“Your ‘wiff,’ yes,” I told him mockingly. “But not my ‘wiff,’ Petie old boy old boy. Not that she wouldn’t have transferred all my stuff—as lovingly as your ‘wiff’ would have done. Only my ‘wiff’—Laurel—possesses the profound conviction that she’s bound to outlive me. By virtue of God’s will I guess. For God, I’m certain she is convinced, is going to remove me long before her—because I take bets!”
But still he appeared unconvinced that any wife could possibly lock her own things and her husband’s papers and possessions in an unimpregnable safe under such conditions that, in case of her death, he could not possibly get in.
And it made me angry.
“See here, Givney,” I said heatedly, “I’m not here to sell you on what Laurel thinks—or says. I’ve wasted too many words on you as it is. So hop to it! I’m giving you just 3 minutes to do your stuff—and, if you don’t—”
“Hold it!” he said. “I’m talking business now, King. Just what, may I ask, is in it for me—if I open that safe?”
I felt like reaching forward and smacking him across the mouth. But didn’t. For I didn’t like the idea of getting where those powerful arms of his might do some stout locking. And so held my vantage point as it was. In spite of all I’d told him tonight, it seemed a bit ridiculous for me to dicker with him—with all the upper hand I had in the matter. But I answered him, with as much restraint as I could.
“Well, for one thing, your freedom is what’s in it for you. For all that I’ve told you here tonight confidentially about myself, isn’t worth a red cent to you. Your ladder is still over there—and your fingerprints are on the sill and pane. Remember—I can call up the police—for after all, man, I’ve a right to be home in my own library. And I can say I came home unexpectedly. And so far as Jemimah Cobb’s revelation goes—in case you refuse to play ball—don’t forget that’s something between Mrs. King and myself only—and I haven’t committed any crime, just because I once married Cobb. And so legally, anyway, I’m sitting solid in this room tonight. All right. But I’ve also promised you a job with one of my track books for life—that is, if I get back my stuff, so that I can get back in the game again. And divert that Cobb revelation—so that people won’t refuse to lay bets with me!”
“Yeah,” he countered shrewdly. “But you c’n also then tell me to go to hell—so far as any ‘life job’ goes. And you’d probably have me kicked out of your office downtown—if I even came around asking for it.”
He was shrewd all right. No gainsaying that.
“It seems to me,” I commented quietly, “that not having to serve 5 years in Stillwater is worth a whole lot in itself.”
“Yeah—sure—but I haven’t no guarantee, King, that even if I did the job you wouldn’t then jug me. Suppose I do fork over your wiff’s ice—that is, if I’ve got the lucky touch—if the old eardrums can do their stuff. An’ you shut Cobb’s lips with th’ black bottle. And then you put out a police call for Pete Givney. And—my fingerprints on the safe!—or, if not the safe, the windowpane then. And all that. An’ with Cobb dead, any fakealoo I’d spiel about you and her, th’ cops would say I cooked up outa the newspaper accounts. And hell-fire, then I’d catch 5 years for robbing you—and 5 more for not giving up the swag—and, by God, you’d want me in the jug so’s to prove to your wiff moreso than ever that you hadn’t no hand in the thing.”
“You’re a damned numskull, Givney,” I told him. “It’s to my advantage—considering the setup—that the mysterious burglar gets clean away—and is never found. Just as much as it’ll be to your advantage, once you get out of this scrape, never even to mention that you ever heard of King—before, that is, you are working for him—or the King home out here on the prairies. Man, we’re both perpetual locks—for each other’s lips.”
“Well,” he grunted, “that may be so. But you’ll never give me no job with you. For I’ll be poison to you, after tonight’s over—just as you’ll be to me. And so the setup is that you’re asking me to do—for nothing—a hundred-grand steal, and—”
“Now—wait!” I put in. “I’m not asking you to steal anybody else’s goods. They’re my goods, you damn fool. Absolutely the only person I’m robbing is a convent—which isn’t a person, and, moreover, doesn’t even own the goods yet.”
