by Lester Dent
“I didn’t know any of them. The woman they grabbed was red-headed—a peach of a looker. The other woman wore an orange-colored dress and one orange-colored earring. She wasn’t so hard to look at, either. I don’t know the man’s name, but I’ve seen him before.”
“Seen him when?”
“Oh, he came in a time or two with one of our guests, a Mister Osterfelt.”
“Osterfelt here now?” demanded the officer.
“No. He didn’t come in last night. Hasn’t been in all day.”
“Why didn’t you notify the police he was missing?”
The clerk shrugged. “We don’t usually rush into things like that. He might have put up with a friend for the night.”
UNNOTICED, Nace glided over to the desk. Instead of the old-fashioned registration book, this hostelry used a card index system. He opened the card drawer surreptitiously and thumbed through it.
Mel. G. Osterfelt, from Berlin, Germany, had registered for 1103.
Without attracting attention, Nace went to the bank of pigeon holes which held keys. Then he rode the elevator up.
The door of 1103 was locked. The key he had taken from the pigeon hole downstairs fitted. He let himself in.
The room was plain, like most of the other hotel rooms Nace had seen. A big traveling bag, plastered with steamship stickers, stood near the bed. Osterfelt must have traveled a lot. There were stickers from most of the big steamship lines.
Nace opened the bag. It was empty. There was clothing in the closet, neat business suits. Osterfelt had evidently unpacked for a stay.
Measuring the suits against his own gaunt height, Nace concluded Osterfelt had been a stocky man, very fat. He had been a dresser; there was silk underwear in the dresser drawers.
The dresser had two half-drawers at the top. One of these held a brief case. It was stuffed. Nace dumped the contents.
Papers showed Mel. G. Osterfelt to be a research chemist for a Berlin firm specializing in the manufacture of welding equipment.
There was a black bag, leather-padded, perhaps two inches square. Nace opened it. It was a ring box, empty.
The padded satin of the lid carried the indentation made by the setting of a ring which must have been placed there often. Nace calculated. The impression was about the size and shape of the diamond which had been found in the alleged meteor.
Nace replaced the box. It had about convinced him that the man who died—murdered, probably—in the hellish blaze which many had thought was a meteor, was Osterfelt. At least, the victim had been wearing Osterfelt’s ring.
Pushing his search, Nace found one more item of interest. It was a receipt for the shipment of a package from New York by serial express.
NACE left the room, locking the door. The policeman and the clerk were just entering an elevator, enroute up to Osterfelt’s room, no doubt, when he reached the lobby.
He entered a booth which was one of a bank. From one of these, Julia must have been dragged.
Nace thumbed through a directory, found the number of the local office at which aerial express arrived. He described the package designated in the receipt and asked if it was being held.
“It was called for yesterday,” he was told.
“How many men came after it?” he queried.
“Three,” was the reply. “I remember the occasion because one of them, a short, fat fellow, was some kind of a foreigner. He couldn’t speak much English.”
That would be Osterfelt, Nace reflected.
“What about the other two?”
“I don’t remember much about them.”
Nace described the two men unconscious in his car—Shack and Tubby. “That sound like them?”
“Sure. That’s the pair. I remember now.”
“Any idea what was in the package?”
“Hell no!”
Nace hung up. Shack and Tubby had gone with Osterfelt to get his package. Then Osterfelt had been murdered. Or so it seemed.
A squad car filled with police moaned up in front. Officers blocked the door.
Nace started to leave.
“Sorry, buddy,” he was told. “Something just happened here. A kidnapping, or something. We’ve got to find out what it’s about before anybody leaves.”
Nace nodded meekly, entered an elevator, got off at the second floor, let himself through a window onto the bottom landing of a fire escape and managed it from there to an alley.
He walked around in front, kept parked cars between himself and the police, and entered the coupe. He got away without being discovered.
He drove to his hotel. For the moment, there was nothing else to do.
It would be—he consulted his watch—thirty minutes before Shack and Tubby awakened. Not until then could they be questioned.
