Cardigan sat down on one of the chairs, looked at his watch, spread a newspaper and held it up before his face. Whenever he heard anyone at the phones he looked over the top of the paper and listened. At eight-thirty he heard a woman’s voice say, “Mr. Cardigan, please.”
He looked over the top of the paper and saw a tall, well-dressed girl in profile. She had on beige stockings of a weave called waffle, a modified Eugenie hat made of straw, and a blouselike jacket of transparent blue velvet with a skirt to match. When she hung up and turned away Cardigan raised the paper in front of his face. A moment later he was aware of another presence and, looking around a corner of the paper, saw the girl walking into the lounge with a large, bull-necked man. They disappeared around an L, and Cardigan lowered his paper and smiled to himself.
He rose, went into the lobby and caught an elevator up. He barged into his room—1115—and swung up the in-a-door bed which a maid had let down. Two doors closed and hid the bed in its compartment. The room was large, mannish and well furnished. He opened a window facing east. The night was bright, and he could see near the river the tall stacks of the New York Edison Company and the lights of Tudor City.
The telephone rang from a misplaced end table near a lowboy. “Hello,” Cardigan said. “Yes, sure…. Come right up.”
He hung up, and his right hand slapped a gun’s bulge on his hip. His heavy eyebrows met each other over his nose in hurried thought. His eyes glittered in deep sockets. He heaved out of his coat, put on a shaggy dressing gown. He sat down, took off his shoes and put on slippers. From the desk he took a small Colt automatic, slipped it into one of the shoes. He placed the shoes neatly beneath an armchair. He went to a south window facing an open court and looked up two stories at the rail of the solarium on the roof. He pulled the shade all the way down.
When the brass knocker on the door sounded Cardigan slushed his loose slippers across the carpet and opened the door. The tall girl stood there smiling.
“Come in,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He looked down at her as she sauntered past, then closed the door which locked itself automatically.
Chapter Three
Russian Lallapazza
THE GIRL was an almost-platinum blonde who apparently knew the virtues of cosmetics. Her eyebrows were penciled black; her lips wore a rouge that was very dark. Worth or Patou or someone equally as chic must have sponsored the ensemble of dark blue velvet.
“I called at eight-thirty,” she said. “You weren’t in.”
“I was taking a turn up on the roof and forgot the time. If I’d known you were such a knockout, I’d have been hours early. Smoke?”
She took a cigarette, and he struck a match. Her fingernails were lacquered red. “I’m Lorraine Valhoff,” she said.
He was lighting his own cigarette. “You came alone, I suppose.”
“Why, of course.”
He smiled. “That’s very swell.” He sat down and dropped his chin to his chest. His shaggy mop of hair flopped down over his forehead. “So now what, Miss Valhoff?”
“Well, I was desperate when I telephoned you this afternoon. I am alone in the world, and a woman alone finds it difficult to fight men. Especially when something big is at stake. You were good to grant me an interview.”
“Not at all. It’s my business.”
She nodded. “That’s what I had hoped. And I want to ask you again, Mr. Cardigan: can I be certain that whatever passes between us will remain a secret?”
“Miss Valhoff, I’ll be as aboveboard with you as you are with me.”
“Yes. Yes, of course— These diamonds over which the man was killed are mine.”
“No!”
“Yes. Yes, they are mine. They were stolen from me in Cairo six months ago—five of them. They’re of the first water. My husband, when he died, left them to me. He was a diamond merchant in South Africa. They’re worth approximately ninety thousand dollars.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“If the diamonds are brought to light through the usual channels, I shall have to pay a heavy duty on them. I do not live in America. My home is in Paris. If I could get back these diamonds I would find a way of getting them back into France. That is why I came to you.”
Cardigan said, “You probably know that a client’s engaged me to protect him from a clique that thinks he has those diamonds.”
She said, “I know the man who brought those diamonds to this country.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Charles Wheeler.”
He leaned an elbow on one knee. “Go ahead.”
