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

by Frederick Nebel

  Cardigan was sprawled in a chair with his heels hooked on the windowsill. Babe Hendrix was leaning against the wall. She looked slender, trim and clean-cut.

  “Thanks for coming over,” Cardigan said. “I thought you guys might pull a busy signal.” He remained sprawled in the chair. “Sit down.”

  A black, irritable scowl had fastened to Cord’s narrow face. “Spill what you’re going to spill—and be quick about it.”

  “Sit down—sit down. All the guests haven’t arrived yet.”

  Snadeker’s eyes looked pale and hungry. He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand and never for a second removed his eyes from Cardigan’s face. Osterhauser sat down on a straight-backed chair, crossed his left leg over his right knee and cleared his throat.

  “Days is gettin’ shorter,” he said. “A month ago, the sun was up there, this time o’ day. Now, look—it’s way down there.” He pointed at the window. “Soon it’ll be winter again.”

  Cord gave him a sour look, but Osterhauser continued to gaze blandly at the window.

  “And a month ago, around this time, a gang out in the street was just stopping using their drills,” Cardigan said.

  “Well, I kinda like winter,” Osterhauser said, “leastwise, I don’t sweat. I sweat awful in hot weather.”

  “Shut up!” Cord spat.

  “Anyhow,” said Babe Hendrix, “he’s got a kind face.”

  “Hello, Miss Hendrix,” Osterhauser said politely.

  Snadeker had not yet taken his eyes off Cardigan and now his lips bounced as he barked: “Well, you going to lay on your back all day or are you going to get up and spit your piece?”

  There was a knock the door, and Cardigan got up and said: “Come in.”

  Radcliffe and John Colby entered, and Radcliffe, looking around the room with his expressionless eyes, raised his hands and adjusted his glasses. Colby’s face was at once troubled and insolent.

  Cardigan crossed to a table, picked up a revolver and said: “This is a .32—same caliber, make and style as Freemont’s, and loaded with the same length and make of bullet. The police want to look at it? Here, look at it.”

  Puzzled, Snadeker snatched it, broke it, examined the bullets, said: “O.K. So what?”

  Radcliffe sat down very quietly.

  Cardigan took the gun and faced the wall. He pulled the trigger, drove a bullet into the plaster, turned and said: “O.K., Babe.”

  Babe Hendrix got up and left the apartment.

  Osterhauser was regarding Cardigan with curious interest. Radcliffe was adjusting his glasses, and John Colby was fidgeting with his watch chain. Cord’s face was dark with confusion. Snadeker scowled in anger and perplexity.

  “I found out where Freemont got that mysterious suitcase,” Cardigan said. “He bought it at noon of the day he died—in Garberstein’s hockshop in Rice Street. He went from there to the next block in Rice Street, where there was a public auction being held in a store. The store now happens to be a haberdashery, but it was rented at that time to Levine Brothers, Auctioneers. Freemont bought at auction twenty-two books for three dollars and fifty cents, loaded them in the suitcase and took ’em to the bank, where he arrived at one.”

  “And where’s the suitcase?” Snadeker slurred.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ha!”

  “And where,” said Cardigan, “are the twenty-two books? If Freemont carried the money out in the suitcase, he must have left the books at the bank. Did he? No.”

  “So guess some more,” Snadeker sneered.

  “The bank has an oil-burning furnace in the basement which can be started by merely throwing on the switch. The books could have been burned. In a hot flame like that nothing but flakes would be left and they’d go up the chimney.”

  “All right, he burned the books.”

  “No. He was the first to leave the bank that afternoon. If he’d taken the suitcase and books to the basement during the afternoon, he’d have passed six clerks. He didn’t.”

  Colby drew his hand down his cheek and took a deep breath. Radcliffe eyed him curiously, coldly.

  The door opened, and Babe Hendrix came in, looked at Cardigan and shook her head.

  CARDIGAN left the living-room, passed through a dining-nook and disappeared in the kitchen. A moment later, they heard a loud explosion. It brought Radcliffe to his feet, made Colby grab at his own throat. Osterhauser had his gun half drawn, and Cord and Snadeker glared at each other in consternation.

  Cardigan came back into the living-room and nodded to Babe Hendrix.

  “O.K.,” she said, and again left the apartment.

