Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933
- Автор: Day Stanley, Dunn J. Allan
- Год: 1933
- Язык: английский
- Год: Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933». Краткое содержание книги:
She looked at me through her lashes, smiling, mysterious, inscrutable. “Do you really want to?” she murmured.
“Try me,” I dared.
“At eight,” she said.
And I wondered whether I was being a fool after all. She looked soft and inviting as honey — and I knew she was dangerous as a cobra.
Waldo Maxwell said harshly, “You are a fool!”
“I know I am,” I agreed. “We all act the fool now and then.”
He winced, said something savagely under his breath and prowled back and forth. I had run him down in one of those fantastic villas that huddled up little narrow drives just off the beach. Simplicity by the hundred thousand dollars’ worth. Handkerchief sized lawns, tile roofs, and luxury inside that would dim the Arabian nights.
It was indiscreet, I knew. I shouldn’t have gone near him. But I needed action quick, and he was the only one who could give it to me. And there he prowled around the room like an enraged old bear, his dewlaps shaking, his white hair mussed where he had shoved his fingers through it, a scowl deepening the wrinkles over his rimless eyeglasses.
Waldo Maxwell might have been able to tame a multimillionaire board of directors, but he had never tried Michael Harris of the Blaine Agency before. “Do I get it?” I demanded.
“It is an insane request!” he blurted violently.
“I know. I’ve thought it all over. If something isn’t done quick, you’re going to be splashed on the front pages, or out a quarter of a million,” I reminded. “You haven’t a thing on that dame. She’s got you by your reputation and you can’t even yip. Unless I’m wrong about the contents of those letters.”
“No... no! I was out of my mind when I wrote them. Don’t mention them! Are you certain you can control this insane — this plan of yours?”
I would have felt sorry for him, if I hadn’t remembered he could sign his name to a check for five millions, and still have plenty left in the sock. “What would you give to have her come begging for mercy?” I asked.
Waldo Maxwell showed his teeth in a smile, gentle as a wolf’s. “It would be some consolation for the humiliation I have been put to,” he confessed.
“Then come through with what I need.”
He glanced at a platinum cased watch and made up his mind abruptly. “They will be delivered to your hotel some time before six,” he promised.
“Can I count on that?”
“Young man, you heard me. Sometime before six.”
So I left, satisfied.
And he came through.
I opened the sealed brown paper package and poured the contents on the sitting room table. Trixie took one look and squealed: “Mike, where did you get these?”
“Kris Kringle,” I grinned. “Now do you believe in fairies?”
“I’ve never seen such good looking imitations.”
“I’ll bet you never have,” I agreed. “Not a phony among them. Every stone and setting is the real McCoy.”
And I didn’t blame Trixie for going pale and sick when she looked at me. That mess of diamond rings, bracelets, necklaces and whatnots needed a lot of explaining. Trixie picked up a pearl necklace and ran it through her fingers. “Tell me, Mike,” she commanded.
“Waldo Maxwell,” I admitted. “It was like pulling eye teeth, but I got him to buy the lot on consignment. If they’re returned, he gets his money back. If not — he’ll probably have a heart seizure.”
Trixie put her little hands on her little hips and looked me up and down with her lips pressed tightly together. “Have you gone insane, Mike Harris?”
“That has a familiar ring,” I recalled. “Maxwell wanted to know the same thing.”
“I think you have! What are you going to do with all this jewelry? Why, it... it must be worth a fortune.”
“It is,” I agreed. “And we’re going to put it all in that little false bottom in your trunk, and you’re going downstairs this evening and play bridge, and I’m sneaking off for an automobile ride with the Orchid.”
“And leave all this up here?”
“Exactly.”
Trixie bristled. “Now I know you’re out of your mind! We’ll do nothing of the sort! You can waste another evening making sheep’s eyes at that cat if you care to, but I’m staying in and sit on this jewelry, or take it down to the hotel safe.”
“Jealous?”
Trixie tossed her head. “Of you, big mouth?”
“We’ll do as I say.”
“If we do,” Trixie snapped, “something tells me we are in for grief. I think that massive brain of yours is cracking under the strain.”
“Don’t think,” I advised. “It’s dangerous.”
If I had stopped to think I would have gone shaky myself. For I knew what Waldo Maxwell and Trixie did not — that lot of jewelry was in greater danger than if I had tossed it on the lobby floor and walked off. It might have been returned from there. And I didn’t dare use phonies. A slick crook would have spotted them the first look. So I shut my eyes and walked into the manager’s office and asked for four young bellhops who could ride bicycles, keep their mouths shut and stay honest for a twenty dollar bill.
He looked at me as if I were addled. “Of course, Mr. Blaine — I mean to say, we strive to furnish every service, but—”
“Then service me,” I cut him off. “I’m serious and in a hurry.”
Grant the Palm Beach Palo Verde service. They delivered. I chased the manager out of his office, talked turkey to those bellhops, and hung a hundred dollar prize up to sweeten their twenties. All four of them could out-think the average guest they roomed. In five minutes I drilled them letter perfect, and they scattered with expense money.
The Orchid sighed dreamily. “Isn’t the surf lovely?”
“Great,” I agreed, and held her hand tighter while I looked over to the beach.
Sure enough, there was a surf frothing in through the moonlight. Pretty, too, if a fellow had time to look at it. I didn’t. My mind was on Trixie back there in the hotel playing bridge. And on my five bellhops, and the Orchid beside me on the front seat of the big rented sedan. No chauffeur this time. I didn’t want to be bothered in case quick action was needed.
But for the time being we had no action as we loafed south in the moonlight with the open sea on the left. Some night. Some scenery. Some girl. I forgot the times I had called myself a fool for throwing in with the Blaine Agency. Nights when the rain ran down my neck, and guns barked out of the blackness. Days when nerves were worn to a frazzle matching wits with the smartest crooks in the country. A dog’s life, until I met the moon and the sea, and the Orchid went limp inside my arms as we loafed along through the miles. She was concentrated forgetfulness in a gorgeous shell.
Only I didn’t forget. When I wrap my arm around a snake I watch it. I tested her out. “We’d better be getting back, beautiful.”
“Not yet,” she sighed, and came over another inch. “It’s so lovely out here tonight. I could drive until morning.”
“You won’t, sister,” I thought — and gave her three miles more before I turned and stepped on the gas.
“You are driving too fast,” the Orchid protested.
I patted her knee. “I’m a fast chap.”
“You’re a fresh one,” she said, and tried to steer me over to Lake Worth and down through West Palm Beach, stalling for time.
“Little girls shouldn’t be out so late,” I stalled back. “I have a headache, and I’m going to turn in. I’ll stay over another day and we’ll take this up tomorrow night.”
“But I will not be free tomorrow night.”