Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927
- Автор: Alexander R. W., Ames John
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“You know I didn’t squeal, Markley!”
“How do I know that?”
“Why, if I had, you and Cottrell and Branley and Hilliard and Mueller would have been picked up long ago, wouldn’t you?”
“I never could match up with you when it come to reasoning a thing out,” Markley said skeptically. Then, with that grudging surrender which he had shown before: “But what you say’s right enough: you’d have sent us all to the pen, if you’d squealed. I just got out from a long stretch myself, but I know who put me there, an’ it wasn’t you. What?”
Ruggles had suddenly caught Markley’s arm in a warning grip.
“That’s Stannistreet’s step, there in the vestibule,” Ruggles said in a scarcely audible whisper. “Here’s the key to the door of that bedroom. Go in there, now. No shooting! Know why? Because, though you may get Stannistreet, I’m the only one who can get you clear of the bulls and detectives that are after you, and I won’t lift a finger for you unless you do as I say.”
Chapter II
An Urgent Call
Even at that critical moment, when Markley knew that his very life hung in the balance, he had the hardihood and reckless daring to wait.
“Think you can give me orders, do you?” he demanded in that hushed, hoarse whisper of his: “I’ve only got to open my mouth once and your friend, Stannistreet, would be the first to arrest you.”
“To a certain point, you can force me to go,” Ruggles flung back; “but, beyond that, whether you tell one man or all men, I will not go. I have promised to save you if you do what I tell you to. Will you do it?”
For a moment, the two men glared at each other. Then Markley snatched the key from Ruggles’s outstretched hand and darted noiselessly into the bedroom. We heard him close the door, heard the key turn in the lock. Then silence, broken only by our own heavy breathing.
All this had taken place in little more than an instant. It had been Stannistreet’s step which we had heard in our vestibule, and it was his ring which we heard now. Ruggles loosened his collar a little, breathed deeply, stood for an instant irresolute, then went to the front door and opened it.
“Hi, Ruggles,” Stannistreet said. “How are you, Crane? Been so busy, I haven’t seen either of you lately.” The detective, who had said this from the doorway, now came with springy step into our living room, and I closed the front door after him.
He took off his hat, threw it on our center table, and stood looking at us, smiling. A fine-looking man, Stannistreet was, a tall, erect, vigorous man still in his early thirties, with the rather casual air of a successful business man who, when outside of his office, was not given to letting his responsibilities bother him.
The only thing about Stannistreet that gave away the secret of the profession he belonged to, was the fact that he always spoke in a carefully lowered voice, as if he suspected that some hidden person was always listening, listening, listening
Stannistreet not only gave that impression; it was, to my knowledge, an absolute conviction of his; and, if this conviction were a delusion, it was one which had saved his life a good hundred times.
“I just phoned you about Markley,” he said to Ruggles. “Markley’s a particularly bad actor — he croaked Dorgan, the policeman, who had come on Markley holding up a cigar store; Markley escaped, circled the block, then came up behind Dorgan and crushed his skull with a blackjack.”
Ruggles nodded. “The newspapers told how Dorgan had been killed, but they didn’t say who killed him.”
“No, they didn’t know. As a matter of fact, I’m the only one that has got this on Markley,” Stannistreet said eagerly. “I had had lunch on McDougal Street and was coming up and happened to see Markley — you know — no, you don’t; but he’s got a face like a man’s last night on earth.
“Markley was bending over Dorgan; when he saw me, he turned and ran, gave me the slip, but I got his finger-print on a pocketbook he’d got halfway out of Dorgan’s pocket. Markley don’t know it, but I’m the only one who can send him to the chair and I’m going to do it.”
“Well,” Ruggles said almost impatiently, “what do you want me to do, Stannistreet? Better take your hat and go out and take Markley now!” Ruggles actually handed Stannistreet’s hat to him and was leading him to the door. “You’re not wanting to lose any time, of course,” said Ruggles.
“Oh, look here,” the detective remonstrated, “I’m not in such a rush as all this. You don’t get the point, Ruggles; I want you to take Markley. You know the mug of every crook in the country, or in the world, I’ve heard men say, so it won’t be anything hard for you to pick up Markley.”
It was a tribute to Ruggles’s photographic memory, that Stannistreet did not ask this as a question, but simply took it as a fact that Markley, the holdup man and murderer had been “mugged” already in Ruggles’s mental Rogues’ Gallery.
“Yes,” Ruggles said, “I’ve seen him.”
“Well,” Stannistreet went on, “that’s all you need — you’ve seen him. Say, what’s your hurry? Never saw you in such a tear before, Ruggles.” Ruggles was working him toward the door again.
“I tell you Stannistreet, I’ve got a dozen things to do—”
“But will you take on Markley? You will, won’t you?”
“Why should I?” Ruggles asked “You can get him yourself?” Ruggles put his hand on the doorknob.
“Yes, I can get him myself,” Stannistreet said. “I’ve got him bottled up in this town — every exit watched by men who have his description down pat.”
“Then you’d better go through with it.” Ruggles opened the door.
“No,” Stannistreet said; “you are the man to do that.” He stood in the doorway, nodding his head as he spoke. “It will be simpler and better in many ways if you do it; he knows me, and he don’t know you.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t know me?” Ruggles asked.
“This,” Stannistreet said, blocking the doorway with his big shoulders: “Markley’s just out from doing a ten-year stretch in the Columbus pen.
“It was ten years ago that you came here to New York and started the work you’ve been doing ever since — rounding up crooks we detectives hadn’t been able to catch — that’s the truth of it, and I think I’m catching honesty from you, Ruggles.
“You and I know that the crooks, who are doing time, have ways of keeping posted on what’s happening outside; but you’ve always worked on your own; not hooked up with any detective agency; and that’s why I’ll gamble Markley’s never heard of you. I tell you, Ruggles, if Markley stepped into this room now, he wouldn’t know you from Henry Ford or Luther Burbank!”
“Burbank is dead,” Ruggles said absently, “and I don’t want to be.”
Stannistreet looked at Ruggles in surprise. “This is the first time I ever heard you say anything like that. You’ve never seemed afraid—”
“I’m not afraid now.”
“I know that. I’ll tell you something: I know where he hangs out at night, and I’ll show you and you can walk in there and pick him up easy as—”
“I tell you, I’m not afraid!”
“And I tell you, I know that. My gad, I saw you take ‘Red’ Moran single-handed, didn’t I? There’s another reason why you’re the logical one to take Markley: before he was captured, convicted, and sent for that ten-year stretch in the Columbus pen, he worked somewhere in the West with four or five men, all of them bad actors.
“See if you can’t get a line on who they are and where they are now. If they’re anything like Markley, there’s big rewards out for them. You’ll take on the job, won’t you?”