  Cord made a fist. “What the hell kind of a run-around is this, Cardigan?”

  “Nuts, I’m leaving this madhouse,” Snadeker growled. “The guy’s a screwball.”

  “Not so fast,” Cardigan said. “I’m just about catching up to you.”

  Snadeker turned at the door and glared with his pale, angry eyes.

  “John Brownsmith,” Cardigan said.

  Snadeker’s brows bent slowly, and his limp mouth pulled up.

  “I’ll bet the people of this city would like to know how a cop with a salary of thirty-eight hundred a year manages to bank eleven thousand—” Cardigan said.

  “You dirty—” Snadeker’s face flamed but he did not budge.

  “And you,” Cardigan said to Cord. “How you, on a salary of ten thousand a year, manage to tuck away twenty-three grand.”

  Cord’s thin fingers folded tightly into his palms and his lips twitched against his clenched teeth. His eyes left Cardigan and swung slowly around the room to fasten on Radcliffe. Radcliffe had lifted his hands and was moving his glasses around on his nose. Colby’s breath was chopping out in short, loud gasps. Osterhauser’s face was growing very white, and his eyes were staring down his nose at the floor.

  Snadeker looked down at Radcliffe with hateful eyes. “You lousy bum!” he gritted. “Why didn’t you warn us that—”

  Cardigan broke in: “I told him not to. I told him this investigation of the Freemont case was just a stall to get at you birds and find out how much graft you were raking in—you banking your shakedown dough under the name of ‘Brownsmith’ and Cord under the name of ‘Everman.’ He didn’t give out those names. I had a court order to examine his file of depositors’ signatures and a handwriting expert to compare them with your own legal ones, which I got from the motor-vehicle bureau.”

  Cord’s eyes narrowed and he ripped out: “Then what’s the idea?”

  “What do you care? I’m going to bust you—you and Snadeker. Try to explain where all that dough came from. By God, I’ll have both of you behind bars—”

  “Will you?” bellowed Snadeker.

  Cardigan compressed his lips. There was, for a brief instant, a spark of apprehension in his eyes, as if what he planned to say next would explode or fizzle out. He said: “Was Freemont killed because he found out that you and Cord were banking graft money under assumed names?”

  Osterhauser got slowly to his feet.

  Radcliffe dropped his glasses, and, at that moment, the door opened and Babe Hendrix came in, quite out of breath.

  “Five of them—all five—said ‘Yes, absolutely,’” she said to Cardigan. “They said the first explosion didn’t sound anything like the one they heard when Freemont died. It wasn’t nearly as loud. Some of them hardly heard it at all. But the second one—the one in the kitchen—sounded exactly like the one the day Freemont died.”

  Radcliffe looked stupid. He got up, coughed, and pawed at the door. Cardigan went over and shoved him away.

  NOW Cardigan hammered out: “Radcliffe killed Freemont. Look at him. He’s sweating guilt.” He spun and faced Cord. “Freemont must have found out about your graft deposits. He told Radcliffe. But Radcliffe knew it all along. He knew that if he didn’t report it to the board, Freemont would—and would likely get his job for doing it. He knew that if he did report it, he’d have you guys to answer to. So he got t
he one man in with him who hated Freemont—Colby.”

  “I didn’t do it!” Colby cried. “I—I had nothing to do with it. All I did was do as Radcliffe asked me—testify that I saw Freemont with the suitcase and—and say I never saw Mr. Cord or the sergeant, here, make any deposits in the bank—”

  “I did it—I did it,” Radcliffe moaned. “I was afraid of my job and of Cord and Snadeker….” He gulped. “I burned the suitcase and books in the furnace. Then I took the money—to make it look clean against Freemont. The other part—I had planned that before—phoned the airport—”

  Cardigan turned on the sergeant. The sergeant had his gun out. His eyes were very white and deadly. “It don’t pay to be too smart, Cardigan,” he said thickly.

  Babe Hendrix’s eyes widened.

  “You, too, sister,” Snadeker said to her. “Stay where you are. I’m going to stop all this brightness right now. Freemont tried to be too bright—and what happened to him?” He licked his lips. “You, Cardigan, and you, sister, ain’t going to shove your nose into any more business.”

  Cord watched, his face wooden.

