by Joan Sanger
“Do you know who that was?”
Alcott nodded briefly. I noticed he had already switched on our light and was examining the window by which Stone had apparently gained entrance to our room. Once he stooped and picked up a letter that Stone had evidently dropped in his flight. He frowned for a moment over the strange, oriental symbols, and then, unable to decipher them, laid the letter aside.
“That bird works fast,” he said tensely as he peered out into the night. “We’ll have to hustle if we want to beat him.”
Chapter XIX THE FIRST ARREST
ITHINK it was on the same memorable night as Stone’s strange visit that in the midst of a sweet and dreamless sleep, I was rudely awakened by the crash of part of our ceiling as it fell to the floor. It had barely missed Alcott and me.
“Good Lord! That was a close call!”
I remember standing in the midst of the debris and plaster, nervously tearing Miss Wyndham’s note of warning into a hundred bits. “Right here and now!” I said with fervor. “I swear off all connection with that old hag’s letter. A fine trail of luck, it’s brought us, anyhow.”
At that moment, Alcott was absorbed in a painstaking examination of the wreckage, but he paused to smile.
“You’re a superstitious mug, Johnny. This old dive is so moldy and ancient, it’s a wonder the whole place doesn’t come to pieces.”
“Yeah. That may answer for this. But what about Sanchez and that loony taxi tonight?”
“Oh, I’ve a hunch that was pure chance, too. After all there must be a thousand Cubans who resemble Sanchez.”
“Sez you! Well, keep right on! And the wheel that came off our taxi?”
“Perhaps accident, again. Though that I’m not willing to say with finality.”
“Well, I’ll say ‘boloney.’ There’s something about this whole mess I don’t like Pete. I’m telling you straight. It’s making my hair stand on ends. It’s giving me the jitters. It’s. . . .”
But Alcott was grinning at me cheerfully. “Johnny! Johnny! Pull yourself together. You’d think we were stalking through some absurd melodrama where everything that happened to the hero is the cool and calculated work of a hidden fiend. No, old punk!” The smile died suddenly on Alcott’s lips. “I’ve been thinking about it all night and it’s ‘no go.’ The brains we’re matched against are far too shrewd for that.”
“Maybe. Just the same, I’m getting out.”
“Because of a few curses from an old lady in Manhattan?”
I scratched my head and dismally surveyed the wholesale havoc about us. “I don’t say it’s old Miss Wyndham. I don’t say what it is. I just say I want to get away from this mess and quick as ever I can.”
Alcott looked at me askance. “Not quitting, are you?” The way he said it sobered me up.
“No! but one thing sure—I’m getting out of this goddamed hole!”
Alcott shrugged. “Something tells me you’re foolish to bother. Stone’s watching us. We know that. And my hunch is, we won’t shake him with our next move. No, unfortunately. Nor with our next hundred!”
On sober reflection, I realized Alcott was right. To move did seem futile with that hawk-like Parson on our heels. Consequently, we settled the issue by having our belongings switched to another room down the same section. We engaged the quarters to the right and left of our own to insure some modicum of privacy. We destroyed every tell-tale paper that we did not want to trundle about on our persons, and we made very sure to lock windows and doors whenever we went out. Nonetheless, it was uncanny how the feeling persisted that we were being spied upon by stealth or followed.
I remember with peculiar vividness, one early episode that lent weight to this presentiment. Alcott and I had decided, as a routine precaution, to wire Jimmy Farrel to do a little checking up on Calvin Watts and Judge Lamar. We were accepting no one too whole-heartedly just yet. Accordingly, we dropped by the Post Office to dispatch the necessary message. As we were leaving the Telegraph Bureau, for some inexplicable reason both Alcott and I looked back. There, already at the desk, talking in soft, sibilant tones to the clerk, we recognized the now familiar bulk of Charles Elihu Stone. He must have sensed our glances upon him, for suddenly he turned about and spread his broad accordion-like smile full in our direction. Cold and fishy, that smile now seemed, with a depth of malevolence in it.
Once outside in the Havana sunshine, I opened up.
“Look here, Pete. We’ve stood just about enough from that bird. Let’s have a showdown here and now.”
Alcott shrugged. “What’s the point?”
“Well, I’m for telling him to mind his own damned business and quit pussy-footing around after us, this way.”
