“Her questioner said that the figure was quite invisible to him, but on her describing it, no doubt was left in his mind that what she and the princess had seen was the ghost of Stambuloff.
“On another occasion Ferdinand visited a pretty little Hungarian fortune teller and had his hand read. Then, thinking to trap the girl, he came to her again the next day, this time in disguise.
“Rather to his chagrin — for he flattered himself that his make-up was particularly good — the pretty fortune teller recognized him immediately as the gentleman who had consulted her the day before, and told him that she had been expecting him.
“ ‘How is that?’ asked Ferdinand. ‘Why, I’ve told nobody.’ ”
The girl answered that the gentleman who had accompanied him on his former visit had been to see her half an hour before, and told her that the king was already coming.
“Ferdinand, now becoming highly agitated, asked her to describe this strange person. She did so, and the description exactly tallied with that of the dead Stambuloff, while to his increasing horror the girl added that the gentleman had said to her:
“ ‘Tell him when he comes that he will perish in much the same manner as I have,’ and showed her his own hand.
“Ferdinand then asked the girl what she had seen written there, and she answered that she had seen the same ending to the life-line as she saw in his own; but what it was she would rather not say.
“Then she suddenly cried out that she saw his friend beckoning to him. But Ferdinand had heard enough, and, turning on his heel, left her hurriedly.”
A Crook De Luxe
by Charles Somerville
This story began in Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction for July 23
His talents would have shot him to the top of whatever career he selected and he used them unstintingly in crime
Revolting against the drab life of bank clerk Jack Lawrence executed a clever holdup of Jerry Larkin, proprietor of a road house which Jack occasionally patronized with his wealthier friends. Through inexperience he was captured and served two years at the State Reformatory. There he was Johnny-up, ruler of the inmates, which resulted in his being taken into the powerful “mob” of Slim Gegan on his release. After six months with this gang he made a sensational robbery of the fashionable Gregory School, was again caught, and confessed to save Elsie Lane, an innocent girl who loved him, from suspicion and trial. During Jack’s three-year term in Sing Sing, Madge Kimberly, under Slim’s orders, constantly had written to him, declaring her affection, and on his release, met him and drove to Slim’s apartment. Elsie, meanwhile, had become a movie star under the name of Anna Gray. Her letters to Jack had been destroyed by Slim’s hirelings, and Lawrence thought she had deserted him. However, she, too, was at the gate, just as Jack drove off, not seeing her. She trailed the car bearing him to the Riverside Drive apartment which Slim occupied under the name of Mr. Allen, and by a trick learned his destination.
Chapter XXXII
Showdown — of a Kind
While awaiting Madge, whom he had sent in his car to Sing Sing to meet Jack and return with his protégé in crime to the apartment, Slim Gegan had amused himself this morning with his favorite indoor sport of torturing Dopey Buddy, the youthful drug fiend, whom he took a vicious pleasure in reducing to degrading abjection by withholding the potion that had actually come to mean life for the wretched creature.
All the instincts of cruelty of a savage were unmodified by civilization in the nature of the dapper, slim, gray criminal. The feeling also of holding another human creature so absolutely in his power, make a slave of him, whetted his viciousness to an unspeakable degree.
For fully an hour he had inhumanly baited the white-faced, emaciated lad. He had withheld the drug from him till Dopey Buddy had come to him crawling, whining, sobbing, begging in mercy’s name for Slim to open that drawer in his desk which the youth wildly eyed and dole him out the precious white powder that would relieve his mental and physical agony. With a tightening smile of his thin lips Slim held off minute after minute, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, a half hour.
He had the boy on his knees before him, wiping off his shoes, kissing his hand, writhing, hysterical. Now and then he would reach toward the drawer where the drug was kept. But as the lad’s distorted lips opened to emit an animal cry of joy he would snap the partly open drawer back again and laugh at the gibbering suffering of the half-demented lad.
Dopey Buddy was on his knees praying to him, as if he were a god, when the stocky, dour-faced butler, a full-fledged member of the Gegan gang, knocked and told him of the telephone announcement of the arrival of Lawrence and Madge.
Then only did the torture cease. He opened the drawer, flung the half-mad boy the paper packet so infinitely precious to his drug-ridden body. Slim grinned like a mask as he saw Dopey Buddy take the powder down in a single, avid gulp.
It struck his notice that the lad did not behave as usual, which was to babble half-incoherent expressions of gratitude as the drug afforded swift and intense relief. Slim grinned the wider as, happening to look up, he caught the youth looking back at him with a gleaming glance of hatred cast over his shoulder.
“He’ll be wiping my boots again in the morning,” thought Slim. “Licking ’em clean if I tell him to.”
Then he was up on his feet, both hands extended to greet Jack Lawrence.
“Well... well, Johnny-up! A little pale, my boy. But I’ve got a wad in the safe that’ll take you down to seashore and put a good healthy tan on you in no time. ’Lo, Madge. I suppose you’re feeling fine, too — your big boy back again?”
“I’m feeling so good I hurt!” gurgled the red-lipped, brown-eyed young woman.
“Is it too soon, Slim, to ask you just how I stand with you? What’s coming out of the Gregory swag?”
“Got it all here in black and white. Abe Trummell took a chunk of it, of course. Had to let Phil skip his five thousand dollar bond. Been sending you a pretty, reg’lar income up in stir. Taxed you a little on Jerry’s funeral money — even if he did double cross us. His brother knew too much. Had to salve him a little. All in all — what would you say to ten thousand?”
“Guess that’s all right. How much can I have right now?”
“Will two grand hold you?”
“Sure.”
Slim moved over to a wall safe, opened it and brought out a sheaf of new yellow money which he handed Jack, saying: “I hope you are not discouraged with the game because they’ve knocked you off twice. It was just a bum chance that brought Tunney up from the city on the case. Otherwise there’d have been a dean get-away.”
“I’m putting it all down to experience,” nodded Jack. “I don’t think they’ll ever get me again.”
“You don’t mean you are going to pull away — go back to punching a time clock?”
“I’ll say not. What I mean is, Slim—”
There came a knock on the door.
When Slim opened it his butler conveyed with a slight nod of the head that he desired to speak with his master privately. Slim stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
“There’s a good-looking young woman in the hall,” said the butler, “says she must see Lawrence. I tried to say he wasn’t here. But she said she knew better. She said she knew him and had seen him enter the apartment house and had learned that he had gone to Mr. Allen’s rooms.