  “You’re yellow, Snadeker,” Cardigan rumbled, “and you can’t take me—”

  “I wouldn’t pull anything here, Snadeker,” Cord said. “Wait till it’s dark—”

  “I ain’t waiting,” Snadeker said in his clogged voice. “I should ha’ done this when he first hit town—then I wouldn’t ha’ had to clip the gal, too.”

  Cardigan moved away from Babe Hendrix. His face was gray, his jaw muscles straining. He had to expect one shot before he could reach Snadeker.

  And then, suddenly, he saw Snadeker’s gun on the floor. He heard Babe Hendrix give an outcry. Mixed with all this, was the thunder of a gunshot. Then he saw Snadeker crumple to the floor.

  Osterhauser’s gun was smoking and pointing now at Cord. Osterhauser’s face was very white. He said: “You make a move, and it’s the same medicine. I ain’t a smart cop, but I’m on the level—and even youse guys ain’t gonna commit murder. I been a floor-mat long enough for Snadeker to wipe his feet on. I begin to figure out now why he put me up to ask that gang out in the street when they was gonna stop usin’ the drills. I hereby arrest you, Cord, and you, Mr. Radcliffe, and you, Mr. Colby—alla youse guys, includin’ the Sarge. Mr. Cardigan, I got a hunch that the blast out there in the kitchen, before, wasn’t no gun. What was it?”

  “A giant firecracker,” Cardigan said.

  MARCUS BANCROFT turned from the window of his office and said: “You ought to get a medal, Cardigan.” He pulled on his brier for a little while.

  “The check’ll do. Make it out to the Cosmos Agency—usual rates.”

  Bancroft crossed to his desk. “How did you ever guess about the firecracker?”

  “Well, I started off wondering if there hadn’t been two shots—one while the pneumatic drills were working in the street, and the other—the one that was heard—after the drills stopped. Then Babe Hendrix made a crack about the Fourth of July. Freemont died on the sixth of July, which meant that there still could have been a lot of firecrackers around town. I found a piece of thread tied to the ventilator grill in the kitchen. When I emptied out the base of the ventilator, I found the charred butt of a firecracker. I figured, then, that the firecracker could have been tied to the grill, hanging inside the shaft, with a slow fuse on it.

  “Radcliffe knew Freemont’s wife was at the circus with the kids. Radcliffe called on Freemont—according to Radcliffe’s own story—and asked to borrow his gun for a target match. Freemont gave it to him. The drills were working outside. Radcliffe shot him close, to leave powder burns. He rubbed off his prints, held the gun with his handkerchief and pressed Freemont’s hand around the butt, then pulled the gun out and left it lying about a foot away. He attached a long, slow fuse to the ordinary fuse on the firecracker, and hung it in the ventilator shaft. He was in the dentist chair when the firecracker went off. Snadeker had helped him plan the whole thing. Freemont knew about the graft deposits. Radcliffe was afraid of his job—and also afraid of Snadeker. Colby was just a pawn.”

  When he got back to the hotel Babe Hendrix buttonholed him in the lobby and said: “How about taking a lonesome gal to dinner?”

  Cardigan tripped and fell flat on his face and a lot of bellhops came on the run. He rolled over, sat on the floor and pulled his right trouser leg up to his knee.

  “I knew that sock-garter would get you yet,” Babe said.

  Behind the 8-Ball

  Chapter One

  Death with a Demi-tasse

  THE man was small, spare, with stringy hair plastered down on an eggshell head. His jaw was bony, and a little off center, his eyes were a watery-blue, and, in his scrawny fingers, he carried a derby. The clothes he wore were plain, cheap, clean, and his shoes squeaked. He looked like the kind of man who would dress up on Sundays and holidays, only. But this was a Thursday night, dinnertime, in Andy’s Sea Grill and Bar, on Market Street. Beads of a cold San Francisco drizzle clung to the small man’s overcoat.

  “Over the office, the lady told me I could kinda find you here,” he said. “She said you was gone from the office till tomorrow, but, mister, I figured I couldn’t wait till tomorrow.” He moved a bit to let a waiter go by. “So I come here. Uh—you busy, Mr. Cardigan?”

  Cardigan was in the midst of a meal consisting of three baked potatoes, an abalone steak and three kinds of green vegetables, with a stein of beer on the side and numerous hard rolls.

