“Well,” Merlini said, “you know him better than I do. But I doubt that. He’s more likely to throw you into solitary for life so you won’t be able to spread the news that it’s so easy to cop a sneak out of his pride and joy of a jail. Besides, if you boys play ball it will be worth a double-saw apiece. That’ll fix you up for smokes and a few other luxuries. Ten now and ten later if you keep him thinking we’re still here as long as you can get away with it.”
Rednose was interested but skeptical. “Yeah, but if you get out, what the hell would you be coming back for? How’d we get that other ten?”
“I’ll be back. If not, I’ll mail it. You’ll have to take a chance there. Though if the Sheriff has anything to say about it, I won’t be gone long. He wants me for murder.” Merlini put the word in verbal italics.
Our friends looked at each other uneasily. This was out of their class.
Willie said then, “Okay. You’re the boss. I’d sorta like to stick around to see dribble-puss’s face when he discovers you’ve crashed outta his nice, shiny new can.”
Quickly Merlini transferred the men to our cells and began locking them in.
“Why bother with that?” I asked. “If we just throw the switch that’ll be enough.”
Merlini shook his head. “You’ve no feeling at all for the finer points of jail breaking, Ross.”
“Maybe Hooper will believe in ghosts then. That is, he may, if we can get the rest of the way out without being seen. The tough part is still to come. There’s only one way—out the front door, and we’ve got to—Ross! Quick! Someone coming.”
I had heard the footsteps, too. I ran for the door on my toes, making as little sound as possible. I got there just as it opened. Robbins’s astonishment was all that saved us. My haymaker arrived in the nick of time—just as his mouth opened and the warning cry rose in his throat. The punch landed square on the point of his chin; his jaw closed with a sharp dental click; and Merlini, arriving as though it had been rehearsed, caught him as he fell.
“I was afraid we were having it too much our own way,” Merlini said. “Now we are in for it. They’ll be looking for him when he doesn’t come back and, even if we do get out, we won’t have any time to ourselves at all. There’s only one thing to do. Take his feet.”
We carried Robbins into cell number three and laid him out on a cot. Merlini relieved him of his gun and moved back toward the outer door again. “I’m afraid we won’t leave a mystery behind us after all,” he said. “It’s going to be only too obvious to Hooper how we—”
More footsteps approached the door from the other side. When it swung open, Hooper was saying, “Robbins, just in case that magician still has any funny—”
“—ideas about escaping,” Merlini’s voice finished for him. “Sorry we must be going, Chief. We’ve had a lovely time, but it’s getting late. Take his gun, Ross.”
Even without the gun I don’t think I’d have needed to give Hooper a sock on the jaw to quiet him. The very sight of us was having all the effect of a mulekick.
“Now, Hooper, if you’ll just ask Captain Schafer and Stevens to step in here, I think we can handle the rest of the boys two at a time. And careful of your voice.”
Since he thought Merlini was a murderer and crazy to boot, he was far more impressed than I would have been at the sight of Merlini’s gun. The Chief didn’t know that Merlini had a positive dislike for firearms of any sort, and had no intention of using one now.
He gulped a bit, got his vocal chords under control, and called out as directed.
“Thanks,” Merlini said. “This way, Chief. You watch the door, Ross.”
Hooper started a protest, but Merlini cut him off. “No arguments. March!”
The Chief’s expression was a really interesting sight. Baffled bewilderment and griping rage played across his face like the shifting flicker of an Aurora Borealis. His face, also like the northern lights, was green, and I hoped fervently that when the incandescent gases that were beneath its surface finally erupted I would be miles away.
Merlini put Hooper in a cell and I threw the switch. Then the Captain and Stevens arrived together. Expressions exactly similar to the Chief’s blossomed on the faces of everyone who walked through that door in the next few minutes. I collected a couple more guns; Schafer called and kindly decoyed his two troopers and the remaining three of the Chief’s men into our trap; we filed them all neatly away.
Merlini told Schafer, “I’m sorry about this. You can blame Inspector Gavigan. If he hadn’t double-crossed me I wouldn’t have needed to take such extreme measures. Is O’Halloran still around?”
