The Adventures of Paul Pry

Death awaited him in that mysterious chamber — death from three blunt-nosed guns. Yet Paul Pry only smiled as he hurried toward it. When a fellow has been put on the spot, the least he can do is to be on time for the works.

1. Screams in the Dark

The girl emerged from the underbrush by the river road, stood where the headlights of the automobile fell full upon her white face, and screamed with stark terror.

Such clothes as she had worn had been ripped to shreds. There were bruises on her arms and chest. The white skin of her body was scratched where brush had scraped against it as she had plunged headlong in mad terror.

Her eyes were staring, dark with fear. Her face was pale to the lips. One well-formed leg protruded through a rip which ran from the hem of her skirt to the hip. Her hands were upraised, palms outward, and ostentatiously empty.

But Paul Pry did not bring his automobile to an immediate stop. “Big Front” Gilvray, arch-gangster, had decreed that Paul Pry be placed on the spot, and the decree had been overlong in execution.

The sixteen-cylinder automobile which Paul Pry was driving was no mere sedan, as its appearance would indicate. It was built of armour which would stop a rifle bullet, and the windows were of bulletproof glass.

Several slight indentations in the armour of the body bore witness to a previous attempt on the part of the gangsters to carry out the orders of their vengeful chief. But the machine gun had failed to penetrate and Paul Pry had lived to take his powerful car out for an evening drive on the river road.

And because it was more than probable that this screaming woman might well be the bait with which some trap was to be sprung, Paul Pry ran his automobile some fifty yards past her before he brought it to a stop. Then he switched off all lights, took the butt of his automatic in his hand, and opened the door.

“Do you want help?” he called.

And, as his hail was swallowed up in the dark shadows of the brush which rimmed the road, Paul Pry listened, his every sense alert.

The screams of the woman came to his ears. They were steady, high-pitched, mechanical screams. Such screams might a woman give who had gone into hysterics, then worn down her emotions through a sheer ecstasy of fear until fatigue had taken a hand and made of the screams a regular rhythm of unconscious effort.

Paul Pry called to her again, and the call was unanswered. But the screams became louder. She was running toward him.

Paul Pry left the door open. He started the purring power of the sixteen-cylinder motor, waited.

She was still screaming as she blocked the door of the automobile.

“Get in,” said Paul Pry.

The woman scrambled in the car. Paul Pry snapped in the clutch so suddenly that the forward lunge of the machine slammed the door shut. His headlights snapped on, and he also clicked on the dome light — just to make sure that those hands remained empty.

They were still empty, beseeching hands that clung to his coat with the grip of hysteria. The screams ceased, and, in their place, came sobs, heart-wrenching sobs which would eventually bring solace to the overtaxed nerves.

Paul Pry drove his machine for nearly a mile, then turned up a side road and stopped. He disengaged his left hand from the steering wheel, turned toward her.

She grabbed him, flung her slender body close to his as a drowning woman will grasp at the form of a rescuer. Paul Pry slid his right arm around her waist. She pressed a tear-stained cheek to his, sobbed out unintelligible words.

Paul Pry patted the bare shoulder, attempted to soothe her. Gradually his words impressed themselves upon her senses and the throbbing quieted. She snuggled to him as a kitten might snuggle to a warm brick, dropped her head upon his shoulder, and lapsed into a semi-conscious condition which seemed half sleep, half stupor.

Paul Pry, engine idling for a quick getaway if occasion should require, lights switched off, right hand within quick reaching distance of his automatic, maintained watchful silence.

After some ten minutes she straightened. Her muscles seemed more relaxed. Her hands ceased to claw at his garments.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The name,” he said, “Pry. You seemed to be pretty much frightened.”

She flung herself to him as he reminded her of her fright. Then, as his hand slid along the bare skin of her back where the garments had been torn, she gasped and flung herself away, modesty asserting itself.

She explored the damage to her garments with questing fingers.

“Isn’t there a light in the car?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Paul Pry, “there is a dome light.”

“Turn it on.”

He snapped the switch.

As the light showed her the extent of her figure which was readily visible through the torn garments, she stifled a little scream.

“Turn it off!” she cried.

Paul Pry switched off the light.

“Haven’t you a robe or something?”

“I have an overcoat in the back of the car. I’ll get it.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, and was over the back of the seat with a motion as lithe as that of a wildcat stalking from cover to cover.

Paul Pry turned on the light again.

“On the robe rail,” he said.

“O.K., big boy, keep your head turned.”

There was a rustle of garments.

“That’s better,” she said. “Lord, what a spectacle I must have been! Did you find me in the road?”

“You came to the road and stopped me.”

“Where are we now?”

“About a mile from where I picked you up.”

“Let’s get out of here — quick!”

“Do you want to tell me about it? That is, can I help?” asked Paul Pry.

She climbed back over the seat, gathered the overcoat about her legs, wrapped it around her breast, grinned.

“O.K. Gimme a cigarette. Guess I must have gone off my nut for a while.”

“You had hysterics.”

“Maybe. I ain’t the type that can’t stand the gaff, but that was too much. They were taking me for a ride.”

Paul Pry handed her the electric cigarette lighter. She inhaled a great drag from the cigarette, blew out the smoke in twin streams from appreciative nostrils, sighed.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Paul Pry nosed the car over the rough road, found a good place to turn, swung the big machine around, headed back to the highway, and purred into speed.

“Shoot,” he said.

She cocked her head on one side, regarded him with quizzical eyes. They were, he saw, blue eyes, eyes that held a sort of light in their depths, a puzzling, challenging light. Her lips were half parted, and pearly teeth glinted invitingly. Her head was tilted back and up, and the long line of her throat, stretching down to where his overcoat lapels parted, showed with the gleam of pure ivory.

“I’m not a good girl,” she said, and watched him.

Paul Pry laughed.

“What is this, a confession?”

She took another drag at the cigarette, shook her head, removed the paper cylinder and smiled frankly.

“No, but I don’t want to get you in bad, and I wanted to tell you the worst at the start. I’m a gangster’s moll — or I was. I’ve helped rum-runners load and unload, and I’ve seen a hijacking or two.”

Paul Pry did not seem greatly surprised.

