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

by John Russell Fearn

  “Taken a powder, I guess. Never know with dames, I always say. They come and go—just like that!”

  “By ‘taking a powder,’ I presume you mean she has left?”

  “Yeah. Want to make something of it?”

  “I just liked her dancing, that’s all....” Maria mused for a moment, then, “I suppose she hasn’t eloped with that gentleman with whom she was so obviously enamored?”

  “Huh?” The waiter stared. “What armor? What gentleman?”

  “I don’t know his name. He was very attentive to her last time I was here—a biggish man with thick black hair and a pale face.”

  The waiter hesitated momentarily, then he nodded his head to the identical man standing near the orchestra, a smoldering cigar between his teeth and his gaze fixed on the dancers. He wore, as usual, an immaculate evening dress.

  “Mean him?” the waiter asked bluntly.

  “Why, yes....” Maria affected surprise. “Who is he?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” the waiter retorted. “Maybe he got fresh with Maisie; happens around here sometimes. So she just beat it.”

  Maria smiled enigmatically and turned to her lemonade. The waiter eyed her suspiciously for a moment and then went away.

  “In other words, the one and only Hugo Ransome,” Maria mut­tered, to the table top. “Here, Maria, is where you go into action....”

  She pulled a leaf out of her notebook and wrote hastily—

  “Ransome has the cigar. Standing by the orchestra. Get him in the fight. Destroy this note. B.M.”

  She waited for Pulp to catch her eye, then she rolled the missive in her palm and tossed it down. He read it, gave a brief nod, then burned it casually to light a cigarette. For a while afterwards there was an ominous calm.

  At intervals other men drifted in and took different tables, most of them bull-necked individuals in jerseys or worn coats and baggy pants—all of them with unlovely faces. One of them had a scar running from ear to lip as though he had been slashed somewhere with a butcher’s cleaver....

  Then all of a sudden Pulp was on his feet. He swung aside the table at which he and his companion sat.

  “Blast you to hell, you did that on purpose!”

  His roar was heard all over the hall. “I’ll show you whether you can throw beer over Pulp Martin!”

  His fist shot out, the punch deliberately pulled, and his ally went whizzing backwards to a beautifully simulated fall. He collapsed against the next table, overturned the crockery and the man and woman seated there, finished up with a threshing mixture of arms and legs....

  That started it. A waiter came tearing forward with clenched fist, but hardly had he arrived before Pulp’s right shot out like a piston and struck him clean in the jaw. He tottered on his heels; his teeth slammed together under a second punch. With a howl of pain he toppled backwards into the demoralized diners.

  Maria watched intently. She saw Ransome throw down his cigar, step on it, then plunge into the fray. The balcony waiter deserted his job too and raced downstairs. The place was suddenly a bedlam of yells and slogging impacts. But there was no gunplay, for obvious reasons. To start shooting was to ask for trouble from the law—even if attackers and defenders could be distinguished, which was now next to impossible.

  Maria found herself close to cheering when she saw Pulp’s red head rise from the melee. He singled out Ransome for special attention. He caught the man by the lapel of his immaculate coat, whirled him round, then planted his fist clean in the middle of the pasty face. Ransome fell helplessly across an overturned table, found himself punched again and again—then a blinding uppercut sent him spinning backwards into the midst of the struggling or­chestra. He finished up amidst the splintered wood of a bass fiddle.

  The dance floor by this time looked like a dye-cauldron on the boil. Varicolored dresses and heads swam about violently: men and women were fighting like alley cats, apparently settling old scores. Maria stood up now in impartial calm, a lone observer, keeping her eye on Pulp’s carroty head as he pounded and hammered his way along. Clearly he was working to a plan, for he moved slowly but surely along in the direction of the office door. If a man blocked his path he simply removed him by a sledgehammer blow under the jaw: or if it was a woman he caught her beneath the arms and whirled her to the safety area beyond the circumscribed limits of the onslaught. Curious, Maria reflected, what a streak of chivalry the man had.

