Merlini, as Buddy and his father started out, leaned forward and took a half-dollar from the boy’s ear. “Take that,” he said, “and buy a circus ticket. I’d get you a pass, only I don’t stand in so well with the management just now.”
Merlini finished off his story then and was just laying out the rubber gloves, the torn bits of envelope, and the glass cutter for the Captain’s inspection when the called-for reinforcements arrived, Chief of Police Hooper among them. The Chief, I discovered later, was a deacon on Sundays, a sideline that Mac insisted was merely a vote-getting ruse. I rather agreed with Mac; Hooper was an officious, blustering, overly confident small-town official, quite convinced that any persons without a permanent address, circus folk in particular, were likely candidates for his jail. The sidewise glance he gave Mac when he first came in warned that there’d be trouble if anyone referred to the shakedown of the morning.
Schafer gave him a hasty resume of the situation, sent a man out after Irma King, and announced that he was going to begin at once to verify Merlini’s story by getting the facts from the people concerned at first hand. He started us on our way out.
Merlini, however, had one final suggestion. “Those rubber gloves,” he said. “I wonder if you have facilities for giving them the nitrate test? If you do, I think it might be a good idea.”
“Nitrate test?” Schafer asked. “What’s that?”
“The ballistics man at Center Street told me about it,” Merlini explained. “It’s a test, introduced in this country by the Mexican criminologist, Gonzalez. Once it has percolated through enough police departments, as it is beginning to do, it will make shooting with criminal intent a considerably more hazardous proceeding for the gunman than it is now. The test can tell you which of your suspects has recently fired a gun. The ‘invisible backfire’ of the pistol blows minute particles of nitrate, part of the residue of the powder combustion, back into the skin of the hand. The application of Lunge’s Reagent, dephenylamine and sulphuric acid, makes the nitrate specks, if any are present, visible, turning them a dark blue in color. Since the acid can’t be applied directly to the hands, a paraffin cast is made first, and the reagent applied to that. The paraffin lifts the nitrate specks off the hand. You could do the same with these gloves. I’d like to know if they’ve been worn by anyone firing a gun.”
“Say,” Hooper asked. “Who the hell is this guy?”
“He says he has an in with the New York Homicide Department. I’m checking it.” Schafer turned to Merlini. “Might be a good idea at that. I’ll see what can be done. What’s the reagent formula?”
“I can’t give you that offhand, but almost any library will have a copy of Robinson’s Science Versus Crime. You can find it there.”
Hooper said, “I don’t see that knowing whether or not these gloves were worn when a shot was fired is going to be a damn bit of help. But if you want to get fancy, give hem to Burns to play with. Ever since he went to Washington and took that three-month F.B.I. course, he’s been yelling for microscopes and ultra-violet lamps, and smelling the station house up with chemicals. The cases we get around here don’t need all that embroidery, and I don’t think this one does either.”
“Got it all figured, Chief?” Merlini asked politely.
“No, but I’ve got ideas.”
I noticed that the look he gave Merlini when he said that also included me, and I didn’t think I was going to like the ideas.
“Wiley,” Schafer said as we went out, “I’ll take you first. Then I’ll want to see Miss Hannum and after that the others Merlini has mentioned, and probably some more.”
I steered Merlini toward the grab joint on the midway and insisted stubbornly enough that he wait while I surrounded two hamburgers and some coffee. He ordered one himself, but didn’t pay much attention to it when he got it. This outdoor life seemed to be giving me a country mouse’s appetite, and I was ordering a refill when he said:
“What are you doing? Studying up to be the fat man in a side show?” He started off impatiently. “I’ll see you later.”
Hastily I grabbed the final sandwich and hurried after him. He was making tracks for the back yard. The afternoon performance was by now nearly ready to blow off. The band music, a waltz, indicated that the flying act was in progress, which left only a clown number and the chariot races to follow.
“We’ve got to work fast,” Merlini said as I caught up with him. “We’ve got competition now, and I’m afraid that once they’ve sorted out the alibis there will be an arrest. I’m not so sure that the person with the least number of alibis is necessarily it. We may have to set some alibis up on a cat rack and throw baseballs at them until we knock a few off — if we want to win any cigars. And that may not be so easy if the joint is gaffed.”
“Gaffed?” I asked. “As in fishing?”
“No,” he replied. “Like ‘gimmicked’ in conjuring. A joint is any game concession. When it’s gaffed, strong or French, it’s set up so that the player can’t possibly score enough to win. Most of them are two-way joints that can be operated either gaffed or fair. They are run fair when the operator or his shill is demonstrating how easy it is to cop a big prize. The signs reading This is not a game of chance are literally correct. The chump has no chance.”
“That the sort of thing the Major’s Carnival Equipment Company manufactures?”
“Yes. Also gambling supplies. A couple of dozen varieties of loaded dice, phony roulette wheels and chuck-a-luck cages, marked cards, holdouts, shiners, even punch boards with the winning numbers keyed so the operator can punch out the big winners before he sets it up. People who buy these sometimes get an unpleasant surprise when they find that the two-way games can also work three ways! I know a grifter who got his hands on the gambling accessory company’s list of customers. He made the rounds and, knowing what sort of crooked set-up was being used, swindled the swindlers! He’d switch the loaded dice for a set that were loaded differently — that sort of thing. When the other man thinks he has the best of it, that’s the time to take him over; he is in no position to beef to the fuzz.”
Merlini stopped by the clown car and waited as the clowns, having just finished their crazy walk-around, came toward us from the big top carrying their props. The tramp wasn’t among them.
“Where’s Garner?” Merlini asked as they came up.
An extremely obese clown who bulged alarmingly both fore and aft started to pull off his costume. As the balloon-padded garment dropped from him, it disclosed a remarkably skinny man who growled:
“That’s what I want to know. He blowed right after the spec, and we haven’t seen him since.” He turned to one of his colleagues, who had also started to disrobe. “Keep your pants on, Mike,” he said. “You’ll have to take his place in the concert.”
Merlini scowled at this information. “How long has he been on the show?” he asked.
“He’s a Johnny-come-lately,” was the reply. “Three weeks or so.” Our skinny friend stood before a cracked mirror that hung on the truck door and swabbed a towel across his face. The transformation that occurred was as astonishing as if he had removed a mask. His grotesquely grinning caricature of a face was wiped away, and a quite ordinary, rather sour face left in its place.
“Was he in the car with the rest of you when you made the jump from Waterboro this morning?”
The clown looked at Merlini curiously. He shook his head. “I guess so. He usually is.”