The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

by Achmed Abdullah

  “Curse you!” exclaimed Ogilvie in rage and pain.

  Then, with a great jerk and heave, he freed himself, sending the first man crashing into the second, the second into the third. Jumping back, he saw the curved, razor-sharp, old-fashioned carving knife, which the waiter had left on the table, and reached for it.

  He did it instinctively, unthinkingly. Hitherto, by the token of his class and training, he had been fighting according to the unwritten code, had still been playing the game. Now his prejudices and inhibitions danced away in a mad whirligig of rage and resentment, and the carving knife leaped to his hand like a sentient thing, catching the rays of the kerosene lamp, so that the point of it glittered like a cresset of evil passions.

  He used the knife like a rapier, with carte and tierce, with thrust and counterthrust and quick, staccato riposte, pinking here a leg, there a hand, and ripping through cloth as with the edge of a razor, stiffening or crooking his arm as he lunged to the attack or estrapaded sideways or feinted to parry clumsy, ineffectual blows and kicks. Some of the other people in the room had rushed up and were joining in the attack, but, as before, they only served to interfere with each other. Somebody threw a chair. It failed of its mark—Ogilvie’s head—and hit the youth in the Norfolk suit, who dropped, hors de combat, this time for good. Another threw a bottle, it jerked high, crashed against the lamp, and the light guttered out. The room was plunged in coiling, trooping shadows, except for the few haggard rays that stole in from the lamp in the outer hall.

  “Careful! Careful!” somebody warned. In the semi-darkness friend was hitting friend. At this moment the street door opened, and by the side of the hunchback two policemen entered, nightsticks readily poised. One of them flashed an electric torch, and the hunchback took in the situation at a glance.

  “Quick!” he said to the bluecoats. “There he is—trying to get away—”

  “Who?”

  “The man I told you about—the murderer!” And he pointed straight at Blaine Ogilvie.

  The latter’s mind worked with the instantaneous precision of a photographic shutter. He saw the trap—he, the murderer—with a dozen witnesses against him! He acted even as he understood. He danced back from the attacking crowd, then forward suddenly, knife in hand. He catapulted himself through the mass with a sort of breathless, sullen audacity. He was too excited probably to feel ordinary fear at that moment. If he had time to think at all, he considered that he had no chance, in spite of his knife, to give battle to the two muscular, solid policemen who stood there on broad-planted feet, sticks ominously raised, ready to fell him.

  He ducked very suddenly, before the two policemen had a chance to realize what was happening, before they had time to put the brake on their brawny right arms. Down came the nightsticks, and they hit each other, temporarily putting themselves out of commission instead of hitting Ogilvie.

  With a triumphant little laugh he straightened up again, and, before anybody knew exactly what was going on, obeying some subconscious impulse which reminded him that the night was cold and the coat expensive, he tore Martyn Spencer’s sable-lined ulster from the rack, flung it about his shoulders, and was out of the door and into the street.

  The automobile which had brought the murdered man and which the hunchback had used a few minutes earlier was still in front, purring invitingly. He jumped into the driver’s seat, and the chain-protected tires gripped the snow-crusted pavement. Momentarily the machine seemed to pause, to quiver, as if taking in a great lungful of breath, and a deep, expectant whine rose from its steely body. Then it plunged forward enthusiastically, like a being with a heart and a soul, making naught of the grimy, sticky, slushy snow puddles; and Blaine Ogilvie, who belonged to that new generation which is as alive to the personality and the idiosyncrasies of machinery as the older generation were to horseflesh, rode the steering wheel as he had never done before.

  Gradually he increased the speed, sucking every ounce of strength and energy from gasoline and engine, as he heard the voices that poured from the restaurant increase, then diminish, and fade away, bending low as a revolver bullet whistled over his head. He made a corner at nearly a right angle, as if he were trying to lift the car along the pavement by sheer strength of muscle. Taking another corner on two wheels, shaving a lamppost, evading gesticulating policemen, twisting past top-heavy motor drays, scattering a crowd of homing theatergoers, he finally turned into the Avenue that rose out of the snow-blotched darkness between parallel curves of warm, lemon lights.

