Tricks and Treats, page 22
Sixteen hours later, he sank into Uncle Malachi’s only chair, a betasseled red plush refugee from some Victorian town house, and nibbled his thumb. Eve perched disconsolately on Uncle Malachi’s bed, and Dr. Ben sat on a pile of books, wedged between The Works of Bret Harte and The Complete Novels of Wilkie Collins. And the gas jet flamed and danced.
“It isn’t as if,” said Ellery about an hour later, “it isn’t as if you could hide 400 banknotes in a…unless…”
“Unless he separated them. One here, one there,” said Dr. Ben helpfully. “Four hundred different hiding places.”
Eve shook her head. “No, Ben. From hints he dropped to me, I’m sure he put them in one place, in a roll.”
“Hints,” said Ellery. “Hints, Miss Warren?”
“Oh, I don’t know—cryptic remarks. About clues and things—”
“Clues!”
“Clues,” gasped Eve guiltily. “Oh, dear!”
“He left a clue?”
“Think, Eve!” implored Dr. Ben.
“It was right in this room. I was reading to him—”
“Reading what?” Ellery asked sharply.
“Something by Poe…oh, yes, The Purloined Letter. And Uncle Malachi laughed, and he said—”
“His exact words, if you can recall them!”
“He said: ‘Clever rascal, that Dupin. The most obvious place, eh? Very good! Fact is, there’s a clue to my hiding place, Evie, and it’s in this very room—the clue, I mean, not the money.’ And he held his sides laughing. ‘In the most obvious place imaginable!’ He laughed so hard I thought he’d have a heart attack.”
“Clue in the most obvious place in this room… Books. He must have meant in one of these thousands of books. But which one!” Ellery stared at Eve. Then he sprang from the chair. “Puns and tricks, you’d said. Of course…” And he began hunting wildly among the mountains and valleys of books, toppling volumes like a landslide. ‘‘But he’s got to be here… Why, Doctor. You’re sitting on him!”
Dr. Ben leaped from the Uniform Edition on which he had been seated as if it had suddenly wiggled.
Ellery dropped to his knees, shuffling through the various books of the set. “Ah!” And he sat down on the floor with one of the volumes, clutching it like a roc’s egg. First he explored the binding with the tip of his nose. Then he went through it page by page. Finally, he turned back to one of the front pages and read it to himself, mumbling.
When he looked up, Eve and Dr. Ben cried in one voice: “Well?”
“I’m going to ask some questions. Kindly refrain from hilarity and answer as if your future depended on it—which it does.” Ellery consulted the page. “Is there a potted palm anywhere in or about the premises?”
“Potted palm?” said Dr. Ben feebly.
‘‘No,” said Eve, bewildered.
“No potted palm. How about a room with a skylight?”
“Skylight…”
“No.”
“In that art stuff downstairs—ceramics, statuettes, vases—do you recall any object in the shape of, or illustrated with the picture of a dog? A yellow dog?”
“Now there’s a blue horse,” began Dr. Ben, “with a chipped—”
“No, Mr. Queen!”
“Bows and arrows? Archery target? Picture or statue of an archer? Or a statue of Cupid? Or a door painted green?”
“Not one of those things, Mr. Queen!”
“Clocks,” murmured Ellery, glancing again at the book.
“Say,” said Dr. Ben. “Dozens of ’em!”
“And I’ve examined them all,” said Ellery, “and none of them conceals the hoard. That being the case,” and Ellery got to his feet, smiling, “and Uncle Malachi having been fond of his little joke, only one possibility remains. So that’s where he stashed his treasure!”
* * *
CHALLENGE TO THE READER: In which book was Malachi’s clue, and how did it tell where he had hidden his money?
* * *
“Swiping a leaf from Malachi’s rule-of-the-obvious,” continued Ellery, “in which of these thousands of books could his clue be hidden? Well, what was the nature of his treasure? Four million dollars. Four million—book. And among these standard sets is the complete work of O. Henry. And one of O. Henry’s most famous books is entitled…The Four Million.”
