“Didn’t the taxi man or Enbrook have anything to do with it?”
“Not a thing. Enbrook is just a young guy that met Miss Paden at the beach and fell in love with her, and afterwards he hung round the store because he saw her there sometimes. He wouldn’t tell that. The taxi business was just an accident, but it upset the plan. Malling was unconscious and couldn’t let the holdups know. They went there expecting to find him and found Paden instead, and he fought ’em and they knocked him off.”
“But how did you trace this to Malling?”
“Malling lied when he said he was at O’Connel’s. He wasn’t known there. But he had been somewhere, so I asked around night restaurants and found one where they did know him. He had been there a lot with a girl named Irene Walger. I found out where she lived and went out to question her. She wasn’t home but there were some letters to her in her mail box—only we won’t say nothing about them letters. One of ’em addressed to her had another one inside it, but all it said inside was John V. Huber and the name of a hotel. I didn’t know what that meant but I called up the hotel to see if Huber was registered there. He wasn’t, but they thought he was expected.
“So then I wondered what would happen when Huber got there, and I figured I’d find out. I didn’t want to go there myself because they might spot me as a cop, so I had you do it, and it turned out that that was the way Malling was to get his share. Of course there ain’t no John V. Huber. Malling was to go there and register by that name and his cut would be there waiting for him. He wouldn’t want to meet those guys after the robbery because he might be seen doing it. It might be he didn’t even meet ’em before it. I figure he got the idea of being robbed, but who was to do it and how it was to be done was fixed up by Irene Walger.”
“You worked this out well,” I told him, “and deserve a lot of credit.”
“Yeah? You tell ’em. When I write out a report it always reads like I’m a dumb guy that only happened to get the one they sent me after, and now that I’ve got to dodge Uncle Sam about them letters it’ll read like I’m cuckoo.”
MRS. WALDER’S DIAMONDS
Originally published in Collier’s, November 18, 1933.
“You two write this down,” said the captain of detectives. “Mr. Justin Walder, five-five-six Park Avenue, reports a diamond pendant valued at $11,500 took off his wife yesterday, it might be in Land & Ellison’s department store or it might be in the tea-room of the Norcort Hotel. Get busy.”
They wrote it down. Al Lamon was the smart one, Jerry Murlin the “dumb” one of their partnership. It didn’t worry Jerry to be considered dumb. When he got an idea everybody was astonished by it, but they forgot right away that he had had it, so he did not lose his reputation for being dumb. “At that,” he said sometimes, “a cop don’t have to know anything. It’s the people he asks questions of that have got to know something.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to tackle this,” Jerry said when they had got outside the station-house.
“You never do know,” Al told him. “We got to see the guy that made the squeal.”
They went to Park Avenue. Mr. Justin Walder lived in a monumental-looking apartment building. There were a lot of liveried attendants about who were not sure Al and Jerry ought to be admitted; but they finally decided it would be permissible. Then another servant showed them into Mr. Walder’s living-room. Mr. Walder was distinguished, obviously wealthy, gray-haired and about fifty-five years old.
“How was this about the pendant, Mr. Walder?” Al inquired.
“Mrs. Walder went shopping yesterday afternoon with a woman friend. The friend is Mrs. Allison Sidd of 7 East 64th Street. Mr. Sidd is a friend and business associate of mine. The two women had tea together in the tea-room of the Hotel Norcort. From there they took a cab to Land & Ellison’s, where they spent some time shopping. From there they again took a cab and Mrs. Walder returned home. On arriving here she missed the pendant.”
“I guess we got to see Mrs. Walder,” Al decided. “Don’t you think so, Jerry?”
“Sure, we better see her.”
“I’m afraid you can’t see her,” Mr. Walder objected. “Mrs. Walder is quite prostrated by her loss and is ill in bed this morning.”
“We got to see her anyway,” Al informed him.
Mr. Walder went in and consulted his wife, then returned and took them in to see her. There was a great deal of lace and a great deal of silk on a very large bed. Mrs. Walder was blond and pretty, about twenty-three years old. She looked prostrated, right enough.
“How was all this, Mrs. Walder?” Al inquired of her.
“I can hardly talk about it. I feel too dreadfully! The pendant was a present from my husband. I was with a friend, Mrs. Sidd, and we had tea at the Norcort Hotel. Mr. Sidd is a friend of my husband.”
She told it exactly as Mr. Walder had. When she had finished, Walder remained to comfort his wife, and the two went out into the hall. A servant was waiting for them. Al went into the living-room where they had talked with Mr. Walder, and when he came out the servant showed them to the elevator.
“What now?” asked Jerry.
“We got to see Mrs. Sidd.”
The Sidds lived in a gray stone house with many iron grilles. There were some more liveried servants. One of them showed them into a room where there was a painting over the mantel, and Al jerked his thumb at it. It was unquestionably Mr. Sidd. He was about fifty-five years old and looked wealthy and distinguished. Then Mrs. Sidd came in. She was some years older than Mrs. Walder. She was pretty—even more sweet than pretty.
“We come here about Mrs. Walder’s pendant,” Al informed her. “You tell us how it was.”
