Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist (The Lost Classics Book 14) Page 13

  “Oh,” cried Galloway, “that’s nothing. What a man is in Florida is no sign at all of what he was where he came from. One of the biggest racetrack men in Miami was once an eminent Episcopal minister in Connecticut. And then, on the other hand, I know a Chicago gangster who is trying to reform our school system. He makes speeches about it and says the children of Florida ought to have the same chance to make good men and women as the children of Chicago.”

  “Well, at any rate,” pondered Poggioli, “these nail guards give Chin Lee a

  background where one is likely to run across any sort of motive. Why was he in hiding? Was this a murder of revenge? If so, why should the man save the body? Was it the riddance of an heir to some large Chinese estate? In that instance the murderer might want to produce the body somewhere to prove his victim is dead.”

  “Oh, you’re giving up the woman theory?”

  “No, not at all; but if he has been a very wealthy man, it introduces other possibilities. Look here; I would really like to find the body. Suppose we have over the sheriff and his hounds?” The psychologist glanced at his host interrogatively.

  Galloway was tempted.

  “Tell you what I’ll do,” he offered. “If you’ll guarantee to me that Chin Lee was a millionaire and that somebody murdered him while he was at work in the company’s kitchen, by George, I’ll not only agree to the bloodhounds, but I’ll telephone for the brightest newspaper reporters in Miami to fly over here and help you on the case. I’ll do that if he’s rich.”

  “Not if he has been rich?”

  “No; he’s got to be rich right now. There’s no news value in the murder of a man who has been rich—at least not in Florida after the boom.”

  “But look at it this way,” said Poggioli. “Suppose I showed you a spot on the ground bearing traces of petroleum; wouldn’t you be willing to sink a well there, even if I couldn’t absolutely guarantee that you would strike a gusher?”

  The superintendent of the mill company shook his head.

  “Not now. Five years ago, Mr. Poggioli, I’d have backed you to the limit if I had caught a whiff of oil, but since the boom I wouldn’t put a nickel into a speculation of any kind unless it was guaranteed by the United States Treasury and insured by Lloyds.”

  The scientist shrugged.

  “Well, all right. It’s just that sort of psychology that is keeping this depression functioning, Galloway; but you fellows refuse to see it. I do wish I could find the body and examine it. It would be more revealing than these bags.”

  “I see that,” agreed the superintendent, “and I’m really sorry I am not in a position to do anything about it.”

  This apology of the superintendent for not being able to assist in capturing the murderer of any cook’s helper with a rating of less than AA1 in Bradstreet, was interrupted by a shadow falling over the group.

  The negro Sam glanced about, gave a sort of grunt as if someone had struck him violently in the stomach, and abruptly scrambled up into the top bunk.

  Galloway moved back from the valise and gave an odd kind of laugh.

  “Well, I’ll be damned—Chin Lee!” he exclaimed. “We thought you were dead. This damn fool, Sam, here—” He nodded angrily at the pop eyed black man in the upper bunk.

  “Me no dead,” said Chin Lee. “Me fall, get hurt, wake up by me by, come back klitchen.”

  Galloway was outraged.

  “Sam, you black ignoramus, you’re a thunder of a night watchman! Run off and leave a wounded man lying on the dock!”

  “He was daid!” cried Sam. “Yo’ sho’ was daid, Chin Lee, wid a great big hole in yo’ haid!”

  “Me pull out big fish,” explained the cook’s helper simply. “Foot slip, fall, hit head, by me by wake up again.”

  The head of the cook’s boy was tied up with a great bandage.

  “Well, Chin Lee,” said Galloway, “sorry we mussed up your things.”

  “Allee lite,” rattled the Chinese. “Me dead, somebody mus’ open bag.”

  “That’s true. Well, we’re glad you’re no deader than you are.”

  Chin Lee lifted a hand to his bandage. “Big bump—feel allee lite now.”

  The negro climbed down from his bunk and the visitors were about to go. “Why did you come here, Chin Lee?” inquired Poggioli. “Skaggs send you down?”

