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:
“So then Kramer got the bright idea of having a couple of muscle men go in and pull a hold-up and clean out Field’s wine cellar. They drove up with the trucks and stuck up the watchman and a couple of servants, took their own sweet time loading up the truck, and drove away.”
“Then what happened?” asked Brakey.
“Oh, the natural thing,” she said. “Rodney Field needed some booze. He got in touch with Kramer and yelled about what had happened. Kramer was all crocodile tears and sympathy. So Field started buying again.”
“And I presume that Rodney Field got his own stuff back again at a higher price than he paid for it the first time?”
“Sure!” said Molly Malloy. “Don’t be silly! What do you suppose Kramer went to all the trouble of sticking the joint up for?”
Bill Brakey exchanged a significant glance with The Patent Leather Kid.
“Looks like we’ve got to go and see Field,” he said.
Molly Malloy unlocked the door.
“If you guys got any life insurance,” she said, “better be sure that the premiums are all paid. It always saves trouble.”
“Thanks,” said Bill Brakey, and they filed out into the corridor.
On the sidewalk Bill Brakey and The Patent Leather Kid lowered their voices and discussed the situation.
“Sort of puts us in a tough spot,” said Bill Brakey.
“That’s all right,” said The Patent Leather Kid. “You can see what happened.”
“What happened?” asked Brakey.
“Kramer got a couple of muscle men to do the hijacking from Field. One of those muscle men grabbed Field’s gun.”
“Well?” asked Brakey.
“That man was a muscle man and a hijacker.”
“I still don’t get you,” said Brakey.
“Lancaster was mixed up in the dope business. He must have had a big bunch of dope in his safe. Two men had hijacked Rodney Field at Kramer’s suggestion. They did other hijacking on their own. They were working on Doc Lancaster’s safe when Lancaster came dashing into the room. Naturally they figured he was charging them, and let him have it. Then they dropped the gun and beat it. Young Pruett came rushing in right behind Lancaster and was fool enough to pick up the gun.”
“Well,” said Brakey, “it sounds logical, but I don’t know how we’re going to get any proof.”
“Yes,” said The Patent Leather Kid, squinting his eyes, and furrowing his forehead, “we’re going to need proof.”
The two men started pacing along the sidewalk. Suddenly The Patent Leather Kid chuckled. “You don’t suppose,” he said, “that Rodney Field ever saw this Lita Monteith, do you?”
“Hell, no,” said Brakey. “Why?”
“That makes it fine,” said The Patent Leather Kid. “Gertie, the telephone operator up at the apartment house, will be off now. She’ll do anything for me. She’s a good scout.”
“What do you want her to do?” asked Brakey, mystified.
“Go call on Rodney Field,” said The Kid, “and tell him that she’s Lita Monteith.”
“And then what?” asked Brakey.
“Oh, then,” said The Patent Leather Kid carelessly, “we kidnap her, at the point of a gun.”
“While she’s talking with Field?”
“Sure.”
Bill Brakey made a gesture of surrender by throwing out his palms. “It’s too much for me,” he said.
“Stick around,” invited The Kid, with a grin.
The Patent Leather Kid turned his powerful car down a side road which was some two hundred yards from the private driveway which wound around the terraced hill to the magnificent residence of Rodney Field.
“It’s going to leave you about a quarter of a mile to walk, Gertie,” he said. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Sure,” said the voice of the telephone operator.
“In your French heels?” asked The Kid.
She laughed. “Listen, Kid,” she said, “any time a girl’s worked on a hotel switchboard as long as I have she knows enough not to wear French heels when she goes automobile riding.”
The two men laughed. “Come on, Bill,” said The Kid, “give a boost here and we’ll put her over the fence and let her start walking. Now, Gertie, you take it easy. Don’t ring the doorbell for at least fifteen minutes. We’ve got to look around a bit, and I want to be in the house when you ring the bell.”
“I gotcha,” she said.
“And you remember the line about the gun?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
They pushed Gertie over the fence, watched her follow a path which showed dimly in the starlight.
The Patent Leather Kid slipped through the fence, followed by Bill Brakey. “Well,” he said, “we might as well get started,” and he pushed on up the terraced hill, toward the back of the huge house which showed gloomy and forbidding, blotting out the stars.
The Kid led the way to the back of the house, prowled around a few moments, then selected a window. A curved steel jimmy was inserted under the sash. There was the sound of straining wood, then a sharp click, and the window shivered open.
“Better let me go first, Chief,” said Bill Brakey.
The Patent Leather Kid said nothing, but sprang lightly to the casement, and slipped into the warm darkness of the house. Once inside he assisted Brakey through the window, then paused to adjust a mask over his face.
“Now,” he said, “we want to find a telephone.”
“That should be easy,” Bill Brakey whispered, and the beam of his spotlight cut the darkness. They found a telephone in the corner of the butler’s pantry. The Kid took down the receiver and breathed a number.
“What number is that?” asked Brakey.
“The speakeasy where Kramer hangs out,” The Kid said. Then, a moment later, he spoke softly into the receiver: “Hello, is Kramer there... Yeah. Tell him it’s a friend with an important piece of information... okay, I’ll hold the line...
“Hello, Kramer? This is a friend. I just wanted to give you a tip. Don’t let anyone know where you got it. The Patent Leather Kid and Bill Brakey went out to Rodney Field’s place tonight. They jimmied a back window and went in. They’re in the house now. I don’t know what they want, but they’re wearing masks.”
The Kid slipped the receiver gently back on the hook, and grinned at Bill Brakey.
Brakey mopped the back of his hand across his forehead. “Gee, Kid,” he said, “that’s just about like putting your head in a lion’s mouth I”
“Maybe,” agreed The Patent Leather Kid enigmatically.
A bell jangled through the house. “That,” said The Patent Leather Kid, softly, “will be Gertie, ready to strut her stuff.”
They waited in tense silence while they heard steps going down stairs in the front part of the house, heard the sound of a door opening, the sound of a man’s voice, then the tones of a woman’s voice, then feet on the stairs once more.
They waited for an anxious two or three minutes, and then the feet went down the stairs again, and two pair of feet made noise on the treads, as two people ascended the stairs.
“Looks like he had an upstairs study or library of some sort,” said The Kid.
“You think he’s seeing her?” asked Brakey.
“Sure he’s seeing her,” said The Kid. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Moving with the unerring precision of men who have accustomed themselves to the dangerous pitfalls of the darkness, the two men found back stairs, went up them, moved down a corridor, and heard the sound of voices.
“But,” said a man’s voice, “what good would it do you, Miss Monteith, if I should tell the police that the gun had been stolen from me?”
“Maybe,” said Gertie’s voice, “the police would believe that the man who stole the gun from you was a professional crook and give Ed Pruett a break.”