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

by Frederick Nebel

  “Well, my fine fellow, what brings you to crime’s Nemesis?” Eggleson said in his dry voice.

  Cardigan leaned in the doorway and said: “Busy?”

  “Do I look busy?”

  “I want a guy to help me frisk a place, Tap. You know I always throw a job your way, any time I can. I’ll pay you ten bucks for the rest of the day.”

  “What’s the matter with your staff?”

  “One guy is down at Los Angeles, and the other is in Seattle and won’t be in until tomorrow. If you don’t want the job, say so, Eggs. I just stopped by.”

  “Ten bucks?”

  Cardigan showed him a ten-dollar bill.

  Eggleson reached out, took it and got up all in one lazy motion. “O.K., Jackie. I aim to please.” He put on his hat and overcoat and they went down to the street.

  “We’ll take a cab,” Cardigan said.

  “You wealthy detectives,” Eggleson chuckled dryly.

  Cardigan pulled open a taxi door, and said to the driver: “Take Market to the ferry-slips.” He climbed in, and Eggleson followed and dropped down beside him.

  “What are we looking for?” Eggleson asked, offhand.

  “A guy, Eggy.”

  They went down to the ferry-slips and then rode out along the Embarcadero, until Cardigan leaned forward and told the driver to pull up.

  Eggleson stepped out, looked around, grinned. “Boats, huh?”

  “This one. Come on.”

  Cardigan led the way into a pier-shed and up a gangplank to the deck of the Amelia. He waited for Eggleson. Eggleson, reaching the deck, looked around at the deck, the sky, and whistled a tune hardly above a whisper. They were on the well-deck forward, and Cardigan, leading the way, climbed a ladder to the bridge-deck. The cargo-booms had been hauled in, and sailors were battening down the hatches. The second mate came out of the bridge-deck house.

  “Where’s Captain Peterson?” Cardigan said.

  “In his cabin.”

  “Want me to wait out here?” Eggleson said.

  “No,” Cardigan told him. “Come along with me.”

  HE ENTERED the bridge-deck house and walked down a short corridor at the end of which was the captain’s cabin. The door was open, and Peterson was sitting at a desk, writing, with a bottle of whiskey at his elbow. His cap was on the back of his head, and his hair looked rumpled. Cardigan stopped in the doorway and waited for him to look up. When he did not look up, Cardigan spoke.

  “Hello, skipper.”

  Peterson looked up and said thickly: “What?”

  “I was wondering if you’d let me search your vessel. You remember me, don’t you?”

  Peterson was drunk. “Sure I remember you. Why d’you want to search my vessel?”

  “I was wondering if maybe Vincent Finney didn’t try to smuggle somebody in from Mexico.”

  “If he did, I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Naturally. That’s why I think we ought to search the vessel and find out.”

  Peterson said groggily: “If that bum smuggled anybody in, d’you suppose the guy’d still be on board?”

  “I had an idea he might be.”

  Peterson scoffed heavily. “Don’t tell me. Besides, mister, I’m sailing—soon as the pilot comes aboard.”

  “Until he comes aboard, skipper, we can search it. Unless you want me to get a police order, restraining you from sailing.”

  Peterson’s big head rolled on his shoulders and his bloodshot eyes stared rebelliously at Cardigan. He belched and rubbed his hand across his mouth. His heavy jaw jutted. “You want to search my vessel, mister?” He stood up, leaned on his desk with one fist and banged it with the other. “Get a police order.”

  Cardigan stepped into the cabin. “Captain, you’re taking the wrong attitude.” He said over his shoulder to Eggleson, who was in the corridor: “Come on in, Tap.”

  “I’ll wait here, in case somebody comes along.”

  Peterson scowled. He grunted at Cardigan: “Who you got there? What the hell you up to here?”

  “Take it easy,” Cardigan said. “You’re tight.”

  “Tight, am I? Get out of here. Get out of my cabin. Get out!” he bellowed, and his big hand slapped at a desk drawer, yanked it open. His hand plunged into the drawer.

  Eggleson had taken a step forward and his gun was in his hand. It exploded violently in the narrow corridor, and Peterson fell across the open drawer to the floor. Cardigan whirled on Eggleson.