“No,” Schafer snapped, “he’s gone. And if you think you can get away with this—”
“Let’s go, Ross,” said Merlini. “But quietly. I don’t trust the Captain much.”
We had nearly reached the door of the Chief’s office, when hell broke loose in the cell-block behind us. Quickly Merlini kicked in the Chief’s door. O’Halloran stood at Hooper’s desk, examining the paraffin molds Burns had made, his back toward us. He pivoted instantly, and, in turning, started to say, “What’s all that racket out—”
Then he saw Merlini’s gun and his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t move your hands, O’Halloran,” the latter commanded. “Give me his gun, Ross.”
O’Halloran was as puzzled as the others, but as I went toward him he laughed. “All you need is a cutlass between your teeth, Ross. I’ll be damned!”
I’m afraid I did look rather like Sir Henry Morgan preparing to repel boarders. I had a .45 in each hand and two more tucked into my belt. I transferred one to my coat pocket and took O’Halloran’s .32 and passed it to Merlini.
“I collect firearms too,” I said. “Official police weapons mostly.”
“How the hell did you get loose?” O’Halloran asked. “And what did you do to Hooper? That sounds like his bellow out there.”
“It is,” Merlini said. “He, most of the Norwalk police department, and a detachment of state troopers are signed up for a little night course in applied penology. Class won’t be dismissed for some time yet, I hope. To make sure of that, we’ve got to do something about you. You can either join them or sign articles with us. Which will it be?”
“You do things up brown, don’t you?” O’Halloran said, regarding us thoughtfully.
“It’s my favorite color,” Merlini replied. “Make up your mind. We’re getting out of here before something else delays us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going back to that circus lot and polish off some unfinished business before I get tangled up in more official red tape. You’re getting an invite to go along because I want that story of yours. What about it?”
O’Halloran grinned. “Let’s go,” he said, starting for the door.
The angry roaring from the cell-block outside reminded me of the Bronx Zoo at feeding time.
O’Halloran added, “Boy, oh boy! I hate to think of what will happen when Hooper, Schafer & Co. catch up with us. I hope you’ll remember that I came with you because I had no choice. You sure you haven’t bitten off more than you can digest, Merlini?”
“I don’t know.” Merlini was trying on a uniform cap that lay on Burns’s desk. “I expect there’ll be signs of a stomach ache. But if we can bring back the real murderer, Hooper and Schafer will have to take it and like it.”
“I warn you, he won’t take anything less than that. You two have chalked up a whole damn police blotter full of offenses; and, if you wear those uniforms out of here, they’ll jump you for impersonating an officer. But”—O’Halloran paused—“I’ll give odds of two to one that you pull it off.”
“You will?” Merlini asked. “Why?”
“Because,” O’Halloran smiled, “I’ll make you a present of the murderer. I know who he is! I’ve got this case on ice!”
Chapter Eighteen
Headless Man
MERLINI’S FACE DIDN’T WEAR the dismayed look I hal
f expected. Instead he said, “That’s fine. I’m glad to hear that there’s one detective in the immediate vicinity who doesn’t think that I’m the culprit. Now, let’s blow before we meet someone else we’ll have to lock up. We’ll hear your story on the way.”
“Okay,” O’Halloran agreed. “Can I have my gun now?”
“No. I’ll keep it for the moment just in case you should get the urge to revert to the side of law and order. I don’t want to see any more jails tonight. They slow me up. Come on.”
As we left the building O’Halloran said, “My car’s right here.”
“Our transportation,” Merlini replied, “is all arranged for. You can get your car later.” Rapidly he led us down the street to where a Ford sedan was inconspicuously parked a block away. There was a man at the wheel.
Merlini’s appearance as an officer of the law wouldn’t have won him any commendations at police inspection; too many extra inches of wrist and ankle projected from beneath his uniform’s inadequate coverage. But this unnatty appearance wasn’t greatly noticeable in the darkness; and, in any case, the bullying, officious voice he suddenly assumed more than made up for it.
