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

by Frederick Nebel

  She nodded, very white-faced now and trembling slightly. “I was always afraid that my husband would reappear.”

  “When did he go away?”

  “A year ago. We were married three years ago in Denver. He was an orchestra leader, and I used to sing with the orchestra. After we were married, the orchestra disbanded and he took me to Los Angeles—to Hollywood. He wanted to get in pictures. He began to neglect me, drank an awful lot, and several times he struck me. He didn’t get in pictures, so he took a job with a dance orchestra. A girl sang with them. Her name was Nona Roberts. She was found dead in her apartment one night, and one of the orchestra boys, named Ike Kelly, was charged with the murder. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence. He was given life. He died of pneumonia after he was in jail three months.

  “It was after that that my husband and I came up here, where he got another orchestra job. But he drank more and more, and he was in and out of a job all the time. He’d leave me alone for days, for nights. He took away my wedding ring and my engagement ring and sold them. Then he’d have awful nightmares. And then one afternoon we were sitting at the window of our apartment when we saw a policeman come in below. My husband began to shake. He ran into a closet and hid. But the policeman never came to our apartment, and after a while I saw him out front again, leaving.

  “I faced my husband and made him tell me what was wrong. He broke down. It was he who’d killed Nona Roberts. But worse than that he’d let the law convict Kelly. He begged me not to tell the police. I didn’t. But I left the apartment and took a room at the California Street address and told him never to look me up. But he did—he saw me on the street one day and followed me to my room. I had taken back my maiden name, and he saw it on the slip on my door. He asked me for a little money. I told him I’d give him fifty dollars, if he’d leave the city and never bother me again. He left, and I never did see him again.”

  “Why didn’t you divorce him?”

  She colored. “I guess I hadn’t the courage. I was ashamed. I was afraid of the scandal. You see, I told you I’m not very courageous. But now”—she drew in her breath—“I’m beginning to be repaid. He’s looking for me. He must be. And he must be mixed up in something terrible again.”

  “Did he ever write you after he went away?”

  “No, he never wrote me. I told him not to—ever. I wanted to live my own life. And then Edward Burke came along and—and I moved again—and took an alias.”

  “What’s your husband’s name?”

  Her lips trembled. “Rupert Henley.”

  CARDIGAN encircled the office with slow strides and eyed her from various angles. She did not turn her head to follow his movements but remained sitting rather rigidly, hands clasped together, face very white, and a bitter anguish deep in her eyes.

  He came back to the desk, leaned on it with his fists. “Have you any idea at all where he went—where he ran away to?”

  “No.”

  “Do you ever remember him saying he’d like to go anywhere?”

  She shrugged. “Well, once, just after we were married, he said we’d go to Mexico, someday. He said he’d been to Mexico with an orchestra, once. But we never went, and he never mentioned it again.”

  Cardigan studied her bowed head for longer than a minute. He said at last: “Where are you living now?”

  She raised her eyes slowly and there was reluctance in her manner.

  “I want to know,” he growled. “I also want to know what name you’re using. Holding out isn’t going to do you any good. I could turn you over to the police right now—but I’m not going to.”

  “I have a little apartment on Bush Street,” she said, and gave him the number. “I’ve been using the name of ‘Ellen Hall’.”

  “Working?”

  “How else could I live? Yes. I’ve been singing on the radio. I manage to get along.”

  “Go home and stay there,” he said. “Wait there. Go straight home and wait there.”

  “But I came with hope of offering you some money to work hard trying to find Edward—”

  He shook his head and turned away. “Your money’s no good here, Elinor Hill. Go home and wait.”

  For the first time, tears appeared in her eyes. “I was afraid when I came here. I—I was desperately afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “I didn’t know what you would do with me.”

  He pushed his hand through his hair and went around and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Like I said—go home. And wait there. Don’t phone me. Just wait there.”

  She sobbed once. “Thank—thank you.”

  When she had gone, he relit his dead cigar, leaned in the connecting doorway and regarded his telephone. He was wondering whether he ought to phone Edward Burke or go around and tell him in person. He had nothing to do with who killed Vincent Finney, or why. He had tried a stunt and it had worked. He had broken a story that Edward Burke had vanished, and it had brought the result which he had hoped for—it had turned up Elinor Hill in his office. Now, Edward Burke could reappear again and say that he had gone out of town and that the story was wrong. No one could arrest him for having gone out of town.

