The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 1: 1931-32 Read online

  There was movement in her face now—slow anger, frustration. Jewels sparkled on her fingers as her hands clenched. There was the faint sound of her breath escaping.

  Then there were footsteps in the hall; a moment later a knock on the door. Cardigan shoved his gun into his overcoat pocket but kept his hand on it. He went close to the woman.

  “Open it—and one false move and you get hurt.”

  He backed up beyond the radius of the bronze lamps. The woman went slowly to the door and opened it.

  Chapter Three

  “I Hate Cops!”

  A MAN in evening clothes came in, said: “Nita—” and stopped short. She had turned from him with lowered eyes. He was tall, middle-aged, with white hair carefully combed. He stammered: “I—I beg your pardon.”

  “Come in,” said Cardigan.

  “No, thanks. I—I’ll come back later and—”

  “Get in.” There was a whip in Cardigan’s voice. “If you’re a customer here, it’s your tough luck. Close that door.”

  The woman closed the door. The man fidgeted with a black velours hat, bit his lip, turned and looked quizzically at the woman. She drifted past him with her head lowered, sat down, fitted a cigarette into a long ivory holder and lit up.

  The white-haired man demanded: “What is this? What is this anyway?”

  “It’s a riddle,” Cardigan said. “Sit down.”

  “But I tell you, sir—”

  “Sit—down!”

  The man sat down, his eyes wide and jerking from the woman to Cardigan.

  Cardigan said: “I’m tailing down a little matter of murder. And kidnaping. I’m a private detective—”

  The woman started.

  Cardigan dipped his head toward her. “I forgot to tell you about the ‘private’ part…. Stay put!” he barked at the man. “Murder—and kidnaping. I was engaged by Marta Dahl’s manager to escort her to Poland, but before I can start any escorting she’s kidnaped. By dumb luck I land here—”

  The man was on his feet. “I tell you, sir, I cannot afford to be mixed up with this. I came here for another purpose.”

  “I know what you came here for. You’re a rich man with nerves and you need hop to keep you going. You crashed in here at a bad time but you’re not leaving till I get things straight. The sooner this woman talks the quicker you go.”

  The woman said: “Of course, I am not talking.”

  The man said: “Oh, my God!” and patted his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “There was a little sap in here,” Cardigan said, “who tried to tell me he pulled the job. I had the choice of killing him or holding the woman. I held the woman.”

  The man raised his palms. “But why do you hold me? If you know what I came here for, and if it’s not in connection with what you’re after, why must I stay? Come, I can fix things with you. Surely a hundred-dollar bill—”

  “Nothing doing.”

  The man groaned. “Then name your price!”

  Somewhere a door banged. The woman started. The man with the white hair tensed.

  “I’ve got to get out of here!” he cried.

  He jumped up and made a blind dash for the door. Cardigan lunged after him. The man had his hand on the knob. He yanked open the door and spun around to strike Cardigan. Cardigan leaned with the blow and brought his gun down on the man’s head. The man fell against him, a dead weight, slumping, and Cardigan tried to shove him off.

  Something landed on the back of his head and he whirled around to find the woman there—her eyes staring fiercely, the bronze paper-weight in her hand, upraised again. She struck and he caught hold of her descending arm, twisted it. There was a rush of feet behind him. The woman bit her lips, buckled downward.

  Cardigan pivoted, his lip curling—to find three men covering him with leveled guns. Their faces were granite-hard. Their guns did not waver. The foremost moved wide lips.

  “What the hell’s going on here? Drop that rod, you!”

  CARDIGAN scowled at them. His gun lowered and he stood on wide-planted feet, his hat knocked awry and a tuft of hair sticking out over his left ear. The woman was sitting on the floor behind him, rubbing her wrist. The white-haired man lay at his feet, unconscious.

  It was the woman who spoke. “He’s a private cop.”

  “Oh, he is, is he?” snarled the man who had spoken before. “So you’re a private cop, are you? Well, I hate private cops!”

  Cardigan was more angry than frightened. “Maybe you think I get a thrill out of heels like you.”

