The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  The sight of her indifference drove me almost into a frenzy. “Aren’t you going to do anything?” I cried.

  “Oh, surely,” she said, partly arousing herself. “Do all the usual things, my Bella; telephone to the police and to the newspapers. But as for me—” she relapsed into her smiling, musing upon the ring “– I intend to have a little fun out of this.”

  III

  With proper management this affair need never have got into the newspapers, since no whisper of an alarm had been raised. But Mme Storey disdained to conceal it; on the contrary, she informed the press herself.

  “It would make such a good story, it would be a shame to keep it from them,” she said in her provoking way.

  Of course, as I was to learn later, this publicity was necessary to the plan that was even then shaping itself in her mind; but I couldn’t guess that in the beginning.

  Well, you can imagine what a sensation was created by the news. The famous Mme Storey held up in her own office by a pair of youthful bandits! To come as it did, right on the heels of her brilliant success in the Harker case, when her name and fame was on everybody’s lips, gave point to the tale. While the newspapers were still terming her the greatest criminologist of modern times, here she was stuck up by a couple of boys and robbed of her pearls!

  It is a weakness of all democracies, they say, that when a citizen is elevated above the heads of the mob, nothing pleases the said mob better than to find an excuse to turn and shy things at the hero. We had to submit to an unmerciful razzing, both public and private. What a chance it gave to the cartoonists!

  Mme Storey, I need hardly say, took it all smilingly. Borne up by her secret knowledge of the retribution she was preparing, I think she actually enjoyed it. She encouraged the razzers that her revenge might be more complete in the end.

  But it was a bad time for me. I ground my teeth every time the telephone rang. My temper was in a continual state of exacerbation. Not the least of what I had to submit to were the hypocritical condolences of all the old cats in the boarding house where I live.

  Inspector Rumsey suffered no less than I did. That his police had allowed Mme Storey to be robbed right under their noses, so to speak, caused the worthy little man almost to burst with chagrin. He wanted to surround us afterward with a whole cordon of police wherever we went, but of course Mme Storey would not hear of anything like that.

  What she had termed all the usual things were done, of course, and nothing came of it. We furnished the police with exact descriptions of the bandits, which were sent broadcast. Several of the best men attached to the Central Office were put on the case.

  Mme Storey and I went down to headquarters and turned over hundreds of pages of the Rogues’ Gallery, without finding the faces we were in search of. Inspector Rumsey was not surprised by it.

  “Every year,” he said bitterly, “we have a fresh crop of young desperadoes to deal with.”

  I could not but be sorry for our friend during these days. His difficulties were owing to no fault of his own. After our robbery the crime wave mounted to still greater heights. Nearly every day the police had a fresh holdup to deal with, and on some days three or four.

  “The publicity attached to your case has bucked them up all down the line,” Inspector Rumsey said bitterly.

  Mme Storey herself took no direct measures toward searching for the bandits. One day when I was burning with indignation at the facetious comments of some newspaper or another, I ventured to remonstrate with her on this.

  “Oh, our little holdup boys were merely pawns in the game, my Bella,” she told me. “I’m after the commanding pieces.”

  I was relieved to learn that she was not entirely idle in the matter.

  One morning when she took off her hat I cried out in dismay upon perceiving that she had acquired a boy’s haircut overnight. I must confess that it was very becoming, revealing as it did the beautiful shape of her head and emphasizing the pure line of her profile. Still I hated to see her adopt so extreme a fashion.

  She smiled at my distress. “Wait!” she said, holding up her hand, and disappeared within the middle room.

  An hour later she called me to her. I stopped in the doorway, aghast. She stood in the middle of the room, striking an attitude.

  I say “she”, but at the first glance it seemed to me as if my mistress had vanished, leaving a horrible changeling in her stead. The closely cut hair was now silvered, and her face heavily made up, one might almost say enameled.

