From Place to Place Part 13

Turning out of Forty-second Street into Broadway and thence going south to a point just below the intersection with Fortieth Street, he approached the Clarenden from the opposite side of Broadway. There was motive in this. One coming across from the opposite side and looking upward at a diagonal slant could see through the windows along the front side of the Clarenden with some prospect of making out the faces of such diners as sat at tables near the windows. Straining his eyes as he crossed over, Trencher thought he recognised his man. He was almost sure he made out the outlined head and shoulders of Parker sitting at a corner table alongside the last window in the row. He trusted he was right and trusted still more fervently that Parker would bide where he was for three or four minutes longer.

Tucking his head well down inside his upturned collar and giving the brim of his hat a tug to bring it still farther forward over his eyes, he took a long breath, like a man preparing for a dive in cold water, and went up the flight of stairs from the sidewalk into the building. No one inside made as if to halt him; no one so far as he could tell gave him in pa.s.sing even an impersonal look. There was a wash room, as Trencher knew, at the back end of the ornate hall which separated the Chinese lounge and the main cafe on one side, from the private dining rooms and tea rooms on the other. That wash room was his present destination.

He reached it without mishap, to find it deserted except for a boy in b.u.t.tons. To the boy he surrendered hat and overcoat, and then in the midst of a feint at hitching up his shirt cuffs, as though meaning to wash his hands, he snapped his fingers impatiently.

"I forgot something," he said for the boy's benefit; "left it in the cafe. Say, kid, watch my hat and coat, will you? I'll be back in a minute."

"Yes, sir," promised the youth. "I'll take good care of 'em."

Bareheaded as he now was and lacking the overcoat, Trencher realised the chief elements of his disguise were missing; still there had been for him no other course to follow than this risky one. He could not claim ownership of one coat and one hat while wearing another coat and another hat--that was certain. As he neared his goal he noted that both the maids on the outside of the booth were for the instant engaged in helping the members of a group of men and women on with their outdoor wraps. So much the better for him. He headed straight for the third girl of the force, the one whose station was within the open-fronted booth.

In front of her on the flat shelf intervening between them he laid down the numbered pink slip, which in the scheme of his hopes and fears stood for so much.

"Never mind my hat, miss," he said, making his tone casual; "I'm not through with my supper yet. But just let me have my coat for one minute, will you, please? I want to get something out of one of the pockets to show to a friend."

There was nothing unusual, nothing unconventional about the request. The girl glanced at the figures on the check, then stepped back into her cuddy, seeking among rows of burdened hooks for whatsoever articles would be on the hook bearing corresponding figures. To Trencher, dreading the advent of the Stamford man out of the Chinese room alongside him and yet not daring to turn his head to look, it seemed she was a very long time finding the hook. In reality the time she took was to be gauged by seconds rather than by minutes.

"Is this the garment you desired, sir?" Speaking with an affected English drawl and with neither curiosity nor interest in her face, the girl laid across her counter the tan-coloured overcoat, one of its big smoked-pearl b.u.t.tons glinting dimly iridescent in the light as she spread it out.

"That's it, thank you. Just one moment and I'll give it back to you."

Trencher strove to throttle and succeeded fairly well in throttling the eager note in his voice as he took up the coat by its collar in his left hand.

The fingers trembled in spite of him as he thrust his right hand into the right-hand pocket. Twitching and groping they closed on what was hidden there--a slick, cool, round, flat, thin object, trade-dollar size. At the touch of the thing he sought and for all, too, that he stood in such perilous case, Trencher's heart jumped with relief and gratification. No need for him to look to make sure that he had his luck piece. He knew it by its feel and its heft and its size; besides the tip of one finger, sliding over its smooth rimless surface, had found in the centre of it the depression of the worn hole, and the sensitive nerves had flashed the news to his brain. He slid it into a trousers pocket and pa.s.sed the coat back to the girl; and almost before she had restored it to its appointed hook, Trencher had regained the shelter of the wash room and was repossessing himself of the slouch hat and the long black overcoat.

Back once more to the street he made the journey safely, nothing happening on the way out into the November night to alarm him. The winking, blinking electrically jewelled clock in the sign up the street told him it was just five minutes past midnight. He headed north, but for a few rods only. At Fortieth Street he turned west for a short block and at Seventh Avenue he hailed a south-bound trolley car. But before boarding the car he cast a quick backward scrutiny along the route he had come. Cabs moved to and fro, shuttle fashion, but seemingly no pedestrians were following behind him.

He was not particularly fearful of being pursued. Since he had cleared out from the Clarenden without mishap it was scarcely to be figured that anyone would or could now be shadowing him. He felt quite secure again--as secure as he had felt while in the locked room in the Bellhaven, because now he had in his custody that which gave him, in double and triple measure, the sense of a.s.surance. One hand was thrust deep into his trousers pocket, where it caressed and fondled the flat perforated disk that was there. It pleased him to feel the thing grow warmer under his fingers, guaranteeing him against mischance. He did not so much as twist his head to glance out of the car window as the car pa.s.sed Thirty-ninth Street.

