The younger man was inspecting the back of the car. He said: “They punctured the tank. It’s a good thing you stopped — you couldn’t have gone much farther.”
“Yes — I guess it’s a very good thing I stopped,” she said, mechanically. She took a deep drag of her cigarette.
The other man said: “That’s the third hold-up out here this week.”
The woman spoke to the younger man. “Can you get me a cab?”
He said: “Sure.” Then he knelt beside the blown-out tire, said: “Look, Ed — they almost cut it in two.”
The man in the doorway called to her: “You want a cab, lady?”
She smiled, nodded, and the man disappeared into the gas station; he came back to the doorway in a minute, over to the car. “There’ll be a cab here in a little while, lady,” he said.
She thanked him.
“This is one of the worst stretches of road on Long Island — for highwaymen.” He leaned on the door of the car. “Did they try to nudge you off the road — or did they just start shooting?”
“They just started shooting.”
He said: “We got a repair service here — do you want us to fix up your car?”
She nodded. “How long will it take?”
“Couple days. We’ll have to get a new windshield from the branch factory in Queens — an’ take off that tank...”
She took a card out of her bag and gave it to him, said: “Call me up when it’s finished.”
After a little while, a cab came out of the darkness of a side street, turned into the station. The woman got out of the car and went over to the cab, spoke to the driver: “Do you know any shortcuts into Manhattan? Somebody tried to hold me up on the main road a little while ago, and maybe they’re still laying for me. I don’t want any more of it — I want to go home.” She was very emphatic.
The driver was a big red-faced Irishman. He grinned, said: “Lady — I know a million of ’em. You’ll be as safe with me as you’d be in your own home.”
She raised her hand in a gesture of farewell to the three men around her car and got into the cab. After the cab had disappeared, the man to whom she had given the card took it out of his pocket and squinted at it, read aloud: “Mrs. Dale Hanan — Five-eighty Park Avenue.”
The short, middle-aged man bobbed his head knowingly. “Sure,” he said — “I knew she was class. She’s Hanan’s wife — the millionaire. Made his dough in oil — Oklahoma. His chauffeur told me how he got his start — didn’t have a shoestring or a place to put it, so he shot off his big toe and collected ten grand on an accident policy — grubstake on his first well. Bright boy. He’s got a big estate down at Roslyn.”
The man with the card nodded. He said: “That’s swell. We can soak him plenty.” He put the card back into his pocket.
When the cab stopped near the corner of Sixty-third and Park Avenue the woman got out, paid the driver and hurried into the apartment house. In her apartment, she put in a long-distance call to Roslyn, Long Island; when the connection had been made, she said: “Dale — it’s in the open, now. I was followed, driving back to town — shot at — the car was nearly wrecked... I don’t know what to do. Even if I call Crandall, now, and tell him I won’t go through with it — won’t go to the police — he’ll probably have me killed, just to make sure... Yes, I’m going to stay in — I’m scared... All right, dear. ’Bye.”
She hung up, went to a wide center table and poured whiskey into a tall glass, sat down and stared vacantly at the glass — her hand was shaking a little. She smiled suddenly, crookedly, lifted the glass to her mouth and drained it. Then she put the glass on the floor and leaned back and glanced at the tiny watch at her wrist. It was ten minutes after nine.
At a few minutes after ten a black Packard town-car stopped in front of a narrow building of gray stone on East Fifty-fourth Street; a tall man got out, crossed the sidewalk and rang the bell. The car went on. When the door swung open, the tall man went into a long, brightly lighted hallway, gave his hat and stick to the checkroom attendant, went swiftly up two flights of narrow stairs to the third floor. He glanced around the big, crowded room, then crossed to one corner near a window on the Fifty-fourth Street side and sat down at a small table, smiled wanly at the man across from him, said: “Mister Druse, I believe.”
The other man was about fifty, well set up, well-groomed in the way of good living. His thick gray hair was combed sharply, evenly back. He lowered his folded newspaper to the table, stared thoughtfully at the tall man.
He said: “Mister Hanan,” and his voice was very deep, metallic.
The tall man nodded shortly, leaned back and folded his arms across his narrow chest. He was ageless, perhaps thirty-five, forty-five; his thin, colorless hair was close-clipped, his long, bony face deeply tanned, a sharp and angular setting for large seal-brown eyes. His mouth was curved, mobile.
He asked: “Do you know Jeffrey Crandall?”
Druse regarded him evenly, expressionlessly for a moment, raised his head and beckoned a waiter. Hanan ordered a whiskey sour.
Druse said: “I know Mister Crandall casually. Why?”
“A little more than an hour ago Crandall, or Crandall’s men, tried to murder Mrs. Hanan, as she was driving back from my place at Roslyn.” Hanan leaned forward: his eyes were wide, worried.
The waiter served Hanan’s whiskey sour, set a small bottle of Perrier and a small glass on the table in front of Druse.
Druse poured the water into the glass slowly. “So what?”
Hanan tasted his drink. He said: “This is not a matter for the police, Mister Druse. I understand that you interest yourself in things of this nature, so I took the liberty of calling you and making this appointment. Is that right?” He was nervous, obviously ill at ease.
Druse shrugged. “What nature? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry — I guess I’m a little upset.” Hanan smiled.
“What I mean is that I can rely on your discretion?”
Druse frowned. “I think so,” he said slowly. He drank half of the Perrier, squinted down at the glass as if it tasted very badly.
Hanan smiled vacantly. “You do not know Mrs. Hanan?”
Druse shook his head slowly, turned his glass around and around on the table.
“We have been living apart for several years,” Hanan went on. “We are still very fond of one another, we are very good friends, but we do not get along — together. Do you understand?”
Druse nodded.
Hanan sipped his drink, went on swiftly: “Catherine has — has always had — a decided weakness for gambling. She went through most of her own inheritance — a considerable inheritance — before we were married. Since our separation she has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. I have, of course, taken care of her debts.” Hanan coughed slightly. “Early this evening she called me at Roslyn, said she had to see me immediately — that it was very important. I offered to come into town but she said she’d rather come out. She came out about seven.”
Hanan paused, closed his eyes and rubbed two fingers of one hand slowly up and down his forehead. “She’s in a very bad jam with Crandall.” He opened his eyes and put his hand down on the table.
Druse finished his Perrier, put down the glass and regarded Hanan attentively.
“About three weeks ago,” Hanan went on, “Catherine’s debt to Crandall amounted to sixty-eight thousand dollars — she had been playing very heavily under the usual gambler’s delusion of getting even. She was afraid to come to me — she knew I’d taken several bad beatings on the market — she kept putting it off and trying to make good her losses, until Crandall demanded the money. She told him she couldn’t pay — together, they hatched out a scheme to get it. Catherine had a set of rubies — pigeon blood — been in her family five or six generations. They’re worth, perhaps, a hundred and seventy-five thousand — her father insured them for a hundred and thirty-five, forty years ago and the insurance premiums have always been paid...” Hanan finished his whiskey sour, leaned back in his chair.