The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933

by Frederick Nebel

  The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933

  by

  Frederick Nebel

  Altus Press • 2013

  Copyright Information

  © 2013 Altus Press

  Publication History:

  “The Murder Cure” originally appeared in the January, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Me—Cardigan” originally appeared in the February, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Doorway to Danger ” originally appeared in the March 1, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Heir to Murder” originally appeared in the April 1, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Dead Man’s Folly” originally appeared in the May 1, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Murder Won’t Wait” originally appeared in the May 15, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Chains of Darkness” originally appeared in the June 15-July 1, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Scrambled Murder” originally appeared in the July 15, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Death After Murder” originally appeared in the August 15, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Murder & Co.” originally appeared in the September 15, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  “Murder à la Carte” originally appeared in the November 15, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. Copyright © 2013 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Designed by Matthew Moring/Altus Press

  Special Thanks to Joel Frieman, Ron Goulart, Ken McDaniel, Will Murray, Rick Ollerman, Rob Preston & Ray Riethmeier.

  The Murder Cure

  Chapter One

  The Man In 313

  He slapped open the heavy glass swing-door and a gust of rain and winter wind came in with him. He headed up the high, narrow lobby, rain dripping from his battered brown fedora, his old ulster pungent with the smell of damp wool. There was a black directory board before which he paused, lifted his rain-streaked face; then he swiveled and made his way toward the elevator bank.

  A man in uniform said: “Sign here, please.”

  Cardigan put his tongue in his cheek and said: “My signature costs money, major.”

  “Sign here, please.”

  “Oh, all right; be superior.”

  “Also the name of the party you’re visiting.”

  Cardigan wrote as directed, glanced at the clock above the register. It was seven o’clock. An elevator lifted him to the sixth floor. He got off and swung his feet in a long-legged walk. Office doors were darkened; lesser night lights glowed in the corridor. He turned right at an “L,” saw, beyond, a lighted square of ground glass.

  He opened the door and saw a girl sitting at a desk. She was trying to fit a black leatherette cover over a typewriter. Her face was pretty in a quiet, tired way; and when she looked up, her weary eyes fell blandly on Cardigan, her scimitar-shaped eyebrows rose quizzically. He dipped his head and rain water rolled from the crater in his hat-crown, plopped on blocked linoleum.

  “Judge Barron,” he said.

  She paused in her tired, half-hearted struggle with the typewriter cover and her brown eyes seemed to grow rounder with interest. But her quiet face remained quiet.

  He began again: “Judge Barron—”

  “Oh, yes. The name?”

  He was slapping his hat up and down. “Cardigan.”

  Rising, she was tall, lissome; her clothes had a nice drape on her long-limbed body as she moved with unhurried grace toward another door, opened it and said: “A Mr. Cardigan calling.”

  A gruff voice said: “Show him in.”

  She turned, moved her chin. “All right,” she said.

  She stepped aside to let him enter. Her brown eyes, darker brown than her smooth lustrous hair, drooped but slid across the lower part of his face as he went past. He nodded from the doorway.

  “Judge Barron—”

  “Come in— Beth, you’d better go home now. You’re tired.”

  “Yes,” her tired voice said.

  The inner office was well furnished in dark rich hardwoods and comfortable carpets. Cardigan went toward a broad, littered desk. Behind it sat a man with the gnarled and weatherbeaten look of an old tree; with a craggy saddle-leather face full of wrinkles and a grim jaw rooted between old jowls. His head rode in a cloud of cigar smoke; and strata of smoke weaved like lazy snakes beneath the ceiling.

  “You’ve been to Wheelburgh before, Cardigan.”

  “Yes. Once I—”

  “I know. That kidnap job. Take a seat.” The judge knocked open a humidor. “Cigar?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve pumped a pipe all the way from New York.” But he sat down, slouched back in the chair, his long arms hanging toward the floor.

  “Where are you staying?” the judge asked.

  “The Madison.”

  The outer door clicked shut. The girl had gone.

  Barron said: “My secretary. I work hell out of her. She’s a good girl.” He frowned thoughtfully. “That was fine work you did in that kidnap case. That’s why I wired for you.”

  “Why, exactly, judge?”

  BARRON leaned forward, clasping big, bony hands. “I retired from the bench last year, Cardigan. I severed all political connections and began a weekly newspaper called The Weekly Truth.” He scowled at his hands. “This town is rotten with crime and corruption. I’m a citizen of this town. I did all I could, as judge, but it was not enough. I’m sixty-eight, and that’s pretty old, but my father lived to be eighty-four, and I’m still in the ring. My front porch was blown off two weeks ago. I like life, Cardigan. I like the fight. I hate to die with my work undone.”

  “Worried about another bombing?”

  “Exactly. Last week I received a package. I didn’t open it. I turned it over to the police. It contained another bomb.”

  “Who’s after you?”

