“Sure, I know that.”
“And you know that I’ve taken every possible precaution. I was careful enough before; I’m doubly careful now. With you on the case, Jim, I wouldn’t take a chance for anything in the world.”
“You’re terrible complimentary.”
“I know you, Jim. You ain’t half the fool you look. You couldn’t be. Now, frankly, I don’t expect to cash in on this little deal for four or five years, and——”
“You ain’t ever going to cash in on it, Arthur.”
The narrow, rather ascetic face of the criminal broke into a broad grin. “Trying to make me apprehensive?”
“No; just talkin’ sense. You know the gang I’m working for. It ain’t so much the hundred thou’ insurance money they’ve shelled out as it is the principle of the thing. They’re just butt-headed enough to be willin’ to spend money an’ time to get you.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Nothin’s impossible. No matter how clever you are, you’ve slipped somewhere.”
“I haven’t slipped.”
“You think you haven’t. An’ as for you cashing in, you never will. You’re playing a lone hand, Arthur, but I ain’t. Real detectives never do. I’ve got the police of the country helpin’ me on this thing, an’ every stool pigeon we’ve got is watching for them jools. They’re going to keep on watching. An’”—Jim Hanvey leaned forward earnestly—“you ain’t gonna cash in on this deal, Arthur, because there ain’t a livin’ human bein’ who’d buy them jools offen you. Not a single living soul.”
Sherwood laughed shortly. He was impressed, and tried not to show it.
“We know every fence who’d handle a deal of that size, Arthur. Every one of them. An’ they’re all bein’ watched. The little jools don’t matter, but the minute one of them big ones shows up—we’re on a hot trail. An’ then Mr. Sherwood does a stretch—worse luck.”
“I’ll wait.”
“So will we. Waitin’ is the best thing we do. We’re just naturally bound to get you. I’d be doubtful if there was any person in the world you could sell them jools to, but there ain’t. Not a one. We’ve taken care of that. An’ the comp’ny has told me the sky’s the limit. Besides, Arthur, there ain’t so bloomin’ many places you could of hid them jools. All the time you’re waitin’ we’re workin’. You can’t get away with it. The minute I was sure it was you I knew it was just a question of time before I landed you with the dope. Now if you was willin’ to make a clean breast of it——”
Sherwood threw back his head and laughed. “Jim Hanvey! I thought better of you than that.”
“A’right.” The detective hoisted himself from the depths of a leather rocker. “Have it your own way, Arthur. But I sure do wish it was some other feller than you. I’m awful strong for you.”
“I know it, Jim.” There was genuine feeling in the other’s voice. “It’s just a little game; you’re on one side and I’m on the other. One of us has got to lose—and I’m plumb sorry it’s you.”
Alone again Sherwood walked to the window, where he stood looking down into Central Park. Dusk was merging gently into night. The shadowy walks under the trees were dislimning21 in the softly gathering gloom. There floated up to his ears the commanding screech of automobile sirens, the clang of passing Eighth Avenue cars, the voices of a group of children. Then into the picture bulked the slouching figure of Jim Hanvey.
Sherwood watched the ungainly hulk interestedly. He saw Hanvey enter the park and pause to light a cigar. There was something almost pathetic about the big hulking man, a humbleness that was deceptive to those who did not know him intimately. Too, there was a fairness and squareness which made him popular with the higher class of criminals. They knew he was on the level. He took no unfair advantage of them. He played the game clean. “If I’ve got to be caught I’d rather Jim Hanvey made the pinch.” That was the idea; they were proud of their friendship with Jim Hanvey. They played clean with him and he with them. He looked out for them after he arrested them; saw they were given a square deal; didn’t forget them when they were doing time. A lonely man, Jim Hanvey; big and ugly and ungainly—and eagerly friendly. His best friends stood high in the criminal social register. Outside the underworld he had no intimates.
Sherwood saw him walk on slowly, in the lumbering gait of a man too bulky for his feet. And gradually the big figure was lost in the gloom. He was there—then gone. Sherwood turned away from the window, “It’s a dirty shame. He would have made a wonderful crook.”
