The Fourth King

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “Send ‘em in.” He made his way to the inner room. “Come in here, Folwell.” To Kelsey: “You, too, Camera-Eye.”

  Folwell followed him and dropped into a chair, waiting while the police official rolled up the cover of his desk, hung up his hat, and fumbled in his pockets for a cigar. And before McIlroy had finished with these three preliminaries, the door opened again and four broad-shouldered strong-jawed men of the genus “city detective” came stamping awkwardly in.

  “Sit down, all of you,” ordered McIlroy. They tumbled into chairs, crossing their legs. “This is Folwell, of the Eaves case. He’s just ‘phoned me that he’s got evidence showing the man that pulled the Eaves murder and three before it. I’ve appointed you all a jury to pass on what he has to give us.” He gazed at Folwell curiously. “And so the missing bonds turned up, my lad, eh?”

  Folwell was careful in his reply. “Mr. Pettibone so claims. He has explained the matter to the Press. He has also returned that paper I told you all along should never have been signed. I’ll refer you to him for further particulars, however.”

  “All right,” commented McIlroy abstractedly. “But it’s the Eaves case we’re on now, after all. Let’s hear what you think you have on the thing.”

  “I have been working on this case,” Folwell began, just a trifle ill at ease as he became the cynosure of six pairs of cold, shrewd eyes, “ever since early afternoon to-day when a visit to the body of the Van Etten girl with the written permission of Mr. Lyons over there, sent me over to Johnstone Lee’s place. I confess that the staring eyes of that dead girl somehow seemed to link her in my mind with the Paddon link of the Paddon-Rothblume-Lee-Eaves chain. So I went to the nearest link of that chain, to investigate. There I procured this label. It’s the one which was on the box of playing cards sent to Lee.”

  Amid a stony silence he took from his pocket the label and laid it down, rubber-stamped letters upward, on McIlroy’s desk.

  “If you will inspect that label closely, you will note that the ‘E’s’ are produced from ‘F’s’ by the addition of a stroke made by hand in red ink.” He paused while McIlroy leaned over it, nodding slowly. A few seconds later it was being passed from hand to hand.

  “Now,” Folwell went on, his eyes resting absently on the label as the third man of the “jury” scrutinized it, “I am not going to give certain steps that involve certain people in this thing, for the simple reason that I have given my word not to. And neither can you force me to do it. All this office requires is the final results, which I have traced down step by step. Here they are, in a nutshell: Andrev Michaelovitch, of 1124, Hickory Avenue, a dirty little street out in Goose Island, has in his possession a certain amount of rare chemical paraphernalia. Also he has printed a message in rubber type similar to this label in a certain commercial transaction. This alone might prove him to be our man in the Eaves case, if nothing else — the identity of the type used in each instance — but if you will investigate as I did, you will find that Paddon, Rothblume, Lee and Eaves all owned cars; that they kept them in Johnston’s garage, on Monroe Street not far from LaSalle; and finally, that Michaelovitch is a mechanic, handyman and car-washer in that same garage.” Folwell paused. “That’s all, gentlemen.”

  Each of the detectives looked significantly at one another. It was plain that Folwell had sprung a piece of information upon “headquarters “that pointed indisputably to the fact that the case was at an end.

  McIlroy was the first to speak. “If what you say is true,” he began, “then Michaelovitch is our man, all right. Now, don’t be afraid to answer one or two questions, Folwell. If a man doesn’t want to give the steps or names by which he locates some information, we never force him to around here. You claim, do you, that each of these brokers owned a car and kept it in this garage?”

  Folwell nodded. “Yes, there’s no need whatever of your even corroborating that part. Maybe an investigation will reveal why this car feature — this greatest common divisor, Inspector McIlroy — failed to come out in the case in the testimony of Rothblume’s and Lee’s relatives on the matter of their possible movements the night of their deaths. There must be a reason, but that’s up to your office. As for the facts I mentioned, I spent twenty minutes to-day in a hot telephone booth on Goose Island talking to people who knew Paddon, Rothblume and Lee, and I established the one fact that links up with the one I got on Hickory Avenue. Get Michaelovitch — and you’ll have your man so far as a child can see.”

