by Unknown
Silence for a few minutes, then the soft sound of a sash being gently raised. Again there was a period of silence; then I could hear the bedroom door softly creak. Perhaps it was swaying in the wind which came through the window, perhaps not.
Suddenly there was a spurt of flame, a swift hissing noise, another and another … shots from a pistol equipped with a silencer.
Again silence, a whisper, the beam of a flashlight shooting swiftly over the bed. “Did yuh get him?”
“Deader’n a herring,” came the whispered answer.
The men turned and ran swiftly from the house, making more noise than when they had entered, yet making no sound which would have been so audible as to have attracted attention from without. There came the sound of a starting motor, the spurt of an engine, and a machine slipped smoothly down the pavement.
I climbed down from the shelf and pulled out the pillows from beneath the bedclothes. The upper pillow had three holes in it and feathers were wadded and scattered all over the sheets. Whoever had fired that gun was a good shot, one of the sort who can shoot in the half-light by the feel of the gun and be sure of his mark, who can group three bullets within a circle of three inches in a pillow.
I sighed, climbed into bed and went back to sleep.
This man with the icy eyes certainly was a smooth customer. Of course, I’d had to play into his hands by keeping an eye on this fellow Schwartz. That had given him a lead all the time, but, at that, he was clever.
In the morning I took a look around and found the circle of glass that had been cut from the upper pane so that the window lock could be sprung, and I smashed the glass into a series of jagged fragments so that it would appear the break had been accidental. There was no need to advertise my private affairs to the neighborhood.
I shaved, breakfasted, got out my car with the siren all attached and in perfect working order, and rolled slowly down the street in the line of traffic of early workers. A block from Redfern’s I picked my parking place and slipped to the curb. I had come early to get the car located just right, and I stuck there behind the wheel to see that no one interfered with a quick getaway.
About eight o’clock the armored truck, with its painted cloth signs on the sides, showed up and backed to Redfern’s curb. Close behind the truck was a high-powered car driven by a man in uniform.
A crowd collected, and I was close enough to the outskirts of the crowd to see what was taking place, and to hear what was said. Schwartz was in charge of things, and he was the typical salesman. He greeted old man Redfern as though it was a family reunion after a ten years’ absence, and worked his arm up and down with rhythmic regularity.
The jewels were brought out and placed in the truck, and Schwartz explained its bomb-proof features to Redfern the while.
“I’m driving the truck myself, and there’s a machine full of guards coming right behind. I guess that’ll ensure us safety all right. And you’ve seen the precautions we’ve taken down at the place. Say, Redfern, why don’t you come yourself? The armored truck is full, but there’s lots of room in the open car in back. You see, I’ve got a girl to check up the list of exhibits, and an armed guard with me in the truck. I’m relying on the jewelry stores to furnish the guards for the open car. Stick a gun in your pocket and get in next to the officer there in the car.”
Redfern didn’t need much urging. He blinked, smiled, patted Schwartz on the back and climbed into the open car. The truck started off, the open car came along behind, and the officer who was driving signaled for open traffic signs from the cops at the intersections. The procession was started.
Ten calls were made, ten loads taken on, five guards crowded into the open machine. Five of the stores didn’t think it was necessary to add a guard to the collection. They were satisfied with old man Redfern’s respectable face. He was known all up and down the street, was old Redfern, a shrewd, canny old bird with a long head and a tight purse.
The truck headed toward the exhibit place and I settled down behind my wheel. This was going to be good. I hoped I hadn’t missed any bets or bungled any guesses, and I was gambling strong that I hadn’t.
All of a sudden there was a whir of a rapidly driven motor. A long, gray roadster shot past me as smoothly and swiftly as a trout skimming through a still pool, and then there was a crash. The roadster had tried to cut in on the open car back of the armored truck, had locked wheels, battered in the front of the open car, skidded to the curb, crashed into a parked car, sprinkled broken glass all over the sidewalk, chased a couple of pedestrians up lamp posts, spilled the cop out onto the curb, scattered the guards about a bit, and the armored truck went gaily on its way, seemingly oblivious of what had happened to the car full of guards.
A crowd collected. Everyone shouted and cursed, the driver of the gray roadster sprinted to another car that was parked with motor running, parked in a second line of parking, and dashed down the street. The cop yelled and pulled his gun. There was some wild firing, screams, police whistles, pandemonium.
I worked through the tangled mass of traffic at the corner and started out after the armored truck, keeping pretty well back. The truck went easily and smoothly onward. At the corner, where the main out-of-town boulevard ran in, they stopped, and one of the men slipped to the sidewalk and scooped in the cloth signs, hung out two others, and they were on their way.
I sprinted ahead by a round-the-block detour and got a look at that new sign. I fancied I knew what it was, but I wanted to make sure.
