The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35

by Frederick Nebel

  “We got back those papers they swiped from your office. And that laborer, by the way—that guy that drowned—he was pushed over. Other guys before him were pushed too. It was a sweet game, and Detronius cleaned up a couple a hundred grand. But this girl here—she knew nothing about the killing—”

  “Please,” cried Francesca anxiously, running over to sit on the arm of Cardigan’s chair, “you do believe so it is, no?”

  He put his arm around her waist. “Francesca, from your lips, hell, anything sounds like the truth. Can I come up some time?” He patted her hip, then said: “Oh-oh, Uncle Delbanca is looking daggers this way. Shoo, little firefly.”

  Delbanca smiled joyously as Francesca returned to him, and he said: “Please, meesters, for to have a drink on me.”

  Instantly everyone looked very cheerful, and Cardigan, rubbing his hands together, cocked an eye at McGovern. “Well, Mac, I guess the Cosmos Agency came through again, eh?”

  “Came through!” exploded McGovern. “Why if it wasn’t for me, you big mug—”

  “Baloney. If it wasn’t for Pat there, these babies would have got away. She swiped the switch key.”

  McGovern gritted his teeth. “O.K. Give her her due. I’m a gentleman. But if it wasn’t for August dropping that banana—”

  “Phooey on you, Mac!”

  “And I’m beginning to believe,” said McGovern darkly, “that you gave me this shiner on purpose.”

  “Yeah? Maybe I don’t think you put that cop up to sock me on the head, so you could take all the credit and—”

  Pat stamped her foot, cried: “Please—stop it, stop it! You should both thank your stars you’re alive! Bickering—bickering all the time; like a couple of school kids.”

  Both Cardigan and McGovern bit their lips and looked down at the floor.

  A cop poked his head through the doorway and said: “Excuse me, Sarge, but Merkel just stopped by on his way from the hospital and told me to tell you Hunerkopf said will you please bring him a bag of fruit—apples and bananas mostly, but no oranges on account of he swallows the pits all the time. That guy Shoes O’Riley asked Hunerkopf how he could be a good cop, and Hunerkopf told him he should eat plenty of fruit, so Shoes is now trying to trade five gold teeth for a barrel of apples.”

  McGovern groaned and said: “Quick, Delbanca—give me a drink before I go ga-ga!… Imagine! That mug wants to become a cop!”

  “That’s an idea, Mac,” Cardigan said cheerfully. “Why don’t you try becoming one?”

  “Chief!” cried Pat. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  “Read ’em and Weep”

  Chapter One

  Overnight Bag

  SHE was tall, long-legged. Her stride carried her swiftly through the clutter of pedestrian traffic on Market Street and at her side swung a yellow overnight bag. At times she seemed on the point of breaking into a run but in the end she did not. She was smartly dressed, with a pie-plate hat whipped down over one eyebrow, a warm-looking suit of tamarack brown, lizard-skin shoes whose high heels clicked on the pavement. The wind, noisy, rowdy, ripped into her face, flattened her long skirt against driving legs. Her lips were pursed and a harried look darted in and out of her large dark eyes.

  There was a small office building with a yawning old entryway flanked on either side by signs; and her eyes, flicking this array of signs, spotted one and then instantly fastened on it. Without slowing down, she swept through the doorway and into a gloomy lobby. A brass elevator cage was at her left but the car was elsewhere. She looked at the directory board, moved her lips and, still moving them, ran swiftly up the staircase. Upstairs, she hurried down a wide, low corridor, glancing at the inscriptions on the ground-glass door panels, until she came face to face with one which drew a sigh of relief from her lips. She did not hesitate. Palming the knob, she threw open the door, closed it behind her so quickly that it slammed.

  CARDIGAN, sitting behind his desk in the inner sanctum, saw her through the open doorway leading to the reception office. He was, at the time, downing a tall glass of tomato juice highly stepped up with Worcestershire sauce. He was in the throes of a hangover, and though his eyes looked muddy they instantly saw that the girl’s face was flushed, her eyes wide, her lips a little parted from breathlessness.

