The Complete Cases of the Marquis of Broadway, Volume 1

by John Lawrence

  “Just outside the building, in front of Solly’s pawnshop, you’ll see a long, blond Englishman with a tricky mustache and a mournful look, little washed-out blue eyes—”

  “You mean Sergeant Derosier?”

  “That’s right. Send him up here—Seven-twelve.”

  When he walked back into the outer office, Max Sokolow was just coming out of the private cubicle, mopping his forehead feverishly, closing the door behind him.

  “Marty—I—it’s some sort of a frame-up,” the little lawyer flung out. “Listen—I owe Titanic Johnson some—well, a lot of dough—a card game. He—I just closed a deal with a client. I thought it would have panned out a month ago. I been stalling Titanic but tonight I really am getting paid off and I—I’ll collect more than enough to settle with him, but he—I don’t think he believes me any more.”

  “And?”

  The lawyer’s eyes winced feverishly. “He—I guess he’s made up his mind to give me the needle—cooked up something—some trick to fix my clock—frame me with this broad….”

  “Why would Titanic get so devious?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  The lawyer’s skinny hand pawed the Marquis’ sleeve. There were beads of perspiration on his dark forehead. “Anyway—please, Marty, speak to him for me. Ask him to give me another twenty-four hours. I swear I’ll get the money tonight. Will you?”

  The door to the hall opened and a gray-faced, whiskey-eyed man of forty, lean and skinny everywhere but in the paunch, stumbled in. His gray clothes and crush hat were the best that money could buy and his stiff, gray hair would have made any face distinguished—except his. Surly, spoiled lines cut it up. His eyes were heavy-lidded, swollen, a little drunk. He was Tommy Manson, one of Broadway’s best-known and most thoroughly disliked playboys—a forty-year-old juvenile. He was shaking, sick-looking and he dabbed at gray lips with a silk handkerchief.

  “God! There was a terrible accident down there! Blood everywhere! Have you got a drink, Max?”

  The lawyer was trying to telegraph some eager, utterly obscure message to the Marquis with his little black eyes as he said hoarsely: “I—I’m sorry, Tommy. I haven’t a thing here. You know Lieutenant Marquis?”

  “Hello, Marty.”

  “Tommy.”

  The shaky playboy looked irritated, as though waiting for the Marquis to leave, then said finally: “Where will you be around ten tonight, Max?”

  “At—at the hotel, I expect.”

  “I’ll pick you up there, then.” He turned unsteadily toward the door. “Got to get a drink,” he choked.

  As he pushed the door open, Harry Derosier came in from the hall, growled greetings and watched the playboy totter out. As the door closed he shrugged, came over beside the Marquis.

  “I know,” the Marquis said to check Max Sokolow’s eager outburst. “He’s the client that’s going to pay you off tonight.”

  Sokolow flushed darkly. “Yes, but—but he isn’t one of my regular clients, Marty. Just for this deal, y’understand.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  THE lawyer ran a shaking finger inside his collar. “Marty, it ain’t anything, but you know I ain’t supposed to pop off with my clients’ bus—”

  The Marquis shrugged and said, “All right, Max,” started toward the private office.

  The lawyer clutched his arm again, sweating, his eyes tortured. “Marty, for God’s sake—I’ll tell you anything you want to know. You know that. Only, please—will you speak to Titanic?”

  “Maybe.”

  “The deal’s nothing. Just getting a release from Tommy’s wife on some property he wants to sell. They’re—well, you know, what with Tommy playing around….”

  “Has he still got that wife?”

  “Sure. She lives up-state—with Tommy’s old man. I just wrote a letter or two—kind of acted as intermediary.”

  The Marquis turned to Derosier. “Well?”

  “You—you will speak to Titanic, Marty? Getting me killed now with election coming up—it won’t do you no good.”

  “I’ll see about it in a minute. I want to speak to Harry.”

  The miserable little lawyer went reluctantly back into the private office.

  Derosier said: “What the hell goes on? The dead guy is a small-time actor. He hadn’t any relatives that he ever spoke of and he’d had about six weeks work in two years. He didn’t have any watch—not even a toothpick on him. I reiterate: what the hell goes on?”

