The Big Midget Murders Read online

  “I never got any money,” Annette Ginnis said, in that strained little voice.

  “Nonsense,” Helene said, almost crossly. “Don’t try to tell me it was all a whim. Plenty of money was paid for those annulments.”

  “He got it all,” Annette said.

  Helene didn’t even ask who he was. She said quickly, “How did he make you go through with it?”

  “I was afraid of him,” Annette whispered. “I’m still afraid of him.” She didn’t seem to be talking to Helene now, nor to anyone—just talking. “I’m more afraid of him now than I ever was.”

  “Good grief!” Helene exploded. “Afraid of him! A little guy like that? He was only a midget!”

  “I know that,” the chorus girl said. “I could have picked him up with one hand, and wrung his neck, any day, if it had only been a matter of—size and strength. But he’d look at a person. And smile.” Now she’d completely forgotten Helene was in the room. “If he hadn’t looked so terribly human—but he did. It wasn’t like—regular midgets. I worked once on the same bill with a midget act. They were such swell little people. One of them was a girl, about my age. We used to go out to the drugstore for sodas between the shows, and I’d lift her up on the soda-fountain stool. But he wasn’t like that. He looked exactly like any other person, only tiny. And he hated everybody. He hated everybody so much that the hate seemed to ooze out of him, like sweat.” She reached for her coffee cup, spilled a little coffee into the saucer, and set the cup down again without drinking from it.

  “There are things people don’t talk about,” she said calmly—too calmly—“things they don’t even think about, not if they’re decent people. But he—”

  Helene held her breath and counted to ten before she said, very quietly, “I still don’t know what hold he had over you.”

  Annette Ginnis stared at her, reached out toward the coffee cup, drew her hand back again, fumbled for a moment with the pin at her throat, and finally said hoarsely, “I was his wife.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Well,” Helene said, as soon as she felt reasonably sure her voice wouldn’t tremble. “Now you’re his widow. I bet you’ll inherit a comfortable piece of change.”

  “Oh no,” Annette Ginnis moaned. “No, no, no.”

  “That’s the first time I ever heard anyone say ‘no no no’ to inheriting money,” Helene told her.

  “You don’t understand,” the girl said. “Even if I would inherit his money—I couldn’t come forward and claim it. Because if they knew I’d been his wife, they’d put me in jail.”

  “For the love of Mike,” Helene said. “There aren’t any laws against marrying midgets.”

  “No,” Annette whispered, “but there’s a law against bigamy.” She bit her lip. “I’ve told you this much. I’d better tell you the rest of it.”

  “You’re damned right,” Helene said, “and this time, try beginning at the beginning.”

  “I went out with him—with the midget—one night,” Annette began, in a low voice. “He asked me, and I thought it might be rather fun. I didn’t think there’d be any harm in—such a little guy. It was sort of scary, though. I mean, it wasn’t like being out with a full-sized person. But it was sort of fun at the same time. You know. Heck, I’d been going out with boys in the band and unemployed actors, and here was a midget spending all kinds of dough to show me a good time, taking me to swell joints and buying me that drink that’s half brandy and half champagne.” She looked up appealingly at Helene. “I really don’t drink very much, you know. It raises hell with my complexion. But that stuff must have had an awful wallop.”

  “And you got plastered,” Helene said amiably, nodding her head.

  “I passed out,” Annette said. “And when I came to, I was in that elegant hangout the midget fixed up for himself, and it was eleven o’clock in the morning. He was sitting in a great big easy chair, in fancy striped silk pajamas, smoking a cigar and grinning at me, and I guess I passed out again because the next thing I knew it was one o’clock. And he’d gone out somewhere. So I dressed quick and beat it home. I felt sort of silly about saying anything about it to anyone. You know. A midget! So I kept my trap shut. And he never said anything to me, and he never paid any more attention to me. And then some of the girls began talking about him, kids that had gone out with him. You know how girls will talk. It was—well, he never—did anything. You know what I mean. But he’d get them to come up to his hangout, and he’d get into his pretty pajamas and sit smoking cigars, and—” She looked up at Helene, her cheeks faintly pink, and said, “Oh hell, use your imagination.”