  “Damn it, what the hell are you doing?” he snapped.

  Eggleson’s voice was taut, dry. “You hired me, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t hire you to blow anybody apart. Put that gun up.” He started for him, raising his voice. “Put it up.”

  “Look out,” Eggleson muttered. “He’s getting up—”

  “Put that gun up,” Cardigan roared. His fist chopped out, caught Eggleson on the jaw and smashed him against the cabin wall. Eggleson slid down to the floor. Peterson was on one knee, his bloodshot eyes blazing at Eggleson.

  “Tried to kill me, eh?” he gritted. “Tried to kill me! Why, you lousy—” He tried to fling himself at Eggleson but fell down on the cabin floor. He tried again, but Cardigan got between them.

  “So your nose wasn’t clean, Tap,” he said to Eggleson. “D’you kill Finney?”

  “Don’t be funny.”

  Cardigan dropped his card to the floor. “Where’d you get that, Eggs? It was the card I gave Finney. It’ll hang you, boy. If you didn’t kill him, where’d you get it?”

  Peterson heaved up and tried again to get at Eggleson. Cardigan knocked him to the floor. “It’s a trick, Eggleson,” Peterson raged. “You double-crossed me.”

  “Shut up, you fool.”

  “Shut up, should I? You dirty, double-crossing—”

  “Quit it,” said Cardigan. “You won’t sail, skipper. It’s in your eyes that you murdered Vincent Finney.”

  PETERSON’S hoarse voice rushed out: “I didn’t murder him. It was self-defense. I followed him in that washroom. I seen him in the street before, accidental, and he went in the restaurant before I could catch him. So I went in and stood at the bar and seen you give him something—the card. I followed him in the washroom, and he got so scared he pulled his knife. I tussled with him, and it drove into him. I didn’t murder him—it was me or him.”

  “Why’d you follow him?”

  “I wasn’t. I just seen him accidental. Eggleson was looking for him—I hired Eggleson to find him, an hour after he jumped ship. When I found that card on him, I took it around to Eggleson and wanted to know what the hell it meant—”

  “Damn your thick skull—shut up,” Eggleson cried.

  “To hell with you. I didn’t murder him.”

  “You’re hanging yourself right now.”

  Cardigan cut in with, “Is Rupert Henley on this vessel, skipper? You may as well come clean, because the cops’ll find him, if he’s here.”

  “He ain’t here.”

  “Where is he?”

  Peterson lay back on the floor and groaned. “Ah, damn Finney, that rat— Damn him to hell. Listen, Henley’s dead—dead and down at sea. Listen, I didn’t do nothing wrong. He wanted passage here from Tampico. He was broke but he said if I took him here his wife’d pay me. I ain’t allowed to carry passengers. He was no good for the crew. So I stowed him here in my cabin. I made him write me out a letter to his wife, telling her to give me five hundred dollars, and he signed it.

  “We were about ten days out when Finney got wise, and I had to take him in with me and promise him a split. Then Henley died one night at sea. I don’t know what it was—must have been his heart. It was the next night, during a bad blow, that I slipped his body overside. Then Finney swiped the letter—the letter I was to take to his wife. He jumped ship, and I was scared, so I got Eggleson to try to find him. I even went out to that California Street address, thinking I might find the woman before Finney did and tell her actually what happened. I was scared
stiff.”

  Eggleson was hanging his head in disgust and resignation, and Cardigan said to him: “What were you getting out of his?”

  “Nothing,”

  “Come on, Eggs—you don’t expect me to believe that.”

  “He used to handle little smuggling deals for me—dope and things like that,” Peterson choked. “He had to help me. And he did, didn’t he? Geez, how he helped me!” He rolled over and laughed drunkenly, hysterically.

  THE police came, and an ambulance. Hartman came with his big nose in the air, and his eyes hard and suspicious. Bit by bit, as he listened, the suspicion went out of his eyes. He blew his nose, cleared his throat, cocked one of his eyes at Cardigan, and spoke.

  “Well, Cardigan, I learned that about the only way I can ever make you deliver to the police department is to put you in a spot where you gotta deliver.”

  “I’m pretty good, huh?” Cardigan jibed.