  There was a line in the Marquis’ forehead. “He was following a girl. She’s in there. You’re going to nursemaid her. Someone forged Max Sokolow’s letterhead, wrote this stage-struck kid and offered her a job. It looks like the actor who was killed was supposed to intercept her—if possible, by working his supposed identity as a priest, and if that didn’t work, by flashing the gun before she got here—and didn’t.”

  They went into the inner office. Derosier’s eyes jerked wide in swift appraisal of the girl’s small, curved figure, as the Marquis introduced them.

  “Mr. Derosier will take you to a hotel, Miss Scudder, for the time being, and stay there with you. That doesn’t mean you owe him anything, however,” he added wearily. “He’s a little oversexed, so keep him in his place and don’t—don’t take anything to drink with him.”

  Derosier’s face was beet-red, his eyes darkly disapproving. “Fine talk, I must say. You’ll give the little lady an idea— Maybe she doesn’t understand your brand of humor.”

  “It isn’t humor, lug. You behave. I’ve enough on my mind without any trouble from you.”

  Derosier gave him a baleful look, turned his heel and bowed courteously. “Come, Miss Scudder. Lieutenant Marquis is studying to be a comedian.”

  As the door closed behind them, the frantic little lawyer got in the Marquis’ way, twisting his skinny hands. “You will speak to Titanic—right away—eh, Marty?”

  “No. I’m not interfering in Titanic’s business.”

  “You—you’d let him kill me?” The lawyer was slobbering, worrying his collar, his eyes white-ringed.

  The Marquis said irritably: “You’ve been on Broadway as long as I have. You know the rules.”

  “But good God—just speak to him—just tell him what I said—that’s all. I don’t mean go to bat for me, Marty, honest—just speak.”

  “I’ll tell him what you say.”

  “And that girl—you know I didn’t do nothing to her! God, why would I write all the way to Kansas for a girl? How would I know what girls were in Kansas? I swear she’d no more than got into my office when you come in….”

  “I know,” the Marquis said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Killer in the Dark

  DOWNSTAIRS, the Marquis learned from the head of the traffic squad that the death of the obscure actor had been a bona-fide accident as far as could be ascertained. The driver of the cab that had hit him was a steady, hard-working, family man with an excellent reputation in the hack bureau. No one had any guess yet as to why the actor had been made up as a priest. Someone had reported the incident of his having dropped a gun in mid-street and the gun—of the mail order variety and apparently brand-new, unfired—had been found.

  Somewhat reluctantly, the Marquis considered Titanic Johnson. He was in delicate position regarding the chubby, good-natured gambler. No one knew better than the Marquis the exact reason why he, with his twenty-two men, was able to enforce his rigid, iron-bound rule of Broadway with the authority of a little czar. It was because the laws he laid down were realistic, limited strictly to certain forms of lawlessness. A moderately square gambler like Titanic Johnson was welcome on the White Way. But no big-time gambler can operate at all, if his clients are allowed to welsh. The Marquis did not think Titanic planned to kill the little lawyer. The gambler knew the exigencies of politics as well as anyone—and was a good Hall man. Until after election, at any rate, he would scarcely hand the newspapers a murder
.

  But over and under it all, was the Marquis’ abhorrence of appearing to be interceding for a welsher. And no matter how he phrased what he said to Titanic, he could not see how to avoid that implication.

  He made a few inquiries, did not locate the chubby gambler, made a few more and presently became curious. An hour’s phoning got him absolutely nowhere and by that time, perversely, the very fact of not being able to find him, stung the Marquis’ interest. He ate a solitary dinner not even knowing what he was eating, his mind occupied with trying to fit Titanic Johnson in as the central figure to some gigantic plot, cursed his own vaporings and finally gave it up.

  But he still kept looking for the gambler and, after a couple of hours, located him having a belated meal at a restaurant just off Fifth, on Forty-fifth.

  When he dropped into a seat opposite Titanic’s blond moon-face, cold blue eyes came up and regarded him in a perfectly blank stare. The gambler laid down knife and fork precisely, leaned back and put his hands in his trouser pockets.

