The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery

For a time the shadow made no sound or movement, and Jinx squirmed about impatiently in his seat, trying to obey directions and restrain the impulse to say something. At one moment the figure seemed to fade away altogether and blend with the enveloping blackness beyond. This was the very limit of Jinx’s endurance—but at this moment Frimbo spoke.

‘Please do not shield your eyes. I must study your face.’

The voice changed the atmosphere from one of discomfiture to one of assurance. It was a deep, rich, calm voice, so matter of fact and real, even in that atmosphere, as to dispel doubt and inspire confidence.

‘You see, I must analyse your mind by observing your countenance. Only thus can I learn how to help you.’

Here was a man that knew something. Didn’t talk like an African native certainly. Didn’t talk like any black man Jinx had ever heard. Not a trace of Negro accent, not a suggestion of dialect. He spoke like a white-haired judge on the bench, easily, smoothly, quietly.

‘There are those who claim the power to read men’s lives in crystal spheres. That is utter nonsense. I claim the power to read men’s lives in their faces. That is completely reasonable. Every experience, every thought, leaves its mark. Past and present are written there clearly. He who knows completely the past and the present can deduce the inevitable future, which past and present determine. My crystal sphere, therefore, is your face. By reading correctly what is there I know what is scheduled to follow, and so can predict and guard you against your future.’

‘Yes, suh,’ said Jinx.

‘I notice that you are at present out of work. It is this you wish to consult me about.’

Jinx’s eyes dilated. ‘Yes, suh, that’s right.’

‘You have been without a job several weeks.’

‘Month come Tuesday.’

‘Yes. And now you have reached the point where you must seek the financial aid of your friends. Being of a proud and independent nature, you find this difficult. Yet even the fee which you will pay for the advice I give you is borrowed money.’

There was no tone of question, no implied request for confirmation. The words were a simple statement of fact, presented as a comprehensive résumé of a situation, expressed merely as a basis for more important deductions to follow.

‘So far, you see, my friend, I have done nothing at all mysterious. All this is the process of reason, based on observation. And now, though you may think it a strange power, let me add that there is nothing mysterious either in my being able to tell you that your name is Jenkins, that your friends call you Jinx, that you are twenty-seven years old, and that you are unmarried. All these matters have passed through your mind as you sat there listening to me. This is merely an acuteness of mental receptivity which anyone can learn; it is usually called telepathy. At this point, Mr Jenkins, others whom you might have consulted stop. But at this point—Frimbo begins.’

There was a moment’s silence. The voice resumed with added depth and solemnity:

‘For, in addition to the things that can be learned by anyone, Frimbo inherits the bequest of a hundred centuries, handed from son to son through four hundred unbroken generations of Buwongo kings. It is a profound and dangerous secret, my friend, a secret my fathers knew when the kings of the Nile still thought human flesh a delicacy.’

The voice sank to a lower pitch still, inescapably impressive.

‘Frimbo can change the future.’ He paused, then continued, ‘In the midst of a world of determined, inevitable events, of results rigidly fashioned by the past, Frimbo alone is free. Frimbo not only sees. Frimbo and Frimbo alone can step in at will and change the course of a life. Listen!’

The voice now became intimate, confidential, shading off from low vibrant tones into softly sibilant whispers:

‘Your immediate needs will be taken care of but you will not be content. It is a strange thing that I see. For though food and shelter in abundance are to be your lot sooner than you think, still you will be more unhappy than you are now; and you will rejoice only when this physical security has been withdrawn. You will be overjoyed to return to the uncertain fortunes over which you now despair. I do not see the circumstances, at the moment, that will bring on these situations, because they are outside the present content of your mind which I am contemplating. But these things even now impatiently await you—adequate physical necessaries, but great mental distress.

‘Now then, when you have passed through that paradoxical period, what will you do? Let me see. It is but a short way—a few days ahead—but—’ Into that until now completely self-assured tone crept a quality of puzzlement. It was so unexpected and incongruous a change that Jinx, up to this point completely fascinated, was startled like one rudely awakened from deep sleep. ‘It is very dark—’ There was a long pause. The same voice resumed, ‘What is this, Frimbo?’ Again a pause; then: ‘Strange how suddenly it grows dark. Frimbo—’ Bewilderment dilated into dismay. ‘Frimbo! Frimbo! Why do you not see?’

