“Can’t merely paint you with iodine and mark you duty,” Landon muttered. Then, to the driver, “Uptown, buddy. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Jake regarded him inquiringly, his face drawn and gray.
“Only chance,” said Landon, “but I think it’ll work.”
Landon’s plan was dangerous, but he saw that Jake needed immediate attention. Changing cabs would avail them little; they would eventually be tracked to their destination.
“Cover this bird,” he whispered. “And see that he doesn’t pull any fast work. I’m going to phone a friend who’ll hide us. Then I’ll get a doctor, blindfold him, and poke a gun to his ribs.”
“Gosh, you got your guts!” muttered Jake admiringly.
Landon, though disheveled, was not conspicuous as he stepped into a drug store. He called the Foster, house. Eloise answered.
“Careful what you say,” he cautioned. “Hop into your car, park on Saint Andrew, just off Prytania Street. I’ll hail you from a cab.”
Landon instructed the driver to circle the block he had designated to Eloise. They had not made more than three trips when he recognized Eloise’s roadster, parked on a side-street. She herself was standing on Prytania.
“Clever girl!” said Landon to himself, as he instructed the cab driver to draw up by the curb. “He won’t even notice her car.”
He stepped from the taxi. Eloise came running up.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in dismay. “Whatever in the world have you been doing—your face is a sight!”
“I’ve got a wounded comrade,” he whispered. “Take him to the house, and I’ll rustle up a doctor.”
“Haven’t you enough grief of your own?” she protested hysterically.
Landon returned to the cab. “Jake?”
No answer. Jake was slumped in a corner. He muttered hoarsely, made a feeble gesture of protest as Landon sought to lift him from the seat.
“Never mind me, I’m through. Get the hell out!” He coughed, shuddered, and then Landon recognized the wheeze and rattle in his throat. Death had cancelled the debt.
Landon backed out of the cab and handed the driver a bill.
“Straight down the street!” he said. “Don’t stop, and don’t look back. If you don’t want to die of lead poisoning, be damn sure there was one—get me?—one man who hailed you. And stick to it. One crack out of you—” Landon regarded the driver intently, then concluded in a tone that matched the steel gray glitter of his eyes, “I’ve got your number and I’ll remember it. So give me a chance to give you a break. Beat it!”
He watched the tail-light disappear down Prytania Street, then turned to Eloise. “I didn’t know he was hit that bad or I’d not have pulled you into this. But he saved my hide, and—”
“I know. But let’s move on, before that cab driver gets over his fright.”
As they drove by a long round-about way to Eloise’s home, Landon outlined his encounter at Dumaine’s and his escape from Panopoulos.
“It’s all such a dog fight that you can draw almost any conclusion you want,” he summarized. “When Dumaine called your uncle from the convention, under the pretext of selling him the rug, the stage must have been set for a faked robbery, to get possession of both rug and cash. But someone, working almost on a split-second schedule, beat them to it—and, for good measure, framed me.”
“That looks like the fine hand of Panopoulos,” suggested Eloise.
Landon shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said thoughtfully. “Panopoulos seemed to think that Dumaine has the money. But I’m quite sure that neither of them has. And now the Greek’s gang is blotted out.”
“There goes your chance of clearing yourself,” sighed Eloise. “You’d better fade out of here. I—I can join you somewhere later, after it all blows over.”
“Do you mean that?” he said.
She averted her gaze, and nodded.
“Then I’m going to stick right here in New Orleans till I clear myself.”
“But how can you solve it, if everyone is dead?”
“Everyone except Dumaine,” he corrected. “And somebody named Barloff, from whom Panopoulos stole the rug.” He told her how Panopoulos had mistaken him for one of the Barloff gang.
There was no chance that they had been followed. Landon accompanied Eloise into the somber old mansion.
“Where do we go from here?” Eloise said.
“To the library.”
Hand in hand they ascended the broad stairs. “Eloise,” he said, “we’ve got to figure out who got your uncle to open the safe, and then prove it. Who else would have had the combination?”