“All right—all right. But it’s a hundred-grand job—as far as you’re concerned. Believe it or not, I’m with you—an’ not ag’in you—an shutting the nigger’s mouth—and saving your wiff a lot o’ pain. But still aside from all that, this here job is a hundred-grand job. And I don’t want any goddamn fool promises about any jobs—that’ll only get me a kick in the rump if I come round later asking for ’em. What do I get—right here and now—tonight—if I do the job?”
Well, I thought, I might as well—give him the skull commission—just as I’d half figured, a while back, I might have to, at that.
“Well,” I said, “I’ll give you, then, five hundred dollars—a hundred a minute for you, if it takes you five minutes or under to get it.”
“Five hundred cash? Oke—but here, you said—”
“Virtually five hundred cash,” I interrupted him. “That is, I’ll give you something valuable that’s right in the house here—in this very room—and the wherewithal to get to Chicago with it, and not via the Scotchman’s Special either, for—”
“What’s the Scotchman’s Special?” he asked, as intrigued, apparently, as I myself had been when I had first heard of that quaint, though fast, non-stop limited!
“What?” I taunted him. “And you don’t know—what the Scotchman’s Special is? You—who’ve been around—flophouses—river-front lodging houses—Workers’ Rest—and wherenot? Well, the Scotchman’s Special, which leaves Minneapolis in exactly an hour from now, happens to be—but let’s skip that. For as I was saying, I’ll send you to Chicago with this object—and by that I mean I’ll slip you your railroad fare. And with certain instructions I’ll give you, as to where to turn it over, and under what conditions, a certain party will give you five hundred dollars for the object—five hundred and sixteen, to be exact, because of double railroad fare—and before you part with the object, too.”
“He will, eh? Is this here thingamajig jew’lry?”
“No.”
“Well is it something, then, that I can hock for five hundred berries—if this gazaboe don’t show up?”
“Not for five hundred—no. For its value is that to this party alone. Its value is sort of—well—subjective, if you get me.”
“A subject, heh? First it’s an object—then it’s a subject. And this here discussion turns into a talk on grammaticals. And we—but all I got to do, you say, is to turn this here subject-object over to some guy—and he’ll spinoff fifty fishskins?”
“Right. Or maybe five hundred-dollar bills. And sixteen dollars besides—if you think to remind him of that. That’s positively all you’ll have to do—turn the object over and pocket the money. Except, of course, you’re not to get into any jam down there in Chicago, just before you part with the thing, and all. Mocking traffic cops, that is—and all that sort of thing. Because, if you get picked up with this object—doing a Ziegfeld on the corner where you’re to meet this fellow—well, I won’t be able to help you out. In fact, Givney, I’ll have to disclaim that I ever saw you or knew you.”
“W’y?”
“Because of a signed agreement between Mrs. King and myself that if ever I voluntarily allow myself to be drawn into any publicity, I waive all my rights toward contesting any separation suit of hers. And as I told you already, Givney, I’m not wanting to lose Laurel. Since—but funny that you wouldn’t know about that agreement, in view of the fact that—however, come to think of it, that’s set forth only on the tail end of the clipping you’ve got—the tail end you didn’t get. Well—does that five-hundred-dollar commission sound pretty good to you?”
“Sounds goddamned fishy to me,” was his retort. “For it—but what guarantee have I got that, even if it’s the McCoy, you’ll give me the commission—if I do the job?”
“What guarantee? Hell’s bells! My word of honor, of course. Did you ever hear, here in Minny, of Square-Shooter King—breaking his word?”