  There was silence. McIlroy again broke it. He looked at his watch.

  “Kelsey, ‘phone downstairs to the Second District Police Headquarters and get the wagon ready. Ask Lieutenant Haines for eight uniformed men. We won’t waste time talking here. The first thing to do is to bring in Michaelovitch. You, Flannery, you Lyons, you Sheffly, put away your cases for the time, and get ready. You, Delamater, tell Crane to call young Parkley down to headquarters in case this bird decides to talk when we bring him in. Then get out at once in a taxi, and while the pinch is going on, get everything you can at Paddon’s former address, the two Rothblume women, and Lee’s sister that will show us why these facts haven’t come out so far. You Kelsey, get about you with getting that wagon. The rest of you see that your guns are working.”

  Kelsey clambered to his feet and left the room. It was plain that McIlroy brooked no delay when he issued orders. Delamater scurried back into the general record-room. There was a general inspection of revolvers and cylinders. It was plain that the canny old Scotsman took no chances in arresting any man for murder, whether he be a rich club-man or an erratic European living in such a poor section of the city as Goose Island. Folwell asked but one question.

  “So long as I’ve given you the information on all this, Inspector McIlroy, am I allowed to remain in this last act of the play?”

  “Providing,” McIlroy replied with a grim laugh, “that if you get a bullet in your windpipe, your relatives don’t blame us.”

  “I’ll chance that,” said Folwell. He rose. Amidst the bustle of preparation he made his way out into the outer hall. In the telephone booth he rang a number. A girl’s fresh young voice answered the ’phone. “Avery,” he said hurriedly, “this is Jason. I’m glad you’re spending to-night back at home on Wisconsin Street, or I wouldn’t have known how to get in touch with you otherwise. Now, listen carefully. Much has come up that concerns you and me in the Eaves case. In fact it concerns our happiness — and you can guess what I mean by that. I am just going out on some business which is mixed up with the Eaves affair. I am ‘phoning from detective headquarters here on 11th and State, where you visited this morning. I have a paper here that I want to put into your hands. Better wait up to-night and look for me at your home, where I can tell you the rest of it. How about it?”

  “I’ll gladly wait for you, Jason,” came the girl’s answer. “What time shall I expect you?”

  “Well — honey — I can’t say for a certainty. All I can say is — just wait till I come. Remember — I have good news — the best in the world. It’s now eight-fifteen. Say nine-fifteen or nine-thirty. How will that do?”

  And, hearing her acquiescence and her puzzled good-bye, he hung up with a tender smile hovering over his face. Then he made his way without delay back into the office of McIlroy. Just as he stepped into the room a peculiar buzzer on the wall gave forth a raucous rattle. With a nod to the three men assembled there, McIlroy spoke four pregnant words.

  “Wagon’s ready, boys. Come.”

  Folwell filed out with the others, down the corridor of the detective bureau, down the short flight of steps to the sidewalk, and out to the kerb, where a blue patrol automobile, from the Second District Police Station housed in the same building, stood waiting with gleaming headlights. Inside, as he climbed in after McIlroy, and ahead of Lyons, Flannery and Sheffly, was the stocky, bullet-headed Kelsey, with eight stalwart, blue-clad policemen, nobody doing very much talking.

  Once inside, and the rear door clanged to, McIlroy spoke
to the assemblage.

  “Now, you boys in uniform from downstairs, listen well. We’re going out to Goose Island to get a man by the name of Michaelovitch, who appears to be the one that’s pulled off some wholesale killings here in Chicago. He’s a foreigner — and he may be a dangerous customer. The number of his shack, according to present information, is 1124 Hickory Avenue. We may get our man without a struggle. On the other hand, we may have to do some shooting. Each of you have your gun ready. I’ll detail four of you uniformed men and two plain-clothes men to guard the back of the house; the rest of you will remain across the street in front. I’ll make the arrest myself.” He thrust his face toward that of the driver, an old white-haired veteran of the service, who peered inside at the colloquy taking place in the cab of the vehicle. “Pat, the raid is at 1124 Hickory Avenue, over the river on Goose Island. Better run the machine — say — a block and a half away — then draw up and douse the headlights.”

