Cannon nodded. “I guess we understand each other. We’ll pull it off tonight.”
it would have been pointless for Cannon to ride the train all the way back to Long Island to pick up his car, drive it back to Brooklyn, then have to drive to Long Island again that night. He simply left the car there all day and caught the evening train which left an hour before the one Arthur Gilbert took. This gave him an hour to case the layout before Gilbert arrived home.
The home was a broad, two-story brick building set well back from the street with a good fifty feet of lawn between it and the houses on either side. Driving past it slowly, Cannon noted only two rooms were lit. One, on the lower floor, was probably the front room. The other was a front corner room upstairs. He guessed this to be Emily Gilbert’s room.
Though he had abandoned all suspicion of a police trap, he searched the shadows beneath trees as he passed anyway. There was no sign of a stakeout. A several-years-old car was parked in front of the house, but he saw it was empty as he passed. He assumed it probably belonged to the practical nurse.
Cannon circled the block, parked a half block away and cut through several back yards to reach the double garage behind Gilbert’s home. The garage doors were open and he could see a large sedan parked in the stall which wasn’t vacant.
There was a half moon, but a huge elm near the garage cast the east side of the building in deep shadow. Cannon leaned against the side of the garage and waited. From this point he had a perfect view of the side door fifty feet away.
A few minutes before eleven headlights swung into the driveway. Cannon faded behind the garage until the station wagon drove into it, then moved back to his former position.
A car door slammed and footsteps sounded on the concrete floor. Then Arthur Gilbert’s plump form rounded the corner and the man peered toward him in the darkness.
“That you?” Gilbert inquired cautiously.
Cannon said, “Uh-huh.”
The liquor dealer made a relieved noise. “All set?”
“Uh-huh,” Cannon repeated.
“Just wait here until I come out,” Gilbert instructed. “I’ll come to you. I’ll try to make it by eleven-thirty.”
“Okay,” Cannon said laconically.
Turning, the plump man walked away and entered the house by the side door. Cannon leaned his back against the garage and waited.
Harry Cannon was a patient man, which was one of the reasons he was so successful in his field. He was capable of standing for hours without boredom, studying the comings and goings of customers, when casing a potential job. The wait the next half hour didn’t bother him in the least. He didn’t even feel the need of a cigarette.
A few minutes after Gilbert went indoors, a woman in white uniform came from the side door and walked down the driveway to the street. A moment later he heard the car parked in front drive away.
It was just eleven-thirty when the side door opened again. The plump figure of Arthur Gilbert appeared and moonlight glinted from the twin barrels of the shotgun under his arm. Cannon straightened as the man approached. When Gilbert got within a few feet of him, the barrels raised to center on Cannon’s stomach.
“What’s that for?” Cannon asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Just precaution,” Gilbert said quietly. “I’m going to give you the combination now, and I’ll feel safer having you covered once you have that. I plan to keep the ten thousand I have in my pocket.”
“You think of all the angles, don’t you?” Cannon said coldly. “What’s the correct combination?”
“R-3, L-27, R-4, L-2. Better repeat it to yourself a few times.” Cannon soundlessly began moving his lips. After a time he said aloud, “R-3, L-27, R-4, L-2.” He gave Gilbert a questioning look.
“You have it,” Gilbert said with approval. “Emily is in her chair watching television. Do you have your disguise?”
Reaching into his inside breast pocket, Cannon drew out the false nose and fitted it into place. The shotgun continued to bear on him.
With a frown Cannon said, “Well, get started next door.”
The liquor dealer’s teeth showed in the darkness. “I don’t think I want to turn my back on you, friend. I’ll go next door after you’re inside.”
“You’re a trusting soul,” Cannon growled.
He circled the man and the shot-gun moved with him. He was conscious of it still aimed at his back when he reached the side door. Trying the door, he found it unlocked, pushed it open, then glanced back toward the garage. Gilbert stepped from shadow into moonlight, the shotgun now aimed downward. Lifting one hand in a salute, the man moved off across the lawn toward the house next door.
Cannon entered the house and quietly shut the door behind him.
There was only a dim light on in the hall, which bisected the house from one side to the other. At its far end he could see the stairs. His feet moved soundlessly on the thick carpeting as he went the length of the hall and climbed the stairs to the upper floor. There was a night light on in the upper hall too. Without sound he moved to the second door on the right and placed his ear against it. Inside he could hear a television set going.
Drawing his gun, he flicked off the safety, placed his hand on the knob, turned it and slammed the door wide open.
Directly facing him was a middle-aged, gray-haired woman seated in a wheelchair. She wore a robe over a nightgown and her eyes were burning with rage. Her lips were moving soundlessly in what seemed to be mute curses. Both hands rested on the arms of the chair and the right one held a revolver, its butt firmly set against the wood of the chair arm. The muzzle pointed straight at the doorway.
Cannon reacted faster than he had ever reacted in his life. His finger was squeezing the trigger before the knob of the door crashed back against the wall.
