Desperately in need of cash, Wesley got a doctor friend in New York to send this wire:
YOUR SON SERIOUSLY ILL. WIRE $100.
No answer. The following day Wesley had this wire sent:
YOUR SON IS SINKING. WHAT SHALL WE DO IN CASE OF THE WORST?
This, apparently, made the family’s New York friend think there might be some truth in the young man’s reported illness, for he wired a mutual friend for corroboration. The friend made inquiries, and Wesley explained the situation. This wire resulted:
WESLEY PASSED AWAY AT 2 P.M. IF BURIED HERE WILL COST $250. IF BODY SHIPPED HOME WIRE $300.
“Bury him there,” came the answer with unwonted rapidity, accompanied by $250.
It got around his home town that the boy had died of an accident, and once again he became the subject of sorrowing friends of his father. Hundreds of floral tokens arrived at the family home, and an obituary notice appeared in the Sun of Jackson, to which city the family had moved following their son’s first “taking off.”
When Wesley was handed the $250, he sent his father the following wire:
FIRST TELEGRAM IN ERROR WAS IN COMATOSE CONDITION FOR SEVERAL HOURS AND DR. COHN THOUGHT I HAD DIED UPON RECEIPT OF MONEY HOWEVER I SOON REVIVED AND AM RAPIDLY RECOVERING.
He Died Laughing
by J. Lane Linklater
Hugo Oakes borrows a stepladder to demonstrate why a man might chuckle when murdered.
I
Hugo Oakes, lawyer, walked along the corridor of the ground floor of the Spinner Apartments. Noting the shabby rug upon which he was trudging, and the niggardliness with which the hall was lighted, he concluded that the sign outside which read “Beautiful Singles, $37.50,” had been conceived by an optimist.
He stopped before number seven, which was the last apartment to the right, and tapped on the door.
Presently the door opened. A young woman, modestly pretty and modestly dressed, stared at him. Her brown eyes were hazy pools of trouble. She stared at Oakes as if she could scarcely believe what she saw.
“Well,” demanded Oakes, gruffly, “what’s the idea keeping me standing here?”
“Oh!” she gasped, and her eyes became wells of happiness. “Come in!”
Oakes followed her in and sank his short, fleshy ungainly form into a cheap overstuffed chair. The girl stood in front of him, her quick, nervous hands clasped.
“I... I’m so glad!” she said. “I thought you told me that you wouldn’t take the case, and I was feeling frightfully blue. I... I—”
“When I work,” Oakes grumbled, “I got to have money. You said you didn’t have any, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.” The worried look returned. “Really, I haven’t any—”
“Yeah. Well, after you left, I got to thinking. Mamie, my secretary, tells me I got four hundred and ninety-nine people on my books that owe me money. So I thought maybe I ought to make it an even five hundred.”
Oakes said it seriously enough, but the young lady laughed in relief.
“That’s what they told me,” she said. “Everybody says that you’re the last hope of penniless people in trouble—”
“Don’t remind me of it,” cut in Oakes, gloomily. “Your name’s Miss Sutter, ain’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” said the girl. “Mary Sutter.”
“All right, Mary. Your father, Jerry Sutter, was arrested last night and held in connection with the murder of John Spinner, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You live in this apartment with your father?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And John Spinner owned the dump?”
“Yes. Mr. Spinner owned the apartment house. He lived in the apartment on the second floor, just above this one.”
“And your father worked here, too.”
The girl flushed slightly.
“Yes. My father lost all he had a couple of years ago. He is getting old. He... he did janitor work around the apartment house in exchange for an apartment. I am not trained to work, but sometimes I get a little office work, and manage to bring in enough money for groceries.”
“Uh huh,” said Oakes pessimistically. “That’s tough. Probably have to do something like that myself pretty soon, unless I can make some quick collections. Now, about this John Spinner, what kind of a guy was he?”
“I... I suppose I shouldn’t say it, Mr. Oakes. But I thought him mean and unkind.”
Oakes looked at her shrewdly.
“Mean, huh? I thought the papers said he died laughing?”
“Well, it looks as if he did. At any rate, he was heard laughing quite heartily, and he stopped in the middle of the laugh.”
“Yeah. Well, do mean guys laugh?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Oakes. But I do know that about the only time I ever heard Mr. Spinner laugh was when somebody else was in trouble.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, sir. Dad, as I told you, was getting old. Sometimes he would make a mess of things. Then Mr. Spinner would laugh at him. That is, he would laugh unless it was costing him something, in which case he would become very angry. You... you understand about dad, do you, Mr. Oakes?”
“Oh, sure. That’s all right. Some of the best people on earth find it tough going when they get old — sometimes because they are so blame good. Sometimes looks like it’s all hooey about the survival of the fittest — more like the survival of the most ruthless.”
The girl nodded in agreement.
“And your father was fired?”
“Yes. Mr. Spinner had given us until the first to get out. That’s three days from now.”
“Sure. My friend Inspector Mallory will probably claim that as the motive.”
“He does,” said the girl.
“Uh huh. Well, we’ll fix that guy Mallory,” Oakes threatened. “Spinner was shot in the forehead, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” The girl’s voice was steady, but her face was very pale. “They say that one shot did it, fired at about fifteen feet.”
“Fifteen feet!” Oakes repeated. “That ain’t so far, but it would take a pretty fair shot to drill a hole through a guy’s forehead, neat and clean, even at fifteen feet.”
The girl hesitated a moment.
“Dad could have done it,” she said quietly. “He has been an excellent shot all his life. And he’s still good, even at sixty. He’s shaky on his legs, but his hand is steady.”
“Yeah?” Oakes complained. “Well, that ain’t going to do him no good. Everybody knows about him being a good shot, huh?”
“Yes, sir.” She paused thoughtfully. “But it was a rather funny thing about this place. There are, or were, several good shots here.”
“Yeah?” said Oakes, his small eyes gleaming with interest. “Who were these guys that could shoot good?”
“Mr. Spinner himself,” said the girl, “was an excellent revolver shot. Both he and his son, Frank. Then there is a man named Bill Nevvin, who has an apartment on the second floor — I think he originally got acquainted with the Spinners because of their mutual interest in revolver shooting.”
“They found the revolver in your father’s apartment here, huh?”
“Yes, sir. In a bureau drawer.”
“And you don’t know how it got there?”
“I haven’t any idea. I never saw it before, and neither did dad. It must have been planted.”
“Uh huh. Where were you, Mary, last evening, while Spinner was getting shot?”
“At a branch library, Mr. Oakes, about two blocks away.”