"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 calclass="underline"
"It was from a fan, Perley told us. Wanted him to listen to something he thought was a pink-crested tootwhistle, or some-thing."
"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 some-thing 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 hid-den 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?"