by Jerry eBooks
“Call the cops, I suppose,” Blade said grimly. He took the girl into his arms almost savagely. “Look. You’re shooting square with me now, aren’t you, Mignon?”
She clung to him, her body soft and warm against his own. “Of course I am, sweetheart.”
She lifted her lips to be kissed. Blade kissed her.
The black-haired, three-year-old youngster pounded at Blade’s knees. “You stop ’at kissing my mama,” he demanded.
“ ‘At’s what ’at other man does all the time.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Hair of the Dog
BLADE pushed the girl in his arms away and knelt beside the boy. “What other man do you mean, son? What other man kissed your mother?”
“A bad man,” the boy insisted stoutly.
Mignon laughed throatily but there was a note of fear in her laughter. “Don’t be silly, Jim. Sonny doesn’t know what he is saying. He’s only three years old. He’s just repeating some of the vile things that he has heard Harve say during our quarrels.”
“I wonder,” Blade said crisply. He took the Morning Sun from his pocket and showed the front page to the boy. “Is the other man’s picture on this paper, Bub?”
“Go to your room, Sonny. Right now,” Mignon insisted sharply.
“ ‘ess,” he said obediently, then jabbed Shad Rorick’s picture with a stubby thumb. “ ‘At’s a bad man,” he confided and then toddled off—too late.
Blade got slowly to his feet. “So,” he said quietly. “So. While I’ve been carrying a torch, you’ve been making a sucker out of me.”
He walked slowly towards the girl. She backed away. “You’re crazy, Jim. You don’t realize what you’re saying.”
“But Shad did come here?”
“He did. Why shouldn’t he? After all, he was Harve’s partner. They had a lot in common.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Blade said. “This mother love is quite a thing, eh, Mignon? You really didn’t give a damn about me, or Shad, or Harve. But you did love your boy.” He paused a moment, asked abruptly: “You last saw your own mother—when?”
The blonde singer eyed him warily. “What is this, a gag? I wouldn’t know my mother if I saw her. My father took me away from her when I was just a little girl.” Her voice was bitter with scorn. “He said that she wasn’t fit to raise me.”
“Just like Harve said about you. This happened where?”
“I was too young to remember,” she admitted. “Why?”
“Just checking my facts,” Blade said.
He had the picture now, not all of it, but most of it. He wondered how he could have been so blind even with the smoke that had been getting in his eyes. He knew now who had killed Harve Exter. He believed that he knew why. He even I knew who the girl was whose muffled voice had sounded so familiar just before he had been sapped.
“Where’s Gertie Covina?” he demanded.
Mignon’s eyes widened slightly with fear but her voice remained low and throaty. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jim.” She entwined her arms around his neck, pressed her lips to his. “Please believe me, Jim. Believe I love you.”
Blade removed her arms.
“The boat sailed a few minutes ago,” he told her. He picked up a French phone on a table and dialed his own hotel. “This is Lieutenant Jim Blade talking,” he told the day girl on the board. “By any chance did Gertie Covina tell you where she was going when she left there this morning?”
“Why, yes, she did,” the switchboard girl admitted. “Gertie said that she was going over to the Beach Apartments and snatch Mignon Exter bald headed.”
Blade thanked her and hung up. Then he dialed Inspector Rican at the Bureau. “This is Blade again,” he said. “And I think I’ve cracked the case wide open. Put McManus on, will you, inspector. I want him to pick up a few folks for me.”
When he had finished with McManus he dropped the phone back in its cradle and took his watch from his pocket. “We can find her,” he said to Mignon, “but it might take time, more time than we have.” He glanced at the dial of his watch. “You have exactly one minute,” he told Mignon, “to tell me where Shad took Miss Covina after he waltzed her out of here.”
“Or what?” the singer defied him.
“That’s fifteen seconds,” he said. He added quietly: “I can make it easy, or I can make it tough on you, Mignon. Harve Exter was a louse. He deserved to die. I think I can get you a plea.” He shrugged. “But of course if you would rather have the State of Illinois raise your boy—”
“I’ll change sides,” she said simply.
