Black Maria, M. A.: A Classic Crime Novel

by John Russell Fearn

  “Peter didn’t get to know him, you see,” Janet put in hastily.

  “I’m glad I didn’t!” he retorted. “It has always been a puzzle to me how such a tyrant could ever have had so fine a daughter— But please forgive me, Miss Black,” he went on, with a little smile of apology. “I’m forgetting he was your brother.”

  “I am already aware of his ruthlessness,” Maria said gravely, and her fingers went to her watch-chain.

  A rather awkward silence fell for a few moments, then Janet got to her feet.

  “Well, we might as well continue our stroll round. It was too hot tonight to work on Peter’s new musical so we decided to walk around instead. Shan’t get many more chances from now on. I start on a new recital tomorrow.... Look after yourself, Aunt.”

  “I think I can do that,” she replied, and shook hands with the young man again.

  “Glad to have met you,” he said earnestly. “Really glad.”

  He turned and took Janet’s arm. Maria watched them stroll slowly away down the pathway. Her cold blue eyes narrowed.

  “Ralph,” she said slowly, “if you are anywhere around me at this moment you might as well know that I think you have got a lot of awfully queer children! Either they are all very loyal or very dishonest: for the life of me I cannot decide. Nor, from what I have seen, had you any great redeeming qualities.... A cold, hard man! I hear that everywhere. Well, be that as it may, you were murdered and I shall find out how and why....”

  She tugged out her watch, snapped it shut and got to her feet. By leisurely walking through the fast-gathering dusk she regained the streets she had mentally tabulated on her inward journey, traced her way back through wildernesses of frowning tenements back to Three-Shot’s underground café. She entered, and the bell clanged noisily over her head.

  The place had the same barren emptiness of the afternoon; the lights still blazed. Presumably Three-Shot had moved in the in­terval even though there was no evidence of it. He still lay with fat forearms on the counter and surveyed the opposite wall. As he saw Maria out of the corner of his eye he gave a shout.

  “Pulp!”

  To Maria’s surprise Pulp rose from behind the partition round one of the further tables. He came forward, chewing industriously, only differing from his afternoon appearance in that he now sported a butterfly bow of crimson.

  “Havin’ a spot of mash,” he explained, swallowing. He cleared his throat and then said rather hoarsely, “I found him!”

  “You did!” Maria cried. “Where?”

  “Well, I— I reckon you said something about some more dough if I— ’T isn’t that I don’t trust you, mind—”

  “But of course you shall have it!” Maria dived her hand in her bag. “Here are the two dollars I promised you. You will receive a further five when I am satisfied you know everything I expect you to know.”

  Pulp nodded. “Right. Let’s go! See you again, Three-Shot.”

  “Is it far?” Maria questioned anxiously, as they came out into the street. “I’m beginning to feel rather tired....”

  “Only about half a mile, and I know the short cuts. Stick by me.”

  Maria needed no invitation to do that as they progressed. In spite of herself, and she was anything but a nervous woman, she by no means felt sanguine as the route took them through dimly-lit streets mantled in growing dark. Here and there from open windows came the squawk of old-fashioned gramophones churning out reedy marches and metallic songs. The elevateds clanged and rattled as before; somewhere eastwards ships in the harbor hooted viciously. It seemed to Maria that the streets were all alike—drab, gray, be­coming more squalid as they progressed, until at last they came into a section of boarded-up, disused granaries and warehouses.

  Pulp came to a stop, eyed Maria under the street lamp.

  “I got the lowdown from one of Bald Charley’s boys,” he con­fided. “News travels fast with the guys I mixes with. The feller I’m tellin’ you about saw where this con went to—but naturally we ain’t squealed on him. We got our pride and sense of honor—’sides, cops ain’t none too welcome around here.... He’s in the top of this granary. Dame’s visited him quite a few times, it seems.”

  “She has, eh?” Maria reflected. “Well, I’ve got to see him. You had better direct me.”

  “O.K. But remember, no cops!”

