“Children?” Merlini exclaimed.
“Pauline and her twin sister, Paulette,” Irma said.
Merlini looked at Pauline and then at Mac. “Twin sister,” he said ominously. “Why hasn’t this been mentioned before now?”
But they paid no attention to him.
“Mac,” Pauline said hoarsely, “then it is true. Can she prove it after all this—”
“She’ll have one hell of a job,” Mac said. “We can carry a case like that clear to the Court of Appeals, and I don’t think Irma can afford it.”
“There are lawyers,” Irma countered, “who’ll handle an inheritance case for a percentage of the take.”
Pauline, said, “Send him around, Irma. We’ll take care of him. In the meantime, get the hell off this lot and stay off!”
“Sure. I’ll go. But this show doesn’t move an inch. There’ll be an injunction on it before tomorrow morning that’ll keep every last tent pole on this lot until I start giving orders. Think that over.”
Irma gave Pauline one last venomous glance, snatched the divorce papers from Mac’s hands, and went out, slamming the door violently behind her.
Mac shuddered, “Calamity was right,” he groaned. “Suppé’s goddamned ‘Cavalry March’ is poison. This is worse than murder. All we need now is a blowdown or a fire!”
Chapter Twelve
Eyewitness
I agreed with Mac. Whether or not the Suppé music was the cause, the Mighty Hannum Combined Shows was certainly having more than its share of grief. For that matter, the Merlini-Harte Murder Investigation wasn’t treading what could be called a rose-strewn path. With one well-aimed shot Irma seemed to have made scrap of nearly every motive for murder that we had discussed. Merlini was right; this was the place where we got off and started walking back.
For a moment after Mac’s outburst no one spoke. Merlini’s half-dollar was motionless in his fingers, its intermittent vanishing stilled. Merlini regarded it gloomily.
Then Pauline said slowly, “It’s not quite that bad, Mac. Irma is the murderer Merlini wants. It’s obvious now. She had to get Dad before he should make a will. She—”
Merlini looked at her sharply. “Is that what you were going to tell Sheriff Weatherby last night?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t know until now that she had a motive — or am I wrong?”
“I didn’t know. But I saw her enter the trailer last night after I had left.”
“That does it!” Mac said excitedly. “I’ll have her in the can on a murder rap before she can think twice about an injunction!” He started for the door.
Merlini stopped him. “Not so fast, Mac. I’m not so sure. Deep-Sea Ed says she was with him, lining up the bulls to go on after Tex’s announcement. That’s an alibi both for the lights and for the stolen evidence.”
“Break it,” Pauline snapped. “She’s bribed him or told him that when she owns the show—”
“Maybe,” Merlini said. “But I doubt it. I know Ed, and it doesn’t sound like him. Does it, Mac?”
“Well—” Mac hesitated. “Maybe not. But a lot of people that you wouldn’t suspect have tin mittens.” (Anyone who will accept a bribe has tin mittens; he likes to hear the money clink in his hand.)
“Suppose we put him through the wringer before you do anything rash. Send someone for him.”
Mac put his head outside and called, “Joe, round up Deep-Sea for me. Tell him I want to see him here right away.”
Then Merlini said, “While we’re waiting I want some Hannum family history. More of this Irma Stark-King story. Quickly.”
“It’s a mess,” Mac explained. “And if it ever does hit the courts it’ll make legal history or something. Mr. and Mrs. Stark — the Major and Irma — joined the Hannum show in 1911. I was in the flying act, and our catcher cracked up right at the start of the season. He’d been swinging around in the top of a tent for years, and then he gets a broken arm in a clem [fight]. The Major joined up to replace him. Irma did an equestrian routine and worked a ring of zebras. Before the season was half over, he’d fallen hard for old man Hannum’s daughter, Pauline’s mother. Her name was Lucille.
“Just about then I left the show. I was doing a two-and-a-half to a catch by the legs for the first time that season. One day I missed the Major and the net. When I got out of the hospital I had this game leg, and I’ve never been up on a trapeze since. The season after that I read in Billboard that the Major and Irma had split up, and it wasn’t long before he married Lucille. They had twin daughters in ’14. The Snyder case was reported just after that, but I never suspected that’s where the Major’s divorce came from. Even if I had, I’d have assumed he must have heard about it and straightened it out. There was a girl on the Hagen show who got two divorces from Snyder and remarried after both of them. She found herself married to three men and had to get legal divorces from the first two.”
Merlini turned to Pauline. “And your twin sister, Paulette, Miss Hannum?”
“She died two years ago.”
Mac looked surprised. He said, “I didn’t know that, Pauline.”
“I know. Dad very seldom mentioned her after she married.”
“Who did she marry?” asked Merlini.
“Fellow Dad didn’t like. They eloped in ’33, six years ago. He had been the patch on the show, and it was when he left that Mac joined on.”
Mac nodded agreement, and Merlini started to ask, “What was his name and where did they—”
But Pauline folded up on us. I wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t been in any condition to withstand the shocks she’d been exposed to in the last half-hour. She seemed suddenly to go very limp. In a weak voice she told Mac to get a doctor, and once more requested that we get the hell out and leave her alone. This time we did.
Walter Jennier, the equestrian director, stood just outside the performer’s entrance with an annoyed look on his face. “Mac,” he called, seeing us, “where’s Garner? Have you seen him?”
Mac shook his head. “No,” he said rather curtly and turned his attention to Deep-Sea Ed, who had just arrived. “Stick here,” he said, “I’ll be right back. See about that doctor.” He hurried off toward the front door.
“Who is Garner, Ed?” Merlini asked.
“Clown,” Ed said. “The tramp. He disappeared right after the spec. It’s upset the clown routines. Jennier’s sore and—”
“Wait,” Merlini said, “I want to catch Miss King before she—” He moved off quickly in mid-sentence. Irma King’s car was moving away from the others and turning to leave the lot.
I lit out after him.
“Miss King — or Mrs. Hannum or whatever it is — just a minute.” She stopped the car and looked at him suspiciously.
“Yes?”
“Where were you night before last during the concert?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Nothing,” Merlini said. “But it’s important to you. If you don’t know, there was a murder committed on the lot during that time. There’ll be troopers here any minute now investigating it and—”
“Murder? During the concert? Who?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“No.” She looked worried all the same.
“Where were you?”
“In bed.”
“Anyone drive over with you from Waterboro when you came this morning?”
She answered almost hypnotically, as if she couldn’t help herself, “No. No one.”
Merlini kept the questions coming fast. “Have you lost a bull-hook?”
She nodded, wide-eyed. “But who—”
“Merlini,” I broke in, my voice none too steady, “Look!” I pointed toward Pauline’s trailer. The slovenly, baggy-trousered figure of the tramp clown had just descended from the door of the trailer. He moved quickly, in a furtive manner, and ran hurriedly toward the entrance to the tent.