LISTEN TO THE MOCKING BIRD

 

 

When the phone rang, Tim McCracken grabbed for it. Then he pulled back his hand and made himself count up to ten, slowly, before he lifted the receiver. Just because it was the first time the darned thing had let out a peep in a week, he didn't want whoever was calling to think he'd been sitting there waiting for the call.

Sure, business was bad, but a guy had to bluff. Or did he? While he was counting to ten, McCracken let his eyes run around the well-furnished office that constituted his bluff. He wondered again if he hadn't been foolish to sink the profits from his first three cases into that layout.

But those cases had come so easily and so quickly after he'd quit his job with the police department, and gone out on his own. They'd all come, though, when his office was a secondhand desk in a ramshackle building. And since then--

Eight, nine, ten. He picked up the phone, and said:

"Timothy   McCracken   Detective   Agency.    McCracken speaking."

"About that rent, McCracken," came a gruff voice. "When you going to pay up?"

"I explained about that yesterday, Mr.--Say, who is this? You're not Mr. Rogers."

There was a baritone chuckle at the other end of the line.

"Mack, you ought to be a detective, the way you catch on to things. This is Cap Zehnder. How're tricks? Never mind, you just told me."

McCracken grunted disgustedly. "Cap, if I didn't used to work for you, I'd come over and slap your big ears down for that gag."

"Keep your scanties on, Mack," said Zehnder. "That ain't why I called you. If you still think you're a private detective, I got a client for you. He asked for you by name, even. I didn't have to recommend you. Now what do you say?"

"My God!" said McCracken. "Give quick! Where is he?"

"In the jug, right here. Suspicion of murder. It says it heard of you and wants you to help it beat the rap."

"It? What do you mean, it? You started out with a 'he.' "

"Did I?" The captain chuckled. "My error. It's a mocking bird. And it crochets."

"It what?"

"I said crochets. For a hobby. But it's a mocking bird for a vocation. But, I'm not going to explain everything over the phone. If you want to make twelve bucks, come on over."

McCracken gasped. "Twelve bucks? Listen, Cap, they didn't transfer you to the narcotic squad and put you testing samples, did they? What do you mean, twelve bucks?"

"Okay, don't come then," Zehnder said stiffly. "That's all the money, in cash, he's got. But maybe you can blackmail him for more if you get him off. He'll have a salary check coming from the theatre, if they don't fire him."

"But holy cow, Cap, I can't handle a murder investigation for a twelve buck advance. What's it about? Who'd he kill?"

"Don't you read the papers? Story's in the Morning Blade. Of course, if you haven't got three cents--"

"Okay, okay! Save your breath to cool your soup. I'll drop around and see what the guy looks like."

"Fine, Mack. Listen, Jerold Bell's coming over to see him, too. I told him to stop by and pick you up. Thought I'd save you cab-fare or a walk."

"Bell?" echoed McCracken. "Oh, the insurance guy.I remember him. Where's he figure in?"

"He insured the ring," Zehnder explained. "It's in the papers. Buy one, and I'll refund your three cents." There was a click in the receiver.

McCracken took his hat from the bottom drawer of his desk, and put it on his head. He'd wait for Bell in the lobby and read the newspaper meanwhile.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror of the elevator and wondered if he'd been a triple-dyed sap to quit a paying job for a gamble on being his own boss. Six months ago, he'd been drawing down a paycheck every week, and no overhead to worry about. And this morning, he'd had a cup of coffee for breakfast, instead of the ham and eggs he usually ate.

Twelve bucks would buy a lot of ham and eggs. He hoped Zehnder hadn't guessed how badly he needed that twelve bucks.

The elderly walrus at the cigar counter was waiting on another customer, and McCracken fished up the contents of his pockets and looked at them. There was a folder of matches, three keys, and two pennies in cash, one of which was Canadian.

He shoved his hand back into his pocket, as the walrus turned.

"Morning Blade, George," said McCracken. He grinned engagingly. "Got a case today, George! So don't let the credit worry you. I'll be back in the money soon. Give me a pack of cigarettes, too."

"That's fine, Mr. McCracken," said George. "But if you're working, how come you can't pay--"

"Don't quibble, George. I'm going over now to pick up my retainer. I'll pay you this afternoon."

