The Mammoth Book Of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Part 33

Abell, who had been making inquiries, said that it had become a favorite gathering place of the white collar gangs. It occupied the site of a famous old New York restaurant on Columbus Avenue, which had rapidly gone down hill after prohibition, and changed its name half a dozen times.

You would never have guessed the characters of its frequenters from their appearance. Everybody looks alike nowadays. In the Boule' Miche' you found exactly the same sort of sleek, showy women, accompanied by sleek and not so showy men, that you would see in any other night club.

It was only when you possessed a key to their occupation that you began to perceive a certain wary look in the eyes of the men; a tendency to glance toward the door every time it was opened. Once in a while strange s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation would reach your ears. Of course, many perfectly respectable people must have been included among the patrons of the place.

The present proprietor was a dark-skinned gentleman, with a perpetual gleaming smile, and a hard eye that was anything but smiling. His evening clothes fitted him to a marvel. His name was Bat Bartley, and Abell knew him.

He was one of those mysterious New York characters whom everybody knows, and n.o.body knows anything about. It was the custom of all his patrons to fawn on him, as they always do in such places I can't tell you why; and while he smiled he scarcely troubled to conceal his contempt of them.

When Abell introduced my mistress to him as Kate Arkledon I saw the wary eyes narrow slightly. Evidently he was familiar with that name. My mistress treated him with cool disdain, whereupon he immediately began to fawn on her! Such is human nature!

Upon our first visits to the Boule' Miche' n.o.body attempted to address us, though, of course, so striking a figure as that of my mistress could not pa.s.s unnoticed. People stared at her, and whispered to each other, clearly asking who she was.

No doubt they asked the proprietor, and no doubt he told them or at least such of them as he could trust. By degrees a tinge of respect and admiration appeared in the glances of the regular habitues. One could almost pick out those who belonged to the fraternity of crooks by the way they looked at the supposed Kate Arkledon.

And then one night we had an encounter which terrified me; I thought our whole elaborate structure was about to collapse. I needn't have been terrified. I underrated my mistress's superb aplomb.

An old boy with a red face and bulging blue eyes, who had been talking to Bat Bartley, came to our table. His Tuxedo, while of good material, was of an old fashion; an air of having seen better days clung around him. Fixing his bloodshot eyes on my mistress, he asked: "Is this Kate Arkledon?"

"The same," she said, with an air of cynical indifference she now affected.

"Well, well, well!" he said. "I never should have known you, Kate. And you, I see, have completely forgotten me."

My mistress made believe to study him. "Your face is very familiar to me," she said. "But the name the name-"

He shook his head mournfully. "To think that you should have forgotten me. Remember the St Louis Fair?"

Mme Storey must have had Kate Arkledon's biography at her finger tips.

"Chad Herring!" she said instantly, and offered the old fellow her hand. "But how changed!"

"Ah, don't rub it in!" he said. "I know it! Chad Herring's on the shelf! But you, good Heaven, you're fresh as paint!"

"Paint is right!" said my mistress, with her scornful smile, touching her cheek meanwhile.

He laughed uproariously. "Just as smart as ever, I see! You're a wonder, Kate!"

"Sit down," she said.

I trembled at her temerity. Surely the least slip would be fatal. She introduced us all to him by our underworld names.

"Young blood young blood!" he muttered, sadly shaking his head. He turned to her with a pathetic eagerness. "Kate, what do you hear of Bill Bland.i.c.k and Paddy Nolan-" He named a whole string of names. "The old gang."

"All gone," she said, spreading out her hands. "That is, gone from me. I have not heard of any of them for more than ten years."

"What have you been doing, Kate?"

"Leading a G.o.dly, righteous and sober life," she replied with a bitter sneer.

"You don't look it," he said innocently.

"Ah, there's nothing like dullness to break you up!" she told him. "I'm done with a respectable life. I've come back."

"Come back?" he repeated almost with horror. "At your age! Remember, I know how old you are."

"Well, you needn't broadcast it," she said sharply.

What a wonderful piece of acting she was giving!

