The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933

by Frederick Nebel

  “I was in here. Got the list. Go on.”

  “Well, chief, I couldn’t get much out of her. Only these names, over and over again. The girl isn’t in her right mind. Then she suddenly got very scared and wanted to get out. I held her and asked her her address. She said Saltpork Annie’s—and then I got the street number. But as we drew near, she was afraid again—afraid to get out of a cab there. So I let her off at the corner. I’d had enough for one night anyhow. I thought it over and decided yesterday to get in touch with her again and then through her try to get to her roommate Mabel Murphy. Well, I waited outside the sweatshop. Hanna came out and I followed her and caught up with her. She was crying and I walked up a quiet street with her—and then a car drew up and two men pounced on us—Hanna and me. When I came to, I was locked in a room with Hanna. My pocketbook was gone, and with it the wire you’d sent me about when you were to arrive.”

  He nodded. “And was I met in a big way!” He told about his arrival, the bogus policemen, the fight in the drugstore.

  “Good Lord, chief!”

  “Never mind. So what happened next?”

  “A man named Abel Franks came in. Very nice—very jovial. Pinched me till I yelped! And then began to ask questions. Well, I kept my mouth shut. Two more men came in and took Hanna out. She must be there still, chief! They’ll kill her!”

  “How’d you scram?”

  “Back window. I kept saying it was cold in the room, and they brought me in a couple of blankets. After they’d gone out, I ripped the blankets into strips, knotted them together, tied one end to a gas fixture near the floor, flung the line out the window and went down like a sailor. I hopped a fence, tore a pair of two-dollar stockings, then worked around the block to the front of the house and found the street and number.

  “Maybe I should have run right to the police, but I wanted to see if you’d arrived safely. I was afraid—you see, I knew they’d found the telegram. So I dashed to the hotel—and thanked God when the clerk said you’d registered. But you weren’t in. So I called police headquarters on a chance—”

  “Pat, chicken, you’re the one bright spot in my life. Moral: always take a chance. That chance made one cop’s face red, Sister Patrick.”

  “But, chief”—her eyes were wide and honest with concern—“this poor Hanna Kropek! And it’s my fault! I got that poor little underfed thing in Dutch! I’ve got to—”

  “Wait a minute. What was the address you found after you hopped those fences?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? No, I didn’t. Saltpork Annie’s, of course!”

  “And this Saltpork Annie is so bighearted that she lets rooms to girls like Hanna Kropek for nothing?”

  Pat was serious and said: “Chief, I believe there’s something awfully crooked about it. I don’t believe—my Lord, what a name!—I don’t believe Saltpork Annie would—”

  “You’re taking words out of my mouth, honey-chile. Listen. You pile in bed there, close your eyes, and sleep. Uncle Cardigan is going to see people and do things.”

  She hopped up. “Be dressed in a minute.”

  “I didn’t say dressed. I said—”

  “Pooh! Get out of here so I can get dressed.”

  “Pat, in the name of reason—”

  “Reason your grandmother! If I ever stopped to use my reason, I’d chuck this job and marry Giles Overstreet and have a vine-clad cottage in the suburbs and raise kids and— Phooey on you and your reason! Get out so I can dress!”

  THEY went down in the elevator together, Cardigan acting very superior and injured because Pat had not stayed behind.

  She was saying: “I got that poor Hanna Kropek in Dutch and I’ll not sleep till I get her out of it. You always want to hog everything—”

  “O.K., O.K.,” he growled. “Forget it. Let it slide. Shut up and give your ears a chance.”

  “And you don’t have to be insulting—”

  “I’m sorry, Lady Patrick. On bended knees, wallowing in self-abasement—”

  “Oh, you shut up!”

  The elevator opened and he lined out ahead of her, his floppy hat crushed down over his forehead, his heels smacking the tiles.

  Bogart turned from the desk and said: “Oh, there you are!”

  Cardigan went past him saying: “Wrong number. I’m sorry I don’t seem to remember your face—”

  “Mug—” Bogart caught hold of his arm, wore a hard tight smile. “Listen, mug, I got that car all right, but where the hell did you get it? And who is this dame Saltpork Annie—”

  “Oh, you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You would like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would like to know.”