Ellery waved the volume. “I found nothing foreign in the book. Then the clue was in its contents. Obvious development: see Contents Page. And the titles of the various stories? ‘Tobin’s Palm’—so I asked about a potted palm. ‘The Skylight Room’—but no skylight. ‘Memoirs of a Yellow Dog’—no yellow dog. ‘Mammon and the Archer’—‘The Green Door’—‘The Caliph-Cupid and the Clock’: all fizzled. Only one other possibility among the stories, so that must be Malachi’s clue to the hiding place of the cash. ‘Between Rounds.’”
“‘Between Rounds,’” said Dr. Ben, biting his nails. “How the deuce does that tell you anything? Malachi wasn’t a prizefighter, or a—”
“But he was,” smiled Ellery, “a punster and high priest of the obscurely obvious. Rounds… A round is anything that’s circular or spherical in shape. What in a pawnshop—in any and every pawnshop!—is spherical, and large enough to conceal 400 banknotes?”
Eve gasped and ran to the front window. From its rusty arm, which pointed accusingly at the Third Avenue “El,” hung the ancient emblem of Uncle Malachi’s profession.
“If you’ll please find me some tools, Doctor, we’ll open those three gilt balls!”
The Girl Who Jumped in the River
Arthur Moore
MAN BITES DOG
Among the virtues of Art Moore’s “The Girl Who Jumped in the River” is absolutely the best throwaway ending we’ve ever seen: a last paragraph that literally makes you blink. The story itself defies categorization and description—another virtue—and for that and other internal reasons, it qualifies as a genuine archetypal “man bites dog’’ tale (no pun intended). Mr. Moore is a full-time professional writer, and as such is a versatile practitioner of a variety of fiction and non-fiction types, including mysteries, Gothic suspense, Westerns, and magazine articles. He is also a past vice-president of the Southern California Chapter of MWA. - B.P.
It was after dark when I came along the Redding Bridge, going home from work. I was late. Usually I get out earlier, but if I had I wouldn’t have met her. I only saw her because I was on the walkway right beside the railing.
She was on an iron crossbeam, just out of the water, and she was soaking wet. I figured she had tried to end it all and had got cold feet at the last minute. You see those things in the papers all the time. Anyway, it sure surprised me, seeing her. I got over the rail and down there in a second and grabbed her. There wasn’t anybody around. A few cars passed, crossing the bridge as I hauled her over the railing, but nobody stopped.
When I had her safe, I said, “What’d you try that for?”
She glared at me like I had something to do with it. “I like swimming,” she said with a lot of sarcasm. “What’d you think?”
So I shut up. I knew she hadn’t gone in swimming. It was way too chilly for that.
My name is Ralph Callicut, and I work across the bridge at the Ender Hardware plant, which is a wholesale place. I don’t have a car, so I walk back and forth across the bridge except when the weather is bad, then I take the bus.
Well, her teeth began to chatter, of course, because she was sopping and in a very bad way. I asked her where she lived, and she said in Minneapolis, which was a long way off, so I figured she meant she was a stranger in town.
What do you think? I ended up taking her to my apartment so she could get dry. By the time we got there she was a worse mess, hair all stringy and her disposition very edgy. I got the heater going; she shucked her clothes in the bedroom, put on my old bathrobe and stood in front of the beater with her clothes spread out to dry.
“Jeez, Ralph,” she said, “can’t you make this thing hotter?”
I said it only got so hot and that was it. It was, too. I had already told her my name. She said hers was Louise, and she was hungry. I said I could make her some soup, and she sighed like it would have to do.
She was looking at me very close. “I thought you were older.”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“Yeah? So am I. What d’you do?”
I told her I work for a hardware company. She wanted to know what I make, and I told her a hundred and four take-home every week, but with a chance of advancement.
She said, “Yeah?”
