The Nitwit By William Merriam Rouse

  Popular Detective, March, 1936

  The Nitwit

  By William Merriam Rouse

  When the Jewel Thieves Decided to Frame the Village Half-Wit, Their Picture of Circumstances Wasn’t Complete!

  NO one of the three men playing poker at the bludgeons flicked the hasp back and forth and plain pine table could be called an ornament to the mighty shoulders under the blue cloth the human race. Something lay over their heaved to a delighted chuckle.

  faces, not unlike the distortion produced by A grizzly bear of that stature and

  faulty glass. Each was different from the shuffling walk would not have been others and yet all had two things in common, astonishing. A man was a little beyond belief, boredom and a subdued, tense restlessness.

  and yet undoubtedly it was a man. After a It was a chill mountain afternoon on

  moment he opened the shed door and, still the threshold of September, cool enough for a with his back toward the house, piled one of fire, and at every snap of the burning wood his great arms so high with firewood that his each man reacted in his own fashion, with a face was obscured as he turned and came

  turn of the eyes, a suppressed jerk of neck forward. A long sigh erupted from the men as muscles, or an uneasy movement of the body.

  though from one throat.

  Pittsburg Joe, an elderly man with an

  “The village halfwit!” snapped

  old fashioned handlebar mustache and Travers. “I’ve seen him stalling around the protruding eyes, looked out of a window, as post office. They let him ramble, I guess.”

  they all did from time to time. He sprang to The door opened. A big, round,

  his feet with an oath and the cigarette stained grinning face, like a tan colored moon, peered fingers which held his cards trembled.

  from behind the high armful of wood. It

  “What the—what’s that out there by

  located the wood-box. For a half minute sticks the woodshed?”

  thudded down as the visitor ranked the wood The others were instantly on their feet.

  neatly in the box. Then he turned and stood Slim Huggins, incredibly tall, thin, and a little erect, towering even above Huggins, and

  stooped in the shoulders, dropped a hand to grinned.

  the side pocket of his rumpled but once

  There was something so silly, so

  expensive coat.

  innocuous in that grin that Hug-gins and Pittsburg Joe responded in spite of themselves.

  THE third man, Dicky Travers, fat and The white teeth were wholesome. The face expressionless save for his eyes, reached to a and clothes of the creature were clean. He shoulder holster.

  stood there with an enormous lack of self What they saw might have caused consciousness and waited, like a big dog that astonishment to less apprehensive men. A has retrieved a stick.

  huge figure in blue jacket and overalls stood

  “What’s your name?” asked Travers,

  playing childishly with a hasp by which the sharply.

  shed door was fastened. Fingers like miniature

  “Me

  Tiny!”

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  “That’s right,” said Travers. “He’s the

  coming here until after we pull this job and one. Lives with his old man. Moved in from beat it.”

  some other hick town. I remember because I

  “Lookut,” said Travers, who had been

  cased the whole situation when I come up to thinking behind his expressionless mask.

  rent this dump here.”

  “Slim, you and me almost had a run in already

  “All right, Tiny,” said Pittsburg Joe.

  over bringing in wood and getting water from

  “You run along home now. Your old man

  the pump and washing dishes and all that don’t want you to play with big boys!”

  damned truck. Joe don’t like it, neither. This

  “Me do chores!”

  dummy can’t tell nothing because he don’t

  “Listen!” spat Huggins. His shoulder

  know enough to understand what he hears and twitched and he ground out a cigarette on the couldn’t repeat it if he did. I’ll see his old man stove. “You beat it, or I’ll bend a gat over and find out if he wants to let Tiny work for your head!”

  us.

  But Tiny just grinned, and after a

  “I got another idea, too. If we can

  moment it reached all of them that he either frame this guy to keep the cops busy even a did not understand the threat or disbelieved it.

  day it’ll put us that much in the clear. Believe Perhaps he did not know how to be afraid. He me, we’ll be hot! For when the Bowling

  just stood there, like a monument, and looked jewels leave home it’s going to mean

  contented and stubborn and cheerful.

  headlines! Every dick in the country is going

  “What do you want gum shoeing to be on his toes!”

  around here, anyway?” demanded Pittsburg

  “You’re nuts!” sneered Huggins. “Not even a Joe. “Who sent you up from the village? It’s a hick constable would believe that this bird good three mile!”

  pulled a job bigger than swiping an apple out The broad, smooth brow of Tiny of some farmer’s orchard!”

  wrinkled, as though the brain underneath were

  “Be yourself!” exclaimed Travers,

  struggling with the meaning of the words he coldly. “I ain’t that dumb! But between now had just heard.

  and Labor Day I can think of some way of

  “Do chores,” he said at length, and

  working Tiny in so we’ll have the bulls

  then by a mighty effort he managed to express guessing for a day, maybe. With everything all another thought. He half turned and lifted one set the way it is and twenty-four hours start of his log-like arms and pointed toward a we’ll be sitting pretty. The only thing that’s window. “Pretty!”

  worried me at all has been the getaway.