  “Well, you big tramp, try holding your hand on your neck awhile!”

  The desk clerk was shocked to hear a captain of detectives addressed in this manner.

  But Bogart said, still smiling: “And I thought you could take it.”

  “I can.”

  “You got to show me, Irish.”

  Cardigan began prodding him in the chest. “Your idea of being a big hard policeman is to lay into a place with enough cops to put down a South American rebellion while you direct operations from the comparative safety of a speakeasy six blocks away.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes. And I think more. You’re a bum and a heel and a lousy grifter. You tried to muscle in on me when I was in a tough spot. And the good old Cardigan jinx turned up and put a wet blanket on you.” He waved his hand. “Go stand on your head on a crowded corner and draw attention; you can’t draw it around me.”

  “All these being true,” Bogart cut in, grinning. “I’m a heel, a bum, a grifter. But I’m this kind of a guy too. I’ll go anywhere you go—against two, six or a dozen hoods—and I’ll go it without a single cop.”

  “Bah!… Come on, Pat.” He grabbed her arm and headed for the revolving doors.

  “You see,” Bogart said after him. “You can’t take it.”

  Cardigan stopped, turned around and came back to face him. “How would you like a sock on the nose?”

  “You could sock me from here into the next county and I’d still say you can’t take it.”

  Cardigan towered, then relaxed. He growled: “O.K., swelled-head. Come on. I don’t come from Missouri, but I’ve got to be shown just the same.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  They joined Pat outside and climbed into a cab and Cardigan gave the address.

  “Trouble with you Micks,” Bogart said, “is you all think you’re too damn good to live.”

  “I never saw a Dutchman yet I’d go nuts about.”

  Pat said: “Oh, you make me sick, both of you! Like a couple of kids!”

  “Now you’re starting!” Cardigan growled.

  “Why shouldn’t I? You don’t expect me to be impressed by this small-boy chatter you two go in for, do you?”

  Bogart said: “Reminds me of my wife.”

  “And I sure pity,” Cardigan said, “the wife to live with you, Herr Bogart.”

  Pat said: “This is maddening! Stop it!”

  The two men folded their arms, remained in stony silence while the cab sped eastward on Exeter. It was Cardigan who spoke first. Leaning forward, he said to the driver: “Stop about a block away from that address.”

  THEY alighted at a dark, cold, windy corner, and Pat said to Cardigan: “If you had any sense, you’d wear an overcoat.”

  “If I had any sense— Listen, if you don’t lay off me, chicken, you’re going right home!”

  “Come on,” Bogart said. “He hasn’t any sense, but don’t rub it in, Miss Seaward. He can’t take it.”

  Pat said tartly: “No one asked for your opinion, Captain Bogart!”

  They walked up Macklin Street, Pat in the middle. Presently Cardigan pointed. “It’s that house over there.”

  “What’s this Saltpork Annie’s line?” Bogart asked.

  “Ostensibly,” Pat said, “she runs
a rooming house for girls.”

  “This,” Cardigan said, “is where I got that car.”

  “Boy!” said Bogart.

  Pat touched his arm. “Now wait a minute! I’m here to get a girl named Hanna Kropek. I believe she’s in that house. The idea is, you see, not to show off when you go in, but to get Hanna Kropek.”

  They all stopped.

  Cardigan said: “You, Pat, are going to stay outside…. Now hold on. I don’t want arguments. You’re going to cover this street, watch that house, and get help to us if we get in a jam. Here’s a good place to watch from. Get down in that areaway.”

  She agreed to this, after a little pouting. Cardigan and Bogart crossed the street, walking rapidly, side by side. Cardigan said: “Got a key with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “O.K. See if it’ll open that front door.”

  They clung to the shadows, slipped up the stairway from the sidewalk, pressed into the vestibule. Bogart used a key cautiously, quietly, and in a minute the door opened and they stepped into the hall. Bogart fixed the lock so that it would remain open.

  Cardigan said in a low whisper. “Try walking on your toes.”

  “I’ve been around. Up?”

  “Yeah.”

