Mugs Magoo stared at him with eyes that seemed to pop from his head. “My God!” he said. “You’ve been mixing into things again! You’re going to have the police after you for theft, Perry Hammond after you for fraud, and probably the man who pulls the cross-stitch murders after you, hammer and tongs, trying to kill you and sew your lips up!”
Paul Pry pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded his head.
“Yes, Mugs,” he said, “I should say that that is a very fair statement of the probable consequences. In fact, I would say that it is a somewhat conservative estimate.”
Smiling, he crossed to the writing desk and pulled down the slab of heavy wood which served as a writing table. He explored the pigeon holes which were disclosed in the back of the desk.
“You will remember, Mugs,” he said, “that at one time I secured a long, purple envelope, with a red border. You asked me what the devil I wanted with such an envelope, and I told you that I was keeping it because it was distinctive.”
Mugs Magoo nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I remember that.”
Paul Pry took a fountain pen from his pocket and addressed the purple envelope with the red border.
“Mr. Fremont Burke, General Delivery, City,” he said when he had finished writing. “The red ink shows up rather to advantage on that purple background. It makes it quite harmonious.”
“What’s in the envelope?” asked Mugs Magoo.
“Nothing,” said Paul Pry.
“What’s going to be in it?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s the idea?” asked Mugs Magoo.
Paul Pry smiled. He took from another compartment of the desk a stamped envelope. He addressed that envelope also to Fremont Burke, General Delivery, City.
“What’s going in that envelope?” asked Mugs Magoo.
“In this envelope,” said Paul Pry, smiling, “is going the best forgery of this cheque which I can make, and I’m satisfied, Mugs, that it will be quite a clever forgery.”
Mugs Magoo stared at Paul Pry in wordless contemplation. Then, “You’re going to cash the original cheque?” he asked.
Paul Pry nodded.
“How about the forged cheque?” asked Mugs Magoo.
Paul Pry shrugged his shoulders. “That, Mugs,” he said, “is a matter which lies between the bank and the man who presents the cheque.”
“But,” said Mugs Magoo, “suppose the forged cheque should be presented first?”
Paul Pry smiled patronizingly. “Come, come, Mugs,” he said, “you must give me credit for a little intelligence. The original cheque will be cashed before the forged cheque ever reaches the post office.”
“And what,” asked Mugs Magoo, “is the idea of the two letters — one in the coloured envelope and one in the plain envelope?”
“That, Mugs,” said Paul Pry, “comes under that classification of a trade secret. Really, it’s something that I can’t tell you unless you permit me to do a little more drumming.”
Mugs Magoo shook his head violently from side to side in extreme agitation.
“What’s the idea of the shake?” asked Paul Pry.
“I wanted to see if the whiskey had taken effect,” said Mugs Magoo. “If it had, I’d let you drum some more, but I see that I either didn’t get enough whiskey, or else I misjudged the time it would take to make me dizzy. I can’t stand the drumming, so you can keep your damned trade secret to yourself.”
Paul Pry chuckled and thrust the envelopes into his inside pocket. “Tomorrow at this time, Mugs, I’ll be twenty-five thousand dollars richer. Moreover, I’ll be embarked upon an interesting adventure.”
“Tomorrow at this time,” said Mugs Magoo, with solemn melancholy, “you’ll be stretched out on a marble slab, and a coroner and an autopsy surgeon will be staring at the cross-stitches that are placed across your lips.”
4. The Second Cheque
Paul Pry, wearing an overcoat which was turned up around the neck, a felt hat which was pulled down low over his forehead, and with heavily smoked glasses shielding his eyes, shoved the cheque through the cashier’s window.
The cashier stared at Paul Pry’s smoked glasses, looked at the check, said, “Just a moment,” and stepped from his grilled cage. He consulted a memorandum, looked at the check once more, sighed, and, with obvious reluctance, picked up a sheaf of currency.
“How,” he asked, “would you like to have this?”
“In hundreds,” said Paul Pry, “if that’s convenient.”
The cashier counted out hundred dollar bills in lots of ten, stacked them all together and snapped a large elastic band about them.
“You’ll take them that way?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You wish to count them?”
“No,” said Paul Pry, and turned away.
His long overcoat flapped about his ankles as he walked. He could feel the gaze of the cashier striking between his shoulder blades with almost physical impact.
Paul Pry went at once to the post office, where he dropped the two letters through the slot marked for city mail. Then he went out to lunch, and, after lunch, he strolled back to the post office.
He managed to stand where, without seeming to be too conspicuous, he could watch the window marked “General Delivery — A to G.”
Shortly after two-thirty, a young woman, stylishly gowned, presented herself at the window.
Paul Pry, standing some thirty feet away, at the end of a corridor, saw the clerk at the general-delivery window hand out a long envelope of purple tint, with a red border. The young woman took it, looked at it curiously. A moment later, the man behind the grille slid another envelope through the window. The girl took it, stared curiously at both envelopes. A moment later she moved away from the window, paused to open the envelopes, staring with puzzled countenance at the empty interior of the purple envelope.
Evidently she expected the cheque which was in the second envelope, for, as she removed the slip of paper, a look of relief came over her features. Paul Pry, standing where he could observe her every move, saw that she was labouring under great tension. Her lips seemed inclined to quiver, and her hands shook as she crumpled the purple envelope, held it over the huge iron waste basket as though to drop it. Then, apparently she thought better of it, for she uncrumpled the envelope, folded it and thrust it in her purse.
She walked from the post-office building, down the granite steps to the sidewalk, where a second young woman was waiting in an automobile.
Paul Pry, following behind, yet careful lest he should seem too eager, was unable to get a clear view of the woman who drove the automobile. But he saw the young woman who had taken the letters from the post office jump into the car. The car immediately drove off at high speed.
Paul Pry ran down the post-office steps to the lot where he had left his own automobile parked. He started the motor, then divested himself of the overcoat, the dark glasses, and shifted the slouch hat for one with a stiffer brim, letting the engine of his car warm up as he was making the changes. Then he stepped into the machine, drove at once to the bank where he had cashed the twenty-five thousand dollar cheque earlier in the day.
He made no effort to find a legitimate parking place for his car, but left it in front of a fire plug, certain that he would receive a tag, certain, also, that the car would be located in an advantageous position when he wished to use it once more.
He walked through the revolving door, stood in the ornate marble foyer looking at the long corridors with their grilled windows, the desks of executives, the customers crowding about the stand on which counter cheques and deposit slips were kept.