A SILVER COIN. A busted quarter that had been stepped on by a streetcar and wasn’t worth any part of two bits. A coin that was worth a million in superstition to its owner and which had no business at all in my apartment.
I kept turning it over and over like a pancake that wouldn’t cook the same on both sides. I could be wrong, of course. Maybe another streetcar had run over one-fifth of another silver quarter. That was possible, but improbable. What was even more improbable was that the second silver quarter should find its way into my room.
It was a nice room, but too many things had happened in it recently. Too many things that didn’t belong. This battered coin, for one thing. The body of a girl who had been strangled to death, for another.
Arthur Maybank sat watching me. He ran slim, delicate fingers through hair that was too sparse for so young a man, and waited for me to say something. He didn’t have long to wait.
I said, “You’ve known Ricardo and Dana almost as long as I have. Didn’t either of them ever tell you about this?”
He shook his head. Then he smiled, just a little bit. “And so far,” he said, “you haven’t either.”
“It’s quite a story. It deals with superstition, and your scientifically trained mind will reject it. But you musn’t.”
He said, “I won’t. I meet a lot of superstitious people at the hospital.”
“The yarn goes back about ten or twelve years. At that time Ricardo Sanchez was unknown. He was a fairly good-looking guy who knew a lot of dancing and wanted to do something about it. All he’d ever succeeded in doing was to remain in a half-starved condition. Like a lot of optimists on the fringe of show business, he wouldn’t give up. Maybe he was too lazy to do regular work; maybe he had the soul of an artist. Knowing him, you can take your choice.
“Whatever breaks he’d been having were bad ones. He had extended his limited credit until his friends either cut corners to avoid him or he did the same to them for fear they’d request the return of loans which he couldn’t return. He had an agent—they all do—and he had borrowed so much from his agent that he never went near the office. He was ill-fed, poorly clothed, discouraged and just about ready to become a beautiful floorwalker so that he could eat occasionally.
“One day, crossing Third Avenue, he saw something on the car track. It was a quarter. A car had run over a small portion of it. Four-fifths of the coin was still good money. The remaining fifth was flat. What it meant to Ricardo right then was doughnuts and coffee, provided he could persuade someone to take it.
“His version of what happened is rather vivid. He went into a greasy little place called The Coffee Pot. He asked the tough gent behind the counter whether he’d accept the mashed quarter. The counterman told him to get the hell out of there: he didn’t have no time to waste on no bums.
“Up to that moment, according to Ricardo, he had reconciled himself to slow starvation. Having been almost in possession of something to eat impelled him to do something he would never otherwise have done. He went looking for the only person he knew who might possibly stand another touch: his agent. He wanted to sell his quarter to the agent for a quarter he could spend. He wanted food.”
I paused long enough to fill my pipe and light it. “I’m giving you the details, Arthur, because they’re very important. Without them, you’ll never understand how a thing like this can come to mean so much to an otherwise intelligent man.”
“Don’t apologize.” Arthur was leaning back and watching me through half-closed eyes. “I’m more than interested.”
“Knowing that he faced a two-to-one chance of being pitched out on his ear, Ricardo went to his agent’s office. He met the agent just as he stepped inside the door. But to his amazement, he didn’t get thrown out. The ten-per-center grabbed him and said Ricardo was just the man he wanted to see. He said there was an immediate opening in the chorus of a new musical that was on the verge of a Broadway opening. Would Ricardo take it? Ricardo would. He did. At the same time he borrowed five dollars from his agent. He didn’t say anything about the flattened quarter. He kept that in his pocket and started thinking of it as a luck piece.
“He got the job. He held it. What was more, he studied the routines of the dance team that was featured in the show. One night, in the middle of the show, the male half of the dance team turned his ankle. They were about to cut the spot when Ricardo convinced the stage manager that he could do it. They let him try it. He grabbed twice as much applause as the principal had ever received. When he finished, he felt in his pocket and found the coin had been with him. He didn’t need any more convincing. It was a luck piece, all right.
“He kept that coin, and he started up. He was a natural-born dancer, and all he had needed was the opportunity. Before the end of that show’s run, he and a girl partner had supplanted the original couple. He and the girl went from there into a nice, small club as a ballroom team. Wham! Then a better engagement and another one still better.
“The rest you know. He became recognized as one of the greatest ballroom dancers in the world. He finally met Dana, saw that she was the answer to a dancer’s prayer, taught her all he knew—and married her. And through all of this he held tight to that luck piece. He credited it with all the luck he’d had. Several years ago he bought one of those little flat 18-carat cases which are called pill boxes. He had it lined with purple velvet and he put his luck piece in it. There’s probably nothing in the world he values so highly.”
I ran out of breath. Arthur said, “If it means that much to him—and if he lost it—why wouldn’t he have missed it?”
“Because of the little gold pill box. I imagine that after all these years a man wouldn’t be opening it all the time to see whether the luck piece was there. As long as he had the gold box, he’d presume the coin was inside. That could explain why he hasn’t missed it.”
“Maybe he has.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’d have heard about it. So would everybody else who knows him.”
