by J. T. Edson
“I don’t know why you had to fetch him along,” the older of the twins said petulantly. Although he had never been outside the United States, like his brother he spoke with a pronounced Italian accent. “He’s always likely to be noticed, especially hanging around outside a place like this so late at night.”
“He’s too smart to let himself be noticed and can hide easier than you could,” Libby answered, never pleased when any decision she made was questioned. “Besides, he’s getting a full cut out of the deal and, even though there was nothing for him to do inside, I figured he might as well do something to earn it.”
“It’s just like she said it would be,” Luigi stated. Concluding he would be advised to let the matter drop, he had crossed to look through the chink in the curtain. Turning his attention in that direction, he tried the handle of the French windows and, finding they held firm, went on, “They’re fastened. Can you open them?”
“Of course,” Libby declared with certainty, taking a small roll of leather from the pouch on her belt and opening it while there were indications that Giovanni was commencing the descent. “Give me some light.”
On the order—and it had been that rather than a request—given by the reddish-brunette being complied with, the light from the lantern showed that the leather had concealed several devices Luigi knew to be the set of lock picks she could operate with skill. Selecting one after having illuminated the keyhole and examined it for a moment, she inserted and started to move it. When this failed to produce any effect, she returned it to the slot from which it was taken and chose another. On this occasion, paying no attention to the arrival of the younger twin or his sibling’s telling what had happened sotto voce in their native tongue, which she spoke with reasonable fluency, she met with more success and there was a clicking sound to indicate that the mechanism of the lock had operated. However, when she tried the door, it still refused to open.
“Damn it!” Libby spat out as she replaced the pick and returned the leather container to the pouch. “The top bolt’s been fastened.”
“What can you do, then?” Giovanni growled, never having been enamored of the way in which the reddish-brunette made it plain that she considered herself the dominant partner of their group.
“Is she likely to be in there, Lou?” Libby inquired instead of answering the younger brother’s question.
“Not according to what I know of her,” the older twin answered, sharing his sibling’s sentiments on the subject of the reddish-brunette’s attitude. “She wasn’t any too pleased when I told her I couldn’t take her to the beer garden tonight and said she’d find somebody who would, and I don’t reckon she’d have any difficulty in doing that. What’re you going to do?”
Once again refraining from supplying information as requested, Libby raised her left foot and, with the deft grace of a ballet dancer—or one experienced in the French hand-and-foot boxing style called savate—delivered a sharp kick just above the lock. The noise doing so made was not excessive, but it seemed to be that way to the brothers, and they gazed about them in something close to alarm while each’s right hand went to the knife he had sheathed on his belt. Although Libby had contrived to avoid giving any sign of sharing their perturbation, she felt a touch of relief when the impact caused the windows to open. Satisfied with having given another example of her ability to cope with an unanticipated situation, although she had envisaged something of the sort might arise, she parted the curtain and, without as much as a glance at her companions, stepped across the threshold.
“Now, this is what I call living in a grand fashion!” Giovanni stated, remembering just in time to hold his voice down, gazing around the luxuriously furnished and tidy sitting room with avaricious eyes as he followed Libby inside.
“You can try it when you get your cut of the pot,” the reddish-brunette pointed out, also studying her surroundings. “But I wouldn’t come here if I was you. It doesn’t strike me as being safe from thieves.”
“Thieves couldn’t do what we have,” the younger twin objected with asperity, being of an anarchist persuasion despite always having lived in affluent circumstances and, because of first his parents’ and then he and his sibling’s well-paid acts, never gone short of any material things. Because of his political pretensions, he considered that he was engaged upon the laudable and justifiable removal of wealth from an undeserving member of the upper classes who had extracted it from the downtrodden poor. Putting aside his dislike at it being suggested that he was a thief, he continued sullenly, “Anyway, we haven’t got the swag yet. I’ve heard they’d got a place down in the lobby that’s fitted out special to hold on to their money and jewelry where it can’t be reached by anybody else.”
“They do have, but she told me the Countess always wants to have the jewelry where she can get at it and show it off without needing to fetch it up,” Luigi growled, not any better pleased than Libby was showing herself to be over the lack of faith implied by the second part of his sibling’s comment. “So all of it and any money she doesn’t take with her is kept in a strongbox locked in the dressing table in her bedroom.”
“If she’s gone to some fancy reception, she’ll be wearing all her jewelry,” Giovanni grumbled.
“Not according to what she said,” Luigi answered. “She reckoned the reception wasn’t important enough for her to need to wear more than a few of the lesser pieces, and all the rest will be there.”
“Time’s wasting!” the reddish-brunette snapped. “Let’s go and get whatever she’s left behind.”
“It’s locked” Giovanni stated after he had tested the double doors of the dressing table of the well-equipped bedroom into which he had followed the reddish-brunette and his brother and found was also illuminated by a lamp. “Let’s see you open it.”
“I could do that with a bobby pin if I had one with me,” Libby declared, once again taking out the leather-wrapped set of lock picks. Selecting one, she tried it and, with some satisfaction, found it worked. While opening the doors, she went on, “There’s nothing hard about it.”
