The Union Club Mysteries (14 page)

I was feeling grumpy. I knew it wouldn't last. I had a pleasant sherry in my hand, a comfortable chair under me, the dowdy but quiet atmosphere of the Union Club library about me, and Griswold—a somnolent figure in his personal armchair—across the way.

Still, I wanted to use the grumpiness while it lasted. I said, "I wish I knew how to make a citizen's arrest. I know it exists, but I have never heard of it actually being done."

"Whom do you want to arrest?" asked Jennings lazily. "Griswold?"

I snorted, "Why arrest Griswold? He's a symphony of arrested motion as it is. No, the people I want to arrest are the smokers in elevators. They are clear lawbreakers and I want to be able to pull out my handcuffs—"

Baranov said with interest, "Handcuffs? You carry handcuffs?"

"I was speaking symbolically, for Heaven's sake. I put my hand on the person's shoulder—"

Jennings said, "In the first place, if you do that, he will punch you in the face, if he's a he, or kick you in the shins, if she's a she. And if for any reason somebody should submit to your citizen's arrest, what will you do? Take them to the nearest police station? Do you know where it is? And if you're in an elevator, you're probably going somewhere. Do you abandon that and just become an off-duty policeman? Do you—"

"Oh, shut up," I said, suddenly more grumpy than ever. Whereupon Griswold stirred, brought his scotch and soda to his lips, took a careful sip and said, "I once made a citizen's arrest. A policeman was on the scene, as it happened, but he was in no position to make the arrest."

I turned on him savagely. "And
you
were? Just how do you explain that?"

"No way at all—unless you ask me to do so politely."

But I knew I wouldn't have to.

Their names were Moe and Joe [said Griswold] and I don't know that anyone in the course of their criminal career ever called them anything else. They must have had last names, but those were never used, except in court, and I don't remember what they were.

The surprising thing about them was that they were not twins. In fact, Moe was Jewish and Joe was an Italian Catholic, but through some peculiar twist of the genes, they looked enormously similar. They could have said they were twins and they would have been believed. In fact, I suspect that many who knew them thought they
were
twins.

They met in high school, which neither of them finished, and discovered their similarity then. Moe had just moved into the neighborhood and was two months older than Joe. Both were fascinated by the similarity and they used it in horseplay. One would borrow a quarter and when asked for repayment would insist it had been the other who had done the borrowing. The other, of course, denied it. In the end they paid up, since otherwise the sources of credit would have dried up. But this, and a few other little tricks of the sort, undoubtedly gave them the notion for what was to become their lifelong career.

They became close friends and cultivated a similarity in clothes, speech, and characteristic ways when they were old enough to rid themselves of unnecessary family ties. They roomed together and were sufficiently close in size to be able to share a wardrobe. They took to wearing identical styles and colors, and, except when taking a vacation from each other, made sure that they wore brother-and-brother outfits.

They also made sure that they were not often seen together except in their special haunts and by their special boon companions.

Little by little, they developed their separate specialties. Moe was a clever con-man, who could always manage to wheedle a few bills out of some innocent. Joe was a nimble pickpocket, who could lift those same bills with equal celerity.

They were careful never to undertake a large job. They merely nickel-and-dimed it in order to be fairly well-off without having to work. I suppose that the small element of danger was exhilarating.

Just the same, they were not
that
enamored of danger, for they took care to minimize the risk, and that was where the twinship came in. If one was attempting a job of more-than-average magnitude, the other would set up an alibi.

Let Joe, for instance, break into an apartment, and that night Moe would be playing poker with half a dozen people of unimpeachable honesty and he would be playing honestly, too.
If
Joe were seen at the scene of the crime, and the police came about to investigate, he would come out with Moe's alibi—the names of the people, the hands he had held, and so on. Naturally, he would have been fed all the information by Moe, and the other poker players would have no choice but to uphold Joe. Even if Joe and Moe were presented to them in the lineup, they could not have sworn to one rather than the other—not without being ripped apart in cross-examination.

