“I value your frank opinion, Ma’am,” I said. “Incidentally, I’ve an uncle who employs a part-time maid called Mrs. Yurka. Would she be related to Emil Yurka?”
The old gal lowered her knitting and said, “His wife, Lena. Sunny boy, just what is there about you that gives me a very peculiar feeling?”
I blinked at this apparent symptom of paranoia. Fortunately, the phone rang just then. She rose to answer it and I seized the opportunity to make an exit.
Out in the street again, and, brother, I was no longer a bewildered, desolate wanderer. Triumphant juices coursing through me. For I felt I’d cracked the case. Lena Yurka, not Horace Plotkin, was the key figure. Once I realized that, everything came into focus.
I gave it a quick rundown. Lena has some reason why she must lure Emil out of his studio. She knows my client is out of town, has the key to his apartment. So she tells Emil that Mr. Plotkin ordered a poor man’s mural. Out happily trots Emil, leaving her free to pursue whatever she planned to do during his absence. Later, of course, she sneaks back to the apartment and removes the poor man’s mural. Does that while old Plotkin is on the park bench morosely contemplating his paint brush.
The scuff marks and heel print in the bathtub? Heck, Mr. Plotkin probably bought a new shower curtain before he’d left on his vacation. His shoes messed up the tub when he stood in it replacing the old curtain. And, well, that was it — elementary, as Holmes would say.
Yes, sir, a load off my mind as I walked on. Technically, Lena’s furtive maneuvering was no concern of mine. Another case, altogether. But I saw no harm in at least probing the possibility of casing Yurka’s studio. Simply for my own records, so to speak.
So I passed the bank at Sheridan Square, went a bit farther, turned into the relatively short dead-end Cornelia Street, and spotted the sign almost immediately: Emil Yurka — Studio — Original Paintings For Sale — Inspection Invited.
Which, of course, charted my next move. After all, inspection invited. There was a narrowish alley, between the building I was now passing and the one where Yurka had his studio. For no reason at all, I just happened to glance into the alley. And I halted in my tracks. The rear of Emil Yurka’s studio abutted, across an intervening backyard, the rear of the bank on Sheridan Square!
I felt myself breaking out into a sweat. Why, this was like Holmes’s great case titled The Red-Headed League. There, in London, a gullible pawnbroker is lured, through a bizarre scheme, away from his shop, thus granting his phoney assistant the opportunity to tunnel to a bank vault containing a fortune in French gold. Here, in New York, a creator of poor man’s murals is provided with phoney commissions so that human moles might burrow undetected in his subcellar to a fortune in good old American loot,
Simmer down, Bernie, I thought. Use the old noodle. Sure, this could be a potential Crime of the Century. It could also be mere literary and geographical coincidences. No sinister schemes. Maybe old Lena sent Emil rushing out the front door, eager-beavering on his phoney commission, so that she could rush to the back door to admit a boy friend champing at the bit.
I was tempted to let it go at that, but I looked again at the Inspection Invited. A few moments later descended the short flight of steps to a door bearing the message, Open. Walk In. Which I did.
Well, nothing jumped at me from dark corners. I was alone in a big musty-smelling basement studio. Couches and chairs and things of normal variety. Paintings on most of the available wall space. And no sign of life anywhere.
Venturing further into the studio, I began casing the paintings. There were toucans all right, and old Plotkin hadn’t exaggerated. Crudely hideous creatures. There were also unbelievable fish blowing bubbles, winged beasties vaguely suggesting cherubs, other tilings that defied identification. All painted on stretched plastic, and mine was not to reason why.
In fact, my ears, not my eyes, were on the prowl here, trying to detect subterranean activity with picks and shovels. And then I did hear a faint crash-rumbling beneath me. The building shaken by the passage of a heavily laden truck? Or by actual tunneling somewhere below?
I flopped on the floor, placed my ear to it, and listened. Nothing. Just the smell of dust in my kisser, and sudden realization that my behavior bordered on lunacy.
Facing the wall as I lay on the floor, I rolled over and came up to my hands and knees. And froze in that position. A man stood watching me just inside an open door diagonally across the studio. A monstrous hulk of a man, with a brutal, slablike face.
The creepy overtones revved up to a howl. Maybe that was Yurka, but I sure had no intention of hanging around long enough to find out. He was at the far end of the studio. The exit door was maybe six feet behind me. And instinct urged instantaneous departure of jet-propelled nature.
So I scrambled to my feet, and froze again as the giant clipped, “Hold it, Buster!”
So help me, now there was a gun in his hand. He didn’t point it at me. Just kind of showed me the thing. Then he put the gun away and made a come-hither motion with his forefinger.
Honest to God, if my hair didn’t turn pure snow-white then, it should have. Why, he must be the upstairs lookout.. Who saw me put my ear to the floor. And thus knew I was wise to their scheme. Meaning that a certain buttinski named Bernie Halper was about to learn to mind his own business the hard way.
The forefinger continued that horrible beckoning motion and my legs moved along the Last Mile toward the hulking brute. As I approached, a confederate joined him in the doorway. Another depraved criminal face, but one that belonged to a medium-sized fat hoodlum.
The two thugs stepped back and separated as my poor wobbly legs carried on their grim chore. Through the doorway, into the other room. They stopped when a woman’s voice said, “Now what?”
I had a glimpse of an angry-looking battleaxe seated in a chair and of a bearded man in a chair next to her. Then I was spun about, and there was the giant looking down at me with flat, pale killer-eyes.
“All right,” he said, “why were you lying on the floor?”
“Oh, that?” I stalled.
His hand tightened on my shoulder. “Yeah, that.”
Rattling off the first thing that popped up to my mind, I said, “Well, sir, I was merely getting the vertical viewpoint. As opposed to the horizontal. To attain a full perspective of Mr. Yurka’s work. A theory I read somewhere. On account I’m an art student.”
Gibberish no one could believe. Sure enough, the giant shook his head, glanced at Fatso, who shook his head. Here we go, Bernie — mayhem coming up.
The big heavy hand spun me about again as the giant asked, “The kid’s mumbo-jumbo make any sense to you, Yurka?”
The man seated next to the battleaxe was a weird-looking character sporting a beret, dark glasses, and a flowing red beard. He wore a long, filthy butcher-type linen coat and webbed sandals showing dirt-blackened rocs. At the moment he was leaning forward, scratching his left ankle.
“Sure, could be, Lieutenant,” he replied in a thin lisping voice. “Lots of crazy theories floating around. Like, for instance, you thinking Frankie Millard might walk into a police trap here.”
“Lieutenant?” I gasped. “Are you police officers?”
The giant released my shoulder and said, “Yes, I’m Lieutenant Nelson. That’s Detective Brady there. Who’re you?”