by Lionel White
He waited only a minute or two and then he crept forward again, staying half concealed by a high hedge. Gradually he made his way to the place where he had noticed the small window which apparently opened into a cellar.
Cribbins waited only until Mitty and Santino were in the house and had closed the door.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “At once. We can’t wait for Goldman.”
“What’s up? Hell, I just got here.” Mitty looked baffled as he tugged at his cap.
“No time to talk,” Cribbins said. “But that damned dog disappeared, and a few minutes ago some guy was around asking about a French poodle. He knew the dog had been here. I don’t know who he was or what he wanted but it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to blow. We can’t take any chances; can’t hang around here any longer.”
“I thought you said we had to wait for Goldman,” Santino said, his voice sarcastic. “Thought it was important to … “
“Do anything you want,” Cribbins said. “I’m blowing now. We can get in touch with Goldman later on, but I’m getting out now.”
Luder, standing at one side of the room, spoke up. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
Cribbins hesitated a moment. “I’m going alone,” he said at last, speaking softly. “We got plenty of transportation; you and Mitty and Santino can take one car … “
Santino interrupted. “You’re all worrying about nothing,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, I stay here and wait for Goldman. He’ll be here in another hour or so. You guys want to get out, go ahead.” He looked over at Cribbins. “And I suppose the girl’s going to be my problem, once you take off?”
Cribbins stared at him for a moment and then spoke slowly. “Either way,” he said. “Either way. I’ll do it, or you handle it.”
Santino laughed. “Forget it,” he said. “I just wanted to know how you felt about it. But the pleasure’s mine. That way, I’ll be sure.”
“I know that,” Cribbins said. “You like this sort of thing. So go on upstairs and handle it. I’ll get the money.” He reached down to the suitcase which he’d brought from the upstairs closet and unlocked it, lifting up the top. “Your cut will be here when you get back.”
The four of them—Cribbins, Luder, Mitty and Paula—watched silently as Santino slowly walked toward the door, passed through and carefully closed it after himself. They could hear his footsteps as he mounted the stairs….
The small, bitter-faced man passed within less than three feet of him as Bart crouched behind the door leading from the cellar into the hallway.
He’d been there for less than a minute, but the voice had reached him through the crack in the door. He’d fought desperately to kick his shoes off and now, as the man passed and started up the stairs, he slipped noiselessly through the doorway and followed.
He didn’t know who else might be in the house, up on one of those floors, waiting, but it was a chance he had to take. Following, crouching down and creeping up the carpeted steps, Bart Sherwood silently thanked God for the hard months of basic training he’d taken as a Marine while he was learning jungle fighting.
They reached the second floor, first the little man and then Bart, a moment later. They continued on up to the third floor.
His ears told him what his eyes were unable to see, as he waited at the edge of the staircase. The man had passed down the hallway a short distance. He could hear the key as it was inserted into the lock of the door.
Bart stretched the twisted sock he held, one end in each hand. He straightened up and moved swiftly.
Joyce Sherwood heard the key in the door and she struggled and turned on her side so that she was able to see, in the dim light of the shaded room, the door as it slowly opened. Her eyes widened and she tried to scream through the gag which bound the lower part of her face. The light coming through the crack between the drawn blinds and the window caught the right edge of the knife blade.
Again she tried to scream and her body writhed on the bed and then her eyes closed tightly and she waited in paralyzed horror. A split second later she opened them wide as she became aware of a sudden commotion, the grunting and then the tortured sound of quick, sharp-drawn breaths.
She saw him then, in the dim light—saw Bart and saw the little man struggling against the twisted cloth tightening around his thin, stringy neck.
She thought her eyes were lying to her, and she fainted.
“He’s been gone for more than ten minutes,” Cribbins said, his voice tight. “What’s keeping him, anyway.” Paula looked over at him and her voice was bitter when she spoke. “Can’t you guess? Why don’t you go up and see?”
Cribbins glared at her. “Go up and get him, Luder,” Cribbins cried.
“Let Mitty go. It’s out of my line.” Luder turned away and crossed over to the window. “Let’s get out of here. Right now. I got a funny feeling … “
Mitty humped his huge shoulders and stood up. “Where’s this room?” he asked.
“Third floor, second to the left when you get to the top of the stairs.”
“It will be all right with me if you take care of Santino too,” Paula said.
Mitty left the room without a word.
Bart stood just within the door, one hand holding Joyce as she stood behind him. He held Santino’s knife in his other hand. His words were a whisper when he spoke.
“Someone’s coming,” he said. “Get back. Get behind the bed and stay there.”
“Oh God, Bart!” Joyce said. “Oh God, they’ve got guns and … “
“Do what I say. Give me room.”
She crept back then, walking half blindly.
Mitty took his hand from the knob and stepped back, a look of dumb surprise on his face. Then suddenly he laughed.
“All right, Santino,” he called. “All right. You had your fun, now come on. The boss says we’re leaving.”
He waited a moment then and the smile on his face changed into a frown. He lifted a huge fist and rapped on the oak panel of the door.
“I said come on!”
Twice more he banged on the door, and then he cursed and turned and went back to the head of the staircase. His voice was an outraged bellow as he called down.
“He won’t lemme in. He’s in there with the girl an’ he won’t open up or even answer me.”