The walrus looked at him darkly, and then passed the cigarettes across the counter. McCracken had meanwhile picked up the top newspaper from the pile alongside the cash register.

The banner line read: "Italians Suffer New Reverses." That wouldn't be it. "President Vetoes --" No. But there was two-column head at one side halfway down the page. It read:

 

 

SLIMJIM LEE MURDERED, ROBBED

 

 

The walrus had followed the direction of his gaze. "Say, is that the case you're gonna work on, Mr. McCracken?" he asked, and there was respect in his tone of voice.

McCracken's eyes caught the words "Mocking Bird" in the second paragraph. He nodded absently, continuing to read.

"Golly," said the walrus. "Reckon whoever's hiring you has all kinds of dough, then. Slimjim used to be the biggest bookie in town. And the way he sometimes threw money around . . . You stick 'em for plenty, young feller."

"Mmmm," said McCracken, and started to add that you couldn't throw money around the way Slimjim Lee had thrown it, and still have much left, and that the big-shot gambler was reputed to be broke. Anyway, he wasn't working for Slimjim's heirs, if any.

Then he closed his mouth again. The way the walrus was looking at him awakened new possibilities.

"Say, George," he said, "I'm short of cash until I get that retainer. Let me have a buck and put it on my account, will you?"

"Sure, Mr. McCracken." The walrus rang up "No Sale" on the register and passed over a bill from the drawer. He made a notation on a slip of paper on the ledge.

"Makes it eleven dollars and--no, twelve dollars even." McCracken winced slightly. "Thanks, George," he said, and moved a few steps away to lean against the wall, while he studied the article in the Blade. It was quite brief--understandable as the murder had been discovered only half an hour before deadline of the Blade's final edition.

Slimjim Lee, whose real name was James Rogers Lee, had met his death probably between midnight and three A.M., although the body had not been discovered until four-thirty. Autopsy might determine the time of death more closely.

His body had been found in the visiting parlor of a theatrical rooming house on Vermont Street. He had been killed, presumably, by a long slender needle called a crocheting needle in one part of the story and a knitting needle in another paragraph. It had been thrust into his heart.

He was known to have been wearing, shortly prior to the murder, his famous ring with the huge solitaire diamond for which he was reputed to have paid six thousand dollars. His billfold was found empty. Undoubtedly, according to the police, robbery had been the motive, and the solitaire diamond the principal objective of the murderer.

Mr. Lee, according to the newspaper article, had been a close friend of Perley Essington, who roomed at the house in question, and was a frequent visitor at the Vermont street address. Perley Essington was a vaudeville performer specializing in whistling and bird imitations, and he was billed as "The Mocking Bird" on the Bijou's current bill.

Harry Lake, another vaudevillian and inmate of the rooming house, had seen Slimjim Lee enter the house at around midnight, and had assumed he was calling on Perley Essington.

Another vaudevillian and roomer, one LaVarre LaRoque, a dancer, had discovered the body when she came in at four-thirty in the morning. She had opened the parlor door when she had noticed a crack of light under it.

McCracken read the story for the third time, and was putting the paper in his pocket, when he saw Jerold Bell coming through the revolving door into the lobby.

"Hi, Mack," Jerry greeted him. "Haven't seen you since you left the force. Have a quick one before we go see our fine feathered friend?"

Over a Scotch-and-soda, McCracken asked:

"You're in this because Continental insured the ring? How much was it really worth, Jerry?"

"He paid four thousand for it," Bell said. "I doubt if it could be sold now for over two and a half. Openly, I mean. As stolen property, whoever has it will be lucky to get a thousand. It's insured, incidentally, for two thousand."

McCracken nodded. "Cap Zehnder said you sold the policy. How come? I thought you handled only investigations for Continental."

"Ordinarily, yes. But in cases where unusual factors influence the amount of the premiums, I generally get called in. The regular salesman gets a cut, too, but turns the closing over to me and I help advise the amount of the premium."

"And what was unusual about this policy?"

