Baron savored the aroma of his cigar. He did not seem alarmed. Nor did his voice lose any of its cultured accent.
“On the whole, Coughlin, you’ve been helpful. I dislike to see you leave us at this particular time. You haven’t by any chance seen Gillespie today?”
Coughlin shook his head. “He wasn’t in his office, if that’s what you mean.”
“He’s gone on a short trip, Coughlin. He was to be back late this afternoon. You know I am a trifle worried. He was always punctual with appointments. About this fellow Crole. Perhaps I had better go and see him myself. If he’s as good as you say he is, it might just be possible that I can arrange with him to leave the state. Think it will work out?”
“No,” said Coughlin. “It won’t work out.”
“Why?”
Coughlin’s face reddened as rage suffused it. “Why? By God, I’ll tell you why. He can’t be bribed. Whatever faults he has, and they’re plenty, he sticks with his clients through hell and high water. Hell, that’s what’s the matter with guys like me and others. We try to hog everything. Take money from both sides.
Work both ends against the middle, and all for a few lousy dollars.”
He paused, and his eyes became sad. “Listen, Baron. This guy isn’t any saint. He’s a Devil with horns, a tail and...”
“Nonsense.”
“That’s because you don’t know him, Baron,” snapped Coughlin. “I’ll send in my bill covering the work I did for you and Gillespie. You can send me a check...”
“One moment, Coughlin. Has it occurred to you that I might not want you to leave me, that you know more than you should regarding certain things?”
“I know plenty, but I’m willing to forget.”
“It isn’t as easy as that, Coughlin. If an attempted kidnapping charge should be brought against you, the result might be serious—for you.”
“You wouldn’t dare. It would incriminate you and Gillespie.”
“Not necessarily. Our word is as good as yours. And don’t forget that Miss Laird’s and Ned Anderson’s testimony could be used against you. No doubt, Coughlin, you spoke too quickly without giving your words much thought.” Baron’s voice was slightly mocking, yet it carried a subtle threat.
Coughlin squirmed uneasily. “I still don’t like having Crole for an enemy.”
“Neither do I,” shrugged Baron, “from what you have told me. But has it not yet dawned on you that even Crole might be removed?”
“No.”
“Come back later. We’ll talk over the details then.”
“All right. I’ll come back. But it had better be a damned good and absolutely fool-proof plan, or there’ll be a kickback.”
He tilted his hat far over his eyes, squared his shoulders and marched out of attorney Baron’s office.
For some minutes Baron puffed his cigar as he thought things over. Then shrugged and started to look through the telephone directory. Snapping the book shut, he got up, went into a washroom, washed his hands, combed his hair and fitted a fawn-colored felt hat to his head. These preparations attended to, he left his office and was taxied to an office building not far from his own.
He found the name he looked for listed on a wall directory, took the elevator to the sixth floor, got out, and walked up the stairs to the seventh. The hall was quiet. Stepping lightly, he moved down the hall till he came to a door labeled: SIMON CROLE, SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR.
“Every man,” thought George Baron, “is a potential criminal. I have never yet seen one who didn’t have his price—especially private detectives.”
So thinking, he extended a manicured hand towards the door knob.
V. A TRIP TO THE MORGUE
Matt Ridley didn’t get back to the agency office until after six o’clock. Etta had gone home. Simon Crole sat behind his scarred desk smoking a flat cigarette, his thoughts loose and disjointed.
He looked up hopefully as Matt came in, dropped the bag of tools on the floor and peeled off the gas company uniform. Dressed in street clothes once more he came over to Simon’s desk.
Crole said: “Well?”
Matt shrugged. “Nobody came into the apartment but the housekeeper. She hollered to beat hell when she saw I had the stove apart. After I got her cooled she began to talk. Gillespie lives there alone except for this woman who comes in and cooks his meals. He has few friends and keeps pretty much to himself. He drives a Buick coupe and keeps it in a garage back of the apartment building. It wasn’t there when I left nor was it on the street. So he’s probably in it now—somewhere.”
