Ричард Деминг: The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

When he left the apartment at midnight, his suit was rumpled, his collar covered with lipstick and his head was spinning like a gyroscope. So far out of his mind had Claire D’Arcy succeeded in knocking Homicide, Inc., he almost forgot to bother to check if he was still being tailed.

It was only when his eyes fell on the door of the room diagonally across from his own and noted it was still ajar that he came back to the present.

Inwardly he grinned, wondering if the spy beyond the door had noticed the red smear on his collar and would report to Cougar that his throat seemed to be cut.

At noon the next day the room phone awakened Mac. It was Nan Tracy.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she said in a tight, unnatural voice.

“That’s all right. What’s the matter?”

“Got a business deal on.” She seemed to be under terrific excitement, for her tone was so forced, her voice nearly cracked. “If you haven’t had lunch, get some, because you won’t have another opportunity. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

“I’ll be waiting in the lobby,” he said quietly.

So he was to be given an assignment, he thought. Probably, the result of her plane trip last night. He hoped it was a one-man assignment. Managing to fail to murder his designated victim would be easier without a witness.

But apparently it was a big mission, for Thomas Cougar and another man were with Nan when she arrived. Mac rose from the lobby sofa where he had been waiting when the three entered, and Nan introduced the second man as Arnold Link. He was a squat, broadly powerful man with “gorilla” written all over him.

Cougar said, “You three wait here a minute,” and his tone made it almost an order.

Mac stared after him puzzledly as the pale killer crossed to the desk and employed the house phone, which could be used only to phone rooms. In a moment Cougar returned and all of them stood waiting, as though expecting someone to join them.

“What’s up?” Mac asked tentatively.

Nan and Cougar stared at him fixedly, as though they had not heard the question.

Squat Arnold Link said in a toneless monotone, “You’ll find out when we get there. We do not blab in hotel lobbies.”

A man who apparently had gotten off one of the elevators suddenly joined the group. Without surprise Mac noted he was the same man he had seen in the lobby with Cougar the night he peered over the banister.

“Benny Chisholm,” Cougar said briefly, “Mac MacDowell.”

Benny was a tall, gangling fellow with a large nose and freckles. His wide, yokel-like eyes were blandly innocent, but the effect was spoiled by a mouth which was nothing but a cruel, lipless gash. He nodded without offering his hand.

My friend across the hall, Mac thought, and glanced at Nan. With a shock he realized she was actually smiling, but her smile did not come up to the promise at which her usual grave expression hinted. It was fixed and brittle, and her eyes glittered as though she were under intense strain.

The smile made the hair on the back of his neck rise, and something about the flat look with which the three men regarded him warned him of danger. It suddenly occurred to him that he somehow might have been found out, and the gathering might not be a mission at all, but a one-way ride for MacDonald Sprague.

“I forgot to leave my key at the desk,” he said abruptly, and before anyone else could speak, turned on his heel and walked rapidly across the lobby.

Tossing his key on the desk, he said to the clerk in a quick but low voice, “Phone room 418 for me and tell Mr. Crowell I can’t meet him for lunch.”

Instead of immediately returning to the group, he cut diagonally across to the tobacco counter and bought a package of cigarettes. As he paid for them, he saw from the corner of his eye that the clerk was just setting down the phone. Now it was necessary to stall at least a moment in order to allow George Doud time to act on the code message.

Turning toward the group, he called, “Be right with you,” then deliberately opened the cigarette pack, removed one and lit it at the tobacco counter’s gas lighter.

All five of them crowded into a long black sedan which was parked in front of the hotel. Squat Arnold Link drove, Nan sat next to him in the front seat, and Mac found himself between the Strangler and the freckled Benny Chisholm.

“What’s the deal, now that we’re out of the lobby?” Mac asked as they pulled away.

“It’ll keep a while,” Cougar said shortly. The thick-shouldered chauffeur drove smoothly, obeying all traffic rules in town, and when they left the city, limits, pushed up to a sedate fifty miles an hour and kept it there.

At the end of the hour, about thirty-five miles from town, the driver said, “Taxi tailing us.”

Mac started to twist his head rearward, but Cougar said sharply, “Keep your face front.” To Link he said, “Pull over and park.”

Immediately the sedan slowed, pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. In a few moments a cab went by without slowing.

“Got butterflies in your stomach, Link?” Cougar asked contemptuously. “Just because a taxi travels the same speed we do, doesn’t mean we’re being tailed.”

When the sedan pulled away again, the taxi was a quarter of a mile ahead. Link dropped his speed to forty, and soon it could not be seen at all. A mile farther on, they turned to one side on a dirt road.

Twenty minutes later they turned into a private lane, drove another five-hundred yards and stopped before a large, one-story log hunting cabin. Everyone got out. As they approached the door, Nan linked her left arm through Mac’s right.

Behind them Cougar said, “Thanks, Nan,” and his gun pressed into Mac’s back. “Now just remove that automatic from under his arm.”

Mac stood very still as Nan, still holding his right arm, reached under his coat with her free hand and slipped the automatic from its clip holster.

As she stepped away from him, he said, “This is getting to be a habit. What’s the pitch this time?”

“Get moving, copper!” Cougar snarled at his back, and emphasized the command by jabbing his spine with the gun muzzle.

At the word “copper” Mac’s hopes sank. He walked forward stiffly, prodded by the Strangler’s gun, and entered the cabin. Inside Mac found a long beam-ceilinged room running the entire width of the front. It was furnished with rustic furniture and had a fireplace at each end. Directly across from the entrance a drape-covered doorway led to another room in back.

When he reached the center of the room, Mac stopped and looked inquiringly over his shoulder. Cougar had paused just inside the door, and Nan stood with the two other men at the side, as though all three were merely interested observers.

“All right, copper,” Cougar said. “Start explaining who you are.”

Mac looked at Nan. “I thought you gave the orders around here. How come Ugly is tossing his weight around now?”

Cougar’s face darkened, but before he could speak, Nan said viciously, “Thomas is the fair-haired boy now. He brought the teacher an apple and got promoted to honor student.” Her answer was to Mac’s question, but she spoke directly to Cougar and the vicious tone was meant for him.

So there actually was someone higher than Nan in the organization, Mac thought. Hoping to create a diversion, he asked, “Got demoted, did you, Nan? What was the apple?”

Nan’s eyes swung at him. “You were. Smarty-pants Thomas phoned Dude Emory again and asked more detailed questions. When he found out Larry MacDowell had a cheek scar, he went running to teacher instead of to me, and got marked A for effort.”

“Is that all the fuss is about?” Mac asked indifferently. “Ever hear of plastic surgery?”