The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 4: 1935-37

by Frederick Nebel

“He’s quite wealthy.”

  CARDIGAN rode a cab back to the Bryce and went into the lobby and leaned on the desk. “Did you take that reservation when Cabot Pennock called this morning?” he asked.

  The dapper clerk in the linen suit said: “Why, yes, Mr. Cardigan—yes, of course. Something wrong with your room?”

  “The room’s swell but I’m wondering how somebody knew I was due to arrive here. Pennock was the only one that was supposed to know.”

  The clerk looked puzzled. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Was there anyone hanging around the desk here when you talked to Pennock?”

  “Not,” the clerk said, shaking his head, “that I recall.”

  “Who was on the switchboard?”

  “Miss McNeal.”

  “I’d like to look her over.”

  “She’s not on duty. She went off duty a couple of minutes after Mr. Pennock called.” The clerk’s puzzled look broadened. “Really, Mr. Cardigan, I can’t imagine—”

  “Well, it calls for a lot of imagination. Give me the gal’s address.” Then he said suddenly: “You didn’t tell anyone that I was coming, did you?”

  The clerk looked outraged. “Why, Mr. Cardigan!”

  “O.K. O.K. Let’s have that address.”

  The slip of paper he carried out into the street had 176 Rider Avenue written on it. But when he stepped in a cab he said: “Shoot out to Twenty-six Esmond Place.” His sock garter had become undone and he pulled up his cuff in order to fix it, then neglected to let the cuff down again. He fanned himself with his hat and rubbed his handkerchief around inside his collar.

  “Hot, eh?” he said to the driver.

  “Well, now I don’t know,” replied the driver over his shoulder. “I t’ink it’s all a state o’ mind. I keep tellin’ meself it ain’t hot. ‘It ain’t hot, Clarence,’ I keep sayin’ to meself an’ if I keep it up I don’t feel hot. Like in the winter I keep sayin’ to meself it ain’t cold. ‘It ain’t cold, Clarence,’ I keep sayin’, like dat, an’, well, Geez, I don’t feel half as cold. Me brudder was all de time freezin’ in winter an’ I told him, ‘Egbert,’ I says, ‘keep sayin’ like I do.’ Only, well, it didn’t seem to work with Egbert.”

  “He was still cold, huh?”

  “Well, he died.”

  “That’s tough, bud.”

  “Yeah, it sure is. Egbert got himself tossed out of a bar one bitter cold night—oh, it must ha’ been fi’ below zero—and he was so cockeyed drunk he set in de gutter an’ couldn’t git up. Well, he keeps sayin’ to himself, ‘Egbert, it ain’t cold,’ over an’ over again, but, well, I guess it was pretty cold that night. He froze to death.”

  “That is tough, pal.”

  “Yes, it is, mister. I always felt dat maybe Egbert didn’t git enough spirit in it….  Dere’s Twenty-Six Esmond ahead. You want I should pull in de driveway?”

  “The curb’ll do.”

  The white Georgian door of Number 26 was opened by a gaunt man with an overhanging nose and a bleak, drawn-out face.

  “You Burnside?” Cardigan asked.

  “Uh—yes, sir.”

  “I’m Cardigan from the Cosmos Detective Agency. I’m working on the vanishing of Mr. Dill and the death of Mr. Lester Bevans.”

  Burnside’s bleak face dipped. “Come in, sir.”

  There was a girl standing in the hall with a couple of books cradled in her arms. She was looking toward the door with dark, curious eyes.

  Cardigan shoved his hat into his pocket, said: “And I guess you’re Louise Mariano. You heard who I am.”

  “I heard,” she said quietly, her eyes still on him.

  She was good to look at. She wore a frock of white speckled with blue; the sleeves were short, almost to her shoulders, with little tucks in them. She was nicely sun-tanned. Her hair, a deep rich brown, was loose but in perfect order. Her lips were full and neatly lipsticked, her eyelashes long, shadowy. Her throat was a work of art.

  “Whom do you wish to see?” she asked in the same quiet, contained voice and with a slight lifting of her lashes.

  “You, for one, Miss Mariano,” Cardigan said in a blunt but good-tempered voice.

