Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

“You half-pint of a lounge lizard! You start talking to me like that and I’ll push your nose so hard it’ll stick wrong side out the back of your head. Who the bloody hell do you think you’re talking to?”

And he thrust his rage-mottled face over the edge of the front door and glowered at Paul Pry.

Pry made no answer, none whatever.

For a full five seconds the officer glowered, hoping that the culprit would give him an excuse to use sufficient force to make an arrest on the charge of resisting an officer. But Paul Pry remained immobile.

The officer snorted and went to the front of the machine. He took down the licence number, strode majestically back to the car and jerked open the left front door.

“Got your fender smashed. Did that just recently, didn’t yuh?”

“That, my man, is none of your business.”

The officer’s hand shot into the car, clutched the collar of Paul Pry’s coat, and Paul Pry came violently out from behind the steering wheel.

“Sa-a-ay, you’ve got lots to learn, you have. Get out your driving licence and be quick about it. You’re going to take a drive to headquarters. That’s where you’re going!”

And, still holding Paul Pry by the collar, he reached in his free hand and ripped out the registration certificate.

There was no traffic up either street. The intersection showed no approaching headlights. There were no pedestrians. Paul Pry had carefully chosen his corner and his time. Abruptly he changed from a passive but impudent citizen in the hands of the law, to a bundle of steel muscles and wire-hard sinews.

“Crack!” the impact of his fist on the side of the officer’s head sounded like a muffled pistol shot.

The officer staggered back, rage, surprise and pain on his features. Paul Pry snapped his left home with that degree of accurate precision in timing which denotes the trained fighter.

The blow seemed almost unhurried, so perfectly timed was it, so gracefully were the arm and shoulder swung behind the punch. But the officer went down like a sack of meal, the registration certificate still clutched in his left hand.

Paul Pry got into the automobile, slipped in the clutch and purred down the street, turned on the next through boulevard and drove directly in front of the residence of Big Front Gilvray, where he parked the automobile.

Then he strolled across the street, sat down in the shadow of a hedge, and smoked a cigarette.

The house of Big Front Gilvray showed as a gloomy and silent pile of darkness. There was no sign of light from the windows, no sound of occupancy from within. The house was shrouded in watchful silence. But it was a tense silence. One sensed that perhaps there might be a cautious face, pressed against the glass of an upper window, surveying the street — that other faces at the four corners of the house might be cautiously inspecting the night.

It was a full half-hour before Paul heard the wail of a siren, the sound of a clanging gong. The street reflected the rays of a red spotlight. The police were going to make something of a ritual of it. They had brought the patrol wagon with them.

Paul Pry walked down the street to the place where he had left his roadster, got in, started the motor, and warmed up the engine. Then he switched off the ignition the better to hear any sounds that the night had to offer.

The wagon drew up to the big residence with something of a flourish.

“Here we are, boys!” yelled someone. “Lookit the car! It’s the kind Bill said, and the front fender’s caved.”

Another voice growled, “Drag him out.”

The police car discharged figures who moved with grim determination up the walk to the house. The front steps boomed the noise of their authoritative feet into the night, and there came the sound of nightsticks beating a tattoo upon wooden panels.

But the door didn’t open immediately.

The house gave forth signs of muffled activity. Then a porch light clicked on, and Big Front Gilvray stood in the doorway, his frame blocking out the soft glow from a lighted hallway.

Big Front lived true to his name. He put on a bold front. Behind him there were men armed with machine guns, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible; but these men were out of sight, hidden where their guns could sweep hallways and staircases with the most deadly angle of fire.

Paul Pry heard Gilvray’s booming voice.

“What in hell is the meaning of this outrage?”

It was Gilvray’s code to be impressive, always to keep the other man on the defensive.

The only answer to the question was a counter question from one of the officers.

“Are you Benjamin F Gilvray of 7823 Maplewood Drive?”

“I am. And I want to know—”

What Big Front Gilvray wanted to know was drowned in the sound made by a heavy fist impacting soft flesh. There followed the scuffle of feet, the thud of blows. After an interval someone said, “You’re under arrest,” and a knot of struggling figures threshed their way toward the patrol wagon.

There was the clanging of a bell, the wail of a siren, the roar of an exhaust, and the patrol wagon was on its way. From within could be seen moving figures, silhouetted against the lighted ribbon of roadway.

Big Front Gilvray was resisting arrest and the figures were doing their stuff.

Paul Pry started the motor on his car and slipped to the side street. From this position he could command a view of the alley entrance from the garages, also of the gravelled driveway.

Lights blazed on in the house, then were subdued. Doors banged. There was the sound of running steps. A car shot out of one of the garages, skidded at the turn into the side street, and roared into the night. It was filled with men.

A truck followed. There were two men in the driver’s seat. The cargo of the truck was covered with canvas. It was not particularly bulky.

Paul Pry followed the red light of the truck.

He kept well to the rear, yet, with the flexibility of his powerful roadster, was able to command the situation. The truck could not get away. Paul Pry drove without headlights and was invisible to the occupants of the truck.

The chase led for nearly a mile, and then the truck turned into a public garage. Paul Pry drove around the block and piloted his red roadster into the same garage.

The truck of the gangsters was parked at one end of the place and a sleepy-eyed attendant came forward with a ticket. His eyes were swollen with sleep, and he sucked in a prodigious yawn as he stretched his hands high above his head.

“I’d better park it,” said Paul Pry. “The reverse is sticking a little.”

The man in the dirty overalls yawned again and sleepily pushed a ticket into the crack over the hinges of the hood. That ticket was numbered, a string of black figures on a red background. The other half of the ticket, bearing a duplicate number, he thrust into Paul Pry’s hand.

“Right next to the truck?” asked Paul casually, and didn’t wait for an answer.

He drove the car down the dimly lit aisle of the garage, backed it into the first vacant stall to the side of the truck, switched off motor and lights, and got out.

It was, perhaps, significant that he got out of the car on the side that was nearest the truck, and that his hand rested against the hood of the powerful truck as he walked between the stalls.

In the dim light of the place, the sleepy-eyed attendant had no idea that Paul Pry was switching squares of pasteboard, that the red ticket which had been thrust into the hood of the roadster now adorned the truck, and that the truck ticket was transferred to the roadster.

Paul Pry had hardly intended to play the game in just that manner. He felt certain the gangsters, alarmed over the arrest of Big Front Gilvray, would transfer the treasure cargo, but he had hardly counted upon the audacious move by which they sought to insure safety for themselves.