The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery

‘Jes’ say we won’t find nobody black as you and stop. That’ll be the truth,’ growled Jinx.

‘But a moonsign is different. Moonsign is the one sign you can take for sho’. Moonsign—’

‘Moonshine is what you took for sho’ tonight,’ Jinx said.

‘Red moon mean bloodshed, new moon over your right shoulder mean good luck, new moon over your left shoulder mean bad luck, and so on. Well, they’s one moonsign my grandmammy taught me befo’ I was knee high and that’s the worst sign of ’em all. And that’s the sign I seen tonight. I was walkin’ down the Avenue feelin’ fine and breathin’ the air—’

‘What do you breathe when you don’t feel so good?’

‘—smokin’ the gals over, watchin’ the cars roll by—feelin’ good, you know what I mean. And then all of a sudden I stopped. I store.’

‘You whiched?’

‘Store. I stopped and I store.’

‘What language you talkin’?’

‘I store at the sky. And as I stood there starin’, sump’m didn’t seem right. Then I seen what it was. Y’ see, they was a full moon in the sky—’

‘Funny place for a full moon, wasn’t it?’

‘—and as I store at it, they come up a cloud—wasn’t but one cloud in the whole sky—and that cloud come up and crossed over the face o’ the moon and blotted it out—jes’ like that.’

‘You sho’ ’twasn’t yo’ shadow?’

‘Well there was the black cloud in front o’ the moon and the white moonlight all around it and behind it. All of a sudden I seen what was wrong. That cloud had done took the shape of a human skull!’

‘Sweet Jesus!’ The older woman’s whisper betokened the proper awe. She was an elongated, incredibly thin creature, ill-favoured in countenance and apparel; her loose, limp, angular figure was grotesquely disposed over a stiff-backed arm-chair, and dark, nondescript clothing draped her too long limbs. Her squarish, fashionless hat was a little awry, her scrawny visage, already disquieted, was now inordinately startled, the eyes almost comically wide above the high cheek bones, the mouth closed tight over her teeth whose forward slant made the lips protrude as if they were puckering to whistle.

The younger woman, however, seemed not to hear. Those dark eyes surely could sparkle brightly, those small lips smile, that clear honey skin glow with animation; but just now the eyes stared unseeingly, the lips were a short, hard, straight line, the skin of her round pretty face almost colourless. She was obviously dazed by the suddenness of this unexpected tragedy. Unlike the other woman, however, she had not lost her poise, though it was costing her something to retain it. The trim, black, high-heeled shoes, the light sheer stockings, the black seal coat which fell open to reveal a white-bordered pimiento dress, even the small close-fitting black hat, all were quite as they should be. Only her isolating detachment betrayed the effect upon her of the presence of death and the law.

‘A human skull!’ repeated Bubber. ‘Yes, ma’am. Blottin’ out the moon. You know what that is?’

‘What?’ said the older woman.

‘That’s death on the moon. It’s a moonsign and it’s never been known to fail.’

‘And it means death?’

‘Worse ’n that, ma’am. It means three deaths. Whoever see death on the moon’—he paused, drew breath, and went on in an impressive lower tone—‘gonna see death three times!’

‘My soul and body!’ said the lady.

But Jinx saw fit to summon logic. ‘Mean you go’n’ see two more folks dead?’

‘Gonna stare ’em in the face.’

‘Then somebody ought to poke yo’ eyes out in self-defence.’

Having with characteristic singleness of purpose discharged his duty as a gentleman and done all within his power to set the ladies’ minds at rest, Bubber could now turn his attention to the due and proper quashing of his unappreciative commentator.

‘Whyn’t you try it?’ he suggested.

‘Try what?’

‘Pokin’ my eyes out.’

‘Huh. If I thought that was the onliest way to keep from dyin’, you could get yo’self a tin cup and a cane tonight.’

‘Try it then.’

‘’Tain’t necessary. That moonshine you had’ll take care o’ everything. Jes’ give it another hour to work and you’ll be blind as a Baltimo’ alley.’

‘Trouble with you,’ said Bubber, ‘is, you’ ignorant. You’ dumb. The inside o’ yo’ head is all black.’

‘Like the outside o’ yourn.’

‘Is you by any chance alludin’ to me?’

‘I ain’t alludin’ to that policeman over yonder.’