  The big man came forward; his gun muzzle stopped against Cardigan’s stomach. “Take his rod, gang.”

  The two men moved. One took Cardigan’s gun, examined it, said: “Nice hardware.”

  The big man hit Cardigan a punch in the jaw and Cardigan covered four feet backward and landed in an armchair. He rubbed his jaw.

  “Geez, don’t I hate private cops,” said the big man.

  The other two dragged the unconscious man from the doorway, closed the door and bolted it. They were quite young, wore snappy clothes, and seemed to enjoy the goings-on with a kind of satanic relish. They helped the woman to her feet and escorted her to a divan. She lay down. They propped pillows behind her head and she received these attentions matter-of-factly. She asked for a cigarette. One of the natty young men hastened to the table, brought back a box. She took a cigarette from it and the other young man was ready with a match. The big man who hated private cops turned and said: “Well, Nita—what went wrong?”

  She inhaled, stared intently at Cardigan’s profile for a long minute. Then she said: “This dick knows too much. Altogether too much. He fell on Chink Wiggins and it led here.”

  “Where’s Chink?”

  “He went out the back window some time ago.”

  The big man said: “Yeah?” He turned and stared at Cardigan. He hauled a paper bag from his pocket, drew out some flat, disc-shaped objects, shoved them in his mouth. He chewed industriously. He took two steps, leaned over Cardigan. “So you know too much, huh, baby?”

  “I know more right now than when I came in here.”

  “Oh, you do! Ain’t that just grand?”

  “It’s the nuts. Or should I say the peppermints? A big smart guy like you shouldn’t go around bumping off taxicab drivers.”

  The big man straightened, looked around the room.

  The woman said: “See?”

  She rose, cool, composed, and let smoke dribble from her nostrils. “There’s nothing else to do, Sam. This fellow knows too much and there is only one way out. You know what that way is. And see if you can do this job without bungling it.”

  The big man flushed. He started to retort, but the woman silenced him with a keen, steady look. She said: “And I want no arguments. If things had worked out the way we planned, I could have thrown Chink Wiggins to the cops. He would have taken it for me. The sap was dropped on his head when very young and he got an idea somehow that I was a goddess.” She laughed coldly. “He was one guy would have taken the rap without a murmur. He took it tonight. But this cop was too wise. Well, mister private dick, you see what happens to wise coppers.”

  “You know,” Cardigan said, “you’re a dame I’d enjoy putting a bullet in.”

  “You should have done it when you had the chance.”

  “You’re telling me?”

  She turned to Sam. “I want you boys to take him out and polish him off somewhere.” She indicated the man on the floor. “Take him in the other room.”

  SAM lugged the white-haired man into the room beyond the sliding doors. Returning, he closed the doors, ate more peppermints, looked at his watch. “We got to wait,” he said.

  “Wait!” snapped the woman. “I told you—”

  “I know, Nita, but there’s a cop comes through this street about now. We got to wait. Then we’ll take him up in Harlem and let him have it. But I ain’t lugging no guy when there’s a cop around.”

  One of the natty young men picked up a
banjo and began strumming it. The other hummed, kept time with his foot, rolled his eyes. The woman, seeming oblivious to the music, stared coldly, intently at Cardigan. Sam walked up and down heavily, munching peppermints. Every once in a while he took a punch at Cardigan’s head and said: “Geez, ever since I was a kid, I hated cops!” He seemed to feel a little better after each punch.

  Cardigan was perspiring. He didn’t talk, he didn’t look frightened. Every time Sam hit him he tried to roll with the punch. The strumming sound of the banjo, the humming of one of the natty young men, seemed unreal in the room. The dark, slitted eyes of the woman never left him. He wondered about Chink Wiggins. Where had the hophead gone? He had expected Chink to turn up again. It didn’t matter, though. But he was glad he hadn’t killed Chink. Though he wished he had killed the woman. Sam, after an especially hard punch, swung across the room and added his clogged bass to the banjo music and the humming tenor. The tenor broke off long enough to do a snappy soft-shoe dance. Through it all the woman remained remote, masklike, with her cruel eyes fixed on Cardigan.

  Presently she said: “Well, Sam?”

