But Donahue walked past, his eyes keening, jabbing the shadows on all sides. The street seemed deserted of people, though cars hummed past occasionally. The wind rattled in the leafless trees and the Park was black and silent beyond. After a while Donahue about-faced and retraced his steps. He did not slow down. He turned abruptly into the cement walk leading to the towered house and quite as abruptly went around to the rear.
Basement windows were almost flush with the cement. The door was down at the end of three steps. It was a heavy wooden door, and Donahue inserted the key, turned it quietly, opened the door and entered. He did not lock it.
He drew out a small flashlight, the size of a large fountain pen, and played its beam on the cement floor. He went past coal bins and a warm furnace and found a stairway which he followed upward to a door that opened at his touch. He entered a large pantry, went from it into a large kitchen and then into a small serving pantry.
Next was a swing-door—and he found himself in a dining-room. He moved quickly, surely, because he had memorized the plan of the house by heart. Next a drawing-room, large and sumptuous. To the left a foyer—and across the foyer a library. He closed the French doors of the library behind him, turned out the flash, drew down four shades, and then turned the flash on again.
He crossed the room to a row of bookcases, counted off, then swung out one of the compartments. The face of a circular wall-safe glinted in the flash’s beam. He took out a slip of paper and went to work. In a short moment he had the safe open. He removed a black metal box, closed the safe, swung the book-section back into place. He turned out the flashlight, raised the four shades and returned to the French doors.
In a minute he was outside, locking the basement door. He was starting around the side of the house when he saw a man leaning against a tree on the Boulevard. The man moved slightly, but remained against the tree.
Donahue pressed against the wall of the house and retreated. He held the box tightly under his left arm. His right hand tightened on the flat black automatic in his pocket. He stood for a moment in perplexed indecision. Then he peered cautiously around the corner of the house.
The man was still standing by the tree. Another man walked past slowly, and the two seemed to look at each other. There was no purpose in the walking man’s footsteps; he seemed to be strolling idly.
Donahue retreated again, went farther back in the yard. He came to an arbor connecting two octagon shaped summer-houses. Beyond was a high stone wall. He would make considerable noise getting over that, would make of himself a handy target for any wayward gun. Had those men tailed him from downtown? If they had, they would know what he looked like.
Snap-judgment decided his next move. He hid the black box behind a row of shrubbery that grew close to the stone wall. Then he stood up and followed the wall. It was easy work scaling the hedge that separated the grounds of the towered house from the grounds of the next. He went back of three houses, then turned and walked boldly to the street.
Reaching the sidewalk, he looked negligently down the Boulevard and saw the man still leaning against the tree; saw the other walking idly. Donahue set out briskly away from them. Presently he heard footsteps walking rapidly behind him. Two pairs of footsteps. He did not look around. The automobiles went humming by. The men were walking faster.
Then suddenly a car drew into the curb, passed Donahue and stopped a dozen yards ahead in front of an imposing red-brick house. A tall man got out and headed for the approach leading to the house. But he stopped short and turned towards Donahue. A gun appeared in his hand.
Donahue, thinking only of the two behind, was taken by surprise.
The tall man said: “Get in that car.”
“Listen—”
“Get in!”
The two men came up and crowded Donahue with drawn guns, and the tall man helped them rush Donahue into the big sedan. He landed in the seat and the tall man slid down beside him, pressing his gun against Donahue’s ribs. One of the others climbed in front beside the chauffeur, and the last to come in took one of the folding seats facing Donahue and the tall man.
“All right, Charlie,” the tall man said.
The chauffeur shifted into gear and the big sedan started off.
Donahue chuckled. “That was sweet work, boys.”
“Put your hands up,” said the tall man. He took away Donahue’s gun and then said: “Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“The stuff you came after.”
Donahue shook his head. “You’ve got me wrong.”
“Cut that!” The gun jabbed Donahue’s ribs viciously.
“Honest,” Donahue said. “I haven’t got a thing.”
“Frisk him, Pete,” the tall man said.
