by Jerry eBooks
“Yup. Through tonight, Mr. Klotz.”
“Well, I’ll be down at the store, working late. Stop off on your way home and I’ll have something for you. One of these.” He held out of sign for Cantrell to see. It read:
WE HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT OF SCOTCH
FOR SALE
CUSTOMERS ARE LIMITED TO ONE BOTTLE
Old man Klotz chuckled. “Limited amount,” it says. I got my whole cellar full of it—every bottle the ABC board will allow me. What that stuff would bring on the black market! And me selling it at ceiling price! Anyway, I’ll have a bottle for you. Just rap on the window and I’ll let you in.”
“Okay, Mr. Klotz. I’ll be seeing you.”
Cantrell nodded as pleasantly as possible and walked on. His mind was a seething turmoil as he remembered the look of utter contempt on Lloyd Marvin’s face and realized that he had to find some way to warn the boy about Tiny Anderson’s crowd. The big ex-pug had risen a lot since the old days, but he was still a mobster. And nothing but trouble ever came when a cop started getting chummy with that sort.
Down at the waterfront, Cantrell swung around, and hurried back to cover the rest of his beat. There was only one way to go through with a fight. Get in and get it over with. When he passed Tiny’s club, he would go in and have it out with the kid.
He stopped at the Jerome Street box to ring in, then cut across past Klotz’s Liquor Store. Abruptly he stopped. There wasn’t anything wrong that he could see. It was just that sixth sense that any cop develops that had made him stop. He looked inside cautiously.
There was a dim light burning over the cash register and the stock on the shelves seemed in order. Then he saw what it was that had made him stop. The small cabinet Klotz used for special displays had been pulled aside. And that cabinet usually rested over the trap-door leading to the cellar. The special trap-door old Klotz had had made, so he wouldn’t have to go out on the street in rainy weather to get into his cellar.
Even so, Klotz was probably working down there. He had been headed for the store when Cantrell had last seen him. Jimmy Cantrell tried the door cautiously. It swung open at once. He stepped in and snapped on the light.
Old man Klotz was lying sprawled out on the floor, behind the counter. His bald head rested on the new sign and the lettering was blotted out in one place by the blood from a hole over his right eye. Beyond him, Cantrell could see the open door of the cellar. Somewhere old man Klotz had bragged to the wrong person about that cellarful of Scotch.
CANTRELL walked over to the telephone unhurriedly and dialed, his keen, old eyes going over the place, while he waited for Marvin to answer. There was the alcove where the look-out had stood, watching the street both ways. It hadn’t been too difficult, nor was it difficult to figure out who had pulled this job. This was strictly neighborhood stuff, and it fairly shrieked of Tiny Anderson and his mob.
“Hello!” he heard a rasping voice over the phone. “Captain Marvin speaking.”
“Jimmy Cantrell, Captain. Somebody’s knocked off Klotz’s Liquor Store and killed old man Klotz. And I’m pretty sure I know who done it. It’s—”
He stopped short as though a gun had been jabbed into his back. He knew police procedure only too well. One minute after he mentioned Tiny Anderson, a squad car would be roaring through the streets to Tiny’s club. And if they found Lloyd Marvin in there, it would mean a terrific black mark against Lloyd’s record at the least. At the worst, Tiny might have planned some way of involving Lloyd in this job.
“Who’d you say it was, Cantrell? I didn’t get it. Hello! Hello!”
Old Jimmy Cantrell sighed jerkily and hung up, his face a sickly gray. Well, then, this was it. The one thing he had dreaded more than anything else, during the long years. He would have to face that brokennosed figure again.
For a long moment he stood there beside old man Klotz’s body, feeling himself go weak with fear. Then he turned and went out of the door, closing it behind him.
A fire-escape led up past Tiny’s club and Cantrell climbed it as quietly as possible. A window slid up without too much noise and he stepped into a dark back room, his Police Positive held alertly in his hand. A connecting door, leading to the front room was closed but a glint of light showed under it. Old Jimmy Cantrell tiptoed over and put his eye to the keyhole.
