Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  The second man came in with his blackjack swinging. His hand stopped suddenly as his wrist met the deadly stick, but the blackjack kept on going, bouncing harmlessly off the nearby wall as it flew from nerveless fingers.

  That stick never stopped moving. On the backswing, it thwacked resoundingly against the thug's ribcage. He grunted in pain and tried to charge forward to grapple with the Englishman. But His Grace was grace itself as he leaped backwards and then thrust forward with that wooden snake-tongue. The thug practically impaled himself on it. He stopped and twisted and was suddenly sick all over the pavement. Almost gently, the Duke tapped him across the side of his head, and he fell into his own mess.

  It was all over before I'd even had a chance to mix in. I stood there, holding an eleven millimeter Magnum revolver in my hand and feeling vaguely foolish.

  I reholstered the thing and walked over to where Joey Partridge was propping himself up to a sitting position. His right eye was bruised, and there was a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth, but he was grinning all the way across his battered face. And he wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the Duke.

  "You hurt, Joey?" I asked. I knew he wasn't hurt badly; he'd taken worse punishment than that in his life.

  He looked at me still grinning. "Hurt? You're right I'm hurt, Inspector! Them goons tried to kill me. Let's see--assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to kill, assault with intent to maim, attempted murder, and--" He paused. "What else we got, Inspector?"

  "We'll think on plenty," I said. "Can you stand up?"

  "Sure I can stand up. I want to shake the hand of your buddy, there. Geez! I ain't seen anything like that since I used to watch Bat Masterson on TV, when I was a little kid!"

  "Joey, this is Chief Inspector the Duke Acrington, of Scotland Yard. Inspector, this is Joey Partridge, the greatest amateur boxer this country has ever produced."

  Amazingly enough, Joey extended his hand. "Pleased t'meetcha, Inspector! Uh--watch the hand. Sorta tender. That was great! Duke, did you say?" He looked at me. "You mean he's a real English Duke?" He looked back at Acrington. "I never met a Duke before!" But by that time he had taken his hand away from the Duke's grasp.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you, Joey," the Duke said warmly. "I liked the way you cleaned up on that Russian during the '72 Olympics."

  Joey said to me, "He remembers me! How d'ya like that?"

  One of the downed thugs began to groan, and I said, "We'd better get the paddy wagon around to pick these boys up. You'll prefer charges, Joey?"

  "Damn right I will! I didn't let myself get slugged for nothing!"

  It was nearly forty-five minutes later that the Duke and I found ourselves in my apartment again. The ice in our drinks had melted, so I dumped them and prepared fresh ones. The Duke took his, drained half of it in three fast swallows, and said: "Ahhhhhh! I needed that."

  We heard a key in the door, and His Grace looked at me.

  "That's my son," I said. "Back from his date."

  Steve came in looking happy. "You still awake, Dad? A cop ought to get his sleep. Good morning, Your Grace. Both of you look sleepy."

  Stevie didn't. He'd danced with Mary Ellen until four, and he still looked as though he could walk five miles without tiring. Me, I felt about as full of snap as a soda cracker in a Turkish bath. The three of us talked for maybe ten minutes, and then we hit the hay.

  * * * * *

  Three and a half hours of sleep isn't enough for anybody, but it was all we could afford to take. By eight-thirty, the Duke and I were in my office, sloshing down black coffee, and, half an hour after that, we were cruising up Amsterdam Avenue on the second day of our hunt for Mr. Lawrence Nestor.

  Since we were now reasonably sure that our man was in the area, I ordered the next phase of the search into operation. There were squads of men making a house-to-house canvass of every hotel, apartment house, and rooming house in the area--and there are thousands of them. A flying squad took care of the hotels first; they were the most likely. Since we knew exactly what day Nestor had arrived, we narrowed our search down to the records for that day. Nestor might not use his own name; of course, but the photograph and description ought to help. And, since Nestor didn't have a job, his irregular schedule and his drinking habits might make him stand out, though there were plenty of places where those traits would simply make him one of the boys. It still looked like a long, hard search.

