The Deaf Night Watchman
by Unknown Author
Originally appearing in Voodoo comics #18 in 1952.
Chief Detective Charley Spain looked at the various newspapers spread across his desk at headquarters and smiled tolerantly. He noticed that the reporters had already tagged it "The Case of the Deaf Night Watchman," he noticed. Well ... it was a good, catchy phrase ... ought to make people read the papers to get the whole story. The fact that Charley, a veteran of some 20 years on the detective force, didn't believe that the night watchman was really deaf was just a minor point.
Minor, that is because Charley couldn't prove it.
He folded the newspapers and looked up to see young Eddie Bartlett come through the door.
"Any luck, Charley?" the younger detective asked, perching himself on the edge of Charley's desk.
"Not a sniff," Charley conceded. "It seems that everybody in the neighborhood will swear that Sam Payne has been deaf for seven years, ever since that chemical plant explosion when he collected insurance for being deafened in the blast. No matter how hard I try, I can't get him to change his story."
"Have you tried a lie detector on him?" Eddie suggested. Charley chuckled in amusement.
"That's the trouble with you kids fresh out of the Police Academy," he said. "Want a machine to do all your thinking for you. In my day, we cracked a case by wearing out your feet following up clues. Today, you kids rustle up a test tube and a lie detector and a laboratory analysis, and ... poof! You got it solved . . . you think! Take my word for it; you aren't going to crack that guy's alibi with a machine. It's brains that'll trap him in the end."
"Have you had the docs look him over?" Eddie demanded.
Charley nodded wearily. "Every doc on the force, just about. They all say he's either deaf or giving a darned good imitation. My guess is that he's giving an imitation, but I can't prove it yet."
"Do you have to prove it? Wasn't Sam the night watchman at the warehouse where the $100,000 worth of furs were swiped that night? Wouldn't the fact that he didn't give the alarm prove he was mixed up with the crooks?"
"Not necessarily," Charley pointed out. "Sam claims that his deafness prevented him from hearing the alarm go off. By the time he knew the men were inside the warehouse, he says, they had him covered."
Eddie wrinkled his brows in thought. But, why," he persisted, "would any firm hire a deaf night watchman?"
"That's just the point," Charley snorted. "Sam says he hid his deafness from them to get the job. Says he's such an expert lip reader that they never suspected."
Eddie stood up and started out the door. "I not see," he said, "why you've got to crack his deafness alibi. But I still don't understand why you don't give him a lie-detector test and ask him point-blank whether he's really deaf or just faking. That would put him on the spot."
Charley ran a nervous hand through his hair.
"Because," he snapped, a little angrily, "A lie detector isn't legal evidence. Even if I trapped Sam into giving himself away in a test, I couldn't bring it into court as evidence. So what good would it do me?"
Eddie started to go out again when Charley stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"Say," he demanded, "Did they teach you how to run one of those fib machines at the Academy?"
"Why, yes," Eddie said. "But ... "
"Never mind the buts," Charley snorted, coming out from behind the desk and crossing to the door. "Go set up that one in the laboratory while I rustle up our phony deaf man. I've tried everything else, so I might just as well let you smart kids get a whack at him with your silly toys?
"Progress rears its ugly head," the young detective chuckled. "Underneath your gruff exterior, Chief, there beats a scientific-minded soul."
"Go on, set up the lie detector before I put you back to pounding a beat!"
"Well, won't you at least tell me what you hope to accomplish with this lie detector? You said, yourself, it isn't legal evidence."
"I'm not sure I know what I want to accomplish," Charley grinned, marching off down the hall. "It's just an old-fangled idea I've got ... with a new-fangled twist."
Half an hour later, they were gathered in a small, soundproof room in the police laboratory. In a straight-backed chair, his hand connected by a wire to a lie-detector machine, sat the night watchman, Sam Payne, who claimed he was deaf.
At the controls of the lie detector stood young Eddie Bartlett. He carefully adjusted a slip of silk tubing around Sam Payne's chest.
"That's to measure your breathing," he explained. "All this machine does is measure your heart and emotional reaction to our questions. If it shows you getting unduly worried or excited after an answer, it's an indication that you aren't telling the truth. I am required to inform you, however, that this is not legal evidence and can not be brought into court against you."