Pete leaned forward and ransacked Donahue’s pockets. After a minute he played a small pocket flash on the spoils, said: “Well, here’s his wallet and a key ring and here’s a loose key and here’s a hunk of paper was in his overcoat pocket, and an Apollo key.”
The tall man examined the articles with exasperated scrutiny. “Private shamus, eh?” he snarled. “This is certainly a new one on me!… What’s these numbers mean on here?”
“Probably telephone numbers.”
“My eye!”
Pete suggested, “Maybe a combination—”
“That’s it!” the tall man rasped. “And this is the key.”
“Hey,” called Charlie from behind the wheel, “should I head out towards the river?”
“Just keep moving,” the tall man said.
“I was thinkin’,” Charlie said, “about them woods this side o’ the bridge, just in case you want to—”
“Shut up and keep moving,” the tall man growled.
Donahue said: “I hope you guys aren’t fools enough to try taking me for a ride.”
The tall man jabbed him again. “Listen, shamus! You were in that house! You got something—”
“Yeah, he was in that house all right,” Pete said.
“Of course I was in that house,” Donahue said.
“Well!” the tall man rasped.
“Well,” Donahue said, “what the hell of it? Have I got anything? Pipe this, you wiseacres. I saw the guys hanging around outside. I knew it was a plant. And when I see you birds, d’ you think I’d be jackass enough to walk out waving the bacon? Not in these old trousers, you dumb hoods.”
“Ah, sock ’at loud-mouthed punk,” Charlie flung over his shoulder.
“This key,” the tall man said to Donahue. “You used it to get in, didn’t you?”
“Maybe I did.”
“And these numbers on this hunk of paper—”
“I can’t imagine how they got in my pocket,” Donahue said.
Pete said, jabbing his finger at the paper: “That’s it, I’ll bet. I’ll bet that’s it. And that there’s the key. It’s a big key, see. It ain’t a hotel key. And his other keys are on a ring. That’s the key, I’ll bet. I’ll bet it is.”
“I think you’re right, Pete,” the tall man said. “Turn off that flashlight.”
Pete sat back and the flash’s beam swept upward before it vanished. Donahue caught a fleeting glimpse of the tall man’s face. A long, narrow face, white and bony, with blue hollows on the cheeks, hueless lips, a thin nose, intense black eyes, small, feverish.
The car hummed on in silence.
Finally the tall man said: “Charlie, drive home.”
He leaned back, raised his gun and struck Donahue on the head. Donahue pitched to the floor of the car and lay motionless.
Chapter III
Donahue came to in a large bare room. He lay on a cot, a slim dirty mattress the only thing between him and the spring. A single globe burned in the center of the room. Two green shades were drawn. He got up painfully and slouched to one of the windows, pulled up the shade. It was dark out, windy. He could see gaunt limbs of trees moving, and rolling open land beyond. The window was protected on the outside by three vertical bars. He pulled do
wn the shade again and turned.
“That’s it: keep that shade down,” a man said from the doorway.
“Now look here,” Donahue began, “what the hell’s the use of keeping me cooped here?”
The man was small, chunky, blonde. He held a revolver in his hand and his pale blue eyes were glacial.
“I said, keep that shade down.”
“The hell with the shade. What I want to know—”
“What you want to know, buddy, don’t mean a thing to me.”
The man’s voice, like his eyes, was frigid. He backed out and closed the door.
Donahue shrugged and dropped back to the cot. He fished a crumpled cigarette from his pocket, lit up and reclined on one elbow. His brown eyes thinned down speculatively. He held inhalations of smoke long in his lungs, then let the smoke dribble out slowly through his nostrils. He looked at his strap-watch. It was half-past one in the morning.
At two he heard the sound of an automobile engine. He rose and cat-footed to one of the windows, drew the shade aside just far enough to peer out. He saw two big headlights among the trees, several shadows of men moving; heard low voices, a door open.
