Vickers snapped. “What I want to know is how the hell Nick Darcy knew I’d be bringing Soup in? Did you tip him off?”
“I never even heard of Darcy,” Quade retorted. “I don’t keep up with criminal news.”
“The hell you don’t. I was checking up on you at Headquarters. Lieutenant Todd knows all about you. Gave you a big build-up. Says you go around the country pretending to sell books and somehow you always get mixed up in some murder case.”
“Is that all the lieutenant said about me?” Quade smiled. “I’m disappointed.”
“No, he said the helluvit was, you usually solved them and made monkeys of the cops. So that encyclopedia stuff isn’t a gag, eh?”
“Gag, hell!” Quade said indignantly. “I am the human encyclopedia. Ask me any question, any question at all.”
“All right,” Vickers said, aching to get even with him for the mandrake one. “See how smart you are about criminal things. How much stolen property is recovered and returned to the victims?”
“That’s easy,” Quade said. “It varies slightly, but during the first nine months of 1939, and taking in the whole country, a little over sixty-seven percent of all stolen goods — autos, furs, jewels, money, and the like — was reported recovered. In 1938, however—”
“All right! All right!” Vickers waved his arms. “Now about this Billy Bond affair… Soup may have had a friend with him who stayed downstairs and saw me taking him out. That’s how Nick got tipped off so quick. I had to let Soup go, on account of Darcy had a habeas corpus writ with him and there wasn’t enough evidence to hold Soup on a murder charge. He really had a license to carry the rod.”
“And he knows about poisons and such?”
“Yeah, sure. Oh, there’s no doubt that Soup slipped the stuff in Billy Bond’s beer. The question is, who hired him to do it?”
“Wouldn’t he be doing it on his own?”
“Naw. It’s a job of work with Spooner. That’s his business. Somebody wants to throw a stink bomb in a movie that’s lined up with the wrong union, they hire Soup to make the bomb. Soup’s got a reputation. People who want a job done, hire him to do it.”
“And you’ve never been able to pin a rap on him? I thought you said he was goofy?”
“Yeah. In some ways. He’s kill-crazy. Don’t think no more of a life than you do about stepping on a bug. And he’s got no nerves at all. But when it comes to other things — mixing up a bomb or a batch of poison, Soup isn’t crazy at all. He’s a genius.”
Quade put his forefinger under his collar and loosened it. “And he’s out walking the streets now. Uh, is Soup the kind that holds a grudge?”
Vickers smiled grimly. “Against you? Well, don’t go drinking beer with him. That’s all I’ve got to say. That’s why I stopped in, to warn you.”
He moved to the door. “You got any ideas about this business, Quade?”
“Only one, Sergeant. Bond was a song writer, but there were no song sheets or manuscripts in his room. It just struck me as funny.”
“Funny? Say!” Sergeant Vickers popped out of the room.
“Ollie,” said Charlie Boston. “The Danbury Fair opens in a couple of days. Remember? We were there in 1932 and sold a lot of books. Why don’t we run up there?”
“Maybe we will, Charlie. Maybe we will. After we clean up here.”
Charlie groaned. “You heard what the copper said. That guy, Soup, is kill-crazy. He might toss a pineapple at us. You can’t digest a pineapple, none a-tall!”
“We won’t go down any dark alleys. Come on, Charlie, forget it. We’ll go downstairs and lap up a beer.”
Charlie sprang up quickly from the bed. “Sure, but why downstairs? I–I didn’t like their beer.”
“Watch your glass and it’ll be all right. It’s not the beer they sell that’s poisoned. Come on.”
Paddy, the bartender, remembered Quade and Boston. He looked uneasily at them as he drew two beers.
Quade drank half of his beer and smacked his lips. “Good stuff, Paddy. By the way, where’s the professor?”
“The piano pounder? He ain’t on in the afternoon. Just around lunch time and after supper. Why?”
“No reason. I was just wondering.” Carrying his glass, Quade sauntered over to the little piano and began pawing over a stack of music.
“That’s funny,” he remarked. “He must have taken it with him.”
“What?” demanded Paddy, the bartender.
“Billy Bond’s song, Cottage By the Shore. Remember, he was singing it when he—”
“I don’t know anything about Cassidy,” the bartender said quickly, “or about Bond. He stopped in here once in a while for a glass of beer. That’s all I know.”
“I’m curious about that song,” said Quade. “Where does Cassidy live?”
“At the Mangner, across the street!” barked Paddy. “And that’s all I know about him.”
Quade drank the rest of his beer and put the glass on the bar. “Come on, Charlie, we’ll go see a movie. They’ve got Donald Duck.”
But outside, Quade headed obliquely across the street to the Mangner Hotel, a rat’s nest, if there ever was one. A sign outside stated: “Rooms. $1.00 a day, up.”
A wildcat bus company had its “depot” in the tiny lobby. Beyond it was a four-foot desk, over which presided a seedy-looking clerk. Quade put on his best brusque manner. “What room does Cassidy, the piano player, hole up in?”
The clerk avoided Quade’s eyes. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing, maybe! All right, what room?”
“Two-ten, but—”
Quade took the stairs two at a time, Charlie Boston pounding behind him. Two-ten was at the head of the stairs. Quade pounded on the door with his fist. “All right, Cassidy! Open up!”
There was no response. Quade shook the door knob and banged again on the thin panels. A colored maid poked her head out of an adjoining room. “Mistuh Cassidy takes a nap in the afternoon, mistuh!” she said. “He’s asleep now.”
“He sleeps sound,” exclaimed Quade. “Give me your pass key.” He strode toward the girl and whipped it out of her hand.
He unlocked the door of Cassidy’s room, pushed open the door — and stopped.
Charlie Boston crowded against him. “What’s the matter, Ollie?”
“We won’t go in,” Quade replied, “not until the cops get here. Cassidy’s got his throat cut!”
Some time later, Detective Sergeant Vickers moaned to Quade, “But why the devil should you go to his room?”
“Curiosity. You probably pumped him at the Midtown Cocktail Lounge. But I didn’t. I wanted to get his views.”
“He didn’t have any. Claimed he’d never seen Billy Bond before.”
“Paddy, the bartender, said Bond stopped in once in a while for a glass of beer.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Cassidy would know Bond. A bartender gets a better chance to remember customers than a piano player would.” Vickers screwed up his face and looked suspiciously at Quade. “Lieutenant Todd was right, you’re snooping around on this. Trying to make a monkey out of me.”
“Sergeant,” Quade said, with elaborate innocence, “you wrong me. Naturally, I’m a little curious about who wanted to kill poor Billy Bond. That letter in his room… from his father….”
“I’ve sent him a wire. I guess we’ll be sending Billy home. Tough, but it’s part of the game. I only hope Soup slips up somewhere. If he does and we get him downtown, and Nick Darcy doesn’t show up with a writ, well — Soup’s going to change his appearance.”
“Me,” said Quade. “I’d rather take a poke at the guy who hired Soup. Can we go now?”
Vickers nodded wearily. “Yes, but don’t discover any more dead men.”