Bell grimaced. "Just that Lee insisted on wearing that rock twenty-four hours a day, which made the risk much greater than is ordinarily the case with jewelry that valuable. Most people keep their stuff in safes or vaults, and wear it on special occasions. And then there was his occupation to consider, of course. A gambler, who goes to all the places a gambler goes to, and associates with the kind of people--well, I had to talk the company into issuing the policy at all."

"Leaving you out on a limb, now that the ring is gone?" McCracken grinned. "Any chance that Slimjim might have sold the ring himself?"

"Not an earthly one," Bell said. "That ring was his luck, he thought. He'd have sold his shirt and shoes first. I've sat in on games with him, and knew him well enough to be positive of that."

"Ever met this Perley Essington?"

Jerry Bell nodded. "Wait until you see him, Mack. A crackpot of the first water. I never thought he'd pull anything like this--if he really did. Cap Zehnder says he has him cold, but I don't know what the evidence is."

"How well you know him?" McCracken asked.

The insurance man laughed. "A month ago, he wanted to take out an insurance policy on--believe it or not, Mack--on his whistle! How could you insure a whistle? That was when he first got his engagement at the Bijou. He'd been 'at liberty' for a long time before that. I think Slimjim loaned him money to live on."

"You didn't issue the policy?"

"Heck, no. I saw him a few times and pretended to give it consideration only because he was a friend of Lee's. I wanted to keep Slimjim's good will, and that meant I had to go easy with Perley."

At Headquarters, they found Zehnder alone in his office. He barked an order into his desk phone.

"I'm having your Mocking Bird sent up here," he said. "If you want to talk to him in private before you go, Mack, you can do that in his cell when we send him back. Okay?"

McCracken nodded. "Sure. It won't matter, if he's innocent. And if he's guilty, I don't want it."

Zehnder chuckled. "Then I'm afraid you're out twelve bucks."

"Any news on the ring?" Bell asked.

The captain shook his head, but before he could add to the negation, the door opened.

A fat little man, whose head was as devoid of hair as a banister knob, came in. A uniformed turnkey was behind him, but stepped back into the hall and closed the door from the outside when the captain signalled to him.

"Mack," said Zehnder, "this is Perley Essington. Your client, maybe. You said you already know him, Bell?"

McCracken put out his hand and shook the pudgy, moist one of the little bird imitator.

"Tell me about it, Mr. Essington," he said. "All I know now is what I read in the paper."

The little man beamed at him. "I saw the paper," he said. "It's right as far as it goes. I wasn't home when Jim Lee came there at midnight."

"How do you know he came at midnight, then?" asked Zehnder.

Tim McCracken frowned at the captain. "Tut, tut, Cap. It says so in the paper. Don't you read the Blade? Or haven't you got three cents?" He turned back to the vaudevillian. "Where were you at midnight, Mr. Essington?"

"Call me Perley, Mr. McCracken," the actor said. "Why, at midnight, I was just walking. After the show I went for a walk in the park. It was a warm night, and I didn't get home until about two o'clock. I didn't know Jim was coming around last night."

"See anyone you knew while you were out?" McCracken asked.

"Nope." Essington shook his head. "And you'll ask next if I stopped in anywhere. I didn't. I sat on a park bench for awhile and listened to a nightingale. I had a sort of conversation with him. Like this."

He pursed his lips, and suddenly the little room was filled with a sweet, lilting melody. The clear notes throbbed to silence. McCracken saw that Jerold Bell, who was standing behind Perley's chair, was grinning at him.

McCracken cleared his throat. "Say, that's good, Perley. You that good on other birds?"

"Better," said the little man complacently. "On some, even the birds can't tell the difference. On the stage, I'm a wow. And I have a line of patter with the whistling that knocks them out of their seats and rolls them in the aisles. Just last week, the manager was telling me that I was the greatest--"

"That's fine," interrupted McCracken. "But let's get back to Slimjim Lee. How well did you know him?"

The look that had been in Perley's eyes while he talked of the stage faded to awareness of the present.

"Very well," he told them. "I guess he was just about my best friend, and vice versa. Yes, I know most people think--thought--it was funny, because Jim and I are--were--so completely different. But I guess that was why we liked each other."

"You saw him often?"