So I went in and fixed her the soup. I had already eaten at Joe’s Place. While the soup was heating, she came in and looked around the kitchen. It is not big. I have a small pad; living room, bedroom and kitchen. The landlord is going to paint next year, he says.
She looked at the soup and the peanut butter on the shelves. “Is that all you eat, soup and peanut butter?”
“You want some? I got bread, too.”
“No, thanks.”
She had combed her hair a little. It was slightly curly with frizzy ends, a little darker than blonde. Her face was shiny and raw-looking, with lines because she was tired. With no makeup she was on the seedy side. I wondered if she had run off from a husband, but I didn’t ask her. She had a snappy way of talking; she bit at you, sort of. I guessed she’d had a bad time, having to jump into the river and all.
Louise ate the soup. I made her some toast and she ate that too, even with peanut butter. She was hungrier than she thought. Then she smoked a cigarette and stared at me. ‘‘Don’t you have any coffee?”
I said sure, and boiled some water and made instant
I wasn’t used to having a girl around. I never did get married, and I don’t have a steady girlfriend. Girls like me okay, but I’m not pushy, you know what I mean? When I ask them for a second date they usually say, “Oh gee, Ralph, why didn’t you ask me sooner? I got something to do tonight.” Like that.
While we bad coffee, Louise turned all her clothes over and let them dry on the other side. She smoked most of my pack and kept staring at me. I went into the bathroom once and combed my hair.
It was after eight o’clock when her shoes and clothes were all dry. They were pretty wrinkled, but she went into the bedroom and put them on. She was a very rumpled doll, but I didn’t say so.
Then she told me she had a suitcase.
I asked, ‘‘Where?”
“It’s at a guy’s house. He’s keeping it for me.” “Where’s the house?”
She told me. It was about a mile away. She wanted to go over and get it. She got up and said, “Why don’t we go over and get it?”
I said, “OK,” and we went. About halfway there I began to wonder why I was going with her, but I couldn’t back out then.
We walked all the way and she found the house easy. It was a tall flat; we went in and up the stairs. She knocked at a door on the second floor. A guy opened it and frowned at her. He was about my size and had a pencil behind his ear.
She said, “I came for my bag, Charlie.”
I was surprised, because he had it waiting for her right by the door. He just shoved it with his foot and she looked at me, so I stepped in and picked it up. Charlie stared at me too, but he didn’t say anything at all, only I kind of thought he smiled a little bit. When I backed out, he slammed the door.
“He was just keeping it for me,” Louise said as we went down to the street.
It was on my mind to ask her, ‘‘What next?” but she marched us right back to my pad like that was the only place to go. I didn’t know what to say.
When we got inside, she went right into the bedroom and flopped on the bed. “Jeez, you made me walk the whole way. My feet’re killing me.”
I said, “You want to go to bed?” I guess I had ideas.
She looked at me then with a kind of funny stare. “Yeah, why don’t you sleep on the couch, Ralph?”
So I said, “Sure, okay.” Well, what the crackers—just for one night.
In the morning, instead of eating at Joe’s again, I had to rush out for milk, eggs and some bacon. Louise said she liked bacon. “Get some marmalade too, Ralph.”
While we were eating she asked me what my hours were and I told her, then I asked her, “What you going to do today?” I thought maybe she had someplace to go. “You going someplace?”
She said, “Nowhere. I guess I’ll stay here.”
I figured she had to think things over. I gave her a couple of bucks in case she needed to get something—you know. Then I slid out.
That night when I got off, I was sure surprised to see Louise coming across the bridge to meet me. It gave me a funny feeling having a sort of pretty girl interested in me. I guess I’m not a Don Juan or anything, really.
She was looking me over when we met. She said, “Don’t slouch over that way, Ralph.”
I said I wouldn’t, and we walked back to the apartment. I hoped she had made dinner, but she hadn’t. She said she thought we were going out somewhere, which was funny because I hadn’t mentioned nothing. Anyhow, I took her to a beanery where they have pretty good stuff, but she didn’t think too much of it. They used too much salt in everything, she said.