THE first floor was a one-hundred-car garage fronting on North Clark Street. It was well known to be the drop for whatever nefarious business Shad Rorick was conducting at the time.
In the exact center of the building, swung on a steel frame work on the roof, a neon sign proclaimed the second floor to be a hotel. But there were never any vacant rooms. Sleep was the one thing that Shad Rorick didn’t sell. Six of the rooms at one end of the building he reserved as an office for himself. He was sitting there now, back of a glass-topped desk, glowering at the red-haired girl on the sofa.
“How much do you know? Who else knew that you were going to Mignon’s apartment?”
Her wrists and ankles bound with clothes line, Gertie Covina said: “Don’t you wish that you knew.”
“Slap her,” Shad ordered Jerry Lait.
The collegiate looking gunman slapped the red-haired girl hard across the lips. “Wise up, sister,” he told her. “You aren’t among friends.”
“Or is she?” Schlitz Murray leered. He stared at the girl with approval. “You know she ain’t a bad looking chickadee.”
“Who knew you were going to Mignon’s apartment?” Shad persisted.
“Lieutenant Tim Blade,” Gertie lied, “and Inspector Rican and—”
“Slap her again,” Shad said. “And stop worrying about Jim Blade. I tell you that Mignon has that dumb shamus twisted around her little finger.”
The office door opened slowly and Blade leaned against the door jamb surveying the occupants of the room over the long barrel of a .38 slung on a .45 frame for better balance. “No. Not any more,” he told Shad. “And this time it’s for murder—” he included Jerry Lait and Schlitz Murray with a nod—“with you two boys tied in for perjury and as accessories before the fact.”
“How did you get in here?” Shad demanded.
“I mopped up as I came along.”
“You’re alone?” Jerry Lait demanded.
“I am.” Blade lied deliberately.
“Then to hell with you,” Jerry swore.
His hand streaked to his shoulder holster. Blade nailed it there with a .38 slug.
“I was hoping it would be you,” he told Shad Rorick. He added, smiling, to Gertie Covina. “I’m seeing better.”
“You’re looking grand,” she said.
“Any other conscientious objectors to coming quietly?” Blade asked.
“No,” Schlitz Murray said. “I’ll take a chance on a fix. You want me to drop my gun or you want to take it?”
“He’ll take it!” Rorick swore. His hand lifted from his desk drawer holding a spitting automatic. The first slug went through Blade’s left arm. A second tugged at his top coat. Then the gun went spinning from Rorick’s hand just as Murray dived at Blade’s knees.
“Kill him! Kill him!” Rorick bellowed. “There’s been a slip-up somewhere!”
The three men lost all identity and form. They became a rolling, thrashing ball of arms and legs. Then Blade’s slashing gun barrel found Murray’s head.
“That’s two.” Pete Cussack grinned from the doorway.
“Stay out of this,” Blade ordered.
The two men were well matched. Both had lost the use of one arm. Rorick was the larger and heavier man but Blade was the more powerful. A lucky kick by Rorick sent the gun spinning from his hand to thud against the base board. The racketeer broke loose and scrambled
after it, Blade right on his heels.
Then Rorick had the gun and turned. A wild shot blasted the ceiling. Then Blade’s fist found his jaw. The racketeer grunted and lay still.
“Right on the button,” Pete Cussack approved. “Boy. Was that a wallop, Wow!”
Jim Blade slipped his pen knife from his pocket with one hand and cut the ropes around Gertie Covina’s wrists and ankles. “I’ve been a fool,” he said.
“Hmm. You’re telling me?” she sniffed.
IN THE cold gray light of winter afternoon Inspector Rican’s office looked bleak and bare despite the crowd of men and women sitting in the straight-backed chairs that lined the wall. Gertie Covina sat near the desk watching Mignon who was crying openly as she hugged her sleeping boy to her breast.
Lieutenant Blade came in the door, his left arm in a sling, and followed by Pete Cussack and a dapper little man with a wisp of a black mustache. “We’re ready?” he asked Rican.
“Whenever you are, Jim.”