The very few occasions in which the police got the idea that the two of them were working in combination, they saw no way of getting witnesses to distinguish between them, and had to be content with warning them and making threatening noises—which the two ignored.

Moe and Joe even got to the point where they occasionally joked about it. Moe would casually help himself to a couple of apples from a fruit stand and walk to the corner. The proprietor, stunned for a moment by the effrontery of it, would finally come to himself and set out in chase, shouting names. Moe would have turned the corner and when the proprietor also turned, he would find Moe standing with Joe, and each grinning and pointing to the other.

By being moderate in their goals, Moe and Joe managed to gain a minor prosperity without arousing too much official frustration or public outcry, and the prosperity showed in their attire. They took to wearing string ties of interesting and identical design, and, since both were nearsighted, both adopted black-rimmed glasses with the kind of lenses that darkened after a minute or so in the sunlight and then cleared after a minute or so indoors. They had their hair styled by the same barber, and each carried the same kind of umbrella at any hint of rain.

This is not to say they couldn't be told apart. Moe was half an inch taller than Joe. Their dental work was different, and they had different eyeglass prescriptions. Joe had a small scar under one ear and Moe's eyebrows were bushier. These were not the sorts of things, however, that the casual witness could swear to with any certainty, or even credibility.

I suppose they might have gone on forever, if it weren't for one bad break—but then bad breaks are bound to come if you take risks long enough. Even small risks.

Joe had cased a small jewelry shop and it seemed to him that if he came in during lunch hour when the place was crowded, he would be able to ask to be shown a case of rings and could manage to palm one of them, and substitute a piece of fine glass. Just in case something went wrong, he had stationed Moe in a nearby hotel lobby.

Well, something went wrong. Even the finest prestidigitator can get an attack of the dropsy now and then, and Joe, receiving an accidental nudge from the person next to him at just the wrong time, dropped the ring. The proprietor of the store noted the event, drew the correct conclusion at once, and, being an irascible man who had been burglarized in the past and was tired of it, drew a gun.

Customers scattered, and Joe, who was not a man of violence, panicked. He tried to grab the gun to keep it from being fired in his direction. There was a short struggle, and the gun went off.

As happens too often in such cases, the bullet was stopped by the honest citizen. The jeweler dropped, and if Joe had panicked before, he was in a frenzy now. He dashed out of the store, intent on making it to the hotel lobby, picking up Moe, and then clearing out of town for a good long time.

But once bad breaks start coming, they don't stop easily. These days you hardly ever see a policeman in the street, but there was one outside the jewelry store. He heard the shot, he saw a man running and he took off in pursuit.

And then, of course, we have to add one topper to the thing, the cherry on top of the sundae. I was in the street, too. When you stop to think of it, having Joe get himself into such a mess and having not only a policeman but me waiting for him—each of us there for two thoroughly independent reasons—is asking too much of coincidence. Just the same, it can happen, and on this occasion it did.

It was a bright, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, cool and dry, so the avenue was as crowded as it is ever likely to get. This meant it might be easy to lose Joe, but it also meant he couldn't get on much speed. He had to twist and turn and he was wearing a checked summer jacket, in shades of blue, that made him stand out.

The policeman, as it happened, had heard the shot and had seen Joe come flying out of the jewelry shop and would have run after him even if he hadn't known him—but he did. Joe was a familiar figure to him.

Of course, with the street crowded, the policeman couldn't threaten to shoot; he couldn't go near his gun. He might have expected someone in the crowd to tackle Joe, if he were out of touch with reality. Naturally, no one did. The crowd scattered, following the unwritten law of today, "Thou shall not get involved!"

The policeman wasn't going to have much chance if the pursuit was a long and involved one, for he was out of condition, and to tell you the truth I was going to do even worse. It wasn't many years ago that this happened, and I was already past those days when I was young and lissome. I managed a fast trot, which was clearly going to get me in third in a field of three.

