E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives

by E. Hoffmann Price

  That plan, however, died at birth.

  “He went out through here!” boomed a voice, as the burly form of a police sergeant appeared in the brightly lighted window of the murder room. “Oh, Duval! McCarthy!”

  Voices from the ground answered the hail. Two uniformed patrolmen were directly beneath Landon, looking up into the light that streamed from the window.

  “See where his tracks lead,” came the order from the sergeant, “and be careful you don’t gum up his footprints.”

  Footprints! The very thing! Landon settled back less tense on his perch in the tree, for there would, of course, be the footprints of the man who had preceded him out the window. The police would follow those prints and leave him alone.

  But his joy was short lived.

  “There he is—up there!” shouted the police sergeant, pointing out the window toward the tree. “Look out! He may be armed!” The sergeant stepped back out of sight.

  The two cops below circled the tree, staring stupidly upward into the leafy darkness.

  Landon, his head by now fairly cleared of the savage slugging he had received, poised himself, ready to take the aggressive. His desperate position warranted a desperate device. He jumped.

  His descent was so swift that the rustle of leaves and the snapping of twigs did not warn the police below. The impact drove one officer flat and breathless to the ground, groaning and gasping. Landon scrambled to his feet just a split second before the other officer gathered his wits. The advantage, though trifling, was sufficient. Landon ducked the sweeping night stick; and as the cop’s hand flashed for his pistol, Landon’s fist shot out and connected with the point of the policeman’s jaw. But the cop, although out on his feet, yanked the trigger with his last convulsive twitch.

  The blast attracted the pack. The cop on whom Landon had crashed regained his breath and bellowed the alarm as he struggled to his feet.

  Landon dashed across the grounds, but despite his start, the enemy gained on him. For a moment he was screened by a cluster of plantains, but as he emerged from their shelter, jets of flame stabbed the darkness behind him, and the crackle of pistol fire accented the roaring confusion. Landon zigzagged, weaving in and out among the shrubbery, taking cover as he ran toward the corner of the estate. He was gaining, for the pursuit, in order to fire more accurately, had halted, certain now of capturing him either dead or alive.

  The cast-iron picket fence which checked Landon’s flight was too high and too hazardous to risk vaulting. Scaling it deliberately was not to be considered, he would be too distinct a target silhouetted against the dimly lit street beyond. As he hesitated, a bullet sifted through the shrubbery at the foot of the fence and seared his ribs.

  He was cornered. Then he saw a way out. The stalk of an exceptionally tall, sturdy plantain would give him the necessary elevation. He leaped and swarmed up. A volley spattered through the broad leaves. Then the police dashed forward, withholding their fire, certain now of an easy capture.

  The stalk swayed perilously, bent the wrong way—then dipped back toward the spiked fence.

  Landon’s headlong dive took him clear of the sidewalk. He landed on soft earth between paving and curb, rolled into the shelter of a tree, then recovered and sprinted down the street. A few seconds had been gained. The plantain stalk had collapsed under the concerted assault of the patrolmen. It was no longer available as a ladder. They had to double back to the gate.

  Landon turned and ran down a private driveway that led to an adjacent estate, cleared the stone wall, worked his way toward the next street.

  As he emerged he saw a cab parked at the corner.

  “Down Saint Charles!” he commanded, and thrust a dollar bill into the driver’s hand. “Illinois Central Hospital. Emergency case!”

  This would fit in with the police sirens, and justify Landon’s haste. The Yellow took off with a leap and nosed into the traffic. But Landon knew that by now radio squads would be combing the city. Whoever had turned in the alarm had undoubtedly given out an accurate and detailed description of him—for the frame-up must have been carefully planned.

  As the cab rounded the turn toward the hospital, Landon slipped to the curbing. During his brief ride he had wiped the blood and dirt from his hands and face; but his bedraggled evening clothes made him conspicuous.

