The Adventures of Paul Pry
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
- Год: 1991
- Язык: английский
- Год: G.K. Hall
- ISBN: 978-0-8161-5105-8, 978-0-8161-5106-6
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Adventures of Paul Pry». Краткое содержание книги:
The plane seemed to roar into life like a frightened quail. It scuttled down some hundred feet of the field, went into the air on a sharp incline, zipped upward, and within a matter of seconds was but a dot against the blue.
Precisely fourteen minutes later, Paul Pry was transferring his baggage at the Centerville airport from the plane to automobile. Another six minutes and he was at the hotel, the porter glancing at the baggage with a look of admiration on his features.
“By gosh!” he blurted, “I’ll say you’re a wonder when it comes to getting action, Mr. Garfield.”
Paul Pry grinned.
“I shook ’em up. Bring the baggage up to my room.”
And he went to his room, took down the telephone and called Moffit.
“I’m in my room, ready packed, Mr. Moffit. I’m leaving on the 6.20 train. I wish you’d bring the necklaces over as soon as they arrive.”
“I certainly will, Mr. Garfield,” promised Moffit.
Paul Pry cleared his throat.
“Look here, Moffit, there’s another matter I wanted to mention to you. Last night I mentioned to a casual acquaintance — a young lady — that I was arranging to have some stones sent down to you today. I didn’t mention where from or on what train. But she showed a marked interest that was a little too marked.
“I can’t tell you who this young woman was. Frankly, I met her in a picture show and struck up an acquaintance with her. She sat next to me, and — well, I felt from the way she laughed, and the sidelong glances she directed at me, that she wouldn’t object to my speaking to her.
“Now I’ve been worried about that. I’ve heard gangsters sometimes use women as scouts. I wish you’d tell Chief Kelley, and have him arrange to have another officer with him when he meets the interurban. I’m worried.”
Moffit laughed.
“Forget it. The stones are all insured. I’ll take care we have ample protection after we get the gems. Before that, it’s up to the wholesaler and the insurance company. But no one ever thinks of bothering these gem messengers. They move stuff around without ever losing a single stone—”
Paul Pry sighed, and the relief that was contained in that sigh was apparent, even over the telephone.
“I’m so relieved to hear you say so. You don’t think there’s any necessity of putting a guard on the interurban, do you?”
“Heavens no. Forget it, Mr. Garfield!”
“Thank you,” said Paul Pry meekly, and hung up.
The porter arrived with the baggage, and Paul Pry held him in the room for several minutes, getting the baggage placed to his liking, keeping up a running fire of conversation.
It was precisely 3.21 when the interurban which was due to arrive in Centerville at 3.38, slowed to a stop at a little flag station which was really nothing more than a milk-shipping depot.
Two well-dressed men were waiting. It was the first time the motorman could remember picking up a passenger at the station, but the timetable made of this little depot a flag stop, and so he applied the air brakes, and brought the car to a stop.
The two men swung up to the platform. The motorman noticed a touring car with the side curtains up. That car was parked on the dirt road near the depot.
“Car trouble?” asked the motorman, grinning.
“You bet,” said one of the men, and made a swift motion with his right hand.
A slungshot flipped out from his wrist, crushed through the cap of the motorman and thudded against his skull. The motorman lurched against the controls, and thudded to the floor.
A woman screamed.
The conductor, not observing the commotion, rang the “go ahead” bell. A man shouted a hoarse warning. A slender individual who had been reading a newspaper, tugged at something in his hip pocket.
His startled eyes saw a man standing directly before him, a crooked grin twisting his features, a heavy automatic in his right hand.
“When you get it out, buddy,” he said, “drop it on the floor.”
The slender individual hesitated.
“Make it snappy. Drop it on the floor. You ain’t paid to stop lead, and I mean business.”
The second gangster stood at the end of the car.
“Keep your seats, everybody,” he yelled.
The slender young man slowly withdrew a steel weapon and tossed it to the floor.
The man with the automatic kicked the gun under the seats and picked up the black bag, studded with brass rivets.
“Thanks,” he said, laconically. “Let’s go, Steve!”
They went on the run. From behind the side curtains of the automobile the muzzle of a machine gun covered their retreat.
And just before they left the car, they opened the electric control, jerked the brass lever from the control box and flung it away. As the car gathered headway, they dropped to the ground.
The interurban was jolting and swaying as the passengers screamed for help. By the time the conductor had managed to check the speed of the careening car, the milk depot was a mile behind.
The conductor piloted the car to a place where a farmhouse showed telephone wires running to it. He checked the car to a stop and ran toward the house.
The telephone buzzed out the news, spreading the alarm. Central located the chief of police of Centerville, and gave him the message.
Chief Kelley informed Moffit of what had happened.
“Good heavens, then he was right, and we should have arranged for a guard!”
“Information came too late, anyhow,” said Kelley, but his eyes shifted uneasily. “I gotta get busy and throw out a blockade in case they should try to come through town here.”
“They won’t,” said Moffit. “Look here, chief, if the wholesaler thought I’d been tipped off there might be trouble with that shipment.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted Kelley. “The newspapers would make things rather warm for me if they thought I’d been warned and laughed at the warning. That’s the hell of being in this game. If you guess right you don’t get credit. If you guess wrong they pan you from here to Timbuctoo.”
The men exchanged glances.
“Yeah,” said Chief Kelley, “I’ll get a man to take charge of closin’ the road. I’m goin’ up there with you.”
Ten minutes later they marched down the corridor to Paul Pry’s hotel room.
Paul Pry flung open the door.
“Well, well, you were long enough getting here. The interurban must have been in ten minutes ago.”
Chief Kelley kicked the door closed.
“Look here, Garfield, you can help us.”
Paul Pry smiled affably.
“Certainly. What can I do?”
“Forget that you warned us there might be a stick-up of the messenger who was carryin’ those jewels. Forget that you talked to a broad in a picture show. Take your money that Moffit’s got for you, and get out of town.”
Paul Pry let his jaw sag.
“Do you mean to tell me the man was robbed?”
“Grabbed the bag slick as a whistle. Evidently a tipped-off job. They knew what they wanted, who had it, and what was in it. They went and got it.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Paul Pry. “Anybody hurt?”
“Just the insurance company,” said Chief Kelley.
“And a greedy wholesaler,” muttered Moffit bitterly. “I hope his loss wasn’t covered.”
“My, my, my! Then that woman—”
Kelley interrupted.
“Forget about that woman,” he said.
“And the gems,” added Moffit.
“And get outta town before the newspaper chaps start coming around,” supplemented Kelley.
“Oh gracious, the newspaper men won’t ask a lot of questions, will they?”