The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  It had gained momentum by the time a corner of it struck the head of Checkered Suit. Quite sufficient momentum. Mr. Smith's long-shot chance had come off. He said “Oof” as Checkered Suit fell across him and the cot came on down atop Checkered Suit.

  But his left hand caught the automatic and kept it from clattering to the floor. As soon as he caught his breath, he wormed his hand, not without difficulty, between his own body and that of the gangster. In a vest pocket, he found a key that unlocked the handcuff.

  He wriggled his way out, trying to do so quietly. But the upper of the two cots slipped and there was a clang of metal against metal.

  There were footsteps overhead and Mr. Smith darted around behind the furnace as the cellar door opened. A voice— it seemed to be the voice of the man they had called Joe-called out, “Larry!” Then the footsteps started down the stairs.

  Mr. Smith leaned around the furnace and pointed Checkered Suit's automatic at the descending gangster. “You will please raise your hands,” he said. Then he noticed that smoke curled upward from a lighted cigarette in Joe's right hand. “And be very careful of that—”

  With an oath, the cadaverous-faced man reached for a shoulder holster. As he did so, the cigarette dropped from his hand.

  Mr. Smith's eyes didn't follow the cigarette to the floor, for Joe's revolver had leaped from its holster almost as though by magic and was spitting noise and fire at him. A bullet nicked the furnace near Mr. Smith's head.

  Mr. Smith pulled at the trigger of the automatic, but nothing happened. Desperately, he pulled harder. Still nothing—

  At the foot of the staircase a sheet of bright flame, started by Joe's dropped cigarette, flared upward from the wooden floor, saturated with gasoline from the leaky can.

  The sheet of flame leaped for the stack of cans, found the hole in the leaky one. Mr. Smith had barely time to jerk his head back behind the furnace before the explosion came.

  Even though he was shielded from its force, the concussion sent him sprawling back against the steps that led to the outer door of the cellar. Behind him, as he got to his feet, half the cellar was an inferno of flames. He couldn't see Joe — or Checkered Suit.

  He ran up the steps and tried the slanting outside cellar door. It seemed to be padlocked from the outside. But he could see where the hasp of the padlock was. He put the muzzle of the automatic against the door there, and tried the trigger again. He brought up his other hand and tried the gun with both hands. It wouldn't fire.

  He glanced behind him again. Flames filled almost the entire cellar. At first he thought he was hopelessly trapped.

  Then through the smoke and flame he saw that there was an outside window only a few yards away, and a chair that would give him access to it.

  Still clinging to the gun that wouldn't shoot, he got the window open and climbed out. A sheet of flame, drawn by the draft of the opened window, followed him out into the night.

  He paused only an instant for some cool air and a quick look, to be sure his clothing wasn't afire, and then ran around the house and up onto the front porch. Already the fire was licking upward. Through the first-floor windows he could see its red glare.

  He ran up onto the front porch. The gun that wouldn't shoot came in handy to knock the glass, already cracked by explosion, out of the front door so he could reach in and turn the key.

  As he went into the hallway, Mr. Smith heard the back door of the house slam, and surmised that Greasy Face was making his getaway. But Mr. Smith's interests lay upstairs; he didn't believe that the fleeing criminal would have untied his captive.

  The staircase was ablaze, but still intact. Mr. Smith took a handkerchief from his pocket, held it tightly over his mouth and nose, and darted up through the flames.

  The hallway on the second floor was swirling with smoke, but not yet afire. He stopped only long enough to beat out the little flame that was licking upward from one of his trouser cuffs, and then began to throw open the doors that led from the hallway.

  In the center room on the left, just down the hallway from the stairs, a bound and gagged man was lying on a bed.

  Hurriedly Mr. Smith took off the gag and began to work on the ropes that were knotted tightly about his feet and ankles.

  “You're Mr. Kessler?” he asked.

  The gray-haired man took a deep breath and then nodded weakly. “Are you the police or—?”

  Mr. Smith shook his head. “I'm an agent for the Phalanx Life and Fire Insurance Company, Mr. Kessler. I've got to get you out of here, because the house is burning down and we've got a big policy on your life. Two hundred thousand, isn't it?”