He went back and sat down on the cot. Two minutes later the door swung in and the tall man stood there in a baggy ulster belted tightly at the middle and a derby tilted on his head. Back of him were some more men: Pete and Charlie and the blonde and the other man who had ridden in the car.
The tall man was drawing off his gloves. The cold had put spots on his thin white face. His small black eyes glittered.
“Shamus,” he said in a thin brittle voice, “you’ve just got to come clean.”
Donahue stretched and yawned. “About what?”
“Jeeze, I’m gettin’ to hate ’at guy!” snarled Charlie.
Pete said: “Keep your mouth shut, Charlie.”
The tall man swaggered into the room, his face sinister in a quiet unostentatious manner, his black eyes almost luminous with a suppressed ferocity.
He said: “It was the key. It was the combination. But”—he showed thin small teeth gradually—“the stuff was gone!”
“No!”
“Just—yes.”
Back of the tall thin man the others waited, rooted to the floor like images, like robots that would move at the magic touch of a single word.
Donahue stood up slowly. He swallowed once. He looked from one to another of the men slowly, dispassionately, with a strange brown-eyed candor. Then he spread his hands palmwise.
“What am I supposed to say?”
“You,” came the thin brittle voice of the tall man, “know what to say.”
“So help me, brother, I don’t.”
The tall man took a long springy step and caught Donahue by the collar in a long-fingered strong hand. His black eyes stared fiercely, his thin nostrils twitched.
“You’ll tell me,” he droned somberly. “By——, you’re not as fancy as you think you are! You hear me!”
The brown-eyed candor of Donahue’s eyes seemed to enrage the tall man. His taut arm throbbed. He cursed and flung Donahue sprawling to the cot. Charlie whipped out an automatic and started dancing up and down like a boxer, a mirthless grin spreading his lips.
The tall man looked at Charlie and said: “Calm down, you.” Then he looked at Donahue. “We’ve been watching that house for days. Nobody could have taken it out. Nobody left or went in the house but you. What I want to know is, how do you figure in this spread? Where do you come in? Who sent you?”
“The man who owns the house sent me. Where the hell do you think I got the key—made it?”
The tall man stepped back, bending his brows. “Stanley Edgecomb sent—”
“I guess he had a right to, since he owns the house and the property I went after.”
“Where is he now?”
“Hell knows. I picked up the job in—well—Kansas City. He was on his way West—South. I was to take the stuff and put it in a safe deposit vault, send him the key and receipt. I was paid three hundred bucks in advance—”
“Ah, he’s lyin’; that guy’s lyin’,” Charlie snarled.
“Shut up,” the tall man said.
“That wiper of yours sure has a nasty disposition,” Donahue said, with a nod towards Charlie.
The tall man said: “Never mind him. Why the hell did Edgecomb send you into his own house? Couldn’t you’ve gone to his caretaker?”
“He didn’t even want the caretaker to know. Listen. I’m a private cop and when I pick up a three-hundred-dollar job as easy as this looked, cripes, I don’t ask too many questions. He said the house might be watched. He warned me. Now what a swell spot I’m in when I report that the stuff wasn’t there. You guys have got me all wrong. I’ve got no grudge against you—none of you, except maybe Charlie, and he smells, or maybe he’s just kind of meshuga—”
“Ixnay on them wisecracks,” Charlie snarled, massaging his gun.
The tall man had calmed down considerably. He plucked thoughtfully at his lip, looking around at his men.
Pete said: “It’s somethin’ phony somewhere, I’ll bet. I’ll bet my shirt there’s somethin’ phony. I’ll bet you anything there is.”
Donahue chimed in: “You said it, Pete. There certainly is. When Edgecomb sends me to his own house to get something, and it isn’t there—” He threw up his hands. “Well, every little thing isn’t strictly on the up and up. Look at the hole I’m in. Listen, if I thought”—he jabbed a forefinger rigidly into space—“if I thought I was going to get mixed up in a scatter like this I’d never have taken the job. Not me.” He waved his hands alongside his ears. “No, sir—not this baby!”
