The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 1: 1931-32

by Frederick Nebel

  Cardigan grumbled: “Poor kid,” and regarding her gravely, his thatchlike eyebrows shadowing his eyes.

  “That was Sergeant Conkey, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry, chief.”

  “Forget it. Only Conkey has something up his sleeve. He put on a fine act here. He gets me, that guy does. I always expect him to pull rabbits or something out of his hat. They know who Bartles is—or was. It was a jewel-store stick-up in Indianapolis.”

  “Really!”

  Cardigan nodded and went dejectedly to the window where he stood, spread-legged, staring down into Olive Street. A scowl began to overshadow his face, his lips tightened and then curled in a wintry, sardonic smile.

  Conkey and Morris Katz were standing on the corner, talking.

  CARDIGAN lunched in the Clevely Coffee Shop, then climbed into a taxi and said: “Ellsworth and Hale,” and settled back with a dappled cigar. The sky was overcast, the air muggy and motionless. Sounds reechoed with a dull, heavy clarity, as in a fog. Street cars slam-banged over switches and trucks came up like thunder out of side streets. Neon lights scrawled red script in the gloom.

  Far over on the South Side Hale Street crossed Ellsworth and Cardigan got out and stood on the corner watching the taxi disappear. A block north an old brewery reared forlornly. Squat, dumpy houses crowded each other in a galaxy of colors, heights and stages of decay.

  Cardigan turned down Ellsworth. The street was shoddy, quiet. A rusty garbage can, overturned and empty, gave the impression that everybody in the street had packed up and gone away. 205 Ellsworth was a narrow frame house with a door flush with the cracked sidewalk. The windows of its three stories were shattered.

  Cardigan used a gloved hand to try the knob and miraculously the door swung open. Something scraped on the floor. It was the black snap lock that Pat had unscrewed. Cardigan closed the door and stood for a moment in the dim, musty hallway. Presently he groped his way till he found the staircase. He climbed slowly, a step at a time, and paused on the first landing. Hearing no sound, he moved and found the second staircase and climbed to the top.

  There was a door slightly ajar. He drew his gun and swung the door open. Light filtered in from a dirty window. The room was empty. The mattress of a bed had been removed to the floor. Obviously this was the room in which Pat had been detained. He retired quietly and moved down the hall. In another room, a larger one, he found six five-gallon crocks of mash. In another room he found a still. A third room was empty of anything but dust.

  He went down the staircase to the second floor and stood for a moment in perplexed indecision. Then he moved and his groping hand found a door, groped until it found a knob which he turned slowly. The door gave. A glow of wan daylight hung outside the horizontal blinds of dark shutters but did not penetrate the room.

  His knee struck something and there was a slight metallic squeak. A bed-spring. He pulled a match from his pocket, struck it on a thumb nail and watched the glow spread to a wide-eyed face on the bed. He blew the match out abruptly and breathed quickly once or twice. He moved and swung his arm in an arc above his head, over and over, until a chain rattled against glass. He pulled the chain and light flooded the room.

  There were two beds in the room. On each bed lay a dead man. One was big, burly, the contour of his head and shoulders was similar to that of the big man who had cracked him in Bartles’ apartment. The smaller man’s mouth was slack showing broken teeth. On each man’s throat were fingermarks.

  Cardigan’s heavy brown features froze in a grimace that lasted a long minute. He put his hands in his overcoat pockets and stood looking vaguely around the room. Presently he crossed to an old roll-top desk. There was a sheet of paper on which figures had been scrawled, added at the bottom making a total of $243.50. In a pigeon-hole was a batch of papers: advertisements of various kinds of malt, flavoring, a Burlington time-table, a clipping from a magazine setting forth the advantages of Wildflower Hair Tonic and another advertising a full set of false teeth—former price twenty-five dollars, reduced to nineteen-fifty. A pamphlet entitled, How to Win the Girl of Your Dreams, a speakeasy address in Columbus, Ohio, a magazine picture of Clara Bow, a pink handbill, slightly yellow, advertising The Vagabond Road Show, on the lower half of which were photographs of a man and a girl: Vantura & Arline, Famous Acrobats.

  “Um,” mumbled Cardigan.

