Julie and Strife?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ve showed those pictures to so many people and have reeled off their descriptions so many times, I could draw a composite of ’em twenty years from now.”

“Didn’t know you could draw,” I said.

“As a matter of fact, I’m pretty good.”

“That so?”

“I have an outstanding natural talent. Just needs development.”

“Oh? Never heard you mention it before.”

Frank said, “Just found it out recently.”

“How was that?”

“Well, I was lighting a cigarette one day, and happened to notice an ad on the match folder. The Bon Ton Art School. Advertised a free talent test. There was a picture of a girl’s head on the folder, and all you had to do was copy it in enlarged form on a piece of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper and mail in the drawing. No obligation.”

I said, “You mailed one in, huh?”

“Sure did. And you know what?”

“What?”

“The director of the school wrote me back personally. Said he usually left that to subordinates, but mine was such an unusual case he was writing me himself. Said I had about as much natural talent as he’d ever seen. Suggested I take their correspondence course.”

“For how much?” I asked.

“Only twenty-five bucks. For the beginning course.”

I said, “So now you’re getting the development you need, huh?”

“Well, no,” Frank said. “I talked it over with Fay. She asked what I intended to do after I finished the course. Quit the department and open a studio? Hadn’t occurred to me I wouldn’t have much use for it.”

“So you decided not to invest, huh?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “But I’ve still got that natural talent.”

When we finished our coffee we went back to work. We decided to complete Franklin Street, which would take us until about 5:00, and knock off for the day.

4:33 p.m. We rang the bell of a rooming house not much different from a hundred others we had seen that day. It was a neat, two-story frame building, old but well kept up. A sign in a front window said no vacancy.

A thin, sorrowful-looking woman of about sixty came to the door. Before I could open my mouth she said in a tone more reproachful than sharp, “Didn’t you see the sign in the window, young man?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We’re not looking for a room. We’re police officers.” I showed my ID. “This is my partner, Sergeant Smith. My name’s Friday.”

Her eyes spread in shock. “Don’t tell me you’ve found him after all this time.”

I said, “Who, ma’am?”

“My husband. I thought you’d have forgotten about it by now. Where is he?”

I said, “Afraid we’re not here about that, ma’am. Just want to ask if you saw a couple of men in the neighborhood last Tuesday.”

Her surprise evaporated, but she looked more relieved than disappointed. “You gave me a turn. Suppose I should have known it wouldn’t be that, though. Don’t imagine you keep people on your missing list more than a few months.”

“Little longer than that, ma’am,” Frank said. “What happened to your husband?”

“Why, he just went down to the corner for a paper and never came back.”

“And you reported it to the police?”

“The very next day.”

I said, “When did he disappear, ma’am?”

“April ninth, at seven p.m.”

“That isn’t months ago,” I said. “It’s only a couple of weeks.”

“Good gracious, young man,” the woman said. “This was April ninth, 1936.”

I glanced at Frank. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, held it to his face, and coughed slightly. His face was completely expressionless when he put the handkerchief away. The woman said, “Now, what was it you officers wanted?” We described the two suspects and showed her the two mugg shots. She examined them interestedly and handed them back.

In a matter-of-fact tone she asked, “What is it you want with Mr. Brown and Mr. Jones?”

I recovered first. “You know them, ma’am?” I said.

“Only met them once, Officer. Last Tuesday, I believe. When they visited Mr. Smith.”

Frank said, “Mind if we step in and talk to you a minute, ma’am?”

4:46 p.m. The landlady said her name was Mrs. Jennie Burdette. The roomer whom the suspects had visited on Tuesday was a Ralph Smith, who had the second-floor room immediately at the top of the stairs. He was not at home at the moment, and she didn’t expect him for some time.

“He works the second shift,” Mrs. Burdette said. “As a printer at one of the papers, I believe he said. Don’t recall which one, if he ever told me. He usually sleeps till noon, goes out about one, and doesn’t come home until evening. Never before seven or eight, sometimes as late as one or two in the morning. Except for last Tuesday. He was here all evening that night.”

Mrs. Burdette said she had met the suspects on the stairs about 6:00 p.m. Tuesday as she was going up and they were coming down. When she asked what they wanted, they told her they had been visiting their friend Mr. Smith and were just leaving. Ralph Smith had come to the door of his room then and called down, “It’s all right, Mrs. Burdette. They’re friends of mine.” After the men went out, she asked Smith who they were and he told her their names were Brown and Jones.

Frank said, “How were they dressed, ma’am?”

