The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Penzler, Otto

  “Miss Drummond?” said O’Rourke. “Miss—” And the girl didn’t have to tell us. We both read it in her face. But when she came out with it, it startled me just the same. Florence, The Flame, had received a telephone call and left the house, perhaps a half hour earlier.

  “Just before the boys got here,” said O’Rourke, the mental figuring showing on his face.

  “Miss Florence left a letter for a Mr. Williams—” the maid started, but O’Rourke had shoved by her and was into the living room, snatching an envelope quickly from the table. He held it a moment in his hand, then tore it open. When I followed him and grabbed at his arm, he said:

  “All right, it’s for you.” He chucked the envelope in the basket and handed me several sheets of paper. Then he turned to the maid. She was frightened. She was talking.

  “You’re the police, ain’t you, Mister?” she said to O’Rourke. “Well, Miss Florence acted funny. There were two telephone calls. The first woke me up. I didn’t hear what she said.”

  “That would be my call.” O’Rourke thought aloud.

  “The second call came right after it,” the maid went on. “I didn’t try to listen but I couldn’t help it.” Which meant she had her ear to the keyhole, I thought, but said nothing. “Of course I didn’t hear what came over that wire, but I heard Miss Florence say, ‘All right—the airport.’ “

  “What airport—My God! What airport?” And O’Rourke was shaking her by the shoulders and saying over and over, “Good God! he’s going to do it again.” And suddenly, to me, when there was nothing more to get from the now thoroughly frightened maid:

  “Read that, Race. Read all The Flame wrote.”

  He picked up the phone, and I heard him say, “Roosevelt Field airstation. Damn the number! This is police headquarters.”

  But I was reading the closely and hastily written letter The Flame had left for me. It started bluntly enough—but here it is.

  “I love you, Race.

  “What a beginning for the last will and testament of The Flame. At least, the last if you should read this.

  “I am going back a great many years. I never knew my real father or mother. I was brought up in an orphanage outside ofHar-risburg, Pennsylvania. But in that orphanage I had a mother’s love. It was my sister who stood between me and the heartaches, and even the brutality of the institutions of those days. She gave up opportunities of adoption, suffered undeserved punishments, to give herself a bad name so that she would not be taken from me. For she was not the incorrigible girl the orphanage authorities painted her. She was good and kind and beautiful, and the criminal instinct in my mind was not in hers.

  “She was older than I—much older. Then one day a lady took me away. That was Mrs. Drummond. A kind, wealthy, and somewhat foolish widow. She believed those stories about my sister—that she was bad, and never let me see her or speak of her.

  “Then Mrs. Drummond married Lu Roper, and later she died—an unhappy woman. I called him my stepfather. If Lu Roper did not actually plant the seed of crime in my childish mind, at least he developed it to its present perfection. But he is dead now. Criminal! Murderer! Gang leader! You remember him.

  “I learned later that my sister escaped from the orphanage—ran away when she was held illegally after coming of age. She never knew what became of me. I never knew what became of her—except, that it was charged that she took money with her from that orphanage, which charge I never did believe. I never tried to find her. I never wished to find her. It would have broken her heart to know that I wear—and deservedly wear—the name: The Girl with the Criminal Mind.

  “Things were done rather shabbily back when I was adopted. And that’s why I did not inherit the money from Mrs. Drummond that I should have received. But other things were brought up in that fight for Mrs. Drummond ‘s wealth.

  “One man, Race—a fair and honest man—in his pursuit of Doctor Michelle Gorgon, came as far as that court when Mrs. Drummond’s money was being kept from me. He was a clever, determined man. I joined forces, to a certain extent, with this man— but why hide his name? He will tell you now. He was Detective Sergeant O’Rourke. And this is what he discovered:

  “The wife of Michelle Gorgon was my sister. And Michelle Gorgon had taken her in an airplane, and—. But you know that terrible story. Michelle Gorgon didn’t expect my sister would live. But she did live, maimed and twisted in body; wracked and dead of mind. He did this because she was going to leave him—for another man—some one she loved only in her heart and soul, and would love only so—until she was free of her husband, Michelle Gorgon.