  And then we got our break.

  At 9:17 am, Lieutenant Holmquist's voice snapped over my car phone: "Inspector Royall; Holmquist here. Child missing in Riverside Park. Officer Ramirez just called in from 111th and Riverside."

  "Got it!"

  I cut left and gunned the car eastward. I hit a green light at Broadway, so I didn't need to use the siren. Within two minutes, we had pulled up beside the curb where an officer was standing with a woman in tears. The Duke and I got out of the car.

  We walked over to her calmly, although neither one of us felt very calm. There's no point in disturbing an already excited mother--or aunt or whatever she was.

  The officer threw me a salute. I returned it and said to the sobbing woman, "Now, just be calm, ma'am. Tell us what happened."

  It all came out in a torrent. She'd been sitting on one of the benches, reading a newspaper, and she'd looked around and little Shirley was gone. Yes, Shirley was her daughter. How old? Seven and a half. How long ago was this? Fifteen minutes, maybe. She hadn't been worried at first; she'd walked up and down, calling the girl's name, but hadn't gotten any answer. Then she saw the policeman, and ... and--

  And she broke down into tears again.

  It was the same thing that had happened a few days before. I had already ordered extra men put on the Riverside and Central Park details, but a cop can't be everywhere at once.

  "I've got the rest of the boys beating the brush between here and the river," Officer Ramirez said. "She might have gone down one of the paths on the other side of the wall."

  "She wouldn't go too near the river," the woman sobbed. "I just know she wouldn't." She sounded as though she were trying to convince herself and failing miserably.

  Nobody said anything about Nestor; the poor woman was bad enough off without adding more horror to the pictures she was conjuring up in her mind.

  "We'll find her," I said soothingly, "don't you worry about that. You're pretty upset. We'll have the police doctor look you over and maybe give you a tranquilizer or something to make you feel better." No point in telling her that the doctor might be needed for a more serious case. "Keep an eye on her till the doctor comes, Ramirez. Meanwhile, we'll look around for the little girl."

  * * * * *

  I walked over to the wall and looked down. I could see uniformed police walking around, covering the ground carefully.

  Riverside Park runs along the eastern edge of Manhattan Island, between Riverside Drive and the Hudson River, from 72nd Street on the south to 129th Street on the north. In the area where we were, there is a flat, level, grassy area about a block wide, where there are walks and benches to sit on. The eastern boundary of this area is marked by a retaining wall that runs parallel with the river. Beyond the wall, the ground slopes down sharply to the Hudson River, going under the elevated East Side Highway which carries express traffic up and down the island. The retaining wall is cut through at intervals, and winding steps go down the steep slope. There are bushes and trees all over down there.

  I thought for a minute, then said, "Suppose it was Nestor. How did he get her away? It's a cinch he didn't just scoop her up in broad daylight and go trotting off with her under his arm."

  "Precisely what I was thinking," the Duke agreed. "There was no scream or disturbance of that kind. Could he have lured her away, do you think?"

  "Possible, but not likely. Little girls in New York are warned about that sort of thing from the time they're in diapers. If she were five years old, it might be more probable, but little girls who are a
pproaching eight are pretty wise little girls."

  "It follows, then, that she went somewhere of her own accord and he followed her. D'you agree?"

  "That sounds most reasonable," I said. "The next question is: Where?"

  "Yes. And why didn't she tell her mother where she was going?"

  I gave him a sour grin. "Elementary, my dear Duke. Because her mother had forbidden her to go there. And, from the way she was talking, I gather the mother had expressly directed her to stay away from the river." I looked back over the retaining wall again. "But it just doesn't sound right, does it? Surely someone would have seen any sort of attack like that. Of course, it's possible that she did fall in the river, and that this case doesn't have anything to do with Nestor at all, but--"

  "It doesn't feel that way to me, either," said the Duke.

  "Let's go talk to the mother again," I said. "There are plenty of men down there now; they don't need us."

