Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

“The gun was in Levinson’s overcoat.” Zara swears at Mike, who is giving him the old knuckles-in-the-neck treatment. “We knew Meyer kept one there for fear of a hold-up. So I went to the closet, while Mister Kraddakapalous was rolling the dice. I took the loaded cartridges out of the gun and put them in my overcoat pocket.”

“Sure you got ’em all?” I ask.

“Every single one. Then I filled the magazine with a clip of blanks I brought with me.”

“Took the gun with you and slipped it to Frinkey, huh?” I am trying to punch a hole in his story.

“No. I put it back in Levinson’s coat. Then I gave the high-sign to Frinkey that everything was set.”

“Which pocket did you put it back in, Zara?”

“Same one I took it out of. The left.”

I punch Frinkey again; he is all over the twitches now but is getting glassy-eyed. I don’t want him to fall apart, just yet.

“How about it, Hipper Dipper? You went and got the gun out of Levinson’s coat when you were ready to spring this frame-up?”

“Yes.” The funny man sounds as if he is very sleepy. “That was how it was.”

“Remember which pocket you found it in?”

“Right hand.”

Zara curses him but Mike gives the musician the elbow twist and rumbles: “So far as I can make out the wacky talk, all these guys is guilty, Vince. They conspire to do a deed which results fatal—”

“No.” It is Levinson. He gets to his feet slowly and he is breathing as if he is suffering a lot. “There was no conspiracy. Neither Frinkey nor Zara had anything to do with it. I overheard them talking about the joke. I slipped in the closet and put back one of the loaded cartridges that Zara’d taken out.”

It sounds screwy to me. “Why’d you do it?” I inquire.

Levinson swings around to face Miss Marsh. She gives him the stony glare.

“Claire knows,” the composer says, coolly. “I... I was in love with her.”

He staggers as if he is blind drunk; puts out a hand as if to steady himself on the Louse’s shoulder. Instead he snatches the gun away from the boss. Before I can get to him, Levinson opens his mouth, sticks the muzzle between his teeth and fires!

That tears it.

Amend rushes out of the room, screaming for the cops; the Louse chases after him to see can he keep the manager quiet. I lock the door. Mike throws a coat over Levinson’s body. The frill is whimpering in a corner, like a whipped puppy.

“That winds up the wake,” says Mike.

“Like hell it does.” I go over to the closet. “Levinson was lying, except maybe about falling for the dame. He didn’t switch those cartridges.” I am still holding the automatic. “This model is an eight-shot. If you took eight loaded shells out, Zara, and put eight duds in, then there ought to be eight slugs in your overcoat now. Which is your benny?”

“Polo-coat.” The orchestra leader is panicky, now.

I feel in the pocket of the camel-hair. Seven shells, all with steel-jacketed bullets.

“One missing,” I announce. The room is quiet as a morgue. “It’s my idea,” I go on, “that the person who substituted that missing cartridge for a blank, is hanging onto the extra blank.”

“Let’s frisk ’em,” snarls Mike.

“Let’s,” I agree.

Mike starts to turn Zara’s pockets inside out and Frinkey waits for me to give him the touch system; so the only person who is expecting my next move is the frill.

I snatch her handbag, tear it open. It takes two seconds for me to come up with that dummy shell. The babe makes a grab for it, but I shove her away and I am not so polite about it as I might be.

“You were the wisey who switched the slug for the blank,” I tell her. “You were hiding behind the overcoats in that closet, all the time this monkey business about the cartridges was going on.”

“You’re a liar,” she screams. “I’ve never been near the closet.” She yanks a diamond bar-pin off her dress, jabs at my eyes with the point. I twist her wrist until she drops the pin on the floor. Mike, Zara and Frinkey are too flabbergasted to do anything but stare.

“I might believe you, Miss Marsh, if you hadn’t left each a trail of perfume in there. First time I open the closet door, I sniff if, but it took me a while to get around to wondering why the place should smell like a boudoir when there were only men’s coats in there. That was before you were supposed to have shown up here, at all.”

I get the skirt quieted down; she sees the rough stuff won’t get her anywhere, so she turns on the weepers.

“You fooled me at first,” I explain to her, “when you put on that wailing-wall act, after you saw Del Grave lying there on the floor. Then it bothered me that you were so certain he was forever past the Pearlies, even before you got close to him.”

“You must be crazy,” she hangs her head and sobs like her heart is breaking, “accusing me of murdering my husband, when... when Meyer Levinson’s already confessed he did it.”