“So,” she stressed, “I’m not what you’d call a ‘good’ girl.”

Paul Pry’s eyes were on the road ahead.

“The habit of classifying all women as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ went out of fashion ten or fifteen years ago — thank heavens!” he said.

She sighed.

“I’m glad you feel that way. You see, I was the moll of Harry the Dip, and they took me for a ride. Maybe you read about it in yesterday’s paper. Well, they thought I might get sore and squeal, so they decided to take me for a ride.

“I was to visit a girl friend and stay with her for a while. She said she’d send a friend in his car. God, she double-crossed me! Damn her. I’ll claw her eyes out. Well, that’s about all there was to it. This ‘friend’ jabbed a gun in my ribs. The car stopped and picked up another man. They took me out on the river road, turned up a side road, found a place that suited them, and got ready to bump me off.

“But I got a break. One of them sort of fell for me. I got to playing them one against the other, watched my chance and jumped into the brush. They both shot at me half a dozen times, and I guess the fear and the running and all that just sent me off my nut. I don’t remember anything else until I found myself pulling the cry-baby act on your shoulder. Was I a nuisance?”

“Not at all,” said Paul Pry.

She sighed.

“God, it’s awful lonesome with Harry gone!”

Paul Pry made no comment. The blue eyes flashed up and down his profile. The overcoat fell away on one side, disclosing a large expanse of shapely limb. But the eyes of Paul Pry, narrowed into calculating slits, remained on the road.

Slowly, with a tardiness that was almost an invitation, the girl replaced the flap of the overcoat and regarded him thoughtfully.

“Are you afraid of getting mixed up with the gangs just for rescuing me?”

Paul Pry answered that at once.

“No,” he said.

“I didn’t think you would be.”

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Louise Eckhart,” she told him. Then, after a moment, “My friends call me Lou.”

“Where do you want to go, Lou?”

She smiled up at him.

“I like you,” she said.

He nodded. “Where to?” he repeated.

“I’ve got a suitcase parked at the Union Depot. I did have the ticket in my stocking. Wonder if it’s gone?”

She pulled the overcoat to one side, searched the tops of her stockings, first the right, then the left. She handed him a crumpled bit of pasteboard.

“That’s luck. I can get some clothes. Would you mind driving to the depot, getting the suitcase, and then driving me where I can dress?”

“Not at all,” said Paul Pry. “I’d better get some gasoline if we’re going that far, though. I’m about out.”

They were approaching the junction of the river road with the through boulevard, and the lights of gasoline stations flung themselves out across the darkness.

The girl sighed.

“You,” she proclaimed, “are a regular guy.”

Paul Pry made no comment. He drove into a gasoline station.

“Fill her up,” he told the attendant, and walked to the telephone, gave the number of his apartment, and heard the voice of “Mugs” Magoo on the telephone.

“Drunk, Mugs?”

“Not yet. Gimme ten minutes more an’ I will be.”

“Forget it. Take a drink of water and chase down to the Union Depot. I’m going to drive in there with a moll. Manage to give her the once-over and see if you place her. Then go back to the apartment. I’ll meet you there.”

Mugs Magoo grunted.

“I’ll do it all for you — all except take the drink of water,” he remarked. “Water’s poison to my system,” and he clicked the receiver back in place.

2. The Goose Cackles

Paul Pry paid the attendant. The girl watched him with shrewd eyes. “Telling the wife you were detained at the office?” she asked.

“No wife.”

“Betcha I’m making you miss a heavy date, then.”

Paul Pry grinned.

“It’s worth it.”

He got into the car, drove rapidly and skilfully through the traffic, parked in front of the Union Depot, handed a redcap porter the crumpled pasteboard and a half-dollar.

“At the check stand,” he said. “Make it snappy.”

And Paul Pry watched the face of the girl at his side to see if she was at all nonplussed at his failure to call for the suitcase in person. If she was, she failed to show it.

Paul Pry was red hot. It might well be that the sole function of this girl was to get him on the spot in front of the checking stand at the Union Depot.

Mugs Magoo walked past.

His glassy eyes flicked once toward the automobile, then turned away. He walked awkwardly, dressed in shabby clothes, his right arm gone at the shoulder.

At one time he had known every crook in the underworld, and his information was now hardly less complete. He had been “camera-eye” man for the metropolitan police. A political shake-up, an accident which cost him his right arm, and bad booze, had made him a human derelict selling pencils in the gutter.

Paul Pry had “discovered” him, and organized a strange partnership. For Mugs Magoo never forgot a name, a face or a connection. While Paul Pry was an opportunist de luxe who lived by his wits. And of late he had chosen to exercise those wits in a battle against Benjamin Franklin Gilvray, known to the police as Big Front Gilvray.

For years Big Front Gilvray had grown in power and prestige. The police knew him as a big man, too powerful to tackle, a gangster who was always in the background, letting his minions do the dirty work of murder and plunder. The police hated Gilvray, and they feared him.

To Paul Pry, Big Front Gilvray was merely the goose which laid his golden eggs.

The redcap returned with a suitcase, deposited it in the car. Paul Pry drove away into the stream of traffic.

“Gosh,” said the girl, “I can’t change in here. You’re sort of one of the family, but these windows are too wide. I don’t want to give the whole damned city a treat.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“We will go to a safe place,” he said.

And he meant what he said. He had no intention of letting this girl open that suitcase, take out a gun and pull the trigger.

He took her to a cheap hotel, engaged a suite of connecting rooms, took her up to those rooms, and closed the door while she engaged in the process of changing her clothes.

When she rejoined him in the bedroom, Paul Pry was ready for anything in the line of attack. But there was nothing. She smiled gratefully at him.

“Kid,” she said, giving him her hand, “here’s where we part. I ain’t asked you nothing about yourself, but I have an idea you’re a big shot on the lam, maybe from Chi. It’s easy enough to see that you’re about half sold on the idea that I am a lure to put you on the spot.

“But you’ve been a gent, and you’ve treated me white. I’m going out. I won’t see you again. Tonight at eleven o’clock I’ve got to go up against the most dangerous thing I’ve ever tackled. If you read in the papers about me being found with a lot of lead in me, remember that I was thinkin’ of you when I cashed in.

