The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  He looked at her with that same fear. I suppose that the fierce energy she expressed made him feel old and broken by way of contrast.

  After a little desultory talk he ambled away. Presently we saw him telling Bat Bartley about it.

  “That will help establish our characters,” said my mistress calmly.

  V

  On the morning of the appointed day I awoke in blessed unconsciousness and lay staring at the ceiling. Then the realization of what was before me came winging back, and the bottom seemed to drop out of my stomach. I suppose it was much the same feeling as that experienced by a murderer on the morning of his execution. The worst of it was, our stunt was not to be pulled off until four o’clock, the most crowded time on upper Broadway, and I had all those miserable hours to put in beforehand. My breakfast choked me.

  Every detail having been completed the night before, there was nothing for Mme Storey and I to do but proceed to the office in our own characters and attend to our usual business.

  During the day that amazing woman, my mistress, gave out interviews, talked over the telephone, and dictated letters as if it was no different from any other day in the year. If she noticed that my hand was prone to tremble and my voice to shake, she never spoke of it. Indeed, no reference of any kind was made to what was almost immediately before us.

  At three o’clock she locked the drawer of her desk and said to me casually: “Well, Bella, let’s go.”

  I declare, from the openness of her smile and the brightness of her eye, one might have thought it was a picnic we were bound on. She enjoyed it!

  Proceeding by taxi to the room on Forty-Seventh Street, we transformed ourselves into Kate Arkledon and Peggy Ray. I noticed that my mistress, while carefully preserving the same character, toned down her make-up somewhat. For the jewelers’ she did not wish to emphasize the hardness, the recklessness that she flaunted in the Boule’ Miche’ every night.

  As it was, the perfection of her plain, smart get-up and her high manner created a figure that any jeweler would rejoice to see coming into his shop. Around her neck she clasped a short string of valuable pearls, her only ornaments.

  “Decoys,” she said to me with a grin.

  Me you must picture with my red hair frizzed to a fare-you-well, and my face made up like the American flag, wearing a showy hat, a smartly cut caracul coat and high-heeled satin slippers. The make-up robbed my face of all character, and I looked to the life the expensive, empty-headed woman that you may find on upper Broadway in her hundreds. But I doubted my ability to run in those high-heeled slippers.

  “Then kick ’em off,” said Mme Storey. “It will add a picturesque touch to the story.”

  We continued uptown to the flat on West Street, where we found our three men waiting for us, all smartly rigged out according to the custom of the modern gunman, all cool and smiling. The youngster in particular seemed to regard it as a great lark.

  I could almost have hated them all for their unconcern. I wished myself anywhere but there. Mme Storey dealt out guns to all. They were loaded with blanks. Mine went into a specially prepared pocket of my fur coat.

  Inspector Rumsey came to us here for a final consultation.

  “How about the Fossbergs?” asked Mme Storey. “Do you think they will play their parts satisfactorily?”

  “I haven’t a doubt of it?” said the inspector dryly. “They couldn’t be in a worse state of funk if they expected to be robbed in earnest. I persuaded them to stay away from the store until just before you came, so their clerks wouldn’t get on to anything.”

  “And the guns?”

  “It’s the custom of the store to keep four loaded guns in different places under the counter. These were collected yesterday and sent to the makers to be cleaned and inspected.”

  I thought, with a shiver: How does he know but that one of the clerks may have a gun of his own? However, there was nothing to be gained by bringing that up then, and I kept my mouth shut.

  “What are the police arrangements?” asked Mme Storey.

  “According to your instructions, I did not attempt to interfere with them,” returned the inspector. “I have taken nobody in the department into my confidence. There is a man on fixed post on Broadway two blocks south of the store, and another stationed in the little park three blocks north. These men are far enough away not to interfere with you, but you must be careful not to drive past them, or they might shoot if they hear the alarm.

  “In addition there are two patrolmen whose beats meet in the middle of the street alongside the store. You will have to watch for these. After they have met and gone back you can depend upon about twelve minutes before they return. Don’t forget that there are many men on fixed post along Riverside Drive.”

  “We will keep off the Drive,” said Mme Storey dryly.

  The final arrangements were that we were to proceed to the Fossberg store separately, Abell in the car was to wait in the side street near the corner of West End Avenue with his engine running; the rest of us were to walk up and down, keeping in sight of each other, until the two policemen had met.

  Two minutes after the policemen had gone back Mme Storey was to enter the store, and I was to take up my position at the door, glancing up and down the street as if I was waiting for somebody. Abell and Farren were then to be looking in the window. Two minutes after Mme Storey had entered they were to follow her into the store.

  “Well, good-bye and good luck,” said Inspector Rumsey, smiling. “I must say it seems like a mad scheme to me; but I have had too many lessons in the past to venture to oppose any plan of Mme Storey’s.”

  A few minutes later four of us were separately strolling up and down outside Fossberg’s store. I was thankful for the rouge which covered my pale cheeks. However, we were not in the least conspicuous on the well filled sidewalk.

