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

by Frederick Nebel

  The room was small. One window overlooked a courtyard. It was the modest room of a man of small means—neat, a little shabby, comfortable. Cardigan went to work. Clothes were hung orderly on hangars; two pairs of shoes, polished, stood side by side and rigid with shoetrees. Linen lay neatly in bureau drawers. Paper, writing materials, lay on a small desk. The desk drawer was locked, but Cardigan opened it. A packet of letters was held in shape by rubber bands. There was a checkbook showing a balance of $248.50. There was a savings-account book from which, over a period of fifteen months, a total of $8,000 had been withdrawn; the balance was for $100. Cardigan read the letters, frowned, shook his head. He hunted around for canceled checks, found none. Finally he replaced everything in order, stood for a moment immersed in thought, then left the room, locked the door.

  He took a cab to the Traum & Fleer establishment on Fifth Avenue. Carl Traum, the senior partner, was a pale, distant man behind a tremendous mahogany desk. He did not rise when Cardigan entered. He did not stop writing. The office was silent but for the scratching of his pen. He did not look up.

  “News?” he said in a dry, flat voice.

  Cardigan said: “You satisfied as to the integrity of your man Micah?”

  The pen scratched on. “Why do you ask?”

  “Naturally I want to take all angles into consideration. I know that in two months he’ll have been with you ten years.”

  “Not quite. That is, Micah finishes here the end of this month.”

  “Firing him?”

  “Not because of this. He received notice the first of the month. Times are hard. We’ve had to cut down. I have utmost faith in Micah. This was indeed unfortunate. There has never been an irregularity in the house of Traum and Fleer. We could, you understand, hardly afford it. This was plainly a ruse, a daring daylight robbery. I can’t understand why the police let that fellow go.”

  “You can’t arrest a man when the victim can’t identify him. I’m interested in Micah.”

  Traum laid down his pen, sat back, laid his fragile hands on the desk. Rimless spectacles glittered coldly beneath frosty white eyebrows; the thin, hueless face was bare of expression.

  He said: “We have retained your agency for twelve years, Mr. Cardigan. It’s your duty to keep, at all times, an eye on our men. Men do not turn thieves over night. Your regular reports on Micah have been such as to cause us no qualms. It is your business to warn us of any irregularity before an unpleasantness occurs. The house of Traum and Fleer can’t afford a scandal. It has paid you well for protection against the unexpected.”

  Cardigan regarded him for a long moment in silence. “Do I understand I’m to drop this case?”

  “Did I say so? No. You’re to recover this bracelet, if possible, but you’re not to choose a man at random merely because other channels might call for more work. Insurance companies are becoming pretty careful. I don’t want rumors to get around that this was an inside job. Rumors are dangerous things. Only the facts must be used, my dear Mr. Cardigan. I value, you understand, the reputation of my firm. I believe—have I said this before?—that Micah is thoroughly honest.”

  He picked up his pen, returned to writing. Cardigan knew that the interview was over. His “Good-by” was hardly more than a husky whisper. He went out, nursing a peculiar feeling of frustration. The insurance company, he realized, would have to pay through the nose if the bracelet were not recovered. It was plain that Traum was more interested in the reputation of his firm than in the recovery of the bracelet. He wanted the bracelet but it would not please him if Micah turned out to be a thief.

  CARDIGAN phoned the agency from a drug store booth. He was told that Pat had called up from a booth in the lobby of the Hotel Gold. She had tailed Kinnard there and was awaiting further instructions. Cardigan grabbed a cab and dropped off five minutes later in front of the Gold. He found Pat sitting in the lobby.

  “So what?” he said.

  “I picked him up when you left him at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street. He took a cab and I took one and he came right here. He didn’t stop to make any calls. I didn’t hesitate about walking right in after him. He went to the desk for mail. There was none. See that big leather chair over there? There was a girl sitting in it. Nice. Did she know how to wear clothes! Kinnard spied her and went over to her. They talked for a few minutes. Then he went up in the elevator. The girl powdered her nose, watched the elevator door. When the elevator came down, she got up and went over and took it up. It stopped—I could tell by the indicator—it stopped at the ninth floor.” Pat smiled. “That was the floor Kinnard stopped at.”

