The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 Page 10

“It’s me. Open up, Pat.”

  “At this hour?”

  His voice was low, raspy. “Snap on it! Open up!”

  Light flashed on in the room, was seen through the transom. A sleepy-eyed, half-yawning Pat opened the door. “A girl can’t even get a night’s sleep anymore— Hello! What’s this?”

  Cardigan put Josephine Carstairs into the room, locked the door.

  “Get your gun, Pat.”

  “But—”

  “Get it.”

  PAT was still only half awake. She stumbled across the room, opened her purse and drew out her Webley automatic, unsnapped the safety catch.

  “O.K., Chief.”

  Cardigan said: “This is Miss Josephine Carstairs. She’s going to stay here a while and you’re going to see that she stays here. Get that?”

  “She’ll stay. Do sit down, Miss Carstairs.”

  Josephine was smileless, white-faced, cool. “I don’t know whether to take this as a joke or an imposition.”

  “Take it any way you like,” Cardigan said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Listen, you—” She started after him as he strode toward the door.

  Pat caught her arm, spun her about, said: “Puh-lease!”

  Cardigan grinned from the door. “That’s the stuff, Pat.”

  He hurried down the stairway to the lobby and scaled the pass key across the desk. And he said in a low quick voice: “Listen… if Linkholt walks in while I’m gone—” He stopped, then asked: “Is there a cop on the beat?”

  “Yes.”

  “O.K. If Linkholt walks in while I’m gone, get the cop. Ask the cop to stand here and stop Linkholt if he starts out. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cardigan pointed to the switchboard: “Now get long distance, will you? New York. Fairfield—Four-One-eight-nine-two. It’s the agency. Quick! I’ll take it on this phone.”

  The connection was put through in three minutes and Cardigan said into the mouthpiece: “This you, Sam?… This is Cardigan calling from Brookton…. No cracks, you gonif. This is serious. Listen, you ape! Get this name: B.F. Linkholt.” He spelled out the name. “O.K. now. Check up on the name right away. See if we have anything on it. If we haven’t, try police headquarters and if they haven’t try our central bureau in Washington. And then call back at Brookton nine-nine. If I’m not here give the information to the desk man…. That’s all I’ve got time for.”

  He hung up, said to the clerk: “If he calls back while I’m out, take the information, will you?”

  “Yes, sir—yes, sir!”

  Cardigan was on his way. He punched open the swing door, turned left and swung his long legs up Broadway. The theaters were dark. A late street car slammed across switches and raised loud echoes and a cop strolled along trying store doors. The Hotel Elsinore was one block off Broadway. It was small, modest with a plain lobby and an old sacerdotal clerk at the desk.

  “See if Mr. Bernard is in,” Cardigan said.

  The clerk turned to the small switchboard and after a moment said to Cardigan: “Who is calling?”

  “Tell him Cardigan wants to see him right away.”

  The clerk ran Cardigan to the fourth floor in a small elevator. Walking down the corridor, Cardigan saw Bernard waiting in a doorway. Bernard wore a bathrobe and puffed on a cigarette. His hair was tousled.

  “Hello, Mr. Cardigan—”

  “In. I want to talk to you.”

  They entered a small bedroom and Cardigan kicked the door shut and said: “Well, they found Isobel Bennett.” His tone was not pleasant, nor was his face. Bernard stared at him but said nothing.

  Cardigan added: “Dead.”

  “Dead!”

  “Dead.”

  “Where—who—”

  Cardigan broke in: “Bernard, I think you’re in a jam. Get your pants on.”

  Bernard took a nervous backward step. “Why, I’ve been in my room—sleeping—”

  “Will you please get your pants on?”

  Bernard’s eyes flashed. “What the devil are you talking about? I haven’t—”

  Cardigan said darkly: “I’ve got Josephine Carstairs warming her heels in a hotel room.”

  “Josephine—”

  “The femme you had down in Dixie Street. The pants, Bernard. We’re all going to have a little get-together.”

  BERNARD’S face had blanched. He whispered the girl’s name to himself, groped around the room. He fumbled out of his pajamas, dressed in fits and starts. He put on his shirt inside out and had to take it off again. He didn’t look at Cardigan but kept staring into space. Color came back into his face in weak red splotches.