Crole regarded the cigarette already beginning to get hot against his fingers. “See anything of any other agency men around?”
“Nope.”
Simon Crole grunted. “We’re getting nowheres fast, Matt.”
“That ain’t unusual. Maybe we’re headed the wrong direction. Maybe Gillespie took his secretary for a little jaunt to the beach. As far as I can see there wasn’t any signs around the apartment that he was running away.”
“But he wasn’t there.”
“Yeah, I know that. But listen, boss. You say we’re getting nowheres fast. Where are we headed for in the first place?”
“A showdown with Gillespie. A talk with his secretary. Looks easy—and should be. But both are missing, the office is open and empty including the safe. Seems queer, Matt, that a man planning to run away would leave everything loose like that.”
“Go on,” said Matt. “You’re doing swell.”
“Another thing. Suppose Gillespie suddenly made up his mind to leave for parts unknown. He wouldn’t bother much about the stuff he left behind. Suppose he already had all the available funds of his business converted into cash. Suppose he had it figured out that he’d have to do one of two things. Either meet Anderson face to face and explain what he had done and try to straighten up the mess, or gather everything of value together and fade from the picture.”
“Figuring it that way, it looks like he was fading.”
“On his way out of the city, say,” continued Crole, “Gillespie suddenly recollects something he left in his safe. It’s important. He has to have it. So he sends someone to his office to get it. About that time I arrive with Anderson. Then this man hides in the storeroom. He hears us talk. He hears Anderson call me by name. He knows me. And he doesn’t like it. Then he smacks me down and...”
“And fades the same as Gillespie,” finished Matt “It’s a good idea, boss, but it doesn’t take care of the jane secretary.”
“That’s the part that’s giving me a headache. I know she was in that office sometime during early morning. I also know that she was sent away on an important errand. So it would seem that she was not with Gillespie—but with somebody else.”
Matt’s eyes bulged. “You figure a snatch?”
Simon Crole shrugged. “It’s too early yet to figure anything. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. It all depends. If the girl’s been snatched, Anderson will sure as hell go to the police. And I won’t be able to stop him. And the Federals will step in. Nice prospect. Everything gummed up. No fee. Nothing. Get the hell out of here. Go on home. Scram!”
Matt said: “Let’s have a drink.”
Simon took out his private Bourbon and two glasses. He poured one of them full, then emptied half of it in the second glass. Matt regarded his drink with an appraising eye, engulfed the glass in a big fist and downed the golden fluid.
“Give you credit, boss. You know how to pick good stuff.” He set the glass down and wiped moist lips with the back of his hand. “I’m off to grab myself some supper, then I’ll amble out to Spigtown and put on the heavy act with young Hernandez. The ten bucks you get from Hernandez will just about cover expenses.”
“That’s all I figured on,” said Crole, morosely.
Matt waved jauntily and left the office.
A silence settled over the building, over Simon Crole’s office. No longer was there constant clangor from the doors of the elevator cages. Crole got u
p and went to a window, flung it open and stared down into the street. Supper crowds. Men and women going home after a day’s work. Old men newsboys shouting unintelligible jargon.
He went back to his desk, had a second drink and rolled a cigarette, then went out to Etta’s desk, sat down and called Gillespie’s apartment. No answer. He tried the office. Same result.
He sat for a moment trying to think. He had the feeling that somewhere along the line he had erred. He checked back. No go. There was really no point from which he could get started with Gillespie missing from the picture.
In the meantime he’d have to wait. If the man was running away to escape the consequences of his embezzling practices, well, there was nothing that he, Simon Crole, could do about it but wait until the fact was proven. As it was now his hands were tied. He could only wait...
His eyes abruptly slitted as they arched up from the desk top to the door leading to the hall. He had heard no sound that he was aware of, but he sensed an alien presence the other side of the door.