  “I know the place well,” said the old man at the steering-wheel. “ ‘Tis manny a pinch I’ve made on Goose Island, Inspector, before ivver ye war in the chair over here. ‘Twas back in the eighties whin the Irish licked hell outa the furriners on the flats.” And with a lurch and a defiant toot of the siren the machine was off and into the brightly lighted streets.

  It bowled smoothly along on rubber tyres, slowing down a trifle to cross the Clark Street bridge, the dark and almost indistinguishable river below carrying wavering splotches of red and green from the lanterns on the ships moored in the docks beneath, and thence over on Dearborn Street, dotted with dingy pool-rooms and slatternly-looking rooming-houses. Nothing much was said. Folwell kept his own counsel. A few jaws here and there worked assiduously on cuds of tobacco. A lone cigar glowed over in the corner occupied by Kelsey, and two younger members in the blue cloth were talking baseball in low tones.

  Clear to Chicago Avenue the car went, and then west on this wide thoroughfare through Little Italy with its shouting myriads of poorly-clad, dirty-faced children and waddling bambinoes, and again out of Little Italy and up the viaduct to the crossing at Halsted Street and the North Western Railroad. Now the driver proceeded more slowly, and soon the car was rolling over the self-same bridge across which Folwell had walked earlier that day, from which, however, it ran clear to Division Street, coming out on Goose Island by a quite different route than Folwell had traversed. And at last it stopped as suddenly as it had started up, just fifteen minutes before.

  “I think, Inspector,” said the old driver looking in, “that we’ve gone’s far as you’d want. We’re at Hickory Avenue an’ Division Street. Next road up is Bliss. Then Haines, Number 1124, ‘d be between Bliss and Haines somewhere. Shall I hold the car right here?”

  “Yes,” said McIlroy, opening the rear door as he spoke. “Draw her up to the opposite kerb, Pat, and let her stand.” And he waited down on the ground while the whole medley of blue-clad figures and plain-clothes men filed out.

  “Now,” he ordered, pointing around with his finger, “you, Number 312, you, Number 919, you 442 and you, 661, take up your positions to the back of the house. You, Lyons and Flannery, are in charge at the back. Here’s Hickory Avenue and there’s Bliss Street, such as it is, yonder. Find the alley to the back of that row o’ shacks, and look through the passageways between houses. I’ll have Kelsey here light a cigar across the street in front to show you when you’re in the back of 1124.” He turned to the others. “You, Number 85, you 662, you 1129 and you, 978, scatter around along the front. Keep out of sight, and remember you’re under orders from Kelsey and Sheffiy here. You, Folwell, watch yourself. I’ll not be responsible for you. Keep close to Kelsey. Now get — all of you. Scatter a bit as you go. As soon as I think you’re well in position, I’ll make the arrest myself. Be sure you’re ready to close in if there’s trouble.” He paused. “Now be off.” He turned to a few ragged children that had come up. “You kids get along home now. Run along.”

  The children turned reluctantly away from the enticing conversations amidst the uniformed men. Folwell followed Kelsey and Sheffly and the four blue-coats whom McIlroy had assigned to the front of the house. The other group had already started off along the mud-baked road that called itself an avenue. His heart was beating a bit fast, and he wondered whether the Russian would be taken easily, a man who scrupled not to kill freely and quickly. He kept to Kelsey’s heels, and, when close to the house, nudged the other on the arm. “It’s the grey house with the rickety steps leading upstairs. The one with the upper windows lighted and the shades drawn down.”

  For over a minute he and the man whom McIlroy called Camera-Eye had been quite alone, the others, seemingly used to raids of all kinds, having disappeared in the open deserted streets of Goose Island and through the gaps between box-cars drawn up on the broad flats. Kelsey, with a look at his companion and a quick glance around the spot where they stood, motioned to Folwell to take up a position back of the great overturned garbage wagon which lay almost across the way from number 1124. As Folwell obeyed the silent order, Kelsey proceeded to light a cigar, and holding the match long to the tip of it, walked back and forth along a distance of perhaps twenty feet. An answering light suddenly breaking out in a gangway at the side of the rickety grey house now showed that the men in the rear had caught their location by Kelsey’s position. A shock-headed man carrying a tin pail stumbled down the steps of the adjoining house, quite oblivious to the fact that anything was about to take place, and casually made his way down the street toward the near-beer saloons that clustered around Division Street. The strains of a distant accordion wafted over the flats of Goose Island, and then died away. A silence — a great overpowering, pregnant silence — filled the air.

