Even Voticelli, accustomed to rule and used to uneasiness on the part of those who sought him out, felt the difference. Almost deferentially he called for two glasses and a bottle of wine.
“Only suckers drink,” the stranger refused curtly. He took a Herald extra from his pocket and spread it on the table so that Voticelli could see the headlines announcing the mail truck robbery.
“Two million dollars gone. There’s the statement of the post office,” he announced calmly. “I got it. Do you want half?”
From an inner pocket he took a sheaf of checks, bank notes and securities and tossed them down before the gangster. “That’s just a sample to prove I’ve got the rest.”
The gangster stared at the money. His hand moved toward it, and recoiled.
“You expect to be pinched,” he accused.
“No,” said Traub contemptuously. “I’ve had a bad break, that’s all, and I can’t work alone any more. I could go to any gang of crooks in town, but I’ve picked you because you’re not as yellow as the rest. Not quite.”
“You bumped Lefty the Monk?”
“Certainly,” said the stranger with the utmost coolness. “There’s a gun and a couple of those poison bombs in my pocket right now. Think that over before you decide to pick up any easy money by holding me for the cops and claiming the reward that will be offered by to-morrow.”
Voticelli started. The tall man smiled at the confession that he had read in the mind of the other.
“I expect you to double cross me if you can,” he challenged. “I’ll do as much for you. Let’s get that straight. It’s money we want, both of us. If we work together we’ll divide two million. If we don’t you can pick up five or ten grand as a reward but where will the big money be? Where I hid it. And that’s a place that no man can find and live.”
The gangster moved uneasily. He was no weakling, but this man was the stronger. Though the Italian would not admit the fact, he was afraid. The ruthless face and the expressionless eyes across the table belonged to a monomaniac; intelligent, determined, but without the human weaknesses of the normal individual.
“If you’re thinking I can be made to talk, by torture, I can’t,” declared Traub, and smiled again when Voticelli shook his head. “All right. Play with me, and you’ll get a million without any risk to yourself. All you have to do is to send out a couple of fall guys to carry out my orders. I’ve doped the job out — thanks to the kindness of the press in informing me exactly what moves the police have made.”
Voticelli reached out and pocketed the money. “If I don’t have to do anything that will spoil my own racket — why, okay,” he grumbled. “You talk big. It’s all here in the headlines. You are spotted, and the cops have got a witness. By to-morrow you won’t be able to step out on the street even.”
“Exactly,” said Traub with perfect composure. “Between me and a million are a man and a girl. I’ll pay you the balance of what I’ve got to get rid of them, and I’ll plan the thing for you as neat as I planned the holdup. I don’t care if the job takes you a year. There’s enough money on the table there to pay you for hiding me out, but if I get pinched, or die before you put this across, those are the last dollars of mine you’ll pocket.”
“Says you!” Voticelli grumbled. “Those witnesses ain’t rodmen that nobody cares about. The whole force will ride me.”
“Bump a rodman that nobody cares about and his friends lay for you, personally, with a machine gun,” snorted the killer contemptuously. “All the cops can do is arrest the fellow you send after the witness. Is he going to squeal on you?
“If you’re yellow you can wait till the excitement dies down — though right now the cops don’t know what they are up against. They’ll figure I’m trying for a get-away. The witness I want most is at home, damn near dead. The girl’s in a hospital, though she’s well enough to walk around, as I know. You don’t have to shoot anybody! Rough handling and exposure will kill the man as sure as a bullet. The girl can be got out of the way. I had a chance to size her up, and she’s got too much nerve for her own good. Get rid of them, and I’ll bring you half a carload of registered mail. If you can trail me to the place where I have it the whole lot is yours.”
The killer’s eyes gleamed contemptuously. “If you fail to-night, why, beginning to-morrow, I’ll offer five hundred thousand for the man, three hundred for the girl, and a hundred for the detective on the case and the reporter that covered it. Payable as you get rid of them, and each time a chance at the whole pile. It’s hidden not so far from here.”
“Hate yourself, don’t you?” the gangster grumbled, though his face was alight with calculating greed. “Suppose I put them on the spot? How do I know you make good?”
“You can always switch,” said the killer contemptuously. “I’ve got to make good. I’d rather spend one million where and how I please than make a get-away to some hole with two million that I could never spend. I’ve planned this stick-up for more than a year. Ever since I found out how to liquify hydrocyanic acid gas and confine it in a fragile container.
“I’m not a man that can hide in a crowd, so I figured on taking along a fall guy to give any witness an eyeful, and then bumping him. I just didn’t get the breaks, that was ail. Lefty didn’t see a shade go up, and I had to lean out of the car to call to him. The truck had to stop right under a light.”
The killer shrugged. “The cops will know soon enough that Irving Traub left on a sailing ship, but that he fell overboard before she was far from shore. My alibi won’t last more than a day or so. I need an organization, and I’m willing to pay for it.”
Voticelli reached for the bottle and poured himself a drink.
“I got some fall guys, too. I guess I’ll use them,” he said at last. He walked to the door. “Say, get hold of Beany and a couple more of those would-be hard guys,” he called to the bartender. “Tell ’em I’ll give them a job as a try-out.” He turned back to Traub, and poured himself another drink. “Now, what do you want done?” he demanded.
On the roof of the Hongkong Café the rain drummed noisily. Traub lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned across the table.
Chapter V
The Night Attack
The rain, an hour later, was making Doyle curse steadily under his breath. It made the garden behind the Freeman house dark as a pit. The gusts of wind gave the shrubbery which grew there a life of its own. With face pressed against the lower pane of the rear bedroom window, the detective was trying to distinguish the imaginary from the real.
There was a man in the garden. He was sure of it, though he had seen nothing more than a shadow darker than the rest, a movement more purposeful than the tossing of the branches which instantly merged in darkness and movement.
The Freeman house was unlighted. Behind Doyle a blanket had been caught between the upper and lower sashes to make sure that his head would be invisible and to protect him from the rain that beat through the bullet-shattered upper pane. He hesitated to leave his post and whisper to the surgeon who kept watch in the front part of the house. Mike Slatterly had been ordered to patrol the sidewalk until he heard a shot, and thus compelled to play a waiting game. Doyle was on fire with impatience.
His eyes might have deceived him. Minutes had passed since he had observed the movement, and yet the man in the garden kept at a distance. Stealthily Doyle tried the lower window sash to make sure he could fling the window open with a single movement, and measured the distance to the ground. If the man approached he would leap out.