The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933

by Frederick Nebel

  He hung up, snapped: “Where you going?”

  “Wash my hands.”

  “You panic me, really.” Hackett waved his gun. “That chair uncomfortable?”

  Cardigan looked at his bloody hands, then looked up at Hackett. “I’d say I don’t like your guts, Hackett, but you haven’t any to dislike. Use your head. You’re not as dumb as you act. What the hell is this going to get you?”

  “Getting scared, huh?”

  “Rats! When you scare me, tell me. I wouldn’t know otherwise.” He popped Hackett a contemptuous Bronx cheer, crossed to a coffee table and poured himself a drink of Scotch. “Scared!” He chuckled, tossed the drink down. “I’m breaking up! Look at me! I can’t take it any more!”

  “You’ll—”

  Cardigan snarled: “Sign off!”

  Chapter Four

  The Major in 445

  STOLTZ arrived with a predatory look in his eyes and a couple of uniformed cops at his heels. Cardigan was sitting in a leather chair. He had his feet propped on the coffee table and he was smoking a cigarette.

  “Why the gun, Hack?” Stoltz puffed at Hackett.

  “Sister over there got temperamental.”

  “Put it away.”

  Hackett pocketed his gun and Cardigan jumped up and went over and took a vicious swing at him. One of the cops broke the blow in midair.

  Stoltz looked threatening. “Now cut that out, Cardigan!”

  “I’ll disarrange that guy’s mug before I’m through!” Cardigan shouted.

  “Shut up a minute. Who’s the stiff?”

  “I think his name’s Wayne,” Cardigan muttered; and to the cop: “Take your hand off!”

  “Take it off, Bill,” Stoltz said. “You think?” he said to Cardigan.

  “I know a man named Norman Wayne. This guy looks like him—but younger. I came down here to see Wayne. The front door was open. This door was open, with the key on the outside. I came in. Norman Wayne wasn’t here. This guy was. He was sitting on the floor trying to say something into the telephone. He couldn’t. I took the phone away from him. He flopped over and died. Little innocent over there was standing in the doorway.”

  “I think I heard an outcry—” began Hackett.

  Cardigan started after him again but the two cops stopped him, held him back. Cardigan said: “You damned liar, there wasn’t a sound!”

  “I came to the doorway,” Hackett said. “Saw Cardigan kneeling over this guy. There’s a paper-knife under that chair. You’ll notice there is blood on his hands.”

  Cardigan said: “I got the blood tearing his shirt open. Then I found the paper-knife. There was no blood on it when I found it—”

  “Wait,” said Stoltz.

  Cardigan was pointing: “When I came here, that key was on the outside of the door. This sweet son-of-a-so-and-so switched it to the inside. I say this: I say this guy got knifed in the street. It couldn’t have been far from here. He hurried home. He was in such a hurry he left the door open, left the key in it. He tried to call somebody—probably a doctor. I came in then.”

  “Ask me,” said Hackett, “I’d say the guy got it right in here. Cardigan’s working on something connected with Cordova. There’s a connection here.”

  Stoltz swung on Cardigan. “Cordova, huh?” His eyes lighted up, shone. He said through his nose: “Now come on, Cardigan—where does Cordova fit in?”

  “I don’t know, Sarge—”

  “Cardigan, don’t waltz me around!”

  “Who the hell’d want to waltz you around? I told you I don’t know.”

  “That’s like him,” Hackett threw in. “No spikka English. It’s all hog with him or none at all. A swift kick in the pants once in a while’d do him good.”

  Stoltz was excited. The name Cordova was, to him, like a red rag to a bull. He demanded: “Cardigan, did you kill this man?”

  Cardigan looked disgusted. “My God, do I have to start answering dumb questions like that? I told you—”

  “I know what you told me—”

  “Then what are you asking me again for? Is this a game? Maybe some new kind of game you play?”

  HACKETT said: “Look out, Stoltz; he’ll talk you out of your shirt if you’re not careful.”

  Stoltz stamped his foot. “Hack, will you stay out of this? Will you please shut up so’s I can get somewhere?”

