Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

The door of the room reverberated to a knock.

Paul Pry whipped out the blade, sheathed it and stood listening, his head slightly cocked to one side.

The room boomed once more to the knocking, and the knocking took up a certain rhythmic cadence. A long, a short, two longs, a short — silence.

Paul Pry moved to the side of the door and placed his eye to something that looked like the end of a field glass, and which was, in fact, the eyepiece of a periscope.

He saw two men standing before the door. One of them was “Mugs” Magoo, the one-armed man who acted as special agent for Paul Pry. The other wore a uniform with gold lace, brass buttons and cap.

Paul waited until the uniformed figure turned so that the features were visible through the periscope. When he had recognized Sergeant Mahoney of headquarters, he swung back a heavy iron bar, lifted a clamp, shot a spring lock and opened the door.

“Gentlemen, come in,” he said.

Sergeant Mahoney pushed forward.

“You’re barricaded with enough bolts and bars,” he growled.

Paul Pry smiled affably.

“Yes,” he said.

Sergeant Mahoney tapped the door.

“Steel,” he remarked.

“Bulletproof,” said Paul Pry.

“Gimme a drink. You guys can put on the talk-fest,” grunted Mugs Magoo.

Paul Pry closed the steel door. He shot the iron bar into place, then turned the clamp that shot bars into deep recesses in the floor. The spring lock clicked. Motioning the men to chairs, he took out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

Sergeant Mahoney surveyed the swinging dummy with interest.

“Practisin’ up on his fencin’,” explained Mugs Magoo, as he filled the glasses.

Mugs and the sergeant had a drink. Paul Pry smiled courteously at them.

“You’ve got to leave town,” said Sergeant Mahoney, setting down his empty glass. “I’m arranging for a police escort at noon. We’ll put you in a drawing room on the 12.30 train, and we’ll have plain-clothes men—”

“Whoa, back up!” smiled Paul Pry. “What’s it all about?”

“‘Big Front’ Gilvray has ordered your death.”

“Well, that’s no news, and why not escort Big Front Gilvray out of town?”

“Because he wouldn’t go, and we haven’t got anything definite on him. If we did have, we’d have a battle and a lot of men would get bumped off. B F Gilvray is one gangster who has both brains and guts.”

Paul Pry made a gesture with his right hand, a sweeping gesture that indicated his private opinion of B. F. Gilvray, arch-gangster.

“He’s been gunning for me two months now. I’m still here.”

“That’s not the point. He was mildly irritated before. He’s in earnest now. The gang’s been ordered to get you and get you right. And Gilvray’s one of the toughest men in the game.”

Paul Pry yawned and lit a cigarette.

“He may seem that way to you,” he said. “To me he’s just the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

Sergeant Mahoney sighed and leaned forward in his chair.

“All right. I’ve got to give it to you. Here it comes. You’ll leave town at noon today, and you’ll stay out. You started picking on Gilvray for some reason or other that no one knows about. You trailed his gang around. Every time they pulled a crime you managed to cop the take and turn it in for a reward.

“Naturally, Gilvray got sore. He’s going to kill you, and that’s making the situation one we don’t like. You two are really staging a war, and we’re not going to stand for gang wars.

“Of course, we’re going to try and get something on Gilvray and send him to the pen. But he’s slick. We haven’t been able to get anything pinned on him yet. And he’s a hard-boiled egg.”

Paul Pry yawned again.

“I’m picking on him because I don’t like him. His name is Benjamin Franklin Gilvray. They call him Big Front because he’s such a four-flusher. And if you think I’m going to let the police run me out of town because a crook doesn’t like me, you’ve got another guess coming.”

Sergeant Mahoney fished a heavy hand in the inside pocket of his uniform coat.

“These,” he remarked, “will make you change your mind.”

And he flipped four glossy-surfaced photographs out on the table. Paul Pry picked up those pictures, one at a time. They were photographs of a dead man, taken from different angles. They showed the corpse as it had been found, and the pictures were gruesome in the extreme.

The body had evidently been thrown from an automobile. It had been dumped out on the roadside with the callous cruelty of gangsters to whom a corpse is merely carrion. It was lying on one side, an arm twisted back, the legs sticking stiffly out behind with the shod feet pointed at different angles.

Over the chest of the body was a matted mass of stain which appeared on the photograph to be tar. In the centre of the stain were three black perforations. Pinned to the coat was an oblong strip of paper, upon which had been printed a message.

The third photograph showed the features of the cold face. They were startlingly like the features of Paul Pry. The fourth photograph showed the oblong of paper and the printing which was on it. Paul Pry held the picture to the light so that he could read the scrawled message.

THIS SMART ALECK WON’T DO ANY MORE MEDDLING.

The message was, naturally, unsigned. Paul flipped back the photographs.

“You mean they thought this chap was the one who had been meddling?” he asked.

“I mean,” said Sergeant Mahoney, “that they thought this chap was you. He was seen near here, and their choppers picked him up and took him for a ride. He turns out to be a banker from Detroit, in the city on a business visit, and there’s going to be hell to pay.

“We can’t prove anything. Big Front Gilvray’s got an airtight alibi — but we know what we know. So I picked up Mugs Magoo and told him I had to see you. And I’m telling you you’ve got to leave town until we can get the thing worked out somehow.”

Paul Pry crossed to the sideboard, filled the two glasses and handed them to his guests.

“Do you know, sergeant,” he said slowly, “I have a funny hunch about Big Front Gilvray.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I think the goosie is getting ready to lay another golden egg.”

Sergeant Mahoney strangled on his drink, then wiped his eyes, his face red from the fit of coughing.

“You mean to say you still refuse to leave?”

“Absolutely, and if the police try to make me, I’ll tell the whole story to the newspapers. Do I make myself plain, sergeant?”

Sergeant Mahoney jerked his cap down on his forehead and strode toward the door.

“Perfectly,” he snapped, “and the police protection you can count on is exactly zero. You’ve cleaned up over twenty thousand dollars in reward money just from riding Big Front Gilvray around. You’ve made him the laughing stock of the underworld — and you’ll be pushing daisies this time next month!”

Paul Pry stifled a yawn.

“Let the sergeant out, Mugs,” he said.

Mugs Magoo stared at Paul Pry with glassy eyes that seemed to be pushing from their sockets.

“Are you crazy?” he asked.

Paul Pry shook his head.

“Certainly not. As Sergeant Mahoney remarked, I’ve cleaned up over twenty thousand dollars in golden eggs Big Front Gilvray has so kindly laid for me. Why should I be crazy to figure on another golden egg?”

Mugs Magoo reached for the whiskey bottle and filled his glass.

“You show your face outside of this hang-out and you’ll be stretched on a marble slab.”

Paul Pry shrugged his shoulders.

“But you certainly wouldn’t want me to let Gilvray go unpunished for his murder. Come, Mugs, do as I tell you. Go out and find Gilvray’s scouts. I want to know who they are.”