“You’ve given me a chance, and you’ve been on the up and up. Want to drive me downtown?”

He nodded. “You’ll stay here tonight?”

“If I come through alive.”

“Must you run into it?”

“Yes. I’m meeting a big shot of the Gilvray gang in the Mandarin Cafe. He’s got Room 13 reserved. If I can get what I want I’ll walk in and walk out inside of five minutes. If I ain’t out by then I’ll never come out. But I’ve got to go. That big shot has something I’ve got to have.”

Paul Pry lit a cigarette.

“Just you and he alone?” he asked.

“That’s the bargain. I wouldn’t deal any other way. It’s a long chance, but I’m taking it. Big Front Gilvray doesn’t waste any love on me. My man was a thorn in his flesh. He’d like to give me the works. But he needs me in his business. He’s pulling a job that they’ve got to have a moll on that knows the ropes. I’m elected. I can deliver the goods. The other molls can’t.

“I wish to God Harry hadn’t been bumped. Then I wouldn’t worry. If I had a man to cover me, I’d walk in there. If I wasn’t out in five minutes my man could brush in through the curtains with his rod ready, and take me out.

“The Gilvray gangster’s yellow. He’s Chick Bender. Used to be a mouthpiece until he got disbarred. Now he’s the brains of the gang, but he’s got no guts.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Yes, I’ve heard of Chick Bender.”

The girl yawned and pulled her cupped hands along the contour of her leg, frankly straightening the seam in her stocking without bothering to turn her back.

“Yeah,” she remarked. “You ain’t heard anything good about him.”

Paul Pry switched off the lights. “You have the keys,” he said.

She kissed him in the dark.

“Baby, you’re a regular guy. Wish I knew you better. Maybe you’d help me give the Gilvray gang a double-crossing that would make a fortune for us. God, I wish Harry hadn’t got on the spot.”

Paul Pry patted her shoulder.

“What time’s the appointment?”

“Eleven. Wish me luck.”

“You’ve got it. It’s early yet. Want to drive around?”

“No, just dump me — tell you what, big boy, if you want to see more of me, stick around the Mandarin about five after eleven. If I come through O.K. I’ll give you a tumble. If I get bumped you can forget about me.”

Her blue eyes were wistful.

“I’d sure like to see more of you,” she added.

Paul Pry smiled at her.

“Perhaps, if you find yourself in danger, you may find me sticking around.”

“You mean it?”

“Perhaps.”

Her arms twined around his neck in a fierce embrace.

Mugs Magoo emptied the glass of whiskey with a single motion of the left arm. His glassy eyes fastened upon Paul Pry in emotionless appraisal.

“You got no business here,” he said.

Paul Pry laughed, entered the apartment and closed the steel door.

“Why so? Isn’t it my apartment?”

“Yeah. I guess so, but you ain’t got no business being here. You’d oughta be out pushing daisies. You got a date with the undertaker. How’d you break it?”

Paul Pry took off his topcoat and hat, came over and sat down.

“Meaning?” he said.

Mugs Magoo poured himself another drink of whiskey.

“Meaning that the moll was Maude Ambrose. She went by the nickname of Maude the Musher in Chi. That’s because she’s got such a good line of mush. She usually lets a guy rescue her from some danger or other. Then she gets mushy over him and finally puts him on the spot.”

Paul Pry lit a cigarette. Twin devils were dancing in his eyes.

“She’s nothing but a kid,” he objected.

“Kid, hell! She’s a kidder.”

“You think she’s tied up with Gilvray’s gang?”

Mugs Magoo sighed, poured himself a drink of whiskey, gazed at the bottle ruefully.

“Hell,” he said, “it’s a cinch. You never would follow my advice. First you twist Gilvray’s tail into a knot, and then instead of crawlin’ into a hole an’ pullin’ the hole in after you, you start raggin’ hell outa Gilvray.

“Nobody’s goin’ to stand that. An’ then, on top of it all, you drive around just like you was any ordinary citizen out for a little air. Gilvray’s found out your car is bulletproof. He’s fixed up somethin’ else for you. Maude the Musher!

“I presume you found her in her undies, just climbin’ from the river where she claimed somebody’d tried to drown her, didn’t you? That’s her best line, getting all roughed up and losin’ most of her clothes, then fallin’ on the neck of the guy she’s ropin’ and gettin’ mushy.”

Paul Pry puffed at the cigarette with every evidence of enjoyment.

“You have described almost exactly what happened, Mugs.”

Mugs Magoo blinked his glassy expressionless eyes.

“Yeah. Her man’s in town, too.”

“Her man?”

“Yeah, Charles Simmons. They call him Charley the Checker, because he always works a suitcase checking racket wherever he goes. He’s bought into the checking concession at the Union Depot. That’s where the Jane had her suitcase parked.

“When you handed the redcap the ticket for that suitcase it was her way of lettin’ her man know that you’d fallen for her line. So they got the spot ready for you.

“I didn’t ever expect to see you again. So I came back an’ tried to get drunk. But I can’t make the grade. Not yet, I can’t. I ain’t had but about an hour, though.”

And Mugs Magoo poured the last of the whiskey in the quart bottle into the glass, tossed it off, looked significantly at the empty bottle, then at Paul Pry.

That individual laughed, took a key from his pocket, tossed it to Mugs.

“Here’s the key to the whiskey safe. Go as far as you like, Mugs. I’m to be put on the spot tonight at eleven.”

“Huh, she put it off that long, eh?”

“Yes. I’m to be punctured at Room 13 at the Mandarin Cafe at exactly eleven-five.”

Mugs Magoo blinked his glassy eyes rapidly.

“Then you keep off the streets tonight. You stay right here.”

Paul Pry consulted his thin watch.

“On the contrary, Mugs, I think I shall be on my way to keep my appointment with the undertaker.”

He got to his feet.

“You mean you’re goin’ to fall for Maude the Musher an’ walk on the spot?”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Yes. I rather think I have use for this girl you call Maude the Musher. She offers a point of contact with the Gilvray gang. And I have a hunch they’re about ready to do something.”

Mugs Magoo’s jaw sagged.

“Do something— Hell, you don’t mean—”

Paul Pry nodded as he wrapped a scarf about his neck.

