Berman’s automatic jammed against Weatherby’s ribs. “Start walking, wise guy, towards that second door to your left and open it carefully. You’re in a jam in case you don’t know it, and it’s, going to take a lot of explaining to get out of it.”
After a few minutes Berman returned, sheathing his automatic as he entered the room. “What do you think about that guy?” He indicated with a pointed thumb the room where Weatherby was being held a prisoner.
The fingers of the deformed man drummed thoughtfully on the top of his desk. “I don’t know what to think. The punk may be telling the truth. I can’t figure him. On the other hand, he may have tailed you as you left the station because somebody ordered him to. That’s what we’ll have to find out.”
Berman paced the floor with nervous tread. He looked worried. “Where’s Harry?” he wanted to know.
The shoulders of the deformed man hunched in a shrug. His hairless head settled down between twisted shoulder blades. “I don’t know. He hasn’t got back yet, and he hasn’t phoned in.” He pawed for a moment at a loose button on his coat sleeve, then snapped: “Sit down! You make me nervous walking up and down the carpet. Harry’ll phone in the first chance he gets. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Your alibi is perfect. You were in a precinct station.”
At midnight Leon opened the hall door to admit the man in the gray suit, and closed it behind him, guarding it with his back.
Fleming’s eyes raised questioningly. “Where the devil you been keeping yourself, Harry? And don’t tell me the cops picked you up like they did Berman.”
Harry’s voice was low and strained. His eyes were still shot with harsh glints. “Give me a drink. And take one yourself, Fleming. You’re going to need it.”
From a cabinet beside his desk Fleming took out a bottle of old Scotch and some glasses. He set them on the desk. They all took a drink. Harry gulped a second for a chaser. He was breathing swiftly, jerkily.
“Talk, man!” rasped Fleming, sensing that something had gone wrong.
Harry wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I saw everything that happened when this new rod-man, Ed Kirby, met Detective Rawlings under the elevated. Kirby was standing behind one of the pillars as the dick stepped from the curb. He eased around till he stood in front of the dick. Then his gun started to make a hell of a noise.
“Rawlings yanked out a police positive and turned a few slugs loose that bounced all over the ironwork. Then he sort of grunts and takes a flop to the pavement.”
The gash in Fleming’s mouth twisted into something meant for a smile. “Well,” he sighed. “It looks like Ed Kirby has two grand due him. We’ll have to pay him off right away.”
Harry set the glass down on the desk. “Keep the two grand till you hear the rest of what I got to spill. Now listen. Along comes a radio car. It must have been spotted up the avenue to get there so quick. Even the follow-up ambulance showed up right behind it. Clockwork. It was too pretty a set-up. D’yuh see?”
Fleming gestured impatiently. Harry went on with his story:
“After things quieted down I went over to where Rawlings’ body had rested on the pavement. You know how blood, is. It turns black damn quick. The stuff I saw was still red. I knelt down and found the end of one of those tubes a chemist uses. There was still a little of the color inside the curve of the glass. I tasted it. It was bitter. Blood is salty. This stuff was like gall. Get it? Jim Rawlings was never shot. He faked death when he wasn’t even scratched and tried to make it real with this red stuff in the glass tube.”
Berman’s face went white. He sat down and poured himself another drink.
For several moments Fleming said nothing. But his eyes had narrowed, and the gash that was his mouth started twitching. He returned the package of money to the drawer. Finally he spoke:
“Are you sure of all this, Harry?”
“Damn right I’m sure. The whole set-up was a phony. Now listen. The ambulance came from Bellevue. So I went there to do a little checking. Finally I got the lowdown from one of the internes who was in on the deal, and it cost me plenty to bribe him into talking. But in the end he spilled everything. There not a damn thing the matter with Detective Rawlings. He’s in a private ward at Bellevue.”
The deformed man ran the tip of his forefinger along the gash that was his mouth. His tunnel-black eyes seemed to stare into far space as if he was looking into the future. And he didn’t seem happy at what he saw.
“We’ll have to move fast, Harry. This fellow Kirby fooled me completely. He got the edge on me by that stunt he pulled when he cracked those two cops over the head and sprung Morengo.”
“Hell!” granted Harry. “This Kirby is a cop himself.”
“Wait, Harry,” counseled Fleming, speaking in a flat voice. “We mustn’t make any mistakes. This business goes deeper than a play by the metropolitan police. There is something sinister about it that makes me wonder. Kirby is a blond. A big man, bard and cold as ice, quick on the draw and wise.”
“You mean,” croaked Harry, sucking in a deep breath, “that Kirby...”
“He’s had his hair bleached,” Fleming went on. “It was brown. Now it’s light. And he’s posing as a working man. He took a leaf out of Morengo’s book. Listen, the both of you. Ed Kirby is the missing G-man down on our list for a bump-off. He’s Nelson Grant. He must be!”
Harry began to dribble curses as he paced the floor.
“Swearing won’t help matters,” snarled Fleming. He hunched his twisted shoulders, and it made him look like a gnome behind the desk — a gnome with all the evilness of a Satan. “I’ve never seen Nelson Grant,” he went on. “None of us have. He always kept himself in the background. Very little publicity. But he was always in the forefront when the Department made a raid. Bullets have never reached him. They say he can’t be killed.”
The last statement seemed to amuse him. The gash above his chin twisted cruelly. Out of it came an almost inhuman sound. Fleming was laughing, harshly, bestially. Suddenly he stopped. His eyes became brooding wells of sheer malignance. His hairless head dropped forward. He cupped his forehead in the palms of his hands and seemed to barter his warped soul to Satan as bait for Ed Kirby’s sudden and horrible death. And the Devil laughed! For that soul was already doomed.
Fleming straightened. He took the receiver from the hook and called the tunnel construction company. To the voice that answered the call he asked: “May I speak with Mr. Morengo?”
The person at the other end obliged by calling the timekeeper to the phone. Fleming’s voice was crisp. “Dip,” he said, “did Kirby show up for work? Oh, he did. Good. And he’s working in the caisson? Now listen. Any chance of being listened-in oh? All right. Here’s what I want you to do. If you fail me — it will be the last thing you’ll ever do. Remember that. Kirby is not what we thought he was. He’s a sneaking, double-crossing agent of the heat-squad...”
Chapter VI
Resurrection
Stripped to nothing but pants and shoes, Ed Kirby was, along with other torch men, still cutting away at the steel wall of the caisson. The circle through which the cutting shield was to drive through on its trip beneath the river was gradually taking shape. Great chunks of the metal had been cut away, and heavy planks braced against the sand and water that constantly menaced the lives of the men in the working chamber.
Only the powerful air pressure maintained by the compressors on the street level kept that sand and water back. Forty pounds of it swirled through pipes into the space below the steel deck of the caisson and pressed against every square inch of space.