Murder Most Foul Page 22

  The body was lying face up now, and Captain Galton said to Dennis, “See if you can find a sheet or something and cover her.”

  Policewoman Jenny Gallon came through from the living room. She was a young and pretty redhead, but poised and experienced despite her youth, for she was Mike Gallon’s daughter. “Hi, Pops,” she said. “I hear I’m to search a body.” Then she saw the dead woman and she sobered. “That’s not very pretty,” she said. “It’s a homicide, then?”

  Galton said, “It’s a homicide, pet, and a nasty one.”

  While Jenny searched the apparel on the body, Galton went outside for a look around. The house was a tiny brick bungalow in an area of tiny brick bungalows, packed together on midget lots with one-car garages in back and just room for a driveway between. Joseph Eldridge’s station wagon was standing in front of the garage and two steps from the stoop. In the back were two more bags of groceries like the one on the kitchen table.

  Detective Dennis came out to join him. “No fingerprints on the pipe,” he said, “and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be anything on the bureau knobs either.” He smiled wryly. “We aren’t left with much.”

  “We never are when there are no witnesses.” Gallon sighed and turned to the porch steps. “Well, I guess the next step is to canvas the neighborhood, see if there’ve been any strangers around—salesmen, vagrants, and the like—and see if anybody can tell us anything about the Eldridges. I’d like to know whether his grief is as real as it looks.”

  A sheet was over the body when they came back in, and Jenny told them the woman was missing her wedding and engagement rings. Otherwise there was nothing to report.

  “You get any ideas when you examined the body, kitten? Any female intuition?”

  She said, “If you mean, do I think Mr. Eldridge is telling the truth, I don’t know. Nothing I found is inconsistent with his story. It could have happened like that.”

  The captain went on into the little bedroom. The police photographer was putting away his fingerprint equipment and shaking his head. “Just smudges,” he said. “One partial on the bureau top, but it looks like the woman’s.”

  The old man and Dennis brought Mr. Eldridge into the bedroom then to make a search. He looked through the drawers and his wife’s purse. He found there was no money in the purse and her jewelry box was missing from the drawers.

  “You got any insurance on the jewelry?” Dennis asked him.

  Eldridge shook his head. “It wasn’t worth that much.”

  The old man showed him a note on the telephone pad. It said: “Membership comm. Tues. at 4:00.”

  “May wrote that,” Eldridge told him. “They usually meet at the church on Mondays. I guess it got changed.”

  “Do you know when she received the call?”

  “I don’t have any idea. It wasn’t when I was around.”

  “Do you know who would have made the call?”

  Eldridge said it was probably the committee chairman. Her name was Mrs. Bertha Crump, and the old man found her number in the address book on the phone table.

  Dennis took Eldridge back to the living room while Gabon got the woman on the line. Yes, she told him, she was the one who called May Eldridge about the change. She’d called her just that morning, in fact.

  “Do you know what time this morning, Mrs. Crump?”

  “About quarter past nine. Why, is something the matter?”

  “Yes, something is the matter. But can you say for sure that you made the call at quarter past nine?”

  “Well,” Mrs. Crump said hesitantly, “I wouldn’t want to swear to it. But do know that I don’t make phone calls before nine o’clock, and Mrs. Eldridge was the fourth person I talked to about the change. It couldn’t have been before quarter past nine. Of that I’m sure.”

  “It was Mrs. Eldridge who answered the phone?” Galton said.

  “Yes.”

  “How long did the two of you talk?”

  “Oh, perhaps two minutes. Usually I’d talk longer, but I had five others to call so didn’t want to dally.”

  “Did she mention her husband at all?”

  Mrs. Crump said no, and asked again what the trouble was.

  Galton told her, helped her over her shock, and questioned her some more, but the answers didn’t change.

  When he hung up, Galton went back to Eldridge and had him tell the story over again two more times. It came out the same way, but with two additions. He knew nothing of Mrs. Crump’s phone call, for he had already left. He knew of nobody who could support his alibi.