“Exactly, Mugs. I have decided to let the goosie lay another golden egg.”

And Paul Pry was gone, the door slamming shut with a clicking of spring locks and bolts.

“I,” observed Mugs Magoo, “will be damned!”

He blinked incredulous eyes at the door through which Paul Pry had vanished, and then bestirred himself to go to the safe where the whiskey was kept.

“I better get plenty while the stuff is here,” he observed to himself, his tongue getting a little thick. “Dealin’ with an administrator is goin’ to be hell!”

3. Embrace of Death

Charles Simmons, known in Chicago as Charley the Checker, sat in Room 13 at the Mandarin Cafe with a heavy calibre revolver on his lap. His right hand rested within a few inches of the gun butt.

Back of him, well to the right, sat Chick Bender, the disbarred lawyer, brains of the Gilvray gang. He was a hatchet-faced man with cold eyes, and the habit of constantly blinking and sniffing. His long bony nose twitched and sniffed, sniffed and twitched. Occasionally he sucked his underlip between his teeth and chewed on it nervously. He was ill at ease.

The girl sat at the table, her chin resting on her cupped hands, her blue eyes twinkling with lazy humour.

“So he fell? You’re sure he fell?” asked Chick Bender.

The girl laughed, a throaty laugh of voluptuous abandon. “Hell, yes,” she said.

Charley the Checker glanced at his watch.

“He’s supposed to be bad medicine, awful fast with a gun.”

The girl’s voice drawled out an insult.

“Gettin’ yellow?”

The gangster sneered at her.

“Don’t get fresh or you’ll get knocked for a loop. You’re getting altogether too certain of what a hell of a swell moll you are lately.”

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and swept his right arm in a backhanded sweep. The knuckles caught her full on the chin and swept her head back, leaving a red spot on her lip where the teeth had bit through the skin.

Chick Bender stirred uneasily, frowning.

The girl’s eyes flashed, but she choked back the words that came to her lips.

“Remember,” warned Chick Bender. “Have your gun all ready. Don’t give him a chance to get organized. Shoot as soon as he comes through the door.”

A clock boomed the hour of eleven.

Below the green curtain appeared the silken pyjamas of a Chinese waiter. The foot showed the typical shoe of the Chinese.

“You leady eatum?” asked a sing-song voice as the waiter pushed through the curtain, set pots of tea on the table, put down bowls filled with thin rice cakes, each cake containing a printed slip of paper upon which had been printed an optimistic forecast of the future.

Charley the Checker slowly moved his right hand back.

“Yeah, but wait about ten minutes before you bring the rest of the stuff. Maybe somebody else comes.”

“All light,” said the waiter, and shuffled from the room.

The clock clacked off seconds which became minutes. Chick Bender lit a cigarette with a hand which shook. Charley the Checker looked at his watch and grunted.

“What the hell. It’s seven after eleven right now. I bet you fell down on the job, Maude.”

The girl sucked the blood from her lip.

“I hope to God I did,” she snapped.

Charley the Checker sneered. “I’ll give you what you’ve been needin’ for a long while when we get done with this guy,” he said. “Now remember the getaway, you guys—”

He broke off as footsteps sounded along the rough board floor. His hand crept down to his gun.

“I’m goin’ to let him have it as soon as he steps in,” he said. “Get ready. We ain’t takin’ any chances with this baby.”

The footsteps drew nearer, seemed to hesitate for a moment, then the form loomed against the curtain. Charley the Checker raised his right hand, the gun concealed beneath a napkin. The girl leaned forward, lips parted, eyes gleaming. Chick Bender pressed himself back against his chair as though to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

The curtains bulged inward as a form pressed against it, pushed it to one side. And Charley sighed, lowered his hand. Chick Bender took a deep breath. The girl’s lips came together.

For the legs which were visible beneath the green of the curtain were encased in silken pyjamas, and the shoes were those of the Chinese, flat, formless shoes topped with black velvet upon which were embroidered red and green dragons.

The curtain came to one side. A huge tray, piled high with smoking dishes, obscured the upper portion of the waiter.

It was the girl who first noticed that the hand which held the tray was not yellow, but white. She gasped. Charley the Checker, his own eyes caught by some incongruity of costume, streaked his hand up from under the table.

At that precise moment Paul Pry lowered one end of the tray and the steaming dishes, the boiling soup, the hot tea, all cascaded down upon the gangster.

Red-hot chicken noodles caught him on a level with his throat. The soup drained down his collar, the noodles festooned themselves about his collar and down his vest, looping over the vest buttons.

A pot of hot tea fell squarely on his lap. Egg foo yung ha dropped onto his head and slipped back down his collar. He screamed with pain and leaned forward.

Paul Pry flipped his right hand over and down.

There was a rubber slungshot suspended from his wrist. It thunked upon the top of the gangster’s head, and Charley the Checker became as utterly inert as a half-emptied sack of meal.

Chick Bender was on his feet, his eyes glassy, hands clawing nervously at his hip. Paul Pry scooped up a teapot from the table and flung it with unerring aim.

The gangster tried to dodge, failed, and staggered back under the impetus of the blow. Hot tea dashed over him. He tore frantically at his garments as the hot liquid soaked through to the skin.

Paul Pry’s right wrist arced through the air and Chick Bender stretched his length upon the floor. There were running steps. A yellow face surveyed the wreckage through the green curtain, uttered a wild volley of chattering words and disappeared.

Paul Pry grinned at the woman.

It took her a full breath to adjust herself to the suddenly changed situation. For an instant she seemed on the point of flashing her hand to her breast for some weapon. Paul Pry’s voice steadied her.

“They double-crossed you, kid. I found out there were two of ’em in the room. You had told me your bargain called for meeting Chick Bender alone. Then when you didn’t come out in five minutes like you said you would, I knew there was something wrong, and I came to rescue you.”

The girl nodded. Slowly, a smile came over her features.

“My hero!” exclaimed Maude the Musher.

Paul Pry worked fast.

“You said one of them had something you wanted?”

Maude the Musher had not been entirely certain just what it was she had told Paul Pry, but she nodded affirmation. It was time when it was best to agree to anything.