  And so at last he reached the vantage point where he could slide out of sight into the office. He reappeared in a moment or two and signaled briefly. Maria nodded, gathered herself together, and hurried off down the stairs. The foyer was deserted: obviously the commissionaire had joined the onslaught. Maria hurried down the steps and looked round anxiously. To her ears came the wail of an approaching police siren.

  “Here, lady!” a man bawled, and she saw a taxi halt under a lamp from round a neighboring side street. She raced for it, jumped in, fell into the back as it raced away from the curb. It turned down the side street immediately, pursued an erratic course through various back alleys before it finally came to a halt.

  The driver pushed back the glass partition and grinned. He was a little-faced man with a big, hooked nose, beady eyes, and a cleft chin.

  “Well, Black Maria, we made it! Glad to know you. I’m Joey.”

  “So I gathered,” Maria nodded.

  “Here’s the dope,” he went on, handing over a bundle of docu­ments with a rubber band around them. “Fingers worked dead to time.”

  Maria took the bundle and surveyed it anxiously. “You are sure we are safe here, Joey?”

  “Trust me! I know this city backwards and inside out.” He paused and grinned again. “Rather cute of Pulp to think of sending for the police, wasn’t it?”

  “Pulp sent for them!” Maria exclaimed. “But how? Why?”

  “Well, I sent for them at his orders,” Joey amended. “You have got to hand it to Pulp when it comes to organizing a riot. He knows just how long it takes a squad car to get to a joint when there’s a raid. Quite legitimate for a passer-by to hear the racket in the dance hall and call the riot squad.... So, I was the passer-by. You can bet your eyelashes that Pulp and his boys will be in the clear long before the cops arrive. They got things timed. See?”

  Maria gave a nod of approval. “I knew I picked the right man in Mr. Martin.... But what will happen to the others? The diners, and Ransome himself?”

  “They’ll be picked up, of course, and will have to account for themselves. They’ll be let out by morning, I expect. But in any case, even figuring Ransome gets out again tonight, it will be too late by then for him and his boys to chase you, even if they suspect anything. You can take it for granted that Ransome won’t call the police even if he does discover the theft: too much in those papers for the police to see.... But his boys can get you, and I’m warning you, Black Maria, to keep your eyes peeled when we’re not with you.”

  “I’m prepared for that,” Maria said, with a grim smile. “For the moment I want you to take me to this address...,” and she read out lawyer Johnson’s card.

  “O.K.,” Joey assented, and started the taxi off again. Ten minutes later he drew up outside Johnson’s home and Maria alighted to the pavement.

  “You’d better wait for me, Joey. I’ll want you to take me home afterwards.”

  “I’ll be here....”

  It was Johnson himself who opened the door in response to Maria’s ring.

  “Well, I’m glad to find you all in one piece, Miss Black,” he said seriously, leading the way across the hall to his comfortable library. “I’ve been on pins ever since you told me of your idea.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Johnson, you had little need to worry over me,” Maria replied calmly, taking the armchair he drew forward for her.

  “No—so it seems.” He looked at her quizzically, then turned to the sideboard. “You’ll want some refreshment after this?”

  “Port, if you please....” Then she slowly dra
nk it down as he turned to the documents she had tossed on the desk. For close on ten minutes he was preoccupied, then at last he looked up with eyes gleaming behind his glasses.

  “It’s incredible!” he breathed. “Positively incredible, Miss Black! I wonder how it is that the police have tried times without number to get evidence enough to break Hugo Ransome, and have failed—and yet a determined woman and a band of hired thugs can accomplish it in one night?”

  She smiled faintly. “Perhaps because I used simplicity. I had a perfectly simple plan and got away with it. One cannot blame the law: they cannot go in and rob a citizen—but another citizen can! You believe the evidence is sufficient for me to get a strangle­hold over Ransome? Sufficient for him to be anxious to get these documents back at any cost?”

  “I still think you don’t realize what you have done, Miss Black,” Johnson said seriously. “These documents here, used in the right quarter, could indict Ransome on numberless crimes—grand larceny for one thing. And murder,” he finished grimly.

