Experiment in Crime (6 page)

"I supervise the kitchen," Connie said proudly. "And I helped re-do the gambling room. Isn't it gorgeous?"

"Very," said the professor--that being as much as he could say for the moment.

Fortunately for him, the butler wheeled in a tea wagon and Double-O mixed a Tom Collins for Connie and a Scotch and water for the professor. For himself he made nothing, and explained that he did not drink.

"Now," he said, taking the chair in which he had been sitting, "I would enjoy hearing the story from you, Professor Burke."

"First," the professor said, "I'd like to know-how things turned out?"

Double-O laughed.

"They kept all of us at Headquarters till morning. They searched the place--ripped it up a bit. Let us go finally. I called Connie--"

The girl had taken a seat on the floor by the fire and the cat was in her lap. "I asked him to look at his mail."

The gambler went to a desk and took an envelope from the drawer. "Your money, Professor. Connie says part of it represents winnings at my tables. I'm delighted!"

"In other words--the--funds--reached you?"

"Yes, Professor. They did. Thanks to you. Now--let's have the story."

Professor Burke told it, in bare outline and with several deletions. Double-O

listened--his face reflecting understanding, excitement, appreciation. "I suppose," he said when the professor finished, "that you knew French Paul would just as soon use a gun as not?"

"He slapped Miss Maxson--with no need. She hadn't even refused to answer his query. He simply slapped her. Brutally. There was no alternative for me but to tell the swine--"

"No alternative, eh?" Double-O's grey eyes seemed amused. "I also suppose you realize you quite possibly saved a very large sum of my money from confiscation? Not to mention my niece's life--perhaps--if she'd been alone."

"He wouldn't accept the car--" Connie said.

Double-O nodded. "I was afraid of that." He stretched his legs and looked at his shoes for a moment. "Professor," he said, "I'm possibly a curious man--from your viewpoint. My ideas of ethics may differ from your ideas. But I think our concept of gratitude must be about the same. I never owed anyone so much as I owe you. It was foolish to offer the car and hope you'd accept. I realize I haven't anything you would accept. One trifle, perhaps--the hospitality of the Club Egret. If you will be our regular guest for dinner this winter--with your friends--I'll be happy. I'll be disappointed if you won't. The Club is yours. And if I could think of anything else. . . ."

To his astonishment, Professor Burke found himself very much moved. He momentarily felt that tears might come in his eyes, which would have been a hideous embarrassment. He had looked forward to meeting the notorious Double-O as a source of firsthand--and scornful--lecture material. But the man in front of him--obviously cultured, plainly sincere-was very upsetting.

The professor's eyes moved away--and fastened on the Cézanne. It was not, he realized, a print. It was real.

"I told you," Connie said softly to her uncle, "the guy was nice."

Double-O nodded very slightly at her. His grey eyes followed the professor's.

"Like it? I do. One of my--clients--lost quite a large sum of money. He happened to be pressed for cash at the moment and offered the painting." The cat walked over and the gambler stroked it absently.

Professor Burke's mind finally churned through his emotions and the surprises which had given rise to them. Somehow, he felt, he had been guilty of an indecency.

Intuition led him to say what he did. "Mr. Sanders, I'll be glad to be your guest some evening. I'd like Bedelia--my landlady, and a unique character--to see the Club Egret. But there
is
one thing you can do for me."

The barest trace of surprise showed in the gambler's face. It was followed by a smile. "Name it!"

"For years," the professor said quietly, "I've postured as an authority on--on--"

"--the way the other half lives?"

"Exactly. But the fact is, I'm an ignoramus. My information is thirdhand—

fourthhand--theoretical. . . ."

The gambler looked at the facedown book and hid the ghostly beginning of a smile. "On the contrary. I thought--"

"No college professor has had an opportunity for a--a briefing, by anyone who really knows the story. If you could understand the difficulty of discussing a subject without firsthand knowledge. . . ."

Double-O nodded. He walked over and again poked up the fire. "We'll start, Professor, with the gents you met last night. French Paul-who's the present chief of the Maroon Gang--"

"An Alsatian."

