E. Hoffmann Price's Pierre d'Artois: Occult Detective & Associates

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “My teeth,” countered Barrett with an ominous glitter in his eyes, “aren’t pulled yet. I want you to keep your hands off. None of your men following me around when I take the warpath. Will you give me a break? Stand clear?”

  Healy saw Barrett’s glance shift and linger on a rack of firearms that made the library look very much like an arsenal.

  “Sold.”

  “Thanks, John. And remember, I’ve got my reasons for playing a lone hand.”

  Upon Healy’s departure, Barrett re-read for the twentieth time the letter he had received that morning: “Bring $20,000 in new, unmarked hundred dollar bills to the main entrance of the Crescent Compress Company at midnight. If there is any sign of police interference, or if my men do not report by one A.M., we’ll ship Simpson’s head to join his finger. Come alone and unarmed.”

  There was no signature. None was needed. Jake Moroni had made a final counterattack that would not fail as the others had. A small parcel which had accompanied the letter bore witness that the enemy meant business. It contained the fourth finger of Simpson. The blackened nail, recently crushed by a hammer tap, identified it beyond any doubt.

  Barrett knew that the demand for the ransom was camouflage. Moroni had based his coup on the friendship of Simpson and Barrett. He knew that Barrett would willingly and knowingly walk into an ambuscade for the sake of Simpson.

  “The—!” muttered Barrett as he thrust the letter back into his desk. “Using live bait…”

  He grinned sourly, and added, “I’ll do the same.”

  * * * *

  At about the same hour of that same morning, Jake Moroni was holding high court in his armored office in an otherwise deserted warehouse near the river front. Moroni’s swivel chair was a throne, and his well-tailored suit of imported worsteds was the imperial purple that had slipped from the shoulders of his predecessor when the muzzle of a .25-3000 reached through a loophole in a brick wall and snapped a tiny slug through a pistol proof vest.

  In front of Moroni was a mahogany desk entirely suitable to an executive whose payrolls were as great as those of the city, and whose revenues were greater. At his left was a gaudy Japanese screen that added to the grotesquerie of the crude office. The screen, however, was no evidence of the house beautiful; it served a useful purpose. The center of one of its painted chrysanthemums had been neatly cut out with a knife.

  Moroni’s swarthy features smiled unpleasantly as his dark eyes bored coldly into the pudgy, evil faced ruffian before him.

  “Orders are orders,” he declared with ominous evenness of tone.

  “I don’t give a damn!” exclaimed Moroni’s lieutenant, and commander in chief of the Praetorian guard of hop heads, and assorted assassins, “Tinkering with Barrett is like boxing with a tiger. Shaking him down for twenty grand to save Simpson’s hide is one thing. That’s easy. But trying to grab Barrett when he delivers the jack is plain foolishness.”

  “Mmmm…hm,” breathed Moroni. His snake eyes flickered to the right. He seemed for an instant to be peering through and past the thugs who sat on a bench along the wall. “Carver! Are you man enough?”

  A tall, rangy fellow whose bony features wore a warped, perpetual grin, fidgeted for a moment with the brim of his hat. His glance switched from Moroni to the lieutenant on the carpet, and back to Moroni again.

  “Jeez, that ain’t a fair question,” he protested. “I’m workin’ for you, but I’m directly under Schwartz. Ya know—”

  He made a gesture of resignation.

  “Mmm…discipline,” murmured Moroni. “Yes. Discipline is splendid.” Then he snapped a question: “How about you other punks?” The other two on the bench started, frowned ponderously, nodding and rubbing their chins as though a portentous decision was on the verge of birth. The atmosphere of the tiny, sound-proof office became electric from the tension.

  “Yellow from your back bone to your belly!” crackled Moroni. “Just like this slob.”

  The slob on the carpet flushed.

  “Who’s yellow, you—”

  His hand made a swift gesture; but it was not fast enough. A spurt of flame poured from the loophole of the chrysanthemum. As the pudgy lieutenant reeled crazily and collapsed, a pistol appeared in Moroni’s hand. The three along the wall kept their hands rigidly motionless.

