“Mistuh Sherwood says come right up. Apahtment Fo’-twelve.”
Hanvey moved a couple of steps toward the elevator, then turned for a moment. “Son!”
“What?”
“Next time I come remember I ain’t no guy. I’m a feller.”
Sherwood answered Hanvey’s ring in person; a slender man of medium height, distinguished in appearance, exquisitely groomed, very much at ease. He ushered his visitor into a richly comfortable library, where he motioned toward a chair, into which Hanvey thumped gratefully. He stared about the room in frank approval.
“Awful soft, eh, Arthur?”
The host smiled, exhibiting twin rows of even white teeth. “Rather comfortable.”
“Business must be good.”
“It is. Very.”
“H’mph!”
Hanvey yawned with his eyes, inspecting the rich furnishings, which gave testimony to the unerringly fastidious taste of the owner. Still gazing Jim produced from a tarnished almost-silver cigar case two projectiles of profound blackness. He handed one to Sherwood, who accepted it gingerly, smelled of it suspiciously, and then emitted a single exclamation of protest.
“It ain’t the worst in the world,” remarked Hanvey. Sherwood produced a bottle and glasses. Hanvey joined him with gusto. “Here’s to you, Arthur. May the judge give you a light sentence.”
Sherwood smiled with his lips, but in his eyes lay a faint light of apprehension. He made no comment upon the detective’s toast. For a few minutes silence maintained between them, Hanvey draining his liquor at a gulp, Sherwood sipping his with the relish of a connoisseur. It was the visitor who broke the silence.
“It’s gonna be pretty tough, Arthur—givin’ up all of this.”
“Is it?”
“Uh-huh. But you shouldn’t have done it.”
It was patent that Sherwood was very much on guard. “Done what?”
“Steal them jools off Mrs. Haley.”
“I?”
“Yeh—you. It was a pretty slick piece of work, Arthur. But it wasn’t quite slick enough.”
Sherwood seated himself opposite the detective and crossed one leg over the other. He lighted a cigar of his own, a rich, fragrant, expensive thing.
His tone was quietly argumentative as he replied:
“I think it was slick enough, Jim.”
“Aw, Arthur! I’m s’prised at you.”
“I was a bit surprised at myself, Jim. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe you’re going to arrest me for that little affair.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t prove a thing. And if you arrest me without sufficient evidence to convict, you’ll have the double disappointment of seeing yourself made ridiculous while I go free. And safe.”
Hanvey nodded agreement. “You’re an awful plausible talker, Arthur.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Just between friends—you did steal them jools, didn’t you?”
“Between friends?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yes, I stole them. But you can’t prove it, Jim.”
“M’m! I could arrest you now an’ say that you confessed you stole ’em.”
“It wouldn’t help you. Any flatfoot can do that any time he wishes—but it doesn’t secure a conviction. What you need, Jim, is evidence—and evidence is the one thing you can’t get. If you arrest me and say that I confessed I’ll simply deny it, and where will you be? You need proof, my boy; proof.”
Hanvey reflected heavily.
“Reckon you’re right, Arthur. I was hoping you wouldn’t put me to all the trouble of gettin’ it. I was hopin’ to get away on a little fishin’ trip.”
Sherwood was more at ease. “What makes you think I got that stuff?”
“I don’t think it, Arthur; I know it. I suspected it, and then I checked up. I’ll hand you one thing, son—you sure are—what-you-call-it?—an opportunist.”
“Am I?”
“You are. I’m handlin’ this affair for the company that Mrs. Haley’s jools was insured in, and I’ve been down to N’Yawlins checkin’ up. I reckon I know more about this affair than you do.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Ain’t it? An’ seein’ that you’ve been so frank as to admit that you done it, p’r’aps you’d like to know what I know about it myself, eh?”
“Yes.”
Jim’s voice, flat and expressionless, seemed to fill the expensively furnished room.
