The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35

by Frederick Nebel

  Cardigan said grimly: “I’ve still got a hunch Billy’s dead.”

  “So have I.”

  Cardigan looked at him. “Why?”

  “I base it on what you’ve told me—the Station Street business. It seems to me that if Farrell were alive these fellows would not have gone to the trouble of offering you a grand and then, when you refused, tried to kill you. If Farrell was alive, they’d have taken a chance on your not finding him. And if you did break through to him, then they could have killed both of you. Because it’s just the same whether you kill one man or two at the same time. They wanted time—for something—I don’t know what. They wanted to keep you off, to keep you doubtless from finding Farrell’s body and yelling murder.”

  Cardigan looked sullen. “Drive around to that dame’s address.”

  “No use. I’ve been around there. She’s flown.”

  Cardigan cursed, lit a cigarette and stared somberly ahead. After a minute he said in a low, thick voice: “Do you know something, counsellor? It just occurred to me that I haven’t got a single clue to go ahead on. I feel like a bull wanting to bust up a china shop but I can’t find a china shop to bust up.”

  “You’d better go put your mind on your stomach. Let’s stop somewhere and eat ham and eggs. I usually drink black coffee when I get up but I can’t look food in the face till after ten.”

  Cardigan barely heard him, and after a minute said: “Did you find out when the dame scrammed?”

  “The guy that mops up there after one in the morning said he helped her out with several large bags at one forty A.M. Why?”

  “Somebody must have told her to beat it. When I left her, she was pretty sure of herself. What’s her name?”

  “She lived at that apartment house as Carmen Dunn. The old porter who was mopping up said he went down to the corner of Wellend and Broad to hail a taxi for her.”

  Cardigan said: “At one forty A.M., in a city like this, there wouldn’t be many taxicabs out at that hour. Thirty at the most, I’d say. It gives ideas. Let’s grab some grub.”

  AT NOON Cardigan was sitting in one of Holman’s private offices when the secretary ushered in a short, rocky-looking man with a close haircut, a broken nose and an amiable grin. Cardigan was lounging on the small of his back in a swivel chair.

  “Sit down, Mr. O’Mahoney,” he said.

  “T’anks, chief.”

  “I did a lot of checking up before I clicked. You were working the north side last night from eleven till eight this morning and you picked up a fare in Wellend Street.”

  “Well, I was parked down on Broad when a guy come around the corner and called me. So he hopped on the runnin’ board and up we went to that apartment house.”

  Cardigan nodded. “And the fare was a woman.”

  “Yop.”

  “Where’d you take her?”

  The chauffeur drew his hand across his jaw, making a sound like sandpaper drawn across rough hard wood. “First, she told me to drive to—hell, I can’t remember just what street, but it was downtown somewhere. So I did and when I got there I stopped and she told me to just sit at the wheel and wait a minute. Few minutes later—well, I’m kind of sleepy and mopy, account I had a hangover—but in a minute I’m woke by a sound and it’s a guy gettin’ in back. The lady says, ‘Just drive on. Drive till I tell you where to go.’ So I did. About fifteen minutes.”

  “D’you hear what they talked about?”

  “Nope. The guy closed the window when he got in. So I drove around, willy-nilly, as you might say, until the lady told me to stop. It was out in Tower Park, and dark. The man got out and walked away back o’ the cab and then the lady told me to take her to the Lennox Hotel, and I did.”

  “What did the guy look like?”

  “Geez, mister, I tell you I didn’t get a good look at him. He got in the cab before I got a pike at him, and me with a hangover too. And when he got in, it was dark and he walked back along the cab. All I seen was he was small and dressed dark, with his hat pulled down all around. It looked like a black hat. Anyways, it wasn’t a light one, it was a dark one.”

  “What time did you drop the woman at the hotel?”

  “About two fifteen.”

  Cardigan put a ten-dollar bill on the desk. “Go get yourself another hangover, Mr. O’Mahoney.”

  “T’anks, sir. T’anks a million.”

  When Mr. O’Mahoney had gone Cardigan, without budging his slumped body, reached out his arm, pulled the phone over. He called the Lennox and asked for Miss Carmen Dunn. There was no one there by that name.