“You can’t park here,” he said sternly to the figure in the car. “I’ll have to give you a ticket.”
Farmer’s voice answered, “Now listen, Officer—” Then at Merlini’s chuckle he stopped. “Oh, it’s you. What kept you so long? You must be slipping.”
“We were busy delaying the pursuit,” Merlini explained. “The showground, James.”
As we piled in, I said, “I’m beginning to get it now— or part of it. Case the can means ‘watch the jail,’ and I’ll light a rag, I suppose is ‘I’ll escape.’” (Light a rag actually means: to leave. Synonymous with cop a sneak, take a powder, lam.)
“Okay,” O’Halloran said. “Here’s where you find out who your Headless Lady was. I’d better go slow, start way back at the beginning and break it to you gradually. Three weeks back a couple of gorillas walked into Maxie Weissman’s country hide-out near Bridgeport and let a lot of daylight through him with Tommy guns. You know that. What wasn’t in the papers was the fact that Maxie’s pals, mainly his mouthpiece, Duke Miller, and Bo Lepkewitz started scrapping about who was going to take over. In the mixup, somebody with an ax to grind spilled a lot of first-class beans in the D.A.’s ear. He had himself a picnic. He had Judge Commager and Judge Parton busy issuing warrants in shifts. But they needed just a little more than what they had to really pin down the big shots. They figured that the right kind of pressure on the Duke would do the trick, but he got a tip-off and turned up missing just as they reached for him.
“The Crime Prevention Association and the Merchant’s Bureau put up rewards that added to ten grand. The agency business hasn’t been too hot lately, so I thought maybe I could, with luck, cut myself a piece of that. When the D.A. found the Duke had gotten off the hook, he got Inspector Gavigan assigned to special duty and they got busy. First thing they did was put tails on Paula Starr.”
I groaned. “So that’s it. Paula Starr, café society’s darling. El Algier’s acrobatic dancing sensation, Broadway’s cutest nudist. The Duke’s gal friend. And you’re going to tell us that she—”
“Is Pauline’s sister, Paulette Hannum; that she was the Headless Lady; that she’s not only the Duke’s girl friend—they’ve been married for five years; and that Duke Miller is the ex-circus legal adjuster, Andy Meyers, that she eloped with. You begin to see light?”
“The dawn came up like thunder,” I said. “But what—”
“Ross,” Merlini cut in impatiently, “shut up and let him talk. Gavigan’s men were tailing Paula, hoping that she’d contact the missing Duke. Then what?”
“Well,” O’Halloran went on, “I hung around her apartment some, too, looking for a break. Last Friday I got it. Paula left her apartment in the East Fifties and ankled into the classiest eating joint on Park for lunch. One of the city dicks, Mike Brady, followed her in, flashed his shield, and got a table in the corner and a glass of water. The cover charge alone in that place almost runs into three figures, and if he’d ordered anything more than water the mayor would have started an investigation. That was where I had the edge on him. I took a chance, pushed in enough blue chips to buy me meals for a week, greased the headwaiter with a fin, and got a table next to hers. So, when it happened, I was close enough to get something Mike missed. I caught her giving the wink to another dame a couple of tables away. What made me sit up and take notice was the fact that they looked a hell of a lot alike. The other gal wasn’t the 14K looker that Paula was, but she’d get by all right. The main thing was I had a hunch that kept getting stronger all the time that they were sisters. Then what happens but Paula gets up and heads for the nearest ladies’ can and a minute or so later the other gal does the same. It was a smart dodge—Paula knew Mike was tailing her, and she knew he couldn’t follow her in there, not unless he was carrying a disguise kit with a wig and a set of skirts in it, like these pulp-magazine dicks do.
“I was damned sure now that the lunch money I’d risked was going to pay off, and when Paula left with the boys after her, I hung around and gave attention to sister. You know what happened then. It was Pauline, and she ends up at your shop and disappears on me. I still want to know what happened. Secret passageway you have built in, I suppose?”
“No,” Merlini replied. “She got a glimpse of you and left via the fire escape. Then you followed us, thinking we were Duke Miller in disguise, probably.”
