by Lester Dent
Frowning, Nace lunged back into the outer office and slammed down at his desk. He dug out his pipe and a silk pouch of rough cut. He rasped a match alight on the under side of the desk, applied it to his pipe and sat scowling. The serpent scar gradually went away from his forehead.
“Damned if it don’t beat me!” he muttered. “Gooch gets funny ideas of a joke! Maybe that was one of ’em!”
As if that dismissed the affair, he took the morning paper out of his pocket, cracked it open, and settled back to read.
He was over as far as the sport page when a strange-looking man came in. The fellow walked slowly, kept his head down. He wore a black suit, black derby, a black string tie, black cotton gloves on his hands. He was the picture of a crow in mourning.
“Good morning, sir!” he said solemnly. “I am in search of a Mr. Lee Nace.”
Nace put his paper down. “That’s me.”
“I believe you must have made a mistake about the address you gave us,” the newcomer murmured. He took off his black derby as if he had just thought of it. “There was, I am sorry to say, no such address.”
“What kind of an address?”
“Why—where we were to take the coffin.”
Nace placed his pipe atop his paper. He grinned widely, then scowled sourly, as if practicing making faces. On his forehead, the serpentine scar coiled redly.
“What the hell?” he said savagely. “Is this somebody’s lousy idea of more humor? Did Gooch send you?”
The man in the crow garments looked even more mournful.
“Perhaps I should have explained,” he murmured. “What I mean is the coffin bearing your brother’s body. It’s in a hearse downstairs.”
Nace picked up his pipe, laid it down. He gave the man a hard eye. “You wouldn’t kid me, buddy?”
The man seemed injured. “Perhaps there has been a mistake—”
“You’re blasted right there’s been a mistake!” Nace snorted. “I don’t know anything about a coffin or a dead man. Anyway, I haven’t got a brother!”
The other fumbled his derby. The hat was sized down by a stuffing of newspapers in the sweat band. “Are you Lee Nace, the private detective?”
“Sure.”
“When you telephoned me, you said—”
“I didn’t telephone you!” Nace got up from behind the desk and came around and stood close to the man. “I still think this is a joke, buddy! Maybe you’re in it, and maybe you’re not. Be a good guy and spill the works!”
The man absently adjusted the newspapers in his derby. “I am from Lake City. My name is Stanley, and I own the Quiet Service Funeral Parlor. Yesterday, a Mr. Nace telephoned me—”
“I’m betting his name wasn’t Nace!”
“He used that name. He said he wanted the body of his brother taken to New York. He told me to come to a home in Lake City for the—er, remains, and I did that. Then I drove all day and all night—”
“Was there anybody at the house where you got the body?” Nace inserted.
“Oh, yes! Two of them. One was a big, red-headed girl. The other was a man, a big man. He had a purple nose. The body was there in a coffin. Like I said, I drove all night—”
“The two at the house have names?”
“They forgot to tell me—”
Nace picked up his newspaper, popped it into a wastebasket. “Go on with the yarn.”
“I got in New York this morning—”
“If I know my geography, Lake City is on the Lake Erie shore, just across the Ohio state line. That right?”
“That is correct. Lake City is a beautiful little town of—”
“You made a damn quick trip for a hearse!”
The man put his black derby on. His mien was not so mournful now. “I opened her up a little. She’s fixed up with a siren. We use her for an ambulance sometimes. Anyway, I tried to find the New York address them people give me, and there wasn’t no such thing. So I got your office address out of the phone book and came here.”
Nace set teeth in his pipe stem, fanned a match over the bowl. He did not mention the fact that his phone was unlisted. His name and number were not in the directory.
“Well,” he said. “It looks like the next move is yours.”
The man adjusted his derby. The headgear was sizes too big, but the folded paper in the sweatband made it fit snugly. “They told me in Lake City that you would pay me for the trip.”
Nace snorted. “Do I have to tell you the answer to that one?”
The visitor recovered his mournful look. “If this is a joke, mister, it’s on me, not you.”