  Off came his dinner coat, vest and black bow tie, to be rolled up and stuffed under his arm—and, at the first opportunity, to be dropped into a waste-paper can by the curb. His shirt was too far gone to betray its style; and the piping on his dark trousers would not be noticeable. He strode swiftly down South Rampart Street, mingling with the Saturday night crowd of drunks, derelicts, and ragamuffins, both white and black.

  In the first pawnshop, he bought a cap and a clean shirt, and haggled just long enough to seem in character. A block closer to Canal Street he purchased a cheap linen suit and a string tie. The next shop equipped him with a razor, soap and brush. He put on the cap and the tie, slipped the shaving things into his pants pocket, and carried the suit and shirt.

  The going was perilous. Audacity alone could serve him. Every radio that blared from the lunch counters and soft drink parlors reminded him that the short-wave sets were picking up police calls that must be on the air; but he dared not hurry. With his bundle under his arm, he sauntered along, pausing to peer into shop windows.

  The trickle of blood from his left side would again make him conspicuous. Some rooming house on the other side of Canal Street, however, would afford a temporary haven in which to staunch the seepage—the wound was hardly more than a scratch—clean up, and plan his campaign.

  Attempting to leave New Orleans would be fatal. The ferries across the river, the railroad stations, and the highways would all be guarded. The city was his only refuge. And while he was the hunted now, he would have to turn hunter to vindicate himself.

  An hour later he emerged from a cheap lodging house, his appearance completely altered. He wore a colored shirt and a linen suit. His old shirt he had torn into strips and used to bandage his side. And instead of removing his pointed black mustache, which had been his most conspicuously identifying feature, he had trimmed it to a couple of Hitler-like patches just beneath the nose, thus avoiding the obvious device of the fugitive. Finally, he had trimmed and narrowed his eyebrows.

  He had stuffed wads of paper into his shoes, and had experimented with them until he had finally developed a slightly limping gait which, while not eccentric, was different from his natural stride and carriage.

  As Landon strolled through the French Quarter, he favored various ash cans with bits of his discarded apparel. The entire lot in one place would attract attention. His smile was grim and bitter as he paused at a building from whose arched windows came music and laughter and the tinkle of glass. A party—the one from which he had been called by a fake message scarcely more than an hour ago. The party where Eloise still awaited his return—perhaps just beginning to wonder at his delay.

  Or was she? Perhaps she had forgotten him. Or perhaps she and Collins were in the angle of the patio, where the fountain’s silver veil screened out the artificial moon-glow. Then he realized that he had other matters to worry about. This was no time for him to be mooning around the Vieux Carré.

  So he hurried back to Canal Street, bought a second-hand suitcase, and took a taxi to a cheap hotel, where he registered under a name which matched the initials on the suitcase.

  He turned in at once. Thus far he had no plans for taking up the trail of his enemies. That could await the morrow, when his head was clearer. What he needed now was rest.

  CHAPTER 3

  Landon, Public Enemy!

  The Sunday Picayune and Telegram gave Landon an amount of space which would have been flattering, except for the contents. His photograph, reproduced from passports the police had found in luggage in his apartment, occupied the central position on the
front page of both sheets. The headlines were lurid.

  PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE read the Telegram. Landon carried the paper over to the mirror and compared the passport picture and the printed description with his present appearance.

  The same clean-cut, bronzed features, the same keen gray eyes, stared back at him from the mirror, but the Hitler mustache and trimmed eyebrows gave such a different cast to the rest of his face, that no one but a very intimate friend would suspect his identity. The picture in the papers was at best a caricature. It would mislead, rather than help the police.

  Satisfied on that score, Landon sat down on the bed and carefully studied the press accounts.

  The stories in both papers were substantially the same. Raymond Landon, linguist and soldier of fortune, had robbed and murdered the employer who had befriended him. Then, with the same daring and vigor which had marked his cavalry operations against bandits of the Arabian desert, while in the service of Ibn Saud, Captain Landon had fought his way through the cordon of police who had surprised him at his crime.

