Cardigan drank the highball himself and said aloud: “Maybe she thinks she can still take it.” He lit a cigarette and mused: “But it still’s goofy as hell. There’s only one thing I’m sure of: those two funnybones would have finished me if I hadn’t remembered my lessons.”
He sat down and smoked half a dozen cigarettes in a row. He wanted no part of this. It was none of his business and he did not want to pry into anything that did not really concern him. He knew that Myron and Cyril were a pair of the coldest potential killers he’d ever run across. The girl still puzzled him. But he could make neither head nor tail of the whole lunatic business and didn’t want to try figuring it out. Still, he liked the way the girl had taken that torture. Not a murmur. Not a peep. He stood up, frowning to himself. He was half tempted to slope out and see if he could find her and try to talk sense to her. But then he knew immediately that he could never find her.
The telephone rang and he picked it up and said: “Hello…. Oh, hello, Pat…. Me? I’m O.K. Some ham actors just pulled off a little comedy here but…. Where?… What’s up?… You haven’t time to go into detail? That’s an old gag…. O.K., precious, I’ll shoot over.”
He picked up his hat, went out into the corridor. He locked the door and thumped his big feet down the stairway and stood for a moment outside on the stoop. Then he walked up California, found a loafing taxicab in the next block and climbed in. Settling back, he gave the driver the address. The cab rolled off, rolled past Lafayette Park and swung down into Pacific Street. It was a nice night and the mild, damp air blew in through the cab’s open window. Beyond Grant Avenue the way was dark, dismal, deserted. The bones of a once notorious street seemed to groan here, and up it now came the nearer smell of the bay. The old Hippodrome was a hulking ghost in the gloom; and beyond, the Old Ship Hotel squatted dolorously on a corner. Cardigan got out on the Embarcadero and watched the cab roll away.
He walked on in the shadow-ridden darkness, the bay near him, the sharp smell of it in his nostrils. He could see the clean winking lights of ships, the high shapes of ships moored at wharfs. He wished he could get on a ship some day and get far away from a business where cracked-open scalps weren’t an every-day occurrence.
He spotted the lighted lunchroom window and smelled the familiar smell of frying Hamburg steak. He saw Pat move along the front of the window and as he came up to her he said: “This is a swell place for a nice home-girl to be hanging out.”
“Oh, I was so frightened you were hurt again,” she cried in a low voice. “I—I telephoned you tonight to see how you were, and I heard the click of a receiver being lifted and then a man’s voice saying, ‘Hang up—instantly!’ like that. I knew you’d hung up. I knew you were in trouble again.
“So I hurried over to your place and I was about to start up the staircase when I heard footsteps and voices. I hid in the stairwell and two men came down and one was saying peevishly, ‘Oh, you should have let me shoot Cardigan—just once.’ And then the other said, ‘Please be reasonable, Cyril. Stroud must have it after all. We’ll go and call on Stroud.’
“Well, chief, I was scared stiff, but then I reasoned it out that they hadn’t harmed you, and I was about to follow them when I heard more footsteps—quick ones. A girl came down—stunning girl. And I remembered about the girl who’d called on you—and about the two men you said had knocked you out. The girl went out swiftly and then I went out and then I found that the girl was following the two men. So I followed all three of them. But wait. As I went out on the stoop of your house, I saw a man following the others.”
Cardigan groaned: “Good Lord, this’ll turn into a parade yet. But I don’t see why we should horn in on it.” He cut himself short, thinking of the tall girl with the swimming eyes and the ability to take it, and said: “Yes I do. There’s fifty grand of somebody’s dough floating around and ten to one somebody owns it legally. There’s usually a reward and papa needs socks and shirts and things…. Where’d this bunch of clowns go?”
She pointed. “See that warehouse? Well, they went in that. I walked past it and there’s a sign up—it’s for sale or lease. There are no lights visible—but still, they went in there. First, the two men; then the girl; then a little later the man who’d been following the other three…. By the way, did you notice anyone following you?”
“No.”
“I just thought I saw someone duck beneath that light back there.”
