The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  Right beneath the skylight was the clearest place in the whole loft. Here was a modern desk, strewn with papers; a telephone set, several chairs, and a large double-doored safe. Evidently it was Dumaine’s “office,” although open to the rest of the storeroom. Nearby stood a huge walnut wardrobe—a perfect observation post from which to watch the congress of crooks.

  Landon then explored further among the helter-skelter collection of museum pieces. Two flights of stairs, boarded in, led down from this story. Landon tried the one to the rear and found that it ended at the ground level, in a pair of heavy steel fire-doors, secured by a massive hinged bar that dropped into sockets. He tried the bar and found that the door easily opened. Beyond it was an alley.

  Landon then returned to the second-floor storeroom and took cover, leaving the wardrobe door open perhaps a quarter of an inch. After waiting about fifteen minutes, he heard a key slipping into the lock of the front door. A wall switch clicked, snapping on a cluster of lights well past the middle of the shop. Furtive footsteps echoed in the front stairway, and then a short, stocky man stepped into the room.

  It was Dumaine. By the dim illumination, Landon could see that the shabby little Frenchman was worried. He paced the length of the central aisle that roughly divided the tangled confusion of furniture, statuary, bric a brac, large cloisonné vases, and great curved earthenware jars in which olives had been shipped from Spain years ago. He finally seated himself, shifting uneasily in his chair, and from time to time glanced nervously around the storeroom.

  A few minutes later there was a heavy pounding on the street door. Dumaine started apprehensively, then rose and hurried down the stairs to admit the unfortunate visitors.

  Conversation began almost immediately, and continued as the three men tramped up the stairs, but Landon could catch only fragments.

  Muttered cross fire of query and accusation; then, a strangely familiar gruff voice: “Shut up, Schwartz! I’ll handle this!”

  A flash of Dumaine’s rapid fire sputter, ending with, “Mordieu! But it is jus’ as I have told you!”

  The gruff voice again: “Skip that tripe, Alcide. We was complimenting you on bumping off the old guy so nice, and pinning it on Landen!”

  They reached the top of the stairs and crossed the room to the office space. And then the watcher in the wardrobe saw that the gruff-voiced speaker was the tall, swarthy raider Landon had grappled with in the library of the Foster home the evening before. His companion was a short, heavy man with a close-cropped bullet head: Schwartz who, despite having been silenced a moment ago, resumed: “Alcide, you should divide up the loot right now, even if you did shoot the professor.”

  “He stabbed him,” corrected the tall dark man. His grin was a wolfish flash of ivory and gold. “Anyhow, Alcide, you did a good job. But it’s pretty smart not to try and run out on us.”

  Dumaine gestured toward several chairs near his desk. His guests eyed them, decided that the antiques would support their weight, and seated themselves.

  “Listen, Pichetti,” protested Dumaine, becoming more and more uneasy, “I don’t know what you and Schwartz mean, asking me why I killed Foster.”

  “Never mind that bunk!” growled the tall dark man, glancing significantly at Schwartz. “Get down to business! Whatever Panopoulos told you goes for us. And you might as well cough up—he sent us to get you straightened out.”

  “Didn’t I prove to the police that I couldn’t have killed Foster?” Dumaine desperately challenged.

  Schwartz chuckled faintly, and winked. “Nice work, ain’t it? Instead of stallin’ around until we faked the holdup, he shot Foster, and now we have both dough and rug. Only—he should not try to hold out.”

  “I tell you, Schwartz, he stabbed him,” snarled Pichetti. “Get your story straight. You’d be a hell of a witness in a police round-up!”

  “But, gentlemen,” reiterated the little Frenchman, “I swear by the—”

  A flash of lightning illuminated the skylight overhead, and the windows at each end of the loft. It was followed by a crash of thunder which blotted out Dumaine’s words.

  “—anything of the kind,” he persisted. “And you may as well give up the idea of trying to blackmail me. I have not the money. Take the rug, and leave me alone.”

  “Yeah, leave you alone with the dough!” snarled Pichetti, his lips curling back in a gold- filled leer. “If you didn’t get it, who the hell did?”

  “And that phony picture in the paper—” Schwartz objected.