Fortunately for us, if not for Joe, Joe didn't keep up the race. He had no chance for thought and only knew he had to run to the safety of Moe. He ducked into the hotel not more than a block and a half from the scene of the crime. Ten seconds afterward, the policeman ran through the entrance, and fifteen seconds after that, I ran in.

Joe was standing right there, and Moe was next to him. Both were in blue-checked jackets, darker-blue trousers, black belts, string ties, and Moe was putting on the show of his life. His hair was mussed up, as Joe's was, and he was panting. He even looked a little moist, perhaps from anxiety, as Joe was, from running.

By God, Joe even managed a grin, pointed at Moe, and said, "This guy just ran in here."

And Moe managed the same grin, pointed at Joe and said, "No, he did."

The policeman glared from one to the other and shouted, "Did anyone here notice which one of these jokers just ran into the lobby?"

He might just as well have asked if anyone knew the middle name of his Aunt Jemima.

But I had caught my breath by this time and I put my hand firmly on Joe's shoulder and said, "Officer, this is the man, and I am making a citizen's arrest until you can manage the real thing."

He didn't know me. "What makes
you
so sure?" he asked.

"See for yourself," I said. "And what's more, his pal, or his twin, or whatever is going to back us up, because. this wasn't just a robbery. A shot was fired, my friend," I said to Moe, whose name and background I didn't know at this time, "and it's certainly assault, and very likely murder during the commission of a felony. Are you sure you want to be an accessory after the fact in a thing like that?"

Moe cast a horrified glance at Joe, and it was clear he didn't. We had no trouble. The jeweler was only wounded, but Joe got a sentence that put him away for a while and Moe had a lesson he wouldn't forget either.

Griswold had that rotten air of satisfaction he always gets when he tells of one of his triumphs, and Baranov said, "And how did you know which one of the two had just run into the lobby?"

"Yes," said Jennings, "and in a way that would stick in court."

"No problem at all," said Griswold with a distinct sneer. "I told you they both wore glasses of the kind that darken in the sunlight and clear again indoors, and I told you it was a bright, sunny day. One of those two had just run in from the sunlight, and his glasses were still dark, while the other's glasses were not. I pointed that out to the policeman before Joe's glasses had quite cleared, and Moe, seeing we had his pal cold, was quite willing to testify against him to save his own neck."

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Baranov said, "According to the forecast in the daily paper, today was a good day for taking financial risks, so I bet a friend of mine fifty cents it wouldn't rain this afternoon and you saw what happened. It poured! The question is: should I sue the forecaster?"

I said with infinite disdain (for I had carefully carried an umbrella), "By forecast, I presume you mean the astrological column?"

"Do you suppose I meant the weather forecast?" said Baranov tartly. "Of course I meant the astrologer. Who else would tell me to take financial risks?"

"The weatherman," said Jennings, "said 'partly cloudy.' He didn't predict rain, either."

I refused to be lured off the track. "Asking a stupid question isn't as bad as falling for stupid mysticism. Since when has astrology impressed you as a substitute for financial acumen?"

"Reading the column is an amusement," said Baranov stiffly, "and I can afford fifty cents."

"The question is whether you can afford intellectual decay. I think not," I said.

In his high-backed armchair in the library of the Union Club where we all sat, Griswold was comfortably asleep to the tune of a faint snoring. But now he attracted our attention when he scraped the sole of his shoe on the floor, as he shifted position without spilling the drink he held in his hand.

I said softly, "You know the way he's always reminded of a story by anything we say. I'll bet if we wake him up and talk about astrology, he won't be able to think of a thing."

Baranov said eagerly, "I'll take that bet. Fifty cents. I want to make it back."

At this point, Griswold's drink moved toward his lips. He sipped daintily, his eyes still closed. He said, "As it happens, I do have an astrological story to tell, so hand over the half-dollar."

The last was addressed to me, and Griswold opened his eyes now to reinforce the remark.

I said, "You'll have to tell the story first."

The most delicate job a spy can have [said Griswold] is recruiting. How do you persuade someone else to betray his country without revealing your own position?