“Imagination. No one’d follow me.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
THEY walked up the street to the looming warehouse and at one corner of it found a small door. Cardigan drew his gun from its spring holster and thrust it into his pocket, leaving his hand in the pocket also. He opened the door far enough to squeeze through and it was simple for Pat to skip through that same opening. He closed the door and stood with her in the darkness. It was damp and cool and smelled of dampened dust. There was a sense of dark space yawning limitless about them. Cardigan took hold of Pat’s hand and began to feel his way with his feet.
They stopped against a supporting pillar and stood there for a moment, listening warily about. But it seemed futile to try to see anything; the darkness was so complete, so final that they could not see each other. They moved on again, inch by inch, and suddenly they heard a brief, scraping sound. Both stopped and Pat gripped Cardigan’s hand hard. They waited for possibly five minutes but did not hear the sound again, and presently they moved onward.
Then Cardigan bumped into something that recoiled. Instantly he slashed out with his gun. Its barrel struck something. There was a short, muffled cry and fleeing footsteps. Then a muffled thud, as though the figure had collided with one of the supporting pillars. Then silence again.
In a few minutes Cardigan and Pat were in motion once more, feeling their uncertain way through the blackness. Then Cardigan stopped and Pat pressed close to him. He leaned down and whispered into her ear: “I smell cigarette smoke. I didn’t smell it before. It’s pretty strong right here.”
They moved on a few more yards and then Cardigan whispered, “Now it’s stronger.” He groped around with his hand and came in contact with wood. He followed his probing fingers and in a minute he stopped and said: “It feels like and has the dimensions of an old packing case.”
She pressed his hand. He groped around some more, getting down on his knees, where the smell of tobacco was stronger still. He discovered that one side of the packing case was unfastened at the bottom; or rather, he figured, the case was resting upside down and that part of one side which paralleled the floor was loose. He tried—cautiously—to move this side. It moved. It could be pulled outward and upward, on hinges.
He whispered: “This is it. The case covers an opening in the floor.”
They lifted the side sufficiently for them to crawl into the case, and then they let the side down again quietly. Below, through an opening in the floor, they saw a few needles of light. A ladder led down to a spacious underground enclosure, and at the deep end of this enclosure there was, judging by the needles of light, a door. Beyond that door—doubtless—a room. In that room….
There were voices in that room, and here in the boxlike enclosure at the foot of the ladder the tobacco smoke was dense, acrid, moving sluggishly upward through the damp air.
“You hide in that corner,” Cardigan whispered, “underneath the ladder.”
Her hand slipped from his and then he went forward and paused outside the door. He could not make out any words, but he recognized the rotund man’s voice, the girl’s voice; once he heard Cyril’s voice, and there was another voice, deeper than all the others, angry, half snarling.
After several minutes he heard the girl cry out. Her voice sounded anguished and seemed to plead, over and over again, and then it stopped suddenly and there was the smooth, chiding voice of Myron, the rotund man. And then, after a moment during which the deepest voice rumbled, the girl crying out again.
Cardigan whipped open the door and planted
himself with his gun-butt jammed down hard on his right hip bone. He looked very huge and shaggy and unpleasant.
“Watch the birdie,” he said in a low, threatening voice.
Chapter Four
Switch Racket
THE girl, he saw, was on her knees, her hands clasped in an imploring attitude. Her hair was down and tears stained her face and there were a few bruises on her jaw. Myron stood before her, with his thumbs hooked in his vest, his hat jovially on the back of his head. Cyril was standing with his gun jammed against the nape of a large, powerful man who sat half terrified, half mutinous on a short stool. The room was a hovel: there were two stools, a small table, and in one corner a bed of rags on which a man lay bound and gagged. He was dressed in evening clothes but there was stubble on his face, he was collarless and his hair was unkempt.
Myron’s eyes were like an owl’s and his grin was sickly; but he tried to put zest into his voice. “Well, sir, if it isn’t Mr. Cardigan again!”
“What I told you,” Cyril rasped. “I told you we should have knocked this bird over—”
“Cram it, you!” Cardigan cut in. And to Myron, “Who’s that lying in the corner?”
Myron suddenly looked very blank-faced at the floor.
Cardigan dropped his eyes to the girl. She crouched humbly on the floor and he thought that just now she looked very beautiful. To her he muttered: “You—do you know the man on the floor?”
