Fletcher Flora: The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

“It sounds easy enough. Too easy by half, I’d say.”

“It’s a mistake to confuse simplicity with incompetence. Do you accept my proposition or not?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“As you wish.” Rudolph stood up briskly, with an air of cheerfulness, and began to unbutton his tunic. “Meanwhile, I must ask you to excuse me. I’m late already, and Winifred is having chicken and dumplings for dinner. I’m very fond of chicken and dumplings.” Gaspar was dimly aware of being ushered deftly into the alley. He was slightly dazed, in a sluggish kind of way, by the turn of events. But he realized, at any rate, that the game was radically changed, and that all the money, in spite of his high hand, was still in the pot.

To express it in extravagant terms, Gaspar wrestled three days with the devil. Although he had been directly responsible for one suicide, a neurotic woman without the stability to weather a minor scandal, he had never killed anyone with his own hands, and now he was filled with dread at the thought of doing so. Not that he was afflicted with compassion or serious moral qualms. He was merely fearful of being caught, and of the consequences thereof. Still, the bait, fifty thousand lovely tax-free dollars, was a mighty temptation. Moreover, the project as Rudolph La Roche had presented it was so wonderfully simple. It was merely a matter of letting himself into a house, sapping a woman in an alcoholic sleep, faking a bit of evidence, and walking away. It seemed to him, in his more optimistic moments, that anyone could do it successfully.

There was another consideration. Gaspar looked upon himself as a rather exceptional fellow who had been haunted all his life by minor misfortunes, and in his gross body he nursed the pride of his delusion. He had always felt, when Shakespeare’s famous tide rolled in, that he, Gaspar Vane, would take it at the flood and ride it to fortune. Well, here was the tide, and here was he. What was he going to do about it? On Thursday afternoon, he made his decision suddenly.

Sitting at the desk in his shabby little office, he looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty minutes to six. Rudolph’s shop was closed, the second barber probably gone, but there was a good chance that Rudolph himself, engaged with the petty details of closing, was still there. Giving himself no time for further vacillation, Gaspar seized his phone and dialed. Two rings later, Rudolph’s suave voice answered.

“Rudolph La Roche speaking.”

“Gaspar Vane. Can you talk?”

“All alone here. Tomorrow is Friday, you know. I was wondering if you’d call.”

“You got the ten grand?”

“Certainly.”

“You got the other forty?”

“As I told you. In escrow, so to speak.”

“When can you pay off?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll have to go to the bank.”

“Won’t it look suspicious if you draw out all that money at once?”

“Hardly. Rudolph La Roche is not Roger Le Rambeau. His bank account never exceeds a few hundred dollars. The money, Mr. Vane, is in a safety deposit box.”

“Shall I pick it up at your shop?”

“I think not. From now on it would be wiser, I think, if we took no chances of being seen together. I’ll go to the bank on my lunch hour tomorrow. Let’s see, now. Do you know where Huton’s Restaurant is? I’ll go there for lunch at one precisely. Before eating, I’ll go directly to the washroom to wash my hands. Be there at that time, and I’ll manage to slip you the packet unobserved.”

“Don’t forget the key.”

“Of course. Also the key.”

“Huton’s. One sharp. I’ll be waiting for you.”

And so, as good as his word, he was. He spent the few minutes before Rudolph’s arrival in examining his pocked and ravished face in one of Huton’s mirrors. Luckily, he was the only one in the washroom when Rudolph entered. Claiming the next lavatory, the dapper barber ran water into the bowl, squirted liquid soap into a palm, and began to wash his hands.

“The packet and the key are in my right jacket pocket,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Gaspar did, dropping them quickly into his own.

“Is it all here?” he asked.

“Certainly. When are you going to be convinced, Mr. Vane, that you are dealing with an honorable man? If the total is not correct, you are under no compulsion to render service.”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Listen carefully. Go in the back door and across the kitchen into the dining room. Turn right into a hall. Winifred’s bedroom is first on the right. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Rudolph pressed a button and held his hands in a rush of hot air, rubbing them briskly together. When they were dry, he adjusted his tie, settled his jacket more comfortably on his shoulders, and turned away. From entrance to exit, he had barely looked at Gaspar. “Good-by, Mr. Vane,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Gaspar did not linger for lunch. Back in his office, he counted the money and found that Rudolph had indeed proved himself, at least so far, an honorable man. Gaspar put the ten grand in a metal lockbox, and locked the box in the bottom drawer of his battered file cabinet. He had never worried about thieves before, having had nothing worth stealing, but now he found himself wondering anxiously if he were exercising proper security measures. Oh, well, there was nothing to be gained by dissipating his mental powers in anxiety.

At a quarter to six, taking certain precautions that seemed fundamental, he was parked on the cross street at the end of the block on which Rudolph lived. Soon afterward, right on his weekly schedule, Rudolph passed the intersection in his car. Falling in behind, Gaspar followed as far as the turnpike entrance. Sure enough, Rudolph picked up his ticket at the toll gate and took the ramp that would point him east. Satisfied, or as nearly so as he could be, Gaspar drove back to town.

Approximately twenty-four hours thereafter, about one o’clock of the following morning, he was getting out of his car on a mean street some six blocks from the house of La Roche. He had chosen this place to leave the car because it was a block of rooming houses in front of which a variety of other cars were invariably parked at night. His own, he reasoned, would be less conspicuous in company. Moreover, it was remote enough from the scene of projected action to minimize the chance of disastrous association, just in case someone did happen to take notice of the car as a stranger.

Afoot, Gaspar navigated the dark streets, trying to exercise proper care without giving the impression of skulking. However, the houses he passed were dark. He saw not a single pedestrian, late abroad, on his way.

His caution, while commendable, seemed to be superfluous. The backdoor key was readily at hand in the right pocket of his coat. In the inside pocket, a dead weight that was at once comforting and threatening, was a short length of lead pipe.

A fat shadow, he slipped from the cross-street at the end of the La Roche block into the alley that ran behind the La Roche house. Minutes later, having paused briefly to reconnoiter, he was moving silently past garbage can and trash burner up a concrete walk to the back door. He paused there again, leaning forward with a large ear near the door. Silence within. Beyond the hedge where the Fitches dwelled, silence. Silence within and without and all around. Silence and thick, black darkness.

The key slipped smoothly into the lock. The lock responded smoothly to the key. Moving with swiftness and quietness that was surprising in one so bulky, Gaspar entered a kitchen and closed the door behind him. He stood by the door without moving until his eyes had adjusted to the deeper interior darkness, then moved across the floor toward the outline of a doorway. Suddenly, beside him, there was a terrifying whirr in the shadows, like an aroused rattlesnake, and his heart leaped and fluttered wildly before he realized that the refrigerator, with devilish malice, had chosen that moment to come alive. When he had his breath back, he moved on into a small dining room and turned right through another doorway into a hall. Following his directions, he stopped at a door on his right, behind which he detected a gentle snoring such as might be indulged in by a lady who had drunk mildly to excess. Without further delay, he opened the door and entered the room.