  Cardigan waited. Standing by the door, his face shadowed by his lop-eared hat, his hands thrust into overcoat pockets, he looked dangerous, inimical, relentless. Finally, Bernard was dressed. He seemed to come out of the daze gradually, and when they left the room his jaw was set, his eyes wore a narrowed-down wily look.

  They walked swiftly through the empty streets, entered the Brighton lobby.

  “Anything?” Cardigan asked the clerk.

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ll be in three-fourteen.”

  “Right.”

  They walked up the three flights and Cardigan knocked on Pat’s door. Pat opened it. She was sniffling, wiping her eyes. Josephine was lying back in an armchair with a wet towel across her forehead.

  Cardigan frowned. “Stop bawling. What’s the matter?”

  Pat said: “She—she tried to pull a fast one, chief. I—I had to bang her on the head. I—I hurt her.”

  Bernard had run across the room and was now kneeling beside Josephine, holding her hands. “Jo—Jo!” he cried. “It’s Don! It’s Don, Jo!” He sprang to his feet, whirled. “She’s unconscious! You’ve got one hell of a nerve—”

  “I—I didn’t mean to hit her so hard,” Pat said.

  “By George, I’ll—”

  “Shut up,” Cardigan cut in.

  Bernard dashed to the telephone. Cardigan took three long strides, grabbed him. Bernard started to wrestle. Cardigan tossed him to the bed and when Barnard bounded up Cardigan took a fistful of his coat lapel, walked him backward across the room and slammed him down onto a chair.

  He was terse, low-voiced: “Use your head.”

  “I’ll use my head. I’ll—”

  “Listen to the man! You keep on acting like this— Sit down, sit down!” He laid the flat of his palm hard against Bernard’s cheek.

  “Chief, chief!” cried Pat. “Don’t!”

  Cardigan was angry, scowling. “You stay out of this. Did I bring you out here to throw a fit every time I slap a guy down?”

  Bernard leaped up again, striking. One blow landed on Cardigan’s chin and he shook off the sting as a duck shakes off water. And he grabbed Bernard’s wrists, clamped a heel down on one of Bernard’s feet.

  “I like your guts, boy—but I wouldn’t give two cents for the way you use your head.”

  “You leave Jo alone!”

  “If I said I think she’s mixed up in the Bennett murder, what would you say?”

  “I’d say you’re a liar!”

  “Bernard, your mother probably thinks you’re a nice boy and no doubt you’re good to your mother—”

  “You’re a fraud! A liar!”

  Bernard started to struggle again, his eyes blazing and his face flushed. He kicked with his feet, butted with his head. Then Cardigan let him have it: a short blow to the jaw that sent Bernard across the bed. He lay there, shaking, his eyes closed, sobs rising from his lips.

  Pat whimpered: “Oh, chief—”

  Cardigan didn’t look proud. “What could I do, chicken?”

  A shot banged somewhere in the hotel.

  Cardigan, on his way to the bathroom for some water, stopped and twisted around, eyed the door. Then he swiveled and went toward the door, yanked it open.

  Chapter Four

  Doorway to Danger

  HE SAW a man crawling on the floor of the
fifth-story corridor. He heard low muttering, exasperated cursing. He went swiftly down the corridor, bent, lifted up Sergeant Kelsey. Kelsey hung in his arms, his black slouch hat crushed down over one ear, fury and anger and pain twitching across his face.

  “So you horned in,” Cardigan said.

  “I’d just come in the lobby. I was leaning at the desk. A man came in and went upstairs and I saw the clerk begin to shake. I asked him. ‘Linkholt,’ he said. ‘Mr. Cardigan said I should let him know.’ So I said, ‘Keep your trap shut. I’ll take care of this bird.’ He—he got me at his door. He’s fast as hell—and big.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Down.” Kelsey sneezed, choked: “Damn cold again—”

  A man was sputtering from a doorway: “Wuh-what—wuh—”

  “Here,” clipped Cardigan. “Take him in your room. Call an ambulance.”

  Cardigan was heading for the stairway when the elevator doors banged open. “Down!” he snapped. “Fast!”