A sob ripped from her lips. She rose and fled across the room, fell to her knees again—but this time beside the man who lay on the bed of rags. She dropped her head to his chest and sobbed brokenly; gripped his arms with her hands, held on desperately.
Cardigan stared at the burly man on the stool. “Where do you figure in this? Why’s Cyril holding a gun against you?”
“Because he’s nuts,” the burly man said truculently. “He’s tryin’ to say I been double-crossin’—”
“Stroud and Cyril,” Myron explained, “merely got into a little personal argument.”
Cardigan looked darkly at him. “While you punched the girl around, huh?”
The girl was tearing frantically at the ropes that held the man lying on the rags.
Cardigan snapped: “Sister, cut that out! Get up!”
Panting, sobbing, she continued to tear at the ropes, her hair tossing about her shoulders. Cardigan said again, his voice very loud, “Sister, get up!” And when she did not, when she continued tearing at the ropes, Cardigan took a violent stride toward her.
But he stopped short and bent a dark, malignant stare on Cyril; and then suddenly he snarled, “You would, would you!” and brought the barrel of his gun down across Cyril’s wrist. Cyril yelped and his gun jumped from his hand, hurdled Stroud’s shoulder and bounced off Stroud’s knee. Stroud made a pass at it. Myron lunged at it, swinging to catch it in mid-air. Cardigan twisted. His gun boomed. The girl fell on the bound man and screamed. The gun that had been in the air was shattered; fragments of it whined and buzzed through the air. Myron stopped short, bent over, his full lower lip drooping, his eyes wide and glazed. Then he felt himself all over, blinked, attempted a weak smile.
“Well—uh—I’m not hit….”
Stroud was sitting on the stool again, his face looking very innocent. Cyril was grimacing and rubbing his wrist and throwing vicious little looks at Cardigan.
Cardigan said sarcastically: “All ready to hop on me, huh?” He looked at Cyril: “You’re not quite fast enough, honey bunch.”
Stroud said: “Me, I just wanted to stop the gun from falling account of it might of exploded.”
Cardigan let out a derisive laugh. “Yes, you did, you did!”
The girl was standing now, her face red, one side of her jaw swollen, her hair a cascade on her shoulders. There was fear and mutiny and anger in her eyes. She seemed to spread herself in front of the man lying on the floor; even her hands, Cardigan thought, were beginning to look like claws. There seemed now a wildness about her and a recklessness which Cardigan did not like. For Cyril was on pins and needles now, keyed up. Myron’s eyes carried a new and canny watchfulness. And Strand was ready too. All of them were ready for the slightest opening.
Cardigan said somberly to the girl, “Calm yourself,” while his keened eyes flicked the others. And then he said to her: “All this trouble seems to be about fifty grand. Maybe you know where it is.”
She said hotly: “I left it in your office; that’s where I left it! In that yellow bag!”
Cardigan jabbed a savage took at Myron. “Damn you, you’re the one took that bag!”
“I did, of course,” Myron hastened to say. “And what did I find in it? Newspapers! Old newspapers!”
Cyril snapped: “It’s plain as the nose on your face, Myron. Cardigan there emptied the bag between the time the girl left it there and we got there.”
Cardigan’s laugh was harsh and angry. “You blockhead, if I had the money why would I be chasing you lunatics around now?”
“That does sound reasonable,” Myron nodded. Then he leveled an arm at Stroud, said: “Why don’t you come across?”
“Me? Me come across?” Stroud bellowed. “You’re nuts! I never saw the dough!” He pointed to the girl. “I’ll bet she’s the one that’s done all the lying.”
THE girl suddenly extended prayerful fists toward Cardigan and her voice rushed out—“Let me get out of here, please! Let me untie him! Someone let me untie him and let me take him out of here! You let me—please!” she choked.
Cyril’s eyes blazed. “Shut up, you!” he screamed.
Cardigan barked: “You lay off, mug!”
“Lay off yourself!” Cyril ripped back at him. “She’s not getting out of here! Neither are you! If you think you can haul us all out of here—”
Myron chopped in, worried, “Cyril.”
“You shut up!” Cyril’s high voice screamed. “You and your damned long-windedness got us into this! D’you think I’m going to stand here and let a lousy private dick—”
Cardigan took a long step. Cyril whipped across the room and Cardigan saw a ledge and on it a gun, half concealed. Cyril was streaking for the ledge.
