The Adventures of Paul Pry

The Crime Juggler

“Big Front” Gilvray had one of the sweetest rackets in the world cinched — until Paul Pry picked “Mugs” Magoo out of the gutter. Then was formed a strange partnership that made the big shots of the underworld look like a bunch of saps.

To the casual observer, Paul Pry was merely a well-dressed young man, idling away a few minutes between spells of greater idleness. The faultless clothes, the highly polished cane, the air of utter boredom with the world in general, all proclaimed him for what the casual observer would have said he was.

A more careful observer would have noticed that the eyes held a steely glitter; that the snapping rhythm of the flexible wrist as it swung the polished cane indicated a trained fencer; that he was watching the passing crowd with swift interest.

But only a mind-reader could have told that there was any connection between Paul Pry and the huddled figure which crouched at the side of the kerb, one empty sleeve dangling in wrinkled dejection, one gnarled hand holding out a hat, in which were several pencils and a collection of small coins.

An expensively gowned woman, slightly inclined to fullness under the chin, paused impressively, fumbled at her purse, dropped a coin. The huddled figure mumbled a thanks, flashed a furtive glance at Paul Pry, then lowered his eyes.

The woman passed on. The figure raised its glassy eyes once more to the hurrying throngs that poured past the corner. Those eyes swept faces with expressionless speed. They were big eyes, unwinking eyes, moist eyes — and they never forgot a face. For the huddled figure was that of “Mugs” Magoo.

He had received his nickname from his uncanny ability to recall faces. An accident had deprived him of his right arm at the shoulder. A political shake-up had swept him from the detective force of a large city. Unemployment and booze had done the rest.

Then he had been picked from the gutter by Paul Pry, and one of the most unique partnerships organized which had ever existed for the bewilderment of police and crooks alike.

For Paul Pry lived by his wits. And none but Paul Pry knew how he lived. Even Mugs Magoo didn’t always know how his employer used the information which he relayed to him by a complicated series of signals.

A well-tailored man with undershot jaw and derby hat walked past. There was a swagger to his shoulders, a swing to his stride, an air of conscious power which clung to him.

Mugs Magoo swept glassy eyes over the man’s face, raised the hand which contained the pencil-filled hat and swept it in a half circle.

By that signal Paul Pry knew that the man was a gunman for a gang. A twitch of the cane informed Mugs that Paul wasn’t interested in gunmen just then.

A taxicab swung to the kerb. The man who elbowed his way from the door and held out a pudgy, well-cared-for hand to the driver, with an exactly counted assortment of small coins, was the type one would have picked as a prosperous banker, a senator or a corporation lawyer.

Mugs Magoo dipped the hat sharply, a signal that the man was a big shot. The hat moved in and out, then Mugs Magoo bowed his head twice.

Paul Pry regarded the impressive individual with renewed interest. Mugs Magoo’s signals meant that the man was the brains of a gang, that he handled everything from confidence games to gem robberies, and that he was too slick for the police to pin anything on.

And Mugs Magoo never made a mistake. It was his sole function to know the gang world from A to Z, and Mugs Magoo never forgot.

Paul Pry raised a hand to his hat, carefully adjusted it, gave one final flip to the cane and sauntered to the kerb.

And Mugs Magoo, holding his hat between his knees, scooped the remaining pencils into a bundle, pocketed the coins, donned the hat, and arose to his feet. Paul Pry’s signals meant that he was interested, and Mugs Magoo’s duties for the day were over.

The distinguished-looking gentleman, who was a crook, stood upon the sidewalk and gazed about him. Beneath the heavy brows the impatient eyes showed keen as flashing rapiers. Paul Pry, intercepting that gaze, breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Here was a foeman worthy of his steel.

A girl rounded the corner, stood for a moment, then came within the field of those piercing eyes.

“Ah, Miss Montrose!”

She started at the sound of the voice, looked around her with the swiftly furtive glance of one who wishes to guard against being seen. Then, and only then, she smiled guardedly.

The big man elbowed her, bowed affably, took the girl’s arm in his pudgy hand and guided her toward the door of a restaurant.

Paul Pry followed them after a few minutes.

They were seated at a corner table. The girl made futile motions with knife and fork while the big man, leaning half across the table, talked rapidly, forcefully. Once or twice he jabbed his finger at the girl, a forceful gesture of command.

The girl’s eyes swept uneasily from her plate to the man before her, flickered around the room, came back to the plate again. At length she nodded.

At her nod the man settled back in his chair, lowered his eyes to his plate and attacked the food with that eager voracity which heavily fleshed men customarily display at meals.

The girl did not eat. Once or twice she asked a question. The man replied by brief grunts, a nod, or a swift shake of negation. He seemed to have wasted all the words he intended to.

Paul Pry ordered a sandwich, ate it, and sauntered to the street. Ten minutes later the man and girl emerged. Once more the man let his eyes bore into those of the girl while he talked rapidly, swift, finger-jabbing sentences of instruction.

The girl was impatient, nervous. She nodded half a dozen times, made to move off, but the big man restrained her with a word, held her while he repeated some last minute instruction.

