The Seven Sinister Sombreros

Chapter VI. The Peculiar Tire.

Between four o’clock and five thirty, there was a “No Parking” ordinance covering the entire district near the Moronia Building. Immediately adjacent to the Moronia Building, however, was a parking lot at the end of which a sign announced: “15 cents for one hour, 25 cents for three hours.” By five o’clock, a large percentage of the cars had left this parking lot. It was too late for shoppers, and the professional men in the Moronia Building usually managed to get away between four thirty and quarter to five so as to beat the rush of traffic.

Job Wolganheimer, driving a 1936 Ford, drove into the parking space. The attendant took his car, gave him a numbered pasteboard, slipped a square containing the corresponding number in under the windshield wiper, and backed the car into a stall.

Across the street, Harry Lanten, driving a 1936 Ford, with Nano Kapiolani at his side, glided in close to the curb and stopped. Directly behind him, Lester Leith, driving a 1938 Buick, came to a stop and slid from behind the wheel.

“O. K., Harry,” he said. “You two take this car, and park it in the next block as I told you.”

Lester Leith walked forward to the Ford, eased in the clutch, and turned into the parking place. The attendant was still busy with Wolganheimer’s car, and Lester Leith obligingly parked the car himself, selecting the stall next to that occupied by the Wolganheimer car.

The attendant glanced curiously at Lester Leith’s cowboy regalia, gave Leith a ticket, inserted a numbered pasteboard beneath the windshield wiper, then hurried toward the front of the lot as a third 1936 Ford, driven by Edward H. Beaver, came nosing up over the sidewalk.

Lester Leith slid out from behind the wheel, started toward the front of the lot, then turned back.

On the far side of the street, Captain Carmichael said to the driver of the police car: “He’ll spot us if we wait here. We can drive down the block and make a U turn. How did it happen Beaver met him here?”

“I don’t know,” Sergeant Ackley said. “He hasn’t had a chance to make a report.”

“Where did he get those 1936 Fords?”

“Bought them,” Sergeant Ackley said shortly. “Remember I told you he was buying secondhand cars?”

“What does he want with them?”

“Heaven knows,” Ackley said. “He’s building up a smoke screen of some sort. Don’t let it fool you. While you’re watching the smoke, he’ll suddenly reach in, grab the piece he wants, and leave the rest of it in a grand snarl. You can go crazy trying to unscramble that snarl.”

“I feel like I’m going crazy now,” Captain Carmichael said. “This is the damnedest thing I ever heard.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Sergeant Ackley said. “Wait until the blowoff. Then things start moving so fast, it dazes you.”

“How about it, sergeant? Think we’d better have a couple more of the boys come out?”

Sergeant Ackley snorted. “They’d laugh me off the force,” he said. “I’ve been giving the boys the devil because two of them can’t keep track of Lester Leith’s activities. That’s the reason I took this job over myself. If the two of us aren’t sufficient to outsmart that crook with an undercover man on the job and a police chauffeur driving the car, we’d better quit.”

Captain Carmichael said musingly: “I don’t know, sergeant. After all, in our work, the thing to do is to get the criminal, not try to show off.”

“I’m not trying to show off,” Sergeant Ackley said sullenly. “I just yanked the detectives off the job because they hadn’t been giving results.”

“Well, we’ll see,” Captain Carmichael said thoughtfully, “but I don’t like the looks of this. You know, sergeant, most crooks play the police game. We know what they’re doing; it’s only a question of catching up with them. But as I see this chap Leith, he manipulates things so that we’re always playing his game, and I don’t like it.”

“Don’t worry,” Sergeant Ackley said grimly. “You watch. Before this case gets really hot, Emil Bradercrust will enter the picture, and when he does, then you’re going to see some action; and we’re going to get Leith.”

“What’s he doing over there?” Captain Carmichael asked, turning to get a last glimpse of Leith through the rear window in the car.

