The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 Page 17

  “Don’t look at me!” Maxine cried.

  “I thought at first,” he said, “that the nigger might have mistaken your hair for blonde.” He turned suddenly on Joyce Bethany and said fiercely: “You’ve got beautiful eyes, Miss Bethany—the lightest blue I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen eyes like yours only in blonde women. And that kind of skin you have—that usually goes with blondes too.” He pointed. “You phoned Christian at eight-thirty this morning from a drugstore booth at Wilmont and Shires!”

  “No, no,” she said quietly, grimly.

  “You looked his number up in the phone directory outside the booth. You must have used lipstick a little while before—and left some on your finger. Your fingerprint was left alongside Christian’s name in the book.”

  Cronin gasped: “You said it was a blonde—we know it was—”

  “This woman,” Cardigan growled, “is a blonde.”

  She trembled. She raised her hands, removed hairpins. Long, blue-black tresses fell. She drew backward and the wig came off. Now there was blonde hair, close-cropped like a boy’s. It changed her face entirely. Before, the forehead had appeared low, the face round, the neck short. Now the forehead was high, the face oval-shaped, the neck long.

  SHE sighed. “Yes, I went to his apartment shortly after midnight. I’d seen how he’d been robbed right and left in the gambling room. Before that—he was quite drunk—he’d sat down at my table. He was a good man—but drunk, silly. He gave me his card. Then he went to the bar and joined this young woman. Later, I saw him in the gambling room. I saw them rob him. He was so drunk, he didn’t know what he was doing. When I got home, I thought about it. I undressed, took my wig off—and then I couldn’t sleep. So I got up, dressed again, and went to his apartment to tell him—to tell him he’d been cheated. I told him to stop the check first thing in the morning.”

  “But this morning,” Cardigan said dully.

  “I phoned him to make sure. He was very drunk. I thought he might oversleep. I phoned him at eighty-thirty.”

  “Why all the interest in him?”

  She stood up. “It wasn’t in him so much.” She turned and looked at Silver Morgan. “You’ll know, Mr. Silver Morgan.”

  He stared. This was not the lone, aristocratic woman who had sat night after night in his club. His eyes bulged and then something snapped in his head. He made a hoarse outcry.

  She said: “I wore that wig because without it, Silver, I look surprisingly like my sister. You knew my sister Ethel Carstairs, didn’t you, Silver?”

  “Ethel!” he choked.

  “Ethel,” she said. “You tricked her—and she killed herself. And I came here to kill you. I was cautious—I wanted to get to know you, to be invited to your rooms. You killed her. Just as last night I overheard you say, ‘If Christian’s check is rubber, I’ll get the dough out of him or give him the works.’”

  Cardigan chopped in: “Why didn’t you tell me this before? Or tell the police?”

  “I’d hoped,” she said, “to save Silver Morgan for myself.”

  Morgan straightened with an effort, his fists clenched at his sides, his face drawn and ghastly.

  Cardigan said slowly: “O.K., Cronin, put the cuffs on him. I’ll go over to the precinct house with you.”

  “Uh—you—Cardigan; it’s—uh—your pinch.”

  “I wouldn’t think,” Cardigan said, “of making a pinch in your own precinct when you’re on hand. It’s your job. You heard what this woman said. Besides, I got no authority to make a pinch. The bracelets for Morgan, Cronin.”

  Cronin shook his head dumbly.

  Cardigan said: “You, Miss Bethany—and you, Maxine….” He gestured toward the door.

  The women went out. Cardigan locked the door after them. “Come on, Cronin,” Cardigan said.

  Cronin swayed, his face in agony. He took a step toward Morgan, stopped. His hand fumbled. Bracelets came out, clinking. He raised glassy eyes to Morgan’s face. He gagged: “O.K.—Silver.”

  “Never on your natural, Cronin. You can’t do it. You know you can’t do it. You’ve been on my payroll too long. I could have you crucified.”

  The bracelets clinked. “Silver—I got—I got to—” He could not say more.

  Morgan turned on his heel. He dived across the room, flung open a rear door which gave directly on a staircase.

  Cardigan did not budge. He barked: “Cronin, get him! It’s your pinch, Cronin! I told you I’d give you the pinch!”

  Cronin groaned aloud. He lunged for the doorway, dragged out his gun.

  “Silver, we got to lam!” he cried.

  Morgan spun around. His face was livid. He snarled: “You damn fool, plug that private dick and then we’ll chuck him in the river!”