"He came to see me two-three times a week. Generally after the evening show. We'd play chess or whistle until nearly morning."

"Whistle? Late at night?"

"Sure. He liked whistling. But he couldn't very well, and I was teaching him how. He just couldn't get the knack of it."

"But didn't the other roomers--"

"Not in a place like that, Mack," Jerry Bell cut in. "They're all slightly nuts. It's liberty hall. Last time I was there, there were acrobats jumping off the banister at four o'clock in the morning. Slimjim took me there after a game."

Zehnder nodded. "Yeah, I've been there," he said, "and I'd believe anything. We picked up a guy there a month ago."

"Cap," McCracken asked, "could that have any connection with this case, maybe?"

"No. Simple theft case, and the guy's up now, doing three years. He was a stranger to the rest of the mob there, anyway."

McCracken glanced at Perley for confirmation, and got it.

"None of us knew him well," the whistler said. "He wasn't an artist like the rest of us. He painted pictures."

McCracken closed his eyes for a second, then opened them and asked the bird imitator:

"What do you know about Jim Lee's affairs? I've heard he was broke, or nearly so. If you're a. friend of his, you ought to know about that."

"I do, Mr. McCracken. He was hard up, that is, for him. He ran a lot of bookie places, you know, or rather he backed them. Then the syndicate--the Garvey-Cantoni group that runs the numbers game--moved in and took them over. He didn't fight them about it. He wasn't a gangster and he didn't want to start a war. And that's what it would have been if he'd tried to buck them."

Zehnder cut in.

"Perley's right about that. We're working on that syndicate, and we close a place now and then, but we haven't got much on them yet. They're bad boys, though."

"Then why," McCracken wanted to know, "suspect Perley when you've got some really tough mugs that might have a motive?"

"But they haven't," said Perley. "Jim Lee wasn't fighting them. Of course, they could have killed him for his ring, but--" He shrugged.

"What about that crochet needle Lee was killed with, Perley?" McCracken asked. "Was it one of yours? The captain says crocheting is your hobby."

For the first time, the little man seemed on the defensive as he answered.

"The police seem to think it's funny that I should like to crochet," he complained. "That's silly. Why, lots of men do. And it's good for the nerves, and it gave me something to do when Jim and I played chess. He took so long between moves."

"Was it one of your needles?" McCracken demanded.

"It could have been." Perley shrugged again. "I have lots of them."

"It was exactly like others in his room," said Zehnder.

Jerold Bell was getting restless.

"The devil with crocheting needles," he said. "I just dropped in here to see if there was any news on the ring. I think I'll go on around to Vermont Street and help the boys there look for it. Coming, McCracken?"

"In a minute, Jerry." He turned to Zehnder. "Listen, Cap, the main thing I want to know, is why you're holding Mr. Essington? Thus far there isn't any evidence against him, except that he hasn't an alibi he can prove."

Zehnder grinned. "It ain't that he can't prove he wasn't there. It's that we can prove he was, see? He says he didn't get home before two. But two people there heard him in his room, between half past eleven and half past twelve."

"You mean they heard someone in his room?"

"Nope. Him. Like always when he's in his room alone, they said, he was whistling to himself. Bird calls and stuff. Even a dog imitation."

Perley Essington whirled indignantly. "Dog imitations!" His voice was shrill with indignation. "Why, I--"

"How do you know it wasn't Slimjim Lee they heard, waiting for Perley?" McCracken asked Zehnder. "If he was learning how to whistle --?”

Again Perley, still indignant, interrupted.

"Mr. McCracken, that isn't possible," he said. "Nobody would mistake Jim Lee's whistling for mine. They couldn't. He was just learning, and he just whistled straight, whistled, not bird calls."

His voice rose now:

"No, nor anybody else whistling, either. Nor a phonograph record, or anything like that. One young whippersnapper of a policeman suggested that. There isn't another artist in the country who could possibly have been mistaken for me by the people who room there and who know my work."

"Fine," said Captain Zehnder. "Then it must have been you they heard?"

"I don't know," said Perley. "But they couldn't have mistaken anybody else for me. Listen, have you ever heard anybody else who can do this?"

