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“You mean she not only refused you, but was—well—disagreeable about it?”
“I do mean that.”
Alec Rush sat back in his chair and brought fresh grotesqueries into his face by twisting his thick mouth crookedly up at one corner. His red eyes were evilly reflective on the ceiling.
“The only thing for it,” he decided, “is to go to Landow and give him what we've got.”
“But are you sure he —?” Millar objected indefinitely.
“Unless he's one whale of an actor, he's a lot in love with his wife,” the detective said with certainty. “That's enough to justify taking the story to him.”
Millar was not convinced.
“You're sure it would be wisest?”
“Yeah. We've got to go to one of three people with the tale —him, her, or the police. I think he's the best bet, but take your choice.”
The younger man nodded reluctantly.
“All right. But you don't have to bring me into it, do you?” with quick alarm. “You can handle it so I won't be involved. You understand what I mean? She's his wife, and it would be —”
“Sure,” Alec Rush promised, “I'll keep you covered up.”
Hubert Landow, twisting the detective's card in his fingers, received Alec Rush in a somewhat luxuriously furnished room in the second story of the Charles-Street Avenue house. He was standing—tall, blond, boyishly handsome—in the middle of the floor, facing the door, when the detective—fat, grizzled, battered and ugly—was shown in.
“You wish to see me? Here, sit down.”
Hubert Landow's manner was neither restrained nor hearty. It was precisely the manner that might be expected of a young man receiving an unexpected call from so savage-visaged a detective.
“Yeah,” said Alec Rush as they sat in facing chairs. “I've got something to tell you. It won't take much time, but it's kind of wild. It might be a surprise to you, and it might not. But it's on the level. I don't want you to think I'm kidding you.”
Hubert Landow bent forward, his face all interest. . “I won't,” he promised. “Go on.”
“A couple of days ago I got a line on a man who might be tied up in a job I'm interested in. He's a crook. Trailing him around, I discovered he was interested in your affairs, and your wife's. He's shadowed you and he's shadowed her. He was loafing down the street from a Mount Royal Avenue apartment that you went in yesterday, and he went in there later himself.”
“But what the devil is he up to?” Landow exclaimed. “You think he's —”
“Wait,” the ugly man advised. “Wait until you've heard it all, and then you can tell me what you make of it. He came out of there and went to Camden Station, where he met a young woman. They talked a bit, and later in the afternoon she was picked up in a department store—shoplifting. Her name is Polly Bangs, and she's done a hitch in Wisconsin for the same racket. Your photograph was on her dresser.”
“My photograph?”
Alec Rush nodded placidly up into the face of the young man who was now standing.
“Yours. You know this Polly Bangs? A chunky, square-built girl of twenty-six or so, with brown hair and eyes—saucy looking?”
Hubert Landow's face was a puzzled blank.
“No! What the devil could she be doing with my picture?” he demanded. “Are you sure it was mine?”
“Not dead sure, maybe, but sure enough to need proof that it wasn't. Maybe she's somebody you've forgotten, or maybe she ran across the picture somewhere and kept it because she liked it.”
“Nonsense!” The blond man squirmed at this tribute to his face, and blushed a vivid red beside which Alec Rush's complexion was almost colorless. “There must be some sensible reason. She has been arrested, you say?”
“Yeah, but she's out on bail now. But let me get along with my story. Last night this thug I've told you about and I had a talk. He claims he has been hired to kill your wife.”
Hubert Landow, who had returned to his chair, now jerked in it so that its joints creaked strainingly. His face, crimson a second ago, drained paperwhite. Another sound than the chair's creaking was faint in the room: the least of muffled gasps. The blond young man did not seem to hear it, but Alec Rush's bloodshot eyes flicked sidewise for an instant to focus fleetingly on a closed door across the room.
Landow was out of his chair again, leaning down to the detective, his fingers digging into the ugly man's loose muscular shoulders.
“This is horrible!” he was crying. “We've got to—”
The door at which the detective had looked a moment ago opened. A beautiful tall girl came through—Sara Landow. Her hair rumpled, was an auburn cloud around her white face. Her eyes were dead things. She walked slowly toward the men, her body inclined a little forward, as if against a strong wind.
“It's no use, Hubert.” Her voice was dead as her eyes. “We may as well face it. It's Madeline Boudin. She has found out that I killed my uncle.”
“Hush, darling, hush!” Landow caught his wife in his arms and tried to soothe her with a caressing hand on her shoulder. “You don't know what you're saying.”
“Oh, but I do.” She shrugged herself listlessly out of his arms and sat in the chair Alec Rush had just vacated. “It's Madeline Boudin, you know it is. She knows I killed Uncle Jerome.”
Landow whirled to the detective, both hands going out to grip the ugly man's arm.
“You won't listen to what she's saying, Rush?” he pleaded. “She hasn't been well. She doesn't know what she's saying.”
Sara Landow laughed with weary bitterness.
“Haven't been well?” she said. “No, I haven't been well, not since I killed him. How could I be well after that? You are a detective.” Her eyes lifted their emptiness to Alec Rush. “Arrest me. I killed Jerome Falsoner.”
Alec Rush, standing arms akimbo, legs apart, scowled at her, saying nothing.
“You can't, Rush!” Landow was tugging at the detective's arm again. “You can't, man. It's ridiculous! You—”
“Where does this Madeline Boudin fit in?” Alec Rush's harsh voice demanded. “I know she was chummy with Jerome, but why should she want your wife killed?”
Landow hesitated, shifting his feet, and when he replied it was reluctantly.
“She was Jerome's mistress, had a child by him. My wife, when she learned of it, insisted on making her a settlement out of the estate. It was in connection with that that I went to see her yesterday.”
“Yeah. Now to get back to Jerome: you and your wife were supposed to be in her apartment at the time he was killed, if I remember right?”
Sara Landow sighed with spiritless impatience.
“Must there be all this discussion?” she asked in a small, tired voice. “I killed him. No one else killed him. No one else was there when I killed him. I stabbed him with the paper-knife when he attacked me, and he said, 'Don't! Don't!' and began to cry, down on his knees, and I ran out.”
Alec Rush looked from the girl to the man. Landow's face was wet with perspiration, his hands were white fists, and something quivered in his chest. When he spoke his voice was as hoarse as the detective's, if not so loud.
“Sara, will you wait here until I come back? I'm going out for a little while, possibly an hour. You'll wait here and not do anything until I return?”
“Yes,” the girl said, neither curiosity nor interest in her voice. “But it's no use, Hubert. I should have told you in the beginning. It's no use.”
“Just wait for me, Sara,” he pleaded, and then bent his head to the detective's deformed ear. “Stay with her, Rush, for God's sake!” he whispered, and went swiftly out of the room.
The front door banged shut. An automobile purred away from the house. Alec Rush spoke to the girl.
“Where's the phone?”
“In the next room,” she said, without looking up from the handkerchief her ringers were measuring.
The detective crossed to the door through which she had entered the room, found that it opened into a library, where a telephone stood in a corner. On the other side of the room a clock indicated three-thirty-five. The detective went to the telephone and called Ralph Millar's office, asked for Millar, and told him:
“This is Rush. I'm at the Landows'. Come up right away.”
“But I can't, Rush. Can't you understand my —”
“Can't hell!” croaked Alec Rush. “Get here quick!” The young woman with dead eyes, still playing with the hem of her handkerchief, did not look up when the ugly man returned to the room. Neither of them spoke. Alec Rush, standing with his back to a window, twice took out his watch to glare savagely at it.
The faint tingling of the doorbell came from below. The detective went across to the hall door and down the front stairs, moving with heavy swiftness. Ralph Millar, his face a field in which fear and embarrassment fought, stood in the vestibule, stammering something Unintelligible to the maid who had opened the door. Alec Rush put the girl brusquely aside, brought Millar in, guided him upstairs.
“She says she killed Jerome,” he muttered into his client's ear as they mounted.
Ralph Millar's face went dreadfully white, but there was no surprise in it.
“You knew she killed him?” Alec Rush growled. Millar tried twice to speak and made no sound. They were on the second-floor landing before the words came. “I saw her on the street that night, going toward his flat!”
Alec Rush snorted viciously and turned the younger man toward the room where Sara Landow sat.
“Landow's out,” he whispered hurriedly. “I'm going out. Stay with her. She's shot to hell—likely to do anything if she's left alone. If Landow gets back before I do, tell him to wait for me.”
Before Millar could voice the confusion in his face they were across the sill and into the room. Sara Landow raised her head. Her body was lifted from the chair as if by an invisible power. She came up tall and erect on her feet. Millar stood just inside the door. They looked eye into eye, posed each as if in the grip of a force pushing them together, another holding them apart.
Alec Rush hurried clumsily and silently down to the street.
In Mount Royal Avenue, Alec Rush saw the blue roadster at once. It was standing empty before the apartment building in which Madeline Boudin lived. The detective drove past it and turned his coupe in to the curb three blocks below. He had barely come to rest there when Landow ran out of the apartment building, jumped into his car, and drove off. He drove to a Charles Street hotel. Behind him went the detective.