  “You know why I handed the reporters a rug from my own stock,” explained Dumaine. “Someone might have recognized the real one, and then we’d all be in a jam with the customs authorities.”

  “Customs authorities, hell!” snarled Pichetti. “You mean Barloff’s gang would land on us for hijacking the rug they smuggled into the country. And what good did it do us to have the papers print the wrong one, while those phony pictures with the colored film are still loose?”

  “I thought—I hoped—” Dumaine began nervously.

  “That we wouldn’t read the papers?” Pichetti cut in.

  “Landon,” interposed Schwartz, “he has the film.”

  “Landon hasn’t got it any more than he killed Foster,” Pichetti asserted. “I got it. And that wasn’t Landon at Fosters’ last night at all. It was one of Barloff’s men I socked hell out of!”

  That was a bombshell!

  “For the luvva—” gasped Schwartz. “Are you sure?”

  Dumaine shivered, seemed to shrink perceptibly, and said nothing. Pichetti gloated wolfishly.

  There came another flash of lightning, followed by a long rumbling roar of distant thunder.

  “Well, Dumaine,” snapped Pichetti, “we want our cut, so we can haul out before Barloff makes a nuisance of himself.”

  “But gentlemen—”

  Pichetti whipped out a gun from beneath his left arm pit. “I said we want our cut!”

  Dumaine made a despairing gesture and tremblingly suggested, “Let’s open the safe. I’ll show you I have no money. And you can take the rug right now.”

  Schwartz nodded approvingly, as Dumaine slowly rose from his chair. Then suddenly his expression changed from approval to mild surprise. He tilted back his bullet head, stared incredulously above him, then held out his hand palm up.

  “Rain!” he exclaimed. “From the skylight! It’s open!”

  A large drop splashed on Dumaine’s desk. Then another, and another. Schwartz blinked as one caught him in the eye, and pushed his chair out of range of the downpour.

  Pichetti jumped to his feet, yanked a flashlight out of his pocket, and played it on the ceiling above.

  “Hell!” he exclaimed. “One big pane’s out. And no glass on the floor. Been that way long?”

  Dumaine despairingly shook his head. “Maybe Barloff is here right now!” he muttered.

  This was Landon’s chance! Catch them flat-footed, before they began the inevitable search for an eavesdropper.

  He flung the doors of the wardrobe apart and flashed forward in a low, swift lunge that connected as Pichetti half turned toward his place of concealment. Landon’s fingers closed about Pichetti’s wrist, throwing the pistol out of line. The shot, going wild, shattered a mirror; and as they plunged headlong into a group of Sheraton chairs, Pichetti’s automatic clattered to the floor.

  Pichetti, dazed by the shock and the pain of his wrenched wrist, was for the moment out of action; but before Landon could snatch the pistol, Schwartz, remarkably swift for one of his stocky build, drew his own weapon, whirled, and fired as Landon flattened to the floor. The tongue of flame singed Landon’s hair. Pichetti, recovering, struggled forward and across Landon to reach his own automatic. Schwartz, not daring to risk a second shot for fear of hitting his ally, swung at Landon with the butt of his weapon.

  The surprise attack had gone sour; and the uproar would soon bring the police.

  Schwartz’s pistol crashed home, but Landon, jerking his head,
evaded the full force of the blow. Though shaken, he twisted, jack-knifed, and shot his feet upward, catching Schwartz in the pit of the stomach and sending him crashing against Dumaine’s desk. In that instant’s respite, Landon snatched Pichetti’s pistol, smacked him across the head with it, and whirled in time to confront Schwartz, who, groggy but determined, was struggling to his feet. He still gripped his clubbed pistol by the barrel; but before he could shift the weapon to fire, Landon’s boot lashed out, catching him on the jaw. Lights out! Then, with the two thugs temporarily out of the battle, Landon covered Dumaine with Pichetti’s pistol.

  “Open that safe!”

  Landon, taking his coil of clothesline from the wardrobe, followed Dumaine. At the best he had but little time—yet if the safe did contain the loot, it would be worth the risk.

  “Hurry, Dumaine! If the police pick me up, I’ll tell them an earful about your peddling stolen property!”

