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

by Frederick Nebel

  An old time theatrical man said to Cardigan: “After that, Kinnard studied magic and tried to put on an act of his own. He was pretty good—but not good enough. He became obsessed with magic, however. But the business was on the wane and there was no room for him. As the footpad in that play, he was good. I saw it. I could have sworn he never touched the fellow who was supposed to have been robbed—in the play. But he did. It was neat work.”

  It was half-past four when Cardigan climbed into a cab. He settled back, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and with relish. He gave the address of the Hotel Gold. As his cab was rolling up to the hotel entrance, he saw Kinnard swing out and get into a taxi that was waiting there. “Follow that one,” Cardigan told the driver.

  He sat on the edge of the seat. The possibility of Micah being guilty was out-balanced now by the information Cardigan had gathered concerning Kinnard. There was, Cardigan reasoned, another man, perhaps a woman. The police had searched Kinnard and found no bracelet. He must have passed it on to a confederate in the street.

  Kinnard’s taxi turned west at Forty-second Street. Traffic was heavy, loud with the hoots of auto horns, the clanging of crosstown trolleys. They passed beneath the Park Avenue ramp and continued west past the Public Library and Bryant Park. At Eighth Avenue Kinnard alighted and stood on the windy corner. Cardigan’s cab crossed Eighth Avenue to the northwest corner. He got out here and saw Kinnard walking north on the east side of the street. He followed, but on the west sidewalk.

  Farther north a corner had been razed. Here a new hotel was to rise. A board fence enclosed the now vacant lot on the west and north sides; below the level of the street the earth was raw; steam shovels were at work and trucks were being loaded with broken rock, earth, debris.

  Kinnard was strolling. He paused at this corner, leaned on the wooden fence, watched the men and shovels at work. Cardigan leaned in the doorway of a cigar store. He looked at his watch. It was almost five o’clock. He saw Kinnard move on a few feet, then pause again. There was a crowd watching the business of excavating, but in a few minutes the steam shovels stopped, the day’s work was done. The crowd moved off, and Kinnard, lighting a cigarette, continued to stroll north. Four blocks farther north he climbed into a taxi. Cardigan followed in another. Kinnard’s cab moved slowly west on Fifty-third Street, stopped at the corner of Tenth Avenue. But Kinnard did not get out.

  A minute later, however, the cab moved off, turned north into Tenth Avenue. The street was crowded and there were three trolley cars in a row, taxis hooting and speeding, trucks rumbling. At Sixty-second Street Kinnard alighted, stood on the corner, tapping a foot, drawing absently at a cigarette. Presently he turned and entered Sixty-second Street, heading east. The way was choked with traffic; children played and yelled in the street; women leaned from the windows of shabby tenement houses and shouted back and forth. Hard-looking men leaned in doorways, sat on stone stoops.

  Cardigan followed his man with difficulty, and he began to feel a sensation of futility; for Kinnard had not the manner of a man destined for any definite objective. He strolled easily, casually. Finally, however, he stopped in front of a house, looked up at the doorway. Cardigan stopped, shifted behind a parked car. Several persons entered the house in front of which Kinnard lingered. The last of these was a roughly dressed man. Cardigan saw Kinnard’s lips move. The last man paused halfway up the stoop, turned, scowled. Kinnard climbed the steps easily, stood gesturing casually; and presently the two entered the house.

  AFTER a moment Cardigan moved past the house. A sign said “Rooms To Let.” Cardigan went on, crossed the street, waited. In five minutes Kinnard reappeared. This time he walked rapidly toward Ninth Avenue. Cardigan followed him to Eighth Avenue, and here Kinnard boarded a taxi. Cardigan followed south. At Fortieth Street Kinnard dropped off; crossed Eighth Avenue and entered Fortieth. He walked a few yards, turned into a vestibule flush with the street, disappeared.

  Cardigan knew the place: Cousino’s, a speakeasy specializing in ravioli and steaks. He returned to the corner and waited, his eyes never leaving the dark vestibule. Half an hour passed. Several times Cardigan was on the point of entering the speakeasy, but each time he changed his mind. He had been on the corner for an hour when he saw a man get out of a cab at the corner and make his way into Fortieth Street. The man wore a blue overcoat and a derby. He was the man Cardigan had seen in rough clothing in front of the house in Sixty-second Street. The man entered the speak.