‘Lucky for you he is over yonder, else you wouldn’t be alludin’ at all.’

‘Now you gettin’ bad, ain’t you? Jus’ ’cause you know you got the advantage over me.’

‘What advantage?’

‘How could I hit you when I can’t even see you?’

‘Well if I was ugly as you is, I wouldn’t want nobody to see me.’

‘Don’t worry, son. Nobody’ll ever know how ugly you is. Yo’ ugliness is shrouded in mystery.’

‘Well yo’ dumbness ain’t. It’s right there for all the world to see. You ought to be back in Africa with the other dumb boogies.’

‘African boogies ain’t dumb,’ explained Jinx. ‘They’ jes’ dark. You ain’t been away from there long, is you?’

‘My folks,’ returned Bubber crushingly, ‘left Africa ten generations ago.’

‘Yo’ folks? Shuh. Ten generations ago, you-all wasn’t folks. You-all hadn’t qualified as apes.’

Thus as always, their exchange of compliments flowed toward the level of family history, among other Harlemites a dangerous explosive which a single word might strike into instantaneous violence. It was only because the hostility of these two was actually an elaborate masquerade, whereunder they concealed the most genuine affection for each other, that they could come so close to blows that were never offered.

Yet to the observer this mock antagonism would have appeared alarmingly real. Bubber’s squat figure sidled belligerently up to the long and lanky Jinx; solid as a fire-plug he stood, set to grapple; and he said with unusual distinctness:

‘Yea? Well—yo’ granddaddy was a hair on a baboon’s tail. What does that make you?’

The policeman’s grin of amusement faded. The older woman stifled a cry of apprehension.

The younger woman still sat motionless and staring, wholly unaware of what was going on.

CHAPTER V

DETECTIVE Dart, Dr Archer, and Officer Brady made a rapid survey of the basement and cellar. The basement, a few feet below sidewalk level, proved to be one long, low-ceilinged room, fitted out, evidently by the undertaker, as a simple meeting-room for those clients who required the use of a chapel. There were many rows of folding wooden chairs facing a low platform at the far end of the room. In the middle of this platform rose a pulpit stand, and on one side against the wall stood a small reed organ. A heavy dark curtain across the rear of the platform separated it and the meeting-place from a brief unimproved space behind that led through a back door into the back yard. The basement hallway, in the same relative position as those above, ran alongside the meeting-room and ended in this little hinder space. In one corner of this, which must originally have been the kitchen, was the small door of a dumbwaiter shaft which led to the floor above. The shaft contained no sign of a dumbwaiter now, as Dart’s flashlight disclosed: above were the dangling gears and broken ropes of a mechanism long since discarded, and below, an empty pit.

They discovered nearby the doorway to the cellar stairs, which proved to be the usual precipitate series of narrow planks. In the cellar, which was poorly lighted by a single central droplight, they found a large furnace, a coal bin, and, up forward, a nondescript heap of shadowy junk such as cellars everywhere seem to breed.

All this appeared for the time being unimportant, and so they returned to the second floor, where the victim had originally been found. Dart had purposely left this floor till the last. It was divided into three rooms, front, middle and back, and these they methodically visited in order.

They entered the front room, Frimbo’s reception room, just as Bubber sidled belligerently up to Jinx. Apparently their entrance discouraged further hostilities, for with one or two upward, sidelong glares from Bubber, neutralized by an inarticulate growl or two from Jinx, the imminent combat faded mysteriously away and the atmosphere cleared.

But now the younger woman’s eyes lifted to recognize Dr John Archer. She jumped up and went to him.

‘Hello, Martha,’ he said.

‘What does it mean, John?’

‘Don’t let it upset you. Looks like the conjure-man had an enemy, that’s all.’

‘It’s true—he really is—?’

‘I’m afraid so. This is Detective Dart. Mrs Crouch, Mr Dart.’

‘Good-evening,’ Mrs Crouch said mechanically and turned back to her chair.

‘Dart’s a friend of mine, Martha,’ said the physician. ‘He’ll take my word for your innocence, never fear.’

The older woman, refusing to be ignored, said impatiently, ‘How long you ’spect us to sit here? What we waitin’ for? We didn’ kill him.’

‘Of course not,’ Dart smiled. ‘But you may be able to help us find out who did. As soon as I’ve finished looking around I’ll want to ask you a few questions. That’s all.’

