Crime Stories Page 33

  I kicked my chair back, and stood up.

  I didn’t like my position at all. The office was entirely too small for me. I had a gun, true enough, and whatever weapons may have been distributed among these other men were out of sight. But these four men were too close to me; and a gun isn’t a thing of miracles. It’s a mechanical contraption that is capable of just so much and no more.

  If these men decided to jump me, I could down just one of them before the other three were upon me. I knew it, and they knew it.

  “Put your hands up,” I ordered, “and turn around!”

  None of them moved to obey. One of the inked men grinned wickedly; Soules shook his head slowly; the other two stood and looked at me.

  I was more or less stumped. You can’t shoot a man just because he refuses to obey an order—even if he is a criminal. If they had turned around for me, I could have lined them up against the wall, and, being behind them, have held them safe while I used the telephone.

  But that hadn’t worked.

  My next thought was to back across the office to the street door, keeping them covered, and then either stand in the door and yell for help, or take them into the street, where I could handle them. But I put that thought away as quickly as it came to me.

  These four men were going to jump me—there was no doubt of that. All that was needed was a spark of any sort to explode them into action. They were standing stiff−legged and tense, waiting for some move on my part. If I took a step backward—the battle would be on.

  We were close enough for any of the four to have reached out and touched me. One of them I could shoot before I was smothered—one out of four. That meant that each of them had only one chance out of four of being the victim—low enough odds for any but the most cowardly of men.

  I grinned what was supposed to be a confident grin—because I was up against it hard—and reached for the telephone: I had to do something! Then I cursed myself! I had merely changed the signal for the onslaught. It would come now when I picked up the receiver.

  But I couldn’t back down again—that, too, would be a signal—I had to go through with it.

  The perspiration trickled across my temples from under my hat as I drew the phone closer with my left hand.

  The street door opened! An exclamation of surprise came from behind me.

  I spoke rapidly, without taking my eyes from the four men in front of me.

  “Quick! The phone! The police!”

  With the arrival of this unknown person—one of Newhouse’s customers, probably—I figured I had the edge again. Even if he took no active part beyond calling the police in, the enemy would have to split to take care of him—and that would give me a chance to pot at least two of them before I was knocked over. Two out of four—each of them had an even chance of being dropped—which is enough to give even a nervy man cause for thinking a bit before he jumps.

  “Hurry!” I urged the newcomer.

  “Yes! Yes!” he said—and in the blurred sound of the ‘s’ there was evidence of foreign birth.

  Keyed up as I was, I didn’t need any more warning than that.

  I threw myself sidewise—a blind tumbling away from the spot where I stood. But I wasn’t quite quick enough.

  The blow that came from behind didn’t hit me fairly, but I got enough of it to fold up my legs as if the knees were hinged with paper—and I slammed into a heap on the floor . . .

  Something dark crashed toward me. I caught it with both hands. It may have been a foot kicking at my face. I wrung it as a washerwoman wrings a towel.

  Down my spine ran jar after jar. Perhaps somebody was beating me over the head. I don’t know. My head wasn’t alive. The blow that had knocked me down had numbed me all over. My eyes were no good. Shadows swam to and fro in front of them—that was all. I struck, gouged, tore at the shadows. Sometimes I found nothing. Sometimes I found things that felt like parts of bodies. Then I would hammer at them, tear at them.

  My gun was gone.

  My hearing was no better than my sight—or not so good. There wasn’t a sound in the world. I moved in a silence that was more complete than any silence I had ever known. I was a ghost fighting ghosts.

  I found presently that my feet were under me again, though some squirming thing was on my back, and kept me from standing upright: A hot, damp thing like a hand was across my face.

  I put my teeth into it. I snapped my head back as far as it would go. Maybe it smashed into the face it was meant for. I don’t know. Anyhow the squirming thing was no longer on my back.

  Dimly I realized that I was being buffeted about by blows that I was too numb to feel. Ceaselessly, with head and shoulders and elbows and fists and knees and feet, I struck at the shadows that were around me . . .