The voice of a man struck suddenly blind could not have been imbued with greater horror. So swift and definite was the transition that the alarmed Jinx could only grip the arms of his chair and stare hard. And despite the glaring beam, he saw a change in the figure beyond the table. That part of the shadow that had corresponded to the head seemed now to be but half its original size.

In a sudden frenzy of terror, Jinx jumped up and reached for the hanging light. Quickly he swung it around and tilted it so that the luminous shaft fell on the seated figure. What he saw was a bare black head, inclined limply sidewise, the mouth open, the eyes fixed, staring from under drooping lids.

He released the light, wheeled, and fled back to summon Bubber.

All this Jinx rehearsed in detail, making clear by implication or paraphrase those ideas whose original wording he was otherwise unable to describe or pronounce. The doctor emitted a low whistle of amazement; the detective, incredulous, said:

‘Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You mean to say that Frimbo actually talked to you, as you have related?’

‘’Deed he did.’

‘You’re sure that it was Frimbo talking to you?’

‘Jest as sure as I am that you’re talkin’ to me now. He was right where you is.’

‘And when he tried to prophesy what would happen to you a few days hence, he couldn’t?’

‘Look like sump’m come over him all of a sudden—claim he couldn’t see. And when he seen he couldn’t see, he got scared-like and hollered out jes’ like I said: “Frimbo—why don’t you see?”’

‘Then you say you tried to see him, and it looked as though his head had shrunken?’

‘Yes, suh.’

‘Evidently his head-piece had fallen off.’

‘His which?’

‘Did you hear any sound just before this—like a blow?’

‘Nope. Didn’t hear nothin’ but his voice. And it didn’t stop like it would if he’d been hit. It jes’ stopped like it would if he’d been tellin’ ’bout sump’m he’d been lookin’ at and then couldn’t see no more. Only it scared him sump’m terrible not to be able to see it. Maybe he scared himself to death.’

‘Hm. Yea, maybe he even scared up that wound on his head.’

‘Well, maybe me and Bubber did that.’

‘How?’

‘Carryin’ him downstairs. We was in an awful hurry. His head might ’a’ hit sump’m on the way down.’

‘But,’ said Dart, and Jinx couldn’t know this was baiting, ‘if he was dead, that wound wouldn’t have bled, even as little as it did.’

‘Maybe,’ Jinx insisted, ‘it stopped because he died jes’ about that time—on the way down.’

‘You seem very anxious to account for his death, Jenkins.’

‘Humph,’ Jinx grunted. ‘You act kind o’ anxious yourself, seems like to me.’

‘Yes. But there is this difference. By your own word, you were present and the only person present when Frimbo died. I was half a mile away.’

‘So what?’

‘So that, while I’m as anxious as you are to account for this man’s death, I am anxious for perhaps quite a different reason. For instance, I could not possibly be trying to prove my own innocence by insisting he died a natural death.’

Jinx’s memory was better than Bubber’s.

‘I ain’t heard nobody say for sho’ he was killed yet,’ said he.

‘No? Well then, listen. We know that this man was murdered. We know that he was killed deliberately by somebody who meant to do a good job—and succeeded.’

‘And you reckon I done it?’ There was no surprise in Jinx’s voice, for he had long had the possibility in mind.

‘I reckon nothing. I simply try to get the facts. When enough facts are gathered, they’ll do all the reckoning necessary. One way of getting the facts is from the testimony of people who know the facts. The trouble with that is that anybody who knows the facts might have reasons for lying. I have to weed out the lies. I’m telling you this to show you that if you are innocent, you can best defend yourself by telling the truth, no matter how bad it looks.’

‘What you think I been doin’?’

‘You’ve been telling a queer story, part of which we know to be absolutely impossible—unless—’ The detective entertained a new consideration. ‘Listen. What time did you come into this room—as nearly as you can judge?’

‘Musta been ’bout—’bout five minutes to eleven.’