In the hotel, Landow walked straight to the writing room. For half an hour he sat there, bending over a desk, covering sheet after sheet of paper with rapidly written words, while the detective sat behind a newspaper in a secluded angle of the lobby, watching the writing-room exit. Landow came out of the room stuffing a thick envelope in his pocket, left the hotel, got into his machine, and drove to the office of a messenger service company in St. Paul Street. . He remained in this office for five minutes. When he came out he ignored his roadster at the curb, walking instead to Calvert Street, where he boarded a northbound street-car. Alec Rush's coupe rolled along behind the car. At Union Station, Landow left the street-car and went to the ticket window. He had just asked for a one-way ticket to Philadelphia when Alec Rush tapped him on the shoulder.
Hubert Landow turned slowly, the money for his ticket still in his hand. Recognition brought no expression to his handsome face.
“Yes,” he said coolly, “what is it?”
Alec Rush nodded his ugly head at the ticket-window, at the money in Landow's hand.
“This is nothing for you to be doing,” he growled.
“Here you are,” the ticket-seller said through his grille. Neither of the men in front paid any attention to him. A large woman in pink, red and violet, jostling Landow, stepped on his foot and pushed past him to the window. Landow stepped back, the detective following.
“You shouldn't have left Sara alone,” said Landow.
“She's—”
“She's not alone. I got somebody to stay with her.”
“Not-?”
“Not the police, if that's what you're thinking.”
Landow began to pace slowly down the long concourse, the detective keeping step with him. The blond man stopped and looked sharply into the other's face.
“Is it that fellow Millar who's with her?” he demanded.
“Yeah.”
“Is he the man you're working for, Rush?”
“Yeah.”
Landow resumed his walking. When they had reached I the northern extremity of the concourse, he spoke again. “What does he want, this Millar?”
Alec Rush shrugged his thick, limber shoulders and said nothing.
“Well, what do you want?” the young man asked some heat, facing the detective squarely now.
“I don't want you going out of town.”
Landow pondered that, scowling.
“Suppose I insist on going,” he asked, “how will you stop me?”
“Accomplice after the fact in Jerome's murder would be a charge I could hold you on.”
Silence again, until broken by Landow.
“Look here, Rush. You're working for Millar. He's out; at my house. I've just sent a letter out to Sara by messenger. Give them time to read it, and then phone Millar there. Ask him if he wants me held or not.”
Alec Rush shook his head decidedly.'
“No good,” he rasped. “Millar's too rattle-brained for me to take his word for anything like that over the phone. We'll go back there and have a talk all around.”
Now it was Landow who balked.
“No,” he snapped. “I won't!” He looked with cool calculation at the detective's ugly face. “Can I buy you, Rush?”
“No, Landow. Don't let my looks and my record kid you.”
“I thought not.” Landow looked at the roof and at his feet, and he blew his breath out sharply. “We can't talk here. Let's find a quiet place.”
“The heap's outside,” Alec Rush said, “and we can sit in that.”
Seated in Alec Rush's coupe, Hubert Landow lighted a cigarette, the detective one of his black cigars.
“That Polly Bangs you were talking about, Rush,” the blond man said without preamble, “is my wife. My name is Henry Bangs. You won't find my fingerprints anywhere. When Polly was picked up in Milwaukee a couple of years ago and sent over, I came east and fell in with Madeline Boudin. We made a good team. She had brains in chunks, and if I've got somebody to do my thinking for me, I'm a pretty good worker myself.”
He smiled at the detective, pointing at his own face with his cigarette. While Alec Rush watched, a tide of crimson surged into the blond man's face until it was rosy as a blushing school-girl's. He laughed again and the blush began to fade.
“That's my best trick,” he went on. “Easy if you have the gift and keep in practice: fill your lungs, try to force the air out while keeping it shut off at the larynx. It's a gold mine for a grifter! You'd be surprised how people will trust me after I've turned on a blush or two for 'em. So Madeline and I were in the money. She had brains, nerve and a good front. I have everything but brains. We turned a couple of tricks—one con and one blackmail—and then she ran into Jerome Falsoner. We were going to give him the squeeze at first. But when Madeline found out that Sara was his heiress, that she was in debt, and that she and her uncle were on the outs, we ditched that racket and cooked a juicier one. Madeline found somebody to introduce me to Sara. I made myself agreeable, playing the boob—the shy but worshipful young man.
“Madeline had brains, as I've said. She used 'em all this time. I hung around Sara, sending her candy, books, flowers, taking her to shows and dinner. The books and shows were part of Madeline's work. Two of the books mentioned the fact that a husband can't be made to testify against his wife in court, nor wife against husband. One of the plays touched the same thing. That was planting the seeds. We planted another with my blushing and mumbling—persuaded Sara, or rather let her discover for herself, that I was the clumsiest liar in the world.
“The planting done, we began to push the game along. Madeline kept on good terms with Jerome. Sara was getting deeper in debt. We helped her in still deeper. We had a burglar clean out her apartment one night —Ruby Sweeger, maybe you know him. He's in stir now for another caper. He got what money she had and most of the things she could have hocked in a pinch. Then we stirred up some of the people she owed, sent them anonymous letters warning them not to count too much on her being Jerome's heir. Foolish letters, but they did the trick. A couple of her creditors sent collectors to the trust company.
“Jerome got his income from the estate quarterly. Madeline knew the dates, and Sara knew them. The day before the next one, Madeline got busy on Sara's creditors again. I don't know what she told them this time, but it was enough. They descended on the trust company in a flock, with the result that the next day Sara was given two weeks' pay and discharged. When she came out I met her—by chance—yes, I'd been watching for her since morning. I took her for a drive and got her back to her apartment at six o'clock. There we found more frantic creditors waiting to pounce on her. I chased them out, played the big-hearted boy, making embarrassed offers of all sorts of help. She refused them, of course, and I could see decision coming into her face. She knew this was the day on which Jerome got his quarterly check. She determined to go see him, to demand that he pay her debts at least. She didn't tell me where she was going, but I could see it plain enough, since I was looking for it.
“I left her and waited across the street from her apartment, in Franklin Square, until I saw her come out. Then I found a telephone, called up Madeline, and told her Sara was on her way to her uncle's flat.”
Landow's cigarette scorched his fingers. He dropped it, crushed it under his foot, lighted another.
“This is a long-winded story, Rush,” he apologized, ubut it'll soon be over now.”
“Keep talking, son,” said Alec Rush. “There were some people in Madeline's place when I phoned her—people trying to persuade her to go down the country on a party. She agreed now. They would give her an even better alibi than the one she had cooked up. She told them she had to see Jerome before she left, and they drove her over to his place and waited in their car while she went in with him.
“She had a pint bottle of cognac with her, all doped and ready. She poured out a drink of it for Jerome, telling him of the new bootlegger she had found who had a dozen or more cases of this cognac to sell at a reasonable price. The cognac was good enough and the price low enough to make Jerome think she had dropped in to let him in on something good. He gave her an order to pass on to the bootlegger. Making sure his steel paperknife was in full view on the table, Madeline rejoined her friends, taking Jerome as far as the door so they would see he was still alive, and drove off.
“Now I don't know what Madeline had put in that cognac. If she told me, I've forgotten. It was a powerful drug —not a poison, you understand, but an excitant. You'll see what I mean when you hear the rest. Sara must have reached her uncle's flat ten or fifteen minutes after Madeline's departure. Her uncle's face, she says, was red, inflamed, when he opened the door for her. But he was a frail man, while she was strong, and she wasn't afraid of the devil himself, for that matter. She went in and demanded that he settle her debts, even if he didn't choose to make her an allowance out of his income.
“They were both Falsoners, and the argument must have grown hot. Also the drug was working on Jerome, and he had no will with which to fight it. He attacked her. The paper-knife was on the table, as Madeline had seen. He was a maniac. Sara was not one of your corner-huddling, screaming girls. She grabbed the paper-knife and let him have it. When he fell, she turned and ran.
“Having followed her as soon as I'd finished telephoning to Madeline, I was standing on Jerome's front steps when she dashed out. I stopped her and she told me she'd killed her uncle. I made her wait there while I went in, to see if he was really dead. Then I took her home, explaining my presence at Jerome's door by saying, in my boobish, awkward way, that I had been afraid she might do something reckless and had thought it best to keep an eye on her. “Back in her apartment, she was all for giving herself up to the police. I pointed out the danger in that, arguing that, in debt, admittedly going to her uncle for money, being his heiress, she would most certainly be convicted of having murdered him so she would get the money. Her story of his attack, I persuaded her, would be laughed at as a flimsy yarn. Dazed, she wasn't hard to convince. The next step was easy. The police would investigate her, even if they didn't especially suspect her. I was, so far as we knew, the only person whose testimony could convict her. I was loyal enough, but wasn't I the clumsiest liar in the world? Didn't the mildest lie make me blush like an auctioneer's flag? The way around that difficulty lay in what two of the books I had given her, and one of the plays we had seen, had shown: if I was her husband I couldn't be made to testify against her. We were married the next morning, on a license I had been carrying for nearly a week,
“Well, there we were. I was married to her. She had a couple of millions coming when her uncle's affairs were straightened out. She couldn't possibly, it seemed, escape arrest and conviction. Even if no one had seen her entering or leaving her uncle's flat, everything still pointed to her guilt, and the foolish course I had persuaded her to follow would simply ruin her chance of pleading self-defense. If they hanged her, the two million would come to me. If she got a long term in prison, I'd have the handling of the money at least.”
