The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery

‘What?’

‘I bet he done it!’

‘Did what?’

‘Scrambled the man’s eggs!’

‘You mean you think the assistant killed Frimbo?’

‘Sho’!’

‘How do you know Frimbo was killed?’

‘Didn’t—didn’t you and the doc say he was when I was downstairs lookin’ at you?’

‘On the contrary, we said quite definitely that we didn’t know that he was killed, and that even if he was, that blow didn’t kill him.’

‘But—in the front room jes’ now, didn’t the doc tell that lady—’

‘All the doctor said was that it looked like Frimbo had an enemy. Now you say Frimbo was killed and you accuse somebody of doing it.’

‘All I meant—’

‘You were in this house when he died, weren’t you? By your own time.’

‘I was here when the doc says he died, but—’

‘Why would you accuse anybody of a crime if you didn’t know that a crime had been committed?’

‘Listen, mistuh, please. All I meant was, if the man was killed, the flunky might ’a’ done it and hauled hips. He could be in Egypt by now.’

Dart’s identical remark came back to him. He said less sharply:

‘Yes. But on the other hand you might be calling attention to that fact to avert suspicion from yourself.’

‘Who—me?’ Bubber’s eyes went incredibly large. ‘Good Lord, man, I didn’t leave that room yonder—that waitin’-room—till Jinx called me in to see the man—and he was dead then. ’Deed that’s the truth—I come straight up the stairs with Jinx—we went straight in the front room—and I didn’t come out till Jinx called me—ask the others—ask them two women.’

‘I will. But they can only testify for your presence in that room. Who says you came up the stairs and went straight into that room? How can you prove you did that? How do I know you didn’t stop in here by way of that side hall-door there, and attack Frimbo as he sat here in this chair?’

The utter unexpectedness of his own incrimination, and the detective’s startling insistence upon it, almost robbed Bubber of speech, a function which he rarely relinquished. For a moment he could only gape. But he managed to sputter: ‘Judas Priest, mistuh, can’t you take a man’s word for nothin’?’

‘I certainly can’t,’ said the detective.

‘Well, then,’ said Bubber, inspired, ‘ask Jinx. He seen me. He come in with me.’

‘I see. You alibi him and he alibis you. Is that it?’

‘Damn!’ exploded Bubber. ‘You is the most suspicious man I ever met!’

‘You’re not exactly free of suspicion yourself,’ Dart returned dryly.

‘Listen, mistuh. If you bumped a man off, would you run get a doctor and hang around to get pinched? Would you?’

‘If I thought that would make me look innocent I might—yes.’

‘Then you’re dumber’n I am. If I’d done it, I’d been long gone by now.’

‘Still,’ Dart said, ‘you have only the word of your friend Jinx to prove you went straight into the waiting-room. That’s insufficient testimony. Got a handkerchief on you?’

‘Sho’.’ Bubber reached into his breast pocket and produced a large and flagrant affair apparently designed for appearance rather than for service; a veritable flag, crossed in one direction by a bright orange band and in another, at right angles to the first, by a virulent green one. ‘My special kind,’ he said; ‘always buy these. Man has to have a little colour in his clothes, y’see?’

‘Yes, I see. Got any others?’

‘’Nother one like this—but it’s dirty.’ He produced the mate, crumpled and matted, out of another pocket.

‘O.K. Put ’em away. See anybody here tonight with a coloured handkerchief of any kind?’

‘No suh—not that I remember.’

‘All right. Now tell me this. Did you notice the decorations on the walls in the front room when you first arrived?’

‘Couldn’t help noticin’ them things—’nough to scare anybody dizzy.’

‘What did you see?’

‘You mean them false-faces and knives and swords and things?’

‘Yes. Did you notice anything in particular on the mantelpiece?’

‘Yea. I went over and looked at it soon as I come in. What I remember most was a pair o’ clubs. One was on one end o’ the mantelpiece, and the other was on the other. Look like they was made out o’ bones.’

‘You are sure there were two of them?’

‘Sho’ they was two. One on—’

‘Did you touch them?’

‘No suh—couldn’t pay me to touch none o’ them things—might ’a’ been conjured.’

‘Did you see anyone touch them?’

‘No, suh.’

‘You saw no one remove one of them?’

‘No, suh.’

‘So far as you know they are still there?’