“I do,” Malone said. “I know what you were supposed to think.”
“But that note,” von Flanagan said. “Why did she write it?”
“She didn’t,” Malone told him.
The police officer scowled. “It was in her handwriting. (Dig, dig, dig. And — under the willow tree in the garden.)”
“It was dictated to her,” Malone said. He sighed, and added, “You’re not up on popular songs, von Flanagan. You check this with her and see if I’m not right. The murderer telephoned her and recommended a couple of songs that would be particularly good for her style of singing. He told her to write down the titles and get copies. She did. Then on his next visit he tore the leaf from the telephone pad and stuck it in her diary. Remember, she trusted him, and he probably had the run of the house.”
Von Flanagan shook his head sadly. “The things some people will do!” He scratched the back of his neck.
“Remember, he had to have the body found,” Malone said, “or else he couldn’t inherit. This would have looked like her last suicide note. It would have built up her reason for the suicide — her remorse for her mother’s having committed a murder. That must have been preying on her mind for years. That’s why she was willing to keep all these appointments, because she was told she’d find out the truth.”
“And what was the truth?” von Flanagan asked. “Why did her old lady bump off this guy?”
There was a second or two of silence. “Because,” Malone said at last, “from all I’ve been able to learn, he was a no good son-of-a-bee who was wrecking her life and her career, and who should have been murdered years before.” He wondered if it would do him any serious damage to smoke a cigar, decided he might as well try, reached in his pocket and encountered a repulsive, soggy mass of wet tobacco.
“Have one of mine,” Jack Apt said quietly.
It was a fine, Havana cigar. Malone accepted it with thanks, and privately wished it was one of his own favorite six-for-a-quarter brand.
“Only,” von Flanagan said, “how did you know for sure she really hadn’t meant to jump off that ledge?”
The little lawyer sneezed and sighed on the same breath, nearly strangling himself. “Because of the ‘goodbye, goodbye,’ written on the mirrors.”
“I don’t get it,” von Flanagan said. “You will,” Malone told him, “if you’ll think of Doris Dawn’s coloring — and the color of lipstick that was used to write on the mirrors. No woman in her right mind would wear that shade with a skin like Doris’s.”
Von Flanagan rose and said admiringly, “I wish I knew how you find out such things.”
“Even if I could trust you with the truth,” Malone said, “you wouldn’t believe it.”
For a few minutes after von Flanagan had gone he sat hunched in his blankets, brooding. He’d found a murderer, he’d saved a life, he’d seen what looked like the beginning of a very happy marriage. But he still didn’t have carfare home.
Suddenly Malone had enough of it — a bellyful. He turned and stared at Jack Apt. Apt stared back, uncomfortably. Then Malone said, “If I sit here much longer, I’ll get double pneumonia and have to be shot full of penicillin. Besides, the whiskey’s gone, this cigar stinks — come on, Apt, break down and spill the truth. Or shall I?”
Jack Apt said softly, “How did you know I murdered Robert Spencer?”
Malone sneezed again. “Cut it out, Apt. I may be all wet — but not in the brain. Add it up this way: you were Diana Dawn’s manager. You must have been in love with her. Everyone who ever saw her was. You knew what he was doing to her — so you killed him. What you didn’t know was that she loved him and that she would kill herself from anxiety over his disappearance.”
“I killed him,” Jack Apt said, “and I buried him. Young Bob Spencer wormed the truth about his burial place out of me. I didn’t know the reason why he wanted to find it out. Perhaps you’d better call von Flanagan back here, and tell him.”
Malone yawned and said, “von Flanagan gets on my nerves sometimes.” He sneezed a double one this time. “It must have been hell for you all these years, after she killed herself. So why bring the cops in now?”
“It was hell,” Jack Apt said, pulling on a pair of tan leather gloves. “It will continue to be. May I drive you anywhere, Malone?”
“No, thanks,” Malone said. “I’ll call a cab.” He remembered his lack of cabfare. “Or maybe I’ll walk.”
The door opened and Maggie, his secretary, walked in. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were blazing.
“I’ve been looking all over town for you. You owe me seven and a half hours overtime. That burglar has decided he will have you enter a not-guilty plea. He waited hours for you, and then sent his retainer over by messenger. All in cash.”
“Call me a cab,” Malone said, “before pneumonia carries me off.”
“And,” Maggie said, “A girl has been calling you for hours. She just said to tell you she’s That Blonde.”
Malone leaped up, blankets falling to the floor. “Call her back and tell her I’ll be there as soon as I change my clothes.”
“But Mr. Malone,” Maggie wailed, “you’ll catch cold.”
The little lawyer paused at the door. “Who, me? I never catch cold.” He waved, said a cheerful “Goodbye, goodbye,” and walked out whistling “The Willow Tree In The Garden”.
They Never Get Caught
by Margery Allingham
Meet another eternal triangle: Henry Brownrigg (fascinating name!) is a small, plump, middle-aged chemist with over-dark, round, hot eyes; his wife, Millie Brownrigg, is a plump middle-aged woman of staggering obtuseness and placid dullness; Phyllis Bell is barely twenty with golden hair and blue eyes and a small, adorable mouth.
There is something else about Henry Brownrigg you should know: he is a man who has decided to become a widower. Only a foolish, fatuous wife stands in the way of Brownrigg’s heart’s desire... and decisive little Brownrigg is an expert chemist...
So far EQMM has brought you six Margery Allingham stories — all about Mr. Campion, Criminologist, and all previously unpublished in the United States. Here is the seventh “new” Allingham story, but this time it is not a Campion tale — although you may wish, before you have finished reading it, that Mr. Campion were somewhere around. Or, will you? We wonder...
“Millie dear, this does explain itself, doesn’t it, Henry?” Mr. Henry Brownrigg signed his name on the back of the little blue bill with a flourish. Then he set the scrap of paper carefully in the exact centre of the imperfectly scoured developing bath, and leaving the offending utensil on the kitchen table for his wife to find when she came in, he stalked back to the shop, feeling that he had administered the rebuke surely and at the same time gracefully.
In fifteen years Mr. Brownrigg felt that he had mastered the art of teaching his wife her job. Not that he had taught her. That, Mr. Brownrigg felt, with a woman of Millie’s staggering obtuseness, was past praying for. But now, after long practice, he could deliver the snub or administer the punishing word in a way which would penetrate her placid dullness.
Within half an hour after she had returned from shopping and before lunch was set upon the table, he knew the bath would be back in the darkroom, bright and pristine as when it was new, and nothing more would be said about it. Millie would be a little more ineffectually anxious to please at lunch, perhaps, but that was all.