But the dog, he’s different. All he ever wanted to do was please the doc and this old doll. He’s old and crippled and blind and he’s got sores on him and he hurts all over, but he kept right on trying to please the doc and the old doll by sitting up on his rump and doing tricks for them.
So I say it’s not right what the doc did to the old dog.
He made the dog a murderer, that’s what he did.
Build Another Coffin
by Harold Q. Masur
He’s crazy!” she said. “Stark, raving mad! How can they let such a man be a private detective? I never saw anybody act like him in all my life. Why, it’s ridiculous! He simply hasn’t got all his buttons. Do you know what he did, Mr. Jordan?”
“What did he do?”
“He made faces at me and told me to go home.” She expelled a short gasp of utter frustration.
“Please, Mrs. Denney,” I said, “try to relax.”
“Relax?” Her voice went up a full octave. “How can I after talking to such a lunatic?”
What she needed was a shot of brandy to quiet her nerves. I reached behind me into the telephone table and got out the office bottle and poured. “Say when.” But she seemed to have lost her voice, or else she was very thirsty, because I had to quit pouring in order to save my good Napoleon brandy from slopping over the rim of the glass onto the lap of my gray tweed pants.
She drank it like water, with no perceptible effect. Her nostrils were still distended, her bosom continued to heave, and she couldn’t find a comfortable spot in the red leather client’s chair. She had walked unannounced into my office ten minutes before. Her name was Grace Denney and she was married, which seemed a bit unfair, since an architectural design like hers isn’t constructed every day and ought not to be taken out of circulation, though I couldn’t blame any man for wanting an exclusive on it.
She was tall, a lithe, sleek, supple item, slender at the hips, rising like an hourglass to emerge burstingly from the square-cut neckline of a simple dress, wondrously and sumptuously assembled. When you came to her face, reluctantly, you saw luminous brown eyes and cherry-red lips, full and shining. From Cleopatra on down, she had them all stopped. Whatever you might need, wherever you were, she had it, in spades. It made no difference, your age or your physical condition, here was a girl who could put spring in an old man’s legs and fire in a young man’s blood.
Emotional pressure had made her story a little disjointed. I had gathered only that she was from California, that she had written to a private detective named Lester Britt, asking him to find out why an aunt of hers never answered any letters, that she had arrived yesterday, paid a visit on Mr. Britt, and found his behavior most unorthodox, to say the least.
The brandy, I saw, was beginning to work. She settled back in the chair, breathing easier.
“That’s better,” I said. “Now, Mrs. Denney, let’s get the facts untangled. This aunt of yours, tell me about her.”
She moistened her lips. “Aunt Paula. Mrs. Paula Larsen. She’s a widow, about eighty, I’d say, maybe more. She lives at the Vandam Nursing Home on Long Island.”
“Who supports her?”
“Supports her?” Grace Denney snorted politely. “Aunt Paula has annuities that pay her at least five hundred dollars a week. Her husband was my mother’s brother. Oscar Larsen, the candy man. Larsen’s Fine Chocolates. Stores all over the country. He put all his money into annuities before he retired. And shortly afterward he died.”
“You say you haven’t heard from your aunt?”
“Not since she entered that nursing home.”
“How long ago?”
“About two years.”
I looked at her curiously. “And you weren’t concerned about it until recently?”
She hastened to defend herself. “Let me explain. I used to live with Aunt Paula, until I met Charles. Charles Denney, my husband.” She paused, waiting for me to comment. When I remained silent, she raised a delicate eyebrow. “You never heard of Charles Denney?”
“Should I have?”
“He’d probably think so. Charles was in pictures, until the movies found their tongue. After that he just couldn’t seem to click. All they’d give him were minor roles, small bits where he didn’t have to talk much. It was quite a blow to Charles. He still fancies himself as an actor and thinks that there is a great Hollywood conspiracy against him.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“Here in New York. Aunt Paula didn’t like him at all. She thought he was too old for me.” Grace Denney twisted her mouth wryly. “Which he was, of course, but I was too stubborn at the time. Aunt Paula was furious when I went to California with him. She swore she’d never talk to me until I was single again. I wrote once or twice, but she didn’t answer, and then I heard indirectly that she had entered this Vandam Nursing home. About a month ago I started writing to her, with no results at all.”
“Is that so surprising?” I asked. “You’re not single again, are you?”
“No, but I’m going to be. I intend to sue Charles for divorce. I thought that would please Aunt Paula, and I was very surprised when she didn’t answer my letters.”
“So you hired a private detective, this Lester Britt.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Because I was worried.”
“About what?”
She shrugged vaguely, a troubled look in her eyes. “I can’t say exactly. I really don’t know. It’s just something I feel. And now with this private detective acting so peculiar...” She let her voice dwindle uncertainly and caught her full bottom lips between her teeth.
“Who recommended you to this Lester Britt?”
“Nobody. I found his number in a Manhattan directory at the Telephone Exchange.”
“What else did he say besides tell you to go home?”
“He said Aunt Paula never wanted to see me again, that she still hated me.” Grace Denney’s mouth tightened. “I don’t believe it.”
“Why didn’t you try to see her?”
“I did.” Bafflement squirmed in tiny wrinkles across her forehead. I went straight out to that Nursing Home on Long Island. The place is built like a fortress. I spoke to Dr. Albert Vandam, who runs the Home. He told me to wait in the office while he spoke to Aunt Paula. After a few minutes he came back, shrugging his shoulders. He said that she had developed an obsession. She absolutely refused to see me.”
“All right,” I said. “I’m a lawyer. What do you want me to do?”
She looked surprised. “Whatever lawyers are supposed to do in such cases. If Aunt Paula has become senile, if she’s incompetent to handle her own affairs, don’t you think a guardian ought to be appointed?”
“No doubt about it,” I said. “Who’s supposed to inherit her money?”
“I am. It was all arranged by Uncle Oscar when he set up the annuities.”
I looked at her with fresh respect. For looks and personality she already headed the list. Now she rated high on the financial scale too. I smelled a generous fee in the air. Though I would have handled her case anyhow, for a smile and a smaller fee.
“You have just retained yourself a lawyer, Mrs. Denney,” I said and stood up. “Suppose we pay a visit on this Lester Britt and see what he has to say for himself.”
She abandoned the chair with alacrity, a sudden smile warming her face. I got the full brunt of it and I could feel it all the way down to my shoes. “That’s what I like,” she said, “a man of action.”