The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  Then this red-haired she-devil put her spoon in the dish.

  “Hook’s always offering to do things that he has no intention of doing,” she told the Chinese.

  Hook’s ugly face blazed red at this reminder of his promise to get the Chinese, and he swallowed again, and his eyes looked as if nothing would have suited him better than an opportunity to crawl under something. But the girl had him; her influence was stronger than his cowardice.

  He suddenly stepped close to the Chinese, and from his advantage of a full head in height scowled down into the round yellow face.

  “Tai,” the ugly man snarled; “you’re done. I’m sick and tired of all this dog you put on—acting like you was a king or something. I’m going to—”

  He faltered, and his words faded away into silence. Tai looked up at him with eyes that were as hard and black and inhuman as two pieces of coal. Hook’s lips twitched and he flinched away a little.

  I stopped sweating. The yellow man had won again. But I had forgotten the red-haired she-devil. She laughed now—a mocking laugh that must have been like a knife to the ugly man.

  A bellow came from deep in his chest, and he hurled one big fist into the round blank face of the yellow man.

  The force of the punch carried Tai all the way across the room, and threw him on his side in one corner.

  But he had twisted his body around to face the ugly man even as he went hurtling across the room—a gun was in his hand before he went down—and he was speaking before his legs had settled upon the floor—and his voice was a cultured British drawl.

  “Later,” he was saying; “we will settle this thing that is between us. Just now you will drop your pistol and stand very still while I get up.”

  Hook’s revolver—only half out of his pocket when the oriental had covered him—thudded to the rug. He stood rigidly still while Tai got to his feet, and Hook’s breath came out noisily, and each freckle stood ghastily out against the dirty scared white of his face.

  I looked at the girl. There was contempt in the eyes with which she looked at Hook, but no disappointment.

  Then I made a discovery: something had changed in the room near her!

  I shut my eyes and tried to picture that part of the room as it had been before the two men had clashed. Opening my eyes suddenly, I had the answer.

  On the table beside the girl had been a book and some magazines. They were gone now. Not two feet from the girl was the tan bag that Tai had brought into the room. Suppose the bag had held the bonds from the Los Angeles job that they had mentioned. It probably had. What then? It probably now held the book and magazines that had been on the table. The girl had stirred up the trouble between the two men to distract their attention while she made a switch. Where would the loot be, then? I didn’t know, but I suspected that it was too bulky to be on the girl’s slender person.

  Just beyond the table was a couch, with a wide red cover that went all the way down to the floor. I looked from the couch to the girl. She was watching me, and her eyes twinkled with a flash of mirth as they met mine coming from the couch. The couch it was!

  By now the Chinese had pocketed Hook’s revolver, and was talking to him: “If I hadn’t a dislike for murder, and didn’t think that you will perhaps be of some value to Elvira and me in effecting our departure, I should certainly relieve us of the handicap of your stupidity now. But I’ll give you one more chance. I would suggest, however, that you think carefully before you give way to any more of your violent impulses.” He turned to the girl. “Have you been putting foolish ideas in our Hook’s head?”

  She laughed. “Nobody could put any kind in it.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said, and then came over to test the lashings about my arms and body.

  Finding them satisfactory, he picked up the tan bag, and held out the gun he had taken from the ugly man a few minutes before.

  “Here’s your revolver, Hook, now try to be sensible. We may as well go now. The old man and his wife will do as they were told. They are on their way to a city that we needn’t mention by name in front of our friend here, to wait for us and their share of the bonds. Needless to say, they will wait a long while—they are out of it now. But between ourselves there must be no more treachery. If we’re to get clear, we must help each other.”

  According to the best dramatic rules, these folks should have made sarcastic speeches to me before they left, but they didn’t. They passed me without even a farewell look, and went out of sight into the darkness of the hall.

  Suddenly the Chinese was in the room again, running tiptoe—an open knife in one hand, a gun in the other. This was the man I had been thanking for saving my life! He bent over me.

  The knife moved on my right side, and the rope that held that arm slackened its grip. I breathed again, and my heart went back to beating.

  “Hook will be back,” Tai whispered, and was gone.

  On the carpet, three feet in front of me, lay a revolver.

  The street door closed, and I was alone in the house for a while.

  You may believe that I spent that while struggling with the red plush ropes that bound me. Tai had cut one length, loosening my right arm somewhat and giving my body more play, but I was far from free. And his whispered “Hook will be back” was all the spur I needed to throw my strength against my bonds.

  I understood now why the Chinese had insisted so strongly upon my life being spared. I was the weapon with which Hook was to be removed! The Chinese figured that Hook would make some excuse as soon as they reached the street, slip back into the house, knock me off, and rejoin his confederates. If he didn’t do it on his own initiative, I suppose the Chinese would suggest it.

  So he had put a gun within reach and had loosened my ropes as much as he could, not to have me free before he himself got away.

  This thinking was a side-issue. I didn’t let it slow up my efforts to get loose. The why wasn’t important to me just now—the important thing was to have that revolver in my hand when the ugly man came back.