  “I hear you were visiting at Max Sokolow’s office,” he said.

  The Marquis laid his twenty-four dollar hard hat on a chair. His eyes were thoughtful on the tip of one small, neat, black shoe.

  Titanic Johnson also added: “I hear you were looking for me.”

  The Marquis nodded slowly. “Max wanted me to tell you that the money he owes you is coming in tonight. He hoped you wouldn’t close down on him for twenty-four more hours.”

  The gambler was very still. The almost bald patch on his light sandy hair shone. Finally he said very deliberately: “I won’t take this from you, Marty.”

  The Marquis’ forehead flushed faintly. “Don’t talk too fast, Titanic.”

  “Why beat around the bush? That rat is pulling a fast one. I’ll take care of him when and how I feel like it. You can’t warn me off.”

  The Marquis’ round face was expressionless, his eyes somber. “Can’t I?”

  “No, by God, you can’t! I’ve given your district the best games they ever had! I’ve paid my way—plenty. I’ve played ball with you in every conceivable way. Now, because one of your pals rats on me, you want to throw your weight around. Well, understand this; if I take it into my head to do anything with him—right now—I’ll do it! I’ll take my chances with you and your mob of gunmen. Now what do you think of that?”

  “I think you shoot off your mouth too fast,” the Marquis said. “I also think you’re pretty low to pull that young girl into it.”

  “I don’t go for this double-talk. I— What young girl?”

  “If you don’t know now, you never will,” the Marquis said and stood up. He settled his hat back on his rubbly black hair. “Now button that lip and listen to me. I didn’t come here to warn you off Max. He asked me to give you the message and I have. But don’t get any bright ideas that you’re big enough to buck me, mister. I’m still head man here and if you want trouble I’ll hand you all you can use, so quickly it will astonish you. I don’t like that kind of talk from a hustler—from any kind of a hustler. Don’t forget that.”

  He slid black-gloved hands into tight coat pockets and his eyes were nearly closed. “And I don’t like rackets that pull in innocent young kids from the country.”

  HE TURNED on his heel and walked out feeling, as he had known he would, like a fool. At the front of the restaurant, he went into a phone booth and called Max Sokolow’s hotel, advised him to speak his own piece to the irritated gambler.

  As he stepped into the street, it occurred to him that he might call Derosier and see that the blond man’s affectionate nature was not causing trouble, but even as he turned back he saw Titanic through the restaurant’s screen door. The gambler was plowing grimly toward the phone booth. The Marquis turned away uncomfortably, walked over to Broadway. The fact that his probing brain could not catch the slightest hint of a logical sequence in what seemed to be going on, made him nervous, irritated.

  He realized suddenly that it was ten thirty, time to get started on his nightly rounds. He did not get far. Passing a cigar shop in the upper Forties—one of the way-stations that dotted his route and where members of his squad could sometimes find him in a hurry—a bald-headed, dwarfed cripple came hopping out, almost as he passed, and said in a falsetto voice: “Hey, Marty—phone!”

  When he picked up the receiver in the phone booth he heard Derosier say hoarsely: “Harry, chief. Get an earful of this.”

  There was a second’s silence, then the tones of the frightened, little-girl voice that he recognized as Eve Scudder’s. She blurted falteringly: “I—I lied to you, Mr. Marquis. I did know Mr. Carstairs—the actor—the one that was killed. If you want to know anything about him, his half-brother has a little dancing place.”

  “Where?”

  “In—he’s just moved—but I think the new place is in the Buhl Building—on the second floor in the rear. I—when you said he was dead, I—”

  “Would he—this half-brother—be there now?”

  “I think so. I’m not positive. I—please don’t be angry with me, Mr. Marquis. I was so upset to hear—it shocked me so I—I didn’t know what to say—I was afraid….”

  “I’ll be over and go into that in a few minutes,” the Marquis promised grimly and hung up.

  He was beginning to feel angry, hoaxed. He hurried out, paced swiftly to Seventh Avenue, turned northward.

  THE Buhl Building was an ancient, four-story, frame firetrap, just off Seventh, in the Fifties. As the Marquis paced round the corner, the only illumination in the musty old structure was in the lobby. Dim light glowed out mournfully through the hollow arch of the entrance.