  The anonymous tip on which the police had acted was ascribed to an accomplice of Landon’s, with whom he had probably quarreled over the division of the twenty-five thousand dollars in loot.

  The press report went on to say that the victim, Professor Gilbert Foster, had just completed delivering an address on Arabia to a convention of the American Society of Archeologists at the Hotel Roosevelt, when he had been called to the telephone. Thereupon he had left the hotel in considerable haste and obvious agitation.

  The next paragraph mentioned Alcide Dumaine! The dealer in antiques admitted having phoned Professor Foster at the Roosevelt, to tell him that the owner of Shah Ismail’s prayer rug had at last agreed to accept twenty-five thousand dollars for it. Foster had readily enough consented to leave the convention, and had made an appointment to meet Dumaine at once at Foster’s home.

  When Dumaine had reached the place, he had noticed Miss Foster’s car standing at the curb. Though the house was lit, no one answered his persistent ringing. And then the police had arrived, arresting him as he stood on the gallery with the prayer rug under his arm.

  A telegram from Biloxi, signed by Chris Panopoulos, and instructing Dumaine to sell the rug, confirmed the story. Dumaine had not been detained by the police. They had nothing on him.

  “A perfect alibi,” muttered Landon to himself. He frowned and shook his head. “Maybe, and maybe not. If it is on the level, it explains why the killer left by the window. But I’ll bet Dumaine knows more than he’s telling. His story is too damn good! Particularly from a sleek number like him.”

  Turning the page, Landon saw what was captioned as a picture of Shah Ismail’s historic prayer rug. But even allowing for hasty press photography, it bore not the slightest resemblance to the rug which Alcide Dumaine had been trying to sell to Professor Foster.

  “Something’s all wet!” Landon said to the emptiness of his hotel room. “Dumaine gave the police a substitute to photograph. Why?”

  Here was a clue to work on! Flimsy, but yet a clue. Landon continued his reading.

  The police had interviewed the dead man’s niece, Eloise Foster, and his private secretary, Bertram Collins, and had obtained the story of the long negotiations between the professor and Dumaine for the purchase of the prayer rug. They even told of the afternoon when, as a final bluff to shake Dumaine from his demands, Professor Foster and the man who was later to be his murderer—Landon grimaced at that—had held the precious rug by its silken fringe, while Collins, operating the professor’s miniature movie camera, had shot a reel of color films to record the matchless hues and luster of the antique fabric.

  “Since I’m not going to pay such an outlandish price, I’ll at least have a reel to illustrate some of my lectures,” the professor had explained to the puzzled dealer. Dumaine had been so visibly disconcerted by the bluff that he began to weaken in his demands. A few days later Foster ordered Collins to sell the liberty bonds, so as to be ready for a showdown.

  And then Landon’s eye caught an item which caused him to jump off the bed with a whoop. Eloise was quoted as saying, “I know he didn’t do it. I’d trust him anywhere.”

  So he had one friend! With the whole town against him, Eloise still had faith.

  Jamming his hat on his head, he left the hotel and walked briskly up town. Every telephone booth that he passed invited him to call Eloise and tell her how he appreciated her quoted remark. “May be a trap,” he warned himself. “That interview may be faked just to get me to phone her.”

  He passed several booths.

  “But if she’s really for me, she can dig into things and help me catch the real murderer—Hell, she can’t believe I’m guilty!”

  Thus he finally justified his foolhardiness in stepping into a cigar store and calling the Foster residence. It was really the sound of her voice, rather than her aid, that he desired.

  “I’ve seen dozens of ’em hooked this way, but here goes!”

  He held his nostrils pinched between thumb and forefinger, to disguise his voice; but this precaution proved needless. It was Eloise herself who lifted the receiver.

  “Listen carefully,” he cautioned her, “and don’t mention my name.”

  He caught her gasp of amazement, heard her say, “They’ve left. Oh, isn’t it just dreadful—”

  “Hop a cab,” Landon interrupted, “and meet me at the Magazine Street entrance of Audubon Park. Right away. And wait for me to speak first.” He hung up, before she could protest or question him.