  The woman, Mrs. Ebbermann, had calmed down a little. The police surgeon had given her a tranquilizer with a hypogun, Officer Ramirez was getting everything down in his notebook, and his belt recorder was running.

  "No," she was saying, "I'm sure she didn't go home. That's the first place I looked after she didn't answer when I called. We live down the block there. I thought she might have gone home to go to the bathroom or something--but I'm sure she would have told me." She choked a little. "Oh, Shirley, baby! Where are you? Where are you?"

  I started to ask her a question, but she suddenly said: "Shirley, baby, next time, I promise, you can bring your water gun with you to the park, if you'll just come back to Mommie now! Please, Shirley, baby! Please!"

  I glanced at the Duke. He gave me the same sort of look.

  "What was that about a water gun, Mrs. Ebbermann?" I asked casually.

  "Oh, she wanted to bring her water gun with her, poor baby. But I made her leave it at home--I was afraid she might squirt people with it. But I shouldn't have done that! She's a good girl! She wouldn't squirt anybody!"

  "Sure not, Mrs. Ebbermann. Does Shirley have a key to your apartment?"

  "Yes. I gave her her own key, a pretty one, with her initials on it, for her seventh birthday, so she wouldn't have to push the buzzer when she came home from school."

  "Where's your husband?" I asked taking a look at Ramirez' notebook to get her address.

  "Shirley's father? Somewhere in Boston. We've been separated for two years. But I wish he were here!"

  "Would you give me the key to your apartment, Mrs. Ebbermann? We'd like to take a look around."

  She gave me a key. "But she's not there. I told you, that's the first place I looked."

  "I know," I said. "We just want to look around. We won't disturb anything."

  Then His Grace and I got out of there as fast as we could.

  * * * * *

  I keyed open the front door of the apartment building, and we went inside. Neither of us said anything. There was no need to. We knew what must have happened, we could see it unfolding as plainly as if we'd watched it happen.

  Nestor had seen Shirley sneak off from her mother and had followed her. In order to get into the building, he must have come right in with her, right behind her when she unlocked the outer door. Then what?

  The chances were a billion to one against his ever having been in the building before, so it stood to reason that all he would have been doing is watching for an opportunity and--the right place.

  The foyer itself? No. Too much chance of being seen. The basement? Unlikely. He must have followed her into the elevator, and she would have pushed the button for the seventh floor, where her apartment was, so there wouldn't be much likelihood of his getting a chance to see the basement. Besides, there was a chance that he might run into the janitor.

  * * * * *

  The Duke and I went into the old-fashioned self-service elevator, and I pushed number seven. The doors slid shut, and the car started up. The roof? No. Too much danger of being seen from other buildings higher than this one.

  Where, then? I looked at the control panel of the elevator. The button for the basement was controlled by a key; only the employees were allowed in the basement, so that place was ruled out absolutely.

  I began to get the feeling that we were on a wild goose chase, after all. "What do you think?" I asked His Grace.

  "I can't imagine where he might have taken her. We may have to search the whole building."

  The car stopped at the seventh door, and we stepped out as the doors slid open. The hallways stretched to either side, but there were no apparent hiding places. I went over to the stairwell, which was right next to the elevator shaft and looked up and down. No place there, either.

  Then it hit me.

  Again, I could see Nestor, like a scene unfolding on a TV drama, still following little Shirley. Had he spoken to her in the elevator? Maybe. Maybe not. He was still undecided, so he followed her to the door of her apartment. Wait--very likely, be had made friends with her on the elevator. He saw her push button seven--

  Well, well! Do you live on the seventh floor?

  Yes, I do.

  Then we're neighbors. I live on the seventh, too. I just moved in. Do you live with your mommie and daddy?

  Just my mommie. My daddy doesn't live with us anymore.

  And, since he knew that mommie was in the park, he could guess that the apartment was empty.

  All that went through my mind like a bolt of lightning. I said: "The apartment! Come on!"

