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Roy Glashan's Library
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Mammoth Detective, February 1944,
with "O'Sheen Minds the Baby"
PADDY O'SHEEN sat before the old fashioned cook-stove, struggling with his wet shoes. The oven was open and heat rolled out, warming his chilled body. Then, after cocking up his stockinged feet, he called to Marta, his comely wife.
"Sure, and what time is it, darlin'?"
Marta's face was pleasantly flushed from the warmth of the big kitchen. Her arms were white with flour. Her eyes twinkled as she glanced at the clock.
"Seven o'clock, and how long since you lost your eyesight?"
Paddy grinned reproachfully.
"It's been a hard day. Snowing since five-thirty, then it stops as soon as I leave the beat."
The phone rang in the living room. Marta turned to O'Sheen, but Paddy looked so thoroughly comfortable that she brushed the flour from her arms and hurried toward the phone.
Her rich voice floated back to the kitchen.
"Mrs. Warner?" Then a moment of hesitation. "Paddy just came home. He's so tired, I hate.... Well, if it's really important, I'll send him right over."
Paddy groaned and started to pull his shoes on once more. The Warners were casual friends who lived down the block. Bill Warner worked at the paper mill. They had a baby, little Mike, who was barely a year old.
Marta was back before he had his shoes laced, a frown of annoyance on her face.
"Mrs. Warner wants you to come over right away. She's crying, and she won't tell me what's wrong."
O'Sheen struggled into his rubbers and waited for Marta to bring his coat and scarf. She wrapped the scarf tightly around his neck and kissed him on the nose.
Heavy snow had fallen since five-thirty, and now three inches of it covered the entire town. Paddy hurried down the street and turned in at the Warner place. A light burned in the kitchen, making a yellow patch on the snow near the back of the house. O'Sheen was about to knock when Mary Warner opened the door. Mary was an attractive woman of thirty-five who took part in every club and church meeting that occurred. Baby Mike always went along in his cab, and gossip spread that Mrs. Warner never stayed at home; the poor baby—always being dragged around....
The moment she saw Paddy, she started to cry again. He knew from the mascara-streaked cheeks and swollen eyes that she had a real problem. He followed her into the small living room, and she slumped down in a frayed chair with a gesture of utter weariness.
"Oh, Paddy! It's Bill. I've been out shopping all afternoon. I just got home before it started to snow. Bill—is—dead. He's lying out there on the kitchen floor. There's blood all...."
At this point her voice broke and she buried her face in her handkerchief.
Somewhere upstairs, young Mike started howling for
attention. O'Sheen felt the hair on the back of his neck
prickle strangely. Bill Warner dead?
But why? Bill had no money. He wasn't the type of man to make enemies. Paddy realized that Mary Warner was grasping his hand. He drew it away gently and moved with mechanical tread toward the kitchen. Somehow the whole house seemed filled with the coldness of death.
Warner's body was stretched out on the floor. The murdered man still wore his overcoat. The shoes were wet where they had been out in the snow. A bloody knife lay near the corpse.
Paddy stepped back into the living room. The woman hadn't moved. Her shoulders were shaking with grief. O'Sheen went to the phone.
"Central," he said. "Give me the police station."
Almost at once, Chief Walter Henderson's gruff voice said:
"Hello. That you, O'Sheen? Why don't you eat supper and let me alone?"
"You'd better come over to Bill Warner's place right away," O'Sheen said. "He's been murdered."
He hung up quickly to escape Henderson's flood of questions.
Realizing that women must be left alone when they cry, Paddy wandered back to the kitchen and stared out the window toward the alley. There were footprints there all right. A man's footprints led to the alley gate.
He could hear Chief Henderson's siren screaming somewhere on Main Street. Paddy went back to the front porch. The night was clear and still now. Mike's baby cab was on the porch. He stared down into the snow, studying the footprints that led out to the sidewalk.
His own big shoes made a trail of their own. Bill Warner's prints were there, made when Bill walked into the house to meet a murderer. So were both sets of tracks Mary Warner and the baby cab had made when she went shopping.