Alcott smiled. “And you really think he’ll listen?”
“Maybe not. But it would be a satisfaction anyway.”
“Well, count me out! I’m not ready for Stone just yet, no matter what you think you are.”
Saying which, he left me to call instead at Headquarters for whatever letters may have arrived in answer to that absurd ad of his in the Havana Post.
There was no accounting for the fellow!
But I was all steamed up. Even Pete’s philosophical unconcern did not deter me. Fairly smarting with annoyance, I turned back into the Post Office and walked directly up to Stone.
“What’s the big idea of all this?”
Stone glanced at me with that singular smile of his. “The big idea of what, Mr. Ellis?”
“Oh, come off. The big notion of your following us, spying on us, prying into our affairs, as you have done.”
That audacious smile broadened.
“But what could possibly make you think I’m following you?”
“Oh, I’m not here for small talk,” I said in irritation. “But I’ll give you fair warning. You better leave off. Do you get me? If you don’t, we’ll make things hotter for you than even this Cuban climate.”
“Try it!” Stone looked at me coolly and his smile grew a trifle less broad. “Perhaps I know what I’m doing even if you don’t.”
And having delivered himself of that cryptic utterance, he turned on his heel and was gone.
The next occasion on which I saw young Stone was some two nights later when, temporarily forgetful of the whole Wyndham muddle, I had taken Lynn Dawson to the Fronton for our first look-in on the great Cuban game of Jai-alai. The amazing agility of the players, the mercurial enthusiasm of the spectators and, moreover, Lynn’s own humorous side remarks were absorbing my entire attention when suddenly I caught a fleeting glimpse of Stone moving among the throng on our right. However, at that moment, it seemed unimportant. Luxuriating in Lynn’s companionship for this first stretch in years, I could manage to rise magnificently above such minor annoyances as the prying Parson.
Things were going better, I told myself. But the real truth was, I was seeing Lynn with a vengeance these days. Every hour that clues slackened or work reached a temporary standstill, I’d find myself sneaking off with her for a set of tennis, a swim, a round of talk and cocktails . . . all, of course, just for—er—old times sake. Judge Lamar was off on a three-day fishing trip, her mother had gone back home, and Lynn needed looking after, I argued. Alcott shook his head over me or roundly cussed, “For God’s sake, quit whistling that damned old tune.” (I think I was whistling “The Ladies” from morning to night these days.)
But it made no difference. Somehow it was too exhilarating to discover old lines of sympathy unbroken, new interests akin, in a girl who had the gayest, straightest, tenderest eyes in all Havana and the most infectious laugh I’d ever heard. After that first date at La Playa, I had admitted ruefully to myself that Lynn was as grand as ever. At the end of my second I perceived she was even better than that, and by the end of the third I realized in dismay, that I was breaking out again with every symptom of the old flame. Worst of all, I didn’t seem to mind.
As for Alcott, no matter how much he scoffed at my lack of sense during these days, the scor
e seemed about equal between us. If in his eyes I was a fool; in mine, he seemed in training to be a moron. During this time, he made divers and sundry references to mysterious trips and missions he was making about the island, but no matter what hour of the day or night I’d come home, I’d find him, shirt sleeves rolled up, perspiration rolling down, poring over the stacks of letters that slowly but surely had trickled into Police Headquarters in answer to that inexplicable ad of his in the Havana papers.
And a conglomerate lot those letters were! Typed, scrawled, printed, signed and unsigned. Some posted, some handed in without even that formality; soiled and torn, meticulous and tidy; Cuban, Mexican, American. A steadily mounting pile of testimony to the innate vagary of the human species. But not one iota of those countless letters would Alcott miss. It was a preposterous waste of time. Half a dozen times a day I told him so.
However, my remonstrances did little good. Invariably, I was met by the same obdurate shake of his head and exasperating smile.
“Run along, Johnny, and play if you want. I’m not forcing you to help me, am I?”