  “All this is interesting as all get-out,” Helene said. “But let’s skip the details and get to the most important points, like”—she looked at her watch—“this bigamy gag.”

  “I’m getting to it,” Annette said. “That’s part of it. After hearing some of the things the girls said, I especially didn’t want anyone to know I’d ever been out with him, because I felt sort of silly about it, and because I didn’t want anyone to think I’d done—any of the same things. And besides I was sort of crazy about this other guy. So I sort of tried to forget about this whole thing, and one night after the last show I went out with this other guy and we decided to get married. Only we were going to keep it a secret because he was afraid he might lose his job. But somehow the midget found out about it. And the next night he met me after the show and made me come into his dressing room, and he told me I was a bigamist, because the night I’d gone out with him we’d gotten married, only I’d been plastered and hadn’t known it.” She paused and blew her nose.

  “He could have been lying, you know,” Helene said.

  Annette shook her head. “He had the certificate and everything. And he told me how long they’d send me to jail.”

  “I don’t suppose you thought of seeing a lawyer,” Helene said.

  “He warned me not to,” Annette whispered. “He said that if I did, he’d not only tell the police, but he’d tell—the other guy. He said—if I’d be a—good girl, and do just as he said—he wouldn’t tell a soul.” She looked up helplessly. “You know, even without something like that to back him up, he could make a person do pretty much what he wanted. Because he—he scared people.”

  Helene said, “Yes, yes, I know. Go on.”

  “So—” Annette Ginnis drew a long, sighing breath. “The first thing I had to do was leave this guy, without telling him why, and to refuse to talk to him. Then—this—racket of his.”

  Helene began to feel a cold, murderous rage rising in her brain, a rage directed against a tiny man who was already dead. She lit a cigarette very slowly and deliberately, and watched a curl of smoke rise toward the ceiling before she spoke again.

  “I can’t understand what he wanted to bother with it for,” she said at last. “He certainly didn’t need money.”

  “Lord no,” Annette said. “He didn’t need money. He had plenty of it. Lots more than he ever made as an entertainer, too.”

  “I wonder where he got it,” Helene said, hoping Annette knew. To her disappointment, the chorus girl shook her head.

  “I haven’t any idea. I just know he had it.”

  “Blackmail?” Helene suggested.

  Annette shook her head a second time. “No. I got my nerve up once and called him a blackmailer. He laughed that funny little laugh of his and said he’d never blackmailed anybody, ever. Funny, but I believed him. He said he was just spending his life getting back what had been taken away from him through no fault of his own.”

  “What the devil,” Helene said, her brows contracting. She was silent a minute, frowning. The midget. Where had he come from? What was his origin? Why was he so full of hate that—as Annette had said—it seemed to ooze out of him like sweat?

  Helene sighed, and put out her cigarette. “So you were just his tool in this marriage-and-annulment game, and you never got any of the dough.”

  “No,” Annette told her. “No, never. He just told me w
hat to do, and what would happen to me if I didn’t do it, and that was all there was to it.”

  “It wasn’t a bad racket,” Helene said thoughtfully. “Pick some rich young dope of terribly good family—making sure it would raise absolute hell with him if the news got out he’d married a chorus girl while on a bender. Soften him up with liquor, date him up with the girl, drag him around to a few bars with her, then probably give him enough knockout drops to make him stop thinking, while he was still able to move around and to say ‘I do’”—She paused. “It must have been knockout drops.”

  Annette nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what. Some special stuff he knew about.”

  “And then,” Helene went on, in the same meditative tone, “an obliging county clerk and justice of the peace. And the young man wakes up in the morning with a headache—two headaches.” She grinned at the girl. “Pardon me.”

  Annette Ginnis managed to grin back. “That’s all right. The real headache was that marriage certificate and wedding ring, and a good reliable witness.” She looked down at the tips of her embroidered mules. “All I had to do,” she added, “was to be there when he woke up. You understand.”

  “That,” Helene murmured, “and to offer to call a lawyer because you might have both made a big mistake. Am I right about that?”

