Frank Gruber
Beagle Scented Murder
1
Otis Beagle rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, oblivious of the frightful squeak the chair made with every rock. His fat fingers made a pup tent across his well-fed stomach and he was frowning in intense concentration.
On the other side of the double desk Joe Peel looked up furtively from his last week’s ‘Racing Form.’ He didn’t like that concentration on the part of Beagle.
The rocking — and the squeaking — stopped. Joe Peel groaned. This was it.
Otis Beagle blew on the huge stone in his ring. The ring was just like Beagle — big, flashy — and phoney.
“Joe!” said Otis Beagle. “Do you remember the Jolliffe case?”
“No,” replied Peel, promptly.
Beagle scowled. “It was only four-five months ago.”
“My memory doesn’t function on an empty stomach,” Peel snapped. “It’s lunch time and I haven’t even had breakfast.”
“You got to watch out for that, Joe,” said Beagle. “You keep going without breakfast and after a while you get so—”
“The reason I haven’t had breakfast,” Peel said, “is because you haven’t paid me my salary for two weeks.”
Otis Beagle scowled. “I owe you two weeks wages?”
“Eighty bucks, pal! And Saturday it’ll be a hundred and twenty. If I don’t get it, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll get a secondhand furniture man in here and you’ll run your detective agency next week sitting on the floor.”
Beagle looked coldly at Joe Peel. “Some day your sense of humor will get the best of you, Joe.”
“You think I’m joking? Guess again. You owe two months’ office rent; you owe me my wages, but have you missed a meal yourself? Have you missed dropping in every day at that plush club of yours?”
“If it’s any satisfaction to you,” Beagle said, “the club posted me yesterday. And I have exactly four dollars to my name…”
“Four dollars!” cried Peel. “Give!”
“It’s all the money I have in the world.”
“Give,” Peel persisted. “Give, before I forget that you outweigh me seventy pounds.”
Beagle glowered at Peel a moment then drew a flat wallet from his breast pocket and skinned out two dollar bills as neatly as a card shark.
“Why didn’t you say you were hungry?”
“Couldn’t you hear my stomach growl?”
Beagle grunted and picked up a bunch of three by four file cards. “Joe, we’re up against it. Clients haven’t been coming to the office — so, we’ll have to go after them.”
Peel winced. “How?”
Beagle separated one of the filing cards from the others. He tapped it on the desk. “You remember this Wilbur Jolliffe? He was mixed up in a badger game…”
“And we shook him down for a grand.”
Beagle cleared his throat noisily. “We settled with the blackmailers.”
“We slipped them a hundred and scared hell out of them. The other nine hundred we kept — and then we soaked Wilbur for a five hundred dollar fee.”
“A cheap settlement. The blackmailers would have taken Wilbur for four times that much.” Beagle looked thoughtfully at the card. “Jolliffe’s a gay dog.”
“Sixty, if he’s fifty. And he likes them about twenty — or younger if he can get them.” Peel wrinkled his nose in disgust. “A fanny pincher.”
“Right. It says on this card that Jolliffe lives on Rodeo Drive. He owns the house — and he has a wife…”
“And how! A snowplow in front and a caboose in the rear.”
Beagle nodded. “All this happened five months ago. By now Jolliffe is over his scare. In fact, I’d venture to say he is, ah, pinching fannies again.”
“His kind doesn’t stop until the man pats them in the face with a spade… But I don’t get the angle, Otis.”
“Hurrumph! I was thinking — we did a good job for Jolliffe once. Why can’t we do another for him?”
“But we don’t even know if he’s in trouble.”
“A man like Jolliffe’s bound to be in trouble. Why should we wait until he’s in so deep that it’s almost impossible to get him out of it?”
“There might be something in what you say.”
Beagle placed the tips of his fingers together and scowled at them. “I think I’ll drop around and see him tomorrow.”
Peel shrugged. “It can’t do any harm.”
“In the meantime you might soften him up.”
“Eh?”
“Jolliffe may not realize that he’s in trouble. But he’s got a guilty conscience.”
“So have I — and you — and about fifty million other people in this country.”
Beagle scowled. “You’re being purposely dense. You know very well what I’m getting at. You’ve got to scare Jolliffe so he’ll be in a proper frame of mind when I talk to him tomorrow.”
Peel held up a hand, palm toward Beagle. “Now, wait a minute, Otis. We’ve stretched the rope pretty tight, but you’re putting too much pressure on it this time. It’ll break.”
“Well,” said Beagle, “you have two dollars and I have two dollars. What are we going to do when they’re gone?”
Joe Peel inhaled and exhaled heavily. “San Quentin, here we come!”
Beagle shuddered. “Don’t say that, Joe. Not even in fun.”
“All right, I won’t say it. But I’ll be thinking it. Give me the card.”
Beagle handed him the file card and Peel reached for the phone. He looked at the card, then dialed a number.
A smooth voice said in Peel’s ear, “Jolliffe and Company.”
“Let me talk to Wilbur,” Peel said.
“Who’s calling?”
“This is a personal call, sister.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I have no brothers… and I’ll have to have your name, before I can put your call through.”
“Look,” said Peel, “just tell Wilbur that Nat is on the phone.”
“Nat who?”
“Just tell him Nat and he’ll talk to me so quick you won’t even be able to listen in.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line and then the girl said, “Just a moment, please.”
Thirty seconds went by, then a connection was made and a cracked voice said, “Yes?”
“Yes,” Peel replied.
“This is Wilbur Jolliffe,” said the owner of that name. “Who… who is this?”
“Nat.”
“N-nat, who?”
Peel laughed harshly. “How many Nats do you know? Nats to you.” He hung up and met Otis Beagle’s accusing glance.
“Crude. Very crude.”
“Then why didn’t you call him yourself?”
“Because he might remember my voice.”
“He might remember mine too.”
“Not as readily. You only talked to him once or twice. Besides, your voice isn’t a distinctive one.”
Peel scowled at Beagle and got up. He went to an ancient wooden filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer. Beagle watched him with interest. His eyes widened when Peel took out a false beard.
“Who do you think you’ll fool with that Dick Tracy outfit?”
“Nobody,” said Peel. “That’s the point.” He put the beard into his coat pocket and got his hat. “In case I get caught and you don’t — I smoke Camels,” he said and left the office.
He took the stairs to the first floor and left the building. Outside he looked toward Hollywood Boulevard, a half block away, then walked to it and turned eastward.
After a few minutes he consulted the card on Wilbur Jolliffe and after another block entered a twelve-story office building. He rode in the elevator up to the fourth floor.
2
Walking down a corridor he found a ground glass door on which was the legend: Jolliffe & Company. He brought the false beard out of his pocket, slipped it on, then opened the door and entered a fancy reception room over which presided a redhead who was at least gorgeous, if not more.