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

by Frederick Nebel

  Slouched at the wheel, he was poking past Civic Park when a black roadster drew abreast of him, and one of its two occupants said: “Pull up.”

  Cardigan, without removing his foot from the accelerator pedal, looked indolently across.

  “Pull up, I said!”

  “Why?” asked Cardigan.

  The man, who wore a hard-straw hat above a pink-jowled face, pointed downward and said: “What’s the matter—can’t you read?”

  Cardigan shifted his stare and saw Norwick Police Department painted on the door of the roadster. He slipped his foot off the accelerator pedal, pulled in against the curb and stopped. Leaning back in the seat, he dragged an already damp handkerchief from his pocket and proceeded to mop his face.

  The police roadster pulled up ahead of him, and the pink-jowled man got out and came walking back along the curb. He had a high, fat stomach and thin, long legs. His hands were white, large, and on the right one a couple of rings glittered. He wore a gray-silk shirt with a tight silk collar. His lips were fat and his nose, small and pointed, seemed lost in the fatness of his face.

  He put his foot on the running-board of Cardigan’s car and said: “Lemme see your license—registration and operator’s.” His voice was hoarse, slurring, and dropped out of one corner of his mouth.

  Cardigan produced both licenses, and the fat man read them and nodded. Cardigan yawned and went on mopping his face, his neck, his wrists. The fat man opened the door of the car, climbed in and said: “O.K., let’s go.”

  “Let’s go where?”

  “Police headquarters.”

  Cardigan shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket and leaned back again. “Maybe I don’t appreciate the joke,” he said.

  “Get going, Cardigan. We’re going to headquarters.”

  Cardigan reached for the ignition key, pulled it out and said: “You’re putting the cart before the horse, sweetheart. I’m going to a hotel, and its name ain’t police headquarters.”

  THE fat man looked at him with round, dull-white eyes. “I don’t tell jokes, fella. I never told a joke in my life. I told you to get going. Now, get going!”

  Cardigan’s eyes flashed contemptuously. “So you don’t tell jokes, eh? Listen—”

  “You listen!” the other cut in savagely, pulling his gun and ramming it against Cardigan’s hip. His voice dropped, saying: “Where’s your gun?”

  “You’re sitting on it, copper. And you’re sitting on my hat and coat, too.”

  The fat man shifted sufficiently to get a revolver out of Cardigan’s coat pocket. His fat lips pursed and he grunted with satisfaction. “O.K., now get moving. You’re pinched for carrying a concealed weapon.”

  Cardigan laughed out loud. “What should I do—drive through the streets waving it and yelling, ‘Hey, look, everybody; I got a gun’?”

  “You come from New York. O.K., this ain’t the State of New York, and, when we don’t feel like it, we don’t honor a New York license to carry a rod. Well, we don’t happen to feel like it today.”

  “Oh, so I haven’t got a license in this state, huh?”

  “That’s right, Bright Eyes—you haven’t got a license in this state to carry a concealed weapon. I know. I know because when I found out you were coming to Norwick, driving, I got your number from the New York Motor Vehicle Bureau. Then I checked up in this state to see if you had a license here to carry a gun. So you didn’t, so it’s a pinch. Get going.”

  Cardigan said: “Now the dirt’s beginning to come out. You guys here muff a case and get the jitters when an outside man is called in. Listen, you fat slob, I don’t like your puss and I don’t like the way you talk, and you may be pretty foxy but I didn’t come here without an ace in the hole.” He opened a door in the dashboard and from a small compartment yanked a crisp new envelope. “Look inside that.”

  The fat man, his face red with chagrin, found a pistol permit in the envelope. He demanded: “Where’d you get this?”

  “Down the road—about twenty minutes after I crossed the state line. You can read. You see where I got it. Now give it back, along with my driver’s license and registration, and get the hell out of my car.”

  The fat man’s jowls shook, and his mouth set hard. “This here pistol permit looks like a phony. You gotta come to headquarters. I gotta check up on it.”

  Cardigan’s jaw cocked. “What’s your name, copper?”

