BIG JOHNNY almost overflowed with words as he met them at the elevator. “Shaughnessey came to and started asking for Whitelaw. Not the young one—the old gent, if you please. I got in and he said he didn’t know who pushed him over last night. He’s really only half conscious yet. I got old man Whitelaw over and he’s in with him now.”
“Nice going,” the Marquis said. “What does he want old Whitelaw for? Did he say?”
“No. He said he’d talk to me after he’d seen him.”
Jack Whitelaw’s worried face suddenly showed in the doorway of the anteroom down the hall. The Marquis nodded casually to him.
A worried-looking interne came down the hall, vanished into Shaughnessey’s room—only to reappear almost instantly with a crumpled envelope in his hand. He strode away, out of sight.
The Marquis chafed while a minute went by.
The interne reappeared, started in to Shaughnessey’s room—and was almost bowled over by the monkey-faced elder Whitelaw sailing out, a determined set to his red features.
He did not see the detectives, marched straight by them, and into a fortuitously opening elevator.
The Marquis looked after him musingly, then told Asa: “Better tag along and see where he’s going in such a hurry.”
When the redhead had caught another car, the Marquis moved on toward Shaughnessey’s door. In turn, he was blocked by the emerging interne.
The interne closed the door and shook his head. “Afraid you can’t go in right now.”
“Why not?”
“Some fool nurse left an envelope with his morphine tablets in reach. He just swallowed the grains. Said he was having terrible head pains and—”
The Marquis’ temples were flushed. “Listen—I’m going in. There’s murder going on—not only his but maybe other people’s. He’s got to talk.”
The interne shrugged, opened the door and peered in. Then he held the door open wide so the Marquis could see into the room.
The bandaged Shaughnessey lay still, his one visible eye closed. The Marquis put his head in and said, “Mr. Shaughnessey!” but the man on the bed was oblivious.
The Marquis cursed softly, elaborately. Just before he stepped back, he noted the telephone on the unconscious man’s night table.
He told the interne: “I’ll only take about so much from you people.”
The interne did not seem impressed. He pulled the door closed, shrugged, wandered away.
The Marquis caught just a glance of the blond Jack Whitelaw’s face peering from the anteroom. It was quickly withdrawn.
The Marquis thought carefully, for forty seconds, eyes almost closed. Then he turned and walked down the hall, Big Johnny lumbering questioningly at his heels.
The Marquis led him into a niche. In an undertone, he told the big man: “When I tell you to go downstairs, pay no attention. It’ll be an act. Instead, slip into some vacant room or something where you can watch the outside of Shaughnessey’s door.”
“But hey, chief—I’m supposed to be guarding Shaughn—”
“That’s all right. I’ll be inside his room.”
“Oh.”
“After I make my spiel, go to the elevator, ring the bell and duck—so it will sound like you’d gone down. You know what I mean.”
“Sure. What are you—”
“I’m going to make a phony phone call. I have a hunch the killer might be right around here and listen in. Come on.”
He led the way back to the unconscious man’s door, looked along the hall. He opened the door, peeped in, drew it almost closed again.
To Johnny he said, in normal tones: “There’s a phone in here. Shaughnessey’s dead to the world. I’m going to make the call from here. You go down to the switchboard and make sure the operator doesn’t listen in. This is important. If that stool-pigeon isn’t lying, we ought to dynamite the whole job right here.”
“Oh—O.K., boss.”
THE Marquis waited where he was till Big Johnny had pretended to board the elevator but had actually catfooted back into a room almost opposite Shaughnessey’s.
The Marquis went softly into the sickroom, leaving the door open a tiny crack. He crossed to the phone, picked it up, holding the hook down with his finger, went through the motions of mumbling a number into the mouthpiece.
After the proper interval, he said, “Hello. I want to speak to Fred. This is the guy he sent the message to,” and waited again.