The bullet caught the woman squarely in the heart. Her mouth popped open and her right arm jolted from the chair to hang downward, still gripping the gun. She made a gurgling noise in her throat and her head slowly slumped to her chest.
With one stride Cannon was across the room and had jerked her head up by the hair. One look was enough. She had died instantly!
Flicking on his safety, he shoved the gun into his belt and moved to the picture on the north wall. Jerking it from its hook, he flung it aside. Behind it, just as Gilbert had said, was a small wall safe.
Mouthing the numbers aloud, he rapidly spun the dial. Within a matter of seconds the safe was open. His eyes lighted with satisfaction at the thick stack of currency inside. He didn’t bother to count it, ramming it into various pockets as rapidly as he could. It took both coat pockets and both side pockets of his trousers to hold it all.
Within a minute and a half of the time he had entered the room, he strode out again and ran toward the stairs.
He came to an abrupt halt as he rounded the corner and reached the top of the stairs. On the landing below him stood Arthur Gilbert with the shotgun aimed upward. He was smiling quite calmly.
Cannon’s last thought was the indignant realization that Arthur Gilbert had lied to him. The liquor dealer had said he wasn’t a courageous man. In that final moment Cannon could tell by the expression on his face that he was as cold-blooded and emotionless as Cannon himself, no doubt about it.
He made a frantic grab for his belt, got the gun halfway out just as both barrels of the shotgun blasted. He felt a searing flash of pain which seemed to encompass his whole body, then he felt nothing.
Stepping over the dead man, Arthur Gilbert moved to the open door of his wife’s bedroom. Viewing the scene inside with satisfaction, he leaned his shotgun outside the door and went inside.
He had some difficulty prying her stiff fingers away from the gun, nearly as much as he had had earlier when he forced them around it. When it was free, he dropped the gun into the drawer of the bedsi
de stand and closed the drawer.
Then he left the room and went downstairs.
The side door burst open just as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
A tall, lean man of about fifty rushed in, came to an abrupt halt and stared at Gilbert. Moving toward him like a sleepwalker, Gilbert allowed his face to assume an expression of dazed shock.
“For God’s sake, what was all the shooting?” the lean man inquired.
Gilbert said dully, “The Nose Bandit, Don. Miss Prentice must have left the door unlatched when she left. I was in the basement cleaning my new shotgun when I heard the shot. I loaded it and rushed upstairs just in time to meet him coming down. He’s dead. I let him have both barrels.”
“What about Emily?” his brother-in-law asked.
“That was the first shot,” Gilbert said, his face squeezing into an expression of grief. “Her bedroom safe is wide open and she’s dead. He killed her.”
“Oh, no!” the lean man said in a horrified voice. “Poor Emily!”
FALSE ALARM
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Feb 1965.
I got to Rover about four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. Rover was a good name for the place, because it was really a dog. The only reason I stopped was because it was hot, I felt like a beer and the next town, according to my map, was twenty miles farther on.
I came in on a street called East Central Avenue and drove past block after block of identical square gray houses. Occasionally I spotted a small neighborhood store of some kind, but I saw no tavern signs at all. Nor did I see many people. The place gave the impression of being almost deserted, which was odd, inasmuch as a dilapidated sign at the edge of town had claimed a population of ten thousand.
I discovered the answer when I reached the center of town. There was a town square with a crumbling courthouse in its center, and all the major businesses in town were crammed along the four sides of the square.
It was no wonder the rest of the town had seemed deserted, because it seemed to me the bulk of the population must have been crowded into the square. For the most part the men wore blue coveralls and the women gingham dresses. Friday afternoon must be farmer’s shopping day, I thought.
I drove into the square before I realized what I was getting into. Two lanes of automobiles were circling the square at dirt-track speed, presumably all hunting parking places. More kept surging in from the feeder streets centering each of the square’s four sides. The standard method of gaining entry into the stream of circling traffic from the side streets seemed to be to close your eyes and bear down on the horn.
I made the circle twice with my heart in my throat, then escaped by one of the side streets and found a parking place a block away.
During my circling I had managed to spot a sign at the northeast corner of the square which read: Fat Sam’s Bar and Grill. When I got back to the square on foot, I headed directly for it.
Inside, there was a single large, cool room with a bar running the length of one wall and with a lot of round wooden tables spread around the remaining space. It seemed to be strictly a man’s bar, because there wasn’t a woman in the place. Only about half the tables were filled, but the bar was lined two deep.
As on the street, most of the men wore blue coveralls, though there was a sprinkling of younger men in slacks and jackets. I was the only one there in a coat and tie.
There was no table service. I managed to squeeze in at the end of the bar long enough to get a schooner of beer from the perspiring bartender, backed out and carried it over to one of the empty tables.
A young man of about twenty-one, neatly dressed in tan slacks and a light jacket, and also carrying a schooner of beer, reached the table at the same moment I did. We both stopped and looked at each other.
