His scheme – that cold-blooded zigzag of treachery for everybody he had dealt with, including his latest accomplice, Edna Estep – wasn’t as air-tight as he thought it. A week in which to run out a few lines in the East, and – But a week was just what I didn’t have!
Vance Richmond’s words were running through my head: “But another day of imprisonment – two days, or perhaps even two hours – and she won’t need anybody to clear her. Death will have done it!”
If I was going to do Mrs. Estep any good, I had to move quick. Law or no law, her life was in my fat hands. This man before me – his eyes bright and hopeful now and his mouth anxiously pursed – was thief, blackmailer, double-crosser, and at least twice a murderer. I hated to let him walk out. But there was the woman dying in a hospital…
Twelve
Keeping my eye on Ledwich, I went to the telephone, and got Vance Richmond on the wire at his residence.
“How is Mrs. Estep?” I asked.
“Weaker! I talked with the doctor half an hour ago, and he says -“
I cut in on him; I didn’t want to listen to the details.
“Get over to the hospital, and be where I can reach you by phone. I may have news for you before the night is over.”
“What – is there a chance? Are you -“
I didn’t promise him anything. I hung up the receiver and spoke to Ledwich. “I’ll do this much for you. Slip me the note, and I’ll give you your gun and put you out the back door. There’s a bull on the corner out front, and I can’t take you past him.”
He was on his feet, beaming.
“Your word on it?” he demanded.
“Yes – get going!”
He went past me to the phone, gave a number (which I made a note of), and then spoke hurriedly into the instrument.
“This is Shuler. Put a boy in a taxi with that envelope I gave you to hold for me, and send him out here right away.”
He gave his address, said “Yes” twice, and hung up.
There was nothing surprising about his unquestioning acceptance of my word. He couldn’t afford to doubt that I’d play fair with him. And, also, all successful bunko men come in time to believe that the world – except for themselves – is populated by a race of human sheep who may be trusted to conduct themselves with true sheeplike docility.
Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. We answered it together, and Ledwich took a large envelope from a messenger boy, while I memorised the number on the boy’s cap. Then we went back to the front room.
Ledwich slit the envelope and passed its contents to me: a piece of rough-torn newspaper. Across the face of the fake article he had told me about was written a message in a jerky hand.
I wouldn’t have suspected you, Ledwich, of such profound stupidity. My last thought will be – this bullet that ends my life also ends your years of leisure. You’ll have to go to work now.
Estep.
The doctor had died game!
I took the envelope from the big man, put the death note in it, and put them in my pocket. Then I went to a front window, flattening a cheek against the glass until I could see O’Gar, dimly outlined in the night, patiently standing where I had left him hours before.
“The city dick is still on the corner,” I told Ledwich. “Here’s your gat” – holding out the gun I had shot from his fingers a little while back – “take it, and blow through the back door. Remember, that’s all I’m offering you – the gun and a fair start. If you play square with me, I’ll not do anything to help find you – unless I have to keep myself in the clear.”
“Fair enough!”
He grabbed the gun, broke it to see that it was still loaded, and wheeled toward the rear of the flat. At the door he pulled up, hesitated, and faced me again. I kept him covered with my automatic.
“Will you do me one favour I didn’t put in the bargain?” he asked.
“What is it?”
“That note of the doc’s is in an envelope with my handwriting and maybe my fingerprints on it. Let me put it in a fresh envelope, will you? I don’t want to leave any broader trail behind than I have to.”
With my left hand – my right being busy with the gun -I fumbled for the envelope and tossed it to him. He took a plain envelope from the table, wiped it carefully with his handkerchief, put the note in it, taking care not to touch it with the balls of his fingers, and passed it back to me; and I put it in my pocket.
I had a hard time to keep from grinning in his face.
That fumbling with the handkerchief told me that the envelope in my pocket was empty, that the death note was in Ledwich’s possession – though I hadn’t seen it pass there. He had worked one of his bunko tricks upon me.
“Beat it!” I snapped, to keep from laughing in his face.
He spun on his heel. His feet pounded against the floor. A door slammed in the rear.
I tore into the envelope he had given me. I needed to be sure he had double-crossed me.
The envelope was empty.
Our agreement was wiped out.
I sprang to the front window, threw it wide open, and leaned out. O’Gar saw me immediately – clearer than I could see him. I swung my arm in a wide gesture toward the rear of the house. O’Gar set out for the alley on the run. I dashed back through Ledwich’s flat to the kitchen, and stuck my head out of an already open window.
I could see Ledwich against the white-washed fence – throwing the back gate open, plunging through it into the alley.
O’Gar’s squat bulk appeared under a light at the end of the alley.
Ledwich’s revolver was in his hand. O’Gar’s wasn’t – not quite.
Ledwich’s gun swung up – the hammer clicked.
O’Gar’s gun coughed fire.
Ledwich fell with a slow, revolving motion over against the white fence, gasped once or twice, and went down in a pile.
I walked slowly down the stairs to join O’Gar; slowly, because it isn’t a nice thing to look at a man you’ve deliberately sent to his death. Not even if it’s the surest way of saving an innocent life, and if the man who dies is a Jake Ledwich – altogether treacherous.
“How come?” O’Gar asked, when I came into the alley, where he stood looking down at the dead man.
“He got out on me,” I said simply.
“He must’ve.”
I stooped and searched the dead man’s pockets until I found the suicide note, still crumpled in the handkerchief. O’Gar was examining the dead man’s revolver.
“Lookit!” he exclaimed. “Maybe this ain’t my lucky day! He snapped at me once, and his gun missed fire. No wonder! Somebody must’ve been using an ax on it – the firing pin’s broke clean off!”
“Is that so?” I asked; just as if I hadn’t discovered, when I first picked the revolver up, that the bullet which had knocked it out of Ledwich’s hand had made it harmless.
THE ASSISTANT MURDERER
Gold on the door, edged with black, said ALEXANDER RUSH, PRIVATE DETECTIVE. Inside, an ugly man sat tilted back in a chair, his feet on a yellow desk.
The office was in no way lovely. Its furnishings were few and old with the shabby age of second-handdom. A shredding square of dun carpet covered the floor. On one buff wall hung a framed certificate that licensed Alexander Rush to pursue the calling of private detective in the city of Baltimore in accordance with certain red-numbered regulations. A map of the city hung on another wall. Beneath the map a frail bookcase, small as it was, gaped
