“That’s the way to talk, Sis. And I want you to know I’m here to help you all I can.”
“You will?”
“Positively. But—” ruminatingly “—I wouldn’t mention that fact to Whitey if I was you.”
She nodded agreement. “Perhaps I had better not. But I’ll count on you just the same.”
It was that night that she walked through the gardens with Kirk and broached her plan. She did it simply and naïvely—she was worried, she said, recent developments had mitigated the perfection of their happiness. He had become morose and she worried. It was better not to go on this way. If he really loved her, he wouldn’t wait—he’d just carry her off.…
Whitey Kirk scarce believed the evidence of his senses. He was amazed and exultant. Ever since the moment of Jim’s arrival on the scene he had longed to suggest an elopement, but he was afraid. Jim would find out some way, and then there’d be thunder to pay. He had feared it would be a tactical blunder, might arouse her suspicions of over-anxiety on his part.
His agreement was instant and enthusiastic—sufficiently enthusiastic even for her girlish, romance-loving heart. Within an hour their plans were laid: they were to announce after dinner the following night that they were going for a ride. At about eight o’clock they’d leave the grounds in her own high-powered sport roadster into which their suitcases would previously have been put. Then across country to the next town—and marriage. Whitey was whistling gleefully when they returned to the spacious veranda, but Madge was victim to a strange admixture of emotions. On the one hand was the thrill of active romance—on the other a feeling that she was doing wrong, that she wasn’t playing fair with her parents; that, perhaps, after all was said and done, Whitey wasn’t exactly the man for her.
Some of her doubts she expressed to Jim the following morning. He laughed away her fears. He had advised it, he said, because it was the simplest way out of a serious difficulty. A problem, he explained, was only a problem until it attained solution. It became then, a status. Those were not Jim’s words, but that was the sense of them. She was only half-convinced and told him so.
“But I trust you, Jim Hanvey. I’m taking your advice. I’ll do what you say.”
“You really love Whitey?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then elope with him tonight.”
All through the long afternoon she was distraught. Her suitcase was packed and ready. Immediately following a peculiarly strained dinner Whitey Kirk disappeared. He returned in a few minutes having, in the interim, placed his suitcase in the girl’s car. The world was a very bright and rosy place for Whitey just then. He glanced contemptuously toward the slothful, hulking figure of the detective. Not the least item of the prospective triumph would be Jim’s discomfiture.
For her part, Madge was uncertain and unhappy. Only her immaturity and her fear of that youthful bugbear known as “backing down” prevented an eleventh-hour retreat. But, starry-eyed and firm-jawed, she set herself to go through with it. She had said she’d do it and she would—come what might. But she experienced none of the happiness which she had fancied would be hers upon her nuptial night. There was only a vague, formless terror…time and again she turned to Jim Hanvey for comfort. Jim knew—she could talk to him. He tried cumbersomely to reassure her, and succeeded partially. That evening he was to her both mother and father…they were very close to one another; the big, ungainly detective and the bewildered, emotion-driven child of a millionaire father.
At 7:30 o’clock Whitey Kirk called Madge aside.
“Your suitcase in the car, dear?”
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“You put it there yourself?”
“Yes.…” Then she hesitated and bit her lip. Madge had never been taught to lie. “Well, not exactly myself.”
“What do you mean: Not exactly?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, Madge?”
“Well, somebody put it there for me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t see what difference that makes, Warren.”
He quizzed her with an intensity which he himself did not understand. “Who was it?”
Her head was flung back defiantly.
“Mr. Hanvey!”
His jaw dropped slowly. Then his fingers tightened on her arm. “Jim Hanvey?”
“Yes.”
“Then—” He was striving to adjust himself to this queer development—“Then Jim Hanvey knows about this elopement?”
“Yes.”
“You told him?”
“No. That is—not exactly.”
“Good God! Madge, can’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve spoiled the whole thing. If Jim Hanvey knows of this we may as well call it off. We’ll never get away with it. I told you from the first that he was here to prevent our marriage. And now that you’ve told him—”
Her voice was level and firm in defense of the detective.
“And I’ve told you you were wrong, Warren. Jim is my friend and yours. He won’t stop our elopement.”
“What makes you think that?” His voice contained a sneer.
“Because,” she announced calmly, “the idea of this elopement originated with Jim Hanvey!”
His grip on her arm relaxed. He gazed at her in incredulous astoundment. His brain seemed momentarily atrophied. Of all possible disclosures this was the most disturbing. It had been sufficiently alarming to learn that Jim was aware of the proposed elopement but to be informed that the idea had originated with the portly detective was a stunning blow.
He questioned the girl dazedly, choosing his words with care, holding himself in leash that he might betray none of the violent emotion which seethed within him. He might have suspected…might have known that Jim was not entirely inactive. And all the time, while the girl was explaining, his own brain groped for an answer to the puzzle. What was Jim planning? What could he be planning? As from a great distance he heard her words—
“And so you see I was right and Jim is your friend.”
An uncontrollable fury shook him. The words were out of their own volition—“He’s a damned sneak! Butting in on my affairs!”