For that matter, the problem is a difficult one for the person being recruited. There have been cases of perfectly loyal government employees—whether civilian or armed service—who allowed recruiting efforts to go on because they honestly didn't understand what was happening, or because they thought the other fellow was joking.

By the time they do report—if they do—there may be people in government intelligence who have grown suspicious of them, and their careers may therefore be inhibited or ruined without their having ever really done anything out of the way.

In fact, I have known cases where the recruiting agent deliberately spread suspicion against his victim in order to enrage the poor person against the government for falsely suspecting him. The person in question is then actually recruited.

The man I am going to tell you about, whom I shall refer to as Davis, avoided the obvious pitfalls.

He carefully reported the first sign of recruitment to his superior, whom we shall call Lindstrom, at a time when, in fact, what had occurred might well have been only idle conversation. It was, however, during those years when Senator McCarthy had inflamed American public opinion and had reduced men in public office to near hysteria. Davis was, however, a man of integrity. Though he reported the incident, he refused to give the name of the army officer who was involved. His reasoning was that it might indeed have been an innocent conversation and that, in the heat of the times, his testimony could serve to destroy a man unjustly.

That put Lindstrom in a delicate position. He himself might be victimized if things went wrong. Nevertheless, he was a man of integrity too, so he accepted Davis's reserve, assured him he would bear witness to his loyalty in reporting, and in writing (carefully worded, you may be sure) ordered him to play along until he was certain that the person involved was really disloyal and then to give his name.

Davis was worth recruiting, you understand. It was before the days when computers became omnipresent, and Davis was one of the very few who had his finger on the statistical records of the government. He knew where all the dossiers were, and he had access to them. He could conjure up more rapidly than one would believe possible, considering that he had no computer to help him, the intimate details of any one of millions of people.

It would make, of course, an unparalleled instrument for blackmail, if Davis could be persuaded in that direction, but Davis—a single man who could afford to be single-minded—had thought for only one thing, his hobby.

He was an astrologer. No, not the kind you think. He didn't prepare horoscopes or make predictions. He had a strictly scientific interest. He was trying to see whether, in truth, one could correlate the signs of the zodiac with personal characteristics or with events. He was studying all the people in Leo, all the people in Capricorn and so on, and trying to find out if a disproportionate number of Leos were athletes, or whether Capricornians were prone to be scientists and so on.

I don't think he ever found out anything useful, but it was his obsession. In his department, the standing joke was that he might not know someone's name, but he surely knew his sign.

Eventually, he was convinced that the recruitment was seriously meant, and he grew increasingly indignant. He told Lindstrom that the traitor would be coming to his apartment to work out the final details, and that he (Davis) would come to Lindstrom at midnight with the full details.

But Davis was not an experienced operator. The recruiter had divined the fact that Davis might be reporting to the authorities and took the most direct action to stop him.

When Davis didn't keep his midnight appointment, Lindstrom went to Davis's apartment and found him there—knifed.

He did not find him quite dead, however. Davis's eyes opened and he stared glassily at Lindstrom. Davis was lying across a small table and trying feebly to reach toward some file cards resting nearby. There were four of them, all somewhat bloodstained.

Davis mumbled, "Should have known—misfit—only sign doesn't fit the name." Then he died.

The next day, at noon, I got a phone call from Lindstrom, begging me to come see him at once! I was reluctant to do so because it would mean missing the first game of the World Series on my brand-new television set, but Lindstrom grew so panicky I had no choice.

When I arrived, Lindstrom was in conference with a young first lieutenant, who looked even more dreadfully disturbed than Lindstrom did. The entire department must have been in turmoil that day. As soon as I came, though, Lindstrom sent the lieutenant away, saying absently after him, "And happy birthday."

He waited till the lieutenant was gone, then opened the door, made sure the corridor was empty and returned.

I said sardonically, "Are you sure this place isn't bugged?"

"I've checked it," he said quite seriously. Then he told me what had happened.

"Too bad," I said.

