The Headless Lady

Chapter Eleven Elephant Trainer

The still form of the girl beneath the covers on the bed had the disturbing, lifeless appearance of a mummy. She was too quiet, too rigidly motionless; and her face, surrounded on the pillow by a mass of dark hair, was white and blank, its features, under the bandages and adhesive, only half suggested, like an unfinished sculpture. There were two openings in the masking shell of gauze — one at the mouth, where the pale lips made a tight straight line, and a wider slit above, from which two black angry eyes regarded us with cold dislike.

Mac started to speak, but her words cut him off at once. The voice was low and strained as if speech were painful, but it was still commanding.

“Get out! At once! I told you, Mac—”

“Now wait, Miss Hannum,” Mac protested hurriedly. “We’re in a spot. My job is to keep this show moving in spite of hell, high water, and cops. I’ve had the day’s ration of cop trouble already, but we’re heading for more. And you’re the only one who can do anything about it. I can’t go up against a murder investigation by state troopers unless I know some of the answers. What was it you were all set to blow to the Sheriff last night?”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes leveled steadily on Mac. “Nothing,” she said finally, her voice little more than a harsh whisper. “I was wrong. You’ll have to do the best you can, Mac. Now clear out!”

Merlini, who had been watching her with an annoyed scowl, spoke quietly. “Miss Hannum, who is the Headless Lady?”

This resulted in another long silence. Then she turned her head and stared upward at the ceiling. Her lips moved just enough to allow the words to pass.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because, Mac said quickly, Merlini thinks she’s the murderer he’s howling about.”

“But why her?” the girl said evenly. “Last night he accused me.”

“Because she took a run-out powder this morning. There was a glass cutter hidden in her trailer, and a pair of rubber gloves that Merlini says could have made those fingerprints. And last night when the lights went out somebody swiped that photo, the Major’s hat, and those bits of glass Merlini found. It looks as if she—”

Pauline cut in sharply at that. “I thought you were a fixer, Mac. If that’s true, Merlini hasn’t a thing to give the cops. Get him out of here and leave me alone! I’ll talk to you later.”

“Evidence or no evidence, Miss Hannum,” Merlini said insistently, “suspicion of murder, an attempted murder, and a missing suspect is a train of events that will make any cop curious. And we can get another print of the photo, you know.”

“Attempted murder?” She asked in a tight voice, turning her eyes to look at Merlini for the first time.

“Yes. Yours. The light failure wasn’t an accident. The cable to the big top was deliberately disconnected. When the lights went out you fell, and the ensuing excitement supplied a lovely opportunity for making away with the evidence we had. Any murderer who is clever enough to use, quite impromptu, such a diabolically simple, practical, and indetectible means for gaining not merely one, but two, simultaneous and different ends is going to give trouble. He won’t stop at that. In fact, Miss Hannum, I’m surprised that you lived through the night.”

“I–I don’t believe it,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction.

Merlini followed through quietly. “You know who killed your father or, at the very least, something that is dangerous to the murderer. The only sort of life insurance that will do you a bit of good is to tell us now what you know. Mac had a guard on this trailer last night, and he’s going to post a better one now. But, if this murderer is the sort his performance to date indicates, a guard won’t bother him much — a bank vault wouldn’t be, any too safe. What was it you were going to tell the Sheriff last night?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, I tell you! I was wrong.” There was fear in her voice — but it was balanced by an equal amount of determination.

Merlini scowled and tried once more. He leaned forward as if putting his physical weight behind his words.

“Who is the Headless Lady?”

He failed. She shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” Merlini asked. “You came and got the headless illusion for her. You gave me the same phony name she has been using. You know why the illusion was wanted in such a hurry, why you were willing to pay so—”

“I don’t know,” the girl insisted. “Dad hired her. He gave me the money and sent me to get the apparatus. That’s all I can tell you. I gave you her name because it was the first that occurred to me. If it’s not her name, I don’t know what it is.”

“And you don’t know why she disappeared this morning, nor where she is, I suppose?”

“No.”

Merlini looked at her for a moment and then gave up. “You’d better post a couple of guards, Mac — wide-awake ones. Though I doubt that it will do the slightest good. We do need troopers now. Lots of them. I’m going to—”

As the trailer door swung open, Merlini stopped and turned apprehensively. Irma King stepped through from outside and slammed the door behind her with a crash that made us all jump. She wore the red and gold uniform of her elephant act, and she carried a heavy elephant hook. She was obviously as mad as all hell — and enjoying it.

She looked at the girl on the bed and laughed, a queer thin sound as though she were just a bit high. She glanced once at the rest of us and then ignored us completely. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Pauline. Such a nice surprise.”

There was a full measure of concentrated venom in her voice. The surprise was, very obviously, going to be anything but nice.

“You thought you could fire me, did you, Pauline?” She laughed again. “That’s very funny. Only no one knows what a good joke it is but me. And I think it’s so much more amusing when everyone knows. It’s about time—”

“Mac!” Pauline’s voice cut in. “Get her out of here!”

Mac moved, but Miss King’s next words stopped him.

