by Jerry eBooks
“No one had better,” Hollister said ominously. “I’ll see you tonight—about ten. Be there—or else.”
“I’ll be here,” Angus McVicker half sobbed. “Listen—I paid Dupree last night. Before he was k-killed. I can’t pay again, I tell you. It’s impossible. These days things aren’t so good with me. Tenants don’t pay their rent. I have to sue.”
Those words stopped Hollister from blurting the whole truth over the phone. Let the old boy suffer a little. He and his non-paying tenants and his eviction suits! Driving a man to involuntary bankruptcy. He deserved to sweat. Hollister actually felt smug about the whole thing as he hung up.
Promptly at the specified hour, he was admitted to McVicker’s home. Angus, himself, let him in and the dour old tightwad was wringing his hands when Hollister sat down and stared at him coldly.
“I did pay off last night,” Angus said. “I swear I did. Why should Dupree come back and kill himself on my front porch?”
“How do I know you paid.” Hollister was enjoying this.
Angus groaned dismally. “I did, but I can’t prove it. I’ll have to pay again even if it turns me into a pauper. If I pay, will you promise not to come here again for months?”
Hollister thought rapidly. Why not let Angus go through the exquisite agony of paying off? He shrugged. Angus, with a piteous cry, arose and went to a wall safe. He took out of it an enormous stack of new, crisp currency, counted twenty-five like a man who counts his last heartbeats and—placed twenty-five thousand dollars in Hollister’s hands.
“Now go,” McVicker wailed. “Get out of here and don’t let me see you again. Fifty thousand it cost me this time just because Dupree decided to kill himself. I’m a broken man.”
Hollister arose slowly, not quite knowing what to do about all this. It suddenly occurred to him that Dupree had been a blackmailer, that Angus was paying off handsomely and perhaps Cumming had paid off too.
Hardly thinking, Hollister stuffed the money into his pocket. He decided not to tell McVicker anything at the moment. He first had to be sure about several things. One was the positive identity of the corpse found down by the river. The other was more important. Had Cumming murdered Dupree?
Hollister started across the porch. A man was coming toward him. They passed and the man gave him a sharp glance. Sharp enough to make Hollister shudder. Maybe this was another of the blackmail gang. It was best that he get away as promptly as possible. The man was burly, harsh-looking and Hollister hadn’t liked his peculiar stare.
Hollister took a taxi to the City Morgue. There, on pretext of looking for a missing relative, he was escorted through the ice box. Hollister got himself another case of jitters. Then a slab was rolled out, a sheet raised and the body of Dupree revealed. His bald pate glistened dully. Hollister shivered and not from the dankness of the morgue either.
“I—I don’t see the man I want,” he said weakly. “I—I’ve had enough of this. L—let me out.”
“Sure, pal,” a heavy voice said behind him. “We’ll let you out after you answer a couple of questions.”
Hollister turned and faced the burly man he’d encountered on his way out of McVicker’s house. Now the man held a leather case in one hand and Hollister was almost blinded by the meaning of the gold shield it contained.
“Detective Lieutenant,” Hollister read as if it were his own name on a tombstone, “Valentine is the name,” the detective said. “Headquarters Squad. I saw you come out of Angus McVicker’s house. What were you doing there?”
PANIC-STRICKEN Hollister swallowed with some difficulty.
“Oh—that. Why, Angus McVicker is my landlord. I rent an office in his building and I went there to tell him I’d paid some back rent to his manager. You can check up. So long, Lieutenant. Nice to have met you.” One single step Hollister took before that huge hand descended on his shoulder and stopped him.
“That’s funny,” Valentine said. “McVicker told me you were an insurance salesman. Come on, pal, what’s it all about?”
Hollister looked around the morgue and wondered if they’d put him here too, after he had been electrocuted for a murder he didn’t commit.
“L—look,” he said weakly, “I can talk better in more cheerful surroundings.” Valentine grinned.