  “So I went in with O’Rourke and Colonel McBride. Such is my mind. I wanted—not justice, Race—but vengeance, I guess.

  “And I learned who Michelle Gorgon really was. I learned who Giovoni was. He was an Italian criminal, known as ‘The Devil’ years ago. I gave Giovoni into the hands of Colonel McBride, but I didn’t tell him all I knew. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Until I was sure that the so-called Michelle Gorgon had purposely planned my sister’s terrible ‘accident.’ Rudolph Myer helped me, but until tonight I didn’t suspect how much he really understood.

  “Toney, the little drug addict, came over on the boat from Italy with the Gorgon brothers twenty-three years ago. He knew the truth. There was no Michelle Gorgon. Michelle Gorgon met his death in Naples, beneath a train, twenty-three years before. And it was the escaped murderer ofGiovoni’s daughter, Rose Marie—Nicholas Trempo-ria—who took his place. He came to America as Michelle Gorgon—or Gorgonette—as the Gorgon brothers were then called.

  “The immigration laws were not so strict in those days. Michelle Gorgon’s body was mangled beyond recognition by the train, and it was wearing Nicholas Tremporia’s clothes and carrying Nicholas Tremporia’s papers and little possessions—which gives the idea that, perhaps, after all, the death of Michelle Gorgon was not an accident—but that he was laid, drugged, upon the tracks by Joe Gorgon and Nicholas Tremporia, as Eddie was but a child then. For Michelle Gorgon had money; had a good reputation in his home town. And, again, what points to his murder is the fact that Joe Gorgon was as much upset by the coming of Giovoni as was his supposed brother, Michelle. Let us still, for clearness, call him Michelle.

  “So much for that. I did not tell what I knew to Colonel McBride. Toney did not tell what he knew to Colonel McBride. We left it in the hands of Giovoni to identify the murderer of his daughter.

  “After Giovoni died and Michelle Gorgon thought himself safe, I began to hound him—with telephone calls—little notes, which, if another found them, would mean his end. Each night I’d send him a note, that read:

  “THE SOUL OF ROSE MARIE CRIES OUT FOR VENGEANCE

  —MR. NICHOLAS TREMPORIA.

  I paused a moment in reading the letter. I recalled the note Michelle Gorgon had shown me—the words that were erased at the end of it, and knew they were the three words he feared so much. MR. NICHOLAS TREMPORIA.

  O’Rourke was still telephoning. I heard him calling the airport at Newark. I went on reading.

  “I know now that my sister is dead. I know now that Rudolph Myer sold me out. I know that—because Sergeant O’Rourke telephoned me that Michelle knew it was I who held his secret. But I am not certain that it can be proven, now, that Michelle Gorgon is really Nicholas Tremporia.

  “I know too, Race, that if ever you read this it is Goodbye. For I have just received word from Michelle Gorgon to meet him at the airport. He knows, now, that I was the voice on the wire—that I sent him those notes—and no doubt knows, too, that his wife was my sister. But he doesn’t know that I know he knows. Yes—/ am going with him. If he plans my death, he will perhaps tell me the truth first— that he purposely maimed his wife—my sister. He may gloat over his vengeance on me. But it will be worth death to—.

  “I love you, Race. Since you are reading this note; since you have kept your word with me. Since your honor would forbid you opening this letter after reading what was on the envelope—unti
l now. Goodbye. Look for my body in Northern Westchester. But let me hope it will not lie there alone.

  “To the End,

  “The Girl with the

  Criminal Mind,

  “FLORENCE.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  DEATH FROM THE SKY

  I laid down the letter and looked at O’Rourke. He was still telephoning, madly.

  “Newark airport, yeah. Michelle Gorgon— no. Not at all. I—” And down went the receiver.

  It wasn’t the time yet to have things out with O’Rourke. The Flame was dead. She had more than hinted as much. But she couldn’t be if she had only left the apartment a short while before. Another thing in that letter struck me. “Since your honor would forbid you opening this letter after reading what was on the envelope.”

  O’Rourke was buzzing the phone again. I said to him in a cracked voice:

  “Is there an airport in Westchester—northern Westchester?”

