The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  “The original Sherlock Holmes!” Angel gasped. “And all this time I thought you were just plain Philip Edgerson!”

  “I got quite chummy with the man,” Smith informed her, “and enlisted his aid. He agreed to let Timmy work for him. Timmy did so, and when the buyer of the Cuban cigarettes came in, Timmy followed him. That’s all there was to it. Quite simple, you see.”

  “You mean Timmy followed Professor Dubitsky?”

  “No. Dubitsky himself wouldn’t come out in the open like that. But if we fail to find him at the address to which we’re going, I’ll be a most crestfallen sleuth.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance from beneath the red hood and then looked out the car window, noting the sinister section of town into which he was taking her.

  “Are you armed, Philip?”

  “I don’t own a gun. You know that.”

  “Philip,” she said in a manner of confession, “I have one. I borrowed it from my office.”

  He frowned. “Keep it,” he said bluntly.

  The car had entered the waterfront warehouse district, and at this time of night the streets were black, deserted, ominous. A short-lived downpour had beaten to life sour smells of fish and fruit, and the dampness held those unsavory odors in suspension. You smelled trouble. Danger.

  Smith pulled the machine to the curb. “For you, Angel,” he said firmly, “this is as far as the car goes. I may be a willing slave to my hobby, but I drag no hapless woman with me.”

  “It’s not your hobby. It’s ours.”

  “Nevertheless, you wait here—you and your silly popgun.”

  “That,” she said, “is what you think.”

  “It’s what I know,” he said. Then, suddenly serious: “Look here, darling. We’ve not even the vaguest idea of what we’re getting into. It may be as mean and dirty as the district it’s in. I’d be scared stiff if you came along.”

  “So I’m to sit here and be scared stiff until you get back?”

  “Or else,” he threatened, “we go straight to the police. Although any self-respecting cop would arrest you in that devil’s cape.”

  She was angry. He looked at her and saw that she was staring straight ahead, her lips tight-pressed, her chin rigid. He patted her knee and got out, walked away.

  Just once, as he went past the warehouse a hundred yards or so distant, he turned his head to look back. The car’s headlights owlishly stared at him. Uneasy about leaving Angel alone too long on a street so dark and unsavory, he quickened his step.

  Number 23 was one of a row of tenements, all of which looked alike in the dark. A battered ashcan filled with refuse stood on the concrete stoop beside the door. The door opened when Smith pressed it.

  He stepped over the threshold into a black, smelly hall. Stopped there, scowling, and realized that the house had three floors and he had no idea on which level to concentrate.

  His flash-light winked, threading a narrow beam through the gloom of the lower hall. A baby carriage stood there. He went past it, past the door of the first-floor tenement, to the stairs. The building was a tomb, cold and damp and dark.

  With the light cupped in his hand he climbed slowly, testing each ancient step before trusting it with his weight. The second-floor landing came level with his eyes and he stopped again. The light showed him a small and black cigarette stub lying by a door. He smiled a tight, twisted little smile and knew that the door was his destination.

  He stepped beside it, scowled, and snapped out the light. There was no sound anywhere.

  The fact that he was unarmed did not greatly worry him. It never had before. The day he began to carry a gun, he told himself, Trouble, Incorporated, would cease to be a hobby. Besides, he had no permit.

  He tipped his hat back on his head and loosened his tie. He opened his coat, rubbed a hand over the floor and transferred the dirt thus collected to the front of his shirt, blackening it. For good measure he pulled off two buttons, to make the shirt sag.

  He dirtied his face and rumpled his hair, and put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, the lenses of which were clear glass.

  Then he seized the doorknob and rattled it, and then he banged on the door and cursed it and began talking to himself.

  Results were not long coming. A couch squeaked inside and a voice said sharply, “Who’s there? Who’s out there?”

  “It’sh Percy,” Smith slobbered. “Lemme in.”

  “Who? Who is it?”

  “It’sh Percy! You lemme in or sho help me I’ll busht the door down!”

  A key turned in the lock and the door opened. It didn’t open far. Just far enough to frame a short, thick-set man whose swarthy face was all scowl.