  The ropes at the wrists of the prisoner gave way. “You rub your wrists, Mr. Kessler,” said Mr. Smith, “to get back your circulation, while I untie your ankles. We'll have to work fast to get out of here. I hope we haven't a policy on this house, because there isn't going to be a house here in another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  The final knots parted. Over the crackling of flames, Mr.

  Smith heard the cough of an automobile's engine. He ran to the open window and looked out, while Mr. Kessler stood up.

  Through the windshield of the car nosing out of the garage behind the house, he could see the face of the leader of the trio of kidnapers. The driveway ran under the window.

  “The last survivor of your three acquaintances is leaving us,” said Mr. Smith over his shoulder. “I think the police would appreciate it if we slowed down his departure.”

  He picked up a heavy metal-based lamp from the bureau beside the window and jerked it loose from its cord.

  As he leaned out of the window, the car, gathering speed, was almost directly below him. Mr. Smith poised the lamp and slammed it downward.

  It struck the hood just in front of the windshield. There was the sound of breaking glass, and the car swerved into the side of the house and jammed tightly against it. One wheel kept on rolling, but the car itself didn't.

  Greasy Face came out of the car door, and there was a long red gash across his forehead from the broken glass. He squinted up at the window as he stepped back, then raised a revolver and fired. Mr. Smith ducked back as a bullet thudded into the house beside the window.

  “Mr. Kessler,” he said, “I'm afraid I made a mistake. I should have permitted him to depart. We'll have to leave by the other side of the house.”

  Kessler was stamping his foot to help bring his cramped leg muscles back to normal. Mr. Smith ran past him and opened the door to the hallway. He staggered back and slammed it shut again as a sheet of flame burst in.

  The room was thick with smoke now, and on the inside edge, flames were beginning to lick through the floorboards.

  “The hallway is quite impassable,” said the insurance agent. “And I fear the stairs are gone by now, anyway. I fear we shall have to—” He coughed from the smoke and looked around. There was no other door.

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “perhaps our friend has—”

  Two shots, as he appeared at the window, told him that Greasy Face was still there. One of them went through the upper pane of the window, near the top.

  Mr. Smith leaped to one side, then peered cautiously out again. The leader of the kidnapers stood, revolver in hand, twenty feet back from the house, beyond the wrecked car under the window. His face was twisted with anger.

  “Come out and get it, damn you,” he yelled. “Or stay in there and sizzle.”

  The gray-haired man was coughing violently now.

  “What can we—?”

  Mr. Smith took the automatic from his pocket and glanced at it regretfully. “If only this thing — Mr. Kessler, do you know how many bullets a revolver holds? He's shot three times. And lie's nearsighted. Maybe—”

  “Six, most of them, I think. But—” The gray-haired man was gasping now. Mr. Smith took a deep breath and stepped to the window, started to climb through it. If he could get the kidnaper to empty his revolver, probably he could bluff him with the automatic that wou
ldn't shoot.

  The gun below him barked and a bullet thudded into the window sill. Another; he didn't know where it landed. The third shot went just over his head as he let go and dropped to the top of the wrecked car.

  He whirled, jumped to the grass. It was farther than he thought and he fell, but still clung to the automatic. He was flat on his face in the grass only a few steps from the kidnaper.

  Greasy Face didn't wait to reload. He clubbed the revolver and stepped in. Mr. Smith rolled over hastily, bringing the automatic up, held in both hands. “Raise your—”

  His grip on the weapon was tight with desperation and one thumb chanced to touch and move the safety lever. The automatic roared so loudly and suddenly that the unexpected recoil knocked it out of the insurance agent's hands.

  But there was a look of surprise on the face of the stocky man, and there was a hole in his chest. He turned slowly as he fell, and Mr. Smith felt slightly ill to see that there was a hole, much larger, in the middle of the kidnaper's back.

  Mr. Smith rose a bit unsteadily and hurried back to the car to help Mr. Kessler down to the ground. Over the crackling roar of the flames they could now hear the wail of approaching sirens.