  A policeman passed, swinging his club, without looking twice at us. In the side street, down near the end of the short block, I could see the car waiting; a touring car, with the top down in true bandit fashion. It was a “stolen” car, too, to add verisimilitude – stolen from one of Mme Storey’s friends, however.

  Broadway uptown is an immensely wide street with grass plots down the middle. Trees used to grow there; but nowadays they would have nothing to root in but the subway.

  Both sides of the way are filled in with immense and expensive apartment houses with entrances in the side streets. The Broadway level is given up to shops, not large in size, but nearly all dealing in expensive luxuries.

  While it is not a fashionable street, I suppose there is as much money to the mile as in any other street in the world. The people of that neighborhood have a fat, soft look that must be tempting to a bandit.

  Fossberg’s, as I said before, is the finest establishment in that part of town. Only a few very choice objects are displayed in the show windows. There is but the one entrance, which is cut across the corner; at that season it was closed by a revolving door.

  Inside, the four walls were lined by show-cases, the tops of which served as counters; and there was in addition a square inclosure in the middle of the store, surrounded by other cases to display goods. Within this inclosure was a block of low safes, in which many valuable objects were kept.

  Well, the two policemen met, exchanged a word or two, and each slowly retraced his steps. The two minutes passed; then Mme Storey with her languid, graceful carriage went through the revolving door, and I took up my station outside it.

  At this moment, when I expected to have died with terror, all fear suddenly left me. Explain it how you will, my heart rebounded; all my faculties became preternaturally sharpened; the scene of that street was bitten on my brain as if with an acid; the towering apartment houses, red electric cars, smoothly moving motor cars, well dressed people drifting up and down.

  Stephens and Farren were close by, looking in one of the show windows. The former was carrying an umbrella hanging from his arm. He had his eye on the chronometer exhibited in
a corner of the window to inform passers-by of the correct time. When the proper interval had elapsed they followed Mme Storey through the revolving door.

  In order not to interrupt my narrative, I will describe here what happened inside while I was waiting outside, poised like an animal ready for I knew not what.

  There were eight or nine customers in the store, Mme Storey said, mostly in couples, since people generally like to have a friend along when they are choosing costly objects. There were five clerks on duty. Mr Benjamin Fossberg ought to have been waiting to receive my mistress, but he and his brother were both too nervous to show themselves openly. They watched the preliminaries from their office at the back.

  Mme Storey went to the center inclosure. She had waited a moment or two for a clerk. In the meantime her two men entered; Stephens turning to the left, where watches were displayed, and Farren making his way toward a case of jeweled cuff-links.

  Mme Storey told the clerk who came to her that she wanted a diamond ring. She affected not to be able to decide whether she wanted three diamonds in a marquise setting, or an emerald with a diamond on each side. We knew that the most valuable rings were kept in a certain safe, and her object was to make him open it. She said her clerk was an exquisite young gentleman like a model for a clothier’s advertisement, and it was a shame to frighten him so rudely.

  When he had opened the safe and brought a small velvet lined tray of rings to lay before Mme Storey, he found himself looking into the stubby barrel of her automatic. His face turned as white as the starched collar he wore; his eyes started from his head; no sound escaped him but a little throaty gasp.

  “Fetch out all the trays from that safe and put them on the counter,” said Mme Storey quietly.

  Like a man in a dream he started to obey, reaching blindly for the trays while he kept his terrified eyes fixed on the gun. As he put the trays on the counter, Mme Storey, always keeping him covered, with her free hand coolly emptied the contents on the square of velvet which covered the glass counter and put the trays to one side.

  So quietly was all this done that several of the trays had been brought out and emptied before anybody else in the store got on to what was happening. Then a woman customer on the other side of the center enclosure caught sight of Mme. Storey’s gun. A low, terrified cry broke from her, and instantly everybody in the store took alarm.

  Stephens and Farren then slipped forward with their guns out, one on one side of her, one on the other. Standing back to back, they commanded the whole store between them.

  “Keep still or I shoot!” growled Stephens.

  “If you move a step I’ll plug you!” added the boy.

  There was no other sound, they said, except the hoarse breathing of the terror-stricken men and women. Everybody was frozen where they stood.

  In sheer panic the two proprietors had dropped down behind the office partition. Stephens described to me the semicircle of still, ghastly faces that remained turned toward him.

  There was one fat, overdressed woman in a near-seal coat, whose lips moved continually. But whether she thought she was gabbling a prayer or beseeching Stephens to spare her life, he never knew, because no sound escaped her.

  There were only three persons on Farren’s side of the store. None moved. Mme Storey meanwhile continued to concentrate on the clerk who was serving her.

  “Move sharp!” she said, raising the gun a little.

  He dumped the remaining trays on the counter in a heap. Mme Storey deliberately emptied them. There was now a glittering, sparkling mound of rings on the square of velvet.

  Mme Storey picked up the corners of the square, one after another, and, giving the sack a twirl which confined the contents in a ball, dropped it into her hand bag. She then started to back toward the door, the two men covering her retreat.

  During all this I was playing my part outside. Immediately after Stephens and Farren went in a woman entered, and I made no attempt to stop her; but when, a moment or two later two more women came along, according to instructions I attempted to hold them in conversation. I asked for information about vacant apartments in the neighborhood.

