The Case of the Petrified Man (26 page)

She nodded. “I watched them do it last night.”

“Can you help me do it to myself? Only I want to look real.”

“You want to look like a Negro boy?”

I shook my head; held up Martha’s clean and folded nightdress.
“I want to look like a particular Negro girl; one who has been frightened out of her bed in the dead of night.”

Belle’s eyes grew even wider. “You want to dress up as a Negro
girl
?”

“Yes,” I said. “Remember I told you how a Detective must wear Disguises sometimes?”

She nodded.

“Well, I hope to entrap the man who killed Short Sally in so doing. Will you help me?”

“You bet!” she said. “I will enjoy helping you get yourself up as a poor little black girl. Follow me.”

I TOLD BELLE ABOUT MARTHA’S IDEA
of mixing burnt cork with some sort of cream those theater people use. This made the color look less like boot polish. As she helped me stain my face and hands, I told her about my investigation & my plan. She thought it very bold & clever.

At one point she asked me where Martha was hiding but I had learned not to trust Belle farther than I could throw her, so I replied, “She is in a Safe Haven.”

Belle found me some big old shoes which just about fit. The sole-leather of one of them flapped like a dog’s tongue in hot weather, but I thought
they suited the disguise. Those shoes also meant I did not have to black my bare feet.

Finally, Belle put Martha’s night bonnet on me and stood back to look me up and down.

“Well?” I said. “How do I look?”

“Try it without the wig,” she said. “Negro girls don’t have hair like that.”

I took off the wig with its swinging black ringlets & put Martha’s cotton night bonnet back on.

“Dang!” she said. “If I did not know it was you, I would not have known it was you.” She took my shoulders and turned me to face a full-length mirror. “See for yourself.”

There in the mirror stood a poor little Negro girl in a white nightdress & bonnet & clumping old shoes.

The girl in the mirror was standing upright, with square shoulders & arms hanging down. Martha had spent an hour coaching me on how to stand. I clasped my hands together in front of my chest & hunched my shoulders & pulled my head in like Martha told me she did when she was afraid.

“P.K., that is bully!” cried Belle, clapping her hands. “That is even better than perfect. Where are you going now? I want to see this.”

I said, “I am going up to Currie’s Auction House up on Thirteen North B Street. Mr. William Morris Stewart should have got the word out by now.”

“What word?”

“That someone witnessed Short Sally’s brutal murder and that they will publicly name the Killer immediately following the auction of Sally’s goods.”

“Well, come on then!” Belle quickly pinned up her hair & put on the same feathered hat she had been wearing the first time I saw her.

“Wait,” I said. “I need another disguise.”

“What do you mean?” She had her hands on her hips. “We just spent half an hour getting you to look like Martha.”

“And the Killer will be on the lookout for her,” I said. “If he kills me on the way to the auction house I will not have a chance to publicly denounce him.”

“Plus you will be dead,” she pointed out.

I nodded. “I need way of getting inside Currie’s without him spotting me,” I said. “I need a Trojan Horse.”

She said, “You want to ride up there on a horse? It is only a block away.”

I pointed at a medium-sized wardrobe with costumes hung in it. “No. I want to ride up there in that wardrobe.”

“What?”

“I will hide in there and you hire a couple of men to haul it up to Currie’s. Pretend you are bringing it to auction.” I pulled a coin out of my medicine bag. “You can use this to pay them.”

“Oh!” she cried. “What a bully idea! We can take it right up to the auction room and nobody will suspect.”

So it was that a short time later I found myself being transported in the camphor-scented darkness of a pinewood wardrobe up to Currie’s auction house.

I was jostled as the two men deposited my conveyance on the ground and I heard the deep voice of a man saying, “Sorry, miss, but they is having an auction at the moment and it is busier than a beehive with a bear outside.”

“Will you bend down?” came Belle’s voice, “so that I may whisper in your ear?”

A moment later I heard the deep-voiced man say, “Follow me, miss!”

Once again I was heaved up and jounced and jostled. I could hear footsteps on wooden stairs and I heard Belle’s voice say, “Easy there!” and then, “Bring it in here,” and finally, “That will do fine, right there.”

The footsteps of my porters receded and I heard the voice of an auctioneer, loud but muffled through the doors of the wardrobe.

A moment later one of the doors squeaked open and Belle’s whispered voice said, “Come on out. It is safe.”

I emerged into a dim area cluttered with furniture, boxes and other such things. I could hear the auctioneer’s voice clearly now. He was just up ahead. We were right on stage!

Belle was crouched down behind a black walnut rolltop desk with her finger in front of her lips.

Then she beckoned me and I followed her through a forest of furniture towards the auctioneer’s rapid voice.

“Eight-fifty, eight-fifty, eight-fifty, NINE!” cried the auctioneer.

He was a man in a top hat and blue-velvet frock coat standing behind a podium. He had a wooden mallet & he looked very high-tone.

“Nine, going once,” he said. And then, “I have nine-fifty!”

We both moved forward at a crouch. Belle’s hoop skirt kept getting shmooshed so I led the way to a heavy walnut dresser with a mirror on top. There was about a one-inch
crack between the top of the dresser and the mirror. We both brought our faces closer to that long & narrow spy hole.

“Nine-fifty, nine-fifty, nine-fifty, TEN!” The auctioneer’s voice was very loud.