Then they separated, the man to a cab, the girl to mingle with the luncheon throngs.

Paul Pry elected to follow the girl.

She walked swiftly for a block, then entered a gift shop.

The making of the purchase consumed some time. It was a small incense burner, and the girl viewed it from different angles, turned it upside down, carried it to a better light, before finally opening her purse.

There followed some five minutes while the clerk was busy with wrappings, getting excelsior, a wooden box, heavy wrapping paper.

Quite evidently the girl was intending to have the incense burner shipped, and was particularly careful to insure against breakage. Twice she interrupted the packing process to make sure that it was being done to suit her.

At length she clasped the package under her arm and left the store.

Paul Pry, who had been standing idly before the show window of the gift store, had been an interested spectator. Now he followed the girl, swinging his cane the while, humming a little tune.

The girl walked two squares, came to a motor transfer office. Here a private line offered rapid service to shippers of merchandise. The line catered to suburban deliveries and ran a series of trucks in radiating lines from the metropolis.

The girl had lost the furtive look of haunted guilt which had characterized her as she talked with the pompous gentleman. Her actions now were definite, assured, the moves of one who is sure of herself.

So elaborately casual was she that Paul Pry, under the guise of asking information concerning a package, was able to press almost to her elbow as she stood at the counter.

The girl was shipping the incense burner. Pry was unable to get the name and address of the person to whom it was going, but he could see the bills of lading passed over to the girl, hear her light laugh, catch a glimpse of the inside of her purse as she took out the silver coin which covered the transportation charges. That purse was crammed with bank notes.

From the transfer company the girl walked rapidly, consulting her watch from time to time, hurrying her steps with each glance at the dial.

Before the rotating striped sign of a barber shop she made a swift turn, flung open the door, walked into the shop. She was removing her hat as she went through the door. Her teeth flashed in a smile at the surly features of the man at the head chair. That individual glanced at the clock, and the surly look deepened.

The girl’s smile was transferred to the other barbers as she walked down the mirrored length of the shop. Then she vanished behind a green curtain.

Paul Pry turned on his heel, summoned a cab, and, within a space of ten minutes, was discharged before an apartment hotel.

It was Paul Pry’s habit to find lodgings in the most thickly populated districts available. He liked crowds, liked to hear the restless pound of thousands of feet as they tapped over the cement sidewalks; liked to hear the constant blare of automobile horns as they fought traffic jams; liked the shrill of policemen’s whistles as they guided the human herd.

Mugs Magoo was already in the apartment.

Paul removed his hat, took the stick, twisted it in a few swift passes, then grasped the handle in one hand, the body of the cane in the other.

There was a rasp of steel on metal, the glitter of a naked blade, well polished and cared for, perfectly balanced, tempered by workmen who made of their work a sacred rite.

The young man’s wrist moved with a subtle strength which sent the blade glistening in a scintillating arc. Twice he thrust at an imaginary adversary. His feet tapped a swift tattoo upon the polished floor, and then the blade swung through an arc, hung poised for a moment, point held well back, and was slammed home in its sheath. The sword became a part of a most innocent-looking cane.

Mugs Magoo regarded the display with interest.

“You haven’t done no fencing for a while, sir. That athletic club bout was postponed, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Mugs, unfortunately. But we’ll get back into the game shortly. I just ran in for a minute. Tell me about the big fellow.”

“Name’s Gilvray. They call him ‘Big Front’ Gilvray in the underworld. You gotta hand it to that boy, sir. They can’t pin nothin’ on him, absolutely nothin’, an’ I ain’t meanin’ maybe. The dicks has him spotted for a long time. They get him tabbed, an’ that’s all the good it does ’em. What’d he do?”

“Had lunch with a manicurist, Mugs. Know her? Blonde, rather young, blue eyes, five feet three, a signet ring on the little finger of her left hand, a slight scar just below the left eye. Prefers blue as her colour — blue bag, blue hat, blue belt. Her dress was tan today, but I have a hunch she wears blue clothes most of the time. Shoes had blue bows, and were sort of a tan and blue combination effect. She’d weigh around a hundred and twenty. Seemed to be afraid of being seen with Gilvray, and probably got a roll of bills from him. Was anxious to get away from him. Works in the Palace Barber Shop off Broadway, about three blocks from where you were stationed.”

Mugs Magoo stroked his chin with the gnarled fingers of his remaining hand. His eyes squinted for a minute.

“Don’t place her, chief, an’ that’s a fact. But I ain’t worth a darn when it comes to tabbin’ people that way. When I try to think of ’em I can’t do nothin’. It’s when I see ’em and don’t try to think nothin’ that they pop into my mind. I see a guy, an’ right away I remember every time I ever see him, and I’ve heard about him, all his likes an’ dislikes, how he goes about a job, an’ whether he’s mugged or not. But let me try to think of somebody or other, an’ I ain’t no good.”

Pry nodded. “It’s a gift,” he said, as he drew up a chair and opened a closet door.