  The Duke, looking a little puzzled, followed me to the door of 706. I put my ear against the door and listened. Nothing. Then I eased the key in and flung the door open.

  No one in the living room. I raced for the bedroom. No one in there, either, but the clothes closet door was shut.

  When I opened it, we saw a small, dark-haired girl lying naked and unconscious on the floor.

  Then there were noises from the front room. The sound of a door opening and closing, and the clatter of hurrying footsteps in the hall outside.

  We both turned and ran.

  In the hallway, we could hear the footsteps going down the stairwell. The slow elevator was out of the question. We took off down the stairs after him. He had a head start of about a floor and a half, and kept it all the way down. We saw the door swinging shut as we arrived in the foyer. Outside, we saw our man running toward the corner. I started to reach for my gun, but there were too many people around. I couldn't risk a shot.

  And then that amazing walking stick came into action again. The Duke took a few running steps forward and hurled it like a javelin, the heavy silver head forward. Robin Hood couldn't have done better with an arrow. When the silver knob hit the back of the running man's head, he fell forward to the sidewalk.

  He was still struggling to get up when we grabbed him.

  * * * * *

  The Duke and I were waiting for Dr. Brownlee when he came back from talking to Lawrence Nestor in his cell. "He's one of our zanies, all right," he said sadly. "A very sick man."

  "He's lucky he wasn't lynched," I said. "Did he tell you what happened?"

  Brownlee nodded. "Just about the way you had it figured. He had the little girl's clothes off when her mother came back. He heard her putting her key in the door, so he grabbed Shirley and dragged her into the closet with him. The mother didn't search the place at all; she just went through the main rooms, called her daughter's name a few times and then left."

  "That's what threw us off at first," I said. "We both accepted Mrs. Ebbermann's word that Shirley wasn't in the apartment. Then I realized that she wouldn't have taken time to look in all the closets. Why should she? As far as she knew, there wasn't any reason for Shirley to hide from her."

  "It's a good thing Mrs. Ebbermann did come back." Dr. Brownlee said. "That was the only thing that saved the girl from rape and death. Nestor was so unnerved that he just left her in the closet, still unconscious from the blow he'd given her.

  "Any normal man would hav
e gotten out of there right then. Not Nestor. He went looking for a drink. Fortunately, he found a bottle of whisky in the kitchen. He was just getting in the mood to go back in after the girl when you two came charging in.

  "He saw you run to the bedroom, so he knew the girl's mother must have called for help. He decided it was time to run. Too late, of course."

  "Too late for a lot of things." I said. "Much too late far Angela Donahue, for instance. And, as a matter of fact, we were so close to being too late with Shirley Ebbermann that I don't even want to think about it. I should have let Shultz go ahead and tell the newsmen. At least people would have been warned."

  "There's no way of knowing," said the Duke, "But I think there's just as good a chance that he'd have gotten his hands on some other little girl, even if the warning had gone out. There will always be parents who don't pay enough attention to what their children are doing. They may blame themselves if something happens, but that may be too late. As it happens, we weren't too late. Let's be thankful for that.

  "By the way, am I wrong in assuming that Nestor will not get your psychotherapy treatment?"

  "No, you're right," I said. "The warden at Sing Sing will be taking care of him from now on." I turned to Brownlee and said: "Which reminds me--what's going to be the disposition on the Hammerlock Smith case?"

  "I talked to Judge Whittaker and the D.A. Your recommendation pulled a lot of weight with them. They agreed that if Smith will plead guilty to felonious assault and agree to therapy, he'll get off with eighteen months, suspended. When I release him, he'll never bother young boys again."

  The Duke looked puzzled. "Hammerlock Smith? Odd Name. What's he up for?"

  I told him about Hammerlock Smith.

  He thought it over for a while, then said: "Just what is it you do to men like that? How can you be so sure he'll never hurt anyone again?"

  Brownlee started to answer him, but a uniformed officer put his head in the door. "Excuse me, Dr. Brownlee, the District Attorney would like to talk to you."