Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951
- Автор: Кристи Агата, Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Год: 1951
- Язык: английский
- Год: Mercury Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951». Краткое содержание книги:
Then one night she got in the car and I handed her the bottle I’d been drinking from — to give myself guts — and I said, “Tomorrow’s it.”
She didn’t even take a drink, she was so excited.
“How much?” she said. “Tell me.”
“More than we figured — nearly one hundred thousand. The L. Stacey Manufacturing Co. payroll. Enough to live like Aga Khan for the rest of our lives. In Mexico.”
And then Soney laughed. That brittle, bitter laugh she had when she was paying someone off. “That’s good,” she said, “that’s wonderful. I worked for that Stacey one time. For forty-five cents an hour. That’s wonderful — I only wish there weren’t such a thing as insurance.”
“Come off it,” I said. “You’ll have the rest of your life to gloat if you do your job right. Right now, we have to plan. The timing has to be split-second. Or it won’t work. And you’ll be a number for the next ten years instead of a queen on a ranch.”
So we talked for an hour, and it was set. When I went home I couldn’t sleep and three goof pills didn’t help.
The success of the whole plan hinged on one weakness in the Briney organization. A desire to save money on personnel.
Whenever money was transferred from truck to building, or vice versa, two men were always in sight of the money. Except — early in the morning when payrolls were taken from the vault to the truck.
That was where the Briney executives had slipped up. Figuring there was more danger from robbery on the street early in the morning, they had two men of the regular three-man crew go down to guard the truck and the building entrance. And one man was trusted to take the money down in the elevator alone.
They figured there was no place he could hide it and no way he could get out of the building with it. But he’s timed very carefully. If he isn’t down on the sidewalk in ninety seconds flat, the man in the truck covers the building entrance from the truck porthole, and the other guard sounds the alarm. And the police are there in thirty seconds, guarding all exits and ready to search the building.
I was the guard who carried the money. Over ninety thousand bucks in small bills. Not marked.
At exactly six thirty-five the vault keeper handed me the money in two canvas bags, and I signed for it. At six thirty-six the other two guards left for the elevator. At six thirty-eight the vault keeper looked up from his watch and told me to start down. And Soney and I had exactly ninety seconds to pull off our plan.
Picking up the two bags, I walked out through the door and down the hall to the elevators. Around the turn in the hall — praying there wouldn’t be two elevators at the top, to save me from making the only move that could ruin my whole life. There were only three elevators and they were supposed to be synchronized, but this morning Soney had to have hers at the top whether it was on schedule or not.
But luck — and I didn’t know then whether it was good or bad — was with us. Only one set of doors were open. Soney’s. But a lighted car wasn’t there. Just the dark shaft showing through the door.
It was working. I threw the bags on top of Soney’s elevator. When she heard the thump she brought her elevator up from the floor below, slammed the doors shut, and scooted for the bottom.
I counted to twenty-five — then drew my gun and fired at the stairway. And started running and firing and yelling at the top of my voice to sound the alarm. It was done — and there was no getting out of it any more.
As I ran down the stairs, emptying my gun into the walls, I slugged myself on the chin as hard as I could with my left hand, and I slipped. Tumbled half a flight and knocked myself out.
When I came to, the building burglar alarm was still ringing and one of the guards who had preceded me down the elevator was throwing water on me and a couple of cops were looking at me with shrewd, distrustful eyes.
The cop who wore a lieutenant’s bars said roughly, “Okay, that’s enough. He’s coming around.” Then he helped me up on my feet, and said, “All right, bud. Let’s hear it. What happened? Some guy slugged you and ducked down the stairs, I know. And he moved so fast, even carrying those heavy bags, that a bullet wouldn’t catch up with him.”
“That’s right,” I said — and: “Give me a cigarette.” My head was bleeding slightly, and it throbbed, and I was scared. Plenty scared. Soney could have already crossed us up by acting nervous.
“Yeah?” the lieutenant said. “The crooks don’t hold up you Briney guys. They know you’re all too well trained and too gooda shots. You musta had a buddy. You give him the dough and let him get a good head start, and then you start blasting and yelling.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You might as well tell us right now,” he said. “We’ll have your buddy in a coupla minutes and he’ll tell us. There ain’t no way he can get out of the building. We’ll get him if we have to go through every room and broom closet in the joint. And that’s what we’re doing right now.”
“I’ll wait,” I said. “The guy slugged me and ran down the stairway. That’s all. I’m not so simple I think I could get away with something like you say. Neither can the guy get away — I know that.”
“Okay, buddy, okay,” the cop said, “that’s the way it was until we find out different. Now what did this robber look like?”
“It happened pretty fast,” I said, “but he had on a gray topcoat, and a brown hat — I think. He was big — bigger than I am — and he was carrying a Luger. It looked like that to me — and I’ve seen a lot of Lugers.”
“Check with the elevator operators,” the lieutenant said to the sergeant who was with him. “See if they remember anybody like that come up in the elevator.”
Then we went up to the office of the Briney Armored Car Service, and all the wheels were there. Half dressed — as if they’d just been called out of bed.
The personnel manager had an accusing look on his face. After all, I’d only been there a little over two months, and so was good cause for suspicion. J. B. Smith, the general manager, bustled up to me, all oily and solicitous about whether I’d been hurt.
I had to go over my story for every executive in the place and they wrote down the description and everything, like I said it happened.
And then the sergeant came back. He had Soney with him. I felt myself begin to sweat — but that was the way she had it planned. To back up my story on the description.
“His story checks, lieutenant,” the sergeant bellowed. “This young lady claims she took a man answering that description up to the tenth floor this morning.”
“What time?” the lieutenant asked Soney.
“Right after I come on at six,” Soney answered. “I kinda wondered where he was goin’ that early in the mornin’, but it happens now and then. Someone can’t sleep. I knew I’d never seen him before, but we get new tenants in here all the time. So I didn’t think too much about it.” She was plenty cool.
Then they took both our names and addresses, and made us wait until the entire building had been searched by what must have been the whole police force. And that was that.
They couldn’t figure how the robber got out. Or — if I had pulled something off with a confederate — where the money could have been hidden.
But they didn’t have a thing to go on, so finally they let Soney go back to work, and the personnel manager told me to take the rest of the day off and to go see the company doctor about my head.
As I walked over to the doctor’s office, I did some heavy thinking. I knew the whole detective force would be checking on Soney and me, and I prayed no one would remember seeing me with her.
The part of the job that was over was the easy part. I realized now that it had been practically fool-proof. With a girl of Soney’s nerve and determination helping — and planning.