But Eloise shook her head. “Bert was perfectly sober, and the girl herself was too lit to have pulled a stunt like that,” she said.
“Well,” Landon persisted, “they may have lifted the keys off him earlier in the week and made duplicates. Returned them before he missed them. You get the police to check up on him. In the meantime, I’m going to work on Dumaine. If he’s in on this, I think I can crack him wide open.”
“How?”
“It’s a wild shot.” Landon shook his head and grinned. “A combination of bluff and burglary.”
“Burglary! Oh, Ray!” Eloise cried.
“Right,” said Landon. “In my position, a bit of breaking and entering is only a trifle. And now you’d better run along, before we push our luck too far.”
“But please, Ray, don’t take the risk!” she pleaded. “Better lie low and wait for the police to turn up some clue.”
“We’ll see,” he said noncommittally.
Eloise shook her head, pressed his hand, made a gesture of farewell, and mingled with the crowd. Landon watched her lithe figure blend and disappear in the confusion of shifting color; then he strode rapidly toward the car-line.
CHAPTER 4
The Congress of Crooks
That afternoon Landon reconnoitered the block in which Alcide Dumaine’s antique shop was located. An alley led to the rear, and here at night one would be quite unobserved; but the heavy steel fire doors and window-shutters made some other approach preferable.
The Sparta Hotel, next door to Dumaine’s establishment, was the answer. But, as he needed to purchase certain supplies, and as the day was Sunday and the stores were not open, Landon was forced to wait until the following day for the next step.
Sunday evening he took in a movie—no danger of being identified in the darkness of the picture house. When the show was over, he decided to take a long walk to work off the nervousness caused by enforced inaction. And because he intended to keep to the more poorly lighted streets, he slipped the pads of paper out of his shoes.
He wandered aimlessly until he suddenly realized that a homing instinct had led him to Eloise’s somber mansion. He paused on the opposite side of the street, and leaning back against the fence, stared across at the big house, which loomed black and curiously ominous amid palms and magnolias.
Scarcely twenty-four hours ago he had stared at that same house, with feelings of instinctive dread, while a murder was being committed inside. And tonight—
A dark figure came skulking down the opposite sidewalk and halted at the Foster gate. Then, very gently, the prowler swung the gate open and slipped inside. The black shadows of the shrubbery swallowed him.
Eloise was in that house! Landon dashed across the street, slipped quietly through the half-open entrance, and then stealthily followed the winding path through plantains and bamboo clumps to the front door.
No sign of the intruder. Landon tip-toed across the gallery and jabbed the push-button. He waited, back half turned to the door, alertly scanning all possible approaches.
The door swung silently open. Landon wheeled. The Fosters’ Negro butler, startled by his sudden appearance, stared at him without recognition.
“Quick!” snapped Landon. “Where is Miss Eloise?”
The Negro turned slate gray. He recoiled a pace, his eyes widening to black-centered white globes.
“Mistah Landon!” he exclaimed. “Ah—Ah—” A woman’s scream shrilled from the upper reaches of the house. Thrusting the stupefied Negro aside, Landon bounded up the thickly carpeted stairs.
There were lights in the library. A man gruffly commanded, “Shut up, you little fool, and give me that film! It won’t do you any good to holler for help. If anyone does come, I’ll drill ’em!”
Landon bounded into the library.
Eloise stood just beyond the central desk, a flat tin container clasped in her hands. Across the desk from her was a swarthy man of about Landon’s own build, threatening her with a .45 caliber automatic.
Landon charged. The swarthy man wheeled and jerked a shot. The blast shook the house, but Landon, ducking, flung himself at the intruder’s legs. The flying tackle was good, but as they fell, his quarry smacked Landon’s head with his pistol. The blow grazed his head, cutting, rather than stunning. Landon snatched the man’s wrist before he could strike again.
Two more shots, as the intruder strove to force his weapon into line. Landon wrenched fiercely and the automatic clattered to the floor, but the gunner jerked free, clutched Landon’s throat with both hands. Landon’s fists smashed home, but the throttling grip closed tighter.
