As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering down it, hurried at once home—dreading the consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman’s exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish jabberings of the brute.
I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the break of the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. Le Don was instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person minding his own business.
“Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna—or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has ‘de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas.1’”
1 Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloise.
HELL-BENT FOR THE MORGUE, by Don Larson
Roger Grant didn’t stop when he saw the figure in the darkness opposite the row of cheap apartments. He hunched in his seat and let his roadster coast ahead.
The figure was a man, fat, pugnacious, with a frayed cigar stuck between thick lips, and a low-crowned derby set on his bullet head. He had the look of a stage detective.
Grant could guess who he was. A dick from some private agency, watching the residence of Linda Powers, hoping to get a line on the Van Horn diamonds that the Rinaldi mob was reputed to have stolen.
Roger Grant, free-lance investigator of crime, was after the same thing—hot ice valued at a quarter of a million. It was stained already with a murdered man’s blood, and with a five-grand reward up for its recovery.
He swung his roadster around the block, parked on a street facing the rear of the Powers Apartment, and got quietly out. There were more old-fashioned houses here. He found the areaway door of one open, gumshoed in, crossed a cellar silently, and reached a back yard.
A board fence separated him from the court of the building he sought. He climbed this and raised his eyes to the rusty fire escape that snaked down the apartment’s rear. Then abruptly he crouched behind a privet bush close to the fence.
A window on the second floor had opened. Someone was coming out, feeling for the iron landing with cautious feet. Grant saw that it was a girl.
She came down the ladder slowly, stopping to stare at the lower windows, before she dropped. A light was burning in one. It shed a faint glow over her youthful face and trimly graceful figure. Grant tensed with interest.
She was the girl he was after, Linda Powers, whose brother Stanley, had been taken away by the bandits when they grabbed the ice at Van Horn’s office. Her picture had appeared in the papers. Her brother was under suspicion, thought to be in with the jewel thieves. But she had fiercely defended him when the cops had questioned her.
The other Van Horn clerk had been shot in the holdup. Powers hadn’t been heard from. Grant watched her move cautiously across the court.
It was plain that she, too, had seen the agency man out front. She was giving him the slip, and her stealth indicated that she had something to hide. Her features looked pale and strained. The darting glances of her wide, long-lashed eyes betrayed nervousness.
She moved behind the row of apartments, following the long tradesmen’s court that paralleled the street. Grant followed, keeping her carefully in sight. He had come merely to talk to her. Now he was more interested in seeing where she would go.
She continued along the court to its end and ducked through a gate into a small alley leading to the street. She emerged out of sight of the agency man out front. She walked to the end of the block and unlocked the door of a garage. In a moment she was backing a flivver into the street.
She rattled away, and Grant ran to his own parked roadster. He was two blocks behind when he nosed out of the street at right angles to the one she’d taken. He was alert now. The girl’s tense face and furtive manner made him certain something was up.
He followed the flivver for fifteen minutes, until it finally stopped on a block of suburban houses. There Grant turned into a side street, but braked instantly and hurried back on foot.
The girl was a hundred yards ahead. He could tell even by her silhouette that she was excited. She kept looking behind, and it took all Grant’s skill as a shadower to keep from being seen.
At the end of the block was a small, square park, with a fountain in its center. Concrete paths cut through it, and thickly interlacing shrubbery grew around its edges.
The girl ducked into this. Grant thought for a moment she was taking a short cut somewhere. Instead she stopped by the side fence that skirted the street, and began to grope around. There was no one else in sight. The park was deserted. Grant crouched behind a hydrangea clump and watched without being seen.
He was close enough to see her face. Her eyes had fear shadows in them new. She seemed desperately impatient as her slim hands pushed through the tangled shrubbery and parted leafy bushes.
Five minutes passed, and abruptly she straightened, clutching something. Grant’s pulses leaped in excitement. Before she stepped back on the walk, she tucked the thing under her coat, but he had got a glimpse of it. It was a small, black bag.
Hurrying over the concrete on her clicking heels, she came straight toward him, biting her lips and walking with head bent down. He tried to edge stealthily around the clump of bushes and keep out of sight; but a rose trellis barred his way. A thorny shoot caught his coat and snapped away with a swish.
She lifted her head like a startled doe, gasped, and began to run. She went by him in a flash of silk-clad legs and flying skirts. He was surprised at her lightness and speed. She had reached the park entrance by the time he’d sprung after her. But he had to know what was in that black bag.
She threw a terrified glance over her shoulder and raced toward her flivver standing beside the curb. She leaped into it, slammed the door, and he heard the starter whine. The car was lurching away when he got to its side, but the motor coughed with a half-flooded carburetor.
Grant grabbed the side of the windshield and pulled himself up on the running board. In almost the same movement, he reached down inside and yanked the emergency brake. The next instant he ducked his head and hurled his body sidewise in the nick of time.
