Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

Mugs Magoo had derived his nickname because of a camera-eye and a memory that was utterly infallible. He never forgot a face, a name or a connection. At one time he had been a trusted officer. A political shake-up had thrown him off the force. An accident had taken off his right arm at the shoulder. Booze had done the rest.

He had been utterly down and out when Paul Pry had rescued him from the gutter and turned the man’s remarkable knowledge of the underworld to advantage.

“Gilvray’s desperate,” mumbled Mugs Magoo.

“For heaven’s sake! Do I have to listen to all that again? You’re as bad as Mahoney. What I want to know is how Gilvray gets the information for his hauls.”

“Scouts, of course. Same way all the rest of ’em do. They have people circulating around the jewellery stores, the nightclubs, the wealthy residential districts. They spot out the lay—”

“All right, Mugs, what I ask you is simple enough for a man of your contacts. Spot the scouts Gilvray is using.”

Mugs sighed, and poured himself another glass of whiskey.

“I’m goin’ to have a hard time gettin’ my whiskey after you’re gone,” he said.

“Gone?” asked Paul Pry.

“Yeah. Pushin’ daisies,” said Mugs Magoo, and lugubriously started upon his mission.

When he had gone, Paul Pry put on his hat and a topcoat, slipped to the kitchen of his apartment and listened.

That apartment was his hideout, a veritable fortress. The windows were steel-shuttered and iron-barred. The doors were bulletproof — and there was a secret exit which even Mugs Magoo didn’t know about.

Paul Pry pushed up a trapdoor in the top of the kitchen closet, crawled between walls for some twenty feet, opened another trapdoor, found himself in a vacant apartment, slipped through that apartment to a side door, emerged in a corridor, and finally reached the sidewalk half a block from the entrance to the narrow building where his own apartment was located.

Paul Pry paused in the doorway to survey the street.

He noticed a plain-clothes man on duty, lounging directly opposite the doorway to his own apartment. He also noticed a touring car in which two men sat. Those men were well tailored, but there was an alert watchfulness about them which made them seem far from being gentlemen of leisure.

Paul Pry waited in the doorway until a cruising cab driver caught his signal and pulled to the kerb. Head bent forward, so that his hat covered his features, he skipped into the cab and gave the address of an interurban depot.

From that point on his moves were made openly and apparently as part of a well-laid plan.

He took an interurban car for Centerville, a rather distant and somewhat isolated suburb. There he went to the main hotel and registered as Harley Garfield of Chicago. He paid a week’s rent on his room, tipped a bellboy for getting him settled, stated he would have some baggage sent up later, and then sought out the most pretentious jewellery store in the town.

The proprietor himself came forward.

He was snowy-haired, walked with a limp, and his eyes were filmed with age. Yet there was a dignity in the man’s carriage. About him was that subtle something that characterizes an aristocrat.

“I want,” said Paul Pry, “to get some diamonds. I want a rather expensive necklace. I am willing to go as high as fifty thousand dollars.”

The filmed eyes showed a trace of expression which was instantly suppressed.

“Your name?” asked the jeweller.

“Garfield. Harley Garfield, of Chicago.”

And Paul Pry extended his hand.

“Moffit,” said the jeweller, shaking hands. “I am pleased to meet you. Living here at present, Mr. Garfield?”

“At the hotel. Room 908.”

“And you wanted a very fine string of diamonds.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t anything in stock, but you will understand how utterly impossible it is for a store of this size to keep a stock that would compare with the city stores.

“I’ll give you a card to my wholesaler and you can go to the city and have the best selection available. Or you can go in with me, if you’d prefer, and I’ll introduce you personally and assist in the selection.”

Paul Pry smiled and shook his head.

“Neither. I hate the city. Cities depress me. I had a nervous breakdown and my physicians advised me to avoid noise. That’s why I’m here where it’s quiet.”

There was just the finest trace of frosty suspicion upon the features of the jeweller.

“I’m sorry I have nothing in stock,” he said.

Paul Pry took a wallet from his coat pocket and flipped it open.

From its interior he took bills of thousand-dollar denomination. One by one, he counted them out upon the counter. The jeweller gazed at them with eyes that grew wider as each bill was deposited upon the counter.

“I am a businessman,” said Paul Pry. “I want to purchase a diamond necklace through you. I want the benefit of your judgment. And I am in a hurry. I, also, am hard to please. I am giving you twenty thousand dollars in cash as an evidence of good faith.

“Please give me a receipt. In that receipt you will mention that if I am satisfied with such necklaces as you can show me I will pay for one in cash. If I do not select one which pleases me, you will return my money less the sum of five hundred dollars which will compensate you for your trouble and expense. Now when can you have the first batch of necklaces here for my inspection?”

Moffit picked up the stacked money with trembling fingers. He counted it, examined each bill, then wrote out a receipt. Then he consulted the timetable of the interurban.

“Our train service is very poor,” he said. “I can have some necklaces for your inspection at 3.38. The car leaves the city at 2.10, and I will have the stones sent on that car.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Very well. I will be here at 3.45. That will give you a chance to have the necklaces properly displayed.”

Moffit tugged at the fingers of his left hand with his right hand until the knuckle joints popped, one by one.

“I’d like to have you here as soon as possible. If you don’t want the necklaces I’d want to send them back on the 4.15. I haven’t facilities for keeping such valuable gems here.”

Paul Pry nodded casually.

“I’ll make a selection by four o’clock,” he promised. “Good morning, Mr. Moffit.”

The jeweller looked at his watch.

“It’s afternoon now,” he said. “I’ll telephone my wholesaler before I go to lunch.”

Paul Pry smiled.

“My mistake. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Garfield.”

Paul Pry sauntered down a side street from which he could watch the door of Moffit’s jewellery store. In precisely five minutes he saw Mr. Moffit emerge and hobble excitedly toward the bank. From time to time, the snowy-haired gentleman glanced apprehensively over his shoulder.

Paul Pry smiled and returned to his room in the hotel, where he made some casual inquiries about train service, placed a telephone call to the baggage department of the depot, and then summoned the porter.

“My baggage is lost,” he informed that individual. “What’s the best way to get action?”

“There ain’t any,” said the porter. “You cuss out the local man. He ain’t got the baggage. He puts in a tracer. You can’t cuss the man that lost the baggage and there ain’t no satisfaction in cussing anybody else. If they find it, they’ll send it to you. If they don’t you’ll have an argument with the claim department. I can’t help you.”

Paul Pry gathered himself in erect dignity.

“I,” he announced, “shall go directly to headquarters. How can I get to the city?”

“Interurban.”