“This guy on the floor shot me in the back. McKimm is lying over in Euclid near West Pine. I guess some of your cops have got him by this time.”
“What’d this guy shoot you for?”
Cardigan sagged to a chair.
“McKimm killed my pal Pat O’Hara. He killed Hartz and the chauffeur. He wounded Max Saul.”
“Somebody said they heard a woman scream here.”
“They’re nuts. It was Everett. When I cornered McKimm here Everett let me have it in the back. He was in with McKimm. He wanted to get rid of Hartz too.”
“You’re lying, Cardigan!”
“Go to hell, Bush! Let me alone awhile.”
“There was a woman here!”
“There wasn’t. I got McKimm here and then I got Everett here.”
An ambulance doctor and two men with a stretcher came in. The doctor bending over Everett looked up and shook his head.
“He hasn’t a chance,” he said.
Cardigan, fast losing consciousness, saw the white door across the room open. He shook his head. He did not want Mrs. Hartz to come. He believed that this thing could be settled without her. He knew she had been tricked by Everett. He knew she had nothing to do with the murder of his partner. He remembered that she had put her body in front of him against the muzzles of McKimm’s guns.
But she came out—statuesque and white-faced.
“So,” growled Bush, with a scathing look at Cardigan.
She gasped and ran across the room. Nobody else had noticed Cardigan sagging. She reached him and put her arm around him. His eyes rolled as he looked up at her. He smiled.
“You’ve—got—guts,” he muttered.
CARDIGAN came to a day later in a hospital room. He turned his head and saw Max Saul sitting in a wheelchair. He licked his lips. A nurse got up and looked at him.
Max Saul grinned, “He’s O.K., nurse.”
“Yeah,” said Cardigan. “I feel like getting up and playing kick-the-wicket or something.”
“I’m sore,” Max joked. “You’re getting all the headlines, Irish.”
“How did Everett and McKimm make out?”
“They didn’t. They brought McKimm here on a stretcher and identified him. Everett cleared his conscience before he went places. And cleared Clara Hartz too. It was Everett put the idea in McKimm’s head that if Hartz should die Mrs. Hartz would come into a lot of money. Everett figured he would have, too—through marriage to the widow. I think I said once that guy was a lounge-lizard.”
Cardigan closed his eyes. “It’s tough on the woman, Max. She saved my life.”
“She took it all standing up, Jack. And she’s been telephoning every half hour about you. Bush started to yammer but Captain Bricknell dampered him down.”
Another nurse came in with a vase of roses. Cardigan frowned. “Now who sent those?”
“Mrs. Hartz.”
Cardigan relaxed and closed his eyes.
Max Saul said, “That’s what I’d call a bed of roses, Irish.”
A nurse wheeled him out of the room and on the way down the hall he hummed The St. Louis Blues.
Hell’s Pay Check
Chapter One
Death on Arrival
THE change in the tune of the train wheels roused Cardigan. He used a broad palm to wipe steam from the rain-wet coach window. The train was crossing the Wabash River. Beyond were the lights of the city.
Cardigan bent over, dropped a magazine into an open grip, started to close it. On second thought, he drew out a .38 revolver and slipped it into his hip pocket; closed, locked the grip.
He rose, a big, shaggy-headed man with a burry outdoor look, shrugged into a wrinkled topcoat, put on a faded fedora that had seen better days. He lugged his bag to the nearest vestibule. The locomotive’s bell gonged more resonantly as the train pulled into the station.
Cardigan swung down to the platform, shook his head at a barging porter, tramped heavy-footed through the waiting room. He dwarfed an average-sized man. His shoulders rocked. He slapped open a door with the flat of his hand, felt a gust of rain and raw fall wind. He moved along slowly, looking at the license plates of parked cars. Then he stopped before a large black sedan and was regarding the windshield curiously when the front door opened and a man in a chauffeur’s cap stepped out.
“Mr. Cardigan?”
“Yeah.”
The chauffeur saluted, pivoted and opened the rear door. He took Cardigan’s bag, and Cardigan climbed in. The bag landed after him. The chauffeur climbed in front, started the motor, clicked into gear.