  The elevator stopped at the lobby with a jar and Cardigan ran toward the desk. The clerk’s mouth was working. He was pointing toward the door. Cardigan did not stop to ask for the details and he was out at the curb before the door stopped swinging.

  A uniformed policeman was sitting in the gutter wearing a silly look.

  Cardigan said: “Did you see—”

  “He bopped me in the jaw. That—that way.” The cop jerked an arm up Broadway.

  Cardigan looked and saw a shape vanish around the next corner. He broke into a hard-heeled run, his gun drawn, his overcoat flapping about his legs. Nearing the corner, he ran close alongside the buildings, stopped, peered around the corner building. The shape was beyond, galloping.

  Cardigan broke into a run again, keeping to the shadows of the houses. His footfalls rang loud in the empty, dark street. His long overcoat got in the way of his legs. Once he almost stumbled. Skidding, his shoes raised sparks on the asphalt and he knocked over an ashcan. It clanged as it fell and its cover wabbled off into the center of the street, flopped over.

  He was regaining his balance when flame broke ahead and the rasping bark of a gun whipped echoes over the rooftops. There was a dull bong in the overturned ashcan. Off balance, Cardigan fired. Glass snarled amid the sounds of the gun’s thunder and the street light on the corner went suddenly out.

  The shape sped on. Cardigan reached the corner, crunched glass beneath his feet. His breath was coming fast, his eyes glittered; the big-footed slouch was gone now and he moved with a swift agility, a high tension. Running again, dodging in and out of the shadows, he saw his man at infrequent intervals; raised his gun to fire but didn’t when the shape plunged into another shadow.

  Ahead, a block ahead a car swung leisurely around the corner and for a brief instant its headlights flooded the fleeing shape. Cardigan stopped hard against a pole, braced himself and fired. He ran on. And then the headlight flooded him and he flung himself violently against a housewall as the gun ahead spewed flame. Above his head, a “Room To Let” sign was shattered and a piece of wood bounced off Cardigan’s head as he ducked on.

  He saw dim light rush into the street beyond as a house door was opened. He saw the fleeing shape dart sidewise, bound up steps. There was a brief, startled cry—a chopped-off oath. Cardigan reached the steps in time to stop a man from taking a header to the sidewalk. He laid him down on the walk, bounded up the steps, tried the knob. The door was locked. Cardigan used one shot to blow the lock apart. He knocked open the door and dropped flat at the same time. The hall shook to the bang of a gun and a shot passed close over Cardigan’s head as, crouched way down, his own gun drowned the first echoes while the heel of his hand lay on the threshold.

  The man beyond carried down an inner door with a lunging shoulder and Cardigan went after him. He burst into a room where a pop-eyed old woman sat up in bed, her mouth wide, her hands clutching bed-clothes to her chin. Cardigan saw curtains swinging in an open window. He crept to the window. A shot exploded outside and a picture of Washington crossing the Delaware fell from the wall. Plaster dribbled afterward and while the echoes were still loud Cardigan bounded through the window, landed on his feet in a hard court. A light in a back window opposite sprang on and threw yellow radiance into the yard.

  Cardigan saw the shape spin away from the wall beneath the window. He stopped. The gun in his hand convulsed and one clap of gun thunder followed the other. The light behind the window went out again. Cardigan padded across the yard and found the man gripping a clothesline, swaying. He grabbed him as the man struck. The blow faded on Cardigan’s chin.

  “Cut it out, Linkholt,” Cardigan snarled, “or I’ll lay you out!”

  The man choked: “O.K. You got me.”

  “Can you walk? Where’d I get you?”

  “I guess—I can’t make the grade.” Linkholt slid to the ground, moaning.

  Cardigan half turned away, to call to one of the windows. But he spun back sharply, slammed his foot down on Linkholt’s rising gun hand. Linkholt’s gun exploded. Cardigan fell violently on him, disarmed him.

  “You would, would you!” he grated.

  Linkholt lay back, breathing heavily. “Why not?”

  Cardigan knelt, held his gun against Linkholt’s head. “I might say now, bozo—why not?”

  “I killed Bennett—so why not?”

  Cardigan lowered the gun. “I’ll leave it to the State.”

