Carl Schwartz made three calls that day.
The evening papers featured the new jewelry exhibit, mentioned the prominence of the social leaders who would conduct the opening, hinted that invitations were confined to those whose standing was beyond question, and that others of the outer shell were bidding high for invitations. It was a good bit of publicity.
That evening I tailed Schwartz. He was a cinch after one got to know his habits. Always at the start he took great precautions to see that he wasn’t followed, and then, when he had convinced himself there was no one on his wind, he went simply about his business without so much as a glance at his backtrail.
At eleven he was at The Purple Cow, a cabaret and night club of the wilder sort, and there he was joined by the girl I had lost, the girl I knew as Maude Enders, the girl with the mole on her left hand. That was the break I had been looking for.
By that time I was willing to hazard a bet that the girl was living at the Brookfield Apartments. If Schwartz was in touch with her every night that would explain his visit to the Brookfield the night before.
I knew this girl as a member of the gang of Icy-Eyes, the master crook. I knew that she was a close worker, an inner lieutenant, and somewhere along the line she would report to the man himself. Was Schwartz a crook? Going to Moe Silverstein’s would indicate that he was. Perhaps he was merely being played by the girl with the mole. Icy-Eyes had the girl with the mole under his thumb. There was the matter of that murder I had stumbled on… Perhaps Maude Enders hadn’t killed that man, but the simple facts of the case would look pretty black before a jury, and Icy-Eyes had those facts, had planted witnesses who would see and hear. Maude Enders would do as he said or…
I knew the girl had the eye of a hawk when it came to penetrating disguises, and I had enough of a lead for one night. I sauntered back to my hotel without hanging around The Purple Cow.
At the hotel I got a shock. The police were on my trail. I knew it even before I got in the lobby. There were too many people hanging around the front of the hotel. There was the car with the red spotlight on the right-hand side. I ducked in an alley and slipped off my disguise. I had another concealed in a little bag under my left armpit, a disguise that was good enough to fool the police.
I slipped into the lobby and listened. There was no doubt of it. The clerk was explaining volubly as he took back my room key. I got a glimpse of the number as it was hung back on the board.
“He’ll probably be in any time now,” said the clerk.
The flat foot who was holding him under the hypnotic stare of the police department’s best glare shifted his cigar and tried to look tough.
“Give me the office when he shows up. We’ve a straight tip on this thing.”
I sauntered over and sat in the lobby behind a palm tree and did some thinking. I hadn’t been followed when I came to the hotel. My disguise would fool the police. Somewhere I had slipped. Probably there had been someone watching Schwartz, and that someone had picked me up as I took a hand in the game. After all, I was playing against a big combination, a clever combination, and they were pretty keen to have me out of the way. The police in California had nothing on me, but with my record they didn’t need much. Just the faintest bit of circumstantial evidence, and they’d have me before a jury, and the jury would take one look at my past record, and the verdict would be in inside of ten minutes.
I went out, took off my disguise so that I was myself once more, and set my feet toward the Brookfield Apartments. I was just a little hot under the collar. I’d respected my immunity in California, and hadn’t gone after other people’s property. As a result the California police, the California crooks didn’t know the real Ed Jenkins. I’d only bestirred myself when there was something in the wind, when someone had tried to frame something on me, and then, nine times out of ten, I’d handled the thing so smoothly, and kept in the background so entirely that the crook who had got his didn’t know that the peculiar coincidences which had betrayed him were really engineered by the man he was trying to frame.
It wasn’t difficult to get the girl with the mole located. It took ten dollars and five minutes. That mole on her left hand was a big help. She had come in alone fifteen minutes ago.
I went to her apartment, and selected a pass key before the door. It was probably a little ungentlemanly to walk into a girl’s apartment that way, particularly when she might be retiring, but I couldn’t very well stand in the hall and carry on a conversation through the closed door, telling the whole world the message I was going to deliver to that girl.
The second key did the trick, the lock slipped back and I was inside. The room I entered was illuminated by a silk-shaded reading lamp, furnished after the manner of furnished apartments, and filled with the odor of some subtle perfume. There was no one in the room, but there came the sound of rustling garments from a little dressing closet that opened off of the back end.
I walked in toward the light.
“Come in, Ed Jenkins, draw up a chair. I’ll be with you as soon as I have my kimono on.”
It was the voice of the girl with the mole, and she was in the dressing closet. She couldn’t see me. How did she know who I was? It was too many for me. This gang was more confoundedly clever than I’d given it credit for, but I wouldn’t show surprise.
“Take your time,” I said. “You got my card?”
If she was going to act smart I’d pretend I’d sent up a card and see what that got me.
It got me a laugh, a low, rippling, throaty laugh.
“No, Ed, I didn’t; but after I saw you at The Purple Cow this evening, and after you had to fit two keys to the door in order to get it open, I didn’t need any card. In fact I rather expected you. The others thought you’d spend the night in jail, but I knew you better.”
With that she walked out, a rose-colored kimono clinging to her youthful form, one bare arm outstretched and her soft, white hand held gracefully out.
I took the hand and raised it to my lips.
“Why the sudden deference?” she asked.
“Merely a recognition of your cleverness,” I answered. “You know, Maude, I should hate to have to kill you — after all.”
“Yes,” she rippled, “I should hate to have you.”
I bowed. “About the murder of R, C. Rupert. I happened to stumble across some witnesses, some witnesses who saw a girl with a mole running frantically down the stairs just about the time of the killing. They claim they could identify the woman if they should see her again.”
Her hand went to her throat, her face white.
“Ed,” she gasped, “Ed… It wasn’t you! You didn’t do that job?”
There was such genuine emotion, such horror in her tone, that I was puzzled. My whole plan of action began to dissolve into nothing.
“I kill him?” I said. “I never saw the man in my life. I had thought you killed him.”
She shook her head, her eyes wide.
“I came into the apartment just after he had been struck down. In fact the blow was delivered just as I stepped inside the door. It was dark, and by the time I found a light I saw what had happened, and then I knew I had walked into a trap. For once I lost my head and dashed down the stairs, and there was that man and woman coming up, and then I knew, knew that they were there to see me as I burst from the apartment, knew that some people wanted to hold a murder charge over my head — and now when you sought to use that club I thought that it was you.”