Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

Two men were shaking hands profusely within a few inches of Maude the Musher and her new-found boyfriend. A slender chap with cautious eyes and a cleft in his chin, pushed his way through the crowd. His right hand held the handle of a suitcase in a grip that was so tight the skin showed a dead white over the clenched knuckles.

Maude the Musher stepped back from the embrace of the young man. He made a playful grab at her, caught the sleeve of her fur coat. Maude the Musher jerked back.

The fur coat slid from her smoothly polished figure, and the crowded passengers and spectators became rooted to the spot.

There have been rumours of young women who, dressing hurriedly or carelessly for the street, have contented themselves with throwing a fur coat over filmy underthings, donning shoes and stockings and going demurely about their business.

But now the spectators had an opportunity to see for themselves that these rumours were not without their foundation.

Maude the Musher stood in such a position that the curves of her figure showed to the best advantage. The fur coat was on the tiled floor before her. Her pink silken undies were the latest mode, and had the most expensive ornamentation.

And, as though to direct all eyes to her, she screamed.

The travelling public have grown accustomed to coloured photographs of beauties in underthings upon the advertising pages of the women’s magazines. They have seen sights in Pullman cars, and, perhaps through hotel windows, that have made the coloured photographs seem rather pale. But the sight of a woman in the flesh, clad as Maude the Musher was clad, was enough to root every one in his tracks for a swift instant.

Maude the Musher, after that scream, doubled forward and reached for the fur coat. A man sprang forward to assist her.

Someone was knocked scrambling in that mad rush, and that someone was the youth who was carrying the suitcase in so tight a grip.

In falling he seemed to hit his head. For he lay still, limp. Only Paul Pry’s watching eyes had seen the hissing slungshot. All other eyes had been fastened upon Maude the Musher and the man who was springing to her assistance.

Only the eyes of Paul Pry, of all those spectators, saw exactly what happened to the suitcase which the young man had been carrying. For that suitcase was juggled with the well-trained coordination of a football squad sending the ball into an intricate play.

The suitcase was handed to one of the men who had been shaking hands. That man handed back a similar suitcase, and that similar suitcase sprawled on the floor so that it skidded directly against the prostrate form of the young man.

The suitcase the young man had been carrying passed through the hands of two people and thudded upon the brass-covered counter of the checking stand. Charley the Checker moved with lightning-like rapidity. He flipped the suitcase into the vacant space on the shelf, turned his back and faded from sight.

After all, being a known gangster has its disadvantages, and Charley the Checker knew that for the police to recognize him as the man in charge of the checking station might be exceedingly embarrassing. But he could trust no other with the delicate problem of handling the stolen bag.

After the hue and cry should die away, those securities would find their way into financial channels through sources which were divers and devious, yet none the less available.

But, the theft accomplished without a hitch, Charley the Checker “ducked out” and his place was taken by a slender man with very pale skin, but with eyes that were as cold as those of a rattlesnake.

Maude the Musher grabbed her fur coat about her and ran. Someone laughed. A travelling man dropped his suitcase to clap his hands in applause, and half a dozen laughing males joined in the applause. A policeman grinned broadly and shouldered his way through the crowd.

“Keep movin’,” he said, good-naturedly, and then saw the sprawled figure of the young man with the cleft chin. Two sympathetic passengers from the train were picking him up.

The officer thought with chain-lightning efficiency. He blew his whistle, raised his voice.

“Stop that woman!” he yelled.

And the crowd, sensing that all was not as it should have been with Maude the Musher, took up the cry. There was a car waiting at the kerb with motor running. The athletic young man unburdened by any baggage, gained this car, jumped behind the wheel. Obviously, it had been left there for that very purpose. Maude the Musher, her running handicapped somewhat by the necessity of keeping the fur about her, was a stride or two later.

But she very wisely rid herself of her impedimenta by tossing the fur coat at the machine, and vaulted into the seat with a flash of well-formed limbs, a glimpse of rounded flesh.

The car was already in motion.

Police whistles shrilled. A traffic officer started tugging at his gun. The automobile violated the traffic rules, saw a hole in the oncoming line of vehicles, and turned to the left with a great screeching of tyres. The rushing lane of automobiles closed up the opening, and the car was gone.

The young man with the cleft chin sat up. His eyes were completely glazed. It seemed impossible that he could know what he was doing, but he grasped for the suitcase on the floor beside him, snapped back the catch.

The suitcase was filled with those slips of tinted paper which represent waste cuttings from a printer’s shop, and the young man with the cleft chin raised his voice in an agonized scream.

“I’ve been robbed!” he shouted. “My suitcase! Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars—”

His voice trailed off into a wail, and he slumped back, unconscious once more.

Men ran about aimlessly. The uniformed police threw a cordon about the depot. Nearby traffic officers left their posts. A hurry call brought a squad of reinforcements on the double-quick.

But the police were unable to apprehend the men responsible for the robbery. The young man with the cleft chin regained consciousness. He had remembered the spectacle of the young woman with the fur coat and the pink silk undergarments. Then someone had jostled him, there had been a terrific jar upon his head and he had dropped to the floor.

He had not even seen the faces of those who had been responsible. The blow with the slungshot had come from behind, and that which followed had been done with such well-trained efficiency as to baffle detection.

Paul Pry sat upon his post, listened to all that followed. From time to time, his eyes dropped to the check stand where the pale-faced man took in suitcases and gave them out. And all the time the suitcase with its contents of bonds reposed back of the counter.

It was, as yet, too hot to handle. And what better hiding place could be devised for it than to have it nestled in amongst some two dozen other bags staring the police in the face?

Paul Pry fastened a bit of cement to the marble, repaired the chipped place, climbed down and took a streetcar. He didn’t go far, however.

There were stores near the depot that specialized in needs for the traveller. Cheap suitcases, made up to imitate expensive baggage, were displayed in windows with temptingly low prices placarded upon them.

Paul Pry became a customer of one of these stores, and his purchases were most peculiar.

He negotiated for a suitcase, two alarm clocks, a set of dry batteries, some junk radio equipment which loomed imposingly as a mass of tangled, coiled wires, sockets, polished metal, yet which was worth virtually nothing.

The proprietor was rubbing his hands when Paul Pry left.

Paul Pry secured a taxicab, wound up the alarm clocks, placed them inside the suitcase together with his other purchases, set the alarms on the clocks with extreme care, and ordered the cab driver to take him to the Union Depot.