Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

But the pencil vendor was “Mugs” Magoo, the man who never forgot a face.

Years before, Mugs Magoo had been the official camera-eye for one of the police administrations in a large city. A political shake-up had thrown him out. An accident had lost him his right arm at the shoulder, and booze had done the rest.

Paul Pry had cultivated Mugs Magoo as a casual acquaintance, had found out the man’s uncanny gift for remembering faces, and had employed the cripple.

Paul Pry might best be described as an opportunist. His activities were always within the law. The police frowned upon these activities, yet regarded the young man with a very wholesome respect. For Paul Pry’s total income ran into a very large figure each year. And yet he lived by his wits.

Mugs Magoo stared at the twin streams of pedestrians with glassy eyes and, from time to time, made signals with his head and hand. Such signals classified the various petty crooks who frequented the shopping lanes. An innocent girl from the country became a pickpocket under Mugs Magoo’s searching eyes. An open-faced countryman of rugged, sun-tanned honesty called forth Mugs’ signal for a confidence man. There was the usual assortment of bootleggers and petty criminals.

Only once did Mugs Magoo bow his head slightly, indicating that the man who was passing him at the moment was a big shot. Even then Paul Pry gave no answering signal, for Paul Pry was waiting for a break.

For seven days now the two had worked the streets without pause. Seven fruitless days of observation and signal, seven days of ceaseless scanning.

Mugs Magoo knew what Pry was waiting for — a crack at the gang of “Big Front” Gilvray.

The glassy eyes looked up into the passing faces.

“Pencils, mister?” said Mugs Magoo in his wheedling monotone.

The man strode by.

Mugs Magoo turned his eyes to the man behind.

“Pencils, mister?”

And, despite himself, something of the monotone had left his voice. There was a quaver of suppressed excitement, a note of tension.

But the ears of the man who was passing were not attuned to subtle tone variations on the part of street beggars. He strode past with eyes that never even flickered to the crouched form.

Mugs Magoo bowed his head, moved his hat in a circle and shook it slightly. Instantly Paul Pry raised a hand to his hat, gave a flip to the cane which he held in his right hand, and sauntered a few steps toward the kerb.

Mugs Magoo took the pencils from his hat, scooped out a few silver coins, sighed and clapped the hat on his head. His duties for the day were over.

Paul Pry fell in behind the man who had attracted his attention. He was a dour-faced individual with an expression of frozen dignity stamped upon his immobile countenance. He walked with measured steps that were painfully precise and slow. His mouth was clamped in a rigid line of punctilious silence.

He was a scout for the powerful gang of Big Front Gilvray. Mugs Magoo’s signals had conveyed that much information to Paul Pry. And that much information was all that Pry needed to start him upon another of his spectacular adventures.

The gangster walked across the street, paused for a moment at a window display, then paced methodically down a side street where the sidewalks were a little less congested.

Paul Pry followed.

Before he had gone half the block, Pry was aware of two very curious things. One was that the man he shadowed was in turn shadowing another. The second thing was that an automobile crawled along in the stream of traffic, keeping exact pace with the gangster.

Paul Pry shot a glance at the occupants of that automobile. The man at the wheel was restless-eyed, alert. His hands were slender, well cared for and graceful. His neck was rather heavy, encased in the collar of a silk shirt and wrapped about with a ten-dollar scarf. His left ear was cauliflowered.

The man in the rear seat was holding an oblong something upon the side of the car. Paul Pry puckered his forehead as he recognized the nature of that object. It was a motion-picture camera.

The block was traversed. The automobile sped away on an open signal. The gangster scout continued his steady pacing.

Paul Pry determined to get a look at the man ahead, the one who was being tailed by the shadower who was in turn being shadowed. He quickened his pace, passed the gangster, walked on past the man the gangster was following, and paused at the corner, consulting with bewildered eyes an envelope he had pulled from his pocket. Then he glanced about him at the numbers on the buildings.

In that position he was able to flash a glance at the face of the man he wanted to observe.

He barely suppressed a start of surprise as his eyes fastened upon that face. It was a face upon which was stamped a frozen dignity, a punctilious politeness. The mouth was clamped in a rigid line of deliberate silence. In short, the face was an exact duplicate of the face of the gangster.

It was as though the gangster had suddenly become twins. Paul Pry’s startled eyes flashed from the man in the lead to the gangster who followed.

Their clothes were of the same pinstriped serge. Their collars were the same. Their ties were the same. Their shoes were the same. Their very facial expressions were the same, and they paced in deliberate dignity the pavements of the city street but a few yards apart.

Paul Pry consulted the back of the envelope he held in his left hand, lest the gangster should detect the interest in his eyes. But the precaution was needless. The gangster’s every sense seemed to be concentrated upon the figure he followed.

Once more Paul Pry fell into the rear of the procession.

There was no further trace of the automobile from which the motion pictures had been taken. The man in the lead entered a store, emerged after a few moments with two parcels. The gangster who shadowed dropped behind as though he had lost his interest. The man in the lead took a taxicab. The gangster turned and walked in the opposite direction. His gait ceased to be a measured pace of slow dignity and became, instead, a quick, nervous walk.

Paul Pry hesitated for barely two seconds, then stepped to the kerb and hailed a passing cab. He had determined to shadow the gangster’s double.

In doing this he encountered no difficulty whatever. The task was absurdly simple. The man in the cab ahead was driven directly to the exclusive residential district on Longacres Drive. His cab stopped before number 5793, and the man paid the driver the meter toll with a gesture of condescending dignity. Then he paced toward the house in frigid silence.

“That all, boss?” asked the driver of Paul Pry’s cab.

“That’s the end of it. Take me to the corner of Broadway and Gramercy.”

The cab driver spun the machine around the corner.

Paul Pry entered his apartment in the manner of one who is wrapped in thought.

Mugs Magoo was sprawled in an easy chair, a bottle of whiskey on the table at his side, a glass in his hand. He looked up with bleary eyes, raised his glass.

“Here’s mud ’n yer eye!”

Paul Pry deposited his hat and stick, sank into another chair and regarded his confederate with narrowed eyes.

“You’ve hit half the bottle since you left me, Mugs,” he said.

Mugs Magoo squirmed under the accusation of the tone.

“This here’s the last glass I’m drinkin’ until night,” he explained.

Paul Pry lit a cigarette.

“It’s your own business, Mugs,” he said. “I’m not the type to attempt to impose my will upon my fellow man, only you’ve got to keep fit if you’re going to work with me. I can’t use a brain that’s muddled in alcohol.”

Mugs Magoo laughed, but the laugh was nervous.

“Forget it. My brain uses alcohol as lubricatin’ oil. What’s on your mind, chief?”