The Case of the Two-Headed Idiot by Harry Stephen Keeler

Author:Harry Stephen Keeler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, detective, sleuth, murder, classic
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXVII

CARDS DOWN

He heard her say:

“Oh—hello, Uncle? So glad you called. I was just having an irritating business visit on the part of two city detect—”

“State’s Attorney’s men,” raged the man in the room. “Not city detect—”

“Regular run-of-the-mill ‘dicks,’ Uncle. Thick-soled shoes, each wearing a derby hat, each smoking a big black cigar, each wearing a tin star, each—

“Oh, they merely want to know if I’ve filed my monthly withholding report. Not having any employees, however—or, at most, just an occasional errand boy called in for the job, I—but you want to know, of course, whether there’s anything in from that point—or points on and beyond. No, no wires. No airmails. Nothing.

“Yes. Will. Immediately. If any.

“Thank you for calling, Uncle dear. ’Bye.”

“Either,” said Brock grimly, “she loves that uncle or that ‘dear’ is put on as a—a sort of threat. Meaning ‘I’m not a lone duckling in this world, Mr. State’s Attorney.’”

Now she was back in the saddle again, so to speak.

“As you were saying when I was interrupted,” she asked, “by the exigencies of my business?”

The State’s Attorney really had her on the stand.

“Well, I know damned well,” he fumed, “that you never hired this birdie without your having seen identity papers of some kind—social security card of some kind—something—something to insure he wouldn’t run off with all your assets—”

“Hah!” she said scornfully. “Assets? In a rented office? What? This thin rug? This second-hand desk? This—I have nothing anybody can run off with. I—”

“You,” said the “bower”, off somewhere from the first speaker, “could hire bums—for errand boys, I mean—from Skid Row safely. You don’t even have an office safe.”

“Nor a petty-cash box,” she helped out. “Well, all I can say is that I hired him because of—because of—”

“Because of what?” This from the main interlocutor again, the State’s Attorney himself. “Did he make love to you?”

“Don’t be insulting. You are both lower than the two ‘detectives’ I described to my uncle. No, he had an honest face.”

“Oh, pish-pash!” snorted the State’s Attorney derisively. Angry, too. “Honest face—is good! It wasn’t even his!”

“Wasn’t his? What do you mean?”

“I mean that when he was last going about—officially, I mean, and himself—his former self, I mean—he was a blond man, and—”

“Blond?” she said, almost delighted. “With blond mustache?—and eyebrows, too?—and—”

“Eyebrows, yes. Mustache not. For he didn’t have that thin-line mustache then. In fact, his eyes are blue as blue.”

“Well, I am delighted! I liked him immensely. I knew there must be some odd reason that I did, for I don’t go for dark men—like you, for instance—”

“Now, don’t you be insulting,” said the State’s Attorney, intensely nettled.

She went on imperturbably. “I liked him tremendously, even though he was dark. Now I see the reason. If, that is, you know what you are talking about. You must, as otherwise you wouldn’t be so confi—well, he had the personality of a blond. Breezy, chipper, self-assured, ever so—”

“She likes meh!” said Brock, dolorously. Pinned his ear tighter to the air-waves.

“If,” she went on, appreciatively

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