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

  Number 333 did not have an electric sign. It had retained the old brownstone steps—five of them—and flung up a terra-cotta marquee that roofed the stone steps and, in rainy weather, extended to the curb. On the front of the marquee was inscribed Number 333, no more. The doorman was a large Negro dressed in an elegant uniform.

  Cardigan arrived in a taxi, at ten. He carried his baggy ulster over his arm, still wore the lop-eared hat. He wore a tuxedo, a crisp stiff shirt that made his chest bulge, look twice as wide. He strolled up the steps, kicked open the door, entered an elaborate foyer and tossed hat and coat to the check-room counter. He pushed apart heavy black curtains, went through a blue-carpeted sitting room partially crowded with men and women in evening dress. He shoved in a mirrored swing-door and entered a large bar fitted with black marble and chromium and run by three natty bartenders.

  He leaned on the bar. “Rye high,” he said.

  In another room a jazz band was playing. Against the far wall of the bar were small tables. At one of these sat a striking-looking woman with a casque of black smooth hair. She was alone, aloof. Cardigan’s eyes lingered on her for a moment. He had a weakness for good-looking, well-dressed women. But his attention was brought back to the immediate vicinity by a copper-haired girl who sat on a high stool.

  She was saying: “I don’t care, Mike! I want absinthe! Absinthe or nothing!” She had a fine head of light copperish hair.

  Mike was young, good-looking, and drunk. He complained: “What, at two bucks a throw! Listen now, Maxine—”

  “I don’t care! I want absinthe!”

  “O.K., brat—have absinthe!”

  “Rye high,” said the barman, and Cardigan turned, said: “Thanks!” He tried it, found it not bad. “Hey,” he said to the barman, “who’s the manager here?”

  The bartender rose to his toes, signaled beyond Cardigan’s head. A small, swart-faced man came over. He was thin, brittle-looking, and his evening clothes fitted him precisely.

  The bartender said: “Mr. Pico, this gentleman—”

  “Yes?” drawled Pico, lifting lazy eyes to Cardigan.

  Cardigan put his back to the bar, hooked his elbows on it. He said offhand: “Tell Silver Morgan that a private dick by the name of Cardigan wants to see him.”

  Pico kept his eyebrows raised. “About what?”

  “I’ll tell that to Morgan.”

  “You can tell me what you want to see Mr. Morgan about and then I’ll tell Mr. Morgan.”

  “I could tell you, Pico, but it happens I’m not going to. You heard me. Tell Morgan I want to see him.”

  Pico stared quietly at him, said quietly, clipping the word out neatly: “Tough.”

  Cardigan did nothing except look down at Pico with immense boredom. In a moment Pico turned, walked away primly, his palms close to his thighs.

  “Good old absinthe!” chuckled the copper-haired Maxine.

  “You’ll die a drunkard’s death,” said Mike bitterly. He was very drunk.

  CARDIGAN finished the rye highball, left the bar and took a stairway to the second floor. He walked to the rear end of the upper hall. Two hard-eyed young men stood before double swing-doors made of heavy mirrors. Cardigan pushed in, found a large gambling room: roulette, chuck-a-luck, several dice tables. Silver Morgan, carrying out the modernistic design of his club, had padded the tables in red felt instead of green. Cardigan tried a few turns at the roulette wheel, lost, let his eyes wander over the crowd of men and women, then strolled out and returned to the bar.

  Pico met him, said quietly: “Where you been?”

  “Saw a man about a dog.”

  Pico said: “Mr. Morgan will see you in his office upstairs. Front, on the left.”

  “Thanks a million, Pico,” Cardigan said, and reascended the staircase, swung down the corridor above and rapped on the door to which he had been directed.

  “Come in,” a voice said.

  Silver Morgan was standing in the center of an opulent room. He was a big man with a great mane of yellow hair, pink-white skin, broad shoulders. His eyes spoiled his face; they were small, crushed between thick, soggy-looking lids. He said: “You want to see me?”

  Cardigan kicked the door shut, tossed off: “Heard of me, haven’t you?”

  “I guess I’ve heard of you. What d’you want?”

