The Lieutenant said, “Like what happened later elsewhere?”
Yeah, what? In that last desperate moment I remembered the scuff marks and heel imprint in Plotkin’s bathtub. Someone had stood there.
“Suppose the Yurkas know Frankie plans to break out of Bellevue,” I said, ad-libbing like mad. “And Mr. Plotkin’s apartment is empty on account he’s out of town. So they tell Frankie to go there. Where Lena’s waiting with a false red beard, dark glasses, beret, and clothes identical to Emil’s. And Emil is all set here to pop out with the suitcase when he spots what might be cops watching the place. He knows he’ll be tailed, but he’s got that phoney explanation—”
“The kid’s nuts,” Lena fog-horned. “Can’t you tell he’s nuts?”
“Shut up!” the Lieutenant clipped. He added to me, “Carry on, Bernard W. You’re doing fine.”
“I am?” I said. “It’s just a theory, Lieutenant. In the Plotkin apartment Lena helps Frankie get into those clothes and beard and all. She leaves. Frankie hides in the bathroom. When Emil brings back to the bathroom the metal stool he’d used to tack on the mural — and if in those few moments the interior of the bathroom is out of Officer Brady’s angle of vision — what’s to stop Frankie from emerging as Emil? Frankie able to mimic Emil’s lisping voice. Officer Brady had already checked the real Emil’s chest for a bandaged gun wound, so no further danger of switch being discovered.”
Everything sort of stood stark-still for a little while, excluding the twitching in my legs. Then the Lieutenant said softly, “Yeah, that’s it, all right. The gimmick.”
“It isn’t a kid,” Lena said. “It’s a Thing. Sorry, Frankie. I thought we had it made.”
The man next to her pulled off the false beard, removed the dark glasses. Yellowish eyes looked at me with murderous intent. “Halper, Bernard W.,” he said softly. “A name to remember.”
“That’s for sure,” the Lieutenant said.
And I had this sudden horrible feeling I was going to be sick. Right in front of all those people. I mean, it was some kind of reaction. “Lieutenant,” I managed to gasp out, “I don’t feel so good. May I walk around the block?”
“You may,” he answered.
Brother, I took off. But jet-propelled. Out and through the studio and up the steps into the sanity of the sunlit street. Here my stomach decided it wasn’t going to posenessy problems, after all. Just an over-all wobbliness as I walked on, recalling those awful moments when I fully expected to be clobbered. Moments that must have aged me, and maybe etched interesting lines in my face.
This self-revelation made me feel better. The murder threat in Frankie’s yellowish eyes? Heck, he’s probably a three-time loser. Gets a life sentence. If he ever does get out of prison, he’ll be a doddering old man.
Which reminded me of Grandpa with the silver-knobbed cane. Actually, it was he who had unleashed the forces which subsequently swept me along. Directed my attention to old Plotkin. Brought up Holmes. And maybe, as a Mentalist, was able to project to Mr. Plotkin the idea of contacting me to help paint over the birds. I mean, it was something to think about.
At this point, somewhat to my astonishment, I realized that my ambling along evidently had purpose and direction. For I found myself back in Washington Square, earing the bench where it had all begun.
I settled down on the bench, still marveling about Grandpa as an instrument of Fate. It rated, I thought, a write-up in The Baker Street Journal. So I began sort of playing around with it in my mind when Joanie suddenly bobbed up.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re still here, Bernie,” she blurted out. “Look, I want to apologize. I know I said something that hurt your feelings. Please forgive me. Because I’m very, very fond of you, Bernie.”
Well, that left me pretty breathless, too. Such humility from Joanie was a major victory. A tender moment, one that opened new vistas.
“Forget it,” I said. “Now sit down and I’ll tell you about a most extraordinary experience I’ve just had. You remember the old gentleman sharing the bench with me?”
“No, I don’t,” she answered. “If you mean when I last saw you here, you were alone on the bench.”
I stared at her. No guile in my beloved’s candid blue eyes. “The old man with a silver-knobbed cane,” I said. “Why, he was sitting right there. You must have seen him.”
Joanie said unhappily, “I’m sorry, Bernie. Maybe I just didn’t happen to notice him. Is it important?”
I checked my wallet. Yep, old Plotkin’s token of appreciation still there. “No, it isn’t important,” I told Joanie. “I simply thought he might have dropped this twenty-dollar bill. That’s my extraordinary experience. I look down and there it is. Twenty smackers waiting to be picked up. Now let’s go live it up a little.”
Which we did, glam details of same irrelevant to this chronicle. So Joanie just didn’t happen to notice Grandpa sharing my bench. I mean, there couldn’t be any other explanation, could there?
The Singing Hat
by Cornell Woolrich
Copyright 1939 by Popular Publications; originally titled, “The Counterfeit Hat”
Another Woolrich whizbang, this one showing the procedural method of police investigation as it was usually depicted in the “pulp” magazines of the 1930s... action all the way!
Marty Dillon was just a poor guy plodding along year in and year out. He bought a new suit maybe once in five years, and a new hat not much oftener than that. But on the day this story opens the five years for a hat must have recently elapsed, for he was starting on the first lap of a new one. And, like most owners of new hats, he wasn’t very familiar with it yet.
He didn’t have the feel of it, couldn’t have picked it blindfolded out of a dozen others, like his old one. It hadn’t yet mellowed itself to his personality, had none of those dents, creases, and grease spots that marked it as his own. That would come in time; it still had four years and eleven months to go.
Dillon and his new hat went into a one-arm joint. A one-arm joint is a white-tiled place that suggests a clinic, Two long rows of armchairs line the walls. The right arm of each chair is expanded into a china-topped slab. You park your food on it. Hooks on the wall above the chairs. That’s all.
Dillon collected a trayful, sat down in the handiest chair, and got to work. The motions of cutting, spading, and hoisting caused his improperly broken-in hat to slip forward a little on his brow, so he took it off and slung it on the hook behind him to rid himself of the annoyance. Nobody could get at it without reaching up over his shoulder, and his neighbor in the next seat was much better dressed than he in every way, so Dillon felt that it was safe enough.
He was a quick eater; he was tired and wanted to get home, anyway. When he finished and stood up, his neighbor was still there, but was hidden behind an outspread newspaper. Dillon reached behind him without looking, and put a hat back on. Maybe the hooks were closer together than he thought; it’s easy to aim wrong when you don’t watch what you’re doing.
At any rate, a blurred glance at the article as it went up past his face showed the right shape, the right color, and he went on out under it. Outside the door he set it a trifle more firmly in place with one hand, and thought it felt softer, finer-textured, then he remembered it, but didn’t stop to wonder why.