She looked back. The metal was riddled with holes, parts of the body had even been ripped into great, jagged tears.
“Your beloved auntie didn’t want you kidnapped. She wanted you murdered. Right now she figures that you’re dead, that I am gazing in shocked surprise at the dead body of a girl I’ve kidnapped, the police on my trail, the neighborhood aroused. Naturally she thinks I’ll have my hands full for a while, and that she won’t be bothered with me any more, either with me or with you.”
The girl nodded.
“I didn’t say so before, but I’ve been afraid of Aunt Hattie for a long time. It’s an awful thing to say about one’s own aunt, but she’s absolutely selfish, selfish and unscrupulous.”
I drove along in silence for a while.
“What are you going to do?” asked the kid.
“Ditch this car, get off the street, hide out for a few days, and find out what it’s all about. Your aunt tried to double-cross me on a deal where there’s something or other at stake. I intend to find out what. She and I will have our accounting later.”
She nodded, her chin on her fist, thinking.
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Heaven knows. If I go back I’ll probably be killed. Having gone this far, Aunt Hattie can’t afford to fail. She’ll have me killed if I show up. I guess I’ll have to hide out, too.”
“Hotel?” I asked.
“I could feel her eyes on my face, sizing me up, watching me like a hawk.
“I can’t get a room in a hotel at this hour of the night in a party dress.”
I nodded.
“Ed Jenkins, are you a gentleman?”
I shook my head. “Hell’s fire, no. I’m a crook.”
She looked at me and grinned. I could feel my mouth soften a bit.
“Ed, this is no time to stand on formalities. You know as well as I do that I’m in danger. My aunt believes me dead. If I can keep under cover, leaving her under that impression, I’ll stand a chance. I can’t hide out by myself. Either my aunt or the police would locate me in no time. You’re an experienced crook, you know all the dodges, and I think I can trust you. I’m coming with you.”
I turned the wheel of the car.
“All right,” I said. “It’s your best move, but I wanted you to suggest it. Take off those paste diamonds and leave ’em in the car. I’ve got to get rid of this car first, and then we’ll go to my hideout.”
An hour later I showed her into the apartment. I had run the car off the end of a pier. The watchman was asleep and the car had gurgled down into deep water as neatly as a duck. The watchman had heard the splash, but that’s all the good it did him.
The girl looked around the place.
“Neat and cozy,” she said. “I’m trusting you, Ed Jenkins. Good night.”
I grinned.
“Good night,” I said.
I slept late the next morning. I was tired. It was the girl who called me.
“Breakfast’s ready,” she said.
I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes.
“Breakfast?”
She grinned.
“Yep. I slipped down to the store, bought some fruit and things, and brought you the morning papers.”
I laughed outright. Here I had kidnapped a girl and now she was cooking me breakfast. She laughed, too.
“You see, I’m about broke, and I can’t go around in a party dress. I’ve got to touch you for enough money to buy some clothes, and it’s always easier to get money out of a man when he’s well-fed. Aunt Hattie told me that.”
“You’ve got to be careful about showing yourself, too,” I warned her. “Some one is likely to recognize you.”
She nodded and handed me the morning paper.
All over the front page were smeared our pictures, hers and mine. Holton had offered a reward of twenty thousand dollars for my arrest. The insurance company had added another five.
Without that, I knew the police would be hot on the trail. Their reputation was at stake. They’d leave no stone unturned. Having the girl with me was my best bet. They’d be looking for me alone, or with a girl who was being held a prisoner. They’d hardly expect to find me in a downtown apartment with the girl cooking me breakfast.
I handed Jean a five-hundred-dollar bill.
“Go get yourself some clothes. Get quiet ones, but ones that are in style. I’m disguising myself as your father. You look young and chic, wear ’em short, and paint up a bit. Don’t wait, but get started as soon as we eat.”
She dropped a curtsey.
“You’re so good to me, Ed,” she said, but there was a wistful note in her voice, and she blinked her eyes rapidly. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, either,” she added. “You don’t have to put up with me, and you’re being a real gentleman…”
That was that.
I was a little nervous until the girl got back from her shopping. I was afraid some one would spot her. She bought a suit and changed into that right at the jump, then got the rest of her things. She put in the day with needle and thread, and I did some thinking, also I coached the girl as to her part. By late afternoon we were able to buy an automobile without having anything suggest that I was other than an elderly, fond parent and the girl a helter-skelter flapper.
“Tonight you get educated as a crook,” I told her.
“Jake with me, Ed,” she replied, flashing me a smile. Whatever her thoughts may have been she seemed to have determined to be a good sport, a regular pal, and never let me see her as other than cheerful.
We slid our new car around where we could watch Big Bill Ryan’s place. He ran a little cafe where crooks frequently hung out, and he couldn’t take a chance on my having a spotter in the place. One thing was certain. If he was really behind the play he intended to have me caught and executed for murder. He knew me too well to think he could play button, button, who’s got the button with me and get away with it.
We waited until eleven, parked in the car I’d purchased, watching the door of the cafe and Big Ryan’s car. It was crude but effective. Ryan and the cat-woman both thought I had been left with the murdered body of Jean Ellery in my car, a car which had to be got rid of, a body which had to be concealed, and with all the police in the state on my track. They hardly expected I’d put in the evening watching Big Ryan with the kid leaning on my shoulder.
At eleven Ryan started out, and his face was all smiles. He tried to avoid being followed, but the car I’d purchased had all sorts of speed, and I had no trouble in the traffic. After that I turned out the lights and tailed him into West Forty-ninth Street. I got the number of the house as he stopped, flashed past once to size it up and then kept moving.
“Here’s where you get a real thrill,” I told the girl as I headed the car back toward town. “I’ve a hunch Harry Atmore’s mixed up in this thing as a sort of cat’s-paw all around, and I want to see what’s in his office.”
We stopped a block away from Atmore’s office building. I was a fatherly-looking old bird with mutton chop whiskers and a cane.
“Ever done any burglarizing?” I asked as I clumped my way along the sidewalk.
She shook her head.
“Here’s where you begin,” I said, piloted her into the office building, avoided the elevator, and began the long, tedious climb.
Atmore’s lock was simple, any door lock is, for that matter. I had expected I’d have to go take a look through the files. It wasn’t necessary. From the odor of cigar smoke in the office there’d been a late conference there. I almost fancied I could smell the incenselike perfume of the cat-woman and the aroma of her cigarettes. Tobacco smoke is peculiar. I can tell just about how fresh it is when I smell a room that’s strong with it. This was a fresh odor. On the desk was a proof of loss of the necklace, and a memo to call a certain number. I looked up the number in the telephone book. It was the number of the insurance company. That’s how I found it, simply looked up the insurance companies in the classified list and ran down the numbers.