  Suddenly I could see again—not clearly—but the shadows were taking on colors; and my ears came back a little, so that grunts and growls and curses and the impact of blows sounded in them. My straining gaze rested upon a brass cuspidor six inches or so in front of my eyes. I knew then that I was down on the floor again.

  As I twisted about to hurl a foot into a soft body above me, something that was like a burn, but wasn’t a burn, ran down one leg—a knife. The sting of it brought consciousness back into me with a rush.

  I grabbed the brass cuspidor and used it to club a way to my feet—to club a clear space in front of me. Men were hurling themselves upon me. I swung the cuspidor high and flung it over their heads through the frosted glass door into California Street.

  Then we fought some more.

  But you can’t throw a brass cuspidor through a glass door into California Street between Montgomery and Kearny without attracting attention—it’s too near the heart of daytime San Francisco. So presently—when I was on the floor again with six or eight hundred pounds of flesh hammering my face into the boards—we were pulled apart, and I was dug out of the bottom of the pile by a squad of policemen.

  Big sandy−haired Coffee was one of them, but it took a lot of arguing to convince him that I was the Continental operative who had talked to him a little while before.

  “Man! Man!” he said, when I finally convinced him. “Them lads sure—God!—have worked you over! You got a face like a wet geranium!”

  I didn’t laugh. It wasn’t funny.

  I looked out of the one eye which was working just now at the five men lined up across the office—Soules, the three inky printers, and the man with the blurred ‘s,’ who had started the slaughter by tapping me on the back of the head.

  He was a rather tall man of thirty or so, with a round ruddy face that wore a few bruises now. He had been, apparently, rather well−dressed in expensive black clothing, but he was torn and ragged now. I knew who he was without asking—Hendrik Van Pelt.

  “Well, man, what’s the answer?” Coffee was asking me.

  By holding one side of my jaw firmly with one hand I found that I could talk without too much pain.

  “This is the crowd that ran down Newhouse,” I said, “and it wasn’t an accident. I wouldn’t mind having a few more of the details myself, but I was jumped before I got around to all of them. Newhouse had a hundred−florin note in his hand when he was run down, and he was walking in the direction of police headquarters—was only half a block away from the Hall of Justice.

  “Soules tells me that Newhouse said he was going up to Portsmouth Square to sit in the sun. But Soules didn’t seem to know that Newhouse was wearing a black eye—the one you told me you had investigated. If Soules didn’t see the shiner, then it’s a good bet that Soules didn’t see Newhouse’s face that day!

  “Newhouse was walking from his printing shop toward police headquarters with a piece of foreign paper money in his hand—remember that!

  “He had frequent spells of sickness, which, according to friend Soules, always before kept him at home for a week or ten days at a time. This time he was laid up for only two and a half days.

  “Soules tells me that the shop is three days behin
d with its orders, and he says that’s the first time in eight years they’ve ever been behind. He blames Newhouse’s death—which only happened yesterday. Apparently, Newhouse’s previous sick spells never delayed things—why should this last spell?

  “Two printers were fired last week, and two new ones hired the very next day—pretty quick work. The car with which Newhouse was run down was taken from just around the corner, and was deserted within quick walking distance of the shop. It was left facing north, which is pretty good evidence that its occupants went south after they got out. Ordinary car thieves wouldn’t have circled back in the direction from which they came.

  “Here’s my guess: This Van Pelt is a Dutchman, and he had some plates for phoney hundred−florin notes. He hunted around until he found a printer who would go in with him. He found Soules, the foreman of a shop whose proprietor was now and then at home for a week or more at a time with a bad heart. One of the printers under Soules was willing to go in with them. Maybe the other two turned the offer down. Maybe Soules didn’t ask them at all. Anyhow, they were discharged, and two friends of Soules were given their places.