An assortment of drums hung from the wall of a spacious closet. There were big drums, small drums, middle-sized drums. There were ornate drums, plain drums, and ornamented Indian war drums.

He took down a black and tan drum of Indian workmanship, bordered with white rings, the top stretched with thongs.

“Navajo Indian, Mugs. Know anything about ’em?”

“Not me, sir.”

“Wonderful people, make wonderful drums. This one they play in the rain dances. Listen to it, Mugs. There’s a note to it that a civilized drum never gets. You can hear it just after the first boom, before the noise quite dies to a rumble. It’s a resonance that comes from the interior. It’s made of a hollowed tree, hollowed in part by fire, and there’s something savage about it.”

Mugs shook his head.

“Not me, sir. You know me, I can’t carry a tune; I can’t tell one sort of music from another. I’m all eyes. When they made me, they stuck my memory right back of my eyes. For the rest I’m a wreck.” He paused and looked anxiously toward Paul.

“Say, sir, can I have a little hooch now? I’m off for the day.”

Paul nodded.

“Help yourself, Mugs. I’ve got to figure out why Big Front Gilvray should give a girl a big roll of bills to buy an incense burner and send it to some suburban town on the motor express.”

Mugs heaved a sigh and went to a sideboard. Paul Pry took a padded stick and began to tap gently the ceremonial drum.

Boom... boom... boom... boom! Slowly, methodically, rhythmically, he tapped forth soul-stirring, savage notes, notes that throbbed through the ears, pulsated in the blood. In the weird strain of the sounds there was the hint of campfires, of pounding feet that struck the desert floor in unison, of vague shapes that twisted past the light of the ceremonial fire in mad gyrations.

But Mugs Magoo was insensible to the influence of the taut hide and hollowed tree trunk. He poured himself a stiff drink, swallowed it at a gulp, poured another which he took back to his chair and sipped.

After a few moments Paul Pry returned the drum to its closet. He took out another, a little snare drum. Then he sat for several minutes, rolling out rat-a-tat-tat of muffled sound. His eyes were concentrated to mere slits of thought. The thin, nervous hands and fingers moved the drumsticks with just enough force to barely bring forth sound from the drum.

When Paul Pry concentrated upon a problem it was second nature with him to have a drum between his knees.

“Mugs,” he said, almost dreamily, the words accompanied by the muffled rattle of the snare drum, “that girl was being paid to commit a crime.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mugs.

“Purchasing the incense burner was only a small part of that crime. There was more to come. It was that second part which frightened the girl.”

“Maybe,” commented the one-armed man. “You can’t tell about the twists these days. They get hard-boiled in the time it used to take ’em to warm up.”

“She was feeling a little guilty when Gilvray talked with her.” Rat-a-tat-tat — rumpty-tum-tum. “She agreed to do something she didn’t want to do.” Rat-a-tat-tatty-ta-tappety-tap.

Mugs Magoo contemplated the bottom of the whiskey glass.

“Well? Whatcha goin’ to do about it? We can’t make no money because a frail decides to do somethin’ that she don’t want to and gets slipped a roll of bills for it.”

“On the contrary, Mugs,” rappety-tap, “that’s just where we can make our money.” Rumpety-tump, rumpety-tump. “We’re opportunists, Mugs, and we twist opportunities our way.” Tattytat-tat — a-ratty-tat-tat. “We juggle crimes for profit.”

“Maybe, sir. You know the ins and outs. I give you the setup—”

He broke off as Paul Pry’s feet thumped to the floor.

“Of course!” said that individual. “She’s a manicurist, and she’s good-looking, and she works in a certain shop and — Mugs, I was a fool for not seeing the play in the first place.” And Paul Pry crossed to the closet in three swift strides, hung up the little snare drum, grinned at his companion and reached for his hat.

“If I’m not back in time for dinner, Mugs, get in touch with Big Front Gilvray and tell him my dinner’s getting cold. Can you manage to reach him, do you think?”

“Sure, chief, sure. I know his hang-out and the guys that make up his gang. But he’s dangerous. He’s a thinker, and he’s got guts.”

Pry picked up the sword cane.

“A certain element of danger, eh, Mugs?”

“You said it, sir.”

“Ahhhh!”

And Paul Pry’s sigh was the sigh an epicure gives when his nostrils catch the aroma of a perfectly cooked dish, the sigh that a trout fisherman gives when a black streak circles up to his fly.

“Mugs, be good, and don’t get too drunk to get in touch with Gilvray if I’m not home.”

The man regarded his employer with glassy-eyed dignity.

“Son,” he said sadly, “there ain’t enough hooch in the world to get me to a state where I don’t crave more hooch. And I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’.”

Paul Pry smiled, closed the door of his apartment, walked blithely to the street and sought out the Palace Barber Shop.

He found that the interior was plainly visible from the street. Then he went to a place where cars were rented without drivers, rented a snappy roadster, drove to the front of the barber shop, parked in a double line for ten minutes, then got a chance to ooze in to the kerb. Twenty minutes later he had the parking place he wanted, directly in front of the window.