“Mrs. Walder and I had tea at the Hotel Norcort,” said Mrs. Sidd. “Afterward we went to Land & Ellison’s.”
She told it just as Mr. and Mrs. Walder had. They thanked her and the man in livery showed them out.
“That’s a nice lady, that Mrs. Sidd,” said Jerry.
“Sure she’s a nice lady. Well, would you think there was any use of us going to the Norcort or to Land & Ellison’s?” Al observed. “I don’t think those two ladies were at either of them two places yesterday.”
They were near Central Park, so they sat down on a bench to talk it over.
“That Mrs. Walder,” Al said, “is too scared to suit her story. She wouldn’t be that scared over eleven grand in diamonds, even if her husband did give ’em to her. She’s scared of something else and I guess it’s of how she lost ’em. I wouldn’t wonder if Mrs. Sidd wasn’t even with her.”
“They all got the same story,” Jerry objected.
“Sure. Mrs. Walder told that to her husband when she had to tell him why she didn’t have no pendant. Afterward she called up Mrs. Sidd and told her what she’d told him. Probably all Mrs. Sidd knows about it is just that. I don’t think, though, there’s any real harm in Mrs. Walder.”
“I don’t,” said Jerry.
“She’s young and she’s married to this guy about fifty-five years old and sometimes it might get kind of tiresome to her. She don’t look to me, though, like she was in the habit of stepping out. She loves him or she wouldn’t be so worried. Would you figure she met some guy and he copped her diamonds and she don’t dare to tell her husband about it? Or how would you figure it?”
“She might,” Jerry agreed. “But we better check up at Land & Ellison’s and the Norcort. It might be them two ladies are just telling the truth.”
“It ain’t likely.”
* * * *
They checked up at the Norcort and at Land & Ellison’s, but Al was right. The doorman at the Norcort knew both Mrs. Walder and Mrs. Sidd, and was sure neither of them had been there on the day previous. The doorman at Land & Ellison’s knew them too and was equally positive.
“Now we got to find out where they did go,” Al remarked.
That was likely to be some job, and Jerry said so.
“Sure it’s some job,” Al agreed. “That’s what we get our pay for. We got no place to start to find that out from, so we got to make a place. Most anybody that tells a lie puts a little truth into it to make it sound more natural, so probably Mrs. Walder put a little truth in hers. She put a tea-room into it and a hotel. We’ll try the tearooms.”
“Al, there’s a lot of tea-rooms.”
“We got a lot of time. Besides, we don’t have to go to all of ’em. We don’t have to go to none where Mrs. Walder might have met her husband or some friend of his or hers.”
“We can’t find out if she went to them places if we don’t have a picture of Mrs. Walder.”
“We got one.”
Al produced it. It was a small photograph but an excellent likeness.
“I don’t see how you got that,” said Jerry.
“I wouldn’t expect you to see. What did you think I went back into that room for, after we talked with Mrs. Walder?”
They went to fourteen tea-rooms but nobody recognized Mrs. Walder’s picture. They tried seventeen hotels—and seven restaurants. At the eighth restaurant the proprietor recognized the picture.
“Yes; the lady has been here several times,” he told them.
“With who?”
“With a very handsome and liberal gentleman.”
“About fifty-five years old?”
“About twenty-five, I’d say.”
“See here,” said Al. “You do a favor for us. You come down to police headquarters with us while we talk to them down there.”
The restaurant man went with them to headquarters.
* * * *
“We got this kind of case,” Al announced in the bureau of identification. “This is a lady living on Park Avenue. Well, she met a guy about who, I guess, she didn’t tell her husband, and we figure the guy lifted some diamonds off her. About twenty-five years old. Who have you got that might be doing that?”
“Plenty,” the officer in charge told them. To prove it he produced a mass of photographs, and they examined them carefully.
“This is the gentleman,” the restaurant man declared with certainty.
“Well, well!” the officer remarked. “Pretty Face Mulgan, and you boys didn’t know that?”
“We know it now,” Al countered.
The last address given for Mr. Mulgan was a Times Square hotel, but it turned out that he had moved to Riverside Drive; so the two went out there. The apartment building was ornate.
“Mr. Mulgan is asleep,” the hall man told them, “and mustn’t be disturbed.”
“Why, we wouldn’t disturb him. We’ll just go up anyway. Say it’s a couple of police officers.”
The elevator took them up and a Filipino opened the door to them.
“You go downstairs,” Al advised the Filipino, “and talk with that hall guy.”
They went in and closed the door behind them. Mr. Mulgan was, in fact, in bed. The place was luxurious. He turned to them, on a lace-edged pillow, a face like that of a mature and beautiful child.
“Well, boys, what is it?”
“Well, boys, is right,” Al informed him. “Kick in with Mrs. Walder’s ice.”
“Oh, that!” Mr. Mulgan spoke with unruffled calm. “Why, she gave me that pendant! Who made the squawk?”
“Her husband.”
“Go back and tell him he don’t know what he’s starting. If he wants it on the front page of every sheet in town that his wife was up here in my place two hours, come back and make the arrest.”
“We don’t believe that.”
