Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“Hello, Mr. Mack? Yes — this is really Steele. Can you come around to my office?”
The other arrived in a half hour.
“Mr. Mac,” the head of the agency asked, regarding him seriously, “are you sure that you want to go on with this matter?”
“You mean, with Harrison’s?”
“Yes.”
The inventor laughed. “I’m going to finish it.”
“M-mm. Why?”
“I’m a sportsman.” explained McArthur.
“Quite so. But I wonder if you really have any idea of what you are doing. You are attempting to stand in the way of a system which is making hundreds of thousands of dollars every month for promoters and grafters in this city.”
“That’s what makes it hardfought and interesting.”
Steele chuckled quietly. “You’ll find it interesting enough if they ever suspect that you are the cause of their recent troubles; I guarantee that. I have three men out watching the house to-night. Heaven help them if their purpose becomes known in that neighborhood.
“Well, if you wish to continue — we’ll take a ride through there a little later.”
They did, passing the house several times behind the curtains of Steele’s gray roadster; and to all appearances the place was closed. Parties were turned away from the door one after another. Finally Steele followed one of the parties — two gamblers and the girl known as Diamond-Tooth Marjie. They rode away from the house in a red cab, circled through the back streets for a few minutes, and presently returned, walking down a narrow, dark alley toward the back of Harrison’s premises.
In the morning Steele’s operatives informed him that they had seen many parties enter and leave quietly by the back alley.
“Do you know,” he declared to Walter Clapp, his most intimate associate at the office, “I think it is small wonder that Mr. James Ward often had to use drastic methods to accomplish his results. How little any of us knew of the endless fight he had — one man, all alone, against indifference and corruption — like a rock in the midst of a dirty stream! Is it any wonder that the currents wore his life away?”
Chapter XXXIII
“Watch Them Mix It”
“I Wanna Go Where You Go—”
“Then I’ll be happy!” finished Little Evelyn, laughing.
McArthur thought that it was an unusually thin and pale Little Evelyn who sat opposite to him at Canton Cabaret. He would scarcely have recognized her as the girl whom he had first met there four months earlier. Her face was lined, her eyes sunken, and artificial colors did little toward concealing it all.
“In Heaven’s name,” he flung out suddenly, “why don’t you, why can’t you cut it out?”
She smiled at him again, a faint and rather wistful smile. “Sky-pilot!” she murmured. “Holy-Joe! Holy-Joe Mac!”
“It’s no worse than being a booster,” he returned.
“A... booster!” said Evelyn, a hint of anger creeping into her eyes. “Say, listen — don’t call me a booster! If you do, I’ll never speak to you again. I’m not a booster—”
“You said you were once—”
“I never did!” she gave back, putting down her knife and fork. “I certainly hope I was never that dumb. Only dumbbells are boosters. I... I—” She hesitated, her face relaxing into a smile once more. “I may have said I used to be a fillout or a get-away for a mob of swell boosters—”
“Well,” challenged McArthur, “what’s that but shoplifting?”
“It’s all the difference in the world,” declared his companion. “Fillouts and getaways don’t do any hoisting themselves. Their job is to beat it with the swag as soon as the boosters lift it, so if the finger calls the booster he doesn’t get any goods on her. Then the booster can put up such a squawk that he’ll never dare bother her again.”
“Humph. I think it’s rather a nice distinction. I’m not criticizing you — but I can’t understand what you see in it. It’s only the dope that makes you do such things—”
She laughed again, coughing. “Listen. We have to hit the coke to help our nerve. It makes one’s face steady.”
The inventor shook his head. The pity of it had never impressed him so forcibly as it did upon this evening in the Canton. It occurred to him that the finger might soon call Little Evelyn in a summons which she must answer without stalling, without waiting to split the swag before going up the river.
“For God’s sake, Evelyn, quit it, before it’s too late!” he begged suddenly.
“But how can I?” she asked. “I have to live some way.”
“Tell me. Have you a brother?”
“No. Why?” She looked at him, her gaze puzzled.
“Well — I haven’t any sister, either. Let’s pretend that I’m your brother for a little while. You won’t have to keep on with this game, if we do that.”
For an instant the girl stared at him, amazed; then once again she shook with laughter.
“You — be my brother!” she exclaimed. “You — be my brother! Go on — you’re making fun of me—”
“I’m not,” he said.
“But how could you be my brother? And, listen, you fiddler! What was the idea in sending me away up to the St. Elmer that night? If I hadn’t met Jimmie Brown, I might have got pinched for going in there. They’d think I was a dip or something.”
“I apologize humbly,” McArthur declared. “But why not be my sister for a little while?”
A subtle change came into her expression.
“I... I have a brother,” she replied.
“I thought you said you hadn’t.”
“Well, I didn’t want you to know. He’s... he’s in trouble. I’ve got to make money to get a mouthpiece for him. Listen — loan me a hundred dollars so I can help my brother — will you, please?”
“Help him keep on beating the law!” he surmised.
“No, no. He wants to quit the racket — honest. He was framed.”
Before they parted at her door, McArthur loaned her the hundred.
He had allowed the cab to go away, so he walked toward Columbia Street to find another. As he strode along, he became aware of an odd sensation that he was being followed. Twice he glanced back sharply, but could see no one. Finally he noticed a small man on the opposite side of the street, who, however, did not appear to be paying any attention to him.
To make certain, McArthur went into a drug store and asked for a milk shake. While it was being prepared, he watched the stranger through the window. The man walked steadily on, not even glancing across the street; and when McArthur came out he was not in sight.
On Columbia Street he found his old acquaintance, the colored driver, with his delapidated olive-drab taxi. He gave his home address, and the negro left him at his door with a cheery “Good night, boss!”
As the inventor turned to go in, another car stopped directly in front of the walk. He started. The machine was a roadster; and there was a single occupant, beckoning to him.
He approached warily, and caught his breath in surprise. The man was Malcome Steele.
“Mr. Mac, have you forgotten what I said to you the other night?”
“What do you mean?”
“About running risks when it is possible that Harrison’s gang may suspect the truth at any time?”
“Oh—” McArthur frowned, blinking. “By risk, you mean my being with Little Evelyn?”
Steele shook his head. “It is for you to decide what risk you are running in that connection. But when you go into a drug store in that district again, and drink a soda or a milkshake — you watch them mix it. Watch them mix it, Mr. Mac! Do you comprehend?”
Chapter XXXIV