"The first dead soldier is now really dead," the note said. "And the cage-e one is next. I began lame but I'll end able. Who am I? Just ask what I am d.o.i.n.g." It wasn't signed.
There was no stamp on the postcard. It hadn't come through the mail. I took the poem and the bloody note from my pocket, cleared a space on the table, and laid them crumpled and flat in front of me. They made no more sense than they had last night.
I got up, went to the door, opened it, and watched Shelly flashing a silver pocket flashlight into the mouth of a young man covered with a gray-white sheet. Sheldon Minck was singing "Straighten Up and Fly Right."
"Shel," I said. "When did you get the mail?"
"Usual time," Sheldon said, pausing in his song but not his work. "About eight."
"Downstairs?" I said, looking at the young man in the chair.
"Hold still, Mr. Spelling," Shelly said to his patient. "The best is yet to be. Downstairs."
"Thank you."
"Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top," Shelly sang, poking Mr. Spelling's teeth with something that looked like a chopstick with a needle at its tip.
Mr. Spelling grunted in what might have been pain or an urgent desire to plead for mercy.
"Won't take long. Won't take long," Shelly said, probing. "You want 'em clean, I've got to dig. Law of the dental jungle. Safari into the darkest cavities."
Mr. Spelling grunted and I returned to my desk and the poems as Shelly began to question his patient about his potential interest in a magazine devoted to teeth.
They die until you understand They die by weapons in my hand. My father wept to be so cut From fortune, fame deserved, but I'll avenge the wrongs and slight To be there e'er the Ides and right Those wrongs and claim his prize And give to you a great surprise. First there was Charles Larkin And next Al Ramone. Do harken For on it goes and blood be thine Unless you learn to read my s.i.g.n.
It made no more sense this time than it had the night before. I looked at the note that had been pinned to Al Ramone:
"Welcome to the game. No time for a proper poem, but cage-e is next. There is more than one way to spell t.h.a.t. And then Lionel Varney."
I turned the notes and the postcard over, held them up to the window, wondered if I was hungry enough to take a break after a full five minutes of work. I didn't have to decide. My office door opened and Jeremy Butler entered when I called "Come in."
Six-three and three hundred pounds of Jeremy filled my office door. He was wearing dark slacks and a blue pullover sweater with long sleeves and a turtleneck collar. He looked more like the wrestler he had been than the sixty-three-year-old landlord who writes poetry.
"Just the man I want to see," I said, getting up.
"Two policemen were here early this morning looking for you," Jeremy said. "They asked me to tell you to see your brother as soon as you got in."
"They said my brother?"
"They said Captain Pevsner and left no address. I assumed they knew he was your brother."
"Why?"
"Why did I assume?" Jeremy raised his voice over the sound of Shelly's dental machine, set to chip away plaque and enamel. "Because they did not wait for you, though I said you would probably be in shortly."
"Thanks," I said. "Do me a favor, Jeremy. Look at these."
I turned the poem, card, and message toward him.
"May I sit?" he asked.
"Please."
He sat, removed a pair of half glasses from his pocket, put them on, and read.
"She's making lots of dough, working for Kokomo," Shelly belted out beyond the closed door.
Jeremy read slowly and then read a second time.
"The ides is the fifteenth of the month," said Jeremy, looking up and removing his glasses. "The ides of March was the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated. He was told to beware the ides of March, but he did not heed the warning."
"What about the ides of February?"
"No significance that I am aware of," he said. "Who are Charles Larkin and Al Ramone? And Lionel Varney?"
"The first two are dead. Murdered by our poet. I don't know about Varney. I think they were all extras in Gone With the Wind," I said. And then I told Jeremy what had happened last night, including my meeting with Clark Gable and Captain Price.
"I see," said Jeremy, putting his glasses back on and looking again.
"I've got a nut here, Jeremy," I said, trying to ignore Shelly's attempt to simulate the sound of a riveting machine as he sang "Rosie the Riveter."
"A nut who likes to play with words," he said. "I like to play with words. If I may copy…"
"Take them, keep them safe, work on them," I said. "With my gratitude and blessing."
Jeremy took the material and placed it gently into his pocket. He nodded. "You see that each of his messages ends with a word broken into letters. S.i.g.n. T.h.a.t. D.o.i.n.g."
"I see," I said, seeing but not understanding.
"He wants to be caught, Toby," Jeremy said. "He leaves puzzles. Tells too much. Taunts. Challenges. This is a man to be wary of. Urges you to follow, leaving small crumbs on the trail. At the end of the trail, you may well find that he has lured you deeply into the woods."
"I'll be careful, Jeremy. Thanks."
Jeremy rose and so did 1.1 had done a good ten-minute office day and I had work to do. I'd see Captain Phil Pevsner after I'd gotten more answers from my client.
"One more thing," Jeremy said, pausing in the door. "Your murderer is willing to make too many sacrifices. Meter, rhyme, and the proper word give way to his passion to perpetrate the puzzle, to perplex. He has no real interest in poetry."
"Sorry to hear that, Jeremy," I said as Jeremy stepped into Shelly's office. I followed, closing the door behind me.
"Almost done," Shelly said to his patient. "Keep the mouth open wide."
He stepped back, retrieved his cigar from the nearby stand, put it in his mouth, and examined his handiwork. The young man in the chair had closed his eyes. His mouth was dutifully wide.
"I'll show these to Alice," Jeremy said, tapping the clues in his pocket. "She has a beautiful sensitivity to the written word."
Alice Pallis had been a pornography publisher in the Far-raday before she heard the muse and married Jeremy. Alice's primary qualification as a pornography publisher had been her ability to pick up the two-hundred-pound printing press and escape with it out the window when the cops came. For almost two years now, Alice had turned her interests to her husband, child, and the publishing of poetry.
"Thanks, Jeremy," I said.
He left and I turned to Sheldon, who was back in his patient's mouth.
"Good teeth," he was telling the victim. "An energetic cleaning was all you needed."
I went back into my office and made two phone calls. The first was to Mame Stoltz at M-G-M. She answered after the fifth ring with "Stoltz, Publicity."
"Peters, Trouble," I said.
"I'm busy, Peters Trouble," she said in her hoarse efficient voice.
"I'll make it fast."
"We've got interviews lined up on Madame Curie," she said, sighing. "I'm not gonna tell you how much we're sinking into publicity on this one, but I'll give you a hint. You could probably find a cure for measles with what we've got budgeted."
"You know Gunther Wherthman?" I asked.
"Composer, R.K.O.?" she asked, and I could tell that she was leaning back to light a Camel.
"No, munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. Friend of mine. Working with me on a case. Mind if he comes over and looks through the Gone With the Wind records?"
"That's Selznick stuff," she said. "We store some of it over in-"
"I'm talking about payroll lists. And a security report. Night of Saturday, December 10, 1938. Maybe accidental death of an extra."