“In tan jackets and slacks. Believe they had hats in their hands, too. Brown ones.”

“Did they return again later?” I asked. “Possibly about nine P.M.?”

Mrs. Burdette shook her head. “If they did, I didn’t see them. Course I’m not always out front here.” She thought, then said, “Matter of fact I was out that evening. Went to a movie.”

Frank said, “What’s this Ralph Smith look like?”

“Oh, he’s quite a nice-looking man. About average size. Five-ten or eleven, I should say, and perhaps a hundred and seventy to a hundred and eighty pounds.”

“What type of face?”

“Quite handsome. Except for his little mustache. I don’t like that. My husband had one just like it, you see.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Frank said. “About how old is he?”

“Around thirty, I’d guess. He’s really quite a nice man. And very well-educated. You should hear some of the big words he uses.”

Frank and I exchanged glances. I said, “Would you mind letting us take a look at Mr. Smith’s room, ma’am?”

She looked at me as though I’d suddenly grown an extra head. “Without him there? Certainly not, young man!”

I said, “We won’t disturb anything, ma’am. And you’d be present to see that we don’t.”

“But why?” she asked. “If those other two men are some type of criminal, I’m sure Mr. Smith doesn’t know it. Certainly you don’t suspect him of anything, do you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It’s quite possible he’s a man we’re looking for.”

“Mr. Smith! Why he’s such a nice man.”

“We’d still like to look at his room, ma’am.”

A little reluctantly, she finally decided to agree. She rose and started to lead us toward the stairs.

I said, “If you don’t mind, ma’am, we’d like to go up without you first to make sure he’s not home. If you’d just lend us your pass key and tell us which room it is. As soon as we’re sure the room’s empty, we’ll call to you to come up.”

Her mild indignation began to be replaced by trepidation. “You mean there might be some trouble?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“There might, ma’am.”

Without argument she handed over a pass key. “First door to the left at the top of the stairs,” she said.

She watched us from the bottom of the stairs as we went quietly up them. Halfway up I glanced back and saw that her eyes were wide and her mouth hung slightly open.

Frank and I drew our guns and took up positions on either side of the door. I reached out and knocked. When there was no response, I tried the knob without getting my body in front of the door. The door was locked.

Slipping the key in the lock, I turned it, slammed the door wide, and jumped into the room, my gun raised and ready.

The room was empty.

I put my gun away and nodded to Frank, who stood in the doorway covering me. He re-holstered his gun and called, “All right, Mrs. Burdette. He’s not home.”

When she joined us in the room, her face had become quite pale. “What’s he done?” she asked. “He must be a dangerous criminal, or you wouldn’t behave like this. What’s he done, Officers?”

“Several things, if he’s the man we think,” Frank said. “But don’t worry, ma’am. We won’t leave you until we’ve had a chance to talk to him.”

We made a quick but thorough shakedown of the room while the landlady stood in the middle of the floor wringing her hands. In the closet we found four tan jackets, four pairs of tan slacks, and four brown hats. One set was about the size Big Julie would wear, one about Harry Strife’s size, and one about the size of the room occupant as Mrs. Burdette had described him. The fourth set consisted of a size 40 jacket, slacks with a 36-inch waist, and a size 7 hat, which meant it was for a man broader than the room occupant but smaller than Big Julie.

In a dresser drawer we found four false noses with attached glasses frames and four guns. Two were .45-caliber automatics, two were .38-caliber revolvers.

There was not a cent of money in the room.

I said to the landlady, “Could we use your phone, ma’am?”

“Of course,” she said. “There’s a pay phone right out in the hall.”

Although it was now past 5:00, I caught Captain Donahoe before he left the office. When I got him on the phone I said, “Friday, Skipper. We just hit the jackpot.”

“Yeah?” he said. “What’s up?”

“Found the pad where Martin and Strife changed clothes. Four sets of tan jackets, tan slacks, and brown hats in it. Four false noses with attached glasses frames. And four guns.”

“Where is it?”

I gave him the address. “The tenant’s out and probably won’t be back before 7:00 p.m. at the earliest. We’re sticking now, though, in case he makes it earlier. Better get the place staked out. And put out another pickup order on Martin and Strife. Oh yeah, will you phone Frank’s wife and tell her he’ll be late again?”

“Sure,” the captain said. “Anything else?”

“Might send us over a riot gun. And a mugg shot for the landlady to look at to see if she can identify her roomer.”

“Whose mugg shot?”

“Maury Wey’s,” I said. “The description fits all along the line.”