He pondered over his recent conversation with the detective. Jim’s utterances were worthy of serious reflection; Jim was not given to trickery of speech. Besides he knew Sherwood too well to bluff. He understood that Sherwood would play a waiting game.
Sherwood was willing, but a trifle disturbed. He hadn’t anticipated having the robbery traced to his door so promptly. There had been no opportunity to dispose of even a few of the gems. And he wasn’t too well supplied with cash. Of course with Jim watching every move it would be impossible to pull another job; he’d have to lay low and take things easy. Worse luck.
Jim was right of course. At present there was no one to whom he could sell the jewels. No professional fence would handle them, and if an amateur took over the jewels he, Sherwood, would be lucky to get ten thousand dollars. “And I’ll never let them go for that; not if I have to wait ten years.”
He visited Jim Hanvey a couple of days later. “I’ve been thinking over our little talk, Jim.”
“That’s good.”
“Suppose I handed the jewels to you, would you forget that you knew who took them?”
“Wish I could, Arthur, but it isn’t possible. We want you.”
Sherwood shrugged. “I’ll just have to wait then.”
“That’s foolish. I’ll get you sooner or later. You might as well come clean and start serving your time now. Every day you put it off is just that much time wasted.”
“I’ve got plenty of time, Jim.”
“Yeh, reckon so. I hardly thought you’d ’fess up.”
“Not a chance.”
“I’m real sorry for you, Arthur. All that trouble, all that risk—and you ain’t gonna get nothin’ out of it.”
“I’ll make out very well.”
“Nope. You can’t sell ’em, an’ there ain’t no other way of realizin’ on your investment of time and effort.”
Sherwood knew that he must hold on for a long, long while. It was awkward, but necessary. He was too clever a performer to worry about financial stringency. Jim was after him now as keenly as he was after the jewels, even more so. Of course he had never intended turning the jewels over to Hanvey; had quizzed him solely for the purpose of finding out whether it was the man or the jewels they were seeking. The fact that it was the former made greater caution imperative.
Jim was using the police too. That was further embarrassment. The police system bothers criminals, it is so extensive and comprehensive, a system of surveillance that eventually wears a man down. Playing lone hands, Sherwood knew that the advantage would always be with the criminal. But fighting against the individual brilliance of a detective and the inexorable patience and scope of the nation’s police departments, a man had to watch his step pretty carefully.
Sherwood was willing—but it was deucedly uncomfortable.
Jim had impressed him. There was no one to whom he could sell the jewels; not for several years, at any rate, not a soul. Unless, perhaps——Sherwood nodded slowly. “It’s worth thinking over,” he told himself.
Two days later Sherwood’s telephone buzzed, and Jim Hanvey’s monotonous droning voice came to him over the wire:
“That you, Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“This is Jim Hanvey.”
“Yes.”
“Busy?”
“Not particularly.”
“How ’bout droppin’ over to my rooms a minute. I got somethin’ to show you; somethin’ real interestin’.”
“Coming.”
“Right away?”
“Pronto.”
A taxi, a swift journey uptown to West 110th Street; Jim Hanvey’s three-room apartment—a stuffy affair grotesquely furnished and vilely kept; three rooms which sagged under the heavy odor of Jim’s cigars.
Sherwood swore fervently and threw up the windows in the tiny parlor.
“Jim, you shouldn’t.”
“What?”
“Smoke those cigars indoors.”
“Oh! Them? Gosh! I like ’em.”
“The other tenants don’t kick?”
“Dunno. The janitor done time once in Joliet,22 an’ him an’ me is buddies. He was a awful rotten yegg,23 but he’s a swell janitor. That just shows——Anyway, you ain’t interested in him; n’r me neither for that matter. I got somethin’ to show you.”
“So you said.”
“C’mere.”
Sherwood trailed his host into the dining room. Jim motioned him to a chair. “Just got one thing to ask, Arthur; that is that you use your eyes—not your hands.”
“Whatever you say, Jim.”
