by Otto Penzler
I grabbed O’Rourke’s arm as I followed him into the alley, two other dicks closing in behind us. And I told him what I had seen, watched his feet hesitate, watched his hands that were gripping the high fence let go their hold, as the full significance of what I said caught him.
“You don’t think one of those men was the Colonel?” O’Rourke asked anxiously; then shaking me, “You do?”
“I do.” I gave him the truth.
“Did the other man have a gun in his ribs and—? But he couldn’t. The Colonel’s door was heavy. Two windows facing on the street with a man below them and one in the house across the way, watching. No, he wouldn’t open that door for any one. That, he promised me. But come on. Maybe it was—”
“Two other fellows,” I started sarcastically, and stopped. What was the good of riding O’Rourke now? If damage was done, it was done. And, another thing. It struck me suddenly. O’Rourke, or no one else, could have prevented the man leaving that house. Certainly, if it was the Colonel, he went of his own free will. Maybe, under some threat, maybe, under some promise, maybe, with some one he trusted. Maybe—. But the light! If he had flashed the light as the pre-prepared signal to O’Rourke, then he had gone in fear. But that light! He wouldn’t have had time. And I gave it up. We were over the fence, in the yard, at the foot of the steps leading to the back door.
O’Rourke gave his orders in a low voice. Placing men carefully to watch the cellar windows, and then growling roughly for me to come on, he climbed the steps to the rear kitchen door— found it open and entered the house.
Lights were blazing now. Flatties pounded through the rooms. Some of them I knew, some I didn’t. Some were the best detectives on the city Force. A tall, straight figure with iron gray hair spoke to O’Rourke.
“The front room is empty. The bed has not been slept in. Evidently he wasn’t expecting to retire at—at the time whatever it was happened. But the Colonel’s gone.”
“Yes,” said O’Rourke. “No sign of any one. Search the house.”
“Men going through it now,” said the gray haired dick. And as a lad holding an axe came into the room, black and disheveled, “About the cellar, Tim?”
“Even stirred up the coal.” A round Irish face grinned. “Not a chance for a mouse to hide away.”
“You got the axe, I see. Give it to me.” The old dick addressed Tim.
“Er, what for?” demanded O’Rourke.
“There’s a closet door that’s locked, and a key missing, in his nib’s bedroom.” The dick jerked a thumb upward. “It may mean nothing, but we’ll have a look.”
“Give me that axe.” O’Rourke took the axe, pounded up the stairs, with me at his heels. He nodded to the cop who stood in the outer room, and walked to the closet door in the bedroom. He pulled at the knob and said:
“Hi, Colonel.” Listened a moment, half lifted the axe and put it down again, and turned to the cop. “Don’t want anything disturbed here. Papers and the likes of that. A strong man should jerk that door smack off its hinges.” He grabbed at the door. A quick jerk, and O’Rourke cursed. The door held fast. Then he spotted the lamp cord knotted to the end of the bed, and it took his mind off the door. But it was curled on the floor and no longer hung over the sill, as it did when I first visited that house.
“A lad might have come up by that, slipped through the bedroom, and, damn it, I forgot about this window. But how the devil could he throw it down to himself? Certainly he didn’t leave by it and—”
“I don’t think that fits this racket.” And I told O’Rourke about Toney, the little snow-bird who had left the house where he had sought protection.
“The lad who was killed last week.” O’Rourke nodded. “That’s what comes of being so secretive. This Colonel has more information coming to him than you’d find in the World Almanac. He tells you this and he tells you that, and shuts up like a clam when you want to know the how of it. Passes his word to stoolies, his word of honor as a gentleman, he tells me. Now, see what comes of it? Two men dead, and me not even knowing where the Italian, Giovoni, was till I looked at his dead body at Elrod’s Sanitarium. I’m to take orders, Race.” He looked at me suddenly, “I think we’ll keep quiet on this—this disappearance ‘till we hear something. It will be the biggest and worst thing in the world if the Colonel turns up dead. You know who he is, of course.”