‘How long did Frimbo talk to you?’

‘’Bout five or six minutes I guess.’

‘That would be eleven o’clock. Then you got Bubber. Dr Archer, what time were you called?’

‘Three minutes past eleven—according to the clock on my radio.’

‘Not a lot of time—three minutes—Bubber took three minutes to get you and get back. During those three minutes Jenkins was alone with the dead man.’

‘Not me,’ denied Jinx. ‘I was out there in the hall right at the head o’ the stairs where the doc found me—wonderin’ what the hell was keepin’ ’em so long.’ This was so convincingly ingenuous that the physician agreed with a smile. ‘He was certainly there when I got here.’

‘During those few minutes, Jenkins, when you were here alone, did you see or hear anything peculiar?’

‘No, ’ndeed. The silence liked to drown me.’

‘And when you came back in this room with the doctor, was everything just as you left it?’

‘Far as I could see.’

‘M-m. Listen, doc. Did you leave the body at all from the time you first saw it until I got here?’

‘No. Not even to phone the precinct—I had the two men do it.’

‘Funny,’ Dart muttered. ‘Damn funny.’ For a moment he meditated the irreconcilable points in Jinx’s story—the immobility of Frimbo’s figure, from which nevertheless the turban had fallen, the absence of any sound of an attack, yet a sudden change in Frimbo’s speech and manner just before he was discovered dead; the remoteness of any opportunity—except for Jinx himself—to reach the prostrate victim, cram that handkerchief in place, and depart during the three minutes when Jinx claimed to be in the hall, without noticeably disturbing the body; and the utter impossibility of any man’s talking, dead or alive, when his throat was plugged with that rag which the detective’s own eyes had seen removed. Clearly Jenkins was either mistaken in some of the statements he made so positively or else he was lying. If he was lying he was doing so to protect himself, directly or indirectly. In other words, if he was lying, either he knew who committed the crime or he had committed it himself. Only further evidence could indicate the true and the false in this curious chronicle.

And so Dart said, rather casually, as if he were asking a favour, ‘Have you a handkerchief about you, Mr Jenkins?’

‘’Tain’t what you’d call strictly clean,’ Jinx obligingly reached into his right-hand coat pocket, ‘but—’ He stopped. His left hand went into his left coat pocket. Both hands came out and delved into their respective trousers pockets. ‘Guess I must ’a’ dropped it,’ he said. ‘I had one.’

‘You’re sure you had one?’

‘M’hm. Had it when I come here.’

‘When you came into this room?’

‘No. When I first went in the front room. I was a little nervous-like. I wiped my face with it. I think I put it—’

‘Is that the last time you recall having it—when you first went into the front room?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Can you describe it?’

Perhaps this odd insistence on anything so unimportant as a handkerchief put Jinx on his guard. At any rate he dodged.

‘What difference it make?’

‘Can you describe it?’

‘No.’

‘No? Why can’t you?’

‘Nothin’ to describe. Jes’ a plain big white handkerchief with a—’ He stopped.

‘With a what?’

‘With a hem,’ said Jinx.

‘Hm.’

‘Yea—hem.’

‘A white hem?’

‘It wasn’ no black one,’ said Jinx, in typical Harlemese.

The detective fell silent a moment, then said:

‘All right, Jenkins. That’s all for the present. You go back to the front room.’

Officer Brady escorted Jinx out, and returned.

‘Brady, tell Green, who is up front, to take note of everything he overhears those people in there say. You come back here.’

Obediently, Officer Brady turned away.

‘Light!’ called Dart, and the bluecoat in the hall pressed the switch that turned on the extension light.

CHAPTER VIII

‘WHAT do you think of Jenkins’ story?’ Dr Archer asked.

‘Well, even before he balked on the handkerchief,’ answered Dart, ‘I couldn’t believe him. Then when he balked on describing the blue border, it messed up the whole thing.’

‘He certainly was convincing about that interview, though. He couldn’t have just conjured up that story—it’s too definite.’

‘Yes. But I’m giving him a little time to cool off. Maybe the details won’t be so exact next time.’

