When Peck began to babble thanks Doyle made his request. He could hear the gasp with which it was received.
“That’s impossible! I mean, it can be done all right, but we can’t — oh, hell, I’ll put the managing editor on the phone. He’s still here.”
Doyle waited, staring at the telephone. Though he did not have much hope, he talked to the managing editor well. When the Herald got out its extra, he said, he wished they would print one very special edition for him — an edition of only three or four copies.
He wanted to walk into every important gangster headquarters, beginning with Voticelli at the Hongkong, with a paper which had an eight-column headline in the Herald’s largest type:
Yes, Doyle admitted, that wasn’t true. Yet the life of a girl was at stake. There wasn’t time to use ordinary police methods. His theory was the killer was a marked and hunted man. No gang would give him shelter or assistance except in the hope of getting his money. Furthermore, the killer wouldn’t dare reveal where the loot was. He’d be bumped right away.
By spreading a false report Doyle would start a quarrel among thieves. By watching the face of the gang chiefs as they read the headline he might learn positively which of them was allied with the murderer.
“I’ll have to get the okay of the police commissioner,” said the managing editor. Doyle’s heart leaped. He had convinced the Herald; he had no doubt that the commissioner, with his love of direct and aggressive action, would approve.
“When can you have my papers ready?” he asked eagerly.
“Three-quarters of an hour,” the managing editor promised.
Doyle hung up the phone and took a taxi.
Despite the utmost speed of a newspaper at the copy desk and in the composing room, however, it was two o’clock when Doyle entered the Hongkong Café with the specially printed copy he had requested in his coat pocket. On the other hand, that copy was a work of art, and half a dozen plain-clothes men under the command of a sergeant had been put at Doyle’s orders. He posted them around the café, ready to dash in if anything broke.
Inside the rambling building Doyle sensed an equal readiness for emergencies. Though the dance floor was empty and no customers were in the bar, a bartender and two assistants were on duty. The bartender smiled sourly when Doyle appeared, as though he expected such a visit, and when the detective asked for Voticelli the gangster appeared almost immediately, fully dressed and cold sober, which was not his habit at that hour. He ushered Doyle into the private room, and faced him across the table with an alertness so intense that the detective’s hunch became doubly strong.
Before Voticelli could say a word Doyle tossed the specially written copy of the Herald across the table.
“Thought that might interest you,” he declared, pointing to the screaming headline.
For a second the gangster sat rigid. A poker blankness spread across his fleshy countenance. The eyes flickered to the detective, hot with disappointment and hate, and-then away.
“Yeah? And why?” the gangster parried.
To prolong the uneasiness of the other Doyle delayed the answer. He fished out a cigarette, rejected it because it had been crumpled in the package, selected another, struck a match, and blew a long puff of smoke at the ceiling.
“I’m too wise to mix up in that stuff,” snapped Voticelli.
“Sure. So I told the lieutenant,” Doyle remarked with obvious sarcasm. “Lots of cars outside, ain’t there? Might be bad for business, huh?” Like a flash Doyle flung himself half across the table.
“I’m trying to be right with you, you dumb-bell!” he snapped. “A witness of ours was abducted last night, and we picked up one of your rats! It ain’t your regular racket, so I figured you’d like to know about this!” Doyle’s forefinger stabbed at the headline. “It would be hell, wouldn’t it, to do an expensive job — for a dead beat?”
“What do you mean? I don’t get you,” Voticelli growled sullenly. Despite the gangster’s efforts to control his features Doyle observed an expression of uneasiness and of calculation for which he was at a loss to account.
“A million is a lot of money,” the gangster growled. “A tenth of that would look good to me.” He stopped. Again he glanced fleetingly at Doyle. “You bulls blame me for everything,” he grumbled. “I’m getting sick of it.”
“Nothing like coming clean,” Doyle suggested. “You ain’t done anything as far as the department knows — yet.” He was looking hard at the gangster. Doyle’s heart was in his mouth. The best actor cannot control his features absolutely. Voticelli would reveal something at this secretly veiled hint at the fate of Myra Freeman. But beyond the fact that he was concealing strong emotion of some sort, there was no visible reaction.
“Don’t know nothing about this,” growled Voticelli at last. “Get that — nothing. But I’m willing to be right. Kidnaping a dame is bound to raise trouble. I got friends, the same as the department has, and one of them may have heard something. Give me four or five hours, and I might be able to find out who done it. I’ll give the guy a tip to turn her loose. Are you willing to wait?” The gangster rose as he spoke and backed toward the door. Both hands were in his coat pockets.
“Sure I’ll wait!” snapped Doyle. He was sure at last that he was on the right trail, though whether Voticelli wanted the time for which he had asked to check up the story of the discovery of the mail sacks or to move Myra to a safer place of concealment, he could only guess. Only great danger or an enormous stake could induce the gangster to threaten him with a concealed gun.
As the door closed behind Voticelli Doyle rose and tiptoed toward it. He meant to follow the gangster through the café.
“Hi! Bring Mr. Doyle a drink!” Voticelli shouted in the passageway. The detective stopped. During the wait he was to be under guard, then? The private room was windowless, escape impossible. There was a telephone in the room, but no time to use it. Instead Doyle whipped out his revolver and stepped to the door. If he could overpower the bartender quickly and silently, he might follow still.
The door opened in his face. The bartender, carrying a bottle on a tray, stopped short to avoid colliding with him. Doyle’s left hand caught the toppling bottle. With the right he jabbed the bartender in the stomach with the gun.
“Come in!” he whispered fiercely. Wide-eyed, the bartender made one forward step. Doyle swung the door shut with his foot. He had not seen Voticelli.
“Keep your trap shut!” he threatened. He confiscated a gun from the bartender’s hip pocket, whirled him around, and snapped on handcuffs. Swiftly he gagged the man with two handkerchiefs, forced him to sit down in the corner of the room, and tied his legs together with his suspenders.
It was all quickly done, yet when Doyle tiptoed to the door again the sound of Voticelli’s footsteps had died away. With a curse at his luck, Doyle unlaced his shoes. With a sudden inspiration he whipped off his coat and vest, snatched the apron from the bartender and tied it around his own waist, picked up the bottle and the tray. Since he had to wander through a maze of passages at random, he might as well have an excuse. No one would mistake him for the bartender, who was a foot shorter, and bald, but the Hongkong must have many waiters. Doyle thrust his gun under his apron, remembered his service holster, and removed that. A waiter in stocking feet? Well, anybody who looked at him closely enough to observe that would see through the clumsy disguise anyhow.