Breathing was impossible. Landon’s blows became weaker. The room swam in a red haze, through which he could hear as from a great distance the voice of Eloise crying, “Ray! Ray! Hang on!”
She swooped in, hammering the intruder about the head with the tin film box. He ducked and squirmed, then loosened one hand to ward off the blows. That gave Landon his chance to break away. He staggered to his feet—only to be seized from behind by two strong arms passing around him and pinioning his own arms to his side.
The imprisoning hands were black. “Ah done got him, Miss Ellie,” said a familiar voice in his ear.
Meanwhile the swarthy raider had regained his feet, seized Eloise and held her as he scanned the floor for his missing gat.
“You fool, Isaac!” cried Eloise. “That’s Ray! Let him go!”
Landon jerked away from the dismayed Negro and charged back into action. But the prowler flung Eloise between them, blocking Landon’s rush. Before he could swing clear of her, the enemy’s fist caught him on the point of the chin. That piled him into a corner—but within reach of the missing automatic! He seized the weapon, blinked, staggered to his feet. The raider, meanwhile, had snatched the tin film box from Eloise and was diving for the window.
Landon snapped the gun into line and fired, but his head was still swimming and his hand wavered. He missed. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to fire deliberately. That was as bad—the target won by a hair, clearing the sill a split instant ahead of the blast.
Landon rushed to the window. A dark shape was streaking through the shadows and foliage. Landon’s head was now clear, but gloom and a swiftly moving target were too much for three deliberate, closely spaced shots—then the slide locked open. The gun was empty. The fleeing intruder dodged into the shadows of the bushes which lined the lawn.
Landon, cursing wrathfully, turned from the window just in time to catch Eloise as she tottered and swayed dizzily. For an instant she clung to him, then opened her eyes and drew out of his arms.
“I’m all right,” she said, with forced steadiness. “But you, Ray?”
“Ok now,” he said lightly. “Well, they got the color film!”
“And that answers your question of this afternoon as to what good it would do them to give a fake picture to the newspapers, with this film still in our hands,” the girl added.
“Also it ties Alcide Dumaine all the closer to this mess,” Landon said. “He gave the fake picture to the press, so he must have sent this thug to rob you. Lucky I happened to be walking by.”
“Happened?” she teased.
Before he could reply, an approaching police siren cut in on their conversation. Despite brick walls and muffling vegetation, the shots had been heard.
“Oh—they’ll find you here!” gasped Eloise.
“Tell them I’ve escaped, and send them hunting me.” Landon, though tense, was unperturbed. “Here you, Isaac!” The Negro servant was still standing open-mouthed in the doorway. “Tell the police that Mr. Landon is upstairs fighting with Miss Eloise. Just that, and not another word. Now scram!”
“Yassah, yassah!” Isaac hastened to the head of the stairs.
“Come,” said the girl, leading Landon across the hall and opening a door. “Hide in here—and give m
e the gun.”
It was a spare bedroom. Landon hurriedly surveyed the room, opened the window, gauged the distance to the ground, and noted a wisteria trellis which ran up beside the window. Then he closed the door to just a crack, and sat behind it, in darkness.
The doorbell jangled. Isaac flung open the front door.
“Yassah, yassah,” Landon heard him say. “Mistah Landon done been fightin’ wiv Miss Ellie in de liberry.”
A gruff command, the thudding of feet as the police charged up the stairway.
“Oh, I’m so glad you came!” Eloise gasped out, meeting them at the top. “Landon was here. I was terribly frightened. He demanded the film which showed the prayer rug. He pulled a gun on me, but I wouldn’t give up the film. He tried to grab it—it was lying on the desk here, before I snatched it up. Isaac helped me. The gun went off a couple of times. I got the gun, but he got the film and escaped through the window.”
“There were more than two shots heard,” one of the policemen asserted suspiciously.
