“Set ’em up in the other alley,” he jeered at the Crow, but out of the corner of his eyes he was watching Gompert.
Dutch, all innocence, had started to talk. “All right, Bradley; you win,” he said, changing his tone. “Scudder was here. That’s the truth. But he didn’t say nothing about any gun play and he went away in the same car he came in. You’re wrong about the machine I dumped, see? It was just an old heap, like I told you. As for where’s Scudder’s going, all I can tell you is what he told me. He’s on a little pleasure trip to Canada, get me? If I was looking for him, I’d hit for Montreal.”
Very slowly, Gompert had continued his progress along the table. Bradley, seeming not to notice that, pounced upon him when he had pushed over a soiled whiskey glass and was crumpling in a big palm a sheet of paper that had lain beneath it. His left hand closed like a steel trap on the gangster’s wrist.
“Something interesting, is it?” he snapped. “Well, I’ll take a look at it, Gompert, just so long as you’ve been good enough to call my attention to it. Drop it, now, or I’ll have to cripple your arm for you.”
With that grip he could have broken the captive arm, and when he had given Dutch a painful demonstration of his ability the clenched hand relaxed and the crumpled paper fell to the floor.
Bradley wasn’t repeating his earlier mistake. He didn’t stoop to pick up the paper then, but kicked it across the room. Nor did he turn his back on Gompert and the Crow when he went after it. After a dozen steps to the rear had brought him to the ball of paper, he got it by crouching rather than by stooping, his eyes on the glaring pair during every instant of the recovery and his pistol menacing them.
But here he had the upper hand firmly. Dutch and the Crow were momentarily cowed beyond any thought of rushing him and risking the deadly police positive. While he held them at a distance he could safely see what it was that Gompert had been so anxious to get out of sight. He backed into a corner, where he also could watch the door, and smoothed out the paper.
In the corner, the light was not so good. He found the pencilled message hard to decipher and made slow work of it. Only when he came to the name of Duncan — “Big Boss” Duncan — did he get anything from the scrawl.
The name gave him a hot lead. Duncan was a big name up in this country, a big name all through the state. Yes, in these last ten years the biggest name of all.
Thorne Duncan, as famous for his philanthropies as for his wealth, was a legendary figure. Equally a power in industry and in politics, Duncan divided his time between his magnificent city home and an estate in these up-country hills that took in thousands of acres.
By all odds, Thorne Duncan must be the Duncan mentioned in the letter, and almost certainly Dutch Gompert’s effort to destroy the scrawl meant that it was a prospective raid on the Duncan estate that had brought the three machine gunners up from New York. Probably they were on their way there now — on their way, or already arrived!
“Thanks, Dutch,” said Bradley. “You’re a great help, old-timer. So Scudder is visiting Thorne Duncan, is he? Snap it, now! How long ago did he leave?”
“He went to Canada,” Gompert insisted stonily.
“Maybe. But by way of Duncan’s, I’ll gamble. Got a telephone here, Gompert?”
“No.”
That was a lie, Bradley thought. He stood by the unshaded window and when he had glanced out he was sure of it. He could see a line of poles along the roadside; not light poles, certainly, or else Gompert wouldn’t be using that gasoline lantern.
Bradley swept the big room with exploring eyes and spotted a telephone in a far corner, standing on the floor and half hidden by a chair.
“What’s that?” he snapped. “No phone, Gompert? I’m surprised at you!”
“Same thing. It’s been shut off.”
“Sure? I’ll just check on that, if you don’t mind.”
Gompert shot a meaning glance at the Crow as Bradley crossed the room — and the Crow, sidling away, kicked a little switch set close above the floorboards in the wall by the fireplace.
Bradley had the receiver off the hook then. There was a promising jingle, but that first sign of life was also the last one on the wire. He swore and hung up.
Tough luck! With miles of dirt road to negotiate before he got onto the concrete, it would take him at least twenty minutes to reach High Acres, the Thorne Duncan estate, and time was precious. If the Scudder party really had started for High Acres he could not hope to get there ahead of them, couldn’t hope now even to put Duncan on his guard.
“All right, Gompert,” he said. “That’s once you’ve told the truth, anyhow. Maybe I’d better take a run over to Duncan’s and see what’s doing. What do you think?”
Gompert followed his retreat to the door with baleful eyes.
“You can take a jump in the lake,” he declared.
“Thanks,” said Bradley. “Next July I will. In the meantime — don’t forget I’ll be seeing you!”
The door slammed and he was gone.
Gompert turned a cold grin on the Crow. “Well, if that guy Bradley ain’t a hard clock to stop!” he blurted.
“Jeez! What a mess!” The Crow shuddered. “He’ll gum the deal, sure. Have all the cops in the state dashing in here.”
Dutch Gompert shook his big head. “No he won’t. There’s a good chance he’ll run into the sedan — and Tony won’t miss him again.”
“Suppose he don’t?”
“It’ll be hush-hush for him at Duncan’s, that’s what. Scudder will see to that.”
The Crow was unconvinced, shaky. “Just the same,” he insisted, “we’re going to have that bird Bradley on our neck. I feel it in my bones.”
“Yeah?” Gompert mocked him. “Not if I know my vegetables, Crow. Say, I was figuring out a fast one on Bradley even before he finished reading Joe’s kite. That guy ain’t indestructible, you know. Maybe he’s proof against machine gun bullets, but he can be got other ways. Listen while I make a call and you’ll find out what one of ’em is. Boot that switch, will you?”
The switch on the wall was a cutoff. Closed again, it restored communication between Little Moose Lake and the outside world. When Gompert had lifted the receiver a prompt “Number, please,” came over the wire from a rural switchboard many miles away.
“Four — one — three,” Gompert spoke into the transmitter.
“Gwen?” said the Crow. “Has she had time to get back there?”
“She’s a driving fool, ain’t she?” asked Gompert. He whistled softly between his teeth while he waited for an answer; then, the answer being slow, he threw an aside to the Crow: “Maybe it works, maybe it don’t. It’s worth a shot, anyway — and if it does work, Mister State Trooper Bradley is going to wake up tomorrow mornin’ sitting under five hundred foot of fresh water in Mac’s four-grand roadster!”
Chapter VI
Crashed In!
Two men, gray-haired, dinner-coated, host and guest, sat together before a hospitable fire in the oak-panelled library of the manor house at High Acres, fragrant smoke curling lazily from their cigars.
They were old friends. That could have been taken from their very silence as they stared into the glowing embers. More tangible evidence than that of their long friendship was there behind them — a photograph of the guest, framed in gold, on the desk of the host.
The guest had been yawning; thirty-six holes of golf was more than he was used to these days. He caught himself nodding in the wing chair, not for the first time, and arose.
“I’m tuckered, Thorne,” he said. “If I don’t turn in now under my own power, I’ll have to be packed to bed. Good night.”