The crime which the papers played up as the blow torch murder occurred, so it seems, at six o’clock that spring evening, though it was not discovered until six the following dawn, much to the disgust of Ham Logan the homicide veteran.
Springtime was rather trying for Ham. He was sleepy enough for ten months of the year, but in spring . . . !
That afternoon, a couple hours before the announced time of the killing, Ham Logan was stretched out on a bench, his derby hat tilted over and hiding his small eyes and fat jowls, but revealing his open mouth from which came sonorous symphonies of pure enjoyment. His hands were folded across his paunch and gently rose and fell in perfect time.
All in all it was a very peaceful scene. The sergeant at the desk had his feet higher than his head, his collar was open and he dozed blissfully to the accompaniment of the twittering birds outside the station house.
At four o’clock, crime raised its ugly face in the form of Weasel Martin.
Weasel Martin was thin, quite able to squeeze through cell bars. He was dressed in a checkered vest, a black coat and light-colored pants. He swung a cane and tried to look repentant.
Weasel Martin rapped sharply on the desk to wake up the sergeant. Ham Logan shoved back his derby and sat up, blinking at this unheard-of appearance. The sergeant lowered his feet and scowled to hide the fact that he had been asleep.
“I just stole a car,” said Weasel Martin impatiently.
The sergeant looked at Ham and Ham looked at the Weasel.
“Since when,” said Ham, “did you get so law-abiding as to steal cars?”
“Never mind when. I stole it all right.” The sergeant yelled for a harness bull and when that worthy had lumbered into the room, the sergeant said, “Check up and see if Weasel’s lying. Meantime, lock him up.”
The Weasel, still trying to look sad, was led off to the cells. Ham Logan scratched his head for a while and then began to slump down for another forty winks.
At four-thirty Chink Edwards came bustling in, very much in a hurry. He looked rumpled and his slant eyes were as shifty as ever. He was pasty white.
“What do you do with guys who break windows?” said the Chink.
The sergeant pulled himself awake, lowered his feet and blinked. Ham Logan raised his derby and peered under the black brim.
“I said I broke a window,” repeated the Chink. “Whatcha going to do about it?”
Ham Logan grunted, “You broke a window? I thought you were in the numbers racket.”
“Beat it,” said the sergeant.
“You mean . . .” spluttered the Chink, “that you ain’t got any more respect for the citizens of this town than to let them go around breaking windows every time they feel like it?”
The sergeant scowled horribly and yelled for another harness bull. “Lock him up and see about it,” said the sergeant. “The Chink says he broke a window.”
The Chink was led off toward the cells.
“Hm,” said Ham Logan. “Looks like a convention.”
Neither of them had time to settle themselves. Papa Johnson and Joey the Mick wandered in and looked the place over with critical eyes. Papa Johnson looked like a turtle with his long hooked nose and his oversized collar. Joey the Mick was wearing a brilliant yellow suit and a purple silk shirt and a tan derby. They both smiled and bobbed their heads in greeting.
“What the hell is this?” said Ham Logan. “Old Home Week?”
“We heard—” began Papa Johnson.
“We just beat up Flossie, the Chink’s girl,” said Joey the Mick. “You still arrest guys for assault and battery here?”
“Ow,” said Ham Logan. “Has the Salvation Army been around or what? Who cares what happens to the Chink’s moll, huh? G’wan, beat it.”
“You mean,” said Papa Johnson reprovingly, “that you allow our fair city to become stained with woman-beaters? You mean you won’t uphold the worthy statutes of the state?”
“That from a snow peddler?” said Ham. “Wait until we catch up with you, Papa. You’ll find out all about jails then. I thought you had a smart mouthpiece with you. He wouldn’t worry about beating up a dame. What’s the racket?”
Neither Joey the Mick nor Papa Johnson had anything to say.
The sergeant called out another officer and instructed him to lock up both of the newcomers.
“Wait a minute,” said Ham Logan. “Where’s Dude MacFarlane? What’s the idea, anyway?”
“Perhaps my lawyer,” said Papa Johnson, “will be here a little later. At present, gentlemen, pray do your duty.”
