“Darn fool,” Collier agreed, leaning from the cab window, “it’s a wonder we didn’t run him down, the way—ugh!”
Something sinuous and serpentine, no thicker than a girl’s little finger, glistening with a silken iridescence, suddenly coiled forward, apparently from nowhere, and twined itself about his throat.
Purely as a reflex act, without realizing what I did, I seized the cord’s tasseled end and flung it backward in the direction whence it came, attempting to grasp it at the same time. But the plaited silk slipped through my fingers with a speed that almost blistered the skin, as a small, brunette man, almost the exact counterpart of the fellow whose fall had stopped our cab, jerked the string violently, turning to run as he did so.
Collier’s face was almost purple with the sudden strangulation he had undergone, his eyes were protruding with mingled blood pressure and fright; but I had no time to apply restoratives.
“Hey,” I yelled, leaping from the cab and rushing forward, “catch that fellow! Catch him!”
“Huh?” the chauffeur demanded, looking up from his crank.
“Huh, hell!” I responded. “Catch him!”
There was no time to be lost, and I lost none. Reaching down, I seized the crank with which the chauffeur had been vainly endeavoring to start the engine, wrenched it from its pinion, and hurled it with all my might at the escaping Arabian.
The heavy handlebar caught him neatly between the shoulder blades, flattening him to the pavement in good earnest, every bit of breath knocked from his lungs.
“Say, feller, you’re rough,” the chauffeur protested; but I waved him aside.
Running up to my quarry, I retrieved the motor crank, returned it to the driver, and unbuckling my belt, pinioned my prisoner’s hands securely behind him.
“Come on, buddy, let’s ride,” I commanded, bundling the limp body of my victim into the cab beside the white-faced Collier.
The Major was as pleased with my prisoner as a youngster would have been with a new tin toy.
“Loomis,” he told me, “there are times when I think you’re not as big a moron as I know you are at others.”
“Of course, it’s inconvenient,” Sturdevant admitted, displaying the apparatus he had manufactured, at the dinner table that night, “but it’s fairly good insurance against a broken neck. Try it on, Collier.”
The device consisted of an oval of wire, bent to conform to the wearer’s shoulders, so that it rested on breast and back at the base of the neck, like a collar or gorget. Rising vertically from this, and bent inward, to follow the lines of the neck, were six strands of eight-inch wire, two at the back and two on each side, these, in turn, being joined to a smaller oval of wire, which, wrapped in strips of flannel, were designed to rest on the crown of the head under the wearer’s hat.
When the thing was in place it formed a six-stranded cagelike protection for the wearer’s throat and neck, the wire being bent close enough to the neck to be practically invisible a few feet away, especially in a dim light, yet far enough from the flesh to prevent any suddenly coiling cord from tightening about the windpipe or even coming in direct contact with the neck.
“Yes,” the Major gloated over his product, “that’s Sturdevant’s Simplified Anti-Strangulation Device.
“Now see whether you can work those handcuffs the way I showed you this morning. Come on, let’s have a dress rehearsal. Frank, you be the Arabian. One, two, three—Lights; camera; action!”
Collier put on his overcoat, turning the collar up to disguise the wire as much as possible, and drew his hat down over the head-piece. With hands in pockets, he slouched down the hall, as though sauntering along the street.
The Major thrust the bowstring we had found the previous night into my hand and ordered, “Do your stuff, Turk!”
Quickly I slipped up behind Collier, flung the coiled silk cord and drew back on it. In my inexpert hand the string failed to wrap about Collier’s neck as it should have done, but he felt it flick his face and acted on the cue. Like a pole-axed ox he fell to the floor, jerked his feet convulsively, but keeping his hands hidden in his pockets.
“Bend over him, Frank,” Sturdevant prompted; “bend forward as though you were going to cut the Arabic letters in his forehead.”
I obeyed, and as my hands reached toward the supine man’s face his hands suddenly leaped from his pockets, there was a flash, a click, and a pair of handcuffs were locked about my wrists.
“Fine, great, bully!” the Major applauded. “Gentlemen, we’ve a wonderful little surprise in store for the benighted followers of the False Prophet.”