  “I’m Sergeant Snadeker and—”

  “That’s all I want to know, because I was going to call you something else.” He reached across Snadeker’s knees, opened the door and said: “Now get out. The next time you try to pinch me, get a warrant, and, before you get the warrant, try thinking up a legitimate reason. This one you just pulled is so old I could sell it as an antique. Scramalam!”

  Snadeker very deftly socked Cardigan on the head with the barrel of his revolver and said: “I like ’em tough.”

  Cardigan saw stars, and his next move was caused by reflex more than anything else. His left fist traveled not more than two feet—a looping jab, shoulder high. It hooked onto Snadeker’s chin and banged his head against a hard upright of the car. The sergeant passed out.

  Cardigan recovered his papers and his gun. He took Snadeker’s gun and put it back into the sergeant’s holster. The sergeant looked very peaceful. He looked like a man sleeping off a heavy meal. Cardigan got out and walked to the police roadster, where a young, huge, serious-faced young man sat behind the wheel reading a pamphlet entitled The Modern Detective.

  “Listen,” said Cardigan, “the sergeant fainted. I think it must be the heat. Better give me a hand.”

  “Youse is Jack Cardigan, ain’t youse?”

  “Yeah, sure. Come on—”

  “My name is Osterhauser. I’m only a thoid-grade detective but—”

  “Sure, sure. But the sergeant—”

  “Yuss, the heat’s kinda bad today.”

  He pried his huge frame out of the small roadster and plodded at Cardigan’s heels. Cardigan nodded to the shade trees of the park and said: “We better carry him over there. It looks cool.”

  “’S good idea.”

  They carried the sergeant across the sidewalk and laid him down on the grass, beneath a tall elm tree. A crowd began to collect, and Osterhauser took off his coat, unloosed the sergeant’s belt and collar and set about inducing artificial respiration. Cardigan elbowed his way through the crowd, climbed into his roadster, started the motor and drove off.

  THERE was a parking-lot in the rear of the Eastern Hotel. Cardigan left his car there, took his Gladstone bag and, entering the hotel by a side entrance, bought a newspaper. “You got a reservation for me,” he said to the clerk as he wrote his name in the register.

  “Oh, yes. You’re Mr. Cardigan, the private detective—”

  “Yeah, only don’t shout it from the rooftops, pal.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I think you’ll like Room Four-ten.”

  “I’ll like anything, if it’s got a bath.”

  The clerk slapped a bell, and a hop came for Cardigan’s bag. As the big Cosmos op was heading for the elevator, a tall, long-legged girl in a tan linen suit and snappy hat to match, shoved away from the newsstand and said: “Hello, Mr. Cardigan. I’m Babe Hendrix, of the Herald, and I’d like—”

  “Hi, Babe,” Cardigan said. “Glad to meet you. So long.”

  He kept going on his way, entered the elevator and found her at his elbow as the car heaved upward. She was a straw-blonde with a nice coat of tan and a lean, good-looking jaw. She smiled at him. He grinned, turned his back on her and got off at the fourth floor. She hiked her elbows and strode down the corridor beside him. An unhooked sock-garter flapped against his shoe.

  She said in a good-humored voice: “What are you upstage about, Mr. Cardigan? Do I look a walking case of measles?”

  The hop opened the door of 410 and ducked in with the Gladstone. Cardigan turned in the doorway and said to the good-looking straw-blonde: “I’m about to take
my hair down and grab a shower. It’s tough enough that I can’t waltz into this burg without a lot of people wanting to play tag. If you don’t move, Babe, this door might sock that pretty nose of yours.”

  “Mr. Cardigan, you’re a mean man,” she sighed.

  “I got a heart of gold, kid—only I can’t use it because the country’s off the gold standard.”

  “Hoarding, huh?” She grinned, showing a set of fine teeth. “O.K., big man. You won’t talk, so you won’t talk.” She slipped her fingers into the small patch pockets of her linen jacket, turned on her heel and walked away.

  Cardigan pushed into the room, looked around and said: “Hey, this is a swell dump. I’ll bet that guy down at the desk gave me this room by mistake. Here.”

  The hop grabbed the tip, said, “Your garter’s loose,” and sloped out.