  Maria thought for a moment.

  “In that case I shall revise my plan. I think I should not be helping the law and order of this community if I let Ransome have those papers back.... Let me see— Yes, I think I have it. I shall first get his confession to clear young Arthur Salter, then I shall keep my promise, and in return for the confession give the papers back to him.”

  “But you just said—”

  “Newspapers,” Maria smiled. “These documents must stay in your possession tonight, Mr. Johnson. Tomorrow at noon I want you to meet me at police headquarters. We will tackle Inspector Davis together....” Then as Johnson digested

  her instructions she got up, bundled the papers together and studied them. “Hmm, nine inches long, three wide, and four thick. That is all I need to know.... Well, you will do as I suggest?”

  “Certainly.” He gave a grave smile. “And you are going to play with the gunpowder again, eh?”

  “Yes, but I rarely carry matches,” she answered ambiguously.

  He accompanied her back to the front door, shook hands and renewed his promise. Back in her taxi she talked to Joey as she was swiftly driven home.

  “I have some instructions for you to send on to Mr. Martin. First you will thank him for his excellent work; then you will tell him to be at the same place opposite the dance hall at eleven tomorrow morning. I am going to visit Ransome, and shall probably require a bodyguard. After I have seen Ransome I shall want you to take me to police headquarters...probably at high speed.”

  Joey grinned. “I get it. Rely on me. I’ll fix it.”

  “Splendid— Stop here! Here we are.”

  Maria climbed out, paid Joey his fare double, then crept silently into the house. Almost instantly the lights came up in the hall and Alice stood there, fully dressed, her face anxious.

  “Maria, you’re safe! Thank Heaven for that—! I’ve been so worried! Tell me what happened....”

  Maria drew off her gloves unconcernedly.

  “Naturally, Alice, I succeeded in my mission. With Mr. John­son’s legal knowledge and my own—er—shall we say, impromptu methods, I have managed to get enough evidence to indict Ransome and free Patricia and Arthur Salter. I understand there will now be a reopening of the trial. Tomorrow I shall know for certain—or rather today.”

  Alice led the way into the lounge, motioned to the sandwiches she had prepared. Maria started on them gratefully.

  “And what makes you think Hugo Ransome will let you get away with this?” Alice demanded in agitation. “He’s not alone, remem­ber! He has men everywhere—ruthless men. They may kill you!”

  “I hardly expect to achieve my end without some inconvenience,” Maria shrugged, untroubled. “I have survived this far, and I shall continue to do so— You know, Alice, these sandwiches are most welcome. I am quite surprised to discover how the exercise of brain and body produces an appetite.”

  Alice made a helpless movement. “Tell me, Maria, is there nothing that can frighten you? Don’t you ever get nervous?”

  “Fear, Alice, is only a lack of control over the emotions. One schooled in control of oneself never shows either fear or—guilt.” Maria started on another sandwich complacently. “Notice how most people used to being in the public eye control themselves at times—such as lecturers, actors and actresses, headmistresses.... But perhaps you’re not interested, Alice?”

  Alice said nothing, but her face seemed to have gone grimmer. She waited until Maria was finished then got to her feet.

  “You must be tired, Alice, waiting up for me like this.”

  “How could I think of being tired when your activities are tied up with Pat’s release from jail?”

  Maria asked a question. “You haven’t told the others anything?”

  “No. Dick didn’t press matters—but Janet was rather more difficult. She wanted to know everything you intended doing. I gave nothing away and maybe you can deal with her yourself later on.”

  “Strange she should wish to know so much,” Maria mused. “She knows detectives took Patricia away.”

  “But she doesn’t know why! And you’re so mysterious, Maria.”

  “If it were only I....” Maria shrugged. “Well—to bed, Alice. I think we both need it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  To avoid contact with the family and the necessity for answering a barrage of questions before she had every fact marshaled, Maria had breakfast sent up to her room the following morning and at the same time instructed the maid to find her a batch of old newspapers. Lucy was obviously mystified by the request but obeyed it promptly enough.