  Cardigan said: “He got the idea of playing stooge from Phil Baker’s act—”

  “You—” Stoltz nosed in, poking Cardigan’s chest. “You lay off the kidding too. This is a murder here! A guy’s been murdered!” He looked up slyly with his big wet eyes. “Cordova did it, huh?” His tone was insinuative; the words whispered through his nose. “Come on, Cardigan—Cordova did it, huh?”

  “I was not a witness to the act.”

  Stoltz grabbed him by both arms. “Cardigan, I’m getting sick and tired!”

  Cardigan yelled down at him: “You want me to say Cordova bumped this guy off! I won’t say it! To hell with you and your grudge against Cordova!” He heaved himself free of Stoltz’s grip and then leveled a forefinger down at him. “And one thing I hate, Stoltz—I hate guys putting hands on me! Keep your damned paws off me!”

  Stoltz grinned maliciously. “How’d you like to take a walk around to the station house’s back room?”

  “That’s a swell idea!” Hackett chimed in. “Take him over and give him what for, Stoltzie.”

  Cardigan said: “I’m going out.”

  “You ain’t,” Stoltz said. “And you ain’t going to wash your hands, either. You were in this room holding a paper-knife over the dead man. Wasn’t he, Hack?”

  “Nothing else but, old chum.”

  “I’m going out,” Cardigan said.

  The cops jumped on him.

  There were footsteps in the hall. Norman Wayne appeared in the doorway. With him was Casey.

  “My God!” Wayne cried out.

  After a while Norman Wayne rose from beside his dead brother. He was shaken, white-faced, but he was making an effort to pull himself together. His first words came in a hushed, suppressed undertone. “Who killed my brother Herbert?”

  Stoltz said through his nose: “Are you this man’s brother?”

  Cardigan said: “This is Norman Wayne. The man on the floor is Herbert Wayne. You see?”

  “Who killed him?” Wayne said.

  Cardigan said: “Pardon, Mr. Wayne—what’s that in your hand?”

  Wayne looked down. “Oh… this. Yes—yes. A hat—”

  “I picked it up,” Casey said, “over in East Thirty-first Street. It was laying on the sidewalk. It looked good to me. I looked at the sweatband and it had H.B.W. stamped there. So then Mr. Wayne said: ‘My brother’s initials! That’s queer!’ We hurried here.”

  Cardigan’s voice blunted in: “Understand that, Stoltz? The hat was picked up in Thirty-first Street. Young Wayne was knifed in Thirty-first Street. There must have been a struggle and he lost his hat. Was I anywhere near there? Ask Hackett. Hackett’ll know because he tailed me here tonight and he tailed me from Maxie Stubinoff’s uptown speak. Deny that, Hackett!”

  Hackett reddened, said nothing.

  Cardigan said: “Now, gentlemen, heels. I’m going to wash my hands!” He went into the bathroom, returned in a moment using a towel while Stoltz subjected Wayne to a ritual of interrogation. Stoltz went off on a tack assuming that Herbert Wayne had had an enemy.

  “No,” said Norman Wayne. “I didn’t engage the Cosmos Agency in the interest of my brother. My brother had nothing to do with it. I—I thought I was being shadowed—for several days—and I wanted to make sure.”

  Stoltz always acted suspicious on principle. “You knew a man named Don Cordova, didn’t you?”

  Wayne had not been informed as yet of the identity of the man who had been shadowing him. Wherefore he said: “No; the name is not familiar.”

  “I want the truth,” Stoltz demanded.

  “I beg your pardon, sir, but I’ve g
iven you the truth.”

  Hackett droned: “There’s a pile of lying here somewhere.”

  “Who is this man?” Wayne asked.

  Cardigan said: “A smart alecky newshawk. As a matter of fact, he has no right in here at all.”

  Then Stoltz turned on Hackett and said: “Listen, Hack, I’m beginning to think that you been handing me a bum steer. Nothing here fits at all. It gets screwier and screwier.”

  Cardigan was beckoning to Casey. He led Casey toward the bedroom.

  “Where you going?” Stoltz demanded.

  CARDIGAN paid no attention to Stoltz. He and Casey entered the bedroom and Cardigan closed the door and said: “What happened?”