Sam, his eyes following Eddie's lips throughout these instructions, nodded nervously. Directly behind Sam, alongside the door, Charley Spain snapped his fingers anxiously and waited for Eddie to begin the list of questions Charley had drawn up.
Eddie, at last, picked up the sheet of questions and faced Sam Payne. Charley could see the suspect's neck muscles tighten, though Sam's face was invisible from Charley's angle. Eddie began the questions.
"Your name is Sam Payne?"
"Yes."
"You were born in New York City in 1901?"
"Yes."
"Were you the night watchman at the Elite Warehouse on the night two armed men broke in and stole $100,000 in furs?"
"Yes."
Sam was relaxing now, under the ceaseless rain of questions that droned monotonously from Eddie's lips. So far as Charley could see, from across the room, the lie-detector gave no indication that Sam had yet told an untruth.
"Now, Mr. Payne," Eddie instructed. "I will read to you your own signed statement regarding the events on the night of the robbery. When I pause, you will say 'yes' to indicate that everything I have read is true. If I am wrong, wait till I pause, then answer 'no'."
Eddie picked up a paper from the table and began:
"At about 11 p.m., you were reading in your office on the second floor when someone tapped you hard on the shoulder ..."
"Yes." Charley sensed the triumph in the deaf man's voice. Sam was finding this an easy test, apparently.
"It was two gunmen. They forced you to give them the keys to the second-floor vaults and made you open the dial combination which guarded the furs. Then they struck you over the head, and that is all you remember until about half an hour later when you came to... and phoned the police ..."
"Yes, that is the way it happened," Sam said. Eddie put down his paper and looked across Sam's shoulder to where Charley stood at the door and called out into the hall.
"That does it!" he shouted. "He's put his foot in it now! Get a couple of guards down here."
There was a rustle from Sam's chair, and Charley looked back into the room. The deaf man was standing up alongside the lie detector, obviously baffled by this swift new turn of events. For precaution's sake, young Eddie Bartlett had drawn a revolver, with which he covered the excited suspect.
"It's a trick!" Sam screamed, backing into a far corner. "I never told no lie! Besides, you said yourself, that machine ain't legal evidence. You ain't got nothin' on me, copper!"
There was a clatter of running feet in the hall, and two prison guards entered the room, followed by a grinning Charley Spain.
Charley pointed to Sam with a snort. "Put him under arrest again, boys. He's told his last lie. Sooner or later, I knew I'd trip him up on that phony deafness."
"It's a trick," Sam snarled as the two guards marched him out of the room. "You ain't got nothin' on me, and you ain't bluffin' me into thinkin' you have."
"He's right, Charley," Eddie interposed, setting his gun back in its holster. "You know this machine isn't legal evidence. Even though I will admit, it shows he was lying about what actually happened during that robbery."
"Remember, son," Charley nodded. "I never said the lie detector was going to be my evidence. In fact, you will remember that I told you it couldn't be used. But I've got better evidence than that. You are going to be my evidence!"
"Me?"
"Naturally. You are going to get up in court when the case of the deaf night watchman comes to trial. And you're going to tell the judge how Sam Payne nearly jumped right through the ceiling with anger when I stuck my head out into the hall and called for a couple of guards."
"Sure, I remember that. I pulled my gun on him, in case he tried to make a break."
"So you should remember, quite clearly, that I was directly behind Sam Payne when I called. He couldn't possibly have read my lips. He must have heard me ... which proves he isn't deaf at all!"
A light began to dawn on the young detective, and he looked at Charley in admiration.
"What's more," Charley went on, "I stuck my head out into the hall so that even if Sam had turned around in his chair at that moment, he couldn't possibly have read my lips. Oh, we've busted his alibi wide open, Eddie. I wouldn't be surprised if he turned state's evidence and told us who his fellow-robbers are, and we'll clean up the whole gang."
Charley strolled across the room and patted the lie-detector machine tenderly.
"Great little machine," he grinned. "But it'll never beat the one God gave you." He tapped his forehead significantly. "The thinking-machine, that is. Your own good brain."
END