  “You bastards gimme a headache,” said Moroni pleasantly. “Mike—Otto! Get the hell outa here while I talk to Carver.”

  As the pair left the office, audibly sighing their relief at dismissal, Moroni beckoned to Sam Carver.

  “I been fed up with him for a long time. You got guts enough to take this job?”

  Carver swallowed just once.

  “Sure thing. Only I’d like to know just what you want done.”

  “That’s the talk,” approved Moroni as he replaced his pistol. “When Barrett shows up tonight, I want you birds to nab him, tie him, and bring him to the Carlotta. And I don’t want you to croak him—”

  Sam Carver frowned perplexedly.

  “Jeez, that’s a contract. He’s a fighting fool, and—” He saw Moroni’s eyes shifting speculatively toward the man who lay on the floor. “But I’ll make it—but it won’t hurt to tap him on the nut just to keep him quiet, without really hurtin’ him?”

  Moroni nodded and smiled thinly.

  “Just remember that a dead man can’t sign an order for fifty grand. But after we get the dough…”

  Carver grinned.

  “Sorta double play, eh, Mr. Moroni?”

  “Right. And just a bit of advice, Sam. You been getting too friendly with my secretary.”

  His voice was low, confidential, and alarming.

  “Honest, I ain’t done—I mean, I didn’t mean a thing. Just bein’ friendly to Nor—Miss Arradonda.”

  Moroni stroked his bluish jaw and smiled affably.

  “I understand that, Sam. But it just don’t look right. She’s nothing to me a-tall, only…”

  “I got ya, Mr. Moroni,” Carver hastened to assure his chief.

  “Okay. And no slips tonight. I’m counting on you. Twenty grand, and Barrett in shape to sign an order for fifty more, and then we’ll have no more phony letters and civil war.”

  * * * *

  Despite his chiefs warning, Sam Carver phoned Norma Arradonda, and after being assured that the coast was clear, called at her apartment. He came to the point at once.

  “You and me are strangers from now on. Positively farewell appearance.”

  Norma was dark and shapely, and lived up to the exotic ear pendants she affected. Her full lips were red as a sabre slash against the transparent, creamy pallor of her skin.

  “Matter, Sam?” Her delicately penciled brows rose in Moorish arches.

  “Moroni’s set on rubbing me out,” Carver explained somberly. “That Barrett job—”

  “You have been buying me too many drinks at Club Martinique,” mused Norma.

  “So I heard. And here I am.”

  “Still,” resumed Norma, “I think you’re heated up about nothing.”

  Carver shook his head.

  “Barrett has been on the spot half a dozen times—and each time he’s beaten it, with a surprise party of his own. And when he pulls a dumb one, his luck saves him.

  “I’m scared of that guy’s luck. He’s a hoodoo. And he’s filled a private graveyard with mugs that tried to get him. Snatching his best friend is like spitting in a tiger’s eye.”

  Norma shook her head.

  “Wrong, Sam. Him and Simpson are old buddies. And if you don’t return by a certain time, it’s Simpson’s head. He knows it. That’s going to make a boy scout out of Barrett.”

  “I don’t care if it’s supposed to make a good Christian of him,” countered Carver dolefully. “I’m bein’ framed—just like Dutch—”

  Carver checked himsel
f abruptly, swallowed, said nothing.

  “Yes?” murmured Norma.

  “Nothing!” snapped Sam. “I’m doing this job, and then I’m going to the country to raise chickens. There’s no percentage.”

  He reached for his hat. Norma stopped him at the door.

  “Since you’re not going to see me any more,” she said, “you might at least kiss me good bye—you’re a good egg, Sam, and I hope you get the breaks…oh, just a minute…”

  He paused as she scribbled an address and a telephone number on a slip of paper.

  “Call me here, once in a while—but disguise your voice. Someone might be listening in on an extension. Don’t say too much. Just enough so I’ll know you’re thinking of me. He’s got his guts, trying to keep you from even being friendly in a nice way… Bye, Sam.”