  “You say you look at my bunk. Me come say bunk good bunk.”

  “You heard us talking as we came through the kitchen?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing at that time?”

  “Fix potato. Mis’ Skaggs say fix potato go Tampa.”

  “I see. When do you go?”

  “On ’leven.”

  The psychologist glanced at his watch.

  “That isn’t far off. We’d better go back and let you finish.”

  The four men moved out of the shack for the kitchen. In the big screened shed, the two negro helpers were now pouring bread dough in an electric kneading machine. “How do you fix the potatoes to go back to Tampa?” Poggioli inquired of the Chinese.

  “Fill up hamper, put him in ice box till go,” explained Chin Lee.

  He led the way to the potato bin and resumed the simple business of filling a split basket with potatoes. The criminologist watched the work for a few moments, and a little later the white men set off for the superintendent’s bungalow.

  On the way back Galloway fell to bemeaning Sam for cowardice—too cowardly to walk up to a man on the dock and see whether he was dead or not.

  “He sho was daid then, Mist’ Jim; he ain’t now, but he was then.”

  “Oh, you’re not only a coward, you’re an imbecile!”

  “Don’t be too hard on Sam,” soothed the criminologist. “It seems to me there are some very odd things about Chin Lee’s resuscitation.”

  “What’s that?” inquired the superintendent sharply.

  “Well, for instance—where did he get his head bound up?”

  “In the kitchen, I suppose. Why?”

  “Then why didn’t he leave a trail of drops from the dock to the kitchen?”

  “His head probably had stopped bleeding by that time.”

  “But if it were an arterial cut, wouldn’t it have broken out again when he got up?”

  “Well—it didn’t do it.”

  “Apparently not,” agreed the psychologist.

  The two men entered the superintendent’s garden and passed under the bluegreen leaves and yellow melons of a papaya shrub.

  “It’s odd,” went on the scientist, “after such a wound, he goes right back to work sorting out samples of spoiled potatoes and, apparently, he is going to Tampa on the eleven o’clock just as he had planned.”

  “I don’t suppose he was hurt as badly as Sam thought.”

  “That’s possible, too,” admitted the psychologist. He walked on a space and then said, “There are two things about the way Chin Lee sorted out those potatoes that seemed very odd to me!”

  “And just what were they?” inquired the superintendent, beginning to feel faintly ironic about his guest’s finical logic.

  “One thing was, his hands were perfectly steady.”

  “You mean if he had just been knocked out, he should have been shaky?”

  “I think so; don’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. He may have extraordinary recuperative powers.”

  “All right, I agree to that temporarily. Now how do you explain this final contradiction? Chin Lee picked up his sample potatoes and put them in the hamper in a very ordinary manner—in fact, just as you or I or Sam would have done it.”

  Galloway looked at his guest and then broke out laughing.

  “Really, Professor, is that a matter for suspicion—filling a hamper with potatoes in an ordinary manner?”

  “Certainly!” said the scientist tartly. “If a man has spent years and much care in growing long and delicate fingernails, don’t you know he would have formed motor habits to protect those nails
? He would have picked up the potatoes with fingers and thumbs held straight, and not bent at the knuckles in the usual manner.”

  The superintendent was a little bewildered at this. “Look here, where is all this getting us, Mr. Poggioli?”

  “Well, all these slight contradictions mean very little taken by themselves; but put together they amount to a great deal. However, I think they might be construed logically enough, if Sam’s first diagnosis had been correct.”

  “Sam’s first—what was Sam’s first diagnosis?”

  “That Chin Lee was dead.”

  Black Sam began to nod.

  “Boss, now yo’re shoutin’—you sho is shoutin’.” Galloway smiled incredulously.

  “Look here, what sort of a fellow are you anyway? When Sam came and told you Chin Lee was dead, you looked around the dock and decided if Chin Lee wasn’t killed by a big strong woman, then he wasn’t dead at all. Well, that was a good guess. You were right—Chin Lee turns up alive. But now, by George, you look at Chin Lee alive, sitting there picking up potatoes, and decide he must be dead. You are the hardest man to get to agree with anybody I ever saw. You won’t even agree with yourself.”