"Come back!" he repeated again. "Do you think you can keep your end up in this day of youth and jazz and high-powered automobiles?"

"And why not?" she demanded proudly. "My nerve is as steady as ever. Look at that hand." She held it out. "And I can teach these youngsters a thing or two. Good G.o.d, Chad think of the opportunities nowadays! There was never anything like it in the old days!"

He looked at her with that same fear. I suppose that the fierce energy she expressed made him feel old and broken by way of contrast.

After a little desultory talk he ambled away. Presently we saw him telling Bat Bartley about it.

"That will help establish our characters," said my mistress calmly.

V.

On the morning of the appointed day I awoke in blessed unconsciousness and lay staring at the ceiling. Then the realization of what was before me came winging back, and the bottom seemed to drop out of my stomach. I suppose it was much the same feeling as that experienced by a murderer on the morning of his execution. The worst of it was, our stunt was not to be pulled off until four o'clock, the most crowded time on upper Broadway, and I had all those miserable hours to put in beforehand. My breakfast choked me.

Every detail having been completed the night before, there was nothing for Mme Storey and I to do but proceed to the office in our own characters and attend to our usual business.

During the day that amazing woman, my mistress, gave out interviews, talked over the telephone, and dictated letters as if it was no different from any other day in the year. If she noticed that my hand was p.r.o.ne to tremble and my voice to shake, she never spoke of it. Indeed, no reference of any kind was made to what was almost immediately before us.

At three o'clock she locked the drawer of her desk and said to me casually: "Well, Bella, let's go."

I declare, from the openness of her smile and the brightness of her eye, one might have thought it was a picnic we were bound on. She enjoyed it!

Proceeding by taxi to the room on Forty-Seventh Street, we transformed ourselves into Kate Arkledon and Peggy Ray. I noticed that my mistress, while carefully preserving the same character, toned down her make-up somewhat. For the jewelers' she did not wish to emphasize the hardness, the recklessness that she flaunted in the Boule' Miche' every night.

As it was, the perfection of her plain, smart get-up and her high manner created a figure that any jeweler would rejoice to see coming into his shop. Around her neck she clasped a short string of valuable pearls, her only ornaments.

"Decoys," she said to me with a grin.

Me you must picture with my red hair frizzed to a fare-you-well, and my face made up like the American flag, wearing a showy hat, a smartly cut caracul coat and high-heeled satin slippers. The make-up robbed my face of all character, and I looked to the life the expensive, empty-headed woman that you may find on upper Broadway in her hundreds. But I doubted my ability to run in those high-heeled slippers.

"Then kick 'em off," said Mme Storey. "It will add a picturesque touch to the story."

We continued uptown to the flat on West Street, where we found our three men waiting for us, all smartly rigged out according to the custom of the modern gunman, all cool and smiling. The youngster in particular seemed to regard it as a great lark.

I could almost have hated them all for their unconcern. I wished myself anywhere but there. Mme Storey dealt out guns to all. They were loaded with blanks. Mine went into a specially prepared pocket of my fur coat.

Inspector Rumsey came to us here for a final consultation.

"How about the Fossbergs?" asked Mme Storey. "Do you think they will play their parts satisfactorily?"

"I haven't a doubt of it?" said the inspector dryly. "They couldn't be in a worse state of funk if they expected to be robbed in earnest. I persuaded them to stay away from the store until just before you came, so their clerks wouldn't get on to anything."

"And the guns?"

"It's the custom of the store to keep four loaded guns in different places under the counter. These were collected yesterday and sent to the makers to be cleaned and inspected."

I thought, with a shiver: How does he know but that one of the clerks may have a gun of his own? However, there was nothing to be gained by bringing that up then, and I kept my mouth shut.

"What are the police arrangements?" asked Mme Storey.

"According to your instructions, I did not attempt to interfere with them," returned the inspector. "I have taken n.o.body in the department into my confidence. There is a man on fixed post on Broadway two blocks south of the store, and another stationed in the little park three blocks north. These men are far enough away not to interfere with you, but you must be careful not to drive past them, or they might shoot if they hear the alarm.

