“The old man brought up some kindling and some coal for the stove, and that’s the last he saw of them. He came up next day about ten, to bring some towels and make the bed, but there was no answer. He thought they were out and tried to use his own pass key, but there was a key in the other side of the door. He tried once again, later, in the afternoon, but still no luck. So he gave it up, I guess.
“Then this morning, at five, a drunk wandered in and wanted a room and the old man brought him up to this floor and gave him one, up front. He stopped to listen at this door and then he tried his key again, he was beginning to get curious, but the key was still in the other side. He began to get worried, so he went downstairs, got a screwdriver and went in the next room. He’d screwed shut that connecting door sometime ago. So he took the screws out, opened the door—and there you are.”
Stratford snapped, “Kel says he thinks Loftman was using an alias.”
“That’s what Kel told me,” Donahue nodded.
“Maybe Loftman told you his real name.”
Donahue shook his head.
“The thing is,” Stratford rasped, “find the woman.” He looked sharply at Donahue. “It’s highly possible you’d know her.”
“Maybe—but I don’t.”
“I’d like to be sure of that.”
“Try hard.”
“You talk like a guy with a pretty swell opinion of himself.”
Donahue turned to Kelly McPard and said: “Did you get me down here to take a lot of guff from him?”
“You’ll take it and like it!” Stratford ripped out.
Kelly McPard patted down the troubled air with his plump hands. “Now, Mr. Stratford, please don’t let us get worked up so early in the morning. Donny probably hasn’t had his breakfast yet and it is kind of an imposition to drag a man out of bed at dawn—”
“Have I had my breakfast?” demanded Stratford.
McPard rolled his eyes ceilingward.
“Besides,” Stratford hammered on, “you were the one gave me this long spiel about what Red Phalen thought and what you thought.”
“Sure, sure,” said McPard placatingly. “I like to keep all my cards face up with the D.A.’s office. But it’s just that if you rub Donny the wrong way he goes off the handle.”
Stratford snapped peevishly, “You’re not so considerate of most guys you drag in that favorite back room of yours.”
“Now listen here, now,” Lankford barged in, goggle-eyed. “That ain’t fair. Besides, Mr. Donahue ain’t no mug. And have I had my breakfast yet? No! And did I pound the floor half the night with my new kid? Yes! And am I getting on my high horse? No!” he roared.
“Sh, sh, Gus,” Kelley McPard implored.
Stratford muttered under his breath, turned his face into a corner and folded his arms.
McPard said: “Well, Donny, you can run along now, if you want. I’m having a fingerprint man down, just in case. There’s a chance the woman left some prints around. Meantime, if you happen to recall anything you forgot about, well, wise me, wise me.”
Donahue said he would, and left.
He went to a restaurant in Locust Street and ordered a baked apple, two three-minute eggs, wheatcakes, toast and coffee. He killed an hour eating and reading the morning papers, and when he walked into the street again business was picking up. He went around to the post office and bought a stamped envelope which he addressed, in large block letters, to Police Headquarters. Across a money order blank he printed: Loftman Is Ex-Representative Rathbun. He slipped this into the envelope and dropped the envelope into the mail slot. He left the post office and walked up Olive.
Chapter IX
When he entered the agency office, his night man was putting on a tie and Donahue asked:
“Anything new?”
“Nothing.”
“You can go home when you want, Joe.”
Donahue passed on into the inner office and, still in his overcoat, carried a telephone directory to his desk, sat down and turned to the F’s. He wrote down the telephone numbers of the various Flannigans, excluding the female members of the clan. Then he unhooked the receiver and asked for a number; and when the connection was made:
“Is Mr. Flannigan in?… Mr. Flannigan, are you acquainted with a Marcus Rathbun, one-time congressman?… You aren’t. Thank you very much.”
He hung up, waited a minute and then called the second number on his list, putting forth the same question. He repeated this procedure several times, until finally, in response to his question, a man’s voice said:
“Who—who is this?”
