Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (25 page)

Donahue scoffed. “Don’t you believe it. They’ll lay low for a couple of days at least. They’ll think that I might have squealed. They’ll watch their tricks for a while. It’s almost certain they were keeping an eye on your house, and it’s just as certain that if you’d gone out there you wouldn’t be alive now to tell about it.”

“Believe me, Mr. Donahue, I am very grateful.”

“You can let that slide. You paid for that service. And I’m thanking my stars I got off with only a crack on the conk. Just rest at ease. Temporarily you’re out of danger. As a matter of fact, you can go out, make your official appearance, and do what you please. The time would be ripe right now to plant Shadd and his guns. You say you’ve got a lot of important data. In a pinch, I can swear that I heard them say they’d changed license plates. And I can swear they entered your house.”

Herron’s eyes danced brightly, reflectively. “By Godfrey, perhaps you’re right! Indeed I think you are right, Mr. Donahue!”

“I planted the box behind the shrubbery by that rear wall. I can go out just before dawn and get it.”

Herron shook his head. “That would be too dangerous, Mr. Donahue. Leave it there. I think it will be safe. In the morning, after I have had some sleep I shall decide on a course of action. And remember, I am depending on you to stand by me.”

Donahue stood up. “Naturally. And I think I’ll hit the hay myself.”

Herron grasped his hand. “You have practically saved my life, Mr. Donahue. I am deeply grateful. Let us have breakfast at—say—ten tomorrow morning, in here. Eh?”

“Only omit the grapefruit,” Donahue said.

At nine-thirty Donahue awoke, yawned, swung out of bed and took a cold shower. He shaved and dressed, took a look out of the window and saw the inevitable pall of smoke and fog hanging over the city, in the streets.

Whistling, feeling bright and chipper, he went down the hall and rapped on 804. The door opened and a Negro maid looked out.

“Mr. Herron in?” Donahue said.

“Ah’s just cleanin’ up, suh. Party checked out o’ heah.”

“Checked out?”

“Yassuh.”

“Thank you.”

Donahue retraced his steps down the hall, not whistling, and looking very dark and somber. He swung into his room, closed the door, and stood with feet spread, arms jammed against hips. He nibbled tightly at his lower lip. His eyes became round and hard, staring fixedly at the carpet.

He chopped off a short oath, put on hat and raglan, went downstairs and out into the street. He called the hotel from a cigar store at the corner. Asked for Mr. Herron. Mr. Herron had checked out at seven that morning. Donahue hung up savagely, went out lighting a cigarette, knew that cigarettes didn’t agree with him before breakfast, and snapped it away. He entered a lunch-room and ordered tomato juice, poached eggs on toast and coffee. He ate vigorously but with no great appetite. Finished, he roamed the streets, walking swiftly, seemingly with purpose but actually without it. In that manner, he was surprised to find himself at length in front of the Apollo, and entered.

He was striding across the lobby when Uhl rose placidly from a divan and laid down a rumpled copy of the Globe-Democrat.

“Good morning, Donahue,” he said, smiling.

Donahue stopped short, his scalp contracting, a scowl starting on his forehead. But on second thought he grinned, said: “Oh, hello, Sergeant.”

Uhl was alone, his hat in his hand, his white hair thick and bushy. “I would like to have a few words with you—in your room.”

“Sure thing. Come on.”

When they were in Donahue’s room, Uhl seemed oddly embarrassed for a moment, turning his hat round and round in his neat white hands.

“Sit down,” Donahue urged.

“Yes—thanks.”

Uhl sat down and said: “I’m sorry you didn’t tell me last night that you were an Interstate operative. I think pretty highly of your agency.”

Donahue started. If Uhl’s knowing he was a guest at the Apollo had startled Donahue, this second revelation was a distinct shock. But Donahue appeared to take it like an old campaigner. He even chuckled.

“Take it from me, Sergeant, the only thing I was worrying about last night—or this morning, rather—was getting away with my guts intact. I wouldn’t fool you a bit.”

Uhl nodded understandingly, then went on: “I hope your head is better, too.”

“You know things, don’t you, Sergeant?”

“Through no fault of mine, Donahue. I suppose you were surprised to find your client gone this morning.”

Donahue sat down suddenly on the bed. “I like you, Uhl.”

“Thank you. Can you spare the time to go out to Edgecomb’s house with me to show me where the black box is?”