  In a few minutes Kinnard and the man came out of the speakeasy. Cardigan ducked around the corner. The two entered a cab and headed south and Cardigan followed. He was becoming impatient, puzzled. Kinnard’s cab turned east at Thirty-sixth Street, south into Seventh Avenue, went past the Penn Station and continued south; sped into Varick Street and then turned east into Canal and crossed the town to East Broadway. Street lights were glowing here. A surface car clanged and rattled south. Kinnard and the burly man got out of the cab and walked down East Broadway.

  Cardigan went along in the shadow of house fronts, past blatant radio stores, cheap novelty shops, across iron gratings that rang beneath his feet. He saw Kinnard and the burly man pass into a narrow doorway hard by a dusty-windowed pawnshop. He heard the door slam shut. Stopping, he looked through the window of the pawnshop. A man was standing behind the counter, reading a newspaper, smoking a cigar. A rear door opened and a youth beckoned. The man laid down his paper and disappeared through the rear door, and the youth took his place behind the counter. Cardigan looked at the name on the window—S. Goldfarb.

  He moved on, stopped, eyed the narrow doorway beside the store, put his hand on the knob. The door opened. He entered a dark hallway, closed the door, stood for a moment listening, blinded by the impenetrable darkness. After a moment he shook his head, turned, groped and found the doorknob, opened the door and returned to the street. He stood for a moment deliberating, flexing his lips. He had no wish to blunder in that dark hallway. His jaw tightened. He swung on his heel and walked into the pawnshop.

  The pasty-faced youth looked up from the newspaper. Cardigan was in a hurry and inclined to be blunt and to the point. He reached over and plucked a handkerchief from the youth’s breast pocket. “This,” he said, “you’ll stuff into your mouth.”

  The youth was sleepy. “Huh?”

  “Cram it in your mouth.” Cardigan leaned on the counter and hefted his gun absently in his right hand. “The handkerchief, little one—in the mouth.”

  The youth’s eyes popped at sight of the gun. He grabbed the handkerchief and pushed it into his mouth. His cheeks, his eyes, bulged.

  Cardigan said: “Say ‘ah,’ son.”

  The youth couldn’t say anything.

  “That’s swell,” Cardigan nodded. He drew out a pair of handcuffs, went behind the counter, made the youth bend down. He then manacled his hands to the leg of a work bench, took off the youth’s tie and fastened it around his mouth so that the handkerchief could not be worked out. He knotted the tie at the back of the youth’s neck.

  Going to the door, he threw home the bolt. The youth on the floor behind the counter made no sound. Cardigan’s gun was in his overcoat pocket; so was his hand, warming the butt. He opened the rear door and entered a small, cluttered stockroom. There was a door at the left, open, and a boxed-in staircase that rose abruptly toward regions above. Cardigan looked up. A door at the top was partway open and there was light beyond. He started up, placing his feet at the extreme sides of the steps to prevent them from creaking. There was no platform at the top; the staircase ended at the threshold of the upper room and Cardigan pushed the door wide open and stepped in.

  He said: “Pardon my French.”

  Chapter Four

  Diamond Truck-Load

  IT WAS a cozy, comfortable scene—three men sitting around a table, a bottle of wine in the center, cigar smoke drifting slowly before their faces, clouding the shaded droplight that hung from the ceiling. Cheese and crackers in a convenient bowl. Mr. Goldfarb, p
utty-faced, fat and soft-bodied, with spectacles pushed up on his forehead. Kinnard with a glass of wine in his hand. His burly friend, shiny-faced from a recent shave, spreading cheese on a cracker.

  “Ahem,” said Mr. Goldfarb.

  Kinnard’s eyes narrowed for a brief instant. It seemed that he was about to rise, but he did not; he calmly took a drink of wine, set the glass down, reached for a cracker and nibbled off a small piece.

  Cardigan said dully: “You’ve been doing an awful lot of chasing around, Kinnard.”

  “Any law against it?”

  “I suppose Mr. Goldfarb is just a sick friend you’re sitting up with. My, my—what a swell, domestic picture!”

  The burly man’s forehead was wrinkled. “Say, who’s this here now mug?”

  “A kind of busybody,” Kinnard said.

  Cardigan said: “You know what I’ve come for, Kinnard. You’ll save a great big headache by coming across.”