  The hearse pulled into the drive and two morgue attendants came through the back door with a stretcher. Galton watched them lift the body onto it with practiced precision and take it out. He sent the patrolman back to his beat and, with Detective Dennis, started a canvas of the neighborhood to see what they could learn.

  The brick bungalow abutting the Eldridges’ driveway was their first stop and the door was answered by a trim, young, bottled blonde in shorts and halter. Galton showed his badge, apologized for the intrusion, and explained about the death next door.

  “Yeah,” the woman said. “I saw the hearse. You say she was killed, huh? Gee, that’s terrible.”

  “Did you know them well, Mrs.—ah—”

  “Jenks. Mimi Jenks. No, I didn’t know them except to say hello to.”

  “What about Mr. Jenks?”

  The woman laughed. “Mr. Jenks sends me an alimony check once a month. That’s all I know about him, or care.”

  Galton said, “Oh.” Then he said, “Can you tell me anything about this morning? Did you see anything or hear anything next door?”

  Mrs. Jenks frowned in thought. Then she said, “I heard their car go out at nine o’clock. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Did you say nine o’clock?”

  She shrugged. “Well, it might not have been exactly nine o’clock. It might have been two or three minutes after.”

  “How do you remember the time so well?”

  She laughed. “That’s easy. I got up at nine. I looked at the clock. And I had just got out of bed when I heard their car start up.”

  “And you saw or heard nothing else?”

  “Nothing else. Until the hearse.”

  “You didn’t hear his car return?”

  She shook her head. “I only heard it go out because the bedroom’s on that side of the house, and the window was open.”

  “I see.” Galton pursed his lips. “One more question. You know anything about what kind of a marriage they had? They get along, they fight, or what?”

  Mrs. Jenks said she didn’t have any idea. All she knew was, she never heard them fight. She never heard anything from them at all.

  “I see. Now, one last thing. It’s very important. Are you absolutely sure it was nine o’clock when he drove away?”

  “Absolutely, because I looked at the clock when I got up, and then I did my exercises by the window for fifteen minutes and I remember the car wasn’t there. Why is that so important?”

  “Because it supports his own story that that’s when he went shopping.”

  “I see. I’m his alibi, in other words?”

  “Yes, you could call it that.”

  “I’m glad I can help.”

  “So are we. You’ll be asked to testify, of course.”

  She smiled. “Any time.”

  Galton and Dennis tried the family on the other side of the Eldridges’, but they could not help at all, nor could anyone else in the neighborhood. No one had noticed suspicious strangers around. No one had seen Eldridge go to the supermarket.

  The old man and his youthful companion returned to police headquarters at half past twelve. The chief was there and so was Jenny.

  “We’re up a tree,” Dennis told the chief. “Absolutely no clues.” He went on to explain the problem. Mr. Eldridge left the house between nine and nine-o-five. Mrs. Eldridge received a phone call from Mrs. Crump between nine-fifteen and nine-twenty. B
etween nine-twenty, when she hung up, and ten-fifty, when Mr. Eldridge returned, someone came in the back door, beat Mrs. Eldridge to death with a pipe, ransacked the bureaus in the bedroom, and made off with a box of inexpensive jewelry and the few dollars in Mrs. Eldridgc’s purse.

  The chief said, “Is that how you see it?” to the old man, but Gallon’s attention was on his daughter.

  “You’re a right pretty girl, kitten,” he said. “Now that I notice, I’m struck by that fact.”

  She laughed and told him he was dotty.

  “No, I’m not dotty. I’m serious. What are your measurements, thirty-eight, twenty-three, thirty-six?”

  “That’s reasonably close. Why?”

  “Because when we go home for lunch, you’re going to change into your prettiest dress. Then we’re going to see what kind of an actress you are.”

  Jenny, the chief, and William Dennis all were curious, but the old man merely said very mysteriously, “Wait and see.”

  At half past two that afternoon, the old man rang Mrs. Jenks’ doorbell again. He smiled and said he was sorry to trouble her but could she come down to headquarters so they could take her statement? She said she’d be glad to oblige and got her coat.