  “Listen, buddy,” the swarthy man said. “You’re in the wrong place. Beat it.”

  “Who’re you?”

  “Never mind who I am. It’s the middle of the night, see? And you’re in the wrong alley. Scram!”

  “Thish ish where I live,” Smith snorted. “Don’ you tell me I don’ belong here. I know different.”

  The dark fellow was in no mood to argue with a drunk. He came a step closer, put his right hand flat against Smith’s chest, and pushed. He slammed the door as Smith staggered away from it.

  Smith smiled that tight little smile again and resumed his assault. If he made enough noise, the occupants of the tenement would do one of two things: either slug him or try to reason with him. He didn’t think they would slug him. This was a hideout. They would want to avoid trouble.

  And they most certainly would open the door if he hammered on it long enough.

  It opened. The swarthy man said savagely, “Listen, buddy, will you for Gawd’s sake go away and leave us get some sleep? Or do I have to get rough with you?”

  Smith’s eyes glowered at him out of a slack, stupid face. “You listen to me,” he said. “My name’sh Percy Smith an’ I live here. An’ nobody’sh gonna keep me out!”

  Behind the swarthy man an impatient voice said, “Let him in, Max.”

  “Oke, buddy.” Max sighed. “Come on in.”

  “That’sh better,” Smith said. “That’sh much better.”

  He walked in, weaving a little. Max closed the door.

  “Now take a good look around, Percy,” Max said, “and you’ll see this ain’t the place you thought it was. You’re drunk and you’re in the wrong house.”

  “Who saysh I am?”

  “Look around. See for yourself.”

  Smith looked around. The room in which he stood was a living-room, furnished with table, chairs and a couch. The swarthy man, Max, had evidently been sleeping on the couch, in his clothes. His clothes were wrinkled and he wore no shoes.

  The other man was bigger. He wore gray pajamas which hung loosely from his lank frame, revealing a generous expanse of hairy chest. His hair was in his eyes and he stood with his hands hipped, feet spread wide, just back of the table. A door behind him led to what appeared to be a bedroom.

  “I—I guessh I was mistaken,” Smith mumbled apologetically.

  “Convinced, are you?”

  “I musht’ve got mixed up somehow.”

  “Well, if you’re convinced,” Max said, “just scram like a nice guy and don’t make any more noise’n you have to.”

  Smith stood where he was. “I—I don’ feel sho good,” he said.

  “O.K., O.K.,” the other man said tartly. “Beat it! Be sick outside!”

  “I wanna shtay here. I wanna lie down somewheres.…”

  The two men exchanged glances. The man named Max took his right hand out of his pocket, where it had rested since Smith’s entrance. They stepped forward. “Sure,” Max said. “We’ll help you lay down, buddy. We wouldn’t think of puttin’ a nice guy like you out in the street at this time o’ night. No-o-o. Would we, Vick?”

  “Of course not,” Vick said.

  They took hold of Smith’s arms. That was their mistake. He had been waiting for it. Waiting to get them both together, both in reach at the same time. Any
other way would have been fatal, because undoubtedly both men were armed.

  Smith’s heel came down hard, piston-fast, on a shoeless foot that belonged to Max. At the same time he twisted, stabbed an arm out and caught the other man’s wrist. He was suddenly not drunk any more, and before his adversaries were over their amazement, Smith had the situation in hand.

  You didn’t need a gun. All you needed was a slight knowledge of the fine art of Oriental wrestling, plus a fair to middling physique and a nickel’s worth of nerve.

  Max yelped, bent double at the waist as pain streaked up from his tortured foot. He bent into an upthrust knee that smacked his chin and snapped his teeth together. He staggered against the table, dazed, and had sense enough left to reach gropingly for the pocket where his gun lay. But he was too slow.

  Smith had hold of Vick’s wrist. He yanked Vick off balance, stooped, caught the arm above the wrist and pulled it. Not hard. Really not hard at all. But fast.