“Yes,” Eloise readily admitted. “I fired at him as he was going out the window, and again as he was running across the lawn. I—I guess I’m not a very good shot.”
“Neither were we, the first time we tangled with Landon,” grinned the sergeant.
Then he turned to question Isaac. Landon, listening from cover, wiped the sweat from his forehead and crouched, ready for action, as the Negro answered; but his replies were a masterpiece of incoherence and confusion.
“Very good, Isaac,” Landon whispered, relaxing as the sergeant finally cut him short.
Then they tramped down the stairs and slammed the front door.
Landon emerged from his hiding place. “Great work, darling.” Then, catching her arm: “Now we can have a few words to ourselves.”
But Eloise shook her head. “Better leave right away, they may come back. Isaac will show you out the back way. And please, Ray, don’t go robbing Dumaine. You may get caught.”
“It’s our best bet, Eloise,” he insisted. “Tonight’s performance convinces me all the more that he is in on all this.”
Then he pressed her hand, and followed the waiting Negro.
The next day Ray Landon kept to his room, going out only to purchase, one at a time, a glass-cutter, a coil of stout clotheslines, a flashlight, and—from a toy store—a set of rubber-tipped arrows.
The newspapers featured his daring raid on the Foster mansion and the theft of the color film, but contained no information Landon could use.
Late that afternoon, packing his newly acquired belongings into his suitcase, he walked over to the Hotel Sparta and engaged a room for the evening.
He had no difficulty in justifying his demand for a room whose windows opened directly on the flat roof of Dumaine’s store. “So I can check out in a hurry, if her boyfriend follows us,” he explained, with a wink at the hotel clerk, and paid three dollars in advance for the one-dollar room. “And if anyone asks for me, remember I’m not in.”
He registered with a name which obviously bore no relation to the initials on his suitcase. The clerk, noting the discrepancy, winked, grinned knowingly, and pocketed the over-payment.
From the window of his new room, Landon carefully studied the roof of Dumaine’s store, noted the location and the construction of the skylight, and took into account the obstructions that might hamper him in the dark.
That done, he crossed over to Exchange Alley, where the bartenders are too busy to note individuals. His supper was a sandwich and one of the big beers that make the place popular—and crowded.
From observing Professor Foster’s dealings with Alcide Dumaine during the prayer rug negotiations, Landon knew that the little Frenchman dined late, and usually stayed in his store until dinner time. Accordingly, after his own meal, Landon phoned Dumaine.
He dropped his nickel, and a moment later recognized the antique dealer’s perceptible French accent.
“Nice work last night, Dumaine,” said Landon. “You know who this is—uh-huh. Don’t blat my name out that way! When do we split that dough you picked off on Saturday?”
Dumaine’s startled exclamation contained enough alarm to prove that the random shot had not missed. He had mistaken Landon for Chris Panopoulos, the “client” who had wired from Biloxi.
“Don’t stall!” he snapped, driving home his advantage. “You call up the boys and tell ’em to meet us at the store tonight.”
Landon hung up. Dumaine’s alarm was a fair assurance that, whether or not he was holding out on his allies, he would take the course of an innocent man. He would call together “the boys”—whoever they were—and try to convince them that he was on the up and up.
There was one flaw in Landon’s strategy, but he had not overlooked it. “Panopoulos may show up or run into some of ‘the boys,’ and may deny that he phoned Dumaine to arrange the meeting. But he and the boys are likely to suspect that Dumaine lied about the call so as to slip something over on them. And Dumaine may suspect that Panopoulos did make the call, and lied out of it so as to cast suspicion on him, on Dumaine. And if they get excited enough in their wrangling, someone will spill something.”
Landon waited near the entrance to Dumaine’s establishment until, shortly after dark, he saw the little Frenchman hurry out for his evening meal. Landon at once returned to the Sparta, grinned at the clerk, and ascended the two flights to his room. Then, emerging from a window, he dropped to the flat roof and set to work with his cutter. The skylight was not of reinforced glass, so his work was easier.
