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:
And then I realized that Stannistreet had struck me not with his gun, but with his fist; he had knocked me down and groggy for a few seconds, but I was myself now and had possession of all my faculties.
I had possession of them, but I was powerless to use them — powerless to warn Stannistreet that at this very moment when he felt so secure in my being his prisoner, Markley, or some one of his gang, was outside the door now with black murder in his heart and cold death in his hand.
Noiselessly the door slowly swung in and before me in the doorway, which I could just crane my back to, see, stood Markley himself. I saw him and he saw me. His coming corroborated all my worst fears, but did not surprise me; and his eyes, as they rested on me, showed no surprise.
Then, with the speed of light and the soundlessness of a shadow, he had whipped a blackjack from under his left arm and was poised close behind the still unsuspecting Stannistreet. I made one final effort to dislodge the gag which Stannistreet had so effectively forced into my mouth, but I could do nothing.
Far from crying out to warn Stannistreet, I could not make a sound. I could only watch Markley draw the blackjack back, then bring it down in one terrific, crushing, killing blow.
It caught Stannistreet from behind and crushed his skull like an egg shelclass="underline" what, up to the instant before, had been Stannistreet, now was only a broken dead thing, sagged forward, face down on the desk, as void of life now as if in that inert body there had never been a spark of life at all.
And yet, such was Markley’s ferocity, he struck once more, and then again, each time bringing forth that terrible sound which had followed the first blow.
Sure then that his awful work was done, Markley bounded to me and said hoarsely:
“Mueller said you’d beat it here, if we set you free at Luigi’s, and Mueller was right. Now you’ll stay here until the bull Hilliard has tipped off has got here and arrests you for killing Stannistreet. I’m off — out of the city, and the others with me!”
“Just a moment, Markley!”
The voice came from the doorway, the open door into the hall, and my hair rose on my head and I could not have spoken a word even if the gag had been loosed from my mouth — for it was Stannistreet standing there, Stannistreet alive and alert, looking not at me, but at Markley.
“Tricked, by—” Markley said in a ghastly, choking voice.
“Trapped,” Stannistreet corrected evenly. “Up with your hands!”
Markley’s only answer was one wild, desperate spring, a knife gleaming in his right hand. Stannistreet’s gun sprang to a level; the room roared once, and Markley went down, dead even before his face crashed down on the door sill.
Stannistreet bent quickly over the body. As he did so, a vast, slouching figure leaned in from the hall, unseen by Stannistreet. In that moment, when I had thought all was right at last, I recognized the gigantic figure which had pursued me down the dark stairs at Luigi’s, and I knew that, after all, we were lost, for I was powerless to aid Stannistreet, who at the moment was all off his guard; and, even if my hands had been free, this burly brute could still have mastered Stannistreet and me.
He leaned down over Stannistreet like a looming personification of Vengeance. His huge, hooked hands were almost on Stannistreet’s neck.
With one final effort I could have been capable of at no lesser crisis, I snapped the cords which had fastened my wrists, then I tore at the gag, only to go nerveless as a bag at the words:
“Needn’t look again; he’s dead, Stannistreet.”
The voice was Ruggles’s.
“And that,” Ruggles said when, half an hour later, he and I were back in the living room of our snug little apartment, “is the end of Markley. Stannistreet gets full credit for the capture, and all the reward, of course, and will probably get a promotion.
“I have asked him not to say anything about our part in the matter.” Ruggles looked at me gravely. “Stannistreet feels very badly at having had to give you that crack on the head, but it was—”
“It was necessary to the scheme you worked out for the certain capture of Markley. I realize that, Ruggles, so let’s say no more about it. But what was the rest of your share in the business? I think I’m entitled to know that, don’t you?”
“Absolutely! The thing went like this: you remember, I put some stuff in that brandy we gave Markley early this evening, here at our rooms, and he went to sleep on the bed in that extra bedroom. I figured he was good for several hours’ sleep, and I lay down on the couch, closing my eyes and more than half dozing.”
“All of that,” I said; “you were as fast asleep as Markley himself, though you didn’t make as much noise about it!”
“When you turned the light off,” Ruggles said, “I knew you were going to get some rest yourself and it was up to me to keep my eyes open.
“After awhile, I got up, went out the back window and into Markley’s room the way we did before, and Markley wasn’t there — for all his irregular living, he had the constitution of a gorilla, and the dope that would have kept a gorilla asleep had not been sufficient to quell the restless vitality of Markley.
“I knew then that I had a job oh my hands — it was clear as day, of course, that Markley had gone off to kill Stannistreet, and I had got to prevent that and, at the same time, not let things get to the point where Markley would tell what he knew about me to Stannistreet.”
“Why didn’t you let me in on it?” I could not help asking.
“Because I knew you could help best by staying behind. You see, I knew Markley and his gang only too well, Dan, and I knew Markley wouldn’t pull a thing like knocking off Stannistreet without talking it over with his gang first.
“It was safe to assume they were around near here somewhere and that Markley had gone out to collect them, then would come here and hold a council of war; plan the killing of Stannistreet and the escape of the band afterward. Having collected them and posted them by the place here where he could call them, Markley would come back.
“If he found both you and me gone, he’d know we’d gone to tip Stannistreet off; but if Markley found me gone but you here with that make-up still on, he would be sure I had taken to flight — then Markley would figure he had all the rest of the night to get Stannistreet in, and I should have time to warn Stannistreet and set the stage for Markley’s capture at Stannistreet’s apartment.”
Ruggles held a match over the bowl of the pipe he had filled, then went on.
“I went out, got Stannistreet on the phone, and told him to get a ‘dummy’ at the little costumer’s shop on Sullivan Street, dress it up right with a wig to match Stannistreet’s hair, and have the costumer set it at Stannistreet’s desk in the living-room of his apartment.
“That costumer used to be in the theatrical business and he’s an artist; from the rear, with that lighting effect, there’s not one man in fifty who wouldn’t have sworn it was Stannistreet.”
“It fooled me, all right,” I admitted, “but go on.”
“After I got that through Stannistreet’s head, I came back here and hid where Markley and his gang couldn’t see me. He came in first, found you asleep and me gone, and then went out and got the others.
“You know what happened after that. I followed your taxi down to Luigi’s, phoned Stannistreet again, this time to say the thing was coming along fast; you were to be disguised as Markley; you were to be set free on the chance you’d beat it to his, Stannistreet’s, apartment to warn him.
“Markley was to follow right on your heels, do the killing, and leave you to be held for it long enough for Markley and his men to get out of the city.”