Watched by the brothers, the reddish-brunette removed the sizable wooden chest bound with steel bands, which was the most prominent thing to meet her gaze. Placing it on top of the dressing table, she had only a little difficulty before being able to unfasten and remove the padlock so she could raise the lid. Doing so brought into view the contents. Glinting in the light were a number of rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, and earrings, all having diamonds, emeralds, rubies, or pearls of a size that caused muted exclamations of delight from the brothers. As the collection was larger than the reports in the newspaper had suggested, even without whatever pieces the Countess was wearing at the reception, Libby was impressed by what she was seeing.
However, before any further comments could be made, the front entrance to the suite was opened and footsteps approached the dressing room.
Two – Stop the Man!
“Go and get us a bottle of wine from the cabinet, Albert,” requested a feminine voice with an attractive French accent as the footsteps came nearer to the bedroom door. “I will just make everything ready for her when she returns, then we can go to my room and share it.”
From what she heard, Libby Craddock concluded that the words were being spoken by the maid of Countess Olga Simonouski, from whom Luigi Martinelli had obtained much vital information that helped her party to pull off the robbery. It was also obvious to the reddish-brunette that the fact that the French windows had been forced open had gone unnoticed, as the drapes had been left in the closed position when she and the twin brothers had come through. In spite of this, having returned from the beer garden, or wherever else she had been, the woman and the man who was with her would have to be silenced before an escape could be made with the loot.
With that point established, Libby felt grateful for another boast made by the management of the Grand Republic Hotel. They claimed with justification—and to the annoyance of the house detectives who considered
it did not make carrying out their duties easier—that all the rooms were so well soundproofed, no noise from one could disturb the occupants of even the adjacent quarters. Therefore, as the new arrivals had closed the front entrance behind them on coming in, the chances of an outcry being heard nearby were greatly reduced. All that needed to be done was ensure that whatever sounds might happen were not of a volume to reach the street through the open French windows. There was no doorman on duty at that hour, but a chance passerby, or returning guest, might have heard something. If it should happen something was heard by only one person, she was confident that Jinks was capable of silencing any attempt at raising the alarm.
With the reddish-brunette, to think was to act. Darting across the room swiftly, without waiting to see what the twins were doing, Libby flattened herself against the side of the wall behind the door that opened inward. By the time she arrived, showing she possessed knowledge of how to act in such a situation and was prepared to do so, she had drawn the knife from its sheath and held it in such a way that the six-inch-long blade could be used for either a thrust or a slash. Not until she was in position did she give her companions any attention. What she saw satisfied her that, fearing the consequences of being caught in the act of robbing a wealthy guest who probably could wield considerable influence over the local authorities, at least one of them was just as prepared to take action.
Crossing the threshold from the sitting room, the maid proved to be a pretty and shapely woman in her mid-twenties. Either she had received the expensive garments and jewelry she was wearing from her mistress, or was taking the chance on wearing them without sanction. Whichever the cause might be, it was obvious she had been drinking not wisely but too well while away from the hotel. What was more, continuing to look to her rear, she was several steps beyond the door before she became aware that all was far from being well in the suite. The discovery did not come about as the result of seeing the reddish-brunette.
“Luigi!” the maid yelped, turning her gaze to the front and staring in surprise at the older of the twins. “What are you—!”
The question was brought to an end uncompleted.
“Stop the man!” Libby snapped, darting forward.
Giving the order, the reddish-brunette clapped her left hand over the maid’s mouth. Pulling back on the woman’s head, her arrival having been so unexpected that no resistance was offered, she used the knife in the way she considered most suitable for the occasion. Assuming her victim was probably wearing corsets to attain such pronounced hourglass contours, she had no intention of directing the weapon where it could be deflected or otherwise prevented from sinking home in a way that would have achieved her purpose. Instead, passing her right hand across the maid’s shoulder, she moved the razor-sharp cutting edge of the spear-point blade so that it sank into the exposed white throat. Going deeper until the jugular vein and windpipe were severed, the slash also prevented its recipient from being able to make either an outcry or utter a scream of horror.
“What’s up, Michele?” called a man from outside the bedroom, his New England accent having a suggestion that he, too, was intoxicated.
While delivering the murderous attack and hearing the question spoken in a masculine tone that was more querulous than demanding, the reddish-brunette saw that the younger twin was acting upon her instructions. However, to her annoyance, the elder was making no attempt to do anything constructive. Rather, he stood by the dressing table as if he had been turned to stone and his mouth trailed open, moving spasmodically as if trying to utter words that he could not articulate.
Showing none of the revulsion that had come to Luigi’s face and frozen him into immobility, snatching out the knife he had on his belt, Giovanni dashed by the women. Going into the sitting room, he was brought face-to-face with a slender and fairly handsome young man whose attire was that of a sedentary worker in the lower wage range spending a night of enjoyment. Finding himself confronted with the menacing figure presented by the younger of the twins, the man—a valet of the housekeeping department—let out a startled and fear-filled yelp. In spite of the reaction, proving his drunken state did not prevent him from realizing he could be in deadly peril from the armed intruder, he hesitated for only a moment before turning and starting to dart toward the main entrance to the suite.