Landow dropped and crushed his second cigarette and stared for a moment straight ahead into distance.
“Do you believe in God, or Providence, or Fate, or any of that, Rush?” he asked. “Well, some believe in one thing and some in another, but listen. Sara was never arrested, never even really suspected. It seems there was some sort of Finn or Swede who had had a run-in with Jerome and threatened him. I suppose he couldn't account for his whereabouts the night of the killing, so he went into hiding when he heard of Jerome's murder. The police suspicion settled on him. They looked Sara up, of course, but not very thoroughly. No one seems to have seen her in the street, and the people in her apartment house, having seen her come in at six o'clock with me, and not having seen her—or not remembering if they did—go out or in again, told the police she had been in all evening. The police were too much interested in the missing Finn, or whatever he was, to look any further into Sara's affairs.
“So there we were again. I was married into the money, but I wasn't fixed so I could hand Madeline her cut. Madeline said we'd let things run along as they were until the estate was settled up, and then we could tip Sara off to the police. But by the time the money was settled up there was another hitch. This one was my doing. I—I—well, I wanted to go on just as we were. Conscience had nothing to do with it, you understand? It was simply that—well—that living on with Sara was the only thing I wanted. I wasn't even sorry for what I'd done, because if it hadn't been for that I would never have had her.
“I don't know whether I can make this clear to you, Rush, but even now I don't regret any of it. If it could have been different—but it couldn't. It had to be this way or none. And I've had those six months. I can see that I've been a chump. Sara was never for me. I got her by a crime and a trick, and while I held on to a silly hope that some day she'd—she'd look at me as I did at her, I knew in my heart all the time it was no use. There had been a man—your Millar. She's free now that it's out about my being married to Polly, and I hope she—I hope—Well, Madeline began to howl for action. I told Sara that Madeline had had a child by Jerome, and Sara agreed to settle some money on her. But that didn't satisfy Madeline. It wasn't sentiment with her. I mean, it wasn't any feeling for me, it was just the money. She wanted every cent she could get, and she couldn't get enough to satisfy her in a settlement of the kind Sara wanted to make.
“With Polly, it was that too, but maybe a little more. She's fond of me, I think. I don't know how she traced me here after she got out of the Wisconsin big house, but I can see how she figured things. I was married to a wealthy woman. If the woman died—shot by a bandit in a hold-up attempt —then I'd have money, and Polly would have both me and money. I haven't seen her, wouldn't know she was in Baltimore if you hadn't told me, but that's the way it would work out in her mind. The killing idea would have occurred just as easily to Madeline. I had told her I wouldn't stand for pushing the game through on Sara. 1 Madeline knew that if she went ahead on her own hook and hung the Falsoner murder on Sara I'd blow up the whole racket. But if Sara died, then I'd have the money and Madeline would draw her cut. So that was it.
“I didn't know that until you told me, Rush. I don't give a damn for your opinion of me, but it's God's truth that I didn't know that either Polly or Madeline was trying to have Sara killed, Well, that's about all. Were you shadowing me when I went to the hotel?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought so. That letter I wrote and sent home told just about what I've told you, spilled the whole story. I was going to run for it, leaving Sara in the clear. She's clear, all right, but now I'll have to face it. But I don't want to see her again, Rush.”
“I wouldn't think you would,” the detective agreed. “Not after making a killer of her.”
“But I didn't,” Landow protested. “She isn't. I forgot to tell you that, but I put it in the letter. Jerome Falsoner was not dead, not even dying, when I went past her into the flat. The knife was too high in his chest. I killed him, driving the knife into the same wound again, but downward. That's what I went in for, to make sure he was finished!”
Alec Rush screwed up his savage bloodshot eyes, looked long into the confessed murderer's face.
“That's a lie,” he croaked at last, “but a decent one. Are you sure you want to stick to it? The truth will be enough to clear the girl, and maybe won't swing you.”
“What difference does it make?” the younger man asked
“I'm a gone baby anyhow. And I might as well put Sara in the clear with herself as well as with the law. I'm caught to rights and another rap won't hurt. I told you Madeline had brains. I was afraid of them. She'd have had something up her sleeve to spring on us—to ruin Sara with. She could out-smart me without trying. I couldn't take any chances.”
He laughed into Alec Rush's ugly face and, with a somewhat theatrical gesture, jerked one cuff an inch or two out of his coat-sleeve. The cuff was still damp with a maroon stain.
“I killed Madeline an hour ago,” said Henry Bangs, alias Hubert Landow.
NIGHT SHADE
THE JUDGE LAUGHED LAST
“I do mean that.”
Alec Rush sat back in his chair and brought fresh grotesqueries into his face by twisting his thick mouth crookedly up at one corner. His red eyes were evilly reflective on the ceiling.
“The only thing for it,” he decided, “is to go to Landow and give him what we've got.”
“But are you sure he —?” Millar objected indefinitely.
“Unless he's one whale of an actor, he's a lot in love with his wife,” the detective said with certainty. “That's enough to justify taking the story to him.”
Millar was not convinced.
“You're sure it would be wisest?”
“Yeah. We've got to go to one of three people with the tale —him, her, or the police. I think he's the best bet, but take your choice.”
The younger man nodded reluctantly.
“All right. But you don't have to bring me into it, do you?” with quick alarm. “You can handle it so I won't be involved. You understand what I mean? She's his wife, and it would be —”
“Sure,” Alec Rush promised, “I'll keep you covered up.”
Hubert Landow, twisting the detective's card in his fingers, received Alec Rush in a somewhat luxuriously furnished room in the second story of the Charles-Street Avenue house. He was standing—tall, blond, boyishly handsome—in the middle of the floor, facing the door, when the detective—fat, grizzled, battered and ugly—was shown in.
“You wish to see me? Here, sit down.”
Hubert Landow's manner was neither restrained nor hearty. It was precisely the manner that might be expected of a young man receiving an unexpected call from so savage-visaged a detective.
“Yeah,” said Alec Rush as they sat in facing chairs. “I've got something to tell you. It won't take much time, but it's kind of wild. It might be a surprise to you, and it might not. But it's on the level. I don't want you to think I'm kidding you.”
Hubert Landow bent forward, his face all interest. . “I won't,” he promised. “Go on.”
“A couple of days ago I got a line on a man who might be tied up in a job I'm interested in. He's a crook. Trailing him around, I discovered he was interested in your affairs, and your wife's. He's shadowed you and he's shadowed her. He was loafing down the street from a Mount Royal Avenue apartment that you went in yesterday, and he went in there later himself.”
“But what the devil is he up to?” Landow exclaimed. “You think he's —”
“Wait,” the ugly man advised. “Wait until you've heard it all, and then you can tell me what you make of it. He came out of there and went to Camden Station, where he met a young woman. They talked a bit, and later in the afternoon she was picked up in a department store—shoplifting. Her name is Polly Bangs, and she's done a hitch in Wisconsin for the same racket. Your photograph was on her dresser.”
“My photograph?”
Alec Rush nodded placidly up into the face of the young man who was now standing.
“Yours. You know this Polly Bangs? A chunky, square-built girl of twenty-six or so, with brown hair and eyes—saucy looking?”
Hubert Landow's face was a puzzled blank.
“No! What the devil could she be doing with my picture?” he demanded. “Are you sure it was mine?”
“Not dead sure, maybe, but sure enough to need proof that it wasn't. Maybe she's somebody you've forgotten, or maybe she ran across the picture somewhere and kept it because she liked it.”
“Nonsense!” The blond man squirmed at this tribute to his face, and blushed a vivid red beside which Alec Rush's complexion was almost colorless. “There must be some sensible reason. She has been arrested, you say?”
“Yeah, but she's out on bail now. But let me get along with my story. Last night this thug I've told you about and I had a talk. He claims he has been hired to kill your wife.”
Hubert Landow, who had returned to his chair, now jerked in it so that its joints creaked strainingly. His face, crimson a second ago, drained paperwhite. Another sound than the chair's creaking was faint in the room: the least of muffled gasps. The blond young man did not seem to hear it, but Alec Rush's bloodshot eyes flicked sidewise for an instant to focus fleetingly on a closed door across the room.
Landow was out of his chair again, leaning down to the detective, his fingers digging into the ugly man's loose muscular shoulders.
“This is horrible!” he was crying. “We've got to—”
The door at which the detective had looked a moment ago opened. A beautiful tall girl came through—Sara Landow. Her hair rumpled, was an auburn cloud around her white face. Her eyes were dead things. She walked slowly toward the men, her body inclined a little forward, as if against a strong wind.