Miss Montrose was at her station, a little table where the light was good. From time to time she glanced at the clock. As the hands approached the hour of three o’clock she became more nervous, glanced at the clock with greater frequency.

Paul Pry, watching, tapped on the steering wheel with the tips of his sensitive fingers, and smiled.

At three-ten a young man walked into the shop, nodded pleasantly to the barbers, removed his coat and collar, stretched himself luxuriously in the front chair and nodded to the manicurist.

Paul Pry, watching closely, decided that the manicurist was the real reason the young man patronized the shop.

He had been careful to speak to the barbers first when he entered the shop. Not until after he had included them in a greeting, had he turned casually to the table where the girl sat with wide eyes, parted lips. Then his nod had been so studiedly impersonal as to seem strained.

After he had seated himself in the chair, he looked at his fingers for a moment, as though deciding whether or not he wanted a manicure. Then he had nodded to the girl and settled back.

But the girl, taking his hand, had given it a squeeze, and Paul Pry had seen the man’s fingers tighten in an answering squeeze.

Paul Pry nodded, slowly, thoughtfully, as a theatre-goer might nod when the second act of a show opens with precisely the situation he has anticipated from the close of the first act. There was satisfaction in his nod, also a wary watchfulness.

The girl didn’t look at the clock any longer.

Paul Pry concentrated his attention upon the coat, collar and hat which decorated the tree in the barber shop.

The barber flung a hot towel over the face of the customer. The manicurist arose, walked to her table. Nervous hands fluttered over the little bowls. Then she turned, walked toward the hat tree, paused, glanced swiftly about her and darted a shapely hand to the side pocket of the coat.

Paul Pry, watching, whistled his surprise. Here was none of the nervous bungling of the amateur. Here was the deft swiftness of touch of a professional dip. Unquestionably the girl knew her business. Here was a moll who had reefed many a kick.

The leather wallet which came from the side pocket went under the towel which the girl carried over her arm. The girl dropped back to the little stool before the customer, took up his hand, plied nail file and orange stick with deft skill.

Once or twice she paused to search for some instrument or other, but she sat in plain sight, never leaving the room. Twice her hands dropped beneath the towel which reposed on her lap, and which towel must conceal the wallet which she had slipped from the coat pocket. But there was no fumbling, no hesitancy. The hands simply burrowed beneath the towel, were there for a second, then back in plain sight.

The left hand finished, the girl arose, set the stool on the other side of the chair, turned once more back to her table, and then, for the second time, there was a pause before the hat tree, the flash of a towel, the flicker of motion.

And none but the watching eyes of Paul Pry had seen the leather wallet slipped back into the coat pocket.

The barber finished with the shave. The man was propped upright in the chair. The girl put the finishing touches on the manicure. She was laughing, talking vivaciously. The customer regarded her with eyes which betrayed the secret he had been at such pains to conceal beneath a mask of casual unconcern when he had entered the place. There was no doubt but what he was mad about the girl.

The man donned hat and coat, exchanged a few words with the barbers, after the manner of a regular customer, gave the girl one burning, surreptitious glance, and left the shop.

Paul Pry swung away from the kerb.

The man walked to the corner. Pry picked out a flivver, carefully judged the distance, stepped on the throttle. There was the crash of an impact, the sound of a ripping fender, the roar of an irate driver’s accusation, and then Paul Pry was out of his car, on the street, surveying the damage, making loud accusations of negligence on the part of the driver of the flivver.

To support his claims he dashed to the sidewalk, grabbed the freshly shaven and manicured individual by the coat and propelled him to the scene of the accident, where a small crowd was gathering.

“You saw it. You saw him cut in front of me!” Paul insisted. The freshly shaven man was embarrassed.

“Why no. That is, I heard a noise, and I looked up and the cars were together. But I can tell you the position they were in right after the impact. The flivver was over here, and you were about here.”

“Well, what does that show?” growled the other driver. “This guy runs into me. Huh, here comes the cop. He’ll straighten it out in a hurry.”

Paul extended his hand toward the witness he had summoned.

“Your card, and then you can beat it. No use arguing here on the street. If it comes to court I’ll call you as a witness. If it doesn’t, you won’t be bothered. I’ll pay ’em a reasonable sum for a settlement, but I don’t want ’em to stick me. Give me your card and act like you’re going to make a good witness.”

The man nodded his comprehension, smiled his relief. The freshly manicured hand flipped into his inside coat pocket, came out with a wallet. From the wallet he took a card.

“R. C. Fenniman, Wholesale Jeweller,” read Paul, and, down in the lower left-hand corner, “Presented by Samuel Bergen.”

The address of the wholesale jewellery concern was only a matter of some four blocks from the scene of the accident. Paul Pry glanced swiftly at the card, nodded, turned to confront the officer who was ploughing his way forward importantly.

“Come on, come on,” he bellowed. “It ain’t nothin’ but a busted fender. What are you guys blockin’ traffic for? Get those cars over to the kerb. Lively now. On your way, you folks. Ain’t you never seen a busted fender before?”

