FOUR

At the Billington Hotel Paul Pry registered as George Inman and was given a room.

“There’s a telephone call for you,” said the clerk. “The party seemed very anxious to have you call as soon as you came in.”

He handed Paul Pry a number.

“OK,” said Paul Pry.

He went to his room, tipped the bellboy, pocketed the key and went out.

“Did you call the number?” asked the clerk.

“I called it,” said Paul Pry.

The clerk nodded, snapped the lock on the safe, yawned. Paul Pry boarded a cruising cab. The address which he gave was within a block of the place where the girl had driven him into the private driveway which terminated in the mysterious garage at the rear of the apartment house of such unconventional design.

Paul Pry told the cab to wait, walked the block, climbed a fence, and found himself in the cemented courtyard in the rear of the apartment house. He opened the back door, climbed the carpeted stairs.

He paused at the door of the girl’s apartment long enough to go through the formality of pressing the button of the door signal. As he had expected, there was no answer, no sign of life from within.

Paul Pry produced a flat leather receptacle which contained some two dozen keys, chosen for general efficiency. He opened the door with the third key, boldly switched on the light and walked in.

He closed and bolted the door, lit a cigarette, hummed a little tune, and walked into the bedroom.

The young woman had left her evening clothes, crumpled into a careless wad, and thrown on the bed. She had evidently donned a plain street suit which would be inconspicuous. The white fur coat was hanging in the closet.

Paul Pry looked on the top of the dresser, frowned, prowled about the drawers, paused to consider, and then went to the closet and put his hand in the pocket of the fur coat. His face lit with a smile of satisfaction as his questing fingers closed on a folded sheet of paper. He pulled it out.

It was the typewritten note that the woman had taken from the messenger boy.

Paul Pry read it.

All right, Lola, we’ve got Bill Sacanoni. He goes for a ride unless we get what we want and get it in a hurry. First, we want ten grand stuck in a bag and delivered at the place we told you. Second, we want George Inman put on the spot. You’ve stuck up for him and shielded him long enough. We know all about him. You’ve got until daylight to do your stuff. Then Bill gets his. We know you can get the coin, but we want to be sure about Inman.

The note was unsigned.

Paul Pry thrust it in his pocket, paused, halfway to the door, then returned and put it back in the pocket of the fur coat. He clicked off the lights, opened the door and slipped out into the corridor.

He walked to the cab, and told the driver to take him to a certain street corner near the wholesale district. That corner was near the spot where Paul Pry maintained a secret apartment, a place where he could live and be reasonably safe from danger while he formulated his plans, rested between coups.

He discharged the cab, made certain that he was not followed, and entered the apartment. Mugs Magoo blinked glassy eyes at him.

“You still here?”

“Sure. Where’d you think I was going?”

“To keep an appointment with the undertaker.”

“Not yet.”

Mugs Magoo grunted, reached for the bottle of whiskey that was at his elbow.

“Not yet, but soon.”

Paul Pry ignored the comment, took off his hat and light coat, sat down in a chair, and lit a cigarette.

“Why the danger signal, Mugs?”

Mugs Magoo snorted.

“Because the place was lousy with guns. I spotted ’em from across the street. They were in the shadows behind you. They weren’t waiting for you, or you’d have been dead long before you got the signal. But I figured there was going to be some guns popping, and the innocent bystander usually makes the biggest target. Then again, being a witness to a gang killing ain’t so nice from the standpoint of life insurance risks.”

Paul Pry nodded. His voice, when he spoke, was almost dreamy.

“The girl, Mugs?”

“That was Lola Beeker. She’s in with a big bottle, name of Bill Sacanoni. I think that was him that crawled outa the car an’ got beat up.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Why didn’t they use guns, Mugs?”

“Wanted to avoid the bulls for one thing, and wanted to muscle Bill away. They’ll hold him for something. The guns had the street cleared. They started turning pedestrians away right after you slipped through. There’s a gangster’s doctor in the block, and I guess they was spottin’ his office.”

Paul Pry reached in his inside pocket and took out the cards he had purloined from the files of the gangsters’ physician.

He looked at the card of Lola Beeker.

