Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist (The Lost Classics Book 14)

by T. S. Stribling

  Samuels watched him a moment apathetically; then he roused himself to ask: “Who are you telephoning now?”

  “The police. I’m going to have his record sent over.”

  He began dialing again; then Samuels stood up with a white face. “You—you’re not asking a policeman to—to come here?” Poggioli lifted his hand and continued his dialing.

  “Sit down, sit down. This may be the final solution of your nervousness, Mr. Samuels.”

  The bank clerk drew a quick breath.

  “My nervousness! What do you mean?”

  “You asked me to come here and examine you because you were nervous,

  didn’t you?”

  “Why—y-yes—certainly.”

  “And I have discovered why you are nervous. You spent rather too much money on Mrs. Hessland’s apartment—money that didn’t really belong to you.

  . . . That’s true, isn’t it?”

  Samuels wet his lips, swallowed, stared at Poggioli.

  “Do—do you suppose the—the bank knows about that? Do you suppose they sent out that man to—to follow me around—to shadow me?” Poggioli sat with receiver to ear.

  “The bank employs me to look after the irregularities in its clerical force, Mr. Samuels....I am the man who has been following you around.”

  THE NEWSPAPER

  Senor Xenophon Quintero Sanchez had vanished into thin air. Mr. Henry Poggioli—sometime research man in criminal psychology, but now engaged in the less highbrow task of trying to catch a dope smuggler—and Mr. Slidenberry, inspector of customs, climbed into their taxi on the Miami waterfront rather at odds where to turn next.

  These two gentlemen had been cleverly, almost insultingly, hoodwinked by the Venezuelan, Sanchez. In fact, Poggioli himself had been cozened into removing the illegal drugs from the United Fruit Steamer, Stanhope, for the profit, criminal use and no doubt ironic amusement of this fellow, Sanchez.

  So, highly wrought up, they climbed into their taxicab in the sunshot street of Miami, and Slidenberry rapped out to the chauffeur: “State Fair Grounds— West Miami! Get us there quick!”

  Mr. Poggioli, the psychologist, held up a prohibitive and annoyingly superior hand.

  “No, no, Sanchez could hardly have gone to the Fair Grounds—”

  The chauffeur, a largish youth with a smallish head, hesitated in a twitter of suspense between these contradictory orders. It was dawning on him that his fares were after a criminal, and he hankered to be allowed to take part in their exciting and romantic enterprise; but he did not quite dare to ask their permission.

  Slidenberry looked at his companion.

  “Why are you so cocksure he hasn’t gone to the Fair Grounds? The concessionaires out there will bootleg anything from dope to Gatling guns!”

  Poggioli replied absently—

  “Simply because the people in Belize, Central America, know nothing about the Florida State Fair.”

  The inspector wrinkled his forehead.

  “What has Central America got to do with Sanchez and his dope?”

  “Simply this: Sanchez is a Latin and sailed from Belize. It is part of Latin psychology to follow one logical, completely worked out plan from beginning to end. Since in Belize he couldn’t have known of the State Fair, he is not there now.”

  Slidenberry gave a skeptical smile.

  “But if he had been an Anglo-Saxon he would have been at the State Fair?”

  “Certainly. Anglo-Saxons are opportunists; Latins are logicians.”

  The taxicab driver caught his breath at such extraordinary deductions. Slidenberry, however, was impatient at such an academic turn.

  “Well, if he is not at the State Fair, where is he? Driver, for heaven’s sake,

  start somewhere!”

  The chauffeur hastily cut his car out into the street. Poggioli continued his analysis—

  “Well, knowing the character of Dr. Sanchez as I do, and realizing that he was once dictator of a South American state, I would say that he is now in one of the largest and most expensive hotels in Miami.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. Name over a few.”

  Slidenberry blinked after the fashion of a man thinking.

  “The Astair, the Floridan, the Everglades, La Luxuriata, the Ferdinand and Isabella—But look here, don’t you suppose he has already sold his dope?”

