“Damnation, man,” roared Jessup, “ain’t I telling you the sly fox is in the strong-room? In among the boodle, his hands right in the perishing till! Purser heard something knocked over in the strong-room with the deuce of a clang. He got a lantern, unlocked the door, and strike me pink, there he was, in hat and cloak, with a revolver in his mitt! Your prisoner, Jack of Diamonds — Purser saw his face clear as day! Purser slammed the door on him before he could shoot, and cornered him in there!”
The detective shook the grille of the cell door. The door stood firm. He twisted his neck to peer through the grille, but this act got him into his own light, and there was a hint of panic in his voice as he roared, “Benedict!”
From the dark cell came nothing but utter silence.
The detective turned upon Jessup a face of utter consternation. “My keys,” he said. “I’ll get my keys — I’ll get a lamp—”
“You’ll get ’tarnation well hung,” shouted Jessup, “if you dither about here while Jack of Diamonds starts shooting! He can only have got into the strong-room by cutting through one of the bulkheads somehow, and he may come out the same way any second — and come out with bullets! Come on, man, come on!”
Jessup darted away toward the ladder. The detective seemed to stand poised for a second in demoralized irresolution, then something broke in him and with a great shout he went thundering up the ladder after Jessup.
Instantly, Raffles ducked out from under the fire-buckets and stepped to the door of the cell. The skeleton keys were in his hand and as he went to work on the lock, he called sharply, “Phil?”
At once, a drawn, pale, handsome young face appeared behind the bars of the grille. “A. J.?” Phil Benedict said. “A. J. Raffles? Ye gods! I heard all that shouting. I listened. Last port of call — I thought Ginnie might have schemed some fantastic attempt. It seemed I was believed to be in the strong-room, so I ducked down behind the door here — out of sight—”
“Thank heaven for your quick wits,” Raffles said. “I counted on ’em. The only way of getting you a message telling you to do just what you did was to make them shout it to you.”
He jerked the door open. Phil Benedict, barefoot, in shirt and trousers, stood there blinking. Raffles thrust the coil of rope into his hand.
“Topside now, Phil,” Raffles said, “fast as you can go! Tie this rope to the rail, slide down it so that you enter the water without a splash. Swim straight for the lights of Algeciras on the Spanish side. Before you’ve gone far, a boat will pick you up. There’s a man called Ibañez in it — a Spanish smuggler. He has clothes, disguise, and money for you, and will give you an address in Madrid where you’ll find Ginnie waiting. Don’t talk! Hook it! Goodbye forever, Jack of Diamonds. And good luck, Phil!”
With one swift handshake, Phil was gone, gone like a wraith, barefoot up the iron ladder, gripping the coil of rope. And by rapid stages, now walking fast along the dimlit alleyways, now darting aside into brief concealment, Raffles and I regained our cabin. He hurled his hat onto the bunk, thrust his head from the open porthole, remained there for what seemed to me many minutes. At last, he turned, jerking loose the knot of his white tie, a grey gleam in his eyes.
“Clothes off and into our bunks quick, Bunny! I’ve dropped the skeleton keys into the water. No suspicion is likely to attach to the Governor’s Envoy, but we’d better be in our bunks — just in case. Phil’s well away, or we’d have heard a boat being lowered by now. They’re probably still cordoning that strong-room, trying to decide whether to chance the odds and open the door.”
“In heaven’s name,” I panted, as I tore off my clothes, “who have they got cornered in there?”
“Not ‘who,’ Bunny,” he said, “but ‘what’! The lid of the Pascarella box was held in place by a thin wire hook on the inside. The wire was treated with an acid, the corrosive action of which was carefully timed by Ivor. When the wire snapped, the lid shot back with a deuce of a clang. Up popped, on a powerful spring, a life-size dummy figure, cloaked and hatted, with a wax face fashioned in a pretty good likeness of Phil’s, and a dummy revolver jutting from the cloak. Swaying a little on its spring, to the slight movement of the ship at anchor, it must have made, upon an alarmed and puzzled man seeing it suddenly among the shadows cast by his lantern, a pretty poignant impression! Remember Ivor’s remark to Ginnie that Jack of Diamonds was caught — that he was in the box? For some reason, the fruitful thought crossed my mind that some might think it the proper place for a Jack — in the box!”
He turned out the lamp and in the darkness I heard him chuckling.
Yet when, in the sunset light of the following evening, we once more — homeward bound, this time — passed Cape San Vicente, and I stood with Raffles and Ivor Kern at the promenade-deck rail, we were all three strangely silent. Far inland, beyond the blue mountains of Portugal, lay Spain. And I knew that somewhere there, alone in a train bound for Madrid, Ginnie with her violet eyes, filled with an infinite anxiety and an infinite hope, must be gazing out at the fading sunset. And I wondered how it would be for her, in the outcome — for Ginnie, and the husband and the child who were all her little world.
“They’ll be all right,” Raffles said. It was as though he had read my thought. And he said, “You know, Bunny, unredeemed sinner that I am, and seldom as I delve into such deep matters, there’s something about Ginnie Benedict, the ex man-made confidence trick girl with the innocent heart, which makes me believe that a certain plea will be remembered in her behalf — and, through her, in Phil’s.”
I glanced at him. He was gazing thoughtfully across the water at the distant white flashes where the long Atlantic rollers flung high their spray against the red cliffs of the lonely Cape.
“Plea?” I said, puzzled. “What plea?”
“ ‘Forgive us our trespasses,’ ” said A. J. Raffles.
Lucky Cop
by Steve Fisher[2]
Six months ago we received a letter from Steve Fisher which contained what we considered remarkable news — statistics so extraordinary that we take the liberty of passing them on to you, as an interesting item of information. Steve Fisher reminded us that we published his story titled “Goodbye Hannah” in the second issue of EQMM — back in the winter of 1941. Since that appearance in EQMM fourteen years ago, “Goodbye Hannah” has been bought and shown on TV (we don’t know how many times) — but much more important, it has been reprinted in books and other magazines no less than fourteen times! An average of once every year since EQMM first printed the story in 1941!
And then Steve Fisher told us something else — in its own way, even more astonishing. Certainly it made us feel good — no, it did even more, it gave us a real glow — and especially it made us happy for all the authors we publish, both old “pros” and newcomers. In the October 1953 issue of EQMM we published Mr. Fisher’s story titled “Day Never Came.” Would you believe it, only three days after the October 1953 issue appeared on the newsstands, “Day Never Came” sold to TV! [Authors, please take notice!]
Now we bring you another story by Steve Fisher, and you will find that “Lucky Cop” has all the heart-pull and emotional impact that made “Goodbye Hannah” one of the most popular stories ever to appear in EQMM. [TV producers, please take notice!]