"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."
Scan notes for Brown, Fredric - Homicide Sanitarium (ssc, rtf) [v2.0].
I took a little more liberties than usual with editing spelling and the occasional layout question. I believe it is important to preserve the author's spellings to help preserve the sense and atmosphere of the time period works were written but I ran across some spellings inconsistent with Brown's usual spellings and some that were both distracting and very questionable as to whether they were the author's spellings or misspellings/errors of some proofreader at a magazine of original publication overlooked.
A single font in only one size and a very "plain vanilla" layout were used to facilitate ease of global changes with minimal layout changes by those with poor eyesight or other reasons for wishing to make such changes. I believe this also facilitates the ability of those who've made such changes to read a work and find errors while reading to correct them, reversion and repost the improved work without introducing any unintentional changes to the file in the process.
Homicide Sanitarium (collection) copyright ®1984 by Elizabeth C. Brown. All rights reserved.
"Introduction," copyright ®1984 by Bill Pronzini.
"The Moon for a Nickel," Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine, March 1938, copyright ®1938 by Street & Smith Publications.
"Homicide Sanitarium," Thrilling Detective, May 1941, copyright ® by Standard Magazines, 1941.
"Listen to the Mocking Bird," G-Man Detective, November 1941, copyright ® by Standard Magazines, 1941.
"The Cat from Siam," Popular Detective, September 1949, copyright ® by Standard Magazines, 1949.
"Red-Hot and Hunted," Detective Tales, November 1948, copyright ® by Popular Publications. Copyright renewed ® 1976 by Popular Publications.
"Suite for Flute and Tommy-gun," Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine, June 1942, copyright ® 1942 by Street & Smith Publications.
"The Spherical Ghoul," Thrilling Mystery, January 1943, copyright ® by Standard Magazines. 1943.