“Of course,” I said. “Colonel Charles Halsey McBride, friend of the deputy police commissioner, and no doubt working secretly for him.”
“Well, it sounds good, in theory. And one can’t blame the Commissioner for showing the district attorney’s office, and maybe state officials, that he can take care of his own department. If Michelle Gorgon rides, it bursts up the biggest racket the city has ever known. Just now, I’d lay you a hundred to one that I can name twenty-five murders in New York that Michelle Gorgon is responsible for, directly responsible for. Yet, I’d lay you another hundred to one that I couldn’t prove a one of them in a court of law. I—” He threw up his head. Some one called him.
“Coming!” said O’Rourke, in answer to a shout from down stairs. “I’ll leave you here, Race to keep an eye on that locked closet door. I wouldn’t keep a thing from you. But men are men, and you couldn’t expect them to coddle to an outsider. Come on!” he said to the cop by the door, and following that cop out into the hall he closed the door behind him.
What a break for an amateur detective! To go over the room alone, find those hundreds of little clews that the regular police officer misses. You know what I mean. The man is found dead in his palatial library. The police search the place. And then the amateur detective discovers in one corner of the room a cord of wood, or under the bed an Austin car, that the hard boiled Inspector of police had overlooked. Oh, I daresay there are clews, if guys are willing to leave them. But a burnt cigar ash only tells me that some one has smoked a cigar, and nothing more. Real clews, to me, are letters, letters that any guy able to read can understand.
I jerked around from the desk I was pawing over. A key had clicked in a lock, the lock of the closet door.
I stepped a little to one side, drew a bead about the center of that door, saw the knob turn, but heard no click as the latch was slowly slipped back again when the door gave an inch. Then that closet door opened very slowly. Wider— wider—and I saw the figure.
The face was very pale and slightly dirty beneath the long peaked hat. The blue shirt was rather a bad fit, at least, baggy, and little hands were shoved in jacket pockets. A man’s clothes and a boy’s figure it may have been. But I knew her at once, of course. It was The Flame, alias Florence Drummond. The Girl with the Criminal Mind.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FLAME FIGHTS FOR FREEDOM
Well—” The Flame sort of gasped, as if breathing had suddenly become a luxury, after the closet. “I’m in a mess, I guess.”
“You guess right,” I said, when I got my own breath back, but I didn’t lower my gun.
She smiled a wan little smile as she looked at my gun, and lifted both her hands from her jacket pockets, empty.
“There isn’t time for a plea, Race, even an explanation, if I had any. What are you going to do—about me?”
“What do you think?” Maybe I sneered slightly. “You picked the Gorgons as little playmates. There have been two murders already, and may be another, now. You,” and with a smile of my own, “you even have put me, or are in with those who have put me on the spot.”
“God in heaven!” she half threw up her hands. “Don’t preach. And there have been as many spots picked out for you, in your day, as for a leopard.”
“You’re in bad, Florence.” I came a little closer to her. She looked very tired; there were rings under her eyes. “There’s no reason I should protect you. If you’ll sell out the Gorgons, I’ll—”
“A stool-pigeon! You want to make a stoolie out of The Flame. You—. I might tell you that letting me go may mean a man’s life. I might tell you—. But just one question. Wil
l you let me go? Yes or no.”
“Florence,” I ignored her question, “if I get you out of this. If—. What will you promise me. What will—”
“Don’t play the heavy dick. I’ll never squeal, for a price, if I could squeal.” She glanced quickly down at the watch upon her wrist. “Well, shout out, or stand aside.”
She pushed by me suddenly and made for the door, just as if she didn’t know the whole house was thick with police.
I clutched her by the arm and swung her back. She spun, and looked at me. There was hatred, or anger, or defiance, in her eyes. Then she read the truth in mine, I guess, because her eyes went sort of fearful, like a frightened animal, before I spoke.
“The Flame,” I said, as I gripped her arm tighter, “has swung with her mind and her eyes the honor of many men. You know something, and, by God! you’re going to talk. You’ve made monkeys out of me long enough. Yes, you’re right.” I looked straight into her eyes. “I’m going to turn you in to the cops.”
