Paul Pry crossed to the sideboard, filled the two glasses and handed them to his guests.
“Do you know, sergeant,” he said slowly, “I have a funny hunch about Big Front Gilvray.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I think the goosie is getting ready to lay another golden egg.”
Sergeant Mahoney strangled on his drink, then wiped his eyes, his face red from the fit of coughing.
“You mean to say you still refuse to leave?”
“Absolutely, and if the police try to make me, I’ll tell the whole story to the newspapers. Do I make myself plain, sergeant?”
Sergeant Mahoney jerked his cap down on his forehead and strode toward the door.
“Perfectly,” he snapped, “and the police protection you can count on is exactly zero. You’ve cleaned up over twenty thousand dollars in reward money just from riding Big Front Gilvray around. You’ve made him the laughing stock of the underworld — and you’ll be pushing daisies this time next month!”
Paul Pry stifled a yawn.
“Let the sergeant out, Mugs,” he said.
Mugs Magoo stared at Paul Pry with glassy eyes that seemed to be pushing from their sockets.
“Are you crazy?” he asked.
Paul Pry shook his head.
“Certainly not. As Sergeant Mahoney remarked, I’ve cleaned up over twenty thousand dollars in golden eggs Big Front Gilvray has so kindly laid for me. Why should I be crazy to figure on another golden egg?”
Mugs Magoo reached for the whiskey bottle and filled his glass.
“You show your face outside of this hang-out and you’ll be stretched on a marble slab.”
Paul Pry shrugged his shoulders.
“But you certainly wouldn’t want me to let Gilvray go unpunished for his murder. Come, Mugs, do as I tell you. Go out and find Gilvray’s scouts. I want to know who they are.”
Mugs Magoo had derived his nickname because of a camera-eye and a memory that was utterly infallible. He never forgot a face, a name or a connection. At one time he had been a trusted officer. A political shake-up had thrown him off the force. An accident had taken off his right arm at the shoulder. Booze had done the rest.
He had been utterly down and out when Paul Pry had rescued him from the gutter and turned the man’s remarkable knowledge of the underworld to advantage.
“Gilvray’s desperate,” mumbled Mugs Magoo.
“For heaven’s sake! Do I have to listen to all that again? You’re as bad as Mahoney. What I want to know is how Gilvray gets the information for his hauls.”
“Scouts, of course. Same way all the rest of ’em do. They have people circulating around the jewellery stores, the nightclubs, the wealthy residential districts. They spot out the lay—”
“All right, Mugs, what I ask you is simple enough for a man of your contacts. Spot the scouts Gilvray is using.”
Mugs sighed, and poured himself another glass of whiskey.
“I’m goin’ to have a hard time gettin’ my whiskey after you’re gone,” he said.
“Gone?” asked Paul Pry.
“Yeah. Pushin’ daisies,” said Mugs Magoo, and lugubriously started upon his mission.
When he had gone, Paul Pry put on his hat and a topcoat, slipped to the kitchen of his apartment and listened.
That apartment was his hideout, a veritable fortress. The windows were steel-shuttered and iron-barred. The doors were bulletproof — and there was a secret exit which even Mugs Magoo didn’t know about.
Paul Pry pushed up a trapdoor in the top of the kitchen closet, crawled between walls for some twenty feet, opened another trapdoor, found himself in a vacant apartment, slipped through that apartment to a side door, emerged in a corridor, and finally reached the sidewalk half a block from the entrance to the narrow building where his own apartment was located.
Paul Pry paused in the doorway to survey the street.
He noticed a plain-clothes man on duty, lounging directly opposite the doorway to his own apartment. He also noticed a touring car in which two men sat. Those men were well tailored, but there was an alert watchfulness about them which made them seem far from being gentlemen of leisure.
Paul Pry waited in the doorway until a cruising cab driver caught his signal and pulled to the kerb. Head bent forward, so that his hat covered his features, he skipped into the cab and gave the address of an interurban depot.
From that point on his moves were made openly and apparently as part of a well-laid plan.
He took an interurban car for Centerville, a rather distant and somewhat isolated suburb. There he went to the main hotel and registered as Harley Garfield of Chicago. He paid a week’s rent on his room, tipped a bellboy for getting him settled, stated he would have some baggage sent up later, and then sought out the most pretentious jewellery store in the town.
The proprietor himself came forward.
He was snowy-haired, walked with a limp, and his eyes were filmed with age. Yet there was a dignity in the man’s carriage. About him was that subtle something that characterizes an aristocrat.
“I want,” said Paul Pry, “to get some diamonds. I want a rather expensive necklace. I am willing to go as high as fifty thousand dollars.”
The filmed eyes showed a trace of expression which was instantly suppressed.
“Your name?” asked the jeweller.
“Garfield. Harley Garfield, of Chicago.”
And Paul Pry extended his hand.
“Moffit,” said the jeweller, shaking hands. “I am pleased to meet you. Living here at present, Mr. Garfield?”
“At the hotel. Room 908.”
“And you wanted a very fine string of diamonds.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t anything in stock, but you will understand how utterly impossible it is for a store of this size to keep a stock that would compare with the city stores.
“I’ll give you a card to my wholesaler and you can go to the city and have the best selection available. Or you can go in with me, if you’d prefer, and I’ll introduce you personally and assist in the selection.”
Paul Pry smiled and shook his head.
“Neither. I hate the city. Cities depress me. I had a nervous breakdown and my physicians advised me to avoid noise. That’s why I’m here where it’s quiet.”
There was just the finest trace of frosty suspicion upon the features of the jeweller.
“I’m sorry I have nothing in stock,” he said.
Paul Pry took a wallet from his coat pocket and flipped it open.
From its interior he took bills of thousand-dollar denomination. One by one, he counted them out upon the counter. The jeweller gazed at them with eyes that grew wider as each bill was deposited upon the counter.
“I am a businessman,” said Paul Pry. “I want to purchase a diamond necklace through you. I want the benefit of your judgment. And I am in a hurry. I, also, am hard to please. I am giving you twenty thousand dollars in cash as an evidence of good faith.
“Please give me a receipt. In that receipt you will mention that if I am satisfied with such necklaces as you can show me I will pay for one in cash. If I do not select one which pleases me, you will return my money less the sum of five hundred dollars which will compensate you for your trouble and expense. Now when can you have the first batch of necklaces here for my inspection?”
Moffit picked up the stacked money with trembling fingers. He counted it, examined each bill, then wrote out a receipt. Then he consulted the timetable of the interurban.
“Our train service is very poor,” he said. “I can have some necklaces for your inspection at 3.38. The car leaves the city at 2.10, and I will have the stones sent on that car.”
Paul Pry nodded.