The suitcase was filled with those slips of tinted paper which represent waste cuttings from a printer’s shop, and the young man with the cleft chin raised his voice in an agonized scream.
“I’ve been robbed!” he shouted. “My suitcase! Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars—”
His voice trailed off into a wail, and he slumped back, unconscious once more.
Men ran about aimlessly. The uniformed police threw a cordon about the depot. Nearby traffic officers left their posts. A hurry call brought a squad of reinforcements on the double-quick.
But the police were unable to apprehend the men responsible for the robbery. The young man with the cleft chin regained consciousness. He had remembered the spectacle of the young woman with the fur coat and the pink silk undergarments. Then someone had jostled him, there had been a terrific jar upon his head and he had dropped to the floor.
He had not even seen the faces of those who had been responsible. The blow with the slungshot had come from behind, and that which followed had been done with such well-trained efficiency as to baffle detection.
Paul Pry sat upon his post, listened to all that followed. From time to time, his eyes dropped to the check stand where the pale-faced man took in suitcases and gave them out. And all the time the suitcase with its contents of bonds reposed back of the counter.
It was, as yet, too hot to handle. And what better hiding place could be devised for it than to have it nestled in amongst some two dozen other bags staring the police in the face?
5. Slick and Clean
Paul Pry fastened a bit of cement to the marble, repaired the chipped place, climbed down and took a streetcar. He didn’t go far, however.
There were stores near the depot that specialized in needs for the traveller. Cheap suitcases, made up to imitate expensive baggage, were displayed in windows with temptingly low prices placarded upon them.
Paul Pry became a customer of one of these stores, and his purchases were most peculiar.
He negotiated for a suitcase, two alarm clocks, a set of dry batteries, some junk radio equipment which loomed imposingly as a mass of tangled, coiled wires, sockets, polished metal, yet which was worth virtually nothing.
The proprietor was rubbing his hands when Paul Pry left.
Paul Pry secured a taxicab, wound up the alarm clocks, placed them inside the suitcase together with his other purchases, set the alarms on the clocks with extreme care, and ordered the cab driver to take him to the Union Depot.
He arrived at a time when trains were leaving and pulling in, when night traffic to the city was just commencing.
There was a vehicle cordon of police about the place, but they were scrutinizing suitcases that went out rather than suitcases that came in, and Paul Pry called a redcap.
“Take this to the checking stand and get me a check on it,” he said.
The porter moved off with the suitcase, and any noise which might have been made by the noisy ticking of the clocks was entirely drowned out in the tramp of feet, the roar of trains, the blare of automobile horns.
The porter returned with a slip of pasteboard bearing a number, received a generous tip, and promptly forgot about the entire matter. Paul Pry drove to his apartment, changed his clothes, ignored the pessimistic comments of Mugs Magoo, and returned to the Union Depot.
This time he carried a cane, rather a long, slender cane with a hook in the handle. He moved with the alert caution of a cat.
A glance showed him that the suitcase he desired was still in its place. That place was of advantage to the gangster who had flipped it there, because it required only a single sweeping motion with his right arm to transfer it there from the brass-covered counter.
Paul Pry took in the situation with calculating eye, and bided his time.
That time came when the evening trains had pulled out, when comparative silence descended upon the Union Depot. There were still hurrying throngs, but they were swallowed in the vast space of the huge terminal as though they had been but a handful of passing pedestrians.
Sounds became more audible.
Paul Pry looked at his watch, strolled to the kerb, summoned a cab, had the driver wait for him.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes. Got to meet the wife on one train and sprint across the city to make a connection at the other depot. She’s bringing me my suitcase. Came away without it this afternoon. You be all ready to go as soon as I get here.”
The cab driver nodded, yawned, pocketed a tip.
“I’ll get you there,” he promised.
Paul Pry strolled back to the station, went to the battery of public telephone booths. Through the glass door of the booth he selected he could see the pasty-faced man on duty at the checking stand.
He was, doubtless, such a man as had no readily available police record. Yet he would hesitate to appeal to the police for protection in an emergency.
Paul Pry deposited a coin and gave the number of the telephone at the checking stand. He saw the pasty-faced man scoop up the telephone to his ear, answer it. Over the wire, to his ear, came the sound of a mechanical voice.
“Yeah, hello. This is the checkin’ ag’ncy Un’n Depot.”
Paul Pry let his voice rasp in raucous warning.
“I’m going to blow up the whole Union Depot,” he said. “There’s a blast going off in exactly three minutes. I want to wreck the building, but I don’t want to kill you. I’ve nothing against you. What I’m fighting is Capitalism. You are just a working man.”
The voice over the wire had lost its mechanical disinterest.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” it demanded.
And Paul Pry could see that the features of the pasty-faced man had become rigid with alarm.
“I’ve got a bomb planted. It’s in a suitcase I checked with you this afternoon. There are two alarm clocks in it. The first one will go off in five minutes. Then there will be an interval of five minutes and the second one will go off. When that second one goes off it’ll set loose the explosion which will wreck...”
That was as far as he got, for the pastyfaced man had dropped the telephone and was sprinting for the back of the checking stand where long shelves furnished storage space for suitcases.
The first alarm had gone off, and the pasty-faced man was taking no chances.
Paul Pry darted from the booth, walked swiftly to the brass-covered counter, reached out with his cane. The hooked handle slid through the curved grip of the suitcase he wanted. A jerk, and it came from the shelf, went through the air and lit fairly upon the brass-covered counter.
The pasty-faced man was no coward. He had pulled down the suitcase Paul Pry had “planted” earlier in the evening, had cut loose the leatheroid side, and was pulling out the miscellaneous assortment of wires and clocks.
His back was of necessity toward the counter during those few brief seconds while he worked.
Paul Pry took the suitcase, strolled casually toward the taxicab exit. The cabbie ran forward and grabbed the suitcase. Paul Pry stepped into the waiting cab and was whisked away.
Inspector Oakley twisted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
“You’ve been collecting a lot of rewards lately,” he said to Paul Pry.
That individual nodded cheerfully.
“After a fifty-fifty split with you, inspector.”
Oakley studied the tip of his smouldering cigar.
“Well, I guess it’s all right, only you’re sure going to be on a hot spot one of these days. Gilvray’s gunning for you — but that’s no news to you. Do you know, Pry, I have a hunch that if you’d go before the grand jury and testify to some of the things you know about Gilvray and his methods, you could get an indictment that would stick.”