  He went over to the Lennox and said to the man at the desk: “I’m in a kind of jam. I was supposed to call on a man here who was due to arrive last night or shortly after midnight on a train from Boston. He said he planned to stop here. The gag is, I can’t remember his name. It’s Will-something—Willcoxon or Williamson or something. Embarrassing as hell. Could I look at your register cards from midnight on?”

  “Why, of course, sir.”

  CARDIGAN returned to Holman’s office and Holman was staring vacantly out the window.

  Cardigan said: “She registered at the Lennox as Carolyn Flood.”

  “I went down to that rooming house in Station Street,” Holman said absently, “and asked about that third-story middle window you referred to. The owner, who isn’t the fat man but a fat woman, no relation, lives on the second floor. The room wasn’t rented. But the door was unlocked and there were two cigarette butts on the floor. There’s a rear door, always unlocked, through which anyone could have entered unobserved, and also departed. The butts are on the desk. Nice day, a bit windy.”

  Cardigan looked at them. “The butts have lipstick on them.”

  “Why didn’t you go up and see Carolyn Flood?”

  “I could beat the truth out of her, but where I was brought up, it was a tough neighborhood, very tough, but we never went in for socking dames. You got a quiet voice, Holman. Let me hear you keep it quiet but at the same time put a slight drone in, kind of make it mocking.”

  Holman tried five or six times.

  “Now you’ve got it,” Cardigan broke in. “O.K. In ten minutes call the Lennox, ask for Carolyn Flood. Say to her, ‘Carmen, clear out. Leave your baggage. Come over and see me immediately.’ Then hang up.”

  “And where will you be?”

  “Guess.”

  It took Cardigan only eight minutes to get from the office to the front of the Lennox Hotel. Four cabs were parked at the hackstand in front of it and he climbed in the first, saying: “Pull up half a block and wait.”

  He pulled the back curtain and the side curtains down halfway. Midday traffic was streaming past. Looking back through the half-curtained back window, he saw Carmen Dunn come swiftly out of the hotel and enter a cab.

  “O.K.,” said Cardigan. “Follow that one.”

  He leaned back, sighing heavily to himself, and watched the blue cab which Carmen Dunn had entered speed ahead through traffic.

  “That guy’s steppin’,” Cardigan’s driver said.

  “Step with him. When he stops to let her off, shoot past a ways and then you stop.”

  “O.K.”

  It was a ten-minute ride. The girl got off in front of an apartment house in Humboldt Street and Cardigan alighted a hundred yards beyond and walked back. It was a big place, with a circular lobby floored with octagon-shaped gray tile. In an alcove there were two elevators, only one of them running. The one that was running was on the way down, and when the door opened a Negro shoved his big black face out.

  “Boy,” said Cardigan, “where’d you take the lady that just went up?”

  “Boss, Ah didn’t take a lady nowhere up.”

  “Get in and close the door,” Cardigan said, stepping into the car. As the door closed, Cardigan drew his gun and said: “Boy, you took a lady up.”

  “Boss, Ah didn’t take no lady nohow, nowhere.”

  “Boy,” said Cardigan, lifting his gun, “did you ever hear o
ne of these things go root-a-toot-toot?”

  The Negro’s eyes rolled, his big lips flapped.

  “Get going, boy.”

  His knees knocking, the Negro drove the car up to the eighth floor, stopped.

  “You know her, boy. You know who she comes here to see. Who does she come here to see?”

  The Negro shook all over. “Boss, Ah don’t—”

  “In a minute you’ll be heading for the last round-up.”

  The Negro swallowed, gulped. “Mistuh Nash, boss.”

  “What apartment?”

  “Uh—Eight one three—”

  Cardigan stepped out. “O.K. Take the car down, keep your trap shut and forget about this, or I’ll shoot you up into little bits.”

  “Yassuh, boss. Yassuh. Yassuh!”

  The elevator door slid shut.

  Chapter Five

  Hell on Wheels

  CARDIGAN stopped in front of 813, stood with his feet spread, his hands on his hips, and looked up at the closed transom, down at the brass knob. He chewed a corner of his mouth. Then he heard sudden movement back of the door, likely in the foyer. A man’s voice saying: “I tell you it must be a trap! I never phoned you! Get out of here! Please get out!”