“Mac Wiley, if you want to keep your job you’ll stand where you are and listen. Pauline doesn’t own this show now that her father is dead. I do.”

She stopped dramatically. Pauline was unimpressed. “She’s tight, Mac. Do something about it.”

But Mac, for some reason, wasn’t so sure. He hesitated. Miss King drew a folded legal-looking document from her tunic and thrust it at Mac.

“You’re the lawyer,” she said. “Tell us what that is.”

Mac gave it a swift once-over. “Sure,” he said. “So what? You were the Major’s wife before he married Pauline’s mother. I know that; we were on the same show together.”

I had a hunch that this was news to Pauline. She was half-sitting up in bed now, the dark eyes in the bandaged face staring at Irma with horrified fascination.

“But that doesn’t get you anything,” Mac went on. “He divorced you.” He glanced at the document again. “In 1913. These are your papers. Rutherford Stark vs. Irma Stark. What—”

“Stark?” Merlini asked.

“Yeah. That was the Major’s name before he married into the Hannum family. He landed the owner’s daughter, and when her father died he managed the show. When she died, about ’25, she willed it to the Major. The show’s name was worth dough and he couldn’t change that, so he changed his own.” Mac scowled heavily at Irma. “What the hell makes you think you get a cut? A divorced wife hasn’t any claim — not unless—” Mac’s voice played out for a moment, and then he added suspiciously, “So that’s it! There is a will then, and you’re the one who swiped—”

But Irma was full of surprises. She did not, as I expected, make another grab at her tunic and produce the document there had been so much argument about. She grinned maliciously, watching Pauline.

“No,” she said confidently, “that’s just it. There isn’t any will. If there was I’d be out of luck. But there isn’t, and I collect! And it’s Pauline,” her voice rose higher, “who gets canned — starting now.”

“Dammit!” Mac demanded. “Talk sense, will you?”

Pauline shouted, “Mac, get that woman out of here! She’s drunk, I tell you!”

“No, Pauline.” Irma was enjoying herself hugely. “I’m afraid not. The name of the lawyer who got the Major that divorce was Leo J. Snyder.” She turned. “Perhaps you understand the joke now, Mac?”

Apparently Mac did, though he didn’t laugh at it. He appeared, instead, to have been hit on the head with something hard and heavy.

Merlini also seemed to be seeing the point. “Oh, Lord!” he said weakly. “Now we pick up the pieces and start all over again!”

“Leo Snyder,” Irma explained with relish, “was before your time, Pauline. A shyster lawyer with a lovely little racket. For a couple of years, until the postal authorities finally caught up with him, he did a land-office business in mail-order divorces. Very handy for circus people, who are always on the road and have no legal residences. His fees were very reasonable, but his divorces weren’t worth it. They were completely phony.” Irma laughed again. “Your mother’s and father’s marriage was quite illegal; your father was still married to me. He always has been! I’m his widow now, and I get the estate. And you’re an illegitimate—”

“Mac!” Pauline’s voice cut in like a whiplash. “Is this true?”

Mac didn’t answer that. His voice snapped at Irma incredulously. “You mean to tell me that the Major never heard about Snyder and had it straightened out? His conviction was in all the papers and in Billboard!”

“It was during the winter season, and the Major was touring a unit through Mexico. Luckily he missed it. I’d married again — Terry King, the animal trainer— and I was scared to death the Major would hear about it. I couldn’t let Terry know. He had religion bad, and he’d have raised hell if he ever found out I’d been married before, much less that I was a bigamist. Naturally I didn’t tell him.”

“So now that his lions have canceled him out, you blackmailed the Major into giving you a job on this show again, refusing to give him a divorce and—”

“Don’t be silly, Mac. I didn’t dare tell him I was still his wife. Divorce or not, he would have made a will then, cutting me out. And he could have adopted Pauline. Not to mention what he’d have done to me for not telling him before Pauline’s mother died so he could have married her properly and made his children legitimate.”

“Children?” Merlini exclaimed.

“Pauline and her twin sister, Paulette,” Irma said.

Merlini looked at Pauline and then at Mac. “Twin sister,” he said ominously. “Why hasn’t this been mentioned before now?”

But they paid no attention to him.

“Mac,” Pauline said hoarsely, “then it is true. Can she prove it after all this—”

“She’ll have one hell of a job,” Mac said. “We can carry a case like that clear to the Court of Appeals, and I don’t think Irma can afford it.”

“There are lawyers,” Irma countered, “who’ll handle an inheritance case for a percentage of the take.”

Pauline, said, “Send him around, Irma. We’ll take care of him. In the meantime, get the hell off this lot and stay off!”

“Sure. I’ll go. But this show doesn’t move an inch. There’ll be an injunction on it before tomorrow morning that’ll keep every last tent pole on this lot until I start giving orders. Think that over.”

Irma gave Pauline one last venomous glance, snatched the divorce papers from Mac’s hands, and went out, slamming the door violently behind her.

Mac shuddered, “Calamity was right,” he groaned. “Suppé’s goddamned ‘Cavalry March’ is poison. This is worse than murder. All we need now is a blowdown or a fire!”