“Yeah,” I said.
We ordered drinks. Uncle Am said, “You gave me the idea, kid, when you said, last thing last night, that what puzzled you was that he wouldn’t just accept that Albee had taken it on the lam, go on to California and wait to hear from Albee if Albee ever chose to write. What he did was out of character, spending a full week in Chicago heckling first Missing Persons and then us. He just wanted it firmly established that Albee had taken a powder.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“With the hypothetical money. It would have been out of character for him to give Albee that money to begin with, and he didn’t. So they got into a fight over it and he killed Albee. That’s my guess, and if it was that, he could probably have got away with self-defense if he’d called the sheriff right away. But he wanted to play it cute.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“So I guessed he’d have disposed of the body on the farm rather than risk moving it, so I went there. I looked around with the idea of where I’d put a body where it never would be found unless someone looked for it. A grave in the open was out. But there was a brand new cement floor in the tool shed. The new owner was surprised Nielson had gone to that trouble after he’d already sold the farm. So I called the sheriff and he brought men with picks.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“One thing puzzles me. How he got Albee to take Jerry’s car back to him and then return to the farm to be killed. That part doesn’t make sense.”
I said, “He brought the car back to Chicago himself Saturday evening, left it in front of Jerry’s and left the keys in Jerry’s mail box. He had the address on the car registration.”
“And then went back to Kenosha by bus or however, got his pickup truck and came to Chicago again to use Albee’s keys to raid his pad in the middle of the night. Sure. There were two suitcases and a portable phonograph under that cement, besides Albee. Well, kid, however you figured it out, you beat me to the answer.”
I said, “Uncle Am, I cannot tell a lie.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean it’s four o’clock. Let’s knock off as of now and have a night on the town. We’re due for one anyway.”
“Sure, kid, we’re overdue. But what’s that got to do with your not being able to tell a lie?”
I said, “I mean I need two more drinks before I can tell you the truth.”
“Then let’s have them right here and get it over with. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
And we ordered our second round, and then our third.
To Slay a Man About a Dog
PETER KIDD should have suspected the shaggy dog of something, right away. He got into trouble the first time he saw the animal. It was the first hour of the first day of Peter Kidd’s debut as a private investigator. Specifically, ten minutes after nine in the morning.
It had taken will power on the part of Peter Kidd to make himself show up a dignified ten minutes late at his own office that morning instead of displaying an unprofessional overenthusiasm by getting there an hour early. By now, he knew, the decorative secretary he had engaged would have the office open. He could make his entrance with quiet and decorum.
The meeting with the dog occurred in the downstairs hallway of the Wheeler Building, halfway between the street door and the elevator. It was entirely the fault of the shaggy dog, who tried to pass to Peter Kidd’s right, while the man who held the dog’s leash — a chubby little man with a bulbous red nose — tried to walk to the left. It didn’t work.
“Sorry,” said the man with the leash, as Peter Kidd stood still, then tried to step over the leash. That didn’t work, either, because the dog jumped up to try to lick Peter Kidd’s ear, raising the leash too high to be straddled, even by Peter’s long legs.
Peter raised a hand to rescue his shell-rimmed glasses, in imminent danger of being knocked off by the shaggy dog’s display of affection.
“Perhaps,” he said to the man with the leash, “you had better circumambulate me.”
“Huh?”
“Walk around me, I mean,” said Peter. “From the Latin, you know. Circum, around — ambulare, to walk. Parallel to circumnavigate, which means to sail around. From ambulare also comes the word ambulance — although an ambulance has nothing to do with walking. But that is because it came through the French hôpital ambulant, which actually means—”
“Sorry,” said the man with the leash. He had already circumambulated Peter Kidd, having started the procedure even before the meaning of the word had been explained to him.
“Quite all right,” said Peter.
“Down, Rover,” said the man with the leash. Regretfully, the shaggy dog desisted in its efforts to reach Peter’s ear and permitted him to move on to the elevator.
“Morning, Mr. Kidd,” said the elevator operator, with the deference due a new tenant who has been introduced as a personal friend of the owner of the building.
“Good morning,” said Peter. The elevator took him to the fifth, and top floor. The door clanged shut behind him and he walked with firm stride to the office door whereupon — with chaste circumspection — golden letters spelled out:
PETER KIDD
PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS
He opened the door and went in. Everything in the office looked shiny new, including the blonde stenographer behind the typewriter desk. She said, “Good morning, Mr. Kidd. Did you forget the letterheads you were going to pick up on the floor below?”
He shook his head. “Thought I’d look in first to see if there were any — ah—”
“Clients? Yes, there were two. But they didn’t wait.
They’ll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Peter Kidd’s eyebrows lifted above the rims of his glasses. “Two? Already?”
“Yes. One was a pudgy-looking little man. Wouldn’t leave his name.”
“And the other?” asked Peter.
“A big shaggy dog,” said the blonde. “I got his name, though. It’s Rover. The man called him that. He tried to kiss me.”
“Eh?” said Peter Kidd.
“The dog, not the man. The man said ‘Down, Rover,’ so that’s how I know his name. The dog’s, not the man’s.”
Peter looked at her reprovingly. He said, “I’ll be back in five minutes,” and went down the stairs to the floor below.
The door of the Henderson Printery was open, and he walked in and stopped in surprise just inside the doorway. The pudgy man and the shaggy dog were standing at the counter. The man was talking to Mr. Henderson, the proprietor.
“—will be all right,” he was saying. “I’ll pick them up Wednesday afternoon, then. And the price is two-fifty?” He took a wallet from his pocket and opened it. There seemed to be about a dozen bills in it. He put one on the counter. “Afraid I have nothing smaller than a ten.”
“Quite all right, Mr. Asbury,” said Henderson, taking change from the register. “Your cards will be ready for you.”
Meanwhile, Peter walked to the counter also, a safe distance from the shaggy dog. From the opposite side of the barrier Peter was approached by a female employee of Mr.
Henderson. She smiled at him and said, “Your order is ready.
I’ll get it for you.”
She went to the back room and Peter edged along the counter, read, upside down, the name and address written on the order blank lying there: Robert Asbury, 633 Kenmore Street. The telephone number was BEacon 3-3434. The man and the dog, without noticing Peter Kidd this time, went on their way out of the door.