She recoiled. The viciousness of the man’s attitude, his venomous speech.…He saw his error quickly and for the next ten minutes devoted himself and his expert talents to the task of making amends. She was only half convinced.…“We’ll go through with it,” he said grimly. “Jim will double-cross you—you’ll see. But we’ll go through.”
She went to her room. The farewell to her dainty little sanctuary was not easy. She dabbed at her eyes with a tiny lace handkerchief and prayed for the moral courage to renege at this eleventh hour. But that courage did not come—she was too young and her philosophy was builded about a tenet of gameness. She had said she’d elope with Warren Kirk and elope she would despite the instinct which cried to her in warning.
She pulled herself together with an effort, set her lips in a straight, determined line, and—with shoulders thrown back and head held high—descended the stairway. Her eyes roved questioningly about and she felt more than a hint of regret at failing to discern the hulking figure of Jim Hanvey. Nor did she see Kirk. She inquired his whereabouts of her father.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Weston. “I saw Kirk strolling about with Jim Hanvey but I don’t know where they went. Weren’t you going riding with Warren?”
She nodded in dumb misery. As they reached the veranda Kirk appeared from the dusk. He seemed nervous and, in the light which streamed through the doorway, his face possessed a marked pallor. He addressed the girl: “All ready, Dear?”
“Yes.” She turned to her father. “Where is Johnson? I want him to get the roadster.”
Weston answered. “Johnson has gone to town in the big car, Dear. I’ll get the other out for you.”
; “No.” Her manner denoted anxiety. “I’ll back it out myself. You talk to Warren.”
There was no eagerness in her manner as she progressed slowly toward the garage in the rear of the big house. A premonition of disaster was with her, the irrevocability of the thing was depressing. Game as she was, there was considerable trepidation at the thought that she was thus wilfully abandoning the placidity of her existence for a future unknown and with a man whom she had just come to realize she scarcely knew.
She climbed thoughtfully into the roadster, assured herself that her suitcase and Whitey’s were there, and then started the motor. Its rhythmic hum brought no elation this night. Just before slipping into gear, she reached to the dashboard and switched on her headlights. As by magic the interior of the garage was illumined by the brilliant glare. And then, as the significance of the sight disclosed by the sudden illumination penetrated her consciousness, she capitulated to her overwrought nerves. She screamed.
“Dad! O-oh! Dad!”
She sat motionless, gripped by a horrid fear, until her father stood beside the car, and as she alighted uncertainly her eyes discerned the figure of Warren Kirk farther back in the shadows. He hovered there uncertainly. Her father held her arm anxiously and then, as he saw her distended eyes, he followed their direction and a startled exclamation escaped from between his lips. For, in the very corner of the garage was a bundle of flashy, vivid clothes—a bundle bound securely by ropes and rendered mute by a gag.
“He’s dead!” The girl’s eyes flashed accusingly upon Kirk, and then back to the pitiful figure of Jim Hanvey in the corner. Jim was slumped grotesquely, his chin hung forward on the massive breast, a thin trickle of blood coursed down his fat cheeks and lost itself in the fat recesses of the ample chins.
How long she stood there she didn’t know. She remembered her father leaping across the garage, whipping out a gold penknife as he did so. And she knew vaguely that Kirk was beside her, his hand on her elbow. She shook his hand off and he moved away as though she had struck him. Weston administered first aid to the stricken man from a silver pocket flask and not until the fishy eyes wavered open did the girl move, and then it was to dart across the garage and drop to her knees by the side of the ungainly figure. She pillowed his head on her breast and soft, crooning mother-sounds came from between her lips. She wiped away the thin stream of blood with the hem of her skirt. Jim rousing himself with an effort, blinked dazedly into the glare of the auto lamps and shook his head. His voice came lugubriously—
“Gosh! I sure feel like Friday the thirteenth.”
As Jim, with the aid of Theodore Weston, struggled to his feet, Whitey Kirk moved slowly into the circle of light. His finely chiselled face exhibited great concern. He voiced a question—“What happened, Jim?”
It was Madge Weston who answered. She, too, had risen, and a new maturity seemed to have enveloped her. With a quietly dramatic gesture she removed from the fourth finger of her left hand the ring which Kirk had given her. She extended it to him.
“You know what happened to him, Warren.”
“I don’t.…” His denial was fervent. “I’ll swear to you, Madge—”
“Take this, Warren. I’d rather not discuss the matter.”
His eyes held hers. And the man saw there a light of finality which was beyond question or argument. With that revealing glance he knew that he had lost. Madge turned to her father and gave a calm, quiet, womanly explanation—
“I was about to elope with Warren. He was afraid that Mr. Hanvey might try to stop us. And so he committed this—this cowardly act—”
“I didn’t!” It was Kirk defending himself passionately. “I give you my word. Jim, you know I didn’t do this. Tell them—”
“It doesn’t matter what Mr. Hanvey says,” retorted the girl sadly. “He has always been your friend and he’s your friend now. He’d probably say you didn’t do it, wouldn’t you, Mr. Hanvey?”
