Hardesty chuckled hoarsely. “That was Bill Gannon, Mr. Bloody Breen. That was Bill Gannon who used to be my first mate. He tried to doublecross his old skipper, the scurvy rat. But I knew, Mr. Bloody Breen. I knew that he was trying to. Trust Red Hardesty. He gets to know most things. I knew he was trying a doublecross, just as I knew that you were coming on the job, Mr. Bloody Breen. I make it my business to know everything.”
Dell smiled tightly. “You’re quite a man, aren’t you, Hardesty? You’re a very smart man in your own opinion. Now if you could only get somebody to agree with you.”
Hardesty got up very slowly, the black snout of the gun very steady as it menaced Dell. “I’d like to put a slug through your guts, Mr. Bloody Breen. But it would be too noisy. So I’ll just bash your head in the way I did Gannon’s.”
He came across the room very quietly. It was fascinating to watch such bulk move with such catlike silence. He kept his eyes on Dell and the snout of the gun started to rise a little.
With his eyes gripping Hardesty’s Dell let the sap slip out of his sleeve into his hand. “I took your gun, Mr. Bloody Breen,” Hardesty said, “so you’ll just have to take what’s coming to you without a struggle.”
Dell kept his face blank. Hardesty was a long pace away from him when he moved. He stepped in. his left wrist knocking the snout of the big gun up, his right coming around with a swish.
Hardesty saw it coming. The man had reflexes like a cat. His mouth jerked open as he ducked. But the sap was traveling too fast. Dell was putting all the anger and hurt he had felt into that swing. It was aimed at Hardesty’s jaw. Hardesty ducked just enough so that it took him on the side of the head just above the ear.
All the strength flowed like water out of his heavy legs and he started to fall. Dell managed to get his hands under Hardesty’s shoulders to ease the force of his fall. A heavy thud might bring the nosey clerk up.
Hardesty lay on his face without motion. The big gun with the smear of red along its barrel lay a few inches from his outflung hand. Dell kicked it into a corner and stared down at Hardesty. “You were just a little too smart, Skipper,” he said softly. “You were just a little too sure of your own ability and shrewdness. And that doesn’t pay in this business.”
He looked toward the door. It was all but closed. He stared at Hardesty again, then at the dead Gannon. Then he glanced around the room.
It was a carbon copy of 209. The same smeared and cracked card was over the head of the brass bed. The same kind of washstand and mirror stood against the wall. But where the other mirror was cracked this one was merely bleared and distorted with spots.
Dell walked to the foot of the bed and looked at the brass posts. The caps were screwed on evenly here. Then he saw something else, a thin thread hung down a half inch below the collar of the cap. Dell stared at it, his eyes beginning to shine.
It looked as though this might be it — the break he’d fought for.
Holding the end of the thread very carefully between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he unscrewed the brass cap. He dropped the cap on the bed and still very carefully pulled up the thread that ran down into the hollow post and seemed to have something heavy on the end.
There was a little sack of chamois skin on the end of the thread. Dell hefted it in his hands and whistled tonelessly. He continued to whistle as he loosed the string of leather that pulled the bag closed at the top. The whistle died as he stared into the chamois bag.
He put a thumb and forefinger into the sack to pick up one of the big pearls. He was so intent on what was in his hands that he did not hear the door open. He heard nothing until the man who was behind him slugged him on the back of the head. He caught at the foot of the bed but there was no strength in his hands. Clawing at the bed he slid down to the floor.
Dimly he heard someone scurry past him. The door slammed and the man was gone. Dell shook his head, clamped his teeth and fought with the nausea that gripped him. He felt himself slowly coming to the surface. He hadn’t been slugged hard. Either the man who had hit him hadn’t the strength or else he was in too much of a hurry.
He sat up and stared dazedly at Hardesty, still sprawled on the floor. “Mr. Tough Hardesty,” he said drily, “if you had a head like mine you’d be in a better position to boast. I guess I can take it.”
He stood up on trembling legs. Gradually the trembling passed. He backed slowly to the door. As he paused he saw a tremor run up Hardesty’s back. He was lying with the side of his face resting on the floor. As Dell watched him he saw one blue eye open cautiously and slowly close and Dell grinned.
Dell walked around Hardesty very cautiously. He could see the butt of his own gun peeping out of Hardesty’s pocket. He very expertly snapped it out and stood for a second with it in his hand, the shrewd smile on his face growing. With his eyes still on Hardesty he backed again toward the door, the gun held in his hand.
In the corridor he closed the door softly behind him. He carefully eased the gun into its armpit holster. “Go ahead and play possum, Mr. Hardesty, and see what it gets you.” He jerked his big shoulders in a shrug, turned and ran lightly along the corridor and down the rickety stairs. There was a queer questioning gleam in the clerk’s eyes as Dell crossed the lobby toward him.
Dell’s face was very grim as he leaned over the counter. “Now, wise guy, you can call the cops. There’s a dead man up in 206. I didn’t kill him but I know who did. When the homicide boys come tell them that Dell Breen was here. Tell them that I’m going to the apartment of Laura Arnold on Waverly Place. Tell them to look me up and I’ll give them the score.”
He watched tight secrecy flow into the clerk’s face and smiled grimly. He turned from the desk and halted a moment with his head bent, listening. He could hear uncertain feet moving toward the stairway in the hall above. The smile twisted his lips into still sharper irony as he headed across the lobby to the street.
He took his time finding a taxi, waiting on the curb till a cruiser came down the street. He climbed in slowly, gave the driver the address on Waverly Place and leaned back in his seat with the same enigmatic smile playing on his lips.
The smile was still there when he paid off the cabby and crossed the sidewalk to the apartment entrance. But it faded slowly as he waited for the click of the door after he had rung.
He climbed the two flights of stairs slowly. Laura Arnold had come out into the hall and was leaning over the balustrade. Dell saw Trina’s red hair shining in the lamplight and heard her voice, “Well, here you are at last, you big lug. What kind of a game have you been playing?”
Dell said, “Shut up, pest. I’ve got troubles of my own. I’ve been kicked around like an old can and run through a sausage grinder. Shut up and see if Miss Arnold has a drink in the house.”
“I’ve got some beer in the ice chest,” Laura Arnold said hurriedly. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything else.”
“Give him beer,” Trina said crossly. “He’ll drink anything.”
As he came into the room he saw the shocked solicitude in Laura’s eyes. Trina’s eyes widened and her mouth softened. “Aw, Dell,” she said in quick contrition, “I didn’t know that you’d been hurt. What happened? Are you badly hurt?”
Dell grinned wrily. “Just scuffed around the edges and a few nicks in the shell, kitten,” he said. “Thanks for the sympathy. I guess I’ve got to get half killed to get a kind word from you.”
Trina bustled away and came back with a pan of water and a cloth. She started to dab at the blood on Dell’s forehead but he pushed her away and said thickly, “Where’s that beer? I want beer more than anything else right now.”