The Frame and the Dame

It did not require any particular brilliance to deduce that Mr. Fen was Gerald Brand’s bodyguard, which set me to wondering what sort of business he and his deceased partner had been in together.

Not being a subtle person, I bluntly asked for an explanation.

“My husband and Gerald operated a news publishing and distribution business,” Minerva Talcott said.

I hiked an eyebrow. “What paper?”

“No paper,” Brand said easily. “Turf news.”

I understood the bodyguard then. Horse-racing dope sheet distribution was big business, and while legitimate in itself, its customers were largely illegal bookshops. It was more or less common knowledge that the national gambling syndicate was trying to monopolize the field by crowding out independent publishers and distributors. The mortality rate among independents across the nation had grown to the point where only a distributor with either a syndicate tie-in or a suicide complex would appear in public without a bodyguard.

I asked Mrs. Talcott, “Mind if I look over the apartment’s layout, so I can get a picture of just what happened last night?”

Her dubious expression suggested that she did mind but, nevertheless, she showed me around. There were five rooms in the shape of an L. If you walked straight ahead after entering the front room from the outside hall, you passed through a dining room and then into a kitchen. If, instead of going straight ahead, you turned right, you found yourself in the card room Mouldy had mentioned. Beyond that was the single bedroom and bath.

In the bedroom, I glanced out the window and noted that there was a drop of not more than six feet to the ground. Since the apartment faced rear, the window looked out over a neat back yard and a row of garages, beyond which was an alley.

When we returned to the front room, I thanked my hostess for her courtesy, seated myself, and asked if she minded cigar smoke. She shook her head, but at the same time frowned and glanced sidewise at Brand, as though mutely inquiring why I did not leave.

Gerald Brand, who sat in an overstuffed chair directly opposite me, smiled reassuringly at her and gave a slight shrug. The gray-faced Deuce Fen was not seated, but leaned idly against a bookcase at one side of the room.

When my cigar was burning satisfactorily, I said, “Mrs. Talcott, I understand from what you told the police, you think Greene actually shot your husband.”

She looked surprised. “But of course he did. How could there be any question about it?”

“Just exactly what happened?”

She frowned again. “I have already told the police, Mr. Moon.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me also.”

“Just a moment,” Gerald Brand interrupted pleasantly. “This whole thing has upset Minerva terribly, and I see no reason to make her hash it over and over. If there were any possible doubt as to what happened...”

He let his voice trail off; I waited politely for a moment, then repeated, “Just exactly what happened, Mrs. Talcott?”

“See here!” Brand said, reddening slightly.

The whole thing began to bore me, so I stopped trying to be subtle. I’m not very good at it anyway.

“Suppose I tell you what happened, Mrs. Talcott?”

She looked at me wide-eyed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this was the rawest kind of a frame. Greene not only didn’t shoot your husband, but you know he didn’t. You deliberately set him up as a patsy.”

Gerald Brand rose out of his seat and advanced toward me threateningly. Laying my cigar on an ash stand, I stood up too, and looked down at him from a three-inch height advantage. He stopped far enough away to study my shoulders, glanced at Deuce Fen for reassurance, then stuck out his jaw at me. The bodyguard seemed indifferent to the whole thing, but I noted his rubbery eyes never wavered from my face.

Brand said, “Suppose you explain that remark, Mr. Moon!”

“Sure,” I said. “Minerva picked Mouldy Greene because he was the dumbest guy she could find. She gave him a play and got him over here with the deliberate intention of framing him. Her husband walking in was no surprise. She knew he was coming home, and just about when he’d arrive. And she very adroitly arranged that when he did arrive, Greene’s gun and holster would be hanging from a chair in the front room, Greene would be in the card room and she would be in her bedroom, ostensibly getting into something comfortable.