  “No—no! Silver, we got to lam! If we plugged him—that Bethany dame—”

  “We’ll plug her too! Cripes, d’you think I’m going to chuck this racket for a dame or a lousy private dick! Get him!”

  Cronin screamed: “No! We got to lam! If you don’t—”

  “Get him!”

  THEN Cronin did a strange thing. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange, because he must have seen, suddenly, the surest way out. He fired. His gun blazed, boomed—and Morgan fell on the top step, toppled over, went flip-flopping down the long staircase.

  Cardigan said: “You got him, Cronin.”

  “God!” Cronin groaned.

  Screams, a babble of voices rose from below. The doors from the gambling room swung open. Cardigan swiveled, his gun out.

  He snapped: “Stay in or you’ll get hurt!”

  The doors swung shut. Cardigan raced over and shot the bolt, locking them.

  Pico and three men came cat-footing up the staircase, guns drawn. Pico was small, but swift, hard and sure. He caught sight of the gleam of Cronin’s gun and fired. His gun banged twice and Cronin turned around slowly and fell down wearing a sickly grimace.

  “Stay down!” snarled Cardigan.

  Pico poised on the top step, his gun raised. Then suddenly he dropped flat and fired and Cardigan felt his left arm jerked away from his side. His own gun exploded then, the echoes slam-banging in the hall. Pico twitched, yelped. His left foot kicked upward and spoiled the aim of the man behind him, whose gun went off and sent a bullet in the ceiling. Cardigan fired low and this man heaved up, back, went hurtling down the staircase.

  Then Cardigan barred the door. He couldn’t move his left arm, but he used his right to lift the bloody hand and place it in his left coat pocket. He grimaced with pain, swore; wrenched open a window. Ten feet below the window the roof of a rear vestibule projected.

  Bodies, fists, hit the outside of the stairway door and the door to the hall. Wood was being splintered. Cardigan swung a leg over the window sill, dropped to the roof of the vestibule. He heard a door come down as he leaped, landed in the courtyard below.

  Hugging the shadows, he crept up the alley to the street and heard a banging at the front door, saw three or four cops trying to break in. They got the door open and disappeared inside. Already a crowd had gathered and was surging up the steps, while others, in evening dress, were battling their way out of the night club.

  Cardigan battled his way in, wincing and groaning as his wounded arm was struck time and time again. Wild-eyed women swept past him. Men swung fists. In the midst of the milling mob Cardigan found Joyce Bethany.

  He grabbed her arm. “You’re what I came for. Come on, get out of here.”

  She was a little dazed, but cool. He gripped her arm firmly, bludgeoned his way through the crowd, half lifted her down the steps. By now the mob had grown; it overflowed the curb, spread out to the center of the street. A siren moaned and a riot squad arrived.

  But Cardigan marched Joyce Bethany away.

  “Why?” she panted.

  “You knew too much,” he said. “In the rush in there it would have been easy as hell for one of those mugs to knock you off. Besides, the state’s attorney’ll be pleased to meet you. Morgan’s not dea
d—he’s only wounded. I saw him sitting on the floor. I saw—” He stumbled, leaned against a pole.

  She cried: “What’s the matter?”

  “Listen,” he mumbled. “Get a cab. Get me to a hospital, will you?”

  “You’re hurt?”

  “Nah. I’ve just got a little lead in my system. Nothing much. Only I’ve got a weak stomach. Cripes, I guess I can’t take it any more!”

  He hit the sidewalk like a felled tree.

  WHEN he came to next morning, the first face he saw was that of State’s Attorney Liggoner. Liggoner said: “It’s surprising how you stood that pain as long as you did, without collapsing.”

  “Why? It was only my arm.”

  “The bullet in you was soaked in garlic. The hospital got you just in time—or it would have meant blood-poisoning.”

  “What else?”

  Liggoner chuckled. “Boy, you broke the ring. You’ve got what it takes!”

  “All washed up, huh?”

  “Washed up and hung out to dry. Want anything?”

  “Yeah. A shot of rye, a butt, a newspaper. No flowers, no candy—and no visiting females. Better,” he added, “make it a bottle of rye.”

  Murder Won’t Wait

  Chapter One

  The Gun Cure

  THE five-passenger plane dropped through a down draught, hit an up draught roughly, rolled. Cardigan roused, yawned, pawed big fingers across his face. Below, he saw a winding metal band that was a river; low, winter brown hills; beyond, the smoke of the city. He saw, too, the tower of the airport. Three other persons in the plane were getting ready. The steward came down the aisle gesticulating.