  A woman’s voice— “All right. But take a look in the hall first.”

  “Did anyone come up in the elevator with you?”

  “No.”

  “Any car pull up behind you outside?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Look out.”

  Cardigan shoved his hand into his overcoat pocket, took out his gun. A wicked tight grin came to his lips, a hard bright light shone in his deep-set eyes. He heard the latch click, saw the knob move. The instant the door moved he crashed into it, feeling a weight give way behind it.

  A shape struggled on the floor. Carmen Dunn was in the act of reeling backward—the wall stopped her abruptly, knocking her small black velvet hunter’s hat down over one eye. Her mouth was wide in a soundless cry.

  Cardigan stepped on the man struggling on the floor. He stepped hard because he saw the man trying to get a gun in action. He knocked the wind out of the man, stooped, ripped the small automatic from his hand. He stood up in time to see Carmen Dunn trying frantically to snatch a gun from her patent-leather handbag. Cardigan took a fast horizontal swipe with his big hand and knocked the handbag clear into the living room. He kicked the door shut behind him, spoke to Carmen Dunn.

  “O.K., Annie Oakley, get out of the way, I’m going to”—he bent over, hoisted up the small man on the floor—“make a forward pass.” He tossed the man far into the living room and the small man knocked down, progressively, a standing lamp, a gate-leg table, a book trough, winding up miraculously in a sitting posture in a big wing chair, though quite dazed, shaken and glassy-eyed. Cardigan entered the living room with long strides, picked up the handbag, extracted the girl’s gun, and tossed the bag onto a refectory table. There were glasses and a decanter on this table and he poured himself a third of a tumbler of whisky and downed it with a hearty throw-back of his head.

  “So your name’s Nash,” he said, smacking the glass down.

  Nash groaned, mumbled: “Hell.”

  “On wheels,” said Cardigan, swinging one leg over a corner of the refectory table, keeping the other straightened to the floor. “Nash and Carmen Dunn. Sounds like a dance team.” He leveled a deep dark look at the girl. “Sometimes I get to worrying about how dumb I am, but I feel better when I see how dumb a lot of other people can be without half trying. Sit down, Carmen. You’re not going anywhere right away.”

  NASH, sitting fairly erect now, shook his head as if to clear it, then blew his nose. Then he smoothed out his smart blue serge suit, fingered the knot of his tie back into place, smoothed down his flat black hair. He kept looking at Cardigan but didn’t say anything. He took a couple of breaths, trying to regulate his breathing. Then he smiled. His smile was slow and dry and somehow sinister.

  He said in his droning low voice: “Well, you came in like a spring freshet that time. What did you do, trip over the doorsill or were you pushed?”

  “I came in under my own steam, baby.”

  “Impetuous, I call it.”

  Cardigan stood up, looking very shaggy and impressed. “We don’t have to be polite, Nash. You pulled a nice prologue last night in Station Street, but we’ll skip it today.”

  “Sit down, Cardigan. Let’s talk.”

  “I’ll stand. So will you. You got a nice place here but I don’t like it. We’ll go somewhere else. Come on, get up and put your coat on. We’ll go over to the agency’s counsel first.”

  “Holman, I believe,” Nash said, not moving.

  “Get up and do what I told you to do. Your overcoat and hat are on the divan. Get up!”

  Nash shrugged, rose and strolled over to the divan, where he put on a black overcoat, held a black crush hat in his hand. “What do you think you’re doing anyhow?” he drawled.

  “I’m taking the guy who tried to buy me off last night and the jane that later tried to sob me off. I’m taking the guy, too, who knows who killed that innocent bystander in the pool room. And I’m taking the guy who knows where Billy Farrell is—or Billy Farrell’s body.”

  Nash lit a cigarette with an air. “Marvelous.”

  Carmen Dunn was standing slack-hipped, her eyes round and dry and hopeless. She said in her low tired voice: “Why not make a deal, Sid?”

  “Suggest one,” Nash said, blowing a smoke circle.

  “All he wants, really, is Farrell. Tell him where Farrell is.”

  Nash chuckled drily. “My dear, you’re just a trifle screwy. That would be too easy. Of course he wants Farrell—but he wants a lot of other things. He’s not going to take us to the police, Carmen. Not when he knows Farrell’s life hangs in the balance. You want to make a deal, Cardigan?”

