The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  I donned a black wig, blackened my eyebrows and lashes, made up my face dead white, and wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, while Mme Storey, past mistress in the art of disguise, transformed herself into a shapeless old woman dressed in tawdry finery.

  On the night following the robbery we telephoned to Bat Bartley at the Boule’ Miche’, and asked him to save us a private room. It would be better, we said, if we did not receive our friends that night, however safe they were. The risk was too great. But we wanted to see Jake.

  Well, Jake came to us there in due course, and was much amused by our disguises. Mme Storey paid over his share of the loot. We hated to see that good money go, but there appeared to be no help for it.

  Jake was in great form. I will pass over all his fulsome praises and compliments; for you are already familiar with his style. The Duchess would become as famous as Jesse James, he said, a national hero. The crown of courage had passed to a woman. And so on.

  My mistress let him run on until he said something to the effect that all of us would have to do some hard thinking in order to cap the previous day’s work; whereupon Mme Storey held up her hand.

  “Nothing doing,” she declared firmly.

  “Hey?” said Jake, with a falling face.

  “I’m done!”

  “What!” he cried. “Why, we’ve just started!”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve made a nice little stake out of these two jobs. I’m satisfied. As for publicity, I can scarcely better what I’ve got. Better quit while I’m on the crest of the wave. You may make out in your newspaper stories that I’m a superwoman, but as a matter of fact I’m just the common or garden variety like any other. And if I try to bite off more than I can chew I’ll choke.”

  “Have you lost your nerve?” he asked with a sneer.

  “Not my nerve,” said my mistress coolly; “it’s as steady as ever it was, and my wits are better. But my body is beginning to rebel. After all, I’m no longer young. A woman of fifty-five, even though she may have kept a passable figure, is not expected to run like a gazelle. When I got home yesterday I collapsed. I had to have a heart stimulant to bring me around.”

  “Well,” said Jake smoothly, “we’ll bear that in mind when we’re planning our next stunt.”

  “No,” affirmed Mme Storey, “I would not take anything safe and easy, either. I wouldn’t appear before the public at all unless I could better this show, and as I don’t see my way clear to doing that, I think it’s a good place to quit.”

  Jake lost his smooth air. His distress was very real.

  “Wait a minute – wait a minute!” he said. “You don’t have to decide anything to-night. This is just a sort of reaction, like. Just let things run along for awhile. You’ve earned a good rest. Then my boss may have an idea that will appeal to you. He has the most brilliant mind in America today – a soaring mind.”

  “Just so,” rejoined Mme Storey; “but if you keep on flying higher and higher, you’re bound to crash in the end. Not but what I hate to give it up, too,” she added pensively. “I love the game. I love to match my wits against those who have money!”

  “What’ll I say to the boss?” asked Jake plaintively. “He’s countin’ on you. You ought to hear the way he talked about you over the phone to-day. ‘Jake,’ he says, ‘this is the best material we ever had to work with!’”

  “Nice of him to say so,” said Mme Storey.

  Jake did not perceive the dryness of her tone.

  “Oh, the boss is never one to hold back credit from anybody,” he said.

  For an hour longer he continued to argue with her. By the end of that time she had convinced him that she meant what she said.

  He was greatly depressed. More than anything else he was alarmed by a suggestion she let fall, that she was just going to drop out of things and travel.

  He finally exacted a promise from her that she would not disappear until he had a chance to consult with the boss. When we left he asked anxiously:

  “Be here tomorrow night?”

  “Oh, I expect so,” said my mistress indifferently. “We can’t stay shut up in our rooms all the time.”

  On the following night Jake turned up with an entirely new line of arguments, which had no doubt been furnished him over the telephone during the day. When all these proved to be of no avail he said with an offhand air:

  “How would you like a job inside the organization?”

  I started inwardly. So this was where my mistress’s elaborate comedy had been tending! I had not perceived her drift before.

  “What sort of job?” she asked indifferently.

  “To run our advisory department.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You would investigate likely plants, and furnish the operators with full details. You would think up big spectacular stunts, plant all the details, and coach the operators.”

  “Yes,” said Mme Storey, “and have somebody else take all the credit!”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Jake. “We could keep the Duchess alive in the public mind, though you never appeared in person.”

  “What would there be in it for me?”

  Jake made a magniloquent gesture.

  “Oh, there wouldn’t be any difficulty about that. The boss is the soul of generosity.”

  “Sure. But just what would it run to?”

  “Well, say fifty thousand a year.”

  “Liberal enough,” said Mme Storey indifferently; “but it don’t appeal to me much. I hate to be tied up in an organization. I like to be on my own.”

  Jake set himself to work to persuade her. Little by little she allowed it to appear that she was coming around. Finally we heard that which we were silently praying for. Jake said:

  “The heads of the organization never meet. It’s better so. We have other ways of communicating. But you and the boss would have to have one talk to settle the details.”

  “Plenty of time for that,” said Mme Storey carelessly. “We’d better wait until the search for me lets up a little.”

  “No need for that,” said Jake. “Your present disguise is plenty good enough.”