Blade sat down on one edge of the desk looking at the faces staring at him and choosing his words with care. “This isn’t in any sense a reconstruction of the crime,” he said finally. “We know who killed Harve Exter. But there are one or two little points that we would like to straighten out before we close the case. That was why officers were sent to bring everyone here who was at the Sweet And Low Club last night when Harve Exter and Mary Phillips died. And it is almost certain proof of your own innocence that the names and addresses that you gave us were your own.”
Slim Alcott lighted a cigarette. “Never mind the taffy. Come to the point. It was this Mary Phillips who knocked off Exter?”
Blade looked at the gambler. “Whoever it was cost you money?”
“They did. I was holding Harve’s markers for almost thirty grand.”
“That’s one of the points I wanted to know,” Blade admitted. His eyes swept the faces in the room. Most of the employees as well as the patrons of the Sweet And Low were there. He recognized Allier, and the doorman and the chef and Celeste, the ladies’ washroom maid. She sat not far from the desk looking very chic, her knitting needles clicking busily as she listened.
“You mean,” Alcott demanded suspiciously, “that you are trying to tie me into this?”
“No,” Blade said. “You’re as clear as I cellophane, Slim. You may not have liked I the man but you didn’t hate Harve Exter thirty grand worth.”
The gambler grinned. “Go on. I can enjoy the party now. Who killed him?”
There was an uneasy stir in the room and a murmur of conversation as Blade said. “It wasn’t Mary Phillips. He called to the men waiting in the hall. “Bring Shad in, will you, McManus?”
The racketeer swaggered in, handcuffed to McManus. Blade continued:
“Here’s the way I see the story. Check me if I’m wrong, Shad. You and Mignon have been two-timing Harve for years. Last night he was sure of his facts and I called for a showdown. He needed money to pay off Alcott. And he wanted it from you. He had a club that couldn’t miss. Unless you dished up the dough he threatened to take Mignon’s boy away from her on the grounds that she was an unfit mother.”
He paused. There was no sound in the room but Mignon’s stifled sobbing.
“Harve was roaring drunk and made a hell of a scene about it,” Blade continued. “But you knew it was coming and were prepared. You knew Mary Phillips hated I Harve. So you had her buy some cyanide, making certain that the purchase could be traced to her, and you promised to slip it to Harve. She wasn’t a mental genius and you undoubtedly convinced her that if the two of you swore that the other hadn’t left the room you would have an unbreakable alibi. Am I right so far, Shad?”
“You can’t prove one damn thing.”
“Oh yes I can.” Blade smiled. “Here’s what happened, Shad. Mignon quarreled with Harve but not until she had fed him enough liquor to put him in a stupor. A little later you slipped into the room. Harve was waiting for you to pay off. But by the time that you got there he was slumped down in his chair, passed out, or so you thought.
“You dropped the cyanide in his glass and poured it down Harve’s throat. Then you shot him twice with your belly gun to confuse the trail and lead it back to Mary. Then you called me and had your boys brace me on the street.
“That made you out a swell guy instead of a louse. You were giving the little blonde a break. I found the gun as planned. Mary Phillips made her speech. She said that neither of you had left the room. But she didn’t know about the phone call. That made her out a liar and destroyed her alibi.”
“Words.” Shad Rorick sneered.
“No. Fact,” Lieutenant Blade corrected. “A fact that is going to send you to the chair for Mary Phillip’s murder. You see she couldn’t have killed Harve Exter, Shad. Harve Exter was already dead when you poured that cyanide into him and shot him with your pop gun!”
SHAD RORICK’S mouth gaped open. A tinge of green began to spread upwards from his jowls. “Dead? Harve Exter was dead?” he gasped.
“That’s right,” Blade said quietly. “You see Mignon had double-crossed you. She was so afraid that Harve was going to take her boy away from her that before she left him last night she stabbed him through the auditory canal of his left ear with an ice pick or a hatpin!”
Mignon sobbed: “You promised me!—” Inspector Rican slapped his desk. “This is murder!” he bellowed. “You killed your husband, Mrs. Exter. And you’re not only going to lose your boy—you’re going to the chair!”
