by J. T. Edson
At the same moment the portly man came forward on shaking legs. He reached under his jacket, causing Calamity to prepare to shoot. However, she held her hand for something told her the man was harmless. In fact from the front he showed what would normally be a florid, pompous face, yet which now held a pale, terrified expression as befitted a very respectable member of society believing himself to be under a threat to his life and wellbeing. Nothing more dangerous than a well-filled wallet came from his jacket front and he held it forward timidly.
“H—Here!” he squeaked. “T—Take my wallet—.”
“You yeller crumb!” screeched the girl. “Do something! They made me lose the pearls you just gave me.”
“All right!” snapped St. Andre, walking by Calamity. “I’m a police lieutenant. Let’s be quiet and talk this out.”
While the detective’s cold, authoritative voice chopped off the girl’s indignation, it brought a change of attitude in the portly man. The fear went and he thrust away his wallet with an angry gesture. Righteous anger came to his pompous features as he pointed at St. Andre and Calamity.
“Police!” he snorted. “Then why did you shoot at me?” Without giving either the detective or Calamity a chance to answer, he went on, “I’ll have you know that I’m a personal friend of the Mayor and the Chief of Police—.”
“Your sort allus are,” sniffed Calamity, setting the Colt’s hammer on a safety notch between two cap-nipples and twirling the gun into leather with a fancy flourish.
“What did you say?” boomed the now fully indignant citizen. “I’ll have you know, my good man—.”
“I ain’t good, I for certain ain’t your’n, and I sure as hell ain’t no man, mister!” growled Calamity, listening to the sound of heavy, official feet pounding along a path towards them. “We saw you stood behind that gal and tossing something over her head—.”
“It was a string of pearls!” howled the blonde, down on her hands and knees and scrabbling around with her fingers. “Light a match, one of you and get down to help me find ‘em. They cost him a hundred bucks and he gave them to me instead of paying.”
Which cleared in a most satisfactory manner the matter of why the man stood behind the girl and acted as he did; although St. Andre knew enough about tax-paying citizens of the portly man’s type to doubt if the pompous one would be pleased to hear somebody took him for the Strangler. There would be stormy times ahead unless St. Andre handled the business just right, and the blonde’s words offered him a reasonably good way of dealing with the pompous man.
“Hum!” said St. Andre, nudging Calamity in the ribs gently as a warning for her to let him handle the matter. “A hundred dollar pearl necklace lost. That’s a serious affair, sir. I’ll have to ask you to come along to the nearest station house and make a full statement.”
At that moment a couple of burly policemen came into sight, skidding to a halt and studying the group before them. Then one of the patrolmen recognised St. Andre and threw up a salute.
“Heard a shot down here, lootenant,” he said.
“Er—Lieutenant,” the portly man put in, his voice no longer pompous or indignant as he considered his position in the light of St. Andre’s words. “Do we have to go on with this?”
“With the loss of a hundred dollar necklace, on top of your being shot at?” answered St. Andre. “I think we must.”
Gulping down something which seemed to be blocking his throat, the portly man held out a hand. “I—I understand that you and this—this—you misjudged my intentions. The whole affair was no more than a regrettable error and should be forgotten, don’t you think?”
“And the pearls, sir?”
“The—They were not that valuable, lieutenant. You look like a man of the world—.”
“What was their true value?” interrupted St. Andre coldly.
“A—Two dollars fifty. They were freshwater pearls.”
“What!” screeched the girl, coming to her feet with fury showing on her face. “Why, you cheap, mealy-mouthed—.”
Now you just quieten it down, Sally,” put in one of the patrolmen.
“Me?” yelped the girl. “And what about him? He gave me them to—.”
“Likely,” said the patrolman. “You’d—.”
“That’s it!” the blonde screamed. “Side him! It’s like Browne Crossman is always saying, you lousy police are just tools of the rich and—.”
At which point Miss Martha Jane Canary decided it was time she took a hand. Not having received the benefit of a college education, Calamity felt respect and admiration for most lawmen, knowing the thankless job they did. So she disliked seeing folks call down a peace officer without having a damned good reason.
Shooting out a hand, Calamity gripped the other girl’s dress, sliding fingers between the valley of the girl’s breasts and taking a firm hold of the material. With a sudden jerk, she hauled the blonde up close and thrust an angry face within inches of the other girl’s startled features.
“Now shut your god-damned mouth and listen to me, you cathouse cull!” yelled Calamity and when that girl raised her voice, man you could hear it for a good country mile. “We saw you in what we reckoned looked like danger of winding up wolf-bait, so we jumped in and saved you. Only it come out you didn’t need saving after all. And if you’re so damned dumb that you fall for an old-as-the-hills trick like the pearl game, you’ve got no cause, nor right, to complain.”
While Calamity never followed the other girl’s profession, she possessed a number of good friends who did, so knew enough about it to talk to the blonde in terms they both could understand. Her angry tirade stopped the blonde’s speech describing Browne Crossman’s views on the position of law officers as tools of the idle rich and oppressors of the poor.
