The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 Read online

  She gripped his hand. “Jack,” she whispered passionately, “I can’t believe that about the blonde. Burt was so good. There couldn’t have been a blonde! Couldn’t have!”

  He dropped his voice. “Anna, I’m poking my beak into this case.” He tried a grin, patted her little hand with his big one. “Good kid, Anna. Brush up the pan, put on some powder, paint. It’s tough, Anna—but you can’t let yourself go to hell account of it. And remember, if this mug Cronin—”

  “I—I’ll be all right, Jack.”

  He straightened, lit a cigarette and walked back into the living room. Cronin eyed him malignantly; the two cops shifted uneasily; the deputy medical examiner appeared neutral. Cardigan crossed to the door through a room tense with silence. He put his hand on the knob, opened the door, stepped out.

  “Punk!” Cronin muttered.

  Cardigan stopped, started to turn back in. But he changed his mind, closed the door quietly, went down the corridor toward the elevator bank. Like most violent-tempered men, he felt rather virtuous for not having taken offense at the last remark. Going down in the elevator, however, he still thought that he should have gone back in and smacked Cronin.

  LIGGONER, the state’s attorney, was a man of fifty-five. A big man, well groomed, aristocratic. His large, sumptuous office was always redolent of the perfume of fine tobacco. He sat behind a carved walnut desk, lighting a fresh cigar, when Cardigan breezed in, bringing some of the cold out-of-doors with him, his ulster haphazardly buttoned and his hair, as always, a black shambles.

  He saluted casually. “G’-day, Mr. Liggoner.”

  “Sit down, Cardigan. Smoke?”

  “Thanks, no. Got a mouth like a cinder now from it. What I came to see you about—I’ve been in this city a month now and I’ve been pretty successful in concealing the fact that you hired me, haven’t I?”

  “Decidedly.”

  “Well—” he held his hat in his left hand, punched in the crown with his right “—maybe it’s got to come out now or in the next day or so.”

  Liggoner made a negligible shrug. “Unfortunate—but if it’s a means toward an end….” He spread illustrative palms.

  “This Christian case. I know the wife, and Christian was a pretty swell guy. Cronin’s on it—”

  “Hm—Cronin. I’ve had him marked.” He paused. “You know, Cardigan, we have a pretty able and straight police department, but we have a few men, I believe, who are dishonest. The department’s hands are tied because there is a brotherhood among policemen.” He gestured, sat back. “But go on.”

  Cardigan gave him the details of the crime, then went on: “Now I can’t do this—your office can. I’d like to check up on any telephone calls to or from Christian’s apartment between midnight last night and ten this morning. The Christian number’s Pavilion Four-three-six-five. That’s why I say it might get out—Cronin may find I’m working for you.”

  Liggoner smiled. “I can fix that.” He picked up the telephone, called the local telephone company’s commercial office, asked for the head manager. “Tom,” he said, “I’d like a check-up, and it’s to be kept silent…. Good. The number is Pavilion Four-three-six-five. Any incoming or outgoing calls between midnight and ten this morning. Call me back, will you?… Thanks, Tom,” he concluded, and hung up, adding: “That’ll do it. We’ll wait…. Once before you hinted that Cronin might be one of the ring. Why?”

  Cardigan frowned, shrugged. “Hell, I’ve been in the business a long time. I can usually spot them. Besides, a lot of minor things have happened in the Fourth Precinct that never got to a police blotter. Fights, bum liquor. Little things, you know—but Cronin was always in the offing. Also,” Cardigan added, making a fist, “I don’t like the guy. It goes back to the first day I was here, when I went around introducing myself at the precincts. Cronin cracked wise right away—the minute I met him. He said, ‘You may be big potatoes where you come from, Mr. Cardigan, but out here we wipe our feet on celebrities.’ Like that. Wise!”

  It was ten minutes later when the phone rang. Liggoner answered, made notes on a paper, said: “Thanks, Tom,” and hung up, scaled the sheet of paper across the desk. “There you are. One incoming from Terminal Two-one-six-seven at eight-thirty A.M. One outgoing to Financial Four-hundred at nine. The incoming was from a booth in a drugstore at Wilmont and Shires. The outgoing to the Merchants Industrial Bank. Significant?”