At Thirtieth Street he got off the car and walked west to Silver's place. Ninth Avenue was almost empty and, as compared with Broadway, lay in deep shadows. The lights of the bar, filtering through the filmed gla.s.s in one window of Silver's, made a yellowish blur in what was otherwise a row of blank, dead house fronts. Above the saloon the squatty three-story building was all dark, and from this circ.u.mstance Trencher felt sure he had come to the rendezvous before the Kid arrived.

Alongside the saloon door he felt his way into a narrow entryway that was as black as a coal bunker and went up a flight of wooden steps to the second floor. At the head of the steps he fumbled with his hand until he found a doork.n.o.b. As he knew, this door would not be locked except from the inside; unless it contained occupants it was never locked. He knew, too, what furniture it contained--one table and three or four chairs. Steering a careful course to avoid b.u.mping into the table, which, as he recalled, should be in the middle of the floor, he found the opposite wall and, after a moment's search with his hands, a single electric bulb set in a wall bracket. He flipped on the light.

"That's right," said a voice behind him. "Now that you've got your mitts up, keep 'em up!"

As regards the position of his hands Trencher obeyed. He turned his head though, and over his shoulder he looked into the middle-aged face of Murtha, of the Central Office. Murtha's right hand was in his coat pocket and Trencher knew that Murtha had him covered--through the cloth of the coat.

"h.e.l.lo, Murtha," said Trencher steadily enough, "what's the idea?"

"The idea is for you to stand right where you are without making any breaks until I get through frisking you," said Murtha.

On noiseless feet he stepped across the floor, Trencher's back being still to him, and one of his hands, the left one, with deft movements shifted about over Trencher's trunk, searching for a weapon.

"Got no gat on you, eh?" said Murtha. "Well, that's good. Now then, bring your hands down slow, and keep 'em close together. That's it--slow. I'm taking no chances, understand, and you'd better not take any either."

Again Trencher obeyed. Still standing behind him Murtha slipped his arms about Trencher's middle and found first one of Trencher's wrists and then the other. There was a subdued clicking of steel mechanisms.

"Now then," said Murtha, falling back a pace or two, "I guess you can turn round if you want to."

Trencher turned round. He glanced at his hands, held in enforced companionship by the short chain of the handcuffs, and then steadily at his captor.

"Why so fussy, Murtha?" he asked in a slightly contemptuous tone. "You never heard of me starting any rough stuff when there was a pinch coming off, did you?"

"That's true," said the detective; "but when a gun's just b.u.mped off one guy he's liable to get the habit of b.u.mping off other guys. Even a swell gun like you is. So that's why I've been just a trifle particular."

"You're crazy, man! Who says I b.u.mped anybody off?"

"I do, for one," replied Murtha cheerfully. "Still that's neither here nor there, unless you feel like telling me all about what came off over in Thirty-ninth Street to-night.

"You've always been a safety player so far as I know--and I'm curious to know what made you start in using a cannon on folks all of a sudden. At that, I might guess--knowing Sonntag like I did."

"I don't know what you're talking about," parried Trencher. "I tell you you've got me wrong. You can't frame me for something I didn't do. If somebody fixed Sonntag it wasn't me. I haven't seen him since yesterday. I'm giving it to you straight."

"Oh well, we won't argue that now," said Murtha affably. In his manner was something suggestive of the cat that has caught the king of the rats. A tremendous satisfaction radiated from him. "You can stall some people, son, but you can't stall me. I've got you and I've got the goods on you--that's sufficient. But before you and me glide down out of here together and start for the front office I'd like to talk a little with you. Set down, why don't you, and make yourself comfortable?" He indicated a chair.

Trencher took the chair and Murtha, after springing a catch which he found on the inner side of the door, sat down in another.

"I've got to hand it to you, Trencher," went on the detective admiringly. "You sure do work swift. You didn't lose much time climbing into that outfit you're wearing. How did you get into it so quick? And, putting one thing with another, I judge you made a good fast get-away too. Say, listen, Trencher, you might as well come clean with me. I'll say this for Sonntag--he's been overdue for a croaking this long time.

If I've got to spare anybody out of my life I guess it might as well be him--that's how I stand. He belonged to the Better-Dead Club to start with, Sonntag did. If it was self-defence and you can prove it, I've got no kick coming. All I want is the credit for nailing you all by my lonesome. Why not slip me the whole tale now, and get it off your chest?

You don't crave for any of this here third-degree stuff down at headquarters, and neither do I. Why not spill it to me now and save trouble all round?"