Peeking through the crack, I saw a big bright room with two big west-facing windows showing buildings across the street and the steep side of Mount Davidson. The auction room was three quarters full, with about equal parts men & women. Belle and I were up on a stage near the auctioneer so the audience’s faces were gazing up at us, or rather the furniture we were hiding behind. That meant I could identify lots of people I knew.

“Ten! Ten! Ten!” said the auctioneer. “Ten-fifty! ’Leven! ’Leven-fifty!”

I saw Big Gussie & her four Girls. Mrs. Zoe Brown was standing with them, dressed in black with a black-feathered hat to match.

I saw my Lawyer, Mr. William Morris Stewart. He was hard to miss as he stood about a head taller than anyone else.

“’Leven-fifty, ’leven-fifty, ’leven-fifty, TWELVE!”

I saw four of the men from my List of Suspects:

Mr. Isaiah Coffin, photographer.

The Rev. C.V. Anthony, Methodist pastor.

Mr. Absalom Smith, actor & punster.

And Langford Farner Peel, shootist.

One of them looked different than he usually did because he was
in disguise
, but I knew him by his pipe & tobacco, and by his eyebrows.

He was the Killer.

THE AUCTIONEER WAS SAYING
something but I was not listening to him.

I was watching the Killer. He was disguised as a miner, with a long linen duster coat over a red flannel shirt, pantaloons tucked into boots, a small slouch hat and a big black fake beard. He had his hand in the pocket of his duster coat & he seemed to be looking right in my direction!

I thought, “Surely he cannot see me in the shadows back here.”

Then I thought, “He will not dare shoot me in front of a hundred people. He is a coward and a poltroon.”

Just to be safe, I started to sink back down behind the dresser.

BANG!

I nearly jumped out of my skin as the auctioneer brought down his gavel. “Sold!” he cried. “To Miss Gertrude Holmes for twelve dollars! One hardwood whatnot.”

That bang had made me jump and the auctioneer must have seen the movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head & for the first time he noticed me & Belle scrouched down behind the black walnut chest of drawers. His eyes got wider. Belle put a lace-gloved finger to her lips & then pointed to me in my Martha-disguise.

The auctioneer gave us a very slight nod & then turned back to the audience. I reckoned he was Mr. J.C. Currie, the proprietor of the auction house, whom my Lawyer had promised to brief about our plan.

“That completes the sale of the estate of Miss Sally Sampson,” said Mr. J.C. Currie in his carrying voice. “Like many of us, she was not perfect, but she was brave and beloved of many.”

“What is this,” came a man’s Southern-accented voice, “an auction or a eulogy?”

There was a smattering of laughter, then some women hushed him.

Mr. Currie bowed his head until people were quiet. “I know you were all saddened to hear of the untimely demise of Sally Sampson last week, of her brutal murder.”

Some people nodded. I heard men’s voices and women whispering, too.

“You might have heard the rumor,” said Mr. Currie in his auctioneer’s voice, “that there was a witness to this dastardly crime.”

Some people gasped and their voices grew louder.

Mr. Currie banged his gavel to obtain silence. “Some of you might have heard the rumor that Miss Sally Sampson’s serving girl was an Eye Witness to the crime. Or you might have seen the broadsheet in the windows of some local businesses.”

As Mr. Currie held up one of these notices, there came another big gasp. The notice read as follows:

My lawyer & I had dashed off half a dozen that morning and put them in our own windows & anywhere else we thought the suspect might see them. The presence of the Killer showed that our plan had worked.

“Until now,” said Mr. Currie in his big auctioneer’s voice, “that girl has been in hiding, in fear of her life, but she is now willing to come forward and reveal who committed the dastardly crime.”

Everybody said, “Oh!” & all heads turned to the door at the side of the auction room. The Killer looked in that direction, too.

Then all heads swiveled back as I clumped out onto the stage in my oversized shoes. Pretending to be a frightened
girl about to expose a Killer was not too hard as a man intent on murder stood only a few feet away. I had assured Martha he would not try anything in a public place but now I was not so sure. I made my knees knock together and pretended to tremble and you can bet I kept my head down.

“Oh!” came a woman’s cry. There was a commotion among Big Gussie’s girls and a moment later I saw why.

Mrs. Zoe Brown had fainted.

The Killer did not look much better. His face was white as a sheet under the brim of his slouch hat and behind his hook-on beard. I do not think he was expecting to see the Eye Witness of his crime even though he must have come for that very purpose.

Mr. Currie’s loud voice came from my right. “Yes,” he said, “the courageous girl has appeared at the eleventh hour.” He turned to me. “What do you have to tell us, Martha? Who done it?”

I spoke up in a voice as much like Martha’s as I could muster. “The killer was a Reb deserter,” I said loudly, “name of Deforrest Robards. He froze during a pitch battle and then run off. They are after him.”

“Do you see that man in this room?” said Mr. Currie.

I saw the Killer smile behind his beard. He did not know that I recognized his pipe and eyebrows.

I pointed at him. “He is right thar!” I cried. “Under that fake hat and beard!”

There was a clatter as half the Killer’s pipe fell to the wooden floor. He had bit the stem in half.

Big Gussie stood near the Killer. “Fake beard?” she cried.
“Why, so it is!” She ripped it off and whipped away his hat, too.

The coward stood frozen, his blond hair and billy goat beard now visible for all to see.