Lloyd Marvin was sitting alone at a table, a half empty whisky bottle before him, his blond head on the table on his arms. Even as Cantrell looked, he heard the door open and two of Tiny’s hoods came into his view. They were the Marino brothers, Phil and Danny. They started slipping out of their topcoats at once and, at the slight noise, Marvin raised his head groggily.
“Hey! Where you been?” His voice was thick.
Danny Marino laughed harshly. “Where have we been? Why, we’ve been right here with you all the time, chum. We was just going out for some fresh air. You want to go ring in? Come on, I’ll give you an arm.”
Lloyd stumbled to his feet and rubbed his eyes. “Don’t tell me that I passed out on two drinks.”
So that was it. Lloyd was to be their alibi, and they had pulled the job on old Klotz. Cantrell raised up, shoved the door open and stepped into the room, his gun held steadily on the Marino brothers.
“You passed out, all right,” he told Lloyd. “Your whisky was doped, you fool.”
Danny Marino spun about, his hand starting toward his shoulder.
“Go right ahead, Danny,” Cantrell told him genially. “You might make it at that.”
The hood dropped his hand sullenly. Back of him, Lloyd Marvin looked at them, bewildered, but Cantrell knew there was no time to explain.
“Where’s Tiny?” he snapped.
“Right here behind you, Cantrell,” a voice said placidly. “I got here a little ahead of the boys and stepped behind the door when I heard you open the window.”
Tiny Anderson stepped out, holding a heavy automatic in his hand. The big expug was smiling a little as he came forward on the balls of his feet, as lightly as a cat. He waved the big gun at Cantrell.
“All right, Jimmy. Drop your gun and night-stick. This little visit of yours is going to change our plans a bit but it won’t make too much difference. It just means that we’ll have to go to the trouble of getting rid of you punks, that’s all.”
Cantrell let his gun and night-stick fall to the floor and. just as Tiny picked them up, young Martin went for his gun. Even in that blurry moment, old Jimmy had time to feel a kindly contempt for the young fellow’s rash clumsiness.
He saw Tiny Anderson step aside and swing the big gun—almost leisurely it seemed—and saw Lloyd’s face turn to a bloody smear as he went down with his nose crushed.
“That’s the first payment on what your old man did to me once, punk!” the big man snarled. “You been hanging around my boys for a long time now, trying to get a line on them, so how do you like it now that you got what you were after?”
HE STOOD above the unconscious young cop muttering oaths, but Cantrell did not hear them. He stepped forward and lifted a heavy oak chair. As calmly as a boxing instructor planting a punch he meant to explain later, he swung the chair against Danny Marino’s skull and knew the man was dead before he hit the floor. The chair swung back and there was a dull snap as Phil Marino’s neck broke.
And then he felt the chair snatched out of his hands, caught one flashing glimpse of that broken nose boring in again as he crashed back against the wall, blood spurting from his split lip. Tiny Anderson stepped back, rubbing his skinned knuckle, his eyes raging pools of madness.
“Before you go out of here in a box, I’m going to give you a taste of what I gave you twenty years ago!” he snarled.
His left slashed out and Jimmy Cantrell felt the searing pain of the blow, knew that his nose was broken. Then his eyes widened with surprise. And suddenly he laughed!
He was not afraid! For the first time in nearly twenty years he was facing the hands of a man without that sick feeling. And why not, he thought br
iefly. He was as good as dead, already. What was there for a dead man to fear? It didn’t make the slightest difference how much he was hurt. The only thing that mattered was to hold this murderer long enough for that fool young cop to come to and take over.
Tiny came in with a rush, hooking those hurting fists into his stomach, and that was all that Cantrell needed. He knew, of course, that he could never land one punch on a trained fighter and he did not mean to try.
He simply reached out and grabbed Tiny’s coat lapels, yanking the big man off balance for the one moment he needed. Then those rheumatic old fingers closed around Tiny Anderson’s throat and stayed there.
It was really a lot like that other time he had fought Tiny. There was a great roaring in his ears and he was only dimly aware of what was happening. There were terrific flashes of pain, as Tiny’s fists landed time after time against his unprotected face, but somehow he managed to keep his jaw close enough to the big man’s chest to keep from being knocked out.
