“Vianello, Fortescue speaking. Pull on your clothes, get into a taxi-cab, and come over to my apartment in a jiffy. Hurry now. Get dressed at once. And come at once. I’ll give you twenty minutes.” He waited till he heard a mumbled grumbling assent, and then he hung up.
He dressed now completely in his own room, and as he donned the last detail of his attire, he opened one of the drawers of his chiffonnier and drew from it a blue-steel gun of large calibre. He inspected it carefully, examining the chamber to see that it was full of cartridges, and then clicked it together again. Hardly had he slipped it into his hip pocket, than the clock on his chiffonnier tinkled twice, decreeing the hour to be two in the morning, and was followed by the sound of a taxi drawing to a whining stop in front of the building, and this in turn by a short cautious ring at the bell of his apartment. He was out in the hall immediately, operating the signal buzzer to let his caller in.
The man who came upstairs was a Sicilian with Sicilian snapping black eyes, broad powerful shoulders, and cleanly shaven face through which the ever-sprouting hairs were blue-black about his lower jaw and smooth upper lip. He came in embarrassedly. “W’at you wan’ see me about, Fortescue? Why you no’ let a man sleep, eh?”
“Because,” said Fortescue curtly, “things are happening fast. Go in there, and sit down in my bedroom. My man’s asleep — we can talk together.”
The man Vianello shuffled in and sat down in a chair. Fortescue extinguished all the lights in the outer hall, and then went out to the back bedroom of the apartment where a cautious survey showed him that his man was sleeping peacefully in the little room, punctuating the atmosphere with an occasional snore. With which he returned to his bedroom, closed the door, closed and locked the window tightly and drew down the shade.
“Well, Vianello, our bird has flown.”
Vianello stared. “D’hell you say, Fortescue? D’hell! Why — why — I got my papers cert’fied to-day from State Board at Springfield, an’ I go on duty to-morrow morning on d’bad ward — d’criminal ward at Birkdale. Dey put me dere to start wit’ because I am beeg an’ strong an’ fighter. I had easy time to get poseetion — because I am wonce barber an’ can shave fast. But — but — he is gone?”
“Everything is working out our way nevertheless,” said Fortescue grimly. “When, after a certain young lady came snooping around, I first started out on this, I expected to have to manœuvre around a good deal to get you and him together — either you on his ward or him on yours — so you could pull that job. Now he’s escaped, and it’s a foregone conclusion — a dead certainty — that once he’s recaptured he’ll be put on that bad ward, that criminal ward. That is, if they do recapture him. The trouble is that they may not. He had help from the outside — a fool girl. And now I’ve got to do a bit of detective work on my own hook. But I’ve got dope that the police haven’t.”
Vianello got up and took several uneasy paces up and down the floor. Then he stopped in front of Fortescue, looking down at the other. “Fortescue — me, I’m afraid of dees job. I’m afraid to do dees t’ing. I’m afraid dey hold me as — murderer, eh?”
“Well, you poor fool,” Fortescue bit out angrily, “if you don’t do it, you’ll swing anyway on what I’ve got on you. When I pulled you in to do this thing, I had the goods on you, and I’ve still got ‘em.”
A half-guilty look of embarrassment flooded the Sicilian’s face, and then it gave way to a cheerful one.
“W’y — w’y not leave ‘im be, Mist’ Fortescue? W’y not jus’ let ‘im die there, like all other crazee people? If dey once get ‘im, he never get away again. Once in dat bad ward — den no girls like you tell me ever help him to get out again. W’y for he got to be put away? W’y?”
“Damn you,” raged Fortescue furiously, “are you getting cold feet, you damn wop? For two cents I’d turn you over to the police right now. What do you mean, anyway?”