  It is a fruitful subject, and I detained them without difficulty until out of the corner of my eye I saw Mme Storey backing toward the door. You must remember that all this happened in much less time than it takes to tell it.

  I gave the revolving door a push to facilitate my mistress’s exit. She came out, the gun already hidden. Farren followed, then Stephens.

  There was no appearance of hurry. Stephens slyly dropped his umbrella in such a fashion that the revolving door jammed on it, and stuck. These doors will only turn in one direction, you know.

  My last impression was of white faces inside, and fists beating on the glass; and the two foolish women that I had been talking to, vainly pushing at the door to get in. They had no idea of what had happened.

  The people inside were shrieking at them, and pointing down toward the jammed umbrella. But the two women never got it; they only looked indignant.

  Meanwhile we four walked rapidly, but with perfect sedateness toward our waiting car. There was never any need for me to kick off the satin slippers.

  Just as we were getting into the car, the clerks broke out of the store with a roar; but in a jiffy we were around the corner and bowling down West End Avenue at thirty miles an hour. Conditions were just right; there was enough traffic in the street to conceal us, and not enough to hold us up. The pursuit never came within sight or sound of us.

  We kept right on down West End Avenue past the point where it becomes plain Eleventh Avenue, and scattered at Forty-Second Street, leaving the “stolen” car to be found by the police in due course.

  Such was our first hold-up. I expect you will smile at me, just as my mistress did, but I felt disappointed at the outcome, it seemed so easy. After getting so tremendously wrought up as I did at the last moment I required more excitement to satisfy me.

  “It will do for a beginning,” said Mme Storey cryptically. “If we appeared to get along too well without outside help, it would only be to defeat our own purpose.”

  VI

  You can imagine with what eagerness I searched the newspapers next morning. Once more I was disappointed.

  It appeared that while we were turning our trick at Fossberg’s, the famous Bobbed-Hair Bandit had been conducting a sensational raid on the pay roll of a factory in Brooklyn. She got a whole column and a half whereas they only gave us a couple of short paragraphs tacked on to the end of her story.

  According to this account which had been given out by one of the clerks, he and his mates had put up a bold resistance, and had succeeded in driving us off with only a trifling loss to the establishment. These lies made me good and sore.

  Why, the value of the rings taken by Mme Storey was upward of fifty thousand dollars. I experienced the psychology of a real gunman. I felt that we had been cheated of our due.

  Mme Storey was highly amused when I voiced my feelings.

  “Oh, never mind the general public,” she said soothingly; “if we get credit among our professional friends at the Boule’ Miche’, it will be more to the point.”

  That night Benny Abell was sent on ahead to the resort to act as a sort of advance agent for the company. We were to join him there after midnight.

  The Boule’ Miche’ calls itself a “club”, of course, though it hangs out a glittering electric sign to the street. Only “members” are admitted upon presentation of their cards. It is not difficult to get one’s self elected.

  The entrance is ingeniously protected by a series of dressing rooms and lobbies swarming with employees. Beyond is the restaurant proper, consisting of three large rooms, all done in a florid rococo style with slashings of gilt scroll work.

  In the center of each room a little fountain throws up a jet of water with colored lights playing upon it. At this time the place was enjoying a wonderful run of prosperity owing, no doubt, to the widespread connections of the
genial proprietor.

  Pretty soon Bat Bartley would sell out and the Boule’ Miche’ blossom out under a new proprietor and a new name. For obvious reasons none of these places lasts long.

  As soon as we took our seats in the principal room, it became apparent that Abell had done his work well. Those whom we had spotted as the shady habitués of the place bore themselves toward us with an increased respect.

  In particular Bat Bartley was even more supple and suave than usual. He came hurrying up to ask with a meaning air if we would like a private room that night.

  “I do my best to keep out the wrong sort of persons,” he said, “but once in awhile they will get by.” He was referring to agents of the police.

  “No, thanks,” said Mme Storey with her cool smile. “I enjoy watching the crowd. Nobody is looking for us yet.”

  Bat Bartley laughed as if she had made an excellent joke. As a matter of fact, no descriptions of us had been published; and we had learned through Inspector Rumsey that the clerk at Fossbergs’ had been incapable of furnishing the police with working descriptions.

  “Well, anyhow,” said Bartley with a wink, “have a bottle of cider on the house.”

  This beverage, which was served from a plain bottle, unless I miss my guess, originated in a cellar of Reims.

  Abell did not remain with us continuously, but visited his acquaintances through the rooms as occasion offered. By and by he brought one of them up to our table.

  “Meet my friend, Mr Tinker,” he said, “you know, Muggsy Tinker between friends.”

  It was a comical figure. He had the look of a little boy who had become middle-aged without growing up.

  He had a boy’s curly pate now streaked with gray, and a schoolboy’s sheepish smile, though his face was seamed and wrinkled. A large, staring glass eye which matched very ill with its little twinkling mate added to the peculiarity of his appearance.

  He was wearing the conventional dinner coat, but would have looked more at home in a rough jacket with a dirty handkerchief around his neck.