Henderson's little car plowed up through the snow and came to a halt. Henderson's bulky form emerged from behind the wheel and he hurried up the steps. Chief Henderson was grumpy as usual. Being dragged from his nice warm station into the first snow of the season wasn't calculated to make him a bundle of charm.
"Well, O'Sheen," he demanded. "What in tarnation got you into this mess? Marta ought to have better sense ..."
"Bill's wife is feeling kinda low," Paddy interrupted. "Be careful what you say.
Henderson sobered abruptly. They went inside together,
and Henderson mumbled a word of greeting that Mary Warner
evidently did not hear. In the kitchen, Henderson stared
down at the body with wide, startled eyes. It seemed
to dawn on him for the first time that this was really
murder.
He lumbered back into the living room. Paddy leaned against the fireplace, rubbing his hand thoughtfully across the back of his head. Mary Warner stared up at the Chief with desperate eyes.
"There—are clues? You'll find the man who killed my husband?"
Henderson groped for some word of comfort.
"I—haven't had time to look around," he stammered. "I'll call Doc Hargreave right away. We'll start to work as soon as he comes."
He turned to O'Sheen, but Paddy was staring at Mary Warner with a faraway, puzzled expression.
"I don't think we'll have to wait," he said slowly. "You'd better take Mrs. Warner down to the station, Chief. When she has time to think it over, she'll realize the best thing she can do, to make it easy for herself is to sign a confession."
Chief Henderson shot a startled glance at the woman. Mary stiffened, tears apparently forgotten, her lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line.
"You—you're insane, Paddy," she cried. "I told you I was gone this afternoon. I took the baby with me. It was while I was gone that someone...."
Her head drooped forward, and she started to sob again.
"Bill was murdered after you say you left the house," Paddy said.
The woman sprang agitatedly to her feet.
"Why are you saying these crazy things?" she screamed. "Haven't I suffered enough?"
Paddy stood his ground. His face was turning an angry red. "I'm not worried about how much you'll suffer," he said coldly. "I'm worried about baby Mike."
Henderson was growing excited.
"But she's right, Paddy," he protested. "Maybe you better keep quiet until you know what you're talking about."
O'Sheen whirled toward the Chief.
"Ask her how long it took to go to the store," he said. "She told me she left the house before five-thirty."
Henderson turned toward the woman. Before he could speak, she confirmed the statement.
"I did," she said. "Bill wasn't home from work yet. When I came home, he was dead."
Paddy smiled, but there was no humor in it.
"Bill's shoes were wet," he said. "There are tracks where he came in, and where a man went out the back way. That part checks all right."
If Mary Warner went out with the baby cab at five-thirty, or before, it either hadn't started to snow when she left, or there wasn't any snow to speak of on the ground. Paddy O'Sheen's eves glittered.
"How do you explain the two pairs of wheel tracks that show clearly on the front walk?"
Mary Warner's eyes never left his face. She stood
rigidly waiting.
"Because," O'Sheen continued, "Bill came home early, before it started to snow. You killed him, and then remembered there had to be tracks that an escaping murderer would make. You put his shoes on over your own. You walked out to the alley and around the block, re-entering the house through the front door. You could do this thing because this happened after dark and you didn't stand much chance of being seen.
"You put the wet shoes back on Bill's feet, and made a hurried trip to the grocery store. You probably made a small purchase, and expected to get away with the story that you had visited a number of other places. You tried to establish an alibi, but the cab tracks gave you away."
"You lie!" Mary Warner stumbled forward, and Henderson caught her by the wrists. She didn't struggle. "You're a rotten, miserable liar, Paddy O'Sheen."
This time her sobbing was genuine.
There was no triumph in Paddy O'Sheen's voice.
"I'm sorry, Mary," be said. "You forgot that the first tracks either wouldn't have existed, or would have been covered by snow an hour ago. You're not an experienced murderer, and you wouldn't think of that."
"He hit me," the woman cried. "He said I ought to stay home and make a fit mother for Mike."
Chief Henderson groaned.
"The baby, O'Sheen? I can't drag this woman to the station and leave Mike alone."
Paddy smiled a little wistfully.
"I guess Marta won't mind me bringing little Mike home," he mumbled. "I'll mind the baby, Chief."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.