Jim Hanvey, Detective

by Octavus Roy Cohen

  “He’s never been arrested?”

  “Nary time.”

  “That will make it more difficult—very much more difficult. Perhaps too much so.” He was silent for a moment, and then—with a sudden intensity which surprised Jim: “The man is a criminal, Mr. Hanvey. It shall be your task to prove it!”

  “Hmm!” Jim’s glassy orbs closed—then opened—with exasperating leisureliness. “Why?”

  “Because—” and Jim liked the directness of Weston’s speech, “that man is engaged to marry my daughter.”

  “Gee!” commented Jim Hanvey. “That’s tough.”

  “It is worse than that—it is horrible. She is not quite eighteen years of age. He is—Oh! about forty I judge—”

  “Forty-one.”

  “They met at Ormond Beach last year. We have a winter place there. My daughter is a golf enthusiast. This man, it seems, was down there playing golf—peculiar pastime for a criminal—”

  “Whitey’s a gent.”

  “Madge was injured one day on the links—struck by a golf ball on number ten fairway. She was stunned. Number ten is farthest removed from the clubhouse. This man Kirk was playing right behind her. He is a powerful fellow and he carried her to the clubhouse in his arms. From there she was taken home in a car which he provided. I thanked him and he introduced himself. It never occurred to me that he was not a gentleman. He told me he was a graduate of one of the large universities—”

  “He is.”

  “—And we were all emotionally grateful at the time. We magnified the very simple favor which he had done for us. Certainly it never occurred to us to scrutinize too closely the very natural friendship which rapidly developed between him and my daughter. We didn’t take it seriously—somehow a parent finds difficulty in appreciating the maturity of his own child.

  “We all liked him. His natural gentility was the only credential we asked. He and Madge were together everywhere: he appeared to be a man of means, culture and leisure. We fancied that he had a paternal interest in her. They golfed together, played tennis, swam, rode—a very delightful winter idyll. And the day Madge told her mother and me that she was engaged to marry this man—well, Mr. Hanvey, unless you’re a father—and have received a shock through your child—a shock involving the happiness of that child—you cannot understand.”

  Jim fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. The voice of his host rang with fierce bitterness.…“You sure are up against it, Weston.”

  “I investigated him, suddenly realizing that Mrs. Weston and I had been criminally negligent. I was amazed by the fact that I knew nothing whatever of him save that he bore all the earmarks of a gentleman. He vouchsafed no personal information. I brought the family back north—and investigated further. The thing was horrible enough as it was—a seventeen-year-old-girl engaged to a man of forty. She wouldn’t listen to reason.…I tried to be tactful in my handling of the situation. You see,” simply, “I am worth a great many millions of dollars and it was only natural that I should be careful…marrying for money, you know—”

  “Yeh—sure. I know.”

  “As though the situation itself were not sufficiently bad, came the report that the man is a notorious criminal. I told Madge and she went straight to him with it. He laughed—said he had bitter enemies who were trying to injure him. Defied them to prove that he had ever been crooked. Suggested that they produce a prison record. Of course it couldn’t be done. You can imagine the effect on an impressionable young girl—in love for the first time. She fancied him a persecuted man—she said flatly that she didn’t believe a word of it and intended to stand by him.…”

  “Good sport,” breathed Jim heavily.

  “She is. Too good. I talked to him—straight from the shoulder. He gazed at me blandly and said that my accusations were false. I offered him his own price. He didn’t even have the grace to get insulted—merely stated that he didn’t have a price. Alleged that he was genuinely in love with Madge. I threatened him. He laughed. I ordered him never to see her again. He told me coldly that if I persisted in any such foolish course he’d induce her to elope with him. And finally, because it seemed the wisest thing to do, Mrs. Weston and I sanctioned a secret engagement, hoping against hope that the true nature of the beast would show—and Madge would be awakened.

  “It hasn’t worked, Hanvey. She is more infatuated than ever. That’s why you were recommended to me. They told me that you were the one person who might be of real assistance.”

  Jim leaned forward in his chair. “Me? How can I help?”