  There was a loud knocking on the outer door, and Cardigan went over to open it. A gangling, tow-headed boy said: “I’m the bus-boy from the Brass Rail, Mr. Cardigan. We found this under your table and the boss said maybe you’d want it.”

  “O.K., thanks,” Cardigan said and gave him a dime.

  The boy went away, and Cardigan stood looking down at the card he had given Vincent Finney—the card on which he had written down Tap Eggleson’s name and address. The smoke from his cigar curled sluggishly around his head, and his lips cramped as if a bitter taste were in his mouth.

  Chapter Five

  Ten Hours to Tie-up

  IT WAS twenty minutes later when Cardigan stretched his long legs into the lobby of the Tamerlane Apartments and then hiked up the steps, two at a time. He knew he had not dropped the card in the Brass Rail. He had a pretty firm idea that Tap Eggleson had. It was not his private contention that Eggleson had had anything to do with the knifing of Vincent Finney. But he entertained a suspicion that whoever had knifed Finney had taken the card and gone to Eggleson’s address—possibly, thinking that that was the hidden address of Elinor Hill. Of one thing, however, he was certain—Eggleson had been fishing. Fishing for what? And why had he fished? Why didn’t he come out in the open? It changed the complexion of things.

  He tramped down the corridor, jangling his keys, inserted one of the keys in the lock and was turning it, when the door opened fast.

  “Come in,” said Shag Hartman sarcastically. “So nice to see you.”

  Cardigan’s face became blank. It seemed to please Shag Hartman that the op’s eyes and mouth hung open in naked consternation.

  “Surprise, surprise,” chortled Hartman, and then all at once his face darkened ominously and his lips lashed out: “Get in here, you foxy bum.”

  Edward Burke was sitting on the divan, hair disheveled, his face chalky. Near him stood Augie Bauerhaus, plump and placid.

  Cardigan stepped into the apartment, and heard Hartman’s voice rasp: “I had a hunch I oughta frisk your apartment but, by God, I never expected to find him here. Now, ain’t you the clever mother’s son? Us guys thinking Edward Burke is missing, and here he is parked all safe and sound in your apartment. That takes the cake.”

  “Ahem,” said Augie Bauerhaus.

  “What?” demanded Hartman.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just clearing my throat.”

  Now Cardigan was wooden-faced. He said: “Well, what are you going to do, Shag?”

  “Do? I’m pinching Burke. I’m pinching him on suspicion of knocking off Vincent Finney. Why should he be hiding here?”

  “I told him to,” Cardigan muttered. “If you think he knocked off Finney, Shag, you’re crazy. He was in my office when Finney was knocked off.”

  “I suppose you were there, too?”

/>   “You know where I was. I was in the Sea Grill, sitting at a table. Half a dozen waiters told you that. Pat Seaward was at the office, at the time, and Burke was there with her. You can’t pin it on him.”

  Hartman put his big nose in the air. “Then, why the hell did you hide him here? He won’t talk, he ain’t talked yet, but, so help me, somebody around here’ll talk. Why did you hide him here?”

  “To protect him,” said Cardigan.

  “Against what?”

  There was no way out but to lie and make it sound good. “I had a phone call. Some guy phoned me and said, ‘If Burke makes one crack to the cops, he’ll be a goner. I’ve got the finger on him.’ I asked him to clear that up. But he would not say any more except that I should tell Burke to leave town.”

  Hartman chopped in: “What kind of a crack would Burke make?”

  “That’s the point. This guy must have got a bum steer somewhere about Burke knowing something. Burke told me he didn’t know a thing. So I—”

  Hartman laughed contemptuously in his face. “You got to do better than that, Cardigan. That story’s so weak you oughta get crutches for it.” He shook a long, heavy index finger. “Listen to me, sweetheart. I got my own ideas about this, and you gotta build up something pretty good for me to change my mind. Burke gets tossed in the can—get that.”