Anger glowed in the blonde’s eyes at first, then died again. The two patrolmen knew something of the girl’s temper and expected her to tie into the red-head in a hair-yanking, nail-clawing brawl. In this expectation they did the blonde an injustice. Full of righteous indignation she might be; a rough girl in a tough trade she most certainly was; but she had enough sense to think before acting. Taking note of Calamity’s free hand and seeing it folded into a useful-looking fist, remembering the strength behind the other girl’s pull, and figuring that anybody who knew enough about her work to mention the ‘pearl game’ must also know other basic essentials like self-defence, the blonde decided not to take the matter further. If she tangled with that girl in men’s clothing, her every instinct warned her she might regret the decision. There was too much competition for customers without operating under the added disadvantage of sporting a fight-battered face. So the girl relapsed into sullen silence, contenting herself with throwing a malevolent glare at the portly man.
Watching Calamity release the blonde, St. Andre fought to hold down a grin. It seemed the young lady from the West had good answers to most of the world’s problems. However, there was the matter on hand to be attended to before he could compliment Calamity on her numerous talents.
“Do you want to take the matter further, sir?” asked St. Andre, eyeing the portly man in his most chilling and authoritative manner.
Under other conditions the man might have liked to show his tax-paying superiority over the three public-servants whose salary he helped pay. But not when he could be taken to the police station house and maybe word of his escapade get out. Unfortunately for him, ‘making an investigation for social reasons’ had not yet been invented as an excuse for his proposed conduct—and anyhow his wife would never have believed it—so he decided to keep quiet and get away while the getting be good and still open.
“No. I realise it was all a simple mistake,” he said magnanimously. “If you don’t mind, gentlemen, I think I’ll be on my way.”
Turning, the man scuttled off at a fair speed, ignoring his bullet-holed tophat which still lay where it fell. The blonde watched him go, then gave an explosive and angry snort.
“Why that—!” she b
egan.
“Call it one of the hazards of your trade, my pet,” St. Andre interrupted. They stood listening to the rapidly departing patter of the man’s feet for a moment, then the detective went on, “But I wouldn’t advise you to go into the Park with strange men in future.”
Strange as it may seem, the blonde had never thought about the Strangler when she accepted the portly man’s invitation to take a walk in the Park prior to visiting her room and getting down to business. Nor could she think of a single good reason why she should not take advantage of the civic amenities to put her clients in a romantic mood which tended to make them open their pocket-books all the wider when paying for her services.
“Why not?” she asked.
Before any answer could be made, a horror-filled male scream rang out from the direction in which the portly man took his hurried departure. It rang out loud, drowning the faint, but ever-present noise of merry-making from Latour Street. So hideous and shocking was the sound that it froze the three men and two girls for an instant. Calamity recovered first, or maybe the drawing of the Navy Colt was no more than reflex action. All three policemen stared in the direction of the sound and the blonde’s face lost its colour as her mouth dropped open.
“What was that?” she finally gasped.
Her words bounced off departing backs as Calamity and the three men went racing away in the direction of the scream.
“It could be the answer to your question,” Calamity called back over her shoulder as she ran.
For a moment the blonde stood staring. Then she remembered the Strangler and realised why St. Andre and Calamity acted as they did on seeing her standing before her prospective client as he slipped the string of freshwater pearls around her neck. Suddenly she saw that the departure of the police left her alone and a feeling of terror hit her.
“Wait for me!” she screeched and fled after the others as fast as she could run.
CHAPTER FOUR
Miss Canary Sees A Strangler Victim
CROUCHING hidden among the bushes at the side of the track the Strangler let out a low hiss of annoyance as he watched the blonde’s hurried departure on the heels of the rest of the running group.
While making his way out of City Park after killing his eighth victim, the Strangler had come on the sight of the portly man and the blonde. Deciding it would be both interesting and amusing to watch what happened, the Strangler crouched in the bushes and awaited developments. The developments came swiftly with the arrival of that damned aristocratic St. Andre and the girl wearing men’s clothing of an outlandish cut and style such as one saw Westerners clad in. Much to the Strangler’s amusement, St. Andre took the portly man’s actions as being an attempt to strangle the blonde.
Then the Strangler’s amusement died as the girl with St. Andre swiftly—the move looked amazingly fast to the Strangler’s untutored eyes—drew a revolver from under her coat and shot the fleeing man’s hat from his head. The Strangler had often heard of Westerners drawing and shooting their weapons in lightning fast moves but as he could not do so, doubted if any less intelligent person would be able to perform the feat. Having seen the girl with St. Andre draw and shoot, the Strangler began to wonder if he might possibly have been wrong. If her clothes be anything to go by, the red haired girl came from the Western plains country, and the Strangler had never seen anything so fast as the way she moved.
Thinking of the girl’s speed made the Strangler freeze in his hiding place instead of sneaking off and escaping. If he tried to flee and made a noise, that girl might start shooting at him. To the Strangler’s way of thinking, his life’s work was too important for him to risk capture and hanging because he killed a few worthless girls with so little to offer the community. So he remained crouching in the bushes and watched the smooth manner in which St. Andre handled the righteous indignation of the portly citizen. Being born to riches, St. Andre ought not have shown such efficiency, but he invariably did as the Strangler well knew; and he Strangler hated the thought of his preconceived ideas of aristocratic behaviour being shattered.
