Джон Данн - Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 44, No. 5, September 28, 1929

But it was doubtful if Liverpool Jack and Blackie would use the railroad. Rather, they would come in a car, because they would reckon an automobile as their swiftest manner of escape after a robbery. His deduction as to a motor car was quite correct. But as for the rest! The rest was entirely another story.

Fitzpatrick had the satisfaction of trailing Liverpool Jack, making a beeline — as nearly as possible in a taxi — for Blackie’s hotel. Blackie was awaiting him in the lobby, cap and overcoat on, waiting to go. No time was lost in starting when Liverpool Jack arrived. Outside there sat a little ferret-faced fellow at the wheel of a big, eight-cylindered motor car, not too new nor conspicuous, but a machine of fine lines and in fine condition, as the detectives were soon to find out.

It was apparent the crooks did not think they were being spied on, for the car was parked directly in front of the hotel, and Liverpool Jack and Blackie did not so much as cast a glance over their shoulders to see if any one was noting their entrance to the machine.

To this day Detective John Fitzpatrick, and Detective Charles Flaherty and Ed Burgess, too, for that matter, would dearly like to learn the identity of that little, ferret-faced chauffeur!

He didn’t, on this night, at once show his stuff. The detectives in the high-powered car which Flaherty had planted on a side street near the hotel, had no trouble in keeping the other in sight.

But, it is to be remembered, in those days there was no automobile tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. The detectives had, perforce, to run their car onto the same ferryboat which carried the crooks across the North River to the Jersey shore. The sleuths drove their car on last so that there were several vehicles between them and the crooks’ car which had been the first to slide over the gangplank and upon the ferryboat.

On leaving the ferry the crooks gave no evidence that the detectives had been recognized as fellow passengers aboard the ferry. They probably had not. For no effort was made by the car ahead that might be taken to mean an attempt to shake off pursuers. But some time between leaving the ferry and Jersey City and about five miles out of Newark — when truly rural sections were beginning to be traversed — discovery of pursuit was certainly made by Liverpool Jack’s conveyance.

It was then the little ferret-faced chauffeur began to “do his stuff.” An amazingly intimate knowledge of the New Jersey roads he soon displayed, not only of the highways, but of all the byways. He snaked in and out of remote dirt roads and through woodland roads no wider than lanes. He had the police chauffeur in the car following dazed and wall-eyed in an effort to figure his moves and keep the car in sight. Frequent halts had to be called while the detectives alighted and made out the freshest of the tire tracks ahead. And finally the little man at the wheel of the crooks’ car completely outwitted and outgeneraled the driver of the car.behind. What the crooks’ helmsman didn’t know of New Jersey roads could be fully jotted on a thumb nail. He lost the police car so far off the beaten roads that it took the detectives nearly an hour at that time of night to get the information that set them once more on the right highway for Lakewood.

Approaching the resort city, they slowed the car to reconnoiter. They were by no means despairing of a capture yet.

“They were wise that they were being followed,” said Fitzpatrick, “but not until after we followed them out of New York. But they are not wise that we know where they are heading for — that we have the dope that their job is to be at Lakewood. They think they’ve lost us and will go ahead with the business. But I think we ought to park the car and do the rest of it around the town on foot. The sound of another automobile burring around the streets here at this hour of the night” — it was nearing two o’clock in the morning — “would be all the warning they’d need to figure that we were wise to Lakewood, too.

“Besides, there’s Burgess on the job. They are bound to meet Bugs with the tools. And Burgess has Bugs in sight. He’ll be on deck when Bugs meets Liverpool and Blackie. Their arrival will tell him we must be somewhere around and, anyway, if he spots them enter the bank he has only to get the Lakewood police busy and make the bag. So it’s not so bad after all.”

This burst of optimism had no more than passed the lips of Fitzpatrick when a voice called from behind a tree on the highway, the car having come to a complete halt:

“Hey, Fitz!”

“Good! There’s Burgess now!” said Flaherty.

“Hello, Ed!” said Fitzpatrick. “Maybe we’re not glad to see you! Lost our guys!”

“You did?”

“Yes. They had a trick chauffeur that knew all kind of funny things about the New Jersey roads. It was like following a pinwheel — or trying to. But where did they show up at? Where did you trail Bugs? Are they together now? Maybe we’re just in time — hey? Have they started their job?”

“Search me!”

“What?”

“Lay off yelling like that,” said Burgess, “or they’ll hear you if it’s in Atlantic City. They lost you. Bugs lost me! That’s the sad story. Don’t take it too hard.”

Groans chorused from the car.

“Well, if Bugs got wise to you, they got wise to us,” said Fitzpatrick, “so I guess it’s all off for the night.”

“No,” said Burgess, “I don’t think Bugs got wise to me at all. He never by the least action betrayed that he was. It was simply that damn string of lorries that stopped me in my tracks. But it was for hardly more than a minute. I didn’t think it worth while running around behind them because I didn’t want to hang too close to Bugs, of course. But when they had passed — no Bugs. It’s simply that wherever he was bound for must have been near the depot and he disappeared into ft. But I’ve looked into every dump in the neighborhood and watched every house and not one of those showed a light. So then I figured they’d be along in a car as we had doped it out and you’d be after them and. of course, that would lead you to Bugs and all would turn out fine.”

“Did you see anything that looked like them?”

“I didn’t have any idea what they looked like, did I? I didn’t know what make of car they’d have. There were two or three hundred cars moving along this road until about an hour ago.”

“Sure — that’s true enough,” admitted Fitzpatrick. “But the main thing is that you are pretty certain Bugs didn’t suspect he was being followed!”

“I am,” asserted Burgess.

“Then perhaps we are still in line. For Liverpool and Blackie are certain they shook us and if Bugs doesn’t say he was followed here, they’ll go ahead. We’ll park the car up that side road and hit down into the business sections where the banks would be.”

“That’s a hunch!” agreed Burgess.

Which is what they did.

Lakewood boasts several banks. The New York detectives found them and their vaults and their watchman all intact.

In the vicinity of Lakewood are the estates of many wealthy men — some the mansions of the fabulously wealthy. So the detectives telephoned a warning to the State Police headquarters. Probably one of these modern palaces was the golden “rarebit” the mob was after.

Then a hunch hit Burgess.

“By God! The post office!”

“Liverpool Jack never played one in his life,” protested Fitzpatrick.

“No — but Connecticut Blackie has. It’s been his principal lay.”

“That’s right. A post office would be soft for Liverpool, too. No harm to look.”

No outward sign of depredation could be seen at the post office. But the Lakewood police chief at word from the New York detectives as to the distinguished character of the criminal visitors to his city, soon had the doors of the institution open. And the inquirers were a minute later gazing at the wreck of a big safe. Aroused from sleep, the distraught postmaster was soon computing the loot up to at least thirty thousand dollars.