  The music stopped. Sam looked at his watch, scratched his head. He said: “Listen, Bertie, suppose now you take a run downstairs and see if that cop’s in this street.”

  The banjo player laid down his banjo. “O.K., old boy, old boy,” he said cheerfully and pranced out of the room.

  Sam came over to stand spread-legged before Cardigan and said, grinning: “I’m gonna like this, baby.”

  “Can I make any kind of a deal?”

  “What, for instance?”

  “Well, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

  The woman laughed flatly. The tenor laughed. Sam roared and said to the others: “Ain’t he funny!”

  “Honest,” Cardigan said, wiping sweat from his face. “I’d keep my mouth shut.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Till you got to the first cop, you would.”

  The woman said: “Nobody asked you to come into this, mister. You asked for what you’re getting. These men do as I say. And you heard what I told them to do. You had a chance to grab Wiggins. It would have been a snap. He confessed. But no, you had to act exceptionally bright and now you’re holding the bag.”

  He said grimly: “I knew Wiggins was lying. I knew he didn’t have a hand in it.”

  “What you didn’t know,” she ground out, “was that I told Wiggins the other day he ought to tell Marta Dahl what he thought of her.His brain’s not right. Ten minutes later he thought the idea was his own. So he went up to Park Avenue and told her. That was not an accident. I put the bug in his ear. For a reason. So that he would create a disturbance, the cops would pick him up, release him—but remember him. I was never afraid of Wiggins squealing on me. The poor little fool had a crush on me. He was simple as a kid. I figured the cops would land on him when Marta Dahl disappeared. I knew he was a sap they couldn’t beat the truth out of. He’d die for me. I had him—” she held up her hand, closed it—“like that. I wanted a fall-guy if something went wrong with the snatch. Something did go wrong.”

  “And you didn’t have a fall-guy,” Cardigan said.

  “So I’ve got to get rid of you.”

  “Hey,” Sam said, looking at his watch, “where’s Bertie?”

  Nobody said anything. Sam went to the door, opened it and listened. “I don’t hear him,” he said.

  The tenor said: “Maybe he went around for a drink.”

  “Geez, it would be like that guy to do that. Listen, Arch—you go see. Go get him and come right back.”

  “Sure thing, Sam.”

  Chapter Four

  Tickets to Poland

  ARCH went out whistling lightly to himself and Sam closed the door again, took a mouthful of peppermints and sighted down along his gun. He twirled it carelessly in his hand, went over and sat on the edge of the table. He got restless there and stood up again, planting himself before Cardigan on one of the many small rugs that lay about the room. He regarded Cardigan after the manner of a butcher regarding a choice side of beef. He munched on peppermints.

  “Have one,” he said.

  He tossed one and Cardigan reached for it, missed, and the peppermint fell to the floor. He bent over to pick it up. Sam laughed and took a lazy kick at his head. It might have been that that angered Cardigan beyond all endurance. It might have been the last straw, or the pain of the kick lancing his head might have snapped the idea to birth. But he followed out the idea.

  His hand gripped the edge of the rug. He yanked hard. Sam went over backward mightily. Cardigan shot out of the chair as if a spring had driven him. The gun flew from Sam’s hand, skated across the floor and disappeared beneath a divan. Cardigan’s fist, traveling fast, crashed against Sam’s jaw and banged his head back against the floor. Sam kicked up his legs and Cardigan went sailing over Sam’s head.

  The woman did not cry out. She dropped to her knees and tried to get the gun from beneath the divan. Cardigan bounced up from his knees, hurtled across the room. He got her by the back of the neck, swung her around and sent her flying away from the divan. She hit the table, knocked over one of the bronze lamps and tumbled to the floor.

  She had not got the gun. Cardigan groped for it, but it was way back, and Sam was coming. Sam kicked out. His shoe grazed Cardigan’s head and Cardigan caught the leg, rose with it and shoved Sam away. The woman leaped with a paper-cutter, a long, slim bronze blade. She was quick as a cat, but Cardigan had long arms. He laid the back of his hand across her mouth and this time she yelped and the paper-cutter spun across the room, flashing.