The Strangler thought the affair must be over when the portly man departed, and that he would soon be able to leave the area in safety. On hearing the man’s scream, the Strangler knew his latest victim’s body had been found. As the Strangler watched the rapid departure of the three policemen and the Western girl, he had an idea. Why not kill that gaudily-dressed blonde? If word came out that he took a second victim in such a manner, St. Andre would be dismissed and the people’s faith in the police further diminish.
Even as he slid the cord from his pocket, the Strangler savoured the thought of what to do. Maybe the girl would hear him, but her kind never mistrusted him. She would think nothing of his presence; they never did. Then the cord would be around her throat from behind, tightening, driving the three knots into flesh and cutting off her voice, turning, he would carry the cord up over his shoulder until they stood back to back and he could use the extra leverage to speed her death.
Only before he could step from the bushes, the girl fled after the departing party. Giving a sigh, the Strangler coiled the length of cord and dropped it into the large pocket of his jacket. He threw a disappointed glance after the fleeing blonde, then walked on to the path and away. His route would take him out of City Park in the direction of the old French Quarter, the upper-crust section of the city.
Not knowing how close they had been to the Strangler, Calamity and the three policemen ran swiftly along the tracks. Despite his earlier beating, St. Andre made good time and he alone kept pace with Calamity as she sped along. The girl did not run with the exaggerated hip-wagglings and arm wavings of most of her sex, but strode out like a man and covered ground fast in her moccasined feet. Behind Calamity and St. Andre came the patrolmen, their uniforms and heavy boots not making for speed of foot; and in the rear staggered a scared, gasping blonde streetwalker, the least used to running of them all.
Rounding a corner, Calamity and St. Andre came face to face with the portly, though no longer pompous man. Instead he looked almost on the verge of collapse, face white and drawn in an expression of extreme horror, eyes staring and mouth open, muttering incoherently as he pointed behind him.
“B—b—b—ba—there!” he gasped. “Its’—I—She—I—.”
Which told Calamity and the detective little or nothing, but all they needed to know. Thrusting by the portly man, Calamity started to move towards that crumpled heaped-up thing lying in the centre of the path. St. Andre also passed the portly man, who had never been more pleased to see human faces and police uniforms in all his life. Catching Calamity by the arm, St. Andre stopped her. Once again St. Andre tried to assert his inborn French superiority over a member of the weaker sex. After all, and despite her smooth efficiency in practical matters, Calamity was a woman—and St. Andre knew just how terrible a Strangler’s victim looked.
“Let me,” he said.
He went by Calamity and walked towards the shape on the path, fighting to keep his stomach from heaving at the thought of what he would see. Even as he dropped to one knee by the body, St. Andre heard a soft foot-fall beside him and a low feminine gasp. He realised that Calamity had ignored his advice.
In the course of her life as a freighter on the Great Plains, Calamity had seen a fair amount of death: from Indian arrow, war lance or scalping knife; by bullets; through illness and accident. She reckoned to have a stout stomach which no sight could trouble any more. Yet for all that Calamity felt sick as she looked down on the moon-light illuminated features of the Strangler’s eighth victim. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a slow hiss of revulsion and anger.
The cord which ended the victim’s life no longer coiled around her neck, but a livid mark on the pallid skin and indented deeply into the flesh showed where it passed around and tightened, choking off life-giving air and killing far more silently yet just as efficiently as any bullet. Maybe in life the victim had been a beautiful girl, there was no way of know
ing from her hideously distorted features now purplish-black, the tongue protruding through open lips and the eyes bulging out of the head. The body, clad in the cheap finery of a Street girl, looked good, rich, full and inviting—unless one also looked at the face.
Even the two patrolmen, not sensitive, highly strung or easily moved by scenes of violence, showed nausea at the sight. One of them let out a low curse and the other, slightly younger, turned his head to look away from the hideous thing which had so recently been a living, breathing, happy and maybe good-looking girl.
“Is this the Strangler’s work?” asked Calamity, her voice hoarse and strained and her tanned face pale.
“His eighth victim,” answered St. Andre bitterly, looking at he three deeper indentations in the flesh, signs of the special type of cord the Strangler always used.
“Maybe he’s still around!” snarled the younger patrolman and started moving towards the bushes.
“Hold it, friend!” snapped Calamity, an idea coming to her.
The urgency in Calamity’s voice brought the man to a halt and he looked at her. So far nobody had got around to explaining who that girl in men’s clothing might be, but she appeared to be on amiable terms with St. Andre, and it did not pay a young patrolman to ignore or give offence to the friends, especially lady friends, of a lieutenant; particularly a lieutenant tipped to wind up as Chief of Police one day in the future.
“What’s up, ma’am?” asked the patrolman, sounding more polite than usual.
“He’s long gone and you couldn’t find him in the bushes at night, so don’t go tramping all over the sign. Comes morning I can get a feller here as can track a bird through the air—.”
“If you mean follow the Strangler’s tracks, Calam, it won’t work,” St. Andre interrupted. “We tried it with bloodhounds and got nowhere.”