  Around the eyes and mouth it was cunningly shadowed to suggest the hollows of growing age; in a phrase, the fashionable, hard-living woman of fifty.

  She was wearing a costume cut in severe mannish lines, showing a rolling silk collar at the neck, and a Bohemian tie. A little tough hat went with it, and a malacca stick with a plain ivory knob. I’m sure you get the picture: an elderly charmer of the highest fashion, handsome, hard, and utterly reckless.

  “Will it pass?” she asked in a throaty voice with a hint of huskiness.

  “It is marvelous,” I murmured.

  “I am Kate Arkledon,” she went on, with a half sneer which was fixed in her face; to smile would have ruined the effect. “Have you ever heard of her?”

  I shook my head.

  “A little before your time, I suppose. Ten years ago Kate Arkledon was one of the cleverest confidence women in the United States. She was famous in her way. Then suddenly she dropped out of sight of all her former associates. As a matter of fact, she is living in respectability and affluence not a dozen doors from me. Once upon a time I did her a service which she has never forgotten.

  “Well, with her permission, I am staging a come-back for Kate Arkledon. There is a slight resemblance between us, which I have built upon. It will be good enough at least to deceive anybody who has not seen her for ten years.”

  I foresaw danger ahead, and my heart sank.

  Mme Storey broke off, to study me through narrowed eyes. “Turn around,” she said.

  “What do you want of me?” I faltered.

  “Get a permanent wave,” she said.

  “But I will look like a Hottentot!” I cried.

  “Of course,” she said calmly. “They all do when they come out from under the curlers. You will make a very effective red-haired vamp, my Bella. I will dress you and teach you how to make up for it.”

  “But the make-up is only the beginning!” I gasped. “I could not possibly keep up such a part.”

  “Certainly you could. It will not be nearly so difficult as the character of Canada Annie, which you carried off so well. You can be a Dumb Dora this time with nothing to do but sit and look unutterable things at men. All you will have to say is ‘Ain’t it the truth!’ when you agree, or very scornfully, ‘So’s yer old man!’ when you disagree.”

  All this was uttered in the sneering, husky tones of the character she was portraying. It made me shiver.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked fearfully.

  “We are going to organize a little holdup gang of our own,” said Kate Arkledon with a wicked grin.

  A cry was forced from me. I could not imagine anybody less fitted for the part of bandit than myself.

  “Not really – not really!” I faltered.

  “It will be just as real as I can make it appear,” she said. “I mean to pull off a stunt or two in the most spectacular style.”

  I groaned inwardly.

  “This is how I figure it out, Bella,” she said in her natural voice. “There is certainly an organization behind the crime wave; but it’s operating along new lines. It’s a very loose and flexible organization, with all the units working independently of each other. Well, my idea is to form a unit of my own which will function so brilliantly that the organization will be forced to make overtures to us. Inspector Rumsey is in the secret.”

  I tasted in advance the awful excitement that was in store, and my heart was like lead in my breast. But I would have torn my tongue out sooner than protest alo
ud.

  IV

  Busy days followed. It was impossible to let our other business slide, and we had to lead double lives.

  By day Mme Storey and her secretary, Bella Brickley, worked in the offices on Gramercy Park, taking care to give out an interview to the newspapers occasionally, so that our presence there was regularly established. By night Kate Arkledon and her pal, Peggy Ray, showed themselves in certain gilded resorts on the West Side.

  A good many days passed before I got accustomed to the sight of my painted and bedizened self in the mirror. On the whole, though, I had an easy role to play. All that was required of me was to act as a foil for my mistress.

  For the purpose of enabling us to change from one character to another and back again, we engaged a room in one of the nondescript warrens on West Forty-Seventh Street, where all kinds of queer little businesses are carried on by all kinds of queer characters. One could enter or leave such a building at any hour without exciting remark.

  For Kate Arkledon’s regular hang-out we chose a well-known West Side street, once fashionable, and now much favored of the white collar gentry. It often breaks into the news. However, I shall not name it for fear of depressing real estate values.

