The Main Death and This King Business Read online

  “Well—the idea!”

  “The racket’s flopped.” I put a hand into a pocket and showed her one wad of the money I had got at the Mars Hotel. “I’ve just come from visiting Coughing Ben and Bunky.”

  That impressed her. She turned and scurried up the stairs.

  Bruno Gungen came to the library door, searching for me. He looked curiously from the girl—now running up the steps to the third story—to me. A question was twisting the little man’s lips, but I headed it off with a statement:

  “It’s done.”

  “Bravo!” he exclaimed as we went into the library. “You hear that, my darling? It is done!”

  His darling, sitting by the table, where she had sat the other night, smiled with no expression in her doll’s face, and murmured, “Oh, yes,” with no expression in her words.

  I went to the table and emptied my pockets of money.

  “Nineteen thousand, one hundred and twenty-six dollars and seventy cents, including the stamps,” I announced. “The other eight hundred and seventy-three dollars and thirty cents is gone.”

  “Ah!” Bruno Gungen stroked his spade-shaped black beard with a trembling pink hand and pried into my face with hard bright eyes. “And where did you find it? By all means sit down and tell us the tale. We are famished with eagerness for it, eh, my love?”

  His love yawned, “Oh, yes!”

  “There isn’t much story,” I said. “To recover the money I had to make a bargain, promising silence. Main was robbed Sunday afternoon. But it happens that we couldn’t convict the robbers if we had them. The only person who could identify them—won’t.”

  “But who killed Jeffrey?” The little man was pawing my chest with both pink hands. “Who killed him that night?”

  “Suicide. Despair at being robbed under circumstances he couldn’t explain.”

  “Preposterous!” My client didn’t like the suicide.

  “Mrs. Main was awakened by the shot. Suicide would have canceled his insurance—would have left her penniless. She threw the gun and wallet out the window, hid the note he left, and framed the robber story.”

  “But the handkerchief!” Gungen screamed. He was all worked up.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” I assured him solemnly, “except that Main—you said he was promiscuous—had probably been fooling with your wife’s maid, and that she—like a lot of maids—helped herself to your wife’s belongings.”

  He puffed up his rouged cheeks, and stamped his feet, fairly dancing. His indignation was as funny as the statement that caused it.

  “We shall see!” He spun on his heel and ran out of the room, repeating over and over, “We shall see!”

  Enid Gungen held a hand out to me. Her doll face was all curves and dimples.

  “I thank you,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know what for,” I growled, not taking the hand. “I’ve got it jumbled so anything like proof is out of the question. But he can’t help knowing—didn’t I practically tell him?”

  “Oh, that!” She put it behind her with a toss of her small head. “I’m quite able to look out for myself so long as he has no definite proof.”

  I believed her.

  Bruno Gungen came fluttering back into the library, frothing at the mouth, tearing his dyed goatee, raging that Rose Rubury was not to be found in the house.

  The next morning Dick Foley told me the maid had joined Weel and Dahl and had left for Portland with them.

  This King Business

  A Complete Novellette

  Mystery Stories, January 1928

  The desire to rule is inherent in the breasts of most of us, notwithstanding the number of thrones that have toppled in the past decade. Mr. Hammett tells us of the strange series of events which led an American youth to seek kingship in “the Powder Magazine of Europe”—the Balkans. The consequences were—to put it mildly—exciting.

  I

  “YES”—AND “NO”

  The train from Belgrade set me down in Stefania, capital of Muravia, in early afternoon—a rotten afternoon. Cold wind blew cold rain in my face and down my neck as I left the square granite barn of a railroad station to climb into a taxicab.

  English meant nothing to the chauffeur, nor French. Good German might have failed. Mine wasn’t good. It was a hodgepodge of grunts and gargles. This chauffeur was the first person who had ever pretended to understand it. I suspected him of guessing, and I expected to be taken to some distant suburban point. Maybe he was a good guesser. Anyhow, he took me to the Hotel of the Republic.

  The hotel was a new six-story affair, very proud of its elevators, American plumbing, private baths, and other modern tricks. After I had washed and changed clothes I went down to the café for luncheon. Then, supplied with minute instructions in English, French, and sign-language by a highly uniformed head porter, I turned up my raincoat collar and crossed the muddy plaza to call on Roy Scanlan, United States chargé d’affaires in this youngest and smallest of the Balkan States.

  He was a pudgy man of thirty, with smooth hair already far along the gray route, a nervous, flabby face, plump white hands that twitched, and very nice clothes. He shook hands with me, patted me into a chair, barely glanced at my letter of introduction, and stared at my necktie while saying:

  “So you’re a private detective from San Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “Lionel Grantham.”

  “Surely not!”

  “Yes.”

  “But he’s—” The diplomat realized he was looking into my eyes, hurriedly switched his gaze to my hair, and forgot what he had started to say.

  “But he’s what?” I prodded him.

  “Oh!”—with a vague upward motion of head and eyebrows—“not that sort.”

  “How long has he been here?” I asked.

  “Two months. Possibly three or three and a half or more.”

  “You know him well?”