The flivver driver remonstrated.

“I wanted to leave ’em right where they were, so you could see how this guy run into me. I was just turnin’ the corner, an’ I had my left arm out, an’ I wasn’t goin’ over ten miles an hour—”

The officer snorted.

“All right, all right! I see. But there ain’t no reason to tie up all this traffic. Get in, back away, move ’em over. That fender’s off anyway. Might as well make a good job of it. Back up that roadster. Back it up! Back it up! Get started. That’s it. Now pick up that fender. All right, you guys, come over here and let’s see what it’s all about. Now wait a second until I get this traffic straightened out. No left-land turns, now, mister. Just keep goin’ until we get the corner cleared. That’s it... No, ma’am... straight ahead. All right, you birds, now we can talk. Whose fault was it?”

Paul Pry spoke in a subdued voice.

“I guess it was mine, officer.”

“That’s the way. How much was the fender worth?”

“Well,” opined the flivver driver, “the tyre is cut and—”

“Forget it, forget it!” broke in the cop. “I’m gettin’ you a settlement here. You got a battered fender that got torn off. It’s an old wreck in the first place. How much do you want to settle?”

“Twenty dollars.”

The cop snorted.

“I’ll pay it,” agreed Paul Pry, with suspicious alacrity.

“All right,” said the officer. “That’s up to you. The whole car ain’t worth forty dollars.”

But Paul Pry made no move toward his pocket.

“Well, come across,” said the flivver driver.

Paul lowered his eyes.

“I haven’t got it with me,” he said, and his tone dripped consciousness of guilt.

“Yeah. I thought so,” sneered the flivver driver.

“He’s got a car,” said the officer.

“Huh, a drive-yourself bus that he rented. The deposit he left will be taken for straightening his own fender,” said the irate flivver owner.

“Tell you what,” suggested Pry, “I’ve got a sister who works in a barber shop halfway down the block. She’ll give me the money. You wait here with the cars, and the officer can come with me if you think I’m going to beat it. I’ll be back with the twenty dollars inside of five minutes.”

The man nodded, spat into the gutter.

“Suits me,” he said, “provided the cop goes with you, an’ stays with you.”

“Come on, come on,” said the officer. “We ain’t got all day. I got work to do.”

They started for the sidewalk.

“That’s the place, the Palace Barber Shop,” said Pry.

“Huh,” snorted the man in uniform, “if you was to get yourself a job instead of wearing all the glad rags and sportin’ a fancy stick, you might not have to make a touch on a frail whenever you smashed a car.”

Paul Pry took the rebuke meekly.

“Yes, officer, I’ll try; and would you mind waiting outside? I don’t want to alarm sister, or cause the man that runs the place to think I’m making a scene. She’s awfully nervous, sis is, and she’ll think I’m in trouble. You can stand right up against the window where you can look in to the place and see I’m not making any getaway.”

“All right, but make it snappy.”

“I’ll make it snappy. But you be sure and stand where sis can see you. Otherwise she might think I was just trying for a touch. I’ve already tried for a loan today, and she said nothing doing. I’ve got to let her know I’m in trouble of some sort—”

“All right, all right,” growled the officer, “only I’d oughta run you in. Why don’t you go to work, you big cake-eater? Makes me feel like a boob helpin’ you get money out of a workin’ girl. But that flivver driver’s entitled to his money, an’ if you get it, I don’t know as I care how. Skip inside an’ make it snappy.”

Paul Pry opened the door. The barbers looked up. The girl at the manicurist’s table looked up.

She saw Paul Pry turn for a last word with the officer. She saw the officer nod and take up his station directly in front of the plate glass window. She saw the watchful frown at the corners of his squinted eyes, the belligerency of his attitude. The girl’s hand went to her throat.

Paul Pry approached, bent over her.

“Sis,” he said, “I’ve got no wish to make this painful.”

The girl tried to speak, but words failed to emerge from her constricted throat. White to the lips, she stared in dumb terror.

“If you come clean there’s a chance I can beat the rap for you,” said Paul Pry, still bent over the girl. “But make it snappy and don’t stall.”

For one swift instant she contemplated defiance.

“What are you trying to do?” she flared, but she kept her voice low, so that the barbers might not hear the conversation.

“Tryin’ to make it easy for you, sister,” assured Paul Pry. “There’s the harness bull outside. There’s your record for reefing britches. There’s Big Front Gilvray. There’s Samuel Bergen, the poor sucker. It’s quite a case. Kick through and I’ll let you off.”

“Yes you will!”

“I mean it. Come across and I’ll walk out. I’m after bigger stuff. You’re a frail, and you got roped into this. Gilvray had to bulldoze you a bit to get you into it.”

The girl nodded.

“I’ll say he did. I got this job and I was going straight, when he nosed me out and put it up to me to turn this one trick. Said he’d spill the beans to my boss and to the cops if I didn’t. You see, he got ahold of a guy I used to work with on these dip jobs, and believe me, when that boy talked he talked plenty. Gilvray knows enough to send me up — so I had to pull this one. Anyway, it looked like a cinch. Just had to play sweet to that Bergen for a while till I got what I wanted.”