  And he didn’t answer me. The receiver clicked up and down. O’Rourke was an almanac of information. I heard him calling an airport some eight or ten miles above White Plains.

  As for me. I’m not a dumb ox altogether. I was fishing into that waste basket for the envelope that O’Rourke had tossed there. And I found it, spread it out, and read what was written on it.

  “Race—I trust to your honor not to read this note until twelve o’clock, noon.” I looked at my watch. It was now exactly twenty minutes to five. I guess my eyes got a little harder as they looked at O’Rourke. He had made sure I wouldn’t see what was on that envelope. But I didn’t say anything. He was talking on the phone.

  “Never heard of Michelle Gorgon! Well, it’s damn near time you bought a New York newspaper. No order for a plane to go up—none gone up—and wait—just a minute. Any plane there owned by a Miss Drummond? A—. That’s it. That’s it. Her pilot dropped in with it early in the week? Listen. Get in touch with the police and see that—that that plane—. Listen—Damn it!” He pounded the hook up and down. “The fool’s cut off. Central— Damn it, give me that number I—” O’Rourke dropped the receiver. “Some one cut the wires, I’ll bet. Come on, Race. There’s a chance yet.”

  “Yes, a chance yet.” I faced him as he stood up. “So you’re the light haired boy who got The Flame into his—. Who let her take this trip tonight. Who—. And you once suggested a bullet between your own eyes, O’Rourke, once—” Maybe my hand touched my gun. “Why didn’t you warn her?”

  “But I did,” said O’Rourke. “As soon as you told me about that pile of jack in Rudolph Myer’s bag I rang her up and warned her not to open the door to any one, that my men would be there shortly. For her not to see Michelle Gorgon, and—”

  “Maybe you did.” I thought of the letter. “She knew and she went anyway. God! O’Rourke. How could you do it? How—”

  “If we’ve got to differ, Race, let it be later. Maybe, in a different way, I think as much of The Flame as you do. I’ll talk now. She’s talked in that letter. But let’s be friends now, Race, at least allies. It looks like The Flame went, purposely, to her death. Come on. To the airport in Westchester. There’s a chance.”

  “There’s no chance,” I told him, as we hurried from the apartment. “He’s taking her as he took his wife. The Flame crossed him. She was out to ruin him, and he knows it.”

  The sky was brightening as we dashed through the city streets. I wasn’t quite my own man. I let Brophey drive the police car, and I sat in the back with O’Rourke. That car carried the police insignia. There would be less delays.

  “Look here.” O’Rourke leaned close to me and spoke. “I saw a chance to get the Gorgons through The Flame. And I was right. She found out more in a month than I had found out in a year. But she wouldn’t tell me, wouldn’t tell McBride. At least, not until she was sure, beyond any doubt, that Michelle Gorgon had maimed her sister. She was afraid I told her that simply to get her in with me.”

  “Then she was working for you all along.”

  “Yes and no,” said O’Rourke. “In a way she was working with me, but really working for herself. But I thought, once she was convinced of the truth, she would turn Michelle Gorgon in. It was she who found out that Toney came over on the ship with the Gorgons, though what that information was worth I never did know. It was she who discovered, through Toney, about Giovoni. But Giovoni wouldn’t talk out until he could confront Michelle Gorgon. Besides, he was taken desperately ill, aboard ship. But we got enough from him to know that he was called ‘The Devil’ years back. And you never suspected The Flame?”

  “No.” And suddenly, “You knew she was at McBride’s house that night, in the locked closet?”

  “Sure,” said O’Rourke. “I thought as much as soon as I found that closet door locked, and remembered that I had told The Flame about McBride signalling me with the light, for help— when she warned me that he should never be unprotected. She had come in the back way, through the door that was left open for Rudolph Myer. She knew, or felt, that McBride was in great danger and came to warn him. She hid in one of the front rooms when McBride came down stairs to meet Rudolph Myer. She thought it was the police though, and never suspected McBride was leaving by the back door with some one. So she didn’t see with whom he left. But the moment she knew he was gone she suspected some trap of the Gorgons, ran up those stairs and flashed the danger signal with the light.

