The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 4: 1935-37

by Frederick Nebel

  THERE was a cluttered cigar store on the corner where Cardigan got out of the cab. He stood for a minute with his hands sunk in his ulster pockets, his old hat crushed down to his eyebrows, a keen windy look in his eyes. Brick and frame buildings jostled one another in the narrow street; there were a few garages, an empty lot, a bottling-plant. The smell of the river came up the street.

  Cardigan turned into the cigar store, peered around; went outside again and craned his head, scowling. He returned to the store and asked the sleepy, fuzzy-haired man behind the counter: “Was there a girl here recently—one that made a phone call?”

  “H’m—yeah, I guess so. You mean about half an hour ago?”

  “About that, yes. She was supposed to wait here.”

  “Well,” yawned the man, “she did—for a little while. Then another gal fell over the doorstep coming in and I guess turned her ankle. She could hardly walk. This other gal, the one you asked about, helped her—I guess helped her walk home, I dunno.”

  “What’d she look like, the one that fell?”

  “I dunno. Young—that’s all. I can’t find my eyeglasses and I can’t see good without eyeglasses.”

  “How long ago did they leave?”

  “Oh, maybe ten minutes.”

  Cardigan pivoted and strode out. Pat had phoned the office and said that she had tailed a man from the Washington Boulevard address to a house in this street. She had given the address of the cigar store from which she had phoned and had told Miss Elfoot to have Cardigan join her there. She had said that the house to which she had followed the man was in the same block but had no number.

  The Cosmos op walked along on a broken sidewalk. No one seemed to live in the street. There were no dogs, no cats; no sound of any kind. Some of the old buildings were boarded up. Cardigan felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. It was in this neighborhood, not far from this very street, that Talbott had been found dead.

  He went up one side of the street, listening at doors, at windows; he came back on the other side of the street, crossed and stood in front of the cigar store. He had a feeling that he was being watched, that from an upper window somewhere in this block eyes followed his movements. He walked again over the broken sidewalk more slowly this time, his hand on the gun in his overcoat pocket.

  And then he stopped and looked at something that he had noticed with only idle interest on his first tour: a red smear along the wall of a yellow frame house—a red streak about a foot long. He moved on, saw another similar streak across a door; and two houses farther on, another streak. This time he rubbed with his finger, found his finger smeared with the red stuff. He sniffed it. He figured that it was lip-rouge. Going on, slow step by slow step, he found another streak of red. He began to move faster and then stopped suddenly when he saw a red circle scrawled on a gray wooden door. The house was frame, boxlike, and three-storied. Shades were drawn. Bending, he picked up Pat’s lipstick.

  Cardigan did not knock. He walked on faster now; reached the empty lot and entered it. At the back of the corner building was a fire-escape and he climbed it, his coat-tails swinging on the way up. He came to the roof and crossed it; dropped to the roof of the next house and went over a ledge to the roof of the third. The fourth was the one he wanted and he walked on his toes when he had reached it. He crossed to a chimney and held his hand over it and felt warm air rising. He knew the house was not vacant now. There was a fire-escape down the back of it. There was a trap-door in the roof but it was bolted from the inside. He went over the side, took six steps down the fire-ladder to a metal landing outside a window. The window was locked. He could see a small bare room with a closed door at the other end of it.

  TAKING out his jack-knife, he went to work on the top center pane of the old-fashioned, six-paned window. He clipped away the old putty, pried out the small metal triangles; then got his knife blade in under the edge of the pane and pried it free of its frame without so much as chipping it. He laid the pane down on the landing, reached in and unbolted the window. Raising the window slowly, he climbed in, left it raised.

  He drew his gun and moved across the room, opened the door and looked out into a hallway. There was a room off the left and though it was innocent of a stick of furniture, there were two trunks and three handbags. There were four other rooms on the top floor, all of them empty. He heard a low murmur of voices and turning his head, saw a hot-air radiator in the wall. He put his ear to it but could hear no more than a voice’s low murmur.