“Sure.” Nace puffed his pipe bowl hot. “I think I’ll take a look at your passenger from Lake City.”
“Of course!” said the black clad man.
He walked ahead of Nace into the tiled hall, and thumbed for an elevator. Nace began slapping his pockets with great vigor.
“Wait a minute!” he grunted. “Forgot something!”
He swung back into his office. But he did not put anything into his pockets. Instead, he made sure the hall door had set its spring lock, so his visitor could not follow him. Then he snapped open a desk drawer and took out a steel skullcap, lined with sponge rubber. This bore a blond mop which exactly matched Nace’s hair.
He put it on, adjusting it by a mirror on the inside of the clothes locker door. The thing made his head look a little bigger, but only a close observer would notice that.
He rejoined the man in the raven garb. They rode the cage down to the lobby. Nace, with a habitual duck as he stepped out of the elevator, headed for the street.
“Wait!” said his guide. “I parked the hearse around behind.”
“Sure. I guess it would collect a crowd out in front,” Nace said. But he began to get a cold feeling around his spine.
They circled back of the elevators, and went down a long passage with shoe soles clicking on cold concrete.
They came out in a pit of a courtyard, concrete floored. A slit between two buildings gave access to the street. There was a circle of big iron doors, loading platforms, dirty windows. The air smelled of rubbish, gasoline and disinfectant.
THE hearse was black and long. The windows were backed by light tan curtains, fully drawn.
Nace’s guide took off his black derby and climbed in, after flinging open the double doors at the rear. Tan curtains whizzed on the slide as he brushed against them. He reached back and closed them, although they had let in light.
“Come and look,” he invited.
Nace clambered in and forward, seeming not to notice that the somber man maneuvered to a position behind him. The fellow opened the forward half of the coffin.
Nace did not look surprised when he saw no body in the pearl-colored interior.
Instead, he sank a little, bending both knees. He had a good idea of what was coming. He wanted to take it on the top of his head.
The blackjack made a whistle, a thunk! Its leather burst and shot sprayed the hearse interior.
Nace fell, ears belling, colored lights crawling around in his eyeballs. The man had either never used a blackjack before, or he had meant to kill. Only the steel skullcap had saved Nace.
The man spurred Nace with a foot. “You’re supposed to be quite a guy in the big town. But take the word of an elm-peeler from the sticks, you ain’t so hot!”
He went back, closed the rear doors. Nace opened an eye and studied as much of the coffin lid as he could see from his position on the floor. It bore no lock, much to his relief.
The man came back, humming cheerfully, and flipped open the other coffin lid. He got hold of Nace’s shoulders and lifted. Nace let himself be dumped into the coffin and lay there, feet sticking out. The man pushed at Nace’s feet.
“Yah!” he snorted. “You would be too long to fit!”
He scrambled out the back. Nace heard the rattle of the lock on the rear door, but did not worry greatly. He could kick a window out if necessary.
Starter gears gn
ashed iron teeth. The engine came awake with a hoot. It moaned a few times as the man pedaled the accelerator.
Then several things happened in slap-bang order. Shoes scuffed on concrete as a man rushed from some hiding place. The wild footsteps reached the hearse. Blows whacked. A gasp made a sound as if paper had torn.
The hearse seemed to spring backward. Evidently the driver had slumped against the shift lever, knocking it into reverse. Nace’s head hit the coffin and so hard that the shock trickled to his toes.
The vehicle came to a stop with the engine killed.
“You would give your pal Tammany a run-around, would you?” growled the newcomer, harsh-voiced.
Nace got up and sat on the coffin edge.
Chapter II
The Pop-Eyed Dead
LEANING forward, Nace picked the curtains apart a crack. He got a good view of the new arrival.
The fellow was a little, dapper hawk. He was around five feet, weighing maybe a hundred and twenty. He was twitching scuffed skin off the fist with which he had just struck blows. He flexed the fist, snapped crimson drops off, then blew on it.