  Cardigan opened his Gladstone, hauled out a pint flask of rye and took a long pull straight from the neck. He snapped open the newspaper he had purchased in the lobby and bent his dark eyes on the right-hand column. Both the police and the district attorney’s office had closed the Freemont case, claiming that Charles Freemont had died by his own hand. Due to a suicide clause in the insurance policy, the widow, Ada Freemont, would be left penniless. District Attorney Eben Cord stated that the Civil Guardian League, in its attempt to discredit the procedure and findings of the police department and the office of the district attorney, was merely seeking publicity.

  Cardigan took another drink and grunted: “Oh, yeah?”

  Chapter Two

  Invitation to Scram

  MARCUS BANCROFT crammed rough, coarse-cut tobacco into the charred bowl of a big brier pipe and said: “Sit down, Cardigan.” Cardigan headed across the large office to an iced-water cooler, drank three cups of water and popped the paper cup into the metal receptacle.

  Saying, “I’ve shed enough sweat today to start a flood,” Cardigan went back across the office to a leather chair and dropped into it.

  Bancroft was a broad, large-boned man dressed in burry old tweeds. His face was deeply sun-browned, his hair white and thick. He lit up and said through an explosion of smoke: “We think Charles Freemont was murdered.”

  “Sure. Else why’d you send for me?”

  Bancroft blew out his match, flipped it into a tray. “You probably know the Civil Guardian League is a non-profit organization. None of us get any pay. I’m a lawyer, the treasurer’s a doctor, the secretary’s a real-estate man—and so on. The purpose of the league is to see that the laws of the municipality are carried out as they should be, that every man—or woman—gets a break in any kind of civil or criminal action.” He leaned back. “We’re after a complete reorganization of the local law-enforcement agencies. The way they handled the Freemont case is deplorable. Their verdict of suicide practically robs the young widow of twenty thousand dollars, in insurance. She’s got two little kids. We think she deserves a break—though she hasn’t asked for one.”

  CARDIGAN took a swat at a fly with his newspaper and nailed it. “Excuse me,” he said. “Go on. I’m not bored.”

  Bancroft handed him a fly-swatter.

  “Thanks,” said Cardigan.

  “Freemont was thirty,” Bancroft went on. “He was found dead in his apartment on the sixth of July—a Monday—when his wife returned from the circus with their two kids, at six P.M. Five persons, none of them related but all living in the apartment house, heard a shot at five-fifteen. A gang had been working with pneumatic drills in the street outside until five, and, in the comparative silence that followed, the ears of the people in the apartment house were pretty sensitive. But with the usual carelessness of people, they didn’t report hearing the shot to anyone until the police began questioning.

  “It was Freemont’s own gun—a thirty-two revolver. It was found beside him on the floor. The police were phoned, by the apartment-house manager, at five past six. They didn’t show up until seven-twenty, and the coroner didn’t get around until ten that night. No attempt was made to keep people out of the apartment, with the result that fingerprints were useless. The gun was taken to police headquarters for fingerprinting but it was left lying around, and a couple of cops picked it up by mistake and ruined any print that might have been on it.”

  Cardigan walloped another fly and said: “Where does the suicide theory come in?”

  “The police claim he got cold feet. Freemont was assistant cashier at the North End Bank. When they checked up, the day after his death, they found that ten thousand in cash was missing from the bank vault. They also found out that at noon of the day he died he phoned the airport and made a reservation for one seat to Montreal that night. One of the tellers, John Colby, remembered that when Freemont returned to the bank from lunch he carried a small valise that looked old. That valise has never been found, and the police contend that Freemont loaded it with the money and shipped it to himself—to an assumed name, of course—at some destination they never did find out.

  “Radcliffe, the cashier, stopped by the apartment at half-past four the day of the death, and left at a quarter of five. He later told the police that he stopped by to tell Freemont that he was thinking of resigning and would like to recommend him for cashier. The doorman at the apartment house put Radcliffe into a cab at ten to five, and between five and six Radcliffe was at his dentist’s. The police contend that Freemont stole the money, put it in the valise, shipped it somewhere, and then went home. They contend that, when Radcliffe stopped by to tell him he contemplated resigning and recommending him, Freemont became conscience stricken, and so took his own life. Freemont’s wife said that for several days her husband had been wrapped in thought.”