‘Well,’ she grumbled, ‘you don’t have to stand a seven-foot cop over us to ask a few questions, do you?’

Ignoring this inquiry, the investigators continued with their observations. This was a spacious room whose soft light came altogether from three or four floor lamps; odd heavy silken shades bore curious designs in profile, and the effect of the obliquely downcast light was to reveal legs and bodies, while countenances above were bedimmed by comparative shadow. Beside the narrow hall door was a wide doorway hung with portières of black velvet, occupying most of that wall. The lateral walls, which seemed to withdraw into the surrounding dusk, were adorned with innumerable strange and awful shapes: gruesome black masks with hollow orbits, some smooth and bald, some horned and bearded; small misshapen statuettes of near-human creatures, resembling embryos dried and blackened in the sun, with closed bulbous eyes and great protruding lips; broad-bladed swords, slim arrows and jagged spear-heads of forbidding designs. On the farther of the lateral walls was a mantelpiece upon which lay additional African emblems. Dr Archer pointed out a murderous-looking club, resting diagonally across one end of the mantel; it consisted of the lower half of a human femur, one extremity bulging into wicked-looking condyles, the other, where the original bone had been severed, covered with a silver knob representing a human skull.

‘That would deliver a nasty crack.’

‘Wonder if it did?’ said the detective.

They passed now through the velvet portières and a little isthmus-like antechamber into the middle room where the doctor had first seen the victim. Dr Archer pointed out those peculiarities of this chamber which he had already noted: the odd droplight with its horizontally focused beam, which was the only means of illumination; the surrounding black velvet draping, its long folds extending vertically from the bottom of the walls to the top, then converging to the centre of the ceiling above, giving the room somewhat the shape of an Arab tent; the one apparent opening in this drapery, at the side door leading to the hallway; the desk-like table in the middle of the room, the visitors’ chair on one side of it, Frimbo’s on the other, directly beneath the curious droplight.

‘Let’s examine the walls,’ said Dart. He and the doctor brought their flashlights into play. Like two off-shoots of the parent beam, the smaller shafts of light travelled inquisitively over the long vertical folds of black velvet, which swayed this way and that as the two men pulled and palpated, seeking openings. The projected spots of illumination moved like two strange, twisting, luminous moths, constantly changing in size and shape, fluttering here and there from point to point, pausing, inquiring, abandoning. The detective and the physician began at the entrance from the reception room and circuited the black chamber in opposite directions. Presently they met at the far back wall, in whose midline the doctor located an opening. Pulling the hangings aside at this point, they discovered another door but found it locked.

‘Leads into the back room, I guess. We’ll get in from the hallway. What’s this?’

‘This’ proved to be a switch-box on the wall beside the closed door. The physician read the lettering on its front. ‘Sixty amperes—two hundred and twenty volts. That’s enough for an X-ray machine. What does he need special current for?’

‘Search me. Come on. Brady, run downstairs and get that extension-light out of the back of my car. Then come back here and search the floor for whatever you can find. Specially around the table and chairs. We’ll be right back.’

They left the death chamber by its side door and approached the rearmost room from the hallway. Its hall door was unlocked, but blackness greeted them as they flung it open, a strangely sinister blackness in which eyes seemed to gleam. When they cast their flashlights into that blackness they saw whence the gleaming emanated, and Dart, stepping in, found a switch and produced a light.

‘Damn!’ said he as his eyes took in a wholly unexpected scene. Along the rear wall under the windows stretched a long flat chemical work-bench, topped with black slate. On its dull dark surface gleamed bright laboratory devices of glass or metal, flasks, beakers, retorts, graduates, pipettes, a copper water-bath, a shining instrument-sterilizer, and at one end, a gleaming black electric motor. The space beneath this bench was occupied by a long floor cabinet with a number of small oaken doors. On the wall at the nearer end was a glass-doored steel cabinet containing a few small surgical instruments, while the far wall, at the other end of the bench, supported a series of shelves, the lower ones bearing specimen-jars of various sizes, and the upper, bottles of different colours and shapes. Dart stooped and opened one of the cabinet doors and discovered more glassware, while Dr Archer went over and investigated the shelves, removed one of the specimen-jars, and with a puzzled expression, peered at its contents, floating in some preserving fluid.

‘What’s that?’ the detective asked, approaching.

‘Can’t be,’ muttered the physician.

