Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

The cab driver swung in behind the line of cars that crawled along close to the kerb and Slick Stella Molay said: “This is the place.”

Within a few seconds Paul Pry was handing Stella out from the taxicab and receiving her gracious smile.

“Darling,” she said, “you look splendid. You make my heart go pitty-pat. You look exactly like a burglar.”

Paul Pry accepted the compliment and paid off the taxi driver.

“I’ll say he looks like a burglar,” said the taxi driver, pocketing the money. “It was all I could do to keep from shelling out instead of handing him the meter slip. You see, lady, I was stuck up a week ago and my stomach still feels cold where the gun was pointed.”

“And, so this,” said Paul Pry, “is the lair of the famous Silver Dawson?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s the blackmail king of the underworld. He’s a fighter. I wish someone would kill him.”

“Will I meet him,” asked Paul Pry, “as we go in?”

“No,” she said. “Simply show your invitation to the man at the door and then we’ll go in and mingle with the crowd for a minute, have a drink of punch and perhaps a dance. After that you go upstairs. The study is the room on the front of the house on the second floor and the papers are there in the desk. I’ve given you the key.”

“Then what?” asked Paul Pry.

“Then,” she said, “we mingle around with the crowd a little longer and then go back to the apartment.”

“Without unmasking?” asked Paul Pry.

“Without unmasking,” she said. “I would have to unmask if you did, and if Silver Dawson saw me here he’d know right away something was wrong and that our invitations had been forged.”

“And if I should meet any of the servants?” asked Paul Pry.

“Then,” she said, “go ahead and stick a gun in their ribs. Tie them and gag them if you have to, or knock them out. You don’t need to worry, because if anybody should touch you, you could claim that you were looking for the restroom.”

She turned and flashed him a dazzling look from her wide blue eyes, a smile from her sensuous, parted lips.

“You see,” she said, “everybody would know that you had attended the masquerade in this costume so it would be all right.”

Paul Pry nodded. “All right,” he said, “let’s go.”

They walked into the house, surrendered their forged invitations to a doorman and mingled with the crowd. A dozen or more couples were already hilarious from the effects of a remarkably strong punch which was being dished out in quantities by an urbane individual in evening clothes, who had a napkin hanging over his left forearm.

Paul Pry escorted Stella to the punch bowl and, after the second drink of punch, she whirled him out to the floor as the orchestra struck up a dance.

She held herself close to him and whispered words of soft endearment in his ear as they moved lightly across the floor.

“Darling,” she said, “you’d be surprised at how grateful I’m going to be.”

“Yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The prerogatives of a long friendship, you know.”

Paul Pry missed a step and suddenly tightened his arms about the willowy figure in order to let her understand his appreciation.

“I think,” she cooed, leaning toward him so that her lips were close to his, “we had better swing over toward this darkest corner by the door. That door leads to the hallway and you go up the stairs and into the front room. I think Silver Dawson is the man dressed in the red devil suit over there by the punch bowl. I’m quite certain there won’t be anyone on the upper floor. I’ve kept my eyes open, getting the servants spotted, and I’m sure they’re all downstairs.”

“You seem to know the house quite well,” said Paul Pry.

“Yes,” she said, “I have been here several times before. Sometimes as a guest and more recently as a suppliant, offering anything to get the letters back.”

“Anything?” asked Paul Pry.

“Almost anything,” she said softly.

The music stopped. Stella pressed her form close to Paul Pry’s for one tantalizing moment, then breathed softly: “Hurry, dear, and then we can leave.”

Paul Pry nodded and slipped unostentatiously through the doorway into the dark hall.

There were no servants in sight. A flight of stairs led to the upper corridor and Paul Pry took them on swiftly silent feet, moving with a light grace and catlike speed.

But Paul Pry did not turn to the left and go toward the front of the house. Instead he flattened himself against a door which opened upon the corridor near the head of the stairs, and listened carefully.

After a second or two he dropped to his hands and knees and tried the knob of the door.

The door swung inward and Paul Pry, lying prone on the floor, where he would be clear of the line of fire in the event anyone should have been standing in the doorway, peered into the dark interior of the room.

There was no sound or motion. The room was a bedroom and the light which filtered in from the hallway showed a walnut bed, a dressing table and bureau.

There was a ribbon of light which seeped through from the bottom of a door at the other end of the room.

Paul Pry got to his feet, moved swiftly and silently, stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Then he walked purposefully toward the door where he could see the ribbon of light.

He was more confident as he tried the knob of this door, but equally careful to make no sound. He leaned his weight against the door so as to remove any tension from the latch, turned the knob very slowly to eliminate any possibility of noise. When the catch was free, he pulled the door toward him a bit at a time.

The door opened and Paul Pry, peering through, saw that he was looking into a bathroom, sumptuously appointed. At the other side of the bathroom was a door panelled with a full-length mirror.

Paul Pry stepped into the bathroom and turned out the light by the simple expedient of unscrewing the globe a half turn. Then he devoted his attention to the knob of the opposite doorway.

That knob slowly turned till the catch was free and Paul Pry opened the door an inch at a time.

The bathroom was now dark, so that there was no light behind him, to pour into the room as the door was opened.

This door opened into the study which Stella had pointed out to him as being at the front of the house, and the place where the desk was located that contained the precious letters.

A floor lamp was arranged with the shade tilted so that the rays of light were directed full against a door, which Paul Pry surmised must be the door into the corridor and through which he had been supposed to make his entrance.

Standing in the shadows, back of that light, his eyes cold and grim, a heavy automatic held in his right hand, was an undersized man with a sloping forehead, a large nose and rabbit teeth that showed through his half-parted lips.

Noiselessly Paul Pry swung the door open and stepped into the room upon catlike feet.

He had made three steps before some slight noise or perhaps some intuition warned the man with the gun. He whirled with an exclamation of surprise and raised the weapon.

Paul Pry swung swiftly with his right fist. At the same time he leaped forward.

There was the sound of the hissing exclamation of surprise which came from the man with the gun, the noise of swiftly shuffling feet, the impact of a fist on flesh and then a half groan as the man with the rabbit teeth sank to the carpeted floor.

Paul Pry pocketed the gun. “Make a sound,” he said, “and I’ll slit your throat.”

But the man on the floor was limp and unconscious.

Paul Pry moved swiftly. A handkerchief was thrust into the man’s mouth, a bit of strong cord from his pocket looped around the man’s wrist and bit into the flesh. Then Paul Pry’s hands darted swiftly and purposefully through the man’s clothing.