  The gray-haired man glanced apprehensively at the fallen kidnaper. “Is he—?”

  Mr. Smith nodded. “I didn't mean to shoot — but I told them they were in a hazardous occupation. Someone must have seen the blaze and reported it. Some of those sirens sound like police cars. They'll be glad to know you're safe, Mr. Kessler. They've been—”

  Five minutes later, the gray-haired man was surrounded by a ring of excited policemen. “Yes,” he was saying, “three of them. The insurance chap says the other two are dead in the cellar. Yes, he did it all. No, I don't know his name yet but that reward—”

  The police chief turned and crossed the grass toward the little man in the rumpled banker's-gray suit and the gold-rimmed glasses. Outlined in the red glare of the blazing house, he was talking volubly to the fireman on the front end of the biggest hose.

  “And because we sell both life and fire insurance, we have special consideration for firemen. So instead of charging higher rates for them, as most companies do, we offer a very special policy, with low premiums and double indemnities, and—”

  The chief waited politely. At long last he turned to a grinning sergeant. “If that little guy ever gets through talking,” he said, “tell him about the reward and get his name.

  I've got to get back to town before morning.”

  TEACUP TROUBLE

  Good morning, Mr. Gupstein. My name is Wilson. Some of my friends around at police headquarters call me Slip Wilson; you know how those things get started.

  You see, Mr. Gupstein, my regular lawyer gave me your name and suggested I see you if I needed anything while he was away. And I need legal advice.

  No, my lawyer isn't on vacation, or not exactly. He's in jail, Mr. Gupstein.

  But here's what I want to know. I've got a diamond stickpin with a stone about the size of a flashlight bulb. I want to find out if I can make a deal for nearly what it's worth or whether I'll have to push it through a fence for whatever I can get. The difference ought to amount to maybe a couple of grand, Mr. Gupstein.

  How'd I get it? Well, in a manner of speaking, Mr.

  Gupstein, it was given to me by a teacup. But that's hard for you to understand so maybe I'd better start farther back.

  I first saw this guy in the elevator at Brandon's. He was a big bozo, about six feet between the straps of his spats and the band of his derby. And big all over. He wasn't over twenty-five years old either.

  But what made me notice him was his glims. He had the biggest, softest baby-blue eyes I ever saw. Honest, they made him look like a cherub out of a stained-glass window. I guess I mean a cherub — you know, one of those plump little brats with wings sprouting from behind the ears?

  No, Mr. Gupstein, he didn't have wings from behind his ears. I just mean he had that kind of eyes and that kind of a look in his face.

  We both got off at the main floor, and I happened to reach into my pocket for a fag. And they weren't there. I'd just put my cigarette case in that pocket when I'd got in the elevator, too. So I quick dived a hand into my inside pocket.

  Yeah, my billfold was gone too.

  I don't know whether you can imagine just how that made me feel, Mr. Gupstein. Me, Slip Wilson, being picked clean like a visiting fireman! I hadn't even been bumped into, either, and the elevator hadn't been crowded. And I'd thought I was good!

  Huh? Yeah, Mr. Gupstein, that's my profession. Until I got out of that elevator, I thought I was the best leather-goods worker this side of the Hudson Tunnel. You can figure how I felt. Me, Slip Wilson, picked cleaner than a mackerel in a home for undernourished cats.

  Well, I took a quick gander around and I spotted my companion of the elevator ride disappearing through the door to the street. I hightailed after him.

  A block farther on, where it wasn't so crowded, I caught up and asked him for a match. I'd forgotten for the moment that my cigarettes were gone and I didn't have anything to light with it, but he didn't seem to notice the difference.

  I made a crack about the weather, and since we seemed to be going in the same direction, friendship ripened into thirst and I asked him to stop in at a tavern for a drink.

  He paid for it, too, out of a wallet that needed reducing exercises. We agreed that the Scotch was lousy, so I invited him around to my apartment so I could show him the merits of my favorite brand. Funny, but we seemed to hit it off together from the start like bacon and eggs.

  When we got there, he flops into my favorite chair, nearly breaking the springs, and makes himself at home.