“It's no use, Hubert.” Her voice was dead as her eyes. “We may as well face it. It's Madeline Boudin. She has found out that I killed my uncle.”
“Hush, darling, hush!” Landow caught his wife in his arms and tried to soothe her with a caressing hand on her shoulder. “You don't know what you're saying.”
“Oh, but I do.” She shrugged herself listlessly out of his arms and sat in the chair Alec Rush had just vacated. “It's Madeline Boudin, you know it is. She knows I killed Uncle Jerome.”
Landow whirled to the detective, both hands going out to grip the ugly man's arm.
“You won't listen to what she's saying, Rush?” he pleaded. “She hasn't been well. She doesn't know what she's saying.”
Sara Landow laughed with weary bitterness.
“Haven't been well?” she said. “No, I haven't been well, not since I killed him. How could I be well after that? You are a detective.” Her eyes lifted their emptiness to Alec Rush. “Arrest me. I killed Jerome Falsoner.”
Alec Rush, standing arms akimbo, legs apart, scowled at her, saying nothing.
“You can't, Rush!” Landow was tugging at the detective's arm again. “You can't, man. It's ridiculous! You—”
“Where does this Madeline Boudin fit in?” Alec Rush's harsh voice demanded. “I know she was chummy with Jerome, but why should she want your wife killed?”
Landow hesitated, shifting his feet, and when he replied it was reluctantly.
“She was Jerome's mistress, had a child by him. My wife, when she learned of it, insisted on making her a settlement out of the estate. It was in connection with that that I went to see her yesterday.”
“Yeah. Now to get back to Jerome: you and your wife were supposed to be in her apartment at the time he was killed, if I remember right?”
Sara Landow sighed with spiritless impatience.
“Must there be all this discussion?” she asked in a small, tired voice. “I killed him. No one else killed him. No one else was there when I killed him. I stabbed him with the paper-knife when he attacked me, and he said, 'Don't! Don't!' and began to cry, down on his knees, and I ran out.”
Alec Rush looked from the girl to the man. Landow's face was wet with perspiration, his hands were white fists, and something quivered in his chest. When he spoke his voice was as hoarse as the detective's, if not so loud.
“Sara, will you wait here until I come back? I'm going out for a little while, possibly an hour. You'll wait here and not do anything until I return?”
“Yes,” the girl said, neither curiosity nor interest in her voice. “But it's no use, Hubert. I should have told you in the beginning. It's no use.”
“Just wait for me, Sara,” he pleaded, and then bent his head to the detective's deformed ear. “Stay with her, Rush, for God's sake!” he whispered, and went swiftly out of the room.
The front door banged shut. An automobile purred away from the house. Alec Rush spoke to the girl.
“Where's the phone?”
“In the next room,” she said, without looking up from the handkerchief her ringers were measuring.
The detective crossed to the door through which she had entered the room, found that it opened into a library, where a telephone stood in a corner. On the other side of the room a clock indicated three-thirty-five. The detective went to the telephone and called Ralph Millar's office, asked for Millar, and told him:
“This is Rush. I'm at the Landows'. Come up right away.”
“But I can't, Rush. Can't you understand my —”
“Can't hell!” croaked Alec Rush. “Get here quick!” The young woman with dead eyes, still playing with the hem of her handkerchief, did not look up when the ugly man returned to the room. Neither of them spoke. Alec Rush, standing with his back to a window, twice took out his watch to glare savagely at it.
The faint tingling of the doorbell came from below. The detective went across to the hall door and down the front stairs, moving with heavy swiftness. Ralph Millar, his face a field in which fear and embarrassment fought, stood in the vestibule, stammering something Unintelligible to the maid who had opened the door. Alec Rush put the girl brusquely aside, brought Millar in, guided him upstairs.
“She says she killed Jerome,” he muttered into his client's ear as they mounted.
Ralph Millar's face went dreadfully white, but there was no surprise in it.
“You knew she killed him?” Alec Rush growled. Millar tried twice to speak and made no sound. They were on the second-floor landing before the words came. “I saw her on the street that night, going toward his flat!”
Alec Rush snorted viciously and turned the younger man toward the room where Sara Landow sat.
“Landow's out,” he whispered hurriedly. “I'm going out. Stay with her. She's shot to hell—likely to do anything if she's left alone. If Landow gets back before I do, tell him to wait for me.”
Before Millar could voice the confusion in his face they were across the sill and into the room. Sara Landow raised her head. Her body was lifted from the chair as if by an invisible power. She came up tall and erect on her feet. Millar stood just inside the door. They looked eye into eye, posed each as if in the grip of a force pushing them together, another holding them apart.
Alec Rush hurried clumsily and silently down to the street.
In Mount Royal Avenue, Alec Rush saw the blue roadster at once. It was standing empty before the apartment building in which Madeline Boudin lived. The detective drove past it and turned his coupe in to the curb three blocks below. He had barely come to rest there when Landow ran out of the apartment building, jumped into his car, and drove off. He drove to a Charles Street hotel. Behind him went the detective.
In the hotel, Landow walked straight to the writing room. For half an hour he sat there, bending over a desk, covering sheet after sheet of paper with rapidly written words, while the detective sat behind a newspaper in a secluded angle of the lobby, watching the writing-room exit. Landow came out of the room stuffing a thick envelope in his pocket, left the hotel, got into his machine, and drove to the office of a messenger service company in St. Paul Street. . He remained in this office for five minutes. When he came out he ignored his roadster at the curb, walking instead to Calvert Street, where he boarded a northbound street-car. Alec Rush's coupe rolled along behind the car. At Union Station, Landow left the street-car and went to the ticket window. He had just asked for a one-way ticket to Philadelphia when Alec Rush tapped him on the shoulder.
Hubert Landow turned slowly, the money for his ticket still in his hand. Recognition brought no expression to his handsome face.
“Yes,” he said coolly, “what is it?”
Alec Rush nodded his ugly head at the ticket-window, at the money in Landow's hand.
“This is nothing for you to be doing,” he growled.
“Here you are,” the ticket-seller said through his grille. Neither of the men in front paid any attention to him. A large woman in pink, red and violet, jostling Landow, stepped on his foot and pushed past him to the window. Landow stepped back, the detective following.
“You shouldn't have left Sara alone,” said Landow.
“She's—”
“She's not alone. I got somebody to stay with her.”
“Not-?”
“Not the police, if that's what you're thinking.”
Landow began to pace slowly down the long concourse, the detective keeping step with him. The blond man stopped and looked sharply into the other's face.
“Is it that fellow Millar who's with her?” he demanded.
“Yeah.”
“Is he the man you're working for, Rush?”
“Yeah.”
Landow resumed his walking. When they had reached I the northern extremity of the concourse, he spoke again. “What does he want, this Millar?”
Alec Rush shrugged his thick, limber shoulders and said nothing.
“Well, what do you want?” the young man asked some heat, facing the detective squarely now.
“I don't want you going out of town.”
Landow pondered that, scowling.
“Suppose I insist on going,” he asked, “how will you stop me?”
“Accomplice after the fact in Jerome's murder would be a charge I could hold you on.”
Silence again, until broken by Landow.
“Look here, Rush. You're working for Millar. He's out; at my house. I've just sent a letter out to Sara by messenger. Give them time to read it, and then phone Millar there. Ask him if he wants me held or not.”
Alec Rush shook his head decidedly.'
“No good,” he rasped. “Millar's too rattle-brained for me to take his word for anything like that over the phone. We'll go back there and have a talk all around.”
Now it was Landow who balked.
“No,” he snapped. “I won't!” He looked with cool calculation at the detective's ugly face. “Can I buy you, Rush?”
“No, Landow. Don't let my looks and my record kid you.”
“I thought not.” Landow looked at the roof and at his feet, and he blew his breath out sharply. “We can't talk here. Let's find a quiet place.”
“The heap's outside,” Alec Rush said, “and we can sit in that.”
Seated in Alec Rush's coupe, Hubert Landow lighted a cigarette, the detective one of his black cigars.
“That Polly Bangs you were talking about, Rush,” the blond man said without preamble, “is my wife. My name is Henry Bangs. You won't find my fingerprints anywhere. When Polly was picked up in Milwaukee a couple of years ago and sent over, I came east and fell in with Madeline Boudin. We made a good team. She had brains in chunks, and if I've got somebody to do my thinking for me, I'm a pretty good worker myself.”
He smiled at the detective, pointing at his own face with his cigarette. While Alec Rush watched, a tide of crimson surged into the blond man's face until it was rosy as a blushing school-girl's. He laughed again and the blush began to fade.
“That's my best trick,” he went on. “Easy if you have the gift and keep in practice: fill your lungs, try to force the air out while keeping it shut off at the larynx. It's a gold mine for a grifter! You'd be surprised how people will trust me after I've turned on a blush or two for 'em. So Madeline and I were in the money. She had brains, nerve and a good front. I have everything but brains. We turned a couple of tricks—one con and one blackmail—and then she ran into Jerome Falsoner. We were going to give him the squeeze at first. But when Madeline found out that Sara was his heiress, that she was in debt, and that she and her uncle were on the outs, we ditched that racket and cooked a juicier one. Madeline found somebody to introduce me to Sara. I made myself agreeable, playing the boob—the shy but worshipful young man.