He pursed his lips and began to run a gamut of bird calls that sounded like feeding time in an aviary. The calls tumbled upon one another's heels so rapidly, that McCracken could almost have sworn that two or three birds were singing simultaneously.

The insurance man, standing behind the little bird imitator, looked at McCracken over Perley's head and winked. He circled his forefinger at his temple, than reached forward at Perley's bald head, and--with the exaggerated gesture of a stage magician--pretended to pluck something from Perley's scalp. He held it up so McCracken could see that it was a tiny feather.

It was funny, but Perley was looking, and whistling, directly at McCracken and the private detective couldn't laugh without hurting Perley's feelings.

He wondered if Bell was right, and if Perley had really passed the borderline between eccentricity and outright screwiness. If he hadn't, he was putting himself in a bad spot by refusing to admit that his fellow-roomers could have been mistaken about whom they had heard.

Zehnder tapped Perley on the shoulder to stop him.

"Anything else you want to tell McCracken?" he said.

Perley stopped whistling and shook his head. He looked at Tim McCracken.

"You'll take the case?" he said. "I'm sorry I can't pay you more than--"

"Sure," said McCracken, "I'll take it." He looked at Zehnder. "You going around with us, Cap?"

Zehnder crossed and opened the door before he answered, and nodded to the turnkey who had been waiting outside. After shaking hands with McCracken, Perley was led down the hallway toward his cell. Mingling with his footsteps, there floated back the trilling notes of a thrush.

Zehnder grinned at McCracken. "That's the answer," he said. "The crackpot doesn't even know he's doing that. It's a habit, a reflex. Last night, in his room, he probably didn't even know he was whistling." He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out an envelope, and handed it to McCracken. "Well, here's your retainer, Mack. You can't get him in any deeper than he is, so I wish you luck."

McCracken put it in his pocket, grateful to Zehnder for not having embarrassed him by mentioning the amount.

"You didn't answer me, Cap," he said. "Coming with us?"

"Part way. Just for routine I want to see the Bijou's doorman, to check on that call Perley says he got."

"What call? He didn't say anything about a. call."

Zehnder snorted. "He did last night, but he probably decided it sounded too thin and to forget about it. Come on, I'll tell you on the way. You follow us in your car, Jerry. We'll just stop there a minute."

As he drove north on 24th Street, the captain explained about the call:

"It was from a fan, Perley told us. Wanted him to listen to something he thought was a pink-crested tootwhistle, or something."

"A what?"

"I dunno what, but it doesn't matter. Perley says the guy said he was a fan of his and a member of some Audubon society, and he'd heard a night-singing bird in Winslow Park he thought was something or other that's rare. He wanted Perley to meet him there and help identify it."

"So that's why he went to the park instead of home? And the guy didn't show up?"

"Not unless it was that nightingale that called Perley up . . . Here's where the doorman lives."

Zehnder swung the car into the curb and climbed out. McCracken followed him into a rooming house where a brief conversation with a half-awake old man in a nightshirt brought out nothing of interest. As far as the doorman knew, Perley Essington might have got a call just after the show, or might not have. Lots of the performers got calls. He didn't remember.

Zehnder drove on to the Vermont Street address. It was a brownstone front just like its neighbors, except that there was a cop in front. Jerold Bell parked just behind Zehnder's car and joined them.

"I'm going back," the captain told them, "but I'll get you past Regan here. Are the Homicide boys still here, Regan?"

"Just left, fifteen minutes ago, Captain," answered Regan. "Don't think they got anything new. I heard one of them say something about grilling Essington again."

"Okay, Regan. Let these fellows mosey around inside. You know Mack. This other guy's from the insurance company."

Zehnder got back into his car. McCracken, following Bell, turned back a moment.

"Who all's here, Regan?" he asked.

"This LaVarre dame, for one. She's asleep. Want me to go wake her up for you?" There was a faint note of hopefulness in the voice of the policeman.

McCracken shook his head. "Who else?"

"The landlady. And this Carson guy, the comic. He's one of the two that heard Essington in his room. He's in Number Two. Essington's is Number Six, right across the hall from the parlor where they found the stiff. It's unlocked."

"How's the LaVarre woman fixed for alibis?" McCracken asked.