The gambler turned his head and smiled. "You're quick. Yes. Born in Strasbourg, actually. The Maroon Gang began moving in on Greater Miami several years ago. I once ran their gambling--in three cities. We had a disagreement about--ethics. I'll tell you their political setup here. It's as good an example as any. Their interests in Miami, at first, were bookmaking, a few protection rackets, and the usual other enterprises. I gather from word that gets around that lately they've branched into the business of bringing in aliens who shouldn't be here. Former Nazis who got out with loot. Possibly a few well-heeled people working for Russia. After all, Florida is full of tricky back doors to the U.S.--the rivers that run into the Everglades--the Ten Thousand Islands--the Keys. . . ."

Professor Burke concealed a sudden, internal start.
Marl and fern,
he thought. He hadn't mentioned these matters, in his account of the pursuit and holdup: his sleuthing impulse had seemed childish.

Double-O went on. "Whatever makes money, interests the Maroon Gang. I'll tell you how they muscled in here--and how they got set. I didn't believe, until last night, that they were going to work me over. What happened makes it plain they have a better setup than mine. They know the whole score. They intended to beat the cops at a snatch of my working capital. I've banked it now, incidentally. Even my own club isn't safe any longer.

However. When I sketch the background on the Maroons--who they are--how they operate--where they come from--how they got that way--you'll know as much as I do about all of the gangs. I'm a gambler, Professor. Never had another angle. If I get pushed out of business, I'll go. My connections are sound, so it will take a lot of pushing. After I tell you about the Maroon Gang, I'll tell you the long and not always dull story of my own life. How I grew up. Why I quit college. Where I learned--my profession. Is that what you want?"

"I'd like to hear it myself," Connie said. Double-O lighted a cigar, and smoked for a minute. "What you are going to learn, Professor, you never heard. I never told you. If you use it as background for lectures--or books-or anything--it'll just be your surmises and bald assertions. Every big shot in the rackets and every involved politician will deny it. Will that suit your purposes?"

"Yes," the professor said. "And more than repay any debt you may feel in my direction."

It was after one o'clock when Connie accompanied him to the lobby.

He said, bemusedly, "I'll get a cab. . . ."

"I'll drive you over."

"Not at this hour--with the long ride back. I refuse!"

"Will we--I-see you again, Professor?"

"Absolutely."

The doorman brought her car. They stood on the broad hotel steps. Already, the northwest high was diminishing. The warm winds of the Gulf Stream were pushing back over the immense, flat peninsula. Connie turned from her car-the one intended for him.

She kissed him. "So long, Martin."

He was scarcely conscious of the ride in the cab. The amount of the meter shocked him. Then he remembered his winnings, paid, and tipped liberally. The driver thanked him and the red taillight of his cab whisked away on West Cortez Circle.

Bedelia was waiting up--naturally. The glass coffee-maker was full, and hot.

"You've got lipstick again," she said. "But not so much. She was a very nice girl.

So much more refined than I'd expected. What
else
do you know'?"

"Ask me what I don't know--it would be the shorter part." He sighed then, and sat down tiredly at the kitchen table. "One thing, to start with. We're going to go down in the Keys and try to locate that fern subspecies, next Sunday. Bedelia !"--he shook his head--

"you have no idea--no
idea
--of the way this world runs! And there are one or two things I mean to stop right now--or perish in the attempt! You're game, aren't you?"

For a few seconds, she had an odd, almost premonitory feeling. A feeling of violence, horror and sudden death. The kitchen seemed unfamiliar and she found herself thinking of the Keys--not in the brilliant light of day, but at night, with the sea quiet and ominously listening. She had launched the professor's little escapade. It was turning into--

what?
The feeling passed.

"You bet!" Bedelia replied.

Few pastimes are more innocent than amateur botany. Few persons, as a class, are more innocent than professors and the elderly widows of Naval officers. A less innocent pair of plant hunters than Professor Burke and Bedelia Ogilvy in all probability never existed. What they undertook to do, on a warm and sunny Sunday, was to verify the idea that certain members of the Maroon Gang had been smuggling aliens into the United States, by way of the Florida Keys.

