“Anything else?” asked Paul Pry.
“That’s about all of it,” she said. “You don’t want the detailed instructions which are being given the automobiles, do you?”
“No,” he told her, “not now. But make notes of everything that goes over the radio in connection with this crime.”
She returned to the booth, where she closed the door and once more started her pencil flying over the pages of the shorthand notebook.
Paul Pry turned to Mugs Magoo. His face was fixed in an expression of keen concentration. “All right, Mugs,” he said, “snap out of it and tell me what you know about the millionaires.”
Mugs Magoo groaned. “Ain’t it enough for me to know about the crooks,” he asked, “without having to spill all the dope on the millionaires?”
Paul Pry laughed. “I know what you’re trying to do, Mugs,” he said. “You’re trying to keep me from taking an interest in this case because you’re afraid of it. But I’m going to take an interest in it just the same.”
Mugs Magoo tilted the bottle of whiskey over the tumbler, drained the last drop from the tumbler, smacked his lips, then turned his glassy eyes toward Paul Pry.
Those were remarkable eyes. They protruded slightly and seemed dead and expressionless, as though covered with some thin, white film. But they were eyes that saw much and forgot nothing.
Mugs Magoo could give the name, antecedents, connection and criminal record of almost every known crook in the United States. Moreover, he had but to look at a face once in order to remember that man indefinitely. All gossip, all information which ever reached his ears; all occurrences which took place within the range of his vision, remained indelibly impressed upon his memory.
At one time he had been camera-eye man for the metropolitan police. A political shake-up had thrown him out of work, and an unfortunate accident had taken off his right arm at the shoulder. Feeling that he could never return to the police force he had indulged his desire for liquor, until, when Paul Pry found the man, he had been but a sodden wreck, begging a mere pittance as a cripple, by selling pencils on a street corner. Paul Pry had cultivated the man, gradually learned something of his history and the remarkable gift which had made him so valuable to the police. He had given him food, clothes, money, and an allowance of whiskey, which served to satisfy the keen craving of the man’s insatiable appetite. From time to time, he used such information as Mugs Magoo could impart by drawing upon his encyclopaedic knowledge of the underworld.
“Mugs,” said Paul Pry, “what do you know about Charles Darwin?”
Mugs Magoo shook his head. “Keep out of it, chief,” he said. “Please keep out of it. You’re mixing with dynamite. This isn’t the sort of a case where you’re up against some cheap crook; you’re dealing with a homicidal maniac here.”
Paul Pry waited for a moment, then said again with slow emphasis: “Mugs, what do you know about Charles Darwin?”
Mugs Magoo sighed. “To begin with, he’s a millionaire who made his money out of the stock market when the stock market was going up, and didn’t lose his money when the stock market went down. That means that he’s got brains or is lucky.
“He married one of those cold-blooded society-type women, and the marriage didn’t take. He got to playing around. Mrs Darwin never played in her life; she didn’t know what play was. Life was a serious proposition with her, a question of just who she should invite to the next tea, and what sort of a bid she should make when she picked up her bridge hand.
“Darwin wanted a divorce. She wouldn’t give him one. She hired detectives to trail him around, so that she could get enough on him so that he couldn’t get one. He could never get anything on her, because there was never anything to get.”
“How do you know all this, Mugs?” asked Paul Pry curiously.
Mugs Magoo regarded the empty whiskey glass with a speculative eye. “Those glasses,” he said, “don’t hold as much as the others; they—”
“Never mind the glasses, Mugs. How did you find out all this about a millionaire’s matrimonial mix-up?”
“Oh,” said Mugs wearily, “the detective that Mrs Darwin got hold of was an ex-con. I spotted him, and he was afraid I was going to turn him in, so he spilled the beans to me about what he was doing.”
“Well,” said Paul Pry, “you’re still not telling me what happened.”
“Well,” Mugs Magoo said, “he was a clever bird. He wasn’t like the ordinary private detective. Naturally he wasn’t, because he’d been a high-class crook in his time, and he knew a lot of angles that only a crook would know. As a result, he got quite a bit of stuff on Darwin. He found out where Darwin was keeping a love nest.”
“A love nest?” asked Paul Pry.
“Well, that’s what the tabloids call it,” Mugs Magoo said. “It was just an apartment he kept without letting his wife know about it.”
“But his wife found out about it?” asked Pry.
“Not this one,” Mugs said. “The detective found out about it, but he was too wise to report the information to the agency. He realized that all he’d draw from the agency would be eight dollars a day, perhaps a bonus of a suit of clothes, or something. So he went to Darwin, put the cards on the table, told Darwin what he had, and offered to sell out for five thousand dollars. Naturally, he got the five grand.”
“And what did he tell the agency?” asked Paul Pry.
“Oh, he told the agency enough to let them make a pretty good report to Mrs Darwin. As a matter of fact, I think he fixed it up with Charles Darwin so that the report was sufficiently complete to give Mrs Darwin most of the evidence she wanted.”
Paul Pry squinted his forehead thoughtfully. “Where was this love nest, Mugs?” he asked.
Mugs was pouring whiskey into the glass. Abruptly, he stopped and straightened. His eyes blinked thoughtfully. “Hell!” he said. “I’ve got the address of the place somewhere in my mind, but — by gosh! — it was out in the west end somewhere. Ain’t that a break?”
Paul Pry reached for his hat and coat. “All right, Mugs,” he said, “pull the address out of the back of your mind, because I want it.”
2. Paul Pry Turns Peeping Tom
The apartment house had that subtle air of quiet exclusiveness which is associated with high prices, but not necessarily with respectability.
Paul Pry moved down the deeply carpeted corridor like some silent shadow. He paused in front of the door and inspected the lock. Then he selected a key from a well-filled key ring, inserted the key and exerted a slow, steady pressure. A moment later there was a click as the lock slipped back.
Paul Pry moved on through the door, into the apartment, and closed the door behind him.
He had, he observed with satisfaction, reached the place ahead of the police. Doubtless, the police would, sooner or later, find out about this expensive apartment which was maintained by the millionaire playboy who had figured so grimly in such a blood-curdling murder. Right at present, however, Paul Pry was on the job, and in the position of one who is one jump ahead.
Paul Pry did not switch on the lights, but used an electric flashlight. He sent the beam darting about the apartment. He saw that the windows were covered by expensive drapes; that, in addition to the drapes, there were shades which were drawn down, making it virtually impossible for the faintest flicker of light to be seen from the street. There were expensive carpets, deep overstuffed chairs, a well-filled bookcase which seemed, however, more to furnish background than a source of reading material. There was a bedroom with a beautiful walnut bed, a tiled bathroom with the spaciousness which indicated high rental. There was a second bedroom which opened on the other side of the bath. There was a kitchen and dining-room which opened off the room which Paul Pry entered.