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:
“They’d want to know all about the circumstances of the robbery,” said the man’s voice.
“Sure,” said Gertie, “why not?”
“Well,” said the man’s voice, “you see, it would be most embarrassing for me to explain all of those circumstances. The only thing of value that was taken was something that I wouldn’t care to tell the police about, particularly if I had to tell where I had purchased it.”
“You mean booze?” asked Gertie.
“I think,” said the man’s voice, “that I won’t definitely commit myself, if you don’t mind, Miss Monteith.”
“All right, Bill,” said The Patent Leather Kid to his bodyguard, “that’s our cue. Come on in.”
He held a gun in his right hand. His eyes gleamed with sinister purpose from behind a mask. He pushed his way purposefully into the room where Gertie was talking with Rodney Field. He had given Gertie no inkling of his intention, and when she looked up and saw a masked man pushing a gun in her general direction her facial expressions were sufficiently genuine to have allayed any possible suspicion upon the part of Rodney Field.
The Patent Leather Kid swung his gun in an arc which included the two occupants of the room, and barked to Rodney Field: “Stick ’em up, guy!”
Rodney Field was attired in a lounging robe and slippers. His slender, tapering hands gripped the arms of the chair until the skin showed white and taut across his knuckles.
“What’s the idea?” he asked.
“You know what the idea is, all right,” said The Patent Leather Kid grimly, “and it’s a damn good thing that we got here just when we did.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rodney Field.
The Kid made a purposeful gesture with the gun.
“The hell you don’t! You were just going to spill the goods about us to the broad.”
“About you?”
“Sure, me and my partner — the ones who hijacked your cellar and copped your gun.”
“Oh,” said Rodney Field, settling back into the chair, after the manner of a man who suddenly sees something which has theretofore been obscure.
“Sure,” went on The Patent Leather Kid. “It’s about time you took a tumble. Kramer was the one who hired us. He got you pretty well stocked up with hootch, so you weren’t buying regularly. He figured it’d be a good plan to clean you out. We were the birds who did it for him. Then he sold you your own booze back again at a higher price. You had a good gun here and we copped it when we were hijacking the hootch. Then, when we were hijacking some dope from Doc Lancaster he came busting into the room and we had to let him have it. It happened we used that gun, and we left it there. We figured you’d be called on to explain that gun sooner or later, and would spill all to the police. So we decided we’d see that you kept silent.”
“Just how are you going to do that?” asked Rodney Field, sparring for time.
The Kid laughed grimly. “There’s lots of ways,” he said, “but one’s better than any of the rest. Tie him up, Bill.”
Bill Brakey took rope from around his waist, and approached Field.
“Wait a minute, boys,” said Rodney Field, “you’re getting me wrong on this.”
Gertie got slowly to her feet.
“Look here,” she said.
The Kid jabbed a gun into her stomach.
“As for you,” he said, “you’re going with us. You’ve talked too damn much! You had a chance to sit back and keep out of this mess, but you wouldn’t do it. You had to go pulling some slick detective stuff, and now you’re due to go for a ride.”
She gave a half scream, and The Kid pushed the gun against her waist, spun her half around, and started rushing her from the room.
“Tie the man up, Bill,” he said, “just the way I told you.”
The Kid rushed Gertie into the hallway, then said to her, in a low voice: “Take it easy, Gertie.”
“What’s the idea?” she asked.
“Stick around,” he said, “you’ll find out.”
He left her and tiptoed back to the door of the room, where he greeted Bill Brakey when that individual came out.
“Tie him up, Bill?” he asked in a low voice.
“Sure.”
“To the chair?”
“Yes.”
“So he can reach the telephone?”
“Sure, that’s what you told me to do.”
“All right,” said The Kid. “Let’s wait a minute and see what he does.”
They waited in tense silence for a minute or two, then there came sounds of struggling motion from the room. That motion was followed by little thuds, such as might have been made by one who was bound to a chair, but was managing to hitch that chair across the floor, by little convulsive motions. Then they heard the sound of a telephone being overturned, and the voice of Rodney Field speaking in low, tense tones: “Give me police headquarters,” he said.
The Patent Leather Kid tapped Bill Brakey on the arm.
“That’s all, Bill,” he said, “we’ve finished.”
“What do we do now?” asked Brakey.
“Go home.”
“Okay,” said Brakey, “let’s go.”
They picked up Gertie, made their way silently out through the window by which they had entered, three silent shadows moving with purposeful skill, the men keenly alert, as befits men who have learned to do their work at high speed and in darkness; the woman self-reliant and loyal, obeying whispered instructions unquestioningly.
They moved down the terraced slope, across the strip of level grass, and Gertie was once more lifted over the barbed wire fence.
“Okay,” she said. “What’s the next item?”
“Just stick around for awhile,” said The Kid, “while we have a cigarette.”
On the main highway, out beyond the intersection, two cars went whizzing past, the headlights dancing on the road as the cars swayed and lurched in the grip of the terrific speed at which they were being hurtled over the pavement.
The Kid looked at his luminous strap watch.
The minutes passed. There were more lights in the big house on the hill — lights which sprang abruptly into dazzling oblongs of light as another window added its golden quota to the illumination.
The night was calm and peaceful.
Of a sudden, the frogs by the side of the road ceased their interrupted chirping. The distance snarled with the sound of tires and the roar of an open exhaust.
“The police,” said The Patent Leather Kid, and lit another cigarette.
Two police cars flashed past the intersection, traveling at high speed. The Patent Leather Kid pressed his foot on the starter.
“Well,” he said, “we might as well start for home.”
The car purred into motion, slid smoothly to the intersection, turned back on the boulevard. The Kid pushed the throttle well down to the floor boards.
From behind them came the sound of gunfire. First an isolated shot or two — then the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, interspersed with the boom of riot guns.
“Sounds like a Fourth of July celebration,” said The Kid.
Police Inspector Phil Brame flung himself in the chair in front of the club window. His eyes were red and bloodshot, his skin gray with fatigue and coated with the greasy covering which indicates sleepless nights and unshaven days.
“Oh, my lord, what a night!” he groaned. “I’ve got to go down and get shaved and massaged, but I’m just too tired to move.”
Renfroe surveyed him with an eye which was cold and appraising, but his mouth clucked expressions of sympathy. Bill Pope, the explorer, stared with his calmly quizzical eyes. Dan Seller seemed mildly interested.
“Been busy, Inspector?” asked Dan Seller.