  Burnside said in a stage whisper back of Cardigan’s neck: “Beg pardon, sir, but your left trouser cuff is a bit disorderly.”

  “Um,” mumbled Cardigan, and bent to straighten it.

  Louise Mariano went into the library and put down her books. The room was large; it had a high ceiling, dental moulding. Louise Mariano turned about and rested the backs of her fingers lightly on the library table. In this large, rather austere room, she looked mellow, tropical.

  “Worked here long?” Cardigan asked.

  “A year and two months.”

  Cardigan stood behind a high mahogany chair, leaning with his elbows on its slablike back. “Was your boss ever threatened with kidnaping?”

  “If he was, I don’t know.”

  “Did you know I was coming here?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Did you know Bevans was coming here?”

  “Yes. Mr. Pennock mentioned it. He wondered if by any chance I had the combination to the safe. I didn’t have it, naturally.”

  Cardigan broke a faint grin round his lips. “Any idea why Dill went out?”

  “None. Only a foolish one, I suppose. He was forgetful at times, especially when under any emotional stress. The writing of his family’s history quite often did it. Wrapped up that way, he might have forgotten completely about the doctor’s orders and dressed and gone out.”

  “Where were you at nine o’clock last night?”

  “Nine… last night?”

  “When Bevens was shot and killed.”

  She looked at the palm of her hand, then looked up. There was a little color in her face. “I was out with a man.”

  Cardigan grinned. “Lucky man. Who was he?”

  “His name is Niles O’Fallon.”

  “Where were you?”

  Her color grew a little deeper. “Just riding around. It was warm.”

  “Just riding around. Where?”

  “Oh… in the country. I can’t remember the roads.”

  “What does Niles O’Fallon do?”

  “He’s a doctor.”

  “Dill’s.”

  She nodded.

  Cardigan pointed to a large portrait in oils that hung on the wall. “Who’s that?”

  “Mr. Dill.”

  MR. DILL sat in one of the heavy mahogany chairs. His face was narrow as a hatchet and above it flowed a mane of iron-gray hair. His nose was bladelike, his mouth a wide, stern, unrelenting line. His eyes were dead level and there seemed to exist in them a kind of wild, blue light as he stared out of the canvas.

  “You, Burnside,” Cardigan suddenly snapped, wheeling, “stop eavesdropping! You breathe like a locomotive. Come in here.”

  Burnside, who had been listening outside the door, came in sheepishly.

  Cardigan said: “Did you let Pennock and Bevans in last night?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Where were you while they were here?”

  “I let them in, sir. Then Mr. Pennock told me to leave the room—this room—and I climbed to my room on the third floor as the clock in the hall was striking nine.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I turned on the radio and the most odd thing occurred. I heard two shots fired on the radio. It was that Devil’s Messenger program, sir. And then a minute later I heard another shot but I knew it wasn’t the radio. I came downstairs again. I—I saw Mr. Bevans lying on the floor and Mr. Pennock walking away from that window, very excited. He said, ‘Burnside, someone just fired through that window. Phone the police.’”

  “Where was Phelps? He’s the cook, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir. As I came hurrying down the stairs, Phelps came from the kitchen. He still had his apron and white cap on. He’d been baking bread for the morning and he had a large lump of dough in his hands. He was right
behind me when I came into this room.”

  Cardigan turned. “Where’s the safe?”

  Louise Mariano went to the wall and slid back a panel four feet square. The face of a huge imbedded safe glowed dully.

  Burnside swallowed, pointed. “Mr. Bevans was lying right in front of it, sir.”

  “When you showed Pennock and Bevans in here, was that window open?”

  Burnside’s nose looked very melancholy. “I can’t remember, sir.”

  “It’s damned important, Burnside.”

  “I’m frightfully sorry, sir, I—I can’t remember.”

  Cardigan turned to Louise Mariano. “What time did you leave last night?”

  “A quarter of eight.”

  “Was that window open or closed?”

  Her eyes clouded a little. “It was closed. I closed it.”

  “Did you lock it?”

  She said, “Yes,” hardly above a whisper.

  He did not take his eyes from her. “If you’re handing me the truth,” he said grimly, “it means that that window was unlocked and opened after you left. By Burnside here, the cook, or Cabot Pennock.”