  Norma was part of the dictator’s intricate web of evasion and espionage. While terming her a secretary was perhaps a shade too figurative, hers was an important part in Moroni’s system of seeming to be in several places at once, and proving it by answering, from one point, calls to half a dozen offices. Norma was much of the brain of the organization—but Norma was, after all, human—

  * * * *

  That night Barrett dressed very deliberately, as though for a dinner engagement instead of a rendezvous with kidnappers.

  “Damn your black hide, Amos,” he said reproachfully, as he regarded the tie that his white haired old colored handyman had laid out. “Do you think that goes with this suit?”

  “Yas suh, Mistah Dave! Ah thinks it’s jes go’geous,” the old man insisted with a nod and a grin. Then he turned to the rack to replace his favorite among Barrett’s array.

  Barrett was content with the amendment submitted by Amos. As he adjusted it, he fondly regarded the Colt .45 that lay in his dresser drawer, and regretfully shook his head.

  “That black scarf, Amos,” he said abstractedly, as he detached a gold penknife from his chain. He took the scarf, snapped it several times, whip-like; and all the while, one eye half closed, he pondered as though considering a hitherto unweighed element of the evening’s dangerous work. Barrett finally knotted the penknife into a corner of the scarf, then stuffed several packets of hundred dollar bills into his pockets.

  “Amos,” he said, “here is the key to the Ford. In case I don’t come back, you can have it.”

  The old man’s eyes widened, and his black face lengthened.

  “Whhhh-y, Mistah Dave,” he sputtered.

  “Stick around and watch the phone,” said Barrett. “And you don’t know where I’ve gone—not even if the President calls!”

  “Yas, suh, Mistah Dave. An’ ain’t nuthin’ goin’ a happen to you.”

  “I wish,” reflected Barrett as he took the wheel of the heavy sedan that was next to the Ford coupe, “that I could be sure Amos is right.”

  Barrett parked near the corner of Munn and Tchoupitoulas Streets. Even by daylight, the vicinity seemed to have been blighted by a lurching vengeance that had doomed to failure the warehouses and ship’s chandleries that line the river front.

  “Munn Street…one block long—but it may take me the rest of my life to reach the end of it,” was Barrett’s thought as he sought to accustom his eyes to the blackness. The moon was still so low that the shadows of the buildings on the right blended with black bulk of those on the left. He shivered as the penetrating wind bit like a bayonet. Barrett drew his top coat about him. His fingers, grasping the lapels, touched the hard silk of his scarf.

  “One concealed weapon, anyway…”

  A gold penknife. If he had brought a pistol, he might be tempted to use it, and thus surely kill Lee Simpson as well as the one who received his fire.

  “God, but it’s dark…”

  Barrett was used to the haunted blacknesses of Asiatic jungles, vibrant with the silent slinking of the eater in search of the eaten; yet Munn Street, which led to the river, was shrouded by an obscurity more malignant than any he had ever penetrated. Barrett shivered again, but this time, not from cold. He smiled, and his gait became fluent as that of the hunter.

  Barrett forced himself to consider the moment at hand rather than the other life which hung in the balance. It was his fault that Simpson was in danger, and his duty to extricate him, regardless of the cost.

  Twenty paces into the darkness. Then someone emerged from a doorway and said in a low, decisive voice, “Stick ’em up, Jack.”

  But it was the muzzle of a pistol that someone else jammed into the small of his back that gave force to the command. Barrett’s hands rose.

  “Now back into this doorway—Mike, frisk him, right now!”

  Deft fingers went through his pockets. There was a mutter of satisfaction as Mike drew out four packets of bills. For an instant the beam of a tiny fountain pen flashlight winked at the numerals that marked the denomination. The reflected glow, however, revealed more than the direct light: Barrett noted that his captors were not masked. It seemed to make no difference to them that Barrett had in that moment’s illumination seen enough to identify them.

  There was an unavoidable conclusion that Barrett had to draw—unless he could convince himself that his captors had been careless, and had not realized that Barrett would ever afterwards recognize them.

  “All right, fellows,” said Barrett pleasantly. “You’ve got your money—now where’s Simpson?”

  “Ain’t that a hot one, Sam?” chuckled the one who had searched Barrett.

  “Simpson is in a safe place,” came the reply. “And you’re coming with us. Think we’re going to turn you loose before this money’s been checked to see nothing’s phony?”