‘Can’t be what?’

‘What they look like.’

‘Namely?’

Ordinarily Dr Archer would probably have indulged in a leisurely circumlocution and reached his decision by a flank attack. In the present instance he was too suddenly and wholly absorbed in what he saw to entertain even the slightest or most innocent pretence.

‘Sex glands,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Male sex glands, apparently.’

‘Are you serious?’

The physician inspected the rows of jars, none of which was labelled. There were other preserved biological specimens, but none of the same appearance as those in the jar which he still held in his hand.

‘I’m serious enough,’ he said. ‘Does it stimulate your imagination?’

‘Plenty,’ said Dart, his thin lips tightening. ‘Come on—let’s ask some questions.’

CHAPTER VI

THEY returned to the middle chamber. Officer Brady had plugged the extension into a hall socket and twisted its cord about the chain which suspended Frimbo’s light. The strong white lamp’s sharp radiance did not dispel the far shadows, but at least it brightened the room centrally.

Brady said, ‘There’s three things I found—all on the floor by the chair.’

‘This chair?’ Dart indicated the one in which the victim had been first seen by Dr Archer.

‘Yes.’

The three objects were on the table, as dissimilar as three objects could be.

‘What do you think of this, doc?’ Dart picked up a small irregular shining metallic article and turned to show it to the physician. But the physician was already reaching for one of the other two discoveries.

‘Hey—wait a minute!’ protested the detective. ‘That’s big enough to have finger prints on it.’

‘My error. What’s that you have?’

‘Teeth. Somebody’s removable bridge.’

He handed over the small shining object. The physician examined it. ‘First and second left upper bicuspids,’ he announced.

‘You don’t say?’ grinned Dart.

‘What do you mean, somebody’s?’

‘Well, if you know whose just by looking at it, speak up. Don’t hold out on me.’

‘Frimbo’s.’

‘Or the guy’s that put him out.’

‘Hm—no. My money says Frimbo’s. These things slip on and off easily enough.’

‘I see what you mean. In manipulating that handkerchief the murderer dislodged this thing.’

‘Yes. Too bad. If it was the murderer’s it might help identify him.’

‘Why? There must be plenty of folks with those same teeth missing.’

‘True. But this bridge wouldn’t fit—really fit—anybody but the person it was made for. The models have to be cast in plaster. Not two in ten thousand would be identical in every respect. This thing’s practically as individual as a finger print.’

‘Yea? Well, we may be able to use it anyhow. I’ll hang on to it. But wait. You looked down Frimbo’s throat. Didn’t you notice his teeth?’

‘Not especially. I didn’t care anything about his teeth then. I was looking for the cause of death. But we can easily check this when the medical examiner comes.’

‘O.K. Now—what’s this?’ He picked up what seemed to be a wad of black silk ribbon.

‘That was his head cloth, I suppose. Very impressive with that flowing robe and all.’

‘Who could see it in the dark?’

‘Oh, he might have occasion to come out into the light sometime.’

The detective’s attention was already on the third object.

‘Say—!’

‘I’m way ahead of you.’

‘That’s the mate to the club on the mantel in the front room!’

‘Right. That’s made from a left femur, this from a right.’

‘That must be what crowned him. Boy, if that’s got finger prints on it—’

‘Ought to have. Look—it’s not fully bleached out like the specimens ordinarily sold to students. Notice the surface—greasy-looking. It would take an excellent print.’

‘Did you touch it, Brady?’

‘I picked it up by the big end. I didn’t touch the rest of it.’

‘Good. Have the other guys shown up yet? All right. Wrap it—here’—he took a newspaper from his pocket, surrounded the thigh bone with it, stepped to the door and summoned one of the officers who had arrived meanwhile. ‘Take this over to the precinct, tell Mac to get it examined for finger prints pronto—anybody he can get hold of—wait for the result and bring it back here—wet. And bring back a set—if Tynie’s around, let him bring it. Double time—it’s a rush order.’

‘What’s the use?’ smiled the doctor. ‘You yourself said the offender’s probably in Egypt by now.’

‘And you said different. Hey—look!’

He had been playing his flashlight over the carpet. Its rays passed obliquely under the table, revealing a greyish discolouration of the carpet. Closer inspection proved this to be due to a deposit of ash-coloured powder. The doctor took a prescription blank and one of his professional cards and scraped up some of the powder onto the blank.