The delay proved fatal.
Before the terrified valet had taken three steps, Giovanni bounded into the air and delivered a kick to the center of his shoulder blades, which precipitated him helplessly headlong against the sturdy timbers of the door. Although the impact rendered him unconscious, it did not save him from sharing the fate of the maid. Following up the attack swiftly, the younger twin dropped until kneeling on the center of his victim’s back to deliver a lethal coup de grace in the same way Libby had finished off the maid. Ignoring the few convulsions given by the stricken valet and the blood gushing onto the thick carpet covering the floor, he straightened up and wiped the blade of his knife clean on his right thigh.
The indifference being displayed by the younger twin was not being duplicated by his sibling.
“D-d—!” Luigi croaked, as the fatally injured woman was released by the reddish-brunette and crumpled to the floor with the red of the liberated blood gushing over her less than adequately covered ample white bosom. “D-did you have to do that?”
“What should I have done?” Libby demanded in annoyance as she bent to clean her weapon on the bodice of her victim’s gown. “Let her go out and start screaming until she woke the whole goddamned place?”
“You could have knocked her unconscious,” the older twin suggested, his concern being less for the young woman than out of a realization that he was now involved in something far more serious than just a robbery. He and his brother had incurred considerable gambling debts well beyond the capacity of their legitimate earnings. Because they were being subjected to demands for early payment and threats of reprisals—from men he knew were capable of carrying them out—if the money was not forthcoming, he had been just as eager as Giovanni to accept the request for assistance made to them by the reddish-brunette. However, he had never envisaged such a situation as had arisen and, although not generally troubled by scruples, he was deeply perturbed by the consequences. “I’ve seen you do it before now when somebody’s riled you.”
“And when she came ‘round, she could tell the police who you are,” Libby pointed out coldly, bending to make an examination of the jewelry worn by the almost dead maid with no more display of emotion than if she was doing it by invitation. “She’d recognized you and you said you got her keen on you by telling her who and what you are. Leaving her alive knowing that much wouldn’t have made good sense, would it?” Without waiting for a reply, she straightened up as she had ascertained that—expensive though they might appear at a distance—being seen from close up established that the trinkets were of no value. Concluding there was no point in taking them, she called, “Have you got the son of a bitch, Van?”
“He’s not going to go nowhere, and even if he could, I’ve locked the door,” the younger brother answered, his words drawing nearer. “And he won’t be making no noise, either.”
“Get a hold of yourself, Lou!” Libby commanded harshly, returning her attention to the older twin. “And start putting the stuff from the strongbox into the bags.”
“I—!” Luigi began.
“Move it, damn you!” the reddish-brunette hissed, looking as dangerous as she had when launching the attack upon the maid. “The longer we’re here, the more chance of the Countess coming back and, like you’ve figured out, we’ve gone way beyond just a robbery now.”
“I didn’t kill either—!” the older twin commenced, but stopped as he realized the intended reminder could be injudicious under the circumstances when made to the totally unscrupulous and ruthless kind of person he had always suspected the sensual-looking woman to be.
“No, but you were here with us,” Libby countered, and the look that came to her
beautiful face warned Luigi it had been wise of him not to finish what he had meant to say. “And that makes you just as guilty as we are, it’s what is called being an accessory during the act. Besides that, I think Van would go along with me if I had to tell the police it was you who killed them both. Now move yourself, you chickenhearted bastard, so we can get clear and won’t need to have to do it.”
“Something wrong?” Giovanni asked, slouching into the bedroom and looking from one to the other of its living occupants.
“Your older and supposedly tough brother’s getting tenderhearted—or being close to having the shit scared out of him—over what’s happened,” the reddish-brunette stated, cutting in over the words that the older twin was spluttering in Italian. “Now tell him to get the lead out of his boots so we can make our getaway. I figure doing it sometime before tomorrow morning would be nice.”
“Libby’s right, brother,” Giovanni stated in the same language as was being instinctively used by his sibling. “We’re in this game far too deep for you to start worrying because blood’s been spilled. We have to get the money the loot will bring, or it will be our blood that’s spilled, along with some of our bones being broken. The bastards we owe to are capable of doing both if we don’t pay them by the time they gave us to do it.”
The reminder of why it had been necessary for himself and his brother to agree to participate in the robbery had a steadying effect upon Luigi. Not overburdened with scruples under normal conditions—in fact having none—it had been his first contact with sudden and violent death that caused his reactions rather than experiencing any feelings of remorse for the woman he had charmed into betraying her trust so as to obtain the information required by Libby. He was also realizing that things might go badly for him if he continued to antagonize the reddish-brunette and his brother. Anybody who was as willing as she had been to take the life of another person in such a cold-blooded fashion was not to be trifled with. Nor, he fancied, would Giovanni be any less likely to respond in a violent fashion to anything that threatened to prevent the acquisition of the money they both so badly needed.