  “You have the assurance of Black Maria on that.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  She hung on to the tail of his coat as he stole cautiously round to the back of the granary. She had some difficulty in squeezing through the narrow gap of fencing he indicated, but finally she managed it and followed him across a flagged yard to a lower window filthy with dirt. He raised it gently.

  “See?” he whispered. “Left like this so the dame can get in when she wants....” He scrambled through and looked back. “You manage?”

  “Well, I—” Maria got no further. To her amazement she found herself suddenly hauled through, sunshade included. Breath­ing hard in the dark and her nostrils full of dust she stood waiting.

  “Take it easy,” Pulp warned, as she sniffed. “Don’t start to sneeze for the love o’ Pete! Here—leave this to me. We don’t want a sound.... I’m a touch-an’-toe artist, see....”

  She found out what he meant by that when, in the dark, he located a strong wooden ladder that led up to the upper floor of the granary. With difficulty she followed his example, using fingers and feet to guide her. They emerged on a pitchy-dark upper landing with a gaping hole where a skylight should have been.

  “Swell hide-out,” Pulp breathed admiringly. “But look, we’re in a bit of a spot. If this guy packs a rod he’ll shoot: if I speak he’ll think I’m a cop. You’re safe enough from a slug where you’re standing so start talking. Go on!”

  Maria assimilated the avalanche of slang and then cleared her throat.

  “Hello there! Mr. Salter, can you hear me? Hello!”

  There was no response.

  “Mr. Salter, where are you? I have important news from Pat­ricia. I am her aunt....”

  The silence remained. Maria’s lips tightened.

  “Hmm! So much for your information, Mr. Martin!”

  He gave a snort. “He’s got to be here, I tell you! Bald Charley’s boys never slip up when they put the finger on a guy— Hey, there!” he bawled. “Open up!” He strode forward to encounter a door solidly locked. “Open up, you mug, or I’ll break the door down!”

  There was no reply from beyond the door but there certainly was a faint sound. Pulp struck a match and in the momentary flare he noted just where the door was. Stepping back a pace he hurled his mighty shoulder against it. Breathing hard he crashed into it again—and again, until the lock snapped and precipitated him inwards in a sudden rush. Maria followed up just in time to see the dim silhouette of a window and hear the click of jaws as they bit together. A thud followed....

  Pulp came back to her, breathing hard.

  “I socked him—socked somebody, anyway,” he said. “He’d perhaps have gotten me first if I hadn’t. Pulled my punch, though. His jaw’ll be okay.... I hope.”

  Maria stumbled a little in the gloom: she was ankle deep in grain and meal. The street light outside cast a faint diffused glow into the place. It was rather like the loft of a hayrick. Finally Maria looked down at the man on the floor as Pulp hauled him to his feet, slapped his face sharply with the flat of his hand.

  “Doesn’t pack a rod, anyway,” he said briefly, after a quick examination. “Not my idea of a con on the run,” he added in regret. “You can’t get far these days without a rod— Ah, it looks like he’s snapping out of it!”

  The man recovered consciousness suddenly and rubbed his jaw. He was shortish, broad-shouldered, with dark hair. That was all Maria could discern. He stood looking at the two dim figures.

  “You Arthur Salter?” Maria demanded.

  “Yes....” His voice was quiet, unexpectedly refined.

  “You’d have sa
ved yourself a lot of trouble if you had opened the door in the first place.”

  “Maybe,” he replied bitterly. “The police get up to all kinds of tricks. I couldn’t believe that remark of yours about you being Pat’s aunt: I thought it might be a trick. So I took no chances. But you got me just the same. Okay, let’s get it over with.”

  “If you are under the impression the police are around here, Mr. Salter, you are mistaken,” Maria observed.

  “No police? Then—then who’s this chap?”

  “My bodyguard—Mr. Martin. Anyway, you would hardly expect the police to dress in so—er—flamboyant a style, would you?”

