Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

That had been the last day Mugs Magoo had known want. It marked the formation of a strange association by which Mugs furnished Paul Pry with information and the chain-lightning mind of Paul Pry translated that information to pecuniary advantage.

Mugs Magoo rolled his glassy eyes in another survey of the room and then turned once more to Paul Pry.

“Here’s probably what’s happening,” he said. “Frank Bostwick, the lawyer, is making a deal with Edgar Patten, the adjustor for the insurance company, to get Tompkins out with a light sentence or maybe get him turned loose without even a trial. The price he’s going to pay is the return of the Legget diamond.

“The cops have got a dead open-and-shut case on Tompkins but they haven’t been able to find the diamond. Tompkins is an old hand at the game and he’s sitting tight.”

“Then,” said Paul Pry, “you think that Bostwick knows where the diamond is?”

Mugs Magoo stared at the table where Tom Meek was dining in solitude. “I wouldn’t doubt,” he said, “but what Bostwick has worked up a deal with Patten and smuggled a letter in to Tompkins by Meek. Then Tompkins has sent a reply back and Meek has got it to deliver.”

“Why doesn’t Meek deliver it then?” Pry wanted to know.

“That’s not the way Meek works,” said Mugs Magoo. “He’s one of those cagey individuals that never comes out with anything in the open. He’ll sit around there and eat his dinner. Then he’ll get up and leave the place. The letter will be planted under his plate or under his napkin somewhere, and Bostwick will go over and get it. Then Bostwick will get in touch with Patten and they’ll fix up the deal between them.”

Paul Pry surveyed the dining-room of the speakeasy with wary eyes that missed nothing.

“I could,” said Mugs Magoo plaintively, “stand another bottle of that wine.”

Paul Pry summoned the waiter. “Another pint,” he said.

Mugs Magoo made a grimace. “A pint,” he said, “is a half-bottle.”

“A quart, waiter,” Paul Pry remarked.

Mugs Magoo nodded his satisfaction. “Gonna telephone,” he said. “Be back by the time the wine gets here.”

He scraped back his chair and started in the general direction of the telephones.

It was at that moment that Tom Meek summoned the waiter, paid his check, and arose from the table. He was halfway to the door when the light dimmed to a pale blue effect of imitation moonlight and the orchestra struck up a seductive waltz.

In the confusion of the milling couples on the floor and other couples rising spontaneously from tables and twining into each other’s arms, Frank Bostwick, the lawyer, got to his feet and unobtrusively started toward the table which Meek had vacated.

Paul Pry took instant advantage of the opportunity and the confusion. As swiftly and noiselessly as a trout, gliding through the black depths of a mountain pool, he slipped over to the table where Meek had been sitting. His hands made a questioning exploration of the table. The tips of the searching fingers encountered some flat object beneath the tablecloth and within a very few moments the flat object had been transferred to Paul Pry’s hand.

It was a letter folded and sealed, and Paul Pry made no attempt to read it but folded it once again and thrust it into his shoe. Then he swung slightly to one side and paused before a table where a woman was seated.

The woman was one of a trio who had entered the speakeasy, either the mother or the older sister of the young woman who accompanied her, and who was at the moment sliding into the first steps of the waltz with the young man of the party. She was amazed and flattered at Paul Pry’s attention and, after a moment, when startled surprise gave way to simpering acquiescence in her expression, she permitted herself to be guided out to the centre of the room which was reserved for the dance floor.

Paul Pry moved gracefully in the steps of the waltz. He had an opportunity to peer over the woman’s shoulder and see that Frank Bostwick, the lawyer, was seated at the table that had been vacated by Tom Meek, the letter smuggler.

And Paul Pry’s smile became a chuckle as he realized that the attorney had not observed the surreptitious theft of the missive that Tom Meek had left beneath the tablecloth.

Paul Pry was a handsome individual. Moreover, he had a ready poise and a magnetic manner. His companion was grateful and pleased. And, as Paul Pry returned her to her table at the termination of the waltz, he gave to the older woman the triumph of waiting a few moments until the younger couple had returned to the table. Nor did the sharp eyes of Paul Pry miss the sudden look of incredulous surprise on the face of the younger woman, or the expression of triumphant elation upon the face of the woman with whom he had been dancing.

Then Paul Pry bowed from the waist, muttered his pleasure, and returned once more to his own table.

The chair in which Mugs Magoo had been sitting was now occupied by a woman some twenty-seven years of age. She had a willowy figure, a daring backless gown, and blue eyes that stared at Paul Pry with frank invitation.

Paul Pry paused. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

The woman’s eyes rested upon his face with a directness of gaze that was frankly seductive. The sensuous red lips parted in a smile.

“You should,” she said.

Paul Pry raised his eyebrows.

“Not,” said the young woman still smiling, “that I object so much to your appearance, as to the stereotyped manner in which you have tried to pick me up. I presume you will pretend that this was your table and—” She broke off abruptly with an expression of dismay suffusing her features. “Good heavens!” she said. “It is your table!”

Paul Pry remained standing and smiling.

“Oh!” she said. “I’m so sorry. I had left the room and the lights went down. You see, my escort was called away on a business matter and I returned to my table alone. I just became confused, I guess.”

She made a motion as if to rise, but her wide blue eyes remained fastened steadily upon Paul Pry’s face.

“Well,” he said, “since you’re here, and since, apparently, your escort has left, why not finish the evening with me?”

“Oh, no!” she said. “I couldn’t. Please don’t misunderstand. I assure you it was just an accident.”

“Of course it was an accident,” Paul Pry said and pulled out the other chair, sat down and smiled across at her. “The sort of an accident,” he went on, “that fate sometimes throws in the way of a lone man who appreciates wide blue eyes and coppery hair.”

“Flatterer!” she exclaimed.

Paul Pry, glancing up at that moment, saw Mugs Magoo walking toward the table. And Mugs Magoo abruptly became conscious of the woman who was seated opposite Paul Pry.

The camera-eye man stopped dead in his tracks while his glassy eyes flickered over the features of the woman. Then Mugs Magoo raised his left hand to his ear lobe and tugged at it once, sharply. Then he turned and walked away.

In the course of the association which had grown up between the two adventurers, it had been necessary to arrange an elaborate code of signals, so that, in times of emergency, Mugs Magoo might convey complete ideas to Paul Pry by a single sign. And in their code, the gestures Mugs had just completed meant: “The party who is talking to you knows me and is dangerous. I’m getting under cover so I won’t be recognized. You must extricate yourself from a dangerous position at once.”

It was as Mugs Magoo turned away, that the cooing voice of the young woman reached Paul Pry’s ears.

“Well,” she said, “since you’re so attractive and so nice about it, perhaps I will make an exception just this once. Won’t it be a lark going through the evening pretending that we’re old acquaintances, and each of us not really knowing who the other is. You may call me Stella. And your name?”