“Startin’ at the beginnin’, Arthur, there was Mrs. Grover Haley, wife of the president of the L. R. & C. Railroad.18 Hubby traveled the usual route to sudden wealth—engine wiper, fireman, engineer, superintendent. Then he made a killing in oil. They elected him president of the road. Worth close onto twenty millions now. Lives in Chicago. His wife—she ain’t exactly one of these here sylphs. He married her when he was a fireman. He’s president of the road now, but she’s still a fireman’s wife. Fightin’ all the time to rise up, but not succeedin’ specially well.
“This here Mrs. Haley ain’t strong on polish, but she’s got the old ambish19 by the tail on a downhill pull. Far as her appearance is concerned—she ain’t got any. She’s sort of the same upholstery style that I am. An’ the only thing she craves in this world is society; none of your pikin’20 society, either, but the genuine stuff; the kind that even twenty millions can’t buy. For seven years she’s been trying to jimmy into the real crowd, an’ meetin’ with about as much success as an oyster in a hurdle race.” He paused briefly. “I’ve got it pretty straight so far, haven’t I, Arthur?”
The other man smiled. “That much is fairly common knowledge.”
“Reckon it is. Well, to go on, this here Mrs. Haley starts out from Chicago about a month ago in her private car, headed for Palm Beach by way of Memphis an’ N’Yawlins. She carries with her a maid an’ a chef an’ a butler. Also she carries with her about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of joolry which she plans to wear all at one time, just to prove that she’s a lady. An’ about the time she makes her plans a certain Mr. Arthur Sherwood, who is playin’ the races down in N’Yawlins, gets wind of it and decides to make a play for them stones.
“Far as I can see, Arthur, you started out without any definite plan. Opportunist—ain’t that the word I used before? You figured that all you needed was to get close enough to them jools for a long enough time an’ they were yours. An’ so, as society is your fad, you went an’ had some cards engraved which announced that you was Mr. Albert Grinnell Stoneham, said Mr. Stoneham bein’ the son of one of the most exclusive families socially in New York, where they have society as is society.
“You meet the train at Memphis and just after leaving there your card goes back to Mrs. Haley, an’ that dame nearly drops dead with joy. To make it brief, she lassoes the son of the great Stoneham family and makes him her guest. It looks like the first real break-in she’s made in seven years, as it gives her an elegant excuse to drop in on Pa and Ma Stoneham when she gets to New York next time. And so Mr. Sherwood, alias Mr. Stoneham, gets an awful warm welcome on the private car, an’ Mrs. Haley wears a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of joolry every time she comes within range of his eyes.” Jim lighted another cigar. “Wasn’t your fingers itching to grab them stones an’ run, Arthur?”
“I’m very fond of jewelry, Jim.”
“Sure! Or you wouldn’t have taken all them chances. I’ve checked up, you see. To get ahead: You reached N’Yawlins at eight o’clock. You had been down there at the races, an’ you had gone to Memphis to meet that train. The car was going out on a Jacksonville train at six the next morning. An’ you asked Mrs. Haley wouldn’t she like to go for a sightseeing drive. You went out an’ hired a big touring car an’ you went for the drive. You gave her an awful good feed at Emil’s—they say you know how to order a swell dinner, Arthur—an’ about ten
o’clock that night you showed up at the Spanish Fort Inn.
“Out there you had a swell time. Bein’ known to the head waiter, not to mention the proprietor, the sky was the limit. You had cocktails an’ champagne an’ maybe even a liqueur or six. Poor Mrs. Haley, thinkin’ she was in Rome, done as the Romans did, an’, to put it mild an’ polite, got sweetly spifflicated. Not drunk, but terribly happy. She found herself sittin’ on top of the world an’ didn’t care who saw her. You left the inn about two in the a.m. an’ Mrs. Haley insisted on sittin’ in front with you so’s she could drive the car. You wasn’t particularly keen about it, but you didn’t kick hard enough, because same is what she done, the shoffer reclinin’ in the back.
“The old dame had started out to prove she could drive—an’ she proved it. I reckon she must have busted sixty sev’ral times comin’ into the city. Ol’ gal was just naturally havin’ a helluva time. That is, she was until you got ’most home. It was there that somethin’ happened—because it was there, Arthur, that a cop seen the speed you was goin’ at an’ tried to stop you. An’ poor Mrs. Haley, not carin’ nothin’ for no cops, with a bunch of drinks inside her, ran into him!