Paul Pry tossed Samuel Bergen’s business card on the desk.

“Baby!” he said fervently, “I’m fallin’. I believe you. I suppose this guy thinks you’re on the up and up, and I’m not going to spoil it for you. I won’t tell him a single word of this.”

She snorted.

“He’s a married bozo that thinks his wife don’t understand him. I only played him along because Big Front put it up to me cold turkey. I’m goin’ to bounce him back so hard he’ll stick.”

The officer tapped on the glass.

They turned, saw his frowning face jerk in an impatient gesture toward the door.

“Hurry up!” whispered Paul Pry to the girl, “fork over what you took out of that wallet.”

Her hand darted into the front of her dress, came out with a folded paper.

“What were you instructed to do with this paper?”

“Meet a guy with a pink carnation in his coat on the corner of the Cody Building at five twenty-five sharp and turn it over to him. An’, so help me, mister, that’s all I know, except I got a wad of dough. I s’pose I gotta cough that up,” and she reached for her purse.

Paul Pry shook his head.

“Nope, sister. The dough’s yours. Forget all this. If anybody asks you questions, tell ’em to go to headquarters and they can get all the information they want. So long.”

The officer opened the door.

“Say, are you goin’—”

Paul Pry grinned.

“Got what we came after, old top. So long, sister, be good till I see you again.”

“Good and careful,” said the girl, with emphasis.

Paul Pry took the officer’s arm, thrust a crumpled twenty dollar bill into his palm.

“There you are, officer, that’ll pay the damage. I got it just like I promised.”

The officer jerked his arm away.

“I’d oughta run you in as a vag,” he growled. “Livin’ off’n your kid sister that way. Bah!”

They returned to the corner. The flivver driver received his money, the officer made his report. The crowd that had stood around in eager expectation of a fight sighed and dispersed. The cars were driven away. The corner became as usual.

Paul Pry unfolded the document he had received from the girl. It was an original and duplicate bill of lading of the “Interurban Motor Express Company,” calling for the delivery of one package sent by Samuel Bergen to one Herbert Dangerfield at Midland.

Paul Pry chuckled. Things were shaping up now. He knew now why the girl had purchased the incense burner; he knew the reason for that fumbling under the towel. She must have slipped her receipt for the incense burner into Bergen’s wallet to take the place of the one she stole from Bergen, which he now held in his hand.

Paul Pry jumped into his car, drove away. He stopped in front of the gift shop where the girl had selected the present of an incense burner and ordered it packed for shipping. He strolled in.

Paul Pry also selected an incense burner. He, too, expressed some concern over the construction, wondered whether it would stand shipping, and gave instructions that it was to be packed so that a safe delivery could be guaranteed.

He personally supervised the packing, the wrapping, then paid for the article and left the store. He went at once to the Interurban Motor Express Company and shipped the parcel to Herbert Dangerfield at Midland, and he gave the name of the shipper as Samuel Bergen.

He pocketed the original and one copy of the bill of lading which had been given him, along with the one he had wheedled out of the manicurist. Then he strolled from the express office and contemplated the afternoon crowds which milled about the street. There was in his eye the calm tranquillity of one who is at peace with the world, having performed a task well.

He got in his car, drove to the wholesale jewellery store of R. C. Fenniman.

“I wish to see Mr. Fenniman at once upon a matter of the most urgent importance,” he told the girl at the wicketed window.

She shook her head.

“He said he didn’t want to be disturbed this aft’noon. He’s ’n conference.”

Paul Pry smiled, a patronizing smile of self-assurance.

“Tell him that I am waiting to save him from a big loss and that he has just three minutes to make up his mind whether he wants to see me or not.”

The girl nodded, vanished, impressed with something in Paul’s manner.

And R. C. Fenniman had exactly two minutes and ten seconds to spare out of the three minute limit when the girl returned and nodded.

“Come this way.”

She led the visitor past a row of showcases, past locked safes, past desks where men looked up curiously. A man gave an exclamation, got to his feet.

It was Samuel Bergen, freshly shaved and manicured.

“How’d you make out?”

Paul Pry grinned.

“Fine. Got a nice settlement, thanks to you. Had your card and thought, I’d drop in and see your boss — theft insurance, merchants’ protection, that’s my line.”

Bergen recoiled and paled.

“For God’s sake, don’t tell him you came here because of me!”

Paul let his face lengthen.

“Gee, I thought that’d make a good opening.”

“Lord, man! You don’t know the boss,” groaned Bergen.

“All right, old chap, all right,” agreed Paul. “I won’t say a word. If you should happen in the room while I’m there don’t even let on that you ever saw me before. I’ll stand back of you. You sure backed me up — All right, young lady, coming. Thought I knew this gentleman, but it’s a mistake. He just reminded me of someone else I knew.”

And Paul Pry turned to the left, went through the door the girl was holding open.

A glum individual with the folded, seamed face of a dyspeptic regarded Pry with dour appraisal.

