Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

pitcher show back home on bank night when all them dames comes in from the factories.”

“Don’t you never think o’ nuthin’ but dames? Jeses, Slim.”

“Mebbe you ketch yerself a mermaid, eh, Slim?”

“That’s a laugh. Get himself a piece of fishtail!”

“Pipe down, you guys! You’re using up the air!”

Silence, and blackness, and breathing, and carbon monoxide creeping up on men about to die.

“Jeses. All you hear about in the Navy is how good them bastards in the Coast Guard is at rescues. They must be tryin’ to gnaw their way through!”

The Lieutenant whispering: —

“—At the Gardners’ party at New London, Skipper. You must remember her.”

“There were twenty girls there.”

“She wore that white swim suit with the red trim and took a double somersault from the high board. Susan Rowland.”

“I remember that dive all right. She had a brother there, didn’t she? Surly cuss that played contract so well.”

“That’s the one. Well—”

A plaintive voice saying: —

“What’s the matter with Denny and that mouth organ? God knows it’s the only time I’ve ever wanted to hear him play.”

“He’s playin’ a harp, Cupie, in the other half of this can.”

“Jeses. I’ve seen pitchers of guys like us using torpedo tubes.”

“Pipe down, you! You’re using up the air. We’ve been into all that crap about tubes before. The Coast Guard’ll come through.”

“And so will the Marines.”

“You tell ’em, Sandy. We will find the streets all guarded by United States Marines.”

“What streets?”

“Heaven’s scenes, the song says.”

“The song stinks. We ain’t goin’ to heaven no-how. We’re goin’ to hell in a hand basket.”

“A sea casket!”

“Pipe down, you guys! You’re using up the air!”

The Lieutenant whispering: —

“—And the last time I saw her was the night before we went away. She’s sweet, Skipper. God! There’s something about a girl like that that makes a man feel good all through.”

“She’s beautiful, all right, Mac, but I think she’s older than you.”

“It’s the way she wears her hair. Funny thing, I had a letter from her just before we put out yesterday—”

“Yesterday, Mac?”

“Waiting for me at the base.”

“I’ll say it’s funny. How did she know where to send it? Neither of us knew where we were going to be.”

“She must have guessed, Skipper. Here, smell it. It reminds me of her hair.”

Heavy note paper crackling in the darkness. Carbon monoxide creeping up on seventeen doomed men. The scent of violets faint in the fetid air.

3

Inspector Larry Davis of the New York Homicide Squad chewed reflectively on a toothpick. Supporting himself on his elbows, with his back against the side of Paul Gerente’s grand piano, he kept moving his head in tiny jerks, watching the progress of Schnucke and her master about the living room.

Sunk down in a large easy chair, Sergeant Aloysius Archer was nervously trying to outstare Dreist. He had heard somewhere that dogs would turn away if you looked at them hard enough. It wasn’t working out with Dreist. The Captain’s police dog glared back at him unwaveringly from a point of vantage on the floor.

Under Schnucke’s guidance, Maclain turned at right angles at the end of a divan and skirted it slowly. In passing, he brushed the cushions lightly with his hand. He turned again at the other end and stopped close beside the spot where Gerente’s body had lain on the floor.

In the chair, Sergeant Archer started a yawn, felt that Dreist’s glance was unfriendly, and choked off his yawn halfway.

“Look, Captain,” he began pleadingly. “The guy’s confessed, hasn’t he? We’ve got his prints on a poker. We’re rounding up a gal, who saw the whole thing. This egg Cameron’s already on his way to headquarters. Let’s go home. Be a pal and call this leg chewer off of me.”

“What’s your hurry, Sergeant?” A slight snip sounded as Inspector Davis broke the toothpick between his fingers. “We’ve watched him pace off every foot of this two-room-and-bath apartment for an hour and handle everything from bed to bottles, until the edges are worn off. I want to find out what the hell he’s looking for!”

Maclain released Schnucke’s brace and clasped his hands behind him. “So you’ve reached the stage of snapping toothpicks, eh, Inspector? It’s been quite a while since I heard that noise. It’s nice to meet you boys again.”

Davis said: —

“Yeah, it’s swell. Sometime we simply must have tea together—just Archer, and you and I. What the hell are you looking for?”

“Sit down, Inspector,” Maclain urged. “You invariably get sarcastic when you’re on your feet too long. I’ve already found you something, haven’t I? What about that secret drawer?”

“With nothing in it,” said Archer. “Yet how you found it still beats me.”

“I found it, Sergeant, because unutilized space in the center of a desk is an inconsistency. Since I’m blind, I’ve had to train my other senses to be sensitive to inconsistencies. As a matter of fact, one brought me here tonight.”

“That sounds just ducky, like everything you say, Captain—and it still leaves me up in a tree.”

“Well, climb a few branches higher and keep your trap shut for a minute.”

The Inspector left his place by the piano and settled himself on the divan. “Just what did bring you here tonight, Captain Maclain? You’re beginning to interest me.”

“I’m very glad.” The Captain smiled. “That’s a difficult thing to do. Countless thousands of innocent people are being murdered in Europe every day, Davis. When—”

“What’s that got to do with us?” the Inspector broke in.

“Too much, unfortunately.” The Captain’s expressive voice was grim. “When murder becomes a commonplace—when the world begins to accept it with a shrug—then, God save us, the Homicide Squad needs help, Inspector, and I do too.”

Dreist growled at the timbre of his master’s words. The Sergeant shifted his honest bulk in the chair. “How long had you known this fellow Gerente, Captain?”

“I knew him only by hearsay, Sergeant. Paul Gerente was working for G-2.”

“The Intelligence Department,” Davis muttered. “Hell’s broth, Maclain, what are we mixed up in now?”

“Something so deep that I can’t even tell the whole of the truth to you.