  Kinnard laughed, explained to the others: “You see, this busybody thinks I have a diamond bracelet.”

  The burly man sat back and looked stupidly at Kinnard. Mr. Goldfarb wiggled his eyebrows and his spectacles dropped neatly to his nose. He looked shrewdly at Kinnard, at the burly man, at Cardigan. “A bracelet yet?” he said to Cardigan.

  The burly man slapped the table and laughed roughly, good-humoredly. “Ain’t that the nuts now!”

  “I ask you!” Kinnard chuckled.

  Cardigan’s dark brows drew together, his lip lifted. “I’m being given the razz, huh?”

  Kinnard tipped his chair back, put his tongue in his cheek. He looked very immaculate, very smooth and brown and self-contained, and very droll.

  “You begin to get really funny, Cardigan. Honest, I get a great kick out of you.”

  Goldfarb said: “What about a bracelet? Who’s got a bracelet yet? What’s all this talk about a bracelet? Hey, Kinnard—you got a bracelet?”

  Kinnard winked broadly. “Yeah. Want to buy it?”

  “Sure. Where is it?”

  “Ask—” Kinnard pointed— “ask Mr. Cardigan. He knows. He knows everything. Is he smart? Well, just ask him—just ask him!”

  Cardigan looked somber. “I know, baby—I know.”

  “What did I tell you, Goldfarb? What did I tell you?”

  Goldfarb looked peeved. “Go ’way, go ’way; you’re only kidding yet, Kinnard, you old kidder, you!”

  Kinnard chuckled with an air. The burly man laughed and slapped the table again. Goldfarb blinked, smiled, shook his head, said: “Yeah, you old kidder, you!” And the tobacco smoke moved sinuously around the droplight.

  Cardigan looked from one to the other. His face was not pleasant. He towered in the room, his hair shaggy beneath his hat, sprouting alongside his ears.

  His voice was low. “So I’m a monkey, huh?”

  The men shook their heads, chuckled.

  Then Cardigan’s gun was in his hand. “I’m this kind of a monkey, sweethearts.”

  THEY stopped laughing. Goldfarb sat back in his chair and turned his head away but kept his eyes sidewise on the gun. The burly man looked suddenly stupid, and his big, gnarled, calloused hands plopped to the table, remained motionless there. Kinnard lifted his chin; a shadow passed across his face; his mouth warped.

  “Put that gun down, you idiot!”

  “So on top of being a monkey I’m an idiot. Open your ears, Kinnard—and you, Goldfarb—and you, roughneck: you know what I’m here for, all of you. You’ve jazzed too much, Kinnard. This roughneck is the guy you passed the bracelet to. That’s the guy I’ve been looking for.”

  “Nobody passed no bracelet to me!” rumbled the burly man. “I ain’t seen no bracelet.”

  “Of course he’s seen no bracelet,” Kinnard said.

  “And this,” Cardigan said, nodding to Goldfarb, “is your fence.”

  “And where,” said Kinnard, “is the bracelet?”

  “One of you three men has it.”

  Kinnard stood up, scowled. “I told you once before, Cardigan, that I’m getting tired of this clowning around. It’s about time you found out you’re up a wrong tree. There’s no bracelet here. I never saw the bracelet you’re beefing about. Damn it, search us if you want to!”

  He held up his arms.

  “Go ahead, begin with me. Stand up, boys. Once and for all, we’ll get this thing over with. Come on, Cardigan, search me.” He set his glass on the table and stepped back from it. “Come on, get it over with.”

  Cardigan eyed him for a long minute. He shrugged, but his gaze remained fixed on Kinnard. “Never mind, Kinnard. You’re pretty smart, pretty smart. You’ve trumped an Irish dick’s every move, but I still think you’re a heel. See? Listen, baby—I’ve been in this business long enough to know a rat when I see one. You’re a rat. I know who that woman in your apartment was. It was through her you found out the name of the jewel house Fitchman did business with. You’re a sleight-of-hand artist. I know all about you. Your piano playing is not only a good blind—it’s a good in. You get into swell homes and play for parties—and you find out things. It’s a new racket, Kinnard, and a neat one. I know when I’m licked. Thing is, I’m not licked yet. You fooled a square cop named Garrity—you haven’t fooled me.”