“What do you want?”

Paul sat down, crossed his legs, gave some concern to the crease in his trousers, took a cigarette from his case, lit it, blew out a cloud of smoke, grinned.

“You’re going to be robbed,” he said.

The lean face twisted in some form of emotion. The red-rimmed eyes blinked. The lips twitched.

“Bah!” said the man, and the sour odour of his breath poisoned the air of the office, came in a nauseating wave to the nostrils of Paul Pry.

Pry shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m representing a new service to merchants. I can prevent certain crimes. There’s a crime contemplated against your property, and I have the power to prevent that crime.”

The sour individual gulped.

“Get out!”

“Come, come. Not so fast. How about a certain shipment you made earlier in the afternoon, a shipment to a chap by the name of Dangerfield? Rather valuable, wasn’t it?”

The man scraped back his chair, got his feet in under him, uncoiled his thin length and glowered from red-rimmed eyes. Then his finger jabbed a button.

Samuel Bergen thrust a rather alarmed face into the room.

“Bergen,” rasped the man, “you sent that shipment to Dangerfield?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got the receipt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Le’me see it.”

“I put it in the file. I’ll have to get it.”

“All right. Get it.”

The man vanished silently, deferentially.

Paul Pry grinned.

“Rather a joke if that shipment got stolen. Valuable?”

“Of course it’s valuable. And it’s not going to get stolen.”

“No?”

“No. Of course not. Dangerfield’s got a first-class place. His credit’s A-1. He does the cream of the business at Midland. When he says he wants something, he gets it. He telephoned that order in and mentioned the time and the way he wanted it shipped. He’s responsible from the minute we get the bill of lading. We ship our stuff free on board shipping point.”

The door opened. Samuel Bergen was back with a duplicate copy of a bill of lading. In his hand was a letter and an original bill of lading.

“Here you are, sir.”

“Uh, huh.”

Fenniman glowered at the documents.

“Perhaps, if you were to call Dangerfield on the phone, you’d find out the order was a fake,” suggested Paul Pry. “Not, of course, that I’m given to making suggestions gratuitously, but just to show you how complete my system of information is.”

R. C. Fenniman was on his feet, his sallow skin purpled with rage. The little eyes over their folds of puffed flesh glared the bitter rage of the sickly, the lips quivered with emotion.

“Get out of here. Get out before I call the police. You’ve got a hell of a crust telling me how to run my business! I should run up long-distance calls and offend a customer just so you can make a smart aleck out of yourself. Get on your way.”

Paul Pry smiled enigmatically. He picked up his stick, adjusted his tie, took his hat, and bowed low.

“And if you should come to the conclusion that you’re wrong, if it should appear that I was right, just put an ad in the personal column of The Examiner, mentioning the amount of the reward you’ll pay for the return of the stolen property. I always prefer to prevent crime for a consideration. If I can’t do that I can, at least, restore stolen property — for a larger consideration. Good day to you, Mr. Fenniman, and if I might make the suggestion, a little pepsin for the stomach. And try not to get in a rage within two hours of eating. It interferes with the digestion. You’ll find some excellent pepsin preparations—”

With an inarticulate roar the thin man sprang at the door. Paul Pry, his hand on the knob, casually pulled it shut and left the wholesale jeweller quivering his indignation before the blank surface of a closed door.

Paul Pry went directly to the office of the Interurban Motor Express Company.

“I shipped a package earlier in the day,” he confided to the clerk. “Here’s the bill of lading.” He handed the clerk the receipt the manicurist had lifted from Bergen’s wallet, and which he had gained possession of under such unusual circumstances. “Please cancel the shipment if it hasn’t gone out yet.”

“We’ll have to make a handling charge,” the clerk warned.

Paul Pry nodded smilingly.

“Of course!” he purred.

The clerk vanished, returned with the package.

“It’s scheduled for the six o’clock bus. Sure you don’t want it sent out?”

“Certain. The order’s been cancelled. Thank you.”

“Twenty-five cent handling charge. Shipped prepaid. You’ve got a credit coming.”

“Buy a cigar with it,” said Paul Pry, as he walked out of the door with the package which had originally been sent by Samuel Bergen to Herbert Dangerfield, the bill of lading for which had been through so many adventures.

In his pocket there still remained the bill of lading for an incense burner, shipped to Herbert Dangerfield at Midland, and due to leave on the six o’clock bus — the bill of lading for the purchase he himself had made for a very good reason.

He consulted his watch, muttered an exclamation of surprise.

“How rapidly time flies,” he remarked to himself, and sauntered toward the corner of the Cody Building.

A man with a pink carnation in his coat was waiting there when Paul arrived. The man seemed impatient.

Paul bowed, smiled.

“A certain young lady, who was unable to get away from her employment, requested that I deliver a certain document to you, and ask if you had any further instructions,” he drawled.

The man grabbed the bill of lading.

“About time,” he snapped, and hurried into the crowd, taking elaborate preparations to see that he was not followed.

But Paul Pry had no need to follow the man.