“Good.” From the capacious hip pocket of his voluminous trousers Hanvey extracted a little chamois sack. Sherwood’s eyes narrowed slightly. Chamois sack! Jewelry! Hanvey, apparently unmindful of his visitor, droned on:
“Just you watch, Arthur—but remember, hands off.”
With a quick deft motion he opened the sack and spilled its contents on the imitation-mahogany table. The fishlike eyes of the detective were focused vacantly upon Arthur Sherwood, who had started involuntarily from his seat. Then Sherwood caught himself, controlled his nerves with an effort and tried to smile.
“What’s the idea, Jim?”
Hanvey’s glassy eyes were turned to the table top, upon which glowed and flamed a handful of magnificent gems—matched pearls, diamonds of rare cut and brilliance, a huge blood ruby, twin emeralds of enormous size and clarity, deep oriental sapphires. The eyes of the detective closed slowly, sleepily, then opened with maddening leisureliness.
“How you like ’em, Arthur?”
Sherwood appeared at ease, but his nerves were under a terrific tension. “Very much.”
“Look familiar?”
Sherwood nodded frankly. “Yes.”
They were familiar; stone for stone they were the jewels he had stolen from Mrs. Haley—stolen from her, stripped from their mountings, and which at that moment he could have sworn were safe in a box at one of the city’s largest banks. There was no mistaking them—the ruby, the big diamond with the odd workmanship.
“What are they, Jim?”
Hanvey grinned genially.
“Paste.”
“Paste?”
“Sure. Can’t you tell?”
“Where did you get them?”
“Had ’em made from the descriptions the insurance company has. I think they look grand—for paste.”
Sherwood stared at the glittering gems as though hypnotized. And while he gazed Hanvey’s huge hand went out and swept them back into the chamois sack. “Awful good imitations, I think, Arthur.”
Sherwood laughed weakly. “They are. Mighty clever.”
The sack was returned to Hanvey’s pocket. “I got to be trottin’ along downtown, Arthur. That’s all I wanted of you—just to show you them imitation jools.”
Sherwood was nervous. He more than half expected to be arrested, and he drew a deep breath of relief as he stepped into the street. He walked swiftly toward the corner, turned sharply, and saw Hanvey emerge from the apartment house and follow him. A slight frown corrugated the criminal’s forehead.
He was frankly worried. Hanvey was too insistent about the brummagem24 quality of the gems. Doubt assailed him. Perhaps they were the genuine stones. It was impossible—but if they were imitations they were wonderful. Suppose Hanvey had discovered the location of his safety-deposit box and the name in which it was held? Suppose he had actually secured the gems?
Sherwood hailed a passing taxi and entered. As he did so he saw another cab ease around the corner. Jim Hanvey overflowed the back seat, cigar between his pursy lips. Sherwood spoke swiftly to his driver. “See that cab yonder?”
“Yeh.”
“Lose it and you get twenty dollars.”
“Cinch.”
At the same moment Hanvey was speaking with his own driver. “See that cab up ahead—the one the good-lookin’ feller is just gettin’ into?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Foller it an’ you get five dollars.”
“Cinch.”
The chase started. Both cabs swung into Riverside Drive at moderate speed, Sherwood’s driver playing a careful game until such time as he might find an opportunity to elude pursuit in a traffic jam. Along Riverside they went, turning eastward to Broadway on Seventy-second Street, thence down that thoroughfare to Park Circle. It was there that luck played into Sherwood’s hands. His cab crossed Park Circle just as the traffic policeman raised his hand. It took Hanvey fully a half minute to exhibit his credentials to the policeman, and by that time Sherwood had sped eastward on Fifty-eighth Street, turning downtown on Sixth Avenue and doubling back uptown via Fiftieth Street and Ninth Avenue.
Sherwood was confident that he had eluded Hanvey, but he was taking no chance. As a matter of fact, additional precaution was unnecessary. Hanvey’s taxi reached Fifty-eighth, Jim glanced down the avenue through an endless line of cabs, touring cars and busses, and motioned his driver to a halt. “Needn’t go no farther, son. They’ve got away. How much?”
“Dollar eighty.”