“FEDERAL RESERVE—INTERURBAN SHIPMENT” read the new sign, and I chortled to myself at that. It was so slick it was greasy. They could take that armored truck any place they blamed pleased with that sign on it. By the time the police got the accident untangled, got in touch with the exhibit and found the car hadn’t arrived, got the word spread out to the traffic cops … by that time the armored truck would have vanished from the face of the earth. There were a dozen similar trucks, engaged in banking transportation, keeping busy in the city—it would be one grand smear.
Then it happened. The truck hesitated, backfired, and coasted over to the curb. That was my cue. I swung around the block and stopped on a side street, with the engine running.
One of the men got out of the rear door and bent over the gas tank, then ran around again to the front. I figured he was switching on the auxiliary tank. There was the sound of the starting motor, but nothing happened beyond a slight cough.
I fancied there was much conversation going on in that truck just then. At length the carburetor filled again and the truck ran along for a few feet, then stopped. A man jumped from the driver’s seat and sprinted to a car that was parked by the curb a block or so away. It was a little roadster, but apparently it was unlocked, for he got it going and dashed back to the truck. They were going to shift cargoes, to salvage what they could.
A machine came along, slowed down curiously, and was ordered to move along. Seconds were precious. In a few minutes that stalled truck would have a crowd of curious motorists rubbering at it. That would be fatal.
They swung open the heavy rear doors, backed the roadster … and then I got into action.
I opened the cut-out, raced the engine, and started the siren in a long, low, wailing scream. Then I waited. They didn’t spot the car where it was hidden behind some drooping shade trees, but the sound did hit their ears, a sound associated with powerful police cars which tore around with wailing sirens and shotgun squads looking for trouble.
In consternation they looked at each other, and then the flight began. A second wail from my siren stirred things up a bit, and the roadster tore away from the stalled truck and out into the boulevard.
I had fancied I saw only two figures in that roadster, which would mean that one had been left behind, but I had no time to worry over details. It was now or never and I must act quickly. I swung my car around the corner and skidded to a stop beside the stalled truck. Quickly I jerked off the cap of the gasoline tank, pulled out the tight-fitting
metal tube I had worked into the gasoline line, put back the cap, jumped into the truck, closed and locked the doors and looked about me.
The girl with the mole on her left hand was sitting on the driver’s seat, her eyes wide, sparkling.
“You!” she exclaimed.
I had no time to analyze her tone, no opportunity to indulge in friendly conversation.
“You make a move or try to interfere and I’ll throw you out on your ear,” I told her, and meant it. She was a member of a gang that was out for my life, and there was to be no quarter given or asked. I had work to do, and to blunder at this stage of the game would be fatal. I had been warned specifically against this woman with the mole, and the man who gave me that warning had paid for his friendly interest with his life. He had been killed with the words still warm on his lips. Somewhere, somehow, there was a sinister influence exerted by this woman. Death and violence followed her every contact. For myself I was taking no chances.
Without a murmur, she slid off of the driver’s seat and sat, her hands in plain sight, folded on her lap, looking at me curiously. Beyond that first exclamation there had been nothing to give me a clue as to her thoughts.
It was the work of an instant to start the motor and turn the heavy truck, and in that minute the two men who had fled in the roadster knew they had been duped. They were watching their backtrail for pursuit, wondering whether the police would stop to take possession of the abandoned truck or would give pursuit. They had seen me rush to the armored truck, do something to the gasoline tank, and then jump inside. In that brief instant they had recognized the deception that had been played on them, and had swung the roadster and started back.
I turned the truck and opened the throttle, roaring down the boulevard. The lighter roadster gained rapidly, and was soon alongside. Faces that were distorted with rage glared up at me. There came the crack of a pistol shot, and the bulletproof glass radiated a thousand fine lines of silvery cracks where the bullet struck, but the leaden missile did not penetrate. That finished my last worry. I made faces at the two helpless bandits without, twiddled my fingers at my nose, and finally, making a quick swerve of the heavy car, ran them clear into the opposite curb.
There was a crash as the heavy, railroad-iron bumper did its stuff and the light roadster crumpled like an eggshell, glanced from the curb to a telephone post, and the men pitched out to the cement sidewalk.
I did not look back. They may have escaped unhurt. They may have been seriously injured. They may have been killed. This was no picnic. This was war with no quarter given or asked.
Once more we entered the traffic of the business district. At my side the girl with the mole on her hand sat and watched me with a queer look upon her face. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes almost starry, and they seldom left my face. Shut in there in that armored truck we were safe from attack of everything except a cannon or a bomb. Perchance, emissaries of the gang who had engineered the great robbery watched us as we thundered past. If so they were helpless.
I swung up to the curb of the place where the exhibit was to be held. There was a great crowd of excited people milling about. A squad of police held back the crowd. I saw old Redfern running about, frantic with excitement, his eyes bulging, hands waving … and then he caught sight of the truck backing up to the curb, and his eyes did bulge. Somewhere a police whistle shrilled, and there came the screech of a siren. Policemen began to cluster about the truck.
“Keep your face closed and start checking the stuff as it goes out,” I told the girl with the mole, and flung open the doors.
