Erle Gardner - The Danger Zone and Other Stories

The detective slumped his head on his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said, and it was apparent that his thoughts were far away. The taxicab lurched over the streets. The two passengers lapsed into utter silence, each occupied with his own thoughts.

Sydney Symmes was a big, broad-shouldered, frank-eyed man whose skin still showed a pale bronze. Undoubtedly, he had lived much of his life in the open. He had just lit a cigarette, and kept it in one corner of his mouth as he shook hands, muttered a conventional greeting.

Snowy Shane regarded him with eyes that held a suggestion of bewilderment.

“How come you’re in the building and loan,” he asked. “You’re an outdoor man.”

Sydney Symmes boomed forth a laugh.

“If you’re as good a detective on crime as you’ve just shown yourself to be on occupations, you’ll prove an air-tight case on that girl.”

Shane shook his head, a fierce, swift, impatient gesture.

“I’m trying to show the girl’s innocent.”

“Oh,” said Symmes, and his manner underwent a subtle change. “I thought you were working for the company.”

Snowy Shane let his gray eyes glitter with frosty belligerency.

“You don’t want to have this girl convicted unless she’s guilty, do you?”

Symmes clamped his jaws in a straight line.

“Miss O’Keefe is guilty,” he said.

Snowy Shane grinned.

“Oh well, let’s not argue about it. Where did you get your outdoor complexion?”

Sydney Symmes became cordial again. His eyes softened.

“Forest ranger for the government for fifteen years, down in New Mexico and Southern California.”

Snowy Shane turned to the lawyer.

“You got any questions?” he asked.

Sheridane frowned.

“I’m listening,” he commented.

Shane returned his attention to Symmes.

“Funny you left the service to get into this game.”

“No,” smiled Symmes, “it wasn’t. You see, I was educated as an attorney, but my health gave out and I went into the open. Robb was in my class at college. He often suggested that I should come back to the city. A year or so ago he sold me on the idea. I had a little money. I put it into the building and loan and, through his influence, was placed on the advisory committee.”

Snowy Shane rubbed a speculative forefinger along the angle of his jaw.

“The confession must have come as a shock to you.”

Symmes squinted his eyes, leaned forward. His fists clenched with visible emotion. His voice quivered.

“That confession is a forgery. The man who says Robb was short in his accounts is a damned liar, and that goes for anyone who says it. See?”

There was no mistaking his belligerency.

Shane got to his feet.

“Sure we see,” he remarked, and led the way to the door.

“Wait a minute,” invited Symmes. “I meant no particular offense. I was sticking up for my friend, and I got a little hot-headed, I guess.”

“Yeah,” commented Shane. “You would. That’s your outdoor training. See you later, maybe. Good-bye.”

Sheridane’s brow was corrugated as he settled back in the cushions of the cab.

“That some of the fourth degree stuff?”

Shane nodded casually.

“That’s it,” he said.

“Well,” commented the lawyer in a voice from which he strove to keep his impatience, “it doesn’t help any.”

Snowy Shane stretched out his chunky arms, yawned.

“Uh huh,” he agreed. “Let’s go back to the office where the murder was pulled. I want to see something else.”

Joe Karg, police detective in charge, regarded their second visit with dour disapproval.

“Didn’t you guys see enough the first time?” he asked.

Snowy Shane transfixed him with hostile gaze.

“No,” he said.

He took a cloth sack of tobacco from his pocket, held his pipe cupped in his left hand, poured in the tobacco, and some of the grains spilled to the floor. He lit the pipe and broke the match in two pieces, flipped it under the table, bent to examine the floor.

“The old bloodhound,” remarked Karg with a grin, “looking for tracks.”

“Shut up, Joe,” said Snowy Shane.

He puffed placidly at his pipe, his eye, meanwhile, peering along the floor as though taking measurements. Sheridane nervously glanced at his watch, took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, spat it explosively.

“Listen, Snowy. I’ve got to get to my office. I can’t just stick around.”

Snowy Shane straightened. His eyes were gleaming with frosty enthusiasm.

“Joe,” he said, “will you ring up Sprang, Bagley and Symmes and tell ’em to come over here right away. I got the murder solved.”

Joe Karg jeered at him.

“Yeah, you’re the human bloodhound. Murders are open books to you. You give ’em the once over and—”

Snowy interrupted.

“Of course, if you don’t want a promotion.”

He let his voice trail off into silence. Joe Karg thought that matter over.

“Would I get the credit?”

“You’d get the credit.”

The police detective moved to the telephone.

Sprang was the first to answer the summons. He entered the office, puzzled, awkward, ill at ease. Snowy Shane sat him in a chair, taking pains to make him face the window.

“Sprang,” he said, slowly and impressively, “someone was in this room last night. Someone who smoked cigars, and bit off the ends,”

Sprang’s glassy eyes stared uncomprehendingly for a moment.

“You mean me?” he asked, a flush suffusing his face.

“I don’t know,” said Snowy Shane, “but here’s the end off a cigar that was on the floor. You smoke your own brand. Let me have one of ’em.”

The man handed over a cigar, meekly, questioningly. Snowy Shane extended his hand. “Thanks. That’s all.”

“You called me over here for this?”

“Yes. That’s all. The department will analyze the tobacco in the end of the cigar and the one you gave me.”

Sprang lurched to his feet.

“Of all the damned fools!” he snapped, and lunged from the office.

When he had gone Sheridane eyed the detective coldly.

“I presume you are aware,” he said, formally, “that I was smoking in here a few minutes ago, and the cigar end you have is one I bit off.”

Snowy Shane said nothing. Bagley was entering the room, nervous, furtive, almost cringing in his manner.

“You smoke cigarettes. You roll ’em. Ever spill tobacco?” asked Snowy Shane.

The nervous man blinked his eyes.

“Huh?” he asked.

Snowy Shane pointed to the floor.

“Get down here,” he said. “Look here on the floor, grains of tobacco. The same sort that you use to roll your cigarettes. That means somebody was in this room after the janitor cleaned it last night. That somebody smoked same brand of tobacco you do.

“Now suppose that somebody was the murderer. What’d be more natural than for him to roll a cigarette after he’d done the job? And his hand would be shaking, and he’d spill some of the tobacco, and—”

The nervous man interrupted.

“You lie!” he screamed. “I wasn’t here. I know nothing about the murder. I can prove it. You’re a double-crossing crook. You planted that tobacco here. You came out to my house and saw the kind of tobacco I smoked, and—”

Joe Karg clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Easy, bo,” he said, wamingly.

Snowy Shane waved a hand toward the door.

“That’s all,” he said.

Bagley wanted to remain and talk, but Karg escorted him out. They closed the door and waited some five minutes for Symmes. Karg’s eyes were singularly unenthusiastic.

“Hope you don’t think you’re getting anywhere with this stuff, Snowy,” he observed.