  At Fifty-first Street he turned east until he reached a little house that seemed rather out of place, framed as it was on both sides by tall, pretentious apartment buildings. Small it was, compact, almost pagan in its Greek simplicity. Ogilvie stopped the car, jumped out, ran up the steps, and pushed the electric bell.

  A moment later a white-haired servant opened the door.

  “Yes, sir?” he inquired, blinking short-sightedly. Then a smile overspread his wrinkled old features as he recognized the late visitor. “Why—Mr. Ogilvie—come in, sir! Please come in!”

  “Is the big chief at home?” asked the other, stepping past the servant into the vestibule.

  “He hasn’t come in yet, sir.”

  “Very annoying.”

  “Won’t you wait, sir?”

  “I guess I will.” Ogilvie threw off his fur coat “By the way, will you go outside and drive my car into the garage, if you don’t mind, Tompkins?”

  “Right, sir.”

  “And—Tompkins—”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “All the other servants asleep?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good! Don’t mention to any of them that I’m here—that you’ve seen me tonight—I have my reasons.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  And Tompkins bowed with the imperturbable calm of a British butler and withdrew, while Ogilvie entered the next room, occupied himself for a few seconds with a bottle of Bourbon and a siphon that were awaiting their master’s return, chose a comfortable chair, and stretched himself luxuriously.

  Presently he dozed off.

  CHAPTER IV.

  IN HIS POCKET.

  He was awakened—he did not know how much later—by a pleasant, laughing voice at his elbow.

  “Hello, old man!”

  Ogilvie sat up and yawned and looked at Gadsby, a tall, lean man with a square, angular jaw, thin, sensitive lips that subtended a quixotic nose, and dreamy brown eyes.

  “Quite comfortable?” asked Gadsby with a smile.

  “Like a bug in a rug, Bob. And—” he paused a little—“quite safe!”

  He had given the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, and Gadsby frowned perplexedly.

  “What do you mean—quite safe?” he inquired.

  “Aren’t you the police commissioner?” came Ogilvie’s counter-question.

  “I have that distinction. What about it?”

  “Well, I hardly imagine the police will look for me here in your private residence. Nor will they look for the car—which, incidentally, I swiped—in your immaculate garage.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing much. Only—well, your flat-footed minions are after me, hot on my trail.”

  “What have you done?”

  “I was just a plain idiotic fool.”

  “That’s nothing new,” Gadsby returned ungraciously. “What else have you done?”

  “Nothing—I told you, didn’t I? But the police have an idea that I committed—”

  “What—for the love of Mike?”

  “Murder!”

  “Good heavens!”

  “And that isn’t all, Bob. They’ve a couple of bakers’ dozens of witnesses, all cocked and primed to swear to it!”

  Ogilvie lit a cigar while the police commissioner collapsed weakly into a chair.

  Robert W. Gadsby was that curiously paradoxical and curiously effective combination: a materialistic idealist. He was both a doer and a
dreamer; both a politician and an honest man; both a reformer and a sane man who saw people and conditions as they were, without the lying help of rosy-tinted, psychic spectacles.

  Of fine old New York stock and immense wealth, and with a slightly provincial civic pride which had its roots in the days when New York was New Amsterdam, when people imported their liquor from Holland, when wild turkeys flopped their drab wings between Broadway and the Bronx, and when the Gadsbys had their country estate in the eventual neighborhood of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, he had gone in for local politics on leaving college as a simple matter of duty, because, as he put it, he was an American, a New Yorker, and a rich man. He had run for various offices, had been elected repeatedly, and when, at the last city election, the swing of the pendulum swept his party into the seats of the mighty, he had been given his choice of several appointments. Unhesitatingly, believing detection and prevention of crime to be the backbone of good city government, he had chosen the office of commissioner of police.