I asked her what she did all day, and she said she slept most of the time. “Except you can’t sleep real good because of all that street racket under the window.”
I said I was sorry.
When I turned on the TV set, she said, “How come you still got a black and white, huh?”
After a while I made some more coffee, and when it got late, I realized she was going to stay there that night, too.
So I slept on the couch again.
I thought a lot about it the next day, but when I got home that night the apartment was all changed around. Louise had gone out and bought new curtains and charged them to me at the neighborhood center where they know me. Also she got me a new pillow for the couch. “It’s better for you than those two little ones.”
She had a fifth of gin too, and a couple of boxes of cookies. Later, when I saw the bottle, it was down by half and the cookies were all gone.
The next time she came across the bridge to meet me after work, she said the stores were still open, and that she really needed a new dress because she only had one. So I took her shopping. She bought a dress, pantyhose, a pair of shoes and some underwear.
“I’ll get the rest later,” she said.
On the way back to the bridge she noticed Manny’s Hofbrau Cafe, which is a kind of ritzy spot in the little park at the end of the bridge.
I had never been there. Louise said it looked a lot better than the beanery.
Dinner cost me eleven bucks; just the dinner alone. Her martinis cost a buck eighty.
That really started me thinking.
I am sort of an easygoing guy, not pushy at all. I’ve never been pushy with dames. But by this time, I was beginning to figure that if I was letting her sleep in my bed, with me on the old lumpy couch, and buying her expensive dinners and gin and cigarettes and clothes, especially underwear, that maybe I ought to have something going my way. You know what I mean? It occurs to a guy. Things like that, they occur to a guy.
So, later on, when we got home and she was in the bed and I was on the old, lumpy couch-well, I got up and went into the bedroom.
Louise turned over and said, “Hey, what you doing in here?”
“I thought…er…it seemed to me—”
“Hey, Ralph, you just knock off with those ideas.”
“But...b-but—”
“No buts. We don’t hardly know each other.”
So I went back to the couch and thought about that. It was sort of true. Only it did seem to me that we could speed up the learning.
I kept on thinking about it. In the morning I got up and made both breakfasts, then thought about it all the way to work. At lunch time I had to borrow a buck because I had given Louise all my dough.
When I got home, she was watching TV. She had bought another bottle of gin and more cookies. After I cooked dinner and was washing up, I asked her about the gin and she bit at me again, so I didn’t say nothing more. The house was in a kind of mess, so I mopped and dusted a little and she complained that I was making her sneeze.
She said, “Why don’t you do that on Saturdays?”
I said, “You could do a little something…”
She looked at me and snapped, “Hey, we’re not married, Ralph.” Yeah. That was true, all right.
The next day a new bed was delivered—some surprise when I got home! My old one was gone. The new one had a pinkish coverlet on it and some of those cute little rag dolls sitting at the comers. There were frilly yellow and pink curtains on the two bedroom windows.
“That old bed was saggy in the middle, Ralph.”
“Oh?” I hadn’t noticed that. I said I hadn’t noticed it.
“You don’t notice anything, Ralph. I had my hair done, too.”
Then I saw it; and I also noticed the bills that were piling up. She had put them under my new pillow on the couch. They added up to a lot more than I make in a week; one bill was for two more bottles of gin.
One evening the apartment house manager stopped me in the hall and asked about something. I was edgy because I thought he’d want to raise the rent because Louise was there, but he didn’t say nothing, which surprised me. He is the snappy-dresser kind of sport who plays the ponies and is very tight with a buck if the buck happens to be his. It sure surprised me, him not adding a little something to the rent. He asked me when I was going to work late next. That was all.
I happened to ask Louise if she had met him and she said, “Why don’t you fix yourself up a little bit, Ralph? You don’t always have to look like a grape picker.”