Paul Pry dropped to his knees in front of Chick Bender. His hands parted the tea-soaked garments, went exploring into the still hot pockets.

He pulled out a roll of bills, a wallet which contained papers, a notebook. Then he turned to Charley the Checker. Once more his hands darted through the pockets with uncanny skill and a swift precision which cut minutes to seconds, seconds to split fractions.

His collection of miscellaneous papers was augmented by another sheaf of currency, more letters and notebooks.

“Let’s go,” said Paul Pry.

Maude the Musher had fully adjusted herself to the situation by this time. The trap had failed, but the bait was still good. It remained for her to string Paul Pry along until he could once more be lured on a hot spot.

“Dearest!” she said, and clutched him to her.

Paul Pry fought loose from the embrace.

“We’ve no time to lose,” he said.

There was the sound of running feet in the corridor, the jabbering of many voices. A police whistle shrilled from the pavement. Paul Pry took the rolled currency which had come from Chick Bender, tossed it to one of the yellow men who led the procession.

“To pay for damage,” he said.

The beady black eyes fastened upon the denomination of the outer bill in that roll, and suddenly widened with glittering glee. The man’s swift fingers appraised the roll, called out sentences in the sing-song Cantonese dialect, and a lane opened through which Paul Pry and the girl travelled.

There were heavy feet on the stairs.

“Police no likum,” said Paul Pry.

The Chinaman who clutched the roll of bills nodded his head.

“Heavy savvy,” he said. “You come.”

He guided them through tortuous passages, up and down dark staircases until they finally reached the street at a point some two blocks from the Mandarin Cafe.

Paul Pry called a cab.

“Sweetheart!” said Maude the Musher, and burrowed into his embrace. “I’ve never known a man like you, never, never, never!”

Paul Pry patted her shoulder.

The taxi rumbled through traffic, found its way to the hotel where Paul Pry had engaged the suite of rooms. He and the girl went up in the rickety elevator. Paul Pry unlocked the door, stood back for the girl to enter. She walked into his room, switched on the light, smiled at him.

“Dearest,” she said, a catch in her voice, her eyes starry, “you’ve made me love you!”

Paul Pry shook his head.

“No. It’s just gratitude. Your nerves have been all unstrung. You wait until tomorrow and see how you feel.”

Her eyes blazed.

“You don’t want my love, then!” she stormed, and flounced into her own room, slamming the door, bolting it.

Paul Pry grinned at the opportune display of temper, tiptoed to the communicating door and listened.

She was telephoning, talking in low, cautious tones to someone on the other end of the line. And that someone seemed in quite a temper, to judge from the cooing explanations, the drooling promise which the girl was making.

Paul Pry smiled, walked back to his own room, turned out the lights, pulled back the bedcovers, took off his shoes, yawned, stretched.

In the other room Maude the Musher had finished her telephoning, and was listening, her ear to the door, her eyes gleaming with vengeful bloodlust that made them almost luminous in the darkness.

She heard the creak of the bedsprings as a tired man flung himself upon them. A little later there came the sound of rhythmic snores. Maude the Musher smiled, a smile that was utterly inscrutable. Slowly, deliberately she began to remove her clothes. The communicating door was locked only from her side.

But it was not until nearly three o’clock in the morning that she slowly turned the knob and pushed the door back upon noiseless hinges. Softly she walked into the room.

The light which seeped through the window made of her silk sheer night garment a billowy aura which served to mist the outline of her form without concealing it. She slowly made her way toward the bed, her eyes on the bulged covers.

When she came closer she started to croon.

“Dearest, you risked your life for me. Please don’t think me ungrateful. I would do anything for you, anything to get you what you deserve, you—”

And, having tiptoed to within springing distance, she drew a gleaming knife from behind her back, made a leap, and finished the sentence with a burst of foul profanity which accompanied the plunging knife.

For a long moment she straddled the hump in the bed, smothering it in an embrace of death, just as a midnight owl smothers the fugitive mouse with his enfolding wings.

Then the girl jumped back with an oath of surprise. She ripped away the bedcovers.

There was nothing beneath them but a wadded blanket or two and a pillow. The knife had ripped its way into the pillow, and white feathers were sifting over the bed, drifting through the air.

4. “Stop That Woman!”

Paul Pry sat in his apartment, his brows level in concentration. In his hand he held a typewritten copy of a notice which had evidently been prepared and delivered by the Gilvray gang. Pry had taken it from Chick Bender’s wallet.

It related to the arrival of a messenger from a large corporation that had sold an entire bond issue of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a local banking concern.

The corporation, it seemed, having issued the bonds in small denominational amounts, having made each one negotiable upon the theory that the issue would find its way into the hands of the small investor, now found that a bank was willing to take the entire amount.

A special messenger, carrying the three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in negotiable bonds, was due to arrive at the Union Depot the next evening at precisely 6.13.

The typewritten instructions showed the utter thoroughness with which the organization of Big Front Gilvray functioned. Not only had all of the facts concerning the shipment of bonds been ascertained, but the spies of the organization had even gone so far as to secure a picture of the messenger.

A copy of that picture was appended to the typewritten statement. It showed a youngish man with alert eyes, a small mouth, and hair that was slicked back in the polished symmetry of perfumed splendour.

But the typewritten statement confined itself to a description of the young man and the suitcase. It said nothing concerning a modus operandi by which the bonds were to be transferred from messenger to gangster.

And Paul Pry was particularly interested in that. For, as has been mentioned, Paul Pry, dapper, debonair, very fast on his feet, lived entirely by his wits. His living was, strictly speaking, within the law, for he specialized upon the recovery of stolen property for a reward.

The grand total of those rewards during the past twelve months had run into a very pretty figure. And the fact that Big Front Gilvray had been the indirect means of collecting these rewards had caused Paul Pry to regard the “big shot” as the goose who laid his golden eggs, had caused Gilvray to regard Paul Pry as a young man who must be placed upon a hot spot.

So Paul Pry sat and studied the typewritten statement through the calm, still hours of the night. He had certain facts to work upon, and only certain facts.

