Savage spoke rapidly.
“How about John Blake, alias Bob Hutton? I think he’s the man who impersonated me. He’s the key to this. I’ve got to get on his track at once.”
“I don’t place him,” said Considine. “But if he’s been close to Limey, I may be able to get a line on him. Suppose you two get some breakfast and go over into Juarez. Stand across from the jail on Cinco de Mayo Street. No, go to the plaza. You can sit down there. If anyone comes along and says: ‘Viva Mexico,’ go with him.”
Considine smiled thinly. “Sometimes I don’t want to be too public in Juarez. One gringo is bad enough. Three together stand out like the horns on an old mossyback brasada steer.”
Over ham and eggs and strong black coffee in a white-tiled lunchroom near the El Paso plaza, Starbuck confided:
“Jim Considine has had enough close scrapes from death to turn most men’s hair white. Anywhere across the border he’s fair game. I don’t know what he’s up to now — but if Jim thinks he can do anything, you can be damned well sure he’ll probably come through. And he knows every in-and-out of the Juarez underworld.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Savage. “There’ll be time to buy a shirt, I guess. And I’ll stop by your office and get off a wire to New Orleans.”
Over the telephone in the Tri-State Agency office, Savage was dictating the telegram to Clancy, in New Orleans, when a messenger entered with a telegram.
“For you,” Starbuck said, bringing the envelope to the telephone.
A minute or so later Savage whistled softly as he read the wire. It had been sent from Hollywood the night before, to Clancy’s office in New Orleans, and forwarded from there.
HAVE TALKED TO LORETTA ARMOND STOP AM CONVINCED SHE IS MERELY CASUAL GOLD DIGGER STOP SHE KNEW GODDARD AS FILM WRITER HERE IN HOLLYWOOD STOP GODDARD CALLED HER FROM COHATCHIE TO TRY TO GET HER TO CALL OFF LARNIGAN FROM BELLAMY MATTER STOP GODDARD AFTER DRINKING TOO MUCH ONE NIGHT CONFIDED TO HER HE HAD BLACK SHEEP HALF BROTHER FROM NEW MEXICO NAMED APPROPRIATELY BLACK STOP SAME MOTHER DIFFERENT FATHERS STOP AM FLYING TO ALBUQUERQUE TONIGHT TO INVESTIGATE HALF BROTHER AND GODDARD’S BACKGROUND STOP GODDARD APPARENTLY NOT BAD SORT OUT HERE TO THOSE WHO KNEW HIM SIGNED RITA CAR-STAIRS
“Good girl!” said Savage delightedly, and the next instant swift apprehension struck him hard.
Rita must have flown from New Orleans to Los Angeles to tackle the case from that end. And she’d done well. Too well!
A black sheep half-brother named Black! It must be John Black, alias Bob Hutton. Everything fitted in!
And if this Bob Hutton was Parker, the assistant gardener on Bellamy’s estate, then Hutton had been working close to Clark, the man who Anne Teasdale had said was young Goddard’s father.
You could get excited about that — the old man, Clark, working humbly there around the boat-house while his son was engaged to his wealthy employer’s daughter. And the black sheep half-brother of young Goddard working on the place also, under an assumed name.
That would make old man Clark merely the foster-father of the assistant gardener, Hutton. No kin, no blood ties, probably no affection.
The two men had been quarrelling in the boathouse just before Savage first saw them. The assistant gardener had displayed no emotion over Clark’s death. The facts suddenly suggested that the assistant gardener had had a hand in his foster-father’s death. Young Jack Goddard would know, wherever he was.
A swift stab of apprehension for Rita Carstairs struck Savage. Rita had flown in the night from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, New Mexico, some three hundred miles to the north.
And the two trailers had headed north! Bob Hutton must have gone that way!
Rita didn’t know all that. She wouldn’t be prepared. If she had luck in her quest, she was going to blunder into their hands. There wasn’t a chance to warn her now, to stop her. And they’d kill her, kill her sure!
Savage caught up the telephone again, snapped: “Long distance!” And when the long distance operator was connected, he said: “Calling Miss Rita Carstairs, at Albuquerque. She arrived in Albuquerque on the plane last night. She should be registered at one of the leading hotels.”
He had a wait of some minutes. They seemed endless; and then the answer was:
“Miss Carstairs registered at El Fidel Hotel last night. She left about thirty minutes ago, leaving word at the desk she would be gone all day.”
Savage hung up. Knifing apprehension coursed through him again. Something had to be done — and done immediately to save that girl.
“Let’s get over to Juarez quickly!” he snapped at Starbuck. “We’ve got to find Considine at once!”
Rita Carstairs innocently is rushing into danger and only Tony Savage, ace investigator, can save her. But he is in El Paso and she is hundreds of miles to the north, bound for an unknown destination. Can he save her? Can he clear up this vicious murder syndicate that has eluded him from Florida to Texas? The swift, smashing conclusion of this exciting serial appears in next week’s issue of DETECTIVE WEEKLY.
Cadaver’s Revenge
by Thomas W. Duncan
It’s serious business when a ghost walks — and in old Ira’s cemetery it proved a grave matter.
“Mr. Koss,” said Jay Rutherford Longworth, ex-con extraordinary, “there’s one branch of our profession that I’ve rather neglected.”
Otis Koss glanced sharply at his companion in the back seat of the sedan.
“Safe cracking?” he inquired.
“No,” said Jay Rutherford Long-worth, gazing out at the flying countryside, “it was a safe cracking rap that put me in Joilet.”
“Fencing?”
“No,” reminisced Jay Rutherford “when I decided to go straight, I set up as a fence. That was in ’Frisco. They gave me a stretch for it in San Quentin. Which just goes to show that honesty don’t pay.”
Otis Koss fingered his long horse face.
“What is it,” he asked finally, “that you ain’t done much with?”
Before replying, Jay Rutherford Longworth took out a cigar from his pocket, scrupulously lit it, and blew fragrant smoke at the ceiling of the sumptuous sedan. He was about fifty, and looked as if he should have been sitting on the Stock Exchange. The last time he was weighed (before he began gaining), the scales groaned to 205.
On this October afternoon his noble bulk was clad in a black broadcloth coat and vest, and pin-striped trousers. A high polish gleamed on his expensive shoes, and a black derby sat on his silvery head. A diamond ring flashed on his little finger, matched by a larger diamond in his fine necktie.
“Mr. Koss,” he said weightily, “the branch of our profession to which I refer is... uh... cemetery work.”
“Cemetery work! But, Jay. There’s a homicide indictment against you right now in Massachusetts.”
Mr. Longworth inhaled the luxurious smoke and blew a couple of rings.
“I’m not,” he said, “speaking of putting people into cemeteries. I’m referring to taking them out.”
“You mean... you mean grave-robbing?”
“Mr. Koss,” said Mr. Longworth reproachfully, “your bluntness of speech is, at times, painful. I prefer to call it... uh... the exhuming of cadavers.”