Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

Paul Pry also selected an incense burner. He, too, expressed some concern over the construction, wondered whether it would stand shipping, and gave instructions that it was to be packed so that a safe delivery could be guaranteed.

He personally supervised the packing, the wrapping, then paid for the article and left the store. He went at once to the Interurban Motor Express Company and shipped the parcel to Herbert Dangerfield at Midland, and he gave the name of the shipper as Samuel Bergen.

He pocketed the original and one copy of the bill of lading which had been given him, along with the one he had wheedled out of the manicurist. Then he strolled from the express office and contemplated the afternoon crowds which milled about the street. There was in his eye the calm tranquillity of one who is at peace with the world, having performed a task well.

He got in his car, drove to the wholesale jewellery store of R. C. Fenniman.

“I wish to see Mr. Fenniman at once upon a matter of the most urgent importance,” he told the girl at the wicketed window.

She shook her head.

“He said he didn’t want to be disturbed this aft’noon. He’s ’n conference.”

Paul Pry smiled, a patronizing smile of self-assurance.

“Tell him that I am waiting to save him from a big loss and that he has just three minutes to make up his mind whether he wants to see me or not.”

The girl nodded, vanished, impressed with something in Paul’s manner.

And R. C. Fenniman had exactly two minutes and ten seconds to spare out of the three minute limit when the girl returned and nodded.

“Come this way.”

She led the visitor past a row of showcases, past locked safes, past desks where men looked up curiously. A man gave an exclamation, got to his feet.

It was Samuel Bergen, freshly shaved and manicured.

“How’d you make out?”

Paul Pry grinned.

“Fine. Got a nice settlement, thanks to you. Had your card and thought, I’d drop in and see your boss — theft insurance, merchants’ protection, that’s my line.”

Bergen recoiled and paled.

“For God’s sake, don’t tell him you came here because of me!”

Paul let his face lengthen.

“Gee, I thought that’d make a good opening.”

“Lord, man! You don’t know the boss,” groaned Bergen.

“All right, old chap, all right,” agreed Paul. “I won’t say a word. If you should happen in the room while I’m there don’t even let on that you ever saw me before. I’ll stand back of you. You sure backed me up — All right, young lady, coming. Thought I knew this gentleman, but it’s a mistake. He just reminded me of someone else I knew.”

And Paul Pry turned to the left, went through the door the girl was holding open.

A glum individual with the folded, seamed face of a dyspeptic regarded Pry with dour appraisal.

“What do you want?”

Paul sat down, crossed his legs, gave some concern to the crease in his trousers, took a cigarette from his case, lit it, blew out a cloud of smoke, grinned.

“You’re going to be robbed,” he said.

The lean face twisted in some form of emotion. The red-rimmed eyes blinked. The lips twitched.

“Bah!” said the man, and the sour odour of his breath poisoned the air of the office, came in a nauseating wave to the nostrils of Paul Pry.

Pry shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m representing a new service to merchants. I can prevent certain crimes. There’s a crime contemplated against your property, and I have the power to prevent that crime.”

The sour individual gulped.

“Get out!”

“Come, come. Not so fast. How about a certain shipment you made earlier in the afternoon, a shipment to a chap by the name of Dangerfield? Rather valuable, wasn’t it?”

The man scraped back his chair, got his feet in under him, uncoiled his thin length and glowered from red-rimmed eyes. Then his finger jabbed a button.

Samuel Bergen thrust a rather alarmed face into the room.

“Bergen,” rasped the man, “you sent that shipment to Dangerfield?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got the receipt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Le’me see it.”

“I put it in the file. I’ll have to get it.”

“All right. Get it.”

The man vanished silently, deferentially.

Paul Pry grinned.

“Rather a joke if that shipment got stolen. Valuable?”

“Of course it’s valuable. And it’s not going to get stolen.”

“No?”

“No. Of course not. Dangerfield’s got a first-class place. His credit’s A-1. He does the cream of the business at Midland. When he says he wants something, he gets it. He telephoned that order in and mentioned the time and the way he wanted it shipped. He’s responsible from the minute we get the bill of lading. We ship our stuff free on board shipping point.”

The door opened. Samuel Bergen was back with a duplicate copy of a bill of lading. In his hand was a letter and an original bill of lading.

“Here you are, sir.”

“Uh, huh.”

Fenniman glowered at the documents.

“Perhaps, if you were to call Dangerfield on the phone, you’d find out the order was a fake,” suggested Paul Pry. “Not, of course, that I’m given to making suggestions gratuitously, but just to show you how complete my system of information is.”

R. C. Fenniman was on his feet, his sallow skin purpled with rage. The little eyes over their folds of puffed flesh glared the bitter rage of the sickly, the lips quivered with emotion.

“Get out of here. Get out before I call the police. You’ve got a hell of a crust telling me how to run my business! I should run up long-distance calls and offend a customer just so you can make a smart aleck out of yourself. Get on your way.”

Paul Pry smiled enigmatically. He picked up his stick, adjusted his tie, took his hat, and bowed low.

“And if you should come to the conclusion that you’re wrong, if it should appear that I was right, just put an ad in the personal column of The Examiner , mentioning the amount of the reward you’ll pay for the return of the stolen property. I always prefer to prevent crime for a consideration. If I can’t do that I can, at least, restore stolen property — for a larger consideration. Good day to you, Mr. Fenniman, and if I might make the suggestion, a little pepsin for the stomach. And try not to get in a rage within two hours of eating. It interferes with the digestion. You’ll find some excellent pepsin preparations—”

With an inarticulate roar the thin man sprang at the door. Paul Pry, his hand on the knob, casually pulled it shut and left the wholesale jeweller quivering his indignation before the blank surface of a closed door.

Paul Pry went directly to the office of the Interurban Motor Express Company.

“I shipped a package earlier in the day,” he confided to the clerk. “Here’s the bill of lading.” He handed the clerk the receipt the manicurist had lifted from Bergen’s wallet, and which he had gained possession of under such unusual circumstances. “Please cancel the shipment if it hasn’t gone out yet.”

“We’ll have to make a handling charge,” the clerk warned.

Paul Pry nodded smilingly.

“Of course!” he purred.

The clerk vanished, returned with the package.

“It’s scheduled for the six o’clock bus. Sure you don’t want it sent out?”

“Certain. The order’s been cancelled. Thank you.”

“Twenty-five cent handling charge. Shipped prepaid. You’ve got a credit coming.”

“Buy a cigar with it,” said Paul Pry, as he walked out of the door with the package which had originally been sent by Samuel Bergen to Herbert Dangerfield, the bill of lading for which had been through so many adventures.