“Yes?” said Paul Pry.
“Well, listen,” said the man’s voice, speaking hastily. “I’m a friend of Lola’s. You recognized her voice over the telephone?”
“Yes. Sure,” said Paul Pry, “but I’m afraid I don’t want to deal with any friend of hers. My business is with her.”
“Yeah, sure it is,” said the man. “But she can’t get to come alone. She wanted me to give you a ring so I could explain what’s happened.
“She’s in a jam, and she’s got to see you right away. Now you wait right there in your room. Keep the door locked. Don’t open up for anyone until she gets there, and don’t even answer the telephone. Get me?
“We’re coming over just as soon as we can make a break, and we want to be sure we ain’t tailed. See? Now you and Lola can go ahead with that thing just like you planned, only you gotta wait until she gets there. Here she is on the telephone.”
The man relinquished the instrument. The voice of the girl who had worn the fur coat came to Paul Pry’s ears.
“It’s all right, George. I’ll explain when we get there. Only sit right in the room. Don’t open until you hear someone rap twice, then a pause, then three raps, then another pause, and then a single rap.
“That’ll be me. The man with me is O.K.”
“O.K.,” he said, at length. “If you say it’s O.K. I guess it is.”
“Right over,” said the woman’s voice. “You stay right there until we get there.”
Paul Pry hung up the receiver, turned to stare into Mugs Magoo’s florid features.
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Mugs. “I thought you’d done the damndest fool things a guy could ever do — but being George Inman! That takes the cake! An’ when you spilled that dope it made me swallow my drink of whiskey down the wrong side of my throat, and anything that’ll make a guy do that with really good whiskey, is a public calamity.
“Go ahead an’ play around while you’ve got the chance, because when you get all stretched out with a coroner’s jury starin’ at the doctor, while he points out the course of the bullets through the body, you won’t have no kick outa life at all. Just go right ahead, guy, only shake hands with me before you go out again. I hate to see you go, but you might as well finish it up and get the suspense over with.”
Paul Pry grinned.
“Mugs,” he said solemnly, “I have an idea that I’m going to meet some tough gangsters. That is, Mugs, they think they’re tough. But, to me, they’re going to be nice little goosies, laying golden eggs.”
Mugs Magoo disregarded the glass in favour of more direct action. As he removed the neck of the bottle from appreciative lips, he muttered: “An’ there’s a frail at the bottom of it. That’s a cinch.”
Paul Pry nodded. He was putting on his coat, hefting the balance of his sword cane. “Yes, Mugs, you’re right again. There’s a lady at the bottom of it, Mugs, a lady who says yes.”
Mugs Magoo extended a solemn hand.
“You was a good pal,” he said, “—while you lasted!”
5
The streets of the city held that damp cheerlessness which comes a couple of hours before dawn. They were almost deserted, and Paul Pry, anxious to escape observation, walked for three rapid blocks before he swung over to the main boulevard where he knew he could find a cab even at that hour.
His actions were not even furtive. He had a coil of light rope wound around his waist, a little handbag that contained certain articles. He was smiling, rather a fixed smile, and his eyes were diamond hard.
Paul Pry sent the cab to the address given on the purloined card as being the residence of Frank Jamison. The apartment hotel was of exactly the type he had expected.
Paul Pry entered the hotel after having paid the cab, approached the desk. He wrote his name on the register.
“Something for about a month,” he said. “Frank Jamison knows me. He said I’d be comfortable here. I’d like to get on the same floor he’s on. Maybe I’ll be longer than a month. Maybe it won’t be so long, but you get a month’s rent cash on the nail.”
The man at the desk nodded.
“Mr. Jamison’s on the fourth, 438. I can let you have 431. That’s just a ways down the corridor and on the other side.”
“O.K.,” said Paul Pry. “Jamison ain’t in, is he?”
“I don’t think so. He’s out quite late.”
“Yeah, I know. Give’m a buzz, just in case.”
The man behind the counter-like desk stepped to the glassed-in partition behind which sat a telephone operator.
“Give Jamison in 438 a jingle. Tell him his friend’s here, Mr. Pry.”
The girl plugged in a line, shook her head, after an interval.
“Out,” said the man as he swung around to face Paul Pry.
“Now listen, Frank Jamison and me are going to do some business that we ain’t telling all of Frank’s friends about. So when Frank comes in, he’ll have some guys with him. Just don’t say anything about me being here.”
The clerk was businesslike.
“We make a practice of minding our own business here, Mr. Pry. You make your own announcements. And the first instalment, by the way, will be one hundred dollars.”
Paul Pry handed the clerk two bills.
“Never mind the receipt. I’m hitting the hay. The baggage’ll get here in the morning.”
Paul Pry went to the fourth floor, was shown to his apartment. He tipped the boy who took him up, waited until he heard the elevator door clang shut, and then walked down the corridor to 438, fitted his key assortment to the lock until he had the proper skeleton, heard the bolt click, and walked in. He left the hall door open, and the light from the hallway flooded enough of the room to give him the lay of the land.
Paul Pry entered the bedroom, ripped the blankets from the bed, went to the bathroom, soaked the blankets in water, wrung out some of the surplus, took the wet blankets into the front room, suspended them by their corners.
He worked with swift precision, and used the coil of light rope, hardly more than a heavy twine. He anchored this rope to the chandeliers, easing the weight of the blankets on the light rope so that he would not pull out the lighting fixture.
When he had finished, he had two wet blankets suspended in such a manner that they almost blocked the rest of the room from the doorway.
He took from his pocket a little metallic object that resembled a fountain pen, stood a little distance back from the wet blankets, pointed the metallic object, and pressed a hidden button.
There was a dull explosion, sounding hardly more loud than the smashing of a small inflated paper bag. A stream of swirling vapour mushroomed out until it hit the wet blankets. Then it seemed to be enveloped, the tear gas having an affinity for the moist surface.
Paul Pry stepped swiftly out of the apartment room, closed the door behind him, used his skeleton key, and twisted the bolt of the lock.
Then he went down the corridor, took some of the light rope, measured off the length of the corridor, and took a round doorstop from the little bag which he carried. He screwed this doorstop into the wood of the corridor, well over to one side, made a loop in the rope with a bowline knot holding it against slips, dropped the loop over the doorstop, then screwed a similar doorstop into the other side of the corridor.
When he tightened the rope, he had a perfectly taut line some three inches above the level of the floor. He surveyed the result, nodded, removed the rope, leaving the doorstops in place, and went back to his own room.
The place where he had put the doorstops was almost opposite the entrance of apartment 431, the one on which he had paid the rent.
He yawned, removed his shoes, closed, but did not lock the door, lit a cigarette, and sprawled out in one of the overstuffed easy chairs.