  “Wayne and me went out,” Casey said in a low voice. “I began covering him soon as he hit Third Avenue. He told me where he was headed for before we started. He walked north and then over to Park. Stopped to see a friend in Forty-ninth Street. I hung out nearby. He came out in half an hour and went over to Fifth and walked south. He stopped several times to look in store windows, like I told him. He went to Thirtieth, then east to Second Avenue and then west on Thirty-First Street, where I picked up the hat. In all that time he wasn’t shadowed once. I’m dead sure.”

  “Then it must have been Cordova got his brother.”

  “Why should he?”

  “They look a lot alike.”

  “Going to give the info to Stoltz and Hackett?”

  “I wouldn’t give those guys the right time. Not after the song-and-dance they’ve been pulling on me. There’s a lot of regular guys on the force’d benefit by a pinch like this. I’m going to leave Stoltz holding the burlap.” His voice was a low whisper now. “I want to get out of here. You stay here. Take that phone and call the office. I’ll talk loud by the door here, as if I’m talking to you. You tell the office to call back and say I’m wanted down there. O.K., go ahead.”

  Cardigan talked rapidly in a loud voice, an argumentative tone, flaying Casey for some imagined dereliction of duty. Meanwhile Casey put the call through. Then both men returned to the living room. Cardigan looked angry. Casey, quite properly, sulked.

  In a moment the phone rang. Neither Cardigan nor Casey moved. And Wayne was too sick, too sapped, to move from the chair in which he sat. It was Stoltz who answered it. In a minute he hung up, called: “Your office wants you down there, Cardigan. It’s the boss. He seemed sore and wants to know what you’re being paid for.”

  “O.K.; thanks, Stoltz. Casey, you stay on the job. I’ll shoot up here again later. The agency can’t get on without me. That crack’s for you, Hackett.”

  He swung out. The cold air of the street was pleasant, refreshing, and Cardigan stretched his legs to Lexington Avenue and flagged down a taxicab. Literally, he was tied in a knot. Even supposing that Wayne’s brother had been killed by mistake, the question that still remained unanswered was, why was he killed? In a struggle, naturally. But why the struggle in the first place? Why had Wayne been shadowed—but unmolested—for three days? Had Wayne told everything he knew? Cardigan was inclined to believe that Wayne was absolutely frank. And there lingered in his mind the idea that if Norman Wayne were really the marked man, when the killer discovered that he had killed in error, Wayne’s life would again be in danger.

  The cab finally pulled up at the curb in front of the Hotel Pompadour. Cardigan entered the lobby in no great haste, sent his gaze roaming about. Pat was not there. He remembered the number of the room she had taken and took an elevator to the fifth floor. He knocked on the door but received no answer. He growled under his breath. He thought of the little gray man she had mentioned and wondered if she had come by any harm. Then a new thought struck him. He went down to the desk.

  “Did Miss Seaward, one of your guests, leave a message for me? Cardigan’s the name.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  Great girl, Pat! Never lost contact!

  He took the sealed envelope to a corner of the lobby, tore it open.

  Dear Chief:

  7:45 p.m. She’s going out alone. Me after her. This in case you drop by. Why not fan her room while we’re out?

  Pat.

  “Idea,” muttered Cardigan.

  HE climbed the stairway to the fourth floor and went down the corridor toward 445. It took him two minutes to open the door with a skeleton key. He stepped into a small foyer, closed the door. A few lamps were glowing in a large, luxurious living room. Doors were open beyond. It was an apartment. He started into the living room, was halfway across it when a man came breezing in through another doorway. The man stopped short, stared. He had trousers and a shirt on, a collar and tie; he also wore a dressing gown. He was fiftiesh, a bit pouchy under the eyes: tall and gone to weight in the stomach with just a hint of jowl sagging from either side of his jaw.

  He was indignant. “I beg your pardon!”

  “I beg yours. And now that’s over let’s forget it. I didn’t think anyone was in here.”

  “I’m sure the door was locked.”

  “It was. What’s your name?”

  “Campion— But I say, I don’t quite—” Campion was side-stepping toward a desk. “I really don’t see—” He was reaching toward a drawer.

  “Gun?” Cardigan said, and shook his head. “Don’t. There’s one in my overcoat pocket.”

