by Otto Penzler
I didn’t go direct to the beach house.
On a dark side-road I stopped the car, went back and opened up the luggage compartment and pulled out the bound and gagged girl. She was one I had never seen before, and she was mad. And she was the real Jean Ellery or else I was dumb.
I packed her around, parked her on the running board, took a seat beside her, left on the gag and the cords, and began to talk. Patiently, step by step, I went over the history of the whole case, telling her everything. When I had finished I cut the cords and removed the gag.
“Now either beat it, go ahead and scream, or ask questions, whichever you want,” I told her.
She gave a deep breath, licked her lips, wiped her face with a corner of her party gown, woefully inspected a runner in the expensive stockings, looked at the marks on her wrists where the ropes had bitten, smoothed out her garments and turned to me.
“I think you’re a liar,” she remarked casually.
I grinned.
That’s the way I like ‘em. Here this jane had been grabbed, kidnapped, manhandled, jolted, forced to sit on the running board of a car and listen to her kidnapper talk a lot of stuff she naturally wouldn’t believe, and then was given her freedom. Most girls would have fainted. Nearly all of ‘em would have screamed and ran when they got loose. Here was a jane who was as cool as a cucumber, who looked over the damage to her clothes, and then called me a liar.
She was a thin slip of a thing, twenty or so, big, hazel eyes, chestnut hair, slender figure, rosebud mouth, bobbed hair and as unattainable as a girl on a magazine cover.
“Read this,” I said, and slipped her the confession of the cat-woman.
She read it in the light of the dash lamp, puckered her forehead a bit, and then handed it back.
“So you are Ed Jenkins— Why should auntie have wanted me kidnapped?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s what I want to know. It’s the one point in the case that isn’t clear. Want to stick around while I find out?”
She thought things over for a minute.
“Am I free to go?”
I nodded.
“Guess I’ll stick around then,” she said as she climbed back into the car, snuggling down next to the driver’s seat. “Let’s go.”
I got in, started the engine, and we went.
A block from the beach house I slowed up.
“The house is ahead. Slip out as we go by this palm tree, hide in the shadows and watch what happens. I have an idea you’ll see some action.”
I slowed down and turned my face toward her, prepared to argue the thing out, but there was no need for argument. She was gathering her skirts about her. As I slowed down she jumped. I drove on to the house, swung the car so it faced the door of the garage and got out.
I had to walk in front of the headlights to fit the key to the door of the garage, and I was a bit nervous. There was an angle of this thing I couldn’t get, and it worried me. I thought something was due to happen. If there hadn’t been so much money involved I’d have skipped out. As it was, I was playing my cards trying to find out what was in the hand of the cat-woman.
I found out.
As though the swinging of the garage door had been a signal, two men jumped out from behind a rosebush and began firing at the luggage compartment of the car.
They had shotguns, repeaters, and they were shooting chilled buckshot at deadly range through the back of that car. Five times they shot, and then they vanished, running like mad.
Windows began to gleam with lights, a woman screamed, a man stuck his head out into the night. Around the corner there came the whine of a starting motor, the purr of an automobile engine, the staccato barks of an exhaust and an automobile whined off into the night.
I backed the speedster, turned it and went back down the street. At the palm tree where I’d left the flapper I slowed down, doubtfully, hardly expecting to see her again.
There was a flutter of white, a flash of slim legs, and there she was sitting on the seat beside me, her eyes wide, lips parted. “Did you get hurt?”
I shook my head and jerked my thumb back in the direction of the luggage compartment.
“Remember, I wasn’t to stop or open that compartment until I got to the beach house,” I said.
She looked back. The metal was riddled with holes, parts of the body had even been ripped into great, jagged tears.
“Your beloved auntie didn’t want you kidnapped. She wanted you murdered. Right now she figures that you’re dead, that I am gazing in shocked surprise at the dead body of a girl I’ve kidnapped, the police on my trail, the neighborhood aroused. Naturally she thinks I’ll have my hands full for a while, and that she won’t be bothered with me any more, either with me or with you.”
The girl nodded.
“I didn’t say so before, but I’ve been afraid of Aunt Hattie for a long time. It’s an awful thing to say about one’s own aunt, but she’s absolutely selfish, selfish and unscrupulous.”
I drove along in silence for a while.
“What are you going to do?” asked the kid.
“Ditch this car, get off the street, hide out for a few days, and find out what it’s all about. Your aunt tried to double-cross me on a deal where there’s something or other at stake. I intend to find out what. She and I will have our accounting later.”
She nodded, her chin on her fist, thinking.
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Heaven knows. If I go back I’ll probably be killed. Having gone this far, Aunt Hattie can’t afford to fail. She’ll have me killed if I show up. I guess I’ll have to hide out, too.”
“Hotel?” I asked.
I could feel her eyes on my face, sizing me up, watching me like a hawk.
“I can’t get a room in a hotel at this hour of the night in a party dress.”
I nodded.
“Ed Jenkins, are you a gentleman?”
I shook my head. “Hell’s fire, no. I’m a crook.”
She looked at me and grinned. I could feel my mouth soften a bit.