Donahue leaned forward and said: “Mr. Flannigan, I’d like to have you drop by my office as soon as possible.”
“But who is this?”
“I can’t talk too much over the telephone.” He gave his office address and room number, and added: “It’s vitally important and I suggest you come down immediately.” He hung up, rose, removed his overcoat and draped it on a wooden hanger.
When Miss Laidlaw arrived, a few minutes later, he said: “Good morning, Miss Laidlaw. I’m expecting a man named Flannigan. When he comes, show him right in.”
A messenger arrived with a telegram and Miss Laidlaw placed it on Donahue’s desk. It was from the home office:
What Are You Into Now Stop Clear It Up or Else.
Hackett.
He muttered, “Nerts,” and tore it into strips, tossed them into the waste-paper basket. But his forehead was wrinkled with concern and his teeth worried his lips.
At a quarter past nine Miss Laidlaw opened the inner-office door and said: “Mr. Donahue, Mr. Flannigan. Go right in, Mr. Flannigan.”
Flannigan was a short man with a torso shaped like a football. He had a chubby chin, chubby cheeks, and thin brass-colored hair, strategically combed, to camouflage a bald spot. His legs and arms were blunt and he looked fiftyish. He was a bit disconcerted, a little winded; his China-blue eyes tried to be friendly but appeared too worried to succeed. A neat, scrubbed-looking little Irishman dressed in dark, inconspicuous clothes.
Donahue sat on his desk, leaning on one braced arm. “You’ve probably been reading the papers, Mr. Flannigan. What’s your idea about it?”
“About—what?”
“We’re talking about Marcus Rathbun: Henry W. Loftman to the police.”
Flannigan swallowed. “How did you get on the track of me?”
“I phoned the Flannigans in the directory. You were the first to show any interest in the name of Marcus Rathbun. He came to this city to see someone and I ran across your name on a memo slip.”
Flannigan’s chubby face looked miserable. “I haven’t got a single idea what happened to him.”
“Could you afford to get mixed up with the police?”
Flannigan started. “Why should I get mixed up with them?”
“The point is, could you afford to?”
Flannigan looked around for a place to sit down. He sat down and ran a harried glance back and forth across the floor.
Donahue said: “Did you know Rathbun arranged to engage the services of this agency?”
“No!” Flannigan shook his head vigorously. “Positively no!”
“Well, he did.” Donahue stood up and jabbed a forefinger towards the floor. “He did. I saw him the day before that house dick was killed and he disappeared. He wanted us to fly a messenger East and bring back some money and obviously that money was intended for someone in this city. Before he could say definitely whether or not the messenger was to leave, the crime happened.” He leaned on the desk, both arms braced straight from the shoulders. “Apparently you’re the only man who knows why he came here.”
Flannigan looked at him with scared, jigging eyes, with his jaw shot tremulously over to one side.
Donahue stood up straight and held his arms out from his sides. “And now I’m beginning to get in a spot. With the home office on my neck, with the police and the D. A.’s office and the press waltzing around me, I, Mr. Flannigan, am beginn
ing to be in a spot. I’ve got to know why he came here, and you”—he dropped his voice to a note of finality—“can tell me.”
Flannigan’s chubby jaw shivered. He jumped up and cried in a stricken voice, “I had nothing to do with this! I don’t see why you should—you should—” He broke off, tried to harden his jaw, make his stare bold. “I—must get—to—work!” He lunged towards the door.
Donahue said: “Okey. I’ll have to turn your name over to the cops.”
Flannigan’s hand fell on the doorknob, but he did not turn it. His round body wilted heavily. He turned and came dragging his blunt feet back to the desk, and there was twisted anguish in his chubby face, a childlike fear in his eyes.
“You’re being very cruel, Mr. Donahue.”
“I don’t mean to be. But I’ve got to know.”
“If I tell you, you’ll tell the police anyhow.”
“Not if you’re innocent of any complicity in connection with the death of Bickford.”
“Bickford! I never saw the man!”
“Or the death of Rathbun.”
