The cab driver shifted in his seat, and surveyed Terry’s scowling concentration with apprehensive eyes.
Abruptly, Terry laughed.
“What is it?” the driver asked, his voice showing relief at the sound of Terry’s amused, tolerant laughter.
“I just happened to catch sight of my face in the rear-view mirror,” Terry explained. “It frightened me.”
The cab driver nodded. “It looked sorta like... well I didn’t know... I seen a crazy guy stare that way once... No offence, mister!”
“What’s your name?” Terry asked.
“Saffi Lebowitz.”
“Well, Sam,” Terry said, “if you ever want to learn to concentrate, one of the first things to remember is that the frowning scowl is not a sign of concentration, but an evidence of weakness. True concentration comes with complete physical and mental tranquillity. The face which is twisted into a frown is merely reflecting the futile efforts of a mind which is filled with turmoil — if you get what I mean, Sammy, my boy.”
The cab driver said, “Jeez, buddy, if you want to go to a doctor...”
Terry chuckled and settled back against the cushions. “It must have been that last cocktail,” he explained, and was amused to watch the expression of relief which flooded the face of the cab driver. “Just wait here a minute or two longer, Sammy, and give me a chance to collect my faculties.”
Lebowitz settled down in the seat, fished a cigarette from his pocket, looked at the clicking meter with satisfaction, and said soothingly, “Just as you say, boss.” He was accustomed to taking drunks in his stride.
Terry once more raised his eyes to the rear-view mirror. This time there was no frown on his face. He might have been sleeping with his eyes open, so far as any outward evidence of muscular attention was concerned.
He breathed with steady rhythm, making no effort whatever to concentrate his attention, until he had first gathered all his mental forces into a pooled reserve of calm concentration. Then — when the mental irritants of marginal consciousness had been blotted from his attention, when he became completely oblivious of the streaming pedestrians, the waiting cab driver, the idling motor — Terry brought up before his mind, in orderly sequence, the things which he wished to consider, with the care of a biologist examining slides under a microscope.
First, he reviewed, in order, the persons who might have possessed themselves of his sleeve gun: Yat T’oy, whose loyalty was unquestionable, but who would have thought little of murdering someone who was trying to harm either Terry or someone dear to him: Levering, whose cunning enmity would stop at nothing; Sou Ha, who would have given her life to have protected him, yet who might have been trapped by some unforeseen development into committing a murder — for Sou Ha, despite her Western veneer, was of the Orient, and her mental processes placed the saving of “face” far above anything else. Had Mandra sought to humiliate Chu Kee, her father, by getting Sou Ha into his power, it was quite possible that the Chinese girl would have gone to Mandra’s apartment, ostensibly demure and complacent, but in reality armed with a truly Oriental weapon, and determined to use it.
Then there was Alma Renton, who would have gone to any lengths to have kept her sister, Cynthia, from being called upon to pay the price which life so inexorably extracts from those who would take it too lightly.
Then, lastly, there was Cynthia Renton, a volcano of primitive complexes, an emotional enigma who would no more submit to mental domination than an eagle would permit itself to be caged.
Terry’s consciousness, considering each of these five in turn, realized that, in every instance, there were logical grounds for suspicion, and with the calm finality of a logic which is functioning impersonally, knew that he could never possess himself of the answer until he had first learned far more of the background which surrounded the dead bail-bond broker than had so far been contributed by any of the persons with whom he had talked.
As Malloy had so truthfully observed, Mandra had built up his knowledge of character by ferreting out and capitalizing upon human weaknesses, and Mandra’s most ingenious application of mental torture had been applied through the leverage of a certain William Shield, a mysterious and shadowy individual who had been an essential part of Mandra’s influence over Cynthia.
Clane brought his mind to focus on the manner in which Mandra had obtained his hold upon Cynthia. Cynthia Renton was high-strung, impulsive, and nervous, but she was not a fool, and Mandra had certainly been far too clever to have played her for one.
Moreover, it was improbable that so elaborate a scheme had been worked by the dead broker merely in order to give him a hold over some one woman who had perhaps fascinated him. It was a scheme which demanded a smoothly functioning organization which, once built up, would offer possibilities of continued operation. There must, of course, be some man whose spine had been injured, since Cynthia had been taken to see this man and her own doctors would apparently have been permitted to have made an investigation.
Obviously, a man so seriously injured would hardly be one to go out on the highways and execute extemporaneous acrobatics in front of oncoming motor cars. The fact that a doctor had been so readily available to pick up the “injured” person, leaving the driver of the car in such an advantageous position for guilty flight, spoke of carefully laid plans, and painstaking attention to detail.
Such a scheme would, then, necessitate the co-operation of one of those doctors who practiced in the twilight zone of professional ethics. This doctor would be a point of continuing contact with the victim. There would, therefore, be a man who had suffered a severe spinal injury at some time in his life, a trained tumbler who could mimic the motions of a man struck by a speeding automobile, and a clever, disreputable doctor. The doctor and the tumbler would have been carefully selected because they had, among other things, the cunning intelligence necessary to enable them to mulct their victims. The man with the spinal injury could not have been chosen in advance. He would be some person whom fate had thrown into Mandra’s path. Obviously, then, he should be the weakest mental link in the chain of deception.
Having decided that such was the case, Terry promptly mapped out a plan of campaign. He leaned forward and told Sam Lebowitz to go to the eighteen-hundred block on Howard Street. Arriving there, he instructed the cabby to wait for him, and started a tour of exploration. There was a cigar store a few doors from the corner, and Terry, casually purchasing cigarettes, said, “I’m looking for a William Shield.”
“Don’t know him,” the watery-eyed individual behind the counter said as he gave change.
“He’s a cripple, lives here in the block somewhere.”
“Oh, I think I know the chap you mean. Try the lodging-house in the middle of the block on the left.”
Terry thanked him, stood in the doorway of the tobacco shop long enough to tear open the package and fill his carved ivory cigarette case, while he located the house the man had referred to. He walked to it, entered a musty corridor, and knocked on a door, marked “OFFICE”, which opened a scant two inches, to disclose a ribbon-wide view of a big-boned woman with lustreless blonde hair, holding a soiled wrapper tightly about her throat with a big flabby hand.
“You have a William Shield here?”
“What do you want with him?”
“I want to see him.”
“What about?”
“Business.”
“What kind of business?”
“I have some good news for him.”
“What sort of good news?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you Mr. Shield’s private affairs.”