  Just as the front door opened, I got my right arm completely free, and plucked the strangling cushion from my mouth. The rest of my body was still held by the ropes—held loosely—but held.

  I threw myself, chair and all, forward, breaking the fall with my free arm. The carpet was thick. I went down on my face, with the heavy chair atop me, all doubled up, but my right arm was free of the tangle, and my right hand grasped the gun. The dim light hit upon a man hurrying into the room—a glint of metal in his hand.

  I fired.

  He caught both hands to his belly, bent double, and slid out across the carpet.

  That was over. But that was far from being all. I wrenched at the plush ropes that held me, while my mind tried to sketch what lay ahead.

  The girl had switched the bonds, hiding them under the couch—there was no question of that. She had intended coming back for them before I had time to get free. But Hook had come back first, and she would have to change her plan. What more likely than that she would now tell the Chinese that Hook had made the switch? What then? There was only one answer: Tai would come back for the bonds—both of them would come. Tai knew that I was armed now, but they had said that the bonds represented a hundred thousand dollars. That would be enough to bring them back!

  I kicked the last rope loose and scrambled to the couch. The bonds were beneath it: four thick bundles, done up with heavy rubber bands. I tucked them under one arm, and went over to the man who was dying near the door. His gun was under one of his legs. I pulled it out, stepped over him, and went into the dark hall. Then I stopped to consider.

  The girl and the Chinese would split to tackle me. One would come in the front door and the other in the rear. That would be the safest way for them to handle me. My play, obviously, was to wait just inside one of those doors for them. It would be foolish for me to lea
ve the house. That’s exactly what they would be expecting at first—and they would be lying in ambush.

  Decidedly, my play was to lie low within sight of this front door and wait until one of them came through it—as one of them surely would, when they had tired of waiting for me to come out.

  Toward the street door, the hall was lighted with the glow that filtered through the glass from the street lights. The stairway leading to the second-story threw a triangular shadow across part of the hall—a shadow that was black enough for any purpose. I crouched low in this three-cornered slice of night, and waited.

  I had two guns: the one the Chinese had given me, and the one I had taken from Hook. I had fired one shot; that would leave me eleven still to use—unless one of the weapons had been used since it was loaded. I broke the gun Tai had given me, and in the dark ran my fingers across the back of the cylinder. My fingers touched one shell—under the hammer Tai had taken no chances; he had given me one bullet—the bullet with which I had dropped Hook.

  I put that gun down on the floor, and examined the one I had taken from Hook. It was empty. The Chinese had taken no chances at all! He had emptied Hook’s gun before returning it to him after their quarrel.

  I was in a hole! Alone, unarmed, in a strange house that would presently hold two who were hunting me—and that one of them was a woman didn’t soothe me any—she was none the less deadly on that account.

  For a moment I was tempted to make a dash for it; the thought of being out in the street again was pleasant; but I put the idea away. That would be foolishness, and plenty of it. Then I remembered the bonds under my arm. They would have to be my weapon; and if they were to serve me, they would have to be concealed.

  I slipped out of my triangular shadow and went up the stairs. Thanks to the street lights, the upstairs rooms were not too dark for me to move around. Around and around I went through the rooms, hunting for a place to hide the bonds. But when suddenly a window rattled, as if from the draught created by the opening of an outside door somewhere, I still had the loot in my hands.

  There was nothing to do now but to chuck them out of a window and trust to luck. I grabbed a pillow from a bed, stripped off the white case, and dumped the bonds into it. Then I leaned out of an already open window and looked down into the night, searching for a desirable dumping place: I didn’t want the bonds to land on anything that would make a racket.

  And, looking out of the window, I found a better hiding place. The window opened into a narrow court, on the other side of which was a house of the same sort as the one I was in. That house was of the same height as this one, with a flat tin roof that sloped down the other way. The roof wasn’t far from me—not too far to chuck the pillow-case. I chucked it. It disappeared over the edge of the roof and crackled softly on the tin.

  Then I turned on all the lights in the room, lighted a cigarette (we all like to pose a little now and then), and sat down on the bed to await my capture. I might have stalked my enemies through the dark house, and possibly have nabbed them; but most likely I would simply have succeeded in getting myself shot. And I don’t like to be shot.

  The girl found me.

  She came creeping up the hall, an automatic in each hand, hesitated for an instant outside the door, and then came in on the jump. And when she saw me sitting peacefully on the side of the bed, her eyes snapped scornfully at me, as if I had done something mean. I suppose she thought I should have given her an opportunity to shoot.

  “I got him, Tai,” she called, and the Chinese joined us.

  “What did Hook do with the bonds?” he asked point blank.

  I grinned into his round yellow face and led my ace.

  “Why don’t you ask the girl?”

  His face showed nothing, but I imagined that his fat body stiffened a little within its fashionable British clothing. That encouraged me, and I went on with my little lie that was meant to stir things up.

  “Haven’t you rapped to it,” I asked; “that they were fixing up to ditch you?”

  “You dirty liar!” the girl screamed, and took a step toward me.