“Yeh.” Jim’s big head nodded slowly. “I prob’ly would. I ain’t aimin’ to git Whitey into no trouble.”
“You see, Warren, he’s standing by you to the end. For it is the end, Warren. The very end. I’ve learned a good deal in the last few days. Somehow, I marvel that I didn’t know before.”
“But I didn’t do it, Madge. Tell her that I didn’t do it, Jim.”
Jim met his eyes levelly. “I ain’t accused you of nothin’, have I, Whitey?”
Kirk stood rigid, staring from one to the other. From father and daughter he received stares of unveiled hostility. From Jim Hanvey only a mild, blinking reproof. Kirk’s big figure shook with fury and he smashed one fist into the palm of the other hand.
“It’s all a damned lie!” he shouted. “I had nothing to do with this and Jim Hanvey knows it.”
“Well,” came the quiet retort from the detective, “I ain’t said you did, have I?”
It was Madge Weston who interposed. “It doesn’t matter what either of you might say,” she remarked coldly. “And now, Dad, I think we’d better help Mr. Hanvey into the house.”
They supported the big figure between them. Whitey Kirk stood aside as they passed him. Later, after Weston and Madge had bandaged Jim’s slight scalp wound, Kirk dispatched a note to Madge protesting his innocence and begging for an audience. She returned a curt refusal and the following morning, without again having seen the girl, Whitey Kirk abruptly departed the Weston home.
That afternoon Jim Hanvey and Theodore Weston faced each other across the polished surface of the walnut desk in the library. Jim was puffing peacefully upon one of his favorite black cigars and his host was struggling manfully with its mate. But however horrible the cigar might have been, it was not sufficiently malevolent to negative entirely the unalloyed exaltation which Weston was experiencing.
“You accomplished the impossible, Jim. I’ll never forget it. I didn’t believe it would work——”
“I wasn’t so dog-goned sure of it myself,” answered the big detective slowly. Then he grinned ruefully as he tenderly rubbed the bruise on his head. “I’ll hand you one thing, Mr. Weston. Your bindin’ an’ gaggin’ wasn’t such a fine job—but believe me that sure was one awful wallop you hit me. I don’t wonder Miss Madge was so sure that Whitey done it. She never would believe her Dad was that cruel.”
Weston was deeply apologetic. “You insisted that I hit you hard.”
“Sure I did,” chuckled Jim. “I’m just remarkin’ that you certainly took me at my word.”
* * *
52 A cane made of malacca wood, a species of rattan palm native to Sumatra.
53 A chandelier with electric bulbs—a brand name that first appeared in 1881 and became a generic term for such a fixture.
54 Another indecipherable slang phrase.
55 Scowling (pronounced “low” as in “allow”).
56 That is, a wooden figure of a Native American, usually in a headdress, as often decorated the outside of tobacconists—hence, an unfeeling person.
Pink Bait
THERE was nothing about Mr. Thomas Matlock Braden to mark him as being other than a perfect gentleman. From the moment of his unostentatious arrival he blended perfectly into the tinsel background of the fashionable Indiana resort hotel and while he regretted that the other guests were not aware that he possessed eleven new tailored suits he found contentment in the fact that they were equally ignorant of his eleven aliases.
Tommy Braden was old enough to appreciate the benefits which accrue to one who treads the path of rectitude, and, by the same token, he had attained to a philosophy which was based upon the theory that there was no transgression provided one is undiscovered. He was slightly more than forty-five years of age, tall and lean and quietly purposeful. His black hair was graying at the temples: he presented a picture which impelled passers-by to turn and murmur: “What a distinguished looking gentlema
n.”
In cultivating this external aspect of severe probity, Tommy assumed a virtue which he had not. Morally, Tommy was a total loss. He was courteous and suave and cosmopolitan. And unscrupulous. He feared nothing save detection and ordered his existence upon the hypothesis that the legally constituted authorities are, on the whole, a stupid lot who have mastered the fundamentals of criminology and care nothing and know less about the finer points of the science.
He had long since graduated from the ranks of ordinary crooks. He now handled only tasks which required extraordinary finesse, infinite patience and an all-embracing knowledge of human nature. He selected his clients with as great care as he chose his victims and the former, at least, had small cause to protest his treatment. Certainly Mr. Michael Donley fancied himself extremely fortunate in having secured the cooperation of so eminent a personage in the criminal world.
The deal between Messrs. Donley and Braden had been consummated in a few moments.
“You know them Vanduyn poils, Tommy?”
“Yes.”
“I got ’em.”
“I know it.”
“How’dja get wise?”
Mr. Braden’s thin, ascetic lips expanded into a tolerant smile. “You bungled that job horribly, Mickey. Every dick in the country knows who pulled that job. They’ll nab you the first time you turn around.”
Mr. Donley made a rueful grimace. “You said it, bo. There ain’t a fence will touch ’em. That’s why I come to you.”
“Yes?”
“How about sellin’ ’em for me?”
“I might consider it.”
“I’ll split fifty-fifty.”
Tommy Braden laughed lightly. “You amuse me, Mickey; truly you do.”
“An even split—”
Jim Hanvey, Detective Page 19