  Going back into the hallway, he made his way down the staircase to the second floor. He paused, heard the sound of voices again; how many voices, he did not know but he figured there were three or four, all downstairs. He went to the front of the hall, pulled up the shade and carefully raised the window, wanting to be sure of a quick way out in the event of an emergency. He stuck his head out and saw that the street was deserted. A gust of wind uprooted his hat and though he tried to recover it, it spun downward and landed in front of the street door. He cursed under his breath, pulled his head in and went down to the lower hall.

  The voices were in the rear but he tried a nearer door and it opened at his touch and he found himself entering a gloomy front room containing overstuffed furniture. An open doorway led him into a large bedroom and, though it was daylight outside, this room was bathed in gloom. A door was beyond and beneath it he could see a thread of light. He crossed silently to that door, laid his hand on the knob, turned it, felt the door give.

  He yanked it in and said “Don’t move!” into the next room.

  Four men sitting around a kitchen table moved as though an electric shock had touched them—but they did not move far. Ansel Bundy, looking fat and perturbed and with his hair disheveled, dropped a glass of whiskey. A big blond man in a black pull-over sweater shot his mouth tightly over to one side and held it there, rigid. A stumpy, ape-like man with a broken nose choked and spat out a cigarette. John Strawn, who had shot Buddy Miller to death under Cardigan’s eyes, wore a cold, gray look. All the shades, of a dark green color, were drawn, and a large electric light glowed against the ceiling.

  Ansel Bundy made a sound something like “Ahnk!” and swallowed hard. His eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets; fear glazed them and ripped its way down his fat, quaking face.

  “I suppose,” Cardigan said dully to him, “I’m in the wrong house again.”

  Chapter Five

  The Real McCoy

  ANSEL BUNDY shook all over. The broken-nosed man began to stare hard at the floor, as though he were not concerned with what was taking place. The big blond man began to scratch his chest. Strawn seemed to be listening for something. There was in the room an atmosphere of a balloon swelling and threatening to burst.

  Cardigan’s voice chopped into it harshly. “Where’s the girl that was brought here?”

  Strawn lifted his eyes slowly and said: “What girl?”

  “The girl that found this address!” Cardigan snapped. “Pat Seaward!”

  “Do you see her?” Strawn inquired.

  Cardigan’s eyes drilled him “Never mind trying to uncork an act, brother.” His eyes shifted to Bundy. “All right—then you tell me, little fat man—or you’re going to have a busy day.”

  Bundy’s fat chin jigged. “I—I don’t know a thing. That is a fact, sir. I—”

  “Shut up!” Cardigan shouted. “I’ve got it all figured out. Talbott went to that Washington Boulevard address. Nobody was there. He saw your sign in the window. He went to your office and was killed! You’re the mastermind behind all this!”

  Bundy waved his fat hands in horror. “No, sir! I assure you, sir!” The sweat began to make his fat face very shiny and his hands pawed the air. Terror had riddled his eyes. “I—I was forced into countenancing certain acts—” He stopped, his voice wheezing, despair hanging at his mouth.

  Strawn’s lips were taut and his cold eyes were fastened on the fat man. Bundy forced himself to meet that stare—and then shrank away, his mou
th contorted with fear. He cried out: “I know nothing, sir! Not a thing!”

  Cardigan nodded to a door at the side of the kitchen, said: “What’s in there?”

  “A servant’s room—now unoccupied.” Strawn said.

  “There’s somebody in there,” Cardigan growled. “At the door. I hear—”

  The knob of the door rattled. The broken-nosed man moved on his chair, making it creak. Strawn seemed to sit straighter in his chair. His face was pale, deathly gray, but not a muscle twitched. Bundy squirmed on his chair and seemed on the point of tears and the blond man pursed his lips and began to whistle.

  Suddenly the door swung open and revealed the blonde, Agnes Mahoney, on hands and knees. Her hair was rumpled and there was a handkerchief tied around her mouth and she appeared to be on the point of collapse. Cardigan, saying, “One move out of any of you palookas, and it’s root-a-toot,” began moving across the floor to where Agnes Mahoney was now crawling slowly into the room. He reached down with his left hand, grabbed hold of her arm and said: “Try to get up, kid, so I can—”

  She shot to her feet like a wildcat and her hands clawed down across Cardigan’s face. Pain seared his face and a violent kick in the shins sent him staggering. Agnes jumped back and the man with the broken nose jumped in. Cardigan caught a hard fist on the jaw and slammed back against the wall. The blond man came into him headfirst and almost knocked the wind out of him.