As the driver went to the block and made a U turn, a traffic officer at the corner, raising his whistle in indignant protest at the flagrant violation of the traffic rules, delayed matters somewhat while Sergeant Ackley identified himself.

Sergeant Ackley answered Captain Carmichael’s question as the traffic officer turned back toward his station. “Oh, Leith just forgot something and went back to his car to get it.”

“I couldn’t see what he was doing on account of that broad-brimmed hat,” Captain Carmichael said. “There’s Beaver coming down the street. Let’s flag him and see what he has to say. We’ll have a minute before Leith can get back to the front of that lot. Pull into the curb, driver. Oh, Beaver!”

The undercover man stiffened to attention, looked furtively back over his shoulder, then came to the curb.

“What is it?” Ackley asked.

“I’m to go up to 613 Moronia Building and have Io Wahine put on a hula. When she’s finished, I’m to present her with the brooch made in the form of a gold surfboard with a border of small diamonds.”

“What’s the idea?” Captain Carmichael asked.

“You can search me. He telephoned me I’d find a 1936 Ford waiting out in front of the place, registered in his name. I was to get in it, drive to a certain place, wait until he came past, then follow his car, and drive into the same parking place. Watch out, boys. Here he comes.”

Beaver, with elaborate unconcern, walked down to the entrance of the Moronia Building. The police car dashed ahead. Lester Leith, attired in cowboy regalia, the high-heeled leather boots making him walk awkwardly, came clumping down the sidewalk.

Harry Lanten and Nano Kapiolani, who had parked Lester Leith’s Buick in a garage, a block down the street, returned in time to give Leith the parking ticket and receive some low-voiced instructions from Leith as they stood for a moment at the entrance to the Moronia Building.

Leith walked to the elevators, was whisked to the sixth floor, and heard the sounds of voices and laughter in 613.

Leith opened the door.

Job Wolganheimer, his face dark with jealousy, was standing near the window. Out in the center of the floor, Io Wahine was talking with Beaver. She was standing very close to the undercover man, looking up into his appreciative eyes, her face upturned, her lips parted in a friendly smile.

Leith said, “Pardon me a moment,” and motioned to Beaver.

The undercover man reluctantly left the dancer’s presence to follow Leith into the hall.

“Everything going all right, Scuttle?” Leith asked.

“Yes, sir,” the spy said, with complacent self-satisfaction.

Leith said: “Give me the parking ticket on your car, Scuttle. Here’s the ticket on my Buick. You take it, and I’ll take your car. I’ll meet you at my apartment. No need to hurry back. Incidentally, Scuttle,” Leith said, lowering his voice, “I think this man who’s with her is going to be busy with some friends in a few minutes, and if you want to take the little girl to dinner, there’s no objection; it’ll be on the expense account.”

“Dinner!”

“That’s right, Scuttle. Of course, when I say dinner, that includes cocktails, champagne, and a liqueur.”

The spy pushed the pasteboard parking ticket into Leith’s hand, took the one which Leith gave him, and almost stumbled over his own feet in his anxiety to get back into the office of the Hawaiian-American Aesthetic Art Association.

Leith took the elevator, left the Moronia Building, and walked over toward the parking station. Harry Lanten and Nano Kapiolani were waiting for him.

“Ready?” Harry Lanten asked.

“Ready,” Lester Leith said. “Now, I’m going to drive out the car I took in. You folks will be driving another car, same make and model, but a different car. It’s the one my valet drove in a few moments ago. You meet me at the corner of Seventh and Center streets. I’ll drive out first, but you pass me in the middle of the next block, and I’ll follow you.”

“Very good,” Harry Lanten said.

Nano Kapiolani inquired archly: “When am I going to be called on to do my dancing? I don’t want to get out of practice, you know.”

Leith, taking her arm, escorted her into the parking station. “You might hula your way down to the car,” he said.

Laughing, she started to comply. Leith said: “Whoa, back up. I didn’t really mean it.”

The service station attendant said, “You folks are back early.”