"Worse than that," he said. "Here's a man who knew of a traitor right in our department and I didn't force the information out of him at once. Now I've lost the man,
and
the traitor and McCarthy will have my head for it." "Will he find out?" I asked.

"Of course. There must be at least one person in this department who reports to him regularly."

"Do you have any leads?"

"Not really. The four cards on the table were Davis's own cards, the kind he uses to file and cross-file human characteristics against astrological signs.—That's his obsession. Let me explain!" And he did.

I said, "What were the four cards doing there?"

"Perhaps nothing. They were four officers in this department, and I don't know what he was doing with them. Still, he was reaching toward them as though he wanted to take one or point to one and he talked about someone being a misfit, with a sign that didn't fit his name."

"He didn't say his name?"

"No. He was dying, almost dead. His last thought was of his obsession: his damned astrological signs."

"Then you don't know which of the four it is."

"That's right. And as long as we don't know, all four will be under suspicion. That will mean ruined careers if McCarthy zeroes in on it; and for at least three of them, possibly all four, it would be an incredible injustice. Listen, do you know the astrological signs?"

"Yes, certainly. Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Scales, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Capricorn the Goat, Aquarius the Water Bearer and Pisces the Fish. Twelve of them, in that order. Aries governs the month beginning March 21, and the rest follow, month by month."

"All right," said Lindstrom, "and the English names are all direct translations of the Latin. I checked that. So Davis's remark about the sign not fitting the name doesn't refer to that. The only alternative is that the name of the sign doesn't fit the name of the officer. The cards had each the name of an officer and, among other personal data, the sign he was born under."

"Any obvious misfits?"

"No, the four names happen, by a miserable chance, to be utterly common; Joseph Brown, John Jones, Thomas Smith and William Clark; and not one of the names, first, last, or in combination, seems to either fit, or not fit, the person's sign in any way."

"Does each have a different sign?"

"Yes."

"And what do you want me to do?"

Lindstrom looked at me out of a face twisted in misery. "Help me. I have the cards. They've been checked for fingerprints and only Davis's have been found. Look them over and see if you can see anything in them that will make sense to you in the light of Davis's final remark."

I said, "I may have the answer now. That first lieutenant who was here when I came in—You wouldn't talk until you were sure he was gone. You even looked out in the hall to make sure he wasn't hanging about near the door. Was his one of the names on the list?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. He's Lieutenant Tom Smith."

"Then I think he's your man. Judging by his face, he was in a bad way. Call him in, with a witness, and tackle him hard, and I'm sure he'll break."

He
did
break. We had the traitor; and three innocent men (four, counting Lindstrom) were saved.

Griswold looked smug and self-satisfied, and I said, "Griswold, you've made that up. There's no way you could have gotten the answer on the information you had."

Griswold looked at me haughtily. "No way
you
could have. I said I was called in the first day of the World Series. That meant early October. Count the astrological signs from Aries, which governs the month beginning March 21, and you'll find that six months afterward comes Libra, which governs the month beginning September 22. Lindstrom wished the lieutenant a happy birthday, so he was born in early October under the sign of Libra."

"So?" I said with a sarcastic inflection.

"So Davis said 'the sign doesn't fit
the
name,' not
'his
name.' It wasn't the
man's
name being referred to. The signs are all part of the zodiac and, in Greek, 'zodiac' means 'circle of animals.' You don't have to know Greek to see that the beginning 'zo' is in 'zoo' and 'zoology.' Well, look at the list of signs: ram, bull, crab, lion, scorpion, goat and fish—seven animals. If you remember that human beings are part of the animal kingdom, there are four more: a pair of twins, a virgin, an archer, and a water bearer. Eleven animals altogether. One and only one sign is not an animal, or even alive. It is the
only
sign that doesn't fit the name of zodiac. Since the four names were all officers in the department and I met one officer, who looked miserable and who was a Libra, I thought that
if
he was one of the four, he was also the supposed misfit, and the murderer. Well, he
was
one of the four, and he
was
the murderer." So I paid Baranov the half-dollar, and the bum took it.

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