  Cardigan crossed the heavy carpet slowly, holding Morgan’s gaze, and saying: “I’m not officially on a job, Morgan. But the husband of a girl I knew as a kid was bumped off this morning and I liked him kind of; his wife loved him.”

  “Why haul a sob-story in here?”

  “I’m not hauling in a sob-story, Morgan. I’m asking you if this guy—Christian’s his name—was in your place last night. You’d know, because wherever he was, he left a check for nine thousand bucks.”

  Morgan put a fresh cigar carefully between his lips, lit up, took a puff, then took the cigar from his mouth. He shook his head. “I’d like to see a nine thousand dollar check in one evening.”

  “He wasn’t here, huh?”

  “He wasn’t here, Cardigan. What makes you think he was?”

  “You say he wasn’t here, huh?”

  “I said he wasn’t here.”

  Cardigan turned, went to the door, opened it. He looked negligently over his shoulder. “O.K., Morgan. Thanks.”

  RETURNING downstairs, Cardigan ordered another rye highball. A change in atmosphere, he thought, had begun to creep slowly but persistently throughout Number 333. Many of the guests there must have sensed it without being able to quite put a finger on it. Maxine seemed to be brooding at the bar over an empty absinthe glass. Mike was asleep, drunk. The waiters had a strange air, tense, yet oddly preoccupied. Pico went about with the peculiar manner of a man about to look behind doors or curtains and expecting to find a ghost there. The bartenders, always polite, seemed now more polite, but warily so.

  Cardigan nudged the copper-haired Maxine. “Have another drink, stranger.”

  She lifted her head, her eyes stared wearily at him. Then she said: “Don’t mind if I do. Absinthe.”

  “You always drink that?”

  “Whenever I can get it. That’s why I work here. Only place you can get it.”

  Cardigan smiled ruefully to himself. “Cigarette?” He passed her a silver cigarette case and she opened it, took one out. He retrieved the case, handled it carefully, slipped it back into his pocket.

  He turned his back on the bar, hooked a heel on the rail. The woman with the black casque of hair was still sitting at the small table opposite. She was, at the moment, regarding him steadily over the rim of a champagne glass. He thought she smiled. He half grinned to himself, crossed to her table, muttered: “Mind if I sit down?”

  “I had hoped you would.”

  He sat down and saw, on closer inspection, that her hair was not bobbed; it was, however, wound tightly about her head. She would be tall. She was beautiful, and about thirty.

  He said: “Cardigan’s the name.”

  “Joyce Bethany’s mine.”

  “Dance?”

  “Thanks, no. I hope you don’t think I was trying to pick you up.” She laughed softly. “I don’t work here. I just come here and like to sit alone.”

  “O.K. I’ll scram.”

  She held out a hand. “Wait a minute. I’ve been curious. I’ve noticed that ever since you arrived there has been a subtle change in the air of the place—the waiters, the barmen, others. I’ve been curious. Of course, you’re so big, and with that shock of hair you are rather terrifying—in a thrilling way.”

  “It’s a strange place for you to hang out alone,” he said.

  She had raised a fresh cigarette. “Match?”

  He slid a gunmetal matchbox across the table. She opened it, struck a match. He put the box back in his pocket. She had placed a curious look on him, her vanity offended perhaps because he had not struck the match for her.

  “Why?” she was saying.

  “Why what?”

&nb
sp; “Why’s this change that’s taken place?”

  He chuckled. “You’re imagining things, Joyce Bethany.” He rose, dipped his head, said: “Pardon me,” and left her table wearing a secretive smile.

  HE paid up at the bar, took his time about going to the foyer. He reclaimed his hat and coat there, went out. It was cold in the street and he put on his overcoat. He hailed a taxi, climbed in and gave directions. A little later, he called out: “Stop here a minute.” He hopped out, entered a drugstore, crowded into a telephone booth. He called a number, spoke for a couple minutes, hung up and returned to the taxi.

  “Now drive to police headquarters,” he said.

  The central room, when he entered it, was deserted save for the uniformed sergeant at the desk.

  “Yeah?” said the sergeant drowsily.

  “I’m waiting for a friend,” Cardigan told him. He sat down on a bench, picked up a paper and killed time reading the comic strips.