  Judge Barron leaned back. “I wish I knew. Fifteen years ago I sent up a man named Edgar Fitch for manslaughter. He threatened at the time to escape within a year and get me. Well, he never escaped. A month ago he was released. The police searched the city but found no trace of him.” He opened a drawer, scaled two photographs across the desk. “The one was taken when he was arrested; the other, just before his release. He’
s a blonde, as you see—a decided blonde.”

  “You think he’s still after you?”

  “I don’t know. You see, Cardigan, I’ve got this town down on me. Not the citizens, you understand. I mean the political régime, the police; they’re down on me. A month ago I caused the chief of police to be dismissed, through my paper. I hammered him—and I had facts. An inspector got the job, but he’s no better. I caused the vice squad to be done away with because it was hand in glove with vice. A man named Maloney rose to be quite a racketeer. I tried to get at him through the local courts, but that didn’t work. So I managed to place federal men on his trail and they got him for trafficking in narcotics.

  “You see,” he went on, dropping his voice, “I have no local help. The police make a show at trying to find out who attempted to kill me. But it’s only a show. They’re all afraid of their jobs and I dare say they’d breathe easier if I were done away with. I’m not accusing them of trying to do away with me; but I know they’re not supporting me. I want to live, Cardigan. I want to carry my fight right to the governor, a good man. I can’t die. My work’s not finished. I need a man like you and I’m willing to pay for it. And I warn you, you’ll get no help from the police.”

  Cardigan grinned. “Hell, I never expected to.”

  “I’ve given you a rough outline of the situation. What I want mainly, of course, is a bodyguard. But I’ll also want you to do some secret investigating. I’m busy right now on proofs for the Friday edition of my paper. I’ll be here till ten. Tomorrow we’ll go into this thoroughly. I’ll show you papers, evidence, affidavits; they’re in a safety-deposit box right now and I shan’t be able to get them until morning.”

  Cardigan stood up. “I’ve a man with me. Bogart’s his name. I’ll send him down in an hour and he’ll go home with you and stay at your house overnight. He or I’ll be with you at all times. The agency rate will be fifty dollars a day.”

  “I’ll give three hundred in advance.”

  Barron wrote out a check and Cardigan tucked it into his wallet. “Better keep your outer door locked. Bogart’ll shove his card through the mail slot.”

  “Good.” Barron stood up, and his old face crinkled in a hearty grin. “I’m afraid of death, Cardigan. Maybe you don’t understand, but I have work to do—a lot of work—before I die.”

  They shook.

  “Maybe I get you, Judge!”

  CARDIGAN left the office, waited until he heard Barron lock the door, then strode down the corridor, rang for an elevator. Down in the lobby the man at the register checked him out. It was twenty past seven. Cardigan went out into the rainy, windy street, flagged a taxi and climbed in.

  The cab rolled down hill, turned left at a square and pushed through Center Street traffic. It was a narrow thoroughfare, noisy with the clang of streetcar bells, the hoot of auto horns, the blare of radio stores. The misty rain clouded the street lights, hazed the shop windows. Tires hissed wetly. And mixed with the smell of coal dust was the indefinable damp smell of the not distant river. The sooty facade of the Hotel Madison was seen in the intermittent blinking of light bulbs. Its topmost floor was dimmed by the misty rain and the coal smoke that rolled sluggishly from the railroad yards.

  Cardigan left the cab, swung through revolving doors beneath the sooty facade and caught a wheezy elevator to the third floor. His room was 313. He pushed open the door and saw Bogart, with his shoes off, lying on the bed and reading a newspaper.

  A man sat in a faded armchair; his thumbs were hooked in lower waistcoat pockets and a dark green velours fedora sat sidewise on a lean-checked, long-jawed head. He deftly tongued a cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other and said: “Wet out, huh, Cardigan?”

  Cardigan said to Bogart: “Who’s this?”

  “Hagin’s his name. He wears a badge.”

  Cardigan looked at the 313 on the door. “I always had a hunch about unlucky numbers.” He punched the door shut, heaved out of his ulster, rattled hangers in the closet and reappeared running his hands back over his shaggy mop of hair. He went into the bathroom, mixed rye with ginger ale, dropped in a lump of ice and came back into the bedroom swishing the mixture with a spoon.

  “Where’s the badge?” he said.

  Hagin tossed a badge carelessly in the air, caught it, shoved it back into his waistcoat pocket. “I saw your name downstairs on the register, Cardigan. You’re the guy gave one of our men a dirty deal once. Michaels was his name.”

  “How about the deal he gave me?”

  Hagin tilted his cigarette till the red end almost touched his nose. “What brings you west, Cardigan?”

  Cardigan went to the window, stared through the grimy pane. Beyond lower housetops, dim lights winked on the nearby river, and he could see the lights on the vehicular bridge, dim where the bridge began, fading away toward the other end. He turned from the window, slapped a hard look on Hagin, took a drink, pursed his lips.

  “I’m sorry, Hagin.”