Maude the Musher, with her penchant for underclothed rescues, was in town. Her man, Charley the Checker, was running the checking stand at the Union Depot. The purchase of that checking stand must have cost a pretty penny, and, in view of the discovery that a young man was bringing three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in negotiable bonds at 6.13 in the evening to the Union Depot, that purchase seemed significant.

Paul Pry smoked several cigarettes over the problem. At the end of that time he went to bed. The solution seemed just out of his mental reach, like a dangling Hallowe’en apple. It was hardly likely that a young man would check a suitcase with three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bonds at a checking station. On the other hand, it was hardly possible that the gang of Big Front Gilvray would have become interested in that checking station unless it were to be more or less intimately associated with the suitcase containing the bonds.

In the end, Paul Pry drifted off to sleep, determined to play cards as they came to his hand without worrying too much in advance about what plans or what cards the other man might hold. Which is, after all, a pretty good way to gamble, or to live.

The 6.13 Cannonball Express rumbled into the Union Depot exactly on time to the minute. The exit lane for passengers was lined with those who came to meet incoming friends, relatives or sweethearts.

Paul Pry was ensconced atop a girder where he was apparently inspecting a chipped place in the marble pillar. He wore white overalls, held a small trowel in his hand, and was utterly ignored by the stream of human traffic which milled beneath him.

The first of the passengers from the 6.13 began to arrive.

An athletic man, his face beaming in anticipation, strode through the gates, looked at the lined faces of those who waited in parallel rows. A young woman thrust her way out into the passageway. He uttered a choked exclamation, and they clinched each other tightly.

About them swirled other passengers. Groups were formed and swept about. Red-capped porters pushed carts loaded with stacked baggage.

Paul Pry kept his eyes upon the athletic-looking young man who had been the first up the exit lane. For the girl who had met him with such wild affection, who had brought that choked exclamation to his eager lips, was none other than Maude Ambrose, from Chicago, known as Maude the Musher.

She was attired in a fur coat which came a trifle below her knees, yet did not interfere with a vision of silken contours which stretched smoothly from ankle to knee.

They were within a few feet of the checking stand where the gangster known as Charley the Checker, a purple welt across his forehead, his eyes a little cloudy with the after-effects of a concussion, solicited travellers to deposit their suitcases.

Directly behind Charley the Checker, within three feet of the brass-topped counter along which suitcases were slid by those desiring to check them, was a shelf upon which some three dozen suitcases were stacked, side by side. They were each placed on end, their handles to the front, and pasteboard tickets dangled from those handles.

Paul Pry noticed that there was one vacant space almost in the centre of those suitcases. He watched and waited.

Two men were shaking hands profusely within a few inches of Maude the Musher and her new-found boyfriend. A slender chap with cautious eyes and a cleft in his chin, pushed his way through the crowd. His right hand held the handle of a suitcase in a grip that was so tight the skin showed a dead white over the clenched knuckles.

Maude the Musher stepped back from the embrace of the young man. He made a playful grab at her, caught the sleeve of her fur coat. Maude the Musher jerked back.

The fur coat slid from her smoothly polished figure, and the crowded passengers and spectators became rooted to the spot.

There have been rumours of young women who, dressing hurriedly or carelessly for the street, have contented themselves with throwing a fur coat over filmy underthings, donning shoes and stockings and going demurely about their business.

But now the spectators had an opportunity to see for themselves that these rumours were not without their foundation.

Maude the Musher stood in such a position that the curves of her figure showed to the best advantage. The fur coat was on the tiled floor before her. Her pink silken undies were the latest mode, and had the most expensive ornamentation.

And, as though to direct all eyes to her, she screamed.

The travelling public have grown accustomed to coloured photographs of beauties in underthings upon the advertising pages of the women’s magazines. They have seen sights in Pullman cars, and, perhaps through hotel windows, that have made the coloured photographs seem rather pale. But the sight of a woman in the flesh, clad as Maude the Musher was clad, was enough to root every one in his tracks for a swift instant.

Maude the Musher, after that scream, doubled forward and reached for the fur coat. A man sprang forward to assist her.

Someone was knocked scrambling in that mad rush, and that someone was the youth who was carrying the suitcase in so tight a grip.

In falling he seemed to hit his head. For he lay still, limp. Only Paul Pry’s watching eyes had seen the hissing slungshot. All other eyes had been fastened upon Maude the Musher and the man who was springing to her assistance.

Only the eyes of Paul Pry, of all those spectators, saw exactly what happened to the suitcase which the young man had been carrying. For that suitcase was juggled with the well-trained coordination of a football squad sending the ball into an intricate play.

The suitcase was handed to one of the men who had been shaking hands. That man handed back a similar suitcase, and that similar suitcase sprawled on the floor so that it skidded directly against the prostrate form of the young man.

The suitcase the young man had been carrying passed through the hands of two people and thudded upon the brass-covered counter of the checking stand. Charley the Checker moved with lightning-like rapidity. He flipped the suitcase into the vacant space on the shelf, turned his back and faded from sight.

After all, being a known gangster has its disadvantages, and Charley the Checker knew that for the police to recognize him as the man in charge of the checking station might be exceedingly embarrassing. But he could trust no other with the delicate problem of handling the stolen bag.

After the hue and cry should die away, those securities would find their way into financial channels through sources which were divers and devious, yet none the less available.

But, the theft accomplished without a hitch, Charley the Checker “ducked out” and his place was taken by a slender man with very pale skin, but with eyes that were as cold as those of a rattlesnake.

Maude the Musher grabbed her fur coat about her and ran. Someone laughed. A travelling man dropped his suitcase to clap his hands in applause, and half a dozen laughing males joined in the applause. A policeman grinned broadly and shouldered his way through the crowd.

“Keep movin’,” he said, good-naturedly, and then saw the sprawled figure of the young man with the cleft chin. Two sympathetic passengers from the train were picking him up.

The officer thought with chain-lightning efficiency. He blew his whistle, raised his voice.

“Stop that woman!” he yelled.

And the crowd, sensing that all was not as it should have been with Maude the Musher, took up the cry. There was a car waiting at the kerb with motor running. The athletic young man unburdened by any baggage, gained this car, jumped behind the wheel. Obviously, it had been left there for that very purpose. Maude the Musher, her running handicapped somewhat by the necessity of keeping the fur about her, was a stride or two later.