  “Oh, no! By sight, of course, and to talk to. He and I are the only Americans here, so we’re fairly well acquainted.”

  “Know what he’s doing here?”

  “No, I don’t. He just happened to stop here in his travels, I imagine, unless, of course, he’s here for some special reason. No doubt there’s a girl in it—she is General Radnjak’s daughter—though I don’t think so.”

  “How does he spend his time?”

  “I really haven’t any idea. He lives at the Hotel of the Republic, is quite a favorite among our foreign colony, rides a bit, lives the usual life of a young man of family and wealth.”

  “Mixed up with anybody who isn’t all he ought to be?”

  “Not that I know of, except that I’ve seen him with Mahmoud and Einarson. They are certainly scoundrels, though they may not be.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Nubar Mahmoud is private secretary to Doctor Semich, the President. Colonel Einarson is an Icelander, just now virtually the head of the army. I know nothing about either of them.”

  “Except that they are scoundrels?”

  The chargé d’affaires wrinkled his round white forehead in pain and gave me a reproachful glance.

  “Not at all,” he said. “Now, may I ask, of what is Grantham suspected?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then?”

  “Seven months ago, on his twenty-first birthday, this Lionel Grantham got hold of the money his father had left him—a nice wad. Till then the boy had had a tough time of it. His mother had, and has, highly developed middle-class notions of refinement. His father had been a genuine aristocrat in the old manner—a hard-souled, soft-spoken individual who got what he wanted by simply taking it; with a liking for old wine and young women, and plenty of both, and for cards and dice and running horses—and fights, whether he was in them or watching them.

>   “While he lived the boy had a he-raising. Mrs. Grantham thought her husband’s tastes low, but he was a man who had things his own way. Besides, the Grantham blood was the best in America. She was a woman to be impressed by that. Eleven years ago—when Lionel was a kid of ten—the old man died. Mrs. Grantham swapped the family roulette wheel for a box of dominoes and began to convert the kid into a patent leather Galahad.

  “I’ve never seen him, but I’m told the job wasn’t a success. However, she kept him bundled up for eleven years, not even letting him escape to college. So it went until the day when he was legally of age and in possession of his share of his father’s estate. That morning he kisses Mamma and tells her casually that he’s off for a little run around the world—alone. Mamma does and says all that might be expected of her, but it’s no good. The Grantham blood is up. Lionel promises to drop her a post-card now and then, and departs.

  “He seems to have behaved fairly well during his wandering. I suppose just being free gave him all the excitement he needed. But a few weeks ago the trust company that handles his affairs got instructions from him to turn some railroad bonds into cash and ship the money to him in care of a Belgrade bank. The amount was large—over the three million mark—so the trust company told Mrs. Grantham about it. She chucked a fit. She had been getting letters from him—from Paris, without a word said about Belgrade.

  “Mamma was all for dashing over to Europe at once. Her brother, Senator Walbourn, talked her out of it. He did some cabling, and learned that Lionel was neither in Paris nor in Belgrade, unless he was hiding. Mrs. Grantham packed her trunks and made reservations. The Senator headed her off again, convincing her that the lad would resent her interference, telling her the best thing was to investigate on the quiet. He brought the job to the Agency. I went to Paris, learned that a friend of Lionel’s there was relaying his mail, and that Lionel was here in Stefania. On the way down I stopped off in Belgrade and learned that the money was being sent here to him—most of it already has been. So here I am.”

  Scanlan smiled happily.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “Grantham is of age, and it’s his money.”

  “Right,” I agreed, “and I’m in the same fix. All I can do is poke around, find out what he’s up to, try to save his dough if he’s being gypped. Can’t you give me even a guess at the answer? Three million dollars—what could he put it into?”

  “I don’t know.” The chargé d’affaires fidgeted uncomfortably. “There’s no business here that amounts to anything. It’s purely an agricultural country, split up among small land-owners—ten, fifteen, twenty acre farms. There’s his association with Einarson and Mahmoud, though. They’d certainly rob him if they got the chance. I’m positive they’re robbing him. But I don’t think they would. Perhaps he isn’t acquainted with them. It’s probably a woman.”

  “Well, whom should I see? I’m handicapped by not knowing the country, not knowing the language. To whom can I take my story and get help?”

  “I don’t know,” he said gloomily. Then his face brightened. “Go to Vasilije Djudakovich. He is Minister of Police. He is the man for you! He can help you, and you may trust him. He has a digestion instead of a brain. He’ll not understand a thing you tell him. Yes, Djudakovich is your man!”

  “Thanks,” I said, and staggered out into the muddy street.

  II

  ROMAINE

  I found the Minister of Police’s offices in the Administration Building, a gloomy concrete pile next to the Executive Residence at the head of the plaza. In French that was even worse than my German, a thin, white-whiskered clerk, who looked like a consumptive Santa Claus, told me His Excellency was not in. Looking solemn, lowering my voice to a whisper, I repeated that I had come from the United States chargé d’affaires. This hocuspocus seemed to impress Saint Nicholas. He nodded understandingly and shuffled out of the room. Presently he was back, bowing at the door, asking me to follow him.