Seizing the dark-clad man, he hauled the fellow from behind the wheel, exhibiting amazing strength for one so small.
The man in black was so dazed that he could not stand erect.
Leaning down, the little man slapped. The blows had the crack of a pistol shot.
“I should smear you, Jeck!” he gritted.
The sitting man put both hands over his cheek, wailed, “Listen, Tammany—!”
“Listen—hell! I’ve listened to you too much already!”
“I couldn’t find you, Tammany!” Jeck put up black-gloved hands, as if to shield off more blows. “They started to take Jud Ogel’s body to Nace. And I couldn’t find you. I tried everywhere, and I couldn’t get you. What was I to do? The body-moving gag looked like a stall to get the stuff out of town.”
“Was it?”
“That’s the funny part! I grabbed the hearse near Hudsonville, in Jersey. There wasn’t nothin’ in it! Not even Jud Ogel’s body!”
Little Tammany snapped more red from his fist. “Well, when I found everybody concerned had left for New York, I set sail myself. Understand me, I’m not saying I believe a word of your talk. But we’ll play like I do. Who’s this bird, Lee Nace?”
“A private dick. I called a newspaper and got some dope on him. He has a rep.”
“Bad or otherwise?”
“Search me! He’s something the police don’t like. But that don’t mean anything. The private shamus that they would like don’t live.”
Tammany swelled his knot of a chest. “Let’s wake him up and talk to him. I saw you put him in the back.”
“He’ll take a lot of awakening, I guess.” Jeck shoved up on his feet and stood, legs weaving at the knees.
“I hope you didn’t kill him! He seems to be the key to this whole mess!”
Nace angled silently to the rear door. The serpentine scar was bright on his forehead. So they thought he was the key! And he had no idea what it was all about!
Nace wore elongated, ornate cuff buttons. He removed the one from his left sleeve. He worked at the two halves with his fingernails. Hidden lids came open. Two tiny darts were disclosed.
The lock at the rear rattled, then the doors whisked back. Tammany was first to show himself. Nace flipped a dart. It flew too swiftly to be seen, but materialized like a tiny thorn, clinging to Tammany’s neck.
The blank look on the stricken man’s face alarmed Jeck. He sprang forward, only to get Nace’s second dart in the cheek.
For perhaps a count of ten, both men stood still, faces becoming blanker. Tammany was the first to pile down slackly on the concrete. Jeck followed him, seeming to turn into a pile of black cloth.
Nace hopped out and dumped both men into the hearse. It was early, but someone might look out of the neighboring windows and see what was happening.
Locating a set of the web straps used in lowering caskets in graves, Nace employed them to bind both men securely. He tore padding out of the caskets and made two gags.
The men would sleep for two hours or so. The drug on the darts produced an unconsciousness that lasted about that long.
Nace searched them, finding money, cigarettes, and cards that showed them to be Thomas Tammany and Leo Jeck, members of the Lake City country club. There was nothing really important.
Nace’s height made him seem awkward as he got out of the hearse. He went around and looked at the name done in small silver letters on the front door. The Quiet Service Funeral Parlor, of Lake City. He eyed the license number, fixing it in his memory. The gasoline tank was nearly full. The gas was a colored variety—dark amber.
NACE entered his office building, banging his heels along the concrete corridor. The adder was gone from his forehead. He stoked his pipe on the way up in the elevator.
From his office, he put in a long distance call to Lake City. He held the wire, listening to clicks and animated feminine cries as the connection was built up.
“Hello—Quiet Service Funeral Parlor?” he said at length. “I want to find out something about a hearse of yours.” He gave the license number.
“We only got one hearse!” a wheezy voice came back at him. “We rented it out to a feller yesterday.”
“Who was he?”
“Said his name was Smith, from a little town over in Pennsylvania, where he has a funeral home.”
“What did he look like?”
“Say—has something happened to our hearse?”
“It’s safe here in New York, but we’re hunting the bird who was driving it. Describe him!”