He continued to glare at the Sicilian, who cowered under his rage; then Fortescue rose suddenly and stepped over to a small escritoire, from a drawer in which he took a tangle of various newspaper clippings. One he extracted, and, still standing where he was, read its contents from beginning to end. It was but a short clipping, one of those newsless newspaper stories about people of no interest used to fill space at the bottom of a column when real news is scarce, but it seemed to fill something in Fortescue’s scheme of things from the way he fondled it. It ran:
“VIANELLO TURNED LOOSE
“Pietro Vianello, accused Sicilian of 824, Taylor Street, held in gaol over five weeks on the theory that he made away with his sweetheart, Maria Bonelli, of 1122, Blue Island Avenue, was liberated by the police to-day after it was no longer legally possible to hold him in connection with the alleged crime. It was at first believed by the authorities that the accused man had made away with the girl, due to the mass of testimony of friends and neighbours as to the frequent jealous quarrels between them, but no positive evidences of any crime having been committed having turned up at any of the places which Vianello frequents, it is now thought that the girl left town to avoid his further advances.
“Vianello was a night watchman employed at the big Middleton Proprietary Remedy Company on the western outskirts of Chicago and Maria Bonelli was employed in the bottling department.”
A satisfied laugh, a laugh wholly without any mirth in it, escaped Fortescue as, after completing this clipping, he replaced it carefully among the treasures in his private drawer.
“Vianello, it must have been a strangely lucky star that was over me that night that I worked late out at the new plant, and standing in my dark office above the gate, just ready to go home, after I had turned off my lights, saw you waiting as usual for that little Italian trollop in the bottling department that you were hanging around all the time. Lord, Vianello, but that was a dirty violent quarrel you had when she finally came out that night, and I tell you I never in my life saw a razor flash as quick as did the one you drew over her throat. More than once after you lugged her boy down into the basement of the new plant I was on the verge of calling the police; but frankly, Vianello, I was curious — curious to know what on earth you were going to do now that you had committed — yes — murder. Don’t stare so, Vianello.” Fortescue seemed to be enjoying this little narration, while the Sicilian’s jaw sagged visibly. “But when you coolly buried her beneath the dirt floor in the basement — myself peeping on from the head of the stairs — with only a few planks laid over her — that same floor over which the workmen were all ready to pour their concrete next morning, I knew then, Vianello that you were a genius in your way. And I told myself that one of these days I might have use for a man who could dispose of the evidences of a crime so beautifully as that. Vianello how badly do you think that body is decomposed to-day? Surely you don’t think, my man, that that razor cut is vanished, do you?”
Vianello made no answer. He only shivered.
“And I suppose,” went on Fortescue tantalisingly “while you sat in gaol, suspected of the crime all those weeks, while the police tried to get some line on the girl or her body in order to close in on you, you didn’t sweat blood knowing that that body was walled in underneath the new concrete floor of the big Middleton Company plant?”
Vianello shivered again. “I wish to God that body was out of there — or worms eat it up.”
“Don’t you?” sneered Fortescue. “Now, Vianello, you’ve cut one throat — and one more won’t do you any harm. It’s all very simply accomplished. They have a little room in the Birkdale bad ward — Ward X — where my uncle was confined during his last year there, where they shave those bad actors. Each man has to put his wrists and his ankles in special straps on the barber’s chair, which are then drawn to, and then the door is locked on the inside to prevent any of these wild men of Borneo from coming in and grabbing up the razor. All you have to do, then, you see, after you’re duly installed as attendant and barber — particularly barber! — and you’ve got him in that room with you
with his hands and feet strapped and the door locked, is to draw that blade once across his throat, quickly loosen the strap that binds his right hand to the chair handle, stick the razor in his fingers, rush out and scream: ‘He got his strap loose — he seized the razor — My God — he’s cut his throat!’
“They’ll rush in. There’ll be an investigation. You’ll probably be discharged for criminal carelessness. Then I give you ten thousand dollars in cash, and you go back to Naples and settle down with a little vineyard or an olive grove with your brothers. Now what do you say?”