The T-Men knew that an organization of some sort had been bringing notorious aliens into the country, by way of Canada, Mexico, or the seacoast. Two T-Men had been shot to death in a widespread attempt to add to this information--information which, such as it was, had been shared with F. B. I. and the Coast Guard.

Bedelia and Professor Burke had no notion of such facts. If they had been less ardent and more sophisticated--and particularly if he had not clung to his theory of the essential stupidity of criminals--they would have reported their suspicions to the police and let it go at that.

"What we know," he said chattily, as he drove his reupholstered coupe onto the first of the Keys--connecting bridges, "is, basically, that a car belonging to the Maroon Gang had marl on its wheels--"

"--and had some ferns caught in its hinges that Alice Beardsley says grows only on DeWitt Key, Little Tango, Key Dent, and Lower Beacon Key."

Bedelia was fully prepared for the adventure. She was wearing riding breeches and boots, and carrying a bee-hat, in case the insects became unbearable. She went on enthusiastically, "We have Mr. Sanders' hint that these Maroon people are engaged in the--business--"

"--and I will be able to recognize the tire-marks of that big sedan, if we find them.

In marl of that sort, with no rains since, they should he very plain."

It was little enough to go on, in a sense. Little enough, but the multitudes of officials searching for the smugglers would have given much to know that little. It was for such small facts that they searched coast and border.

They drove to Lower Beacon Key, as a starting place. It was farthest from Miami, and the smallest of the four. They reached it before noon--an islet of twenty or thirty acres, without a tree. The ferns with the lopsided fronds covered about half of it. There was not a byroad on it--nothing but the main highway with its crescendo-diminuendo of Sunday traffic.

"We can rule this out immediately," Bedelia said with--assurance. "No cover. No lane. No wharf. Nothing. A swimmer wouldn't try to smuggle pearls ashore here."

Key Dent was bigger, and wooded. After lunch, they explored. There were three side roads on Key Dent. Two led to fishing camps, over dry coral. One led to a lobsterman's cabin, through a certain amount of damp, whitish marl. But there were no tire tracks of any sort in the marl.

They returned to their car. With no diminution of enthusiasm, they drove back to Little Tango which was the largest of the suspect four, in spite of its name. It boasted of a half-dozen homes, another fishing camp, and a combination filling station and marine curio store. There were many side roads and they spent the best part of the afternoon exploring them--without success. Some were a few hundred feet in length and some were several hundred yards. None even passed through the lopsided ferns, although many were rutted deeply in marl.

Before they continued on to DeWitt Key, the professor decided to fill up his gasoline tank. He drove in at the single pump of the filling station and curio shop. He blew his horn. An old man with a limp, a quid of tobacco, faded trousers and no shoes finally appeared and began to crank the gasoline by hand.

Bedelia liked shells and corals. She got out to inspect the collection in the shop.

She returned disdainfully.

"Just junk," she said, "and most of it broken up. Poorly collected. But"--and she lowered her voice--"there's a road on the other side of the building that goes to a ramshackle garage-and also beyond it, toward the sea."

Professor Burke paid. "Do you mind," he enquired mildly, "if we go down your road? We're fern collectors--"

"Private property," the old man said. "I realize that. I'd be glad to pay a dollar or two, however. We are hunting for a particular fern. It has been reported on four keys, only. This is one."

"It is lopsided," Bedelia said brightly. "I hope you won't object to our just looking."

"Sure do! Anyhow--place is full of mosquitoes."

"We're accustomed to that!" Bedelia popped the bee-hat over her head.

The old man was startled. He spat.

"Come, Martin," she said, "I'm certain he won't mind if we just take a peep. It would be a pity to leave Little Tango without finding the fern."

"Lady, I said this was private property."

Bedelia's head loomed from the open car door--bee-hat and all. It was quite a sight. "You sound," she said reprovingly, "as if you had something to hide back there.

Have you, my good man? An alcohol still, or some such nuisance? I shall report that you have a still. I'm convinced you do have! Martin! We will stop at the office of the Peace Justice. Better still--when we get to Miami--"

"Lady," said the old man resignedly, "there is no still back there. No nothing.