‘Know what it is?’ asked Dart.

‘No.’

‘Save it. We’ll have it examined.’

‘Meanwhile?’

‘Meanwhile let’s indulge in a few personalities. Let’s see—I’ve got an idea.’

‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised. What now?’

‘This guy Frimbo was smart. He put his people in that spotlight and he stayed in the dark. All right—I’m going to do the same thing.’

‘You might win the same reward.’

‘I’ll take precautions against that. Brady!’

Brady brought in the two officers who had not yet been assigned to a post. They were stationed now, one on either side of the black room toward its rear wall.

‘Now,’ said Dart briskly. ‘Let’s get started. Brady call in that little short fat guy. You in the hall there—turn off this extension at that socket and be ready to turn it on again when I holler. I intend to sit pat as long as possible.’

Thereupon he snapped off his flashlight and seated himself in Frimbo’s chair behind the table, becoming now merely a deeper shadow in the surrounding dimness. The doctor put out his flashlight also and stood beside the chair. The bright shaft of light from the device overhead, directed away from them, shone full upon the back of the empty visitors’ chair opposite, and on beyond toward the passageway traversed by those who entered from the reception room. They waited for Bubber Brown to come in.

Whatever he might have expected, Bubber Brown certainly was unprepared for this. With a hesitancy that was not in the least feigned, his figure came into view; first his extremely bowed legs, about which flapped the bottom of his imitation camels’ hair overcoat, then the middle of his broad person, with his hat nervously fingered by both hands, then his chest and neck, jointly adorned by a bright green tie, and finally his round black face, blank as a door knob, loose-lipped, wide-eyed. Brady was prodding him from behind.

‘Sit down, Mr Brown,’ said a voice out of the dark.

The unaccustomed ‘Mr’ did not dispel the unreality of the situation for Bubber, who had not been so addressed six times in his twenty-six years. Nor was he reassured to find that he could not make out the one who had spoken, so blinding was the beam of light in his eyes. What he did realize was that the voice issued from the place where he had a short while ago looked with a wild surmise upon a corpse. For a moment his eyes grew whiter; then, with decision, he spun about and started away from the sound of that voice.

He bumped full into Brady. ‘Sit down!’ growled Brady.

Said Dart, ‘It’s me, Brown—the detective. Take that chair and answer what I ask you.’

‘Yes, suh,’ said Bubber weakly, and turned back and slowly edged into the space between the table and the visitors’ chair. Perspiration glistened on his too illuminated brow. By the least possible bending of his body he managed to achieve the mere rim of the seat, where, with both hands gripping the chair arms, he crouched as if poised on some gigantic spring which any sudden sound might release to send him soaring into the shadows above.

‘Brady, you’re in the light. Take notes. All right, Mr Brown. What’s your full name?’

‘Bubber Brown,’ stuttered that young man uncomfortably.

‘Address?’

‘2100 Fifth Avenue.’

‘Age?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘Occupation?’

‘Suh?’

‘Occupation?’

‘Oh. Detective.’

‘De—what!’

‘Detective. Yes, suh.’

‘Let’s see your shield.’

‘My which?’

‘Your badge.’

‘Oh. Well—y’see I ain’t the kind o’ detective what has to have a badge. No, suh.’

‘What kind are you?’

‘I’m a family detective.’

Somewhat more composed by the questioning, Bubber quickly reached into his pocket and produced a business card. Dart took it and snapped his light on it, to read:

BUBBER BROWN, INC., Detective

(formerly with the City of New York)

2100 Fifth Avenue

Evidence obtained in affairs of the heart, etc.

Special attention to cheaters and backbiters.

Dart considered this a moment, then said:

‘How long have you been breaking the law like this?’

‘Breaking the law? Who, me? What old law, mistuh?’

‘What about this “Incorporated”? You’re not incorporated.’

‘Oh, that? Oh, that’s “ink”—that means black.’

‘Don’t play dumb. You know what it means, you know that you’re not incorporated, and you know that you’ve never been a detective with the City. Now what’s the idea? Who are you?’

Bubber had, as a matter of fact, proffered the card thoughtlessly in the strain of his discomfiture. Now he chose, wisely, to throw himself on Dart’s good graces.

‘Well, y’see times is been awful hard, everybody knows that. And I did have a job with the City—I was in the Distinguished Service Company—’