“Where can I find Captain Peterson?” Cardigan said.
“I’m Peterson,” the man replied. He wore a dark-gray overcoat and fedora, and his eyes were bloodshot. “I suppose you’re another one of these reporters. If you are, turn about and go ashore.” He made a quarter turn and spat over the rail. “Police and reporters—that’s all’s been on board here lately.”
“Well, it’s this way, Captain Peterson,” Cardigan said. “The papers said Hill’s name was really Finney—”
“My God, do I have to hear this all over again?” Peterson broke in dismally. “I told you—”
“But I’m not a reporter, and I’m not a cop. You read the papers, didn’t you? Well, I’m Cardigan—the private detective Finney spoke to in that restaurant. Finney might have been Hill. I mean, even Finney might have been a fake name—the papers he had could have been fake or forged. I’m trying to find out if Elinor Hill actually had a brother—if Finney left any pictures of any girls behind, or if you ever saw any pictures of any girls in his possession—”
“Mister, I ain’t in the habit of associating with my steward,” said Peterson, his eyes thick and arrogant. “I’m master of this vessel. Good-day.” He turned on his heel and went inside.
Cardigan returned to the office and said: “I insulted a guy.”
“You’ve done that before, chief.”
“Don’t throw my past in my face, Patsy.”
“I’ll bet the other man, that stopped by the rooming-house, was the one that killed Vincent Finney, or Hill, whatever you want to call him.”
“Call him by his right name—Finney. And anyhow, I’m not hired to solve who killed Mr. Finney, chicken. I’m hired to find Elinor Hill for Edward Burke.”
“You haven’t done much leg-work.”
“Why should I? The police have covered, or are covering, every routine angle—hotels, rooming-houses, steamship offices, doctors and hospitals. They can cover as much ground in a day, with their numbers, as I could in a week. It’s up to me to tackle the human-nature angle.”
“What’s this, chief—a brain-wave?”
Cardigan looked at his watch. It was five P.M. “Powder your nose and put on your bonnet, baby. We’re going places.” He telephoned police headquarters and said: “This is Jack Cardigan. Any word on Elinor Hill yet?” He hung up and shook his head.
Pat said, looking into her compact: “Maybe she’s in China or someplace.”
“Maybe. Maybe she’s right here in San Francisco.”
“It keeps ringing in my ears—Elinor Hill—Elinor Hill.”
Cardigan took a drag at a pint flask of rye, swished the whiskey around in his mouth and swallowed it. Then he took another nip clean and corked the flask. “Got your eyebrows on? Come on.”
As they left the office, Pat said: “What is your opinion of Elinor Hill?”
“Without ever having met the gal, my opinion is that somewhere, sometime, she made a mistake. I don’t know what kind. But enough of a mistake to vanish when Edward Burke wanted to marry her. If she was a bum, she’d have played him. She wasn’t, so she took a run-out powder. There was something in her life that she didn’t want to tell Edward Burke. It was strong enough, and her feeling for Burke was strong enough, to make her scram.”
“I like to think that way, chief,” Pat said. “I like to think of Elinor Hill as a fine person.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because Edward Burke loves her so. Where are we going?”
“Out to Edward Burke’s.”
THE rooming-house on California Street had a bay window and a flight of stone steps leading up to a vestibule whose glass shone darkly, whose brasswork gleamed. The front door was not locked. Cardigan and Pat entered, and Cardigan told her to keep going till she reached the second floor. On the second floor, he led her to a door at the front of the corridor. From his pocket he took a key, unlocked the door and said, “Don’t touch anything,” as they entered Edward Burke’s room. He put the key in the inside of the door. There was a newspaper on the threshold.
The blankets on the bed were twisted, disheveled. A chair was overturned. On the floor lay an alarm clock, its glass face shattered, its hands stopped at one-twenty-five. Cardigan did not touch it. He stood and gazed speculatively around the room, pursing his lips and nodding his head.
“It looks as if there was a struggle,” Pat said in an anxious voice.
“I’m glad you think so, Patsy.”