  “Our friends then got everything ready, and waited for Newhouse’s heart to flop again. It did—Monday night. As soon as his wife called up next morning and said he was sick, these birds started running off their counterfeits. That’s why they fell behind with their regular work. But this spell of Newhouse’s was lighter than usual. He was up and moving around within two days, and yesterday afternoon he came down here for a few minutes.

  “He must have walked in while all of our friends were extremely busy in some far corner. He must have spotted some of the phoney money, immediately sized up the situation, grabbed one bill to show the police, and started out for police headquarters—no doubt thinking he had not been seen by our friends here.

  “They must have got a glimpse of him as he was leaving, however. Two of them followed him out. They couldn’t, afoot, safely knock him over within a block or two of the Hall of Justice. But, turning the corner, they found Chrostwaite’s car standing there with idling engine. That solved their getaway problem. They got in the car and went on after Newhouse. I suppose the original plan was to shoot him—but he crossed Clay Street with his eyes fastened upon the phoney money in his hand. That gave them a golden chance. They piled the car into him. It was sure death, they knew his bum heart would finish the job if the actual collision didn’t kill him. Then they deserted the car and came back here.

  “There are a lot of loose ends to be gathered in—but this pipe−dream I’ve just told you fits in with all the facts we know—and I’ll bet a month’s salary I’m not far off anywhere. There ought be a three−day crop of Dutch notes cached somewhere! You people—”

  I suppose I’d have gone on talking forever—in the giddy, head−swimming intoxication of utter exhaustion that filled me—if the big sandy−haired patrolman hadn’t shut me off by putting a big hand across my mouth.

  “Be quiet, man,” he said, lifting me out the chair, and spreading me flat on my back on the desk. “I’ll have an ambulance here in a second for you.”

  The office was swirling around in front of my one open eye—the yellow ceiling swung down toward me, rose again, disappeared, came back in odd shapes. I turned my head to one side to avoid it, and my glance rested upon the white dial of a spinning clock.

  Presently the dial came to rest, and I read it—four o’clock.

  I remembered that Chrostwaite had broken up our conference in Vance Richmond’s office at three, and I had started to work.

  “One full hour!” I tried to tell Coffee before I went to sleep.

  The police wound up the job while I was lying on my back in bed. In Van Pelt’s office on Bush Street they found a great bale of hundred−florin notes. Van Pelt, they learned, had a considerable reputation in Europe as a high−class counterfeiter. One of the printers came through, stating that Van Pelt and Soules were the two who followed Newhouse out of the shop, and killed him.

  THE HOUSE IN TURK STREET

  I had been told that the man for whom I was hunting lived in a certain Turk Street block, but my informant hadn’t been able to give me his house number. Thus it came about that late one rainy afternoon I was canvassing this certain block, ringing each bell, and reciting a myth that went like this:

  “I’m from the law office of Wellington and Berkeley. One of our clients—an elderly lady—was thrown from the rear platform of a street car last week and severely injured. Among those who witnessed the accident was a young man whose name we don’t know. But we have been told that he lives in this neighborhood.” Then I would describe the man I wanted, and wind up: “Do you know of anyone who looks like that?”

  All down one side of the block the answers were: “No,” “No,” “No.”

  I crossed the street and started on the other side. The first house: “No.” The second: “No.” The third. The fourth. The fifth—

  No one came to the door in answer to my first ring. After a while, I rang again. I had just decided that no one was at home, when the knob turned slowly and a little old woman opened the door. She was a very fragile little old woman, with a piece of gray knitting in one hand, and faded eyes that twinkled pleasantly behind goldrimmed spectacles. She wore a stiffly starched apron over a black dress.

  “Good evening,” she said in a thin friendly voice. “I hope you didn’t mind waiting. I always have to peep out to see who’s there before I open the door—an old woman’s timidity.”

  “Sorry to disturb you,” I apologized. “But—”

  “Won’t you come in, please?”

  “No; I just want a little information. I won’t take much time.”

