Читать книгу The Affair of the Bottled Deuce - Harry Stephen Keeler - Страница 3

CHAPTER I

“Riddle Me This!”

Police-Captain Michael Simko, day-chief of Chicago Avenue Police Station, raised the telephone on his battered desk as it rang raucously.

“Chicago Avenue Police Station,” he said wearily.

A male voice, suggesting itself strongly, somehow, to be Italian, answered.

“I wish to report a suicide, if you please.”

“Suicide? Where’s the body hanging? This is Captain Michael Simko speaking.”

“It’s not hanging, Captain. It’s shot through the head.”

“I see. Well, is the victim dead? Assuredly so, I mean?”

“Madre Dei!” ejaculated the speaker, now revealing fully he was Italian, and at the same time carrying, in that one moment, a tonal quality which was that of a mature man of 63 or more. “Is he—dead? Well, never is he going to live again—with the bullet hole he has in his right temple. The whole temple area is gone, in fact.”

“Is, eh? Well, is there a doctor nearby who can tell that?”

“No. No, Doctor Giatempo, across the street, he did drive away a little while ago. No, no doctor.”

“Well, while I hold the phone—I suppose you’re right at the body?—feel its pulse. And see if you feel—”

“Cannot do, Captain. He is behind a locked door.”

“Behind a locked door? How do you know what kind of a hole’s in his head, or what?”

“I can see through the crack—or gap—at the side of the door.”

“Can, eh? Well, what else can you see?”

“I see the wrappings of the package he took in from the postman—just before he bumped himself off. Yes, the wrappings—on the floor. I see what he took from the package. I see—”

“What did he take? What did you see?”

“A bottle—an empty, sealed bottle—with a playing card in it. It’s—it’s the deuce of diamonds.”

“A sealed bottle—with a deuce of diamonds in it? And so some gazabo killed himself—right after receiving same? Well, I guess this calls for some detailed questions. Hold the wire till I get my scriptograph pencil laying over on the windowsill.”

And the captain laid the phone down.

“I can figger lots of reasons,” he said to himself sagely, “why a guy might kill himself. But certainly not because he received a bottle containing a deuce of diamonds. Not, not, not, period!”