  Her breakfast over, Maria spent a good fifteen minutes wrapping the news-sheets in brown paper from her luggage, thereafter putting them in different-sized envelopes which she had brought with her against possible need. When she had finished she had a fair-sized parcel heavily sealed and stringed.

  She smiled as she surveyed it; then she dressed in her severest attire and endeavored to escape the house without being noticed. But Alice caught her in the hall. She had the morning paper in her hand.

  “Maria, dear—look!” Her voice was obviously distressed. “Just look! Altogether we occupy most of the front page...!”

  The main headline was HEIRESS AIDS CON IN GETAWAY; and a smaller column was headed RIOT AT MAXIE’S: POLICE CLEAN UP.

  As she read first one report and then the other Maria gave a grim smile.

  “You can’t stifle facts from the Press, Alice. I fully expected this. It may even be for the best. When the exoneration comes the family prestige will be immensely heightened and it is possible the scandal created by Ralph’s death will be offset.”

  Alice reflected. “I never thought of it that way, Maria.”

  “As to the dance hall incident, it tells me just what I want to know,” Maria said. “Those seized by the police last night included the manager—whose name is suppressed, you notice—but all of them were released this morning, just as my associate Mr. Martin believed they would be. It is all a matter of judgment, Alice. And it means that Ransome will be present this morning to receive—this!” She indicated the parcel she was carrying.

  Alice eyed it in puzzlement. “Maria, please be careful!”

  “Of course!” Maria gave a reassuring smile and departed, but the moment she was out in the street her face became hard and deter­mined. She marched with resolute steps, sunshade tightly gripped in one hand and the parcel in the other. Sure enough, as she began to near Maxie’s Dance Hall, the figure of Pulp emerged suddenly from a store doorway opposite.

  “Hi-ya!” His paw moved in a cordial semicircle. “How’s tricks after last night?”

  “I am in excellent health, Mr. Martin. And you?”

  “Never better. In fact, I think that fight last night sort of oiled me up a bit.”

  “You escaped the police?”

  He gave a contemptuous grin. “Nothing to it! Pretty smart idea for me to send for ’em, eh?”

  �
��Very.” Maria came to a halt, glanced down the street as a taxi drew up against the curb. “That’s Joey, I take it?”

  “Yeah—ready and waiting. I saw Ransome go into the Hall a bit back—and was his puss sour! It may be some time even yet before he finds out those papers of his have been frisked. Fingers tells me he shut the safe after him.... Those them?” Pulp glanced at the parcel.

  “So Ransome will think,” Maria said dryly. “They are news­papers, wrapped in several envelopes and sheets of brown paper. It will take him at least three minutes to get through all the wrappings and in that time you and I will have got away in Joey’s taxi.”

  “I got to hand it to you, Black Maria, you sure know all the answers,” Pulp breathed, wagging his head admiringly. “Right now I suppose you want me to go in with you to see Ransome?”

  “Just in case,” she acknowledged gravely.

  “Don’t worry!” He patted his hip pocket reassuringly. “I’ve packed a rod this time. Ready?”

  Maria squared her shoulders. “Ready!”

  They marched through the foyer together. The place was deserted and in a state of hopeless disorder. Tables were over­turned, broken bottles were lying about in all directions, the walls were even more stained and splashed than before.

  Pulp gave a grin. “Looks like we messed the place up plenty! And it seems as though Ransome’s the only one to get here so far: if so, we’re in the clear.... Come on!”

  He tugged his gun out of his pocket and walked to the office door, flung it open.

  Hugo Ransome looked round in surprise from his filing cabinet. His lips tightened about his cigar as he saw the automatic leveled at him. Gradually his dark snake-like eyes moved up to Pulp’s grim face.

  “Well, what in thunder do you want? And put that gun down!” Then Ransome’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “Say, I know you! You are the guy who started the row out in front last night. You’ve got your nerve coming here and—”

  “Are you Hugo Ransome?” Maria asked, coming from behind Pulp and firing the man with her most icy look.

  “Supposing I am?”