Regan grinned. "Triple-barreled. She was out with three guys all at once. I heard the Homicide gang questioning her. Sure you don't want me to wake her up for you?"

"Keep your mind on your work, Regan. I suppose somebody's in back, on guard there?"

"Sure. Kaplan. You know him, don't you?"

McCracken went down along the dark hallway to the parlor. Bell was looking around painstakingly. McCracken's gaze went about the room quickly, noted the position of the body that had been marked in chalk on the floor before the sofa that stood diagonally across one corner of the room. There were half a dozen flash bulbs in the wastepaper basket in the corner.

"He must have been sitting there," said Bell, pointing to the sofa. "If he was stabbed and fell off, that'd put him in about the position those chalk marks show. The killer could have been hidden right behind that sofa when he came in and sat down. Then he stood up, reached over his shoulder and stabbed him."

McCracken nodded. "That's about it. And if it is, that means he was killed early, almost as soon as he got here. Say, a crocheting needle isn't so long, is it? Must have been fitted into some sort of a handle, like an ice pick. Well, we can find about that later. You don't think you'll find the ring in here, do you?"

Bell shrugged. "Probably not. Probably never find it, but I've got to turn in a report to the company. I want to be able to tell 'em I went over things with a fine-tooth comb."

McCracken crossed over and looked out the window.

"Whoever hid behind that sofa could have come and gone this way," he mused. "And come and gone by the alley. There's a cellar door right outside. You can come in this way easy."

Bell nodded. "There's fingerprint powder on the sill there. The Homicide boys thought of that, too. But what about Perley? He's too screwy on his story to figure out of it. Why'd he lie about not having been here until two o'clock?"

McCracken grunted. "That's the only thing against him, really. I want to talk to one of the persons who heard him, or say they did."

He walked out into the hall, down two doors, and knocked. After a minute, a tall man in a worn bathrobe came to the door and said, "Yeah?" He had the sad, bored air most comedians have when they aren't working at the trade.

"Carson?" McCracken asked.

"That's me, yeah."

"You like this Perley Essington? Was he a friend of yours?"

"Huh? Sure, he's a swell little guy. A bit nuts, maybe. But he's good on the boards."

"As good as he thinks he is?"

"Well, maybe not that good," Carson said. "Maybe none of us are. It's an occupational disease. What do you want?"

"I want to hear your side of what happened last night." The tall man put a hand to his head. "Oh, Lord! Again?" He started to close the door. "Four cops, and three reporters, and --"

McCracken caught the door and held it. "Then once more won't hurt you," he said. "Besides, I'm on Perley's side. I'm working for him, trying to punch some holes in the case against him."

"Why didn't you say so? Come on in." He walked back to the dresser to get the bottle standing on it. "Have a drink?"

"Two fingers. The main thing is are you sure it was Perley you heard?"

"Yes and no. I wouldn't swear it was him, but if it wasn't, it was somebody pretty good. There aren't many that can come close to him on that warble stuff. I've heard lots of imitators. Straight whistling, yes, but not on the imitations."

"What time did you hear it first, and what time last?"

Carson lifted a glass and clinked it against the one he'd handed McCracken. When he'd downed the glass' contents, he said:

"I got home about ten-thirty, maybe eleven. I had a good mystery story I wanted to finish, and I was reading." He rubbed his chin. "It was sometime between then and midnight that it started. And kept up maybe half an hour, off and on. And it was in Perley's room. I went past the door when I went to the bathroom once about twelve, so I'm sure of that."

"Did you look in the parlor then?" McCracken asked.

"No. I think the door was closed. But I didn't have any reason to look in, so I didn't."

"You're not sure about the time. Couldn't it have been two o'clock, maybe, if you'd lost track of time while you were reading?"

"No. I went to bed at twelve-thirty, see? I did look at my clock then, and my watch too, to set it. I could be wrong by it being earlier, but not later."

"And the other fellow who heard it?"

"Name's Bill Johnson. Yes, he's sure, too, that it was somewhere around midnight."

McCracken sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. He tried another tack.

"Birds outside, maybe?" he asked.