  “I’ll look.”

  HE caught an elevator down, swung his long legs out into the bright winter sunlight. A brisk wind blew, eddied dust, picked up stray bits of paper and skated them wildly across the street. The wind plastered the brim of Cardigan’s hat against the crown, ballooned his shaggy ulster. He flagged a cab and climbed in, stuck a butt between his lips, remembered the charred condition of his mouth and tossed the butt away, grumbling. He sat back, sagged thoughtfully to the small of his back, built pyramids out of his fingers. When he was twelve he had seen Anna for the first time; that was when she was born. He’d lived in shantytown then, on the wrong side of the tracks. She’d lived in the fine house on the hill. He used to deliver groceries at the back door.

  The driver said: “Merchants?”

  “Huh?… Oh.”

  The cab had stopped. Cardigan paid up, climbed out, crossed the sidewalk and slapped open a huge swing door. It took him a few minutes to get to the head cashier.

  He said: “One of your depositors, I believe, phoned this bank at nine this morning. His name’s Burton Christian. I’m a friend of the family—and a private dick. D’you know what he phoned about?”

  “Yes, I do.” The head cashier paused, blinked, put fingertips together. “He phoned and asked us to stop payment on a check that had been made out to cash under yesterday’s date.”

  “How much?”

  “The amount was for nine thousand dollars.”

  “Check come in yet?”

  “No. Oddly enough, at about fifteen past nine this morning the West Side Mercantile telephoned us in regard to a check for that amount which a man named Johnny Henry was offering for deposit on a new account. They called while the man waited because the check was badly scrawled. Luckily, we had the check number and told them not to honor it.”

  “You don’t usually stop checks made to cash without an explanation, do you?”

  “No. But—well, I know Christian quite well. He said he’d come over in person and explain.”

  “If you knew him well, then it’d interest you to know that he’s dead.”

  “Dead!”

  “Murdered.”

  “Good God, man!”

  IN the windy street again, Cardigan jammed his hands into his coat pockets, teetered on the curb for a moment. After a few minutes he signaled a taxi and said: “Wilton and Shires.”

  He found a large drugstore at the intersection of these two streets. Entering, he found the place cluttered with books, magazines, newspapers, art photos, a cigar counter, a luncheon bar and—in one far corner—a drug counter. Back of the bookstalls he found a telephone booth and a languid girl attendant.

  He said: “Good morning. You wouldn’t remember anybody entering or leaving this booth at eight-thirty this morning, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t,” she said languidly, primping.

  “Not even if you tried?”

  “Not even if I tried really hard, fresh.”

  He sighed. “You make my life so much brighter.” He drifted away, stopped before the stack of phone books on a wooden leaf at one side of the telephone booth. He thumbed the local directory half-heartedly, his thoughts wandering and then coming back to the booth and wondering who, at eight-thirty, had called Christian’s apartment. The name fastened on him and he turned the leaves more rapidly toward C, found Christian’s name listed.

  Suddenly he ducked his head, lifted the book to the light. Beside the phone number, on the margin, was a distinct fingerprint, faintly crimson.

  He ripped out the page.

  Chapter Two

  C
ronin’s Alley

  AARON MARKS, the headquarters fingerprint expert, was a spare man with a long, scholarly face, neat gray hair. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, crisp white linen, and his voice was quiet, almost cultured.

  “Good afternoon, Cardigan.”

  Cardigan had come down from the central room and stood now in front of Marks’ desk. It was half past three in the afternoon.

  He said: “Burt Christian and his wife were friends of mine. I kind of feel obligated to sleuth around. Have you got all the prints out of the Christian apartment?”

  “Yes—right here.”

  “Mind telling me whose?”

  “Not at all. Cronin’s, Patrolman Hanker’s, Osborne’s, the police photographer’s, Christian’s, his wife’s—and then a stray one.”

  “Maid’s maybe?”

  Marks shook his head. “No. I guess they belong to the blonde Cronin spoke of.”

  “Got a duplicate I could borrow?”

  “Several. Want one?”

  “Thanks,” Cardigan nodded.

