Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

“Now,” went on Sackler, “that broker’s statement was not found in the house by the police or anyone else. It was a natural conclusion that it had been taken, taken by the person who ransacked Mrs. Parry’s bureau. Parry, himself, would certainly have no use for it.”

Franklin said, “If you’re accusing me that’s not much evidence.”

“Not in itself,” said Sackler. “If you hadn’t badly overplayed the hand I might have been stuck. But you insisted on making sure that the guilt was fastened on Parry, as soon as you found out your luck in having him take a powder from his wife on the very night you killed her.

“So you fixed up that phoney draft and swore you’d given Parry money on it. You convinced Wolfe, all right, and Joey, here. But you didn’t quite convince me. And you knew you didn’t. Then you overplayed again. In order to convince me as thoroughly as you’d convinced everyone else, you sent in that ham, Wainwright.”

“Wainwright?” I said.

“That exhibitionist who called himself Sligo.”

I blinked and said, “I don’t get it.”

Slacker grinned. “You told me yourself that you thought you’d seen that mug somewhere before. You had — in many places. He was made up to look like a hood. That dollar tossing routine was swiped from the movies. Do you get it now?”

I got it slowly. “You mean he was a tenth rate actor, make up as a hood?”

“Right. He was so phoney it stuck out a mile. I checked by phone with several second class actor’s agencies. I’ve identified him as an out of work ham, named Wainwright. Wolfe can pick him up and sweat him afterwards.”

“Yes,” I said. “But why should Franklin send him in to make that phoney play?”

“He was still trying to make me believe Parry was guilty, that Parry had sent this hood to call me off the case.”

“You mean Franklin was robbing Mrs. Parry? She found out, faced him with it and he killed her? Then, learning that Parry had scrammed, Franklin tried to pin it on him?”

“It’s pretty obvious circumstantially,” said Sackler. “Parry, reading of the murder, was too damned scared to come forward. The newspapers flatly stated he was the murderer.”

Franklin took a step forward. He uttered two ugly words and his right hand thrust itself into his coat pocket. Sackler moved hastily behind a chair. Wolfe and I stepped forward. Wolfe grabbed his right arm just as the automatic came into view. I threw an arm around his throat, held him tight as Wolfe disarmed him.

Sixty seconds after Wolfe had removed Franklin, via the handcuff route, I stared at Sackler bitterly. “Don’t you ever lose?”

“Do you think you deserved to win, Joey?” he said severely.

“Why not?” I demanded hotly. “I figured that Abbott was Parry’s dame. I heard her say something you didn’t. I figured it all out, then managed to get his address from her. All on my own hook. I certainly deserved something.”

Sackler smiled faintly. “I’ll give you one thing,” he said. “You’re certainly one hell of a letter writer.”

I blinked. I said, “Say that again?” He did. I said, “What the hell do you know about that letter?”

“I read it. As a matter of fact it was delivered to me.”

“Delivered to you? How come?”

“Well, Joey, even without your special knowledge, I, too, figured that perhaps Abbott was Parry’s girl. I recalled that when he said he was leaving his savings for his wife he used the words conscience money. It seemed to me he felt guilty about it. Moreover, the Abbott woman made an odd crack when she said she wished she were dead instead of Agatha Parry. That was peculiar if she was just upset about the death of a friend. It made more sense if she were in pieces because Parry was the killer.”

“All right. So what’s this got to do with your getting my letter?”

“I went to the post-office and put in a change of address.”

I still didn’t get it. I said so.

“Well,” said Sackler, “I put in one of those change of address cards for Mrs. Abbott. I gave the new address as care of me at my rooming house. Since then all her mail has been coming to me. I would take it up to her place at night and drop it in her house mail box. Until Parry wrote. I kept that letter myself.”

I glared at him. “And you sent me that card with Parry’s address on it just to con me into giving up my ten percent?”

“I gave up my ten percent first.”

I sat down and clapped a hand to my head.

“To be successful in this business,” he said smugly, “there is one thing you must learn above all others.”

He crossed the room and stuffed his pockets with cigars from Franklin’s humidor. “And that,” he concluded, “is ethics.”

Not Necessarily Dead by Robert P. Toombs

Wealthy manufacturer M. Harrison Sprague rushed to break a puzzling appointment — with death.

Chapter One Unexpected Visitor