  I tailed him along a dim corridor to a wide door marked “15.” He opened it, bowed me through it, wheezed, “Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plaît,” closed the door and left me. I was in an office, a large, square one. Everything in it was large. The four windows were double-size. The chairs were young benches, except the leather one at the desk, which could have been the rear half of a touring car. A couple of men could have slept on the desk. Twenty could have eaten at the table.

  A door opposite the one through which I had come opened, and a girl came in, closing the door behind her, shutting out a throbbing purr, as of some heavy machine, that had sounded through.

  “I’m Romaine Frankl,” she said in English, “His Excellency’s secretary. Will you tell me what you wish?”

  She might have been any age from twenty to thirty, something less than five feet in height, slim without boniness, with curly hair as near black as brown can get, black-lashed eyes whose gray irises had black rims, a small, delicate-featured face, and a voice that seemed too soft and faint to carry as well as it did. She wore a red woolen dress that had no shape except that which her body gave it, and when she moved—to walk or raise a hand—it was as if it cost her no energy—as if some one else were moving her.

  “I’d like to see him,” I said while I was accumulating this data.

  “Later, certainly,” she promised, “but it’s impossible now.” She turned, with her peculiar effortless grace, back to the door, opening it so that the throbbing purr sounded in the room again. “Hear?” she said. “He’s taking his nap.”

  She shut the door against His Excellency’s snoring and floated across the room to climb up in the immense leather chair at the desk.

  “Do sit down,” she said, wriggling a tiny forefinger at a chair beside the desk. “It will save time if you will tell me your business, because, unless you speak our tongue, I’ll have to interpret your message to His Excellency.”

  I told her about Lionel Grantham and my interest in him, in practically the same words I had used on Scanlan, winding up:

  “You see, there’s nothing I can do except try to learn what the boy’s up to and give him a hand if he needs it. I can’t go to him—he’s too much Grantham, I’m afraid, to take kindly to what he’d think was nurse-maid stuff. Mr. Scanlan advised me to come to the Minister of Police.”

  “You were fortunate.” She looked as if she wanted to make a joke about my country’s representative but weren’t sure how I’d take it. “Your chargé d’affaires is not always easy to understand.”

  “Once you get the hang of it, it’s not hard,” I said. “You just throw out all his statements that have no’s or not’s or nothing’s or don’t’s in them.”

  “That’s it! That’s it, exactly!” She leaned toward me, laughing. “I’ve always known there was some key to it, but nobody’s been able to find it before. You’ve solved our national problem.”

  “For reward, then, I should be given all the information you have about Grantham.”

  “You should, but I’ll have to speak to His Excellency first. He’ll wake presently.”

  “You can tell me unofficially what you think of Grantham. You know him?”

  “Yes. He’s charming. A nice boy, delightfully naïf, inexperienced, but really charming.”

  “Who are his friends here?”

  She shook her head and said:

  “No more of that until His Excellency wakes. You’re from San Francisco? I remember the funny little street cars, and the fog, and the salad right after the soup, and Coffee Dan’s.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Twice. I was in the United States for a year and half, in vaudeville, bringing rabbits out of hats.”

  We were still talking about that half an hour later when the door opened and the Minister of Police came in.

  The over-size furniture immediately shrank to normal, the girl became a midget, and I felt like somebody’s littl
e boy.

  This Vasilije Djudakovich stood nearly seven feet tall, and that was nothing to his girth. Maybe he wouldn’t weigh more than five hundred pounds, but, looking at him, it was hard to think except in terms of tons. He was a blond-haired, blond-bearded mountain of meat in a black frock coat. He wore a necktie, so I suppose he had a collar, but it was hidden all the way around by the red rolls of his neck. His white vest was the size and shape of a hoop-skirt, and in spite of that it strained at the buttons. His eyes were almost invisible between the cushions of flesh around them, and were shaded into a colorless darkness, like water in a deep well. His mouth was a fat red oval among the yellow hairs of his whiskers and mustache. He came into the room slowly, ponderously, and I was surprised that the floor didn’t creak nor the room tremble.

  Romaine Frankl was watching me attentively as she slid out of the big leather chair and introduced me to the Minister. He gave me a fat, sleepy smile and a hand that had the general appearance of a naked baby, and let himself down slowly into the chair the girl had quit. Planted there, he lowered his head until it rested on the pillows of his several chins, and then he seemed to go to sleep.

  I drew up another chair for the girl. She took another sharp look at me—she seemed to be hunting for something in my face—and began to talk to him in what I suppose was the native lingo. She talked rapidly for about twenty minutes, while he gave no sign that he was listening or that he was even awake.

  When she was through, he said: “Da.” He spoke dreamily, but there was a volume to the syllable that could have come from no place smaller than his gigantic belly.

  The girl turned to me, smiling.

  “His Excellency will be glad to give you every possible assistance. Officially, of course, he does not care to interfere in the affairs of a visitor from another country, but he realizes the importance of keeping Mr. Grantham from being victimized while here. If you will return tomorrow afternoon, at, say, three o’clock …”