Charlie snarled: “Ah, this guy’s just tryin’ to talk himself out o’ the hot grease! Let me take him for a walk in the woods.”
“You,” Donahue said sagely, “had better spare the rod.”
“And spoil the kid, eh?”
“No. And save yourself from the hot seat, torpedo.”
“Sh!” the tall man said.
There were running footsteps racing down a stairway. A man burst into the room.
“Jeeze, there’s a car parked down the street—just parked. It looks like cops—”
“All the shades down?” cut in the tall man.
“Sure.”
Charlie growled: “I’ll get the Tommy guns—”
“You wait a minute!” snapped the tall man. “Those plates were changed, weren’t they?”
“Sure,” Pete said quickly. “Changed them as soon as we got back.”
“What d’ you do with the others?”
“Chucked them down the well.”
“Okey.” The tall man listened intently for a split-moment. “Now get this. No shooting. If it’s the cops, let ’em in. Spread some cards on the table, and a bottle. Look contented, everybody.”
He spun on Donahue. “You—you’ll sit at the table with the boys. Take your overcoat off. And hold your tongue.”
“Now you wait a minute,” Donahue clipped crisply. “None of that stuff. You’re in a tough spot. So am I. I’ll play my part providing I walk out with the cops when they leave. I’ll walk to their car, wait till they go, and then go with them.”
“Nix on that!” Charlie barked. “This guy—”
“I’m not talking to you, you heel. I’m talking to your boss.”
“You’ll wait till they’re gone,” the tall man said.
“Nothing doing,” Donahue flung back hotly. “You can’t shoot me now. You can’t start a fight. They’d hear it. I walk out with the cops. I tell them nothing. Take that—or leave it.”
“My——!” groaned Charlie.
The tall man muttered: “Okey.”
“Jeeze, you gonna let this guy—”
“Shut up, Charlie! It’s the only out.”
Pete said: “Somebody knocking.”
“Answer it,” the tall man said. “You other guys—inside. Quick! I’ll do the talking.”
His black feverish ey
es glittered on Donahue. Donahue smiled.
“Two-time,” the tall man muttered, “and I’ll fog your guts.”
“How about a little stud,” Donahue recommended.
Chapter IV
They sat at a round table in a big room, holding cards, looking contented or bored. Donahue was considering a pair of aces showing, with a third in the hole, and the chunky blonde was dealing. A bottle and glasses were on the table, and cigarette smoke writhed and slithered beneath the chandelier.
Pete yelled down the hallway from the front door: “It’s just Sergeant Uhl and a couple o’ boys.”
“Pair of aces bets,” said the blonde.
“Pair of aces bets two blues,” said Donahue.
A small man in a gray velour hat appeared unostentatiously in the doorway and regarded the gathering with mild blue eyes. He had a white mustache, gently inquisitive eyebrows. Two big men, younger, bulked behind him, hands in pockets significantly. The small man had his fingers loosely locked behind his back.
“Oh, hello there, Sergeant!” greeted the tall thin man, leaning back, saluting.
“Hello, Shadd,” Uhl said softly. “I just thought I’d drop around and see who was living here. It’s a nice night out.”
“So they tell me.”
Uhl looked slowly around the table. “Just a friendly little gathering.”
“Won’t you have a drink?”
“I never touch it, Shadd. My liver can’t stand it any more. This is a nice quiet place you have. Sort of off the beaten paths. It used to be a farm here, didn’t it?”
“Believe it was—at one time.”
“Yes, yes,” Uhl drawled, “it is a very nice place.”
“You don’t get out this way much, do you, Sergeant?”
“No, I don’t, Shadd. And I like the country, too. So does my wife, Ella…. Now, Charlie, take your hand out of your pocket. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I was fishin’ for a match,” Charlie blurted.
Shadd, the tall man, slid a black look towards Charlie.
Uhl went on drawling monotonously: “We’re only on a tail. A man named Jansen was killed a little while ago down on Lindell Boulevard and we thought—no offense, Shadd—we just thought you might know something about it.”
Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask Page 19