  “I have been told that you know crooks better than any other man in the world. That you can work miracles with them—because you understand them. I ask you pointblank, Jim Hanvey—will you undertake the task of saving my daughter from this man?”

  Jim lighted a fresh cigar. Through the haze of rancid smoke he stared at the little financier. “I’ll undertake it on one condition,” he said slowly.

  “And that is—?”

  “—That I be allowed a free hand. Absolutely.”

  “Done!”

  “Good. Remember, Weston, I’m liable to pull a bone—the chances are that I’ll flunk it. Whitey Kirk is the cleverest crook on two continents. He’s in soft here—awful soft. He ain’t gonna let go easy. But if you’re willin’ for me to try—I’ll try. If I flop—it won’t be because I haven’t done my damnedest.”

  The smaller man rose, crossed the room and dropped a hand on Jim’s fat shoulders. “You won’t fail, Hanvey.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” replied the other, “it means too much to Madge. If you’re what they say you are—you’ll put it over.”

  Jim rose awkwardly. “I’ll do my best. I’ll have to stick around here for a week or two.” He looked down upon his new and shrieking raiment—“Thank goodness I already bought a new suit. I’d hate to look like a bum in a swell joint like this.”

  Twenty minutes later Jim Hanvey departed for the city in one of Weston’s limousines. He lolled against the rich upholstery enjoying to the ultimate the luxury and uniqueness of the experience. At his modest and untidy apartment he swiftly packed a near-leather suitcase with those articles which he fancied would be essential to his new rôle of society butterfly. He left the apartment, entered the limousine for the return trip—then suddenly halted the chauffeur—“Just a minute, Buddy. I forgot something.”

  He re-entered the building. When he returned to the car a few minutes later he nervously clasped the thing which he had forgotten.

  It was his light malacca cane.

  He reached the Weston home shortly before the dinner hour and was shown to his rooms; a bedroom, parlor and bath suite on the west wing of the mansion. He gazed apprehensively about and experienced more than a hint of trepidation. A valet arrived to inquire whether he might assist Mr. Hanvey to dress for dinner.

  “My Gawd, no!” roared Jim. “You’d make me feel downright bashful.”

  In the living room he was introduced to Mrs. Weston, a sweet-faced and surprisingly young woman considerably larger than her husband. Mrs. Weston pressed Jim’s hands as she wished him well. “Theodore says you’ll succeed, Mr. Hanvey…he says he knows you will.”

  “He’s an awful wise guy.”

  “You don’t know what it means to us.”

  “The heck I don’t. Believe me, Mis’ Weston—I know a heap about this. An’ say—if it ain’t impolite to ask—how long is it before we eat?”

  It was in the library immediately preceding dinner that the detective met Whitey Kirk. That gentleman, tall and broad and handsomely debonaire in his dinner jacket, strolled into the room puffing on a cigarette. He paused and stared through the semi-gloom toward the large and strange figure in the outrageous clothes. The figure moved forward and, as though from a distance, Whitey heard the voice of his future father-in-law—“…my friend Mr. Hanvey. Mr.
Kirk.”

  Then Jim’s limp hand and the well-known voice—“Sure, me an’ Whitey Kirk is old friends, ain’t we, Whitey?”

  “You know one another?” Weston’s simulation was very poor indeed.

  “I’ve had the pleasure of Mr. Hanvey’s acquaintance for a number of years.”

  “Yeh—sure he has, Mr. Weston. We’ve had business dealin’s with one another—as you might say.”

  Kirk had regained his impassivity and by no slightest gesture did he give testimony to the internal seethe nor the swift groping of his keen brain for the answer to this new problem. The presence of Jim Hanvey betokened trouble—great gobs of it—and trouble was the one thing which Whitey Kirk was at that moment most desirous of avoiding. He negotiated Jim into the glare of an electrolier53 while he himself stood in the shadows, but he gained no information from the bovine expression of the triple-chinned detective. Jim sat stolidly, lids curtaining his expressionless, fishy orbs, fingers twiddling the golden toothpick. Theodore Weston gazed interestedly from one to the other. He felt a queer confidence in the ability of the ungainly detective, and didn’t understand the feeling. Jim was the apparent personification of the ultimate in human stupidity, but Weston’s keen, sparkling eyes had not missed the flash of apprehension which had whitened Kirk’s face at the moment of recognition.