  WHEN Cardigan walked into Pat’s room at the Brighton Bernard was sitting on a chair and holding his head in his hands. Josephine was sitting straight in the armchair, her hands gripping the sides, her face white and tense and her eyes fastened on Cardigan. Pat was standing, holding the gun.

  “I thought you’d never come back,” she said.

  Josephine said in a tense, flat voice: “Where is he?”

  “Who?” Cardigan said.

  She moistened her lips and remained silent.

  Cardigan was frowning at her. “Linkholt?” he said.

  She started.

  “In the hospital,” he said.

  She was on her feet. “Let me go to him.”

  Cardigan crossed the room slowly and stood in front of her. He shook his head slowly and said bluntly: “No.”

  Her voice broke: “Please!”

  “No. He tried to kill me. He killed Bennett and he bashed in Isobel Bennett’s head.”

  She gasped out: “How do you know?”

  “I can be polite so long, Josephine, and then the Irish comes out in me and I get rough.” He paused, remained cold, hard, brutal. “The game I’m in is a nasty one at times and when it runs into murder it’s me or the other fellow—and I like like hell to stay among the living. I bottled Linkholt up in a yard and let him have it.” He grabbed her wrist. “And you’ll be left to do the talking!”

  She did not cringe. Her chin went up. “All right. But I ask you this, Cardigan: let me go to him. Let me see him. I don’t care about anything else. Go there with me. Manacle me. But let me see him. I love him—I love him, Cardigan.”

  Bernard got up and moved to a window, stared out.

  Pat ventured: “Please, chief—”

  “Shut up,” he growled. “I’m not going to be talked out of pinching—”

  “I’m not trying to talk you out of pinching me,” broke in Josephine. “I’m guilty too. Please—please!… Listen. You think I’m bad? I am.” She pointed to Bernard. “I even tricked him. I told him I loved him but that was only a trick. I came here six weeks ago to work my way into Bennett’s office. I rented an apartment and a typewriter and put an ad in the paper. I sent a letter to Bennett soliciting typing. Then Bernard came with some script of his own to be typed. We talked and I found he knew Bennett and he said he would put in a good word with Bennett—for me. He did. I got some work there. Then while his daughter was away for a week I worked every day in his office. I was looking for papers but I never found them.”

  “What kind of papers?”

  “Bennett wa
s writing a book about national politics. An exposé. I thought I would get to work on it—but I don’t think he trusted any one with it but his daughter. Anyhow, I never saw it. Until one day, rummaging in his files, I found a sheet of script that had been placed in there by mistake. It wasn’t much, but it mentioned a name. That was what I was supposed to find.

  “I had an opportunity to get duplicate keys made—to Bennett’s office. I had them made. I knew that he came to his office every night at eight-fifteen—and when his daughter was in town, she came with him, to do his typing. I checked up on everything and reported to—to—”

  “Linkholt,” said Cardigan.

  “No,” she said.

  “Wait,” said Cardigan. “A one-time senator.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Koehrig,” said Cardigan.

  Color rushed over her face.

  CARDIGAN drew a slip of paper from his pocket. “I just picked this up downstairs. It’s a message from our home office that originated in our Washington bureau. Linkholt, ten years ago, was dishonorably discharged from the army. He was in the Chemical Warfare Division. He was a chemist. But he was in the army under his real name—Holt. Link was his mother’s name. Hence Linkholt.”

  Her eyes hardened. “Only Koehrig knew that!”

  “The Department of Justice knew it.”

  “I—I didn’t know. He didn’t know. That’s what Koehrig held over him. That’s why Koehrig made him come here—and that’s why I came first. Koehrig knew Bennett was mentioning his name in connection with chemical graft during the war. He was afraid, too, that Bennett knew about the train that was mysteriously blown up in Eighteen between Chicago and New York. It contained a shipment of troopship life preservers which Koehrig had manufactured of inferior materials. He weakened at the last moment—thought he would be found out. So he had the train blown up.”

  Cardigan said: “You’re telling an awful lot.”

  “I don’t care!” she cried. “I want to see Burt! I don’t care about Koehrig or myself. Burt had to do what he did. He had to blow up the office. He thought Bennett and his daughter would come in at the same time. But Bennett came alone—and his daughter later. So Burt had to do away with the daughter. Because she knew what Bennett knew.”