  When they reached the top of the staircase, Cardigan stopped Bogart, listened. Distant, above possibly, they heard the low mutter of men’s voices. From another direction, they heard a woman’s laugh. Cardigan remembered the door to Saltpork Annie’s room, and he nodded toward it. Bogart had taken his gun from his shoulder holster, warming it. He made a movement of his chin, and Cardigan tiptoed to the door, put an ear to the panel, listened. He thought he heard the clicking of Saltpork Annie’s knitting needles. He turned, looked at Bogart, then reached out his hand and closed it on the knob. He turned the knob all the way, bit by silent bit. Then he whipped the door inward and Bogart barged past him, noiseless, his gun out.

  Saltpork Annie stopped knitting, and stared. Cardigan entered swiftly, closed the door with swift silence.

  Bogart muttered: “This her?”

  “Yeah. Quiet now, Bogart!”

  Saltpork Annie opened her mouth.

  Cardigan rasped under his breath: “Shut up!”

  Saltpork Annie closed her mouth.

  Cardigan crossed to her. “Annie,” he said in husky whisper, “where’s Hanna Kropek? Answer in a whisper!”

  Her whisper exclaimed: “My gawd, now it’s some other dame!”

  “Cut that!” Bogart hissed, coming close. “I’m Captain Bogart of the cops, and you heard what he said.”

  Annie’s face turned the color of wet cement. “Hanna Kropek!”

  “Hanna Kropek,” Cardigan said. “She rooms here with a girl named Mabel Murphy.”

  “She don’t room—”

  “Fat-head!” Bogart rasped. “Quit stalling!”

  Saltpork Annie closed her lips very tightly, shook her head. She said: “Just for that, you can go fly a kite. I don’t have to say a word, and I won’t!”

  Bogart gripped her wrist.

  “Nix on that,” Cardigan said. “She’ll yelp and we’ll be heard. Stay here with her. I’ll look around.”

  Bogart grinned. “Shoot, Irish.”

  Chapter Five

  Sweatshop Showdown

  CARDIGAN opened the door slowly, listened, then stuck his head out. No one was in sight. He slipped out, closed the door, started up the stairway to the next floor. He heard the low murmur of men’s voices, not so distant now. Reaching the corridor, he went to a door, listened. Heard nothing behind the panel. He moved on to the next door.

  Farther back, a door opened and a coarse laugh came out. Cardigan’s scalp tightened. He palmed the nearest doorknob, turned it and barged in, closed the door rapidly.

  “Well, I’ll be—”

  He spun. The slack-hipped Marcella had half-risen from a divan.

  “Stay put!” he rasped. His gun swung on a line with her body. “Flop down there, sister, and keep your mouth shut.”

  The sounds in the hall petered off. Cardigan locked the door and went across the room threateningly and stared down somber-eyed at the long-bodied, voluptuous Marcella, who now lay well back, oriental-eyed, lazily unimpressed. He sat down on the edge of the divan. “Where’s Hanna Kropek?” he said.

  “You carry such a load of nerve with you, man-size, that a jane could go ga-ga over you without half trying.”

  “Lay off the salad dressing, Marcella. You’re not so lousy yourself, and in a pinch maybe I’d go for you, but this time it’s business—and I want Hanna Kropek.”

  Marcella mocked him with a languorous look, said affectedly: “Ay t’ank you go home now.”

  “All right, Garbo, get funny!” He grabbed a handful of her dress and set her up straight. “It maybe doesn’t occur to you, Red Riding Hood, that I’m in a hurry. You heard me, didn’t you? I want Hanna Kropek! Pull those boudoir eyes on some other guy—Abel Franks or somebody— Say,” he said suddenly, in a new tone, “what about Abel Franks?”

  She rasped: “Sell that where you got a market, copper!” She tore free of him, bounced to her feet, slapped hands to her hips. “Take the air and let it blow those dirty ideas out of your head. Go on. Toddle. Amscray.” She sauntered toward the door.