Arthur said, “You think that the box might have opened and the coin dropped out . . . under certain circumstances?”
“It’s possible. If Ricardo happened to be under enough nervous strain at the time, he might not notice.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he was here. You say he has never visited you. If you’re right on that, he must have been here when you were out.” Arthur crossed one leg over the other. “That’s rather far-fetched, isn’t it, Kirk?”
“Tell me how else could the coin get here?”
“All right. But you may not like it. Suppose Dana brought it.”
I gave that a thorough going-over. I said, “I can’t buy that one, Arthur. First, she wouldn’t dare to take the luck piece out of the box. Second, she would have had no reason for doing it. Third, she wouldn’t have brought it here. Fourth, if she had done all this—and had lost it—she would have told me.”
He smiled. “You make out a pretty good case. Which leaves us with only one alternative. If it’s the same coin, then Ricardo must have brought it. So let’s ask ourselves this: When did he come and why?”
I said, “A girl I never saw in my life—a girl named Ethel Brower—was murdered in this apartment on the third of February. There isn’t any logical answer to what she was doing here. We can put her in the category with the coin.”
“But why here?”
“You had a theory once,” I said slowly, “that Ricardo might actually be in love with Dana; that he might have suspected she was coming here that night, and have been jealous. If that were true, he could have made a mistake, killed this Brower woman believing it was Dana . . . then got out as fast as possible.”
Arthur looked steadily at me. He said, “I know I suggested that, Kirk. At the time it sounded reasonable. The way you tell it, I can’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“Too many flaws. Mind you, I still don’t like Ricardo. I still believe that he could be in love with Dana. But where Ethel Brower fits in or why Ricardo should have met her here . . .”
I said, “We don’t know anything about the people Ricardo knew . . . long ago. This Brower woman could have fitted in there, couldn’t she?”
“Naturally. But look, Kirk . . . it’s still all full of holes.”
“Okay. But these things have happened. We didn’t imagine them. Not any more than you imagined you were shot at. Where does that belong in this crazy pattern? And what do I do next?”
Arthur said, “If I were you I’d take it to the police.”
I hesitated. “I may have to eventually. But not until I’m forced.”
“Why?”
“Dana. You understand the situation between Dana and me. But what would the public think?”
“Yeh . . . I know . . .”
“And suppose Ricardo isn’t mixed up in all this stuff. I give this coin to the cops and what do they do? They start shoving him around. The newspapers get it. It’d make juicy copy.”
“Suppose he is the bad boy?”
“The minute I’m convinced of that, I’ll tell the police. Up to now, they’re as stalled as I am. They know about the killing of Ethel Brower. They know that somebody deposited a hundred thousand dollars to my credit at the bank. They know someone tried to kill you for no discernible reason except that you are a friend of mine—”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Don’t kid yourself. That’s the only possible motive, even though it doesn’t make a nickel’s worth of sense. I’m in the middle of something I don’t understand. But I can’t see myself throwing Ricardo—and, incidentally, Dana—to the wolves without more proof than this.”
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous, playing detective, Kirk?”
“I’m not playing detective. I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. And I’m not withholding evidence. I’m only waiting until I can convince myself that it is evidence.”
“I get it . . .” Arthur strolled into the kitchenette and poured himself a glass of water from the little bottle I kept in the icebox. He came back and put it on the coffee table. “What do you do now?” he asked.
“First I’ll think things over. Then I’m going to find out for sure whether this actually is Ricardo’s luck piece or whether I’ve run into a coincidence to end all coincidences.”
“Which you don’t believe.”
“Naturally not.”
“How will you find out?”
“I’ll ask Dana.”
“How would she know?”
“She can look in the little gold box. He changes it from one suit to another. Sometimes he leaves it in his street clothes while he’s dancing. Sometimes he leaves it on his make-up table. She could go into his dressing room, pick her time and peep inside. If the coin is there, okay. If it isn’t, I won’t need any further confirmation.”
“Of what?” he asked dryly.
“Of the fact that this one belongs to Ricardo.”
“And then . . . ?”
“Quit shoving me. I don’t know ‘what then.’ I don’t know anything. Maybe I’ll turn it over to the police. Maybe I’ll get scared of what might happen to Dana in the way of scandal . . . and that’ll frighten me off. I’m only sure of one thing: Whatever I do will probably turn out to be wrong.”
He said, “Hold it, Kirk. And grab yourself a big night’s sleep, starting as of now.”
“I’m going to the Caliente.”
“Not tonight, you’re not. You’re bleary-eyed. You’d probably mess things up. Give yourself a day to get adjusted.”
I nodded. “You win,” I said. “I’ll surround myself with sweetness and light. I’ll sleep like a baby. Like hell I will.”
“Try it anyway,” he said. “Maybe you’ll be surprised.”
I did try it. I crawled into bed and turned out the lights.
Arthur made a good guess. I slept soundly until the alarm clock went off at 7:30.
I didn’t feel good. That would have been asking too much. But I did feel better. “By tomorrow morning,” I told myself, “I should know a lot more than I know now.”
I was right.