  He stood up and said, “In here.” His hair was a shambles, bunching at the ears, looping down on his thick, hard nape. His suit was old, decently pressed but inclined to jut and bag anyhow; one point of his collar was inside his vest, the other out, and his tie was of good quality but hopelessly out of line. He stood indicating an empty chair with his big, powerful hand, and as the girl came a little haltingly into the office he said, “Take a seat,” and flopped back into his chair at the same time. His weight jarred the chair and made it creak, and he hooked one heel on an open lower desk drawer.

  The girl sat down and put the overnight bag on the floor beside her. She rubbed the arm that had carried it and said in a winded voice: “I guess it almost broke my arm.” And then, trying to control her breath, “Are you Mr. Cardigan? I saw the name on the door and—”

  “Yes.” He poured half a glass of tomato juice. “What can I do for you?” The heat of old liquor not yet burned off hung in his head like hot sweat. His eyes felt heavy, dull, but they moved by instinct back and forth across the girl’s face. He saw she was eager and yet reluctant to speak. “Shoot,” he said.

  She leaned forward from the waist, pursed her lips for an instant and then said in a rush of breath: “I should like to have my husband shadowed.” Then she sat back, her face suddenly blank, her eyes watching him, her breath held up.

  He laughed under his breath. “Scared you, huh?”

  “You see,” she hastened to explain, “I’m not used to this sort of thing. I—I didn’t know how to begin. I had thought of several ways to begin and then I forgot them and just blurted it out.”

  He drank what remained of the tomato juice, rose, went to the water cooler and drew a glass of water. Leaning against the cooler, he said: “We don’t handle that business. What’s he been doing, crossing corners on you?”

  “I—I think—”

  “You think, yes,” he said and came back to the desk. He sat down, ripped a small, plain green slip from a memorandum pad and wrote on it. “This guy can help you. He’s the best in that line in town.” He held the slip across the desk.

  She took it, read it; she folded it and tucked it away in her handbag and grimaced a bit. “I’m sorry I troubled you.”

  “Not at all. Try Claybolt. He’s good.”

  She dropped her eyes, said: “I suppose now I’ll not be able to work up enough courage again till this afternoon.” She stood up abruptly. “Would you—do you mind if I leave my overnight bag here for about an hour? I’ve some shopping to do and”—she touched her arm—“the bag’s been breaking—”

  He rose. “Sure. Leave it and come back when you can. I’ll stick it in the locker.”

  “Oh, thank you so much.”

  He scooped up the yellow bag, carried it across the room and placed it in a tall metal locker. “Tell Claybolt I sent you,” he said, and saw her to the door.

  IN about five minutes the outer door opened and two men came in and Cardigan called, “Good-morning. Come right in.” He shoved his correspondence aside and stood up as the two men entered his office. One was rotund, dressed in excellent taste; he had a merry, red-cheeked face, eyes that jigged merrily behind horn-rimmed glasses, and a lop-sided, happy grin.

  “Good-morning, good-morning, Mr. Cardigan.” He came forward with his hand thrust out and gripped Cardigan’s vigorously. “I thought I might be too early but I see I am not. I am very glad indeed to find you in. I brought my secretary along. I am in the habit of forgetting things, you see. Oh, pardon me, you are not busy, are you?”

  “Not at all. Sit down, won’t you?”

  The rotund man sat down happily, beaming from ear to ear. His secretary, a wooden-faced tall man, young, who wore fragile rimles
s nose-glasses, made a slight bow but did not sit down. He stared absently at the surface of Cardigan’s desk.

  “I don’t propose,” the rotund man went on happily, “to take up much of your time. I am not a man to take up too much of another’s time, and I like, I always like, Mr. Cardigan, to come to the point as quickly as possible. I daresay you are a man of such habits also, if I am any judge of character at all. Beating about the bush, so to speak, gets no one anywhere. Right, Mr. Cardigan?” he beamed.

  Cardigan said: “I’m at your service.”

  The rotund man slapped his knee zestfully. “By George, that’s was I like to hear! That is certainly what I like to hear, Mr. Cardigan. I can see why you were made head of the San Francisco branch of your estimable agency.” He leaned forward, his round eyes bubbling like blue water behind his glasses. “So we can spare both your time and mine and come directly to the point. There was a young lady in here a few minutes ago—”

  Cardigan scowled.