It gave her name, age, address, list of symptoms that had to do with a minor nervous complaint. The card bore a notation that Bill Sacanoni would pay the bill. The card also gave the address of Bill Sacanoni.

Paul Pry turned it under, and looked at the card of the man who had been treated that evening, between the hours of eleven and twelve.

The name was Frank Jamison. The address was in an apartment hotel well toward the upper end of town. The card gave lists of various treatments. Once the treatment was for alcoholism. Once the treatment was for gunshot wounds, and the last treatment was for a stabbing wound in the shoulder.

Paul Pry nodded.

That would be the man who had swung the blackjack at the girl, the one who had felt the bite of Paul Pry’s sword cane as it jabbed home.

“Who is Frank Jamison, Mugs?”

Mugs Magoo regarded the empty whiskey glass with judicial solemnity, reached for the bottle, and knitted his brows.

“Don’t place the moniker. Maybe it’s phoney. Know what he looks like?”

“Five feet nine, one hundred and seventy or about that. Has a funny pointed jaw, like a battleship’s bow–”

Mugs Magoo interrupted. “That places him,” he said, “and I remember now he used to use the name o’ Jamison. It’s his middle name. Frank Jamison Kling is the full name. He’s a big shot. They say he makes a specialty of musclin’ people into big ransoms.”

“Is he,” asked Paul Pry, “likely to be the head of his gang?”

“Sure. If he was in that scuffle about the car, he’s the man that was running the show.”

“And likely to be the one who gets the money when it’s over?”

“Sure to,” grunted Mugs.

“How about George Inman?” asked Paul Pry.

Mugs Magoo lowered the whiskey glass. Surprise showed in the glassy eyes that were usually so utterly devoid of expression.

“Guy,” he said, “don’t tell me you’re monkeyin’ with that bird!”

“Why?” asked Paul Pry.

Mugs Magoo heaved a deep sigh.

“I gotta hand it to you. It’s a gift, gettin’ into deep water every time you start wadin’. You don’t ever pick no ordinary dangers. When you start gettin’ into trouble, you wade right in over your necktie.

“That bird Inman, now – Well, there’s talk going around about that baby. He’s one of the upper crust of gangsters, and he’s playing both ends against the middle. Of course, George Inman ain’t nothing but a name. It’s the name this big shot uses when he’s slipping over a fast one.

“He works under cover all the time, and nobody’s ever been able to get a line on him. They know the name, and that’s all. It’s a cinch he’s one of the biggest shots in town. That much they know because they got sort of a line on what Inman knows.

“There’s fifteen or twenty of the big guys that’d give a neat slice of jack to learn who Inman really was. When they knew, Inman wouldn’t last long. If you’re monkeying around with anybody that gives the name of Inman, just gimme the money to go get myself measured for a suit of black. I’ll need it before I get any fatter, anyway; and I may need it as soon as the tailor can get it fitted.”

Paul Pry arose, crossed to the closet where he kept his collection of drums.

He took down a Buddhist temple drum that resembled a huge bronze bowl. This drum was merely rubbed into sound, not struck with a stick as other drums were.

Paul Pry took the leather-covered stick and started rubbing the lip of the drum. His hand moved slowly. At first there was no sound whatever. Then, as the speed of the rubbing stick increased, there sounded a low monotone of sound which filled the apartment, yet which seemed to emanate from no particular source.

“It drives me nuts,” said Mugs Magoo.

Paul Pry said nothing until after the last bit of sound had died away. Then he sighed, raised his eyes to Mugs Magoo’s face.

“Alcohol, Mugs, has robbed your ears of their sense of rhythm.”

“If they’d only rob ’em of a sense of sound, so far as those drums are concerned, so I couldn’t hear ’em, I’d be better satisfied.”

Paul Pry let his eyes rest dreamily upon the drum.

“It soothes the soul, Mugs. That’s why they use it as a preliminary to worship in those temples where the religion is a philosophical rite of inner meditation. It’s a wonderful philosophy, Buddhism, Mugs, and the drum has a tendency to fill my mind with inner quiet, a comparative poise that’s so necessary to concentration.”

Mugs Magoo refilled his whiskey glass.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a great philosophy maybe. But the trouble with them Buddhists is that they don’t wear no pants.”