But she very wisely rid herself of her impedimenta by tossing the fur coat at the machine, and vaulted into the seat with a flash of well-formed limbs, a glimpse of rounded flesh.

The car was already in motion.

Police whistles shrilled. A traffic officer started tugging at his gun. The automobile violated the traffic rules, saw a hole in the oncoming line of vehicles, and turned to the left with a great screeching of tyres. The rushing lane of automobiles closed up the opening, and the car was gone.

The young man with the cleft chin sat up. His eyes were completely glazed. It seemed impossible that he could know what he was doing, but he grasped for the suitcase on the floor beside him, snapped back the catch.

The suitcase was filled with those slips of tinted paper which represent waste cuttings from a printer’s shop, and the young man with the cleft chin raised his voice in an agonized scream.

“I’ve been robbed!” he shouted. “My suitcase! Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars—”

His voice trailed off into a wail, and he slumped back, unconscious once more.

Men ran about aimlessly. The uniformed police threw a cordon about the depot. Nearby traffic officers left their posts. A hurry call brought a squad of reinforcements on the double-quick.

But the police were unable to apprehend the men responsible for the robbery. The young man with the cleft chin regained consciousness. He had remembered the spectacle of the young woman with the fur coat and the pink silk undergarments. Then someone had jostled him, there had been a terrific jar upon his head and he had dropped to the floor.

He had not even seen the faces of those who had been responsible. The blow with the slungshot had come from behind, and that which followed had been done with such well-trained efficiency as to baffle detection.

Paul Pry sat upon his post, listened to all that followed. From time to time, his eyes dropped to the check stand where the pale-faced man took in suitcases and gave them out. And all the time the suitcase with its contents of bonds reposed back of the counter.

It was, as yet, too hot to handle. And what better hiding place could be devised for it than to have it nestled in amongst some two dozen other bags staring the police in the face?

5. Slick and Clean

Paul Pry fastened a bit of cement to the marble, repaired the chipped place, climbed down and took a streetcar. He didn’t go far, however.

There were stores near the depot that specialized in needs for the traveller. Cheap suitcases, made up to imitate expensive baggage, were displayed in windows with temptingly low prices placarded upon them.

Paul Pry became a customer of one of these stores, and his purchases were most peculiar.

He negotiated for a suitcase, two alarm clocks, a set of dry batteries, some junk radio equipment which loomed imposingly as a mass of tangled, coiled wires, sockets, polished metal, yet which was worth virtually nothing.

The proprietor was rubbing his hands when Paul Pry left.

Paul Pry secured a taxicab, wound up the alarm clocks, placed them inside the suitcase together with his other purchases, set the alarms on the clocks with extreme care, and ordered the cab driver to take him to the Union Depot.

He arrived at a time when trains were leaving and pulling in, when night traffic to the city was just commencing.

There was a vehicle cordon of police about the place, but they were scrutinizing suitcases that went out rather than suitcases that came in, and Paul Pry called a redcap.

“Take this to the checking stand and get me a check on it,” he said.

The porter moved off with the suitcase, and any noise which might have been made by the noisy ticking of the clocks was entirely drowned out in the tramp of feet, the roar of trains, the blare of automobile horns.

The porter returned with a slip of pasteboard bearing a number, received a generous tip, and promptly forgot about the entire matter. Paul Pry drove to his apartment, changed his clothes, ignored the pessimistic comments of Mugs Magoo, and returned to the Union Depot.

This time he carried a cane, rather a long, slender cane with a hook in the handle. He moved with the alert caution of a cat.

A glance showed him that the suitcase he desired was still in its place. That place was of advantage to the gangster who had flipped it there, because it required only a single sweeping motion with his right arm to transfer it there from the brass-covered counter.

Paul Pry took in the situation with calculating eye, and bided his time.

That time came when the evening trains had pulled out, when comparative silence descended upon the Union Depot. There were still hurrying throngs, but they were swallowed in the vast space of the huge terminal as though they had been but a handful of passing pedestrians.

Sounds became more audible.

Paul Pry looked at his watch, strolled to the kerb, summoned a cab, had the driver wait for him.

“I’ll be out in a few minutes. Got to meet the wife on one train and sprint across the city to make a connection at the other depot. She’s bringing me my suitcase. Came away without it this afternoon. You be all ready to go as soon as I get here.”

The cab driver nodded, yawned, pocketed a tip.

“I’ll get you there,” he promised.

Paul Pry strolled back to the station, went to the battery of public telephone booths. Through the glass door of the booth he selected he could see the pasty-faced man on duty at the checking stand.

He was, doubtless, such a man as had no readily available police record. Yet he would hesitate to appeal to the police for protection in an emergency.

Paul Pry deposited a coin and gave the number of the telephone at the checking stand. He saw the pasty-faced man scoop up the telephone to his ear, answer it. Over the wire, to his ear, came the sound of a mechanical voice.

“Yeah, hello. This is the checkin’ ag’ncy Un’n Depot.”

Paul Pry let his voice rasp in raucous warning.

“I’m going to blow up the whole Union Depot,” he said. “There’s a blast going off in exactly three minutes. I want to wreck the building, but I don’t want to kill you. I’ve nothing against you. What I’m fighting is Capitalism. You are just a working man.”

The voice over the wire had lost its mechanical disinterest.

“What’re you talkin’ about?” it demanded.

And Paul Pry could see that the features of the pasty-faced man had become rigid with alarm.

“I’ve got a bomb planted. It’s in a suitcase I checked with you this afternoon. There are two alarm clocks in it. The first one will go off in five minutes. Then there will be an interval of five minutes and the second one will go off. When that second one goes off it’ll set loose the explosion which will wreck...”

That was as far as he got, for the pastyfaced man had dropped the telephone and was sprinting for the back of the checking stand where long shelves furnished storage space for suitcases.

The first alarm had gone off, and the pasty-faced man was taking no chances.

Paul Pry darted from the booth, walked swiftly to the brass-covered counter, reached out with his cane. The hooked handle slid through the curved grip of the suitcase he wanted. A jerk, and it came from the shelf, went through the air and lit fairly upon the brass-covered counter.