They too were led away, leaving Ham Logan sitting up straight and frowning darkly.
“Something funny about this,” said Ham. “Just you wait. All hell’s going to pop loose.”
“Think so? Maybe they suddenly got a conscience or something.”
“Conscience! Those guys would cut off a kid’s hand to get a stick of candy, any one of them. What’s the gag?”
It puzzled him not a little, but soon the spring air stole over them and the twittering birds lulled them and they dozed on, waiting for the six o’clock shift.
At six nothing had happened, but Ham stayed around until midnight, sleeping on the hard benches and in the chairs, waiting.
###
At twelve o’clock a lawyer named Lambert bustled into the station with a briefcase and an air of preoccupation. The new desk sergeant looked between the white globes at him.
“You’ve got four or five men in here,” said the lawyer. “I want them out.”
“Who do you mean?” said the sergeant.
“Martin, Edwards, Johnson and Joey the Mick. They haven’t done anything.”
Ham Logan woke up in the corner and pried the derby off his face. He approached the lawyer. “I thought Dude MacFarlane was their mouthpiece.”
“I have been called. That is all I know. What are the charges?”
The sergeant looked over the daybook and discovered that Weasel Martin was wanted for stealing a car, that Chink Edwards had broken a window, and that Papa Johnson and Joey the Mick had beaten up a woman.
“Have you made any investigation of these charges?” said Lambert.
The sergeant looked through the day’s reports, growing more and more puzzled. “Why, no. No stolen cars have been reported, Haines couldn’t find a broken window in the whole town. What’s this all about, Lambert?”
Lambert looked toward the door. The girl named Flossie came in, walking with greasy hips.
“Tell these gentlemen you haven’t been touched,” said Lambert.
“Who do ya mean?” said Flossie.
“Tell them,” said Lambert, “that you didn’t see Papa Johnson and Joey the Mick all day.”
“Those dear boys? Why, of course not,” said Flossie.
“Huh,” snapped Ham, “keep them in on principle. They got it coming.” “I can’t do that,” said the sergeant. “They . . . Isn’t there something I could hold them on? Disrespect to the law or—”
“I don’t know of anything, damn it,” replied Ham.
“Let ’em out,” said the sergeant to an officer.
It was exactly one o’clock when Weasel Martin, Chink Edwards, Papa Johnson and Joey the Mick filed out of the station. They told Ham Logan goodbye very politely when they went. Flossie gave Ham a cheap smile and followed them.
“Well,” said Ham, “there’s nothing I can do.” He yawned noisily and adjusted his derby. “I’m going home and get some sleep.”
###
The body was found at six the next morning, and at five minutes after six the phone beside Ham Logan’s bed knifed his slumbers with its raucous roar.
“Hello,” yawned Ham.
“Desk,” said the receiver. “Get over to the Hanover Hotel right away. You know more about this than anyone else.”
“Know more about what?” sighed Ham. “Honest, I don’t know anything, and besides, six is a hell of a time—”
“Dude MacFarlane’s been murdered.”
“I knew it, I knew it,” wailed Ham. “Something was bound to happen just when— What else?”
“Go on over and find out.”
Ham Logan peeled off his nightshirt, put on his derby and dressed. He staggered out into the half-light of spring and took a trolley car to the Hanover Hotel.
Two men were waiting there for him. He shoved them aside and took the elevator. Another man stood outside the room twiddling his nightstick.
“In there,” said the officer.
“Anybody here yet?”
“Not yet.”
Ham went in. Dude MacFarlane was dead, no question about it whatever. He was sprawled in the center of the room, arms outflung, black mouth gaping, sleek hair still sleek, black eyes wide open.
In life the man had been slender, even lean, but now his stomach was grotesquely swollen under his torn evening shirt, as though about to explode.
“Poison?” said Ham. “Or . . .”
Ham walked around the body. He moved sluggishly as though his shoes were made of lead. He sighed deeply and sat down in an easy chair to wait for the headquarters gang and the coroner. There was nothing he could do before they came.