“Ed, this is no time to stand on formalities. You know as well as I do that I’m in danger. My aunt believes me dead. If I can keep under cover, leaving her under that impression, I’ll stand a chance. I can’t hide out by myself. Either my aunt or the police would locate me in no time. You’re an experienced crook, you know all the dodges, and I think I can trust you. I’m coming with you.”
I turned the wheel of the car.
“All right,” I said. “It’s your best move, but I wanted you to suggest it. Take off those paste diamonds and leave ‘em in the car. I’ve got to get rid of this car first, and then we’ll go to my hideout.”
An hour later I showed her into the apartment. I had run the car off the end of a pier. The watchman was asleep and the car had gurgled down into deep water as neatly as a duck. The watchman had heard the splash, but that’s all the good it did him.
The girl looked around the place.
“Neat and cozy,” she said. “I’m trusting you, Ed Jenkins. Good night.”
I grinned.
“Good night,” I said.
I slept late the next morning. I was tired. It was the girl who called me.
“Breakfast’s ready,” she said.
I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes.
“Breakfast?”
She grinned.
“Yep. I slipped down to the store, bought some fruit and things, and brought you the morning papers.”
I laughed outright. Here I had kidnapped a girl and now she was cooking me breakfast. She laughed, too.
“You see, I’m about broke, and I can’t go around in a party dress. I’ve got to touch you for enough money to buy some clothes, and it’s always easier to get money out of a man when he’s well-fed. Aunt Hattie told me that.”
“You’ve got to be careful about showing yourself, too,” I warned her. “Some one is likely to recognize you.”
She nodde
d and handed me the morning paper.
All over the front page were smeared our pictures, hers and mine. Holton had offered a reward of twenty thousand dollars for my arrest. The insurance company had added another five.
Without that, I knew the police would be hot on the trail. Their reputation was at stake. They’d leave no stone unturned. Having the girl with me was my best bet. They’d be looking for me alone, or with a girl who was being held a prisoner. They’d hardly expect to find me in a downtown apartment with a girl cooking me breakfast.
I handed Jean a five-hundred-dollar bill.
“Go get yourself some clothes. Get quiet ones, but ones that are in style. I’m disguising myself as your father. You look young and chic, wear ‘em short, and paint up a bit. Don’t wait, but get started as soon as we eat.”
She dropped a curtsey.
“You’re so good to me, Ed,” she said, but there was a wistful note in her voice, and she blinked her eyes rapidly. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, either,” she added. “You don’t have to put up with me, and you’re being a real gentleman….”
That was that.
I was a little nervous until the girl got back from her shopping. I was afraid some one would spot her. She bought a suit and changed into that right at the jump, then got the rest of her things. She put in the day with needle and thread, and I did some thinking, also I coached the girl as to her part. By late afternoon we were able to buy an automobile without having anything suggest that I was other than an elderly, fond parent and the girl a helter-skelter flapper.
“Tonight you get educated as a crook,” I told her.
“Jake with me, Ed,” she replied, flashing me a smile. Whatever her thoughts may have been she seemed to have determined to be a good sport, a regular pal, and never let me see her as other than cheerful.
We slid our new car around where we could watch Big Bill Ryan’s place. He ran a little cafe where crooks frequently hung out, and he couldn’t take a chance on my having a spotter in the place. One thing was certain. If he was really behind the play he intended to have me caught and executed for murder. He knew me too well to think he could play button, button, who’s got the button with me and get away with it.
We waited until eleven, parked in the car I’d purchased, watching the door of the cafe and Big Ryan’s car. It was crude but effective. Ryan and the cat-woman both thought I had been left with the murdered body of Jean Ellery in my car, a car which had to be got rid of, a body which had to be concealed, and with all the police in the state on my track. They hardly expected I’d put in the evening watching Big Ryan with the kid leaning on my shoulder.
At eleven Ryan started out, and his face was all smiles. He tried to avoid being followed, but the car I’d purchased had all sorts of speed, and I had no trouble in the traffic. After that I turned out the lights and tailed him into West Forty-ninth Street. I got the number of the house as he stopped, flashed past once to size it up and then kept moving.
“Here’s where you get a real thrill,” I told the girl as I headed the car back toward town. “I’ve a hunch Harry Atmore’s mixed up in this thing as a sort of cat’s-paw all around, and I want to see what’s in his office.”
We stopped a block away from Atmore’s office building. I was a fatherly-looking old bird with mutton chop whiskers and a cane.
“Ever done any burglarizing?” I asked as I clumped my way along the sidewalk.
She shook her head.
“Here’s where you begin,” I said, piloted her into the office building, avoided the elevator, and began the long, tedious climb.
Atmore’s lock was simple, any door lock is, for that matter. I had expected I’d have to go take a look through the files. It wasn’t necessary. From the odor of cigar smoke in the office there’d been a late conference there. I almost fancied I could smell the incense-like perfume of the cat-woman and the aroma of her cigarettes. Tobacco smoke is peculiar. I can tell just about how fresh it is when I smell a room that’s strong with it. This was a fresh odor. On the desk was a proof of loss of the necklace, and a memo to call a certain number. I looked up the number in the telephone book. It was the number of the insurance company. That’s how I found it, simply looked up the insurance companies in the classified list and ran down the numbers.