“Sure’—my office is a very romantic place. It’s got a desk, some chairs and a lot of privacy. Also, I keep a string of nice cells in the same building. Remember that.” Valentine took him to Headquarters in a police car, closed the door of his office and sat down. He looked directly at Hollister.
“All right—shoot. What do you and your gang have on Angus McVicker? Why would he crash through with blackmail dough? And, incidentally, lift your arms. I haven’t given you a frisk yet.”
He pulled out the twenty-five one-thousand bills Angus had given him. He found the fifteen one thousand dollar bills which had come from a dead man’s wig. He discovered nine thousand in one-thousand-dollar bills—Cumming’s fee for service rendered.
“Just small change.” Hollister offered with what he hoped was a grin. It didn’t work. Valentine threw the money on his desk and stuck his nose an inch from Hollister’s face.
“Come through,” the police officer said ominously. “I’ll tell you this much. We were looking for Dupree when he was found near the river. Dupree had passed a one grand bill in a bar and the guy who took it thought it might be phoney so he called us. It was really all right and we traced the bill from a bank to Angus McVicker.”
Hollister sat down.
“Look, Lieutenant,” he gulped, “I’m coming clean. That’s the lingo you use here, isn’t it.? Give me a break.”
Hollister was looking at the thousand-dollar bills strewn across the detective’s desk.
“What sort of a break?” Valentine demanded. “Anyway, it’s up to the D.A. to bargain, but I’ll put in my two cents Worth if you talk.”
“Your promise is good with me,” Hollister said. “First off, take me to my apartment. Then we’ll go to Cumming’s. Yes, Clark Cumming. From there on, you’ll have to work with me. Give me a full head of steam or I won’t utter another word.”
Valentine studied Hollister’s purse and papers which he’d taken from nim. He mulled over the idea for a moment, made a few phone calls concerning Hollister’s alleged reputation and then agreed to his demands.
“And take along that money,” Hollister said. “Give me fifteen thousand of it now. Then we’re going to my apartment. I want to pick up Dupree’s wig.
“Wig?” Valentine muttered. “Yeah, sure, and should I take along a straitjacket, my friend?”
“Just handcuffs,” Hollister said grimly. “And they won’t be for me.”
Half an hour later, they were at Cumming’s elaborate home, seated in his library and watching Cumming regard them with utter amazement.
“This man,” Cumming pointed to Hollister, “claims I paid him to dispose of a corpse? Sheer nonsense. I never saw this man before in my life.”
Valentine shrugged and got up.
“Come on, Hollister,” he said. “I’ve had enough of these monkeyshines. The cell block is your next stop.”
Cumming didn’t move from his chair. Hollister bit his lip, wrenched himself free of Valentine’s grasp and made a dash for Cummins. On his way he covertly thrust Dupree’s wig under the chair in which the corpse had been seated. Valentine got him before he reached Cumming. This time he put cuffs on his wrists.
“Sorry, Mr. Cumming,” Valentine apologized. “I didn’t think this rat had nerve enough to make a break. Stay right where you are. I know the way out.”
He yanked Hollister out of the house, but fumbled with the door a moment. He put him in the car, started the motor and drove about a hundred yards.
“Now what was the rest of the deal?” he asked.
Hollister came out of the doldrums.
“You mean I still get a break?”
“Listen,” Valentine said. “Cumming’s hands were wet on the palms. H
e’s scared stiff. A detective notices those things. I suppose you want to go back. Well, I fixed the door so it isn’t locked. Here—I’ll take those cuffs off you.”
Hollister slipped out of the car, ran back to the house and let himself in. He reached the library. It was empty, but the wig wasn’t under the chair any longer. All he hoped was that Cumming fully believed it had slipped off Dupree’s scalp when they were carrying him out.
Then Hollister saw one whole bookcase start moving. It was on rollers and pushed out. Cumming emerged from this hidden door and the secret room behind it. He saw Hollister, who had no chance to move. A gun appeared in Cumming’s fist and levelled.
CAUTIOUSLY Hollister raised his arms. “So it was you,” he said slowly. “I got away from the cop and came back because I figured you really had killed Dupree. Shall I tell you why? Because Dupree was part of a backmailing ring which you headed.