“Rathbun!…”
“He was found dead a few hours ago in a cheap rooming house near the river. Apparently a suicide.”
Flannigan’s eyes shimmered. “What a blow, what a blow this is!” He placed a hand against the side of his head.
“Under the circumstances”—Donahue moved several articles about on his desk—“the cops might get very tough.”
“My Lord, man, I—I had nothing to to do with it!”
Donahue sat down in his swivel-chair, put his elbows on its arms and built a pyramidal fretwork of his fingers, “If that’s the truth, then there doesn’t seem to be any reason why you should hold out on me.”
“No—no—no. It’s not the crime I’m afraid of. I can prove I had nothing to do with either of those crimes. It’s not that. Not that at all. It’s”—he swallowed—“something else.”
“What else, Mr. Flannigan.”
Flannigan stared at him with quaking eyes. “If you tell—if it becomes known that he came here to see me—the talk about the money and all—I’ll be ruined. I’m in debt as it is. Sickness. Stocks. My wife and four kids.” He put his head far back, as if he found it difficult to breathe.
Donahue said in a deep, sincere voice: “If that has nothing to do with these crimes, Mr. Flannigan, you can trust me to say nothing about it to anyone.”
“But it hasn’t! I swear it hasn’t!”
Donahue leaned back. “What business did Rathbun come here on?”
Flannigan slumped in his chair and when he spoke his voice was dull, miserable: “Rathbun was a director of the Centaur International Engineering Company. Well, I’m with Midwest Structural, in the president’s office. Years ago I worked with Rathbun and we always wrote letters afterwards, from time to time. He was a fine man, a great businessman, and he usually got what he wanted.
“Well, maybe you’ve heard about this new Blue River Dam that’s going to be built. A tremendous job, and a lot of money in it. Sealed bids were asked for it, and the general opinion is that either Centaur or Midwest will do the job. There are a few others bidding, but they couldn’t hope to compete successfully.
“I think I’ve been treated pretty badly by the company I work for. Maybe I haven’t. But I think I have. I’ve taken cuts, demotions, and so on, and what with my expenses and all, I guess I took these things more bitterly than I would have otherwise. I needed money badly. I knew Centaur wanted this job and I knew it was worried about Midwest’s bid, the same as Midwest was worried about their bid. I knew what our bid would be. I offered to sell out to Centaur. When a man’s desperate, I guess he’ll do anything.
“I wrote Rathbun about it and he said I should not write again but that he would come here and talk it over with me. So he came out, informing me beforehand that he would travel as Henry W. Loftman and that as soon as he arrived here he would send me a special delivery letter telling me where he was staying.
“I went to see him at the Coronet and we talked it over and I guess I began to feel a bit shaky, and guilty too. Rathbun was the same as ever. He offered me twenty thousand dollars and took out his checkbook. I said I couldn’t accept a check, not because I didn’t think it was good but because checks can sometimes be traced. Then he said that he would get me cash. He didn’t want to wire for it because as Loftman he had no identification and he didn’t want to use his real name. But he said he would get it to me somehow. Then I asked him to wait a little while. I was shaky. He said that was all right and I went home and thought and thought and thought. Then the news of his disappearance—and I haven’t slept a wink since. That’s all—that’s all. For God’s sake, don’t betray me, Mr. Donahue. I had nothing to do with those deaths.”
“Did he express any fear of being watched?”
“None. None at all. While he was congressman he was rarely if ever photographed. He won a reputation for that.”
“The police say he was seen in that rooming house with a woman.”
Flannigan shook his head wearily. “I can’t understand that. He was never the kind. I can’t understand anything. It all seems unreal. There doesn’t seem to be any connection anywhere.” He looked forlornly at Donahue. “Is there anything else you want?”
Donahue stood up. “No. That’s all, Mr. Flannigan. Thank you very much.”
Flannigan walked to the door in a half daze, groped for the knob. “I’ll never get over this, I’ll never get over this,” he mumbled. “And now I’ll have more sleepless nights, wondering if you’ll tell the police.”