  Bogart turned pages of the newspaper, said: “I suppose now the farmers will get a square deal. When I was in Indiana a year ago—well, about a year ago—”

  Hagin rose. He had a dry, wise leer. “We don’t like private cops in this town, Cardigan.”

  “You’re telling me?” Cardigan chuckled roughly.

  “Yeah, I’m telling you. Of course, some private cops are all right—”

  “I know. They’re all right when they play ball with you guys. I didn’t expect any help from your outfit. I don’t now. I’m not looking for any help, Hagin, and I think it would be a swell idea if you’d tuck your tail between your legs and get out of here.”

  “You wouldn’t by any chance have a swelled head, would you?”

  “I just know my business, Hagin.”

  Hagin ground out his cigarette in a glass tray, said without looking up: “We’re just one big family here, Cardigan. We don’t like to have a wiseacre clowning around.” Then he straightened, regarded Cardigan with lazy mouse-colored eyes. “You may be a big shot back east but out here you’re just a name.”

  “O.K., copper. That suits me.” He finished his drink, set the glass down. “Since I’m just a name, I oughtn’t interest you. I’m paying four bucks a day for this room and a nosey cop don’t go with it.”

  Hagin sauntered to the door, opened it. He looked lazily at Bogart, then at Cardigan. Then he chuckled dryly and strolled out, closed the door softly behind him.

  Bogart tossed the paper away, stretched, said: “What kind of a dirty name would you say that guy is, chief?”

  “I’m stuck, Charley. I can’t think that dirty.”

  Chapter Two

  Bombs Don’t Walk

  THE flat jangle of the telephone bell sounded in the darkened room. Cardigan rolled over in bed, rose to his elbows and stared sleepily about in the darkness. He raised one hand to look at the illuminated dial of his wrist-watch. It was half-past nine. The telephone bell rang again, weakly.

  His hand swung out, knocked a glass to the floor. He cursed under his breath, felt around in the darkness, finally got his hand on the instrument.

  “Yeah, this is Cardigan— Quit kidding.” There was silence in the room, then, faintly punctuated by the scratching sound of a voice in the earphone. “O.K.,” Cardigan said. “Ten minutes.”

  He groped for the bed-table, replaced the phone there, found the little table lamp and switched on the light. He was careful not to step in the shattered glass on the floor. Kicking his pajama trousers off, he left them lie; stepped into trunks, yanked an undershirt over his head. He went into the bathroom and ran the cold shower over his head for a moment, then dried himself and polished off a tot of rye straight. Five minutes later he was fully dressed. He went out.

  A taxi with loose tappets rattled him away from the front of the hotel, climbed a steep grade that shone darkly with rain. At the top of the grade twin traffic lights glowed like fuzzy red eyes. A cop wore a white rubber cover over his cap. The lights turned green and the cab
made a squealing left turn.

  Down in Produce Street there was excitement. Cardigan, sitting on the edge of the cab’s seat, saw a flock of searchlights, a crowd of people, a couple of red trucks. Traffic was being diverted.

  “You gotta take another street,” a cop told the driver.

  Cardigan swung out. “This is far enough.” He slapped a fifty-cent piece into the driver’s hand, jammed his hands into his overcoat pockets and proceeded on foot. The red trucks were fire engines. Firemen were standing around and a squad of cops were rushing pedestrians away from the Central Products Building.

  “You can’t go in, guy,” a cop said.

  Cardigan said: “I’m a private dick—”

  “That don’t cut ice—”

  “Sure it does. Sergeant Hagin phoned me to come down.”

  “O.K. Get in.”

  Cardigan pushed open the swing-door, headed up the high, narrow lobby. The man in uniform stopped him.

  “I’m not,” Cardigan said, pointing, “going to autograph that damn book again.”

  “But—but—”

  “I know. Forget it.” He rolled into the elevator. “Six, boy.”

  There was fire hose straggling down the sixth-floor corridor. It was screwed at one end to a nozzle in the wall. Cardigan followed the hose around the “L,” into Barron’s outer office. His feet sopped on wet carpet. He saw the connecting door hanging by one hinge. A fireman was leaning in the doorway. There was glass on the floor.

  “There he is,” Hagin said; then raised his voice. “There you are, Cardigan.”

  CARDIGAN ignored him. Standing in the doorway, his damp misshapen fedora slanted down over his eyes, his wrinkled ulster up around his neck, Cardigan did not look pleasant. He saw an overturned desk. Papers were strewn around on a carpet flooded with water. A chair was shattered. There were great gaps in the plaster wall, and where there had been two windows, holes now gaped. A shape lay on the floor; a tarpaulin concealed the shape but did not disguise the contours of a human body. There was a smell of charred wood, charred paper, charred cloth. Half a dozen firemen were in the room. Another plainclothesman stood beside Hagin. Bogart leaned against the wall—a squarish solid-looking man beneath an inconspicuous derby.