  On the way he told her how much he appreciated her cooperation and she said she was only doing her duty. As an innocent man’s only alibi, she had to testify.

  “Yes,” the old man said, “except, you will be pleased to learn, the burden is no longer solely on your own shoulders. We’ve found someone else to verify his alibi.”

  “Oh?” she said, and turned to look at him. “Who?”

  “A young woman he knows. She’s come forward to testify that she saw him enter the supermarket at ten minutes past nine.”

  Mrs. Jenks said, “Oh,” again in a very strange voice.

  The chief and William Dennis were in the squad room when the old man brought Mrs. Jenks in. He introduced her and told her that they’d take her statement in just a few minutes, and if she’d wait in the other room… He took her to the door and there was Jenny, sitting on the couch in her prettiest dress, her hair just so, looking as luscious as chocolate cake.

  “This is Miss Murphy, Mrs. Jenks,” the old man said. “She’s the one I was telling you about, the one who saw Mr. Eldridge in the supermarket. Isn’t that right, Miss Murphy?”

  Mrs. Jenks stopped dead in the doorway, but “Miss Murphy” didn’t seem to notice. “That’s right,” she said brightly. “Joe came in at exactly ten minutes past nine. know because I was looking at my watch.”

  Captain Galton smiled with approval, but Mrs. Jenks didn’t smile at all. “She’s a liar,” she said.

  “Miss Murphy” put her nose in the air. “I ought to know when Joe came in,” she said. “I’m the one who was looking at my watch.”

  “She’s a liar,” Mrs. Jenks repeated in a louder voice. “Because Joe Eldridge didn’t leave his house until half past nine.”

  “Half past nine?” the captain said.

  “Half past nine,” she told him. “Because that’s how long it took that two-timing cheat to bash in his wife's head. And he didn’t go to the store for five more minutes after that because he got blood on his shirt and had to change it. I know, because the bloody one is in the bottom of my laundry bag, wrapped around her jewelry box.”

  Captain Galton said, “Is that right?” but Mrs. Jenks wasn’t paying any attention to him.

  She was pointing at “Miss Murphy” and saying, “So if you think you’re going to run off with him to the Virgin Islands while I’m left holding the bag, forget it. He’s going to jail. And I’m going to put him there.”

  She told it all to the detectives and a tape recorder, how Eldridge had promised her marriage and a life of Caribbean luxury in return for a murder alibi. Then they got the district attorney in, and she went over it again. After that, they sent two policemen out with a warrant for Mr. Eldridge's arrest.

  In the squad room, Detective William Dennis and the chief of police looked at Captain Galton and shook their heads. “Absolutely amazing,” they said.

  “It’s nothing but human nature,” the old man replied. “I figured the moment she thought a younger and prettier girl was also lying to save Eldridge’s neck, she’d blow his alibi to kingdom come.”

  Dennis said, “That, I understand. But how did you know she and Eldridge were a twosome to begin with? That’s what amazes me. What tipped you off?”

  The old man said, “Human nature again, Bill. Put a sexy young grass widow next door to a handsome freelance insurance agent whose wife is away at work all day and you can expect there’s going to be a situation. And when the wife has ten years’ worth of teaching salary lying around unspent, you know the answer to that situation isn’t going to be divorce, it’s going to be murder.

  “We had the murder, so one look at the woman next door was all I needed to know the whole story. It wasn’t the piece of pipe or the missing jewelry or the stories they told that gave it away. It was her shorts, her halter, and her bleached blonde hair.”

  Give Her Hell

  Donald A. Wollheim

  Among my friends is a reincarnationist minister and his wife, who is a talented medium. It was after a stimulating discussion with these two on how reincarnation can still jibe with Christianity and the punishment of sin after death that this particular example was worked out. It’s a nasty story, I warn you.

  * * *

  It’s no good making a deal with the devil. He’s a cheat. He’s all they say he is and more. The effete modern books like to present him as a smiling red devil, all clean and slick. Or as some cagey, witty peddler, or a top hat-and-tails city slicker. But the monks of the Middle Ages knew better. They described him as a beast; a stinking, foul-breathed, corrupt, and totally loathsome abomination.