  “Well, that’s up to the boss,” she said, shrugging. “If he wants to see me I’m at his service.”

  XV

  Three days later Mme Storey and I started out to keep our rendezvous with the “boss”. You can imagine how my heart was beating. I could scarcely believe that we were in sight of the end of our difficult and dangerous job.

  I was tormented with anxiety. So much mystery had been made of this powerful boss that he seemed to me to be invested with almost superhuman attributes. I dreaded lest he might slip through our fingers after all.

  We were on our way to the Madagascar Hotel, where we were to ask for Mr Peter Endicott. All the arrangements for the visit had been made with the greatest care. Jake the Canvasser was not to accompany us. Jake had wished Mme Storey to go alone, but she had declined to do so. Any offer that might be made to her must include me, she said; and Jake finally conceded the point.

  From the moment when the meeting had first been proposed we had been shadowed, as we were quick to perceive; and thereafter we never came out of the characters of Kate Arkledon and Peggy Ray. Our ordinary haunts knew us not. By day we remained shut up in the little flat on West – Street. There was a telephone in the flat, but we dared not use it; the danger was too great that the boys at the switchboard might have been tampered with.

  We finally solved the problem of communicating with Inspector Rumsey by taking a leaf out of Jake’s book. We wrote the inspector a letter, and posted it in the mail chute outside the door of our flat.

  The inspector could not communicate with us and, before setting out, Mme Storey had armed herself with a pair of handcuffs, intending to make the arrest herself if the police failed her.

  The lobby of the Madagascar displayed its usual animated aspect. Since they cut off the front to make a row of shops on the street it is always overcrowded. I felt rath
er than saw that we were objects of interest to several of the prosperously dressed men who were sitting and standing about. These I supposed to be police, and my heart rose. Inspector Rumsey was not showing himself – his face is too well known – but I had no doubt that he was near.

  It appeared that our journey was not to end at the Madagascar. As we made inquiry at the desk, a slender, gentlemanly young chap stepped up from behind us.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said, smiling. “I was waiting for you.”

  “Oh, are you Mr Endicott?” said Mme Storey, not without surprise. She had hardly expected to be received by such a stripling.

  “His secretary, at your service. I am to take you to him.”

  I confess I did not like this at all. Mme Storey appeared quite unconcerned.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “Half an hour’s drive. I have a car waiting.”

  He led the way out. I hoped that the police were behind us, but did not like to turn my head to see. We stood waiting under the glass canopy in front, and presently an inconspicuous sedan drove up. Our conductor, always smiling, opened the door for us, and we drove off. I silently prayed that the police might have a car handy also. In the press of traffic it was impossible to tell if we were being followed.

  Our route lay over the Queensboro Bridge and out Queens Boulevard. The young man made agreeable small talk all the way. He had all the savoir faire of a diplomatic secretary.

  On the bridge and beyond it seemed to me that there were more motorcycle policemen than usual about, and I took hope from that. Perhaps they were under Inspector Rumsey’s orders.

  We drove very fast. Once on the boulevard we were stopped and warned by a policeman. Later, after we had turned to the right in a busy crossroad, another passed us at great speed and came back a few minutes afterward.

  We now turned to the left and lost ourselves in one of the amazing new subdivisions that have sprung up so thickly in that district. Picture to yourself rows of little new wooden houses, all alike, stretching on every side as far as you could see. All designed alike, painted alike, the same number of shingles on each roof, I could swear; built so close together there was but just room for a man to walk between; not a tree in sight, and scarcely a blade of grass.

  Thousands upon thousands of the little boxes, all alike. To me it was like a nightmare. Consider the numbing effect of this sameness upon the people who lived there! Then another thought came to me: what an admirable hiding place!

  We turned right and left; right and left again so many times I was dizzied. All this was unnecessary, of course; the little streets were all laid out at right angles, and we could have reached our destination with one turn.

  There were street signs in the usual hap-hazard New York fashion, but we turned the corners so quickly, and the signs were so hard to find, I could rarely read them. And when at last we came to a stop before one of the little houses, no different from thousands of others, I didn’t know what the name of the street was. The number of the house was 154.

  “Is this Mr Endicott’s home?” asked Mme Storey.

  “One of them,” said our conductor, smiling.

  The instant we were out of the car, it whisked out of sight around a corner. We were admitted by a neat, elderly maid servant who looked as if she had seen all and told nothing.

  The inside of the house was as standardized as the outside; the furnishings looked as if they had been purchased en bloc from an installment shop. But it was comfortable enough.

  The servant requested us to follow her upstairs to take off our things. She led us into the front bedroom above.

  “As you have so much to discuss with Mr Endicott,” she said in her quiet, courteous voice, “and as it would be imprudent for you to leave, and come back again, he hopes that you will remain as his guests here, until everything is settled.”

  Mme Storey bowed.

  “Does that mean we are prisoners?” I asked when the woman had left us.

  “Pooh!” said Mme Storey. “They couldn’t keep us in this match-box against our will. We could kick our way out.”

