“If I’m not back in time for dinner, Mugs, get in touch with Big Front Gilvray and tell him my dinner’s getting cold. Can you manage to reach him, do you think?”
“Sure, chief, sure. I know his hang-out and the guys that make up his gang. But he’s dangerous. He’s a thinker, and he’s got guts.”
Pry picked up the sword cane.
“A certain element of danger, eh, Mugs?”
“You said it, sir.”
“Ahhhh!”
And Paul Pry’s sigh was the sigh an epicure gives when his nostrils catch the aroma of a perfectly cooked dish, the sigh that a trout fisherman gives when a black streak circles up to his fly.
“Mugs, be good, and don’t get too drunk to get in touch with Gilvray if I’m not home.”
The man regarded his employer with glassy-eyed dignity.
“Son,” he said sadly, “there ain’t enough hooch in the world to get me to a state where I don’t crave more hooch. And I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’.”
Paul Pry smiled, closed the door of his apartment, walked blithely to the street and sought out the Palace Barber Shop.
He found that the interior was plainly visible from the street. Then he went to a place where cars were rented without drivers, rented a snappy roadster, drove to the front of the barber shop, parked in a double line for ten minutes, then got a chance to ooze in to the kerb. Twenty minutes later he had the parking place he wanted, directly in front of the window.
Miss Montrose was at her station, a little table where the light was good. From time to time she glanced at the clock. As the hands approached the hour of three o’clock she became more nervous, glanced at the clock with greater frequency.
Paul Pry, watching, tapped on the steering wheel with the tips of his sensitive fingers, and smiled.
At three-ten a young man walked into the shop, nodded pleasantly to the barbers, removed his coat and collar, stretched himself luxuriously in the front chair and nodded to the manicurist.
Paul Pry, watching closely, decided that the manicurist was the real reason the young man patronized the shop.
He had been careful to speak to the barbers first when he entered the shop. Not until after he had included them in a greeting, had he turned casually to the table where the girl sat with wide eyes, parted lips. Then his nod had been so studiedly impersonal as to seem strained.
After he had seated himself in the chair, he looked at his fingers for a moment, as though deciding whether or not he wanted a manicure. Then he had nodded to the girl and settled back.
But the girl, taking his hand, had given it a squeeze, and Paul Pry had seen the man’s fingers tighten in an answering squeeze.
Paul Pry nodded, slowly, thoughtfully, as a theatre-goer might nod when the second act of a show opens with precisely the situation he has anticipated from the close of the first act. There was satisfaction in his nod, also a wary watchfulness.
The girl didn’t look at the clock any longer.
Paul Pry concentrated his attention upon the coat, collar and hat which decorated the tree in the barber shop.
The barber flung a hot towel over the face of the customer. The manicurist arose, walked to her table. Nervous hands fluttered over the little bowls. Then she turned, walked toward the hat tree, paused, glanced swiftly about her and darted a shapely hand to the side pocket of the coat.
Paul Pry, watching, whistled his surprise. Here was none of the nervous bungling of the amateur. Here was the deft swiftness of touch of a professional dip. Unquestionably the girl knew her business. Here was a moll who had reefed many a kick.
The leather wallet which came from the side pocket went under the towel which the girl carried over her arm. The girl dropped back to the little stool before the customer, took up his hand, plied nail file and orange stick with deft skill.
Once or twice she paused to search for some instrument or other, but she sat in plain sight, never leaving the room. Twice her hands dropped beneath the towel which reposed on her lap, and which towel must conceal the wallet which she had slipped from the coat pocket. But there was no fumbling, no hesitancy. The hands simply burrowed beneath the towel, were there for a second, then back in plain sight.
The left hand finished, the girl arose, set the stool on the other side of the chair, turned once more back to her table, and then, for the second time, there was a pause before the hat tree, the flash of a towel, the flicker of motion.
And none but the watching eyes of Paul Pry had seen the leather wallet slipped back into the coat pocket.
The barber finished with the shave. The man was propped upright in the chair. The girl put the finishing touches on the manicure. She was laughing, talking vivaciously. The customer regarded her with eyes which betrayed the secret he had been at such pains to conceal beneath a mask of casual unconcern when he had entered the place. There was no doubt but what he was mad about the girl.
The man donned hat and coat, exchanged a few words with the barbers, after the manner of a regular customer, gave the girl one burning, surreptitious glance, and left the shop.
Paul Pry swung away from the kerb.
The man walked to the corner. Pry picked out a flivver, carefully judged the distance, stepped on the throttle. There was the crash of an impact, the sound of a ripping fender, the roar of an irate driver’s accusation, and then Paul Pry was out of his car, on the street, surveying the damage, making loud accusations of negligence on the part of the driver of the flivver.
To support his claims he dashed to the sidewalk, grabbed the freshly shaven and manicured individual by the coat and propelled him to the scene of the accident, where a small crowd was gathering.
“You saw it. You saw him cut in front of me!” Paul insisted. The freshly shaven man was embarrassed.
“Why no. That is, I heard a noise, and I looked up and the cars were together. But I can tell you the position they were in right after the impact. The flivver was over here, and you were about here.”
“Well, what does that show?” growled the other driver. “This guy runs into me. Huh, here comes the cop. He’ll straighten it out in a hurry.”
Paul extended his hand toward the witness he had summoned.
“Your card, and then you can beat it. No use arguing here on the street. If it comes to court I’ll call you as a witness. If it doesn’t, you won’t be bothered. I’ll pay ’em a reasonable sum for a settlement, but I don’t want ’em to stick me. Give me your card and act like you’re going to make a good witness.”
The man nodded his comprehension, smiled his relief. The freshly manicured hand flipped into his inside coat pocket, came out with a wallet. From the wallet he took a card.
“R. C. Fenniman, Wholesale Jeweller,” read Paul, and, down in the lower left-hand corner, “Presented by Samuel Bergen.”
The address of the wholesale jewellery concern was only a matter of some four blocks from the scene of the accident. Paul Pry glanced swiftly at the card, nodded, turned to confront the officer who was ploughing his way forward importantly.
“Come on, come on,” he bellowed. “It ain’t nothin’ but a busted fender. What are you guys blockin’ traffic for? Get those cars over to the kerb. Lively now. On your way, you folks. Ain’t you never seen a busted fender before?”
The flivver driver remonstrated.
“I wanted to leave ’em right where they were, so you could see how this guy run into me. I was just turnin’ the corner, an’ I had my left arm out, an’ I wasn’t goin’ over ten miles an hour—”
The officer snorted.
“All right, all right! I see. But there ain’t no reason to tie up all this traffic. Get in, back away, move ’em over. That fender’s off anyway. Might as well make a good job of it. Back up that roadster. Back it up! Back it up! Get started. That’s it. Now pick up that fender. All right, you guys, come over here and let’s see what it’s all about. Now wait a second until I get this traffic straightened out. No left-land turns, now, mister. Just keep goin’ until we get the corner cleared. That’s it... No, ma’am... straight ahead. All right, you birds, now we can talk. Whose fault was it?”