The insurance money would be paid in the morning.
That house on West Forty-ninth Street was mixed up in the thing somehow. It was a new lead, and I drove the kid back to the apartment and turned in. The situation wasn’t ripe as yet.
Next morning I heard her stirring around, getting breakfast. Of course it simplified matters to eat in the apartment; but if the girl was going to work on the case with me she shouldn’t do all the housework. I started to tell her so, rolled over, and grabbed another sleep. It was delicious lying there, stretching out in the warm bed, and hearing the cheery rattle of plates, knives and forks, cups and spoons. I had been a lone wolf so long, an outcast of society, that I thrilled with a delicious sense of intimacy at the idea of having Jean Ellery puttering around in my kitchen. Almost I felt like the father I posed as.
I got up, bathed, shaved, put on my disguise and walked out into the kitchen. The girl was gone. My breakfast was on the table, fruit, cream, toast in the toaster, coffee in the percolator, all ready to press a button and eat. The morning paper was even propped up by my plate.
I switched on the electricity; and wondered about the girl. Anxiously I listened for her step in the apartment. She was company, and I liked her. The kid didn’t say much, but she had a sense of humor, a ready dimple, a twinkle in her eyes, and was mighty easy to look at.
She came in as I was finishing my coffee.
“Hello, Ed. I’m the early bird this morning, and I’ve caught the worm. That house out on Forty-ninth Street is occupied by old Doctor Drake. He’s an old fellow who used to be in San Francisco, had a breakdown, retired, came here, lost his money, was poor as could be until three months ago, and then he suddenly blossomed out with ready money. He’s retiring, crabbed, irascible, keeps to himself, has no practice and few visitors.”
I looked her over, a little five-foot-three flapper, slim, active, graceful, but looking as though she had nothing under her chic hat except a hair bob.
“How did you know I wanted to find out about that bird; and how did you get the information?”
She ignored the first question, just passed it off with a wave of the hand.
“The information was easy. I grabbed some packages of face powder, went out in the neighborhood and posed as a demonstrator representing the factory, giving away free samples, and lecturing on the care of the complexion. I even know the neighborhood gossip, all the scandals, and the love affairs of everyone in the block. Give me some of that coffee, Ed. It smells good.”
I grinned proudly at her. The kid was there. It would have been a hard job for me to get that information. She used her noodle. A doctor, eh? Big Ryan had gone to see him when he knew he would have the insurance money. The aunt wanted the girl killed. The engagement had been announced. Then there was the matter of my jade-handled dagger. Those things all began to mill around in my mind. They didn’t fit together exactly, but they all pointed in one direction, and that direction made my eyes open a bit wider and my forehead pucker. The game was drawing to the point where I would get into action and see what could be done along the line of checkmating the cat-woman.
A thought flashed through my mind. “Say, Jean, it’s going to be a bit tough on you when it comes time to go back. What’ll you tell people, that you were kidnapped and held in a cave or some place? And they’ll have the police checking up on your story, you know?”
She laughed a bit and then her mouth tightened. “If you had been one of the soft-boiled kind that figured you should have married me or some such nonsense I wouldn’t have stayed. It was only because you took me in on terms of equality that I remained. You take care of your problems and I’ll take care of mine; and we’ll both have plenty.�
�
“That being the case, Jean,” I told her, “I’m going to stage a robbery and a burglary tonight. Are you coming?”
She grinned at me.
“Miss Jean Ellery announces that it gives her pleasure to accept the invitation of Ed Jenkins to a holdup and burglary. When do we start?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Some time after eight or nine. It depends. In the meantime we get some sleep. It’s going to be a big night.”
With that I devoted my attention to the paper. After all, the kid was right. I could mind my own business and she could mind hers. She knew what she was doing. Hang it, though, it felt nice to have a little home to settle back in, one where I could read the papers while the girl cleaned off the table, humming a little song the while. All the company I’d ever had before had been a dog, and he was in the hospital recovering from the effects of our last adventure. I was getting old, getting to the point where I wanted company, someone to talk to, to be with.
I shrugged my shoulders and got interested in what I was reading. The police were being panned right. My reputation of being a phantom crook was being rubbed in. Apparently I could disappear, taking an attractive girl and a valuable necklace with me, and the police were absolutely powerless.
Along about dark I parked my car out near Forty-ninth Street. I hadn’t much that was definite to go on, but I was playing a pretty good hunch. I knew Big Ryan’s car, and I knew the route he took in going to the house of Dr. Drake. I figured he’d got the insurance money some time during the day. Also I doped it out that the trips to the house of Dr. Drake were made after dark. It was pretty slim evidence to work out a plan of campaign on, but, on the other hand, I had nothing to lose.
We waited there two hours before we got action, and then it came, right according to schedule. Big Bill Ryan’s car came under the street light, slowed for a bad break that was in the gutter at that point, and then Big Ryan bent forward to shift gears as he pulled out of the hole. It was a bad spot in the road and Bill knew it was there. He’d driven over it just the same way the night I’d followed him.
