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Craig Rice
The Fourth Postman
“Plot and people as wacky as ever, with busted Malone and chicken-poxed Justuses supplying plenty of comedy and, surprisingly, much intriguing sleuthing. Verdict: Fun!”—Saturday Review of Literature
John J. Malone sticks his nose into the case of the dead postmen and picks up a crack on the head, an Australian beer hound, and six redheaded twins. It all begins when he takes on a new client, Rodney Fairfaxx. Rodney was tabbed for the postmen murders because he hadn’t received a letter from a dead girl for more than 30 years. Malone doesn’t think that this is enough reason to kill, but he can’t prove it. …
Dedication: To the anonymous postman who brought me the postcards from Fred Dannay which inspired this story.
St. Swithin Press
First published by Simon and Schuster, 1948
Copyright by Craig Rice
Cover based on design by H. Lawrence Hoffman
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-927551-05-9
Chapter 1
The sound of a dead body falling is like no other sound on earth, as any effects technician who has tried to create it in a radio studio will tell you. (Effects men differ, sometimes angrily, as to whether it should be a bumping sound, a plopping one, or a dull thud.)
Actually, it is all of those in one, and more. It is incredibly soft, unless the body has fallen a great distance. It is accompanied by a curious little sigh, as of the last breath leaving the body. It is, unmistakably and unforgettably, the sound of a man dying.
The killer waited, weapon in hand, and thought about the sound. It had become a familiar one. This would be the third time.
In the house nearby, a clock chimed ten. The killer stiffened, every nerve alert. It would be a matter of minutes, now. The victim, unaware of what was waiting for him, was on his way up the street, probably whistling.
A sudden pang of pity brought an almost anguished groan from the killer’s throat. Poor old man, he’d never harmed anybody in his life. No doubt he had a wife and family. Grandchildren, too, most likely. Probably lived in a modest bungalow somewhere in the suburbs, had a few cronies in for beer on Saturday nights, and went to church Sunday morning. Undoubtedly he looked forward to retiring on his pension, and raising chickens or rabbits in the back yard.
Perhaps—no, there could be no turning back. Once engaged in so difficult and dangerous a business as murder, one had to go on with it.
And there would, inevitably, be other murders in the days ahead.
There it was, the cheerful, mid-morning whistle. “Rose-Marie—I love you—” The killer’s eyes closed for a moment, and saw the imagined victim. A short, stocky man, past middle age, with thick gray hair under his cap, and plump, rosy cheeks. A man who whistled on his way up the street, and whose footsteps were brisk as they came along the walk.
For one last moment the killer speculated as to what the victim’s name might be.
A man who loved his wife, children and grandchildren, who had a few friends in for beer on Saturday night, who shepherded his family to church on Sunday morning and probably passed the collection plate, who had only a few more payments to make on his tiny suburban bungalow, in which he had great pride, and who planned to raise chickens or rabbits when he retired on his pension. …
The cheerful whistle was drawing near.
The killer’s hands tightened on the weapon.
At least, death would be quick and practically painless.
There was one blow, perfectly aimed.
And then that sound again, the soft sound, with the faint, expiring sigh.
Chapter 2
“Can you imagine anybody,” Captain Daniel von Flanagan said, “going around murdering postmen?”
“Easily,” John J. Malone told him. He added, thoughtfully, “Particularly around the first of the month.”
Captain von Flanagan, of the Homicide Bureau, laughed heartily, too heartily, and ordered a couple more drinks. “When the first one got bumped off,” he said, “we figured it was somebody had some personal grudge against him. After all, even a postman has to have a private life. And then when the second one came along, I didn’t pay as much attention as I might of, on account of being busy with those racket murders and the girl ghost.* You remember.” [*The Lucky Stiff]
Malone nodded. He remembered entirely too well. In fact, he was engaged at present in trying to forget it.
“But,” von Flanagan finished, “when the third postman gets killed, and all three of them in the same territory, I begin to get suspicious.”
The little Irish lawyer sighed and rested his elbows on the polished surface of Joe the Angel’s City Hall bar. He suspected that the big police officer was angling for some free advice, even some free detective work. He was one hundred per cent right. He had already made up his mind that he would have nothing to do with the affair. There, he was one hundred per cent mistaken.
“Why the hell,” von Flanagan said, getting back to his original theme, “would anybody want to murder a postman?”
Malone didn’t know, and in spite of his present state of mind, he was intrigued. He could imagine anybody wanting to murder a policeman, or a bank teller, or a chorus girl, or a millionaire, maybe even a lawyer. But a postman—no. Not, at least, in his official capacity as a postman.
“Robbery?” he suggested at last.
Von Flanagan shook his head. “Nothing none of those guys carried had been touched,” he said. “Nothing had been stolen.” He scowled into his gin-and-ginger ale. “All three of these guys were killed in the same place, and in the same way, and at the same time of day,” he said. “A very swell neighborhood, too.”
It seemed to offend him a little that murder should take place in a very swell neighborhood.
“They have a regular route they all follow,” he went on, gloomily. “Four big houses in one block. One vacant. Then they go up an alley between two of the houses. That saves half a block’s walking getting to the next house. It was in the alley they got killed. Clubbed, every one of them. Hit square on the head. We never found the club yet.”
He drew a long, profane-sounding breath. “A gun you can trace, maybe. Knives, too, sometimes. But a club or a blackjack is the very devil of a thing to find.” He sat silent for a moment. “Damn it all,” he said at last, “why do people have to go out of their way to make things hard for me?”
Malone didn’t know that, either, and didn’t