“What happened then, Arthur”—and Jim Hanvey shook his enormous head reprovingly—“was downright unfortunate. The cop was stunned. You stopped your car, an’ just when you did the cop moved, indicating that he wasn’t so terribly hurt. With which the missus slipped into gear, stepped on the gas an’ let ’er rip. Cop fired one time in the air an’ you were free. Mrs. Haley drove that car to somewhere in the French quarter, you got out an’ slipped the scared shoffer a nice piece of change to keep mum, and back you beat it to the private car.
“That’s where good luck played into your hands, Arthur; right plumb into ’em. Bein’ an opportunist—Say! That’s a swell word, ain’t it? I got it out of the dictionary before I come here. Bein’ an opportunist like I was sayin’, you’d just stuck around with the fat dame, knowin’ that sooner or later you’d get a chance at them jools. An’ kerflooie, her cop-knockin’ experience puts everything in your paws. How? Because you knew darned good an’ well that shoffer was goin’ to lay pretty low on account of what they’d give him if they ever found out it was his car. The farther away he keeps from the spotlight in connection with that case the more comfortable he’s gonna be.
“An’ of course Mrs. Haley is now a fugitive from justice down in N’Yawlins.
“You took her back to the private car. She had sobered up more than a little, but the strong stuff was still there inside of her. Her nerves was doin’ a shimmy, an’ you gave her plenty more to drink. Finally she went to sleep. When that happened you grabbed the jools an’ hopped the car. Mrs. Haley didn’t wake up until she was on her way to Jacksonville. It was a couple hours later that she found out the jools was gone—an’ you too. The old gal nearly went nuts until she remembered her insurance, then she figured she was sittin’ on Easy Street. An’ it may interest you to know that the insurance money has already been paid to her; one hundred thousand dollars.”
Sherwood sat motionless, staring admiringly at the portly detective. By no slightest physical sign did he give indication of his genuine enthusiasm for Hanvey’s deductive powers, although he marveled at them with the frank appreciation of one brainy man for the accomplishments of another.
Hanvey’s story was correct to a detail. Sherwood knew the exhaustive search that the detective must have made, the painstaking probing.
And now—“You’re working for the insurance company aren’t you, Jim?”
“Yeh.” Hanvey was very open about it. “We’ve already paid the money, but we’re interested now in gettin’ the jools back an’ puttin’ you in stir. That’s why I come to see you.”
Sherwood smiled. “You’re not going to arrest me, Jim.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t prove a thing.”
Jim grinned. “Maybe not just yet. I’ve talked to Mrs. Haley. Bein’ a social climber she ain’t any too keen to let it be known publicly that she was imposed on by a faker. That’d make folks laugh at her. An’ if, in addition to that, it was ever known that she was the woman who flattened the N’Yawlins cop at the end of a wild party it’d sort of queer her about as queer as could be. An’ since she ain’t sufferin’ only a fifty-thousand-dollar loss anyway—she most certainly wouldn’t identify you.
“Y’see, Arthur, it’s thisaway: I spotted you easy enough. You are known out at the inn. But nobody knew the dame who was with you. An’ it was her that hit the cop. Also, I’m confessin’ frankly that the maid an’ the chef an’ the butler ain’t gonna identify you neither. Mrs. Haley has fixed them a-plenty. So she’s in the clear, you’ve got the jools, an’ we’re stung. That makes us plumb angry, Arthur; bein’ rode for a hundred thousand thataway. It just naturally puts it up to me to get you an’ the jools both.”
“I hope you enjoy yourself trying, Jim.”
“I been havin’ a good enough time a’ready. But I ain’t particularly keen about the job. You’re too good a crook to be in jail. But, by gosh, Arthur, you never should of fooled with no woman!”
Sherwood was unimpressed. “You can’t find the jewels, Jim.”
“Reckon I can. Reckon I can land you too.”
“How?”