  Pittsburg Joe looked out of the window

  “They’ll be going over this country

  and saw an unending green, lifted in mighty with a gang of troopers. All right. We’re gone.

  billows which were the mountains. There was One of the first things they do will be to run the sudden surprise of keen blue where the down the city guys that come up here for the near hills dropped away to reveal distant peaks trout fishing. If we can get ’em puzzled over and slopes. Here and there a splash of red the trail right here at the start we’re so much heralded autumn. And over all hung the better off. Hell! I was brought up in the benediction which was the sky.

  country. Any smart fox would do the same

  “Damned if he ain’t right!” muttered

  thing!”

  Pittsburg Joe. “Who’d think a nut would

  Huggins snorted; sat down at the table

  notice scenery?”

  and began to shuffle the cards.

  “What’s that gotta do with anything?”

  “Have it your own way,” he said,

  demanded Huggins. “We don’t want nobody

  ungraciously. “I’m sick of washing dishes.

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  But I bet this nitwit won’t know enough to something between now and Labor Day!”

  bring water!”

  Tiny came in with two pails of water.

  “I’ll try him,” said Pittsburg Joe. He

  Pittsburg Joe got out the dishpan and piled it pointed at two pails in the littered sink. “Tiny, full of a day’s accumulation of dishes. />
  go get water!”

  “Wash ’em!” he said.

  “Do chores,” replied the giant, with a

  “Wash dishes,” repeated Tiny, happily.

  grin of delight threatening to reach his ears.

  He filled the teakettle and set it on the stove.

  He took the pails and went out.

  “He’ll do,” nodded Joe. “Better go

  “I’ll learn him about the dishes,” down and see his old man, Dicky. We don’t volunteered Joe. “I’m as sick of walking back want no troopers up here searching for a lost and forth with them water pails as you are of idiot. We all three been mugged and besides if dishwashing, Slim. Next job I do ain’t going they ask us about trout fishing we don’t know to be in the sticks!”

  enough to talk sensible about it.”

  “You won’t never have to do another,”

  When Dicky Travers came back, late

  Travers assured him. “If this one don’t slip.

  in the afternoon, Tiny was splitting kindling.

  Jake Gutman, the fence, told me just what Travers watched him from the window for a Mrs. Roger Bowling’s got. A string of pearls moment in silence before he went on into the that’s tops. Some star sapphires. A ruby house.

  necklace. And about a pint of diamonds. He

  “It’s all right,” he said, to the others.

  put the screws on a maid she had and got it

  “Tiny’s old man is kind of simple too. Makes straight, along with the safe combination.

  a living at odd jobs and I guess he’s glad to get Tiny boarded free for a while. Eats like a

  “THEY’RE sent from New York for her to

  horse, he says, and won’t work anywhere

  wear at the Labor Day ball at Champlain unless he gets the notion. Always running Gables. All right. She goes home after the ball away into the woods. We’re set, for I’m

  and puts ’em in the old fashioned wall safe in beginning to get an idea how I can use him.”

  the library. The Bowlings are going back to Travers paused and laughed.

  the city the next day. Half the servants is gone.

  “I’d like to see the cops running

  “We’ve cased that joint until I can call around in circles when they go up against every tree by its first name. Slim has figgered Tiny!”

  out the work on the screens. I ain’t going to have no trouble with that safe combination.

  THE Bowling robbery was as well planned as Anyway the box was built when George an affair of the kind could be. It was, in fact, Washington was chopping down the cherry

  much better arranged in advance than many a tree.

  military campaign. Prowling by night and

  “The only weak spot is the getaway.

  spying by day, and making insidious

  Sooner or later they’re going to trail us to New acquaintance with the servants of Mr. and York. If we can hold ’em up a day here we got Mrs. Roger Bowling, the three robbers, each plenty of time to see Gutman and cash in and with long experience in crime had learned get a good start south. That’s where Tiny’s every step of the way they had to go in order going to come in.”

  to possess themselves of the Bowling jewels.

  “Nerts!” ejaculated Huggins.

  Moreover, they were favored by

  “It’s an ideer,” admitted Pittsburg Joe, fortune in various ways. The jewels were

  “if you can think up something.”

  insured as a matter of course and this, perhaps,

  “Dicky Travers can think up relaxed the vigilance of the owners. Although

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  it was supposed to be a secret that Mrs. chloroform.

