CROSS-STITCH KILLER

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.

“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice.

“A package for you,” said Paul Pry.

The door opened a few inches. A woman’s hand and bare arm protruded. “Give it to me,” she said.

Paul Pry pushed the door open.

She fell back with a little scream.

She had slipped out of her dress and was attired in underwear, shoes and stockings. There was a costume on a stool beside a dressing table and a kimono draped carelessly over a chair. The young woman made no attempt to pick up the kimono, but stood staring at Paul Pry, apparently entirely unconscious of her apparel.

“Well,” she said, “what’s the big idea?”

“Listen,” said Paul Pry, “I came from him – the man who got you to get that cheque from the post office. You know what I mean.”

Her face was suddenly drained of colour, her eyes dark with alarm. “Yes,” she said in a low, half-choked voice.

“What did they tell you at the bank?” said Paul Pry. “It’s important as hell.”

“Mr Hammond,” she said, “said that he would make the cheque right. He wanted the bank to cash it, but they wouldn’t cash a forged cheque. He said that he’d make the cheque good. I telephoned a few minutes ago and explained the whole thing. You should have known.”

“There’s some question about that,” Paul Pry said. “You telephoned to the wrong number. Somebody else seems to have got the information. Are you sure you telephoned to the right number?”

There was a puzzled frown on her forehead. She nodded slowly.

“What was the number?” asked Paul Pry.

She fell back from him suddenly, as though he had struck her. Her face was deathly white. She seemed to shrink within herself. “Who … who … who are you?” she asked in a voice which was shrill with panic.

“I told you who I am,” Paul Pry said.

She shook her head slowly. Her eyes were wide and dark. “Get out of here!” she said in a half whisper. “For God’s sake get out of here while there’s still time!”

Paul Pry took a step toward her. “Listen,” he said, “you either know what you’re mixed up in or you don’t. In any event …”

A woman’s scream, shrill and high-pitched, interrupted his sentence. The scream seemed to come from one of the adjoining dressing-rooms.

Paul Pry stood still, listening, his eyes slitted, his mouth a thin, straight line. The scream rang out again, louder and more insistent.

Paul Pry stared at the woman. “Who’s that screaming?” he asked.

She could hardly answer, so great was her terror. Her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. Her throat seemed paralysed. At length, she stammered: “It’s Thelma … that’s her room next to mine.”

“Thelma?” asked Paul Pry.

She nodded.

“Tell me,” said Paul Pry, “was that the girl who drove the coupé that took you to the post office and the bank?”

She nodded once more.

Paul Pry jabbed his finger at her as though he had been stabbing her with a weapon. “You,” he said, “stay right there. Don’t you make a move. Don’t try to go out. Don’t let anyone else in. When I come back you let me in. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

Paul jerked the door open.

The scream from the adjoining dressing-room sounded once more as Paul Pry jumped through the doorway into the corridor, and flung himself at the door of the next dressing-room.

The door was unlocked.

Paul Pry pushed his way into the dressing-room, then, at what he saw, kicked the door shut behind him.

The young woman who had given him the name Thelma when he had caught her trying on clothes in the millionaire’s apartment, was standing in the far corner of the room. Her waist was torn open at the throat, ripped for its entire length. The brassiere was pulled down from her shoulders. Her hair was in disarray. Her skirt was lying on a chair. Her step-ins were torn in two or three places. She held a gun in her right hand. As Paul Pry kicked the door shut, she screamed again.

Paul Pry stared at her and at the gun.

“OK, Thelma,” he said. “What’s the trouble? Quick!”

She swayed toward him. “C-c-c-can’t you see?” she said.

“I can see plenty,” he told her, looking at the white of the girl’s skin, a white which showed angry red places where, apparently, blows had been rained.

“Did you see the man who went out of here?” she asked.

Paul Pry shook his head. He was staring at her with eyes narrowed.

“I c-c-c-can’t tell you,” she said. “Come over here and let me w-w-w-whisper to you. It was awful!”

Paul Pry moved toward her.

She shivered. “I’m c-c-c-cold,” she said. “I’m going to faint. Take off your coat and put it around me. I’m so c-c-c-cold. Put your coat around my shoulders.” She swayed toward him.

Paul Pry jumped forward and caught her by the shoulders. He spun her abruptly, brutally, jerking the gun from her hand as he did so.

She staggered halfway across the small dressing-room, dropped to a chair and sat staring at Paul Pry with startled eyes.

“All right,” said Paul Pry, “now give me the low-down and do it quick!”

“How did you know?” she asked.

“It was too raw,” he told her. “Give me the low-down.”

“I don’t think I could have gone through with it anyway,” she said. “But my life depended on it.”

“All right,” he said, “I think I know the answer, but tell me what it was.”

“I saw that you were following us,” she said. “I recognized you. I telephoned the information to the party to whom I make my reports. He told me to rush up to my dressing-room, pull my clothes off, make it look as though I had been attacked, and scream. When you came in, I was to shoot. He gave me the gun, but he didn’t trust me. He only gave me one shell in the gun. I was to fire that one shell when you were so close I couldn’t miss. When he heard the shot, he was to come in. I was to swear that you had tried to attack me.”

“Then what?” asked Paul Pry.

“That’s all,” she said, “if the sound of the shot attracted any attention. If it didn’t, I wasn’t going to figure in it. I wasn’t going to have to say anything. He was going to dispose of your body some way; I don’t know how. All I had to do was to pack up my things and take a long trip around the world. He was going to give me the tickets and everything.”