  He was making good. Even his political opponents, in their newspapers, found it increasingly difficult to concoct and correlate statistics misleading enough to prove that crime had increased during his administration. Nobody could accuse him of corruption and graft, for he was a millionaire; nobody could ridicule him as an unpractical visionary and congenital reformer, for Scotland Yard had sent over experts to study some of his methods and innovations; nobody could suspect him of too great political ambition, for a higher office than this would have been his for the asking.

  He and Blaine Ogilvie were old friends—the sort who do not see each other with mathematical regularity, but who can continue a conversation, even after an absence of half a year, just about at the point where they had broken it off.

  Gadsby looked at his friend. “Of course you are only joking?” he asked.

  “I wish I were,” came Ogilvie’s reply.

  “B-but—”

  “I’m telling you the plain, unvarnished, rock-bottom truth, Bob!”

  “Really?”

  “Abso-tively!”

  “Great Caesar!” Gadsby walked up and down excitedly. “Let’s hear the whole story—every detail—omit nothing.”

  And Ogilvie told him. “What do you make of it?” he wound up.

  “That you’re in a pretty mess!”

  “I am aware of that myself. What else do you make of it?”

  Gadsby shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, dully. “I don’t know!” He slurred, stopped, went on: “Of course you’ve come here to give yourself up, I suppose?”

  “Don’t you go supposing things that aren’t so, Bob, and you’ll save yourself many a disappointment.”

  “Why—I don’t understand!”

  “If I had wanted to surrender, I wouldn’t have made that rather sensational get-away, would I?”

  “But, Blaine—”

  “Well?”

  “You are suspected of murder. There are witnesses—didn’t you tell me?”

  “A whole mob of them—they’re all hand in glove—I see that now. What’s that got to do with—”

  “I must arrest you. There is my sworn duty.”

  “Forget your sworn duty, man! Didn’t I hear you give a long spiel during the last campaign that the unwritten duty is fully as important as the written?” Ogilvie smiled. “I voted for your chosen party. Come on! Make good on your election promises!”

  “But—my duty—”

  “There you go again! You’re becoming tiresome. You’ve duty on the brain. It’s your duty—since you insist on arguing about it—to catch the guilty man, not a poor innocent sucker like myself.”

  “You’re under suspicion until you’ve proved your innocence, Blaine.”

  “I know. Three cheers for the logic of jurisprudence! But, don’t you see, old man, that I can’t remove the suspicion until—”

  “Well?”

  “Until you’ve found and convicted the guilty party—the real murderer.”

  “Exactly! That’s where I come in. I will—”

  “You can’t, Bob. First of all, why should the police trouble? Haven’t they a number of witnesses to swear to my guilt? Do you want any more direct evidence? Why should the police trouble to look farther afield since they’ve got me?”

  “I’ll make them! I am the boss!”

  “A fat lot of good that will do you and me. Don’t you see? There are no other witnesses except those who will testify against me.”

  “You had no revolver!”

  “They’ll swear that I had one. I tell you the whole gang will stick together.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know why, but I do know they will. The whole thing was a most ingenious trap. Everybody played a part in it—even the girl at the hat rack and the waiter—everybody except myself and—”

  “Who?”

  “The murdered man! They got him there under some pretense. Bob, if you arrest me the district attorney’s office will try me, and I won’t have a chance in the world. It’s a cinch that I’ll decorate the electric chair.”

  There was a pause. Ogilvie poured himself another drink and tossed it down neat.

  “Bob,” he continued, “you’re up against something brand-new. You will have to let me go—a man accused of murder, guilty by every last particle of direct evidence. You’ll have to let the accused go, so that he can play detective and find the real murderer.”

  “What about Martyn Spencer?”