Three blocks from Sturdevant’s house the Major and I dropped behind, allowing Collier to gain several hundred feet lead before we took up our way.
Street after street we passed, Collier walking slowly, with bowed head, as though sunk in melancholy thought; but, nothing untoward occurred.
“H’m,” Sturdevant muttered. “They’re not rising to the bait.”
“Well, Collier’s safe for the night, anyhow,” I replied, “there he goes into the club, now.”
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” the Major promised, turning reluctantly in his tracks.
“Sure,” I concurred, “they’ll—hullo, what’s doing up at the club?”
The plate glass doors had suddenly flown open as the green-liveried porter rushed pellmell into the street, shrieking, “Police, police! Help, murder, fire, police!”
“Yep, something’s up,” Sturdevant agreed, starting for the bellowing doorman on the double quick.
“Here, what’s going on?” he demanded.
“Murder, sir,” the other panted, momentarily stopping his frantic calls for official assistance, “murder! Mr. Collier—”
“Good Lord, did they get him after all?”
“I’m tellin’ you, sir,” the doorman answered reproachfully, “Mr. Collier heard a man in his room, sir, just after ’e came in, and—”
“Oh, hell!” Sturdevant cut him short. “We can’t listen to all this rigamarole. Come on, Frank; let’s see for ourselves.”
“Hi, there, Major!” Collier’s voice rang out as we paused on the threshold. “I got him! Got him slick as a whistle.”
“How—” Sturdevant began, but the excited young man waited for no questions.
“He was hidin’ under the bed, or somewhere, waitin’ for me when I came in,” he explained. “I’d taken off my hat and snapped on the light when bingo! He flung the loop over my head and started to squeeze the wind out o’ me.
“Boy! Did I play my part? You should have seen me drop and start kickin’! He had his knife out, ready to carve his initials on my manly brow almost as soon as I hit the floor, and I slipped the darbies on him easier than I did on Mr. Loomis.”
Sturdevant grinned appreciatively at the youngster’s enthusiasm as he brushed forward to inspect the captive.
“Good enough!” he muttered, glancing shrewdly at the sullen Oriental. “I think we’ve rounded ’em all up, thanks to you boys. I’ll call McClellan up and have him send the wagon for this bird. He’ll be as welcome at Police Headquarters as a rich widow at a bond salesmen’s convention.”
CARTE BLANCHE FOR MURDER, by Arthur Humbolt
Originally published Spicy Detective, September 1934.
It was twenty minutes to nine p.m. and Hal Parker had his battered coupe up to its wheezy limit as he batted along the ten mile strip of concrete between Sharpsburg and Marvin. He was already ten minutes late for his regular Wednesday night date with the most glorious blonde in the world, Anita Moss, and dates with Anita were warm, blissful events to remember for days. Marvin was still well over ten minutes away.
A grin twisted Hal’s wide, hard-lipped mouth as he pictured the stubborn set of Anita’s sweetly curved body, her full, hot lips, and he trod heavier on the gas pedal. He’d been late last week, and the week before that. Anita’s be plenty sore; but, heck, a cub reporter on a sheet like the Sharpsburg Star had to stay on the job, or els
e.
The tanned skin of his square-jawed face wrinkled about the corners of his wide-set brown eyes as he squinted through the headlights streaking over the pavement
What was that up ahead? Looked like—yeah. A down-and-out bum stumbling out of a side road on the right. Probably stewed to the gills and might wander in front of a speeding car.
Unconsciously, Hal’s foot eased up on the gas as he neared the swaying figure, then his muscular body stiffened abruptly, his feet tramped the brake and clutch.
That bum wasn’t drunk! He was half-running, half-staggering looking back over his shoulder as if afraid. He was running from something!
Even as Hal looked, the bum struck the edge of the pavement tripped and went sprawling. He pawed frantically to his feet and staggered toward the car. Hal could see that he was a typical Weary-Willie, clad in cast-off clothing.
Brakes squealed as the reporter jammed to a stop beside the man. He kicked open the right hand door of the car.
“What’s the matter with—” he started, then stopped, his hands clammy, gripping the wheel, the cold chill of horror racing up his spine.
