The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933

by Frederick Nebel

  Cordova and the woman were standing at a ticket window. Money was exchanged for transportation paper. A Negro porter was holding the bags. In a moment the trio started across the rotunda.

  Pat flashed Cardigan a worried look from a distance. She sensed that trouble was not far off.

  People swarmed. The rotunda was like a vast beehive.

  Pat shivered. She felt she ought to go over to Cardigan and ask him to please not show his gun… with all these people around… some bystanders would surely get shot. Where was the little gray man? She looked about frantically, did not see him. But he was somewhere, she knew. And then she lost sight of Cardigan. She broke into a perfectly ladylike run, frightened. Then she saw him again. He was pushing, weaving his way swiftly through the shifting throng.

  Cordova and the woman were heading toward an open gate. Cardigan looked swiftly about. He spotted Pat twenty yards away. She was watching him. She would follow where he led. But where was that little gray man? Cardigan swung his gaze back to Cordova and the woman. Cordova had just arrived at the gate and was showing his tickets.

  Then Cardigan saw the little gray man. He had cropped up swiftly, quietly, and was standing in front of Cordova, talking to Cordova. Suddenly Cordova struck out with his fist and the little man was hurled against the gate attendant. The gate attendant fell down. The little gray man didn’t. He tugged swiftly at his coat pocket. A gun boomed but it was not the little man’s. Smoke came from Cordova’s hand. And then Cordova spun and broke into a run across the rotunda.

  A few people screamed. Polly Campion had pressed a hand to her mouth. Cardigan was on his way, running. He cut across to Pat. She was wide-eyed.

  He snapped: “Get the woman!”

  “Chief, don’t—”

  But he was off. He had his gun out too. People fell away in front of him. Some covered their faces. Some fell down. Cries broke out ahead; shouts; a few screams. Cordova was threatening his way through, waving his gun. A porter bearing half a dozen bags collapsed in a heap. Cardigan did not stretch himself too much. He did not want to overtake Cordova inside the terminal. There would be shooting, wild shots. He followed hawk-eyed, at a distance.

  Cordova struck out for the taxi tunnels on the Vanderbilt Avenue side. It was darker there. And it was only then he became aware of the man following him. Perhaps Cordova had intended taking a cab; if so, he promptly changed his mind. He reached Vanderbilt Avenue, bent and twisted his way through moving motor traffic to the other side of the street, sped north.

  Police whistles began blowing. Taxi drivers craned necks. Some pointed, shouted to one another. Here and there a pedestrian darted into a doorway. Cordova looked back, saw Cardigan gaining. Cordova fired. The bullet crashed through a large plate-glass window, plowed through the superstructure of a large model of an ocean steamship. Two men dropped flat to the sidewalk, lay there, tense. A cop heaved out of a side street as Cordova fired again. Cardigan almost crashed into the cop. The cop dropped his nightstick, held hands to his stomach and bent over, grimaced, fell headlong into the gutter.

  A man jumped, clawed at Cordova. Cordova struck him down with his gun barrel, pivoted and plunged into a store. It was a bookstore. A young woman with black bangs, large eyeglasses, was sitting on a stool reading a book entitled “Celebrated Crimes.” She threw up the book and fell over backward. Cardigan came into the store ducking violently. Cordova’s gun banged. A hole appeared in the crown of Cardigan’s hat but the hat did not budge. Cardigan fired twice. The two blasts made a couple of steel filing cabinets tremble.

  Cordova, wheeling backward, took a pyramid of books down with him.

  Cardigan fired twice again. The bullets drove Cordova into a magazine stall and the stall went down; magazines cascaded down over Cordova’s head and shoulders and his gun, going off wildly, drilled a huge globe of the world on a shelf above. Cardigan dived on to him, chopped savagely with his gun. Cordova sank among the magazines. His arms dropped.

  A squad of cops barged in through the door and landed en masse on Cardigan.

  “Cut it out!” he shouted. “I’m a private cop. This guy shot a man in Grand Central and shot a cop up the street!”

  “Lay off him, boys,” a sergeant said. “I think I know him. Sorry I bopped you on the head, Cardigan. Mistakes will happen.”