  Kinnard snapped: “You dumb Hibernian, you haven’t got a thing on me—you haven’t got a thing on anybody! I told you to search me. To search these two men here. No—you wouldn’t! You know damned well you’d find nothing. There’s not a thing you can do.”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  “How would you like me to tell the cops that the guy’s name you used when you phoned for that bracelet was the husband of the woman I saw in your apartment?”

  “I never phoned for any bracelet.”

  “It would,” Cardigan said, viciously, “be a nice puzzle to explain how it happened the woman was in your apartment, how it happened her husband’s name was used.”

  Kinnard snarled: “Like all dicks, you’ve got a big nose for tabloid scandal.”

  “Have I? If I had, you wisecracking lounge lizard, I’d have turned her up when I found her. I didn’t. O.K.—but I can turn her up now. You think you’re making a jackass out of me, don’t you? I’ll show you that when any guy tries to do that I can be dirty. I don’t care what or who the woman is—if I’ve got to use her to get you pinched, I’ll use her.”

  Kinnard’s eyes glittered. “It won’t get you any bracelet, Cardigan. Not a bit of it. Because I haven’t got it and I never did have it. Turn her up, if you want to. Can I help it if she went soft on me? I’m leaving, Cardigan. Come on, Babe,” he added to the burly man.

  “You wait,” Cardigan said.

  “I’ll wait my eye! If you want me to wait, call a cop. Make a jackass out of yourself. I don’t have to try to make one out of you. I’m clean, Irish. Get the whole police department. Why, you big fat-head,” he laughed, “you’re a swift pain in the neck. You’re last year’s prize joke. There’s a phone. Why don’t you call the cops?”

  CARDIGAN walked across the room and without stopping hung his left fist on Kinnard’s jaw. Kinnard went down like a felled tree. Cardigan swiveled and aimed his gun at the burly man.

  “Watch yourself, big boy.” Cardigan’s face was dull red; there was reddish color in his eyes. He said tautly: “I hate like hell to be razzed. This pal of yours thinks he’s tough, but he’s never been around.”

  Goldfarb flapped his arms. “Now, now, all this yet—all this fighting business yet! Ach, don’t!”

  Kinnard was coughing. He sat on the floor, shaking his head from side to side. He grabbed the edge of the table and got slowly to his feet. His eyes looked bloated. He stood leaning on the table, coughing, making faces. Then he straightened, his eyes shuttered.

  “Thanks,” he said, catching his breath.

  “Please, now—please, now,” Goldfarb said. “Don’t fight. Like good guys, go out.”

  There was a moment of silence, broken only by the hoarse brea
thing of Kinnard. Then there were stumbling footfalls on a stairway. Cardigan’s eyes jumped to a closed door across the room. He reasoned that beyond the door a stairway went down to the hall door. Next minute there was a knock on the door.

  Goldfarb rolled his eyes. The burly man looked stupidly at the door and Kinnard’s lips tightened.

  “Open it,” Cardigan said. “You, Goldfarb!”

  Goldfarb shivered and stumbled to the door. He unlocked it and hurried back to his place at the table. A short fat man stood in the doorway. He wore a loud gray suit, a wild tie the color of burnt orange and a funny hat that sat on the very top of his head. His cheeks were like red apples. His grin was cherubic. He waved a hand.

  “Ah, dere you are, Babe! Watcha t’ink—I damn near busta da head on de stairway, shoo! Dark as-a hell, shoo!” His grin faded and he looked puzzled. “Hey, Babe, whassa da mat’?”

  The burly man was beginning to perspire. The little Italian came into the room, ducked his head comically, took off his quaint hat and rubbed it against the underside of his sleeve. Goldfarb rolled his eyes, picked up his glass, sipped it, patted the side of his head.

  The Italian looked embarrassed. “Geez-a, Babe, dis-a no way to treat a pal, huh? What da hell—you call me on de telephono, tell-a me to come to dis watcha call him number on East-a Broadway.”

  The burly man made a sound something like “Ahk” and looked sickly, stupidly at Kinnard. Kinnard’s eyes were glazed, his tightened mouth warped.

  “You,” Cardigan said to the Italian. “What are you doing here, huh?”

  “I joosta say! Ain’t I joosta say Babe call me on de telephono? What’s all dis-a monkey-beezness?”

  Cardigan said, “What did you come here for?”

  The little Italian’s hand went into his pocket. He withdrew a black leather case, snapped it open. A diamond bracelet glittered. He smiled, innocently.