  The front door closed, and we saw the young man who had brought us, making his way quickly up the street. A moment later we heard a motorcycle. As silently as a shadow, Mme Storey ran to the window, but did not succeed in attracting the rider’s attention.

  “He was clever to follow us so far into this maze,” she said.

  “But how can he pick out the house now?” I groaned.

  “We’ll hang out a sign,” she said, fishing in her bag for a pencil. “A sheet of paper. Oh, for a sheet of paper!”

  It was not forthcoming.

  “Never mind,” she said, “the upper part of the house is painted white.”

  We locked the door, and she stationed me beside it to listen for the return of the maid. She threw up one of the windows, and sitting upon the sill, leaned over and began to pencil her initials in big black letters on the white space between the two windows: R. S. In the absolute sameness of that street, it must have stuck out like a sore finger.

  We had the window closed, and were standing decorously in the middle of the room, when the maid returned.

  “If you are ready,” she said.

  “Please lead the way,” said Mme Storey.

  On the floor below the maid opened the door into the rear room, and stood aside to let us enter. I followed my mistress with a fast heating heart.

  It was a narrow room with a single window in the corner, looking out on a cement paved space between two kitchen extensions. It was furnished with a “dining suite” and two easy chairs, one on each side of the gas logs. A man stood with his back to us, looking out of the window.

  At the sound of our entrance he turned around, and my heart gave a great jump. I knew that face! That clever face with the full, dark, beaming eye of the enthusiast; where had I seen it before?

  My brain spun around like a teetotum, and then settled down soberly. I remembered. It was Ambrose G. Larned, the publicity genius; and the last time I had seen him was at Mme Storey’s own dinner table!

  I stole a glance at my mistress. Under the grease paint her expression was very bland.

  “So this is the Duchess!” said our host, coming forward with outstretched hand. “And her trusty lieutenant! Sit down ladies, we have much to talk over.”

  XVI

  Well, there we sat, the three of us, in front of the tawdry fireplace, Mme Storey and I in the two easy chairs, and the unsuspecting Mr Larned between us in a straightbacked chair. My mistress was smoking one of the famous little cigars, and Mr Larned waved a cigarette about while he talked.

  Each recognizing a great spirit in the other, they mostly ignored me. I was quite content to look and listen.

  “We strike in the spot of our own choosing,” Mr Larned said enthusiastically; “and with a high-powered automobile at hand, or as in your case a speedy motor boat, the danger of capture is almost non-existent – that is, if the affair has been properly planned. And no policeman can tell in advance where the next blow will fall.

  “Just look at our record during the last few weeks. First, the creation of the bobbed hair bandit with the numerous exploits to her credit; then the robbery of Mme Storey in her office; then the double hold-up of Fossberg’s; and finally your magnificent raid on Beauvoir last week to cap the climax. What can the police do? What could Mme Storey do with all her boasted cleverness? Why, nothing.

  “A vastly overrated woman, by the way,” he went on, lighting a fresh cigarette. “I know her. There is nothing much to her. Publicity has made her. Which is a further illustration of my point. Publicity will do anything.”

  I heard the doorbell sound somewhere in the house. Mr Larned’s eyelids flickered, but he kept right on talking:

  “Publicity is man’s greatest discovery. He doesn’t know what he’s got yet. There are any number of professors and practitioners and promoters of publicity; but they haven’t scratched the surface of their subj
ect.”

  I noticed that nobody went to the door. The suspense became almost more than I could bear, sitting still.

  “Rather a good scheme this of ours, don’t you think?” said Mr Larned. “One directing head, and a number of units working quite independently.”

  “And taking all the risk,” put in Mme Storey slyly.

  “Surely,” he said with the utmost coolness; “and quite right, too. It would not be fitting for the commanders to expose themselves on the firing line. The individual operators must fail sometimes, but the organization goes on—”

  The front door went in with a crash. A second later Inspector Rumsey entered the room, with other men behind him. Larned swelled up like a pouter pigeon.

  “How dare you?” he cried. “What do you mean by this outrage?”

  “Inspector Rumsey of the police department,” said our friend coolly. “You are under arrest.” Then he recognized his prisoner. “Ah, Mr Larned, so we meet again!”

  Larned still essayed to bluff it out.

  “You know me,” he cried. “Everybody knows Ambrose G. Larned. How dare you break into my private dwelling?”

  “It won’t go, Larned,” said the inspector smiling. “Thanks to the activities of this lady, we know all about you and your organization. Jake Golden is already under arrest.”

  “Who is this woman?” queried Larned.

  “The Duchess,” said Rumsey with relish; “alias Kate Arkledon; but in reality, Mme Rosika Storey.”

  Larned collapsed like a pricked balloon. The sight was both tragic and absurd. He slunk to one side, and dropped into a chair.

  Well, that ended one crime wave. If another one rolled up almost immediately afterward it was not our fault. Abell and a plainclothes man brought a chopfallen little pair of bandits back from Saranac next day. I would not have missed the scene when Mme Storey returned Falseface’s ring with a smile.