Eloise sighed wearily. “Nobody. Uncle Gilbert opened the safe often during the bargaining, but never while Dumaine was here, so he couldn’t have noted it. He’d not have had any reason to until after Bert Collins sold the Liberty Bonds for uncle.”
“By the way,” wondered Landon, “where has Bert been ever since Saturday?”
“He’s kept away from here,” said the girl.
“He’d better! Did you have the police check up on his whereabouts for the last week or so?”
“Yes. But he not only gave a straightforward account of himself, but also still has the keys—showed them to the police.”
“He might have lent them to someone,” Landon hopefully suggested.
“At least not on the night of the—the robbery,” said Eloise, with a little catch in her voice, “for that girl he was with at the party had her hooks on him all evening. Anyway, why worry about keys, with that magnolia tree standing right there within easy reach of the window?”
“That’s right,” Landon agreed. “And say! That magnolia gives me another idea. Someone, posted in that tree with a pair of field glasses, could have watched your uncle and gotten the combination! I’ll see how far away I can read the numbers with my naked eyes.”
He backed slowly toward the window. “Look out!” she warned.
Landon wheeled and reached in his pocket for his gun. He tripped on the fringe of the rug and crashed against the front of one of the desks.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I was trying to warn you not to bump into that desk.”
Landon ruefully eyed the front of the desk as he regained his feet; but he suddenly dropped to his knees before it.
“That’s odd!” he muttered, frowning. “I never saw that before.”
He indicated a place in the back of the desk a few inches above the floor, where a round plug about the size of a quarter-dollar, and stained to match the color of the wood, had been pushed in slightly.
He pushed the plug. It slipped through, leaving a small round hole slanting downward and into the large double drawer on the right of the desk. He jerked the front of the drawer. It came off, leaving the rest still in place. He pulled out the remainder of the drawer.
“What on earth are you doing?” said Eloise.
“Frankly, I don’t know,” Landon replied. “It’s just odd—and it’s certainly no accident, this freshly drilled hole.”
“Oh, by the way,” Eloise broke into his pondering, “I told the police about your getting that call from the bell captain at the Roosevelt, saying that Uncle Gilbert wanted you to hurry home and get the manuscript of his lecture. But the bell captain and all the bellhops deny having sent any such message.”
“Which proves that that call was framed. Well, let’s not get led off on a tangent. I’ll get out into the tree and see how the safe looks from there. You stand in front of it, to represent your uncle.”
“I’m too small,” she objected. “You stand in front of the safe, and I’ll take your picture with Uncle’s Cine-Kodak from inside the window, but from the direction of the tree, while you pretend to be opening the safe.”
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “That’s how they did it. Your uncle himself suggested the m
ethod. His bluff. Shooting a reel of film, and declaring that, even if he didn’t buy the rug, he’d at least have a color-picture of it. And that got to Panopoulos, or to Barloff, whoever he is. A man in the magnolia tree could have photographed your uncle opening the safe, could have done it weeks ago. The film could have been enlarged where it showed the end of each spin of the dial. Let’s try it.”
Eloise brought her uncle’s movie camera, and placed it on one of the desks, pointing, toward the wall safe.
“Now you twirl the dials,” she said. “No need for me to get out into the tree. All we want to find out is whether the numbers will register on the film. This camera will work by electric light.”
“Ok. Shoot!” He spun the dial of the safe. Then, “Go ahead and run the camera.”
“I am,” she replied. “Can’t you hear the motor?”
He shook his head, and continued to operate the safe. Finally she snapped the control.
“But,” she objected, “it will be about five days before we can get this reel back from the finisher.”
“No,” said Landon. “I’ll take it to my room, cut off a two-foot strip, and develop it just like Kodak film, by hand. I can get a developing set in a drug store. Then in the morning, if we’re on the right track, I’ll dope out some means of getting the company to check their records. There can’t have been so very many motion picture reels developed for New Orleans customers during the last few weeks.”