“It’s under the hat, Mr. Flannigan—unless your story breaks up.”
“God knows I’ve told the truth.”
When Flannigan had gone, Donahue stood at his desk tapping the ends of his fingers on it. His eyes were bright, intense with thought, and one corner of his mouth was sucked in against his teeth. He let it go with a slight popping sound, sat down and looked up Bethia Samson’s telephone number. Fern Chester answered.
“This is Donahue,” he said. “You’d better run down and see me…. At the office, yes…. Say in an hour…. Plenty!”
He pronged the receiver, rose and put on his hat and overcoat. On his way out, he said to Miss Laidlaw, “I’m going around the corner for a shave. Be back in half an hour.”
Chapter X
Twenty minutes later he was returning up the corridor towards his office, humming to himself, when he saw vague silhouettes wafting back and forth on the soapy glass panel of the agency door. Sunlight would be streaming slantwise through the general office window and on to the glass panel of the door. Drawing nearer, he squinted, put his hand on the knob but waited. He heard scuffling sounds beyond the door. He turned the knob very slowly and discovered the snaplock was fast. He drew his keys from his pocket, and with the same hand took out his gun, while his other hand still held the knob turned full to the left. With the gun gripped in the crotch between thumb and forefinger, he was able to handle the keys with the remaining fingers of his right hand. He turned the lock and went in fast.
One man was struggling with Miss Laidlaw, another with Louie, the office boy. The man struggling with Louie was nearer and Donahue struck him behind the ear with a hard left fist. The man went down like a felled tree as Donahue swung his gun on the man breaking clear of Miss Laidlaw. Miss Laidlaw sat suddenly down in her chair white with terror. Louie fell violently on the felled man.
The other was darting a hand towards his coat pocket. “No you don’t, punk,” Donahue said. “Up.”
Miss Laidlaw’s assailant raised his hands.
Miss Laidlaw panted, “Ugh, ugh.”
The young man facing Donahue smirked.
Donahue smacked him on the side of the face and said: “What’s so funny?” And to the office boy, “Got it Louie?”
“Yeah, yes, Mr. Donahue. Gee whiz!” Louie stood up with the gun he had taken from the man on the floor.
Both were young, hardly twenty, and t
he one on the floor wore a cheap camel’s hair coat and spats. The other wore dark, close-fitting clothes and a derby. His skin was swart and his hair was long, black.
“Spill it, Louie,” Donahue said.
“Wuh-well, about five minutes after you went out, about five minutes, they walked in. The gink in the yellow coat held a gun on us while this other gink began going through our card indexes. Then he went through our file boxes and letter files, and when he couldn’t find what he wanted, he turned on Miss Laidlaw and wanted to know where the dope was on somebody named Loftman. Miss Laidlaw said there wasn’t any and then he began twisting her wrists. So I took a swing at him and then the other gink jumped on me and Miss Laidlaw began struggling with that one there and then you came in.”
Donahue stared balefully at the two youths. He said to the one on the floor, “Get up,” in a low, chopped voice.
The youth got to his feet and stood rubbing the back of his neck.
“Who sent you birds?” Donahue demanded.
“A man,” said the youth in the dark clothes.
“That’s a help, isn’t it? Who sent you, I said?”
The two looked warily at each other.
Donahue pointed a long forefinger at them. “His name and you bums walk out of here. No name and you get a couple of cops on your neck. Well, snap on it!”
The dark-clothed youth said haltingly, “A man with—with red hair. We don’t know his name. Honest, we don’t. He just come up and talked to us.”
“Where?”
“Poolroom over in Fifth.”
“Snappy dresser? About your size?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Have you two ever been up before?”
“Uh, no. That is, just for little things. Petty, once. And once I got potted and by mistake drove a guy’s car off.”
Donahue nodded to the desk. “Okey. See that stamp-pad over there? Well, both you bums place the fingers of your right hand on that pad and then place them on a sheet of paper there.”
Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask Page 57