  Heavy footsteps sounded and Cronin came down from the central room. Seeing Cardigan, he slowed down, a shadow fell across his face, his jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed. He had a stump of a cigar in his mouth, shifted it back and forth before saying: “Why don’t you tend to your own business, Cardigan?”

  Marks sensed friction. “Come, Cronin—after all, two heads are better than one, and they were friends of Cardigan’s. I just lent him a duplicate set of those stray prints.”

  “You’ve got a hell of a nerve,” Cronin growled.

  “Oh, nonsense, Cronin. I—”

  “Cut it,” Cronin growled; and then to Cardigan: “What’s so hot about those prints, Irish?”

  “Thought I’d just like to have ’em on hand.” Cardigan turned to the fingerprint expert, said: “Thanks, Marks.” He started off.

  Cronin blocked him, his eyes somber. “I told you before, Cardigan, and I’m telling you now—quit poaching on my ground. I don’t like it and I won’t stand for it.”

  Cardigan grinned. “I suppose you checked up on phone calls?”

  “That’s my job and I did. One was no good—it was from a booth. The other was to a bank and I found Christian stopped a check. It’s open and shut. He fell for some dame and her boy friend pulled the badger game on him. He had to give the guy a check—and then he flunked on it.”

  “Don’t be funny, Cronin. If it was the badger game, Christian would have given the check to stop a scandal. O.K. Then why would he have stopped the check? It goes deeper than that, Cronin. Much deeper.”

  Cronin snarled: “I don’t care! Stay out of my parade!”

  Cardigan, eyeing him shrewdly, thought he saw fear mixed with anger, but he wasn’t sure. He said dully, but with a threat in his tone: “Cronin, I’m staying in your parade. Get that, copper, and hang onto it. I’m going to run this thing down, and when I run it down I’m going to show you what a big-hearted Mick I really am. I’m going,” he said, “to give you the pinch.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply, because he knew that if he hung around Cronin much longer they would come to blows.

  HE went out swiftly, took a cab to his hotel and spent fifteen minutes in his room. Then he visited several parts of the city, made a number of phone calls. At five o’clock he turned up in Anna Christian’s apartment. Her sister Helen opened the door.

  “Jack! It’s been years since I saw you!”

  He grinned broadly, warmly, held her hand tightly. “You’re looking swell, Helen. Where’s Anna?”

  She sighed, nodded to a closed door. “Let her sleep, Jack. That man Cronin was here again—browbeating her.”

  “Was, was he?” Cardigan’s lips tightened, then relaxed. He patted Helen’s shoulder. “I’d like to just look around.”

  He went to a closet, disappeared inside, reappeared a moment later carrying Christian’s rumpled dress suit.

  Helen said: “Cronin went all through that.”

  Cardigan made no reply. He took the suit to the window, peered closely at it. He found a number of stains, scraped them with his fingernail, smelled them. He turned out all the pockets. From the under side of the left sleeve he began plucking minute particles, gathered them carefully in his left palm and examined them with a small rimless magnifying glass which he had drawn from his vest pocket. Then he poured the particles into an envelope, carried the suit back to the closet.

  He came out and looked gravely at Helen. “Be frank with me, Helen. Were they happy?”

  “Very happy. Burt was fine, always.”

  “He drink much?”

  “No. He’d stay off it for weeks. Then sometimes he’d go off on a spree. But Anna understood.” She rasped: “Jack, I don’t believe a word about this blonde!”

  He looked away, muttered: “Something’s wrong as hell—somewhere—somewhere.” Then he shrugged. “I’ll breeze. Tell Anna I asked about her.”

  All the way down in the elevator he frowned. There were some angles of this case he didn’t understand. He was troubled, baffled. He walked two blocks, wrapped in thought, then shrugged off the mood and climbed into a taxi. Five minutes later he walked in on State’s Attorney Liggoner.

  He said: “I’ve traced Christian’s movements until ten P.M. Sunday night. On Saturday night he spoke with a friend of his, Marshall Ropp, and they planned to whoop it up stag on Sunday night. Christian was happy as hell because he’d put over a big real-estate deal. They met at six Sunday night at the Midtown Club and had dinner there. They drank some. Then Ropp got a phone call and had to go home. His kid had a bad attack of asthma. He left at nine-thirty. Christian hung around the club a bit, asked a guy named Forsythe to join him in a trip to Rialto Square. Forsythe couldn’t. So then Christian said: ‘Well, Harry, I guess I’ll go solo.’ He left the club at ten-forty-five. Outside, he took a taxi. I checked up on the driver. The driver always parked at the hackstand outside the club and the door flunky knew him. Well, Christian was driven to Rialto Square and arrived there at about eleven.”