He stepped back into the corridor and went down to the main floor, where there was a pay telephone attached to the wall. He telephoned police headquarters and asked for Shag Hartman. And to Hartman he spoke briefly.
“This is Cardigan, Shag. You better come out to the California Street rooming-house. Come out and find out.”
He hung up and then telephoned a newspaper, saying, “This is Cardigan of the Cosmos Agency. Send a reporter out to California Street—” he gave the number—“a little something on the Elinor Hill case…. Oh, you didn’t know I was working on it? Well, I am. Send your man out, pronto.”
He went back upstairs and Pat, who had heard everything gave him a long, close scrutiny. Cardigan, paying no attention to her, whistled quietly to himself and re-entered Edward Burke’s room. Pat leaned in the doorway. Cardigan took off his battered hat, scratched his shaggy head and sent his eyes cruising shrewdly around the room.
“Don’t mind me,” Pat said. “I just happen to work for you.”
He was absorbed and said in a low, preoccupied voice: “If they ask you anything, all you have to say is that we came out here to see Burke, found his door unlocked—and the room just as it is now.”
CARDIGAN moved to the front window and stared down into the street. In a little while, a taxi drew up and a man jumped out. Almost at the same instant, a sedan stopped at the curb. Cardigan remarked, “The police and the press,” and went out into the corridor. Hearing them downstairs, he called out, “Up here, gang,” and watched them come up the staircase.
Shag Hartman was followed by Augie Bauerhaus, and the third man said: “You Mr. Cardigan? I’m Draper from the Times-Star.”
Hartman’s square, meaty face wore a suspicious frown. “Well, Cardigan, what are you into now?”
“What—no Sam Rosario?”
“Poor Sam, he’s laid up,” Augie Bauerhaus said piously. “Every time his brother Bugs fights, he gets upset and nervous. Well, Bugs lost last night. And Sam’s so upset, he bawls Bugs out for losing, and Bugs is upset, too—very upset—and he busts Sam’s nose. His own nose is busted, too, though not by Sam, and so now they both got busted noses and—ha!—they look like twins. As I was saying—”
“Dunk it,” growled Shag Hartman.
“Well, where’s the body?” Draper said.
“The lieutenant’ll probably find that,” Cardigan said dryly.
“What body?” Hartman demanded.
They were all in Edward Burke’s room now. Cardigan said: “I think I ought to report that my client, Edward Burke, is missing and that I think—”
“Your client?” broke in Hartman. His fist doubled. “You said you had nothing to do with— Why, you dirty—” He pulled up, remembering that a representative of the press was present. His face grew dull red. His eyes jabbed around the room.
“He became my client, after you left my office. He hired me to find Elinor Hill,” Cardigan said.
“Why?” grunted Hartman.
“He was nuts about her.” He gestured around the room. “He was to’ve dropped by the office at noon today. He didn’t. Pat and I just came out here. Look for yourself. That chair’s knocked over, the blankets are half off the bed and the clock’s on the floor, busted. Notice what time it stopped—twenty-five past one—”
“It could be A.M. or P.M.,” put in Augie Bauerhaus.
“It could, but I say it’s A.M.—twenty-five past one this morning.” He nodded to the newspaper on the floor. “That was slipped under his door. It’s a morning paper. The l
ittle guy, Vincent Finney, was looking for Elinor Hill. He was murdered. Edward Burke was looking for Elinor Hill. He’s disappeared, if what we see here means anything. I thought,” he added, with a sardonic smile, “that I ought to report it to the police.”
Hartman’s face was hostile. “Why didn’t you tell me before this that you were working for Burke?”
“I wasn’t hired to tell you. And, besides, Shag, I don’t like being patted on the cheek in my own office.”
“And now you’re passing the buck, eh? Burke disappears and now you pass the buck to us.”
“I haven’t made any inquiries here, Shag. You’d better.”
“I know what to do. You don’t have to tell me. What I said, I said—you’re passing the buck. You can’t take it. You gotta turn to us. Now, what the hell do you think of that?”