One afternoon, coming in late from an excursion with Lynn, I was particularly amused at him. The harvest of queer happenings on or about February thirteenth was growing more abundant judging from the mass of letters on the table. In detail, one man wrote in to report about a sugar mill which had mysteriously burned down near his place on the night of the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth, which date he wasn’t just sure, but he was certain, quite certain it was last year or the year before. A woman from Mexico City described the terrible fright her child had been occasioned by a so-called supernatural visitation that had occurred on precisely the date mentioned in the press notice. One, Señor Aguero, reported that his year’s savings had disappeared from an old butter crock where they were always kept. And to cap it all, at Tampico a cat was reported to have given birth to thirteen kittens!
“All of which certainly throws great bursts of illumination on our Wyndham case,” I broke out, sarcastically.
Alcott quietly pushed a soiled sheet of paper toward me. “At any rate, here’s something that might be important.”
I turned the sheet over gingerly. It was written in pencil and was barely legible:
I seen your notice in the paper & dunt know as this’ll interest you but thought I’ud writ it. Anyways on the night you menshun, I an my brother found a man stretched out on the starboard side of our fishing boat which had been tied up at Havana more’n eleven days waitin’ fur the bad wind and wether to let up enuf for us to get clear of the harbur. When we furst seen the guy all messed up there and bluddy among the ropes and fish hooks and riggin we wuz already 20 miles out at sea. Mebbe you’d say we should have turned back and told the Police about this guy but it wuz our furst good break in weeks and the Red Snappers were sed to be runnin pretty good just then & we couldn’t afford to take a chanct on getting stuck in Havana harbur again. Anyhow the guy wusn’t dead but he wus awful banged up around the hed. We done what we cud fur him takin turns cooking and settin up with him. When we got him to feelin a little better he’d lay by the hour out on the deck in the sun, keepin his own company. He wus a funny one. Never a word cud we get out of him as to where he’d come from or who he wus or nuthin. Sometimes he’d help us haulin or washin up but most of the time he seemed kind of absent-minded. When we put in at N’Orleans to sell our catch, he wus lookin thin as a rail and white too. We told him we’d be going back ter Cuba and wud tak him back with us but he shuk his hed and sed he’d ruther stay in the States. Then he thanked us for our care and blew off, the Lord knows where. It wus the last we ever seen of him. But the date in yer notice put us in mind of him. Specially becuz he wus so unnatural quiet, it made us think him a bad customer. If you want more perticulars write
Porkie Smith
Sailors Cove
Key West
Florida.
“And thus commences an elevating and literary correspondence between you and ‘Porkie,’ I suppose.” I contemptuously tossed the letter across to Alcott.
“A mutually remunerative one,” Pete smiled. “I intend to see that Porkie Smith gets the $500.00 reward. That is, when, as and if, I can lay hold of the $500.00.”
I looked at Pete in curiosity. “Jesus. You really think that seaman’s yarn important?”
Alcott smiled lazily. “H’m, very! And I’ve a kind of hunch you’ll one day agree.”
“Damn fool!”
But that sort of bickering got us nowhere. Much more to the point seemed the results of little Billy Farrel’s research back at the Home Office. Forty-eight hours after our communication to him, two characteristic cables arrived at the Havana Post.
CALVIN WATTS ONLY SON OF ONE OF FIRST FAMILIES OF MARYLAND STOP FATHER SENIOR MEMBER OF WATTS AND BRUTON BANKERS STOP CAL ALSO CONNECTED WITH FIRM BUT NOT ENOUGH TO BOTHER HIM STOP FROM ALL REPORTS SEEMS TO BE GREAT WHITE HOPE OF ENTIRE JUNIOR LEAGUE STOP REPUTATION DECENT BUT THE GUYS STILL YOUNG STOP HEARD SWELL STORY LAST NIGHT ABOUT HAILE SELASSIE STOP GUESS YOURE DOING YOURSELF PROUD IN HAVANA WHILE THE OLD FOLKS SLAVE BACK HOME STOP NO DONT STOP
BILL FARREL
The other dispatch was equally to the point.
DESPITE HARD WORK CANT RAKE UP MUCH DIRT ON LAMAR STOP BORN UPSTATE MUCH IN ORDINARY WAY STOP RESIDES WHEN IN CITY AT RESIDENCE GRAMERCY PARK STOP AGE FORTY THREE AND STILL UNMARRIED STOP SAID TO BE AMBITIOUS GENIAL AND INDEFATIGABLE ABOUT WORK STOP VACATIONS REGULARLY IN HAVANA IN WINTER STOP HIGH SPOT OF CAREER TO DATE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN SCHMIDT MESS LAST YEAR WHEN DUE TO BRILLIANT JUDICIAL CHARGE EIGHT PHONEY INDICTMENTS WENT FLOOEY AT TRIAL STOP BY THE WAY GERRAGHTY LOOKS MADDERN HELL EVERY TIME YOUR NAMES ARE MENTIONED STOP
BILL
Over cream cheese, jelly and black coffee in the sunny dining room of our little hotel, we smiled over Bill’s cables.