“And if you didn’t do it?” asked Paul Pry.

“Then,” she said, “neither one of us was to come out of here alive.”

“You know of the murderous activities of this man you’re working for?” asked Paul Pry.

She hesitated a moment, then nodded her head. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I know now. I didn’t until a few minutes ago.”

“And,” said Paul Pry, “he’s here in this restaurant?”

“He owns the place,” she said.

Paul Pry flipped open the cylinder of the gun. It was as the young woman had said – there was but one shell in it.

Paul Pry pushed the cylinder back into position. “Let’s get out,” he said.

She shook her head. “You can’t do it,” she said. “He’s waiting outside, and he’s got another man with him. They’re going to kill us both unless I go through with what he told me to do.”

“Suppose no one from the outside hears the shot?” said Paul Pry. “Then what?”

“Then,” she said, “I think …”

“Go on,” he told her, as her voice trailed away into silence, “tell me what you think.”

Her voice came in a whisper. “I think,” she said, “he’s going to sew up your lips and dump your body somewhere.”

She shuddered and trembled as though with a chill.

Paul Pry stood in front of her, staring at her with level, appraising eyes. “Look here, Thelma,” he said, “if you’re lying to me it’s going to mean your life. Tell me the truth. If no one hears the shot, he’s going to dispose of my body that way?”

She nodded, then said, after a minute, in a dull, hopeless tone: “But it’s no use now. We’re both going to die. You don’t know him. You don’t know how absolutely, unutterably ruthless, how unspeakably cruel …”

Paul Pry moved swiftly. He took the dressing table, tilted it to a sharp angle, pulled open one of the drawers, inserted the revolver and pulled the trigger.

The gun gave forth a muffled boom.

Paul Pry toppled the dressing table to the floor. It fell with a bang which shook the walls.

Paul Pry, stepping back, tossed the useless gun to the floor, took the razor-keen blade of his sword cane from its scabbard, held himself flat against the wall, just to one side of the door, so that the opening door would serve to conceal him from who entered the room.

There was a period of silence.

Thelma put her head in her hands and started to cry.

Slowly, the knob on the door rattled into motion. The latch clicked; the door opened slowly. Two men entered the room. Paul Pry could hear the sounds of their shuffling feet, but could not see them.

A masculine voice said: “Where is he, Thelma?”

The sobbing girl said nothing, but kept her face in her hands, sobbing hopelessly.

The men moved further into the room. One of them walked toward her.

Paul Pry took a deep breath and kicked the door shut.

Two pairs of startled eyes stared at him. One of the men was the man who had been on guard at the door of the speakeasy. The other was a man Paul Pry had never seen before – a well-dressed man with curly, black hair, eyes that glinted with dark fire. He had a saturnine cast to his countenance, and his face seemed to radiate a sort of hypnotic power.

Both men had guns which dangled from their hands.

The man who had guarded the door of the speakeasy was nearest to Paul Pry. He raised his gun.

Paul Pry lunged forward. The slender blade of his sword cane, appearing hardly stronger than a long darning needle, flicked out like the tongue of a snake. The glittering steel embedded itself in the left side of the man’s chest.

The man wilted into lifelessness. Blood spurted along the stained steel of the cane as Paul Pry whipped it out and whirled.

The man with the dark, curly hair fired. The bullet clipped past Paul Pry’s body so close that it caught the folds of his coat, tugging and ripping at the garment as though some invisible hand had suddenly snatched at the cloth.

Paul Pry’s slender steel flicked out and down. The razor-keen edge cut the tendons on the back of the man’s right hand. The nerveless fingers dropped the gun to the floor.

With an oath, he jumped back, flung his left hand under the folds of his coat, whipped out a long-bladed knife.

Paul Pry lunged once more. The man parried the lunge with his knife. Steel grated on steel.

Paul Pry’s light blade was turned aside by the heavy knife. The momentum of Pry’s lunge carried him forward. The dark-haired man laughed sardonically as he turned the point of the knife toward Paul Pry’s throat.

But Paul Pry managed, by a superhuman effort, to catch himself just as he seemed on the point of impaling his throat on the knife. His adversary recognized too late that he had lost the advantage. He thrust outward with the knife, but his left hand made the thrust awkward and ill-timed. Paul Pry jumped back from the thrust. Once more the point of his sword cane was flickering in front of him, a glittering menace of steel which moved swiftly.

“So,” he said, “you know how to fence?”

The dark-haired man held the heavy knife in readiness to parry the next thrust. “Yes,” he said, “I know how to fence far better than you, my friend.”

“And I suppose,” said Paul Pry, “that is the knife which accounted for the men whose lips were sewed together.”

“Just a little trade mark of mine,” admitted the man with the knife. “When I leave here, your lips and Thelma’s lips will be sewed in the same manner. I’ll drop your bodies …”

Paul Pry moved with bewildering swiftness. The point of his narrow steel blade darted forward.

The man flung the knife into a position to parry the thrust. “Clumsy,” he said.

But Paul Pry’s wrist deflected the point at just the proper moment to slide the slender steel just inside the blade of the heavy knife.

The dark-haired man had time to register an expression of bewildered consternation. Then Pry’s flicking bodkin buried itself in his heart, and his face ceased to show any expression whatever.