  She was flushing. “I don’t mean to incriminate anyone.”

  Burnside looked extremely hurt and melancholy.

  Cardigan said: “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that it’d be a bum idea to take a train, a plane or an auto anywhere. I’ll be back.”

  Chapter Three

  Two-Gun Pal-O

  THE girl who opened the door of the third-floor walk-up was a slick-haired brunette with big eyes and a nice little shape. She was wrapped snugly in a baby-blue kimono and wore lacquered sandals that revealed bright red toenails. The top of her head came up to about the knot in Cardigan’s tie.

  “This footwork is getting me,” Cardigan said. He was wiping sweat off his face again. “Hello, Miss McNeal. I’m a private cop. Can I come in?”

  “You look like a guy that if I said no, would come in anyhow. I ain’t been honored like this since the cow jumped over the moon.”

  “You were there when the cow jumped, eh?”

  “It’s just a figger of speech. Come in. You’ll find it ain’t air-conditioned.”

  It wasn’t. The two-by-four flat was stuffy and looked out across a raggle-taggle of rooftops, chimney pots and fire-escapes. The room seemed to have been built around the girl. It cramped Cardigan. He sat down on a chintz-covered cot and dangled his big hands from his knees.

  “I suppose you telephone gals often listen in on conversations to sort of kill time, don’t you?”

  “Sure, sometimes. You look hot. Would you like a drink of water?”

  “Yeah, I would.”

  She got him one and then sat on the arm of a chair and swung her foot back and forth. Every time her foot swung into a thin shaft of sunlight the red toenails gleamed. Cardigan watched them while he downed the water. A woman was hanging out washing across the lot and somewhere below someone was driving nails.

  “My name is Cardigan,” the big op said suddenly, and set down the glass.

  “Oh, please’t’meetcha,” she said cheerfully.

  “Did you tell anybody this morning that I was due at the Bryce?”

  “Who, me? How was I supposed to know?”

  “A guy called on the phone just before you went off duty this morning and made the reservation for me.”

  “I’m pretty busy around that time waking people and getting my slips in order. It’d be tough for me to know. And this morning I was ’specially busy. I was very busy. I got away ten minutes late too, account of my relief was out with her boy friend last night, and wow, what a head she had this morning. Whitey Slake, that newspaper guy, always tries to hold me and kid me on the way out and wants to know if I heard any scandal on the board. He’s a pest and I was late and I told him like always, I’m a woman of principle. I don’t tell secrets, even if I listen in on ’em.”

  “Who was he talking to when he tried to hold you up?”

  “Oh, Mr. Doty, the room clerk there.”

  “The guy who’s nuts over his fingernails?”

  “Oh, gee, ain’t he, though!”

  Cardigan said: “What paper’s Whitey on?”

  “The Star-Union. Excuse me”—she pointed—“your sock garter is hanging and you might trip.”

  “Um,” he mumbled, and fixed it. He stood up, saying: “Thanks for every little thing. I like your kimono.”

  “Oh, gee, do you? I won it at a raffle. Well, I didn’t really win this, I won a big dictionary, but I couldn’t see any fun in reading a dictionary, there’s never no plot, so I asked for a bathing suit I seen there instead, only it was took, so they gave me this. Would you like another drink of water, Mr. Brannigan?”

  “Thanks, no. And the name’s Cardigan.”

  “Gee, I’m funny about names. I went with a boy friend for a whole month once calling him Mr. Poteska when I finally found out his name was Schultz. The gentleman whose name was Poteska was the bartender at the place where I was interduced by my girl friend to Mr. Schultz. Hee!” she giggled.

  “Well, so long—adios,” said Cardigan.

  “No, my first name is Margie.”

  WHEN Cardigan reached the sidewalk Sergeant Inch, who was leaning against a pole, said laconically: “You been making more calls than a Fuller brush man. Any luck?”

  “You got so much time on your hands that you can play hide-and-go-seek all day?”

  Inch fell in step beside him, unimpressed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were working on this Dill business?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew it when I told you to call Pennock?”

  Inch made no reply to that but in a minute he said: “I figure somebody stuck those plates on your car to keep you out of the running.”