His body stiffened as the knob clicked, turned.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly the door swung inward. A man stood framed in the opening—a man with an aura of respectable urbanity, high cheek bones, wide-spaced eyes, and a trim gray mustache. A man faultlessly dressed, sure of himself.
Crole let out his breath with an audible sigh. Somewhere inside his brain a little bell began to ring. He had heard that bell once, long ago, a split second before a sub-machine gun had blasted the spot where he stood in a gang-infested hotel room. He had heard it later, in a gilded roadhouse just in time to avoid the shimmering steel of a thrown knife.
He heard the bell now, faint and disturbing. His mind went on guard. He placed both hands on the desk, hunched forward on the chair. And his lips were twisted in their surprised smile.
“How do you do,” said the suave individual. “Mr. Simon Crole?”
Simon nodded. “Am I supposed to know you—an appointment or something?”
“My name is George Baron, business, attorney at law. You were recommended to me as being the ablest private detective in town. I need your services. I’ll pay you well.”
“That’s fine,” beamed Crole. “What is it you want?”
George Baron took a cigar from his breast pocket, bit off the end, lighted it and calmly surveyed the meager furnishings of the office in which he found himself.
“There’s a man in New York I want you to find—an important witness for one of my clients. Someone paid him to run out on me. I want him located and brought back. Can you handle this quietly for me?”
“Why not?”
“Personally?”
“No. Right now I have another client who has a prior claim on my agency. But I can send a good operator, or I can arrange to find your witness through an old associate of mine who runs an agency in New York.”
“That’s not what I want, Crole. I want you, personally, to leave this city, go to New York and take care of this business without any outside help.”
“That’s asking too much, Mr. Baron. Sorry.”
“I can guarantee you ten thousand dollars, Crole.” Simon Crole smiled ruefully. “That’s a large lump of money for the work of finding a witness. And no one likes to collect fees better than I do. Still, I must refuse unless you let me handle it through someone else.”
“Fifteen thousand, Crole.”
“No.”
“Twenty.”
Simon Crole rubbed the heel of a thumb along the side of his nose. “I didn’t think there was that much money in town, Baron—and mine for the asking. Why don’t you go to some other agency? Or why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
He stopped rubbing his nose, took out a sack of tobacco and deftly rolled a cigarette. He speculated as to why Mr. Baron had sought him out. Evidently for a reason—a good and sufficient one to warrant a fee of twenty thousand. Was the witness that important, or was it important that he, Simon Crole, leave town. The echo of that tiny bell was still in the brain of the private detective. He became unduly loquacious.
“To be perfectly frank, Baron, your proposition has possibilities that make me kind of ill because I can’t take advantage of it. But right now I’m working on what appears to be an embezzlement case. A man named Ned Anderson has retained me to investigate the affairs of another man named James Gillespie.”
“Gillespie?” George Baron’s eyes showed a mild interest. “That’s somewhat of a coincidence, I’d say. Why, Gillespie and I have been friends for years. In fact I’m his attorney.”
Simon Crole smiled. His loquaciousness had brought startling results. It connected the two men. “It is somewhat of a coincidence, Baron. You wouldn’t, by any chance, know where Gillespie is at the present moment? It’s important that I see him. If I can find him and talk with him, it’s likely that I can close Anderson’s case and take on yours. That’s the way things stand.”
George Baron fingered his gray mustache. “Ummm! I’m sorry to hear that Jim is in trouble—even a suspicion of trouble. Not that I for a single moment doubt the outcome. Embezzlement isn’t his line. I think, Crole, that your client Anderson has—well, shall we say been drinking too much.”
“You might call it that,” mused Crole. “But if I can get James Gillespie and Anderson together, the situation can be discussed and a settlement arranged.
That’ll let me out. But Gillespie doesn’t seem to be around. Which makes it difficult.”
George Baron rose to his feet. “I’ll think it over, Crole. In the meantime you can continue,” he coughed lightly, “to look for Gillespie. I presume I’ll hear from you when that time comes?”
