M Is for Magic Read Free Page A

hissed.
    â€œI don’t think so, toots.” I sat down on the bed. “Let me spell a few things out for you.”
    â€œGo ahead.” She reached behind her for a concealed alarm button. I let her press it. I’d cut the wires on my way in—in my profession there’s no such thing as being too careful.
    â€œLet me spell a few things out for you.”
    â€œYou just said that.”
    â€œI’ll tell this my way, lady.”
    I lit a cigarette, and a thin plume of blue smoke drifted heavenward, which was where I was going if my hunch was wrong. Still, I’ve learned to trust hunches.
    â€œTry this on for size. Dumpty—the Fat Man—wasn’t your brother. He wasn’t even your friend. In fact he was blackmailing you. He knew about your nose.”
    She turned whiter than a number of corpses I’ve met in my time in the business. Her hand reached up and cradled her freshly powdered nose.
    â€œYou see, I’ve known the Fat Man for many years, and many years ago he had a lucrative concern in training animals and birds to do certain unsavory things. And that got me to thinking…. I had a client recently who didn’t show, due to his having been stiffed first. Dr. Foster, of Gloucester, the plastic surgeon. The official version of his death was that he’d just sat too close to a fire and melted.
    â€œBut just suppose he was killed to stop him telling something that he knew. I put two and two together and hit the jackpot. Let me reconstruct a scene for you: You were out in the garden—probably hanging out some clothes—when along came one of Dumpty’s trained pie blackbirds and pecked off your nose .
    â€œSo there you were, standing in the garden, your hand in front of your face, when along came the Fat Man with an offer you couldn’t refuse. He could introduce you to a plastic surgeon who could fix you up with a nose as good as new, for a price. And no one need ever know. Am I right so far?”
    She nodded dumbly, then, finding her voice, muttered, “Pretty much. But I ran back into the parlor after the attack, to eat some bread and honey. That was where he found me.”
    â€œFair enough.” The color was starting to come back into her cheeks now. “So you had the operation from Foster, and no one was going to be any the wiser. Until Dumpty told you that he had photos of the op. You had to get rid of him. A couple of days later you were out walking in the palace grounds. There was Humpty, sitting on a wall, his back to you, gazing out into the distance. In a fit of madness, you pushed. And Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
    â€œBut now you were in big trouble. Nobody suspected you of his murder, but where were the photographs? Foster didn’t have them, although he smelled a rat and had to be disposed of—before he could see me. But you didn’t know how much he’d told me, and you still didn’t have the snapshots, so you took me on to find out. And that was your mistake, sister.”
    Her lower lip trembled, and my heart quivered. “You won’t turn me in, will you?”
    â€œSister, you tried to frame me this afternoon. I don’t take kindly to that.”
    With a shaking hand she started to unbutton the top button of her blouse. “Perhaps we could come to some sort of arrangement?”
    I shook my head. “Sorry, your majesty. Mrs. Horner’s little boy Jack was always taught to keep his hands off royalty. It’s a pity, but that’s how it is.” To be on the safe side I looked away, which was a mistake. A cute little ladies’ pistol was in her hands and pointing at me before you could sing a song of sixpence. The shooter may have been small, but I knew it packed enough of a wallop to take me out of the game permanently.
    This dame was lethal .
    â€œPut that gun down, your majesty.” Sergeant O’Grady strolled through the bedroom door, his police special