  Liggoner whistled, said: “Right in the Fourth, eh!”

  “Smack in the Fourth! The taxi driver saw Christian head down Rialto Street.”

  “The thing is, what place did he visit?”

  Cardigan nodded, scowled to himself. “I know. Maybe that’s going to be easy. I’m going to make a call on Homer Bund, the big shot that supplies the Rialto district with all its liquor. I’m in Cronin’s alley now and—” He stopped, and his gaze moved significantly to the state’s attorney.

  Liggoner pursed his lips, moved articles around on his desk. He said quietly: “Only watch your step, Cardigan. It’s a bad alley—a bad one.” He added: “I don’t think certain parties would hesitate to use a gun on you.”

  Cardigan chuckled roughly. “Hell, I’d feel neglected if they didn’t.”

  “What a man!” Liggoner sighed. “What a man!”

  CARDIGAN shot across town and spent five minutes in a palatial apartment talking with the notorious Homer Bund. Homer Bund was not acute; he never did divine what Cardigan was after, though Cardigan succeeded in his mission. Leaving Homer Bund, he took a walk up Rialto Street, made no calls. At Rialto Square he ran into Cronin.

  “Running your head off, ain’t you?” Cronin sneered.

  “Looking the ground over,” Cardigan said, “beforehand.”

  “Beforehand what?”

  “Before I land on it like a ton of brick. Goom-by, copper.”

  Cronin grabbed his arm, turned him around, and Cardigan darkened and growled furiously: “I took your hand off my arm once, Cronin! I can’t stand guys grabbing me! It drives me nuts!”

  Cronin grinned now. “I’m sorry, Cardigan. Geeze, you got a temper! Listen, Cardigan,” he went on, using a tone that was almost ingratiating, “I really kinda like you. You grow on a guy. Listen, boy—I agree two heads are better than one. Let’s you and me drop in a cozy speak, split a bottle of ale and kinda get together on this thing.”

>   Cardigan was wary. He shook his head. “I like myself for company better.” He stepped around Cronin and strode across Rialto Square.

  IT was dark, several hours later, when he turned up in the office of the medical examiner. He asked to look at the reports on Christian’s autopsy, read them eagerly, his lips moving. He said “Ah!” with a great sigh of satisfaction, left the office and ran downstairs. Reaching the steps to the street, he was accosted by a little Negro newsboy.

  The Negro said: “Does Mistuh Cardigan live here, suh?”

  “I’m Cardigan. Why?”

  The boy turned, pointed. “Man give me a nickel to say he wants to see yuh. Man’s sittin’ in that sedan down the street theyah.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yassuh.”

  Cardigan saw the sedan. It was parked a block away. Cardigan walked toward it, unlimbered the gun from his shoulder holster, shoved it into his overcoat pocket. He clung to the shadows of the buildings, walking on his toes, his eyes intent on the parked car, his jaw rigid. Nearing it, he saw that all windows were closed. The sedan stood in a well of shadow. Small cowl-lights glowed. He made the last few steps with his gun half drawn, reached the running board. He could see no one. It was dark inside the sedan, and Cardigan pressed his nose to one of the window panes.

  Nothing happened. He put his hand on the chromium door handle, paused. He removed his hand. Then he lifted his gun and smashed the window. Reaching in, he turned on the dashlight.

  He saw, wired to three doors of the car, the mechanism of a bomb. He passed a hand across his face, remembering that but a moment before he had been on the point of opening one of the wired doors. A chill knifed his spine.

  He said aloud, in a grating voice: “Is my face green!”

  Chapter Three

  Number 333

  ONCE on a time Number 333 Rialto Street had housed a wealthy lumber merchant. But time had had its way. The respectable rich had moved on to other fields. Restauranteurs had moved in, remodeled. Fat, powdered women had come and opened rooming houses. Electric signs had cropped up, one after another.