Cardigan leaned back, rolled a fresh cigar between his lips, nibbled off the tip, spat it through an open window. He lit up and watched wet buildings flash past. The car turned into the main drag, where trolley bells clanged, auto horns honked, and red neon lights scrawled advertisements in the rainy dark.
“Wet night,” said the chauffeur.
“Lousy.”
“Train was on time, though.”
“Yeah. How far out is this place?”
“It ain’t far. Say, you’re that private dick made such a haul out in St. Louis in the summer, ain’t you?”
“Better keep your eyes on the road,” Cardigan said.
They shot through a railroad underpass, rolled through a tatterdemalion part of the city. The chauffeur’s ears stuck out from his head. He kept wiping sweat from the inside of the windshield. Cardigan was uninterested in the scenery. He was rather fascinated by the way the chauffeur’s ears stuck out.
“Much further?” he asked.
“It ain’t far,” the chauffeur said.
Cardigan squinted at the back of his head, took two long, ruminative puffs. “Stop at the next cigar store. I want to get some pipe tobacco.”
“Mr. Edwards’ll have plenty.”
“That’s all right. I said I want to get some pipe tobacco.”
“All right, then, all right.”
A minute later the chauffeur pulled up to the curb and Cardigan opened the door, stepped out and strode into a cigar store. The windows were opaque with steam. Cardigan slipped into a telephone booth, looked at a yellow slip of paper, made a call. Half a minute later he stepped out, picked up a tin of tobacco and went outside.
“I’ll ride in front,” he said. “Lucky he had my brand.”
“I don’t smoke a pipe,” the chauffeur said, and rolled the car from the curb.
They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Cardigan drew his gun and pressed it against the chauffeur’s ribs.
“Now where the hell are you really going?” he said.
“Hey, what the—”
“Cut it out, you fat-head! Keep your hands on that wheel and don’t try handing me a line.”
The chauffeur was gripping the wheel hard with both hands. He didn’t look at Cardigan. He stared intently through the windshield, his body tense, his shoulders hunched.
“Take the first right-hand turn,” Cardigan said. “Go around the block and back to the city.”
“Cripes, chief—”
“Lay off, lame-brain—lay off. The next time you try to act like a chauffeur—act like one. You’ve been a heel so long that you’re heel-conscious.” He jabbed his gun hard against the man’s ribs, snapped, “Turn right!”
The man heaved on the wheel. The car skidded on the wet pavements, grazed a tree, slewed badly but held its balance. Behind, on the main street they had left, brakes ground and tires screeched. Cardigan looked back and saw a curtained touring car skidding to a stop.
“Step on!” Cardigan muttered.
“Geeze—”
“Step on it!”
The sedan gathered speed. Looking back, Cardigan saw the touring car in reverse. Then he saw it swing into the side street. The sedan swung right again, skidding, and the man at the wheel groaned and cursed.
“Right at the next,” Cardigan said, “and back to the main drag.”
“What a sweet spot you put me in!”
“I’m glad o
f that.”
“They’ll think I’m two-timin’!”
“Swell!”
The chauffeur snarled, “You ain’t sittin’ so pretty yourself!”
The rear end slewed wildly as they took the next right. The rear left wheel struck the opposite curb. The car heaved, slammed back to all fours. The chauffeur threw out the clutch, raced the motor to keep it from stalling, meshed gears again savagely and skidded on the get-away.
The beams of the touring’s headlights sparkled on the rain-beaded rear window of the sedan. The chauffeur sank deep in the seat, gritting his teeth, gripping the wheel low. Cardigan twisted around and hunched down on the floor.
A gun banged in the wet dark. The rear window fell out with a crash. A hole appeared in the center of the nonshatterable windshield, with spiderweb lines radiating.
“Look!” cried the chauffeur. “Look at that!”
“To hell with that! Step on it!”
“Me—I’m gonna stop!”
Cardigan trained his gun on the man. “You stop and I’ll cave in your chest!”
“Oh, Gord! They think ’m two-timin’!”