“Get ready to handle this stuff,” I yelled at the excited officer who thrust his head in at the door, and slammed a tray of choice platinum jewelry at him.
Mechanically, he took it, stood there, mouth open, eyes wide, seeking to interrogate me, and I slammed out another tray.
Watchmen and guards ran up, police officers milled about, and I had no words for any of them. I simply answered their questions by slamming out trays of choice jewelry, and the very apparent value of those goods was such that they mechanically turned and bore them into the place where the exhibit had been arranged.
I took the last tray in myself.
“Here’s the list,” said the girl with the mole, thrusting it into my hands; “and, oh, Ed! I had so hoped you would do just that!”
With that she was gone. A hell of a way for a member of a gang to congratulate the crook who had just outsmarted her of God knew how many thousand dollars.
I pattered on in with the tray, and an escort of cops clustered behind me. They didn’t know exactly what it was all about, but this was once they figured they had Ed Jenkins dead to rights, and they didn’t intend to let him live up to his reputation as a phantom crook by slipping through their fingers.
From somewhere behind me I caught the tail end of a hoarse whisper.
“… too deep for me; but we’ll make the pinch as soon as he starts for the door. With his record he’s sunk. He can’t alibi nothin’.”
Up ahead there was a crowd of jewelry men and customers milling around, asking questions, gabbling away like a bunch of geese. I had the cops behind me and knew I’d be pinched when I started for the door. That meant I had to keep going straight ahead; and it meant I had to think fast. However, thinking fast is the thing that’s kept me out of lots of jails.
I sat the tray down and climbed up on a chair.
“Silence, please!” I bellowed.
Everyone turned to rubber at me, and then I started my speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “I am a crook!”
That got ’em. If I’d started to make an address of welcome or tell ’em a story they’d all have been buzzing with whispers of their own and I wouldn’t have got their attention, but that single sentence made ’em stand stock still, and then I went on.
“But I am an honest crook, a man who has sought to make an honest living, to show that it is possible for a crook to go straight.
“I planned out this vast jewelry exhibition because I knew that it was a move in the right direction. The jewelry stores need an opportunity to exhibit to the select trade. The potential customers need to have a chance to study the latest styles in settings, to get up-to-the-minute information.
“Unfortunately, my assistant, the man upon whom I relied to sell space, to explain the idea to the merchants, turned out to be a crook. Knowing my record, he thought he could get away with the truckload of gems, and have the police blame it on to me. However, I managed to outwit this criminal and recover the entire truckload, and here it is, safe and sound, ready for the approval of the prospective purchasers.”
I made a bow and stood there, watching the maps of the cops, wondering if I was going to make it stick.
“I think I shall purchase my season’s supply of gems right now,” said a woman whose voice carried to the farthest ends of the room. “I think this is a wonderful idea, but, really, we don’t need the police here now, do we? Mr. Redfern, I wonder if you’d mind asking them to withdraw. It makes me feel sort of nervous and interferes with my purchasing.”
It was Edith Jewett Kemper, and she was playing a trump card in the nick of time. I think I had the cops buffaloed at that, but when old Redfern charged down on them, waving his hands, sputtering, expostulating, it was a rout. The cops thinned out that door like mosquitoes before a smudge.
Redfern came back to me, his eyes shining, his hands outstretched.
“Wonderful! Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “Did you hear that Mrs. Kemper is going to purchase her season’s supply of jewels? It’s a great success. Everyone will follow suit. In fact, we will have to make her a little present, something to remember the occasion by.”
I grabbed his arm.
“Yeah, in the meantime you’d better make out your check for the space. I’m goin’ to get collected up right now so I won’t have any books to keep.”
Without a whimper he pulled out his checkbook.
“Payable
to … ?” he asked.
“Just make it payable to Ed Jenkins,” I told him. “ ‘The Down Town Merchants’ Exhibit’ was just a trade name.”
He nodded and made out the check, dazed and happy.
A sergeant of police elbowed his way over, but he was smiling.
“Jenkins, you’re all right!” he said. “I’ve had an anonymous tip these last two weeks to get you on suspicion of a big gem robbery, and here you were actually on the square. Bringing back that truckload was a wonderful thing. How did you do it?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Just by bein’ honest, Sergeant, an’ never lettin’ that crook Schwartz get a chance. I was watchin’ him like a hawk. Next time don’t be so anxious to believe evil of me.”
He shook his head as though he were in the middle of a dream and walked away, and, as he walked, I saw him pinch himself to find out whether he was really awake.
Helen Chadwick was over in a corner, away from the crowd, waiting.
“Ed, you won’t be such a stranger, now that you’ve got this thing over with, will you?”
There was a wistful something in her voice, and I suddenly came down to earth, realized that in spite of any brilliant tricks I might play on the police or on other crooks, that I was, after all, a crook, myself. I realized also that no good could come to this girl from knowing me, and I cared so much for her that I wanted to protect her, even from myself.
“I’m going to get that other paper for you, Helen,” I temporized, “and then we’ll have a chance to sit down and talk other things over.”
