I hadn’t much more than put the diamonds where I felt they would be safe and planted the buttons in the shoe, than there came a knock on the door. I wondered if it was the police coming to make a search in response to an anonymous tip. I didn’t think it would be, not just then, but figured Herman would hold that plant as a last resort. Probably he’d try several other methods first, then he’d get me pinched for having pulled the job of lifting the necklace those three stones came from, and then pull some political wires to get me out when I agreed to his terms. There was just one flaw in his plans. I didn’t propose to be taken in the first place.
I flung open the door, holding Bobo back, and found there was a uniformed chauffeur with a note. The note was typewritten and signed.
“Jenkins: Please come with the bearer to the place where you had the conference last night. You won’t regret it.”
“Go on back to the car. I’ll be down in a minute,” I told the chauffeur. After all, I might as well give this crook all the rope he wanted. After finding those three diamonds I began to feel that he was going to bring some trouble on himself. I don’t care how much of a devil he is, or how ruthless, the man that tries to hang a crime on Ed Jenkins wants to watch his step.
I parked Bobo in back of the door where I knew he’d make things hot for anyone who tried to enter the apartment, and put on my overcoat. I hardly ever carry a gun. I can do more with my wits than I can with a gun, and a cop can pinch you for carrying a gun. He can’t pinch you for having your wits about you.
The chauffeur had a good car, and knew his business.
We slipped through traffic in short order, bowled through the streamers of thick fog, and drew up before Don G. Herman’s great, dark yard with the black outline of the house looming above, broken only by a yellow square of light where the hall window gave forth the gleam within.
I went up the steps as though I was a regular caller and before I could ring the bell the door was thrown open and Herman, himself stood bowing upon the threshold.
“Come in, Mr. Jenkins. Come in. It is indeed a pleasure to have you accept my invitation so promptly and willingly.”
His spongy lips were twisted all over his face, and I let him do the talking. He seemed to like it.
“Jenkins, I think you went off at half cock last night. You didn’t hear all of my proposition, and you seemed to think I might be trying to double-cross you.”
I thought of the diamonds in my shoe heel, but said nothing. He had something to spill, and I wasn’t going to take part in the social preliminaries.
“Now look here, Jenkins,” He leaned forward, putting one of his chubby fingers on my knee, “I’m on the square with you. The putting through of this enterprise is going to cost me a lot of money. It will mean more in the way of a money sacrifice than you can ever imagine.”
I thought of the ten promissory notes for ten thousand each, and took it out in thinking. If he played square with that jane, and the notes weren’t clever forgeries it was a cinch it was going to cost him something.
“Now you’ve got an idea that the paper isn’t worth all of this trouble, that maybe I’m using you as a cat’s paw because of your criminal record. That isn’t so. I’m willing to give you any guarantee of my good faith you may need.
“All I want you to do is to be within that house on a certain date — the date that Kemper receives the paper in question, and to make a photographic copy of it. I’ll arrange to have you provided with all the necessary equipment, and I’ll see that you get in the house on the proper footing to have the general run of the premises and no questions asked. Of course, the marriage will be a little sudden, and the social circles will be stirred up a bit. You two will have to stage an elopement and throw in a lot of romance. Perhaps the Kempers are the only ones who would invite you unsight unseen, but it happens that both Kemper and his wife are nuts over Helen Chadwick, and anything she does is all right with them. I’ll arrange the invitation all right.
“Here’s something else. I’m going to put myself absolutely in your hands. Here’s a statement all in my handwriting and signed by me to the effect that you are entering my employ and that I have commissioned you to enter Kemper’s house in accordance with the plan I have outlined and go through his safe — that in all of this you are my agent. Now I wouldn’t be willing to play into your hands with a statement like that unless I was on the square with you would I?”
I shook my head. “No, you wouldn’t,” I said aloud, and to myself I multiplied it by one hundred. If he’d give me a statement like that in his own handwriting he’d be eighteen kinds of a damn fool, to say nothing of having given me the whip hand and all the rest of it.
He nodded, a nod of satisfaction.
“That’s the satisfactory part of playing the game with a man who has brains, Jenkins. You can see just where I’d be with a statement like that in your hands. I’d have to play square. All right. Here you are. Read it at your leisure, and then tell me if you don’t feel I’m on the square.
“I’m going to tell you one thing more. That girl Helen Chadwick’s one peachy looking girl. She’s about twenty-two, a regular flapper, bright as a dollar, smart as a whip, and she’ll make you a good wife, Jenkins. I’ll see to that. She’ll make you a good wife. There’s many a man would go through hell’s fire for the chance…”
His spongy lips were twisting and working, but he broke off when he saw my eyes.
“No offense, of course, Jenkins. No offense. After all, I’m speaking of your future wife. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
I looked him in the eyes.
“Herman, I’ve warned you once, and now I’m going to warn you twice. Don’t try to double-cross me. I’m not looking for trouble, but I don’t want to have anyone try to slip anything over on me. I’ve got a brittle disposition.”
He looked at me with his wide-eyed, innocent attitude.
“Why, Jenkins, I’m one of the best friends you’ve ever had. Think of it. Just for a few minutes nice, clean work and I’m going to see that you get pardoned. I’m going to see that you marry into one of the most prominent and exclusive of families, that you have a beautiful young girl as your own… of course the marriage will be annulled afterward, or there’ll be a divorce granted, but you’d ought to get something out of that, and you’ll have the honeymoon, you know…”
I held up my hand.
“You’ve had my warning, never mind the rambling around, and I’m going to tell you one thing more. I’m not sensitive, and I’m a crook, but I am a gentleman, and don’t want you mentioning anything more about that marriage. Now I’m going and you can think that over. You’ve had your second warning, and it’s the last.”
He didn’t like the tone of my voice and he almost blew up at that last. I could see the muscles around his eyes quiver as he started to lose his temper, and show me the devil that was in him again, but he managed to keep them wide open.
“All right. Now I’m going to say something, Jenkins. I’ve been square with you. You won’t realize how square until you read that paper. All I’ve got from you in return is a lot of wisecracks and threats. Now let me say something. If you do as I say, well and good. You’ll find I’m a square shooter, and the best man to work with you ever had, also the most grateful.
“BUT, you turn me down on this, or you make any more of those wisecracks, and see what happens to you. Now laugh that off.”
For a few minutes we stood there eye to eye. He was mad clear through, holding his eyes wide and innocent looking by an effort. I was just beginning to get that cold rage that comes up within me at intervals when someone is trying a dirty double cross. For two pins he’d have been my meat right then. Not murder, for I don’t care for murder, but I’d match wits with him, outguess him at the finish and leave him in the toils of the law, fast in the trap he’d laid for me… But I shook off the feeling. After all he’d been warned. I’d handed it to him straight and I was going to turn him down cold on his proposition. After that it was up to him. If anything should happen and a squad of detectives came to look through my apartment, and chanced to look in the heel of that shoe… Oh well, then Don G. Herman was going to find that he’d stirred up a rattlesnake.