The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
With trembling hands, Richard pulled a spotless, monogrammed linen handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it to his forehead. “I can’t believe it,” he croaked. “It’s too fantastic, unreal. Madame, I for one won’t buy it. Call the police and have this psycho thrown out!”
“Too bad.” Smith sighed. “Willa’s such a lovely young woman, too. Rare jewel. One of a kind. If I were you, pally, I’d phone my apartment before I threw away a chick like Willa.” Richard locked stares with the would-be robber. The glasses revealed nothing, but the hippie’s confident mien did.
Slowly, Richard reached to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed his apartment number. The phone rang once, and the connection was made.
“Willa... You’re not Willa!” Jaw muscles bunched, Richard pressed the phone harder against his ear. “Who are you? What have you done to Willa?” He squeezed out the words.
A long shiver went through Richard as he listened. “Please...” he said. “If she’s still all right, put my wife on.”
“Ricky?” Willa’s voice came in a near scream. “Don’t let him do it...
Richard sagged, clutching the edge of the desk with his free hand. He slowly took the phone away from his ear and stood holding it awkwardly, staring at it. Willa’s piteous entreaties poured tinnily into the office. “Ricky, he means it... He’ll kill me... Please, Ricky, don’t cross them up... Do as they say... Don’t let me die...”
Smith slipped from the chair, took the phone from Richard’s stiff fingers, and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Save your breath, chick. I think you’ve made a believer. You’ll live — if that’s what your husband and Fouchard want.” Smith dropped the phone into its cradle and returned to his chair.
The blankness of the dark glasses seemed to pose a question: Well, what is your pleasure? You want her dead?
Richard’s hands curled into fists. “If anything happens to her—”
“Come off it, pally,” Smith said shortly. “This is no time for heroics. A human life is evaporating, second by second.”
“Go to the vault, Richard,” Madame said quietly, “and fetch the diamonds.”
“But Madame Fouchard—”
“We’re insured,” she reminded him. “Even if we weren’t, a few diamonds couldn’t restore a life.”
“Now you’re rapping with some sense,” Smith said. “Not like this creep of a clerk.”
“Madame...” Richard said with a last note of helplessness.
“Do move, Richard,” Madame said. “Even the Nazis had their day.”
“Experience has made you a wise old woman,” Smith said approvingly. Then to Richard, “Drop the rocks into this, pally.” From the depths of the poncho, Smith dragged a large, heavy brown paper bag folded several times over, which he handed to Richard.
With a despairing look at Madame, Richard reeled through the narrow rear doorway of the office. He was absent briefly, noting on his return that Smith had lighted the corncob pipe and was polluting the air with little gray puffs.
Smith leaped up, snatched the loaded paper bag from Richard’s hand, and laughed softly as he looked inside.
“The shipment of uncut stones is all there,” Richard said miserably. “I cleaned the vault. Now, what guarantee do we have that you’ll not harm my wife?”
“My word, Mr. Nollner. And plain common sense. It would be stupid to complicate the gig by harming her now — unless you jump the gun and turn in an alarm. I’ll phone from a place nearby and tell my associate the deal has been satisfactorily concluded. Your worries are over, if you don’t yell fuzz within the next half hour.”
Wadding the top of the paper bag shut and tucking it under his arm, Smith turned and slipped out the door with a quiet swish of the poncho.
A silence followed. It seemed incredible that Smith had really been there.
Richard turned slowly from the sight of the closed door. “Madame, how can we ever repay you? You were so generous.”
Madame fell back in her chair, touched with weariness. “At the moment it seemed a life was in the balance, Richard. One I happen to value very much. Willa has always appeared to me such a lovely, vivacious child.”
“God bless you, Madame. Somehow, we’ll find a way to repay you for saving her life.”
“Never mind that right now, Richard.” Madame shook off her tiredness, planting her feet, and rising. “If the Nazis had their day, remember they also experienced their midnight.”
Her words caught at Richard. He peered closely at the composure of her small, firm face. “You have some plan for trapping our thief?”
“Nothing that would endanger Willa, my boy. I think she should be quite safe by now. Go to her. I’ll be along as soon as our half hour of grace is over.”
With a brief crushing of her little hand, Richard nodded, turned, and rushed out.
Willa was in the living-room of their small, commonplace apartment when Richard burst in and slammed the door shut. He decided that she’d never looked lovelier, a willowy five-five with a pixie face and sparkling golden hair.
They looked at each other across the space of the room, smiles building. Then they rushed together with a shout of laughter. They met in the middle of the room, flinging their arms about each other. Richard swung her in a full circle before dropping her toes back onto the floor.
“Hi, Mr. Smith,” Richard said, trying to control his wellsprings of pure rapture.
“Hello, Harassed Young Husband.”
They drew apart and beheld one another from arms’ length, still holding hands.
“With all that disguise,” he said, “you made a positively noxious hippie.”
“I was worried about the voice,” Willa confessed.
“The hours of practice paid off. You sounded the part. Immature youth with a high-pitched voice. But hey!”
“Yes, darling?”
“You didn’t mean those things you said, like calling me a creep of a clerk?”
“All in a day’s work. Five years married, and you’re still my sugarplum.”
They melted close together for another moment. Richard kissed the tip of her nose. “You really shocked me when you pulled out the corncob pipe. Not a part of the original act.”
“I know, darling. I was still too conscious of being a girl. The pipe was a beautiful last-minute thought, the proper final touch. Nothing so masculine as a pipe smoker.”
“Couldn’t you have bought a better brand of tobacco?” Richard laughed.
“For a one-time run-through?”
“We can afford anything now,” Richard said. He nuzzled her forehead with his lips. “Think of the future, darling — the beautiful, beautiful future. No more boredom, no more borrowing and pinching from pay day to pay day... Uncut diamonds — the safest loot of all. No one can identify them once they’re cut. And we won’t even have to fence them for a fraction of their worth. After three years of picking up rap in the trade, I know of cutters in Amsterdam, Paris, New York, who’ll shape the stones for the right fee with no questions asked. We’re rich, baby, rich!”
“There’s still the final act, Ricky.”
“I know. I’ll have to stick at La Bijouterie a few more weeks so my leaving won’t appear suspicious. But under the circumstances,” he slapped her playfully on the derriere, “I believe we can bear it.”
She looked up at him brightly. “You didn’t play your own role so badly, Ricky. Just the right amount of fear, disbelief, reluctance to take Madame’s lovely diamonds.”