“He was a big man. The main thing I remember about him was his nose. It was purple looking.”
“Thanks, buddy!” Nace hung up. Black-clothed Jeck, when he had first appeared, had declared a red-headed girl and a purple-nosed man had consigned him the body in Lake City. Jeck’s story had been a lie, of course, but the part about the man with the purple nose was significant.
Nace got up and walked slowly around the chair. He went to the window and stood looking down. His pipe bubbled and hissed and smoke made a fog against the pane.
Detective Sergeant Gooch sat in a squad car across the street. Beside him in the machine was Honest John MacGill. Honest John was three-hundred pounds of plugging, straight copper. Men like him backboned the police department.
The tense manner of both policemen showed they were watching Nace’s office building.
Nace caught their gaze. Sergeant Gooch waved a cigar he was smoking, then took off his hat and poked a finger inside to show he had been carrying some of Nace’s weeds there. Scowling, Nace pulled down the window shade. There was no particular hate in his scowl. Gooch and Honest John were all right. But they did love to ride a private operative.
Nace, thinking of the search warrant, swung over to the telephone. He had a friend down at headquarters that might be able to tell him what was behind the warrant. Sergeant Gooch would never part with the information, it was sure.
He picked up the phone.
A CONTRALTO voice behind him said, “I think you have galloped around long enough!”
Nace spun. She was tall, with red hair and eyes a contrast in blue. Her form was moulded exquisitely upon large bones. The bluing was worn off the double-action Colt which she held.
Nace sucked angrily at his pipe. She had been concealed in the inner room. Nace growled around his pipe stem, “What kind of a game—”
“You might as well save that!” She gestured her gun at the window. “Why did you pull down the shade just then?”
Nace gave her surly silence for an answer.
“It won’t take long to find out!” She whipped to the window with a feline grace, and ran the shade up. “Ah—my friends, the policemen! Well, they aren’t doing any good down there!” She worked at the fastening to get the window open. She was, he could see, going to call Gooch.
Nace pulled his pipe out of
his teeth and pegged it at her gun hand. He had practiced long hours at throwing things. His aim left nothing to be desired. The pipe tapped her knuckles.
Pain tightened her finger on the trigger. The gun coughed. Plaster geysered off the wall. Nace took a gangling leap, grabbed her arm, shook it. The gun went skidding across the room.
Holding her tight in his arms, Nace ran to the inner office. He had no idea what it was all about, but the thing smacked of a frame-up.
His eyes roved the inner office with practiced speed. There was no sign of evidence planted to connect him with some crime.
He had the red-head’s arm pinned, but she began to kick at his shins and scream loudly.
Nace carried her back, picked up his pipe, then, still holding her, went to the window and looked down. Sergeant Gooch and Honest John MacGill were not in the squad car. They must have run into the building, drawn by the shot.
The girl had changed her screaming to words.
“Big Zeke!” she shrilled. “Help me!”
Came a banging at the hall door. The spring lock had secured the panel automatically when Nace entered. With a crash and jangle, frosted glass cascaded out of the door. A man shoved head and shoulders inside.
The man was almost as tall as Nace, fully twice as heavy. His hands were rust-colored, huge, shaggy with tobacco-hued hair. His nose was big, and a network of veins that seemed to lie on the surface gave it a purple color.
He bearded Nace with a blue revolver that was a twin to the girl’s weapon. Nace spun the girl away, flung himself backward. A bullet dug plaster on a line with the space he had vacated. More bullets came. They pursued Nace, always a yard or so behind, as he pitched into the inner office.
He slammed the door, twisted the key. His face and hands were pale, but the adder scar was a scarlet stamp on his forehead. Lead began clouting splintery holes in the door.
Nace jerked a coil of linen rope from behind the cold radiator. The rope was there for just such an emergency as this. One end was already secured to the radiator. He jerked up the window and flung out the rope. This window was on the side of the building. It was six stories down to a rooftop.