  “You’re right.” The girl pushed back a strand of soft, babyish hair. “Then I just beat it, and the lawyer did the rest.”

  “A quick, quiet annulment,” Helene said, “and a big settlement. Which the midget got.” She scowled. “But he couldn’t have worked this all by himself—and yourself. He must have had help.” She went on thinking fast.

  “He did,” Annette said.

  “And another thing,” Helene continued. “Malone wasn’t the lawyer in this annulment racket. So why did you call for him at the crack of dawn this morning?”

  Annette looked up, her face white. “It was because the midget was murdered. And because I was afraid of what they might do to me. And I’d been out once with Mr. Malone and he was so nice, and he gave me a present of a lovely cigarette case, and I knew he was a good lawyer, so I sent for him.”

  There was a knock at the door. Annette gasped.

  “I’ll go,” Helene said. “If it’s anybody you don’t want to see, I’ll tell ’em to scram.” She opened the door a tiny crack. “Oh, Mrs. Goldsmith.”

  Mildred, Mrs. Lou Goldsmith, who’d kept her job in the Casino chorus even after marrying the slot-machine king. Even at this hour of the day she glittered, yellow hair that caught every reflection of the light, blue-violet eyes that were much too bright, diamond earrings that were downright dazzling, and fingernails that might have been bloody mirrors.

  There was a little gasp from Annette as she said, “Tell her to come in.”

  “Of course,” Helene said pleasantly. She closed the door after her.

  “Annette sent for me,” Mildred Goldsmith said, unfastening the silver fox. “She told me she wasn’t feeling well, poor little girl.”

  “I think she’s feeling much better now,” Helene said. “We’ve just been sitting here gossiping.”

  Mildred Goldsmith took off her tiny feathered hat and folded the veil carefully as she laid it down, tucked her gloves into the pocket of her coat before she hung it over a chair back, and took her cigarette case out of her purse. “But I’m sure she’s too tired to gossip any more now,” she said. “Aren’t you, dear?”

  Annette Ginnis nodded dumbly.

  “I thought you were,” the woman went on. “But you’ll feel much better after you’ve rested a bit.”

  Annette Ginnis looked at the new visitor for a moment, then turned to Helene. “It was kind of you to drop in. Do come and see me again. I hope you don’t mind—I do think Mildred is right. I need a rest.”

  “Sure I don’t mind,” Helene said cheerfully. “I’m always getting tossed out of places.” She fastened her furs and began pulling on her gloves. “So nice of you to come look after Annette, Mrs. Goldsmith.”

  “We all feel responsible for our little Annette,” Mrs. Goldsmith purred.

  “Well,” Helene said. She wished she could say, “Don’t worry about anything,” to Annette. But no, not with this woman present. Better not give away that Annette had told her a thing. She tried to flash the “Don’t worry” with her eyes. “Well, I’ll see you both later.” She wondered if it sounded as lame to them as it did to her.

  Halfway through the lobby she paused, thinking. Mildred Goldsmith. She fitted into this somewhere. But where? Annette Ginnis had sent for her. Or had she? Hardly the sort of woman one would send for in an emergency, for comfort. There was something unpleasantly snakelike about her.

  For a moment Helene considered going back, and simply refusing to leave. It would be pretty hard to do, though. Annette had practically asked her to go and leave them alone together. Besides, she’d be meeting Jake and Malone in a few minutes.

  After that moment of indecision, she went on out into the street, still frowning.

  The thing that really puzzled and worried her was the way Annette Ginnis had looked at the newcomer. Not as though Mildred Goldsmith was a friend who’d been sent for in a time of trouble. No, the little chorus girl had been afraid of her. Almost as much afraid as she’d been of the Big Midget.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You’ll be all right,” Malone said comfortingly. “Just as soon as you can keep some of this stuff down for a few minutes, you’ll feel fine.”

  He mixed a little more of the antidote his chemist friend had given him, and poured it between Ruth Rawlson’s grey and unprotesting lips. She moaned something indistinct about being poisoned, and lay still again.