“Non, non, non!”Her black eyes blazing fire, Celeste rushed to the Inspector’s desk and loosed a torrent of voluble French.
“Let’s have it, Tommy,” Blade said quietly to the dapper little man with the wisp of a black mustache.
The police interpreter translated as Celeste was speaking:
“You can not do this to my baby. It was not she who killed Mr. Exter. It was I, her mother, who did it. I did not mean to do it. I did not even mean to tell her that I was her mother. Years ago my husband took her from me. He said I was an unfit mother. Perhaps I was. I do not know. But all of my life I have loved her. It has made of me a no good. This I would not have happen to Mignon.
“When I came to this country I searched for her for months, not to tell her who I was but just that I might be near her. When I find her I take this job, me, Celeste, who has been a Folies Bergere star. I do not speak so good the English but I understand. And last night I hear them quarreling from where I sit knitting in the wash room. Monsieur Exter struck my baby with his fist. He told her he would I take her child away. This thing must not be. When she has left I go in to plead with him. He laugh at me . . .!”
The French woman made a gesture with one hand and the steel knitting needle glittered silver.
“ ‘I grow excited. I am not realize what I do. I forget I hold a needle in my hand.’ ”
She stood a moment staring white-faced at Inspector Rican, then Mignon rose to take her in her arms.
“Okay,” Blade said. “That’s all folks.”
Inspector Rican squeezed his arm. “After all, it’s only manslaughter, Jim. Don’t feel so bad about it. We’ll let both of the women take a plea. Rorick will go to the chair alone, for the one murder he did commit—that of Mary Phillips. That killing was obviously his own idea.”
Jim Blade agreed. He walked back into the darkened squad room and lighted a cigarette.
Gertie Covina followed. “How did you know that Celeste was Mignon’s mother?” she asked.
“The same way that you knew that Sonny Exter was really Shad Rorick’s boy,” Blade said, “and that Mignon was merely feeding my torch as a cover to keep Exter from getting wise. They both were French and except for the difference in their ages and the color of their hair they might have been sisters.” He paused a long moment, said quietly: “I—I’m sorry, Gert.”
The red-haired girl squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, Jim,” she told him. “You just let the smoke get in your eyes, that’s
all. What you need is a little hair of the dog that bit. Red hair,” she added hopefully.
Inspector Rican nudged Pete Cussack. “Have Jim and Gert made up? Is he kissing her yet?” he asked.
Pete Cussack peeked into the squad room. “Is he kissing her! Oh, boy. Wow!”
THE END
MURDER ON SANTA CLAUS LANE
William G. Bogart
With a Blackout in Hollywood, Rookie Patrol Car Cop Johnny Regan Does Some X-Ray Work to See Through Crime!
“BIG BEN” Slattery was at the wheel of the police cruiser, and he steered the car deftly through the heavy traffic along Hollywood Boulevard. Johnny Regan, young and lean-looking, sat slumped in the seat beside him.
For six months now, ever since getting on the force, Regan had been riding the bus with Big Ben. Slattery was a big truck-horse of a guy, jovial and easy-going. He was well established on the Force, and he had shown Regan the ropes. They got along.
But tonight was different. For the past half hour Big Ben had been whistling “Holy Night” in an off key. Suddenly Johnny Regan blurted out:
“It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house . . . Aw, nuts!”
Big Ben looked across at him, his Irish blue eyes crinkling.
“What’s the matter, kid?” he demanded. “Ain’t you got that old Christmas spirit at all?”
“A fine thing it is,” Regan grunted.
“Tomorrow night Christmas Eve, and what do we have to do? Spend it riding around in this crate! They ought to give every cop in L. A. a night off.”
“Sure,” said Slattery. “And have every punk crook in town having the time of his life. I had off last year. You’ll probably get off next—”
He broke off, cocked an ear as he heard the small group of young people singing on the next corner.
Slattery slowed the car, pulled toward the curb. Girls’ voices were raised sweetly in a carol, and Big Ben’s heavy face beamed. “Now, ain’t that just swell—” he started.