The man framed in the open doorway was a blood-smeared human scare-crow. Blood-shot eyes stared wildly from a bony, un-shaven face. There was a streak of dried blood slashed across the narrow forehead. Stringy hair jutted from numerous holes in a battered hat His skinny, rag-clad body jerked spasmodically and ropy saliva drooled from his blubbering lips. His left hand was covered with a sickening mess of blood that reached to the bony wrist “God, Mister!” he croaked, pawing at the open door to keep his grotesque body erect. “She ain’t got no arms! I tell you, she ain’t got no arms!”
Hal felt the hair on his neck stir. He’d seen that face before—staring from a warning poster at the Sharpsburg Police Headquarters. The words of the warning bit like fire into his brain. The bum was a mad fiend wanted for the brutal assault of at least three young women!
And the reporter was without a weapon. He wetted his dry lips.
“Who hasn’t any arms?” he asked, keeping his voice steady with an effort. “Where?”
The bum looked fearfully over his shoulder at the dark side road and pushed closer to the reporter. Hal caught the rank odor of unwashed clothing and flesh, pushed back under the wheel and lighted a cigarette blowing the smoke out through his nostrils.
“D-down, that there side road, Mister,” whimpered the bum. “I was comin’ out to the highway to t’umb a ride, an’ it was dark an,’ I couldn’t see nothin’. I tripped over somethin’, an’ I struck a match to see what it was, an’ it was a dame, Mister! A little blonde dame! She ain’t got no clothes on, an’ she ain’t got no arms!”
“Yeah?” the reporter queried through the smoke cloud about his head. Humor the man, kid him along and try to get him back to Sharpsburg. “Climb on the running-board, buddy,” he invited. “We’ll run up that side road, take a look at your armless nightmare, then roll on to Sharpsburg.” The bum started to protest. “Get on!” urged Hal “I’m in a hurry!”
Two hundred feet down the dark side road and Hal felt cold sweat bead out over his body. The bright shaft of his headlights had picked up the white figure of a naked woman lying in the dust of the road some distance ahead. He jammed in the clutch and coasted up within twenty feet, then stopped. The bum dropped off the running-board and stood motionless, whimpering. The reporter got out and stalked forward, momentarily forgetting about the bum.
He stopped within five feet of the figure, the pulse starting to pound in his ears. He gulped twice, then went on, walking stiffly, mechanically, the numbing ice of horror crawling in his veins.
It was a girl of about twenty, stark naked. She lay on her back, her milky, tapering legs pointing straight toward the wide ditch at the side of the road. Her soft abdomen dipped slightly between well-formed hips, and her garnet-tipped breasts, slack in death, sagged to either side of her chest.
Her strangely bloodless lips were parted, half-baring tiny white teeth, as though she were about to scream. Long, shimmering hair coiled like fine spun gold in the inch-deep dust of the road, and her eyes, framed by long-lashed lids and fine penciled brows, stared wildly from a white face from which ghastly terror could not erase the wistful beauty.
Hal didn’t know her.
He stood beside the body, wild thoughts screaming in his brain, and every muscle taut to the point of quivering. The close-hovering darkness seemed to gibber mad threats as he looked at the girl’s shoulders.
Raw, clotted wounds contrasted horribly with the white skin of her throat and shoulders. The crimson fluid had soaked into the dust on each side of her body and showed as dark, sullen blotches against her soft flesh. There was, however, not as much blood as one would expect. The reporter ground his teeth. Both of the girl’s arms were gone, slashed off at the shoulders!
Muscles cold and shaking, Hal knelt felt the girl’s body. Her flesh was cold, stiff. She had been dead at least three hours, probably longer. That would place her death at about five or six in the afternoon. She—
A muscle twitched at the corner of Hal’s mouth. His eyes narrowed. Hell! The girl hadn’t been lying here in the road all that time. Someone would have seen her hours ago. She’d been killed and butchered somewhere else, then brought here!