  “Ah, yes!” the rotund man laughed joyously, raising a plump, immaculate hand. “I understand. Yes, we all understand. Well, my dear sir, she left a bag here, I believe. I am a pointed man. I don’t wish to beat about the bush. I will pay you one hundred dollars for the bag.”

  Cardigan said in a guttural though not unpleasant voice: “Hardly. She left it here and she’ll drop by for it. I’d be a swell mug to—”

  “Might I ask a straightforward question, Mr. Cardigan?”

  “Shoot.”

  “How much did she pay you?”

  Cardigan shrugged. “Nothing. She came in and asked us to take a case and I said we couldn’t and referred her to an agency that would. She asked if she could leave the bag here and I said she could.” He shook his head. “She’s no client of mine.”

  The rotund man grinned broadly. “That is what I like, Mr. Cardigan—straight talking. Now—now, sir, perhaps, say—one hundred and fifty dollars?”

  Cardigan shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business and I don’t know her and I don’t know you but she left the bag here and here it stays till she comes back.”

  The rotund man rose, sighed. “Very well, Mr. Cardigan. I thought there would be no harm in asking. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you and—well, sir, good-day, good-day.” He bowed, his cheeks rosy. He turned, took hold of his secretary’s arm and walked with him to the connecting doorway. The secretary stepped through the doorway first, the rotund man followed briskly, then stepped to one side as the secretary pivoted and stepped back through the doorway holding a gun in his hand.

  Cardigan sat back in his chair. “Nice footwork,” he growled.

  “Hold that pose,” the secretary said wearily.

  And the rotund man’s cheerful voice said: “Now where is the tan overnight bag, Mr. Cardigan?”

  “Look for it.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  A moment later the rotund man drew the bag from the steel locker, hefted it and said: “I regret indeed, Mr. Cardigan, that this must happen. Still, I offered you one hundred and fifty dollars. And I am, I am a man of my word.” He placed two crisp bills on Cardigan’s desk. “There you are, my dear sir.”

  Cardigan said: “You know what you can do with that, sweetheart.”

  The jolly man laughed and shook all over with his laughter. “I dare say that on better acquaintance you would prove a card, Mr. Cardigan.”

  The secretary said in a weary voice: “Come on, come on.”

  “Right-o!” his companion cried, drawing a blackjack.

  The blackjack crashed against Cardigan’s mop of coarse black hair. His knees hit the under side of the desk as his body jerked downward.

  The rotund man chuckled good-naturedly, picked up the two crisp bills and said: “Well, Cyril, let us go.” He slapped the tall young man’s back. “Come on, look cheerful. You look bored.”

  “I am bored. I’m always bored.”

  Blood was trickling down past Cardigan’s left temple as the two men went out.

  CARDIGAN came to and sat looking sluggishly at the clock on his desk. Then he looked at the watch on his wrist. Both the clock and the watch showed the same time. He’d been out for an hour.

  “I guess I can’t take it anymore,” he muttered, and went into the washroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and then washed off a lot of blood. Returning to his desk, and holding a wet towel on his head, he called a number and said: “Doc?… This is Cardigan over at the Cosmos. Come over, will you?… I don’t know; maybe I fell down a sewer. Make it snappy, will you?”

  He was walking up and down, holding a fresh towel on his head, when Doctor Nussbaum came swinging into the office. Nussbaum was a small, shriveled man with a hawk’s eye.

  He held a remonstrative finger aloft, winked wickedly. “Ah, fighting again, eh? Shame, shame!”

  “Nuts, please,” Cardigan grumbled. He balled up the towel and pitched it into the washroom.

  “Was lucky you caught me in,” Nussbaum chattered on. “I just got back from sewing up a fellow’s lip. His wife hit him with the radio. You should have seen him. Six stitches. But it was a beautiful cut, a beautiful one. What happened to you?”

  Cardigan flopped into his swivel chair and said, “I told you I fell down a sewer.”

  Nussbaum clucked. “Tsk! Bad business. I once knew a fellow fell down a sewer. Cut his face wide open. It was a beautiful job, though, a beautiful one. What happened, he got drunk and thought it was the old swimming hole. Ha! Ha!”

