Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

“Just a minute,” he said. “I think you’re nervous and excited, Mr. Hammond. If you’ll just...”

He was interrupted by more squawking noises from the receiver.

The line at which Paul Pry had been standing moved up, so that Paul Pry found himself at the window.

“I wish to make a deposit,” he said, thrusting the deposit slip through the window, together with ten of the one-hundred-dollar bills he had received from the bank earlier in the day.

The man at the window was smiling and affable. “You should go down to the fourth window,” he said, “the one marked ‘Deposits — M to R’.”

Paul Pry looked apologetic and embarrassed.

“Just right down there where you see the lettering over the window,” said the man, smiling unctuously.

Paul Pry walked slowly past the cashier’s window. He was in time to hear the cashier say to the officer: “It’s quite all right, Madson. We can’t cash this cheque because the signature is irregular; but Mr. Hammond promises that he will rectify the matter, so far as Mr. Burke is concerned. It seems there’s been a very serious mistake, for which the bank is in no way responsible. It’s due to the carelessness of a customer in mailing cheques payable to bearer...”

There was more, which Paul Pry could not hear because it was delivered in a lower voice, a voice which was almost surreptitiously confidential, and because appearances required that Paul Pry should move over toward the window which had been pointed out to him.

He did, however, see the young lady move away from the window, in the direction of the telephone booths. She dropped a coin and called a number. She talked rapidly and excitedly, then paused to listen for several seconds, at the end of which time she nodded her head and hung up the telephone.

Paul Pry followed her from the bank, down to the kerb, where he saw the same car which he had seen parked in front of the post office. The young woman got into the car, which at once drove off.

This time, Paul Pry’s car was parked where he had no difficulty in getting into an advantageous position directly behind the coupé which he was trailing. He ripped the red police tag from the steering wheel, thrust it in his pocket, and concentrated his attention upon following the car ahead.

It was not a particularly easy task. The young woman in the car ahead was a good driver, and she was evidently going some place in very much of a hurry.

The car stopped, at length, in front of a building which apparently housed a speakeasy. The young woman left the car, walked across the kerb with rapid, nervous steps, rang a bell and stood perfectly still while a panel slid back in the door and a face regarded her.

A moment later, the door opened, and the young woman vanished.

The coupé left the kerb, and, as it sped away, the driver turned for one last look at the door where the young woman had been admitted.

Paul Pry started nervously as he saw the face pressed against the glass in the rear window of the coupé. It was the face of the young woman he had met previously in the apartment which Charles B Darwin had maintained so secretly, the young woman who had been trying on clothes in front of the mirror. However, it was too late then to do anything about it. The coupé continued on its way, and Paul Pry began to put into operation a certain very definite plan he had in mind.

There was a drug store across the street, and Paul Pry stepped across to it, purchased a woman’s purse, a lipstick, compact, handkerchief, a package of chewing gum. He paid for the purchases with one of the hundred-dollar bills he had received, and thrust the change into the purse. He also folded two more of the hundred-dollar bills and pushed them into the purse. The drug clerk watched him curiously, but said nothing.

Paul Pry walked back across the street to the speakeasy. He rang the bell and a panel slid back.

“About four or five minutes ago,” said Paul Pry, “there was a young woman, a brunette, wearing a blue skirt and a small, tight-fitting, blue hat. She got out of a coupé and came in here.”

“What about it?” said the frosty voice of the man who regarded Paul Pry with hostile eyes through the wicket in the doorway.

“I’ve got to see her,” said Paul Pry.

“You got a card?”

“No. But I’ve got to see that young woman.”

“You can’t see her.”

Paul Pry fidgeted. “You see,” he said, “she dropped her purse. I picked it up and intended to return it to her. Then I looked inside of it and saw what was in it, and the temptation was too much for me. I started to run away with it. You see, I’ve got a wife and a couple of kiddies who haven’t had anything much to eat for two or three days now. I’ve been out of work and my savings are completely used up. I had to do anything I could to get by. When I saw the money in this purse, I decided I wouldn’t return the purse. Then, after I’d walked half a block, I realized I couldn’t steal, so I had to bring it to her.”

“All right,” said the man, “give me the purse and I’ll take it to her.”

Paul Pry opened the purse. “Look,” he said, “there’s almost three hundred dollars in it.”

“I’ll take it to her,” said the man in the doorway.

“Like hell you will,” said Paul Pry. “She’ll probably give me a five spot, or perhaps a ten, or she might even get generous and give me a twenty. That would mean a lot to me. I couldn’t take the purse, but I sure as hell could take a reward.”

“If she wants to give you a reward, I’ll bring it to you,” said the man.

Paul Pry’s laugh was mocking and scornful.

The man on the other side of the door seemed undecided.

“You either let me in and I take it to her personally,” said Paul Pry, “or she doesn’t get it. If you want to keep a customer from getting her purse back, it’s all right by me; I’ve done my duty in trying to return it. If you won’t let her have it, I’ll put an ad in the paper telling the whole circumstances.”

“Look here,” said the man who glowered through the opening in the doorway, “this is a high-class restaurant. We put on a floor show, and the young woman who just came in is one of the girls who works in the floor show. Now you’ve got that purse and it belongs to her. If you try to take it away, I’ll call a cop and have you arrested.”

Paul Pry sneered. “A fat chance you’ve got of calling a cop,” he said. “I’d raise a commotion and tell the whole cock-eyed world that this place was a speakeasy; that I was trying to get in to return the purse and you wouldn’t let me in, but started calling a cop. If you’re a respectable restaurant why the hell don’t you open your door so the public can patronize you?”

The bolts slipped back in the door.

“Oh hell,” said the man, “come on in and get it over with. You’re just one of those damn pests that show up every so often.”

“Where do I find her?” asked Paul Pry.

“The name is Ellen Tracy. She’s in one of the dressing-rooms up on the second floor. I’ll have one of the waiters take you up.”

“And want to chisel in on the reward,” said Paul Pry. “Not much you don’t. I’m on my way right now.”

He pushed past the man and ran up the stairs.

There was a telephone at the man’s elbow. As Paul Pry was halfway up the stairs he heard the telephone ring, heard the man answer it and then lower his voice to a mere confidential mumble.

Paul Pry would have given much to have heard that conversation, but he had no time to wait. With his sword cane grasped firmly in his hand, he took the stairs two at a time. He walked rapidly across a dance floor, pushed his way through a curtained doorway, walked up a flight of steps. He saw a row of doors, one with the name “Ellen Tracy” painted on it. He tapped with his knuckles.