“Drop it, rat,” some one outside said.
Stivers was too panicky to drop it. He fired his gun once, wildly.
He was answered by a single crack from a Police Positive and he caught the slug in the most painful place, the kneecap, and crumbled like the 1929 stock market.
I didn’t need a map then. I knew it was Poppa Hanley. Kneecaps are his favorite targets.
He came in, roaring, “Daffy! Daffy, are you all right?”
“Yea, verily,” I said, sighing at the sight of the shambles. “Would you mind, Mr. Houdini, telling an ignorant reporter how you got to this garden of Eden?”
Hanley stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth and put up his gun. “Hell,” he grunted stolidly. “I been following you ever since you said you had a lead, and it’s been a nice merry-go-round. When these two Pollyannas picked you up, I figured your lead was too hot. And as for the front door — why do you figure I carry this ring of keys?”
“Well,” I said, “congratulations. The big one slipped Rainsford the cyanide. The little one engineered the whole thing.”
“What’s this broken dagger?” asked Hanley gruffly. “They were looking for the rubies, hah?”
“Hey, Fido Vance,” I lied, “how come you know that, too?”
“Know it?” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Wasn’t I the guy who found a stack of smuggled stones in the heels of Rainsford’s shoes? Him and these scrambled yeggs were in cahoots on a little side-smuggling. They double-crossed Rajnsford after he had double-crossed them!”
I sighed.
“Poppa, you get too smart. You are very bad for my ego. And now if you will kindly pass the smelling salts I will get to a telephone and inform the Old Man that he has something in the nature of a small scoop.”
Things like that make the Old Man almost human...
Backfire
by Robert E. Larkin
John Cramer was one of the slickest confidence men in the game until he tried a fast play in a new racket.
Three times John Cramer read the letter that lay on the desk before him. Three times he cursed the sender of the letter, Peter Rush, the founder of the Land Owner’s Loan Company, and Cramer’s senior partner.
Why, he wondered, did Rush have to pick now, of all times, to retire? Cramer fidgeted. One good break was all he needed in the stock market. He could then replace the shortage and no one would be the wiser. But now — he cursed Rush again, and for the fourth time reread the letter.
It was short and to the point. The auditors would arrive on the morrow at the request of Peter Rush to go over the company’s books.
Six years had passed since that day Rush had taken him into the firm. Six years. It had been a long, hard climb, but he had made it. He looked at the lettering on the glass panel of his office door: “J. Cramer, Vice President and Treasurer.” Again he cursed Rush, as his mind went back over the years.
Unknown to Rush, Cramer had once been one of the slickest confidence men in the game. At the time Rush offered to take him into the firm, things were going bad. People no longer had ready cash to be taken in by any cock-and-bull story that was put up to them. Hence, he had snatched at Rush’s offer like a drowning man, sensing an easy mark in the trusting loan company’s president.
And now Rush had decided to retire and take things easy. It had been a sudden decision. With his retirement in mind, he had made arrangements to turn the firm over to Cramer, taking a large amount of the working capital and the rest in payments, which could be decided on at a future date.
Rush’s decision, however, came at a time which threatened to play havoc with Cramer’s plans. For three years, now, Cramer had been “borrowing” from the firm’s ready cash, faking entries in the books, always chasing that elusive “strike” in the market. Time after time, he had taken company funds to play a hunch, with the result that he became more deeply imbedded in the clutching mire of debt.
Thoughts drummed at Cramer’s mind as he sat there in his office. Where was he going to get twenty-one thousand dollars before tomorrow? Of course, there was the joint insurance policy he and Rush had taken out. But a loan on the insurance would still fall short of the necessary amount. He needed all of it.
He thought of the trusting Rush who had insisted that the policy be taken out at once, and in favor of either, should anything befall the other. The policy was for twenty-five thousand dollars. He must have that money.
If anything should happen to Rush before the auditors came in the morning, the examination would be put off long enough to give him time to collect the insurance and replace the money.
Cramer had not flinched at the thought of murder. Since first reading the letter he had given it much thought, but was at a loss to find a means of carrying out the plan. His glance strayed to the office window. He stiffened suddenly. A car standing on the opposite side of the street caught and held his attention.
He remembered the auto show he and Rush had visited several months before, and how they had taken a liking for the same car. Both had ordered one of exactly the same model in every detail.
Rising quickly, his eyes were cold and expressionless as fish eyes as he went over his suddenly formulated plan. Satisfied, he strode to the hat rack, donned his hat and left hurriedly.
Cramer brought his car to a stop before one of a long row of brownstone houses in the poorer part of the city. The house, a very familiar one to Cramer, was the headquarters of one of the city’s most daring auto theft rings, and known to very few persons.
Cramer mounted the half dozen steps and knocked on the heavy door. A slot opened and a pair of eyes surveyed him. The slot closed and the door opened and he was ushered into the presence of the big shot of the “Hot Car” ring.
Marty Reecher, seated behind a battered desk in an equally battered chair, was a slim, nattily dressed mar of forty with a small, brown mustache waxed at the ends. Nothing in his appearance betrayed him for what he was, as he deliberately studied Cramer’s heavy form for several seconds.
“You look like you’re in the money, Evans,” he finally drawled. “Things must be looking up these days.”
“The name is not Evans, now,” Cramer told him shortly. “And I didn’t come here to pass the time of day.”
“But I thought you were out of the racket,” Reecher returned questioningly. “What business can you have with me?”
“Whether I’m in or out of the racket is nobody’s business but mine,” Cramer snapped. “But let it pass I’m here on business. Of course, you remember a little case some seven or eight years ago in which my testimony saved you from a little stretch up the river?”
“So what?” Reecher demanded. “You don’t have to remind me of it. What do you want?”
Cramer drew a sheaf of bills from his breast pocket and tossed them on the desk in front of Reecher.
“There’s two hundred there,” he remarked as Reecher picked up the bills and started to count them. “I want a little job done on my car. Do the job right and there’s another three hundred that goes with that.”
“For five hundred dollars I’d build you a new car,” Reecher assured him. “Whatever it is, you can consider it already done.”
Eight thirty the next morning found Cramer bringing his car to a stop in front of his partner’s home. Rush’s car, an exact duplicate of his own, was already parked there. He thought the setting perfect as he switched off the ignition and started to climb out.
He was too intently thoughtful, however, to notice that his partner’s car, as usual, partly obstructed the driveway, a habit formed by the aging Rush who much preferred walking up and down the less tiring, gentle slope of the drive to that of the several short flights of stone steps.