“Right off the bat, Johnny, what’s your impression of Lamar?”
“Straight shooter and okay! Billy’s report only rounds out the picture.”
“And Watts?”
“The same of course.”
“So much for that!”
Our talk drifted from personalities to events. We speculated idly how long, on the shifting sands of our present social and economic world, the phenomena of rich young playboys like Watts and his crowd could persist. We drifted to current events, where both of us thoroughly disillusioned and cynical shook our heads over a rough and tumble world where reformers, crime waves, fads and presidents come and go. I remember we even touched on the growing menace of the racketeer. That was no trifling matter. Despite all the outcry from platform, pulpit and press, the virulent evil seemed spreading far and wide like a hideous cancer in the nation’s life instead of being effectively rooted out once and for all. The very make-up of our morning paper proved the point. “St. Louis Bank Teller Killed in Machine Gun Raid.” “Sausage King Takes One Way Ride.” “Police Sergeant Succumbs to Racketeer’s Bullet.”
“Jesus! It’s a damned poor commentary on our agencies of law enforcement.”
“H’m. Maybe the corruption doesn’t stop short with the racketeers!”
“Of course not. Still, poor Johnny Public pays and pays!”
“Yeah. That’s the rub.” (Pause) “By the way, were you surprised at the outcome of those Schmidt charges last spring?”
“Maybe at first. But it seems there wasn’t a scrap of real evidence to hang on the guys.”
“I know. We got the rumblings of the matter even down in Florida.”
We finished our lunch in silence. On my side I was speculating at what moment I could make a decent get-away. Outside the day was blazing and clear, a grand afternoon to take Lynn exploring through the older quarters of Havana. After all, I reasoned, Alcott and I could talk forever, but so far as progress on the Wyndham case was concerned, whether due to the old Wyndham curse or what, it was obvious, perfectly obvious, I argued, that for the time being we were completely becalmed.
Becalmed did I say? At precisel
y that moment, there was a slight commotion near the door of the dining room. I turned to see a police officer striding our way, his every step protested by our woe-begone head-waiter. The oddly sorted pair arrived at our table simultaneously.
In broken English the head waiter proffered a thousand apologies that our luncheon should be so rudely disturbed.
“These policement—ah, they are so insistent.”
This one certainly was. Straight into my Guava jelly, he extended a large official looking envelope from headquarters. It was addressed to Alcott, but at a nod from him, I tore it open.
The typewritten communication therein was surprising, to say the least.
As per your honored instructions, I am writing to inform you that Señor José Sanchez and wife were arrested this morning when trying to leave Havana for Rio de Janeiro on the S.S. Orestes. They had the passage engaged under the name ‘Esteban’ but due to the vigilant watch you had instructed me to keep, I was fortunately able to frustrate these plans and notify headquarters.
Señor Sanchez was in a very nervous state when the arrest was made and offers the most heavy bail. The lady thus far stubbornly refuses to answer all questions, repeating hysterically that the arrest is an outrage. She even audaciously demands to face you and your friend. assuring headquarters that you will see she is promptly released.
“Wha-at!” Alcott broke out, evincing the first real interest he had shown in the entire communication thus far. “Here, let me see that!”
I handed the letter over to him with an unpardonable smirk of satisfaction.
“Well! What have I been telling you all along about that Sanchez guy? He never looked good to me from the beginning. But you’d have none of it. Oh, no! it couldn’t have been him in that crazy car! And that loosened taxi wheel was just chance. . . .”
But I was wasting my breath. Alcott, hearing not a word, was absorbed in re-reading that missive from Police Headquarters. Beneath his quiet exterior I could see that something in the situation interested him.
“You can tell them at headquarters that we’ll be over right away.” Then to the head waiter, “Better hurry our check along if you want us to sign.”