Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

He chuckled softly as he counted it and found that it was an even ten thousand dollars.

He took the bag and the money, crossed to the safe, opened the fireproof receptacle, tossed in bag and money, closed the door, spun the dial of the combination, and went to bed.

Past experience had taught him that Mugs Magoo desired nothing more than to be left alone. He would awaken presently, seek the water tap and then go to bed. In the morning he would be as glassily-eyed efficient as ever.

Paul Pry slept the morning through.

The afternoon shadows were creeping across the street, when he felt a hand at his shoulder.

He looked up into the puzzled countenance of Mugs Magoo.

“Listen, guy,” said Mugs, “I don’t want to disturb your beauty sleep, but there’s a lot o’ stuff goin’ on, an’ I’m afraid it’s something that you’re concerned about.”

Paul Pry grinned the sleep out of his eyes, and ran his fingers through tousled hair.

“Shoot,” he commented, briefly.

“It’s about Inman and Lola Beeker, and this guy, Sacanoni,” said Mugs Magoo, speaking rapidly, and out of one side of his mouth. “It seems Jamison got Sacanoni, and used the muscle stuff to make Lola Beeker get ten grand that they’d put away for getaway money in case anything happened.

“Then it seems Lola Beeker knew who this guy Inman really was. They made her turn him up. But she worked some sort of a funny gag, and Inman slipped out of his room in the hotel with the whole damned place literally swarming with gunmen.

“But they let Sacanoni go when the jane kicked through with her share of the info and the ten grand. Then Beeker and Sacanoni did a fade.”

Paul Pry yawned.

“But,” he said, “why wake me up?”

“Because,” said Mugs, “there’s a late tip out that this Inman that’s been raising so much hell was really Sacanoni all the time. The gangs knew that Lola Beeker knew who Inman was, but they never figured he might be just another name for Sacanoni. So, then, who was this guy at the Billington Hotel?”

Paul Pry reached for the cigarettes.

“Mugs,” he observed, “you still haven’t any reason for disturbing my slumbers.”

Mugs Magoo blurted out that which came next.

“The hell I haven’t. Listen to this. When Jamison and his gang went to salt the ten grand something happened and they got slicked out of it. They thought it was this guy, Inman, only—”

“Only what?” asked Paul Pry.

“Only they found that some guy had come in and taken a room right where it’d do the most good, and that this bird registered under the name of Paul Pry! And there’s ten thousand berries gone bye-bye.”

Paul Pry grinned.

“Mugs,” he said, “you misjudge me. All I did was to deliver a message. I delivered it to a boy. I simply told him ‘The lady says yes,’ and that was all.”

Mugs nodded solemnly.

“But there’s ten grand in the safe this morning.”

Paul Pry let his face brighten.

“Maybe. Mugs, while we were both asleep, a dear little goose came and laid another golden egg!”

“I’ll see that the undertaker gives you the breaks when it comes to the music,” said “Mugs” Magoo as Paul Pry started out. For he knew his friend was about to dance with death. Pry’s very costume was enough to turn any fancy-dress ball into a murder masquerade.

Looking very uncomfortable in his evening clothes, “Mugs” Magoo rolled his glassy eyes and nodded across the table to Paul Pry.

“The place is full of crooks,” he said.

Paul Pry, the very opposite in appearance of his companion, wore evening clothes as though they had been moulded to fit him. He looked at Mugs Magoo with eyes that glittered with attention.

“What sort of crooks, Mugs?” he asked.

“Well,” said Magoo, “it’s a funny set-up. I’ve got a hunch if you knew what was going on here tonight, you’d know where the Legget diamond is.”

“What do you mean, Mugs?”

Mugs Magoo gestured with a fork. “That guy over there,” he said, “is Tom Meek.”

“All right,” Paul Pry said, “who’s Tom Meek?”

“A letter smuggler.”

“A letter smuggler, Mugs?” asked Paul Pry. “I never heard of such a thing.”

Mugs Magoo manipulated his fork so as to get a mouthful of food. His right arm was off at the shoulder and his left hand had to do the work of both cutting and conveying food while he was eating, gesticulating while he was talking.

“Tom Meek,” he said, “smuggles letters out of the jail. That’s where he picks up his side money.”

“He’s a jailer?” asked Paul Pry.

“Yeah, sort of a deputy, third-assistant jailer. He’s hung around the jail through three administrations. He smuggles letters out for prisoners.”

Paul Pry nodded and filed the information away for what it might be worth. His keen eyes stared at the man Mugs had indicated. A small inconspicuous individual, with grey hair, high cheekbones and watery eyes.

“Looks harmless, Mugs,” said Paul Pry.

Mugs Magoo nodded casually. “Yeah,” he said, “he don’t do anything except smuggle letters. That’s his racket. He won’t touch anything else. He won’t even take hop in to the prisoners.”

“All right,” persisted Paul Pry, “why do you think that Tom Meek, the letter smuggler, knows anything about the Legget diamond?”

“He don’t,” Mugs Magoo agreed readily enough. “But you see that heavy-set fellow over there at the table, with the jaw that’s the blue-black, in spite of the fact he’s been shaved not over two hours ago, the guy with the black hair and the big chest?”

“Yes,” said Paul Pry, “he looks like a lawyer.”

“He is a lawyer. That’s Frank Bostwick, the criminal lawyer, and he’s attorney for George Tompkins, and Tompkins is the man that’s in jail for pulling the robbery that netted the Legget diamond.”

“All right,” said Paul Pry, “go on, Mugs.”

Mugs swung his head in the other direction. “And the tall dignified coot over there with the starched collar and the glasses is Edgar Patten, and Patten’s the confidential representative of the insurance company that had the Legget diamond insured.”

Paul Pry watched Mugs Magoo thoughtfully, his eyes glittering with interest despite their preoccupation.

“Well, Mugs,” he said, “give me the low-down on it and perhaps I can turn the information to some advantage.”

Paul Pry lived by his wits alone. He would have indignantly denied that he was a detective in any sense of the word; on the other hand, he could have demonstrated that he was not a crook. Had he been called upon to give his business, he might have described himself as a professional opportunist.

Mugs Magoo, on the other hand, had a definite status. He was confidential adviser to Paul Pry.

Mugs never forgot a name, a face, or a connection. At one time he had been “camera-eye” man on the metropolitan police force. A political shake-up had thrown him out of employment. An accident had taken off his right arm at the shoulder. Booze had done the rest. When Paul Pry found the man he was a human derelict, seated on the sidewalk by the corner of a bank building, holding a derby hat in his left hand. The hat was half filled with pencils, with a few small coins at the bottom.

Paul Pry had dropped in half a dollar, taken out one pencil and then been interested in something he had seen in the rugged weather-beaten face, in the flash of gratitude which had filled the unwinking glassy eyes. He had engaged him in conversation and had learned that the man was a veritable encyclopaedia of underworld knowledge.