Drury Lane’s Last Case

3 The 19th Man

The taxicab deposited them precariously in a clutter of monster buses lined up at the curb on the south side of Forty-Fourth Street near Broadway. They were vast gleaming machines decorated whimsically in a motif of pink and blue, like acromegalic infants primped out by a sentimental mother. Their nurses, to a man young stalwarts attired in smart blue-grey uniforms, sleek-calved and military, lounged on the sidewalk outside a little pink-and-blue booth, smoking and talking.

Patience stood waiting on the sidewalk before the booth while the Inspector paid off the taxicab driver, and she was not unconscious of the frank admiration in the eyes of the young men in uniform.

Apparently she pleased one of them considerably, a blond-haired giant, for he tipped his cap forward over his eyes, strolled over, and said pleasantly: “’Lo, babe. Hahzzit?”

“At the moment,” said Patience, smiling, “uncomfortable.”

He stared. A young brute with red hair gaped at her, and then turned angrily upon the blond giant. “Lay off, you,” he growled, “or I’ll clip you one. This lady—”

“Why, Mr. Fisher!” exclaimed Patience. “How gallant! I’m sure your friend meant no... er... disrespect. Did you, you big male Venus?” Her eyes twinkled.

The giant’s mouth fell open; after a moment he blushed. “Sure not, ma’am.” And he effaced himself in the group of bus-drivers, who broke into guffaws.

George Fisher removed his cap. “Don’t mind these guys, Miss Thumm. Just a bunch of wisecrackin’ gorillas... Hello, Inspector.”

“Hello, yourself,” said the Inspector shortly. His shrewd eyes swept the crowd of young men. “What’s been going on here? Hey, Patty? One of these pups been gettin’ fresh?”

The young men became very silent.

“No, no,” said Patience hastily. “How nice to see you again so soon, Mr. Fisher!”

“Yeah,” grinned Fisher. “Waitin’ for my call. I uh—”

“Hrrmph!” said the Inspector. “Any news, bub?”

“No, sir, not a thing. Been callin’ Donoghue’s roomin’ house and the museum ever since I left your office. No sign of that thick-headed old Mick, blast him!”

“Seems to me those museum people ought to be getting kind of worried,” muttered the Inspector. “How’d they sound, Fisher?”

Fisher shrugged. “I only talked to the caretaker, Inspector.”

Thumm nodded. He took a cigar from his breast pocket and casually bit off one end. As he did so he permitted his eyes to travel from one face to another before him. The drivers continued to preserve a discreet silence; the blond giant had slunk to the rear of the group. They seemed a rough, honest lot. Thumm spat the snip of tobacco on the sidewalk, looked directly in the open pink-and-blue booth, and met the eyes of the man who stood in there clutching a telephone. The man looked quickly away; he was a white-haired, red-faced customer in the same uniform as the others, but the inscription above the peak of his cap displayed in addition to Rivoli Bus Company the word Starter.

“Well, maybe we’ll find out something,” said the Inspector with sudden geniality. “Keep your shirt on, Fisher. Come along, sis.”

They stepped by the silent group into the doorway of one of the disreputable old structures with which the Times Square section is infested, and mounted a flight of creaking black stairs. At the top they came to a glass door inscribed:

The Inspector knocked, a man called: “Come in!” and they entered a small dusty office illuminated by the rays of the typically feeble New York sun which crept in through a high-barred window.

J. Theofel proved to be an oldish young man with deep lines incised in his face. “Yes?” he said sharply, looking up from a chart. His eyes lingered over Patience, and then turned upon the Inspector.

“Name’s Thumm,” growled the Inspector. “Miss Thumm. I’m the guy called you this morning about Fisher.”

“Oh,” said Theofel slowly, leaning back. “Sit down, Miss Thumm. Just what’s the trouble, Inspector? I’m afraid I didn’t get it straight this morning over the ’phone.”

“No trouble. Not even a case.” Thumm stared hard. “How’d you know I’m an Inspector?”

Theofel smiled briefly. “I’m not as young as I look. I remember the time when your picture was in the paper darned near every day.”

“Oh,” said Thumm. “Cigar?” Theofel shook his head. “Well,” continued Thumm, seating himself with an expansive grunt, “we’re just looking into something that smells a little rotten. Tell me, Mr. Theofel. Who arranged for the rental of a bus for that party of schoolteachers from Indiana?”

The manager blinked. “I believe— Here, I’ll make sure.” He rose, rummaged in a bulging file, and picked out a memorandum. “I thought so. Gentleman by the name of Onderdonk. Seemed to be acting as manager of the party. He wrote us a letter a couple of weeks ago and on Friday ’phoned me from the Park Hill Hotel.”

“To arrange for yesterday’s tour?” asked Patience, frowning.

“Not exactly, Miss Thumm. That was only part of it. He wanted us to give his party bus service for the entire week they were in town.”

“So they went out Saturday and Sunday, too?” demanded Thumm.

“Oh, yes. And they’ll be going out today and tomorrow and the rest of the week as well. Quite an itinerary. Little unusual, in fact. We gave them a special rate, of course.”

“Hmm. There were seventeen from the beginning, hey?”

“Seventeen? That’s right.”

“No more than seventeen went Saturday or Sunday?”