“You’ll hear from me,” nodded Crole, also rising. “As a matter of fact I think we’ll see a great deal of each other.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” shrugged Baron. “Good night.”
Crole held open the door. “Good night.”
A moment after he heard the elevator cage stop outside, Simon Crole again opened the door and looked down the corridor. The hall was empty. He clicked on the night latch and shut the door. Leaving the front office he went to his own, poured himself a drink, smacked his lips and exhaled a long, gusty sigh.
He reached for the phone and called a number, asked for Anderson, got him, and said: “Sober?”
“Cold. Why? This Crole?”
“Yes. Listen. What do you know about George Baron?”
Anderson’s bored yawn came over the wire. “Sorry. Can’t help.”
“Heard from Miss Laird?”
“I’m going out to her house this evening. Expect to find her all right. If I can’t, I’m calling in someone from the Federal office.”
“Listen again, Anderson. I’ve just been offered twenty thousand dollars to leave town on a different case.”
“Get my money back, Simon,” drawled Anderson, “and I’ll double the ante.”
“I didn’t tell you this to raise any ante.”
“That’s all right, too. I want you on my side—all the way. And I’ll see that you don’t lose. Who was...”
“A secret for the present. Remember, I’m leaving it to you to check up on the girl. Lay off the Federals. Leave everything to Simon. Clear?”
“Where can I get hold of you?”
“Either here or at my apartment. Get moving now and for God’s sake stay sober. Bye.” He hung up. Waited a few minutes, then called the switchboard operator in his apartment house.
“Darling,” he called. “Simon. If a call comes for me and I’m not there, get whatever you can out of the person at the other end of the line. It might help you to know that I expect a call from a man named Anderson. Handle it right and there’s a brand new five dollar bill waiting for you. Bye.”
He left his desk and sauntered over to the window. Dusk was shutting down fast, and the street lights were on. Fog was sweeping in from the Pacific, obscuring the graying sky. He went back to his desk again. He stumbled over a chair and swore softly.
Uneasi
ness kept him from sitting down. He wondered why George Baron had offered such a huge sum. A few hundred dollars plus train tickets would cover everything in locating a missing witness. Clearly there was a connection. Were Baron and Gillespie linked with the man who had struck him down?”
It was possible. But there was no way to prove it—yet. He rubbed the aching lump on his head. The man who had hidden in the storeroom must have heard them talk. And knew who was talking. They hadn’t lowered their voices. And he had been in the storeroom listening. “Ummm!” he grunted, struck by an obscure hunch. “Something has happened to Gillespie. He isn’t coming back.”
Again he picked up the phone, called a number. “Hello. Ledger office? Give me the city editor.” A pause. “Hello, Farrel? Guess who? Wrong. I’m the guy who sent you a bottle of choice Scotch last Christmas. You don’t remember receiving any? You newshawks are like that. Yeah, it’s Simon Crole. No, I haven’t been arrested. I’m in my office.”
He tucked the phone closer to his chest. “No, I got nothing to offer you now. Later maybe. What I want—let me finish. What I want to know is this. Has there been any auto accident within the last six hours? A hundred? Tck! Tck! Listen, Farrel. A blue Buick coupe. Man named Gillespie...oh hell! Where? When? Oh, I see. Thanks! Bye.”
He slammed the receiver to the hook, groaned,’ found his hat, clapped it on and went stumbling out the hall door and into the first down elevator.
On the corner he bought the Ledger and took it with him into a coffee shop. The thing he looked for was there in a modest set-up. Had he not been aware that it was there he might have missed it entirely. His mouth twitched as he read:
COUPE IN DEATH PLUNGE
Death claimed another careless driver when James Gillespie, well known security broker, drove his machine through the guard rail at one of the switchbacks on the treacherous Iron Mountain grade early this afternoon. Fire destroyed the body past recognition, but the driver’s identity was disclosed by keys, a watch and the license plates. The body was removed temporarily to the city morgue for further examination.
The Man who was Murdered Twice Page 5