Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

Moffit laughed.

“Forget it. The stones are all insured. I’ll take care we have ample protection after we get the gems. Before that, it’s up to the wholesaler and the insurance company. But no one ever thinks of bothering these gem messengers. They move stuff around without ever losing a single stone—”

Paul Pry sighed, and the relief that was contained in that sigh was apparent, even over the telephone.

“I’m so relieved to hear you say so. You don’t think there’s any necessity of putting a guard on the interurban, do you?”

“Heavens no. Forget it, Mr. Garfield!”

“Thank you,” said Paul Pry meekly, and hung up.

The porter arrived with the baggage, and Paul Pry held him in the room for several minutes, getting the baggage placed to his liking, keeping up a running fire of conversation.

It was precisely 3.21 when the interurban which was due to arrive in Centerville at 3.38, slowed to a stop at a little flag station which was really nothing more than a milk-shipping depot.

Two well-dressed men were waiting. It was the first time the motorman could remember picking up a passenger at the station, but the timetable made of this little depot a flag stop, and so he applied the air brakes, and brought the car to a stop.

The two men swung up to the platform. The motorman noticed a touring car with the side curtains up. That car was parked on the dirt road near the depot.

“Car trouble?” asked the motorman, grinning.

“You bet,” said one of the men, and made a swift motion with his right hand.

A slungshot flipped out from his wrist, crushed through the cap of the motorman and thudded against his skull. The motorman lurched against the controls, and thudded to the floor.

A woman screamed.

The conductor, not observing the commotion, rang the “go ahead” bell. A man shouted a hoarse warning. A slender individual who had been reading a newspaper, tugged at something in his hip pocket.

His startled eyes saw a man standing directly before him, a crooked grin twisting his features, a heavy automatic in his right hand.

“When you get it out, buddy,” he said, “drop it on the floor.”

The slender individual hesitated.

“Make it snappy. Drop it on the floor. You ain’t paid to stop lead, and I mean business.”

The second gangster stood at the end of the car.

“Keep your seats, everybody,” he yelled.

The slender young man slowly withdrew a steel weapon and tossed it to the floor.

The man with the automatic kicked the gun under the seats and picked up the black bag, studded with brass rivets.

“Thanks,” he said, laconically. “Let’s go, Steve!”

They went on the run. From behind the side curtains of the automobile the muzzle of a machine gun covered their retreat.

And just before they left the car, they opened the electric control, jerked the brass lever from the control box and flung it away. As the car gathered headway, they dropped to the ground.

The interurban was jolting and swaying as the passengers screamed for help. By the time the conductor had managed to check the speed of the careening car, the milk depot was a mile behind.

The conductor piloted the car to a place where a farmhouse showed telephone wires running to it. He checked the car to a stop and ran toward the house.

The telephone buzzed out the news, spreading the alarm. Central located the chief of police of Centerville, and gave him the message.

Chief Kelley informed Moffit of what had happened.

“Good heavens, then he was right, and we should have arranged for a guard!”

“Information came too late, anyhow,” said Kelley, but his eyes shifted uneasily. “I gotta get busy and throw out a blockade in case they should try to come through town here.”

“They won’t,” said Moffit. “Look here, chief, if the wholesaler thought I’d been tipped off there might be trouble with that shipment.”

“Uh-huh,” grunted Kelley. “The newspapers would make things rather warm for me if they thought I’d been warned and laughed at the warning. That’s the hell of being in this game. If you guess right you don’t get credit. If you guess wrong they pan you from here to Timbuctoo.”

The men exchanged glances.

“Yeah,” said Chief Kelley, “I’ll get a man to take charge of closin’ the road. I’m goin’ up there with you.”

Ten minutes later they marched down the corridor to Paul Pry’s hotel room.

Paul Pry flung open the door.

“Well, well, you were long enough getting here. The interurban must have been in ten minutes ago.”

Chief Kelley kicked the door closed.

“Look here, Garfield, you can help us.”

Paul Pry smiled affably.

“Certainly. What can I do?”

“Forget that you warned us there might be a stick-up of the messenger who was carryin’ those jewels. Forget that you talked to a broad in a picture show. Take your money that Moffit’s got for you, and get out of town.”

Paul Pry let his jaw sag.

“Do you mean to tell me the man was robbed?”

“Grabbed the bag slick as a whistle. Evidently a tipped-off job. They knew what they wanted, who had it, and what was in it. They went and got it.”

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Paul Pry. “Anybody hurt?”

“Just the insurance company,” said Chief Kelley.

“And a greedy wholesaler,” muttered Moffit bitterly. “I hope his loss wasn’t covered.”

“My, my, my! Then that woman—”

Kelley interrupted.

“Forget about that woman,” he said.

“And the gems,” added Moffit.

“And get outta town before the newspaper chaps start coming around,” supplemented Kelley.

“Oh gracious, the newspaper men won’t ask a lot of questions, will they?”

“They will if they catch you here. Get started if you want to avoid a lot of flashlight pictures and all that line of hooey.”

Paul Pry rang for the porter.

“Gentlemen,” he assured them, “I’m on my way.”

“I got your money,” said Moffit. “That’s what took us so long. Sorry I couldn’t make a deal, but I’m satisfied with the bracelet, anyway.”

Paul Pry gravely shook hands.

Out in a suburban house, a house that was really a well-protected fortress, Benjamin Franklin Gilvray, otherwise known as Big Front Gilvray, stared stupidly at “Chopper” Nelson.

“You mean... you mean—”

Nelson opened a black bag studded with brass rivets.

“So help me God, chief, that’s every damned thing that was in it — just that paper.”

“Then the whole thing was a plant just to give us a run-around!”

Chopper Nelson shook his head.

“No. There was more to it than that. The youngster really thought he had a million dollars’ worth of rocks in that bag. I could tell by the way he went for his rod.”

Big Front Gilvray spread the paper on his knee with fingers that shook.

“Dear Goosie,” said the message. “Thanks for another egg.”

“Another egg,” said Gilvray, his voice quivering. “Do you s’pose he—”

The answer to this question was not conveyed to him until two weeks later when he read in the papers that Inspector Oakley had managed to recover all of the diamond necklaces taken from a messenger of the Jewellers’ Supply Co., Inc.

The inspector was congratulated for his efficient work. The article mentioned that he was also richer by a reward of fifteen thousand dollars for the recovery of the stones, posted by the insurance company and the wholesaler.

And Big Front Gilvray, knowing full well that Inspector Oakley was splitting that reward two ways, half to the inspector, half to Paul Pry, paced the floor in such an ecstasy of rage that even the hardened gangsters cowered in the rooms of the suburban fortress and kept out of Gilvray’s way.