  “I say, old chap,” he says. “We haven't introduced ourselves. My name is Cadwallader Van Aylslea.”

  Well, Mr. Gupstein, you've heard of the Van Aylsleas; they own half this island and have a mortgage on more. Every time Old Man Van Aylslea stubs his toe getting out of bed after breakfast, the market drops ten points.

  So I grinned sarcastic at him. “Glad to know you, Cadwallader,” I said. “I'm the Rajah of Rangoon.”

  Without batting an eye, he pipes up that he's glad to know me and how are things in my native land. For the first time, Mr. Gupstein, I began to suspect.

  I'd been looking right into those baby-blue glims, and I could see he wasn't spoofing. He took himself at face value and he took me that way too. And I began to add up a few other little things he'd said, and I saw he was off his trolley.

  But trolley or no, I wanted my money back. So I sort of accidentally got a couple of kayo drops tangled in his next Scotch. And I steered clear of doubtful topics of conversation until he leaned back in the chair and blinked a few times, and then closed his eyes and exposed his tonsils to the afternoon breeze.

  I waited a few minutes to be sure, and then I put everything in his pockets into a neat little pile on the table.

  Listen, Mr. Gupstein. There were seven billfolds, four of them fat ones. There were five watches, my cigarette case, and an assortment of junk ranging from a pair of pink garters to a bag of glass marbles. Not mentioning jewelry.

  The billfolds added up to almost a grand, and what of the other stuff was valuable would have brought half of that from any fence this side of Maiden Lane.

  To top it off there is a rock in his cravat that looks to be worth ten times all the rest of the haul put together. I'd noticed it before, of course, but it hadn't occurred to me that it might be the McCoy. But when I looked at it close, you could have knocked me down with a busted flush. It wasn't just a diamond, Mr. Gupstein. It was blue-white and flawless.

  I put it with the rest and sat there looking at the pile goggle-eyed. If that was one day's haul, he was one of the seven wonders of the Bronx.

  And all I had to do was let him sleep. All I had to do was wrap up my toothbrush, fill my pockets with the dough and the jewelry on the table, and head for Bermuda. With a grand in cash to buy panca
kes until I could get a market for the rock.

  All I had to do was blow. And I didn't.

  I guess curiosity has hooked better guys than me, Mr.

  Gupstein. I wanted to know what it was all about. I had a roscoe that I never carried, and I got it out of mothballs, looked to the priming, and sat down. I was determined to find out who and what he was, and damn the torpedoes.

  I guess his big bulk helped him to throw off the shut-eye-juice sooner than most. It wasn't but an hour before he sat up and opened his eyes and began to rub his forehead.

  “Funny,” he muttered. “Sorry, but I must have dropped off. Horribly rude.”

  Then he lamped the pile of boodle on the table, and I tightened the grip of my roscoe. But he merely blinked.

  “Where'd all this stuff come from, Rajah?” His voice sounded as puzzled as his eyes looked. “Why, some of it is mine.” He reached over and picked up the fattest wallet, the diamond tiepin, and a few other trifles.

  “It came out of your pockets, my fine-feathered friend,” I assured him. “Before that, it seems to have come from a number of places.”

  He sighed. Then he looked at me like a dog that knows it needs a beating. “All right, Rajah,” he said. “I may as well admit it. I'm a kleptomaniac. I take things and don't even know it. That's why I'm not allowed out at home. This morning I got away from them.”

  The eyes had me again. He was telling the truth, and he looked like a kid that expected to be told to go sit in a corner.

  And if that was true . . .

  I sat up suddenly. An electric light seemed to be turned on inside my head. “Let me see that wallet you say is yours,” I barked at him.

  He handed it over like a lamb. I looked at the identification. Yes, Mr. Gupstein. Cadwallader Van Aylslea.

  Plenty of identification to prove it.

  “Listen, Rajah,” he was begging. “Don't send me back.

  They keep me a prisoner there. Let me stay here with you for a while anyway before I go back.”

  By that time I was pacing up and down the room. I had an idea, and my idea was having pups.