“The man who took those diamonds from me was named Carl Uhl. He escaped from Cairo, went to Rome and then went to Algiers. There he was attacked by another man who was also after these diamonds. He escaped, but badly wounded, and was taken in by an expatriate England doctor. He died there. It is certain that this doctor took those diamonds, because other effects of Carl Uhl’s were found in his possession. He was killed by the man who killed Carl Uhl, but this man found no diamonds, nor was there any report of diamonds having been found. But Charles Wheeler was intimate with the doctor, and directly after the doctor was killed Wheeler fled to Paris. These events I have pieced together. I am now alone against Wheeler and against a clique that is against both Wheeler and me.”
Cardigan leaned back. “So then I’m supposed to get these diamonds for you.”
“You would be returning them to the rightful owner.”
“And how about the client I’m working for now?”
She sighed wistfully. “I am a woman—a woman alone—of gentle birth and breeding and unaccustomed to dramatics such as have been going on since Cairo. I don’t know what to do. My people were exterminated during the revolution in Russia, and I fled with what jewels I could gather on short notice. These diamonds mean a lot to me. My livelihood!”
He said, “How much would I get out of it?”
“I thought—perhaps—ten per cent. Is that not usual?”
“Nothing is usual in this business, Miss Valhoff. We try to get as much as we can.”
“Perhaps even—well—twelve thousand—”
He took a long time to grind out his cigarette. “My client tells me that he hasn’t got the diamonds, that he never has had them and that if he did have them, he’d give them up.”
She quivered. “That is a lie!”
Cardigan stood up and jammed his hands into the pockets of his dressing robe. “Who was the guy bumped off Tracy?”
She started. “I— One of the clique, I suppose. I tell you that I am all of atwitter over these goings-on and hardly know who is who any more. Please, Mr. Cardigan—”
“Now, hold on. If you expect me to fall head over heels, you’re ahead of yourself, Miss Valhoff. I’m working for a client and you want me to double-cross him.”
“But I am in the right! The diamonds belong to me!”
“How am I to know that?”
“Because I am telling you! Because it is the truth!”
“Have you any proof?”
She rose dramatically. “In those days of turmoil when I fled from Russia, how could I take proof? I was only a little child. I fled with my uncle who later was assassinated in the streets of Constantinople.” Her voice shook— “Don’t you believe me, Mr. Cardigan?”
SLIGHTLY exasperated, Cardigan stood on wide-spread feet, his fists jammed against his hips. She came across to him, her eyes and lips pleading. Her long attenuated fingers gripped the lapels of his dressing gown. There was about her a faint breath of attar of roses. Back of the irises of her eyes was a translucent green shimmer.
Her voice was a throaty purr. “You are so big and strong. You would not deny a woman alone who is incapable of combating the wickedness of adventurers. Would you?”
Her hands rose and were cool against his jaw. He remained rooted to the floor, rocklike, and his eyes seemed to recede farther into their sockets until they were mere horizontal glints
.
He said, “Pretty cute.”
She pressed closer to him.
He said, “Before your name was Valhoff, what was it?”
She said nothing, but kept pressing her pliant body closer and staring at him with her shimmering green eyes.
“I’ve had many a racket pulled on me,” he said, “but this is a lallapazza. I could fall for you any day, sister, if Wheeler didn’t happen to be an old pal of mine. I like ’em tall like you, and good-looking—like you—but those eyes, sister, they spell trouble.” He stepped back and laughed good-humoredly. “Scram while I still take it as a joke.”
She recoiled and stood like a tall quivering flame. Color rushed over her face, and her hands clenched. “I did not come here to be insulted!” she exclaimed.
“You came here to try to make me one way or another, and I’m telling you to take the air. You can’t sell me a damned thing. Now take it before I get nasty.”
There was a sharp rap on the door.
Cardigan’s hand slapped his hip-pocket. “Who’s there?”
“Me—Bone.”
He looked at the woman. He went close to her, muttered, “Sit down there and say nothing.”
Then he went to the door and opened it, and Bone stood there with Fogel, the house dick.
Cardigan said, “Haven’t you got any kind of a home? A room of your own somewhere?”