  Bundy jumped up and ran for the door, terrified.

  “Hey, you!” Agnes Mahoney screamed.

  Strawn snapped: “Bundy—get back here!”

  Cardigan hit the squat man and drove him across the room into a pile of dishes that crashed. But the big blond man had his other hand, his gun-hand, warped high and backward.

  BUNDY was trying to get the door open, heedless of the threats of Strawn, the yells of the woman. Bundy got the door open but the woman hit him with a heavy glass pitcher and floored him.

  Strawn snapped to the blond man, “Break away, Dutch. I’ll cover him. Cardigan, drop that gun!”

  “Drop hell!”

  “Drop it! Dutch, break, I tell you!”

  Cardigan put his heel against the wall, shoved and went banging across the room carrying Dutch with him. Strawn jumped out of the way, hit a chair and fell down. The squat man came up out of the broken dishes pulling a gun. Cardigan tossed Dutch off, shifted, snapped his gun around and cut loose at the squat man. The squat man looked surprised, then stricken, and fell back into the broken dishes.

  The woman leaped on Cardigan’s back, got her fingers in his eyes. He yelled, heaved and threw her over his shoulders; and as she cleared, her legs flying, Strawn stepped in and banged Cardigan across the face with the barrel of his gun. Blood spouted and Cardigan turned around and fell to his knees. He was getting up again when Dutch kicked him and flattened him. But he rolled over and, half blinded, fired upward. Dutch’s feet clubbed the floor as he staggered backward and crashed into Strawn. Cardigan shoved himself up to his feet, reeled and went staggering into the side room. He didn’t stop until a wall stopped him and then he fell, bounced off a bed. But he felt an arm—soft, small—and then, in the dim light, he saw a form on the bed.

  “Pat!” he muttered.

  She was bound and gagged and could neither move nor say anything. But he knew she would be in the line of fire. Grunting, he grabbed hold of her—but she was lashed to the cot. He had no time to cut away the lashings, so he gripped the cot and tried to slide it out of the way of the door. It swung heavily. He threw his weight against it hard and it rumbled across the floor, stopped against the other wall.

  He turned and bounded to the doorway. He saw Bundy again on his feet, clawing toward the hall doorway, trying to get out. He saw Strawn, thin-lipped, aiming his gun at Bundy.

  “Strawn!” Cardigan ripped out.

  Strawn’s gun went off and Bundy lurched against the door frame. Cardigan dropped Strawn with a low shot, hopped across the room as Bundy, apparently only lightly wounded, tried to reach the hall.

  “Stop it, Bundy!” Cardigan yelled.

  Bundy didn’t stop and Cardigan caught hold of him, pulled him back into the room. Bundy sat down on the floor, his eyes bulging, his breath pounding up his throat.

  “Listen—listen, I tell you, sir, I had nothing— Look, sir. She—Agnes—I fell for her. Hard, you understand. She wrapped me around her finger. I tell you, sir, I thought it was legitimate at first. Strawn’s auto-tourist society. He got me to handle accident insurance for clients. He sent out many letters—had a large mailing list—small country towns. Five-dollar fee, for which members were supposed to get cut-rate gas, lodging, on tourist trips. List of fake lodging-houses, camps, gas-stations. Talbott showed up. Shrewd country editor. First I knew about them using Washington Boulevard address as a blind. Agnes did that—gave Strawn the key. Strawn collected mail there every day. Talbott saw my sign in that window, came to my office. Demanded to know my hook-up with the society. Sir, I was in a spot. While we talked, Agnes went out, phoned Strawn. He came and took Talbott away, burnt his baggage, hid his car. I had to play along. Strawn threatened. Canny country editor—”

  “You took those letters in the hallway that time?”

  “No, sir. Strawn collected the letters. Your Miss Seaward happened to be watching across the street—saw him enter, come out with letters. She followed him. But he happened to notice her there, saw her again in this street. Saw her go in that cigar store—and sent Agnes after her—”

  He stopped suddenly, his mouth open, his eyes wide with horror. Then his mouth closed, his lips pressed fiercely together. He saw Agnes creeping up behind Cardigan with a carving knife. But Bundy did not shout, did not warn him; in this terrible minute Bundy must have realized that Cardigan would not, could not let him go. In his fear and terror he must have figured that with Cardigan dead, he might still have a chance—one small, craven snatch at life. He reached up and with both hands, gripped Cardigan by the neck.