  WHEN Cardigan walked into the station master’s office he found a flock of cops standing around. The little gray man was sitting in a chair and a doctor was bandaging his left arm. The little man was smoking a pipe and at sight of Cardigan he took the pipe from his mouth and smiled.

  “I saw you dash off after that fellow. Have I you to thank for something?”

  Cardigan was twirling a snakewood walking stick. It was crowned with silver, had three thin bands of silver a few inches below the crown. Cordova had carried it.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “That wild tomato went in for some fast shooting and I knocked him over in a bookshop up Vanderbilt. The cops took him to the hospital. Who are you?”

  “Simms is my name. Special agent, Department of Justice. You?”

  “Cardigan, Cosmos Agency.”

  “Happy to know you. I see you’re carrying Cordova’s stick.”

  “The cops forgot it.”

  “I see. Will you see if the stick comes apart?”

  “Comes apart?”

  “Try to unscrew it.”

  Cardigan looked at the stick, gripped it hard in both hands and twisted. The head began to move. One of the three silver bands separated and presently the head unscrewed completely. He saw that tissue paper was packed firmly into the head. He pried it out with a penknife.

  “Fine!” said Simms, smiling.

  There were five small wads of tissue paper. In each was a diamond. Simms chuckled and examined the stones. “Worth about one hundred thousand, all told. Good work, Cardigan!”

  Cardigan said: “Am I surprised!”

  “It’s quite interesting,” Simms said amiably. “I’ve been watching Cordova for some time. Watching his women. I thought I might finally land him through a woman. He’s quite a guy, you know. This international smuggling game of his was A-one.

  “It worked this way. He had several plants in Paris. They were shops—antique shops, novelty shops. The men who operated these shops worked with him. Like this: an American would wander into the store, make a purchase. The shopkeeper would engage him in conversation, find out pretty much all about him. The man would make a purchase, and whatever the object was, the shopkeeper would pretend that it needed polishing, or fixing or something. He would send the object around to the purchaser’s hotel. In that way he would get the man’s name. Through someone at the hotel he would find out when and on what ship the man was sailing. In the object which the man purchased the shopkeeper would secrete whatever gems he intended smuggling into America. He would then send a letter to Cordova giving the man’s name and a complete description of him, and the ship and date he was to sail on. Quite often he managed to discover the man’s home address.

  “We’d been watching Cordova ever since that counterfeiting rap he managed to beat. In Baltimore three months ago there was a man who had his walking stick snatched from his hands on the street one night. He reported it to the police, but the police thought the item was small, they didn’t worry their heads much. I did. I saw this man and discovered that he had bought the stick in a shop in Paris only a few weeks before. He described the man who had stolen it. It fitted Cordova, but the trail was cold by that time and I decided to watch and wait.”

  CARDIGAN went into another office, used a telephone. In a few minutes he returned. “You’re right,” he said. “A man named Norman Wayne bought this stick in Paris. The shopkeeper acted just the way you explained. Norman Wayne was shadowed by Cordova from the time he stepped off the boat. But Wayne never carried the stick. You see, it was a gift for his brother. His brother was knifed tonight—killed.”

  Simms sighed. “My fault. I should have stayed on Cordova’s tail,
but I was interested in the woman. I tailed her instead.”

  The door opened and Pat came in—alone. She was round-eyed, grave. Seeing Cardigan, she let out a sigh of relief.

  He crossed to her, muttered: “Where’s the woman?”

  “I let her go,” she said, looking away.

  Simms called: “By the way, Cardigan. I’d forget about that woman. I found out she’s O.K. Married and has a fine husband. The woman has no connection with the smuggling, I think.”

  “I’m sure she hasn’t,” Pat said.

  The phone rang and a cop answered it, hung up. “Cordova passed away,” he said.

  When Pat and Cardigan walked out of the terminal, Pat said: “She’s so lovely, chief. My heart ached for her. I—I had to let her go. The things she told me—Cordova must have been a beast!”

  A cab door swung open and Hackett heaved out, came across the sidewalk. “Hey,” he said, “so you handed it to me plenty dirty, huh? O.K., sweetheart; thanks—thanks a lot! Some day I’ll do the same for you, you Mick bum!”

  Cardigan hit him. He caught Hackett between the eyes, drove him against the taxicab. Hackett yelped and flopped to the sidewalk.

