Laurel and Hardy Murders Read Online Free

he put away the cards and announced he was about to close his act—
    (Loud cheers)
    —“with some real singing!”
    A universal groan.
    Imagine the noise of an alleycat indulging unwillingly in a ménage à trois in the middle of a marble factory and you will have evoked a faint notion of the unique caliber and timbre of Franklin Butler’s lusty rendition of “Last Night I Stayed Up Late,” which he shouted to the tune of “Funiculi, Funicula.”
    I noticed Wayne Poe finally quitting the platform, a wild look in his eye. He dashed out of the room.
    Without pause, Butler segued into a medley of bawdy parodies of all-time-favorite song hits. The most innocuous was:
    Oh, give me a home where the beer bottles foam
    And the blondes and the redheads all play;
    Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
    ’Cause my wife is out hustling all day.
    I figured Poe couldn’t stand the noise. Neither could anyone else. Some people started getting on their coats. Hardier (drunker) souls took up a chorus of jeering to drown him out, but he just got louder.
    And then Wayne Poe came back. Heads turned as one person after the other nudged his neighbor and pointed to the comic. Poe had something behind his back and was sidling up to the platform without showing what he was holding.
    Just as Frank Butler vigorously began the opening verse of “The Bastard King of England,” Poe bounded onto the platform and whipped out two objects he had been concealing. The first, a pair of scissors, he used to sever the singer’s microphone cord.
    It didn’t help much. Butler was too loud. However, Poe’s next action was much more ameliorative. Butler found it decidedly difficult to continue the song while a stream of seltzer water was being directed into his big mouth. He replaced the rowdy lyric with a generous mixture of sputtering and swearing.
    Poe’s stratagem had an electric effect upon the remaining members of the company. The audience rose in one corporate body and applauded, stomped, yelled “bravo,” and in general produced an enormous quantity of noise.
    Poe smiled his Cheshire-cat grin and bowed. Which was a mistake. It presented an irresistible target to the outraged performer behind him. Poe sprawled on his face on the floor in front of the platform.
    I told the story to a couple of the Sons in New York, and they agreed it was the best way to get Wayne Poe offstage.

C AMAC STREET IS NOT the worst street in Philly, but it would place amongst the ten finalists. What it lacks in picturesqueness, it more than makes up for in narrowness. Maybe two pygmies can walk abreast in the middle of it, but it would help if they were both narrow-shouldered.
    The most famous commercial establishment on the street is the Camac Baths, a combination Russian-Turkish steambath known to local clientele as the shvitz, or, in rough translation, “the place where one sweats.” Less than two blocks away, on the same side of the street, there is a dilapidated town house with a weather-worn sign jutting over the entranceway to identify the sole occupant:
    DJINN INVESTIGATIONS INC.
    B. F. Butler, proprietor.
    I had planned to talk about the regional convention with Jerry Freundlich, president of the Two Tars tent. But after the Butler-Poe battle, he was so busy assuaging feelings, apologizing to members and guests, and in general doing what he could to avoid lawsuits, that he asked me to go along with Butler and get the pertinent details from him.
    It was in his decrepit Packard that Butler mentioned his occupation. I might have gagged, but at the moment I was too busy white-knuckling the dashboard and the edge of my seat, whatever I could wrap my hands around.
    Butler drove like a hotfooted demon. He confided he once drove race cars, and his biggest ambition was to raise enough scratch to compete at Le Mans. Meanwhile, until he realized his dream, he pushed the poor heap to the limit of endurance, hairpinning corners, weaving intricate curlicues around the