  We rented a four room flat in a pretentious apartment house, where the tenants’ reference were not too closely scanned; and here we immediately began to gather our gang round us.

  Mme Storey’s principal aid in this affair was the man I shall call Benny Abell, though that was not his real name, nor yet the name by which he had become famous in the underworld. If you have read my account of the Melanie Soupert case you will remember him.

  His specialty had been sticking up the box offices of theaters, always working alone, and displaying a truly superhuman nerve. Since my mistress had broken up the Varick Street gang he had become re-united with his family, and had gone straight.

  Mme Storey needed him now as a sort of liaison officer with crookdom, where his exploits were still remembered. She never had any intention of using him in an actual hold-up, which would have been like a nightmare to the poor fellow who had been through so much.

  Abell, when I first knew him, was a small, determined, white-faced man, of an elegant appearance. Trained to a finish by danger, he was like a sheaf of quivering nerves.

  Now happiness had caused him to take on flesh, and his face to assume a serene expression. However, he worked hard to reduce for this emergency, and played his part admirably.

  Next we took in George Stephens, one of our regular operatives, and the best man we had after Crider. I should have been glad to have had Crider himself at our back, but he has worked for us so long Mme Storey feared the danger of his being recognized. She didn’t want to have any more disguises than she could help. Stephens had the advantage of not having been in America long. A young fellow of aristocratic appearance, he soon acquired the soubriquet of English George.

  Our remaining man was Bert Farren, a mere boy who has done good work for us on one or two occasions. Mme Storey chose him because boy bandits seemed to be the fashion.

  We still lacked a direct, present connection with the world of crooks; but my mistress said we would have to wait for circumstances to furnish that.

  Very early in the game the scene of our first exploit was chosen. This was the jewelry store of B. & J. Fossberg, a large and handsome establishment on Broadway not a hundred miles from One Hundredth Street. It is the finest establishment of the sort on the upper West Side.

  Inspector Rumsey was acquainted with Benjamin Fossberg, one of the proprietors, and after a great deal of persuasion won his consent to the staged hold-up. His brother was told, of course, but the clerks were kept in the dark.

  It was arranged that the guns which were kept in the store for protection should be removed as if for repairs on the day of the stick-up.

  Night after night the five of us met in the flat on West — Street to discuss and rehearse our plans. I had no idea that such elaborate preparations were required to stage an affair which would be all over in a minute or two.

  By day our three men watched the store until they were familiar with every detail of the business routine. The Fossbergs had not fallen for any of the idiotic safeguards such as tear gas, sirens, etc. They trusted to the imposing appearance of their establishment to overawe gunmen.

  It was on a corner, and occupied the space of three ordinary stores. No such big place had ever been attacked.

  A detailed plan of the store was drawn out, together with a map of the neighborhood. This we all studied. Each of us was allotted his station, and many rehearsals took place.

  To me fell the comparatively easy job of acting as look-out on the sidewalk. Mme Storey was to enter, and ask to have goods shown her. George and Bert were to cover her get-away with their guns, while Abell was to drive the car, which was to be waiting in the side street.

  When the business of the evening was over, it was our custom to show ourselves at one or another of the gilded resorts in the neighborhood. Gradually we settled on the Boule’ Miche’ as our public hangout.

  Abell, who had been making inquiries, said that it had become a favorite gathering place of the white collar gangs. It occupied the site of a famous old New York restaurant on Columbus Avenue, which had rapidly gone down hill after prohibition, and changed its name half a dozen times.

  You would never have guessed the characters of its frequenters from their appearance. Everybody looks alike nowadays. In the Boule’ Miche’ you found exactly the same sort of sleek, showy women, accompanied by sleek and not so showy men, that you would see in any other night club.