  “Well, pretty. Not too good, though. You get a lot of screwy ideas. Like that one about making Burke fade and thinking it’d pull out Elinor Hill. Did it get you Elinor Hill? No, it did not. And it was wasted effort, because, as it turns out, we don’t need Elinor Hill at all.”

  Cardigan looked grave. “Yeah, I guess I slipped that time, Shag.”

  “Why, if it wasn’t for me crashing your apartment we’d never have found the murderer of Vincent Finney. Think of that,” said Hartman.

  “The credit’s all yours, Shag,” Cardigan said, with a very straight face. Then he added: “You need it.”

  He saw the swing coming, and his head slid sidewise just in time. The smash of Hartman’s fist against the paneling was terrific.

  “Hell, I broke the damn thing.” Hartman was nursing the battered knuckles. “Hell, I broke it—”

  “Take that, copper,” Cardigan said. He was on his way out.

  CARDIGAN left the Amelia and walked along the Embarcadero, his shapeless hat crushed down to his brows and his shabby ulster blowing in the breeze. When he found a telephone, he called the number which Elinor Hill had given him.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello. This is Cardigan. Still waiting?”

  “Yes—hopelessly.”

  “Don’t be hopeless. Wait a little longer—about half an hour longer.”

  “You mean—”

  “He’s a good guy—Edward Burke. Tops.”

  No Time to Kill

  Chapter One

  Fourth of July in January

  PATRICIA SEAWARD said into the telephone, “Just a minute,” and laid it down on the desk. She got up, crossed the front office toward the connecting door and taking the Do Not Disturb sign from the knob tore it up and tossed the pieces into a wastepaper basket. She opened the door and said: “There’s a man on the phone wants to see you about a dog.”

  Cardigan was trying to put a cigarette lighter together. “Who’s the dog?” he asked, without looking up.

  “He says the dog’s name is Collianti and it wears a police badge, dark clothes, and smokes other people’s cigars.”

  Cardigan chuckled, “Ah, good old Gig Collianti.”

  “This man on the phone is named Treadwell. He wants you to come over to Two-twelve Ellington Street and prove that Gig Collianti is a horse’s neck.”

  Cardigan leaned back, put up his big palms and shook his head. “I turned over a new leaf New Year’s, Patsy. You know that. I don’t have to prove Collianti’s a horse’s neck. I know he’s one. But if Collianti says so-and-such is such-and-so, that’s all right by me. I’m through stepping on cops’ toes. And another thing, it’s practically seven o’clock. I need food. Go tell Mr. Treadwell to shop around somewhere else. And if you tear up any more of those Do Not Disturb signs that I steal from hotels, I’ll bust your lovely neck.”

  Pat said, “Treadwell will pay you fifty dollars a day.”

  “Listen, didn’t I just tell you that I’m through getting in cops’ hair? I wouldn’t take a thousand a day.”

  “Should I ask him if he’d pay a thousand?”

  Cardigan’s eyes shimmered. “Go in on that phone, say Mr. Cardigan regrets, and hang up!”

  Pat smiled. “Honest, chief, I’m glad to hear you talk that way. I’d a sick hunch you might weaken.” She swiveled and went back into the front office.

  Cardigan stood up, yawned boisterously, ran his fingers through his shaggy mop of hair and then sneezed. As the sound of the sneeze faded from his ears, he heard Pat arguing on the phone in the other office. He strolled in. By the look on her face she was both angry and humiliated. Cardigan went toward her desk, holding his hand out for the phone, his lip curling. Pat shook her head, then clapped her hand over the mouthpiece and said: “Now, it’s Collianti. He’s—”

  “Gimme, sugar.”

  He scooped up the phone and said, “Cardigan speaking.”

  “Oh, yeah?” banged a voice at the other end. “Well, I was just telling your stooge there that if you so much as show your funny puss around here I’ll go into swing-time on it!”

  “What’s the matter with you? You suddenly gone nuts?”

  “No. But this bird Treadwell has. And I’m telling you, fella, if you come around here I’ll kick you down three flights of stairs!”

  There was a clicking sound and the connection was broken.