The door slammed open and activity and noise rushed into the room. The coroner was followed by a fingerprint man, a photographer, and five reporters who eagerly sent their pencils flying.
Blake, the coroner, nodded to Ham. “Done anything?”
“Waiting for you,” said Ham. “Let’s get this thing over with.”
Blake, conscientious as any coroner should be and although not required by law to do any detecting, was anxious to help out. He knelt beside the corpse and as a formality, placed his stethoscope against MacFarlane’s chest.
“Dead,” said Blake. He examined the dead man’s mouth, playing a flashlight into it. “Corrosive action on the flesh. My God, Ham, it looks like this guy swallowed a keg of molten steel. Tissue all burned up as far down as I can see.”
Ham looked about the floor and picked up a blow torch which lay in a pile of burned matches. The fingerprint man dusted it and found glove marks only.
“It would appear,” said Ham, “that they turned this blow torch down his throat. That right?”
“Yes, that would do it. Hell of a way to die. Blue flame didn’t even blacken his teeth, but it charred his tongue. Ate up most of his throat, too. Blow torch seems to be the answer.”
Blake looked the body over. “No marks of violence at all. Whoever did it just held him and squirted fire down his throat. Killed him instantly.” He tapped the taut and swollen stomach. “But this looks like it might be poison of some kind. Have to have a thorough autopsy, of course. Still, hot flame shot into a man’s insides would be apt to puff him up quite a bit. Ventilating system must be good in here. Otherwise the odor would drive us out.”
“Thanks,” said Ham. “Now listen,” and his voice took on the tone of a prayer, “how long has he been dead?”
“We can determine that two or three ways,” said Blake. “Post-mortem rigidity would be delayed a little, I think, by this applied heat. Make it four hours minimum time. Now . . .” He took a clinical thermometer from his bag and took MacFarlane’s body temperature.
“Body heat eighty-seven. Room about seventy. A little higher because of this blow torch.” Blake scowled for a moment and then said judicially, “That looks like he’s been dead eleven or twelve hours. But wait a minute, let me try something else.”
Ham sighed deeply. So far it looked like Dude MacFarlane had been killed between six and nine the evening before, and if that were so, then what a hell of a case this would be!
Blake made some preliminary coagulation tests. The dead man’s blood was thick and heavy, clinging to the applied horse hairs and dragging them.
“I think I am right,” said Blake. “He was killed eleven or twelve hours ago. I’ll make a thorough autopsy for poison. That swollen stomach looks suspicious.” He packed his things into his black bag. “That all you want, Ham?”
“Got the pictures?” Ham asked the photographer. “Okay, take it out. I’m going to stay around here for a little while and think. Wait a minute.” He leaned over the corpse and unfastened an expensive watch from the stiff wrist. “Now go ahead.”
“Since when did you start stiff-frisking?” said Blake, smiling.
“I wanna see,” said Ham, “whether dead men wind watches.”
The apartment was cleared and Ham wandered through the rooms, looking things over.
In a closet, on the floor, he found a white vest which contained a few coins and a cigarette lighter. He brought it out to the light and examined it.
“That’s funny,” said Ham, removing his derby and scratching the few hairs which remained on his otherwise lacquered pate. “That’s funny as hell.”
He laid it on the desk for future reference and then turned his attention to Dude MacFarlane’s files. A small strongbox had been forced open. Not even dust remained. Ham went to all the deep ashtrays in the apartment and discovered a fluttery heap of black paper ash in each.
“Records,” he decided. “Incriminating records.”
The easy chair beckoned to him. He sank luxuriously into its depths and pulled the phone over to him. He called headquarters.
“Round up Chink Edwards, Papa Johnson, Joey the Mick and Weasel Martin,” said Ham. “Hold ’em for questioning.”
“Okay, Ham. How’s it going?”
“I feel like a squirrel trying to crack a cast-iron nut,” sighed Ham.
He rang off and called the morgue. “Hello, have you got MacFarlane’s corpse there? Yeah? Well, listen, go into the autopsy room and see what kind of a vest he was wearing. . . . Yeah, is that so? A black vest. Thanks. Gimme that autopsy report as soon as you can.”