  The sliding doors opened and the white-haired man teetered in like a man in a trance. He did not join the fight. He looked like a drunk who had entered the wrong house. He blinked, rubbed his eyes. A heavy book, flung at Cardigan by the woman, missed Cardigan and caught the white-haired man between the eyes. He fell back into the other room—patent-leather shoes flicking upward as his back struck the floor.

  The hall door flung open and Arch appeared. For a moment he stood poised, then went for his gun. Cardigan leaped to the divan, hurtled over the back of it, landed on the floor. His hand closed on the gun that had disappeared. The room thundered and a slug, tearing through the back of the divan, buried itself in the wall. Cardigan gave the divan a shove that sent it scooting out across the floor. It struck Arch, who had bounded forward, and knocked him over. But he was up in a flash, his thin young face white and murderous.

  “Kill him, Arch!” the woman screamed.

  It was Cardigan’s gun that spoke. Arch made a sickly face, turned and fell against Sam and Sam ripped the gun from his hand. The woman leaped with the agility of a cat, with the swift ruthlessness of something wilder—fell on Cardigan’s gun arm. His gun went off, not aimed. A bullet drilled a hole in a mirror—bits of plaster fell from behind the mirror. Cardigan cursed and swung her around in front of him, his left arm locked under her chin.

  Arch crumpled in a lop-sided heap and Sam, swinging his gun down, made a shuddering sound with his teeth and shook his head—because Cardigan was using the woman as a shield. And sweat stood out like blisters on Cardigan’s face.

  He snarled in the woman’s ear: “You asked for this, you mascaraed heel—and if this punk of yours wants to get me he’ll drill you first! Maybe one guy gets out of this shooting-gallery and I’m choosing myself—”

  “Get from behind her, you!” Sam roared.

  The woman choked, “Get—behind him—Sam. I’ve got his—gun hand—here—” With both hands she was gripping Cardigan’s gun hand.

  Arch, whom they all thought was dead on the floor, suddenly screamed. Then he died—rolling over. The scream seemed to shock Sam. He shivered.

  The woman choked: “For God’s sake—Sam—get behind—give this bird—” She kicked back at Cardigan’s shins. He tightened his left arm. Her tongue stuck out, her eyes popped. Sam made a lunge across the room. Cardigan let the woman go and she slumped down, hacking.

  T
he men’s guns whipped toward each other. The two explosions interlocked. The wall shook. Plaster dribbled. A shot ricochetted and whanged into a porcelain vase and the vase went to pieces; flowers mushroomed upward and some fell on the back of Arch’s neck. Sam flung backward with a look on his face that seemed like the beginning of an uproarious laugh. It might have been caused by the way the light and shadow networked the room. Sam’s back hit the wall hard and then he stumbled forward. He fired with his gun pointing downward and a hole jumped magically into the carpet alongside Cardigan’s foot. Sam went on stumbling and then began turning awkwardly, like a man turning around in a great gale. Sam seemed to be crying now. His left hand jammed against the table. He hiccupped, braced himself, raised his gun.

  Cardigan, brown-faced, tight-lipped, shook his head slowly. His gun was leveled. His gaze was rooted on Sam. The woman reached up—like a cat’s paw her hand struck at Cardigan’s gun. He ducked as Sam’s gun went off. The woman set teeth into Cardigan’s gun hand. Sam lurched forward, coughing, raising his gun.

  There was a terrific blast from the doorway. Sam went down like a felled tree.

  “Hey, Cardigan,” Garrity said, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  THE skipper stood with a derby raked over one ear. His coat collar was up and there was a windy look in his eyes, a sidewise jut to his jaw. He snapped into the room after the manner of a man who knows his business.

  “Hey, you gorilla, what are you doing to that woman?”

  “Doing!” Cardigan exploded. “What am I doing! Don’t I get a laugh out of that!”

  Garrity went over, bent down. “Hey, lady, you’re biting his hand! Don’t do that!” He laid the flat of his hand across her face and she let go, flopped over. Garrity stood up, spread his palms in an explanatory gesture. “It’s like you have to do to a drowning person.”