Vianello had brightened up perceptibly now that the talk of Maria Bonelli had ceased. He turned to Fortescue. “Me, Fortescue, I don’ objec’ to drawing blade across heez neck — so — one stroke — an’ he is done. It’s only that I am afraid that they pin something on me; that they — ”
“How can they?” asked Fortescue irritably. “You have me for a character witness, haven’t you? As for the police, they have never, at any time, had the least thing on you. There are no witnesses to this act. And the worst you’ll get is a discharge for carelessness — while Jonathan Doe will be put into the State burying ground for Birkdale unknowns and thus ends another case-history.”
“W’y for,” inquired Vianello naively, “you wan’ theez feller put away? W’at he do to you — jus’ a crazee man?”
“None of your business,” said Fortescue curtly. “He’s a poor devil that’s a burden to himself and the State, and to others. I want him put away — that’s enough.”
“Didn’t ac’ veree crazee in Psyc-pathic D’tention station,” commented Vianello sagely. But he waved a hand. “Thaz all right, though. You’ business is you’ business. My business is my business. Ten thousand dolla’ buy mighty nice li’l farm in Naples.” He paused. “Well, w’at you wan’ me do now, eef heeza gone? I’m suppose’ report Birkdale ins’tootion to-morrow morning. I s’pose take early train. But now — w’at?”
“Take your train, and report, you fool,” said Fortescue testily, “just the way you intended originally to do. I merely wanted to warn you that you’ll meet with him quicker than you thought, for if he’s recaptured he’ll be put on that bad ward immediately.”
After Vianello left, he got a raincoat and his hat and rang for a taxicab. Then he went into his servant’s room, a new man, and woke the latter up by snapping on the lights. The servant sat up in bed, looking very sleepy and very surprised.
“Biggs,” said Fortescue, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “I have some very unexpected and startling news which has come to me straight from detective headquarters. A dangerous lunatic out in the Birkdale insane asylum here in Illinois escaped about two and half hours ago, and they think he is headed for Chicago. All they know thus far is that a girl helped him to escape. Now I, Biggs, have some secret information about the identity of this girl — and I am going to try and see what I can do toward running this thing down. I hope to God I don’t meet him face to face, but if he makes a move — he may be armed you see — well — they have told me I ought to shoot him down like a dog. What would you do, Biggs?”
“Well, sir, I — I think I would protect my own life first. If a man ain’t right in his head, sir, you can’t even argue with him. You got to protect yourself. But I hope it don’t come to that.”
“I, too,” echoed Fortescue. “I, too. But one can never tell. Well, that’s all, Biggs. Keep near the ‘phone to-night. And good night.” And he arose, as the buzz at his bell showed that his taxicab had arrived.
He went down to the sidewalk. “Take me first to 3652 Prairie Avenue,” he told the chauffeur. And he settled back on the cushions.
CHAPTER XXVI
KENBURYPORT 228
IT required about three-quarters of an hour for Fortescue’s vehicle to reach Number 3652, Prairie Avenue. He went up the steps. He rang the bell. He had to ring again and again. At last a female with faded bathrobe on and nightcap around her head came to the door.
“I beg your pardon,” said Fortescue, “but I have had — or, rather, a friend of mine has had — some dealings lately with a Miss Anne Holliston, who lived at this address. Is she located here at present?”
The answer was exactly what he had expected. “No, sir. She ain’t, sir. She left here about a week ago. I don’t know where she went.”
“What expressman around here carried her trunk? Did she summon him, or did you? It’s very important that I get in touch with this young lady immediately.”
The woman was silent for but a few seconds. “Well, sir, it’s my cust’mary expressman — in fact, it’s my own brother — that I always call when roomers are leavin’. I get a commission of ten cents a trunk that way. He’s — well — he’s the United American Express Company, on 36th Street just around the corner. William Boller is his name. He lives upstairs above his office.”
“Thanks,” said Fortescue. He left the steps with a deep bow and rejoined his taxicab. “Now go to 36th Street,” he instructed the chauffeur, “just around the corner. The United American Express Company. We’ll turn west first, and later try east.”