  Vick’s feet left the floor. He lost his breath in an explosive grunt as his big frame looped through space. His hundred and eighty pounds crashed into Max and Max was finished. Vick sprawled to the floor, stunned, and Max fell over him.

  Smith waded in. What little fight remained in Vick was dissipated quickly by a hard, clean punch to the button. For his trouble, Smith had nothing to show except a few minor beads of moisture on his face and forehead.

  He stepped back and surveyed the wreckage, highly elated. Luck, he realized, had been with him. He turned then and strode into the bedroom. It was empty.

  Scowling, he walked through the bedroom into a kitchen. That was empty, too.

  He went back to Vick and Max, sorry now that he had knocked them so thoroughly out. There were questions he wanted to ask. Questions concerning the whereabouts of Mr. and Mrs. Teddy Burdick.

  He stared at them for a moment, undecided what to do; then, stooping, he went through their pockets. Both men were armed. He removed the weapons and placed them on the table, careful not to blur any finger-prints that might be on them. One of those guns, Smith was reasonably certain, had murdered McKenna.

  In Vick’s pocket he found a slip of paper. Penciled words, written in a stiff, marching hand, said: “Fix up the girl tomorrow night, provided the papers are in our possession by that time. The following night take care of the husband. Carefully now—suicide.”

  Smith read it twice, then pocketed it. An ugly fear took hold of him. Fear that he might have come too late. That the thing had already been done. He went into the kitchen, found an empty tin can and filled it with cold water. Returning, he knelt beside Vick and poured the water over his face.

  Behind him a voice said quietly: “We will omit that, please. We will stand up and put our hands high and turn around very slowly.”

  t was a familiar voice. Quite a famous voice, in fact. Smith had heard it several times on the radio, had heard it also at university lectures. He knew, therefore, even before he obeyed the command, that at long last he had come face to face with the supposedly dead Dubitsky.

  It was not a pleasant sensation. He turned, raised his hands, and stared glumly at Dubitsky’s face. The hall door was open and the professor stood just inside it, tall and stoop- shouldered and grim. The automatic in his hand was small but deadly.

  “Your name, please?” Dubitsky said curtly.

  “It’sh Percy Smith, mishter.” It was worth a try, anyway, Smith figured. “These two men shaid I didn’ live here an’ I had a dishcussion.”

  “We will omit that, also,” Dubitsky snapped. “You were not drunk when you came from the kitchen!”

  Smith sighed. “I’m not drunk now, either,” he said, hunching his shoulders.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Vick’s an old friend of mine.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “Sure. Back in the old days, Vick and I used to work together. So when I met him on the street a while ago, he invited me up here, just to talk over old times. Me and him and this other guy here, we got into an argument. That’s all.”

  “You are lying,” Dubitsky said.

  “So help me, it’s the truth!”

  “Is it? Suppose, then, you tell me Vick’s full name.”

  “Huh?”

  “I thought so,” Dubitsky said. “You are an agent of the government.” He came a step closer, his eyes flashing. “Well, my meddling friend, you are too late. Most of the papers are already on their way to an agent of my government. Except for minor details, my work is finished. And you, my friend, will not interfere with those minor details, I assure you.”

  Smith did not answer. His gaze was on the door and he was frightened. His upraised hands trembled and perspiration gleamed on his face.

  Dubitsky misunderstood. He smiled. “You have good reason to be afraid of me, my friend,” he said.

  Out in the hall, Miss Angelina Copeland placed on the floor the shoes she was carrying. They were her own shoes. She had removed them before ascending the stairs. She looked like Little Red Riding Hood, except Red didn’t pack a gun. She measured the distance now between her outthrust hands and Dubitsky’s broad back, and, still in a crouch, she set herself. Then she lunged.

  The threshold creaked as she went over it, and Dubitsky whirled. He whirled too late. Angel threw herself at his knees and bucked him off balance. Smith closed in and caught him.

  Smith’s hands closed over Dubitsky’s wrist and twisted. He hadn’t used that particular twist before. It was dangerous. In the gymnasium where he worked out, it was outlawed. You could break a man’s arm with it.