  The man stepped away from the desk, flushed. “I say, what’s the meaning of this?”

  Obviously the man was English. Cardigan was puzzled, but determined. He said: “A man named Wayne was knifed tonight in Thirty-first Street.”

  “Wayne!… Should I know the chap?”

  “Should you know Don Cordova?”

  Campion stared at him. “Really, sir, you astound me. I do, you know, get binged up now and then, and I daresay I have met chaps, forgot them, while binged up, b-but these names you pop at me—really—really—” He gave a hopeless shrug. “Are you a burglar?”

  “Do I look and act like one?”

  “I must say, if you don’t mind, you’re slightly on the rough side. I assure you I have very little of worth here. Twenty-odd dollars—a ring or two—a few medals. If you want them, you know, I don’t suppose I should resist. Considering that blasted gun you’re pointing at me!”

  “What’s your business?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the Campion Travel Service. Travel bureau, y’ know. Quite. Fifth Avenue near Forty-fifth Street. But you wouldn’t have heard of Major H.B.C. Campion.” He waved a hand. “I do wish, sir, if you’ve come to rob me, that you’d gather up the loot and st-stop pointing that infernal gun at me.”

  “I’m a detective,” Cardigan said.

  Campion flopped into a chair, blew out a vast breath. “That is a relief, sir! I was just about to get the jitters!” He was on his feet again. “Come, I need a drink after that. Drink first and then talk. I can’t imagine what I’ve done—but let’s drink first. Yes, let’s do! Scotch? Rye?”

  He held up a bottle in either hand, flushed and cheerful now, beaming all over his good-natured face.

  Cardigan shook his head. “I think I’m in the wrong apartment, Mr. Campion. I apologize.”

  “Bother! It means that I shall have a glorious adventure to relate at the club! Cheer-oh!”

  Cardigan, backing to the door, picked up a diamond band ring from a small occasional table at the foyer entrance. He grinned. “If I was a burglar, I’d have picked this up coming in.” He laid it down again.

  Campion laughed. “I see! Polly’s! Frightful memory, Polly! Her wedding ring, y’ know. Leaves gadgets lying all about!”

  Cardigan went out, took the elevator down. His ears burned. He had almost stepped into a pot of grief that time! He used a telephone booth in the lobby, called Wayne’s place. Casey had nothing to report. He hung up, then called the office. A voice barked in his ear.

  Cardigan broke in with: “When ’d she call?… Five minutes ago?… Swell!”

  Chapter Five

  Diamond Flush

  CARDIGAN
hopped out of the cab at Forty-second Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, walked east on the north side of Forty-second and took the mid-block entrance into the Grand Central waiting room. He took his time crossing to the book-and-magazine stand, thumbed some magazines, bought a paper.

  Presently Pat was thumbing a magazine alongside him.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “I followed her from the hotel. She came down here, went to the parcel room and took out a black traveling bag. It looks new—brand new. She went into a telephone booth and made a call. It didn’t take her long. Then she went and had a malted milk. She was interested in her wrist watch. Finally she came into the waiting room. She’s in the second row on the aisle seat.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Pat stopped thumbing the magazine. “But wait. The man—the man in gray I told you about—is two rows behind her, also on the aisle seat.”

  “When did he turn up?”

  “I’m sorry to report, sir, I don’t know. I just happened to look—about fifteen minutes ago—and there he was.”

  “O.K. We part. You take a seat near her. I’ll walk down the aisle past her, get a good look at the guy, and sit two rows behind him.”

  Pat went first. Then Cardigan strolled down the aisle. The little gray man was apparently deeply engrossed in the reading of a newspaper. He did not look up. Cardigan took a seat two rows behind him, spread his own newspaper.

  About ten minutes later he saw Don Cordova. Cordova came swinging in from the street, a gladstone in one hand, a walking stick in the other. Instantly the woman rose. Cordova saw her and turned toward her. They met, spoke for a moment and then headed for the rotunda. Cardigan saw Pat rise and stroll after them. He tossed away his newspaper, rose too. He saw the little man standing, folding his newspaper. Cardigan followed the row to the wall, went down the outside aisle. Pat was near him, but not too near.