The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 5 - August 1920), page 13
part #5 of The Black Mask Magazine Series
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."
The Valley Where Dead Men Live
by Harold Ward
I
"I have passed through The Valley Where Dead Men Live. My eyes have looked upon sights which God did not intend that man should see. My life must pay the forfeit. As a man of science, you may be interested in hearing what I have to say — and I must unburden myself to someone before I pass out into the Great Unknown. But five days have passed since I said good-bye to old Sourdough Jamison. It seems as many centuries."
Professor Parmalee gave the speaker a quick glance. "Did I understand you to say that you left Jamison's five days ago? Are you sure about that?"
The man on the cot nodded. "On the twentieth of June, to be exact."
"There is no possibility of your being mistaken?"
"None whatever. My diary will prove it. I made my last entry the night before I left Sourdough's place — on the nineteenth."
The professor sat silent for a second. "There is something wrong with your story, Blake. The nearest route over the mountains, from here, is by way of Chicahoochie pass, which would make the distance from this point to Sourdough Jamison's cabin a matter of over a hundred and fifty miles. This is the twenty-fifth of June. A well man couldn't do it. It is an impossibility for you to have made it in five days in your weakened condition. Not that I wish to dispute your word, but—"
The sick man smiled wanly. "Don't you see, professor, that your own statement helps to support my story? I tell you that I wandered into an undiscovered route through the mountains. You say that you picked me up half an hour ago lying exhausted and unconscious a few rods from your camp. That being the case, the entrance to The Valley Where Dead Men Live, on this side of the range, must be near at hand."
"You'll say I'm crazy when I tell you that I have seen living dead men! Dead men who do not know that they are dead. Can you imagine it? No? Neither could I if I had not seen it myself. I've been through the Valley of the Living Dead and came out alive! I've seen them — living dead men — by the millions and millions, fighting, stabbing, shooting — tearing at each other's throats like maddened beasts! And beasts they are, maddened by blood! Blood flows in rivers in the valley where the dead men live. It's the rage they were in when they died. They carried it on with them beyond the grave and they're fighting it out in there!"
"Can't you hear the rumble of cannon? Listen! You think that it's thunder. But it's not. And those flashes that you notice just over the brow of the mountain! The flashes of the big guns, man — spirit guns! No, no. It's not lightning. I'm telling you the truth. I know that you think I'm insane. I don't blame you."
He stopped suddenly, his nostrils dilating. "Take a whiff of that breeze, professor. Don't you smell anything?"
Parmalee sniffed. "The air from the mountains does have a peculiar, acrid odor. It's reminiscent of something."
"Gunpowder!"
"By George! That's what it is. Somebody must have fired a weapon close at hand. And yet, why didn't we hear the report?"
The scientist gazed out of the tent door. "It was none of my party. They are all accounted for. Yet I could have sworn that there was not another human being within fifty miles."
Blake smiled again. "I merely called it to your attention, Professor, so that you would give more credence to my story. It is so strange — this story of the living dead — that it will stretch your imagination to the utmost. I am a sick man. I doubt if I survive the day. You, as a scientific man, may be able to discover the solution of the puzzle. Perhaps you may even be able to do something to help release those poor devils in there from the tie of hatred that is binding them to this earth. At any rate, I would like to tell you my yarn if yon care to listen. Just give me another sip of that moose broth, will you?"