Then I grinned. “Guess there’s room for both of us. Sit down.”
Returning my grin a trifle abashedly, he pulled out a chair and sat. I took the one across from him. We each took a pull at our beer.
Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he examined my necktie and said, “Visitor?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, examining him in return.
He was a thin, narrow-shouldered lad weighing only about a hundred and thirty pounds with close-set eyes and a rather shifty look. He would have made a lousy heist artist, because he looked too much like one. Which didn’t mean he was, of course. Most successful heisters look honest.
“Why would anyone visit this miserable town?” he inquired.
“Just passing through,” I told him. “Why do you call it miserable? It looks pretty lively to me.”
“Lively? Know what the teen-age kick is here? They turn in false alarms. There are so many false alarms, it’s almost an emergency situation. There’s nothing else for the kids to do.”
I said, “There seems to be a lot of adult activity.”
“Oh, on the square, sure. This joint is always crowded. But there’s no place to go except the town square, and look what you’ve got for companionship. A lot of dull-witted miners, drinking beer.”
“Miners?” I asked, glancing around the room. “I thought they were farmers.”
“Naw. They’re all employees of the Rover City Copper Mining Company, our sole industry. If the mine ever peters out, this town will dry up and blow away.”
When our schooners ran dry, I offered to buy two more if he would go after them. He accepted with such alacrity, I suspected he didn’t have much money.
Over the second beer he introduced himself as Andy Carr. I gave the name of George Snyder instead of my real one of Charles Gagnon. While it was hardly likely that a want for a couple of liquor-store heists would have spread this far, why take chances?
I asked, “You work in the mine, Andy?”
“Naw. That’s for morons. My old man does, though.”
“What’s your line?”
“Well, nothing right now,” he said, flushing a little. “I had a store job for a while, but they don’t pay nothing. Unless you’re in business, the only way to make a living around here is in the mine.”
Still living off his father at twenty-one, I thought. Here was a potential bum.
Glancing at the clock over the bar, he said, “A minute to five. In exactly sixty seconds old Sam will lug out his money bag. You can set your watch by him.”
“Who’s old Sam?” I asked.
“Fat Sam Cooney, the owner of this joint. Watch that door next to the kitchen door.”
I looked in the indicated direction. Just as I glanced that way the door opened and an enormous fat man of about fifty stepped out. During the moment that the door was open, I could see that beyond it was a small office.
The fat man was carrying a large canvas sack. He walked right past us and went out the door.
I gave Andy Carr an inquiring look.
“The week’s receipts,” Carr said. “The bank stays open until six on Friday, and Sam leaves here to make his deposit exactly at five every week. There were about twenty-five hundred bucks in that bag.”
The tone in which he said this made me look at him sharply. There had been a note of wistful envy in it. I wondered if perhaps his larcenous appearance accurately denoted his character after all.
I’m always on the lookout for possible scores, and twenty-five hundred clams was worth at least inquiring into.
I said idly, “Probably mostly in checks, huh? I imagine a lot of the miners cash their pay checks here.”
He shook his head. “The mine makes up its payroll in cash. Maybe there were a couple of small personal checks in that bag, but most of it was good old spendable cash.” Again I caught the note of wistful envy, as though he had often contemplated some means of relieving Fat Sam of one of his bags.
I sent up a trial balloon. “I sh
ould think some joker would knock the joint over some quiet night, with all that money lying around.”
He snorted. “What quiet night? This joint is always jammed like this from the minute it opens until it closes at midnight. The mine runs two tricks, and the off trick is always in here, because there’s no place else to go. I wouldn’t want to chance pulling a gun in the middle of fifty to sixty crazy miners. Those guys are too nuts to be afraid of a gun. They’d take it away and make you eat it.” Both his tone and his words suggested he had considered the possibility of a holdup. Perhaps it had been mere idle speculation as to how some professional might work it, with no thought of making an attempt himself, but you never know.
I said, “There would be nobody here in the middle of the night. I’m surprised some burglar hasn’t taken a crack at it.”
He almost laughed. “Did you notice the front door when you walked in? It’s three-inch oak and a bar goes across it from inside at night. The rear door has an inner door of steel bars and a burglar-proof lock. The windows are all barred. And if you got past all that, the money’s kept in a combination safe bolted to the office floor.”
He had analyzed all the possibilities of getting his hands on the money, I thought. Possibly it had been merely mental exercise for his own amusement, in the same way that some people dream up elaborate plans to rob Fort Knox without ever really intending to try, but more and more I was beginning to think he had real larceny in his soul.
I said, “Some joker could catch him at the rear door as he was locking up, force him back in and make him open the safe.”
“Yeah, except the back door opens onto the parking lot of the sheriff’s office and the lot’s lighted with floodlights. The desk of the night-duty deputy faces a window looking right at the tavern’s back door, and every night as he locks up, Fat Sam and the deputy wave to each other. I’ve checked.”
The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 28