Hot fury burned in his eyes as he got stiffly to his feet and dashed the chill sweat from his broad forehead. Hard muscles about his lips were jerking and his chest felt hollow. That bum…God! If he’d done this…
The snarl of his coupe motor spun him about. The light car was already in motion. The mad bum was running away! He sprang toward the car. The motor burst into a throbbing roar and leaped at him like a thing alive. He sprang to one side to keep from being run down as the coupe whipped about in the road and headed for the highway, flinging up a choking cloud of dust behind it.
Hal tore out after it, shouting profane commands for the bum to stop. He might as well have been talking to a comet.
The coupe raced for the highway, its red tail-light winking derisively through the dust.
Hal heard the swelling roar of a car speeding on the highway from the direction of Sharpsburg, saw its headlights painting the crossing ahead with livid light. The two cars would meet! He screamed a warning as be ran.
The coupe lurched up on the highway. The bum saw the other car, jerked the wheel to avoid it. The coupe swayed wildly on the pavement. The headlights of the other car zipped past the crossing. Hal stopped, staring, expecting to hear a rending crash. The car swept on, missing the coupe by a miracle. It swayed drunkenly for a moment, then straightened out.
Hal tore after it, then stopped, cursing as the battered car gained speed and raced toward Marvin, throttle wide open. In a few moments even the red eye of the taillight was out of sight.
Well, that was that. The bum had gotten away. He’d have to get to a telephone, call the STAR office, then report everything to the Sharpsburg Police, and Anita—good Lord! He’d almost forgotten her!
The nearest telephone, he remembered now, was a mile and a half away. Big place set well back from the road in a regular forest. Fellow named Andre Renan and one man servant, a queer duck lived there. Renan had plenty of money and did nothing but paint pictures of undressed women and girls. Had a half-dozen girls from Sharpsburg and Marvin posing for him all the time. Hal had seen some of the pictures—they weren’t bad, that is, if a guy liked to look at blonde dames dressed in a postage stamp of velvet. Dames sure fell for that staff. Anything for Art’s sake.
* * * *
The Renan place was an old remodeled farmhouse built nearly a quarter of a mile back from the highway. Huge trees crowded close about the white walls except on the north side of the house. Renan’s glass-walled studio was on that side. Hal had been out several weeks ago to get some dope on an article for the STAR.
And, as he walked along the broad driveway leading to the house, the reporter felt that the rustling trees were whispering secrets in the night. Hell, he grunted
, if those trees could talk of the things they’d seen and heard around the Renan place, there’d be an army of dames hunting axes to chop them down.
Stalking hard-heeled up on the Renan porch, he jammed a hard finger on the bell button.
Renan’s man-servant answered the ring.
“Good evening, sir,” he greeted in his queerly clipped voice, his dark eyes peering brightly from their deep nests of hair-lined flesh beneath heavy black brows.
Hal stepped into the long, wide hall that he knew extended the full length of the house, spotted the telephone on a small table pushed up against the oddly papered walls. Nobody but an artist would have the stuff in his house, much less like the nutty red figures. They made Hal think of dancing red corpses. A pair of heavy drapes the color of stale, dried blood cut across the hall just behind the telephone table.
The reporter’s nose wrinkled. The joint smelled like dames.
“There’s been—an accident out on the road,” he explained. “Just ran in to use your telephone. Call the office.” He strode toward the instrument
Sharp footsteps pattered in the back hall and a slightly built, dapper little man came through the heavy drapes. It was Andre Renan. The little Frenchman recognized Hal and came forward, holding out his sensitive, long-fingered hands.
“My good friend, l’homme des lettres!” he greeted effusively a smile baring gleaming teeth beneath his tiny black mustache “Moggs!” he spun to the manservant, his slim, lithe body moving with striking grace, “bring eau-de-vie—whiskey! M. Parker must be upset.” Moggs stolidly left the hallway. Renan turned back to the reporter. “You mentioned an accident en route?” His black brows shot upward questioningly. “You’re not injured?”
“No. Thanks.” Hal shoved hard fingers through his thick brown hair, felt the cold dampness of sweat on his wrist, and a mirthless smile touched his lips. “No,” he repeated grimly, “I’m not injured. Just dropped in to use your telephone. A guy swiped my car.”
The Murder Megapack Page 32