  Cardigan took two long strides, caught her from behind. His left arm went around her neck, choked a cry to silence in her throat. He backed up with her, hauled her into a bathroom, used his right hand to take down a cardboard box of absorbent cotton. He lumped a wad of this and jammed it into her mouth. He found a roll of adhesive tape and strapped her wrists behind her back. Dragging her to the divan, he laid her down and taped her ankles together.

  He was panting. “You’re just wise enough to start trouble. Ay t’ank you stay a while.”

  Finding the hallway empty, he stepped out, locked the door from the outside. He found a boxed-in, narrow staircase that served as a hiding place just as a door down the corridor opened. He backed up the stairway as the footsteps drew nearer. There was a door at the top, he opened this, smelled instantly the old dust of an attic. Listening, he could hear more footsteps moving in the hallway below. He crept farther back into the attic, crouching. Presently the sound of footsteps stopped.

  He was startled, then, by a sound close at hand. He spun, his gun jumping up, leveling. The sound came to him again, faint—like a muffled groan. He moved toward it, groping with his left hand; felt something that moved. He gripped for an instant, then explored. Presently he struck a match and saw the wasted form of a girl, bound and gagged, on the floor.

  He muttered: “Hanna Kropek!”

  Her head nodded.

  With a pocket knife he cut away the ropes that bound her, cut away the cloth that had been knotted tightly across her mouth. “Take it easy!” he whispered. “No noise now.”

  She was panting: “Oh-oh… they’re going to do away with me!”

  “Nonsense! Take your shoes off.”

  She took them off and he said: “Now carry them and come with me. No matter what happens, keep your mouth shut—don’t make any noise. Come on.”

  HE found that she was so weak she couldn’t walk, so he lifted her—she weighed possibly ninety pounds—and draped her sacklike over his left shoulder. Then he went down the attic stairway. When he reached the corridor, his breath caught in his throat. The lights were out.

  For a moment he stood stock still. Little Hanna Kropek gripped him fiercely, trembling, biting her lips against an outcry. Cardigan groped with his feet.

  In the pitch darkness he touched something and that something became frantically animated. Cardigan struck—blindly. There was a low grunt, and then Cardigan jerked back as a blunt instrument glanced off his head. A body hurled against him and Cardigan chopped with his gun. A head stopped the blow. He received a hard fist in the face and he kicked back, then chopped again, but he still hung on to Hanna Kropek.

  He reeled in the darkness. Something solid, immovable stopped him. His back
was to it, and Hanna Kropek’s head hung down his back. Her hands groped, felt a knob. She turned it and Cardigan and Hanna pitched into a room. Instantly another hidden form came to life, blows rained on Cardigan from behind. He dropped Hanna and began flailing his arms. The door banged shut. There were two against him now. One was gripping his throat, gripping hard—and then suddenly the grip relaxed and Cardigan felt a limp form sag against him, slide down to the floor. And a low voice: “Boy, did I—”

  “Bogart!”

  “Huh?”

  “You mutt, this is Cardigan!”

  “What!”

  It was Cardigan who found the light switch. He saw Bogart, torn, hatless, with blood and bruises on his face. “Were you in the hall?” Cardigan said.

  “I was.”

  “My God! Why didn’t you stay with Annie?”

  “I taped her up and left her to cool. Who’s this?”

  “Hanna Kropek?”

  “And this?”

  “Dunno.” Cardigan turned the man over with his foot. “This,” he said, “is Abel Franks and— Sh!”

  He could hear men outside the door.

  A voice said: “You open that door, guys, or we take it down and come in shooting. Six of us.”

  Bogart went to the far side of the room, turned and squared off. “O.K., fellows. Take it down and come in shooting. I’ve got a rod here that says none of you get through the door. Come on, Cardigan—toss the dame and the guy in a closet. You take one corner and I’ll take the other and we’ll cross fire on these babies till they turn brown.”

  Cardigan grinned. “Bogart, you talk my language!”

  He carried Hanna Kropek to the closet. Then he hauled Abel Franks across the floor, heaved him in, closed the closet door. He tramped across to the corner Bogart had indicated, cocked the revolver and held a dozen spare bullets in his left hand.

  Bogart whispered across: “Shoot low—for their pant belts.”

  “You’re telling me my business?”