  “I don’t know yet. Haven’t had time to think. But he must have known why he sent me there. Didn’t he give me the twenty thousand dollars? And—that crowd didn’t seem to know Spencer personally—otherwise why did they frame me up? No! Whatever his reasons, I don’t think that Spencer will say much. Of course, I’ll try and make him come through. But I haven’t much hope. He’s a business man, and he made a bargain with me—paid me—and—well, I lost.”

  “I’ll put my own detective force on the job.”

  “What clues can they find? I am more liable to find them than they.”

  “Why, Blaine?”

  “Because I am rather vitally interested in the affair.”

  “But I must arrest you. I’ll do anything else I can. I’ll hold up the case—”

  “You can’t for any length of time. The opposition papers will make it hot for you. They’ll discover that you and I are friends. They’ll influence public opinion. They’ll force your hand. They’ll make the district attorney try me and convict me in record time. And, if your detectives should find the real murderer—why, by that time I’ll be buried in a prison cemetery. Bob, you’ll have to forget your sworn duty for once.”

  Ogilvie turned and walked to the end of the room. Gadsby sat down, and his troubled face betrayed his preoccupation. Finally he looked up. “I’ll do it,” he said in a low, clear voice.

  “Bully for you!”

  “On one condition.”

  “Name it!”

  “Any time I want you, you must come in and surrender.”

  Ogilvie laughed. “No need for that, old man!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll have me under your personal surveillance all the time.”

  “How so?”

  “You have a spare bedroom, haven’t you?”

  “You—you mean—”

  “Right!” continued Ogilvie with calm effrontery. “You’re going to have a guest—oh—” he laughed—“a paying guest—for I still have Spencer’s twenty thousand dollars—”

  “But—listen—”

  “Your house is the only safe place for me. The police won’t hunt for me here. Tompkins has known me since I was a kid in knickers—he worked for your father, didn’t he?—sort of inherited him, British accent and ‘yes, sir,’ and ‘thank you, sir,’ and all. I’ve already slipped him a word of warning—all you’ll have to do is to swear him to secrecy. As to your other servants—”

  “Only one—Tompkins’ wife. That part’s all
right—but—” Gadsby shook his head. “It’s very unusual,” he commented weakly.

  “Very!” agreed Ogilvie. “Here am I, accused of murder, guilty by every last bit of direct evidence—playing my own detective and hiding in the private residence of the head of the police department. It’s the most unusual thing I have ever run across.” He rose. “We’ll talk it over tomorrow. I’m too tired tonight, what with all this excitement and that potent Bourbon of yours. Where did you get it, Bob? I thought the country was dry!”

  He poured himself a liberal goodnight cap, and fifteen minutes later was comfortably stretched out in one of the police commissioner’s best four-poster beds, dressed in a pair of the police commissioner’s silk pajamas, and reading the police commissioner’s favorite volume of French poetry. Half an hour later he was fast asleep.

  * * * *

  Tompkins awakened him with an appetizing breakfast tray, a newspaper, and an embarrassed cough.

  Ogilvie sat up in bed and laughed. “Don’t look like a conspirator, Tompkins,” he said.

  “But—oh, sir—”

  “Mr. Gadsby told you, I take it?”

  “Yes, sir,” came the despondent reply.

  “All right. Forget it. I’m as innocent as a new-born lamb.”

  “Oh—thank you, sir!”

  “Two pieces of sugar—that’s right—a little more cream.” Ogilvie sipped his coffee. “Want to do me a favor, Tompkins?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call up Miss Marie Dillon—Spring 43789—and tell her—” He was puzzled. “What are you going to tell her?”

  “Leave it to me, sir,” replied Tompkins, a wintry smile lighting up his features. “I’ve been married thirty-nine years.”

  “Gosh! And I never knew you had a sense of humor!”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me—thank your Creator. And now, the newspaper, please!”

  “Here you are, sir. You’ll find the headline quite interesting, sir.”