As for Julia, no telling where she had been taken. If she got a chance, she would give Nace a call at his hotel. It was the only spot where she could be sure of finding him.
He parked the machine and rode up to his room. He did not wait idly this time. Out of a closet, he dug a zipper-closed canvas bag. This container held tools of his trade. It was his sack of magic.
His clothing was a bit rumpled. He changed to a neat dark blue linen suit. A white Panama came out of a suitcase. He examined it carefully, put it back on.
He extracted a small flask of rubbing alcohol from his bag. Then he went downstairs.
“The room next to mine don’t happen to be vacant?” he queried.
The clerk consulted his record. “The connecting room on the right is unoccupied.”
“I’ll take it,” Nace told him. “A couple of friends of mine have been foolish enough to take on a little bigger load than they can stand. They’re both—well, pretty tight. I don’t like to take them home in that condition. I’ll just put them up there and let them sleep it off.”
The clerk smiled knowingly.
Chapter IV
Tricks
NACE signed for the room, paid the tariff, then went out to his car. He waited until no one was near, then unlocked the rear compartment and dragged out both prisoners.
On each man, he sprinkled a quantity of the rubbing alcohol. The stuff evaporated, but left the strong scent of liquor.
An arm about the waist of each, he lugged them inside.
“Passed plumb out,” he told the clerk.
“I’ll help you,” the clerk offered.
Together, they got the pair up to the room Nace had rented. Nace gave the clerk a dollar for his trouble, and watched the fellow depart.
Nace now used sheets and towels to bind each man. He did not apply the lashings any too tightly. He dumped them on the bed.
He unlocked the connecting door.
He was standing there when the pair on the bed began to squirm with returning consciousness. They rolled their eyes at him, glared. One opened his mouth.
“Go ahead—squawk!” Nace invited. “Cops will be up here thicker’n flies!”
The man changed his mind about yelling.
“Whatcha want?” he snarled.
“Your company is all for the present,” Nace said dryly.
“Huh?” They seemed surprised.
“Sure,” Nace chuckled fiercely. “You see, I’ve sort of got a line on you two punks. We’ll wait around a bit and see what happens.”
He said nothing more, but watched them. They squirmed, testing their bonds. Then they exchanged looks and remained quiet. Each had discovered he could slip the lashings in a very few minutes.
After a bit, Nace went into his own room. He closed the door. Instantly, he could hear the pair struggling with their tyings.
Nace lifted the receiver quietly off his phone, got the operator and asked for the adjoining room.
An instant later, the phone in the next room began shrilling.
He left the receiver off the prong of his own instrument and walked through the connecting door.
Shack and Tubby instantly became quiescent. Their bindings were markedly looser.
Nace picked up the ringing telephone. “Yeah? Oh, it’s you, kid?”
He listened intently for a moment.
“That’s swell,” he declared, pretending the call was genuine. “Canadan spilled the works, did he? Now, let me get this straight! Canadan knew Shack and Tubby had lifted the secret of that infernal heat from Osterfelt. Shack and Tubby killed Osterfelt. They promised to kill Canadan if he told anybody they intended to pull a series of big robberies, the first of which was the theft of the diamond exhibit at the Century of Progress? That it….”
Shack and Tubby were swapping pop-eyed looks.
“You say Canadan has offered to produce proof that Shack and Tubby killed Osterfelt after they got the ingredients for making the infernal heat from the aerial express office?” Nace continued. “That’s swell!… He can prove they destroyed the diamond and Osterfelt’s skull, too? And that they tried to get me in that television theatre?… He will! That’s even better!”
Nace went through the motions of listening intently. “O.K. They’ll be here when you come up with the cops.”
Hanging up, Nace went over and gagged Shack and Tubby. He did not touch their bindings.
“You monkeys are bad actors!” he said in a blustering tone. “I’m going down and see if I can raise a gun. I’ll need it, maybe, with two mugs like you on my hands.”