  “Plenty busy,” he said. “Sit down. If I can get up after I eat this, I’m going to the fights. I don’t know why they sent you over here, brother. I told ’em I wouldn’t miss the chance to see Bugs Rosario get his face knocked out from between his ears. What’s on your mind?”

  The small man sat down on the edge of the chair. “What do you charge, Mr. Cardigan?” he croaked.

  “What do I charge for what?”

  “Well—I’m looking for somebuddy. I’m looking for my sister. I got an address here. This one”—he fingered a wrinkled piece of paper—“out on California Street. But I went out there, mister, and she ain’t there. She used to live there, though. But she ain’t there no more. They said there she moved about six months ago, but they don’t know where to.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “It’s Elinor Hill, mister.”

  “Did you look in the telephone book?”

  “Sure, yes.”

  “Is Hill your name, too? Is your sister single?”

  The small man nodded anxiously. “Hill, yes. And, yes, she’s single. Leastwise, she was. She’s about twenty-two now.”

  “Got a picture of her?”

  “Gee, mister, I ain’t. Elinor wasn’t much for having pictures took. Maybe there’s one back in Ohio, in a trunk or something, but when I come out here, Geez, I didn’t figure—” He paused to sigh, and wagged his small head. “There was this gent that give me a job chauffeuring him, and, soon as I druv him out here, why, he cans me; sells the car and takes a trip to China. So I’m left here stranded, and I figured maybe if I could find Elinor, she’d lend me bus fare back East, or something.”

  “How much dough you got?” Cardigan said.

  “Well, I got eight bucks.”

  “The Cosmos Agency charges ten bucks a day, Mr. Hill. You see, I just work for ’em. I’m not allowed to charge less. But I can send you to a couple of agencies that might give you a day at five bucks.”

  The small man looked woebegone. He fidgeted. He finally pulled a heavy gold watch from his pocket and croaked: “Look, mister, this here watch is easy worth ten bucks. When I was in the dough, ten years ago, it cost me a hunnert and twenty. Here, take a look at it, and—”

  Cardigan shook his head. “I’m not allowed to do that. I’ve got to have a cash retainer, in advance. Besides, even if I could get ten bucks on the watch, the job might cost more.” He took out one of his business cards and, on the back of it, wrote with his fountain-pen the name and address of one
of the local agencies. “Go there,” he said. “See what they can do for you. If you hurry, they’re probably still open.”

  The small man took the card, gazed unhappily at it, then sighed and said: “Well, thanks, anyhow, Mr. Cardigan. I’ll go there right now.”

  Cardigan grinned. “That’s the stuff—and good luck!” The small man moved among the tables.

  CARDIGAN, calling for another stein of beer, resumed eating. The place was large and noisy with conversation and the banging of crockery. People kept coming and going. But Cardigan, interested only in eating, rarely lifted his eyes from the table. It was only when he had finished, and was tapering off with a cigar and glass of brandy, that he became aware that something was wrong.

  He did not, at first, think that anything very much was wrong. He saw one of the waiters scoot among the tables, and, at the same time, a kind of curious suspense began to touch the other waiters. Then he saw the headwaiter appear and speak in hurried undertones to the cashier. Even then, Cardigan guessed idly that someone had refused to pay a bill. He wasn’t very much interested. The brandy was excellent, the cigar just right, and he looked forward to seeing Bugs Rosario knocked from between his ears.

  But other diners began to take notice, and several of them could be seen questioning their waiters. The waiters shrugged. The headwaiter stopped speaking with the cashier and disappeared again, hurrying. One of the waiters, after a word from the cashier, crossed to a slot-gramophone and inserted a nickel. Music began to blare in the Sea Grill. This served to dampen the curiosity of a lot of diners. But the waiters were still on edge, continually looking toward the front of the restaurant and speaking to one another as they passed.

  Presently, the headwaiter reappeared. He was accompanied by a uniformed policeman. They strode out of sight, back of a wooden partition. They moved quickly, and only a few of the diners saw them. Cardigan, whose policy it was to mind his own business, unless he had reason to do otherwise, called for his check. He paid the amount at the cashier’s counter and was getting into his shabby ulster, when a voice banged out at him.