"No, too loud," Carson said. "And I never heard birds sing that much or that loud around here before. Anyway, it'd have to be a flock of different kinds of them. And--let's see--robins don't sing at night, do they? Robin's about the only bird call I'm sure of, and I heard that."

"How good was Slimjim Lee? Perley was teaching him, he says."

Carson shook his head firmly. "No, but definitely. I've heard him, and he could carry a tune, but that's about all. And he wasn't sure where he'd carry it. No, pal, this stuff was good. If it wasn't Perley, then he's got a rival."

"How about the radio?"

"I thought of that, afterwards," Carson said. "But it couldn't have been. The place was as quiet as a morgue, around then, and I'd have heard the announcer shooting his mouth off between imitations. Anyway, no bird imitator could stay on the air that long. It was at least half an hour, off and on, like I said."

McCracken sighed again. "Was it you said something about a dog imitation?"

"Not me. That was Bill Johnson. I might have heard a dog, but if I did, I don't remember. I'd have figured that came from outside. Like the cats. I did hear some cats yowling, but that wouldn't have been Perley either. He doesn't imitate animals, just birds."

McCracken got up and went to the door.

"Well, thanks," he said. He declined another drink, and went down the hall. He opened the door of Perley Essington's room and went in.

Jerry Bell came out of the room across the hall and stood in the doorway.

"Find out anything new?" he asked.

"Carson's telling the truth, I think," McCracken said. "If he was lying, he'd be more definite about time and things. He rings true."

"Then how can you figure an out for Perley? Or can you?

 "I don't know," McCracken said. "But I got an idea. It's almost as screwy as Perley is."

He got down on his hands and knees in the middle of the carpet, and started working around the floor in circles, examining the carpet carefully. A white spot he found on the floor behind a chair interested him considerably.

He was starting to crawl behind the bed, when Jerry Bell said:

"You got it wrong, Mack. No corpses in here. That was the other room, remember?"

McCracken got up slowly and dusted off the knees of his trousers with his left hand. A tiny object he'd found behind the bed was gripped carefully between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He held it so Bell could see that it was a light blue feather.

Jerry Bell grunted. "Is that what you were looking for, Mack? Jeepers, I'll open the pillow and get you a handful of "em."

McCracken shook his head slowly.

"I doubt it," he said. "Very few pillows are stuffed with mocking bird feathers. Jerry."

"What makes you think that's off a mocking bird? You sure?"

"No," McCracken answered frankly. "But it's the right color. An ornithologist can tell. Anyway, mocking bird or not, there was a bird in this room. There's proof of that back of the chair. And a mocking bird fits the picture."

"Look," he explained. "The killer brought the bird here, probably in a box. He came in the window there and hid in the parlor until Jim Lee came in, and he killed him. Then--to pin the thing on Perley Essington--he came in here and let the bird out in this room for awhile. The bird would be Perley's best imitator, wouldn't it? And it'd sing, being free--comparatively--after being shut up."

"But--a mocking bird!" Bell protested. "Where'd anyone get one?"

"Pet shops have 'em occasionally. They're not common, but they can be got. Probably the killer stole it, though. He wouldn't want the trail traceable if there'd be a slip-up. It was that dog-and-cat business made me think of one. My aunt used to have a mocking bird, and it'd imitate dogs and cats when it heard them.

And it'd have picked that up around the pet shop."

"Then maybe Perley wasn't lying about that call that sent him on a wild-goose chase."

McCracken nodded. "Of course. This was carefully planned. The guy who did it made sure Jim Lee would be here and that Perley wouldn't, and that he'd be a place where he couldn't prove he'd been."

"If an expert backs you up on your guess what that feather is," Bell said, "looks like you did figure Perley an out, Mack. Got any idea who did kill Lee?"

McCracken took a deep breath, then said flatly: "You did, Jerry. I was sure as soon as I found this feather. It's just like the one you pretended to pull off Perley Essington's head when you were clowning back at Headquarters. You had the bird in your pocket when you left. Maybe you'd killed it after you used it. And when you pulled that feather gag in Zehnder's office you'd just had your hand in your pocket. You were so confident you had Perley framed, you didn't hesitate to use it for making fun of Perley."

The expression on Jerry Bell's face didn't change. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, an unlighted cigar was tilted in a corner of his mouth.