“Madeline had brains, as I've said. She used 'em all this time. I hung around Sara, sending her candy, books, flowers, taking her to shows and dinner. The books and shows were part of Madeline's work. Two of the books mentioned the fact that a husband can't be made to testify against his wife in court, nor wife against husband. One of the plays touched the same thing. That was planting the seeds. We planted another with my blushing and mumbling—persuaded Sara, or rather let her discover for herself, that I was the clumsiest liar in the world.
“The planting done, we began to push the game along. Madeline kept on good terms with Jerome. Sara was getting deeper in debt. We helped her in still deeper. We had a burglar clean out her apartment one night —Ruby Sweeger, maybe you know him. He's in stir now for another caper. He got what money she had and most of the things she could have hocked in a pinch. Then we stirred up some of the people she owed, sent them anonymous letters warning them not to count too much on her being Jerome's heir. Foolish letters, but they did the trick. A couple of her creditors sent collectors to the trust company.
“Jerome got his income from the estate quarterly. Madeline knew the dates, and Sara knew them. The day before the next one, Madeline got busy on Sara's creditors again. I don't know what she told them this time, but it was enough. They descended on the trust company in a flock, with the result that the next day Sara was given two weeks' pay and discharged. When she came out I met her—by chance—yes, I'd been watching for her since morning. I took her for a drive and got her back to her apartment at six o'clock. There we found more frantic creditors waiting to pounce on her. I chased them out, played the big-hearted boy, making embarrassed offers of all sorts of help. She refused them, of course, and I could see decision coming into her face. She knew this was the day on which Jerome got his quarterly check. She determined to go see him, to demand that he pay her debts at least. She didn't tell me where she was going, but I could see it plain enough, since I was looking for it.
“I left her and waited across the street from her apartment, in Franklin Square, until I saw her come out. Then I found a telephone, called up Madeline, and told her Sara was on her way to her uncle's flat.”
Landow's cigarette scorched his fingers. He dropped it, crushed it under his foot, lighted another.
“This is a long-winded story, Rush,” he apologized, ubut it'll soon be over now.”
“Keep talking, son,” said Alec Rush. “There were some people in Madeline's place when I phoned her—people trying to persuade her to go down the country on a party. She agreed now. They would give her an even better alibi than the one she had cooked up. She told them she had to see Jerome before she left, and they drove her over to his place and waited in their car while she went in with him.
“She had a pint bottle of cognac with her, all doped and ready. She poured out a drink of it for Jerome, telling him of the new bootlegger she had found who had a dozen or more cases of this cognac to sell at a reasonable price. The cognac was good enough and the price low enough to make Jerome think she had dropped in to let him in on something good. He gave her an order to pass on to the bootlegger. Making sure his steel paperknife was in full view on the table, Madeline rejoined her friends, taking Jerome as far as the door so they would see he was still alive, and drove off.
“Now I don't know what Madeline had put in that cognac. If she told me, I've forgotten. It was a powerful drug —not a poison, you understand, but an excitant. You'll see what I mean when you hear the rest. Sara must have reached her uncle's flat ten or fifteen minutes after Madeline's departure. Her uncle's face, she says, was red, inflamed, when he opened the door for her. But he was a frail man, while she was strong, and she wasn't afraid of the devil himself, for that matter. She went in and demanded that he settle her debts, even if he didn't choose to make her an allowance out of his income.
“They were both Falsoners, and the argument must have grown hot. Also the drug was working on Jerome, and he had no will with which to fight it. He attacked her. The paper-knife was on the table, as Madeline had seen. He was a maniac. Sara was not one of your corner-huddling, screaming girls. She grabbed the paper-knife and let him have it. When he fell, she turned and ran.
“Having followed her as soon as I'd finished telephoning to Madeline, I was standing on Jerome's front steps when she dashed out. I stopped her and she told me she'd killed her uncle. I made her wait there while I went in, to see if he was really dead. Then I took her home, explaining my presence at Jerome's door by saying, in my boobish, awkward way, that I had been afraid she might do something reckless and had thought it best to keep an eye on her. “Back in her apartment, she was all for giving herself up to the police. I pointed out the danger in that, arguing that, in debt, admittedly going to her uncle for money, being his heiress, she would most certainly be convicted of having murdered him so she would get the money. Her story of his attack, I persuaded her, would be laughed at as a flimsy yarn. Dazed, she wasn't hard to convince. The next step was easy. The police would investigate her, even if they didn't especially suspect her. I was, so far as we knew, the only person whose testimony could convict her. I was loyal enough, but wasn't I the clumsiest liar in the world? Didn't the mildest lie make me blush like an auctioneer's flag? The way around that difficulty lay in what two of the books I had given her, and one of the plays we had seen, had shown: if I was her husband I couldn't be made to testify against her. We were married the next morning, on a license I had been carrying for nearly a week,
“Well, there we were. I was married to her. She had a couple of millions coming when her uncle's affairs were straightened out. She couldn't possibly, it seemed, escape arrest and conviction. Even if no one had seen her entering or leaving her uncle's flat, everything still pointed to her guilt, and the foolish course I had persuaded her to follow would simply ruin her chance of pleading self-defense. If they hanged her, the two million would come to me. If she got a long term in prison, I'd have the handling of the money at least.”
Landow dropped and crushed his second cigarette and stared for a moment straight ahead into distance.
“Do you believe in God, or Providence, or Fate, or any of that, Rush?” he asked. “Well, some believe in one thing and some in another, but listen. Sara was never arrested, never even really suspected. It seems there was some sort of Finn or Swede who had had a run-in with Jerome and threatened him. I suppose he couldn't account for his whereabouts the night of the killing, so he went into hiding when he heard of Jerome's murder. The police suspicion settled on him. They looked Sara up, of course, but not very thoroughly. No one seems to have seen her in the street, and the people in her apartment house, having seen her come in at six o'clock with me, and not having seen her—or not remembering if they did—go out or in again, told the police she had been in all evening. The police were too much interested in the missing Finn, or whatever he was, to look any further into Sara's affairs.
“So there we were again. I was married into the money, but I wasn't fixed so I could hand Madeline her cut. Madeline said we'd let things run along as they were until the estate was settled up, and then we could tip Sara off to the police. But by the time the money was settled up there was another hitch. This one was my doing. I—I—well, I wanted to go on just as we were. Conscience had nothing to do with it, you understand? It was simply that—well—that living on with Sara was the only thing I wanted. I wasn't even sorry for what I'd done, because if it hadn't been for that I would never have had her.
“I don't know whether I can make this clear to you, Rush, but even now I don't regret any of it. If it could have been different—but it couldn't. It had to be this way or none. And I've had those six months. I can see that I've been a chump. Sara was never for me. I got her by a crime and a trick, and while I held on to a silly hope that some day she'd—she'd look at me as I did at her, I knew in my heart all the time it was no use. There had been a man—your Millar. She's free now that it's out about my being married to Polly, and I hope she—I hope—Well, Madeline began to howl for action. I told Sara that Madeline had had a child by Jerome, and Sara agreed to settle some money on her. But that didn't satisfy Madeline. It wasn't sentiment with her. I mean, it wasn't any feeling for me, it was just the money. She wanted every cent she could get, and she couldn't get enough to satisfy her in a settlement of the kind Sara wanted to make.
“With Polly, it was that too, but maybe a little more. She's fond of me, I think. I don't know how she traced me here after she got out of the Wisconsin big house, but I can see how she figured things. I was married to a wealthy woman. If the woman died—shot by a bandit in a hold-up attempt —then I'd have money, and Polly would have both me and money. I haven't seen her, wouldn't know she was in Baltimore if you hadn't told me, but that's the way it would work out in her mind. The killing idea would have occurred just as easily to Madeline. I had told her I wouldn't stand for pushing the game through on Sara. 1 Madeline knew that if she went ahead on her own hook and hung the Falsoner murder on Sara I'd blow up the whole racket. But if Sara died, then I'd have the money and Madeline would draw her cut. So that was it.
“I didn't know that until you told me, Rush. I don't give a damn for your opinion of me, but it's God's truth that I didn't know that either Polly or Madeline was trying to have Sara killed, Well, that's about all. Were you shadowing me when I went to the hotel?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought so. That letter I wrote and sent home told just about what I've told you, spilled the whole story. I was going to run for it, leaving Sara in the clear. She's clear, all right, but now I'll have to face it. But I don't want to see her again, Rush.”
“I wouldn't think you would,” the detective agreed. “Not after making a killer of her.”
“But I didn't,” Landow protested. “She isn't. I forgot to tell you that, but I put it in the letter. Jerome Falsoner was not dead, not even dying, when I went past her into the flat. The knife was too high in his chest. I killed him, driving the knife into the same wound again, but downward. That's what I went in for, to make sure he was finished!”
Alec Rush screwed up his savage bloodshot eyes, looked long into the confessed murderer's face.