“Hah!” he said—sneeringly. And added, with unconcealed scorn: “Square-Shooter King! He’s all done—as ‘Square-Shooter.’ For any guy, King, that would steal from his own wife ain’t a square-shooter. That is, o’ course, she ain’t your wife!—till Cobb is hung—or takes that black bottle. But be that as it may, if I’d given my dame, back w’en I had her, a hundred grand in rocks, goddamned if I wouldn’t let her keep ’em. Goddamned if I’d be an Indian giver.”
This was going a bit too far, I thought. For I was commencing to feel withered by the scorn in his voice. Fine distinctions of ownership weren’t his, evidently.
“Well,” I said coldly, “we’re wasting precious seconds, for the clock back of you now says 5 minutes after midnight. And as far as you’re concerned, Givney, I’m not letting you go—except back out of the window you came in by—or out the door—with the police wagon. The $500 commission in Chicago is to be yours—whether you believe it’s on the level or not—in case you don’t go out via police wagon. So—figure it out—and figure damned fast. If you won’t work, and I have to pay through the nose—then you pay through the snoot! So—what do you intend to do?”
He scratched his head. Then shrugged his shoulders—ever the human bug fastened by the pin!
“I’m gonna make the best of it,” he said, with a sigh. “Though I still think the Chicago commission is all a shill—just to hand me a smooth kiss-off outa this dump. But I don’t mind seeing Chi—on your railroad fare. And maybe what you place in my mitts—maybe I can sell it back to you—eh?—if the guy don’t show? And maybe not—too,” he added lugubriously. “All right, King. I’ll play. For a payoff that may be hot air for all I know. You got me by the slack of my britches.” He rose. “Well—here’s w’ere I get down to work.”
He removed his coat.
The while I watched him with supreme interest, wondering what on earth the Nixon-Duvall people would think did they know that there was a man in Minneapolis—much less a humble accoustical device on the market—through whom, and by which, their supposedly unlockable safes could be opened. For the fellow seemed very confident, indeed, that luck would crown his efforts.
CHAPTER XXVII
Graven in Wax
He folded carefully the brown coat which he had removed, and deposited it over the back of the gilt-legged chair he had been occupying, After which, he unfastened each soft cuff, and rolled it back, clear to the elbow. Then turned—and faced me—belligerently. “Now listen here, King,” he began again, “give me a cut—will you? F’r instance—if I can open your can, shouldn’t I have one little half-carat rock—for myself?”
“No!” I said. “No! There isn’t a diamond in there that small.” For seeing the preparations he had already gone to, I was not inclined now to yield further jot nor tittle. But his persistency—and his sheer unbelief in that lucrative Chicago commission I had promised him—had about exhausted my patience. The bands of the clock were now at 12—and we had spent an hour and a quarter, after Steenburg’s departure, discussing this thing pro and con. Or, rather, I showing him what his best move was—and why. So I plunged my hand into my trousers pocket and brought up the last of that two hundred dollars I’d won there in Frisco—a crisp hundred-dollar note—which I flung on the table between us.
“All right,” I told him quietly. “There’s a hundred dollars ‘earnest money.’ Which—with the five hundred you’ll get on that Chicago commission—and your freedom from 5 years in Stillwater—gives you damned good pay.”
He seized the hundred-dollar note avidly, and tucked it into his vest pocket.
And after all, I thought, what did it matter? Five hundred—six hundred—what did it matter? For the difference between his remuneration, in this affair, and mine was too vast, too huge. His total “cut,” as he called it, would be less than even Laurel’s single smallest dinner ring with the one octagonal pink diamond in the center, and the two ruby chips set on either end.
Now he walked slowly over to the safe and studied its dials carefully. I tilted back in the swivel chair, watching him with much fascination. And it was right here that my first evidence of the evening as to the definitely bad luck inherent in chiseled skulls manifested itself. For I drew out the half-open top drawer of the table slightly, and laid my silver-plated revolver just inside where I could lift it out immediately, if needs be. And swung still further back in the swivel chair, my hands back of my head. And put my knee up—as was my custom. And knee had to collide with drawer! And the drawer slid in. And—click! Its spring lock closed. And me—without the key!