  It was only when you possessed a key to their occupation that you began to perceive a certain wary look in the eyes of the men; a tendency to glance toward the door every time it was opened. Once in a while strange snatches of conversation would reach your ears. Of course, many perfectly respectable people must have been included among the patrons of the place.

  The present proprietor was a dark-skinned gentleman, with a perpetual gleaming smile, and a hard eye that was anything but smiling. His evening clothes fitted him to a marvel. His name was Bat Bartley, and Abell knew him.

  He was one of those mysterious New York characters whom everybody knows, and nobody knows anything about. It was the custom of all his patrons to fawn on him, as they always do in such places – I can’t tell you why; and while he smiled he scarcely troubled to conceal his contempt of them.

  When Abell introduced my mistress to him as Kate Arkledon I saw the wary eyes narrow slightly. Evidently he was familiar with that name. My mistress treated him with cool disdain, whereupon he immediately began to fawn on her! Such is human nature!

  Upon our first visits to the Boule’ Miche’ nobody attempted to address us, though, of course, so striking a figure as that of my mistress could not pass unnoticed. People stared at her, and whispered to each other, clearly asking who she was.

  No doubt they asked the proprietor, and no doubt he told them – or at least such of them as he could trust. By degrees a tinge of respect and admiration appeared in the glances of the regular habitués. One could almost pick out those who belonged to the fraternity of crooks by the way they looked at the supposed Kate Arkledon.

  And then one night we had an encounter which terrified me; I thought our whole elaborate structure was about to collapse. I needn’t have been terrified. I underrated my mistress’s superb aplomb.

  An old boy with a red face and bulging blue eyes, who had been talking to Bat Bartley, came to our table. His Tuxedo, while of good material, was of an old fashion; an air of having seen better days clung around him. Fixing his bloodshot eyes on my mistress, he asked:

  “Is this Kate Arkledon?”

  “The same,” she said, with an air of cynical indifference she now affected.

  “Well, well, well!” he said. “I never should have known you, Kate. And you, I see, have completely forgotten me.”

  My mistress made believe to study him. “
Your face is very familiar to me,” she said. “But the name – the name—”

  He shook his head mournfully. “To think that you should have forgotten me. Remember the St Louis Fair?”

  Mme Storey must have had Kate Arkledon’s biography at her finger tips.

  “Chad Herring!” she said instantly, and offered the old fellow her hand. “But how changed!”

  “Ah, don’t rub it in!” he said. “I know it! Chad Herring’s on the shelf! But you, good Heaven, you’re fresh as paint!”

  “Paint is right!” said my mistress, with her scornful smile, touching her cheek meanwhile.

  He laughed uproariously. “Just as smart as ever, I see! You’re a wonder, Kate!”

  “Sit down,” she said.

  I trembled at her temerity. Surely the least slip would be fatal. She introduced us all to him by our underworld names.

  “Young blood – young blood!” he muttered, sadly shaking his head. He turned to her with a pathetic eagerness. “Kate, what do you hear of Bill Blandick and Paddy Nolan—” He named a whole string of names. “The old gang.”

  “All gone,” she said, spreading out her hands. “That is, gone from me. I have not heard of any of them for more than ten years.”

  “What have you been doing, Kate?”

  “Leading a godly, righteous and sober life,” she replied with a bitter sneer.

  “You don’t look it,” he said innocently.

  “Ah, there’s nothing like dullness to break you up!” she told him. “I’m done with a respectable life. I’ve come back.”

  “Come back?” he repeated almost with horror. “At your age! Remember, I know how old you are.”

  “Well, you needn’t broadcast it,” she said sharply.

  What a wonderful piece of acting she was giving!

  “Come back!” he repeated again. “Do you think you can keep your end up in this day of youth and jazz and high-powered automobiles?”

  “And why not?” she demanded proudly. “My nerve is as steady as ever. Look at that hand.” She held it out. “And I can teach these youngsters a thing or two. Good God, Chad – think of the opportunities nowadays! There was never anything like it in the old days!”