The Silver Scourge

CHAPTER VII MARQUETTE STRIKES A TRAIL

THE following morning found two men in a small room of a Manhattan hotel. One, a stocky, heavy-set individual, was shaving at a mirror by a washstand. The other, a languid, lanky sort, was seated in a chair, reading a newspaper.

“Nice doings at the Gargantuan, Vic,” observed the seated man. “Bunch of crooks shot up trying to grab off a pile of valuable tableware. Solid gold — solid silver — stuff from the old Winter Palace of the Czar.”

“Doesn’t interest me, Carl,” returned the man who was shaving himself. “I’m interested in phony metals — not the real stuff.”

The seated man laughed.

“Guess you’re right, Vic,” he commented. “If you bothered with all the troubles of the New York police, you’d only be putting yourself to a lot of useless trouble.”

The shaving continued; the man in the chair resumed his reading.

These two formed a singular pair. It would have been difficult for a stranger to have analyzed them. They might have passed for traveling salesmen. One would scarcely have taken them for professional detectives.

There was a reason. The work in which these men were engaged was one which required a capability in masked identity. In this hotel, which they had chosen as their New York residence, both had been living in inconspicuous fashion.

They had reputations, but they did not boast of their accomplishments. The man in the chair was Carl Dolband; the man at the mirror was Vic Marquette. Together, they represented as fine a pair of operatives as any who had served with the United States secret service.

While Dolband continued to read the newspaper, Marquette went on with his shaving, uttering occasional grunts as the blade of the safety razor pulled. After a few minutes, the newspaper rustled as Dolband cast it to the floor. The seated man made another comment.

“Well, Vic,” he said, “I’m off for Frisco at noon. I’ll drop you a line after I get there.”

Marquette grunted.

“More excitement out there,” continued Dolband. “Say, Vic; this has been a vacation. I don’t know how you stand it around here. There’s plenty of queer money in Manhattan, but it comes in from the outside.”

Marquette smiled. He reached for his vest, had extracted something from the lower pocket on the right. He tossed it to his companion. Dolband found himself holding a five-cent piece.

“How does that look?” queried Vic.

“Say” — Dolband laughed — “you are not telling me this is phony! Since when have you been chasing bum nickels, Vic?”

“Look it over,” was Marquette’s reply.

CARL DOLBAND studied the coin. He rang it; he tested its weight. He compared it with another nickel that he took from his own pocket. Minutes went by while Vic Marquette was donning tie, vest, and coat. Suddenly Dolband uttered a sharp exclamation.

“The date!” were his words.

“That’s it,” commented Marquette.

“It’s a 1922,” continued Dolband. “Say, Vic, there were no nickels coined in that year.”

“You’re telling me?” laughed Vic. “You know the old gag, Carl — that a coin collector will give you a hundred dollars for a 1922 nickel. A hoax, because there’s no such animal. Well, I’ve proved different, haven’t I? Here — look at these.” He tossed three more five-cent pieces to Dolband.

The seated man whistled. All bore the date of 1922.

“Say, Vic,” queried Dolband, “where did you get these? They’re a perfect job, aren’t they?”

“Picked them up in subway change,” returned Marquette. “I always look over any coins that I get. Reading the dates is my habit.”

“These coins must be more than ten years old — pretty near that old, anyway—”

“Why?” Vic interrupted.

“Because a counterfeiter would probably take a crack at recent dates.”

“Guess again, Carl. Do you think that these would have been floating around for ten years without some coin collector spotting one. They’re new, Carl, but the shine has been taken off of them. Some fox is stamping out old dates, but he pulled a boner on this one.”

“What have you done about it, Vic?”

“Communicated with the subway people. They’re on the lookout. The cashiers at the stations are looking for these phonies. I expect a report to-day.”

The two men left the room. They went downstairs to the hotel grill, and ordered breakfast. It was only a few minutes after nine when a bell boy entered the grill and approached Vic Marquette.

“You’re wanted on the telephone, Mr. Marquette,” he said.