“We come and go,” Lester Leith observed, casually giving the attendant the parking ticket which he took from his pocket. “How much?” he inquired.

“Fifteen cents.”

Leith handed him the fifteen cents. The service station attendant got out the car.

Harry Lanten said: “I presume it’s the same on this car?”

“Sure,” the service station attendant told him, and went back to get out the other Ford.

Leith was just leaving the entrance to the parking station when a car containing Karl Bonneguard and Emil Bradercrust swung into a lurching turn, narrowly avoiding him, and skidded on into the parking station.

Leith frowned his annoyance at such careless driving, swung his car to the right, and proceeded slowly down the street. Midway in the block, Harry Lanten passed him. The right rear tire on Leith’s car was so soft it was almost flat.

Lagging behind, Sergeant Ackley and Captain Carmichael had a choice to make. Sergeant Ackley made it.

“Tag that car with Bradercrust in it,” he ordered. “Leith has been setting the stage. The stuff which doesn’t affect Bradercrust is all hooey. We tag Bradercrust now.”

Captain Carmichael said: “I’m trusting your judgment in this, sergeant.”

Sergeant Ackley tilted his cigar upward, said confidently: “And you ain’t making no mistake either, captain.”

After four blocks, Leith tooted his horn several times, speeded up and signaled for Lanten to pull into the curb.

“I’m getting a flat tire over on my right rear wheel,” Leith said.

As Leith put on his brakes, the added strain on the tire finished the casing. Lanten parked his car. The two men got out and walked around to stare at the puncture with that hesitant appraisal which is the universal first reaction of motorists everywhere to a flat casing.

“Well,” Leith said, “we might as well change it. You get the tools out, and I’ll get the spare off.”

Leith took off his leather jacket, displaying the resplendent silk shirt.

“Here we go,” he said.

Leith had some trouble with the bolt on the spare tire. It had been put on so that the threads were crossed. The ordinary lug wrench had no effect on it, but from the car Lanten was driving, Leith took a huge monkey wrench which he brought into play, and which made short work of the cross-threaded nut.

Lanten started getting out the tools. Lester Leith peeled the tire cover from the spare tire, then leaned forward as though to inspect the tire closely. For several moments, the broad brim of his ten-gallon hat hid exactly what he was doing.

A short time later, when Lanten was getting the jack under the car, Leith said:

“Take a look at this spare tire, Harry. What do you make of it?”

Harry Lanten got up from his knees, and said:

“Why, it looks all right. It—”

“Touch it,” Leith said.

Lanten tapped the spare with his knuckles.

Leith said: “Not there, down here on the side.”

Lanten tapped the edge of the spare tire.

“What the devil!” he said. “It’s metal, with rubber on top.”

Leith said: “Looks like a section of metal had been vulcanized right in the tire. That’s the part that was the bottom. I turned it up when I was taking it off.”

“What the devil’s the idea?” Lanten asked.

“I don’t know,” Leith said. “Let’s see if we can get it open.”

It was Lanten who found the little catch concealed in the side of the casing which released the lock and enabled a section to be swung downward, disclosing a lacquered interior.

“Seems to be empty,” Leith said.

“I’ll bet this car belonged to a smuggler,” Lanten said excitedly. “This was where he carried dope back and forth across the border.”

Lester Leith whistled. “By George, you’re right! Tell you what, Lanten. I have a friend on the police force. He’s not exactly a personal friend. I don’t get along with him very well, but nevertheless, he’s an officer of the law, and I think this should be reported.”

Lanten nodded.

“Tell you what you do,” Leith went on. “It’s a cinch we’ll have to do something about that tire. You go over there to that drugstore, ring up police headquarters, and ask for Sergeant Ackley. If he’s in, tell him where we are and what we’ve discovered. If he isn’t in, leave word that Lester Leith has just discovered a most peculiar compartment in the spare tire of a secondhand car which he’d purchased, and that he thinks it must have been used for smuggling.”