"In addition there are two patrolmen whose beats meet in the middle of the street alongside the store. You will have to watch for these. After they have met and gone back you can depend upon about twelve minutes before they return. Don't forget that there are many men on fixed post along Riverside Drive."

"We will keep off the Drive," said Mme Storey dryly.

The final arrangements were that we were to proceed to the Fossberg store separately, Abell in the car was to wait in the side street near the corner of West End Avenue with his engine running; the rest of us were to walk up and down, keeping in sight of each other, until the two policemen had met.

Two minutes after the policemen had gone back Mme Storey was to enter the store, and I was to take up my position at the door, glancing up and down the street as if I was waiting for somebody. Abell and Farren were then to be looking in the window. Two minutes after Mme Storey had entered they were to follow her into the store.

"Well, good-bye and good luck," said Inspector Rumsey, smiling. "I must say it seems like a mad scheme to me; but I have had too many lessons in the past to venture to oppose any plan of Mme Storey's."

A few minutes later four of us were separately strolling up and down outside Fossberg's store. I was thankful for the rouge which covered my pale cheeks. However, we were not in the least conspicuous on the well filled sidewalk.

A policeman pa.s.sed, swinging his club, without looking twice at us. In the side street, down near the end of the short block, I could see the car waiting; a touring car, with the top down in true bandit fashion. It was a "stolen" car, too, to add verisimilitude stolen from one of Mme Storey's friends, however.

Broadway uptown is an immensely wide street with gra.s.s plots down the middle. Trees used to grow there; but nowadays they would have nothing to root in but the subway.

Both sides of the way are filled in with immense and expensive apartment houses with entrances in the side streets. The Broadway level is given up to shops, not large in size, but nearly all dealing in expensive luxuries.

While it is not a fashionable street, I suppose there is as much money to the mile as in any other street in the world. The people of that neighborhood have a fat, soft look that must be tempting to a bandit.

Fossberg's, as I said before, is the finest establishment in that part of town. Only a few very choice objects are displayed in the show windows. There is but the one entrance, which is cut across the corner; at that season it was closed by a revolving door.

Inside, the four walls were lined by show-cases, the tops of which served as counters; and there was in addition a square inclosure in the middle of the store, surrounded by other cases to display goods. Within this inclosure was a block of low safes, in which many valuable objects were kept.

Well, the two policemen met, exchanged a word or two, and each slowly retraced his steps. The two minutes pa.s.sed; then Mme Storey with her languid, graceful carriage went through the revolving door, and I took up my station outside it.

At this moment, when I expected to have died with terror, all fear suddenly left me. Explain it how you will, my heart rebounded; all my faculties became preternaturally sharpened; the scene of that street was bitten on my brain as if with an acid; the towering apartment houses, red electric cars, smoothly moving motor cars, well dressed people drifting up and down.

Stephens and Farren were close by, looking in one of the show windows. The former was carrying an umbrella hanging from his arm. He had his eye on the chronometer exhibited in a corner of the window to inform pa.s.sers-by of the correct time. When the proper interval had elapsed they followed Mme Storey through the revolving door.

In order not to interrupt my narrative, I will describe here what happened inside while I was waiting outside, poised like an animal ready for I knew not what.

There were eight or nine customers in the store, Mme Storey said, mostly in couples, since people generally like to have a friend along when they are choosing costly objects. There were five clerks on duty. Mr Benjamin Fossberg ought to have been waiting to receive my mistress, but he and his brother were both too nervous to show themselves openly. They watched the preliminaries from their office at the back.

Mme Storey went to the center inclosure. She had waited a moment or two for a clerk. In the meantime her two men entered; Stephens turning to the left, where watches were displayed, and Farren making his way toward a case of jeweled cuff-links.

Mme Storey told the clerk who came to her that she wanted a diamond ring. She affected not to be able to decide whether she wanted three diamonds in a marquise setting, or an emerald with a diamond on each side. We knew that the most valuable rings were kept in a certain safe, and her object was to make him open it. She said her clerk was an exquisite young gentleman like a model for a clothier's advertis.e.m.e.nt, and it was a shame to frighten him so rudely.