  Cardigan said: “It’s certainly a swell build-up for a suicide theory. Listen, mister—I’m a detective, not a magician.”

  “Exactly. You’re a detective. The details I’ve just given would indicate that Charles Freemont committed suicide. But there are other facts. Here”—he tossed a sheaf of papers across the desk—“you may take these. They were made in duplicate. It’s the league’s own report, and contains names of all persons connected with the case, and testimony freely given.

  “Charles Freemont was a happy, able, successful young man. No woman but his wife had ever entered his life after they were married, seven years ego. He left no debts. He was paid a hundred a week at the bank. He had recently bought an acre of ground in the country and contemplated building a house. His insurance premiums had never lapsed. The illness of one child took his surplus cash, but the child grew better. Charles Freemont left, in cash, only five hundred dollars, barely enough to bury him. However, his family lived well, and his earning power would have grown rapidly.

  “Now, he was not a physical coward—several acts of his, written down there, will prove that—but he would never fly. He flew once and became deathly ill. He tried it a second time and became ill again. He hated flying. None of his clothing was missing from the apartment—they assumed he had packed some clothing in the valise. Also, none of his baggage was missing, according to his wife. Theirs was a joint bank account. She was the last to draw on it, the day he died. She drew twenty dollars. He kept only twenty a week out of his salary, and, when he died, seven of that was still in his pocket. He had invited friends—Mr. and Mrs. Jarrett—to his apartment for that evening and that morning had taken his car to the garage to have it overhauled. The day before he had arranged for the rental of a beach cottage for two weeks hence.”

  “Still,” said Cardigan, “ten grand was lifted from the bank.”

  “There is no shred of proof that Charles Freemont took it. Where is the money? Where is the valise?” Bancroft leaned forward. “John Colby is the only man at the bank who saw Freemont with the valise. Freemont was promoted over Colby’s head. Freemont, at a board of directors’ meeting, once stated that John Colby was negligent in his work and rude to the bank’s customers. Colby, however, was kept on. They can guess all they want that Charles Freemont committed suicide, but my guess is
different—you can make mine murder. How, or why, he was murdered, I don’t know. If I knew, I shouldn’t have sent for you. Well, I’ve shot my head off now. If you need any court orders, Judge Thoms will help.”

  “Where was Colby at the time of the shooting?”

  “He says he was riding in his car in the country. The police, with amazing inconsistency, chose to believe him—since no one around the apartment house saw him at that time.”

  “Who was in charge of the police investigation?”

  “A Sergeant Snadeker.”

  “Ah,” said Cardigan, “the guy that likes ’em tough.”

  WHEN he swung into his room at the Eastern Hotel, Cardigan saw Detective Osterhauser seated comfortably in an armchair by the window. He looked around the room for Snadeker but did not see him. Osterhauser took his right leg off his left knee and then crossed his left leg over his right knee. He cleared his throat.

  Cardigan scooped up the telephone and said: “Let me speak to the desk clerk…. Hello, this is Cardigan, in Room Fourteen. Say, what the hell kind of a hotel is this?… Why? Well, I didn’t figure I rented a public sitting-room, and here, the first time I go out and come back again, I find some pot-head from the police department parked in my room like he owned the place…. Oh, so you’re sorry?” He cracked the receiver into the hook and slammed the instrument down onto the bedside table.

  “Tsk, tsk,” sighed Osterhauser, “gettin’ all steamed up in such hot weather. You must take about ten breaths to my one. I never seen such a guy for goin’ off the handle without no reason. I’m just sittin’ here, doin’ nothin’, harmin’ nobody, and the first crack off the bat I’m called a pot-head.”

  “I get it. You’re just a big, innocent guy that everybody does wrong.”

  Osterhauser’s big, block-like face looked very serious. “Yeah. Like you tellin’ me the sarge fainted. I suppose you figured that was a real hot idea.”