  Aaron Marks, the fingerprint man, came in fifteen minutes later, and Cardigan rose, tossed aside the paper and joined him. They went downstairs.

  “I thought you might’ve gone to bed,” Cardigan said.

  “No. I read late.”

  The bureau downstairs was deserted. Marks turned on lights, shrugged out of his overcoat, said: “Well, what have you got?”

  Cardigan placed the cigarette case and the matchbox on the desk. “Two sets of prints. Can you bring ’em out?”

  “Yes. I won’t bother photographing them right now, but I can get them.”

  He took first the cigarette case, screwed a glass into his eye. “Pretty clear,” he said. He spread some fine aluminum powder on the prints, dusted the excess off. Then he took a narrow roll of black tape, clipped a length and separated it from a fine strip of cellophane. He placed the black strip over the prints on the case, withdrew it, replaced upon the tape the strip of cellophane he had first removed. He repeated this process with the prints on the gunmetal matchbox, adding: “I can photograph these tomorrow, but for the time being this will do.”

  “You can read ’em, huh?”

  Marks nodded. “Yes, I can read them.”

  “Read ’em,” Cardigan said, “and maybe somebody will weep.”

  Chapter Four

  The Blonde Slant

  IT WAS almost midnight when Cardigan returned to Number 333. He didn’t bother to check hat and overcoat but chafed his cold hands slowly together, made his way into the bar. Pico spotted him and his face turned a shade lighter.

  Cronin was leaning against the bar, and Cardigan, going up beside him, said: “Just drop in, Cronin?”

  Cronin spun, his eyes round and wide. “Geeze, you gave me a start, Cardigan!”

  “How’s every little these, those and them?”

  Cronin took a long drink from a glass of ale, set the glass down, frowned thoughtfully at it. Then he said: “Look here, Cardigan, what’s the use of you and me battling all the time? Look here, we ought to get together. I admit I was a bit tough—but what the hell, I lose my head. How about letting bygones be bygones?”

  Cardigan was eyeing Joyce Bethany and said, absently: “Sure, Cronin. It’s O.K. by me.”

  “Then look. I think I got a hot steer. There’s a small joint down the street named Weisberg’s that I’m pretty sure this guy Christian was in. Suppose you and me go down and shellac this egg Weisberg.”

  Cardigan said: “Oh, I see. You and me work together, eh, Cronin?”

  Cronin grinned. “Yeah! That’s the dope!”

  Cardigan turned a peculiarly benevolent smile on him. “Cronin, I’m glad as hell you feel that way about it. I want you to work with me. Glad to have you, old egg!”

  Cronin smacked hands together. “That’s talking, Cardigan! Come on now, we’ll shoot down to Weisberg’s and—”

  “Wait a minute. I think we’d better start here first.”

  “Here?” Cronin’s jaw sagged. “Why here?”

  Cardigan beckoned Pico over and said: “Pico, Sergeant Cronin and I want a private room upstairs.”

  Cronin blinked as though he had been struck.

  Pico’s eyes remained blank. “O.K.,” he said, and then added: “Come on.”

  Cardigan followed him, slid a quizzical look down at the copper-haired Maxine, moved it to Joyce Bethany. Cronin followed dumbly at his heels. Pico led the way upstairs, opened a door at the rear of the hall, next to the gambling room on the left, stepped aside.

  Cardigan swung in, looked it over. “Swell,” he said. He pivoted and said to Pico: “Sergeant Cronin will go downstairs with you. Show him Maxine. Sergeant Cronin will bring Maxine up.”

  Pico’s lower lip shook once. Cronin looked like a man stricken, but he turned, followed Pico out of the room. Cardigan cleared off the long library table, moved a shaded bridge lamp over so that its glow shone brightly on the chair which he placed at one side of the table. He shifted another chair to the opposite side of the table and sat down in it. Putting his hand inside his left lapel, he patted the gun in the holster there.

  WHEN Cronin returned with Maxine, Cardigan gestured, said: “Sit down in that chair, Maxine.”

  “Look here, Cardigan—” Cronin began.

  Cardigan said: “When we finish here, we’ll go to Weisberg’s.”

  Cronin made an idiotic pawing motion with his hand, as though he had become entangled in a spider-web.

  Maxine had sat down in the chair and the light from the floor lamp streamed into her face.