He went out, locked both doors, and hurried downstairs. He grinned at the clerk, said, “My two pals are coming along all hunky,” and went out.
He circled to an alley in the rear and watched the hotel fire escape. He wore his Panama, and carried his canvas zipper bag.
Not more than four minutes later, both Shack and Tubby came out of the hotel window. They piled down the fire escape in great haste.
NACE withdrew from view. From his bag, he took a delicate periscope. The stem of this was not much larger than a match, but so perfectly ground were the tiny mirrors and lenses that it functioned with the efficiency of a much larger instrument. It was possible to thrust the thing through a keyhole and survey an entire room.
Using this around the angle of a brick wall, Nace watched Shack and Tubby. When they ran toward him, he withdrew and hailed a taxi.
He was seated on the floorboards in the rear of the taxi when Shack and Tubby came out of the alley. For a moment, he thought they were going to attempt to hail the hack in which he crouched. They did not notice the tiny stick of the periscope.
Another cab came along and they piled in.
The trail led over to Michigan Avenue, then south past hotels which faced the lake, past expensive shops. The twin towers of the Sky Ride in the Century of Progress grounds hove into view ahead. The towers were like girders standing on end. Long rods of light striped their sides.
The two men did not stop at the Century of Progress, but went on southward, dismissing their conveyance at the Twenty Third Street entrance. They paid a fifty-cent admission apiece and passed through a turnstile.
Nace, carrying his zipper bag, trailed them. He kept under cover as much as he could.
A prominent radio broadcast band was blaring music from the loudspeakers mounted on poles along the midway. The crowds were thicker. The cool of the night had drawn them out. Overhead, one of the little dirigibles was pulling a long streamer of illuminated letters.
Shack and Tubby walked swiftly.
Nace got in a ricksha pulled by a college boy. He made the boy trot, kept his quarry in sight.
The two crossed the semi-circular bridge over the lagoon, passed the Spectaculum, passed a moored whaling ship, a Norwegian ship. They swung out on the steamer landing.
Nace dismissed his college boy.
Shack and Tubby entered a lake steamer moored to the landing. It was a small craft as such vessels go, obviously old, in need of a paint job. No smoke came from the funnels. The steamer apparently was not being used.
A sign, hung on a chain across the gangplank, said, “No admittance.”
On the other side of the landing, another steamer, clean, neat, was taking on passengers for a night ride on the lake.
Nace, walking back a few yards, paid twenty-five cents admission and went aboard the whaling ship. From the far rail, he could see a speed boat tied to the lakeward side of the old steamer.
He quitted the whaler and approached the old boat. Posting himself near the stern, in the shelter of a piling, he watched the boat which was taking on passengers. It was loaded. They were hauling in the gangplank. A moment later, the whistle blared out, a signal prepatory to departing.
Under cover of the great roar, Nace ran lightly, leaped. He landed on the steamer rail. A twist, and he was aboard the old boat.
HE crouched there for a time. There was no light, no sound. He sidled over and saw the speed boat still tied to the lakeward rail.
Working forward, he found, in the engine room, the explanation of why the old steamer was inoperable. Something had gone wrong with the engine. A boiler was partially dismantled.
He went on, ears alert, entering narrow passages which were shabbily carpeted. Stateroom doors crowded either side. One of these, well down the corridor, showed a bar of light at the bottom.
He stopped before this, stooped, put an ear to the keyhole.
“So this guy Nace was pulling a fast one!” growled Shack’s voice. “You sure?”
“I had not told him a thing,” Canadan’s voice quavered.
“He talked like somebody had put a bug in his ear!” Tubby put in. “He knew about Osterfelt—how Osterfelt brought the secret of the big heat and the ingredients for making it to this country. He also knowed we lifted it from Osterfelt, then scragged ’im!”
Shack swore violently. “He knew we had planned to take a whack at the diamond exhibit here! How’d he figure that out?”
“Plain as your nose!” Tubby jeered. “He found Canadan hangin’ around the diamond exhibit. That told him. He’s a dick. He can deduce things!”