His tone was persuasive, wheedling, half friendly. Trencher merely shook his head, forcing a derisive grin to his lips.

"Can the bull, Murtha," he said. "You haven't got a thing on me and you know it."

"Is that so? Well, just to play the game fair, suppose I tell you some of the things I've got on you--some of them. But before I start I'm going to tell you that your big mistake was in coming back to where you'd left that nice new yellow overcoat of yours. Interested, eh?" he said, reading the expression that came into Trencher's face in spite of Trencher's efforts. "All right then, I'll go on. You had a good prospect of getting out of town before daylight, but you chucked your chance when you came back to the Clarenden a little while ago. But at that I was expecting you; in fact, I don't mind telling you that I was standing behind some curtains not fifteen feet from that check room when you showed up. I could have grabbed you then, of course, but just between you and me I didn't want to run the risk of having to split the credit fifty-fifty with any bull, in harness or out of it, that might come b.u.t.ting in. The neighbourhood was lousy with cops and plain-clothes men hunting for whoever it was that b.u.mped off Sonntag; they're still there, I guess, hunting without knowing who it is they're looking for, and without having a very good description of you, either. I was the only fellow that had the right dope, and that came about more by accident than anything else. So I took a chance, myself. I let you get away and then I trailed you--in a taxi.

"All the time you was on that street car I was riding along right behind you, and I came up these steps here not ten feet behind you. I wanted you all for myself and I've got you all by myself."

"You don't hate yourself, exactly, do you?" said Trencher. "Well, without admitting anything--because there's nothing to admit--I'd like to know, if you don't mind, how you dope it out that I had anything to do with Sonntag's being killed--that is if you're not lying about him being killed?"

"I don't mind," said Murtha blithely. "It makes quite a tale, but I can boil it down. I wasn't on duty to-night--by rights this was a night off for me. I had a date at the Clarenden at eleven-thirty to eat a bite with a brother-in-law of mine and a couple of friends of his--a fellow named Simons and a fellow named Parker, from Stamford.

"I judge it's Parker's benny and dicer you're wearing now.

"Well, anyhow, on my way to the Clarenden about an hour or so ago I b.u.t.t right into the middle of all the h.e.l.l that's being raised over this shooting in Thirty-ninth Street. One of the precinct plain-clothes men that's working on the case tells me a tall guy in a brown derby hat and a short yellow overcoat is supposed to have pulled off the job. That didn't mean anything to me, and even if it had I wouldn't have figured you out as having been mixed up in it. Anyway, it's no lookout of mine.

So I goes into the Clarenden and has a rarebit and a bottle of beer with my brother-in-law and the others.

"About half-past eleven we all start to go, and then this party, Parker, can't find his coat check. He's sure he stuck it in his vest pocket when he blew in, but it ain't there. We look for it on the floor but it's not there, either. Then all of a sudden Parker remembers that a man in a brown derby, with a coat turned inside out over his arm, who seemed to be in a hurry about something, came into the Clarenden along with him, and that a minute later in that Chinese room the same fellow b.u.t.ts into him. That gives me an idea, but I don't tell Parker what's on my mind. I sends the head waiter for the house detective, and when the house detective comes I show him my badge, and on the strength of that he lets me and Parker go into the cloak room. Parker's hoping to find his own coat and I'm pretending to help him look for it, but what I'm really looking for is a brown derby hat and a short yellow coat--and sure enough I find 'em. But Parker can't find his duds at all; and so in putting two and two together it's easy for me to figure how the switch was made. I dope it out that the fellow who lifted Parker's check and traded his duds for Parker's is the same fellow who fixed Sonntag's clock. Also I've got a pretty good line on who that party is; in fact I practically as good as know who it is.

"So I sends Parker and the others back to the table to smoke a cigar and stick round awhile, and I hang round the door keeping out of sight behind them draperies where I can watch the check room. Because, you see, Trencher, I knew you were the guy and I knew you'd come back--if you could get back."

He paused as though expecting a question, but Trencher stayed silent and Murtha kept on.

"And now I'm going to tell you how I come to know you was the right party. You remember that time about two years ago when I ran you in as a suspect and down at headquarters you bellyached so loud because I took a b.u.m old coin off of you? Well, when I went through that yellow overcoat and found your luck piece, as you call it, in the right-hand pocket, I felt morally sure, knowing you like I did, that as soon as you missed it you'd be coming back to try to find it. And sure enough you did come back. Simple, ain't it?

"The only miscalculation I made was in figuring that when you found it gone from the pocket you'd hang round making a hunt for it on the floor or something. You didn't though. I guess maybe you lost your nerve when you found it wasn't in that coat pocket. Is that right?"

"But I did find it!" exclaimed Trencher, fairly jostled out of his pose by these last words from his gloating captor. "I've got it now!"

Murtha's hand stole into his trousers pocket and fondled something there.