Now I no longer had him. Except—that he didn’t know it! For his back had been turned to me all the while. And he had not seen one bit of the peculiar accident.
And what people don’t know—never hurts them!
But that skull, on the table there, grinning balefully at me, suddenly made me think. Was this locking up of my gun but the first evidence—of further rotten luck that was to follow the presence of this thing here in the room? Was this conk, brought here as a pristine thing by Speevy, but now chiseled by Sciecinskiwicz, to cause this fellow perhaps to fail—at this job? And no sooner thought—than acted upon. I rose, skull in hand, went to the window, raised the shade all the way—and then the window itself, by at least 8 inches. And through the opening shoved Mr. Skull—out of the house entirely—good and plenty!—where I heard him thump, four seconds or so later, on the grass. And, still a second or so after that, could see him—gleaming whitishly far below—and I thought I even made out his two blackish eye apertures looking malignantly up at me.
Whereupon, closing the window again, I returned to my swivel chair.
My expert was still working away at the dials. Sometimes he placed his ear to them as he revolved one or the other—working extremely slowly—and, as he would glance off to one side, with ever a far-away rapt expression on his face. At other times he stood well off and turned the dials, watching them carefully.
“Sa-ay!” I said, half jokingly. “I thought you did all this—by the sense of hearing?” He looked back at me, grumpily.
“Did you ever have your appendicitis out?” he inquired meekly.
“My appendix? Yes. And by an expert.”
“Well, did you tell this here now expert, as you went to the operation room, just how he was to make his decision into your belly?—and how he was to yank your appendicitis out?—and how he was to sew you up afterward?”
“You win—Expert!” I said. “I wasn’t criticizing. Only puzzled. Because—”
“Well, I told you w’y, a while back. I told you I c’n hear certain magnetic fluxes in the steel—w’en certain vital points get near to each other. But I got to see, don’t I, at which sections of th’ dials them noises takes place!”
“Right,” I admitted. “It’s your job—and you’re the Expert. Consider me the humble audience. Though—do you think you can do it?”
“Do I think so?” he said, gazing back at me a second time. “Well, I’ll bet you the C-note I got, against another C-note, that I can!”
“Taken,” I said. “In fact,” I added magnanimously, “next week’s my birthday. And, if I’m any prophet, my wife’s, got the usual hundred-dollar note in there that she invariably gives me—out of my past earnings, to be sure!—to celebrate my natal day. So—if you get in, Expert—you can have my birthday present to boot—and without ever having to bet the hundred-dollar note you’ve already got.”
“O-kay!” he returned, his enthusiasm for his job manifestly raised a notch. “I’ll hold you to that!”
I proceeded to watc
h him. He didn’t dream that I was unarmed. He believed I had the complete drop on him. Beautiful!
But it looked as though this was going to be a somewhat drawn-out process. And, my eyes resting on that telephone—rather, moving from clock, where they had rested momentarily, to telephone!—there suddenly dawned on me the “cosmic significance”—as it’s often called!—of Steenburg’s long presentation of facts tonight. And the one single fact which—well, as it was to turn out, that single fact was all I didn’t dream it to be when he casually set it forth. And explained it.
Sun 0000!
The ‘late news’ transcriptions!
Suggested by the late hour—eight minutes after midnight!—marked on that clock—the phone in front of me—and, of course, Steenburg’s talk tonight.
Sun 0000!
There might—just might—have been a commutation—in the Jemimah Cobb case. Who could tell?
And drawing over the instrument I dialed that magic number.
An operator answered mechanically:
“News transcriptions—Minneapolis Sun.”
“Give me,” I asked, “anything you have at all on the—the Pentonville Prison matter.”
That is, I only endeavored to transmit all that! For the clicking response to my query was so swift that it cut squarely into my sentence. Which fact was conclusively proved a second later.
The Man with the Magic Eardrums Page 23