  “Two and two,” mused Cardigan.

  “Make four. Chief, she was a honey—and those clothes—”

  “You women, you women! Forget clothes for a minute. Did she come down again?”

  “No.”

  “Know what room he’s in?”

  “No.”

  Cardigan said: “Wait here. Stay right here and watch if she comes out—or if he comes out. I’ll find the house dick.”

  He asked a bellhop. The house officer was in a small office beyond the desk. His name was Riordan and he was an old-timer. Cardigan showed credentials. “I want to do things right,” he said.

  “What do you call right?” asked Riordan.

  “Well, how about ten dollars?”

  “I couldn’t think of it.”

  Cardigan said: “You don’t have to think,” and dropped a ten-dollar bill on the desk.

  Riordan pocketed it. “This hurts me.” He got up, left the office and reappeared in a couple of minutes. “It’s an apartment—Number 909—one of those bed-living-rooms, with an in-a-door bed.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Nothing. Never causes any trouble—quiet, apparently O.K. Has lady friends, but his apartment’s on the residential side and so it’s none of my business. If it’s a pinch you want, you better get a cop.”

  “No pinch yet. Listen, Riordan. How far will you go if I need you?”

  “It depends.”

  Cardigan stood up “O.K. You can put yourself in the way of some dough if you want to.”

  “It depends.”

  “Sure. I get you.”

  Cardigan returned to the lobby and Pat said: “No come down.”

  “Swell. Stay here.” He dropped his voice. “I think the house dick’s all right, so long as there’s dough in it.”

  He took the elevator to the ninth floor, made his way slowly down the pale gray corridor. He used a bronze knocker on the door of 909. There was no response, and after a moment he knocked again. This time there was the sound of movement inside. The latch clicked, the door opened. Kinnard, immaculate in dark clothes, peered through a lazy column of cigarette smoke.

  “You remember me?” Cardigan said.

  Kinnard said: “Of course.”

  “I’d like to have a few words with you.”

  “Have them.”

  Cardigan made a wry face. “Kind of—well—you know—in the corridor….”

  “Seems to me I’ve been subjected to enough nonsense for one day, Cardigan. I don’t think I can help you. Mind if I ask you to go?”

  Cardigan shrugged. “I won’t take much of your time—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  KINNARD stepped back, closed the door. But the door didn’t quite close; it rebounded against Cardigan’s foot and Cardigan walked in as it swung back. Kinnard tried to grab it, but by the time he had the knob in his hand Cardigan was in the room, his hands tranquilly in his pockets and his battered fedora shadowing his eyes. He looked about the room. The room was large, cozy, with two windows, a bath, and double doors of the kind that conceal an in-a-door bed.

  Kinnard kicked the door. It banged shut. Color rose to his smooth olive skin and he said, irritably: “It’s damned funny when a man can’t have any privacy in his own home!”

  Cardigan was softly whistling the refrain of a Broadway musical show. He took off his hat, sat d
own in a large armchair, hooked a leg over a knee. He was calm, unhurried. He kept looking around the room, tilting his head from side to side, whistling softly.

  Kinnard seemed to have grown taller; he did grow darker, tightening his lips, bending his brows. He was a handsome man, with his well-cut clothes, his smooth black hair, his slightly arrogant air. Cigarette smoke spurted from his nostrils. “Well?” he snapped.

  Cardigan stopped whistling. “You know, Mr. Kinnard, that diamond bracelet didn’t vanish in thin air. It went somewhere. Micah’s a fool—one of those men who doubt his own convictions. Micah wound up by being pretty certain you weren’t the man who robbed him. That happens. If you tell a guy enough times that he killed a man, and if the guy’s got a bum head, he’ll wind up by believing that. I’m inclined to believe Micah’s first impulse was sound. He picked the man who robbed him. When he began to think about it, when he tried to be rational about it, he got all balled up.”

  Kinnard did not become indignant. He chuckled drily. “Maybe if you work on me that way, I’ll wind up by believing I robbed him. That would be swell. Why don’t you try telling me I’m the man who built the Public Library?”