  Cardigan heard the motor cut, felt the plane yaw gently. It made a half circuit of the field, banked, headed into the eye of the wind. It kicked off altitude rapidly. There was scarcely any sound now but the swift passage of the wind. The wheels touched, lifted, touched again and the plane held; the motor roared and the plane wabbled onto the cement ramp, stopped before the wooden marquee that extended from the white airport building.

  Cardigan stretched arms into his baggy old ulster, slapped on his lop-eared fedora. Outside, he was given his gladstone. He dodged a porter, swung through the gate, and found a sergeant and two policemen beaming.

  “Cardigan?” the sergeant asked.

  “There’s fame for you! Yeah, Cardigan.”

  “I’m Sergeant Clayburn. We were sent out to pick you up, drive you in.” He was a big man, red-faced, with a broad smile full of incredibly white teeth.

  “What’s the charge?”

  Clayburn laughed good humoredly. “No charge, Cardigan. Just safe transport to your hotel.”

  “Times sure have changed.”

  The two cops grinned and Clayburn slapped Cardigan on the back and said: “We welcome your type in this man’s town.”

  “Probably soft soap, but come on. Where’s the chariot?”

  A LONG black touring car, inconspicuous like any police squad car, was parked at the curb in front of the airport. One of the cops slipped in behind the wheel. The other opened the tonneau door, and Cardigan climbed in with his bag. Clayburn followed and the other cop came last, flopping down and banging shut the door.

  “O.K., Bob,” Clayburn said to the man at the wheel.

  Gears clicked, the engine was raced.

  The car moved off, gathered speed, and hummed placidly on a broad cement highway. Clayburn put a cigar between his teeth, passed Cardigan one. Cardigan shoved it into a vest pocket and lit a cigarette.

  Clayburn said through the first puff of cigar smoke: “The attorney general was wise to hook onto your agency. I hear that woman you got working for you picked up a lot of dope.”

  “That’s what I came out to see about.”

  “What?”

  “About what she picked up.”

  Clayburn sighed. “It’s kind of out of our line. They shut up at sight of a uniform, and most of our bureau dicks are known. Yup, the attorney general knew what he was doing.”

  “Anyhow,” Cardigan said, “I’m glad to see you guys taking it in the right spirit. Most towns I barge in on, the law gets snooty right away. Take Wheelburgh. Those guys hate me like poison.”

  “Ain’t right,” Clayburn said. “Two heads are better than one, most times. What the chief said. The chief says to me, ‘Clay, take a squad car and go and bring Cardigan in.’” He leaned back, crossed one leg over the other. “We live and learn, Cardigan.”

  The wind clapped the canvas roof, the isinglass in the side curtains crackled. They droned through the town limits—ragtag shacks, rows of identical houses, cheap in construction and drab to the eye. They reached the end of the street-car line, bumped over rough cobblestones, pried into traffic. The smoke of the factory town hung pendant in the winter air, blurred the sun. The wind blew to them the smell of fish markets, produce stalls.

  Cardigan made a sour face, put a hand to his throat, then to his head—shook his head from side to side.

  “What’s up?” Clayburn said.

  “Dunno.”

  The car jolted on, braked sharply at a red traffic signal. Cardigan put both hands to his temples, bent over, jacking elbows on knees. When the car started off, he raised his head, his face a wry grimace.

  “Sick?” said Clayburn, and the cop beside him bent forward, looked across at Cardigan.

  “Gut,” Cardigan said. “Damn plane, I guess…. Listen, stop at a drugstore. I’ll get something to settle my stomach. Be only a minute. If I don’t, I’ll lose my lunch.”

  Clayburn leaned forward. “Hey, Bob—find a drugstore.”

  Cardigan pressed both hands to his stomach and groaned. Clayburn patted his shoulder, said, “Buck up, Cardigan,” and two blocks farther on Bob drew up alongside the curb. On the corner was a large drugstore.

  “O-oh,” moaned Cardigan. “What—what I get for being air-minded on a ground-minded gut.”

  “Can you make it?” Clayburn said.

  “Dunno…. Mind seeing the corpse to the drugstore?”

  “Not at all.”