  “You mean delivered,” prompted Poggioli. “It was in all probability sold before it left Belize. Whether that confounded money-changer was the final purchaser, whether he was Sanchez’s tool who handed back the drugs to his employer when he received them from—er—”

  “When he received them from you?” supplied Slidenberry dryly. “Exactly—from me. That’s what I have not as yet determined.” Poggioli nodded severely, then leaned toward the chauffeur and snapped, “Didn’t I tell you to get us to a drug store with a battery of telephones?”

  The taxi man became intensely excited.

  “Yes, sir; yes, sir—uh—are you two gentlemen real detectives? I’ve always wanted to be a detective. I—I believe I got talent. I can always figger out how a detective story is goin’ to end—ever’ time!”

  Poggioli became aware of what the fellow was saying.

  “Why, no, we’re not detectives; Mr. Slidenberry is a customs inspector and I am a research man in criminal psychology.”

  “Oh,” ejaculated the chauffeur, deeply disappointed. “I beg you-all’s pardon, I’m sure.” And he addressed himself to his driving.

  The cab presently halted in front of a drug store. The two principals hurried inside to the cashier, had a dollar changed into nickels and disappeared in the telephone booths. Poggioli looked up his numbers and began dialing. As he worked he could see the taxicab man outside his glass door, peering in at him with wide eyes and plainly straining his ears to overhear the messages of an officer in pursuit of criminals.

  Soon the psychologist had the room clerk of the Ferdinand and Isabella on the wire. He began describing the man whom he and Slidenberry were seeking: “Dr. Sanchez is an old man, heavy set, dark; a somber, rather distinguished

  face. He is wearing a brand new suit of clothes, new hat, new shoes, everything new—you couldn’t help noticing him.”

  The voice at the other end of the wire was replying tentatively—

  “I don’t believe we have such a guest, Mr. Poggioli—”

  The psychologist dialed another number and began his description again. Presently, for some reason of his own, the taxi driver gave up peering and eavesdropping outside the booth and was gone. At first Poggioli thought nothing of this, but continued unsuccessfully with his entire list of hotels. Slidenberry came to his booth door, opened it and stood in silent impatience. After a space he asked in a lowered tone, interrupting the psychologist—

  “If he is not in one of the big hotels where do we look next?” Poggioli shook his head with the receiver to his ear.

  “If he suspects I am trying to parallel his psychology, he may have taken an illogical step to throw me off.”

  The customs inspector made an annoyed gesture.

  “Forget all that stuff for a minute!” he begged in an undertone. “Tell me what you think of our chauffeur.”

  Poggioli removed his receiver a little blankly. “What is there to think of our chauffeur?”

  “Why, hadn’t you noticed how snoopy he is? I took a look outside just now and he’s not in his cab. You don’t suppose he’s shadowing us, do you? You know, tipping off somebody where we are?”

  Poggioli was taken aback at the idea.

  “I should think not. It is almost inconceivable that Sanchez should have such an elaborate organization that he would own the very chauffeur in the street—”

  “Just step out of that booth and take a look,” directed Slidenberry in a low tone. “When I didn’t find him in his car, it just struck me maybe he was telephoning too. Well, there you are.”

  Poggioli was out of his booth now, looking in the
direction the inspector indicated. On a long slant they could just see the chauffeur’s back in one of the cubicles. “He’ll say,” predicted Slidenberry bitingly, “that he’s telephoning his wife that he can’t be home for dinner.”

  At that moment the door of the suspected booth was flung open, the chauffeur dashed out and whirled to his employer.

  “I’ve got your man!” he flung out excitedly. Slidenberry was taken aback at this sudden turn. “What do you mean—got our man?”

  “Why, located him! I been phoning hotels too.” He showed a handful of nickels he had not used. “I used the same description you fellows did. He’s at the beach hotel, Las Palmas, registered under the name of Ferro.”

  The customs officer stared, then struck the knob of a booth door in exasperation.

  “Dern it, I didn’t telephone Las Palmas because that was your hotel, Mr. Poggioli! I didn’t dream he would walk right into the place you were stopping at!”

  “Neither did I!” ejaculated the scientist. “I assumed subconsciously that he would go to some other hotel. Here, let’s get over there.”

