Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

He arrived at a time when trains were leaving and pulling in, when night traffic to the city was just commencing.

There was a vehicle cordon of police about the place, but they were scrutinizing suitcases that went out rather than suitcases that came in, and Paul Pry called a redcap.

“Take this to the checking stand and get me a check on it,” he said.

The porter moved off with the suitcase, and any noise which might have been made by the noisy ticking of the clocks was entirely drowned out in the tramp of feet, the roar of trains, the blare of automobile horns.

The porter returned with a slip of pasteboard bearing a number, received a generous tip, and promptly forgot about the entire matter. Paul Pry drove to his apartment, changed his clothes, ignored the pessimistic comments of Mugs Magoo, and returned to the Union Depot.

This time he carried a cane, rather a long, slender cane with a hook in the handle. He moved with the alert caution of a cat.

A glance showed him that the suitcase he desired was still in its place. That place was of advantage to the gangster who had flipped it there, because it required only a single sweeping motion with his right arm to transfer it there from the brass-covered counter.

Paul Pry took in the situation with calculating eye, and bided his time.

That time came when the evening trains had pulled out, when comparative silence descended upon the Union Depot. There were still hurrying throngs, but they were swallowed in the vast space of the huge terminal as though they had been but a handful of passing pedestrians.

Sounds became more audible.

Paul Pry looked at his watch, strolled to the kerb, summoned a cab, had the driver wait for him.

“I’ll be out in a few minutes. Got to meet the wife on one train and sprint across the city to make a connection at the other depot. She’s bringing me my suitcase. Came away without it this afternoon. You be all ready to go as soon as I get here.”

The cab driver nodded, yawned, pocketed a tip.

“I’ll get you there,” he promised.

Paul Pry strolled back to the station, went to the battery of public telephone booths. Through the glass door of the booth he selected he could see the pasty-faced man on duty at the checking stand.

He was, doubtless, such a man as had no readily available police record. Yet he would hesitate to appeal to the police for protection in an emergency.

Paul Pry deposited a coin and gave the number of the telephone at the checking stand. He saw the pasty-faced man scoop up the telephone to his ear, answer it. Over the wire, to his ear, came the sound of a mechanical voice.

“Yeah, hello. This is the checkin’ ag’ncy Un’n Depot.”

Paul Pry let his voice rasp in raucous warning.

“I’m going to blow up the whole Union Depot,” he said. “There’s a blast going off in exactly three minutes. I want to wreck the building, but I don’t want to kill you. I’ve nothing against you. What I’m fighting is Capitalism. You are just a working man.”

The voice over the wire had lost its mechanical disinterest.

“What’re you talkin’ about?” it demanded.

And Paul Pry could see that the features of the pasty-faced man had become rigid with alarm.

“I’ve got a bomb planted. It’s in a suitcase I checked with you this afternoon. There are two alarm clocks in it. The first one will go off in five minutes. Then there will be an interval of five minutes and the second one will go off. When that second one goes off it’ll set loose the explosion which will wreck...”

That was as far as he got, for the pastyfaced man had dropped the telephone and was sprinting for the back of the checking stand where long shelves furnished storage space for suitcases.

The first alarm had gone off, and the pasty-faced man was taking no chances.

Paul Pry darted from the booth, walked swiftly to the brass-covered counter, reached out with his cane. The hooked handle slid through the curved grip of the suitcase he wanted. A jerk, and it came from the shelf, went through the air and lit fairly upon the brass-covered counter.

The pasty-faced man was no coward. He had pulled down the suitcase Paul Pry had “planted” earlier in the evening, had cut loose the leatheroid side, and was pulling out the miscellaneous assortment of wires and clocks.

His back was of necessity toward the counter during those few brief seconds while he worked.

Paul Pry took the suitcase, strolled casually toward the taxicab exit. The cabbie ran forward and grabbed the suitcase. Paul Pry stepped into the waiting cab and was whisked away.

Inspector Oakley twisted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

“You’ve been collecting a lot of rewards lately,” he said to Paul Pry.

That individual nodded cheerfully.

“After a fifty-fifty split with you, inspector.”

Oakley studied the tip of his smouldering cigar.

“Well, I guess it’s all right, only you’re sure going to be on a hot spot one of these days. Gilvray’s gunning for you — but that’s no news to you. Do you know, Pry, I have a hunch that if you’d go before the grand jury and testify to some of the things you know about Gilvray and his methods, you could get an indictment that would stick.”

Paul Pry smiled.

“And why should I do that, inspector?”

“It would bust up his gang, relieve you of the certain death that’s hanging over your head.”

Paul Pry laughed outright.

“And kill the goosie that lays such delightful golden eggs for me — for us! Oh, no, inspector. I couldn’t think of it. By the way, inspector, I understand the corporation that lost the bonds has offered twenty thousand dollars for their return. Is that right?”

Oakley grunted.

“Yeah. They’ll probably be stuck for the whole issue if they don’t get ’em back, but they’re so tight they only offer twenty thousand. Maybe there’s a legal question about delivery. I don’t know. I understand the lawyers are in a snarl over it. It seems that if the messenger who was robbed was a messenger of the bank that’s buying the bonds there was a delivery and the bonds, being negotiable, can be cashed as against the company. If the messenger was in the employ of the company there wasn’t any delivery, or some such thing. It’s too fine-spun for me.”

Paul Pry extended a tapering hand, held his cigarette over the ashtray, flipped off the ash with a little finger that gave just the right thrust to drop the ashes in a pile in the centre of the tray.

“Suppose we split that reward fifty-fifty?”

Inspector Oakley’s cigar sagged as his lower jaw dropped in surprise.

“You’ve got ’em?”

“Oh no. I wouldn’t have them, but my underground intelligence department advises me that the suitcase containing them has been checked into a certain checking stand in one of the large department stores here in the city.

“I could advise you of the name of that store. I might even advise you of the number of the ticket. Then you could recover the bonds, announce that the police had ‘acted upon a tip received from the underworld through the lips of a stool pigeon, swooped down and recovered the bonds, and the culprit had escaped.’ Of course, you could take considerable credit — and ten thousand dollars in cold cash. That’s rather a pretty addition to the pile of reward money you’ve been collecting.

“Naturally, I’d want my name kept out of it. It wouldn’t do to have the bulk of the police force watching me with suspicion.”

Inspector Oakley took a deep breath. His eyes glittered with avarice.

“This is something like! A nice clean job. I could pull that without having so damned many questions asked. Getting some of the swag you’ve tipped me off to has looked pretty raw and I’ve had to make a pay-off on some of my reward split; but this is slick and clean.”