“A command in the form of a question, eh?”

“Well”—Uhl smiled modestly—“you know how it is.”

Uhl had his own flivver downstairs, which he drove himself. Donahue sat beside him on the way out. When they drew up before the towered house on Lindell Boulevard a policeman came towards them. Uhl told him to stay by the car.

Donahue led the way into the grounds behind the house, through the arbor.

“I always wanted a garden like this,” Uhl remarked dreamily. “But it costs money.”

“I was born in a hotel,” Donahue said.

He reached the shrubbery, no indecision in his movements. He searched for a couple of minutes, his face falling. Finally he stood up and faced Uhl, shrugged and shook his head.

“It’s gone.”

Uhl looked suddenly sad. “No, is it?”

“It’s gone. I planted it right there, alongside that vine that comes down the wall.”

“Pshaw,” Uhl drawled.

Donahue began thrashing through the shrubbery, inspired by anger more than by a belief that he would find the box. Finally he stopped and came back towards Uhl wearing a brown scowl.

“What’s the lowdown, Sergeant?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how is it you know so much about what happened last night? Did you go out to that place in the country again and make a pinch?”

“No,” Uhl said. “I didn’t do anything. Your client called me up this morning. Mr. Edgecomb called me up and explained in detail. He said something had happened that made him leave the hotel abruptly. He called from a West End public booth and told me that I should communicate with him tonight or tomorrow morning at the Rex Hotel, in Kansas City.”

“Why the devil did he do that?”

“He explained his hiding incognito in the Apollo and asked me to keep it a secret. He was a lot concerned over you and asked me if I would look you up and go out with you to get the box. He said you would swear that Shadd and his mob had beaten you up, taken the key and gone back to the house to look for certain important papers. I’ve heard a lot about Edgecomb. He’s an honest lawyer. He was supposed to have left by car for Hot Springs some days ago because this mob was out to take his life. And by the way, he left an envelope with the clerk at the Apollo for you. A little gift, I suppose.”

Donahue was searching Uhl’s face intently. “Edgecomb’s got a good reputation here, hasn’t he?”

“None better. Why?”

“Well, I was just wondering if he’s entirely on the up and up. Take it from me, Sergeant, this is one of the queerest cases I’ve ever tackled—and I’ve had a lot in my time.”

Uhl thought for a moment. “The only answer I see, Donahue, is that Shadd’s boys came back here again, maybe thinking that you might have planted the box somewhere. One of them might have tailed you to the hotel—”

“They knew where I was staying. Edgecomb—or Herron, as he was down on the books—didn’t like that a bit.”

“One of Shadd’s men probably tailed you, planted himself in the hall, and maybe listened at the door while you were talking with your client. That’s logical, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.” But Donahue was not emphatic. His brown eyes wandered thoughtfully.

Uhl sighed. “Anyhow,” he said, “I guess I have a perfect right to collect Shadd and his boys. You’ll testify, won’t you, Donahue?”

“What else can I do? Edgecomb may be a swell lawyer, but he’s certainly afraid of his precious skin.”

“Let’s go down to Headquarters,” Uhl said.

On the way Donahue stopped at the hotel. The envelope his client had left contained a hundred dollars.

He met the police car in front of Headquarters, on Twelfth Boulevard. Uhl was there, quiet, retiring. Smiddy was at the wheel. There were three other men in plain-clothes: Knoblock, Reems and Brannigan. Donahue squeezed in front beside Uhl and Smiddy. The big Packard, rated at a hundred miles an hour, headed west on Olive Street. The wind hammered the top and the side curtains. They followed Route 40 through the city and kept to it on the outskirts.

“You were out here last summer, weren’t you?” Brannigan asked.

“Yes,” said Donahue. “And last winter. Every time I come out here I get in trouble.”

“Don’t go too fast now, Burt,” Uhl said. “Time enough when we have to.”

The big car was doing fifty past bare fields. The curtains clapped in the grip of the cold wind, and the men in the rear kept pounding their feet on the floor to keep warm.

“Turn off here, Burt,” Uhl said.

Smiddy swung into a crushed gravel road that met the state highway obliquely. The tires ground on the gravel; gravel drummed against the undersides of the mudguards; dust ballooned behind. The road was wide, smooth, and the car passed scattered farmhouses and went through small sleeping towns that looked run down and hopeless.