  “You’re sure a ray of sunshine, Max. Well, take a look at this and tell me if it hurts…. Ouch!”

  “Sissy.”

  “Sissy your aunt!”

  “I’ll have to cut some hair away. Does it hurt?”

  “You damned fool, of course it hurts!”

  The outer door opened. Cardigan lurched and made a pass at the drawer in which his gun lay. But it was only Pat Seaward. She looked very bright and fresh and very smart in a new sports suit of peppery gray.

  “Chief!” she cried, tossing her handbag on the outer-office desk and running into his private office. “Oh, chief, what did happen?”

  Nussbaum bowed, grinned. “He fell down a sewer.”

  Pat stood poised, wide-eyed with anxiety. “Chief, tell me—”

  He said: “First let this butcher have his fun, chicken. Ouch, Max! Damn it—uncle! Uncle!”

  Nussbaum cooed and worked rapidly, deftly, while Cardigan gritted his teeth, cursed, kicked, and Pat stood in a corner holding her hands against her ears and with her face to the wall. Presently Nussbaum stepped back, went into the washroom, washed his hands and reappeared briskly. He repacked his small black bag and lit a cheroot.

  “It was really nothing, Cardigan. Phooey! Four stitches. Four little stitches!”

  Cardigan drank half a water glass of whisky, paid Nussbaum and said: “I hope I don’t see you some more.”

  Nussbaum went out with a sprightly whistle on his lips and Pat sat down anxiously on the edge of a chair.

  She asked in a small voice: “Trouble, chief?”

  He stood up, scowled and made a dramatic gesture. “Here I’m sitting in my office, minding my own business, and look what happens.” He dropped to the chair again, lit a cigarette. “I’m going to sit here for another hour. A girl was supposed to come back for a doohickey.” He blew smoke through his nose. “I don’t think she’ll come back.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  He spread his palms. “Nothing. There’s nothing to do. I saw three people this morning and I don’t know their names, I don’t know where they came from or why.”

  “It sounds goofy, chief.”

  “You’re telling me, Patsy?”

  Chapter Two

  The Green Slip

  CARDIGAN went to the Sea Shell, in Powell Street, that night. It was his favorite restaurant and he went directly to his favorite table, in a rear corner behind a pillar. He wore a face a mile long, for his head ached, he felt rotten general
ly, and being not very hungry, he ordered two dozen oysters on the shell, filet of sole Meunière with French fried potatoes, asparagus tips and a seidel of St. Louis beer. He was halfway through the oysters when Lieutenant Clancy McCoy drifted up to the table, hung up a silver gray fedora and said: “What happened to your head, Jack?”

  “I fell down a sewer.”

  Clancy McCoy chuckled with dry good humor. He was a tall, narrow blade of a man dressed in the height of fashion. His brass-colored hair was slicked down tightly on his head and beneath his aquiline nose was a brassy mustache, small, pointed. His linen was crisp, distinguished. He ordered a small beer and leaned his sharp elbows comfortably on the table.

  He said: “Ever hear of Jake Claybolt?”

  “The boudoir op? Sure.”

  “What kind of a potato would you say he was?”

  “Jake’s jake. Small business, handled mostly by himself. Absolutely on the up and up but—you know—he touches stuff we can’t touch. What’s the matter, you thinking of riding him?”

  McCoy laughed absently. “Not at all.” The small beer arrived and he went on: “If a client came to you, Jack, and propositioned you and it wasn’t the kind of tripe you could handle, what would you do?”

  “If I thought it was decent tripe, I’d send the guy to Jake.”

  “Who’d you send over there recently?”

  “How recent?”

  “Yesterday or today, maybe.”

  “Nobody yesterday. Today—a jane. A looker, too.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Clancy McCoy smiled. “Come on, Jack.”

  “Honest, Clance. I don’t know. I never asked her.”

  “Was she the one hit you with the sewer?”

  Cardigan looked sourly at Clancy McCoy. “What are you fishing for?” he growled.

  Clancy McCoy smiled and made himself more comfortable on his elbows. “Everything you know, Jack.”

  “If you think I’m mixed up in anything, Clance, you’re screwy.” He leaned forward. “I’ll surprise you, sweetheart, and tell you what happened.”