Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938
- Автор: Трит Лоуренс, Вулрич Корнелл
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 6, April 16, 1938». Краткое содержание книги:
“This guy!” Scotty laughed. “Don’t be silly. He ain’t got sense enough for that. I left him out there with a sody pop and he’s—”
The telephone jangled and Mawson reached for it.
“Yeah, Mawson talking.” he said. He listened for a few seconds, said: “Naw, I didn’t phone you about steel plates. Sure, I got my shipment the other day. Oh, the second shipment’s in, eh? What the hell! Don’t you think I’d know if I called you? Oh. Oh-h-hh, I see—” Mawson slowly cradled the receiver. His face was pale, taut. His hand flipped to his left armpit and an automatic showed. When he spoke the words were low but the others could not mistake the urgency in them.
“It was the freight agent in Alexandria. Said when I talked to him a while ago he forgot to tell me the second shipment of plates for the other armored car was in. And I didn’t phone him! That shows someone’s on the trail! The coppers may be surrounding us right now!”
“Maybe this little guy with the yellow mustache is spying things out, Mawson,” Scotty said excitedly. He felt of his pocket. “Hell, I left my gat in the drawer of the desk. It was so heavy—”
“Yellow mustache!” Mike Duffy shrilled, face strained. “Has he got yellow hair, big forehead—”
“That’s the guy!” Scotty yelled. He turned toward the door.
“Golly, how’d he get outta jail?” Duffy shrilled.
“Wait!” The command snarled from Mawson. He held up his hand, motioned the others to gather around. “Listen, you guys. Scotty, you go back and stall with that puncture. We’ll slip around back and all jump him at once. Then we’ll take that baby for a nice buggy ride—”
“I don’t think so, Mawson!?”
Penny Pim stood in the doorway! In his hand was an automatic which he held in a steady grip.
“Cripes, my gun!” Scotty snarled.
“It’d be too bad to get killed with your own gun,” Penny said with a hard smile.
It was all incredible to Penny Pim. He couldn’t quite understand it. Here he was holding up a gang of desperate criminals and he was as cool and collected as if he were inspecting ten-dollar bills as they came from the presses. But he was angry. Detective Linn had made him that way with his derisive laughter, his sneers and jibes.
“How the hell did you find us?” Mawson asked, pale face working. “I... I thought everything was covered.”
“Just a matter of thinking things out and keeping my eyes open,” Penny said modestly. He saw Duffy for the first time. “Ah, Duffy, eh? I had more than an idea you were mixed up in this. I saw you eyeing that note and ready to pick it up. I managed to beat you to it. Then, at headquarters, you saw a chance to frame me because my name was used in the note. Out in the garage I saw the black sedan and the counterfeit license tag is exactly as I gave it to Linn.” He looked at Mawson. “Imagine the note referred to someone coming from Pimlico.”
“Yeah, Gunner’s from Pimlico,” Mawson snarled. “It was pretty clever figuring that out and I don’t see how you found me.”
“Really rather simple, Mawson, and I’ll tell you just to show how all crooks are caught.” Penny explained about the automobile license and his deduction that it had been made by a convict working in the state stamping factory. “Now all the items of which I made mental pictures check.” His grin was triumphant. “Even to the killer’s new shoes!”
“Jeeze!” Mawson looked at Penny and there was awe in his close-set eyes. “I oughta have a punk like you tied up with me. I sure could make a place for a guy with your head!”
“You’ll do the tying up, Mawson,” Penny said sternly. “Start in right now with Mike Duffy! There’s some wire over there in the corner. Duffy, put your hands behind you. And, Mawson,” there was no mistaking Penny’s meaning, “don’t make the mistake of doing a bad job of it.”
“Damn, caught by a punk!” Mawson groaned as he tied up the taxi driver and turned toward the others.
“I imagine it’s plates for a ten- or twenty-dollar bill that’s behind all this,” Penny offered in a casual tone.
“Well, you seem to know everything so I might as well tell you,” Mawson growled, busy with the wire. “Yeah, a twenty. Carveth, the engraver, made ’em. They’re photo-engraved with the blurry lines tooled out by hand. Carveth used to be in the Bureau of Engraving.”
“And your machine-gunner killed him so there’d be one less to divide with,” Penny stated. Then: “You’re going to jail, Mawson, and I’m doing my best to see that all of you get the chair! And at the same time I’m showing up that hick of a detective, Linn! Yes, Mawson, you and the others will burn—”
“No, Mr. Big Talk, you’re going to burn unless you drop that gat!”
Penny Pim froze. Something very hard was jamming into his backbone, pressing inexorably and menacingly. A gun!
“Hugon!” Mawson cried excitedly.
“Hugon!” Mawson again yelled relievedly. “Boy, am I glad to see you! Wait, I’ll get this punk’s gun.”
He snatched the gun from Penny’s lax hand and pocketed it. Then, close-set eyes wild with rage, gross face flushed, he slammed out with his fist. The hard knuckles connected with Penny’s mouth, cut both lips. He tasted salty blood on his tongue and his knees began to melt beneath him. He groped out with both hands in an effort to catch hold of something. Again Mawson’s knuckles slammed his face and he fell backward into merciful unconsciousness.
Penny opened his eyes to find his head was pounding like the automatic stamping machine that turned out half-dollars as if they were so many links of sausage. His shoulders ached; in fact, he felt bad all over. The men Mawson bound had been released and were glaring at him with cruel eyes from across the room.
He didn’t like playing at detective. He wished he hadn’t been so short with Detective Captain Linn. Right at the moment he would have welcomed Linn with open arms — no, that would take a lot of physical effort and he ached in every joint, felt as if many bones were broken.
A kick from Mawson’s big foot brought Penny back to life. He sat up, wondered what the big red things were that he could see just by glancing downward. He decided after a moment that the red things were his swollen lips and the blood clotted on his Coldstream Guards mustache. He also decided he was in somewhat of a mess.
A man he had not seen before was eyeing him keenly. Penny decided it must be Hugon. The man nodded. “Yeah, he’s a punk, all right. Better get rid of him — quick!”
Hugon was a tall man, with red hair and strangely light blue eyes. He wore a perpetual frown on his face, and his mouth was so thin-lipped as to appear only a gash across his narrow face. He turned to Mawson, tapped a brief case he carried in his hand.
“Here’s the fifty grand, Mawson. What you told me of this punk makes me want to dose the deal in a hurry. He’s smart and the way he worked things out is better than the lousy cops could’ve done. Maybe he found some way to tip ’em off. By the way, I brought the jack in fives, tens and twenties. My collections in New York have been pretty good the past few weeks so I got the jack in small bills and saved it for you. That’s better than big money on a deal like this and you can get rid of it quicker. Suppose you count it up, give me the two sets of plates for the phony twenties and I’ll shove off.”
“That’s the stuff,” Mawson nodded. “We’re blowing too. Miami on the five-ten plane in the morning. I’ve already reserved seats and was just waiting for you with the jack before sending Scotty for tickets.”
Penny watched Mawson as he counted the stacks of neatly banded currency. He saw the plates on the table. He got slowly to his feet. Plates for printing currency were something he knew a lot about. He moved closer, looked them over with a critically appraising eye. They were masterpieces, all right. He saw they were a photoengraved job hut the blurry lines had been hand tooled so as to make them sharp.