The road rose slightly, then dipped in a long straight run between sparse timber. It curved beyond, and Uhl pointed to the big weather-beaten farmhouse ahead, on the right, set back fifty yards from the road.

“There may be trouble,” Uhl said. “Burt, drive past and then pull up alongside those woods just beyond.”

The big car swished past the house and skidded to a stop in the lee of the woods. Donahue and Uhl got out. The three men sat in the back holding Thompson guns. Uhl leaned in.

“You boys stay here for the time being. Burt, I guess you’d better come with me. Donahue, you stay out of sight. Well, come on, Burt.”

Uhl and Smiddy walked slowly across the grubby lawn and climbed three steps to the ramshackle veranda. Uhl knocked. He waited patiently, listening. He said something to Smiddy and Smiddy left the veranda and went around to the rear. Uhl kept knocking at intervals. Smiddy returned shaking his head.

Uhl drew his gun and knocked the panes out of a window. He and Smiddy went in. Five minutes later they came out and returned to the car.

“They’re gone,” Uhl said sadly. “But I want you to stay out here, Brannigan, in case they come back. Stay in the woods. If they come back, walk to the nearest town—it’s only two miles—and telephone in.”

On the way back to the state highway, which was distant eight miles from the house, Uhl stopped in several towns and asked questions. It was in the third town that he came back to the car smiling quietly.

“A big black Cadillac sedan, coming from the country, stopped at the filling station at ten this morning to load her tank. There were six men in it. One of them tallies with Shadd. They left headed for the state highway, speeding. The man at the filling station remembers the car had Illinois pads, because after he filled the tank he dusted off the rear plate. He doesn’t remember the number, though. Ten to one they’re flying west right now. Hit the highway, Burt, and go west.”

At the entrance to the St. Charles Bridge across the Missouri River, the ticket agent remembered a similar Cadillac sedan. It had crossed the bridge at about ten-thirty. The Packard crossed the bridge, went through St. Charles, and struck Route 40.

“You can let her out,” Uhl said.

Smiddy jammed his foot down on the throttle and the car roared at eighty miles an hour, its siren screaming at intervals. The men sat motionless while trees and fields whipped past. At the first important crossroads, Uhl called a halt.

“I want to telephone ahead,” he said, “and have the news relayed. A black Cadillac sedan, with six men and Illinois plates.”

He telephoned from a pretentious filling station and then came back, told Smiddy to keep to Route 40.

A mile east of Wentzville Donahue suddenly said: “Hey, pull up!”

Smiddy looked across at him.

“Pull up!” Donahue yelled above the beating of the wind.

Smiddy took his foot off the throttle and applied the brakes gradually. The Packard bumped gently on the frozen shoulder alongside the road.

“There was a car parked in a lane back there,” Donahue said. “I think it had bullet holes in the rear.”

“You have eyes, you have,” Uhl said. “Turn around, Burt.”

It was a narrow lane that met the highway at right angles. Bushes grew thickly on either side of it. The Packard swung in and stopped behind an empty Lincoln sedan.

“By——, you’re right!” Reems said.

The men piled out and stopped by the Lincoln. Donahue jabbed six bullet holes with his finger.

“There’s baggage inside,” Uhl said. “No glass broken. And I don’t see any blood.”

Donahue hauled out a yellow suitcase and tipped it on the ground. “Take a look at these initials: S. E.”

“It looks,” drawled Uhl, “as if they got Edgecomb.”

“He was a fool to have left the hotel!” Donahue snapped.

They searched the ground around the car, finding nothing of consequence.

“I’ll telephone Jeff City,” Uhl said, “and check up on these plates. Knoblock, you drive the Lincoln. We’ll go up to Wentzville.”

Nobody had heard any shooting in Wentzville.

Uhl came out of a restaurant and said: “It’s Edgecomb’s car all right. I just telephoned.”

Reems looked out of the Lincoln. “His bags are opened. Doesn’t look as if there was any ransacking.”

Donahue was looking through the bags too. Every piece of linen was spotlessly clean.

“His body’ll probably turn up along the road somewhere,” Reems offered.

Donahue got out of the Lincoln, lit a cigarette and stared transfixed at its red end. A puzzled shadow moved slowly across his forehead, and his lean strong fingers began to tremble, his eyes suddenly became round and hard like brown bright marbles.