“Hello. Fred? Marty…. Yeah…. Yeah, I got it, but I don’t quite understand it. Let me have the whole set-up again. Yeah…. Who? Wait a minute. What Greek?… Oh…. Sure…. What? What gunman? Speak a little louder, can’t you? The Greek has hired the gunman to knock off who?… His accomplice in what deal?… Hell, I don’t know any deal Dahloute is working on…. What?… Sure, I get that. Dahloute is sending some gunman to knock off his partner in some deal, to save the split, but who is the gunman? And who is he going to knock…. What? Well, hell, go back and find out. I want names. Get me names and it’s good stuff. And hurry it.”
He hung up, stood fingering his chin a second, then moved toward the door. Four leisurely strides took him out into the hall.
Twenty yards from him, in the door of the anteroom, Jack Whitelaw’s strolling back disappeared.
He schemed ahead carefully, closed Shaughnessey’s door behind him, made a quick signal to inform Big Johnny to stay in his hiding-place. He walked unhurriedly to the elevator and rode down.
On the ground floor he stepped out and inquired his way to the switchboard, quickly walked to the back of the long, cavernous hall.
Two pert girls were idling in their chairs before the huge switchboard when the Marquis pushed through the brass-studded swinging doors, his gold badge cupped in his black-gloved hand.
“There may be a call from one of the rooms around Two-eleven,” he said. “It’s important that I hear what’s said and who’s called. There’s a twenty in it for each of you.”
The blond girl glanced at her half of the switchboard, dubiously. “We aren’t allowed— Wait. There isn’t any chance of this call coming from Two-eleven, is there?”
“There might be.”
“Another police officer was in there, earlier. He told me to plug in a phone and leave it. Maybe I’d better disconnect—” She hesitated questioningly, fingers on the plug.
“Yes—quickly.”
She half withdrew the plug. Red light sprang alive. She jabbed it back in, said breathlessly: “Somebody’s already talking on it. They must have called their own number.”
The Marquis whipped up a handset from the top of the board. “Cut me in.”
Wires rattled in his ear. Then a hoarse voice said, “No. I don’t want to speak to him. I just wanted to know if he was there. Good-bye,” and the connection was broken.
The Marquis swore under his breath, ripped bills from his wallet with one hand. “Ring Two-fifteen—quickly, please.”
“But there’s no one in—”
“One of my men is.”
He groaned, as the girl rang the phone four separate times before it was answered.
Big Johnny’s puzzled voice said, “Hello,” as the Marquis clipped at him: “Did you see who just went into Shaughnessey’s room to use the phone?”
“Eh, No, boss. I didn’t notice no—”
“Well, watch who comes out. Somebody just made a call from there.”
“Hold the wire, boss.”
The Marquis chafed, while the silence held. After a minute, Big Johnny came back on the line. “I—I guess I muffed it,” he said apologetically. “There’s nobody in the room now.”
The Marquis boiled under his breath. He thanked the girls, pushed out into the hall again.
AS McGUIRE stood, loitering, halfway down the hall. The Marquis’ forehead flushed. He strode hard-heeled toward the redhead. “What the hell is this? Didn’t I tell you to tail old man Whitelaw?”
“Relax, chief. I am shadowing him. He’s in one of those pay-phone boot
hs over there. He started out like the wind when we came down, but he didn’t get to the door. He acted like he’d forgot something and turned back. He went over to the stairs and stood as though he was thinking of going back up them—then he made for the phone booths and he’s been there ever since—Ixnay, here he comes.”
They drew back into the shadow of the stairway. McGuire said in an undertone: “He’s going across the waiting-room. He’s—yeah, he’s going out now. Will I—”
On sudden impulse the Marquis said: “We both will. I need to know something. And I’ve half a mind that this gent might lead us to it. I’ve some time to kill anyway.”
They followed casually out the door.
The little red-faced Whitelaw was waving down a cab as they emerged onto the street.
Presently, they were sitting on the edge of the seat in a second cab, trailing the old man’s vehicle, heading east and toward the heart of town.