  “Reasonable,” admitted Barrett. “I’ll sort of be taking Simpson’s place, so you can turn him loose right away.”

  “Uh-uh,” grunted Sam, apparently pleased by the prisoner’s ready acquiescence. But to Barrett the arrangement was confirmation of his first suspicions.

  “Mike, tie this bird,” commanded Sam. “Lower your arms, you—but don’t try any funny work.”

  “How is he going to climb down to the boat if his hands are tied?” wondered Mike. “And that Jacob’s ladder up the Car—”

  “Shut up, you boob!” snapped Sam Carver. “Grab that cord!”

  “Aw what if he does—” countered Mike, then checked himself.

  But that slip sufficed to assure Barrett that he was destined to board one of the many abandoned ships, war-time built merchant marine, moored along the opposite bank of the river. The secreted penknife might enable him to cut his bonds; but a doubt had risen in Barrett’s mind: would Simpson be released, now that the ransom had been delivered, or would he be executed as part of the reprisal?

  Barrett’s captors were indifferent to future identification; and that could betoken but one thing other than gross carelessness.

  A desperate scheme crystallized; and in an instant Barrett made his decision.

  Sam, pistol in hand, was a blur in the darkness a yard ahead. Mike was fumbling in the gloom at Barrett’s left, seeking a coil of rope. Surprise can work wonders. Barrett felt the enemy’s assurance, and hoped that they did not sense his own.

  Barrett’s fingers closed on the end of the scarf about his neck and dragged it clear. They thought that he was unarmed; yet that folded square of silk was a silent, instantly fatal weapon which was invisible in the darkness.

  As Mike rose and turned, Barrett moved with that catlike swiftness which had so often served him—and saved him. The silken scarf, weighted with the knife, whipped about Mike’s throat. There was no warning in its touch. It seemed to be but the trick of a gust of wind; and in the obscurity of the doorway the gesture did not register.

  The weighted end passed over Mike’s shoulder as Barrett side-stepped, seized the enfolded penknife with his left hand and at the same time put all his weight behind his right, which grasp
ed the free end of the scarf.

  “Wh—”

  Cut off before it was spoken; and the sharp cracking sound meant nothing to Sam Carver, least of all that Mike’s neck had been broken.

  All in one flashing instant; one fluent, continuous, deadly swift gesture. Had there been a blow, a shot, an outcry, Carver would have acted at once. He sensed that something deadly and inexplicable had happened before his eyes; but he had also to reconcile his intuition with the knowledge that Barrett’s plays had always been accompanied by the flash of steel, the jetting flame of pistols, the impact of hard driving fists.

  He lost an instant before he clubbed his pistol so that in accordance with orders he would not kill the fifty thousand dollar prisoner. And that instant sufficed for Mike’s body to catapult out of the darkness, drive Carver crashing back against the wall.

  Then savage fingers closed about his throat as the first blow of his pistol butt struck Mike’s limp body to the ground. Carver writhed and struggled, smote blindly at the enemy within his guard. His feet were tramping on a man’s body…

  “Mike,” he contrived to gasp hoarsely before his breath was utterly cut off.

  Barrett’s fingers sank relentlessly home. Lee Simpson’s severed finger lent a murderous fury to Barrett’s constricting grasp. He followed Carver to the paving. The blows of the pistol butt had ceased…hours ago, it seemed…

  Finally he relaxed his grip, drew a deep breath, realized for the first time that glancing, misdirected blows had battered his head and shoulders. Barrett stretched out on the cold paving, dazed by his exertions and the slaying frenzy and the destructive nervous tension of his lightning assault.

  In a moment, however, he recovered. He was trembling violently, seeking to reassemble the elements of the suddenly devised scheme. Then it all came back to him; but before going about what he intended to do, he paused to search the two who lay on the floor of the deep doorway recess. Dead, not merely out.

  He scrutinized the contents of their pockets, piece by piece.

  “Here’s the touch!” he exclaimed as by the light of the fountain-pen flash lamp, fortunately undamaged, he read the notation on a slip of paper, in feminine script, “Norma—Main 7771—blind listed, so learn it and then destroy this.”