He eyed the white vest on the desk for a full minute and then muttered, “He’d know better than that. Y’don’t wear a black vest with a tail coat. You wear a white vest—or Dude MacFarlane would.”
Ham took the blow torch out with him and approached the nearest hardware store. Yes, that was a Vesuvius torch. Only one store in town carried them.
Ham took himself there and found that the store was a narrow affair set between dingy houses, fronted by an entanglement of red rakes, dusty garden hose, watering cans, and brooms with green and yellow handles.
The proprietor came out rubbing his hands when the dinner bell tinkled over the door. He was small, hunched over, and he wore a round cloth cap squarely on his gray locks. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and saw that Ham carried a blow torch.
“This was bought here, wasn’t it?” said Ham.
“Yes, yes . . . it’s a Vesuvius torch. But what’s the matter, huh? I can’t give no money back. It’s been used!” He eyed Ham for a moment. “But maybe I could give half, huh? I hope it gave satisfaction. If it—”
“It gave satisfaction all right,” said Ham. He flipped open his shiny dark coat and showed the proprietor the badge. “I want to know who bought it.”
“Oh . . . aw . . . why, yes, I maybe got a sales slip. I only sold one like this in six months. You wait right here.”
Ham sank down on a keg of rusty nails and waited patiently. Soon the proprietor came back with the sales slip. Ham took it from him. “Can’t you remember the guy that bought it?”
“Sure, sure. I remember him fine.” Ham waited, fearing to breathe. Here was the clue and the case. The hardware man added, “A messenger boy. He was a little feller with—”
“Rats,” said Ham, disgustedly. “There are ten thousand in town. But look here, he also got a thermos bottle. How about that?”
“That’s right. A small thermos bottle.”
Ham stuffed the slip in his pocket and went out. He took a trolley car back to headquarters.
The sergeant took his feet off his desk. “I got the quartet for you, Ham. They’re singing soprano, plenty. Anything turn up?”
“I dunno,” said Ham. He sat down at his own desk and took up the phone.
“You got that autopsy yet?” he asked the morgue.
“Pretty near,” replied Blake. “I’m hanging around. No poison, though. That’s out. I been trying—”
“Still say he was dead twelve hours?”
“According to coagulation, I think so. At least the report on this autopsy would stand in court. He had blood clots in his arteries as big as your thumb, and—”
“Forget it,” said Ham. “What about that bloated stomach?”
“Nothing to it. Just hot air, that’s all. They shoved the blow torch down his throat and the air was forced along with the flame. About the time he’s been dead, I might mention that an extreme condition such as terrific heat would hasten the coagulation and make it appear—”
“You don’t mean it?” said Ham sitting eagerly forward. “Then there’s a chance that he wasn’t dead more than—”
“You’re wrong,” replied Blake. “In a case of this sort it is necessary to fall back on body temperature and I found out he was eighty-seven degrees. That means, what with this coagulation and all, that he was dead twelve hours. There’s no getting around that.”
“All right,” said Ham, wearily, hanging up. He made his way down to the bullpen. Excited voices could be heard, but when Ham entered, the quartet turned to him with smiles.
“Nice shirt you’ve got there,” said Ham to Joey the Mick.
Joey the Mick vainly touched his purple silk. “Yeah, ain’t it? I got one for every day in the week.”
“Is that so?” said Ham, astounded. “Ever wear tail coats and things?”
“Whadda I want with tail coats?”
“I thought so,” said Ham. “By the way, have any of you boys been on Sunday School picnics lately?”
Four heads told him no very seriously.
“Then what do you want with a thermos bottle?”
They grinned at him and said nothing. Their expressions plainly inferred that he was crazy.
Ham shoved back his derby hat, pried his thumbs under his suspenders and glowered at them. “Listen, you mugs, I don’t want to have to go over you with a rubber hose. MacFarlane was your lawyer. He had the goods on you and tried blackmail, didn’t he?”
Four mouths, in various stages of distortion, remained soundless.