He removed the exposed reel from the camera and thrust it into his pocket.
“And now I must hurry along,” he said. “Among other things, I’m going back to get the prayer rug from the alley near Dumaine’s store.”
“Why?”
“Give it back to Dumaine. Then tip off the police to keep an eye on him, to see who goes after it.”
“Good night—dear. And do be careful.”
She let him out through the back door, near the garage. From the rear drive he stealthily approached the street. All clear—until he reached the sidewalk.
A man emerged from behind a nearby tree. Landon wheeled, reaching for his pistol, but a heavy hand caught his shoulder from behind. A voice rasped in his ear, “Hold it, brother!”
And the one approaching from the front disclosed a silver shield gleaming in the glow of distant street lights.
“We rather figured we’d find you here, Landon,” he said. “Come along with us to Headquarters.”
CHAPTER 7
Out of the Frying Pan
Ray Landon meekly submitted to arrest. His two captors led him to a waiting car, parked in the next block.
There they searched him thoroughly, and removed his gun and the reel of film.
“Ah!” one of them exclaimed. “The missing color film of the prayer rug! I figured it hadn’t been stolen.”
“That’s one on you!” chuckled Landon. “It’s unexposed film. Take a look if you don’t believe me!”
They handcuffed Landon, boosted him into the car and started off. He slumped down in his seat, trying to devise a line of argument to persuade the police to investigate his flimsy clues.
Suddenly he sat erect. “This is a hell of a way to go to police headquarters!”
“Police! We’re taking you to Barloff!” Landon settled back against the cushions of the car. He concealed his elation. Nothing could be better than meeting the one man who was the key to the tangle. That is, if Landon survived the encounter.
“So this is Captain Landon!” sneered one of his captors. “The police must be saps to call you a hard guy!”
Landon ignored the gibe.
“Better blindfold him,” suggested the other. “We’re getting near.”
They bandaged his eyes; and long before the car crunched to a halt in a graveled driveway, Landon had lost all sense of direction.
His captors dragged him from the car, prodded him up five steps, across a broad gallery, and down a hallway. There they halted. A soft voice purred, “The master will receive the guests here in the library.”
Something odd about that voice. Though not familiar, its subtle overtones awoke lurking memories.
Landon’s two guards hustled him ahead, then swung right.
“At your pleasure,” one of them respectfully announced.
“Remove the blindfold.” A second purring voice, and with that same subtle, lurking ghost of familiarity.
Landon blinked at the sudden glare of light. He stood in an ornately furnished drawing-room, confronting a portly man in full evening dress. His face was dark and grim as his black eyes; his nose was a commanding beak. A small gardenia blossomed on one lapel.
“Well, Captain Landon!” he purred, stroking his short black beard. “This is a pleasure!” Barloff—his allies were Russian, but he obviously was an Arab. Then it clicked: Shah Ismail’s rug must have been smuggled out of Persia and across Russia; and this self-styled Barloff tallied closely with descriptions of a bandit whose doings were a by-word from Cairo to Turkestan.
“W’aleikum as-salaam wa barakat ‘ul-lahi, ya skaykh!” Landon greeted in Arabic. Then, grinning amiably, “Barloff—but this is as good as any of the names mentioned when the King of Iraq put a price on your head. So you’re a rug dealer now, eh?”
Barloff started, and his lips tightened; then they relaxed in a smile and he replied in Arabic, “Captain, perhaps we two can trade?”
“You might,” countered Landon, wondering at the implied proposition, “release my hands.”
The Arab murmured an order, and as his Russian henchmen unlocked the handcuffs, he continued, “I am certain you did not kill Foster. I’ve heard as much of you as you have of me. Captain Landon would not kill a benefactor. And since you could easily leave New Orleans, you must be staying to try and clear yourself.”
Landon nodded. Things were coming his way.