  A cop bounded across the sidewalk and grabbed Cardigan.

  Pat spoke up indignantly: “Officer, that man insulted me!”

  The cop left Cardigan, grabbed Hackett and hauled him to his feet.

  Cardigan said: “Come on, chicken!” and walked Pat swiftly away. And then he said: “Thanks, doohickey—”

  “So I’m doohickey again, am I?”

  “In any language—”

  She squeezed his arm, said: “You rascal you!”

  Dead Man’s Folly

  Chapter One

  The C Print

  CARDIGAN pushed open the apartment door, closed it quietly behind him. His big face was grave. He carried his lop-eared hat in his hand and his shaggy hair bunched thickly about his ears, on his nape. He saw the man on the floor; the assistant medical examiner—Osborne—kneeling and probing; Cronin, the precinct plainclothes sergeant; two uniformed cops; the police photographer. It was silent in the big living room. But beyond, in another room, a woman was sobbing.

  Cronin looked up, scowled, muttered: “What the hell are you doing here, Cardigan?”

  Cardigan made no reply. He didn’t even look at Cronin. He moved his big feet slowly across the Axminster, planted them wide apart near the head of the man on the floor, stared down.

  “Dead?” he muttered.

  “Oh, quite dead,” the medical examiner chirped.

  Cronin poked Cardigan. “I said, Irish—”

  “I heard what you said,” Cardigan growled, looking down at him. “I know his wife. Knew her since she was a kid.”

  Cronin said: “I thought maybe you were just gate-crashing again.” He jerked a forefinger downward. “This guy was beaned.”

  CARDIGAN looked up at the partly open door, moved toward it. He saw Anna Christian lying on the bed. She had removed neither hat nor coat. Her sobbing wrenched its way up and out, muffled somewhat by the bedclothes. He picked up a chair, carried it to the bedside, planked it down and sat on it.

  “Hey, Anna,” he said in a low, husky voice.

  She turned around, saw him, said: “Oh, Jack!” and then lay back again, covering her face with her hands.

  He looked at his wrist watch. It was half-past noon. “What time did you get in, Anna?”

  “About a quarter of twelve. The train arrived at eleven-thirty. I—I came straight from the station in a taxi. I—I’d been to Helen’s for the week-end.” She sat up and put her hands down, stared wet-eyed into space.

  “Was the door locked?”

  “Yes. It’s a snap-lock. Locks automatically when you go out. I had a key. I—I didn’t expect Burt would be home. But—he was—home. He was—” She covered her face again, shuddering.

  He reached out, patted her knee. “Buck up, Anna.” Then he dropped his voice, “These cops been rough with you?”

  “Oh, I don’t suppose so. Only—only the sergeant, Mr. Cronin, was—well, I’m all upset—and the way he talked.”

  “Burt stayed in town over the weekend, huh?”

  “Yes. I guess he went out last night. I saw his dress suit crumpled—and a dress shirt.”

  “How about his clubs?”

  “Well, he belongs to the Midtown and the Willow Country. I left Friday. He said he’d have a quiet week-end. But he may have gone out. No harm in that. Burt doesn’t drink much—only once in a while he celebrates.”

  “Did you phone your sister?”

  “Yes. I—I asked her to come and stay with me a while.”

  There was a sound at the door. Cardigan turned and saw Cronin standing on the threshold. Cronin’s dark, gaunt face was suspicious. He took a step into the room.

  Cardigan gave Anna Christian’s knee a reassuring tap, rose and went toward Cronin. He took hold of Cronin’s arm, said: “A word with you,” and maneuvered him back into the living room. He closed the door.

  His lips flattened and he said in a low voice, “Don’t pull any rough stuff on her, Cronin.”

  “I’m in charge of a police investigation, and—”

  “You could be,” Cardigan said, eyeing him darkly, “the whole police department, but if you try any wise tricks on her I’ll poke you in the snoot.” He left Cronin standing there and crossed to the body on the floor. It was clad in pajamas. He had known Burt Christian a little, had liked him.

  “Killed,” said the deputy medical examiner, drying his hands on a towel, “by a blow to the temple with a blunt instrument. How’ve you been these days, Cardigan?”

  “O.K., Osborne.” He turned, eyed Cronin. “What happened?”