‘As I figure it, he could be right—at least concerning the time the fatal attack occurred. It would be right at the end of the one-half hour period in which I first estimated death to have taken place. And in the state of mind he was in when Frimbo seemed to be performing miracles of clairvoyance, he might easily have failed to hear the attack. Certainly he could have failed to see it—he didn’t see me standing here beside you.’

‘You’re thinking of the crack on the head. You surely don’t suppose Jenkins could have failed to see anyone trying to push that handkerchief in place?’

‘No. But that could have been done in the minute when he ran up front to get Bubber. It would have to be fast work, of course.’

‘Damn right it would. I really don’t believe in considering the remote possibilities first. In this game you’ve got to be practical. Fit conclusions to the facts, not facts to conclusions. Personally I don’t feel one way or the other about Jenkins—except that he is unnecessarily antagonistic. That won’t help him at all. But I’m certainly satisfied, from testimony, that he is not the guilty party. His attitude, his impossible story, his balking on the blue-bordered handkerchief—’

‘You think it’s his handkerchief?’

‘I think he could have described it—from the way he balked. If he could have described it, why didn’t he? Because it belonged either to him or to somebody he wanted to cover.’

‘He was balking all right.’

‘Of course, that wouldn’t make him guilty. But it wouldn’t exactly clear him either.’

‘Not exactly. On the other hand, the Frimbo part of his story—what Frimbo said to him—is stuff that a man like Jenkins couldn’t possibly have thought up. It was Frimbo talking—that I’m sure of.’

‘Through a neckful of cotton cloth?’

‘No. When he was talking to Jenkins, his throat was unobstructed.’

‘Well—that means that, the way it looks now, there are two possibilities: somebody did it either when Jenkins went up front to get Bubber or when Bubber went to get you. Let’s get the other woman in. All right, Brady, bring in the other lady. Douse the glim, outside there.’

Out went the extension light; the original bright horizontal shaft shot forth like an accusing finger pointing toward the front room, while the rest of the death chamber went black.

Awkwardly, not unlike an eccentric dancer, the tall thin woman took the spotlight, stood glaring a wide-eyed hostile moment, then disposed herself in a bristlingly erect attitude on the edge of the visitor’s chair. Every angle of her meagre, poorly clad form, every feature of her bony countenance, exhibited resentment.

‘What is your name, madam?’

‘Who’s that?’ The voice was high, harsh, and querulous.

‘Detective Dart. I’m sitting in a chair opposite you.’

‘Is you the one was in yonder a while ago?’

‘Yes. Now—’

‘What kind o’ detective is you?’

‘A police detective, madam, of the City of New York. And please let me ask the questions, while you confine yourself to the answers.’

‘Police detective? ’Tain’t so. They don’t have no black detectives.’

‘Your informant was either ignorant or colour-blind, madam.—Now would you care to give your answers here or around at the police station?’

The woman fell silent. Accepting this as a change of heart, the detective repeated:

‘What is your name?’

‘Aramintha Snead.’

‘Mrs or Miss?’

‘Mrs’ The tone indicated that a detective should be able to tell.

‘Your address?’

‘19 West 134th Street.’

‘You’re an American, of course?’

‘I is now. But I originally come from Savannah, Georgia.’

‘Occupation?’

‘Occupation? You mean what kind o’ work I do?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘I don’t do no work at all—not for wages. I’m a church-worker though.’

‘A church-worker? You spend a good deal of time in church then?’

‘Can’t nobody spend too much time in church. Though I declare I been wonderin’ lately if there ain’t some things the devil can ’tend to better’n the Lord.’

‘What brought you here tonight?’

‘My two feet.’

Dart sighed patiently and pursued:

‘How does it happen that a devoted church-worker like you, Mrs Snead, comes to seek the advice of a man like Frimbo, a master of the powers of darkness? I should think you would have sought the help of your pastor instead.’

‘I did, but it never done no good. Every time I go to the Rev’n the Rev’n say, “Daughter take it to the Lord in prayer.” Well, I done like he said. I took it and took it. Tonight I got tired takin’ it.’

‘Tonight? Why tonight?’