  Arline was the same girl whose picture Conkey had found in the back of Bartles’ watch.

  Cardigan folded the handbill and stuffed it into his pocket, returned the other papers to the pigeon-hole. He pivoted and regarded the two dead men on the bed. He took slow steps across the room and stopped short when he heard a sound from the hallway. His right hand plunged into his pocket, came out gripping his gun.

  He watched the half-open door. He saw a hand holding a gun come into the shaft of light that escaped the room. He moved to one side and his jaw hardened.

  “Hello, chief,” Katz said and lowered his gun.

  Chapter Four

  Katz Cuts In—And Out

  CARDIGAN went to the doorway and stood looking stonily at Katz. Katz put his hands in his pocket and stood rocking easily on his heels and waving the skirt of his long tan polo coat.

  “Thought you might need help, chief.”

  Cardigan put away his gun and lifted his hard brown jaw, opened the door wide and said: “How’s your stomach, Katz?”

  Katz saw the dead men on the bed and drew a secret little smirk across his lips, leaving his handsome white teeth bared.

  “Dead, I take it.”

  “Smart, you are,” Cardigan said. “Smart-alecky.”

  Katz acknowledged this with a raised eyebrow, sauntered into the room, looked icily at each of the dead men and then glanced negligently about the room. He walked to a chair, sat down and hung a long leg over one knee.

  “Cute,” he said.

  Cardigan muttered: “What’s on your mind?”

  “Fifty per cent.”

  “I thought maybe you’d want eighty.”

  “No use being sarcastic, Cardigan.”

  Cardigan snapped: “You dirty cake-eater, you can go to hell!”

  “Can I?” droned Katz, smiling. “You wouldn’t be talking out of turn, would you?” He folded his arms, revealing a strap-watch held to his wrist by gold links. “You can’t waltz me around, chief. There’s dough in this and I’m going to horn in for a cozy slice of it.”

  “Yeah… and where’s the dough?”

  “That, mastermind, I leave to you.”

  “I see. I go around taking the chances, maybe get it, maybe not—and if I do, you get fifty-fifty.”

  “Precisely.”

  “What a belly laugh I get out o’ that!” Cardigan put his hands on his stomach, then took them away, made fists and jammed the fists into his pockets. His face became overshadowed and lowering and a dull, malignant fire glowed in his eyes. “You heard me, you cheap tinhorn. You heard me. Ixnay. Nix.” He opened one fist and sliced his hand through the air. “Nix!”

  Katz stood up, tall and lean and smoothly hard, his satin-dark jaw gleaming. His voice droned: “You thick Irish tramp, if you have to report this to the cops, they’ll wonder how come you happened to find these guys. Just as how come you found Bartles. They’ll know these mugs.”

  “Who,” Cardigan intoned dully, “says I have to report this to the cops?”

  Katz tapped his own chest. “I do—me. I do unless I get a fifty per cent rake-off. By God, there’s dough in this and you’re not going to hog it!”

  “This is not an agency job, Katz. The agency has to stay out of it. I stumbled into this and I’m not asking anybody to take chances with me. It’s a rough go. There’ve been three murders inside of twenty-four hours and—”

  “I’m not taking chances, Cardigan—not me. I’m standing by, marking time. You’re taking the chances. I’m not even going to get my feet wet. I’m going to watch you.”

  Card
igan said, scarce above a whisper: “What a sweet stinking rat you turned out to be. Well—” his voice banged suddenly—“to hell with you!”

  “To hell with me—and I wise the cops. They’ll find these stiffs before the day’s out—but I’ll wise them beforehand who found them.”

  “I said—to hell with you.”

  Katz warned: “Conkey’s no fool. I told Conkey I’d keep an eye on you.”

  “You heard what I said.”

  Katz inhaled, walked to the desk and picked up the telephone. He held it before him reluctant to raise the receiver. “Think it over, Cardigan. Think fast. We can get a big rake-off out of this. There’s fifteen per cent of eighty thousand for the guy that gets those emeralds. Half an’ half of that, Cardigan—”

  “Half and half of hell! What I said stands!”

  “Thick, stubborn and Irish, eh?”

  “Thick, stubborn and Irish,” Cardigan said.