Bone’s face was dull. “What the hell did you mean by giving me the slip in the subway?”
“I meant it as hint that I don’t care to have you shadow-boxing all over the city after me.”
Bone pushed in, and Fogel came after him. But Cardigan pushed Fogel in the chest. “No you don’t.”
“I’m coming in here!” Fogel snapped.
“You’re not coming in!” Cardigan laid the flat of his hand against Fogel’s face and sent the house dick careening into the corridor. He slammed the door and spun on Bone. “I’m getting tired of this, Abe! It’s come to a swell pass when I can’t eat or enjoy the comforts of home without having you master-minding on my neck all the time!”
Bone was looking at the woman. “You know what I’m after, Cardigan, and you know blamed well that I’m a hound for punishment. I hang to a thing till I bleed.”
Cardigan said, “Just now I happen to be entertaining. Miss Valhoff, this is Lieutenant Bone, one of our great modern detectives. He read Sherlock Holmes at a tender age, and it had a bad effect on his brain. He stops perfect strangers on the street and springs questions like, ‘Where were you at 9:36 on the night of January such-and-such a date?’ So don’t pay any attention to him.”
Unimpressed, gloomy-eyed Bone regarded the woman. “I’m glad to meet you, Miss Valhoff.”
The woman sat stiffly in the chair, breath bated and a puzzled half-frightened look in her eyes. “How—how do you do, lieutenant.”
Bone looked wearily at Cardigan. “I suppose Miss Valhoff is another client.”
“Once,” Cardigan said, “I tailed a Mexican hairless of hers into the fleshpots of Hoboken and brought him back. Since then we’ve been friends.”
“Still funny, ain’t you?”
Cardigan did not look so. He looked dark and mean, and his steady gaze bordered on the malignant. “When you bust into my place like this you can expect goofy answers to anything you ask.”
Bone looked at the woman. “Are you here as a client, Miss Valhoff, or as—”
Cardigan stepped in front of Bone. “Listen to me, Abe. Get this. Get it straight and remember it. I don’t care a hoot who you are or what you are. I wouldn’t care a hoot if you were the commissioner himself, which thank God you’ll never be. But get me, baby—get me. You’ve no right in here. You’ve no right to ask anybody any questions in here. You get the hell out of my place and stay out.”
Bone raised his knobby chin, but his eyes remained gloomy, his face changeless. “Yeah?” he asked tonelessly.
“And don’t think that strong-silent-man crap goes over big, either.”
Bone said, “You had a date tonight, Cardigan—such an important one that you were in a hurry to shake me.”
“I had an appointment with Miss Valhoff.”
“I see that. I want to find out what it’s all about.”
“You’ve found out. Good cripes almighty, can’t I even have a nice sociable date any more?”
Bone stepped to one side and looked at the woman. “Miss Valhoff, why did you come here tonight?”
She was poised again, almost languid. “To pay a friendly call on Mr. Cardigan for what you call old times’ sake. If I am intruding—” she shrugged— “of course, it will be better that I leave.”
Cardigan got in front of Bone again. “I mean it, Abe—by God I mean it! Get out!” His voice was low, throaty, with a subdued fierceness. “You don’t get out right now, and I’ll go down to the commissioner tomorrow and put up such a hot smell that you’ll get kicked out into the sticks. As a private citizen I’ve got certain rights. You might be able to pull this noise on some punk, but I’m damned if you can pull it on me!”
Bone’s voice was dull. “You’re rubbing me the wrong way, Cardigan.”
“As if I care whether I rub you up, down or across. You’re not God Almighty! Now slide out of here, shamus—slide out!”
Bone flexed his lips once, clipped, “Have it your way, then, wiseacre,” and went to the door, opened it and, going out, bumped into Fogel who had been listening at the keyhole. Cardigan booted the door shut. It banged. He barged into the little serving pantry and hove into the living room a minute later carrying a drink.
Miss Valhoff was smiling. “It is obvious, Mr. Cardigan, that you would be an uncommonly bad man to antagonize.”
