The Finger Man by Chandler Raymond

Author:Chandler, Raymond [Chandler, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Black Mask
Published: 1934-10-10T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The morgue was at the end of a long and bright and silent corridor that branched off from behind the main lobby of the County Building. The corridor ended in two doors and a blank wall faced with marble. One door had “Inquest Room” lettered on the glass panel behind which there was no light. The other opened into a small, cheerful office.

A man with gander‐blue eyes and rust‐colored hair parted in the exact center of his head was pawing over some printed forms at a table. He looked up, looked me over, and then suddenly smiled.

I said: “Hello, Landon… Remember the Shelby case?”

The bright blue eyes twinkled. He got up and came around the table with his hand out.

“Sure. What can we do—” He broke off suddenly and snapped his fingers. “Hell! You’re the guy that put the bee on that hot rod.”

I tossed a butt through the open door into the corridor. “That’s not why I’m here,” I said. “Anyhow not this time. There’s a fellow named Louis Harger… picked up shot last night or this morning, in West Cimarron, as I get it. Could I take a look‐see?”

“They can’t stop you,” Landon said.

He led the way through the door on the far side of his office into a place that was all white paint and white enamel and glass and bright light. Against one wall was a double tier of large bins with glass windows in them. Through the peepholes showed bundles in white sheeting, and, further back, frosted pipes.

A body covered with a sheet lay on a table that was high at the head and sloped down to the foot. Landon pulled the sheet down casually from a man’s dead, placid, yellowish face. Long black hair lay loosely on a small pillow, with the dankness of water still in it. The eyes were half open and stared incuriously at the ceiling.

I stepped close, looked at the face,

Landon pulled the sheet on down and rapped his knuckles on a chest that rang hollowly, like a board. There was a bullet hole over the heart.

“Nice clean shot,” he said.

I turned away quickly, got a cigarette out and rolled it around in my fingers. I stared at the floor.

“Who identified him?”

“Stuff in his pockets,” Landon said. “We’re checking his prints, of course. You know him?”

I said: “Yes.”

Landon scratched the base of his chin softly with his thumbnail. We walked back into the office and Landon went behind his table and sat down. He thumbed over some papers, separated one from the pile and studied it for a moment.

He said: “A sheriff’s radio car found him at twelve thirty‐five a.m., on the side of the old road out of West Cimarron, a quarter of a mile from where the cutoff starts. That isn’t traveled much, but the prowl car takes a slant down now and then looking for petting parties.”

I said: “Can you say how long he had been dead?”

“Not very long. He was still warm, and the nights are cool along there.

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