  Take my word for it. He is. I know, for I was fool enough to make such a pact. I saw him and dealt with him and from beginning to end, it was never worth it.

  It was desperate, and like all whom fate had played crooked, I was sore about it. Things were not going well with me, and it was all their fault. My wife and my daughter’s. I refuse to take the blame in spite of what the devil may claim. I know when I’m right. My daughter had run away from my home—that was the shock that made me realize what was happening.

  That girl ran away and she was only sixteen, and she’d stolen the contents of my wallet and took some of my wife’s jewelry and ran away. My wife wasn’t so shocked. She had the nerve to say it served me right. I didn’t “understand the child.”

  What’s to understand about a disobedient daughter who doesn’t listen to her father, and who makes dates after eight o’clock at night, who sneaks magazines into her bedroom, actually talks to some of those uncouth common kids from across the tracks, and has been seen in soda parlors after dark. Sure, I had to beat her. I’ve been doing that since she was seven. I’ve had to be stricter and stricter with her. Spare the rod and spoil the child—that’s the slogan I was raised on and I did my best. But the girl was rotten—something from her mother’s side of the family, no doubt—and she had the nerve to try to run away.

  I called the police. I’m not going to be thought of as the father of a wild kid. I sent out an alarm. My wife objected, but I put her in her place. A slap across the face shut her up—I’d taught her long ago who was master. Me, the way it was meant to be. I locked her up in our bedroom, and later on I gave her a lesson with the strap, face down on the bed with her clothes off. Women know only one master. My mother never complained; she didn’t dare, not even when she was dying after my father threw her down the stairs that night.

  My father’s ways were right, and I was right. The cops brought the girl back to me the next day. I gave her a hiding she’d not forget, and then I arranged to have her committed to a corrective institution. One of those private sanitariums for disturbed children, you know. Exclusive, well-guarded, and well-disciplined. All right, they made life hell for her, but how else can you teach a way
ward child how to do right? Better for the family name than to have her in public vision.

  They had my orders and the extra payments I made were generous enough to enforce them—she’d not get out until she was good, if they had to nearly kill her to do it. They kept her in a straight-jacket for months at a time at my insistence, and in restraining cuffs and belts at all other times. A series of regular electric shocks taught her a few things. The doctor says now she’s faking insanity, that she shrieks night and day, and they keep her by herself in a padded, locked cell. But I think she’s faking. She’s just a disobedient girl, and she’s got to learn who’s master.

  As for my wife, she had the nerve to leave me. She climbed out of a window the night I bribed the doctors to start my bad daughter’s shock treatments. She ran to my business partner, that skunk, and he helped her hide. Next day he dared put it up to me. He said he thought I was the one who was cracking up. Me! The nerve of him.

  Obviously, he was scheming to steal my wife away from me. And he must have been double-booking my firm. I was sure of it. I could see it all from his faking, sly ways. He must have been plotting my ruin the way he must have been scheming after my wife.

  So I took steps to sell him out. But the skunk had covered his tracks. He had acted first. He had an order taken out against me, charging me with deceit and having my wife charge me with mental cruelty and suing to get custody of my child and my business.

  could see I’d get no help from the courts and the lawyers. They’re all corrupt, unable to see how a man must be stern with his own. These are decadent limes. No wonder the world is going to hell.

  I was in a jam. They’d cornered me, boxed me with legal chicaneries, tied up my funds. I was furious that night as I stalked up and down my house. The windows were shut and the shades down. I don’t stand for curious eyes. I was alone, and the next day they’d be closing in from all directions. That’s when I turned to Satan.

  I figured if Satan had been maligned as much as I was, he must be all right. Just a victim of the same errors. I called on him. When you really mean it, the devil will come. I gave him a sacrifice—I tossed the Bible into the fire; I got hold of my wife’s cat—that snarling, fuzzy beast—and I cut its throat on the living room rug and called Satan.