Then the flashes of pain stopped and he felt Tiny’s fingers tearing frantically at his hands, realized with a thrill that the big man was going mad with terror. After that, there was a long period of just holding on against those tearing fingers. Until he realized that there was more than one set of fingers tearing at his. From a long way off, somebody was shouting at him and he realized that it was the voice of Joe Marvin. Then he sighed a little and let the grateful blackness roll over him . . .
He must have been out quite a while, he thought, because the grimy clubroom was full of people when he opened his eyes. Doc Raymond was sponging away the blood from Lloyd Marvin’s face and a couple of plainclothesmen were going through the pockets of the dead prizefighter. He struggled to sit up and Joe Marvin came over to him at once.”
“Are you all right, Jimmy?” he asked anxiously.
Old Jimmy Cantrell grinned weakly through his battered lips.
“Sure I’m all right,” he said. “May have to ask for a couple of days off, on sick leave, but I’ll be right back on my beat in less than a week.”
Captain Marvin looked at him sharply. “Oh. Then you’re . . . you want to withdraw your application for retirement?”
“That? Sure I’m withdrawing it. The only reason I ever made the application, in the first place, was that trouble we talked about. And I got over that tonight.”
Joe Marvin grinned and ducked his gray head closer to old Jimmy’s.
“Sure you did, you big fool. I told you that night, twenty years ago, that you get over things like that after a while.”
MURDER AFTER THE FACT
E.C. Marshall
Detective Tupps always insisted that the days of criminal brilliance were dead. Yet for a time it looked as if he had run into the murderous exception that proved the rule.
PROFESSOR BAYLISS, Dean of Criminology at Westworth University, pointed a pudgy finger at the window of Inspector Tupps’ second-floor office, and sighed moodily.
“It’s the general lack of imagination, the inability of the criminal to project a really workable theory, invent a paradox . . .” He paused, looked froglike over his thick-lensed glasses at the seated, slender figure of the chief of the city’s detective division, whom he was visiting for their weekly confab.
“The world of the brilliant, clever criminal never was,” he continued with an air of discovery. “All that stuff of LeCoq, and Poe, and Doyle—the scheming, cunning brain, quick, infallible, always two paces ahead of the police. Well, maybe in a London fog. But not in New York, not in Chicago, and not here in Westworth!”
Tupps, chuckling, refilled his pipe. A graduate of the Professor’s class of ’25, he realized that the sheer academic study of a lifetime of crooks and cheap murders had soured Bayliss on crime. Still, he reflected inwardly, the bored tilt of his own eyelids betrayed an infinite acquaintance with the vulgar shoddiness of the lawbreaking mind. A more practical acquaintance than that of the Professor’s, but equally resulting in a boundless ennui, compounded of weary years and men.
Bayliss continued. “The data’s there. You can plot it out in advance, like a behavior pattern in psychology. High and low, rich and poor. What’s the essential difference between the criminal approach of a down-at-the-heel cutthroat and a suburban gentleman with a taste for homicide? Blue jeans and a three-piece business suit, that’s all. No studied detachment, nothing above a mere progression from one dull step to the next.
“Your tough mug does it quickly—without thinking—like that,” he snapped his fingers, “and then he’s off. Just because he’s fast on the trigger he doesn’t fool around and leave a few decent clues. Your better-fed friend spends days, weeks, months, planning, twisting over his little bag of tricks—what’s the result? You get them both in forty-eight hours—or spend six months telling one from the other.
“No use, Tupps. Criminology’s a dirty business. Got to keep your hands on the floor and your eyes in the dark. No opportunity, really, for a flight of fancy brainwork.”
The dictaphone on the inspector’s desk buzzed. Tupps leaned forward in his chair, flipped over the communicator button. “Yes?” he inquired dryly.
The answering voice came crisp and thin like the rustle of wind in dry grass. “Homicide, chief. Just fifteen minutes ago out at the Cardini place on Boxhill Road. We’re holding the car.”
The Professor came instantly to attention. Tupps gave an inaudible order and closed the circuit. He was out of his chair in an instant.
“Coming along, Professor?” he asked needlessly, as the smaller man picked himself up wearily and started out of the room, “Might be interesting,” grinned Tupps. “The Cardinis were always interesting before they went on the straight and narrow.”
