Die, Little Goose: A Bret Hardin Mystery. David Alexander
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appoint an attorney to represent me without charge.”
“Land is representing you,” Bart said curtly. “I won enough in the floater tonight to afford his retainer.”
“You’re a good man, Bart,” Lennox said. “But I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you spend a lot of money for my defense. It isn’t worth it. My old life can’t be of much value now. There’s too little left of it.”
Hardin turned his back to keep Lennox from seeing his face. He said, “Nuts. Just remember to keep your chin up, that’s all I ask of you. You told me once that Rostand’s Cyrano was your favorite play. Act the part of Cyrano and remember your unblemished plume.”
Bart walked hurriedly from the big room. In the hallway he encountered Sandrean, the Mexican magician who was known professionally as El Diablo. The guard had just ushered him through the door. Sandrean was a dumpy, swarthy little man in his forties. He had none of the leanness and glib suavity that is usually associated with prestidigitators. To compensate for his unimpressive appearance and to justify his stage name, he had grown a Dali antenna of a mustache with waxed points and had supplemented it with arrowhead chin whiskers. Still he resembled a jolly, well-fed friar far more than he resembled Mephistopheles.
Cora Mattingly was still playing the role of tragic heroine. Her tones were sepulchral as she related the story of the murder to her roomer. Sandrean’s reaction to the news was startling.
A stricken look came into his face and he spoke softly, as if he were addressing some person in the shadows of the hallway. “I knew it would happen,” he said. “Something terrible was certain to occur. It is all my fault.”
“What do you mean?” the white-haired detective asked quickly.
“The Feathered Serpent,” the magician said. “It is because of the Feathered Serpent that she died.”
The precinct man said, “What’s this about feathers?”
“The Feathered Serpent Illusion,” El Diablo replied, as if he were still addressing some unseen presence. “I should have known there would be a horrible vengeance for my sacrilege. The old gods are mighty ones. They are not to be mocked. But I went ahead. The Music Hall was a great opportunity for me and I wanted to be impressive, you see, so I invented the new illusion, the Illusion of the Feathered Serpent. I did not wish to perform only the old tricks. I worked a long while to perfect the new illusion. Instead of merely causing rosebushes to grow in thin air, I produced the Feathered Serpent from a receptacle no larger than a matchbox. It was eight feet in length and thick as a fire hose and it was covered with rainbow feathers like a peacock. Even the great Blackstone never produced so ambitious a mechanical illusion. And now the poor, dear little Daphne has died because of me.”
The detective looked annoyed. He said, “Just what the hell are you trying to tell us, mister?”
“I come from the Mexican state of Yucatán,” Sandrean explained. “There is the blood of proud and ancient peoples in me. The Mayans and the Toltecs and the Aztecs. They had a mighty god, the Feathered Serpent. Some knew him as Quetzalcoatl and others called him Kukulcán. When I produced his effigy I made a caricature of it for the amusement of the audience. I gave it a face as foolish as the face of the wooden dummy that my friend Montgomery uses in his act. I made it writhe and wriggle obscenely like a fan dancer. I caused the audience to hoot with laughter at my people’s ancient god. And now death and murder have struck the house I live in.”
Mrs. Mattingly dropped the role of Lady Macbeth and became the practical landlady again. “Oh, quit talking nonsense!” she said.
The pallid dancer, Elsa Travers, had come into the hall. She said, “It is not nonsense. Sandrean is right. There are many ancient mysteries we do not understand.”
“You and your astrology and tea leaves and dream books,” Mrs. Mattingly said disparagingly. “It’s as silly to think that Sandrean’s trick caused Daphne’s death as it is for the police to believe James Lennox killed her.”
Romano had come down the stairs. Bart nodded to him and started for the door. The policeman looked to Romano for confirmation before he let Bart pass.
There was a dim light burning now in the basement shop of the theatrical costumer. A man who wore a sports shirt and Bermuda shorts stood just inside the open doorway of the English basement. He was staring up curiously at the policeman at the door. He called to Bart, “Hey, mister! What happened in there tonight? I just saw them carry a body out.”
On an impulse, Bart turned and descended the two steps to the shop. The man stood aside politely and motioned him inside. Bart walked through the door. The place was a confusion of colorful costumes of many periods of fashion. From the wall, huge carnival masks grimaced at Hardin.
Hardin said, “There was a murder upstairs tonight. Didn’t you know that?”
“My God, no! They didn’t kill old Mrs. Mattingly, did they?”
“A crippled girl was killed. A former dancer named Daphne Temple.”
“That’s awful,” the shop proprietor said. “I knew the poor girl slightly. Saw her dance many a time before her accident. She was wonderful. Who killed her? Do they know?”
“They’re trying to blame it on an old actor who works for me now. Jim Lennox. I’m Bart Hardin of the Broadway Times, and old Jim has been acting as a kind of secretary for me.”
The costumer said, “That’s absurd. I know old Jim well. He wouldn’t harm a fly. He comes down here often and we cut up touches about Broadway in the old days. Just the other night he put that big plumed hat over there on his head and gave me a scene from Cyrano. He’s still got what it takes. By the way, my name is Trenchard. Dick Trenchard.”
“Glad to know you,” Bart said. “I hope that plume on the hat isn’t a goose feather. It might make the cops more suspicious. They found goose feathers around the girl’s body.”
“Goose feather? Of course not. It’s an ostrich plume. They’re darned hard to come by nowadays.”
“Has your shop been open all evening?” Bart asked. “I thought it was dark when I went by here a little while ago.”
“It was,” Trenchard said. “I worked tonight on a consignment for a summer theatre up in Sharon, Connecticut, but I locked up a little before ten o’clock. Then I remembered something I’d forgotten to put on the invoice. So I came back just a few minutes ago, just when they were taking the body out.”
“Did you look outside at all while you were working here earlier?” Bart asked.
“I may have gone out for a breath of air a time or two. But I didn’t see anybody until I was leaving at a few minutes to ten, I guess it was. I saw someone go in then. It was just one of the roomers, though. That dumpy little Mexican magician. He was all dressed up in evening clothes.”
“Did you see him come out again?”
“No. I wasn’t here. I saw him as I was closing up the shop.”
Bart started for the door. He did not suggest that Trenchard inform the police of Sandrean’s visit to the house.
“So long,” Bart said over his shoulder as he left the shop.
He found a cab and directed the driver to Marty Land’s private town house on East Sixtieth near Madison. It was after midnight now, but there was no trace of a breeze and the city was a great stone oven.
Bart knew the Broadway Mouthpiece would be in town. He was defending the sensational case of a young socialite playboy who had got himself mixed up in the call-girl business. There was no assurance Land would be home, of course. Marty was a rounder and a night owl.
Land’s house was a narrow, elegant, three-storied structure wedged in between two tall buildings. Marty’s man, properly attired despite the heat and the hour, answered the doorbell. Bart gave his name and was relieved to learn that the attorney was home.
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