  “Who cares about the Public Library? Suppose for the time being we leave the Public Library out of it. Let’s stick to a diamond bracelet worth approximately sixty thousand dollars. You happened to fall into the hands of one of the whitest cops in New York. Garrity will never make a pinch unless he has a sound reason. As a matter of fact, he’s so white that sometimes he’s a fool.”

  Kinnard smiled ironically. “You—I suppose you are just brimming over with brains.”

  “It’s not that. You see, Mr. Kinnard, you were shadowed from the moment you stepped out of the police station.”

  “Leading up to what?”

  “A woman.”

  Kinnard’s eyes narrowed but his ironic smile did not fade. He said: “Things I never knew till now.”

  “I think that crack’s copyrighted by a famous columnist. Will you ask the woman to come out?”

  Kinnard sighed heavily. “You’re getting tiresome.”

  Cardigan stood up. “Get her out.”

  Kinnard’s jaw set. He crossed the room, picked up the phone and said to the house operator: “Will you send up the house officer?… Yes, this is Mr. Kinnard.” He hung up.

  Cardigan was grinning.

  “We’ll see,” Kinnard said, “what right you have to pull a song and dance in my apartment.”

  “We’ll see,” Cardigan said.

  They waited ten minutes. Impatient, angry now, Kinnard returned to the telephone.

  Cardigan said: “Don’t waste your time. I saw the house officer before I came up here.”

  Kinnard pivoted from the telephone. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve!” He took four hard steps toward Cardigan. “You get the hell out of here before you get thrown out.”

  “Get hot,” Cardigan said. “I like it.”

  “Get out!”

  Cardigan was cool, hard. “Tell the woman to come out.”

  “Get out!”

  Cardigan ducked, caught Kinnard’s fist in his open right hand; gripped hard, twisted. Then he heaved. Kinnard hurtled backward, struck a chair, crashed down with it.

  THE closet door opened. A woman stood there for a brief moment, then took a few steps into the room. She was tall, white-faced, exquisitely dressed. She was breathing rapidly, and her large, dark eyes kept darting from Kinnard to Cardigan. Kinnard got to his feet, brushed his clothes. His breath came hoarsely.

  Cardigan said to the woman: “What’s your name?”

  “I—I don’t care to tell.”

  “Oh, you don’t!”

  Kinnard rasped: “Don’t pay any attention to him! By God, I’ll see I get some justice in this town!”

  Cardigan had not taken his eyes from the woman. “Where were you at noon today?”

  “I was—I was downstairs—in the lobby.”

  “You can prove that, I suppose?”

  She bit her lip and looked helplessly at Kinnard. “Paul, what is this, what is this?”

  “I’d like to know,” Kinnard said. “I’d certainly like to know about it myself.”

  “Never mind, you,” Cardigan cut in; and then to the woman: “I suppose you can prove you were in the lobby?”

  She held her breath. “I can—if I have to. I tell you I came in at a quarter to twelve.”

  “That’s not proof.”

  “But why do I have to prove it?” she cried.

  Kinnard said: “He’s just a very smart person. I told you what happened. Some fool said I robbed him. This intelligent gentleman here has an idea, I suppose, that you were in the street at the time and that I passed the bracelet to you.”

  “To me?”

  Kinnard laughed harshly. “He would think of something like that, you know.”

  “Can you,” Cardigan hammered at the woman, “prove you were in the lobby?”

  She nodded. “If I have to—yes. The little bookshop off the lobby—I was in there for at least half an hour—from a little before twelve until half-past. Looking at books. In fact, I discussed books with the girl who works there.”

  “What’s your name?”

  She colored. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not—” She looked confused. “This—this was a totally innocent visit, but if—if my name—” Her lip quivered.

  Cardigan nodded. “Maybe I get you. O.K. Come downstairs with me and we’ll see about the girl in the bookshop.”

  Cardigan and the woman went down in the elevator, crossed the lobby and entered the bookshop. The girl there smiled when she saw the woman. Cardigan’s questions confused her, but she replied promptly. A moment later Cardigan and the woman went out into the lobby.

  He said: “I’m sorry.”

  Her head was lowered. She walked away across the lobby, passed through the revolving doors into the street. Pat drifted up alongside Cardigan.