  Bowling was going to wear them at the final Travers moved toward one wainscoted

  ball of the season at Champlain Gables, those wall. Under his hand a small painting swung things are confided from one person to another outward like the door of a cupboard. Behind it until they become almost public knowledge.

  the light revealed a steel knob. Travers twirled There could be many suspects.

  the knob, right, left, right. The safe opened.

  At four o’clock of the morning after

  He reached in and took out a leather walletlike the ball Huggins, Travers and Pittsburg Joe object as large as a brief case. He looked waited under one of the library windows of inside. Then it went under his coat, into the the Bowling home. Tiny was with them. He pocket which he had prepared for it in the had been told to keep quiet and he had lining.

  obeyed, just as he had obeyed every command Travers, like Joe and Huggins, wore

  that had been given him.

  rubber gloves such as surgeons use. No

  The Bowlings had come home from

  fingerprint had been left, not even on the the ball half an hour before. At that time the screen. Now Travers crossed the room to

  four men had moved from the shelter of a where Huggins and Tiny waited by the

  grove of ornamental trees up to the house window. No words were needed. Huggins

  wall. Now they were listening, waiting for the stepped swiftly to the door of the library. It last faint sound in the house to die away.

  was his work to listen for a sound of

  “All right now!” whispered Travers, at

  movement from the floors above. They had last.

  had to risk this before because it was

  Slim Huggins rose up, a dim figure in

  necessary to have someone with Tiny.

  the grey starlight. A half minute, and the Travers led the silent giant across the

  screen was lowered to the grass without a room to the safe. He lifted Tiny’s hand and sound. Huggins vanished inside. Then his dark closed his fingers around the knob. Tiny bulk appeared in the window.

  grunted faintly with pleasure and turned it

  “Clear!”

  he

  breathed.

  back and forth. But Travers pulled him away Pittsburg Joe remained crouched under

  almost immediately, to the bookshelves. He the window. Travers took Tiny by the arm and set Tiny’s fingers on a small volume and then led him slowly up to the dark opening.

  put it on the floor, open and face down. That

  “No noise!” he ordered. “Go in!”

  smooth leather binding would take prints.

  “No noise!” repeated Tiny, in the same

  A small china figure of a dog, a bright

  sibilant tone that Travers had used. Tiny had silver ash tray, went into Tiny’s pockets.

  been provided with rubber soled shoes. Every Travers snatched up a red sofa pillow and button that could scrape had been removed carried that with him as he led Tiny back to from his clothing. Huggins received him, the window. He stood on tiptoe and steadied him in the darkness.

  whispered.

  The three men stood together, Travers

  “No noise, Tiny! Go out!”

  with his hand on Tiny’s arm. From the house They were back on the ground again,

  came no sound at all except the distant ticking and in a moment more they were in the clump of a large clock. Travers produced a pencil-of ornamental trees. No chance of being seen thin stream of light from his hand. Everything now. Time was precious, of course, but there had been rehearsed, each movement planned, was no longer any breathless tension, nor need and every possible interruption anticipated. In for nerve racking haste and absolute silence.

  his pocket Huggins even had tape and

  “Jeeze!” whispered Slim Huggins.

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  5

  “That’s over!”

  “All right!” Tiny sat down.

  “Not yet,” said Travers. “We ain’t safe

  “And go to bed!”

  short of New York and the servants will be up

  “Me go to bed!”

  back there before we hit the big town. The

&nbs
p; “That’s done!” Travers’ shoulders

  heat’ll be on. But Tiny’s going to take it for jerked nervously. His mouth was a thin, grim us!”

  line. “I had the right hunch on him from the Once more they were in the kitchen of

  time he first come in. It’s like sticking your the mountain camp. The night was cool, but finger into putty. You put an idea in his head sweat glistened on the forehead of Pittsburg and there it is!”

  Joe and around his dyed handlebar moustache

  “Nerts!” ejaculated Huggins, with a

  he looked pinched and drawn. He sat down shrug. “It ain’t done any harm but it won’t do limply and reached for a bottle on the table.

  no good!”

  “I’m getting old,” he said. “But what a

  “It’ll do a lot of good,” said Travers,

  haul!”

  throwing a drink down his throat with a

  movement of his arm and reaching for the THE case was open on the table. In the light bottle of gin. “By seven they’ll find the safe of the kerosene lamps the rubies gave out of open. The cops’ll dust for prints. They’ll get their depths a richness of red beauty that told up here in an hour or so and find Tiny with why women wore them, why men fought and

  that junk and take his prints.

  died for them. The diamonds flashed blue fire.

  “They’ll begin to wonder if maybe he

  The star sapphires lay aloof and exquisite.

  didn’t just wander in there and find the safe

  “One drink,” announced Travers, “and

  open. The Bowlings might have been a little then we’ve got to move!”