  CLAYBURN, with a great show of red-faced anxiety, climbed out of the car. Cardigan followed, bending over, his big face contorted, his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. Clayburn guided him across the sidewalk, into the drugstore. It was a vast place inside, with several entrances on the two streets that formed the corner on which it stood. The drug counter was at the farther end, and Cardigan plodded wearily toward it, looking sour-faced and irritable. He turned into an aisle banked on either side with columns and pyramids of cheap books. He staggered, thrust out an arm and brought a pyramid of books down on Clayburn and himself.

  Clayburn began stabbing at the books, trying to prevent an entire collapse. Through the falling books Cardigan’s arm suddenly planed, quick and true, and his body tensed in a half-crouch. The gun in his hand was of a convenient size, a revolver, dark blue, threatening.

  He muttered: “O.K., big-hearted—keep your paws palm-flat against your legs and take the side exit out!”

  “Look here—”

  “I am. You heard me, whatever your real name is—and for the love o’ God get going!”

  A couple of white-jacketed clerks had come running at sound of the collapsing books. They stopped short. They saw the big man in the baggy ulster and the floppy hat; they saw the large red-faced man in police blue. Snap judgment sent up a shrill, crack-voiced cry.

  “Hold-up!”

  Cardigan jabbed Clayburn with the gun. “Fat-head, get started!” He gave Clayburn a shove and then kept prodding him toward the side door. He kicked books out of the way. The blast of a police whistle lanced his spine like an ice-cold needle shower. Clayburn went flip-flopping over the floored books like a drunken duck, his hands half raised, his face losing color, ashen gray beginning to seep through course pores.

  He croaked: “Somebody stop him!”

  Customers fell back. A woman fainted with a faint screech, and a man, too petrified to get out of her
way or to prevent her going down, crashed to the floor with her and took a perfume display down with him. The sound of bottles popping and crashing caused a dozen different screams to be released. The police whistle—piped by the store manager—again shrilled.

  Cardigan saw the bluecoat named Bob come slipping down from the front entrance. Bob had a gun in his hand. With his left he mowed panic-stricken customers out of the way. His jaw was hard-set and there was a wicked glitter in his eyes.

  He barked: “Hey, you!”

  Cardigan spun—spun Clayburn around with him as a shield. In that instant Bob’s gun exploded and the broad front of Clayburn took the bullet, Clayburn groaned and fell back against Cardigan. A clerk, rising from behind a nearby counter, raised a glass bottle, heaved it. The bottle bounced off Cardigan’s head. His eyes danced glassily with the shock and he staggered about. Clayburn slumped to the floor, his mouth open, his eyes fiercely fixed on space. Cardigan saw Bob turn and race for the front door. Cardigan raised his gun, but not industriously. His vision wasn’t clear. Too many persons were swaying about, darting in all directions. Clayburn, on the floor, was yelling hoarsely, and the police whistle shrilled again and again.

  Two cops heaved in through the side door, saw the uniformed man on the floor, saw Cardigan weaving about drunkenly, the gun swinging in his hand. The two cops rose to tiptoes, lunged. Nightsticks rose, came down violently, and beneath the rapping locusts Cardigan went down on top of the pitching, writhing body of Clayburn.

  Chapter Two

  Missing—One Op

  CAPTAIN of Detectives Bogart paced the floor of his office on the second and top story of police headquarters. He was a lean, bony, brown man, not tall but with a hardness of face and build that could be very intimidating. His suit was mouse-colored, coarse, plain, well-pressed; his collar was a size too large and his shoes were the substantial gear of a man accustomed to spending a lot of time on his feet. He had hair black and slick as a raven’s wing, and he looked angry, peeved, about to explode.

  “Ugh,” muttered Cardigan.

  Bogart stopped as though airbrakes had been applied, worked his hard brown fingers into his palms and looked at the slumped, abject figure of the man in the armchair. Patrolmen Chumley and Hensinger shifted positions, and Hensinger cleared his throat but said nothing. Bogart slopped water from a carafe into a glass, used his left hand to grip a fistful of Cardigan’s hair, poured water down Cardigan’s throat. Cardigan coughed and returned the water over Bogart’s coat and vest, and Bogart jumped back, cursing. Cardigan continued to loll and mutter in the chair, and finally Bogart, with another irascible oath, unlocked a desk drawer and hauled out a pint flask of Golden Wedding. He poured a generous portion of the pale amber liquid into the tumbler, again took hold of Cardigan’s hair, held his head back, and poured in the rye. This was not returned. Cardigan sighed pleasurably, and Bogart stood back, said over his shoulder: “Bet he waited for that!”