  “Isn’t she a knockout, chief?”

  He said: “Listen, chicken. Tail her. Find out where she lives. Snap on it.”

  “What’s the matter now?”

  “Everything. This case gets nuttier and nuttier. Come on—shoo—get after her.”

  “I’m just crazy about the way she wears clothes—”

  “Shoo, I tell you! Shoo! Scram! Get going!”

  Chapter Three

  Cardigan Crashes the Gate

  GEORGE HAMMERHORN, the agency head, was deep in the throes of a crossword puzzle when Cardigan entered the office. Hammerhorn did not look up. Cardigan unlocked a desk drawer, drew out a bottle of Scotch and poured himself a generous jolt.

  “Say, Jack,” Hammerhorn said, “what’s an eight-letter word beginning with ‘E,’ that means greedy?”

  “Who swiped the Traum and Fleer bracelet?”

  Hammerhorn sat back. “Who did?”

  “It occurred to me a little while ago that in all the hue and cry nobody searched Micah. The cops took his word for it that it had been stolen.

  “I don’t like to think he did. I like to think Kinnard did. I was just up to Kinnard’s apartment and I let myself in for a nice lot of razzberry. Before I went there I frisked Micah’s room. According to his books, he’s almost broke. He’s been doing things for a sick sister in California. I read some letters. In the past fifteen months he’s spent about eight thousand on her. First of the month he loses his job. There’s your motive. And yet, George, I can’t forget Kinnard. I can’t help feeling that Micah’s instinct was right—that Kinnard was the man. I thought I had Kinnard where I wanted him. Pat tailed a woman to his apartment. I thought she’d be the pal Kinnard passed the ice to after he’d swiped it. But no. She was nowhere near the scene of the robbery.”

  The telephone rang and Cardigan picked it up. “Oh, hello, Pat…. I see. Good work, kid.” He hung up, scribbled on a pad of paper. “That was Pat,” he said. “She tailed the woman I was talking about. Woman lives at the Saborin, a swank apartment house in Eas
t Sixty-second Street.”

  “That’s funny,” Hammerhorn said. “You remember that when Micah left with the bracelet he was headed for Fitchman’s office on Broadway.”

  “Sure. Fitchman was supposed to have called up. He didn’t. That was a stall. The guy’s got millions.”

  “I know. What’s funny is this: Fitchman lives at the Saborin. I met him and his wife at a party once.”

  “What’s she look like?”

  “Tall—about five feet eight. A lulu to look at. A blonde. About twenty-eight or so. The kind you’d climb the highest mountain for. Fitchman’s a little fat, a little old. He’d—you know—have a hard time climbing mountains.”

  Cardigan pointed. “It was puzzling me why the guy who phoned for that bracelet used Fitchman’s name. Garrity had an idea he used it because it was a big name, one easily recognized. Fact is, I thought that too. It gets clearer now. Fitchman’s bought several articles at Traum and Fleer’s. There’s your answer.”

  “Hell, Mrs. Fitchman wouldn’t be mixed up in a robbery.”

  “Who’s saying she would? But if she’s the woman I saw in Kinnard’s apartment, it would have been easy for Kinnard to have found out where Fitchman bought his jewelry. George, this guy’s a heel.” He corked the bottle, jammed it tight with the palm of his hand. “Untie that!”

  CARDIGAN sailed out of the office, got in a taxicab and was driven to Times Square. He still had his doubts, still felt that he was stopped at the fork in the road. One way led toward Micah; the other led toward Kinnard. The razzing he had taken in Kinnard’s apartment rankled, but did not impel him to run blindly. Swiftly he went, but with a narrowed eye.

  He was known in several theatrical booking offices. Men there had good memories; and if these failed they had old books, old records. Here and there Cardigan gathered morsel on morsel of information, putting each down on paper, building up gradually a kind of composite picture of Kinnard’s past. Kinnard had once been a gigolo in a Broadway cabaret. He had played bits in three motion pictures. He had been on the vaudeville stage as a piano player. Once he had taken the part of a footpad in a play. He had also been assistant, for two months, to a magician named Fogoro—a man famed for sleight-of-hand.