“Because a crook can’t get away with it if the tecs are really after him. You’ve slipped somewhere. It’s just up to me to find out where.”
“I’m surprised at you—thinking I’ve slipped.”
“You ain’t no different from other crooks, Arthur, except you’ve got more sense.”
“Well”—Arthur rose ostentatiously—“I reckon you want to trot me down to headquarters.”
“No. Certainly not. Ain’t no use of my arresting you unless you’re going to plead guilty.”
“Sometimes you’re a real humorist, Jim.”
“Ain’t I? I’m awful cute occasionally. What I really come up for, Arthur, was to tell you how much I know. I want you to see just where you stand. I figured you’d be willin’ to help me all you could.”
“Certainly, Jim, certainly. Just drop around any old time and talk things over. I’ll do all in my power to hinder you.”
“Thanks, Arthur. I counted on you for that.”
They shook hands; slender, immaculate, polished man-about-town and the mammoth expressionless detective. The contrast was striking. Sherwood ushered Hanvey to the door and bade him a cordial farewell. Then alone, the criminal dropped into a chair and mopped his forehead with a silken handkerchief.
Hanvey had startled him—just as Hanvey had intended. With uncanny intuition Hanvey had pieced together a story so nearly approximating the facts that Sherwood was amazed. And he was now very much on guard. The one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry nestled in a safety-deposit box at one of the Manhattan banks. It was a box Sherwood had possessed for several years, holding it against just such an opportunity as this. It was rented under an assumed name.
Immediately after the jewel robbery he had boarded a train for New York, but not before he carefully had unset the gems and pitched the elaborate platinum settings into the depths of Lake Pontchartrain. The jewels in their little chamois sack were safe.
From the outset Sherwood had realized that he would have difficulty in disposing of the gems. He was content. A stake of that size was worth waiting for—two years, three, five. But he had not anticipated that suspicion would so readily attach to himself. Now that Jim knew the story, he felt that he must redouble his precautions.
The Mrs. Haley end of the situation was safe. He smiled at recollection of the pitifully gullible wife of the railroad president; the blatant, rather vulgar woman who thought to get into the most exclusive social circles by a display of jewelry. She had been so eagerly responsive to his glib chattering about prominent New Yorkers, had so warmly welcomed his casual invitation to telep
hone when next she came to New York in order that his supposed parents should have the opportunity of entertaining her.
He had understood fully the value of social position to Mrs. Haley. For years she had struggled gamely, mounting with horrid slowness. She was jealous of her trifling successes. This story, made public in the newspapers and expanded in the dirt-slinging weeklies, would ruin her forever. Safety was possible to her in only one way—she must not identify the man who had been her guest on the private car. And Hanvey had reassured him on that point. That had been the single doubtful link in his safety chain; and he knew now that it was one of the strongest.
He’d have to watch Jim Hanvey for a while. It would be an interesting game, laughing in his sleeve as Hanvey banged his fat head against an endless succession of brick walls. Eventually Jim would tire of the search, and then he would dispose of the jewels one by one. Not in a group, of course—they were of such great value that the attention of the police would immediately be attracted through the kind efforts of stool pigeons—but singly, at distant points, and with utmost discretion. The more Sherwood contemplated the plan the more assured he became. He felt sorry for Jim Hanvey. “Nice fellow too. I hate to see him fall down on the case.”
As for the detective, he apparently did not share Sherwood’s fear for his non-success. If he had a worry he concealed it exceedingly well behind the pudgy face. Too, he fell into the habit of calling casually on Sherwood at odd hours, and discussing the case.
“Hello, Jim. How’s old Sherlock Holmes getting on?”
“So-so, Arthur; just so-so.”
“Haven’t gathered any definite information, have you?”
“You know durn well I haven’t, Arthur.”
“You’d better get them to shift you to something else. You’ll never get the dope on me.”
“Maybe not. An’ maybe so. There ain’t no tellin’.”
Sherwood leaned forward and rested a friendly hand on Jim Hanvey’s knee. “On the level, Jim, you’re wasting your time. You know me; you know I’m not a fool.”
Jim Hanvey, Detective Page 5