  Dumaine seemed relieved, rather than worried at Landon’s demands. The combination was simple, and he made no attempt to fumble.

  The doors swung open. Landon slipped Pichetti’s pistol into his pocket, pushed Dumaine to a chair, trussed him up, and then investigated the contents of the safe.

  Shah Ismail’s prayer rug, which Landon recognized in spite of its being compactly bundled, lay on the bottom of the safe. Pulling it out and setting it to one side, he began his search through the confusion of pigeon-holes and drawer compartments. The scream of a siren told him that the police were on the way from the third precinct, only a few blocks distant.

  Landon swiftly cleared a few more pigeon- holes.

  Again the siren blast. He dared not risk another instant seeking the loot that would clear him. He snatched the ill-omened prayer rug and dashed down the rear stairs. Swinging the hinged bar from its socket, he pulled open the heavy steel door and stepped into the alley. The brief tropical shower had stopped. From beyond the low roof of the store, Landon heard the scream of brakes and police pounding for admittance. It would be but a matter of seconds before they forced the front door, and at any moment part of the squad might cover the mouth of the alley.

  A six-foot wall directly across the alley offered the safest escape. Landon heaved his bundle over the barrier and gathered himself for a leap upward to catch its crest.

  “Steady, there!” said a low voice at his side. “And keep your trap closed!”

  The muzzle of a pistol prodded Landon’s ribs, and a heavy hand caught his shoulder.…

  Chapter 05

  Criminal’s Alley

  Hell, the police had him at last. No use to risk certain death with that gun in his ribs. Better go along meekly, and watch alertly for a break.

  “Straight ahead!” An arm reached past Landon. A latch clicked. A doorway right beside Dumaine’s opened in the darkness, and his captor pushed him through and closed the door.

  They were now in an angle of the courtyard of the building which adjoined Dumaine’s store. A moment later the iron exit of Dumaine, Inc., clanged open, and the police came charging out into the alley.

  “Better come along quietly, if you don’t want the cops to get you,” whispered his captor.

  So he was not in the hands of the law after all!

  “What the hell’s all this about?” he whispered back.

  “Wait and see,” countered the other, with an ominous chuckle. He took the pistol from Landon’s pocket. “And don’t try any monkey work. Walk straight ahead now.”

  Landon advanced through the darkness of a narrow passageway and emerged onto the street in front of Dumaine’s establishment. A car was waiting at the curbing, just behind the squad car of the raiding officers. A dark, stocky man, with cap pulled low over his eyes, sat alertly at the wheel.

  “Get in!” commanded Landon’s captor. Landon, as he complied, wondered whether in escaping the law he had made a profitable exchange. He had only to shout to the driver of the police car ahead in order to find out, but he decided not to take the chance. He turned and sized up his captor, a heavy-jawed, swarthy giant with graying hair. This might be the Barloff Dumaine’s allies feared. But his features were not Slavic. Perhaps—

  “Careful of that pistol, Panopoulos,” hazarded Landon as the car started out into the traffic. “And what’s all the fuss about?”

  The Greek started at mention of his name and prodded Landon with the muzzle of his automatic. He studied his prisoner intently from beneath thick black eyebrows, then said, “When Dumaine phoned me tonight and asked why I hung up so quick, I had the hunch someone was pulling a fast one. So I tell the boys okay to come see him, just like he ask—and here I find you, just like I think.”

  The Greek, instead of blatting out that he hadn’t phoned Dumaine, had planned to trap whoever had impersonated him!

  “You punks ought to know when we got you beaten,” continued Panopoulos. “Barloff might as well forget that rug. You birds’ll never get it.”

  Landon laughed. “Is that so?” he mocked. “Well, now, it happens that I have got it.”

  “What?” Panopoulos sat bolt upright, and regarded Landon sharply. Then he addressed the driver: “Jake, pull up to the next street light. I want to get a good look at this guy.”

  “Here’s a flashlight, Chris,” suggested the man at the wheel, passing it back. Panopoulos snapped it on, and scrutinized Landon’s face. Then, “Say, what you think we got here?”

  “Barloff?”

  “Hell, no! Nobody I ever seen. Say, punk, who are you?”