The pasty-faced man was no coward. He had pulled down the suitcase Paul Pry had “planted” earlier in the evening, had cut loose the leatheroid side, and was pulling out the miscellaneous assortment of wires and clocks.

His back was of necessity toward the counter during those few brief seconds while he worked.

Paul Pry took the suitcase, strolled casually toward the taxicab exit. The cabbie ran forward and grabbed the suitcase. Paul Pry stepped into the waiting cab and was whisked away.

Inspector Oakley twisted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

“You’ve been collecting a lot of rewards lately,” he said to Paul Pry.

That individual nodded cheerfully.

“After a fifty-fifty split with you, inspector.”

Oakley studied the tip of his smouldering cigar.

“Well, I guess it’s all right, only you’re sure going to be on a hot spot one of these days. Gilvray’s gunning for you — but that’s no news to you. Do you know, Pry, I have a hunch that if you’d go before the grand jury and testify to some of the things you know about Gilvray and his methods, you could get an indictment that would stick.”

Paul Pry smiled.

“And why should I do that, inspector?”

“It would bust up his gang, relieve you of the certain death that’s hanging over your head.”

Paul Pry laughed outright.

“And kill the goosie that lays such delightful golden eggs for me — for us! Oh, no, inspector. I couldn’t think of it. By the way, inspector, I understand the corporation that lost the bonds has offered twenty thousand dollars for their return. Is that right?”

Oakley grunted.

“Yeah. They’ll probably be stuck for the whole issue if they don’t get ’em back, but they’re so tight they only offer twenty thousand. Maybe there’s a legal question about delivery. I don’t know. I understand the lawyers are in a snarl over it. It seems that if the messenger who was robbed was a messenger of the bank that’s buying the bonds there was a delivery and the bonds, being negotiable, can be cashed as against the company. If the messenger was in the employ of the company there wasn’t any delivery, or some such thing. It’s too fine-spun for me.”

Paul Pry extended a tapering hand, held his cigarette over the ashtray, flipped off the ash with a little finger that gave just the right thrust to drop the ashes in a pile in the centre of the tray.

“Suppose we split that reward fifty-fifty?”

Inspector Oakley’s cigar sagged as his lower jaw dropped in surprise.

“You’ve got ’em?”

“Oh no. I wouldn’t have them, but my underground intelligence department advises me that the suitcase containing them has been checked into a certain checking stand in one of the large department stores here in the city.

“I could advise you of the name of that store. I might even advise you of the number of the ticket. Then you could recover the bonds, announce that the police had ‘acted upon a tip received from the underworld through the lips of a stool pigeon, swooped down and recovered the bonds, and the culprit had escaped.’ Of course, you could take considerable credit — and ten thousand dollars in cold cash. That’s rather a pretty addition to the pile of reward money you’ve been collecting.

“Naturally, I’d want my name kept out of it. It wouldn’t do to have the bulk of the police force watching me with suspicion.”

Inspector Oakley took a deep breath. His eyes glittered with avarice.

“This is something like! A nice clean job. I could pull that without having so damned many questions asked. Getting some of the swag you’ve tipped me off to has looked pretty raw and I’ve had to make a pay-off on some of my reward split; but this is slick and clean.”

Paul Pry smiled.

“Yes, inspector, you’re right. This is slick and clean. The location of the suitcase will be telephoned to you anonymously at precisely three minutes after midnight tonight. You can still make the morning papers with it.”

“Why at three minutes after midnight?” asked Inspector Oakley.

“So that you can have a witness or two present to verify your statement that the information was telephoned in from an undercover man or a stool pigeon, as you may prefer to make the explanation.”

Inspector Oakley shook hands.

Benjamin Franklin Gilvray occupied rather a pretentious dwelling in the more or less exclusive residential district. A well-kept lawn surrounded his house. The arch-gangster found that it was well to keep up a front, particularly during these troubled times when so many of his deals went sour.

He lay in his soft bed, covered by blankets of the most virgin wool, his pillow a mass of wrinkles where he had been tossing around and turning during the night. The morning sun was seeping in through the windows.

Big Front Gilvray had not slept well.

A hoarse combination of sound came from the front of the house. He waited for silence, tried to doze off again, but the sound was repeated.

He arose angrily, and flung up the curtain.

What the hell was the matter with the boys that they let things like this happen? They knew he wanted silence.

He looked out into the pale sunlight and saw a goose, tethered with a string to a peg driven in the lawn. The goose was strutting about with a neck crooked in suspicious uncertainty, a chest thrown well out, and a tail that wiggled from side to side with every web-footed stride.

To the neck of the goose was attached a metal band and from this band dangled a piece of paper.

Big Front Gilvray sounded the alarm.

Two choppers swung machine guns into place. The goose might or might not be a trap. He might carry an infernal machine for all they knew. The machine guns cut loose.

Bits of sod and dirt flew up from the lawn about the tethered goose. Then, as the guns centred, there was a burst of feathers, and the bird dropped into a limp heap.

Covered by one of the machine guns, a gangster sprinted out on the lawn, retrieved the dead bird, brought it into the house.

It was an ordinary goose. About its neck, attached to the metal band, was a bit of paper upon which was the message Big Front Gilvray had come to hate with a bitter hatred that transformed him from man to savage.

The message was signed with two initials — P. P.

And the morning paper which reposed on the front porch of the big mansion carried screaming headlines announcing that Inspector Oakley would collect a twenty thousand dollar reward for the recovery of a third of a million dollars in negotiable bonds.

Big Front Gilvray, his anger transcending the bounds of sanity, grabbed the torn, bloody carcass of the bird and flung it across the room. It thudded to the wall with a splash of red, and a fluttering shower of feathers drifted through the room.

Big Front Gilvray tore the paper into small bits and stamped upon them. His gangsters looked at one another in consternation. The chief was usually so suavely certain of himself that to see him like this caused them to lose confidence and respect.

“Get that damned dude. Get him on the spot!” yelled Big Front Gilvray.

But Paul Pry, peacefully sleeping, assured that his bank account would be augmented by another ten thousand dollars, was beyond being troubled by the rumbled threats of the gangster.

As Inspector Oakley had so aptly remarked, the deal was “slick and clean”.