  “I wish you would come in,” she said, and then added with mock severity, “I’m sure my tea is getting cold.”

  She took my damp hat and coat, and I followed her down a narrow hall to a dim room, where a man got up as we entered. He was old too, and stout, with a thin white beard that fell upon a white vest that was as stiffly starched as the woman’s apron.

  “Thomas,” the little fragile woman told him; “this is Mr.—”

  “Tracy,” I said, because that was the name I had given the other residents of the block; but I came as near blushing when I said it as I have in fifteen years. These folks weren’t made to be lied to.

  Their name, I learned, was Quarre; and they were an affectionate old couple. She called him “Thomas” every time she spoke to him, rolling the name around in her mouth as if she liked the taste of it. He called her “my dear” just as frequently, and twice he got up to adjust a cushion more comfortably to her frail back.

  I had to drink a cup of tea with them and eat some little spiced cookies before I could get them to listen to a question. Then Mrs. Quarre made little sympathetic clicking sounds with her tongue and teeth, while I told about the elderly lady who had fallen off a street car. The old man rumbled in his beard that it was “a damn shame,” and gave me a fat cigar.

  Finally I got away from the accident, and described the man I wanted.

  “Thomas,” Mrs. Quarre said, “isn’t that the young man who lives in the house with the railing—the one who always looks so worried?”

  The old man stroked his snowy beard and pondered for a moment.

  “But, my dear,” he rumbled at last, “hasn’t he got dark hair?”

  She beamed upon her husband. “Thomas is so observant,” she said with pride. “I had forgotten; but the young man I spoke of does have dark hair, so he couldn’t be the one.”

  The old man then suggested that one who lived in the block below might be my man. They discussed this one at some length before they decided that he was too tall and too old. Mrs. Quarre suggested another. They discussed that one, and voted against him. Thomas offered a candidate; he was weighed and discarded. They chattered on.

  Darkness settled. The old man turned on a light in a tall lamp that threw a soft yellow circle upon us, and left the rest of the room dim.
The room was a large one, and heavy with the thick hangings and bulky horsehair furniture of a generation ago. I didn’t expect to get any information here; but I was comfortable, and the cigar was a good one. Time enough to go out into the drizzle when I had finished my smoke.

  Something cold touched the nape of my neck.

  “Stand up!”

  I didn’t stand up: I couldn’t. I was paralyzed. I sat and blinked at the Quarres.

  And looking at them, I knew that something cold couldn’t be against the back of my neck; a harsh voice couldn’t have ordered me to stand up. It wasn’t possible!

  Mrs. Quarre still sat primly upright against the cushions her husband had adjusted to her back; her eyes still twinkled with friendliness behind her glasses. The old man still stroked his white beard, and let cigar smoke drift unhurriedly from his nostrils.

  They would go on talking about the young men in the neighborhood who might be the man I wanted. Nothing had happened. I had dozed.

  “Get up!” The cold thing against my neck jabbed deep into the flesh.

  I stood up. “Frisk him,” the harsh voice came from behind.

  The old man carefully laid his cigar down, came to me, and ran his hands over my body. Satisfied that I was unarmed, he emptied my pockets, dropping the contents upon the chair that I had just left.

  “That’s all,” he told the man behind me, and returned to his chair.

  “Turn around, you!” the harsh voice ordered.

  I turned and faced a tall, gaunt, raw-boned man of about my own age, which is thirty-five. He had an ugly face—hollow-cheeked, bony, and spattered with big pale freckles. His eyes were of a watery blue, and his nose and chin stuck out abruptly. “Know me?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re a liar!”

  I didn’t argue the point; he was holding a gun in one big freckled hand.

  “You’re going to know me pretty well before you’re through with me,” this big ugly man threatened. “You’re going to—”

  “Hook!” a voice came from a portiered doorway—the doorway through which the ugly man had no doubt crept up behind me. “Hook, come here!” The voice was feminine—young, clear, and musical.