  Cardigan said: “Maxine, d’you remember hi-de-hoing with a guy named Christian last night?”

  “No.”

  Cardigan slid a photo across the desk, clipped: “This guy.”

  “No.” She shrank back. “I never saw him!”

  He said: “Your racket here’s to entertain lone men, isn’t it, Maxine?”

  “Kinda. I dance with ’em—”

  “And steer ’em to the gambling room?”

  Her eyes popped. “No! No!”

  He shot at her: “D’you go to Christian’s apartment last night?”

  “No! I told you I never saw him!”

  “Listen, kid; when you strike up a bar acquaintance, you try to get him to buy you absinthe, don’t you?”

  She was white, trembling. “I ask for it.”

  “Absinthe drinkers usually like to inflict it on others. Did you coax Christian into drinking absinthe?”

  “My God!” she cried, jumping. “I never seen him!”

  He said: “Take that other chair, chicken…. You, Cronin, go downstairs. There’s a Miss Bethany sitting at a bar table. Bring her up.”

  “Cardigan—” The word ached up out of Cronin’s throat. His face was the color of wet cement.

  “The name’s Bethany, Cronin,” Cardigan said slowly.

  Cronin went out in a numb daze.

  The door had barely closed when it opened again, slowly, and Silver Morgan stood there, elegant in his evening clothes, hard and white, his eyes twin glitters between soggy, wrinkled lids.

  His voice was a lazy croak: “What’s the song-and-dance?”

  “Come in, Morgan. I’d have sent for you, anyhow.”

  “I asked you what the song-and-dance was?”

  Cardigan stood up, dropped one corner of his mouth sardonically. “Cronin and I have joined up.”

  Morgan came heavily into the room. Before he could make any reply, Cronin appeared with Joyce Bethany. Morgan and Cronin looked at each other, and Maxine put knuckles to her lips and made a horrified little whimper. Cronin dropped his eyes, sent harried glances stuttering about the floor.

  Cardigan was saying: “Morgan, how well do you know Joyce Bethany?”

  “Who is she?” Morgan growled.

  Cardigan nodded to the woman.

  “I don’t know her at all,” Morgan said, then his voice rose, loud and snarling. “What the hell is this? Damn it, I don’t have to stand for a lousy private dick doing this! I don’t—”

  “Sergeant Cronin,”
smiled Cardigan, “and I are working together.”

  Cronin’s fists were clenched at his sides, his eyes glued on the floor.

  Cardigan said: “Sit down, Miss Bethany.”

  SHE took her place in the chair beside the floor lamp, tried to move her head away from the glare.

  “No,” Cardigan said. “Sit still.” He pointed to the photo lying on the table. “Ever see that man before?”

  “I have not.”

  “His name’s Christian.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Cardigan’s eyes narrowed. “Ever phone him?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Say about eight-thirty this morning?”

  “Of course not.”

  He pointed at her. “You didn’t phone him, then, and tell him you were coming by, and then instead of you coming by, a man or men came by and killed him.”

  “Hell, Cardigan,” Cronin croaked, “you know it was a blonde was there!”

  Cardigan ignored this outburst and turned his dark, steady gaze on Morgan.

  “Morgan, I want to ask you a question I asked you before. Was Christian here last night?”

  “No!”

  Cardigan rapped the table, snapped, “You’re a damned liar! I found out from the big shot that supplies this district with booze that you’re the only man handles absinthe. You send a man down to New York once a month to meet a French boat. He brings back the absinthe. Maxine here is an absinthe drinker. She got Christian to drink it. How do I know? Because spots of it were on his suit, because it was found in his system at the autopsy!”

  Morgan’s jaw was hardening. “That proves nothing.”

  “Don’t be dumb. It also happens, wise guy, that this is the only place in town were red felt instead of green covers the crap tables. O.K. From the sleeve of Christian’s coat I scraped particles of red felt!”

  Maxine held her ears with both hands and let out a terrified little scream. Morgan fell back a step. His eyes shot to Cronin, but Cronin dared not look at him. Cronin looked like a man about to be very ill.

  Cardigan was saying funereally: “There was a blonde went to Christian’s apartment shortly after midnight—”