  Cronin’s narrow dark face was expressionless; anger ebbed slowly from his eyes. But he said: “There’s a blonde mixed up in it. I had the nigger up a few minutes ago that mops up the lobby between midnight and three. He said at about two this morning a blonde came in and couldn’t operate the elevator. They have boys on the elevators up till midnight. After that, you operate them automatic. So the nigger brought her up to this floor. She had a card in her hand. She asked where Christian’s apartment was and the nigger told her. He didn’t see her leave.”

  Cardigan said: “Thanks,” gruffly, and to Osborne: “About how long’s he been dead?”

  “Say about two and half hours—maybe three.”

  “Cronin, did he make any phone calls this morning?”

  “Desk downstairs wouldn’t know. He uses an outside wire.”

  “Would the desk know if he had any callers this morning?”

  “Only if they asked at the desk. Nobody asked. Nobody asked the elevator boy, either. Who’s running this investigation, Cardigan, you or me?”

  “You. Any objection to a few questions?”

  CARDIGAN crossed to the telephone table, thumbed a directory, scooped up the telephone and called Christian’s business office. He said: “This is Cardigan, a friend of Burt Christian’s. Do you know if anything happened on Saturday that might have caused him to bust out in a rash of celebration?… I see. I get you. What was it?… Willoughby mansion, eh?… Thanks.”

  Cronin slurred: “Can’t keep your hands off, huh?”

  “Christian,” said Cardigan, pointing to the body, “was soused, wasn’t he?”

  The deputy medical examiner said: “Oh, yes. I could smell the liquor.”

  “O.K. He put over a big business deal Saturday afternoon involving eighty thousand bucks. Times are hard. He had cause to celebrate. He celebrated.”

  Cronin laughed shortly. “Hell, you knock me down with those bright ideas! O.K., then. He got soused and fell in with the blonde. He invited her home. He came home first and then she came home after him. Start from there—”

  “That’s wise,” Cardigan said. “Start from there and leave his wife alone. She’s no moll. She’s a swell kid. She happens to be a friend of mine and I happen to get sore when a precinct shamus gets tough on
a friend of mine.” He added: “Ten to one this kill will trace back to the bright-light district—to Rialto Square, the north end of your precinct, Cronin, and it stinks out loud.”

  Cronin darkened, snapped: “You been shooting off your mouth long enough about the Fourth Precinct!”

  “Why not?” Cardigan snapped back at him. “There’s a ring of grifters around Rialto Square that I’d like like hell to break! And if this kill backtracks to the bright-light district—” He stopped, took a deep breath, shifted his eyes to the bedroom door. He said more quietly: “Well, that girl in there was nuts about this fellow on the floor—and I’ll break the ring.”

  “That,” Cronin said weightily, tapping his own chest, “will be my business.”

  Cardigan turned a curious stare on him, smiled bleakly. He said: “It ought to be yours, Cronin.”

  Cronin colored. “Clear up that remark, guy,” he said dully, threateningly. He came toward Cardigan somberly, his narrow dark face sinister, his eyes round and brown and hard. “You heard me; clear it up, jazzbo!”

  “There’s nothing to clear up, Cronin.”

  “Keep your wisecracks to yourself, Irish. You been hightailing around this town too long.” His voice rose, hard and blunt. “Keep your dirty nose out of my business!”

  Cardigan was smiling amiably, teetering back on his heels. “What a loud voice you have, grandpa!” he said.

  Cronin, his face mottled, swung. There was the sharp sound of flesh smacking as Cardigan, barely moving, caught the blow in his open palm. Gripping Cronin’s fist, his eyes narrowed down and his lip curled. He said: “For two cents I’d knock you across the room, Cronin—only I’m no piker.” He threw the fist down, chuckled roughly. “You panic hell out of me. Grow up, cowboy.”

  He strode across the room, his shaggy brows bent, almost meeting, a sullen scowl on his face that vanished as he touched the bedroom door. Entering the room, he found Anna Christian sitting before the dressing table—dry-eyed now, white and drawn.

  “You were good to come around, Jack.”

  He made a friendly, scoffing sound, bent down beside her, muttered near her ear: “If Cronin—or another cop—gets wise with you, tell me. Remember, you don’t have to stand for their wisecracks.”