“Mr. Shirley is waiting for you in the grill-room, sir. Just step this
way, sir, and down the stairs.”
The large man awkwardly followed the servant to the cosey grill-room on
the lower floor of the club house. He felt that every man of the little
groups about the Flemish tables must be saying: “What's he doing here?”
“I wish Monty Shirley would meet me once in a while in the back room of
a ginmill, where I'd feel comfortable,” muttered the unhappy visitor.
“This joint is too classy. But that's his game to play--”
He reached the sought-for one, however, and exclaimed eagerly: “By
Jiminy, Monty. I'm glad to find you--it would have been my luck after
this day, to get here too late.”
He was greeted with a grip that made even his generous hand wince, as
the other arose to smile a welcome.
“Hello, Captain Cronin. You're a good sight for a grouchy man's eyes!
Sit down and confide the brand of your particular favorite poison to our
Japanese Dionysius!”
The Captain sighed with relief, as he obeyed.
“Bar whiskey is good enough for an old timer like me. Don't tell me you
have the blues--your face isn't built that way!”
“Gospel truth, Captain. I've been loafing around this club--nothing to
do for a month. Bridge, handball, highballs, and yarns! I'm actually a
nervous wreck because my nerves haven't had any work to do!”
“You're the healthiest invalid I've seen since the hospital days in the
Civil War. But don't worry about something to do. I've some job now.
It's dolled up with all them frills you like: millions, murders and
mysteries! If this don't keep you awake, you'll have nightmares for the
next six months. Do you want it?”
“I'm tickled to death. Spill it!”
“Monty, it's the greatest case my detective agency has had since I left
the police force eleven years ago. It's too big for me, and I've come
to you to do a stunt as is a stunt. You will plug it for me, won't
you--just as you've always done? If I get the credit, it'll mean a
fortune to me in the advertising alone.”
“Haven't I handled every case for you in confidence. I'm not a fly-cop,
Captain Cronin. I'm a consulting specialist, and there's no shingle hung
out. Perhaps you had better take it to some one else.”
Shirley pushed away his empty glass impatiently.
“There, Monty, I didn't mean to offend you. But there's such swells
in this and such a foxey bunch of blacklegs, that I'm as nervous as a
rookie cop on his first arrest. Don't hold a grudge against me.”
Shirley lit a cigarette and resumed his good nature: “Go on, Captain.
I'm so stale with dolce far niente, after the Black Pearl affair last
month, that I act like an amateur myself. Make it short, though, for I'm
going to the opera.”
The Captain leaned over the table, his face tense with suppressed
emotion. He was a grizzled veteran of the New York police force: a man
who sought his quarry with the ferocity of a bull-dog, when the line
of search was definitely assured. Lacking imagination and the subtler
senses of criminology, Captain Cronin had built up a reputation for
success and honesty in every assignment by bravery, persistence, and
as in this case, the ability to cover his own deductive weakness by
employing the brains of others.
Montague Shirley was as antithetical from the veteran detective as a man
could well be. A noted athlete in his university, he possessed a society
rating in New York, at Newport and Tuxedo, and on the Continent which
was the envy of many a gilded youth born to the purple.
On leaving college, despite an ample patrimony, he had curiously enough
entered the lists as a newspaper man. From the sporting page he was
graduated to police news, then the city desk, at last closing his career
as the genius who invented the weekly Sunday thriller, in many colors
of illustration and vivacious Gallic style which interpreted into heart
throbs and goose-flesh the real life romances and tragedies of the
preceding six days! He had conquered the paper-and-ink world--then deep
within there stirred the call for participation in the game itself.
So, dropping quietly into the apparently indolent routine of club
existence, he had devoted his experience and genius to analytical
criminology--a line of endeavor known only to five men in the world.
He maintained no offices. He wore no glittering badges: a police card,
a fire badge, and a revolver license, renewed year after year, were the
only instruments of his trade ever in evidence. Shirley took assignments
only from the heads of certain agencies, by personal arrangement as
informal as this from Captain Cronin. His real clients never knew of his
participation, and his prey never understood that he had been the real
head-hunter!
His fees--Montague Shirley, as a master craftsman deemed his artistry
worthy of the hire. His every case meant a modest fortune to the
detective agency and Shirley's bills were never rendered, but always
paid!
So, here, the hero of the gridiron and the class re-union, the gallant
of a hundred pre-matrimonial and non-maturing engagements, the veteran
of a thousand drolleries and merry jousts in clubdom--unspoiled by
birth, breeding and wealth, untrammeled by the juggernaut of pot-boiling
and the salary-grind, had drifted into the curious profession of
confidential, consulting criminal chaser.
Shirley unostentatiously signaled for an encore on the refreshments.
“You're nervous to-night, Captain. You've been doing things before you
consulted me--which is against our Rule Number One, isn't it?”
The Captain gulped down his whiskey, and rubbed his forehead.
“Couldn't help it, Monty. It got too busy for me, before I realized
anything unusual in the case. See what I got from a gangster before I
landed here.”
He turned his close-cropped head, as Montague Shirley leaned forward
to observe an abrasion at the base of his skull. It was dressed with a
coating of collodion.
“Brass knuckled--I see the mark of the rings. Tried for the
pneumogastric nerves, to quiet you.”
“Whatever he tried for he nearly got. Kelly's nightstick got his
pneumonia gas jet, or whatever you call it. He's still quiet, in the
station house--You know old man Van Cleft, who owns sky-scrapers
down town, don't you?--Well, he's the center of this flying wedge of
excitement. His family are fine people, I understand. His daughter was
to be married next week. Monty, that wedding'll be postponed, and old
Van Cleft won't worry over dispossess papers for his tenants for the
rest of the winter. See?”