“Take that as a lesson then, Miss Valhoff.”
“It was very good of you to conceal from the lieutenant that I came here as a potential client.”
“It wasn’t for your—” He stopped short, took a drink. A flush of red undermined the brown of his big face.
She said, “I am sorry you will not champion my cause. I would be very grateful. In the Midi I have a charming villa.” Her eyes became seductive. “You would like the Midi.” She rose, purring, “I like a man like you—dark, stormy, capable and unafraid.”
He dipped his head. “Thank you. I don’t blame you.”
“And one who is rather—conceited. I like conceit when it is violent and healthy.”
“Thanks again. But I never mix business with pleasure—especially where a woman is concerned. It took me ten years to learn that, Miss Valhoff—and sometimes I still weaken. But not tonight. You’d better watch out that Bone doesn’t follow you. Change cabs at least three times on your way home.”
“This, I suppose, is dismissal?”
He made a mock bow. “Much to my sorrow.”
She shrugged and sauntered to the door. With her hand on the knob she turned and said curiously, “It was very strange, the way you tried to conceal from the lieutenant that I did not come here as a client.”
He said nothing. She smiled, turned the knob, opened the door, sauntered out. The door clicked shut.
CARDIGAN kicked off his slippers, took the gun from one of his shoes, replaced it in the desk. In a minute he was dressed. He caught the freight elevator down and ducked out the service entrance into the street. Reaching the corner of Lexington Avenue, he saw Miss Valhoff and the bull-necked man walking north. He crossed the street and walked north also. The woman and the man crossed and headed west into Thirty-ninth Street. Cardigan stopped on the corner of Thirty-eighth and looked around. He did not see Bone.
He turned west into Thirty-eighth and walked fast to Park Avenue, reaching it in time to see the woman and the man going north past the Princeton Club. Cardigan went north on the east side of the street and did not cross till he saw Miss Valhoff and her escort turn west into Fortieth. He tailed them across Madison and Fifth, past the back of the library toward Sixth Avenue. At Sixth Avenue they entered a taxi, and Cardigan jumped one com
ing east on Fortieth, at the corner.
“See that yellow starting off? Tail it.”
An elevated train thrashed by overhead and stopped at Forty-second Street. The yellow turned east and then south on Fifth. Turned east again on Fortieth and turned north to take the Park Avenue ramp around Grand Central Terminal. It struck out north past the new Waldorf. At Forty-seventh Street the man and the woman switched taxis.
“Pass ’em,” Cardigan said, and switched cabs himself at Forty-eighth. Once in the second cab, he said, “That blue one that just passed, tail it.”
Another change was made at Fiftieth and Lexington. Cardigan changed, too, and followed them west on Fifty-first street, north on Madison. At the corner of Fifty-fourth and Madison the man and the woman got out. It was a traffic stop, and Cardigan sat in his cab while paying up and saw the two head east on Fifty-fourth. He got out and reached the corner. He got behind three men walking east and saw the man and the woman climb steps to a brownstone front.
He stopped. After a minute he crossed the street and looked up at the face of the house. Lighted windows showed on the first and third floors. He waited. Presently he saw two windows on the fourth floor, at the left, light up. He caught a glimpse of the woman as she drew down the shades.
He turned and saw a familiar figure coming along in the shadows. He recognized the dumpy walk as Fogel’s. As he turned, Fogel ducked into an areaway. Cardigan cursed silently for a long minute. Then his jaw tightened. He crossed the street and mounted the steps of a house two doors from the one which the Valhoff woman and the man had entered.
He pressed a button at random and after a moment the door clicked open and the lock kept clicking as he entered a large, dimly lighted corridor. He took a packet of matches from his pocket and jammed it at the bottom of the door so that it would not close completely.
Then he hid in the dark stair well. He heard a door open above, heard footsteps. After a minute the footsteps receded, and a door closed. Two minutes later Cardigan saw Fogel slip into the hallway, heard the door close gently. Fogel walked on tiptoes, reached the foot of the staircase, listened, then began climbing.
The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 1: 1931-32 Page 21