“Neither did we kill Foster. We want Shah Ismail’s rug. Help us get it and we will help clear you. Allah will make it easy for you.”
Maybe Allah would, but Landon temporized: “How should I know where it is? Ask Dumaine.”
“Dumaine, before he died—” Barloff paused to let his smile drive the words home—“said you took it. That rings true.”
Little doubt how Dumaine died—or why! “Too bad, Barloff. That spoils my best chance of clearing myself.”
“I have information that would help.”
“Maybe.” Landon was on thin ice. Dodging Dumaine’s fate would require slick work. “Anyhow, I hid the rug.”
“Where?”
“We’ll get to that,” evaded Landon. “Your frankness about Dumaine hints that you’ll make it darn sure I’ll never be talkative.”
Barloff laughed and gestured reassuringly. “My careless remark, even if made to the whole world, wouldn’t hurt me. And once I get the rug, I’ll be gone before you could get anyone to listen to you. Clearing yourself will leave you little time to worry about Dumaine’s—ah—mishap, one might call it.”
“Reasonable,” agreed Landon. Which it was; reasonable. But still—it did have fishhooks. “Let’s go, then. I’ll play. But give me the roll of film.”
“Very well. Vassili, handcuff him again, while I change my clothes. And stuff the film into his pocket. You can see it hasn’t been developed.” Barloff presently returned, wearing an inconspicuous business suit. Landon, again blindfolded, was led out to the car.
After a few minutes’ drive the blindfold was removed. They were entering the downtown New Orleans. It was now around midnight, and the streets were nearly deserted.
Landon directed them toward Dumaine’s place. The car halted at the end of the alley.
“Ivan, you sit in the car and watch this end of the alley,” Barloff commanded. “Vassili, you go on ahead of us to guard the other end. Yakushev, you come with us. And, by the way, Captain, better go ahead of us. And be careful. N
o false moves.”
As Vassili ran on ahead, Landon, Barloff and Yakushev entered the dark depths of the alley. “And now where is the prayer rug?” Barloff said.
“I’ll show you,” Landon replied. Barloff’s eagerness to know, instead of waiting to see, renewed Landon’s suspicion that the deal was to be one-sided. While Barloff scarcely needed resort to treachery, he might decide to play safe. And Landon saw his chance to beat him to it.
Instead of heading to where the rug was hidden, he led the captors toward the doorway through which Panopoulos had taken him earlier in the evening—this same evening, though it seemed weeks rather than hours ago.
“It’s in here,” he lied. “Just a second—I’ll drag it out.”
“Where?” That same eager reiteration.
“Get the key so you can turn me loose,” temporized Landon, “when I hand you the rug. This neighborhood is tricky, and if we have to run for it, I want my hands clear. We can meet later, where you can give me the evidence I need—”
“Hmmm…cautious,” murmured Barloff. Then, after getting the key from Yakushev, he added, “And that reminds me. Just to be sure you’ll be discreet, I’ll mail the evidence to Miss Foster.”
Barloff’s show of counter-caution almost masked his play to lull Landon’s suspicions—almost, but not quite.
Landon opened the door. Barloff followed, closing it after him. The locality was dangerous, and if the police were on the prowl, the closed door would help.
Landon advanced across the courtyard, and into the passageway through which Panopoulos had led him to the street. Barloff’s gun prodded his back.
With his manacled hands, Landon groped slowly along the walls of the passageway.
“Here! Feel in here!”
Barloff eagerly pressed forward. His pistol-muzzle shifted. This was the moment for which Landon had been waiting. He wheeled, knocking the barrel out of line, and driving one knee up to Barloff’s groin, and followed through with both shackled fists sinking him in the stomach.
Pay-day! The Arab collapsed, paralyzed. His gun clattered to the flagstones.
Landon retrieved the gun, then fished in Barloff’s pockets and found the key. He held it in his teeth, and in a moment unlocked the manacles. That done, he snapped them on Barloff, so as to fasten him to an iron window-grating.
E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives Page 46