Vic arose from the table. This was one of the advantages of the small hotel where he and Carl Dolband were stopping. They were known to the hotel personnel, and messages were brought quietly, without paging.

Vic Marquette was smiling when he returned. He spoke in a low voice as he joined Dolband.

“That’s it,” was his comment. “They’ve got something for me. Want me down at the main office as soon as possible.”

Hurriedly finishing his meal, Vic shook hands with his fellow operative. Dolband again promised a communication from San Francisco. Vic left the hotel, and headed for the transit offices.

WHEN he reached his destination, the secret-service operative was ushered into the office of Mr. Blake, an assistant manager. Here Vic discovered two other persons beside Blake. One was a sad-faced individual whom Blake introduced as Tompkins, change-maker at an East Side elevated station. The other was a poorly dressed Italian, whom Blake called Pietro.

“Tell Mr. Marquette what you know,” ordered Blake.

Pietro complied with gesticulations. Marquette listened solemnly to the Italian’s story.

“I runna da poosh cart, see?” began Pietro. “I needa da change, da nickel. I go uppa da elevated an’ say to theesa man Tompkins dot I wanta da nick. He tella me he no give.”

“Pietro wanted change,” explained Tompkins. “I told him that we needed all the nickels we could get for elevated passengers. It made an impression on him.”

“Sure,” grinned Pietro. “I say maybe disa man no wanta give — maybe he wanta take. So when I getta da big lot of nickel, I go uppa an’ give to him. He passa me da dollar.”

Marquette nodded. He saw immediately that Pietro must have discovered some other source of obtaining five-cent pieces. With an abundance of the coins, the Italian had simply come to Tompkins to turn in his change.

“Thees morning,” explained Pietro, “Tompkins, he aska me, where you get alla these nickel? I tella him I go to da shop where they make da brassa. The old man, he give me da nickel—”

“What old man?” inquired Vic.

“Cyrus Barbier,” said Tompkins. “He has a brass shop half a block from the elevated station.”

“Tony Cumo, he worka for da old man,” added Pietro. “I tella Tony I needa nickel; he tella me come there. I getta da nickel every day — whole lot of—”

“When Pietro told me this story this morning,” interposed Tompkins, “I brought him here right away. I sorted the nickels he gave me yesterday. I took another batch from him this morning.”

Blake shoved two boxes across the desk. Both were marked with the respective dates. Blake lifted the lids; from each box he took a few segregated coins, and placed them on the desk. Vic Marquette examined them. All bore the date of 1922.

THE secret-service man arose. He studied the three men, and detected an anxious look that was now appearing on Pietro’s face.

“Don’t you worry,” Marquette told the Italian. “You stay here a while, with Tompkins. I’ll see you later. You did right, Pietro.”

The Italian grinned. Marquette made a sign to Blake. The assistant manager walked to the door with the secret-service man.

“Keep Pietro here,” said Vic, in a low tone. “I figure he’s all right. I don’t want him going back to his pushcart for a while, though. I’m going to raid that brass shop as soon as I can get some detectives from headquarters.”

“I’ll keep him here,” nodded Blake. “Tompkins will talk to him. He knows the man.”

“Telephone?” queried Vic.

“Over there,” informed Blake.

The secret-service man went to the place indicated. He smiled as he called detective headquarters. The trail of the 1922 nickels was clear. Within an hour, Vic and a band of raiders would swoop down upon a counterfeiting nest located in Manhattan.

Carl Dolband would be surprised when he heard of this. No wonder. Carl spent his time reading newspapers and following current crime, while Vic Marquette preferred to study things that went on about him.

Little did Vic Marquette realize that fate was tricking him at this very moment. Those headlines which Carl Dolband had read carried no mention of counterfeiters, yet the events of last night were strangely related to those of this morning.

The failure of Duffy Bagland and his mobsmen to gain the Russian plate was changing the aspect of the case upon which Vic Marquette was working. The trail of the 1922 nickels was due to lengthen into an amazing chase before this day had passed!