“I’ll deduce things too, if I get my hands on that shamus!” Shack gritted savagely. “Say, d’you reckon he could’ve let us loose so he could follow us? Them sheets and things he tied us with were mighty loose. He might’ve trailed us—”
A feminine voice behind Nace said grimly, “And I presume that’s exactly what he did!”
Nace erected, spun. Simultaneously, a flashlight sprayed him with white.
The girl from the orange-drink stand stood just out of reach. A tiny automatic poked a black snout out of her fist.
She waved the gun. “You know the motions! Go through ’em!”
Nace carefully lowered his zipper bag and lifted his hands.
SHE came forward, patted his armpits, his hips, his coat pockets. “Well, for the love of Mabel! Don’t you carry a gun?”
Nace, keeping his arms up, said, “No!”
Inside the stateroom, silence had suddenly fallen.
Canadan’s shaky voice called, “What’s happened?”
“I’ve got our friend Nace,” retorted the orange-stand girl. “He was using his ears out here.”
“Bring him in,” suggested Canadan, after the briefest of pauses.
“In a minute!”
Nace scowled at the girl. She still wore her one orange colored earring. “So you’re one of the gang?”
She laughed shortly. “The great Lee Nace! I always did figure they had you overrated!”
“Yeah?”
“You said it! You’ve got this gloriously balled up. Your red-head wasn’t so hot, either.”
“Where is Julia?” Nace asked sharply.
“She’s all right.”
“Where is she?”
“Down in the hold, cuffed to a hull brace, and chewing on a mouthful of her own nifty frock.”
Nace rocked slowly on his heels, hands still high. “She’d better be okay!”
The orange-stand girl laughed again. “I wouldn’t hurt her!”
“Yes you wouldn’t!”
“Cross my heart, I wouldn’t. I told you that you had this
all balled. I haven’t anything against you and the red-head, except that I thought it’d be swell to put it over on you. The great Lee Nace, who went to England to show Scotland Yard how it was done! Ha! Either you’re lousy, or we’re pretty good here in Chicago.”
“You talk like a cop!” Nace jeered.
“I used to be on the city detective force,” confided the orange-stand girl. “Just now, I’m an agency dick like yourself. I was one of several assigned to guard that diamond exhibit.”
Nace lowered his hands. “So you thought you’d put one over on me?”
“You said it! I got wise when you started to talk to Canadan. I can read lips. So I got Canadan away from you and persuaded him to talk. When your red-head came nosing around, I just collared her to keep her out of the way. Then we came here to the gang hangout and waited for Shack and Tubby to turn up.”
Nace looked at the stateroom door. “You’ve got Shack and Tubby?”
“Sure. They’re handcuffed in there. Canadan is watchin’ ’em! You see, Canadan was a friend of Osterfelt. Shack and Tubby approached Osterfelt with the plan for a series of robberies with the infernal heat. He refused to have anything to do with it, told Canadan about it, and they decided to go to the cops. Osterfelt was killed. Canadan was wandering around, scared to talk, when you collared him. I persuaded him it would be all right to spill the works.”
Nace glowered. “You might have told me you were a private cop in the first place!”
“Don’t be silly! There’s a standing reward of five thousand to anybody who thwarts an attempt to steal that diamond exhibit. Do you think I wanted to cut you in on that jack?”
Nace shrugged. “You win!” He adjusted his Panama, picked up his bag. “Go ahead and grab the glory!”
The girl shoved the door open, backed inside. She was barely across the threshold when a fist flashed into view. It held a revolver; the weapon cracked against her gun hand.
She dropped her automatic.
Shack leaped into view and grabbed her by the throat.
Tubby, jumping around the pair, pointed another gun at Nace.
“Walk in!” he snarled. “And be plenty careful!”
Nace walked in.
CANADAN, tall and bony, his dwarf face more than ever seeming to seek concealment behind his big gray moustache, stood against the opposite bulkhead. Handcuffs were on his wrists.