Inside the room, Bart quickly turned to Joyce. “They’re coming up the stairs, all of them,” he said in a whisper. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Joyce looked at him with a helpless expression as he moved to the window. He jerked the cord of the shade and it flew up. When the window failed to open, he lifted his foot and kicked out the glass. Looking down, he saw the flagged courtyard three stories below.
Then there was a pounding at the door and Cribbins’s voice called out. “Come on, Santino, open up!”
The command was followed by sudden silence. Bart’s eyes went to his watch. It was exactly twenty minutes since he’d made his call to Parks. He felt the sense of utter helplessness come over him. The detective couldn’t possibly arrive before another half hour.
He leaned down with his ear to the crack of the door, hearing the whispering outside.
“I say leave,” Luder said. “Now. The hell with him. Leave him in there with her if he wants to stay.” Cribbins spoke in a hurried whisper.
“No! There’s something wrong. Something has happened. The girl is still inside. We have to be sure. We can’t go without being sure. Mitty, break down the door.”
Bart no longer worried about being quiet. He rushed across the room and grabbed the heavy wardrobe, dragging it to the door. He spoke as he moved.
“Get at the window,” he told Joyce. “I’m going to hold them as long as I can. Get at the window and get ready to jump. Hang by your hands and bend your legs a little as you drop.”
She stood staring at him, and he had to yell at her again. She nodded dumbly, and at that moment there was a shattering crash as Mitty threw himself against the locked door.
>
“Bart,” she said, “Oh Bart! I can’t. I … “
Then the sound of the siren reached their ears, coming up from the street below them.
Bart fell to the floor, yelling for Joyce to lie down as he did so. A second later a stream of bullets splintered through the panels of the door, followed by the confused noise of footsteps as those outside started for the staircase.
There was a dead silence then for a full minute.
The staccato bark of the riot gun reached his ears as Bart knelt, a couple of feet from Santino’s body, holding Joyce in his arms as sobs wracked her slender body.
Coincidence had State Trooper Domonitti on routine patrol just north of Brewster when the message came over the intercom. He was driving the interceptor, a Ford with a souped-up Merc engine and rear end, and he was accompanied by a fellow officer, which was unusual, since he nearly always drove alone. The message itself was relayed from the Hawthorn Barracks and was rather vague. Merely a standby order at an address up in Cameron Corners; they were to see that no one left the house until the arrival of the Brookside police.
Domonitti used a heavy foot on the throttle. It wasn’t, however, until he hit the business district of Cameron Corners that he found it necessary to use his siren in order to get through the midday shopping traffic. There wasn’t much traffic, but Domonitti was in a hurry and he didn’t want to slow down until he reached his destination. He was still worrying about his momentary lapse in the matter of that missing girl, and he was anxious to make a good showing.
Domonitti had no reason to connect the message with that lapse—no reason at all until he pulled into the driveway and leaped to the ground after hearing the shots coming from the house, and then ran toward the front porch and saw the door open and the face of the one-armed man he had questioned at the road block a week previously. He recognized the face without difficulty. The only thing was that now the man no longer had a single arm. He had two arms, and in them was cradled a submachine gun.
It was Mitty who, inadvertently, saved Domonitti’s life. Mitty was directly behind Cribbins, and he was carrying the suitcase with the money in it.
Cribbins, seeing the state police car and the troopers, was raising the gun. His finger was pressing the trigger when Mitty crashed into him. It spoiled Cribbins’s aim and gave Trooper Domonitti the fraction of a second he needed to lift his service revolver and fire. Domonitti aimed by sheer instinct and he was lucky. The first two shots took Cribbins in the chest and he stumbled, falling to one knee and dropping the machine gun.
The trooper who had been accompanying Domonitti was already out of the police car and had taken the riot gun from behind the rear seat. The sight of the machine gun was all he needed. As Mitty swerved to avoid Cribbins’s fallen body, Luder and Paula rushed out of the door behind him. Luder had a .45 in his hand and Mitty was reaching for the gun he had shoved down into the band of his trousers.
The trooper released a burst of fire from the riot gun.
Of the three of them, Paula, Mitty and Luder, Mitty was the lucky one. He was stumbling over Cribbins, so the stream of lead missed him. Luder took a single bullet in the face and was dead before his body hit the ground. Paula was hit three times and although she was seriously wounded, she’d live.
The suitcase containing the money slipped from Mitty’s hand as he fell and broke open as it rolled down the porch steps and struck the gravel driveway.
The quarter-million dollars taken from the armored car made a rather impressive sight lying there in the midday sun.
It was well after three o’clock now, and they’d been sitting there, at trooper headquarters in Hawthorne, for the better part of an hour. Lieutenant Parks finally stood up and reached for his hat.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that’s that. It’s a lucky thing I called the state troopers. I’d never have made it in time.”
He turned to where Bart sat, his arm around Joyce.
“And neither would they,” he said, “if you hadn’t followed your hunch and broken into that house. But I guess everything is all right now. There’ll probably be some kind of a reward for cleaning up the Rumplemyer job. You should certainly be in on it.” He smiled. “You’ll be able to get that new car for your husband—and then some, Mrs. Sherwood,” he said.
Joyce looked up at him, her face still pale but her eyes sparkling.
“We’re going to get Flick back first,” she said. “If it takes every cent we have, we’re going to find him.”
Bart’s arm tightened around his wife. “Finding a missing dog should be simple,” he said. “Simple—compared to finding a missing wife.”
THE END
NOIR MASTER SERIES
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Lionel White