“As a great philanthropist, you were never suspected. Dupree held out. He’d just come from Angus McVicker’s and was supposed to have picked up twenty-five thousand dollars. He said McVicker only gave him ten. You took this, knew he was holding out and let him have it. You searched him and found nothing—because the money was hidden in Dupree’s wig.”
“Have you finished?” Cumming asked quietly.
“No, not quite. You had to get rid of the corpse and it was too risky so you thought up a scheme to get me into it. I was your very delightful stooge. But Cumming, for a wealthy and intelligent man, you made a bad mistake. You paid me in one-thousand-dollar bills. You sent me eight more one-grand bills.
“I found fifteen thousand more, in similar bills, in Dupree’s wig. Later on, Angus handed me twenty-five more of those bills when he thought I was another member of your blackmail ring. All those bills were new, numbered in rotation and possession of them by you, proves you were in with Dupree.”
“Finished now?” Cumming asked. “Because I intend to finish you quite permanently, say you came back here to attack me and I shot you in self-defense.”
The gun steadied. Hollister braced himself and for some unaccountable reason he started to pray that the gun wasn’t loaded with dum-dums. He’d been reading about the way Japs fight. He was positive that he was dead and death was full of pleasant dreams when he saw Cumming slowly lower the gun and finally drop it.
Lieutenant Valentine came into focus.
“It worked nicely, Hollister,” he said.
“We’ve been looking for the head of a big blackmail ring for more than three years. Cumming is it.”
Hollister knelt on the floor first, then he sat and finally he stretched out. He wasn’t tired either.
Some time later, Hollister glanced at bold headlines, got up from the uncomfortably hard pallet of his cell and went to the barred door. Across from him was Angus McVicker wringing his hands and wishing he’d made some of his money the honest—and hard—way. Next door to Hollister’s cell was Cumming.
Hollister passed the newspaper to him.
“Cumming,” he said. “I failed you. The money you paid to keep your name out of the papers is yours again, naturally. I can’t accept it because I failed to keep your name out of the papers. You can pick up the ten thousand from Lieutenant Valentine. I’m certain he’ll be glad to act as my agent in the matter.”
“I hope they give you a hundred years,” Cumming roared.
Hollister grinned.
“I’m going to be let out pretty soon. They just want me here as a material witness. Valentine says I’ll be forgiven for removing Dupree from your house because I’ve been a good boy and I talked. It’s a great life, Mr. Cumming. Yesterday I was broke and bankrupt. Then, almost as fast as I could handle it, I became rich. A thousand from you, then a second thousand. Then fifteen from Dupree, then eight more from you. Finally, twenty-five thousand from Angus, who was in on the racket as a go-between. Money slips through my fingers, but I like being broke. You don’t have worries. Hey, Angus, how are you feeling?”
Angus McVicker peered through the bars. “Very hungry. Do they ever feed a man in here?”
“They certainly do,” Hollister said, “Not bad food either.”
“Without charge?” McVicker inquired.
“It’s all on the town,” Hollister assured him.
Angus sat down.
“Ah well, there is always a ray of sunshine amidst a man’s troubles.”
A SNITCH IN TIME
E.C. Marshall
Locked in a windowless room, in a secret building, this kidnaped magnate still found a dead sure way to trap his unknown captor.
MOUNTAINS pressed on his head. He could feel them distinctly. For awhile he had not even been able to feel. There had been only a great instant of utter fright and alarm as something black, short, and straight descended toward his eyes until it seemed like a plummet of doom growing frightfully in size. The plummet had blotted out everything. Consciousness was extinguished.
But there had been light. Flashes, like fitful bursts of lightning seen through murky fog. Flashes outlined against crushing masses of rock, thick, impenetrable, massive. Perhaps the mountains that closed him in were made of rock. Only rock could be that heavy.
A thin gleam of light split the blackness. Only this time it was not a visiting gleam. The light stayed. No matter how he strained his eyeballs behind their lids the light remained constant, steady, unwavering. Eternal as the weight on his head.