  Katz said: “O.K.,” and took off the receiver.

  IRRITABLE, moody-eyed, Fitz entered the room with quick, short steps, looked at the bodies on the bed and went to the closer of the two. Conkey bounded heavily through the doorway, threw his stomach out, sneezed violently. Fitz half turned and scowled irritably.

  “Pepper,” Conkey said, and winked.

  Fitz rasped matter-of-factly: “Same thing as Bartles. Choked.”

  Uniformed policemen circulated and the coroner’s man came in jauntily, said: “Tsk! Tsk!” and pranced over beside Fitz.

  Fitz stood up and his face jerked into tight, sarcastic lines. “It’s beginning to be a source of wonder to me, Cardigan, how the living hell you manage to be first on the scene of every murder in this town.”

  Conkey exclaimed: “’S marvelous, ain’t it!” and beamed.

  “Shut up,” Fitz clipped shortly.

  The coroner’s man said: “Simple strangulation. No! I think chloroform was used first. Indeed! But not—not on the other fellow. You know—what’s his name—Bottles.”

  “Bartles,” Conkey said.

  “Oh, yes—oh, yes—Bartley.”

  “Well?” snapped Fitz, looking hard and bitter at Cardigan.

  Cardigan stirred. “Well, here it is: Miss Seaward, my operative, was kidnaped last night when she left my apartment. I didn’t know it until she turned up in my office this morning. She said two men had waylaid her, blindfolded her and taken her away. She was beaten; she fainted. When she came to she pried her way out of the room on the top floor, pried her way out of the hall door below—at about dawn. She was sick and didn’t get back to the office until late. She remembered the address. I came out here to get tough and found these bodies. Katz, here, thinking I was going into danger, covered me.”

  “How long did it take you to make up that story?” Fitz asked.

  “About a minute—since you came in here.”

  “Don’t be funny.”

  “I’m not. What the hell do you want me to do, break down and get dramatic?”

  Conkey chirped, gleefully: “These are the guys all right! Arnie Oldham and George Beef Cunarko! That’s three! Then there’s the jane and a guy named Doke. Bless my soul—”

  “All right, all right,” Fitz cut in irritably.

  A cop poked in, said: “There’s mash and a still upstairs.”

  Conkey dived down between the two beds like a hippo and came up, staggering but beaming, and holding a charred cigarette. “See! Rouge on it, too! Holy Moses, I’d hate to have a jane like that!”

  Fitz took the butt from him, examined it beneath the light, then tucked it away in his wallet and bent exasperated eyes on Cardigan.

  “This crime links up with the Bartles one. It’s queer as hell how you happened to be on both.”

  “I explained, didn’t I?”

  “What did they kidnap the woman for?”

  “She didn’t stay long enough to find out. I imagine they wanted her as hostage, hoping to get out of me some information. Maybe they thought Bartles had engaged me already and I knew a lot. Something like that, anyhow.”

  Conkey exploded in an uproar of mirth. “How’s the hurt on your head, Cardigan?”

  “Swell.”

  Conkey pawed gleefully at Fitz’s sleeve and bubbled: “Yeah, Cardigan’s got a hurt on his head. He said—ho! ho!—it was a door! Bless my soul!”

  Katz looked askance at Cardigan and Fitz crossed the room and stopped very close to Cardigan.

  Fitz said crisply: “I don’t like monkeyshines, Cardigan.”

  “I never liked them myself—”

  “Cut it!”

  Cardigan knew good metal when he saw it. He knew Fitz. This lean, moody, rasp-voiced man was nobody’s fool.

  Cardigan said: “I told you what, Fitz. Whether you take it or leave it there’s nothing you can do about it. Maybe you think I know who murdered Bartles and these two guys. I don’t. I swear by God that—right now—I don’t know. Conkey—bless my soul—thinks a bump on my head means something. And what about that?… I came here to bust two guys who gave Miss Seaward a rough deal. I found them dead.”

  Fitz looked at Katz. “What about you?”

  “I covered him up.”

  Cardigan glanced quizzically at Katz and Conkey rocked hugely on his heels and pawed happily at his jowls.

  The coroner’s man said: “These men have been dead about twelve hours or so.”

