A Graveyard for Lunatics

?The studio needs mousers. Steps, here, Henry, eight up.?

We stood on the porch, breathing hard.

?My God.? I looked out at Jerusalem?s hills beyond Green Town and the Sea of Galilee, beyond Brooklyn. ?All along I should have seen. The Beast didn?t go to the graveyard, he was entering the studiol What a setup. Using a tunnel no one suspects to spy on his blackmail victims. See how much he had scared them with that body on the wall, grab the money, scare ?em again and pick up more!?

?If,? said Crumley, ?that?s what he was doing.?

I took a deep trembling breath and at last let it out.

?There?s one more body I haven?t delivered to you.?

?I?d rather not hear,? said Crumley.

?Arbuthnot?s.?

?Crud, that?s right!?

?Somebody stole it,? I said. ?A long time ago.?

?No, sirree,? said blind Henry. ?It was never there. That was a clean place, that icehouse tomb.?

?So where?s Arbuthnot?s body been all these years?? asked Crumley.

?You?re the detective. Detect.?

?Okay,? said Crumley, ?how?s this? Halloween booze party. Someone poisons the hooch. Gives it to Arbuthnot at the last second as he leaves. Arbuthnot, driving, dies at the wheel, smashes the other car off the road. There?s a coverup. Autopsy shows his body glows with enough poison to pile-drive an elephant. Before the funeral, instead of burying the evidence, they burn it. Arbuthnot, so much smoke, goes up the chimney. So his empty sarcophagus waits in the tomb, where blind Henry here tells all.?

?I did do that, didn?t I?? Henry agreed.

?The Beast, knowing the tomb is vacant and the reason why maybe, uses it as a base, hoists the Arbuthnot look-alike on the ladder, and watches the scalded ants run in a fright picnic over the wall. Okay??

?That still doesn?t find us Roy, J. C., Clarence, or the Beast,? I said.

?Lord deliver me from this guy!? Crumley pleaded with the sky.

Crumley was delivered.

There was a fearful racket in the studio alleys, some backfires, honks, and a yell.

?That?s Constance Rattigan,? observed Henry.

Constance parked in front of the old house and cut the motor.

?Even when she turns off the ignition,? said Henry, ?I can still hear her motor running.?

We met her at the front door.

?Constance!? I said. ?How did you get past the guard??

?Easy.? She laughed. ?He was an old-timer. I reminded him I?d once attacked him in the men?s gym. While he was blushing, I roared in! Well, damn, if it isn?t the world?s greatest blind man!?

?You still working at that lighthouse, directing ships?? asked Henry.

?Give me a hug.?

?You sure feel soft.?

?And Elmo Crumley, you old?s.o.b.!?

?She?s never wrong,? said Crumley, as she broke all his ribs.

?Let?s get the hell out of here,? said Constance. ?Henry? Lead!?

?I?m gone!? said Henry.

On the way out of the studio I murmured, ?Calvary.?

Constance slowed as we passed the ancient hill.

There was complete darkness. No moon. No stars. One of those nights when the fog comes in early from the sea and covers all of Los Angeles, at a height of about five hundred feet. The airplanes are muffled and the airports closed.

I gazed steadily up the little hill hoping to find Christ in a drunken farewell-tour Ascension.

?J. C.!? I whispered.

But the clouds shifted now. I could see the crosses were empty.

Three gone, I thought. Clarence drowned in paper. Doc Phillips hauled up in Notre Dame?s midnight at noon, leaving one shoe. And now? ?

?See anything?? asked Crumley.

?Maybe tomorrow.?