Paul Pry had hardly intended to play the game in just that manner. He felt certain the gangsters, alarmed over the arrest of Big Front Gilvray, would transfer the treasure cargo, but he had hardly counted upon the audacious move by which they sought to insure safety for themselves.
It was simple. The very simplicity of it was its best protection. They felt the police might be on their trail. Therefore the thing to do was to place the stolen cargo where it would never be found. What more simple solution than to treat the boxes of gold as just an ordinary truck cargo, park the truck for the night, and make no further move until they heard from Gilvray.
If the police had the goods on Gilvray, the gangsters could take the truck’s cargo, transfer it to fast touring cars and leave the city. If it was a false alarm, the gold was removed from the house which might be searched on general principles. If the police had complete information and knew the emergency headquarters the gang had established, a raid would reveal no incriminating evidence.
Paul Pry, however, was an opportunist. He had intended only to make certain that the gold was collected in one place, and then notify the police of that hiding place and claim the reward. As it was, he had an opportunity to make a much more spectacular recovery of the treasure, and leave the gang intact — an organization of desperate criminals, ready to commit other crimes upon which Pry might capitalize.
So it happened that when Pry left the garage he had with him a square of pasteboard containing a number, and, upon that truck with its illegal cargo, was a duplicate ticket containing the same number.
Paul Pry chuckled to himself as he walked out into the night.
He telephoned Sergeant Mahoney at headquarters.
“Pry talking, sergeant. There’s a reward out for the recovery of the gold that was slicked from the Sixth Merchants & Traders National?”
“I’ll say there is. You haven’t got a lead on it, have you?”
“Yeah. What say you drive out to the corner of Vermont and Harrison? I’ll meet you there with the gold. You take the credit for the recovery and keep my name out of it. We split the reward fifty-fifty.”
The sergeant cleared his throat.
“I’d like to do that all right, Pry. But it happens you’ve figured in two or three rewards lately. How come you get the dope so easily?”
Paul Pry laughed. “Trade secret, sergeant. Why?”
“Well, you know, someone might claim you were pulling the crimes in order to get the rewards.”
“Don’t be silly, sergeant. If I’d taken the risk of pulling this job I wouldn’t surrender the coin for a fraction of its value. These boxes don’t contain jewels. They contain gold coin and currency. I could take the stuff out and spend it — if I didn’t want to turn it back. But if you think it might make trouble, we’ll just forget it and I won’t back the shipment and you can go ahead and work on the case in your own way.”
“No, no, Pry! I was just thinking out loud. You’re right. The corner of Harrison and Vermont? I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Paul Pry hung up the telephone, then rang his apartment. Mugs Magoo answered the ring.
“You drunk, Mugs?”
“No.”
“Sober?”
“No.”
“All right. Get a cab and pick up a pair of overalls and a cap, also a jumper. Get a leather coat if you can’t get a jumper. Bring them to me in a rush. You’ll find me at a drug store out on Vermont, near a Hundred and Tenth Street. Make it snappy.”
And Paul Pry settled himself comfortably in the drug store, picked up a magazine, purchased a package of cigarettes and prepared to enjoy himself.
It took Mugs Magoo half an hour to bring the things. Paul Pry changed in the taxicab and arrived at the garage with clothes that were soiled and grimy. A little tobacco in his eyes gave them a reddened inflamed appearance.
He was cursing when the sleepy-eyed attendant, dozing in a chair tilted back against the office wall, extended a mechanical hand.
“That damned truck. Can you beat it? I don’t any more than get to sleep when the boss rings up and tells the wife I’ve got to take that load down to the warehouse tonight, pick up a helper and start on another trip.”
The attendant looked at Paul Pry with a puzzled frown.
“You the one that brought in that truck?”
Paul yawned and flipped him the red pasteboard.
“Uh huh,” he said.
The attendant walked back to the truck, compared the numbers on the tickets, nodded.
“Your face looked familiar, but I thought—”
He didn’t finish what he had thought.
Paul Pry got in the truck, switched on the ignition, got the motor roaring to life, turned on the headlights and drove to the street. Mugs Magoo in the taxicab, an automatic clutched in his left hand, guarded the rear. The treasure truck rumbled down the boulevard.
At the corner of Harrison, Sergeant Mahoney was parked in a police car. He shook hands with Paul Pry and ran to the canvas covered cargo of the truck. A moment’s examination convinced him.
“God, there should be a promotion in this!”
Paul Pry nodded.
“You drive the truck to headquarters. Claim you shook the information out of a stoolie. I’ll drive your roadster to my apartment. You can have one of your men pick it up later. By the way, I’ve got a red roadster out at Magby’s Garage, a mile or so down the street. I’ve lost my claim ticket for it. Wish you’d send a squad out there and tell the garage man it’s a stolen car. You can leave it in front of my apartment when you pick up your car.”
Sergeant Mahoney surveyed Paul Pry with eyes that were puckered to mere glinting slits.
“Did you switch tags and steal this truck, son?”
Paul Pry shook his head. “I can’t very well answer that question.”
“Afraid of something? You’d have police protection if you committed a technical robbery of a gangster truck.”
Pry laughed. “No. There’s a more personal reason than that.”
“Which is?”
“That I don’t want to kill the goose that’s laying my golden eggs.”
Sergeant Mahoney emitted a low whistle.
“Golden eggs is right! But you’re monkeying with dynamite, son. You’ll be pushin’ up daisies if you play that game.”
“Possibly,” agreed Paul Pry. “But, after all, that’s what makes the game more interesting. And it’s something that’s entirely between me and—”
“And who?” asked the officer eagerly.
“And a gentleman to whom I have presented a new car,” said Paul Pry. With which cryptic remark, he walked toward the police roadster.
“Take good care of that truck, and good night, sergeant. Let me know about your promotion.”
The sergeant was clambering into the driver’s seat of the truck as Paul Pry stepped on the starter of the police roadster. In the morning another consignment of golden eggs would find its way to him — one half of the reward money posted by the bank for a loss which it might have prevented.
The Daisy Pusher
“Big Front” Gilvray was sore — damned sore. That’s why he hired the slickest killer in the game to put an end to the mysterious Paul Pry. But Paul Pry, terror to both the police and gangsters alike, had an amazing, strange way of dealing with killers!
Paul Pry lounged at indolent ease upon what was, perhaps, one of the busiest corners in the high-class shopping district.
The early afternoon shoppers filed past in twin streams of eddying humanity. Occasionally some provocative glance was flashed at Paul Pry. But those glances were wasted, for Paul Pry had his entire attention centred upon a human derelict who crouched against the wall of a bank building and held forth a hat filled with pencils.