When he had opened the safe and brought a small velvet lined tray of rings to lay before Mme Storey, he found himself looking into the stubby barrel of her automatic. His face turned as white as the starched collar he wore; his eyes started from his head; no sound escaped him but a little throaty gasp.

"Fetch out all the trays from that safe and put them on the counter," said Mme Storey quietly.

Like a man in a dream he started to obey, reaching blindly for the trays while he kept his terrified eyes fixed on the gun. As he put the trays on the counter, Mme Storey, always keeping him covered, with her free hand coolly emptied the contents on the square of velvet which covered the gla.s.s counter and put the trays to one side.

So quietly was all this done that several of the trays had been brought out and emptied before anybody else in the store got on to what was happening. Then a woman customer on the other side of the center enclosure caught sight of Mme. Storey's gun. A low, terrified cry broke from her, and instantly everybody in the store took alarm.

Stephens and Farren then slipped forward with their guns out, one on one side of her, one on the other. Standing back to back, they commanded the whole store between them.

"Keep still or I shoot!" growled Stephens.

"If you move a step I'll plug you!" added the boy.

There was no other sound, they said, except the hoa.r.s.e breathing of the terror-stricken men and women. Everybody was frozen where they stood.

In sheer panic the two proprietors had dropped down behind the office part.i.tion. Stephens described to me the semicircle of still, ghastly faces that remained turned toward him.

There was one fat, overdressed woman in a near-seal coat, whose lips moved continually. But whether she thought she was gabbling a prayer or beseeching Stephens to spare her life, he never knew, because no sound escaped her.

There were only three persons on Farren's side of the store. None moved. Mme Storey meanwhile continued to concentrate on the clerk who was serving her.

"Move sharp!" she said, raising the gun a little.

He dumped the remaining trays on the counter in a heap. Mme Storey deliberately emptied them. There was now a glittering, sparkling mound of rings on the square of velvet.

Mme Storey picked up the corners of the square, one after another, and, giving the sack a twirl which confined the contents in a ball, dropped it into her hand bag. She then started to back toward the door, the two men covering her retreat.

During all this I was playing my part outside. Immediately after Stephens and Farren went in a woman entered, and I made no attempt to stop her; but when, a moment or two later two more women came along, according to instructions I attempted to hold them in conversation. I asked for information about vacant apartments in the neighborhood.

It is a fruitful subject, and I detained them without difficulty until out of the corner of my eye I saw Mme Storey backing toward the door. You must remember that all this happened in much less time than it takes to tell it.

I gave the revolving door a push to facilitate my mistress's exit. She came out, the gun already hidden. Farren followed, then Stephens.

There was no appearance of hurry. Stephens slyly dropped his umbrella in such a fashion that the revolving door jammed on it, and stuck. These doors will only turn in one direction, you know.

My last impression was of white faces inside, and fists beating on the gla.s.s; and the two foolish women that I had been talking to, vainly pushing at the door to get in. They had no idea of what had happened.

The people inside were shrieking at them, and pointing down toward the jammed umbrella. But the two women never got it; they only looked indignant.

Meanwhile we four walked rapidly, but with perfect sedateness toward our waiting car. There was never any need for me to kick off the satin slippers.

Just as we were getting into the car, the clerks broke out of the store with a roar; but in a jiffy we were around the corner and bowling down West End Avenue at thirty miles an hour. Conditions were just right; there was enough traffic in the street to conceal us, and not enough to hold us up. The pursuit never came within sight or sound of us.

We kept right on down West End Avenue past the point where it becomes plain Eleventh Avenue, and scattered at Forty-Second Street, leaving the "stolen" car to be found by the police in due course.

Such was our first hold-up. I expect you will smile at me, just as my mistress did, but I felt disappointed at the outcome, it seemed so easy. After getting so tremendously wrought up as I did at the last moment I required more excitement to satisfy me.

"It will do for a beginning," said Mme Storey cryptically. "If we appeared to get along too well without outside help, it would only be to defeat our own purpose."