Хал Эллсон - Mink Is for a Minx

Moss and Sackville left side by side after setting the door alarm. Johns waited another ten minutes. Then he walked to the vault and waited until he heard the time lock open. When he had the $500,000, plus the Augustino payroll, in his briefcase, he reset the time lock for the correct time in the morning. At the door he disconnected the alarm, opened the door, reset the alarm, and left.

He went straight home, packed the money in his large suitcase under the false bottom, and put the case back into his closet. Then he drove to Meade Lewis’ apartment and packed all of Lewis’ clothes into suitcases. He drove to the river and threw the suitcases into the water. Then he went to the Club for a quiet dinner. He made sure everyone saw him. After dinner he went home and slept peacefully.

In the morning he arrived at the bank at his usual hour, a half an hour before the vault would open. It was Sackville who ran shouting from the vault. The police arrived in two minutes led by Adam Bone, the Chief of Police. By then old man Moss had jumped to his conclusion exactly as Johns had hoped he would.

“I tell you it’s Lewis! I never trusted him! I tell you to find Lewis and do it now! Brother in Chicago! Four of us closed that vault. Three of us are here. I don’t know how he did it — that’s your job. But he did it as sure as I’m standing here.”

The brother in Chicago, of course, knew nothing of a visit from Lewis. It did not take the police long to find out that Lewis had gone to New York, that the head teller had actually paid for his ticket with a bill from the missing Augustino payroll, and that all his clothes and small personal belongings were gone.

They noticed that Marion was missing, too, and the Chief was suspicious. But a call to Lake George showed that a Marion Astor had indeed checked in at a hotel there. A small additional safeguard. The woman Johns had paid would not stay quiet long, but Marion would not be around him long.

“Okay,” the Chief of Police said. “It looks like Lewis, all right. His prints are on the vault where the Augustino payroll was lifted. I’ve got New York searching.”

“They could have trouble finding him,” Johns said. “We don’t have a picture. He’ll be in hiding, false name and all.”

“Well,” the Chief said. “Maybe one of you should go down there and help out.”

The president jumped at the idea. “Excellent, Bone. A little action at last.”

John S. Johns said, “You should stay here, sir. Perhaps Mr. Sackville—”

And Sackville reacted according to plan. The executive vice-president bristled, glared at Johns, and said, “We’ve too much to do here, Johns. Moss and I have to get new payrolls ready, and check with Federal Reserve. You know that. I think you better be the one to go.”

If it had not worked, John S. Johns would have found another way to leave Jamesville. But it was all working as planned, and he smiled when the Chief of Police offered to drive him to the station.

“I’ll be glad to go,” Johns said. “My wife’s away. Just let me pack a toothbrush, Chief Bone.”

Under the eyes of the Chief of Police, Johns took down the suitcase full of money, opened it, made sure that the Chief saw it was empty, and packed it with a few odd clothes. He made sure the Chief saw his closet full of clothes, too. The Chief seemed convinced.

In New York he checked into a hotel, not the Commander. He checked the money at the East Side Terminal, validated the ticket he had bought weeks ago under a false name, and took a taxi to Police Headquarters.

The Police had not found Lewis yet. Johns looked at suspects for three hours. An hour and a half before his plane was due to leave, he stood up.

“I think I’ll get a bite to eat,” he said. “Then I better try to get some sleep. You know where to reach me.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Johns,” the Detective-Captain said. “Probably nothing of importance will come up before morning.”

Johns left the police and went back to his hotel. He went up to his room and put in a call to Jamesville. He called Chief Bone and told him to tell old man Moss to call New York. He lighted a cigarette and waited. The call came through in ten minutes.

He told the bank president that the police thought they had Lewis, but that it had turned out to be a false alarm. He was an insurance company executive with the same name. After he hung up he went down to the desk.

“I’m going back to Jamesville,” he told the clerk. “If the police call, tell them something came up but I’ll be back in the morning. I’ll keep the room. My bags are still up there.”

All the way to Idlewild he grinned to himself in the taxi. The money was in his hands, and the parachute was inside the souvenir cushion cover in Marion’s suitcase. The story he’d told the clerk should hold the police until late tomorrow even if they found Lewis and heard his story.

If they checked the call that was supposed to have sent him back to Jamesville, it had really come from Jamesville. It would take them at least until noon tomorrow to believe Lewis and begin to figure it all out. And by then he would be over the Gulf of Mexico. He fingered the pistol in his pocket. Once he was over the Gulf, it wouldn’t matter how much they found out.

The shots still echoed in John S. Johns’ ears as he ran for the plane. He made the plane and went aboard. He settled in his seat in the grimy twin-engined aircraft. There were only six other people on the unscheduled flight. Mobile to Vera Cruz. He did not look at his fellow passengers; they were not going to be around him for long.

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes to keep from laughing out loud. It had all worked like clock-work. Marion was dead, he was free, and by now perhaps they had found out what he had done. But it made no difference now.

At worst they were looking for him in New York. At best they had not even found Lewis yet. Stupid Meade Lewis could still be waiting in some hotel room for Marion to come back. But it did not matter. Nothing mattered as the DC-3 took off into the Gulf of Mexico that Sunday morning.

He was prepared to use force if anything came over the radio to tell the pilot to stop him. But nothing came over, and he waited patiently until it was time to make his last move.

The plane would cross the Mexican coast when it was exactly twenty minutes from Vera Cruz. Johns had checked the route carefully on his earlier trip to Mobile. But to make sure, he rang for the steward-co-pilot. They did not carry a steward or stewardess on a flight like this. He had made sure of that too. The co-pilot looked annoyed.

“What do you want?”

“I’m afraid I’m not feeling well,” he said. “Are we on schedule?”

“Ten minutes behind,” the co-pilot said. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid it’s my heart. But I think I can hold out if we’re in Vera Cruz in less than an hour.”

The pilot looked concerned. “You’re sure?”

“Thirty minutes to Vera Cruz?” Johns said.

“On the nose,” the co-pilot said. “No trouble from here on.

The co-pilot turned to go. Johns clutched at his heart and groaned. The co-pilot turned back to him. Johns gasped out, “Back there — the washroom! Pill!”

“Hold on,” the co-pilot said.

Helped by the co-pilot, John S. Johns staggered back to the washroom. Inside he turned and hit the co-pilot with all his strength with the butt of his pistol. The co-pilot went down.

Johns bent over him and hit him again and again until he was sure the man was dead. Then he left the washroom, jammed the door with a piece of wire, and went back to his seat.

At his seat he picked up his two suitcases, the large one with the money, and the small one with the parachute hidden inside the innocent-looking cushion cover. In Mobile, while he had waited for Marion to arrive, he had put on the parachute harness under his clothes. Now he walked forward to the pilot’s compartment. His watch said they would cross the coast in less than three minutes.