Paul Pry grinned.

“That’s begging the question, Mugs.”

“The hell it is,” retorted Mugs Magoo, “you’re goin’ heathen, working your mind up to the right pitch with a lot o’ boomin’ drums. One o’ these days you’ll take to smokin’ one o’ these here hookahs, an’ throwin’ your pants away. I’m humorin’ you now, because if you was dyin’ o’ pneumonia, I’d give you your last wishes. You’re just the same as a dyin’ man right now. And if you’re monkeyin’ around with a guy that goes by the name of George Inman, you’re just the same as parked on a marble slab.”

Paul Pry laid down the drumstick.

“I’m glad you mentioned this Inman again, Mugs. It reminds me of a telephone call I almost forgot to make.”

He crossed the room to the telephone, called the number which the clerk at the Billington Hotel had given him.

“Hello,” he said as a feminine voice answered, “this is George Inman, at the Billington Hotel. Was someone calling me?”

At the other end of the room there came a startled gasp, a choking exclamation that was mingled with the sputtering noise of a man who is almost strangling.

The woman’s voice crisped a swift comment.

“Where are you, George dear? In your room?”

It was the voice of the woman who had worn the white fur coat.

“Yes,” said Paul Pry.

“Just a minute, George, there’s a friend of mine wants to speak with you. He wants to give you an important message.”

There came the sounds over the wire of rustling motion, then a man’s voice.

“Yeah, hello,” it gruffed.

“Yes?” said Paul Pry.

“Well, listen,” said the man’s voice, speaking hastily. “I’m a friend of Lola’s. You recognized her voice over the telephone?”

“Yes. Sure,” said Paul Pry, “but I’m afraid I don’t want to deal with any friend of hers. My business is with her.”

“Yeah, sure it is,” said the man. “But she can’t get to come alone. She wanted me to give you a ring so I could explain what’s happened.

“She’s in a jam, and she’s got to see you right away. Now you wait right there in your room. Keep the door locked. Don’t open up for anyone until she gets there, and don’t even answer the telephone. Get me?

“We’re coming over just as soon as we can make a break, and we want to be sure we ain’t tailed. See? Now you and Lola can go ahead with that thing just like you planned, only you gotta wait until she gets there. Here she is on the telephone.”

The man relinquished the instrument. The voice of the girl who had worn the fur coat came to Paul Pry’s ears.

“It’s all right, George. I’ll explain when we get there. Only sit right in the room. Don’t open until you hear someone rap twice, then a pause, then three raps, then another pause, and then a single rap.

“That’ll be me. The man with me is OK.”

“OK,” he said, at length. “If you say it’s OK I guess it is.”

“Right over,” said the woman’s voice. “You stay right there until we get there.”

Paul Pry hung up the receiver, turned to stare into Mugs Magoo’s florid features.

“Oh, Lord!” groaned Mugs. “I thought you’d done the damndest fool things a guy could ever do – but being George Inman! That takes the cake! An’ when you spilled that dope it made me swallow my drink of whiskey down the wrong side of my throat, and anything that’ll make a guy do that with really good whiskey, is a public calamity.

“Go ahead an’ play around while you’ve got the chance, because when you get all stretched out with a coroner’s jury starin’ at the doctor, while he points out the course of the bullets through the body, you won’t have no kick outa life at all. Just go right ahead, guy, only shake hands with me before you go out again. I hate to see you go, but you might as well finish it up and get the suspense over with.”

Paul Pry grinned.

“Mugs,” he said solemnly, “I have an idea that I’m going to meet some tough gangsters. That is, Mugs, they think they’re tough. But, to me, they’re going to be nice little goosies, laying golden eggs.”

Mugs Magoo disregarded the glass in favour of more direct action. As he removed the neck of the bottle from appreciative lips, he muttered: “An’ there’s a frail at the bottom of it. That’s a cinch.”

Paul Pry nodded. He was putting on his coat, hefting the balance of his sword cane. “Yes, Mugs, you’re right again. There’s a lady at the bottom of it, Mugs, a lady who says yes.”

Mugs Magoo extended a solemn hand.

“You was a good pal,” he said, “–while you lasted!”