For the girl had pulled a gun on him. Its muzzle lanced flame as she jerked the trigger twice, missing both times. He snapped his hand forward and grabbed her wrist with steely fingers.
She struggled madly to get free, twisting over the top of the wheel, gritting her small white teeth tightly.
“You—let me go! I’ll—” She tried again to snap the trigger as Grant wrenched her fingers loose. Then she made a dive for the car’s opposite door with the black bag in her hand. Her dress ripped at the shoulder as Grant caught her and pulled her back. He got in beside her then, holding her still with one tense arm. He was smiling thinly, his voice very calm and cold.
“You’re a regular hell-cat, Miss Powers! I wouldn’t have guessed it—from your pictures.”
She was silent for a mo
ment, her face deathly pale and her eyes dark with fury as she struggled to catch her breath. Then she spoke.
“You—double-crosser! I won’t give them up—until you tell me where Stanley is. I—you’ll have to kill me first.”
Grant shrugged and spoke quietly. “Who do you think I am?”
“I know who you are!” she flared. “One of Rinaldi’s rats. He sent you—to spy—and take the diamonds from me!”
Grant’s arm stiffened about her shoulders. “So you have them then!”
She seemed to realize she’d said too much. Abruptly she whirled and struck at his face with her small, clenched fist, her knuckles sliding harmlessly over Grant’s lean jaw. Grant said with a note of humorous reproach:
“Quit it! You’re a swell fighter, Miss Powers—but let’s get each other straight. I’m not in with Rinaldi. I’m after the ice, it’s true—but not the way you think. There’s five thousand reward on the stones, and I thought I could use a little cash. But since you’ve got them, they’re yours. All you need to do is turn them in and collect. My name’s Grant.”
“Not Roger Grant?”
He nodded, took out his wallet, and showed her the special card he carried. It was signed by the commissioner of police, and gave him carte blanche powers as an unofficial investigator of crime.
“I—I’ve heard of you,” she said, a little awed. “But—I’m not going to turn the diamonds in for the reward, I’ve got—to save my brother!”
A sound of sob came from her throat. She looked small and pitiful suddenly.
“You mean you’re going to hand the stones over to Rinaldi?”
“Yes, they’re holding Stanley. If I don’t give them the diamonds, they’ll kill him.”
“How did you know the stones were in the park?”
“Stanley got away and threw them there—from a car window. Then they caught him again, and tortured him to make him talk. I don’t know what he said exactly. But they got in touch with me a half hour ago, called me on the phone. Stanley, they said, had told them he’d hidden the diamonds in a place we used to play as kids. I knew he must mean this park, so I came and looked.”
Grant nodded somberly. “What did they tell you to do if you found the diamonds?”
“Drive along Harrison Road at ten tonight. They’re going to meet me, and release Stanley when I give them the stones.”
“How do you know they’ll keep their word?”
“I don’t. It’s a chance I’ve got to take.” A sob muffled her speech again.
Grant looked at his watch. “It’s nine,” he said. “We’ll see if we can’t fix up some way to save your brother and the diamonds, too. And, if you don’t object, I’d like to take a look at them. A quarter of a million in ice makes me sort of curious.”
Her gaze swept over the clean, grim lines of his face, the smiling lips under a close-clipped mustache, and the straightness of his eyes. She nodded and handed him the black bag.
Under the instrument-board light, he opened it and saw a small chamois-skin pouch inside. The girl breathed quickly as he pulled back the zipper fastening of this. There was a tissue package at the bottom, with something inside the paper that rattled faintly.
Grant undid the paper with cautious fingers, then heard the abrupt gasp of amazement that Linda Powers gave. Her pointed fingernails dug into his arm. He was staring himself, gazing wideeyed, holding his breath. For there weren’t any diamonds inside the paper, only small round opaque objects.
“Stones!” she gasped. “The diamonds are gone! That’s only a bunch of—pebbles! Oh!” As though she’d been holding herself up on sheer nerve alone and this was the last straw, she began to cry in great sobs.
Grant fingered the pebbles doubtfully. For a brief instant he wondered if she had tricked him, lied to him. But the sight of her tear-wet face assured him. He looked at the pebbles again. They were round, white and even; the sort one would expect to find in a florist’s shop, or in a pet shop for goldfish globes. The girl checked her crying suddenly, and said in a stricken voice:
“What can I do about Stanley now? They’ll murder him—as soon as they find the stones aren’t here.”
Grant nodded again and she clutched him desperately. “Those diamonds were here. My brother wouldn’t lie. Somebody must have found them in the park and put those pebbles in the bag. Now—they’ll never be found, I’d better tell the police. It’s the only thing left to do.”
Grant was silent for a moment, then he said: “Your best chance is to bluff them. Meet them at ten, and pretend to hand over the stones. I’ll help you.”
He didn’t say how. He was wondering about her brother and those pebbles.