  The psychologist disregarded this complaint, but after a moment asked gravely—

  “Why is it so necessary to send a hamper of spoiled potatoes back to Tampa today?”

  “It isn’t necessary at all so far as the potatoes are concerned, but Chin Lee has to go anyway, so Erb might as well send the potatoes along.”

  “What does he have to go after?”

  “For supplies for the Mayaguez. She is expected in tonight, and Skaggs must deliver her a lot of green groceries and such-like stuff. As I told you, he’s a ship’s chandler in a small way.”

  The psychologist nodded with a sharpening of attention. “When was the last Cuban boat in?” he inquired quickly.

  “Why, I think the Ponce pulled out of here last night. Why?”

  “Nothing, nothing; I was just curious . . . By the by, Mr. Galloway, I’m afraid I’m going to have to start home on the eleven o’clock train, if you don’t mind my cutting my visit short a trifle.”

  The superintendent began the usual protest, then followed Poggioli up to his room and stood talking while his guest packed his personal belongings.

  A few minutes later the two men got into the superintendent’s car and set off. When they came in sight of the station, Poggioli saw a solitary figure on the platform standing beside a large basket. Galloway saw him too. “Yonder’s Chin Lee with his potatoes—very faithful fellow.”

  A minute or two later they drove up to the station and entered the waiting room. At the office window, instead of purchasing transportation, Poggioli signaled the agent to him and asked sotto voce—

  “That Chinaman on the platform—did he pay for his ticket in American gold?” The agent looked at the criminologist and said that he had.

  The investigator thanked him and turned to the outer platform. As the two men walked out, Galloway asked curiously—

  “Why did you put such a question as that, Mr. Poggioli?”

  “I wanted to see if your kitchen boy was just over from Cuba.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yes.”

  “How does his paying for a ticket in gold show that?”

  “Because a great deal of American gold is used in Cuba, while here in Everglades you pay off your men in bills.”

  “But Chin Lee hasn’t been to Cuba. He must have had some gold of his own.”

  “Yes, but he wouldn’t have spent it if he had had anything else. People don’t spend gold when they can avoid it. No, he’s just over from Cuba. He arrived on the Ponce last night and now he’s on his way to New York.”

  Galloway stared at his companion, bewildered.

  “Look here, what do you mean? Isn’t that my Chin Lee standing there?”

  “That is your present Chin Lee. You’ll have another tonight when the Ponce comes in; but the Chin Lee you are thinking about is dead.”

  “Poggioli,” said the superintendent in a shocked tone, “you’re crazy!”

  The criminologist said nothing more; the two men walked out on the platform and joined the kitchen boy. Poggioli placed a hand on the rim of the hamper.

  “Boy,” he asked in a casual tone, “why did you shoot Chin Lee?” The yellow man looked at his questioner with an expressionless face. “Me Chin Lee.”

  Poggioli nodded. “I know you are now; you are one of a long line of Chin Lees, but why did you shoot the Chin Lee we had here yesterday? Why didn’t you let him go on to New York, or Chicago, in his turn?”

  The man with the bandaged head said blankly: “No savvy. Me Chin Lee.”

  The scientist began throwing the decayed potatoes carelessly across the track. They were still cold from the ice.

  “If you don’t savvy now, you will in a minute or two.” He began scooping out handfuls of the tubers. The Chinaman watched the performance for a few moments, then said casually—

  “Me savvy.”

  “I thought you would. Now, why did you kill Chin Lee?”

  “Him likee this,” said the kitchen boy impassively. “Some Chinaman velly bad man—big general—fight Chinese government—velly bad—get run out of country. Try to come back, deserve die . . .” The Chinaman hesitated.

  “That’s all good and well,” agreed the psychologist, “but why didn’t you shove him off the dock when you had the chance? Why are you lugging him around in that hamper of spoiled potatoes?”

  The Chinese lifted a brow as if he had no hope of making his questioner understand.