‘Tonight was prayer-meetin’ night. I ain’ missed a prayer-meetin’ in two years. And for two years, week after week—every night for that matter, but specially at Friday night prayer-meetin’—I been prayin’ to the Lord to stop my husband from drinkin’. Not that I object to the drinkin’ itself, y’understand. The Lord made water into wine. But when Jake come home night after night jes’ drunk enough to take pleasure in beatin’ the breath out o’ me—that’s another thing altogether.’

‘I quite agree with you,’ encouraged Dart.

In the contemplation of her troubles, Mrs Snead relinquished some of her indignation, or, more exactly, transferred it from the present to the past.

‘Well, lo and behold, tonight I ain’t no sooner got through prayin’ for him at the meetin’ and took myself on home than he greets me at the door with a cuff side o’ the head. Jes’ by way of interduction, he say, so next time I’d be there when he come in. And why in who-who ain’t his supper ready? So I jes’ turn around and walk off. And I thought to myself as I walked, “If one medicine don’ help, maybe another will.” So I made up my mind. Everybody know ’bout this man Frimbo—say he can conjure on down. And I figger I been takin’ it to the Lord in prayer long enough. Now I’m goin’ take it to the devil.’

‘So you came here?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you happen to choose Frimbo out of all the conjure-men in Harlem?’

‘He was the only one I knowed anything about.’

‘What did you know about him?’

‘Knowed what he done for Sister Susan Gassoway’s boy, Lem. She was tellin’ me ’bout it jes’ a couple o’ weeks ago—two weeks ago tonight. We was at prayer-meetin’. Old man Hezekiah Mosby was prayin’ and when he gets to prayin’ they ain’t no stoppin’ him. So Sister Gassoway and me, we was talkin’ and she told me what this man Frimbo’d done for her boy, Lem. Lem got in a little trouble—wild boy he is, anyhow—and put the blame on somebody else. This other boy swore he’d kill Lem, and Lem believed him. So he come to this Frimbo and Frimbo put a charm on him—told him he’d come through it all right. Well you ’member that case what was in the Amsterdam News ’bout a boy havin’ a knife stuck clean through his head and broke off and the hole closed over and he thought he was jes’ cut and didn’t know the knife was in there?’

‘Yes. Went to Harlem Hospital, was X-rayed, and had the knife removed.’

‘And lived! That was Lem Gassoway. Nothin’ like it ever heard of before. Anybody else’d ’a’ been killed on the spot. But not Lem. Lem was under Frimbo’s spell. That’s what saved him.’

‘And that’s why you chose Frimbo?’

‘’Deed so. Wouldn’t you?’

‘No doubt. At just what time did you get here, Mrs Snead?’

‘Little after half-past ten.’

‘Did anyone let you in?’

‘No. I did like the sign say—open and walk in.’

‘You came straight upstairs and into the waiting-room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see anybody?’

‘Nobody but that other girl and them two fellers that was ’bout to fight jes’ now and a couple o’ other men in the room. Oh, yes—the—the butler or whatever he was. Evilest-lookin’ somebody y’ever see—liked to scared me to death.’

‘Did you notice anything of interest while you were waiting your turn?’

‘Huh? Oh—yes. When one o’ them other two men got up to go see the conjure-man, he couldn’t hold his feet—must ’a’ been drunker’n my Jake. ’Deed so, ’cause down he fell right in the middle o’ the floor, and I guess he’d been there yet if them other men hadn’t helped him up.’

‘Who helped him?’

‘All of ’em.’

‘Did you notice the mantelpiece?’

‘With all them conjures on it? I didn’t miss.’

‘Did you see those two clubs with the silver tips?’

‘Two? Uh—uh—I don’t remember no two. I ’member one though. But I wasn’t payin’ much attention—might ’a’ been a dozen of ’em for all I know. There was so many devilish-lookin’ things ’round.’

‘Did you see anyone with a blue-bordered white handkerchief—a man’s handkerchief?’

‘No, suh.’

‘You are sure you did not see any such handkerchief—in one of the men’s pockets, perhaps?’

‘What men is got in they pockets ain’t none my business.’

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