  The plate-glass doors were unlocked and he stepped into a dingy, dirty lobby that had plaster walls that had been yellow before they were smoked up. The tile floor was dirty and broken. There was no elevator, no attendant of any sort. A huge marble shield against the wall served as a directory and had the names of a few obscure theatrical-sounding firms—probably long since departed—painted in gold leaf.

  Far above, he heard the tinkle of a piano.

  He went up the worn wooden stairs and the piano’s tinkle grew tinnier, closer. The building was deeper than it looked and he faced down a long, unlighted hall. Light shone through the ground-glass of only one door, but when he reached it, there was a badly lettered sign in India ink thumbtacked to the door’s panel—Jack Carstairs Studio.

  The tinny piano was pounding somewhere inside the office. The Marquis fished the watch-back holding the girl’s picture from his pocket as he opened the door, stepped in—and stumbled. There was a raised strip of wood across the threshold of the sagging office and it was on this he had stubbed his toe. The metal disc shot out of his hand. He tried to jump to catch it before it landed.

  The piano stopped, the lights went out and a gun blazed thunderingly, whipped air by the Marquis’ ear.

  He dived across the floor in instant reflex and the gun spoke again, showered splinters in his face. He rolled wildly, his heart in his mouth. The gun boomed! Something hit his right foot and his leg went numb. He was caught like an amateur, absolutely flabbergasted. It was a death trap—for him! For the Marquis! It didn’t make sense. It was mad, reasonless.

  He rolled desperately, whipped off his hard hat and flung it backwards, at the door. As it hit the panel, the banging gun switched, sent two shots slamming in that direction and the Marquis had a chance to get his own service pistol from his hip. The flashes of the madly firing gun began to advance in the darkness. The Marquis squeezed trigger, trying to guess where the gunman stood behind the flashes.

  His first shot was a miss and the killer’s gun whipped back, fired again at where he lay, but he was on hands and knees, scrambling. He fired again. The flash answered him—this time back near the center of the front wall of the office. He fired again. There was a click from the gunman’s weapon. The Marquis jerked trigger as fast as he could, but before he could get his second shot out there was a dull boom in front of h
im that he did not quite understand. He paused, one shot left in his revolver.

  Heavy silence held the room.

  The Marquis jerked his pencil flashlight from his inner pocket. After a second, he squirted light. Then he turned it on and held it on, while red color flooded his face.

  He was alone in the room. In the wall before him was a heavy, closed door. He jumped for it—and fell on his face. He looked down with wild eyes and found that his right shoe had been neatly shot from his foot. It sat serenely, neatly tied, on the floor, and when he grabbed it up he found only a deep score along one leather heel. He jammed it on, ran through the door, almost stumbled over the piano inside, darted across the empty office to the hall door, which stood ajar. He ran out and downstairs, plunged into the street, but it was utterly bare as far as he could see.

  He re-pocketed his gun, flushed, furious. He went back upstairs, found the light switch just inside the door from where the man had been at the piano. The Marquis switched on the lights, found his metal watch-back. There was nothing whatever in the bare office that could help him—except a half dozen bullet holes in the yellow wood of the wall.

  He was on his way downstairs when the first radio car whined to a stop before the building and bluecoats came running in. And it was while he was four steps from the bottom that his churning mind suddenly fastened on the essential question. How had the girl and Harry Derosier been induced to lead him into this murder trap?

  He jumped those last four steps as bluecoats poured into the building, snapped at them: “Second floor—nothing there now but bullet holes. Somebody trying to cut me down and he got away. Look out—I’ve got places to go.”

  As he ran out, he heard a snicker and one of the bluecoats say: “Looks like somebody made the Marquis hit the dirt, anyhow.” His face got red, but he paid little attention to the dirt on his clothes till after he had piled into a cab on Seventh and snapped the name of the hotel to which he had sent Derosier and the girl. Quick consideration forced him to realize that the voice impersonating the detective was just that—an impersonation. But the girl—he was dead certain that he had not been mistaken about the girl’s voice.