  “Maybe he’s the guy who bumped off the professor,” suggested the driver, without looking back.

  “I think you’re right, Jake,” said Panopoulos. “He don’t look at all like his picture, but he’s tall and dark and about the right age, and he jumps when you say he kill Foster. Yes, I think you’re right.”

  “You’ve got me wrong, Chris,” said Landon lightly.

  “I got you dead to right, you mean. Jake, turn around. We’ll take him to the police.”

  “And lose the rug?” Landon asked calmly. “No. I don’t think you want to do that.”

  “I don’t believe you got the rug.”

  “No? Well, skip it for the present. Do you want my testimony about tonight’s hold-up added to Dumaine’s against Pichetti and Schwartz? And furthermore, I can prove that it was Pichetti who stole the color film from Miss Foster last night. And she’ll back me up in the identification. I guess that will pin the murder of Professor Foster on Pichetti, all right.”

  Landon’s arguments did not make any impression at all upon the huge Greek. But the driver was worried.

  “Chris,” he said, “turning him in might play hell with the boys. Why not take him to our room, so we can study on it awhile before we do anything?”

  “All right,” agreed Panopoulos after a moment’s reflection.

  Jake turned into a side street, then cut down an alley, where he parked. It opened into a court. Landon was piloted toward a doorway, and thence up two flights of stairs to a furnished room.

  “Tie him up,” commanded Panopoulos, “and gag him.”

  A few minutes of well applied effort left Landon securely lashed to a chair.

  “Now we get a cup of coffee and study on this.”

  So saying, Panopoulos and Jake left. Landon began to realize how weak his bluff had been. His captors might conclude that Pichetti and Schwartz, held on charges pressed by Dumaine, could—by proper bargaining with the police—be released in exchange for the surrender of Landon.

  That would be too tough!

  He heard footsteps in the hall, a murmur of conversation, and the sound of a key slipping into the latch. Panopoulos and Jake stepped into the room.

  “Untie his feet.” Jake did so.

  “It’s a long drive out to the Rigolets,” objected Panopoulos, as Jake boosted Landon upright. “Isn’t there some place just as good—and closer?”

  That implied something worse than being turned over to the police. The Rigolets, which drains Lake P
onchartrain into the Gulf of Mexico, was something like ninety feet deep in spots. Anyone properly weighted would sink into the bottomless mud beneath those black waters.

  “But I still don’t see why we gotta croak this guy,” Jake protested, “even if he is one of Barloff’s outfit—which I think he ain’t. Don’t get us anywhere, does it?”

  “Do I have to go into all that again?” demanded Panopoulos.

  “But how the hell you going to get the boys outa the can?” Jake’s perplexity was evident. “Dumaine will say they made him open the safe. Then had a fight and beat each other up. No matter how much they squawk, they can’t touch him—he’s a business man—and with that skylight out, and everything, they’re framed for burglars.”

  Why was Jake arguing for Landon’s life? And then, in a flash, Landon understood.

  Jake, a small-time gangster, looked up to soldier-of-fortune Ray Landon, the daring murderer who had made a monkey of the police. It was the admiration of an apprentice for a master craftsman.

  “But, Jake, I tell you this fellow will spill the beans!”

  “Chris, how the hell can he spill any beans? Afraid he’ll make it worse for Pichetti and Schwartz?”

  Panopoulos shook his head and chuckled. “No, he’d make it better for them—his story would get them loose! Right now they’re just where I want them. If Dumaine killed Foster and got the money, I won’t have to split with them if they’re in the jug. And if Dumaine didn’t get the money, they’ll think that I did, and be coming after me. Leave ’em in the jug.”

  “But this guy says he’s got the rug.” Panopoulos sniffed contemptuously.

  “Where’s he got it? He didn’t have it coming out of Dumaine’s.”

  “Hell!” muttered Jake sadly, giving in at last. “But he’s one great guy.”

  And Landon, gagged, bound, but with his feet untied, faced his captors. He would be dead in a few minutes, so what did it matter if he overheard their plans?

  He glanced past them to the door of the room. It was not latched—stood slightly ajar. He felt a slight current of air, noted that the door was slowly, almost imperceptibly swinging open.