“Shhh! Don’t sound so scornful, Barney. Moe has feelings too.”
Nicky plugged the box onto the back of Moe’s neck, and the big head swiveled, and Moe just stared holes in me.
“What makes with the eyes?” I asked.
“Now they are both photographic. The left one is telescopic and the right one is microscopic; and when he runs into a document, there’s a little relay that kicks out, and the right one takes a photostat. I’ve been up since six working on him. But I knew last night that I’d have him ready by now.”
Suddenly Moe’s long arm flashed out and grabbed the back of my suit. He lifted me clear of the floor, and his other hand quickly emptied my pockets. “Stop him!” I yelled to Nicky. Nicky merely looked pleased.
Moe turned me in the air slowly and yanked one hand behind me. Then he released it and yanked the other one behind me. There were a series of clicking noises, a low humming sound, and I was dropped on the floor.
I spun around, still angry, and saw Moe hand Nicky a manila envelope which he apparently took out of a shallow drawer where his belt buckle should have been.
Nicky handed me the envelope. I slapped my pockets. All my possessions were back.
I looked in the envelope. The first sheet was a summary — height, age, weight, probable occupation. The second sheet was fingerprints. It was then that I noticed the black smudges on the tips of my fingers. Also in the envelope were two pictures. One full face, one profile. In each I had a startled expression.
Moe looked fatuous and complacent. He clicked again, opened the drawer and took out a set of photostats of all my personal papers-driver’s license, laundry bill, sweepstakes ticket and a letter from a heavy blonde in Detroit.
“Observant, isn’t he?” Nicky said proudly.
Moe bowed. I bowed to him.
“Now we start,” Moe said. We walked down the stairs, side by side, Moe humming and clumping behind us.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The residence of the late George Loke.”
Since it was but seven blocks away, and since Kopal is adamant about taxi fares, we walked.
When we were a hundred feet from the modern frame house that had belonged to Big George, Nicky pointed to it and said: “There it is, Moe.”
Moe stood quite still and looked at the house. He clicked twice. There was a shuffling sound, a muted inner thump, and he hooked a flexible metal finger around the drawer pull, slid it out and handed two pictures to Nicky.
I looked over Nicky’s shoulder. Moe had used his telescopic lens. The first picture was of an upstairs bedroom window. I couldn’t figure it out at first. Then I saw that it was a shot of a dressing-table mirror. In the lower left foreground was a bare and shapely arm. In the mirror was reflected the face of Mrs. George Loke, the fair Julie. She was combing her golden hair, and she had the faint look of a Mona Lisa.
The other shot was of the picture window in the side of what was apparently the living-room. Al McGee sat there in splendor, his shirt unbuttoned, a bottle by his side, his feet on a hassock, reading a racing form.
Nicky stuffed the pictures in his pocket and said: “Nice work, Moe.”
“Elementary,” Moe said.
I knew that Al lived in a room in the Udella House (one hundred rooms — one hundred baths).
The desk clerk was inclined to be stuffy about the whole affair. “Get that tin thing out of here! Take him away!”
The lobby was deserted except for an elderly citizen who was asleep. The single elevator was on an upper floor. Moe took a long look around, then reached over, picked up the desk clerk, tucked him under his arm and started for the stairs.
Nicky and I followed along behind him. The clerk made a tiny bleating sound, and fainted. Moe shook him gently, then laid him face down on one of the leather couches.
Al’s room was locked, of course. Moe put the tip of his little finger in the key slot, and pulled the lock out of the door. We went in. The room smelled of hair oil, gin and soiled
Moe opened the bureau drawer and began clicking rapidly. I stood at the door and kept an eye on the hall. Nicky sat on the bed, proud and smiling. From the bureau, Moe, clicking again, turned to a locked trunk.
At last he lifted a tin box, a green one, out of the bottom of the trunk, opened it and began to click even more rapidly. As the shallow drawer filled up, he handed batches of photographs to Nicky.
Nicky sorted them into two piles. He brought the slim pile to me. He didn’t have to say a word. The top item was a photostat of an IOU for three thousand dollars from Al to Big George. A second was a tabulation of losses on the horses. The third was a photostat of a note addressed to “Wonderful Man” and signed “Juliewoolie.” It said: “He won’t be back from Buffalo until ten tomorrow morning.”
I didn’t understand the next few pictures. Nicky said: “Those are microphotographs of the cutting edges of some tools Moe found in that green tin box.”
“But why?”
“Simple. We match those microphotographs to the shattered bits of the device that killed Big George. Every tool leaves its own particular-signature. And this last thing here is a photostat of a diploma issued by the Triangle Trade Schools to one Albert McGee, saying that Mr. McGee successfully completed their course in metalworking.”
Sirens ground to a throaty stop in front of the Udella House. Moe, with almost incredible speed, put everything back the way it had been, hummed out into the hall, pulled the door shut and shoved the lock-tube back into the splintered wood.
Nicky found the fire escape by the window at the end of the corridor. Moe went first. A high board fence hemmed us in when we reached the alley. Moe put his hand through the fence and pulled out two of the boards. We walked into the back yard of Hotstetta’s Fish Mart, down the alley beside the laundry, and came, out on West Main.
I got the impression that Moe was getting a little bit out of control. Nicky danced along beside him saying: “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Moe ignored him, merely lengthening his stride so that both Nicky and I had to trot to keep up.
“What goes?” I asked.
“Well,” Nicky panted, “I tried to make him pretty independent in this detection business, and I guess I forgot to put any relay in there so that I can stop him.”
“Nice!” I said, and looked longingly across to a bar and grill. I wanted to run in there and have several double boomers and forget.
Inside of half a block we picked up some eager citizens who began to trot along with us and ask questions.
We had no answers. When Moe turned left on Beechnut, I knew he was headed back for the home of the late George Loke.
I was getting winded. The nearest I have been to running for years is covering the high-school track meet.
Consequently, I had to pour on the coal to get onto Loke’s doorstep as Moe opened the unlocked door and hurried in.
Moe stopped in the front hall. Albert McGee appeared in the archway to the big living-room. His eyes were a little wide.
“Lugan,” he said, “take that son o£ a hardware store out of here!” Julie appeared behind McGee. She wore a pink dressing-gown.
Moe pointed a metal finger at McGee and said, in his hollow voice: “Albert McGee, you are accused of the murder of one George Loke. You are a metalworker. You killed Loke in a manner calculated to attract suspicion to Nicholas Lugan.”
McGee snickered, jerked a thumb at Moe and said to Nicky: “You got a phonograph record in that thing? You’re killing me!”
Moe ignored him. “You were in debt to George Loke. You are in love with Mrs. Loke. With both George and his competitor out of the vending-machine field, you could expect to marry Mrs. Loke and make a great deal of money.”