"Not bad, Mack," he said. "How about motive?"

"It wasn't the ring," McCracken went on, "although in your kind of work you ought to know the outlets and where to cash in on it easy. But you wouldn't have done it for that. I figure you must have gambled over your head and gone in debt to Lee. Which did he have in his billfold, I.O.U.'s or checks of yours?"

Jerry Bell sighed deeply, took a gun out of his pocket.

"You're covered, Mack," he said. "I think you could make that stick. I'm in plenty deep, including some company funds, and that'd come out if the police nosed around. And -well, I did buy that bird instead of stealing it." He paused, then:

"But listen, Mack, Slimjim was blackmailing me on those debts. You can't blame a man for killing a blackmailer. You aren't --"

"How about Perley?" McCracken interrupted. "You tried to frame it on him, just so you wouldn't be suspected, just to give the cops an easy victim."

"He was in with Slimjim on the whole--"

"Nuts! If he had been, he'd have known who killed Jim, and why. That don't hold water, Jerry."

"Then let's try it this way, Mack. I can get two thousand for that ring. I know you're broke. How about half of that?"

McCracken's eyes were cold. "Jerry," he asked, "know what that spot on the floor back of the chair is?"

"I can guess. Why?"

"Then you can guess my answer to that proposition. I'm going to call your bluff, Jerry. You won't shoot me. You'd have done it already, if you figured you could get away with it. As readily as you killed Lee."

He turned and walked slowly toward the door, his hands relaxed at his sides.

"Regan out there knows we're in here alone, Jerry," he said. "If there's a bullet hole in my back, there's no story you could tell that would stand up under investigation. I'm not even armed, so you couldn't use self-defense. There'd be no out for you at all, Jerry."

He took a step toward the door, another.

"Stop, Mack!" ordered Bell. "I'll--"

McCracken kept on walking. It didn't seem to him that he was breathing at all. He made the hallway, and was half way to the front door before he heard the shot. It had not been aimed at him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The contents of the desk and the filing cabinet had been taken from the drawers and were stacked in a cardboard carton with a rope around it.

The carpet was rolled up at one side of the room, and the phone had been disconnected, although it still stood on the desk.

McCracken sat on the desk beside the phone, with his elbows on his knees and his chin cupped in his hands.

He was whistling softly and mournfully.

He didn't hear the door open, but he almost fell off the desk when a voice said:

"Excellent whistling, Mr. McCracken. Excellent!"

The shiny pate of the little bird imitator was bobbing across the office toward him.

"Hello, Perley," McCracken said. He couldn't muster a smile to go with it.

"I'm leaving vaudeville, Mr. McCracken," Perley explained. "Or maybe one could say that vaudeville is leaving me, because the Bijou is closing. Anyway, I'm opening a school for whistling and bird imitating. You whistle well. I could make you my star pupil."

"Thanks," said McCracken listlessly. "Maybe sometime. But what with moving and all--"

"To better quarters, I hope. And that reminds me. You never sent me a bill. I came to settle up for what you did for me."

He beamed at McCracken, and for a moment the private detective felt a ray of hope. Then it faded. A few dollars can seem like a lot sometimes, but it doesn't make much difference when you owe a few hundred and are about to be put on the street. "In fact, Mr. McCracken," Perley went on, "I have a check already written, which I hope you'll think adequate. It's for three thousand dollars. You may have heard that Jim Lee's will said that I was his only real friend and that he left me all his money, and that it turned out to be more than anybody thought he had. Some bonds, you know, that he thought weren't worth much."

Mechanically, McCracken took the little slip of yellow paper that was being held out toward him. His eyes focused on the figures, then blurred, then came into focus again.

"There was thirty thousand net, Mr. McCracken," Perley Essington was saying, "and if it hadn't been for you--well, I'd never have been free to spend any of it. So I think a tenth is fair, isn't it?"

McCracken found his own voice at last.

"More than fair, Perley. I--well you can put me down as your star pupil, all right. And give me that nightingale business first. It's just how I feel. But not on an empty stomach." He took the little man's arm firmly. "First, we're going down to the Crillon and order a plate apiece of their very best birdseed."