“That's a lie,” he croaked at last, “but a decent one. Are you sure you want to stick to it? The truth will be enough to clear the girl, and maybe won't swing you.”
“What difference does it make?” the younger man asked
“I'm a gone baby anyhow. And I might as well put Sara in the clear with herself as well as with the law. I'm caught to rights and another rap won't hurt. I told you Madeline had brains. I was afraid of them. She'd have had something up her sleeve to spring on us—to ruin Sara with. She could out-smart me without trying. I couldn't take any chances.”
He laughed into Alec Rush's ugly face and, with a somewhat theatrical gesture, jerked one cuff an inch or two out of his coat-sleeve. The cuff was still damp with a maroon stain.
“I killed Madeline an hour ago,” said Henry Bangs, alias Hubert Landow.
NIGHT SHADE
A SEDAN with no lights burning was standing beside the! road just above Piney Falls bridge and as I drove past it a girl put her head out and said, “Please.” Her voice was urgent but there was not enough excitement in it to make it either harsh or shrill.
I put on my brakes, then backed up. By that time a man had got out of the sedan. There was enough light to let me see he was young and fairly big. He moved a hand in the direction I had been going and said, “On your way, buddy.”
The girl said again, “Will you drive me into town, please?” She seemed to be trying to open the sedan door. Her hat had been pushed forward over one eye.
I said, “Sure.”
The man in the road took a step toward me, moved his hand as before, and growled, “Scram, you.”
I got out of my car. The man in the road had started toward me when another man's voice came from the sedan, a harsh warning voice. “Go easy, Tony. It's Jack Bye.” The sedan door swung open and the girl jumped out.
Tony said, “Oh!” and his feet shuffled uncertainly on the road; but when he saw the girl making for my car he cried indignantly at her, “Listen, you can't ride to town with —”
She was in my roadster by then. “Good night,” she said.
He faced me, shook his head stubbornly, began, “I'll be damned if I'll let —”
I hit him. The knockdown was fair enough, because I hit him hard, but I think he could have got up again if he had wanted to. I gave him a little time, then asked the fellow in the sedan, “All right with you?” I still could not see him.
“He'll be all right,” he replied quickly. “I'll take care of of him all right.”
“Thanks.” I climbed into my car beside the girl. The rain I had been trying to get to town ahead of was beginning to fall. A coupe with a man and a woman in it passed us going toward town. We followed the coupe across the bridge.
The girl said, “This is awfully kind of you. I wasn't in any danger back there, but it was—nasty.”
“They wouldn't be dangerous,” I said, “but they would be—nasty.”
“You know them?”
“No.”
“But they knew you. Tony Forrest and Fred Barnes.” When I did not say anything, she added, “They were afraid of you.”
“I'm a desperate character.”
She laughed. “And pretty nice of you, too, tonight. I wouldn't've gone with either of them alone, but I thought with two of them …” She turned up the collar of her coat. “It's raining in on me.”
I stopped the roadster again and hunted for the curtain that belonged on her side of the car. “So your name's Jack Bye,” she said while I was snapping it on.
“And yours is Helen Warner.”
“How'd you know?” She had straightened her hat.
“I've seen you around.” I finished attaching the curtain and got back in.
“Did you know who I was when I called to you?” she asked when we were moving again.
“Yes.”
“It was silly of me to go out with them like that.”
“You're shivering.”
“It's chilly.”
I said I was sorry my flask was empty.
We had turned into the western end of Hellman Avenue. It was four minutes past ten by the clock in front of the jewelry store on the corner of Laurel Street. A policeman in a black rubber coat was leaning against the clock. I did not know enough about perfumes to know the name of hers.
She said, “I'm chilly. Can't we stop somewhere and get a drink?”
“Do you really want to?” My voice must have puzzled her; she turned her head quickly to peer at me in the dim
light.
“I'd like to,” she said, “unless you're in a hurry.”
“No. We could go to Mack's. It's only three or four blocks from here, but—it's a nigger joint.”
She laughed. “All I ask is that I don't get poisoned.”
“You won't, but you're sure you want to go?”
“Certainly.” She exaggerated her shivering. “I'm cold. It's early.”
Toots Mack opened his door for us. I could tell by the politeness with which he bowed his round bald black head and said, “Good evening, sir; good evening, madam,” that he wished we had gone some place else, but I was not especially interested in how he felt about it. I said, “Hello, Toots; how are you this evening?” too cheerfully.
There were only a few customers in the place. We went to the table in the corner farthest from the piano. Suddenly she was staring at me, her eyes, already very blue, becoming very round.
“I thought you could see in the car,” I began.
“How'd you get that scar?” she asked, interrupting me.
She sat down.
“That.” I put a hand to my cheek. “Fight—couple of years ago. You ought to see the one on my chest.”
“We'll have to go swimming some time,” she said gayly.
“Please sit down and don't keep me waiting for my drink.”
“Are you sure you —”
She began to chant, keeping time with her fingers on the table, “I want a drink, I want a drink, I want a drink.” Her mouth was small with full lips and it curved up without growing wider when she smiled.
We ordered drinks. We talked too fast. We made jokes and laughed too readily at them. We asked questions—about the name of the perfume she used was one —and paid too much or no attention to the answers. And Toots looked glumly at us from behind the bar when he thought we were hot looking at him. It was all pretty bad.
We had another drink and I said, “Well, let's slide along.”
She was nice about seeming neither too anxious to go nor to stay. The ends of her pale blonde hair curled up over the edge of her hat in back.
At the door I said, “Listen, there's a taxi-stand around the corner. You won't mind if I don't take you home?”
She put a hand on my arm. “I do mind. Please —” The street was badly lighted. Her face was like a child's. She took her.hand off my arm. “But if you'd rather . . .”
“I think I'd rather.”
She said slowly, “I like you, Jack Bye, and I'm awfully grateful for —”
I said, “Aw, that's all right,” and we shook hands and I went back into the speakeasy.
Toots was still behind the bar. He came up to where I stood. “You oughtn't to do that to me,” he said, shaking his head mournfully.
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“You oughtn't to do it to yourself,” he went on just as sadly. “This ain't Harlem, boy, and if old Judge Warner finds out his daughter's running around with you and coming in here he can make it plenty tough for both of us. I like you, boy, but you got to remember it don't make no difference how light your skin is or how many colleges you went to, you're still nigger.”
I said, “Well, what do you suppose I want to be? A Chinaman?”
I put on my brakes, then backed up. By that time a man had got out of the sedan. There was enough light to let me see he was young and fairly big. He moved a hand in the direction I had been going and said, “On your way, buddy.”
The girl said again, “Will you drive me into town, please?” She seemed to be trying to open the sedan door. Her hat had been pushed forward over one eye.
I said, “Sure.”
The man in the road took a step toward me, moved his hand as before, and growled, “Scram, you.”
I got out of my car. The man in the road had started toward me when another man's voice came from the sedan, a harsh warning voice. “Go easy, Tony. It's Jack Bye.” The sedan door swung open and the girl jumped out.
Tony said, “Oh!” and his feet shuffled uncertainly on the road; but when he saw the girl making for my car he cried indignantly at her, “Listen, you can't ride to town with —”
She was in my roadster by then. “Good night,” she said.
He faced me, shook his head stubbornly, began, “I'll be damned if I'll let —”
I hit him. The knockdown was fair enough, because I hit him hard, but I think he could have got up again if he had wanted to. I gave him a little time, then asked the fellow in the sedan, “All right with you?” I still could not see him.
“He'll be all right,” he replied quickly. “I'll take care of of him all right.”
“Thanks.” I climbed into my car beside the girl. The rain I had been trying to get to town ahead of was beginning to fall. A coupe with a man and a woman in it passed us going toward town. We followed the coupe across the bridge.
The girl said, “This is awfully kind of you. I wasn't in any danger back there, but it was—nasty.”
“They wouldn't be dangerous,” I said, “but they would be—nasty.”
“You know them?”
“No.”
“But they knew you. Tony Forrest and Fred Barnes.” When I did not say anything, she added, “They were afraid of you.”
“I'm a desperate character.”
She laughed. “And pretty nice of you, too, tonight. I wouldn't've gone with either of them alone, but I thought with two of them …” She turned up the collar of her coat. “It's raining in on me.”
I stopped the roadster again and hunted for the curtain that belonged on her side of the car. “So your name's Jack Bye,” she said while I was snapping it on.
“And yours is Helen Warner.”
“How'd you know?” She had straightened her hat.
“I've seen you around.” I finished attaching the curtain and got back in.
“Did you know who I was when I called to you?” she asked when we were moving again.
“Yes.”
“It was silly of me to go out with them like that.”
“You're shivering.”
“It's chilly.”
I said I was sorry my flask was empty.
We had turned into the western end of Hellman Avenue. It was four minutes past ten by the clock in front of the jewelry store on the corner of Laurel Street. A policeman in a black rubber coat was leaning against the clock. I did not know enough about perfumes to know the name of hers.
She said, “I'm chilly. Can't we stop somewhere and get a drink?”