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE PACK AND THE RAT

  IT seemed a long time to Folwell, but it must have been but two or three minutes when the tall, well-knit form of McIlroy strode along the sidewalk, visible under a rickety street lamp. He could see the old Scotsman pause midway between number 1124 and what must have been number 1126, studying the numerals on the dirty transom of the latter house. Then, a second later, McIlroy had found the steps of the ramshackle grey structure. Evidently he had rung, for the faint tingle of the pull-bell was audible across the road. A silence followed. Then of a sudden the door opened, and a man, holding a lighted kerosene lamp in his hand, thrust out a face which carried a pointed black beard. He was clad only in trousers and undershirt of cotton, with the sleeves rolled up as though he had been working.

  The words of McIlroy could be heard distinctly.

  “Want you over to headquarters, Michaelovitch. Get your clothes on.”

  But as the last word died away a surprising thing happened. Without a moment’s hesitation the man in the doorway drew back his arm that held the lamp and flung it with all his might at the detective’s head. But McIlroy was not asleep. He dropped like a plummet; the lighted lamp catapulted over his head and crashed with a shivering noise into a thousand fragments on the lower step. It was followed almost instantly by the sharp bang of the door, the rattle of a bolt being shot into a socket; the sound of footsteps running up the inner stairs of the cottage. Then above the tense silence that followed this unexpected turn to events came the voice of McIlroy himself, who had leaped like a cat over the railing of the steps and shouted down the gangway. “Get him boys. Get him. He’s going to make out the rear.”

  In ten seconds, it seemed, the whole street was filled with forms that had sprung from the gaps in the box-cars lying to the rear of the wagon which still sheltered Folwell. Mingled shouts of advice and orders filled the air; almost equally strong came the shouts of those who held the alleyway at the rear of the house. And then the shouts died, as a dozen pairs of ears heard the sinister sound that would mean death before the night was over; the rattle of an automatic, and the thud-thud of bullets at the back of number 1124.

  Only for a second was the automatic the only sound to be heard. Then it was interrupted by the pop, p
op, pop, of police revolvers. Michaelovitch was being shown that no escape was open to the rear of the house. The men in the front had paused in their tracks, evidently undecided whether to hold the territory assigned to them, or to go to the aid of their comrades. As for McIlroy, he was not visible. Folwell felt that he was lurking in the gangway at the side of the front steps. Suddenly one of the lighted windows of the second story was raised with a jerk, and confronting the men in the street was a silhouetted figure with an automatic revolver in each hand; a figure who proceeded to drench the street with sizzling bullets, missing no spots where a moment before a man had been standing. Folwell and Kelsey, who had lost no time in dodging back behind the garbage wagon, dropped flat against the ground. The timbers of the old wagon were ripped through in two places. A box-car coupling to the rear sang like a violin string when one of the flying lead missiles pounded against it. The figure in the window proceeded calmly to jam a new clip of cartridges in his right-hand revolver, and a second later a deep, throaty, triumphant and sardonic laugh split the night air over a street in which not a being stirred.

  The laugh was broken short, however, by a veritable fusillade of shots from the point where the gangway emerged from the side of the house. McIlroy had been heard from. A shower of glass rattled to the ground. And before the fusillade was ended, it was being answered by the man above in a furious bombardment at the point from whence had come the unexpected attack. A second later he was gone. Whereupon McIlroy came running across the street, his police automatic still smoking in his hand. In back of the garbage wagon he dodged and square into the arms of Kelsey. His voice was panting as he spoke, recognizing the little detective. “Did you see him peppering that ground about me till I thought I would be a sieve? And do you think I got the beggar, Camera Eye?”