Cardigan shrugged. “I guess this once, Shag, you’re right. I’m damned sorry.”
Later, heading downtown in a taxi, Pat said: “Something’s wrong, chief.”
“What, for instance?” Cardigan said.
“You were nice to Shag Hartman. And something else.”
“What now?”
She gave him a narrowed-down, sidelong look. “I don’t believe Edward Burke is missing.”
He laughed. He got off in Geary Street near Union Square and went into a lunchroom and bought two hamburgers and a carton of hot coffee. Carrying them in a paper sack, he walked around to the Tamerlane Apartments and climbed to his apartment on the third floor. He keyed his way in, and Edward Burke rose from a chair and looked at him anxiously.
“O.K.,” Cardigan said. “I did it. And here’s something to eat. I figured you’d be hungry.”
Chapter Four
The Woman Waits
AT TWELVE next day Cardigan left his office building, crossed Market Street through a blustering cold wind and pushed into the Brass Rail. It was a rectangular place, with a bar along one wall and a row of tables along the other. He sat down at one of the tables and ordered a dry Martini, steak and onions, potatoes, cabbage, peas, hearts of lettuce, and an extra helping of bread. He had finished the Martini, and was watching his food coming down the aisle, when Tap Eggleson stopped at the table.
“Hello, Cardigan,” he said. “O.K. if I eat with you?”
“Oh, hello, Eggs. Sure. Park it.”
Eggleson ordered while he was getting out of his overcoat, and then sat down. He was a very thin, parchment-faced man who could have been thirty-five or fifty and was forty. He was quite tall, and the one button on his coat pinched it in at the waist. He had flat wrists, dry-looking hands, half-open eyes and two gold eyeteeth. His voice was parched, like his skin.
“You get in the news, boy, don’t you?”
“You might’ve got in it, too, Eggy, if things’d worked out different.”
Eggleson looked at him. “Huh?”
“This guy, Finney, who was knocked off—I couldn’t afford to take him on, so I sent him to you. He never got there. He was knifed at the Sea Grill.”
“A little business wouldn’t hurt.”
“Tough times, eh?”
“Tougher than that.” Eggleson tapped the newspaper which he had brought with him. “This guy, Burke—what was the real hook-up with Elinor Hill?”
Cardigan pointed with his fork. “Just what it says there. The guy was that way about her. He just wanted me to find her. He figured that if this lad Finney got himself knifed for trying to find her, the gal was in danger.”
“It’s a very screwy situation. It’s pretty funny that no one at that rooming-house heard anything. I mean, the report is that Burke’s room was in some disorder. There must have been a struggle. Yet no one heard anything.”
Cardigan chuckled. “Hell, that kind of thing happens all the time. People don’t even hear shots, sometimes.” He squinted at Eggleson. “What are you fishing for, Eggs?”
Eggleson shrugged. “Fishing? Nobody’s fishing, pal. I was just thinking out loud.” He grinned. “It looks as if you took on a large order when you hired out to find that gal. The cops haven’t turned a single stone. I guess you haven’t, either.”
“I’m deep in the dark.”
Eggleson grinned again. “I wonder how deep. You’re a great guy for meaning just the opposite of what you say.”
“So you’re not fishing, eh?”
“Hell, no,” Eggleson laughed.
Cardigan gave him a protracted scrutiny, but Eggleson was eating and did not look up. They said no more about it. Cardigan was the first to finish eating and, when he rose to put on his overcoat, Eggleson spoke casually.
“Funny, nobody seems to have a picture of Elinor Hill.”
Cardigan slapped on his hat. “What do you mean, Eggy—do you mean you wonder if I’ve got one?”
Eggleson coughed behind his napkin. “I hadn’t even thought of that, pal.”
Cardigan tossed a tip on the table. “Keep your schnozzle clean, Eggs. Don’t try anything over your weight.”
“Why, I wouldn’t think of a thing like that.” Eggleson replied in an injured tone.
“That was just in case you ever do. Goom-by, kid.”