  “What’s your deal?”

  “Forget about the Station Street incident. Clear out of the whole picture. Put your promise in writing. Take a thousand dollars and write out a receipt for it, stating the conditions under which it was accepted. I’ll dictate the conditions. For that—you get Farrell back alive.”

  “You forgot something, Nash.”

  “What?”

  CARDIGAN sighed, said: “Before I do all that, I’ll give you a one-dollar bill, not only marked with its regular serial number but with my signature. Send that bill for Farrell to write his signature on. When the bill comes back with Farrell’s signature, then I might talk trade with you.”

  Nash inhaled deeply on his cigarette, said: “Remember that Farrell’s life is in the balance and in my hands. I’m the one to dictate the procedure.”

  “Except that in this case, bright boy, I’m dictating.”

  Carmen Dunn said in her low, lost voice: “Do it, Sid. That’s all he wants. He wants Farrell back alive. He won’t care about the other stuff. Do it, Sid. Give him Farrell.”

  Nash looked at the tip of his cigarette, said coolly: “The big mick thinks he can kid me. I’ll wait him out. All right, Cardigan, let’s go over to your attorney’s.”

  “Wait,” said Carmen Dunn, her face now flushed. “No, Sid. I don’t want to go over. You know attorneys. Do it here, now. Don’t get me mixed up in anything. I’ve played the game. Give me a break. I’m sick. My heart aches with it all. Please, for God’s sake, Sid.”

  “Shut up!” Nash snapped. “We’re going. Come on.” He started towards the door.

  “No!” she cried after him, her face now coming to life, fear and anguish welling up in her eyes. “No, Sid!”

  He spun, his face white, his mouth suddenly tight and vicious. “Don’t be an idiot!” he rasped. “Come on, I tell you!”

  “No. No. No.” She spoke now without emotion, in a low lax voice, her eyes dull, her shoulders drooping. “Do what he said. Give him Farrell back alive. I won’t leave here till you do it.”

  “Carmen, I tell you—”

  “You’ve told me enough. You hear
d me, Sid. Get Farrell.”

  Nash licked his dry lips. His thin face looked strangely out of shape and as he continued to stare at her a blind shimmer came into his eyes, a bead of cold sweat appeared on his forehead.

  Then suddenly Carmen Dunn gulped. Her eyes sprang wide with horror and she clapped a hand to her lips, a hoarse sob ripped slowly through her fingers. “I know!” she cried. “I know now! I see it in your eyes! You’re afraid. Afraid! You know Farrell is dead! Dead! Oh, God, Bill is dead!”

  She collapsed on the divan, sobbing terribly.

  Nash spat: “She’s mad, that woman!”

  “Is she?” grunted Cardigan, staring at Nash with low-lidded, sultry eyes.

  Carmen Dunn sobbed: “I loved Bill. Oh, how I loved Bill. On sight. Things happen that way. He was too good for me—but, oh, how I loved Bill. And they—they told me he was alive.”

  Cardigan said in a low, gloomy voice: “Come on, Carmen. Maybe I begin to see things. Come on. I’ll see you get a break.”

  Nash gave a hysterical little laugh. “Ha! She’s mad—mad!”

  “Funny face,” said Cardigan, “shut up.”

  He took out a pair of manacles, clipped one band of steel on Nash’s wrist, the other band on his own. Over his shoulder he said: “Come on, Carmen, like a good kid. Powder the beezer and try to take it standing. I’m suddenly a pal o’ yours.”

  THERE was no taxi outside the apartment house. Cardigan looked up and down, saw none coming, and said: “Let’s walk till one comes along.”

  He yanked Nash along by the wrist. Carmen Dunn walked on the inside, the collar of her fur coat turned way up, hiding most of her face. She was dazed and walked automatically, seeing nothing. Sometimes a small sob came up out of the fur collar. Her eyes were wet and from time to time a tear fell but she did not bother to dry it away. A few pedestrians passed, but they did not notice Carmen crying, they did not observe that Nash was manacled to Cardigan. A tall, thin man trudged passed them, going in the same direction, and when he had got a few feet in front of them he suddenly whirled and there was a gun in his hand.