  And then Madge Weston burst into the room—billowed through the door like a stray zephyr. She called gay greetings and then, girl-like, made directly toward Warren Kirk—pausing abruptly at sight of the stranger. She accepted her father’s introduction matter-of-factly and immediately set about the task of making the stranger feel at home. It was plain to her that he was out of the picture—a veritable china-shop bull—and she was more than a little sorry for him. Jim responded eagerly to her advances, and the warmth of his response grew more keen when he noticed that Kirk was highly displeased.

  Here was the sort of girl who made an irresistible appeal to Jim—pretty in a fresh, wholesome, sensible and entirely immature way; eager, unspoiled, urgent with life and vitality; far, far removed from the genus flapper—all of whom were anathema to Jim. Flappers frightened the big fellow. They had a manner which he could not fathom, their quick vapid repartee passed over his head, he held the consciousness that he was the butt of their covert ridicule. But not with Madge. She was herself—wholesome and delightful and girlish—By the time they entered the dining room Madge and the big detective were the best of friends.

  The dinner commenced as an ordeal for Jim until he realized that he could never solve the fork riddle and devoted his entire attention to enjoyment of the rich and rare food. Mrs. Weston smiled toward her husband—she had the soul of the true hostess, the hostess who enjoys the enjoyment of her guest. True, Madge was a trifle shocked by his lack of table manners, but that was soon borne with—and then forgotten. He was having such a good time!

  Alone, following the dinner, the three men were silent. Warren Kirk was decidedly ill-at-ease. Finally he rose: “Mighty fine night, Jim.”

  “Huh?”

  “Beautiful night—outside.”

  “Ain’t so worse inside.”

  “Want to stroll round the grounds?”

  “You mean you want to have a talk with me?”

  “Not exactly—”

  “Sure.” Jim, with difficulty, hoisted himself from the chair. “But remember I’m a rotten walker, Whitey.”

  A shade of annoyance flashed across the man’s face. “My name is Warren.”

  “A’right, Warren. Le’s travel.”

  They descended from the spacious veranda to the moon-drenched garden. The night air was soft and warm and saturated with the odor of lilacs. From far off came the tinkle of a piano and the sensuous strains of a violin—and in the street somewhere children were playing and calling gleefully to one another. Everywhere quietude and beauty and peace. Side by side the two men walked: Jim’s big figure waddling on short, fat legs; Whitey’s broad shoulders thrown far back, his firm, muscular limbs moving with easy rhythm. And it was the taller man who broke the silence. He spoke without turning and his voice was frigid and direct.

  “What’s the big idea, Jim?”

  “Hmm! Just visitin’ my ol’ college chump who I ain’t seen since we graduated from Harvard together.”

  “Let’s cut out the kidding. What are you here for?”

  Jim’s voice was mildly reproving. “Don’t you know?”

  “I can guess.”

  “A’right. You got my permission. One guess ought to be enough. If you miss I’ll give you another.”

  “You’re here—” Whitey’s icy voice came slowly, his words close-clipped—“to break up my romance.”

  “Your what?”

  “Romance.”

  “With that kid?”

  “Yes—with that kid.”

  Jim’s heavy head rolled in earnest negation. “Naw, son—you’re all wrong. I ain’t here to bust up no romance.”

  “Listen to me, Jim Hanvey—you’ve got a reputation for telling the truth—”

  “I’m telling it now. I ain’t here to bust up no romance, Whitey. I’m here to keep you from gettin’ away with whatever graft you’re planning.”

  “I’m not planning anything except to marry this girl.”

  “Well—that’s a pretty good graft, ain’t it? Good-lookin’ kid—young—heiress to about twenty million bucks. Mmm! I’d call it a real swell graft.”