“All right. Arrest me then. I’ve got my witnesses — a switchboard operator and two hall-boys and a doorman and a couple of others that saw her come up here of her own free will; and if she happened to leave any jewels here they’re not here now, so you’ll do no good by searching.”
They looked at each other.
“How about it, Al?” Jerry inquired.
“He might be right,” Al replied uneasily. “It looks like we would start a lot of trouble if we grabbed this guy.”
“You would,” said Mulgan. “So go away and let me sleep.”
They were nonplused.
“It makes me sore,” Jerry declared angrily, “to see a mug like this making a liar out of a lady like that Mrs. Sidd.”
“Well,” Al suggested, “we might fix his face so that he won’t mash no more married ladies.”
“That’s an idea,” Jerry agreed happily.
Mr. Mulgan got swiftly out of bed. He was wearing orange-colored silk pajamas.
“If you two bums lay a hand on me,” he cried anxiously, “I’ll have the shields off both of you tomorrow morning.”
They advanced purposefully.
“You let my face alone!” Mulgan cried in terror. “My face! I quit. No woman’s stones are worth my face. But they aren’t here. I left them with a friend of mine. I’ll have to phone him.”
“Go to it,” Al replied.
* * * *
Mulgan went to the phone and gave a Drydock number. “Two flat-feet—” he started; but Al held up one finger at him. “One flat-foot,” Mr. Mulgan amended, “will be down there in about twenty minutes to get the stuff I left with you. Give it to him.”
“That’s right,” Al commended him. “Just one of us—because Jerry is going down and get them stones while I sit here to see you don’t do no other telephoning. This trip will rate a cab, Jerry. . . . You better get back in bed,” he told Mr. Mulgan kindly.
Jerry departed and was gone just forty minutes.
“O. K.?” Al inquired when he reappeared.
“O. K.” He showed the diamonds glittering in his huge palm.
“It’s tough we have to let this Mulgan go.”
“We’ll watch him,” Al said, “and get him later on for something else.”
They went down in the elevator.
“Where were they at?” asked Al.
“It was a junk shop. The dirtiest old guy I ever seen. He had ’em in a safe in back.”
“Well, we got to turn this in at the station-house, but first we better check up we got the right one with the Walders.”
“How do you figure this really was?” Jerry inquired. “That Mrs. Walder never gave ’em to him?”
“I got how it was while you were gone,” Al answered. “This was some time ago, a rainy day, and Mrs. Walder and Mrs. Sidd was at a matinée, and after, they couldn’t get a cab. So Pretty Face was cruising in a cab looking for women, and he offered to take ’em home. That way he found out who they were.
“Then one time afterward he met ’em, as they thought by accident, but it wasn’t that; and so he got Mrs. Walder to meet him several times alone. There ain’t no harm in her, in my opinion; she’s silly and she thought it was adventure. So yesterday he got her to go to tea at some friends’ of his, but where he took her was to his place. He had his witnesses ready. She got away, but not before he snatched the pendant off her. He thought she’d never dare to make a squawk.”
“I thought he snatched ’em off her. The chain is broke. Well, anyway, we got the rocks,” Jerry remarked.
“Yeh, but this business ain’t going to be so pleasant. It’s going to get both them women in wrong with their husbands.”
When they got to Park Avenue, Al started to pay off the cab.
“Better keep the cab,” Jerry advised.
They went up to the Walders’. Mr. Walder was at home. He was with Mrs. Walder, who, in negligee, was lying on a long chair. She looked at them apprehensively.
“Well, we got them stones,” Al announced, “if this is the right one.”
He showed it. It was the right one.
“Excellent work!” Mr. Walder commented. “Who had it?”
“We found it in the cab,” Jerry said.
Al’s jaw dropped and Mrs. Walder raised herself upon her chair, her face filled with astonishment.
“What cab?” she asked.
“The cab you and Mrs. Sidd took in front of Land & Ellison’s,” said Jerry. “We got to turn it in at the station-house and you’ll get it later.”
Mrs. Walder sank back with color in her cheeks.
They went down in the elevator.
“That was a hot idea you had, Jerry,” Al complimented him.
“Well,” Jerry said, “I hated to see us make a liar out of Mrs. Sidd.”
They went out to the cab and Al looked at the license card. It said, “Antonio Moriscino.”
“Well, Tony,” Al remarked, showing the pendant, “we found this in your cab.”
“You didn’t find nothing in my cab!” Tony cried.
“Sure we did. It got lost off one of them two ladies you picked up yesterday afternoon at Land & Ellison’s.”
“I didn’t pick up no two ladies!”
“Listen, Tony, you don’t understand. We’re a couple of police officers. You’re going to do us a favor.”
“Oh, if it’s a favor,” said Tony, mollified, “that makes it different. Now I remember them two ladies. Where did I take ’em?”
“You brought ’em here. So you come over to the station-house with us while we turn in our report how we found this.”
They all got into the cab.
“Well,” Jerry said with satisfaction, “that all came out all right. What’ll we do with the reward, Al, if this Walder should give us any?”
The Detective O'Malley MEGAPACK Page 13