  NOW Burke stood up and said: “I’ll go, Mr. Cardigan. It’ll be the best way. I know I’m innocent, and that’s all that matters. They’ll find out I’m innocent. I haven’t any worry about that.”

  “There’s no sense in it,” Cardigan said angrily, half to Edward Burke and half to Hartman. “These guys’ll book you, and, the way they run things, you’ll likely as not—”

  “That’s enough out of you,” Shag Hartman broke in with the hard voice of authority. “I’ve had all I’m gonna have outa you. You’re the worst bare-faced liar I ever seen. Why, damn me, you must take me for a complete fat-head. Why don’t you try telling the truth sometime? You stand there—”

  “I stand here and tell you, Shag, that you’ll get nowhere by collaring Edward Burke. He used to know Elinor Hill—used to like her. He just hired me to find her—to protect her. He doesn’t know anything about Finney’s death, or why Finney was looking for Elinor Hill. You’re a big guy, Shag. You’re no heel. You wouldn’t make a fall-guy out of Edward Burke. Now, would you?”

  Hartman’s eyes trimmed down with a suspicious glint. “Now, what are you trying to do, Cardigan?”

  “I’m trying to get Edward Burke a break. It’s my fault he’s here. It was my idea, not his. I take the responsibility for it. He was a sap to listen to me. Listen, Shag—now, listen. I ask you something. I ask you this—would I hide a murderer? Hell, I know we get on each other’s nerves, Shag, but I ask you—as one sensible guy to another—would I, could I, take a chance hiding a murderer? Where’s the profit? What’s Burke got? Money? Hell, no. A couple of hundred in the bank. There’s no sense in it, Shag—you know damned well there isn’t.”

  Hartman leaned over, without bending his knees, and took a long look at the polished tips of his shoes. Then he straightened and fixed Cardigan with his hard, suspicious eyes. He said in a very cold, reasonable voice: “Well, why did you hide him here?”

  CARDIGAN fished in his pockets for a cigarette. He found none, went over to an end-table and snatched one out of a humidor. He was jammed up, and knew it. He could make his peace here with Hartman, by telling him where Elinor Hill could be found. But that seemed to him to be a cheap kind of peace. He had, he did not know why, a strong desire to give Elinor Hill a break, too. It was mad, and might, in the end, prove futile, but he did not want to toss her to the wolves of the press. He had these streaks, occasionally. He would fight for a dime and then turn around and give away a dollar.

  Hartman was saying, “Well?”

  Cardigan lit up and stared at him intently. “Well—then here it is. It was a gag, a stunt. I figured that if it came out in the papers that Burke was missing, Elinor Hill, if she was anywhere about, would come out in the open and maybe give us a clue to what’s behind all this.”

  “Why would she come out in the open?”

  “Well, I said Edward Burke—liked her. Shag, it’s more than that—deeper. He was kind of in love with her before she went away. She said she was the same way about him—but she went away, anyhow. You know how women are, Shag. They have screwy reasons for a lot of things.”

  “Yes,” said Augie Bauerhaus, sighing, “they do—they do. Now, take my wife—”

  “You got her—keep her,” growled Hartman. He turned back to Cardigan, his eyes still hard and distrustful. But he said: “Now, that sounds more like a stunt you mighta pulled. It sounds right up your alley. But it don’t solve nothing. It don’t solve who knocked off this guy, Finney. It don’t clear up a murder. I’m trying to clear up a murder—”

  “I wasn’t interested in the murder,” Cardigan cut in. “It was none of my business. I was only interested in finding Elinor Hill because that’s what I was being paid for—”

  “You can’t get out of it,” Hartman snapped angrily. “The one is hooked up with the other.”

  “All right—I admit that, now,” Cardigan said. “Give me ten hours, Shag. Don’t pinch Burke, and give me ten hours. I’ll find out who murdered Vincent Finney. Ten hours.” He held up the ten fingers of his hands. “Inside ten hours, I’ll put the finger on the killer and give you the pinch. If I don’t, you can break my license.”

  Hartman’s eyes never left Cardigan’s face, and his mouth was like a trap beneath his big nose. He said at last: “Ten hours. But I hold Edward Burke. I won’t book him. I’ll hold him en route. If you flop, I book him and I toss you in the can with him as an accessory and bust your license.”