And she wilted. Was in my arms, her little head upon my shoulder, her arms about my neck. She was sobbing softly. I leaned down and forced up her head. The tears in her eyes were real, the quiver to her lips seemed hardly possible of acting. It was the girl again, but this time without the sparkle of youth in her eyes, the laughter on her lips, and—.
“Race,” she said. “Race, Race, give me a break. Give me a—. You can’t hold me like this and turn me in to the police. You don’t know what it may mean. Why, why—let me go. Let me go.”
Maybe I held her the tighter. Maybe I bit my lip. Maybe I even brushed back her hair. I looked straight down at her a moment, and spoke words that my lips formed but my brain never directed. The truth too, perhaps, though who is to tell it.
“Florence,” I said, “I love you.”
She raised herself on her toes, the sparkle blazed through the mist in her eyes, and—oh, damn it—she kissed me, held me so a moment, then jerking herself free smiled up at me.
“That’s what I wanted, Race, that’s what I needed to make me—. Goodbye.” She thrust the key of the closet door into my hand, turned again toward the hall door, as my hand shot out and gripped her by the arm.
“You’re—you’re not going to let me go?” I guess just bewilderment raced over her face at that moment.
“No,” I said very slowly, “I’m not going to let you go.”
“But you must, now—after—after—”
“I’ve got to keep you,” I interrupted. “I’ve got to turn you in. It isn’t you I’m going to live with. It isn’t your eyes I’m going to look into the rest of my life. It’s myself I’ve got to live with. It’s myself I’ve got to face in the glass each morning. Maybe I’m hard, cruel. Maybe, as more than one paper has said, I’m a natural killer. Maybe— But, by God! I’ve never sold out a client, and I won’t now. I—”
And I stopped. Feet beat down stairs, along the hall outside the door, seemed to hesitate, then go slowly on, to fall heavily upon other stairs.
“All right,” The Flame said slowly and with an effort, I thought. But she had a way of pulling herself together, and a way of putting something into her eyes that cut like a lash. “You let me go and I’ll give back to you the life of your client.”
I thought that one out.
“Your word, your honor?”
“The honor of The Flame.” She laughed, like a shovel being scraped over a cellar floor. “I’ll give you back the life of your client. That’s the whole ticket. Take it or leave it.” And she folded her arms defiantly.
“When?”
“I’ll meet you in,” again her eyes went to her watch, “In thirty minutes, at Maria’s Cafe.”
“Maria’s been closed by the police, two days ago,” I said.
“Not for you or for me. I told Rudolph Myer to tell you to meet me there anyway. I had something to—. You got the message?”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t.”
“No? Well, perhaps not. What do you say?”
“But how to get you out of here.” I scratched my head. What about O’Rourke? Would I take him into my confidence? Would he let The Flame go, or—? No. I thought I knew how a cop would feel about that. And I thought of the window, the lamp cord. But there would be a cop in the alley. I might call him off. I might—. I turned to The Flame.
She was at the door, had it partly open, was peering into the hall.
“You can’t—the police—droves of them,” I whispered hurriedly. “The window, maybe, if—”
She shook her head and put her finger on her lips. It was in my mind to detain her now. Not because of any duty to a client, though. Because, well, I didn’t believe a rabbit could slip through that cordon of police.
I shrugged my shoulders. After all, had I made a right decision? Was it because of my client that I let The Flame go? Or was I just anxious for an excuse not to be the one that turned her in? If the Colonel were dead, they might even hold her for murder.
“At Maria’s Cafe, then,” she whispered. And as my hand stretched toward her arm, “I have an ‘out,’ “ and she was gone, closing the door silently behind her.
Perhaps it was the best way out. I wouldn’t be responsible if she were caught now. And I found myself listening for her feet in the hall, listening vainly. Not a sound. But they wouldn’t shoot a woman. They wouldn’t—. And I remembered suddenly that The Flame was dressed as a man, also, with a little pang, that The Flame, for all I knew, might be armed and that—. Damn it, which had I let free in that house? The woman of evil or the girl of good?