“What a guy,” Eggleson chuckled.
CARDIGAN returned to his office more slowly than he had left it. He entered it with his hands thrust deep in his overcoat pockets, and his big face darkened by a brown study.
“A penny—in stamps—for your thoughts,” Pat said.
“Go to lunch.”
“What did you do, eat too much, chief?”
“Go to lunch.”
He went on into his back office, dropped to his swivel-chair and started a cigar. He heard Pat go out and turned a bit in his swivel-chair to stare through the windows at the windy sky. He had, during his intervals in San Francisco, sent a lot of small jobs Eggleson’s way. It was probably just his imagination working overtime. Eggleson was a right guy; Eggleson wouldn’t try to chisel. But he didn’t like the way Eggleson had gone fishing. Yet, there was no reason why Eggleson should want to chisel. Cardigan could not remember having ever stepped on his toes—not once.
He heard a sound, a small sound—a scratch or a creak—and his eyes steadied in their sockets. His back was to the inter-office door, square to it, and there was no chance of seeing anything out of the corner of his eye. He heard, then, a step. He hadn’t been too certain about the other sounds, but he was certain this one was a step. He put his right hand on his stomach and then moved it up to his chest and in under his left lapel. He got his hand on his gun, pulled the gun, braced his feet firmly on the floor, toes digging in, and catapulted out of his chair. Squatting and, at the same time, spinning, with the desk between him and the door, he found himself aiming his revolver at a girl.
She was in the outer office, framed by the connecting doorway. She wore a dark-brown hat with a brim like an inverted scoop that shadowed most of her face. A stand-up fur collar covered her chin. Her body remained motionless, and there was nothing in her hands.
Cardigan stood up and said: “Sometimes people knock.”
“I’m sorry. Are you Mr. Cardigan?”
“I am.” He clipped the gun back into the holster beneath his left arm. “You might as well come all the way in.”
She hesitated for a moment, then came slowly into his office, walking with her heels very close together. The light was better here, and he saw something of her face. Her eyes were large, dark, and very steady, very watchful, and her lips, full and red, were motionless. He noticed that there were pockets in her coat, and, taking no chances, he watched her hands.
“There’s a chair,” he said, indicating it with a brief thrust of his chin.
She sat down and placed her hands in her lap, and Cardigan stood so that the desk would not hide her hands. He said nothing. He figured it was not his move at this time, and so he waited, heavily patient, his great shock of hair standing out all around his head, and his face wooden, noncommittal. He saw her lips part and caught a glimpse of even teeth, ve
ry white against the red color of her lips.
“It’s—difficult,” she said, not very clearly.
“Yes?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.” She moved uneasily in the chair. “Edward Burke hired you to find Elinor Hill?”
“It said so in the papers.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“And then—Edward Burke was—kidnaped?”
“The papers seem to think so. I don’t know. Probably.”
She interlaced her fingers, tightening them. She said: “I am Elinor Hill.”
“That’s what I thought,” Cardigan said.
She seemed surprised. “Why?”
“I thought that when the papers showed Edward Burke as a probable kidnap victim, Elinor Hill might show herself.”
“She might have gone to the police.”
He nodded. “She might have—if she had nothing to hide.”
He saw her bosom rise on a swiftly indrawn breath. He saw a grimace warp her pretty mouth, and he said: “Who was Vincent Finney, the little fellow who was killed?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I never heard his name in my life—until today.”
“He said he was your brother.”
“That was a lie.”
Cardigan sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms. “What do I get now—some truths?”
“I came here,” she said slowly, “to try to save Edward Burke. I don’t know everything. I think I know very little. And even then, I may be wrong.”
“Let’s see.”
SHE began: “I’m telling you this because—well, because I love Edward. You’ll see that I’m not very courageous, but that doesn’t matter. The thing is, I think I know who has been trying to find me. I know several people have been trying to find me, but I mean the one—the main one—behind all these people. He’s my husband.”
“The reason why you faded when Burke wanted to marry you?”
The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 4: 1935-37 Page 36