Part 13 (2/2)
”That's true,” said the detective; ”but when a gun's just b.u.mped off one guy he's liable to get the habit of b.u.mping off other guys. Even a swell gun like you is. So that's why I've been just a trifle particular.”
”You're crazy, man! Who says I b.u.mped anybody off?”
”I do, for one,” replied Murtha cheerfully. ”Still that's neither here nor there, unless you feel like telling me all about what came off over in Thirty-ninth Street to-night.
”You've always been a safety player so far as I know--and I'm curious to know what made you start in using a cannon on folks all of a sudden. At that, I might guess--knowing Sonntag like I did.”
”I don't know what you're talking about,” parried Trencher. ”I tell you you've got me wrong. You can't frame me for something I didn't do. If somebody fixed Sonntag it wasn't me. I haven't seen him since yesterday. I'm giving it to you straight.”
”Oh well, we won't argue that now,” said Murtha affably. In his manner was something suggestive of the cat that has caught the king of the rats. A tremendous satisfaction radiated from him. ”You can stall some people, son, but you can't stall me. I've got you and I've got the goods on you--that's sufficient. But before you and me glide down out of here together and start for the front office I'd like to talk a little with you. Set down, why don't you, and make yourself comfortable?” He indicated a chair.
Trencher took the chair and Murtha, after springing a catch which he found on the inner side of the door, sat down in another.
”I've got to hand it to you, Trencher,” went on the detective admiringly. ”You sure do work swift. You didn't lose much time climbing into that outfit you're wearing. How did you get into it so quick? And, putting one thing with another, I judge you made a good fast get-away too. Say, listen, Trencher, you might as well come clean with me. I'll say this for Sonntag--he's been overdue for a croaking this long time.
If I've got to spare anybody out of my life I guess it might as well be him--that's how I stand. He belonged to the Better-Dead Club to start with, Sonntag did. If it was self-defence and you can prove it, I've got no kick coming. All I want is the credit for nailing you all by my lonesome. Why not slip me the whole tale now, and get it off your chest?
You don't crave for any of this here third-degree stuff down at headquarters, and neither do I. Why not spill it to me now and save trouble all round?”
His tone was persuasive, wheedling, half friendly. Trencher merely shook his head, forcing a derisive grin to his lips.
”Can the bull, Murtha,” he said. ”You haven't got a thing on me and you know it.”
”Is that so? Well, just to play the game fair, suppose I tell you some of the things I've got on you--some of them. But before I start I'm going to tell you that your big mistake was in coming back to where you'd left that nice new yellow overcoat of yours. Interested, eh?” he said, reading the expression that came into Trencher's face in spite of Trencher's efforts. ”All right then, I'll go on. You had a good prospect of getting out of town before daylight, but you chucked your chance when you came back to the Clarenden a little while ago. But at that I was expecting you; in fact, I don't mind telling you that I was standing behind some curtains not fifteen feet from that check room when you showed up. I could have grabbed you then, of course, but just between you and me I didn't want to run the risk of having to split the credit fifty-fifty with any bull, in harness or out of it, that might come b.u.t.ting in. The neighbourhood was lousy with cops and plain-clothes men hunting for whoever it was that b.u.mped off Sonntag; they're still there, I guess, hunting without knowing who it is they're looking for, and without having a very good description of you, either. I was the only fellow that had the right dope, and that came about more by accident than anything else. So I took a chance, myself. I let you get away and then I trailed you--in a taxi.
”All the time you was on that street car I was riding along right behind you, and I came up these steps here not ten feet behind you. I wanted you all for myself and I've got you all by myself.”
”You don't hate yourself, exactly, do you?” said Trencher. ”Well, without admitting anything--because there's nothing to admit--I'd like to know, if you don't mind, how you dope it out that I had anything to do with Sonntag's being killed--that is if you're not lying about him being killed?”
”I don't mind,” said Murtha blithely. ”It makes quite a tale, but I can boil it down. I wasn't on duty to-night--by rights this was a night off for me. I had a date at the Clarenden at eleven-thirty to eat a bite with a brother-in-law of mine and a couple of friends of his--a fellow named Simons and a fellow named Parker, from Stamford.
”I judge it's Parker's benny and dicer you're wearing now.
”Well, anyhow, on my way to the Clarenden about an hour or so ago I b.u.t.t right into the middle of all the h.e.l.l that's being raised over this shooting in Thirty-ninth Street. One of the precinct plain-clothes men that's working on the case tells me a tall guy in a brown derby hat and a short yellow overcoat is supposed to have pulled off the job. That didn't mean anything to me, and even if it had I wouldn't have figured you out as having been mixed up in it. Anyway, it's no lookout of mine.
So I goes into the Clarenden and has a rarebit and a bottle of beer with my brother-in-law and the others.
”About half-past eleven we all start to go, and then this party, Parker, can't find his coat check. He's sure he stuck it in his vest pocket when he blew in, but it ain't there. We look for it on the floor but it's not there, either. Then all of a sudden Parker remembers that a man in a brown derby, with a coat turned inside out over his arm, who seemed to be in a hurry about something, came into the Clarenden along with him, and that a minute later in that Chinese room the same fellow b.u.t.ts into him. That gives me an idea, but I don't tell Parker what's on my mind. I sends the head waiter for the house detective, and when the house detective comes I show him my badge, and on the strength of that he lets me and Parker go into the cloak room. Parker's hoping to find his own coat and I'm pretending to help him look for it, but what I'm really looking for is a brown derby hat and a short yellow coat--and sure enough I find 'em. But Parker can't find his duds at all; and so in putting two and two together it's easy for me to figure how the switch was made. I dope it out that the fellow who lifted Parker's check and traded his duds for Parker's is the same fellow who fixed Sonntag's clock. Also I've got a pretty good line on who that party is; in fact I practically as good as know who it is.
”So I sends Parker and the others back to the table to smoke a cigar and stick round awhile, and I hang round the door keeping out of sight behind them draperies where I can watch the check room. Because, you see, Trencher, I knew you were the guy and I knew you'd come back--if you could get back.”
He paused as though expecting a question, but Trencher stayed silent and Murtha kept on.
”And now I'm going to tell you how I come to know you was the right party. You remember that time about two years ago when I ran you in as a suspect and down at headquarters you bellyached so loud because I took a b.u.m old coin off of you? Well, when I went through that yellow overcoat and found your luck piece, as you call it, in the right-hand pocket, I felt morally sure, knowing you like I did, that as soon as you missed it you'd be coming back to try to find it. And sure enough you did come back. Simple, ain't it?
”The only miscalculation I made was in figuring that when you found it gone from the pocket you'd hang round making a hunt for it on the floor or something. You didn't though. I guess maybe you lost your nerve when you found it wasn't in that coat pocket. Is that right?”
”But I did find it!” exclaimed Trencher, fairly jostled out of his pose by these last words from his gloating captor. ”I've got it now!”
Murtha's hand stole into his trousers pocket and fondled something there.
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