  AGNES lunged. Cardigan lunged right across Bundy’s body—so fast, so hard, that his head banged against the wall and stunned him. The knife missed him. It sank in the floor. Agnes went head over heels. There was a crash somewhere else in the house. The sound of it spurred Bundy to a final, miserable grasp at life. He wrenched the knife from the floor, struggled to his feet, swayed a minute and then, with the knife upraised, headed for Cardigan, who was on his knees, shaking his head.

  Miss Elfoot came through the door holding a large revolver. Her hat was knocked over one eye. A sucked-in breath hissed through her teeth and she held the revolver out awkwardly, with both hands, and her knees shook, a grimace warped across her mouth. The gun boomed in her hands and with a little startled cry she let it drop and clapped her hands to her cheeks. Bundy went down on one knee, then toppled over on his back.

  Miss Elfoot said “Oh, oh, oh,” in a scratchy little voice.

  Cardigan looked up at her foggily. “Miss Elfoot,” he said.

  “Y-yes, sir?”

  “Take that knife, go in that room and untie Pat.”

  He reached over and caught hold of Agnes with one hand. She was a little dazed but she turned on him, tried to bite him. With his other hand he knocked her cold. He rose slowly to his feet, his face bloody, his hair matted.

  Pat came out into the room and cried: “Oh… chief, you’re hurt!”

  “Patsy, think nothing of it. That was a swell idea, the rouge marks on the walls.”

  “It was a long chance. The minute she got me out of the store, she held a gun on me.”

  Miss Elfoot came into the room saying: “I know I should have stayed in social service. I—”

  “And how did you get in?” Cardigan asked.

  She gasped: “Oh, goodness. I wonder—” and ran out into the hall.

  Pat said: “Well, what—”

  They heard a scraping, rubbing sound, and in a minute saw Miss Elfoot hauling Boze Shadd into the room. Shadd was not on his feet and he looked a bit cra
cked up. His head was rolling and he was muttering vaguely under his breath.

  Miss Elfoot said: “He showed up at the office and when I wouldn’t tell him anything, he dragged me over to headquarters. But I figured you might phone, and I wouldn’t be in the office—so I had to tell the—well—cluck. I had a hunch you might get tied up in things. We came down to the cigar store, didn’t find out anything, and then we walked down the street and I saw your hat on the sidewalk. ‘This is it,’ I said. We tried the door but it was locked and I said to Shadd, ‘You’re tough. Go ahead and bust it down.’ Well, he took a running broadjump and busted it down—and knocked himself out doing it. I—well—grabbed his gun.”

  Shadd, coming to, began to yell: “It’s a lie! I was knocked out and—” He sat up and glared at Miss Elfoot. “You knocked me out! You hit an officer! I’ll—”

  Miss Elfoot blushed a little. “Well, all right, then I did.” She turned to Cardigan. “He broke the door down but when he heard the racket back here he wouldn’t go in. He said, ‘I’ll go get a squad of cops.’ I told him there wasn’t time. He said there was. So I hooked one on his jaw and knocked him out and took his gun.”

  Shadd blared: “She hit me with a hammer!”

  “I did not,” said Miss Elfoot, taking a set of brass knuckles out of her pocket. “I hit you with these. I got them as a present from Honey Boy Potofski, when I was in social-service work.”

  Cardigan turned and said, “I could go for a drink,” and headed toward a bottle standing on a shelf.

  “Try this,” said Miss Elfoot, hauling a half-pint flask out of her pocket. “It’s the real McCoy.”

  Make Mine Murder

  Chapter One

  Suicide Kick-Back

  CARDIGAN rolled his big shabby roadster into the Norwick city limits at three of a sultry afternoon in early August. His tie was undone, his collar open, and his hat and coat lay in a heap beside him. His shaggy hair looked tousled and sweaty. He was hot, and, having had a flat a few miles down the road and pinched his finger changing the tire, he felt a little on the sour side.