I threw open the door and listened. Voices from below, just murmurs. Heavy feet on the floor above. Feet that turned and came down the stairs. Loud feet. A dick nodded to me in the dim light, his hand clutching at the banister.
“I don’t know what the racket is,” he said, “but except for them two servants, the man and his wife upstairs, frightened silly, and who never heard a sound, the house is empty.”
“Yeah.” I tried to listen. Would there be a shout as they caught The Flame, or would there be a shot as The Flame was spotted, lurking in some dark corner? Or, and I waited as the cop looked over my shoulder into the room, and then went on his way.
Maybe there were visions of a crumpled little body at the foot of a flight of stairs, a white, childish face, eyes that had no sparkle—and—.
A minutes, two, three, perhaps five passed. Then feet coming up the stairs; Sergeant O’Rourke’s gruff voice; his hand upon my shoulder, pushing me into the room. And he spoke.
“Hello!” He stood, looking at the open closet door. Then he turned to me, looked at my hand, and the key I held stupidly in it. “You found the key, eh?”
“Sure,” I said. “On the desk, under the blotter, near the phone.” But I still stood by the door, listening.
“Empty, of course.” O’Rourke was in and out of the closet. “Well, Race, it’s a big racket, a big responsibility.” A moment of silence. “Guess I’ll shift the burden, though the orders were to act alone.” He ran fingers through his mottled hair, “I guess I’ll give the Commissioner a buzz.” He reached for the telephone. “It may turn out a mess if we keep it from the press too long, what with the district attorney’s office wondering about it and the entire blame falling on the shoulders of the Commissioner if—. Colonel McBride is quite a lad, you know.”
“Wait.” I held O’Rourke’s hand. “It’s just possible I—”
“I—what?” demanded O’Rourke, his hand gripping the phone.
“I may stir up something. Wait.”
“Wait?” gulped O’Rourke. “Well, I’ll pass the ‘wait’ along to the Commissioner. It’s his show. I don’t want to be an official goat, after all these years.”
We both straightened. The phone rang.
“Now what the hell?” said O’Rourke eagerly, and as he jerked off the receiver, “Yeah, what do you want?”
A moment’s pause, and then from O’Rourke:
“Who wants to know? Who are you?
Why, unless I know you, you can’t. All right, he’s here.” O’Rourke pushed the phone to me, his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Guy wants you. Don’t sound like the Colonel. Don’t sound like any one. A mouth full of marbles. Better take it.”
“Race,” said a disguised, mechanical voice, that I couldn’t recognize.
“Right,” I said. “Race Williams.”
“Talk a bit, so I can be sure.”
And I did, pressing the receiver close to my ear and pushing O’Rourke off with my shoulder. O’Rourke had a curious turn of mind.
“Now you talk,” I finished.
“It’s Rudolph Myer,” came the faint message. “Tried to get you at your apartment. The Flame must see you at the Cafe Maria. It means a lot, so she says. Suit yourself about going. Some one may be listening. Why she can’t put over her own message, I don’t know. But she said to come alone, unseen.”
“How did you know I was—”
And I turned to O’Rourke. The click over the wire told me that Myer had cut me off. There’s no percentage in talking to yourself.
“Who was that?” asked O’Rourke.
“It was—a lad about another case. I told him to call me here.”
“Mighty liberal with your client’s phone.” O’Rourke bit off the end of a cigar, spat it across the room, and added, more sarcastically, “And forgot you told him you’d be here.”
“Well—” I said. “Then it’s business, this business. I’ve got to leave you.”
“Sure!” nodded O’Rourke. “I’ll give you an ‘out’ down stairs. The boys wouldn’t pass the district attorney through this house tonight without my orders. Remember that.”
“Okay. And sit tight for a bit, O’Rourke. I’ll give you a jingle later.”
O’Rourke looked at me before he spoke. Then he said very seriously:
“God! Race—it would be a great thing if your yen for gun-play developed in the right direction, if a certain party, a certain Gorgon got a little round hole in his forehead.”