  “Yes, I suspected she was there in the closet, but I didn’t know for sure until I met her in the hall and gave her safe passage from the house. That’s what I meant when I said to you that the district attorney himself couldn’t leave that house without my Okay. You must have thought me an awful hick cop. But she didn’t want you to know too much, Race. She was afraid you would give the show away trying to protect her, but in her heart I think she wanted you out of the case, because she thought you’d—well—get yourself a hole in the ground.”

  “I never thought of her working in with the police.”

  “And she wasn’t,” snapped O’Rourke. “It was vengeance, or retribution, or a great love— or a great hate. But each day I thought she would get the proof from Michelle Gorgon himself that he had maimed his wife, her sister. And then, I thought, she’d blow it all to me. Now, she’s gone with him, knowing that he’s onto her. Why?”

  “Do you think—maybe she don’t—didn’t understand you?”

  “Hell! I told her flat, that Rudolph Myer had sold her out to Michelle Gorgon. Then I gave her the office to sit tight. The Flame’s no child, you know.”

  “No.” Death—destruction. All that The Flame had told me came up before me now. “O’Rourke,” I said slowly, “I don’t know. But if The Flame’s dead, get away from me— get—. Good God! I—. We’ve been almost pals. I—. Why didn’t you tell me The Flame was in it—with—with us?”

  “I couldn’t. I passed my word. She wouldn’t help me unless I did. And I also passed my word not to ask you into the case. In a way, I broke that promise. I had McBride bring you in— through Myer.”

  “And the note, with what was written on the envelope. She trusted to my honor, and—”

  “That’s it,” said O’Rourke. “There’s too much honor, been too damned much honor. If you hadn’t read that note we wouldn’t be on our way to save her now. I’m a stickler about my own honor, Race, yet not a guardian of yours. It’s best you read it, and—”

  “Yes,” I said, “it’s best that I read it.”

  “Good!” He stuck out his hand, but I didn’t see it. Finally he put it back in his pocket. “We must all go our way according to our light,” he said.

  “Yeah. I thought you were a friend, a real friend. And you’re just, just a cop,” was the best I could give him.

  “But an honest cop,” said O’Rourke. “An honest cop.”

  Brophey could drive. And the police siren screeched but little in the city streets. No talk, now, between us. Up Broadway to Van Cortland Park, through the park to Central Avenue. Sometimes sixty, sometimes sixt
y-five. It was then that I wished I had my own car. Out on that long stretch of concrete road I could have pushed it to eighty, and perhaps ninety on that down grade just before you reach that slight upswing to the Tuckahoe Road. But, be fair about it. That down grade is quite some curve and maybe, maybe—. But this is not an automobile tour I’m writing about—nor a real estate ad for “Buy in Westchester"—nor even a treatise on the merits of certain automobile motors. It was a race against death. At least, I hoped it was. But maybe, after all, it was just a race with death, to find death.

  It was perhaps five miles out of White Plains that I saw O’Rourke stick his head out of the window, then lean forward and tap the driver, Brophey, on the shoulder. The brakes ground; the car came to a stop just at a cross road. And that was the first time I came to life, and heard plainly the roar of a motor—an airplane motor.

  Looking up I saw the plane. A biplane, pretty high. But even at that distance one could see that the motor was sputtering, and that the plane was circling. Then it suddenly dived, hesitated a moment, seemed to gain altitude and shoot toward the west and on a beeline with the road to our right.

  And we were after it. A pitiful, hopeless little trio, in that modern invention known as the automobile, as helpless and as prehistoric as if we ran on foot, armed with huge clubs cut from the trees. Still, we sped down that road in the wake of the slowly diminishing plane.

  Sixty! Sixty-five! A curve in the road, our wheels in the roadbed, a sudden jerk and we were straightened out again, with great empty fields behind the trees to our left. And again O’Rourke had tapped our driver, Brophey, on the shoulder. Again the brakes. This time we stopped beneath the shadows of a cluster of huge trees.

  “Drive her off, in the grass there, out of the way,” said O’Rourke.

  “Good God!” I said to O’Rourke, as we climbed from the car, “I know it’s no use and all that, but it seems like doing something to keep going. At least trying to save her life.”