“Well, I admit I didn’t know what the hell to think. If you were friends of the Duke’s you were new ones on me. But he had funny friends. And anyway, all I could do was check on you. I followed you downtown to the Square, and then I phoned one of my men and, when he took over, I went back to the office and started checking on sister. She’d made a stop at Billboard magazine before coming up to your place, so I phoned there and found out that she’d come in to pick up some mail, that her name was Pauline Hannum, and that she was with the Hannum Circus, which was showing in Bridgeport the next day. The first names, Paula and Pauline, clicked; and I knew damn well they were sisters and had had a conference in the ladies’ room and that something was on the fire. I figured this could be the contact with the Duke, and I decided to make tracks for the circus. And then that night, while you two were driving up from Albany, hell busted loose.”
“Your man was still tailing us?” Merlini asked.
“Yeah. He stayed on until Sunday when I called him off. He’d been sending in some of the dizziest reports about a convention of crackpots you were attending. What made him sure you were all fresh out of a loony house was when some guy who had been talking to you marched over and calmly cut off most of his necktie with a pair of scissors. Anyway, it didn’t sound much as if you were tied up with the Duke, so I called him off.”
“That joke,” Merlini said wryly, “seems to have turned and bitten me. If the O’Halloran Detective Agency had only decided I was a more sinister character, you’d have kept the man on, and Ross and I would have had a witness to the fact that we were in Albany when the Major was killed.”
“Teach you a lesson, maybe,” O’Halloran said. “And you owe me two bucks. My man put the cost of the tie on his swindle sheet. What the hell was the gag?”
“Swindle sheet is right,” Merlini replied. “The tie came off Gimbel’s dollar counter. I had just sold a customer a trick pair of scissors with only one blade. Magicians use them for a laugh, handing them to a spectator who’s assisting on stage and asking him to cut the rope the performer will later restore again. The scissors look all right and sound all right, but they don’t cut. I demonstrated them, and then, because my customer was a little tight and I suspected he’d go right to work with them, as a joke I secretly switched them for a good pair. And he cut the tie that was worn by the dick that worked for O’Halloran who called him off and left me without an alibi on account of which I landed in the jail that the Çhief built!”
&n
bsp; “And now,” I objected, “you’re delaying the next installment. What happened while we were driving to Albany Friday night? You said hell broke loose.”
“Paula Starr,” O’Halloran explained, “dusted the D.A.’s men off her tail with a vanishing trick of her own. Those two gals should be billed as the Vanishing Twins. That half-dollar of yours doesn’t do any better. She popped in at the stage door of El Algiers a few minutes before her act was due on. Knowing she’d be busy giving the customers an eyeful for the next twenty minutes or so, the boys relaxed a bit. And Paula dolls herself up in an ermine wrap and a prop tiara, picks up Tommy Mannering at the bar for color, and slithers out the front door as if she was the current No. 1 glamour girl. She had her nose so high in the air even the news photographer out front who got a shot of them didn’t realize who it was until he’d developed his film. She led Mannering to the Crystal Club, knowing that the powder room there has two entrances. Powder rooms seem to be her specialty. Mannering hasn’t seen her since, except in the papers. Saturday morning every sheet in town had her publicity leg art all over the front pages—those they could run and still send the edition through the mails. Here”—O’Halloran pulled a clipping from his pocket—“this is a sample of the text that went with ’em.”
He shoved it at me and I read it aloud. “Wilbur Wilton—On the Main Stem.”
“Cops and Robbers—We knew it would happen. The Dicktracys from the D.A.’s office are still holding the sack down at El Algiers, café society’s smartest hotspot. Duke (Ten Grand) Miller’s ever loving mamma, Paula Starr, the Nightspot Queen, topped her near nude dancing routine with the neatest trick yet when she turned her beauteous self inside out and disappeared as completely as vaudeville… Chief Inspector Gavigan invented some new cuss words (naughty naughty) and transferred two not so bright-eyed sleuths to the back side of Staten Island.
Headless Lady Page 19
