Rex Stout - The Mountain Cat

The chief took it. “Yes, Mac? No! Good work! Where? Remind me to buy you a drink. No, let that go. Send them on over here with him and step on it.”

He hung up, looking pleased with himself. “Pretty good gang I’ve got, Bill. They’ve picked up Al Rowley.”

“Ha, they’ve got him!”

“They have, you know, Quin. Over on Bucket Street. They ought to be here in five minutes.”

“I’ll handle him,” Tuttle announced.

“You will like hell. My boys got him.”

“This is my office, Frank.”

“And a damn smelly office it is, Bill. This is my meat.”

“I’ll handle him. I’ll take him first.”

“Not if my voice holds out you won’t. And if you start trying, I’ll march him right back out and over to the station. It was me Pellett came to in the first place, wasn’t it? Didn’t he come here only because I was here?”

That argument, with ramifications, was still in progress when the arrival of the disputed booty was announced and Tuttle ordered that it be ushered in, including escort.

Quinby Pellett stood up and Phelan told him roughly, “Sit down, Quin. Your knees are shaky. And behave yourself.”

The escort, entering, proved to be two plain-clothes men and two in uniform. The booty, flanked on both sides, was, unmistakably, the friend Pellett had been looking for. He looked surly, somewhat scared, and a little bellicose.

“Sit him down,” Phelan ordered, and he was instructed into a chair. “Is that the man, Quin?”

“That’s him,” Pellett declared, without removing his eyes from the booty.

The sheriff barked, “Is your name Al Rowley?”

The chief of police jumped up and started for the door, calling, “Bring him along, boys, back to the station!”

The escort looked bewildered. The sheriff yelled, “Hey, you damn fool! All right, all right!”

Phelan turned on his heel, went and stood in front of the booty, glared down at him and stated a series of facts. “Your name is Al Rowley, you’re a vagrant and a bum. I can lock you up or toss you out on your ear or whatever I damn please, and about an hour ago Mr. Pellett here stopped you on the sidewalk in front of The Haven and you socked him in the jaw. Right?”

“I’m not a vag—”

“Oh, shut up! Did you hit Mr. Pellett?”

“Maybe, but I didn’t—”

“I said shut up! What did you hit him for?”

“He had no right stopping me like that—”

“How did he stop you?”

“He just got in front of me and stopped me.”

“Did he do you any violence?”

“No, he said something, I don’t know what, and when I stepped back he made a grab at me, and just on the impulse I lammed him.”

“And ran like hell. What were you scared of?”

“I wasn’t scared, it was just an impulse—”

“Some day you’ll get impulsed once too often. Take a look at Mr. Pellett. I said look at him! When you saw him today he was wearing a mustache, but the time before that he wasn’t. Did you recognize him today in spite of the mustache?”

“I didn’t recognize him at all. I never saw him before.”

“What about yesterday?”

“Yesterday? Whereabouts yesterday? Not that I remember.”

Phelan looked disgusted. “Oh, come off it, Rowley. We’ve got you. Three different people saw you take that bag from that car and then hand it to Pellett when he stopped you.”

“That’s a lie, chief. A damn lie. They’re all dirty liars.”

A low growl came from Quinby Pellett, and Phelan shook his head at him and then resumed, “Do you deny they saw you on that street?”

“I don’t know if they saw me, but nobody saw me take any bag from any car. If I was on the street and they saw me then they saw me. What street was it?”

“Shut up. Where were you yesterday?”

“Well, yesterday.” Rowley considered. “Let’s see. In the morning I managed to earn four bits—”

“How’d you earn it?”

“Oh, just working around—”

“Skip it. Where were you in the afternoon?”

“Well, in the afternoon I was tired and I took a little rest, and then I went for a walk and stopped in at The Haven and dropped the four bits, and then I came out and walked around some more and went back to my boarding house—”

“When you came out of The Haven what did you do first?”

“I walked.”

“Yeah. You walked to a car and saw a handbag there and lifted it, and Pellett stopped you and you handed it over—”

“Listen, Chief.” Rowley leaned forward and waggled a finger for emphasis. “I may be a vagrant and a bum, if that’s the terms you want to use. But I’m not a sneak thief. No, sir. Anybody that says they saw the kind of thing you described is a pure liar. I don’t include Mr. Pellett in that. He don’t look like a liar and I’ll apologize that I hit him. I’m willing to call it a mistake in identity. If he made a mistake—”

“Shut up! The people that saw you aren’t liars.”

“They are if they say they saw me take anything out of a car yesterday afternoon. In full daylight like that, right on the street? I will never in God’s world say anything except to say that they’re liars.”

That proved to be, in substance, all that could be coaxed or threatened out of him. After another twenty minutes of it Phelan offered him to the sheriff, but Tuttle said he was satisfied as it was. Quinby Pellett was permitted to do some questioning, but got nowhere.

Phelan had another try, but finally threw up his hands in disgust and told the escort, “Take him and throw him in the river!”

“My God,” Pellett protested, “you’re not going to turn him loose!”

“What can I hold him for? If we book him as a vag we just have to feed him.”

“He knocked me down, didn’t he? Didn’t he assault me? For God’s sake, don’t let him go!”

“Do you want to charge him with assault?”

“I do.”

Phelan nodded to the escort. “All right, boys. Take him over and assign him. Give him dried lizard for supper. Tell Mac, Pellett will sign a charge.”

They trooped out, much less eager than when they had entered. The chief of police sat down, looking weary and fed up. The sheriff rubbed his nose.

Pellett looked from one to the other, got tired of waiting and demanded, “Well? What about my niece? How could she have killed Jackson if her bag was stolen?”

“She couldn’t,” Phelan said, and seemed to be through.

“Well then?”

Phelan aimed a thumb at the sheriff. Tuttle heaved a sigh. “I’ll tell you, Pellett. That’s a good story you’ve got. Now what about it? Officially I’ll say this: we’re much obliged and we’ll investigate it thoroughly, all aspects of it, and form the best opinion we can. Unofficially, naturally you want to do everything you can to help your niece, and it’s too bad you haven’t got any corroboration at all for any of it that’s connected with the bag, since even the man that helped you look for it on the stairs is the one that was murdered, and I imagine the jury will feel about the same way.”

Pellett stood up, his teeth clenched. “You think I’m lying? You think I made it up?”

“I do,” said Tuttle. “Unofficially.”

“I don’t know, Quin,” said Phelan peevishly. “How the hell do I know?”

Pellett, his teeth still clenched, turned and left the room.

It was only a short walk to the new Sammis Building on Mountain Street and he went on foot. Arrived there, he took the elevator to the fourth floor, entered a door halfway down the corridor and told a young woman seated at a desk, “My name is Quinby Pellett. I’m Delia Brand’s uncle. I want to see Mr. Anson.”

She asked him to wait, and disappeared through another door. After a moment she came back and nodded to him. “Come this way, please.”