“Killed?”
“Correct. He's done, and I had a hell of a time getting the body home,
before the coroner and the police reporters got on the trail.”
Shirley lowered his high-ball glass, with an earnest stare.
“What was the idea?”
“Robbery, of course. His son had me on the case--'phoned from the
garage where the chauffeur brought the body; after he saw the old man
unconscious. Just half an hour before he had left his office in the same
machine, after taking five thousand dollars in cash from his manager.”
“Who was with him?”
“Now, that's getting to brass tacks. When I gets that C.Q.D. from
Van Cleft, I finds the young fellow inside the ring of rubbernecks,
blubbering over the old man, where he lies on the floor of the
taxi--looking soused.”
“He was a notorious old sport about town, Captain.”
“Sure--and I thinks, it sorter serves him right. But, that's his
funeral, not mine. Van Cleft, junior, says to me: 'There's the girl that
was with him.'”
“Where was the girl?”
“She was sitting on a stool, near the car, a little blonde chorus
chicken, shaking and twitching, while the chauffeur and the garage boss
held her up. I says, 'What's this?' and Van Cleft tells me all he knows,
which ain't nothing. Them guys in that garage was wise, for it meant a
cold five hundred apiece before I left to keep their lids closed. Van
Cleft begs me to hustle the old man home, so one of my men takes her
down to my office, still a sniffling, and acting like she had the
D.T.'s. The young fellow shook like a leaf, but we takes him over to
Central Park East, to the family mansion,--carrying him up the steps
like he was drunk. We gets him into his own bed, and keeps the sister
from touching his clammy hands, while she orders the family doctor. When
he gets there on the jump, I gives him the wink and leads him to one
side. 'Doc,' I says, 'you know how to write out a death certificate, to
hush this up from your end. I've done the rest.'”
Captain Cronin leaned forward, a queer excitement agitating him.
“Do you know what that doctor says to me, Monty?”
Shirley shook his head.
He says; “My God, it's the third!”
Shirley's white hand gripped the edge of the table. “The Van Cleft's
doctor is one of the greatest surgeons in the country, Professor
MacDonald of the Medical College. He said that?”
“He did. I answers, 'Whadd'y mean the third?' Then he looks me straight
in the eye, and sings back, 'None of your business.'” Cronin shook
his head. “I never seen a man with a squarer look, and yet he has me
guessing. I goes back to the garage, over past Eighth Avenue, you know,
where two johns come up along side o' me. One rubs me with his elbow
and the other applies that brass knuckle,--then they gets pinched. I got
dressed up in a drug store, got the chauffeur's license number, and goes
on down to my office to see this girl. She's hysterical about his family
using all their money to put her in jail. I looks at her, and says, 'You
won't need their money to get to jail. That old man's dead!' Her eyes
was as big as saucers. 'I thought old Daddy Van Cleft was drunk.' I
tells her, 'He was dead in that taxi, with a chorus girl, and a roll of
bills gone. What you got to say?' She staggers forward and clutches my
coat, and what do you think SHE says to me?”
Shirley made the inquiry only with his eyes, puffing his cigarette
slowly.
“She looks sorter green, and repeats after me: 'Dead, with a chorus
girl, and a roll of bills gone,'--just like a parrot. Then she springs
this on me: 'My God, it's the third!'”
Shirley dropped his cigarette, leaning forward, all nonchalance gone.
“Where is she now? Quick, let's go to her.”
He rose to his feet. Just then a door-boy walked through the grill-room
toward him. “A telephone call for Captain Cronin, sir; the party said
hurry or he would miss something good.”
Shirley snapped out, “When has the rule about telephone calls in this
club been changed? You boys are never to tell any one that a member or
guest are here until the name is announced.”
He turned toward the puzzled Captain.
“Did you ask any of your operatives to call you here? You know what a
risk you are taking, to connect me with this case like that, don't you?”
“I never even breathed it to myself. I told no one.”
“Follow me up to the telephone room.”
Shirley hurried through the grill, to the switchboard, near which stood
the booths for private calls. He called to one of the operators. “Here,
let me at that switchboard.” He pushed the boy aside, and sat down in
the vacated chair.
“Which trunk is it on? Oh, I see, the second. There Captain, take the
fourth booth against the wall.”
Cronin stepped in. Shirley connected up and listened with the
transmitter of the operator at his ear, holding the line open.
“Go ahead, here's Captain Cronin!”
A pleasant voice came over the wire. It was musical and sincere.
“Hello, Captain Cronin, is that you?”
“Yes! What do you want?”
The voice continued, with a jolly laugh, ringing and infectious in its
merriment.
“Well, Captain, the joke's on you. Ha, ha, ha! It's a bully one! Ho, ho!
Ha, ha!”
“What joke?”
“You're working on the Van Cleft case. Oh, sure, you are, don't kid me
back. Well, Captain, you've missed two other perfectly good grafts. This
is the third one!”
There was a click and the speaker, with another merry gurgle, rang off.
“Quick, manager's desk,” cried Shirley, jiggling the metal key. “What
call was that? Where did it come from?”
After a little wait, a languid voice answered: “Brooklyn, Main 6969,
Party C.”
“Give me the number again--I want to speak on the wire.”
After another delay, the voice replied “The line has been discontinued.”
“I just had it! What is the name of the subscriber. Hurry, this is a
matter of life and death.”
“It's against the rules to give any further information. But our record
shows that the house burned down about two weeks ago. No one else has
been given the number. There's no instrument there!”