For a moment, it looked as though the elder Whitelaw were heading directly for the curio shop of Arnold Dahloute, and the Marquis blinked. Then, two blocks above, the cab swung further east, rattled over to Dexington and, when they, in turn, rounded the corner, Whitelaw’s cab was stopped, a half-block ahead of them, and the little millionaire was paying off on the curbstone.
BY the time they rid themselves of their own cab, Whitelaw had disappeared into a narrow-fronted, very old, yet rather trim-looking small apartment house.
The Marquis stood staring at its little red-and-white vestibule, its general air of chipper prosperity. Asa made a move to ring a few bells, but the Marquis shook his head quickly.
Instead, he took a small leather case from his pocket and said, “Cover me,” and went to work on the spring lock of the front door.
Presently it opened and Asa said: “That’s all very well but there are twelve apartments in this joint—two to a floor. Do you know which he would be going to?”
One foot propping the door open, the Marquis’ somber eyes ran over the cards inserted in the mailboxes.
Number 4-A bore the name, James Shaughnessey, and the Marquis’ small, black-gloved finger pointed it out.
“Oh-oh,” Asa McGuire said. “Now what?”
They were in a narrow hall with a winding, heavily carpeted staircase running up its middle. When a minute’s careful listening brought no sound from above, the Marquis started silently up. They heard nothing to check them, till they were on the fourth floor, outside the cream door whose shining gold numerals said 4-A.
Standing with their heads against the panel, they could hear movement inside—rather indeterminate movement—and that was all.
Presently the movement ceased, and there was an interval of silence. A puzzled line began to cut the Marquis’ forehead.
And then—plainly audible—came a sharp thud!
The thud was followed instantly by a queer, whining cry—and then they heard a soft cough.
Utter silence came then.
For a full minute, the Marquis wrestled with some vague, growing unease inside him. Then he mumbled, “I don’t like this,” and whipped out his keycase. With quick fingers, he tried various instruments, till the door finally burst open under his violent heave.
McGuire said, “Good God,” as they both paused on the threshold. Then both ran across the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
One Less Millionaire
THEY were in a living-room the walls of which were cherry-tile wall board. Black-and-silver modernistic furniture stood on a black rug. The room was lighted by two cylindrical parchment lighting fixtures, overhead in the unusually high ceiling. Each cast a round circle of illumination straight down on the floor far beneath. One was at the end of the room, near the window. One was at the side, almost directly over a black, eccentric bookcase.
Whitelaw, Senior lay on his face on the black rug, the beam of light from the long cylindrical shade centered squarely on the small of his back. His hat had rolled off and his monkey-red head with its little white tufts of hair was visible. But it was not red any more.
From the center of his back protruded the crude steel handle of a heavy one-piece throwing-knife.
They both dropped beside the old man at once. One arm lay outflung and McGuire snatched at the wrist.
“None,” he croaked after a tense second. “He’s dead.”
The redhead leaped to his feet, yanked the gun from his hip, ran back toward closed doors in the rear of the apartment. The noise of his banging through them came vaguely to the Marquis.
The Marquis stayed on his knee. He took the flashlight from his pocket, bent even closer to the floor. It looked as though the dead man had been reaching under the bookcase for something.
The Marquis’ powerful torch picked out the round, gleaming face of an open wall safe, almost against the baseboard. Both the outer combination door and the inner compartment door hung open.
An errant gleam caught his eye and he carefully reached in for it. He brought out a thread-like copper wire, not more than four inches long.
Startled light jumped into his eyes and he scrambled quickly up. His glance ran up along the tile-faced panels of wall board, returned to the knife sunk in the dead man’s back. He inspected it more closely.
Not too familiar with such things, he judged it to be some example of aboriginal handicraft. It seemed made of one solid piece of metal, and appeared almost heavy enough to slay an ox with a blow.
Asa McGuire shouted, deep within the nest of rooms—came running out.
“He got away through a window in the bedroom—down the fire-escape,” McGuire rattled as he dived across the room toward the phone. “I’ll have the prowl cars throw a net around the block.”