“Do you really want to?” My voice must have puzzled her; she turned her head quickly to peer at me in the dim
light.
“I'd like to,” she said, “unless you're in a hurry.”
“No. We could go to Mack's. It's only three or four blocks from here, but—it's a nigger joint.”
She laughed. “All I ask is that I don't get poisoned.”
“You won't, but you're sure you want to go?”
“Certainly.” She exaggerated her shivering. “I'm cold. It's early.”
Toots Mack opened his door for us. I could tell by the politeness with which he bowed his round bald black head and said, “Good evening, sir; good evening, madam,” that he wished we had gone some place else, but I was not especially interested in how he felt about it. I said, “Hello, Toots; how are you this evening?” too cheerfully.
There were only a few customers in the place. We went to the table in the corner farthest from the piano. Suddenly she was staring at me, her eyes, already very blue, becoming very round.
“I thought you could see in the car,” I began.
“How'd you get that scar?” she asked, interrupting me.
She sat down.
“That.” I put a hand to my cheek. “Fight—couple of years ago. You ought to see the one on my chest.”
“We'll have to go swimming some time,” she said gayly.
“Please sit down and don't keep me waiting for my drink.”
“Are you sure you —”
She began to chant, keeping time with her fingers on the table, “I want a drink, I want a drink, I want a drink.” Her mouth was small with full lips and it curved up without growing wider when she smiled.
We ordered drinks. We talked too fast. We made jokes and laughed too readily at them. We asked questions—about the name of the perfume she used was one —and paid too much or no attention to the answers. And Toots looked glumly at us from behind the bar when he thought we were hot looking at him. It was all pretty bad.
We had another drink and I said, “Well, let's slide along.”
She was nice about seeming neither too anxious to go nor to stay. The ends of her pale blonde hair curled up over the edge of her hat in back.
At the door I said, “Listen, there's a taxi-stand around the corner. You won't mind if I don't take you home?”
She put a hand on my arm. “I do mind. Please —” The street was badly lighted. Her face was like a child's. She took her.hand off my arm. “But if you'd rather . . .”
“I think I'd rather.”
She said slowly, “I like you, Jack Bye, and I'm awfully grateful for —”
I said, “Aw, that's all right,” and we shook hands and I went back into the speakeasy.
Toots was still behind the bar. He came up to where I stood. “You oughtn't to do that to me,” he said, shaking his head mournfully.
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“You oughtn't to do it to yourself,” he went on just as sadly. “This ain't Harlem, boy, and if old Judge Warner finds out his daughter's running around with you and coming in here he can make it plenty tough for both of us. I like you, boy, but you got to remember it don't make no difference how light your skin is or how many colleges you went to, you're still nigger.”
I said, “Well, what do you suppose I want to be? A Chinaman?”
THE JUDGE LAUGHED LAST
“THE TROUBLE with this country,” Old Man Covey unexpectedly exploded, emphasizing his words with repeated beats of a gnarled forefinger on the newspaper he had been reading, “is that the courts have got a stranglehold on it! Law? There ain't no law! There's courts and there's judges, and this thing you call the law is a weapon they use to choke human enterprise—to discourage originality and progress!”
The portion of the morning paper upon which the old man's assault was concentrated, I saw with difficulty, held the report of a decision of the Supreme Court in connection with some labor difficulties in the West. Old Man Covey, I knew, couldn't be personally interested in either side of the dispute. He had as little to do with capital as with labor, which was very little. For eight years now—since the day when a street preacher had turned “Big-dog” Covey from the ways of crime, to become plain John Covey and, later, Old Man Covey—he had subsisted upon the benevolence of a son-in-law.
His interest in this case was, then, purely academic. But his attitude was undoubtedly tinged by his earlier experience with the criminal courts, which had been more than superficial, and I suspected that some especially bitter memory had engendered this outburst.
So I rolled another cigarette and led him gently along the road of argumentation—the most direct path, I had learned, to the interior of his contrary old mind.
“Being a beak,” I said, using the vernacular term for judge in an attempt to do all I could to stir up the portions of his remembrance that had to do with his days of youth and lawlessness, “is a tough job. Laws are complicated and puzzling, and it isn't easy to straighten them out so that they fit particular cases. Most of the beaks do very well, I think.”
“You think so, do you?” the old scoundrel snarled at me. “Well, let me tell you, sonny, you don't know a damned thing about it! I could tell you stories about beaks and their ways that would knock your eye out!”
I put all the skepticism I could summon into a smile, confident now that I had him.
“You look at things from your own side,” I replied, “and in those days you were on the wrong side. Now I don't say that judges don't make mistakes now and then. They do. They're only human. But I never heard of a case where you could say that a judge had positively twisted the law around to —”
That turned the trick. He cursed and snorted and glared at me, and I grinned my insincere doubts, and the story finally came out.
“Me and 'Flogger' Rork was on the road together some years ago, with a gun apiece and a couple big handkerchiefs to hide our mugs behind when we needed to. All-night grease-joints was our meat, and we done ourselves pretty well. We'd knock over a couple a night some nights. We'd drift into them separate at three or four in the morning, not letting on we knew each other, and stall over coffee and sinkers until we was alone with the guy behind the counter. Then we'd flash the rods on him, take what was in the damper, and slide on. No big hauls, you understand, but a steady, reliable income.
“We work that way for a few months, and then I get an idea for a new racket —and it's a darb! Flogger —he's an unimaginative sort of jobbie—can't see it at first. But I keep jawing at him until he gives in and agrees to take a whirl at it.
“You never seen Flogger Rork, did you? I thought not. Well, he's a good guy—what 'Limey' Pine used to call a 'bene cove'— but he ain't no flower to look at. I seen a cartoon of a burglar once in a newspaper during one of these crime waves, and that's the only time I ever seen a face like
Flogger's. A good guy—but we had to be careful how we moved around, because bulls had a habit of picking us up just on account of his face. Me—nobody hadn't ever took me for a lamb, myself; though alongside of Flogger I look pretty sweet.
“These mugs of ours had been handicaps to us so far, but now under my new scheme we're going to cash in on them.
“We was in the Middle West at the time. We blow into the next burg on our list, look the main drag over, and go to work. Our guns are ditched down under a pile of rocks near the jungle.
“We make a drug-store. There's two nice little boys in it. I plant myself in front of one of them, with one hand in my coat pocket, and Flogger does the same with the other.
” 'Come through,' we tells 'em.
“Without a squawk, one of 'em pushes down the 'No Sale' key of the damper, scoops out every nickel that's in it, and passes it over to Flogger.
” 'Lay down behind the counter and don't be too much in a hurry about getting up,' we tell them next.
“They do as they're told, and me and Flogger go on out and about our business.
“The next day we push over two more stores and move on to the next town. Every town we hit we give our new racket a couple of whirls, and it goes nice. Having an ace up our sleeves, we can take chances that otherwise would have been foolish —we can pull a couple or even three jobs a day without waiting for the rumpus from the first one to die down.
“Pickings were pretty them days!
“Then, one afternoon in a fresh burg, we push over a garage, a pawnshop and a shoe store, and we get picked up.
“The bulls that nabbed us was loaded for bear, but—outside of running until we saw it was no use—we went along with them as nice as you please. When they frisked us they found the money from that day's jobs, but that was all. The rest was cached where we knew it would be when we wanted it. And our guns was still under that pile of stones three. States away. We didn't have no use for them any more.
“The guys we had stuck up that afternoon came in to look us over, and they all identified us right away. As one of 'em said there was no forgettin' our faces. But we sat tight and said nothing. We knew where we stood and we were satisfied.
“After a couple days they let us have a mouthpiece. We picked out a kid whose diploma hadn't been with him long enough to collect any dust yet, but he looked like he wouldn't throw us down; and he didn't have to know much law for us. Then we laid around and took jail life easy.
“A few days of that, and they yank us into court. We let things run along for a while without fightin' back, until the right time came. Then our kid mouthpiece gets up and springs our little joker on them.
“His clients, he says, meaning me and Flogger, are perfectly willing to plead guilty to begging. But there is nothing to hold them for robbery on. They were in need of funds, and they went into three business establishments and asked for money. They had no weapons. The evidence doesn't show that they made any threats. Whatever mo-1 tives may have prompted the persons in the stores to hand over the contents of the various cash registers to oblige them—the kid says—has no bearing on the matter. The evidence is plain. His clients asked for money and it was given to them. Begging, certainly—and so his clients are liable to sentences of 30 days or so in the county jail for vagrancy. But robbery—no!
“Well, son, it was a riot! I thought the beak was going to bust something. He's a big bloated hick with a red face and a pair of nose-pinchers. His face turns purple now, and the cheaters slide down his nose three times in five minutes. The district attorney does a proper war dance with the whoops and all. But we had 'em!”
The old man stopped with an air of finality. I waited a while, but he didn't resume the story, if there were, indeed, any more to it; so I prodded him.
“I don't see where that proves your contention,” I said. “There's no using of the law as a weapon there.”