  Smith put all he had into it, and the arm snapped. He stopped then and threw Dubitsky over his head, and when the professor crashed into the door frame something else snapped.

  Dubitsky shuddered to the floor and lay in a sprawled, unlovely heap. Smith straightened, gasping for breath.

  “Lord!” he said. “That was close! Angel, you were marvelous! Why didn’t you shoot, though?”

  “I was scared to,” she declared, picking herself up and still clinging to the gun.

  “I told you to keep out of here!”

  “I know you did. So I drove the car up and parked it just across the street. You didn’t expect me to stay in the bleachers when the ringside was vacant, did you? Then I saw Dubitsky walk in here, and my woman’s intuition told me I’d be needed.”

  Dubitsky had not moved. Scowling a little, Smith knelt beside him.

  “Is it bad?” Angel asked.

  “Bad enough,” he said, holding a hand over the professor’s heart. “I suppose he’ll live, though. They usually do.” Then he turned to her. “Put that silly gun away.”

  “You’ll be answering a flock of awfully embarrassing questions, darling, if he doesn’t live,” Angel said, letting the gun swing loose in her hand.

  He stood up, glancing at Vick and Max. “Speaking of questions, I still want to ask a few.” Vick, he saw, was coming to. The cold water had begun to take effect.

  He put a hand on Vick’s neck, groped for a moment with one finger and then pressed.

  “Hey!” Vick choked.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Smith said quietly. “Hurts a little.” He pressed harder.

  Vick jerked clear of the floor and fell flat again with a spongy thud. There was a nerve back there that was really sensitive.

  “You’re killin’ me!”

  “I will, too,” Smith promised solemnly, “unless you cooperate. Tell me now—what have you done with the Burdicks.”

  “I never heard of no Burdicks.”

  Smith tickled the nerve. Not gently this time, but strenuously.

  “They’re upstairs!” Vick gasped. “For Gawd’s sake, cut it out!”

  “See if you can find some rope around here, Angel,” Smith said. “If not, rip up a bedsheet. Now, Vick, it’s my turn. I’ll tell you what I know, or guess, and you can supply the rest.”

  “The place for that,” Angel said, “is not here. Too much might happen. Let’s take him
with us. First thing you know, someone will walk in here with a machine gun, and then where will you be with your Chinese wrestling?”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, but even Steve Brodie didn’t try it twice, darling. I’m going upstairs and collecting the Burdicks.”

  She walked out. Smith glared at Vick and said grimly, “One thing I do want to know. What’s so all-fired important about those papers?”

  “You go to hell,” Vick snarled.

  Smith found the nerve again. Vick shuddered to the tips of his fingers.

  “It—it’s a formula,” he gasped. “It’s some screwy formula for a new high explosive. That’s all I know. I swear it!”

  “I think,” Smith said slowly, “I get it. At least, I begin to. Our friend Dubitsky was sent here by a foreign government. He took his time. He planned things carefully. Through him, Burdick and one or two other students obtained jobs at the Glickman Company. Through Burdick, the learned professor obtained information on the whereabouts of the formula. But things were hot. He decided to vanish. As Professor Dubitsky he did vanish. How right am I, Vick?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Vick mumbled. “Lay off of me, will you?”

  “He found out,” Smith said, “that the custodian of the secret was McKenna. With that to work on, he planned to rob McKenna’s safe, and also, very cleverly, figured out an alibi because he knew he’d have to kill McKenna after he got him to open his safe. To cover up the murder Dubitsky planned that the police would discover after a while that McKenna was paying attention to Burdick’s wife, and that Burdick himself, soon after McKenna’s murder, had committed suicide. It would appear to be the usual sordid triangle, leaving Dubitsky and the real motive thoroughly obscured. I like to reason these things out, Vick. It’s half the fun.”

  Angel, appearing in the doorway, said impatiently: “Mr. and Mrs. Burdick are now in your car, Mr. Smith. Could you cut it short, perhaps?”

  “One more thing, Vick.”

  “Huh?”

  “Who murdered McKenna?”

  “You go to hell!”

  Smith caressed the nerve again.