The Marquis’ eyes burned. “No!” he said.
McGuire, bewildered, slowly turned from the phone. “Eh? Why—what’s—”
“Be quiet,” the Marquis snapped.
The silence held for forty heart-beats, while the Marquis’ blue eyes darkened.
He said: “Get hold of Wally Sutherland, the reporter, at the Clarion—fast!”
“That rat! Hell, he’s a feature-writer, not a reporter. What in the world do you want—”
“Get him—and move!”
The redhead snatched up the phone.
During the three minutes that it took McGuire to get the newspaperman on the wire, the Marquis was down again, peering under the bookcase. Carefully, he removed a few more particles of copper wire, stowing them after a moment, in his pocket.
“Here he is, Marty,” the redhead said, and held out the receiver.
The Marquis said: “Hello, Sutherland. I was looking through my desk today and ran across that package of evidence against you and your missus. I figure you could get about ten years apiece, and I could do with a good conviction right now.”
For a long minute, there was silence on the wire, then a hoarse voice said: “What do you want me to do, Marty?”
The Marquis told him.
When he had hung up, Asa McGuire was bug-eyed. He stammered: “Wha—what—”
The Marquis looked at his watch and his lips moved.
“Eh?” McGuire said.
“I was saying it would take Sutherland about five minutes to get from where he is, to where— Come on, we’re going upstairs. We’ll just have time. Shut the door and keep quiet.”
The Marquis led the way out into the hall, up another flight of the carpeted stairs.
McGuire ran up at his heels, and as the Marquis sorted his picklocks, the redhead laid his ear against the door.
“Don’t bother,” the Marquis said. “There won’t be anyone home here—unless the sweetest guess I’ve made in years goes blooey.”
When the Marquis finally got the door open, they stared into an apartment that was a facsimile of the one below save that bare plaster walls stared at them. The place was dusty, untenanted, unfurnished, save for one item—a compact mass of machinery, containing coils and wires and looking not unlike a dismantled radio set. From it
, an extension cord was plugged into a reducing socket and from the reducing socket a thin copper wire disappeared at the very juncture of floor and wall, at a spot directly above the wall safe, below.
The Marquis mused: “I can think, offhand, of somebody in about every profession in this man’s town—somebody that we have something on—except the one we need. I haven’t got a thing on an electrician. And we need one.”
“I can hang the bell-captain in the Alameda. He used to be an electrician’s helper.”
“Good. Get him round here—in about an hour.”
“Will I phone from here? The phone company might have a record and that would throw the time element all screwy on this killing.”
“That would be all right.”
“You’re not going to report it?” the redhead said incredulously after he’d made his call.
“Oh, yes—in a couple of hours.”
“But why? For God’s sake, let me in on it. Am I supposed to do anything?”
“You are.”
The Marquis told him what.
“It’s impossible! This isn’t happening!” McGuire choked when the Marquis had finished.
“It isn’t even complicated, when you know the key,” the Marquis assured him. “Have you any money?”
“Well, sure—a bit. But I saw plenty in your poke.”
“Can you play billiards?”
“Eh? Sure.”
“We’ll go out and play a little billiards,” the Marquis said.
THEY played billiards for half an hour, in a nearby hotel. Then the Marquis said: “Come on.” They stopped at a writing-desk in the lobby long enough for the Marquis to scribble thirty lines of closely packed script. He blotted it, put it in his pocket and led the way out to a cab.
The foggy-eyed McGuire followed at his heels.
They drove the four short blocks to the still-lighted curio shop of Arnold Dahloute.
The same courteous assistant inquired their business and the Marquis said: “Is Mr. Dahloute back yet?”
The assistant blinked. “He hasn’t been out, sir.”
“Oh, yes he has. There’s a back entrance from his office that you can’t watch, isn’t there?”
“Why—yes, sir, but there has been a representative of the press with Mr. Dahloute for the past half-hour or so—”
The Complete Cases of the Marquis of Broadway, Volume 1 Page 33