“Wait, sonny, wait,” he promised. • “You'll see before I'm through . . . They put their witnesses back on the stand again, then. But there was nothing to it. None of 'em had seen any weapons, and none of 'em couldn't say we had threatened 'em. They said things about our looks, but it ain't a crime to be ugly.
“They shut up shop for the day, then, and chased me and Flogger back to the jail. And we went back as happy a pair as you ever seen. We had the world by the tail with a downhill pull, and we liked it. Thirty days, or even sixty, in the county jail on a vag charge didn't mean nothing to us. We'd had that happen to us before, and got over it.
“We were happy—but that came from the ignorance of our trustin' natures. We thought maybe a court was a place where justice was done after all; where right was right; and where things went accordin' to the law. We'd been in trouble with the law before, plenty, but this was different—we had the law on our side this time; and we counted on it stickin' with us. But —”
“Well, anyway, they take us back over to court after a few more days. And as soon as I get a slant at the beak and the district attorney I get sort of a chill up my back. They got mean lights in their eyes, like a coupla kids that had put tacks on a chair and was a-waiting for somebody to sit on them. Maybe, I think, they've rigged things up so's they can slip us two or three, or even six, months on vag charges. But I didn't suspect half of it!
“Say, you've heard this chatter about how slow the courts are, haven't you? Well, let me tell you, nothing in the world ever moved any faster than that court that morning. Before we had got fixed in our chairs, almost, things was humming.
“Our kid mouthpiece is bouncing up and down continuj ous, trying to get a word in. But not a chance! Every time he opens his mouth the beak cracks down on him and shuts him up; even threatening to throw him out and fine him in the bargain if he don't keep quiet.
The portion of the morning paper upon which the old man's assault was concentrated, I saw with difficulty, held the report of a decision of the Supreme Court in connection with some labor difficulties in the West. Old Man Covey, I knew, couldn't be personally interested in either side of the dispute. He had as little to do with capital as with labor, which was very little. For eight years now—since the day when a street preacher had turned “Big-dog” Covey from the ways of crime, to become plain John Covey and, later, Old Man Covey—he had subsisted upon the benevolence of a son-in-law.
His interest in this case was, then, purely academic. But his attitude was undoubtedly tinged by his earlier experience with the criminal courts, which had been more than superficial, and I suspected that some especially bitter memory had engendered this outburst.
So I rolled another cigarette and led him gently along the road of argumentation—the most direct path, I had learned, to the interior of his contrary old mind.
“Being a beak,” I said, using the vernacular term for judge in an attempt to do all I could to stir up the portions of his remembrance that had to do with his days of youth and lawlessness, “is a tough job. Laws are complicated and puzzling, and it isn't easy to straighten them out so that they fit particular cases. Most of the beaks do very well, I think.”
“You think so, do you?” the old scoundrel snarled at me. “Well, let me tell you, sonny, you don't know a damned thing about it! I could tell you stories about beaks and their ways that would knock your eye out!”
I put all the skepticism I could summon into a smile, confident now that I had him.
“You look at things from your own side,” I replied, “and in those days you were on the wrong side. Now I don't say that judges don't make mistakes now and then. They do. They're only human. But I never heard of a case where you could say that a judge had positively twisted the law around to —”
That turned the trick. He cursed and snorted and glared at me, and I grinned my insincere doubts, and the story finally came out.
“Me and 'Flogger' Rork was on the road together some years ago, with a gun apiece and a couple big handkerchiefs to hide our mugs behind when we needed to. All-night grease-joints was our meat, and we done ourselves pretty well. We'd knock over a couple a night some nights. We'd drift into them separate at three or four in the morning, not letting on we knew each other, and stall over coffee and sinkers until we was alone with the guy behind the counter. Then we'd flash the rods on him, take what was in the damper, and slide on. No big hauls, you understand, but a steady, reliable income.
“We work that way for a few months, and then I get an idea for a new racket —and it's a darb! Flogger —he's an unimaginative sort of jobbie—can't see it at first. But I keep jawing at him until he gives in and agrees to take a whirl at it.
“You never seen Flogger Rork, did you? I thought not. Well, he's a good guy—what 'Limey' Pine used to call a 'bene cove'— but he ain't no flower to look at. I seen a cartoon of a burglar once in a newspaper during one of these crime waves, and that's the only time I ever seen a face like
Flogger's. A good guy—but we had to be careful how we moved around, because bulls had a habit of picking us up just on account of his face. Me—nobody hadn't ever took me for a lamb, myself; though alongside of Flogger I look pretty sweet.
“These mugs of ours had been handicaps to us so far, but now under my new scheme we're going to cash in on them.
“We was in the Middle West at the time. We blow into the next burg on our list, look the main drag over, and go to work. Our guns are ditched down under a pile of rocks near the jungle.
“We make a drug-store. There's two nice little boys in it. I plant myself in front of one of them, with one hand in my coat pocket, and Flogger does the same with the other.
” 'Come through,' we tells 'em.
“Without a squawk, one of 'em pushes down the 'No Sale' key of the damper, scoops out every nickel that's in it, and passes it over to Flogger.
” 'Lay down behind the counter and don't be too much in a hurry about getting up,' we tell them next.
“They do as they're told, and me and Flogger go on out and about our business.
“The next day we push over two more stores and move on to the next town. Every town we hit we give our new racket a couple of whirls, and it goes nice. Having an ace up our sleeves, we can take chances that otherwise would have been foolish —we can pull a couple or even three jobs a day without waiting for the rumpus from the first one to die down.
“Pickings were pretty them days!
“Then, one afternoon in a fresh burg, we push over a garage, a pawnshop and a shoe store, and we get picked up.
“The bulls that nabbed us was loaded for bear, but—outside of running until we saw it was no use—we went along with them as nice as you please. When they frisked us they found the money from that day's jobs, but that was all. The rest was cached where we knew it would be when we wanted it. And our guns was still under that pile of stones three. States away. We didn't have no use for them any more.
“The guys we had stuck up that afternoon came in to look us over, and they all identified us right away. As one of 'em said there was no forgettin' our faces. But we sat tight and said nothing. We knew where we stood and we were satisfied.
“After a couple days they let us have a mouthpiece. We picked out a kid whose diploma hadn't been with him long enough to collect any dust yet, but he looked like he wouldn't throw us down; and he didn't have to know much law for us. Then we laid around and took jail life easy.
“A few days of that, and they yank us into court. We let things run along for a while without fightin' back, until the right time came. Then our kid mouthpiece gets up and springs our little joker on them.
“His clients, he says, meaning me and Flogger, are perfectly willing to plead guilty to begging. But there is nothing to hold them for robbery on. They were in need of funds, and they went into three business establishments and asked for money. They had no weapons. The evidence doesn't show that they made any threats. Whatever mo-1 tives may have prompted the persons in the stores to hand over the contents of the various cash registers to oblige them—the kid says—has no bearing on the matter. The evidence is plain. His clients asked for money and it was given to them. Begging, certainly—and so his clients are liable to sentences of 30 days or so in the county jail for vagrancy. But robbery—no!
“Well, son, it was a riot! I thought the beak was going to bust something. He's a big bloated hick with a red face and a pair of nose-pinchers. His face turns purple now, and the cheaters slide down his nose three times in five minutes. The district attorney does a proper war dance with the whoops and all. But we had 'em!”
The old man stopped with an air of finality. I waited a while, but he didn't resume the story, if there were, indeed, any more to it; so I prodded him.
“I don't see where that proves your contention,” I said. “There's no using of the law as a weapon there.”
“Wait, sonny, wait,” he promised. • “You'll see before I'm through . . . They put their witnesses back on the stand again, then. But there was nothing to it. None of 'em had seen any weapons, and none of 'em couldn't say we had threatened 'em. They said things about our looks, but it ain't a crime to be ugly.
“They shut up shop for the day, then, and chased me and Flogger back to the jail. And we went back as happy a pair as you ever seen. We had the world by the tail with a downhill pull, and we liked it. Thirty days, or even sixty, in the county jail on a vag charge didn't mean nothing to us. We'd had that happen to us before, and got over it.
“We were happy—but that came from the ignorance of our trustin' natures. We thought maybe a court was a place where justice was done after all; where right was right; and where things went accordin' to the law. We'd been in trouble with the law before, plenty, but this was different—we had the law on our side this time; and we counted on it stickin' with us. But —”
“Well, anyway, they take us back over to court after a few more days. And as soon as I get a slant at the beak and the district attorney I get sort of a chill up my back. They got mean lights in their eyes, like a coupla kids that had put tacks on a chair and was a-waiting for somebody to sit on them. Maybe, I think, they've rigged things up so's they can slip us two or three, or even six, months on vag charges. But I didn't suspect half of it!
“Say, you've heard this chatter about how slow the courts are, haven't you? Well, let me tell you, nothing in the world ever moved any faster than that court that morning. Before we had got fixed in our chairs, almost, things was humming.
“Our kid mouthpiece is bouncing up and down continuj ous, trying to get a word in. But not a chance! Every time he opens his mouth the beak cracks down on him and shuts him up; even threatening to throw him out and fine him in the bargain if he don't keep quiet.