“Don’t,” Cardigan said in a sharp voice.
Cyril did not stop.
Cardigan shot him through the thigh and Cyril slammed into the ledge but did not get hold of the gun. He tried a second time, rising on one leg, reaching for the gun. Cardigan shot him in the arm, high, and then whipped his gun toward Stroud, who was reaching inside his shirt. Myron drew swiftly, and Pat stepped through the door, her own gun drawn. She didn’t say a word. As Myron took a step toward Cardigan Pat reached out with her foot. Myron piled down on his face.
“Thanks, chicken,” Cardigan said.
“Whuh-what should I do now?”
“Stand where you are and cover Myron.”
Myron was sitting on the floor now, looking up into the muzzle of Pat’s Webley. Cyril was hanging on the ledge. He made a third attempt to get hold of the gun and Cardigan had to walk over and clout him on the head. Cyril slid down to the floor. Cardigan stepped around him and then stopped and looked across grimly at the tall girl.
“Are you going to talk?” he said; and then he asked: “Who’s that man on the floor?”
Her voice seemed knocked apart. “My husband,” she said.
“What’s he doing here?”
“These—men—” She paused, her breast swelling, terror rising in her eyes. She begged of Cardigan: “Please get us out! Please, God! I tell you he’s John Waycross and I’m his wife!”
“What’s he doing here?”
“These—men—kidnaped him,” she choked out.
Myron looked at his fingernails and whistled in a whisper and Stroud sat on the stool and stared vacantly at the floor. Cyril was choking and cursing to himself.
Cardigan clipped: “Pat… chase out and get a flock of cops.”
“Right,” she said, and sped away.
The tall girl sobbed: “They—they kid
naped him night before last and I met all their demands. I swear to you I did. I had to borrow the money from a friend, and I went to Market between Jones and Mason Streets, where I was to meet a man dressed like—like—” She pointed to Stroud; then she nodded toward Myron and said: “He was the one who did all the phoning. I was to carry the money in a yellow overnight bag and when I saw Stroud I was to take a cab and ride out to Golden Gate Park, get off near the Tea Garden. He was to take the bag there.
“But this man never showed up. I saw two men watching me as I walked up and down. These two men,” she went on, nodding to Cyril, then to Myron. “I got scared. I guess I thought they might be detectives—or I don’t know what. So I walked away from the rendezvous, walked faster. They followed. I saw your agency sign and ducked in and told you that fake story. I—I just wanted to leave the bag there a while and return later for it. But when I left, I saw the two men. I watched. They went in and then they came out with the bag—”
“If you knew they had the bag,” Cardigan cut in, “why did you come horsing around my apartment this evening?”
She stumbled on: “I—I just thought perhaps you’d—well—made a deal with them and let them take the bag. I was at my wits’ end all day. I tried to get you at your office several times, late afternoon, but you weren’t in. Then I went out to your apartment later hoping to—to explain to you—to beg you—But you seemed in such a mood—”
Cardigan made a fist. “But the money, the money! The fifty grand!”
She threw up her arms. “I don’t—I don’t know. I had it. It was in that bag. I was ready to deliver it. I borrowed it and—”
There was a sudden hoarse scream outside the door. A man shot headlong into the room, his head ducked forward, his arms trying to protect the back of his head. He smashed into Stroud and Stroud hopped, hurled him off mightily. The man slipped, his leg shot out, caught a stool neatly and sent it spinning against Cardigan’s shins. Cardigan’s legs buckled.
STROUD made a flying leap, swung his fist and planted it on Cardigan’s chin. Cardigan whipped over sidewise and crashed against Cyril, who was up again and clawing for the gun on the ledge. Stroud dragged out his gun and was raising its muzzle toward Cardigan’s head when Clancy McCoy sliced through the doorway and shot Stroud in the back. Stroud’s gun went off, the bullet snapping up past Cardigan’s forehead. Stroud whirled on McCoy with a roar, swung his gun in line. McCoy stood his ground and put two bullets into Stroud’s body. Stroud turned and stumbled heavy-footed across the room; his arm was down, the gun pointed toward the floor; he emptied the gun into the floor and the tall girl fell on her husband to protect him.
The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35 Page 12
