“Of course,” said Sackler. “I appreciate your feeling. I offer you all the facilities of our office.”
The lawyer lit a cigar. “The procedure seems ridiculous to me,” he said. “The police have released Bellows. As long as they know the defense will call Barker, they won’t dare prosecute even though they’re satisfied they have a cold motive. To retain a private operative under the circumstances seems unnecessary and a waste of money.”
Sackler paled. This was heretical talk, indeed. He took swift, drastic measures to prevent the fee from slipping away before he had even held it in his grasping hand.
“A man’s reputation,” he said sententiously, “is his greatest asset. I think it essential Bellows’ name be cleared before the bar of public opinion.”
Bellows nodded. “That’s what we think. I mean Alice and myself. Besides, we should expend all effort to discover the actual murderer. Justis and I disagree on this. We’ve already argued about it. But my mind is definitely made up.”
He reached inside his breast pocket and withdrew his wallet. The ethereal expression on Sackler’s face shone with a holy light. He handed Sackler a blue oblong piece of paper. He said, a shade of anxiety in his tone: “Will fifteen hundred be all right?”
Sackler looked at the check with the eye of Romeo regarding Juliet.
“Payable to me,” he murmured. “But the signature?”
“Miss Grattan’s,” said Bellows. “She’s helping me finance the investigation into her father’s death. She wrote out the check.”
“Quite satisfactory,” said Sackler. “I shall undertake the investigation. I shall probably want to interview Miss Grattan and both of you gentlemen at my leisure. I shall get in touch with you if you’ll leave your addresses with my assistant.”
I took their addresses and they left. I brooded at my desk. It seemed to me that money fell into Sackler’s lap like manna from heaven. And in this specific case there had been no stipulation made that he must solve the case. The fee was his no matter what. And since the police had been able to unearth no suspect beyond Bellows, it apparently wasn’t going to be easy.
After about ten minutes Sackler got up and reached for his hat. I didn’t bother to ask him where he was going. I knew. Rex Sackler kept no checking account. Moreover, he wasted no time in turning a check into immediate cash ready for deposit in one of his several Postal Savings accounts.
Now, I knew, he was heading posthaste to Alice Grattan’s bank to exchange the blue paper in his pocket for green bills. It would be utterly impossible for him to put his mind on the case until that detail had been taken care of.
He walked to the door, said over his shoulder, “Back in a few minutes, Joey,” then stopped dead on the threshold.
A burly figure moved in from the anteroom. The door closed behind it. The burly figure fixed Sackler with a pair of cold black eyes. Two thick lips moved and a strong Brooklyn accent said: “You’re Sackler, ain’t you?”
Sackler nodded. The stranger came farther into the room forcing Sackler back with him. He was flashily dressed in a light brown suit with pockets looking as if they’d been slashed in the fabric with a sword. His tie was bright yellow and the red scar that rippled down his cheek from temple to chin added no beauty to his appearance.
He thrust, suddenly, a heavy hand into the right pocket of his coat. He withdrew it again, gripping an automatic. Its muzzle aimed at a spot of space directly between Sackler and myself.
“All right, you guys,” he said. “Give me your dough.”
Sackler stared at him as if fate had slammed him over the head with an invisible baseball bat. Stunned amazement was in his eyes. It was bad enough for him to face the threat of having money removed from his person. But a stickup in the office of a private detective was only slightly better than a heist in the Second Precinct House.
Our holdup man’s eyes flickered with impatience. “Youse guys will empty your wallets on the top of the desk,” he announced. “If there’s enough dough there, I won’t bother with the rest of the joint. Now get started.”
Sackler glanced at the automatic. Then he turned his gaze on me. “O. K., Joey,” he said as if he were a German general telling the boys to knock off Switzerland, “take him.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Take him?”
“It’s your department,” said Sackler. “I furnish the brains and the financial backing. You’re the strong man.”
I removed my gaze from Sackler and studied the muzzle of our visitor’s automatic. I estimated roughly it would take him all of four-fifths of a second to pump me full of lead. Conservatively, it would take me three seconds longer to open my desk drawer, grab my own gun and start shooting.
I moved my left hand slowly toward the inside breast pocket of my coat. To remove any possible misunderstanding, I announced clearly: “I am reaching for my wallet.”
I emptied the wallet on the desk. I tendered the sum of nine dollars to the stickup guy. I said, “That’s the roll,” folded my arms and let Sackler play out the rest of the hand.
Sackler looked at me like a child who has discovered that his mother’s morals are not what he supposed. He opened his mouth preparatory to casting bitter reflection on my physical courage, but before he could articulate the words, the thug spoke impatiently.
“All right, you. Hand over the dough. We ain’t got all day.”
Sackler took his wallet from his pocket with all the enthusiasm of a debutante picking up a rattlesnake. He put its contents on his desk. Rather to my disappointment the cash totaled only six dollars besides, of course, the Bellows check.
Our holdup man, maneuvering his gun, moved carefully across the room and picked it up. Sackler, a catch in his voice, said: “You don’t need that check. It’s made out to me. You can’t cash it.”
The scar-faced man sighed wearily as he picked up the check and the money.
“Why don’t you mind your own business,” he asked petulantly, “and leave me mind mine. Now, I’m going. You better stay here for at least five minutes because you don’t know how long I might wait in the hall ready to plug youse guys if you come out.”
He backed to the door and through it, slammed it and disappeared. Sackler fixed me with a halibut’s stare. “After him,” he said. “Go get him.”
“I shall not. He is a professional thug. It is more than possible he will stand outside for a few minutes ready to shoot if I come out.”
He looked at me as if he had nailed me red-handed with a jimmy at the poor-box. He brought up a sigh of resignation from his heels.
“Joey,” he said heavily, as if more hurt than angry, “my opinion of your mentality has never been high. My estimate of your morals has been none too optimistic. However, I never believed that, with all your faults, you were yellow.”
“That,” I said, “we won’t argue. But you might revise your opinion of my mentality. Since that mug could have plugged us both while I was still going for my gun, you might grant that I’m not a complete moron.”
“You sat there,” he said accusingly, “while he rolled me for fifteen hundred and six dollars.”
“He rolled me for nine. He rolled you for six. You can have payment stopped on the check and get yourself another.”
“The money, Joey, is nothing. It is a matter—” He paused. Then as if reaching the conclusion he was wasting valuable time, he snapped: “Get that Grattan woman on the phone. Tell her we were robbed. Have her stop payment at once and mail us another check. Hurry, Joey.”