First he moistened with his tongue the sucker-end of an arrow and pressed it against the surface of one of the panes until it stuck by vacuum. Then he cut a small circle around it, tapped the piece lightly until it broke loose, and lifted it out. Thrusting his left hand through the hole and applying his palm to the under surface of the pane, he cut out another piece. Finally an entire pane had been removed, leaving an opening large enough to admit his body.
Placing his piece of gas pipe athwart the hole, he doubled the clothesline around it and lowered himself into the black depths. Then, separating the two reaches of the rope, he pulled down on one and gradually eased up on the other, ending with a jerk and a let-go, which spun the pipe off the skylight and brought it and the rope to his feet.
Nothing now to indicate that anyone had entered, except the open pane, and that would not show against the overcast sky.
Landon snapped his flashlight and swept it around the room. The entire second floor was a dusty, somber confusion of antique furniture, genuine and synthetic.
Right beneath the skylight was the clearest place in the whole loft. Here was a modern desk, strewn with papers; a telephone set, several chairs, and a large double-doored safe. Evidently it was Dumaine’s “office,” although open to the rest of the storeroom. Nearby stood a huge walnut wardrobe—a perfect observation post from which to watch the congress of crooks.
Landon then explored further among the helter-skelter collection of museum pieces. Two flights of stairs, boarded in, led down from this story. Landon tried the one to the rear and found that it ended at the ground level, in a pair of heavy steel fire-doors, secured by a massive hinged bar that dropped into sockets. He tried the bar and found that the door easily opened. Beyond it was an alley.
Landon then returned to the second-floor storeroom and took cover, leaving the wardrobe door open perhaps a quarter of an inch. After waiting about fifteen minutes, he heard a key slipping into the lock of the front door. A wall switch clicked, snapping on a cluster of lights well past the middle of the shop. Furtive footsteps echoed in the front stairway, and then a short, stocky man stepped into the room.
It was Dumaine. By the dim illumination, Landon could see that the shabby little Frenchman was worried. He paced the length of the central aisle that roughly divided the tangled confusion of furniture, statuary, bric a brac, l
arge cloisonné vases, and great curved earthenware jars in which olives had been shipped from Spain years ago. He finally seated himself, shifting uneasily in his chair, and from time to time glanced nervously around the storeroom.
A few minutes later there was a heavy pounding on the street door. Dumaine started apprehensively, then rose and hurried down the stairs to admit the unfortunate visitors.
Conversation began almost immediately, and continued as the three men tramped up the stairs, but Landon could catch only fragments.
Muttered cross fire of query and accusation; then, a strangely familiar gruff voice: “Shut up, Schwartz! I’ll handle this!”
A flash of Dumaine’s rapid fire sputter, ending with, “Mordieu! But it is jus’ as I have told you!”
The gruff voice again: “Skip that tripe, Alcide. We was complimenting you on bumping off the old guy so nice, and pinning it on Landen!”
They reached the top of the stairs and crossed the room to the office space. And then the watcher in the wardrobe saw that the gruff-voiced speaker was the tall, swarthy raider Landon had grappled with in the library of the Foster home the evening before. His companion was a short, heavy man with a close-cropped bullet head: Schwartz who, despite having been silenced a moment ago, resumed: “Alcide, you should divide up the loot right now, even if you did shoot the professor.”
“He stabbed him,” corrected the tall dark man. His grin was a wolfish flash of ivory and gold. “Anyhow, Alcide, you did a good job. But it’s pretty smart not to try and run out on us.”
Dumaine gestured toward several chairs near his desk. His guests eyed them, decided that the antiques would support their weight, and seated themselves.
“Listen, Pichetti,” protested Dumaine, becoming more and more uneasy, “I don’t know what you and Schwartz mean, asking me why I killed Foster.”
“Never mind that bunk!” growled the tall dark man, glancing significantly at Schwartz. “Get down to business! Whatever Panopoulos told you goes for us. And you might as well cough up—he sent us to get you straightened out.”
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