He swung left into the main drag—wildly. The wheels rasped on the wet pavement, screeched over trolley tracks. The big sedan shuddered. Miraculously it retained its balance, careened away, with the chauffeur’s foot so hard on the throttle that the wheels lost traction momentarily and the rear end swung from left to right. Then the wheels gripped and the sedan shot ahead.
Another hole appeared magically in the windshield. The chauffeur choked and stared at it with horrified eyes. Then he saw a pole directly in front of him. He heaved at the wheel violently. The car slewed, skidded, turned sidewise. It swung all the way around and across the tracks—and around again. The chauffeur gripped the wheel hard, his mouth open, his eyes frozen with horror.
The right front mudguard slammed against a pole. A window fell out of the car with a crash. Guns barked and lead ripped through the sedan’s body. The chauffeur screamed and heaved up and another bullet knocked him down again. The touring car roared past.
Cardigan pushed open the door, pawed glass splinters from his face. He looked once at the chauffeur’s head. Another look was unnecessary. He hauled his bag out of the back of the car, ran with it across the sidewalk, back of a ramshackle house with boarded windows.
He ducked through a gap in a rotten board fence, screwing his feet into wet earth with each step to kill his footprints. He went along back of the fence, then paused in some tall grass, started to reach for his handkerchief; changed his mind. He tore off wet grass, made a pad of it, scrubbed his face and tossed the grass away. The grass and the rain were cold.
Cardigan shivered and threaded his way on back of other board fences, reached a side street and walked away from the main drag. A police siren moaned through the night. By dead reckoning Cardigan walked into the city limits, his coat collar up. The mirror of a chewing-gum slot-machine showed him that his face was not as bad as he had supposed. He sighed, whistled to himself and walked across the sidewalk into a taxi.
“Sixth and Diana,” he said.
At Sixth he got off, walked north on Sixth, turned right at the first intersection and entered the Hotel Flatlands.
THE man sitting behind the enormous flat-topped desk of aged mahogany drew slowly on a large pipe shaped like an inverted question mark. He was massive himself, in keeping with the room’s furnishings. Middle-aged, bald, except for offshoots of grayish hair above the ears, he had a large nose, a fighter’s jaw, a broad, impressive forehead. Through black-ribboned pince-nez he gazed at the stocky youth who sat quivering on a straight-backed chair.
“Be calm, Otto,” said the big man.
“Yes, sir. Y-yes, sir.” The stocky youth’s teeth chattered.
The big man frowned concernedly, rose and went to an eight-legged Boulle cabinet. From it he took decanter and glasses. He carried them to the desk.
“Not Napoleon, Otto, but brandy none the less.”
He gave the youth a stiff jolt. Otto threw it over, choked, spluttered, grimaced. The big man chuckled, but the look in his eyes was not one of humor. Worry was there and a haunted light shimmering deep in the pupils.
Rain thrashed against the French windows.
Otto began stuttering. “I—I couldn’t do anything, sir! They walked up to me—and I could see how their hands were in their pockets. They made me walk away from the car and they kept me in a touring car after one of them took my cap. They held guns against me there. Then after maybe an hour they told me to get out and walk away and say nothing. Our—your car was gone. Then they went too. I—I—”
“You could have done nothing else, Otto. Pull yourself together. That man Cardigan telephoned a second time and I thank God nothing serious has happened to him. He’s on his way out.”
The old negro in black livery came in. “Mr. Cardigan, suh.”
A moment later Cardigan filled the doorway. He had left hat and coat with the butler and stood chafing his hands and staring keenly into the dimly lighted library. His shaggy hair stood out around his head.
The big man rose from behind the mahogany desk, held out his hand. Cardigan crossed the room, shook it, peered levelly at the pince-nez.
“This is Otto Shreiner, my chauffeur,” the big man said.
Otto rose and bowed. Cardigan took him in with a piercing look, said nothing.
The man with the pince-nez said, “Leave us, Otto.”
Otto went out. The grandfather’s clock ticked solemnly.
“Brandy, Mr. Cardigan?”
Cardigan said: “Thanks,” poured himself a tot, sniffed the aroma, then drank it. He squinted one eye at the empty glass. “Well, Mr. Edwards, what’s on your mind?”
