Cardona speculated. Once again, the detective found himself agreeing with Goldy Tancred’s statement.
He nodded automatically, and spoke a slow question.
“What do you want me to do about it, Goldy?” asked Cardona. “How can I help you out of the jam? Got any suggestions?”
Goldy’s fancy molars glimmered. The big shot studied the detective with an expression that was almost one of derision. Cardona wondered what the cause might be.
“You want to help me,” sneered Goldy. “Then why have you double-crossed me, Joe? Why did you plant a mike here in this room?”
“I planted nothing!” retorted Cardona hotly.
“No?” Goldy strode across the room as he spoke. He beckoned to the others as he thrust back the bookcase. “Look at this. Didn’t you put it here?”
Cardona viewed the microphone after Goldy removed the rubber cap. The detective shook his head.
“I don’t know a thing about it, Goldy,” he asserted, in a frank tone. “Positively, I don’t.”
THE big shot grunted. He yanked the microphone from the wall, and began to tear away the wire. It broke in his hand as he came to the spot where the slender line reached the window ledge. Reaching beyond the broken point, Goldy gave another yank.
It produced unexpected results. Out came the wiring from below the window ledge.
Pulling away in sudden consternation, Goldy followed the opposite direction, and the microphone behind the radiator snapped suddenly into view.
“Two of them!” exclaimed the big shot. “Say — what is this? Don’t you know anything about it, Joe?”
“Not a thing,” insisted Cardona. “Maybe when we trace the line—”
“Nothing doing,” interposed Goldy. “It runs to a telephone in an empty apartment below. No way of tracing it after that.”
In sudden rage, Goldy seized both microphones, and dashed the instruments against the wall. He began to tremble. His smile became a pitiful expression. Clasping his temples with his hands, Goldy Tancred stalked to his chair and slumped into the cushions.
Cardona had little sympathy for this high-stepping racketeer; at the same time, the detective saw Goldy Tancred as nothing more than a prospective victim of the underworld’s wrath. It was Cardona’s business to prevent murder. He could not ignore Goldy’s plea.
“You want police protection?” demanded the detective.
Goldy shook his bowed head.
“What then?” questioned Cardona.
“Let me get out of this,” requested Goldy. “Stick with me, Joe. I want a chance to scram. I can go where they won’t ever find me.”
JOE CARDONA pondered. He still felt that so far as crime was concerned, Ping Slatterly’s death marked the end of the recent series of outrages. Goldy Tancred was of no value as a witness.
There were good reasons, also, why Cardona would like to see Goldy Tancred out of New York. The man had unquestionably worked for political connections. He was a conniver who could cause great trouble in Manhattan.
“All right, Goldy,” mused Cardona, “I’ll let you beat it, if you’ll let me make sure you’ve gone—”
“Let you make sure!” exclaimed Goldy. “Say — Joe — I want you to cover me!”
“How?”
“I’ll duck out of here. Up to the Pennsylvania Station — tonight. Train for Florida. If I get on that without anybody knowing it, I’ll be safe. Send a man along — I’ll pay the round-trip expenses.
“But I want you to cover me from here to the station. Follow my cab. See me buy my ticket. Send me off. It’s all I ask, Joe. I’m licked. I want to get away.”
Cardona smiled disdainfully. The big shot was proving yellow. The myth that Goldy Tancred was a power, no longer existed. The bubble had burst.
“All right,” agreed the detective. “We’ll cover you. Markham and I will travel along behind you. Buy two tickets, and I’ll have a man waiting at the gate to join you.”
The detective turned and motioned to Markham and Burke. The three walked out of the living room, where Curry met them and showed them to the elevator.
The last glance that Clyde Burke had through the closing door was a picture of Goldy Tancred anxiously clasping his hands as he sat worried in his big chair. The reporter smiled as he heard Cardona laugh.
“A big yellow bum,” was the detective’s sarcastic comment. “Goldy Tancred — yellow as they make them!”
THE ace detective would have changed his opinion could he have seen through the closed door of the apartment. Back in his living room, Goldy Tancred was no longer a figure of dejection.
A cunning, flashy smile had replaced the pitiful expression on the big shot’s lips. Standing in the center of his living room, Goldy Tancred was enjoying a laugh of silent derision.
His servant entered. Goldy’s laugh changed to a low command, which brought a knowing smile from Curry.
“All right, Curry,” instructed Goldy. “Rig up that funny mug of yours. Slide into the outfit and be quick about it.”
Curry went to a table in the corner. He opened a drawer and brought out several tiny, glimmering objects. He slipped them into his mouth, adjusted them, and turned to smile at his chief.
His teeth capped with gold shells, Curry had gained a grin that was an exact replica of Tancred’s favorite expression. Even without makeup, the servant bore a startling resemblance to his master.
“That’s great!” Goldy Tancred nodded. “Keep going, Curry. Hope you enjoy the climate in Florida.”
CHAPTER XX. THE DEPARTURE
DOWN in the lobby of the Hotel Marathon, Clyde Burke remarked to Joe Cardona that he would have to put in a call to the Classic office.
“Don’t say anything about this,” warned the detective. “I’ve promised Goldy—”
“Not a word about it,” returned Clyde.
In a telephone booth, the reporter called Burbank. As the Shadow’s agent, he gave a terse account of the happenings in Goldy Tancred’s apartment.
Burbank had already heard the conversation up to Goldy’s plea for aid in his flight. Then the dictograph connection had been broken when Goldy had torn the microphones from the wall.
“Report received,” was Burbank’s comment.
That meant that word would be given to The Shadow. Clyde Burke left the booth and returned to Cardona and Markham.
It developed that Cardona had also made a call while Clyde Burke was phoning. An unimportant man from headquarters had been designated to meet Goldy at the station gate, and accompany him aboard the train.
Markham was watching the elevator steadily. After a quarter hour of waiting, the detective sergeant spoke to his companions.
“Here comes Goldy now.”
A stocky form was emerging from the elevator. The man was wearing a heavy overcoat. The collar was raised about his chin, a gray hat pressed down upon the man’s forehead.
As the man walked through the lobby, his gleaming grin showed between the peaks of the overcoat collar. The watching men caught that characteristic expression that so plainly denoted Goldy Tancred.
The man went out through the lobby door. The detectives and the reporter followed. They saw the supposed Goldy enter a taxicab and drive away. Cardona hailed another vehicle, and the trio followed.
At the Pennsylvania Station, they watched Goldy get his ticket, and hand another one to the detective Cardona had assigned to cover Goldy’s trip to Florida. The pair walked down the steps together as Cardona remarked that the big shot was on his way to hide in the Everglades!
CARDONA’S firm belief was a far cry from the truth. While the detective still stood near the train gate, Goldy Tancred, in the flesh, was riding up Fifth Avenue in a taxicab, with Bowser Riggins beside him.