Hanvey handed him a two-dollar bill. “Keep the change.” Then, as he started across toward the Subway kiosk, he glanced at his watch. “Three-thirty—hmph!”
He entered the Subway and rode uptown. When he alighted it was to walk to Central Park West and seat himself on the steps of Sherwood’s apartment house. He was smiling slightly and there appeared to be a faint sign of life in his dead fishy eyes. Sherwood had proceeded with meticulous care. He left his taxi on West Sixty-fourth Street, took a surface car to the Pennsylvania Hotel, entered the Subway via the lobby of that hostelry, rode downtown and thence to his bank, where he secured access to the safety-deposit box held by himself under the alias of Roger Clarkson.
His examination took but a moment. The jewels were there, every last one of them. He sighed relievedly. Then as he left the bank he found himself worrying. He realized that Jim Hanvey had some deeply ulterior motive, that he had not gone to the trouble and expense of securing the paste duplicates without making them a part of an elaborate trap. Hanvey’s very frankness had been disquieting. Paste, said Hanvey, made from the insurance company descriptions. Well, Hanvey had told the truth. But why? Sherwood was apprehensive. Here had entered the first element the criminal was unable to understand. Until this moment he had felt a bit sorry for Jim Hanvey’s heavy blundering, his bovine indifference and his lethargy. But now—
Still seeking a solution Sherwood rode uptown on the Elevated and then walked to his apartment. As he turned in at the door the monster figure of Jim Hanvey hoisted itself from the marble steps.
“Hello, Arthur.”
“Jim! You here?”
“Naw! I’m over in Brooklyn huntin’ for the other end of the bridge.”
Sherwood took his friend by the arm. “Come upstairs a minute, Jim. I want to chat with you.”
“Sure.”
Hanvey selected the most comfortable chair and crashed into it. Sherwood walked to the window, put up the shade and turned toward the Gargantuan figure of his friend. Sherwood’s face was in shadow, that of the detective in the full glare of daylight—as expressionful as putty.
“I’v
e been trying to figure out your little play, Jim.”
“Have you?”
“Yes. And I don’t get the answer. About the only idea I can see behind it was that you showed me those imitations to make me go down to the vault where I have the real stones to reassure myself.”
“You’re hittin’ on all six so far, Arthur.”
“And that you’d trail me there and find out what box——”
“Arthur Sherwood! I’m plumb disappointed in you—knockin’ me thataway. You don’t honestly think I thought I could trail you through the streets of New York, do you?”
“It didn’t seem so, Jim—unless you were attaining your second childhood. But I couldn’t figure out any other reason—and you did try to follow me.”
Hanvey shook his head slowly. “Nope.”
“In that taxi?”
“That wasn’t my idea, Arthur.” The detective’s big spatulate fingers drummed lightly on the table. “All I was doin’, Arthur, was to make sure that you was tryin’ to shake me!”
“A-ah!” Sherwood’s thin lips compressed. Hanvey waved genially. “Think it over.”
Sherwood thought it over. Then: “Well, I was trying to shake you. Where does that get you?”
“A heap of places, Arthur. ’Cause how? ’Cause the minute you tried to shake me I knew good an’ well you was doin’ it because you was headed for the vault where you had the jools hid. Of course it is a vault—no crook of your intelligence would hide ’em anywheres else. So the minute you gave me the slip I come on back here an’ waited for you.”
“Ye-e-es.” Sherwood was puzzled. “But why?”
“Because, Arthur, I laid an awful clever trap for you, an’ you fell into it. You don’t mind my callin’ myself clever, do you, Arthur? I really do think it was an awful good stunt I pulled.”
“Just what was it, Jim.”
Hanvey glanced at his enormous watch. “Just this: At some time between 3:45 and 4:30 this afternoon you went to your bank box. You signed your card—under an alias, of course. An’ tomorrow mornin’ I start out inspectin’ the vault cards of every bank in New York. I’ll get help from headquarters, an’ eventually we’ll check up on every man, woman an’ child who entered a bank box in that three-quarters of an hour.”
Jim Hanvey, Detective Page 6