“Come on, what did you do it for?”
“You infer,” said Papa Johnson haughtily, “that we murdered him? Why should we? A fine, upright pillar of the law, MacFarlane.”
“Then why did you have Lambert spring you?”
“A cheaper job,” said Joey the Mick.
“MacFarlane costs dough,” added Weasel Martin, dusting a speck from his extremely cut blue coat.
Lambert came puffing with writs and insistence. “Now look here, Logan, this thing has gone far enough. You can’t hold these men for murder.”
Ham merely looked at him.
“I have here all the necessary papers,” added Lambert. “You have no evidence against these men. I am fully cognizant of the details of this case. MacFarlane was killed between six and nine last night with a blow torch. All four of these men, according to your own books, were in this station from four-thirty or so until midnight last night. They could not have murdered MacFarlane. The thing is simple.”
“Too damned simple,” said Ham.
“Then let them out instantly. You can’t hold them for murder.”
“I ain’t holding ’em for murder,” said Ham, snapping his suspenders. “They’re here as material witnesses.”
“But how could they witness—?”
“You never can tell,” said Ham and walked thoughtfully away.
###
He went to his office and sat down in his specially upholstered swivel chair. He put his feet on the desk and hauled the phone to him.
“Hello, Blake there? Well, listen Blake, you still sure MacFarlane—”
“Damn it, what’s the matter with you? Won’t you take no for an answer? MacFarlane was murdered between six and nine last night. The coagulation and the body temperature showed that. We couldn’t find a bit of poison in his body. The corrosive action of the tissue—”
“What’d his guts look like?” said Ham.
“Black,” snapped Blake. “Black as coal. The whole stomach and the esophagus were fried—even part of the lungs.”
“Is that so?” said Ham.
“Yes, that’s so. And in case you forget again, MacFarlane was killed between six and nine last night.”
“Okay,” said Ham docilely and hung up.
He placed the blow torch before him and pumped it up. Then he opened the valve, let the gasoline run for a moment and finally lit up. The torch roared hoarsely.
The lieutenant shoved his red nose into the office. “Hey, I thought you was working on the MacFarlane case.”
“I am,” defended Ham.
“Well, what are you doin’ playing with that blow torch? You’ll burn the whole place down.”
The lieutenant notwithstanding, Ham let the torch run for fifteen minutes and then shut it off. Locking his office and leaving the blow torch behind him, he went down to the corner beanery and, perching upon a rickety stool, consumed a hot roast-beef sandwich, three cups of coffee and two pieces of pie.
He went back to the torch and felt it hopefully. It was red hot. He phoned the desk. “Wake me up in about two hours, will you?”
“Okay, Ham.”
Ham tipped back in the swivel chair, placed his bulldog-toed shoes on his desk, tilted forward his hard-boiled hat, folded his hands across his comfortable stomach and dozed peacefully. A homeless fly came and explored his mouth. A large June bug methodically smashed out its brains against the windowpane.
The phone rang and Ham thanked the desk. He felt of the torch and found it very cold.
“Well,” he said, “that didn’t get me anyplace, did it?”
He took MacFarlane’s watch out of his pocket and laid it beside the torch. The square face was gold and the hands had a diamond chip in each.
That done, he again adjusted himself in his chair, folded his hands and again went to sleep.
About six o’clock the lieutenant looked in and coughed hard enough to shake the walls. Ham came slowly awake and lowered his feet, almost knocking the watch off the desk.
“Say, Logan, you know what I heard this morning?” The lieutenant paused for effect. “I heard that a guy named Dude MacFarlane was murdered and that another guy named Logan was supposed to be on the case. D’you hear anything about it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ham. “I’m working on it now.”
The lieutenant left his scowl hanging heavily in the room. Ham went down to the beanery and had a double order of ham and eggs. He sopped the yellow up with his bread and indulged himself in four slices of apple pie. Then he washed everything down with a third cup of coffee and went back to his office.
For a time he was very busy. He wrote:
Things I ought to believe:
MacFarlane was killed with a blow torch.
He was killed just when he was starting out for a good time.