  Tai halted her with an imperative gesture. He stared through her with his opaque black eyes, and as he stared the blood slid out of her face. She had this fat yellow man on her string, right enough, but he wasn’t exactly a harmless toy.

  “So that’s how it is?” he said slowly, to no one in particular. Then to me: “Where did they put the bonds?”

  The girl went close to him and her words came out tumbling over each other:

  “Here’s the truth of it, Tai, so help me God! I switched the stuff myself. Hook wasn’t in it. I was going to run out on both of you. I stuck them under the couch downstairs, but they’re not there now. That’s the God’s truth!”

  He was eager to believe her, and her words had the ring of truth to them. And I knew that—in love with her as he was—he’d more readily forgive her treachery with the bonds than he would forgive her for planning to run off with Hook; so I made haste to stir things up again.

  “Part of that is right enough,” I said. “She did stick the bonds under the couch—but Hook was in on it. They fixed it up between them while you were upstairs. He was to pick a fight with you, and during the argument she was to make the switch, and that is exactly what they did.”

  I had him! As she wheeled savagely toward me, he stuck the muzzle of an automatic in her side—a smart jab that checked the angry words she was hurling at me.

  “I’ll take your guns, Elvira,” he said, and took them.

  “Where are the bonds now?” he asked me.

  I grinned. “I’m not with you, Tai. I’m against you.”

  “I don’t like violence,” he said slowly, “and I believe you are a sensible person. Let us traffic, my friend.”

  “You name it,” I suggested.

  “Gladly! As a basis for our bargaining, we will stipulate that you have hidden the bonds where they cannot be found by anyone else; and that I have you completely in my power, as the shilling shockers used to have it.”

  “Reasonable enough,” I said; “go on.”

  “The situation, then, is what gamblers call a standoff. Neither of us has the advantage. As a detective, you want us; but we have you. As thieves, we want the bonds; but you have them. I offer you the girl in exchange for the bonds, and that seems to me an equitable offer. It will give me the bonds and a chance to get away. It will give you no small degree of success in your task as a detective. Hook is dead. You will have the girl. All that will remain is to find me and the bonds again—by no means a hopeless task. You will have turned a defeat into half a victory, with an excellent chance to make it a complete one.”

  “How do I know that you’ll give me the girl?”

  He shrugged. “Naturally, there can be no guarantee. But, knowing that she planned to desert me for the swine who lies dead below, you can’t imagine that my feelings for her are the most friendly. Too, if I take her with me, she will want a share in the loot.”

  I turned the lay-out over in my mind.

  “This is the way it looks to me,” I told him at last. “You aren’t a killer. I’ll come through alive no matter what happens. All right; why should I swap? You and the girl will be easier to find again than the bonds, and they are the most important part of the job anyway. I’ll hold on to them, and take my chances on finding you folks again. Yes, I’m playing it safe.”

  “No, I’m not a killer,” he said, very softly; and he smiled the first smile I had seen on his face. It wasn’t a pleasant smile: and there was something in it that made you want to shudder. “But I am other things, perhaps, of which you haven’t thought. But this talking is to no purpose. Elvira!”

  The girl came obediently forward.

  “You will find sheets in one of the bureau drawers,” he told her. “Tear one or two of them into strips strong enough to tie
up our friend securely.”

  The girl went to the bureau. I wrinkled my head, trying to find a not too disagreeable answer to the question in my mind. The answer that came first wasn’t nice: torture.

  Then a faint sound brought us all into tense motionlessness.

  The room we were in had two doors: one leading into the hall, the other into another bedroom. It was through the hall door that the faint sound had come—the sound of creeping feet.

  Swiftly, silently, Tai moved backward to a position from which he could watch the hall door without losing sight of the girl and me—and the gun poised like a live thing in his fat hand was all the warning we needed to make no noise.

  The faint sound again, just outside the door.

  The gun in Tai’s hand seemed to quiver with eagerness.

  Through the other door—the door that gave to the next room—popped Mrs. Quarre, an enormous cocked revolver in her thin hand.

  “Let go it, you nasty heathen,” she screeched.

  Tai dropped his pistol before he turned to face her, and he held his hands up high—all of which was very wise.

  Thomas Quarre came through the hall door then; he also held a cocked revolver—the mate of his wife’s—though, in front of his bulk, his didn’t look so enormously large.

  I looked at the old woman again, and found little of the friendly fragile one who had poured tea and chatted about the neighbors. This was a witch if there ever was one—a witch of the blackest, most malignant sort. Her little faded eyes were sharp with ferocity, her withered lips were taut in a wolfish snarl, and her thin body fairly quivered with hate.

  “I knew it,” she was shrilling. “I told Tom as soon as we got far enough away to think things over. I knew it was a frame-up! I knew this supposed detective was a pal of yours! I knew it was just a scheme to beat Thomas and me out of our shares! Well, I’ll show you, you yellow monkey! Where are them bonds? Where are they?”

  The Chinese had recovered his poise, if he had ever lost it.

  “Our stout friend can tell you perhaps,” he said. “I was about to extract the information from him when you so—ah—dramatically arrived.”