“Sit down, won’t you?”
Both sat down, facing each other across the flat-topped desk. The old man took off his pince-nez, leaned back. “First,” he said, “my name’s not Edwards.”
Cardigan, starting a fresh cigar, did not look up until he had it going smoothly. Then he spoke impersonally. “And then what?”
“I am the mayor of the city.”
Cardigan maintained his impersonal stare. “Once I worked for a governor.”
“I said ‘Edwards,’ you know, on long distance because—” He shrugged and held his palms up, then fell into a moody silence.
Cardigan studied the red end of his fresh cigar and started speaking in a low, blunt voice. “All right, then, Mr. Holmes. I expected trouble, anyhow. I always expect trouble when a client telephones long distance, offers to pay all expenses, and adds—‘details on arrival.’ That’s all O.K. by me. It’s my business. But I’ll be twice damned if I like to have trouble pile on my shoulder the minute I step off a train. I’ll stand for almost anything, but I hate to get mixed up in a murder before I know what all the shooting’s for.”
That ripped Holmes out of his moody silence. He half rose, remained that way, exclaimed: “Murder!”
“And why I’m sitting here right now, Mr. Mayor, is one of the reasons why I believe in luck, a rabbit’s foot and words like abracadabra.”
Holmes fell back into the chair, gripping the sides. “But—you said—murder!”
“Don’t take it so hard. It happens every day. Besides, the guy that got it was a hood anyhow. He was the nice little boy that played chauffeur and started to take me places. But I had a hunch the minute we started that something was wrong. So I phoned you from that cigar store and asked what your chauffeur looked like.”
Holmes squared his jaw. “Did you have to kill him, by God?”
“Me? Hell, no. His pals did it. Trailing us in another car. When I made the hood turn around his pals got sore and opened the fireworks. I ducked out and kept my mouth shut. Did you report the theft of your car to the police?”
But Holmes was still thinking of murder. “Murder—murder,” he repeated in a far-away voice.
“Did you?”
“Oh— Well, Otto did. At the railway station
.”
“What did he tell them?”
“Just that three men had forced him away, held him prisoner for an hour, then let him go.”
“Did he say he was waiting for me?”
“No.”
“I’ve got to be sure. I’ve got to be sure because I want to know how I stand with the cops.”
“Otto is in my confidence.”
Cardigan got up and took a turn up and down the room. He stopped and looked at the mayor. “Where did you telephone me from, your office?”
“No—here. Right here.”
“Any other phones in the house on this line?”
“No.”
“All right. Then your wire was tapped. You’ll hear about the murder soon enough, and your recovered car. Tell that chauffeur of yours to keep his mouth shut. You keep yours. Your enemies, whoever they are, know I’m working for you. That may be tough for you, but it’s tougher for me. And now—” Cardigan sat down—“why am I here?”
Holmes leaned forward. “To recover a check for twenty thousand dollars that I made payable to one Roberta Callahan, a notorious woman.”
“In other words, if this check gets to certain hands the notoriety won’t do you any good.”
“It will ruin me.”
“You don’t look like the kind of man would run around with a dangerous piece of fluff. Still, there was a governor—”
“I assure you I’m not,” Holmes said with quiet dignity.
“Philanthropy?”
“Don’t be droll. My son Edgar’s a rather gay blade, and I did it for his sake. He became badly tangled with this woman and there was only one way out. I bought her off. I gave her my personal check for twenty thousand dollars two weeks ago. She immediately blossomed out in a new roadster, moved into a fine apartment—”
“You mean you want the cancelled check?”
“No—no. The check has not been through my bank. Don’t you see? She cashed the check with someone—someone who is holding it against me. And I want that check.”
“What makes you think some guy’s holding it?”
Holmes tilted his jaw. “You know me—or of me, rather. The reform mayor. By Judas Priest, I am that! Edgar had to get himself involved with that—woman—and I, naturally being his father, had to get him out of it. Hence my check. And would a photograph of that check, printed in the daily tabloid here, help my reform platform? No—you needn’t reply. The answer is obvious.”
The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 1: 1931-32 Page 5