  “You pick easy ones to answer, Sarge. I hear you’ve been shoving Pennock around.”

  “Why not? He could have shot Bevans himself and then opened the window.”

  “Well, keep shoving him around and see what luck you have.”

  “Just who’re you working for?”

  “Pennock—and the safe people.”

  “It would be funny if while working for the safe people you turned Pennock up as the killer, wouldn’t it?”

  Cardigan chuckled.

  Inch said: “Or maybe, if it came to that, Pennock might pay you more than the safe people.”

  “You have a nice way of saying nasty things, Sarge. Suppose you roll your own hoop and I’ll roll mine.”

  “Except if I find any conniving between you and Pennock I’ll put three strikes on you faster than Dizzy Dean.”

  “You’re funny, Sarge.”

  “You’d look a damned site funnier on crutches. Clown around all you want but don’t get out of bounds. The only people I’m kind to are my wife and two kids. I’m going this way.”

  He turned the corner and trudged off by himself, his shiny alpaca suit fitting his round hard body like the skin of a walrus.

  Cardigan taxied to the Bryce and went up to his room. He picked up the phone and asked for Mr. Doty, who answered almost immediately.

  “This is Cardigan. Can you come up a minute?”

  “Yes, sir! Right away!”

  When a knock sounded on the door Cardigan, sitting on the edge of the bed, said, “Come in,” and the dapper Mr. Doty entered.

  “This guy Whitey Slake,” Cardigan said. “He was hanging around downstairs this morning when Pennock phoned making that reservation. When I asked you if you told anybody about it, why the hell did you hand me out a run-around?”

  “Why, Mister Cardigan!”

  “Nuts on the startled-faun act, Doty. I’m not going to make any trouble for you, but I want to know what you told Slake. If you go on your toes again and flutter-voice me, I’ll wrap trouble all around you like a blanket.”

  Doty looked very jittery. He stammered: “Well, as a matter of fact—well, Slake usually drops around looking for house news. That is, if we have any importa
nt people, or things like that. I usually tell him. This morning I merely said, ‘Well, the celebrated Cabot Pennock has just made a reservation for a Mr. Cardigan.’ That was all. Later, about an hour later, Slake phoned me back and asked me to keep it to myself, that he had a chance to make a good story.”

  “What’d he pay you?”

  Doty blushed.

  “Come on, what’d he pay you?”

  “Well, ten dollars.”

  Cardigan made a negligent gesture. “You can go, and keep your nose clean.”

  “I’m terribly sorry—”

  “Beat it. I don’t like the perfume you use.”

  As the door closed behind Doty, Cardigan made a pass at the phone and called the Star-Union and asked for Slake. Slake was not in.

  “Where can I find him?”

  “You might try the Sullivan or the Three Aces. They’re bars. The first is in Bloom Street and the other’s on Richardson.”

  CARDIGAN hung up. He went downstairs, out into the street and walked to the corner of Middle and Clover. A few doors up Clover he saw a rawboned, gangling man standing with a box of pencils held meekly before him. He had a rusty backwoods haircut, old patched clothes on his ungainly body. The glasses he wore were very large and very dark. Round his neck hung a sign—I AM BLIND. Cardigan stopped in front of him, took some pencils out of the box, looked at them. He said nothing. The blind man said nothing to him.

  Cardigan said at last: “Hi, Sam.”

  “Hi, Jack.”

  “How’s business?”

  “I’m makin’ about ten a day at dis, pal-o.”

  “When’d you hit this burg?” Cardigan asked, still fingering the pencils.

  “Oh, just about a mont’ ago. De coppers in New Yawk got on me noives; dey got, as fatter of fact, most stinkin’ unruly. Y’ know wot dey tried t’ do? Tried to nickname me Two-Gun Bodine. Me dat never carried a gat in me life.”

  “Why the Two-Gun?”

  “Geez, Jack, I was standin’ one night on de corner o’ Toidy-toid an’ Broadway mindin’ two guns f’r a friend when two decidedly hard-berled shamuses come along, slap me pockets and den slap me down. Was I indignant! Pal-o, dose guys got me so hot dat I bust out in prickly heat.”

  “Well, thanks for the help today, Sam. When can I pay you the fifty bucks you gave that lawyer?”