  “Look here,” begged the taxi driver as they rushed for the curb, “if I did that much I may do something else. You never can tell. Why won’t you fellers take me on full time on this trip—give me a break?”

  “Listen,” interrupted Slidenberry, “there’s nothing else to do. This Dr. Sanchez ran a lot of dope through customs, and we’re going to the Hotel Las Palmas and pinch him and it. You’ve done everything you can do already. I appreciate it. Both of us appreciate it.”

  “And you won’t take me on as a reg’lar detective?”

  “Damn it, we can’t; we’re not detectives. If you want to be a detective why don’t you get somewhere where detective work is going on?”

  “Well, doggone it,” cried the chauffeur wildly, “could you suggest some place like that?”

  By this time the trio had reached Las Palmas on the beach. All three leaped out and rushed into the lobby. A desk man, who evidently was expecting them, came forward at once with a pass key.

  “Mr. Ferro is in 610, Mr. Slidenberry,” said the desk man in a lowered tone. “The management would appreciate it if you would get him out with as little publicity as possible.”

  “That’ll be all right,” said the chauffeur to the clerk. “I have curtains on my cab, you know, that the youngsters use on necking parties. We can pull them down, and nobody will know who we got inside.”

  The clerk glanced at the chauffeur, then looked again at Slidenberry.

  “I mean, I hope you have a Maxim silencer on your guns if you have to use them. There are the local elevators on your left.”

  The trio turned to the bank of elevators. Mr. Poggioli entered the cage with a certain annoyed reluctance. On such an expedition as this he invariably forgot the physical danger in the mental problem it posited. Now that the desk man had called the hazard to his mind, it struck him as idiotic to expose an exceptional intellect, such as his own, on a chore which any corner policeman could accomplish. On the sixth floor of Hotel Las Palmas the psychologist lingered behind his two companions; and when they reached the door of 610 he was several paces to their rear. Slidenberry paused outside the room, turned and silently extended a revolver. Seeing only the chauffeur in reach, he said— “Here, take this and if anybody fires from the inside when I turn the key, you shoot back!”

  The taxi man accepted the post gratefully.

  “This may not be using my head in a detective way,” he whispered, “but it’s part of the work, ain’t it?”

  “Possibly it is not using your head,” corroborated Mr. Poggioli, “but, as you suggest, it is part of the work.”

  Complete silence followed this observation. Slidenberry lifted his fist and rapped. “Open the door in the name of the law!” he called.

  There was no answer. The customs inspector nodded warningly at the chauffeur, put in his key and turned the bolt. Nothing happened. Slidenberry pushed open the door. He and the taxi driver peered in from the sides of the entrance, then they entered cautiously. After a moment Slidenberry stepped back and growled to Poggioli:

  “Damn the luck! We’re late; he’s sold his dope, blowed his coin on a dame, jumped the hotel and beat it. Here’s the whole story right before your eyes.” When Poggioli entered, the bedroom presented a very simple face. It was in disorder; the bed was disarranged; a tray with two glasses and an empty bottle sat on a table; near a dresser on the floor lay a woman’s compact; some pieces of torn newspaper were tossed into a corner, and a carafe of ice water had been overturned on a side table.

  The taxi driver stood looking around the room with narrowed eyes.

  “Love nest,” he diagnosed, then glanced at Poggioli to see whether he had made a mistake.

  “Well, I suppose this ends our chase,” suggested Slidenberry, glumly studying the layout.

  “Can’t we go on and catch him somewhere else?” asked the taxi man hopefully. “Why, no, there wouldn’t be any use,” snapped the customs inspector. “He’s evidently got rid of his dope. It’s gone. If we pick him up now we won’t have a shred of evidence against him except a five-bolivar piece hollowed out, and what does that prove?”

  The taxi man was sharply excited at the idea of a hollow five-bolivar piece. This was the kind of thing he had encountered over and over in detective fiction, and it breathed of romance.

  “I say, that’s great,” he praised. “A hollow dollar, what do you know about that! Well, now I suppose it’s up to us to collect all this junk here for clews, ain’t it?” He set to work gathering up the bottles, glasses and newspaper in a bundle.