That he was dead twelve hours.
That the four mugs were in jail when it happened.
When he considered this, he wrote another list, a somewhat idiotic group of words which apparently meant nothing in particular.
Black—white
Night—morning
Time—watch
Up—down
Red—green
Hot—cold
Paper—ashes
Back—forth
He put the purloined watch under the light beside the blow torch and then, shrugging himself into a more comfortable position, once more went to sleep.
At three o’clock that morning, Ham Logan went down to the desk. The sergeant looked up.
“Book Chink Edwards, Weasel Martin, Papa Johnson and Joey the Mick for murder,” said Ham.
“What the hell? I thought.”
Ham saw Lambert coming then. Ham walked down the halls to the cells and routed out the four.
“I didn’t want to keep you in suspense,” said Ham to the quartet. “You’re booked for MacFarlane’s murder.”
“What the hell do you mean?” snarled the Weasel.
“You can’t do that,” snapped Chink Edwards.
“We were all in jail when it happened!” cried Joey the Mick.
“My dear sir,” said Papa Johnson, “you are utterly insane!”
“Look here, flatfoot,” blustered Lambert, “you’re overstepping yourself. You haven’t any proof of this thing.”
“I haven’t, huh?” grunted Ham. “Well, dead men don’t wind watches for one thing. This watch stopped ten minutes ago. If MacFarlane had been killed between six and nine night before last, he wouldn’t have had time to wind this watch, would he? Everybody winds watches when they go to bed and night-owl MacFarlane never turned in until dawn. But he did wind it, so he was killed early yesterday morning, maybe about 3:00 AM.”
“That’s no proof!” howled Lambert. “You can’t make it stick.”
“Rats,” said Ham. “You guys are dumb. You walked in here and gave yourself up for a perfect alibi. Well, MacFarlane wasn’t dead until after you got sprung.”
“But the coroner—”
“We ain’t arguing this in court,” said Ham, “but I want to let you guys know you ain’t so smart. Blow torch, hell. MacFarlane wasn’t killed with a blow torch, he was killed with a thermos bottle.
“You guys got scared. You thought MacFarlane had too much on you. You had to kill him and burn his papers. After we let you out, you went up to his apartment, about 3:00 or 4:00 AM, pulled him out of bed and murdered him. Then you put his evening clothes on him to make it look like it’d been done earlier. But you didn’t know that guys wear white vests with tail coats.
“His stomach was all swollen up, wasn’t it? Blake said it had air in it only. Well, that was enough. I just called Blake and checked this with him. Extreme conditions make the blood coagulate faster, fixing a different time of death. MacFarlane was colder than he should have been. He was only dead a couple hours when we found him and yet he’d lost twelve degrees, see?”
“That doesn’t prove—” began Lambert.
“Rats, you wanted us to believe he was killed with heat. He was opposites in everything, why not that? You guys poured liquid air down his throat, and that’s almost a hundred and ninety degrees below zero centigrade. It froze the guy’s throat and stomach instantly, meat freezing black, and then gradually passed off into regular air, leaving no trace at all, just swelling up his stomach—because the stuff expands about five hundred times, or maybe fifteen hundred or something.
“All of which, like burning, comes under the head of corrosive action, coagulating the blood quicker and cooling the body like he’d been soaked in ice water.
“I dunno how you mugs figured all that out. I guess it was you, huh, Papa Johnson? Well, you weren’t smart enough to change his clothes right or to steal his watch. And you forgot the air would swell up his stomach when it evaporated, and you forgot to cover your tracks on that thermos bottle.
“You took the thermos bottle away and left the blow torch, see? And thermos bottles is what they use to carry liquid air, it boiling off so easy.”
Ham adjusted his hard-boiled hat, rocked a little on his heels and grinned. But the grin faded into a yawn and he walked away, leaving the quartet wilted and goggle-eyed, clinging to the bars.
“Expect a dead man to wind a watch, huh?” said Ham to the desk, elaborately rubbing his eyes. “Well, it’s been a long day. I guess,” he sighed, “that I better get home and get me some sleep.”
The End
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