  Cardigan put the phone down very slowly. He whistled a few bars, scratched the side of his jaw, turned and went back into his office. He closed the door. Pat regarded the closed door apprehensively for a full minute, then let her breath out with an expression of great relief. She was just beginning to hum a song when the door opened again and Cardigan appeared there dressed in his shabby ulster and battered fedora.

  Pat looked up warily. “Going to see someone?”

  “Yeah,” said Cardigan. “A man about a dog.”

  “Oh, chief, don’t! What is the sense of—”

  “That palooka can’t talk to me like that.”

  DIVISION STREET in Wheelburg cut downhill through the heart of the city and ended at the river bridge. Up a block from the bridge, where Ohio Street cut a wide swath east and west, Cardigan stepped into a taxi and said: “Two-twelve Ellington Street.”

  “Ellington Street,” said the driver. “Now, where would that be, mister?”

  “It’s in the west end and happens to be only two miles long and is one of the oldest streets in the city.”

  “Is that so? That’s interesting. Which way is west?”

  “Maybe,” said Cardigan, “you’d like me to drive this bus for you, too?” He slumped back in the seat. “Head the way you’re going now. Out Ohio Street.”

  The taxicab got under way, and, after a few minutes, the driver said: “You must excuse me. I’m just doing this today for my brother, who’s sick. I’m just visiting here. I’m in the marble business.”

  “Tombstones, I suppose.”

  “Oh, no. Ha! Nothing like that. You know, marbles that kids play with.” He looked around. “Would you like to hear about it?”

  “I’d like you to look where you’re going, buddy, on account of those things alongside the street are iron lamp posts. And you turn right at the next light. Just forget about me. Drive.”

  The police were shunting traffic around the two-hundred block in Ellington Street. There were a couple of fire trucks parked in the two-hundred block and an emergency truck from the gas company and one from the police department. A searchlight on one of the fire trucks had its beam fixed in the front of a four-story red-brick building. The front of the top floor was mostly a great ragged hole in which from time to time a fireman could be seen moving about. Bricks and splinters and great lumps of plaster lay in the street below. Cops were all over the place, continually shoving the crowd back. But there was no smoke now, no flame.

  “You can’t go in here,” a cop said to Cardigan in front of the gaping house. Cardigan dropped a half-smoked cigarette and stepped on it. “I’m Cardigan. Collianti wants to see me.” He looked around at the firemen gatheri
ng in their hose-lines. “What happened?”

  “Some guy committed suicide,” the cop said.

  “He spread himself, huh?”

  “Plenty. Turned the gas on, probably counted to two thousand and then tried to light a cigarette. Bam! We get Fourth of July in January. O.K., go ahead up if the lieutenant wants you.”

  There were cops and firemen on the stairs all the way up and Cardigan, taking his time, wound his way among them. Underfoot, carpets were soggy, and in the top hall the floor was a slush of broken plaster, shredded timbers and wallpaper. Lanterns and flashlights swung and wheeled in the cold, damp gloom, and the overwash of the fire-truck searchlight poured through windows and the ragged hole in the front wall. Somewhere, axes were still chopping away.

  CARDIGAN leaned in a shattered doorway and saw a tousle-haired man of middle age railing at Detective Lieutenant Gig Collianti. “You call yourself a detective?” he was demanding hotly. “You make me laugh! Evidence—evidence! All you talk about is evidence! I tell you my brother had no reason to commit suicide. It’s something else. It’s got to be, I tell you.”

  Collianti rasped, “Listen, we’ve gone over that a million times. You say one thing and I say another. O.K., and I still say it! And I say this—show me some evidence that’ll prove he didn’t commit suicide. Go ahead, show me!”

  “What Gig wants,” Cardigan said from the doorway, “is probably a talking picture, with sound effects.”

  Collianti whirled. He was a tall man, slender, natty, with a lean, strong neck and a striped tie snugged into his collar by a gold bar-pin. His blue overcoat had a breast-pocket from which three points of a white handkerchief protruded. His jaw was knotty around the mouth.

  His voice cut sharply through the medley of sound and voices: “Who the hell let you in?”

  “If they keep chopping away here,” Cardigan said, “they’ll turn this top floor into a roof garden.”

  Collianti came plowing through the slush on the floor. “I thought I told you to—”