  “I’m in love with her—”

  A harsh note crept into the detective’s voice. “That’s a lie, Whitey, and you know it. If you was you’d clear out. You know you can’t bring her nothin’ but misery. Now what I want to find out is this—are you plannin’ to go through with this deal an’ marry her, or have you got a price?”

  “I have no price.”

  “You can’t be bought off?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that makes my job harder. I thought maybe you was lookin’ for a soft spot and didn’t want to queer things by bargaining with the old man. It’d be worth a heap to him to get rid of you. Not that you ain’t a good crook, Whitey—an’ in a professional way I ain’t got nothin’ but respect an’ admiration for you. But as a gent, Whitey, you ain’t worth a damn.”

  For a few moments neither spoke. It was Kirk who broke the silence. “You must know already that you can’t queer me with the kid.”

  “Does look like a tough assignment.”

  “There isn’t anything you can do.”

  “Yes there is.”

  “What?”

  “Well, for one thing, I can make it downright embarrassin’ for you—so durned embarrassin’ that maybe you’ll decide you’d better break it off with the girl and begin to talk dollars and cents.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “No?” A pause, and then—“I’m glad you think so, Whitey. But lookin’ over that young lady kinder careful it strikes me that if she was ever convinced you was a crook she’d give you the go-by so fast you’d think you was a popboy54 at an automobile racetrack. Yep—that gal sure never would stand for no crooks payin’ her rent—not if I’ve got her right.”

  “Perhaps not,” admitted the other, “but you can’t hang a thing on me. You know I’m a crook and I know it. But nobody has ever gotten a thing on me. Not a thing. In ten years I haven’t slipped once—not a single time.”

  Jim gazed at him keenly: “That’s what you think,” he said with peculiar emphasis.

  They returned to the house; Hanvey expressionless as ever, Kirk struggling to conceal the worry inspired by Jim’s air of confidence. Whitey knew that he had never slipped in his decade of criminality—he knew but he wasn’t sure. Perhaps, somewhere in that period, there had been an error of judgment, a weakness which he did not suspect. He knew the axiom of the criminal world—a detective may make a thousand mistakes and yet be s
uccessful; a criminal cannot err once. Warren Kirk realized that he was only human—and therefore fallible. And if Jim knew something and could prove it…

  Later in the evening Kirk persuaded Madge to accompany him to the veranda. Scarcely had they left the room when Jim fired a question at her parents—“Knowing what you do about this guy, why’d you agree to their engagement?”

  “Madge is headstrong,” was the simple answer. “We thought it best to appear to consent.”

  “Mmm!” Jim nodded slowly. “It sure is a pleasure to work with folks which uses their heads for somethin’ more than havin’ a picture taken of.”

  Meanwhile, on the veranda, Whitey Kirk was talking with low-voiced earnestness to the girl. “It’s this way, Madge—Hanvey is a detective and a good one. He is one of the leaders of the police clique which for years has been attempting to hang something on me. Your father has fallen under their influence. He has hinted to you that my past is not all it might have been. He has hired Jim Hanvey to come down here and prove to you that I am crooked.” He bent his handsome head close to her wide-open, frightened eyes. “I believe I am a gentleman, little girl. I want you to promise that the minute you lose your trust in me you will let me know—and I shall leave you. But if you’re willing to stand by me…” With a little sob she seized his hand and pressed it tightly.

  “Don’t talk that way, Warren. Don’t! I can’t bear the thought that anyone even thinks you are not all right. And don’t suggest that I won’t stand by you. I love you, dear.…”

  He took her in his arms then and kissed her, and even as he did so there was a coldly calculating light in his gray eyes. He was playing this game for big stakes. It was the chance of a lifetime—an opportunity to insure affluence with safety. And Madge was a pretty good sort. He wasn’t in love with her, of course, but on the other hand he might do worse in the selection of a life partner. Nice, clean kid—and sensible.…“Gee! it’d sure bust things higher than a kite if Jim could ever prove to her…”

  And so after the silence of midnight had fallen over the house, Whitey Kirk sat staring from the window of his room. Beside him was an ash tray filled with cigarette stumps.