  Cardigan scowled. “You strike a hard bargain, Shag.”

  “Why not? I’m in a position to.”

  “And I’ve got to take it.” He blew out a breath, shook his head resignedly. “O.K., I take it.”

  “Inside ten hours.”

  “Ten.”

  “O.K., Burke. Come over to headquarters and add your personality to a cell.”

  Augie Bauerhaus said: “I can lend you some magazines, Mr. Burke—or a book. Give him Number Six, Shag—the light’s better.”

  Chapter Six

  “Take That—Copper!”

  PAT said in a full, exultant voice: “So you found her! Good, chief! Oh, I’m so glad you’ve found her. I knew you’d do it. I kept thinking all the time that you’d find her—”

  “Shut up. Let me think,” he muttered. He was taking long strides round and round his office, his ancient fedora on the back of his head and the tail of his overcoat swirling off the calves of his long legs.

  “But it’s wonderful news,” she cried. “And I must confess, now, chief, that I thought your idea of faking Edward Burke’s disappearance was completely mad. But I apologize.”

  “Don’t. It was a very screwball of an idea. Hartman crashed my apartment and found Burke—”

  “Oh,” she said in a small, shocked voice, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, goodness, chief!”

  “I’ve got ten hours—no, nine, now—to turn up the guy that killed Vincent Finney—or Burke gets booked. And I get booked. And I lose my license.” His eyes were full of a vindictive fire. He snapped at Pat: “Why the hell did you ever send that little guy around to see me? Any panhandler that floats in here, you take pity on him.”

  She was very upset. “I’m sorry, chief. I’m awfully—”

  “Stow it,” he cut in. Then he sighed and wagged his head. “Excuse me, chicken. It’s my own fault. I must have been breaking in a brain for a half-wit.”

  “But what are we going to do?” she cried anxiously. “You’re getting all steamed up, and I don’t like that, chief. When you get all steamed up, you do crazy things—”

  “It’ll have to be something very crazy,” he told her. He was digging the heel of one hand into the palm of the other and stan
ding at a window, staring into busy Market Street. He turned away from the window and pointed at her.

  “Finney was the steward on the S.S. Amelia, which docked three days ago, from Central American and Mexican ports. Ten hours after she docked, Finney packed his duffel bag and left the ship. Peterson, the skipper, said so. Rupert Henley, Elinor Hill’s husband, once told her he’d like to go to Mexico. The Amelia came from Mexico. Finney came on it. He tried to locate Elinor Hill. Why? Well, he must have met Rupert Henley. Henley must have gone to Mexico or Central America. Could it be that he was sending Finney to get some money from Elinor Hill?”

  Pat shook her head. “A thing like that would be too small to cause a murder.”

  He nodded readily. “Yes, you’re right—you’re right. But Finney and Rupert Henley must have contacted somewhere.”

  “Or Finney knew the whole story and was trying to blackmail Elinor Hill.”

  “Who would have killed him for that?” Cardigan asked. “Who, besides Edward Burke—and Burke was here with you.”

  “Well, maybe Finney tried to smuggle Rupert Henley into the country,” Pat said. “Maybe Henley was broke, and Finney hoped to collect from his wife before he let Henley off the boat.”

  Cardigan looked at her. “Patsy, you think of things. You think of practical things. That’s the first good idea that’s been in this office in several days.” He scowled. “And then there’s a catch. Eggleson, Tap Eggleson knows something—he must know something.”

  “Why?”

  “He dropped the card I gave Finney under a table we sat at in the Brass Rail. A bus-boy brought it over to me, thinking I’d dropped it.”

  “Oh, nonsense. You’ve given Eggleson so many jobs.”

  Cardigan’s lip curled. “Yeah, I have. Well, I think I’m going to give him another one.”

  IT WAS six blocks to Eggleson’s office, and Cardigan walked them in five minutes. He entered a narrow, red-brick building and climbed two flights of narrow murky stairs. There was a wooden door with Tappen Eggleson, Investigator painted on it in white letters. Cardigan opened the door, and saw Eggleson sitting at a roll-top desk, his hands linked behind his head and his heels hooked on an open drawer. It was a small office, hardly more than a cubbyhole.