  “After allee, Chin Lee Chinaman. Send him back to own country to sleep. No let him come to his fathers from land of barbarian.”

  The psychologist nodded.

  “Simple enough. Odd, I didn’t think of that myself.” Galloway interposed:

  “What in the thunder is all this about! Chin Lee dead, and in that hamper?”

  “Skaggs is smuggling Chinese into this country from Cuba, and one of them happened to be after the man just before him. That’s all there is to it. And by the way, it also explains why you were never able to recognize one of your collective kitchen boys when you saw a sample of him before your eyes.”

  BULLETS

  At the door of Munro’s General Merchandise store in La Belle, Florida, Sawyer, the deputy sheriff, stopped an old negro woman and the white man who followed her.

  “You can’t come in,” he explained patiently. “They’re holding an inquest in here.” The old crone quavered out that she knew it, that she was bringing in Slewfoot’s lawyer.

  The deputy looked at the well-dressed white man disapprovingly.

  “I hope you’re not stoopin’ to defend a nigger cowhand that shot his own boss?”

  “No, I’m neither defending nor prosecuting,” assured the stranger.

  “You have to do one or t’other if you’re a lawyer.”

  “I’m not a lawyer, I’m a psychologist. I told this old woman if her son were guilty, my services would simply assure his conviction, that I would be a much greater danger for him than a jury itself.”

  The officer frowned and looked at the stranger as if he had not heard him aright. “A psychologist,” he repeated vaguely. “I don’t exactly see how a psychologist would come in on a murder investigation.”

  “I’m afraid,” snapped the stranger in Yankee impatience, “that I can’t explain to you the connection between murder and psychology in two words.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” drawled the Florida man leisurely. “Take four words if you need ’em—take as many as you want. You ain’t goin’ to git in noway, so you’ve got all the time there is to tell me what you would do if you could git in.”

  The man gave the faint grin of a rustic who feels that he has put a city man in his place.

  The psychologist half turned away, but the old woman began pleading:

  “Oh, Mas’ Poggioli, please don’ fly off de han’l’ an’ lea
ve Slewfoot by hese’f. Please tell Mistuh Sawyah whut you gwi’ do inside fuh my po’ boy Slewfoot.”

  The well-groomed gentleman controlled his temper, studied the guard for a moment as if reducing his thoughts to words sufficiently simple for the fellow to understand.

  “Let me see. Murder—murder is a physical action impelled by some motive or motives, is it not?”

  The deputy sheriff of Hendry County blinked his eyes.

  “I mean,” said the psychologist impatiently, “if one man kills another he has a reason for doing it, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” ejaculated the guard, suddenly seeing that this was what the first sentence meant.

  “Very well; when you put a thought into action, you leave traces of your motive in every object you have touched; to choose a musical analogy, shall I say that every detail of your instrumentation reflects the dominant chord of your purpose—do you know what I’m talking about?”

  The deputy scratched his head. “Not yet.”

  “Tchk! Tchk! Listen: When you do anything, your motive impresses itself on everything you touch. You go through an action such as this murder, say. Very well; every trace you leave points to your mood, your motive and your identity as plainly as a trail of torn paper. There is no way to avoid it.”

  The deputy became somewhat interested in what, up to this point, he had considered a meaningless jargon.

  “Couldn’t a man watch out an’ hide his trail?” he inquired shrewdly. Mr. Poggioli dropped his hands hopelessly.

  “Don’t you see what an absurdity your proposition involves? When you say ‘watch out,’ you mean ‘take thought.’ That introduces a second motive. This second motive produces results in its turn which are just as easily read as the first. In other words, no matter how many times a man goes over his own trail, putting out his own tracks, he must finally leave his last footprints quite open to view. Now, surely, you understand that.”

  Mr. Sawyer was astonished to catch a ray of light in the limbus of the psychologist’s reasoning.

  “Well, now, I’ll be darned,” he ejaculated. “That does sound reasonable. A man couldn’t put out his own tracks, could he, because he’d make some more when he went back to put ’em out.” He pulled at his chin. “Yes, sir, that’s plumb reasonable.”