Could he move? A part of him was in motion. He was not dead. His heart was beating. Experimentally he tried to wriggle his toes. They crisped up and down, cramped by the shoes he wore. But they had moved.
His body? It was not easy. The mountains imprisoning his head seemed to have rooted themselves about his middle. Where were his arms? He could not feel them. Had they been cut off, removed as the climax of some surgical operation?
A wave of hideous fear swept him, as the implication of the phrase “surgical operation” burst on his brain like a bombshell. Trembling he tried to sit up.
His head and shoulders came up in a swift, forward motion as, caught in the grip of panic, he suddenly exerted every muscle, every nerve. The split second of action seemed a hundred years.
The mountains, weight and all, vanished as his arms and hands which had been covering his eyes fell with a thud to the floor. His eyes came open.
He rose to his feet in a small, brightly lit room, took a step forward, stumbled, fell full length. In an instant he was again on his feet, violently shaking the man over whose prone body he had fallen.
The other came awake slowly, eyes opening with a sort of puzzled horror, then rapidly taking in his surroundings.
“Where are we?” The first man poked a finger at the walls.
“Blessed if I know, Martin.” The other rose to his feet, brushed himself, took a quick look at the room.
“Whoever it was got us in the car must have hidden in the back seat.” Martin rubbed the back of his head. “The last thing I can remember is turning into Market Street. Then . . .”
“Yeah, I got it too.” His companion was rubbing his head.
“Bryant!” Martin grasped his right arm violently. “The conference! It’s tomorrow!
We’ve got to sign the contract. Or”—he paused—“maybe today is ‘tomorrow’.” He looked at his wrist watch. It was still running. Ten minutes past two. They’d started out from their office at noon. How long . . .
Bryant looked at his own watch. He shook his head. “No telling how long. Might be twelve hours, either way.”
Martin took a step toward him. “But we’ve got to—”
“We’ll get out,” the other asserted grimly. “Let’s look around.”
There wasn’t much to look at. The room was small, possibly ten feet wide by fifteen long, windowless. Its ceiling was low, no more than eight feet from the floor. The only break in the concrete walls was a metal door at one end of the room’s length. One look at the door convinced both men of the futility of trying to break through it wit
hout tools. Solid, of the regulation firedoor type, its fastenings were on the other side. There was no handle or knob visible.
The light in the ceiling burned on. They were grateful for it. Without it, both knew they might have gone mad. Time passed slowly, heavily. Hunger began to grow on them. A panic took hold of Bryant. At first cool, almost assured, he began to fidget, stir, mutter to himself.
Only his voice broke the silence. There was no other noise. As time passed, something else in the room started to oppress Martin. He did not know what it was or even imagine what it could be. He only knew that at length his mouth was parched, his stomach screaming for food, and his body trembling from head to foot.
AS the hands on both their watches touched five o’clock, the lights went out. There was an instant of complete silence, while neither of them breathed. Then a slit of light appeared in the far wall as the door began to swing back. Just a slit which vanished as the light behind it went out.
Martin tensed himself for a spring, strained through the darkness for the vanished gleam. He leaped forward, collided with a heavy body, flung his arms outward in wild slashes. Behind him came Bryant, fighting desperately forward.
The pair pressed ahead for a moment or two, while great, muscled arms tried to restrain them. With a grunting heave they were flung back, while the beam of a flashlight flared momentarily. Martin heard a ponderous step advancing toward him, shrunk back against the nearest wall, side by side with his companion.
Again the black rod of doom loomed from behind the light, came up at him like a thundercloud, swerved and smashed into the back of his head.
Rough hands woke him next. He wearily opened the eyes in his aching head to find the room again ablaze with light. The figure that had been shaking him rose, stepped back, leveled a gun. Martin glanced at it through bleared eyes. It was nothing extraordinary. Just a man in a blue serge business suit—masked and armed. Painfully, Martin got to his feet, stood swaying. The only thing he could think to do was to look at his watch.