  Fitz, swallowing, looked bitterly at Cardigan and said: “I’d like to do something to you, Cardigan.”

  “Only call your shots, Fitz. That badge you wear don’t make you God.”

  “You can’t lone-wolf it in this man’s town.”

  “When I can’t,” Cardigan said, “tell me.”

  “I’m telling you now!”

  Cardigan smiled. “You ought to know by this time, Fitz, that I’m no pushover.”

  HE buttoned his coat, yanked his hat lower and strode to the door. He plunged down the stairs and walked up Ellsworth. When he was nearing Hale he heard footfalls and saw Katz following. He stopped at the corner and kept baleful eyes on Katz while the latter drew nearer.

  “You smell, Katz. You play both ends against the middle—you and me against Conkey and Fitz, or you and Conkey against Fitz.”

  “Any means toward an end. Dough in my pocket is as good as it is in yours.”

  “Only it won’t ever be in yours.”

  “So says you.”

  “You don’t rate, Katz. You’re small change and you’re all spent. If I catch you on my tail again I’ll cave in those pretty teeth of yours.”

  He pivoted and strode off.

  When he barged into his office carrying three newspapers Miss Gillian fluttered.

  “Oh, I’m g-glad you’re back safe.”

  “What now?”

  “Oh, I just had a f-feeling.”

  He grinned, said: “That’s a nice dress you have on,” and went on into his private office.

  Pat said: “I found out finally that that Maloney girl has been robbing the till at that restaurant for three months to support a drunken brother.”

  “O.K.,” Cardigan said. “Write the report out in full and I’ll sign it and shoot it to our client…. Well, there’s been another murder—two.”

  “Where?”

  “Where you spent the night.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  “The two guys who kidnaped you. And Katz—well, Katz is trying to bust into big time. The dirty louse tried to bargain with me and I told him where to get off.”

  “How were they killed?”

  Cardigan held up his hands and looked at her.

  She said: “Doesn’t this put you in a tough spot?”

  “Kind of—but I like it. Go ahead and make that report up. I’m busy.”

  She left the room, regarding him over her shoulder. He began turning sheets of one paper, scanning the columns closely. He finished with it and started on the second, turning sheet after sheet until finally his forefinger settled on an advertisement. He took shears from
a drawer, made two slices upward, one across, lifting a column a foot long. He cut off ten inches of this, retained the smaller portion, leaned back and studied it reflectively, then slipped it into his vest pocket.

  For five minutes he sat motionless, his fingers interlocked, stormy shadows moving in his eyes. Then he slapped a palm on the desk and called: “Miss Gilligan!”

  She appeared in the doorway with a notebook.

  “Take a letter.”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Address it to me, the Cosmos Agency, and so forth, dear sir. All right. ‘Dear Sir: I hereby tender my resignation, under the above date. Trusting you will accept, I remain.’ That’s all. Draw a check to Morris Katz for—” he figured on a pad “—twenty-seven-fifty. I’ll sign it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  When Katz sauntered in, an hour later, Cardigan pointed and said, offhand: “Sign that.”

  Katz leaned on his arms, read the letter, looked, at Cardigan. “Funny, aren’t you?”

  “Sign it or I’ll fire you.”

  “Like hell I’ll sign it.”

  Cardigan reached over, removed the clip which attached the check to the letter and slapped the check down. “O.K. Have it your way. You’re fired.”

  “Now just a minute, big boy—”

  “Shut up!” Cardigan rose ominously, pointed to the check. “Take that and get to hell out of my office before I throw you out!”

  “Why you lousy Irish—”

  Cardigan’s fist arced briefly, hit Katz on the jaw, drove him reeling across the room. Katz struck the connecting door. The square glass panel fell out with a crash and Miss Gilligan yelped from the outer office. As Katz rose Cardigan crowded him.

  “Now get, you poaching, two-timing punk.”

  Katz straightened, brushed glass splinters from his sleeve, adjusted his hat. His eyes glittered and his lips were drawn lightly across his teeth.

  “O.K.,” he breathed, turned, went out.

  Cardigan said: “Miss Gilligan, write out a new check and deduct two-fifty for the glass panel Mr. Katz broke.”