  Slidenberry glanced at him in distaste. “What you going to do with that stuff?”

  “Why, study ’em, of course,” said the chauffeur. “Oh, nonsense,” disparaged the inspector.

  Mr. Poggioli moved over to the bed and picked up a hairpin from the rumpled spread. He turned it in his fingers.

  “That’s odd,” he observed slowly. “The woman was a brunette.”

  “How do you know she was?” asked the chauffeur quickly, giving up his own research for the moment.

  “It’s a black hairpin,” explained the psychologist absently, “you know that blondes wear light pins.”

  “Why, sure,” agreed the taxi driver, “that isn’t hard to figger out,” and he turned to his own collection to see if it suggested anything to his mind.

  Slidenberry went a little deeper into the matter.

  “Well, what is there odd about it if she is a brunette?” he asked, slightly out of patience.

  “Nothing, except Dr. Sanchez himself is very dark, and if he were casually choosing a woman he’d pick a blonde, so I should say this was not a casual amour as you gentlemen seem to think.”

  Slidenberry stood frowning in the middle of the floor.

  “Will you please tell me what difference it makes what kind of an amour it was, if the fellow’s gone?”

  Mr. Poggioli went over to the dresser and picked up the compact. He examined it, sniffed at the powder, scrutinized the lipstick. He held up a hand at the inspector’s continued grumbling.

  “Gentlemen,” he stated, “this has not been a love affair at all. The woman who came here was a business woman, forty or forty-five years of age—a large brunette, dresses very plainly, avoids jewelry and is of a highly ingenious and subtle turn of mind. In fact, judging from this compact, I am sure it was she who hit on the idea of rumpling this room up like a deserted love nest to make it appear that Sanchez had disposed of his opiates and that further search for him would be futile. Incidentally, I will add that this woman is quite wealthy and that she made her money by herself.”

  To this extended analysis the chauffeur listened with distended eyes and finally gasped in a husky voice—

  “My Lord, Mr. Poggioli, do you mean to say you doped all that out from a compact? How in this wide world—”

  “Yes, I’d like to be let in on that,” put in the inspector skepti
cally.

  “It’s very simple,” returned the psychologist. “She is a large woman, because her compact is of plain silver. Small women choose flashy toiletries. She is middle aged, because her lipstick has about dried up. Young girls use up a lipstick long before it dries; middle aged women do not. She is wealthy and secretive and subtle, because she purchased a solid gold mirror and put it in a simple silver case. Any woman who buys expensive interiors and hides them in plain covers is not only wealthy, but must have achieved wealth through her own efforts and be cunning rather than straightforward. That’s why I knew the appearance of this room was the woman’s idea.”

  The chauffeur was astonished.

  “Well I be derned! That’s just as plain as A B C now you mention it. I swear, anybody could have seen that.” He went back to work on his glasses, bottles and paper with increased determination.

  “Then this must not have been a petting party after all?” suggested Slidenberry, impressed by Poggioli’s analysis.

  “Certainly not. I am quite sure she was the woman to whom the delivery of the dope was made. This compact ought to simplify our problem very much. There can’t be many women such as she in Miami.”

  At this the two listeners combed their minds in their respective ways. The chauffeur stood frowning and at intervals snapping his fingers as various solutions occurred to him and were discarded. Slidenberry mumbled over and over—

  “Large brunette business woman, wealthy, cunning—”

  “And of course a dealer in illicit goods,” prompted Poggioli, “since she was receiving and no doubt buying a considerable amount of narcotics.” Slidenberry suddenly looked up.

  “Why, that’s—” Then he closed his lips and shook his head. “No, no, it couldn’t have been she. She wouldn’t stoop—”

  “I know who you’re talking about,” chirped in the taxi man, “but she doesn’t deal in illicit goods, does she?”

  “Whom are you referring to?” asked Poggioli with interest.

  “Why I’m talking about Madame Aguilar, who runs the speakeasy on Esmeralda Boulevard,” stated the chauffeur, and he looked at Slidenberry. The inspector nodded.