But the west turn found the United American Express Company, which proved to have a business appellation almost larger than itself. It was, in fact, only a small pine shack built out in front of the basement of an old red brick house, which appeared to be part of a neighbourhood so run down that Fortescue judged he was on a cross-street populated by negroes. He went up the stairs to the side of the shack and rang the bell of the red brick house. After a very long wait, a man with trousers belted over his night-shirt answered the door.
“I beg your pardon,” said Fortescue, “but I can make it worth your while if you can tell me what you did with a certain party’s trunk that you moved recently. Will a five-dollar bill fix it up with you for waking you up at this hour?”
“I’ll say it will,” responded the other.
“Well, the trunk belonged to a Miss Anne Holliston, who lived with your sister around the corner at 3652, Prairie Avenue.”
“Just wait till I get downstairs into the office,” said the expressman.
So Fortescue went downstairs and waited, humming a little tune under his breath all the while. A moment later a gas jet flared up inside the shack and the man came to the door and opened it up. Underneath the wheezing gas jet, he fingered over the worn pages of an old, pencilled ledger. “Yep — here it is — Miss Holliston — 3652, Prairie Avenue. One trunk. Delivered to the Chicago an’ Northern Indiana Motor Transport Comp’ny.”
“Ah,” said Fortescue. “Motor express, eh. Humph, I see. Who is this company and where are they located?”
“They’re on 12th Street,” said the other, “near the L-viaduc’. They carry trunks an’ furniture an’ crates to towns between Chicago an’ all Northern Indiany points.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” was Fortescue’s response. “It’s quite clear to me.” He planked a five-dollar bill down on the rickety desk, and departed once more for his taxicab. “All right,” he told the chauffeur. “The viaduct at 12th Street now. Chicago and Northern Indiana Motor Transport Company.” He climbed in.
There was no mistaking the Chicago and Northern Indiana Motor Transport Company offices, for a few lights burning therein showed the gold-leaf letters on the windows. There was but one man on duty and he moved quietly toward a drawer in the counter that separated offices from the space reserved for customers.
Fortescue smiled reassuringly and rested both gloved hands on his cane. “I am seeking a little information about a trunk which was delivered here about last Thursday by the United American Express Company on 36th Street. I want particularly to find where it went to.”
“We don’t give any information,” said the man on duty, calmly, folding his arms belligerently and regarding Fortescue with a cold, fish-like stare.
“Not even to private detectives?” asked Fortescue. He laid down a five-dollar bill on the counter. “Yours,” he said laconically. “Get yourself a good cigar.”
The man on duty snapped up the bill with remarkable alacrity. “That’s different,” he said apologetically. “Detectives and others are different people, eh, what?”
He ruffled over a book marked October 24th. He found an entry. Then he turned the book around so that Fortescue himself could examine it. The entry said:
“One trunk. A. Holliston. Deliver to Mrs. Winters, care local express agent, Kenburyport, Indiana.”
“Do you deliver direct to the final destination of a piece of luggage?” was the only question which Fortescue asked.
The motor transport company man shook his head. “No, only to the local agent. The agent in this town is” — he looked along a typewritten sheet affixed to the wall — ”is Pop Flanders. It’s a one-horse sort of town on the Chicago and East Shore Electric line.”
“All right. Thanks. I guess that’s all.” Fortescue now had considerably more data than he had started out with. He repaired once more to his waiting taxicab. “You can take me now to the Chicago and East Shore Electric station, wherever that is,” he told the chauffeur, “and I think that will be all for to-night.” He looked at his watch. It was half-past four in the morning.
They reached the station of the Chicago and East Shore Electric Lines at a quarter to five, and there Fortescue dismissed his cab, paying a goodly sum for the night’s peregrinations. He went in and consulted a big printed train schedule affixed to the wall near the lone ticket-agent’s window. There was no train due to go Indianaward till five-thirty, and so he bought a ticket for Kenburyport and settled himself in the small deserted waiting-room to smoke incessantly big black cigars and to wait for five-thirty to come. At last it arrived, as indicated by a big clock above the arched doorway, and a train announcer called in to both Fortescue and a pair of labouring men equipped with picks and overalls, that the train was ready.
The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro Page 27