“Come to my apartment,” he added. “You can wait there till it’s time to drive along Harrison Road. I’m going to have a talk with Van Horn. You say you think it was Rinaldi who got in touch with you. I want to get a few inside points on the holdup.”
The girl nodded. Now that the diamonds were gone and she could see no way out, she was ready to put herself completely in Grant’s hands.
“Do—anything you want,” she faltered. “Only—save Stanley—somehow.”
Grant directed her to his apartment, drove behind her in his own car, and had her wait while he went in search of Van Horn. It was only a little after nine. The jewel merchant might still be in his office. Grant went there first.
There was a light burning above a frosted transom, and a minute after Grant’s ring, a round, pink, cautious face showed in the crack of the door. Van Horn was a Dutchman obviously. He looked scared, and he held a big automatic in one chubby fist. He waved it toward Grant, eyed him suspiciously, and said:
“Vell—vat do you want?”
Grant opened his wallet and took out his card again. He thrust it under the Dutchman’s nose. Van Horn read it and instantly looked relieved.
“A detective,” he said. “Come in. Excuse please the vay I acted. I haf been nervous, since my place vas robbed.”
He ushered Grant into a small, luxurious office, handsomely furnished with heavy chairs and a glass-topped desk with a velvet pad on it for displaying jewels. There were paintings on the walls, and a half dozen clusters of flowering bulbs gave added decoration; tulips and hyacinths in small, glazed pots and paper-white narcissi in a cut-glass bowl on an ebony settee. Van Horn apparently was something of an esthete. Grant jumped as the Dutchman suddenly spoke.
“It’s all right, Mr. Ellis! Come out.”
Another man entered the room through a small door that led to an inner office. He also had a gun, and Grant’s eyes narrowed when he saw that it was the same fat individual he’d seen outside Linda Powers’ place.
“Meet Mr. Ellis, Mr. Grant,” said Van Horn. “He’s a detective, too—representing der insurance company.”
Ellis nodded glumly and looked along his nose at Grant. There was a sour expression on his face that made Grant conclude he’d discovered that Miss Powers, his quarry, had given him the slip.
Grant turned his back on the company detective and addressed Van Horn.
“I just dropped in for a little information. Stanley Powers was one of your clerks, wasn’t he?”
The Dutchman nodded. “Yes, he vas vid me a year. The other clerk, who vas vid me five years vas shot right vere you are standing. You can see der blood on der carpet if you vill look.”
Grant glanced at his feet, saw a sinister brownish stain on the rug, and glanced back at Van Horn.
“You think the Rinaldi gang is responsible and that young Powers helped them pull off the theft?”
Van Horn hunched his shoulders and sank his voice to a confidential pitch. “I told the police so, and I tell you again. Powers must haf been in vid der gang. He must haf tipped dem off. It iss der only vay dey vould haf known I had so much jewels in der place. Der biggest order of der year had just come in from Amsterdam vere der best diamonds are cut.
“I didn’t even haf my customers selected. Ve vere grading der stones ven der hold-uppers came.
Dey shot my other clerk and made Powers open der safe. Dey took him avay vid dem. Now my diamonds are gone—and only a hundred thousand insurance to cover dem—ven der stones are vorth at least a quarter of a million!”
Ellis spoke harshly: “You’ll get your rocks back, Mister. We’ll find that clerk of yours and make him unbutton his lip. My company’s never had to pay a premium as big as that yet. But I’d work better if you didn’t let guys like this crash in. He ain’t even with the police. He’s only trying to horn in on that reward. He’s one of those parlor dicks who wouldn’t know a real crook if he saw one.”
Grant turned and stared at the fat detective whose words and voice were sneering.
“It’s too bad,” he said quietly, “that you let Miss Powers slip out from under your nose. She has an interesting line.”
Ellis gave a violent start, glared, and almost swallowed his cigar. “What? Say, how the hell did you know I was after her?”
Grant only grinned at Ellis. Then he turned and asked Van Horn:
“Where were you when the bandits came?”
“I had just stepped out of der office. My clerks vere der only ones dot saw dem. Now vun is dead and der other vun has disappeared. But I think it vas Rinaldi. He is one of der vorst jewel t’ieves who has made a lot of trouble.”
‘We’ll find him when we find Powers,” said Ellis gratingly. He came close to Grant and thrust out his jaw. “And,” he added, “if you know where that sister of Powers’ is, you’d better spill it. I got a state license. I represent one of the biggest insurance concerns in America, and I know how to make it hot for guys that hold back evidence.”
“The only thing that’s holding anything back,” said Grant mildly, “are your own big feet.” He nodded politely to Van Horn, lighted a cigarette, and strode out of the office. But when he reached the street and walked to the place where his car was parked, he threw a swift glance over his shoulder.
The lumbering figure of Ellis was visible. The big agency detective was following him as he expected.
The Detective Megapack Page 82