  Landon boarded a Magazine Street car. The park would be crowded on a Sunday, and his altered appearance should protect him against any but close observers. Alighting at the first stop past the entrance of the park, he mingled with the crowd.

  Presently he saw Eloise emerge, on foot, from the tree-shaded coolness of Exposition Boulevard. She was wearing a dark blue suit, with white linen cuffs and collar.

  “All clear,” said Landon softly as she approached.

  She started, looked up furtively, and then stepped back from him, her eyes wide with suspicion.

  “Why, Eloise!” he began.

  She laughed nervously, then smiled.

  “I would never have known you,” she said. “That is—you are Ray Landon, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You look so changed. Your face is entirely different. You’ve done something to your mustache and—and your eyebrows, haven’t you? And even your walk is different.”

  “Very observant, Eloise.” Then, noticing the drawn expression of her piquant face, the tightness of her lips, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes, he exclaimed, “Why, you poor kid! Here I am thinking of nothing but my own predicament. I know what it means to you, dear, but there is nothing I can say.”

  “It’s awfully good of you to think of me, Ray,” she said, her fingers closing on his arm. Landon’s heart leaped at her acceptance of the endearment that had slipped out, but his expression of solicitude did not change.

  “Never mind me,” she continued. “We two have a job on our hands. But you shouldn’t have taken such a terrible risk, meeting me—”

  “No more risk here than anywhere else,” he countered, feigning assurance which he by no means felt. “Let’s sit near the merry-go-round—so much racket no one will overhear us.”

  Under cover of the blatant music, Landon outlined his suspicions. “Dumaine undoubtedly had something to do with it, and yet all that I have to go on is that he gave the police the wrong rug to photograph.”

  “But what good would that do him,” asked Eloise, “since we have the colored movie which you and Uncle Gilbert took?”

  “That’s so. Where is it now?”

  “At home. The police ran it through a projector down at headquarters, and then gave it back to me.”

  “Well,” Landon contin
ued, “if Dumaine’s story is true, he couldn’t have committed the crime himself. But one of his ‘clients’ may have. You remember how, all through the bargaining, Dumaine insisted on cash. He wouldn’t even take a certified check.”

  “My uncle thought that that might be because the rug had been stolen or smuggled into the country; but it looks otherwise now.”

  “Exactly,” Landon agreed. “I don’t believe that shifty-eyed faker ever intended to sell the rug. He held out until he knew that your uncle had the money actually on hand. Then gave the signal for the robbery.”

  “And stood guard at the door, while his accomplice was inside,” Eloise suggested.

  “Mmmm—hardly,” Landon decided. “The mur—robbery was committed before I entered, and yet Dumaine was not there when I arrived.”

  “But without Dumaine and the rug present, how was Uncle Gilbert induced to open the safe?”

  “Who else had the combination?”

  “Only Uncle Gilbert. He didn’t even have a memorandum—just kept the numbers in his head.”

  “Nobody! Not even you—nor Bert Collins,” Landon pondered. Then, abruptly, “Where was Collins last night?”

  “You don’t suspect him, do you?”

  “No, of course not. Not that drink of water! But I’d like to know where he was last night.”

  Eloise eyed him narrowly. “Why, Ray! He was at the same party that you and I attended.”

  “And took you home, I suppose, when I failed to show up,” Landon grumbled.

  Eloise placed her hand on his arm, and looked up into his face. “Of course not!” she said indignantly. “Bert had one of the Vieux Carré crowd in tow. A dizzy blonde. He paid no attention to me all evening. I waited and waited for you, and then—then the police came.” Her voice broke.

  “Poor dear,” commiserated Landon, patting her hand. “Suppose you get the police to investigate Bert Collins. Find out who he has been running around with lately. That woman he was with last night may have been in Dumaine’s employ. She may have fed Collins a few drinks too many, then taken his keys and slipped them out to Dumaine.”