  “Police would do anything,” Salter said doggedly. “Bodyguard, eh? And plenty of dynamite in that fist, too—! But look here, what do you want? You say Pat sent you? You don’t mean that something has happened to her? She isn’t—”’

  “So far as I am aware Patricia is at home and in quite good health. Nor did she send me, though I found your abode through her ac­tivities. You see, I am...an investigator.”

  “Pat referred to you as a nosy old dragon,” Salter murmured.

  “Perhaps,” Maria murmured, “she had reason. However, to get down to cases: I want some information from you. Upon you giving that information relies your chance of continued safety here. I could summon the police, you know.”

  “Frankly, I’m wondering why you don’t. You don’t strike me as being the kind of woman to stand in the path of justice.”

  “I will stand in the path of anything which impedes my own purposes, Mr. Salter. If you help me, I’ll help you. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. What do you want to know?”

  “You and Patricia were married on April 29th, you using the false name of Archer Slater. Correct?”

  “Yes, it’s correct,” Salter admitted, in some wonder. “But how on earth did you find that out? Pat wouldn’t tell you, surely, after she promised me to—”

  “Patricia has not told me anything. I found it out by deduction, or else by playing a...a hunch. But I’m wondering why you used the alias. You could not have done it then to prevent the police tracing Patricia’s connection with you because at that time you had not been arrested.”

  “I did it because Pat’s father objected to our marriage. In case he kept an eye on registry records we decided it was best to put my name as ‘Archer Slater.’ True, he might suspect the truth, but he would have no proof. Later it turned out to be providential because when I got arrested it apparently liberated Pat from all connection with me.”

  “Hmm. Tell me more.”

  “I can tell you this: Ralph Black was a narrow-minded, grasping bigot. He saw nothing but his own advancement, to the exclusion of all and everything else. None of his children, none of his so-called friends, had the least regard for him. I have certainly no reason to regret the day he died, believe me.”

  “Is it not rather significant—at least the law would consider it so, maybe—that you escaped from that prison farm on the same date as my brother met his death?” Maria asked grimly.

  “I didn’t know anything about his death until days afterwards when Pat told me all about it. Sure the dates were the same. I broke free in the afternoon and he died in the evening. So what? At the time he must have shot himself Pat was driving me hell for leather somewhere between here and Jamestown—”

  “But if it came to a point of law you would not admit that fact? You would not involve Patricia, I presume?”

  “You bet I wouldn’t!”

  “Then where would you say you were? You could not say you were hiding because it wouldn’t prove anything—”

  “Wait a minute!” Salter snapped. “Are you trying to read something into this which isn’t there? Are you trying to prove that I could have murdered Ralph Black?”

  “The police could prove it if I told them a few things—and you could not defend yourself without involving Patricia,” Maria smiled.

  “But who said he was murdered, anyway? It was suicide!”

  “Murder! Murder most foul!” Maria retorted. “However, you can calm your uneasiness, young man. I have no intention of telling any tales to the police. I merely show you that I have a stranglehold on the situation.... Tell me, how could you possibly have been taken in Patricia’s car? How did she ever get through the police dragnet with you beside her?”

  Salter gave a crooked grin.

  “It was all planned out. I worked out the details and got the news to her through my lawyer when he visited me. The sports car she first whipped me away in was a hired one. We ditched that in a marsh after the first ten miles. At that point her own sports car was ready—and it was prepared. If you’ve seen it you will know it has a small back seat portion as well as the two front seats. She had a cradle fixed under the leather seating at the back. All I had to do was get into it and lie quiet. The cops didn’t go far enough to examine the entire car—but even if they had have done they would not have been likely to find me. Under the seat was an apparent wood base, while under my cradle was the car’s main chassis. I was sort of sandwiched between the two. Pat got away with it because her car was not the one that had originally whisked me off. She posed as a commercial traveler, wore thick-lensed glasses to disguise her eyes—which are pretty distinctive—and a black wig. Altogether the set-up was perfect, though I was bruised all over when she landed me in this dump by night.”

  “Very interesting,” Maria mused. “Very well planned.”