  “I could stand being poisoned myself, right now,” Malone muttered to himself. He looked reflectively at the bottle of antidote and wondered about its alcoholic content. Looked pretty deadly, though. Suddenly his eye lighted on the bottle of rye he’d left beside Ruth Rawlson’s bed. It hadn’t been touched since he’d put it there the night before.

  “Indian giver,” he accused himself as he unscrewed the cap. He took down a good quarter of the remaining contents, patted himself on the chest, murmured, “Indian giver two times,” and took one more drink before putting the bottle back on the table.

  He’d stood outdoors in the April snow for at least fifteen minutes before going in, fingering the key he’d kept the night before, and staring at the wisp of greyish window curtain that hung limply over Ruth Rawlson’s window. Not that he was worried about his reception. That was something he knew how to handle. Rather—well, he was—wishing.

  Wishing that he was knocking at the door of that swanky apartment, using the famous ivory knocker carved with Ruth Rawlson’s more famous figure, carrying a spray of white orchids—Ruth Rawlson never wore any but white flowers—waiting to take her out to dinner, to supper, anywhere. He could do it, now. He was no longer the West-side hackie working his way through law school. He was John Joseph Malone, the great criminal lawyer. Of course, right now—today, for instance—he’d have to borrow the price of the orchids from one of his City Hall pals, but he could do it.

  He could, but now—This wasn’t the door with the famous ivory knocker: this was the basement of a cheap Walton street rooming house, and he had the key in his pocket.

  At last he’d knocked and, hearing no answer, gone in timidly, to find Ruth Rawlson just waking up, looking very white and disheveled, and feeling terrible.

  The little lawyer sighed, looked at the remaining rye in the bottle, finally finished it off, and said apologetically to the motionless form on the bed, “I’ll buy you another one, honest I will.”

  Fifteen minutes later Ruth Rawlson moaned again gently and opened her eyes.

  “How do you feel?” Malone asked anxiously.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, “and I’ll tell you.” She lifted her head experimentally, sat up very slowly. “I feel fine.” She blinked, rubbed one hand over her face, and pushed the hair back from her
forehead. Then suddenly, “Why, Mr. Malone! I don’t remember you bringing me home.”

  Malone opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, she went on, coyly,

  “Oh dear. I’m afraid I had just a drop too much last night, didn’t I? You know I don’t drink, usually—that is, not very much. A cocktail or two now and then. And you know how it is with a person like that. Just one too many—” she sighed. “I know you’ll forgive me, won’t you? I do hope I didn’t do anything”—she giggled—“too terrible.”

  “You didn’t have one too many,” Malone said cheerfully. “You were doped.”

  “Mister Malone!” Her eyes were wide. “How could you do such a thing!” Her voice wasn’t accusing, just surprised.

  “I didn’t,” the lawyer began indignantly.

  She was paying no attention. “Oh, Mr. Malone. Is there just one teensy-weensy little drinkie left in that bottle over there?”

  “No,” Malone said, feeling like a Judas.

  “Oh.” It was a sigh. “Still, we can always send out for some, can’t we?”

  “We can,” Malone said gallantly, “and we will. In fact, if I just run up to the corner—”

  By the time he’d returned from the corner, Ruth Rawlson had donned a faded rose negligee, straightened her hair, powdered her nose, and climbed back into bed. He poured her a drink, lighted her a cigarette, and sat down beside her.

  She beamed at him.

  “And now, my dear man,” she said sweetly, “do tell me why you doped me.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Malone said. “It—” He paused abruptly. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but this was going to be a damned awkward thing to explain to Ruth Rawlson, without giving anything away.

  “Oh my gracious!” Ruth Rawlson said. “Gangsters. They’re trying to kidnap me.”

  “No, no,” the lawyer said. “It was—well, like this. Someone there at the Casino was trying to play a silly joke on the midget, and put dope in the bottle of whiskey on his dressing table. Luckily we found out about it in time. But not before someone—and we found out it was you—had gotten some of it.” He mopped his brow with a damp, wrinkled handkerchief, lit a cigar, and hoped he’d never have to explain that story in a courtroom.