Bayliss grunted as he got into the back seat of the powerful police car. “Collection of reformed pickpockets. Whole zoo of ’em. Not an advanced idea in the bunch. Take it from me, Tupps, the butler did it—or the penniless but impenitent nephew.”
Tupps lighted his pipe as the car lurched forward and began roaring down Westworth’s main thoroughfare. “As I remember,” he remarked absently, “There are three nephews and a whole brace of butlers.
TWENTY minutes of rapid progress brought them to the quieter streets of the town’s western suburb, and after a few minutes more to the driveway and wall that surrounded the estate of the Cardini family, retired barons of beer-running in the days of prohibition. The huge mansion, set on a rising ground some three or four hundred feet back from the road, was ablaze with lights. From within, as the police car drew up to the great front door, came sounds of hushed excitement.
“Quite a party,” said the Professor as he and Tupps preceded the rest of their entourage, consisting of ten policemen, a photographer and the coroner, into the immense entrance hall. He indicated the excitedly whispering groups of well-dressed guests who stood here and there, casting an occasional furtive glance in the direction of the grand staircase.
Tupps inclined his head toward the stairs and watched. The others hurried around. “Wonder where Nick is?” he mused. “The old duffer’s usually around playing the family head—”
“Good evening, Inspector.”
As the voice spoke behind him, Tupps whirled to confront Nick Cardini. The whisper was deceptive. Tupps stared at the little man whose hard, aggressive eyes bored ahead of him like pointed steel rods. Behind Cardini came a brace of bravos. He inclined his head slightly back toward them, then waved a hand at Tupps. “Mike O’Grogan, Harry Capsan, and. my nephew, Pete Cardini.”
Tupps stared at them coldly, but nodded his head. Bayliss examined them minutely, squinting his deep-set eyes. The inspector was about to open his mouth when Nick Cardini indicated the drawing room. His nephew laughed harshly, “Don’t think you’ll have to look far, Inspector. We’ve got him in there. Caught him cold coming out of Louisa’s room.”
The murder, it seemed, had been committed at the height of the party. Louisa Cardini, mother of the family, had gone upstairs for a moment, but
had not returned for half an hour. Pete Cardini, investigating, had seen the trapped man emerge from her room. Inside was the dead body of Louisa. It had taken the assembled family only a few minutes, with the aid of some old friends—as Pete mentioned them Tupps raised his eyebrows—to secure the murderer.
Tupps moved toward the drawing room, the family trailing. The door swung open, revealing the lush magnificence beyond. In a chair a man sat smoking quietly. Beside him two friends of the family were on guard.
Tupps motioned them out of the way, took a look and whistled. “Recognize him, Professor?” he asked.
Bayliss smiled. “Best jewel thief in the Middle West. Hello there, Scanlon.” He turned to Tupps. “Got anything else on him?”
Scanlon rose from his chair, let out a cloud of smoke. He was a small, thin man, built like a whippet. Dangerous lights played round his ferret eyes. “I’m clean, Tupps,” he said with an air of old acquaintance. “Finished a stretch at Hayward.”
Tupps glanced at Nick and the semicircle of men behind him. “Nice company you keep,” he grated.
Bayliss drawled, “What’s surprising about that?” he asked. “Most vultures boast the same kidney.”
“Of course, you’re quite innocent,” remarked Tupps, turning to Scanlon who had resumed his seat.
“Why not? Murder’s not my specialty.” The little man’s eyes traversed the accusing circle.
“Anything missing?” barked Tupps suddenly to Cardini.
Pete lit a cigarette. “If you want a motive, Louisa’s emerald necklace is gone. The thing’s worth twenty grand, if not more. Sort of fits together, doesn’t it? Scanlon’s seen coming out of Louisa’s room. Louisa is found dead, her necklace missing. What more do you want?”
“Something conclusive. You couldn’t keep him twenty minutes in jail on that evidence.”
The younger Cardini laughed. “I didn’t say he was guilty. That was Nick’s idea. But if you want my opinion, he’s the murderer as sure as he’s sitting there.” Tupps ignored him, peered at Nick. “You say that you found her dead?”