Theofel stared at him. Then he said grimly: “No more were supposed to go, if that’s what you’re driving at. Wait a minute.” He picked up one of the several telephones at his elbow; apparently it was a private line that did not go through the central exchange, for he said at once: “Barbey. Send Shalleck and Brown up here” He replaced the receiver, slowly

“Barbey,” said the Inspector “The starter, hey?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” said the Inspector, and applied a match to his cigar.

The door opened and two of the stalwarts in uniform marched in.

“Brown,” said Theofel sternly to the first, “you took out that Park Hill schoolteacher crowd on Saturday. Count ’em?”

Brown looked startled. “Sure. Seventeen, Mr. Theofel.”

The manager gave him a sharp glance, and then turned to his companion. “You, Shalleck?”

“Seventeen, Chief.”

“You’re positive, now, both of you?”

They nodded confidently.

“All right, men.”

They turned to go. “Just a minute,” said the Inspector pleasantly. “I think you’d better send that starter Barbey up here when you get downstairs, boys.”

The manager nodded at the men’s inquiring looks. “You think—?” he began fretfully when the door had closed upon the two men.

“I know,” grinned the Inspector. “You let me handle him, Mr. Theofel. This is my meat.” He rubbed his hands and looked sideways at Patience, who was frowning. Thumm had never quite conquered the colossal wonder of paternity; for fatherhood had struck home to him late in life when his daughter returned from abroad after an absence which had extended from pigtails to shaven eyebrows. But on this occasion his mute appeal for approval went unheeded; Patience was cogitating upon a multitude of things, and feeding her massive father’s vanity was not among them. The Inspector sighed.

The door opened and the white-haired man of the downstairs booth appeared. His lips were rather tighter than they should have been, and he ignored the presence of the Thumms pointedly.

“Want me, Mr. Theofel?” he said gruffly.

The Inspector said in the calm magisterial tone of the professional policeman: “Spill it, Barbey.”

The man’s head turned unwillingly, and he blinked once at Thumm and then shifted his gaze. “What— I don’t get you, mister.”

“Inspector to you,” said Thumm, hooking his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “Come on, Barbey. I’ve got you with the goods, so there’s no sense in stalling.”

Barbey looked about quickly, licked his lips, and stammered: “I guess I’m dumb. What goods? What d’ye mean?”

“Bribery,” said the Inspector with a vast unsympathy.

The starter went white in a slow ebbing of facial blood. His big flabby hands twitched feebly. “How — how’d you find out?”

Patience expelled her breath in a slow noiseless stream. A rising anger animated Theofel’s lined face.

The Inspector smiled. “My business to find out. I’ll tell you right now, mister, I’d as soon throw you in the can as not; but Mr. Theofel, now — well, he’s inclined not to press the charge if you’ll come clean.”

“Yes,” said the manager hoarsely. “Well, Barbey, you heard the Inspector! Don’t stand there like a dumb ox! What’s it all about?”

Barbey fumbled with his cap. “I... I got a family. I know it’s against the company rules. But the dough looked sort of — tempting. When this first guy come over I was going to tell him nothing doing—”

“Guy with a soup-strainer and a blue hat, eh?” snapped Thumm.

“Yes, sir! I’m going to tell him nothing doing, see, but he shows me the corner of a ten-spot,” faltered Barbey, “and so I says okay. I let him climb in with the rest. Then about a minute later up comes another guy, and he gives me the same proposition as the first one. Wants me to let him go with Fisher’s bus. So, well, I’d let the first one on, so I thought while I was doin’ it I might’s well get the benefit of another five-spot. He gives me a fin, see. So this second guy, he climbs in, and that’s all I know.”

“Was Fisher in on this?” asked Theofel harshly.

“No, Mr. Theofel. He didn’t know anything about it.”

“What did the second bird look like?” asked the Inspector.

“Greaseball, Chief. Face like a rat. Black. Eyetalian, I’d say. Dressed sporty, like the bunch that hangs around the Palace. Flashed a funny kind of ring on his left hand — he was a southpaw, Chief, or at least he handed me the fin with his left—”

“What d’ye mean funny?”

“It had a little horseshoe where you’d expect a rock to be,” mumbled Barbey. “Looked like platinum or white gold. And it was set with diamond chips.”

“Hmm.” The Inspector rubbed his chin. “Never saw this man before, I suppose?”

“No, sir!”

“Know him again if you saw him?”

“Yes, sir!”

“He came back with the crowd of schoolmarms, didn’t he, but the bird in the blue hat didn’t?”

Barbey’s eyes widened at this omniscience. “Why, that’s right.”

“Swell.” The Inspector heaved to his feet, and stuck his hand out across the desk. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Theofel. And don’t be too hard on this lad.” He winked at the manager, pounded the astonished starter’s shoulder in friendly fashion, tucked Patience’s gloved hand under his arm, and made for the door.

“The moral of which is,” he chuckled as they descended the groaning steps, “always smell trouble when a guy keeps looking at you and then when you look at him looks away. I knew that bird had a finger in this the minute I spotted him in that barber-pole dinky!”

“Oh, father,” laughed Patience, “you’re the most incorrigible exhibitionist. What shall I do with you? And now—”

The Inspector’s face fell. “It’s true,” he said gloomily, “we haven’t made any progress towards finding old Donoghue... All right, Patty,” he sighed, “let’s pay a visit to that blasted museum.”