  “It had to be—relied on split-second timing.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, once I was here Pat got me an old suit of clothes from a junk store—these things I’ve got on. She’s seen to it that I’ve had food and all the rest of it. She is the grandest wife a guy ever had! Right now she is busy trying to clear the charge over my head.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been better for her to do that with you still in prison? Why did you have to take this desperate chance anyway?”

  “Because I couldn’t help her properly by her occasional trips on visitors’ day. I had to be right on hand, as I am here, to give her information at any moment when she might need it. She is playing a tough game, and it can only succeed by her knowing every trick beforehand—which she does know, if I can manage it anyway.”

  “I gather,” Maria said, “that you were falsely accused?”

  “I was framed!” Salter retorted. “I was railroaded under the orders of the one and only Ralph Black himself!”

  “Really?” Maria waited in grim attention.

  “After Black had refused his consent for me to marry Pat—because of the social gulf between us, I imagine it was—he decided to make doubly sure she remained an untouchable by getting me out of the way, by sending me to prison on a charge of misappropriating company funds. He did not know we had married in spite of him—or if he did it made no difference—and neither Pat nor I let the secret out. We’d decided to wait for an opportune time to make things clear. I used to be a clerk in the Onzi Financial Trust, and plenty of money flowed through my hands. I was framed—fiendishly, cleverly—and could do nothing to save myself. That was Black’s doing!”

  “Just why was it?” Maria asked, thinking.

  “Because the chief of the Financial Trust was one of Black’s big business cohorts—and a slimier scoundrel never walked this city. He’s got a finger in every underhand racket in town: his methods go right back to the rip-snorting 1920s. Gangsterism has been pretty well stamped out, but this one remains—a clever schemer and organizer always just outside the law. His real name is Ransome—Hugo Ransome—and his headquarters are not in the Onzi Building, as one would expect, but in a dive in the town outskirts. Maxie’s Dance Hall to be exact.... Onzi is of course only one of many aliases.”

  “Maxie’s Dance Hall!”

  “That’s right—but I don’t suppose you’ll know of it.”

  “But I do,” Maria said gravely. “And I also see lots of other things I did not see before. I have tried in va
in to contact the controller of Onzi’s and get the name of the manager of the Dance Hall. I failed on both counts—for obvious reasons. The two boil down to one Hugo Ransome.... But go on.”

  “Maxie’s Dance Hail is only a cover-up. All the secrets Ransome has are in a safe back of the hall—about the safest place on earth since it’s the last place the police would ever look—even if they could, which legally they can’t. Waiters in the dance hall are well paid to be strong-arm men for Ransome and keep his business quiet, guard his identity, and so forth.... But to revert to myself: Ralph Black advised Ransome that he wanted me to be framed—that would be easy enough between them and a simple matter to Ransome since I was employed, quite legitimately too, in his business. I was trapped; so presumably Black was well satisfied.

  “When I was accused Pat believed in my innocence, and knowing Ransome and her father had business associations—a fact she had learned easily enough from occasional casual family conversation—­she strongly suspected a plot on the part of her father, knowing his antagonism for me and his brutal disregard of anything which blocked what he thought was right. Once I was imprisoned she resolved to try and get some information on Ransome and hold it at his head in return for a confession of the real facts concerning me. If it meant a scandal in the family she was not worried: she avers she loved me far more than her family name anyway. To get past Ransome’s thugs in the dance hall was a difficult job—”

  “Which she overcame by becoming a paid partner to dancers, and wearing a dark wig,” Maria finished. “Ransome not knowing her in any case—and if he did, probably only from photographs which would show her as a blonde and would not reveal the color of her eyes—she got away with it. She even let him make love to her in an effort to win his confidence....”

  “Investigator is right!” Salter whistled. “You know plenty!”

  “I think I do,” Maria agreed.

  “But what worries me is the danger Pat’s in!” Salter went on anxiously. “If she makes one slip, despite my efforts to direct her every move, she’ll just—disappear! Ransome has enormous power.”