He returned to his rented roadster, parked within sight of the exit from the offices of the Interurban Motor Express Company. In the rear of that roadster was the package he had received when he had cancelled the shipment of Bergen’s package and surrendered the bill of lading.

He swung into the seat, cocked his feet up on the dash, lit a cigarette, and surveyed the faces of the hurrying throng that surged around him with a smile of placid repose.

Big Front Gilvray had arranged to have the bill of lading surrendered to his man during the rush hour when the streets were at the height of late-afternoon congestion. His man surrendered the papers Paul had given him at a time when the Interurban Motor Express Company was at the peak of its rush hour, employees rushing about, packages cascading down metal-lined chutes, truck engines roaring, men sweating, telephones ringing.

The man with the carnation swung from the door of the express company with a square package under his arm. He glanced surreptitiously up and down the street, then plunged into the mass of humanity.

Ten seconds later, ensconced in a closed car which had been parked at the kerb, a car driven by a coloured chauffeur in livery, the man was whisked away.

Behind that closed car, driving with consummate skill, Paul Pry piloted his rented roadster.

The chase led to an apartment building, one that was very similar to the one where Paul Pry maintained his own quarters.

The man jumped from the car, ran toward a door.

Paul Pry whistled, sharply.

The man turned. A hand went back to his hip pocket.

Paul Pry slammed on the brakes, jumped to the kerb.

“I forgot to include my card with the package,” he said, and extended a slip of oblong pasteboard.

The man took the pasteboard.

“How the hell did you get here?” he demanded.

Paul merely bowed, smiled.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Not so fast,” growled the man. His gaze went swiftly up and down the street. “Back into that doorway, you damn fool, and keep your hands up.”

Paul Pry backed into the doorway, his face wearing a pained expression of puzzled surprise.

The man with the carnation lunged forward. Blued steel glittered in his right hand.

“Stick ’m up,” he said.

Paul Pry’s wrist swung the cane in a glittering arc, too swiftly rapid for the eye to follow. There was the sound of a cracking click as the wood crashed against the blued steel, the whoosh of expelled breath as the point jabbed into the pit of the man’s stomach.

“Touché!” exclaimed Paul Pry, as he pushed past the figure.

The man groped for his gun, his face writhing in agony, his skin greenish, his mouth open, gasping for air.

Paul Pry vaulted into the seat of his roadster. Behind it a long string of cars was clamouring for action. Paul Pry slammed in the gears. The roadster shot forward. The string of impatient cars filled up the gap. By the time the man with the carnation reached the closed car pursuit was out of the question. Paul Pry was driving at the head of a snarled mass of traffic.

He reached his apartment just as Mugs Magoo was reaching for a telephone.

“Oh, there you are, sir. I was wondering if I hadn’t better find out where Gilvray was holed up and get in touch with him. I was getting a mite worried, sir.”

“No need, Mugs. I had a perfectly delightful afternoon. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that Gilvray might suspect the moll of a double-cross and make it hot for her, so I had to send him my card with a brief note of thanks, telling him just how I had put two and two together.”

“And did you make four?” asked Mugs.

“I think so, Mugs. I think so. We’ll watch the personal column of The Examiner for the next few days. And just imagine the surprise of Big Front Gilvray when he opens the package and finds he’s got one brass incense burner, no more, no less. And do you know, Mugs, I stopped at an art store and arranged to have two pounds of choice incense delivered to him at his apartment. His name’s on the apartment directory, Mugs, B F Gilvray — can you feature that? I suppose the initials stand for Big Front?”

“Nope, they stand for Benjamin Franklin. The boys all call him Big Front. Sure he lives under his own name, right out in the open.”

Paul Pry smiled.

“Benjamin Franklin, eh?” he queried.

R. C. Fenniman was obstinate. It was not until after he had exhausted every possible source of aid from police and detectives that he availed himself of Paul Pry’s offer. It was one day a good two weeks after the episode of the substituted packages that Mugs Magoo looked up from The Examiner.

“Here it is, sir — an ad signed with the initials R. C. F.”

Paul Pry chuckled.

“Make up as a panhandler, Mugs. Take the package around to him. Call his attention to the fact that it’s never been opened. And if he tries to question you, simply tell him you were working the streets when a man asked you to deliver the package, take the reward and put in it this envelope.”

“He may grab the package and refuse to kick through with the reward.”

“That would be wonderful, Mugs. You could tell him that, if he didn’t come through, the man who gave you the package said he would collect the reward with interest by methods of his own.”

Mugs chuckled.

“An’ I guess he’s had enough of them sort of methods, sir. Bet he’s thrown a fit first and last. The receipt he returned to the express company tallied with the number on the box he got back. It’s probably never occurred to ’em that the bills of lading were switched. They’ve been looking for an inside job in the express office.”

Paul Pry lit a cigarette.

“Perhaps, Mugs. But we can’t be concerned with details. By the way, drop past the Caledonia Apartments on your way back and see if Gilvray is still registered there. I would rather fancy making a little more money out of the criminal activities of this Gilvray chap. Benjamin Franklin! Fancy!”