Читать книгу Smoky Cell - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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CAPTAIN "TRICKS" O'REGAN, of the Chester County Police, was a man of strong convictions, and not the least of these was a conviction that, since he was expected to provide the citizens of Chester County with the sense of security which made it possible for them to sleep comfortably at night, it was up to Chester County to provide him with an office in which he could work comfortably by day. And the outcome of this conviction was the large bright room which he occupied at Police Headquarters. With its high windows, dull silver radiators, substantial furniture, busily ticking tape machine, and glass-windowed service office, commonly termed the "glass-house", it suggested rather the sanctum of a prosperous stockbroker than a place devoted to the discomfort of criminals, in comparison with whom, as O'Regan put it, stockbrokers were the merest amateurs.

Sergeant Jackson sauntered from the glass-house and began to pace the room restlessly.

"I wish somebody would do something," he grumbled. "This place is getting on my nerves."

Sergeant Geissel, absorbed in watching the tape machine, glanced up and grinned.

"Good policemen shouldn't have nerves," he remarked sententiously. "And anyway, it'll never be as quiet as I want it." He crossed slowly to the window, looking down at the almost deserted street below. "Do you know, Jack," he went on, "I've a feeling that there is something doing."

"Ain't you always? And, say, everybody in the station-house is feeling that way tonight. A while ago I cracked a nut and the station sergeant jumped out of his chair."

"This nerve business must be catching," grinned Geissel.

There was silence for some minutes, the one man continuing his pacing, the other staring, broodingly and unseeing, through the window. Then:

"I wouldn't be on patrol for a whole lot of money," Geissel remarked quietly.

Jackson stopped short in his striding.

"Say, what's eatin' you, Geissel? It's not like you to get jumpy."

Before the older man could reply, the door burst open and a short, thick-set, square-shouldered man appeared.

"Hallo, Reil!" greeted Jackson. "What's the hurry?" Detective-Sergeant Reil, ignoring the question, asked: "Where's the Chief?"

"Down at the City Hall," Geissel told him. "Why? Anything wrong?"

The newcomer's naturally stern features looked grimmer.

"I should say there was! I got my third quitter in a month."

Jackson whistled.

"You don't say! A patrolman?"

"Yeah—a patrolman. Can you beat it? Found him like that." He gave a ludicrous caricature of a man shaking with fear. "Corner of Brandt and Washington Avenue—couldn't even hold up his motor-cycle."

"Who was he?" asked Geissel.

"Connor."

"You don't say!"

"The Chief's at the City Hall, is he? Well, where's the Lieutenant?"

"He's around somewhere," said Geissel. "Find him, Jack."

When his subordinate had disappeared, Geissel turned a grave face to the other.

"Connor, eh? Well...."

He shrugged his shoulders, walked across the room to the wall on which hung a wooden frame which displayed a number of police badges. He stood for several moments in gloomy contemplation.

Red's voice broke in on his thoughts.

"I ought to take a stick to him and beat him up!" he said savagely.

Geissel half turned, his left hand pointing towards the frame.

"There's your answer!" he said. "One-two-three-four-five-six-seven—" counting with outstretched forefinger.

"Yeah," Reil assented.

"Seven patrolmen found slumped on the sidewalk!" went on Geissel, fierce indignation in his tone. "Seven murders that don't seem to matter a damn to anybody! Has anyone gone to the chair? Has anyone even been pulled in? Why, the murderers, whoever they are, haven't even been inconvenienced! Only three quitters? I guess you're lucky—"

"What's the trouble?" It was a harsh, authoritative voice that asked the question.

Reil stiffened to attention and saluted smartly. Lieutenant Edwin Lavine was a stickler for military discipline amongst his subordinates. A man of medium height, the breadth of his shoulders and his general bearing were eloquent of a former athletic build. The years, however—he was well into middle age—had done their work, and his figure, once lithe and vigorous, now showed a suspicious fullness. Lavine may have assisted the years; his tastes were sybaritic; he was a man who did himself well, and if, as a result, his liver wreaked its vengeance upon his temper, it didn't much matter to anybody, for Lieutenant Lavine's temper had always been his weak point.

"Connor refused duty, sir," reported Reil tersely.

The Lieutenant made an impatient noise with his lips.

"Refused duty, has he?" he repeated between his teeth.

"Yes, sir. Can you imagine? And he's been twelve years a policeman!"

"Did he come in?"

"No, sir. I found him when I was making my first round."

"Where is he?"

"Outside, sir."

"Bring him in."

When the other had gone, Lavine stood thoughtfully for some moments, and his thick lips were curved in an ugly expression as he muttered to himself:

"Connor... yellow, eh?"

"I'm not so sure about that, sir," Geissel ventured to put in: and Lavine turned round on him with a snarl.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know that I'd call Connor yellow. He's the bird who got that Polak family out of their shack when it burned—you remember? No yellow guy would have done what Connor did then."

The other grunted.

"Here he is," he said as the door opened to admit Reil and a patrolman. "We'll hear what he has to say. Now, Connor," as the man advanced across the room and stood rigid in front of him, "what's the big idea? Refusing duty!"

Connor gulped. It was evident that he was labouring under strong emotion and making tremendous efforts to regain his self-control. At last:

"Well, Lieutenant—" he began, and gulped again.

Lavine snorted.

"'Well, Lieutenant'!" he mimicked. Then, turning fiercely upon the patrolman: "Say, what's the matter with you?" he stormed. "What sort of a policeman do you call yourself? Afraid of the dark, huh? You make me sick!"

His contemptuous tone stung the man into at least temporary mastery of his feelings. He drew himself up and spoke jerkily, but more calmly.

"It was this way, sir. I was up on Washington Pike—there ain't a house there in a mile, and I got scared, that's all. You see, a man came up to me—a stranger—and asked me what I was doing so far off my patrol." Lavine broke in sharply.

"Oh! You were off your patrol, were you?"

"Yeah—just a little way."

"And why?"

"I saw some men get out of a car about a hundred yards farther on—and I went up to see what it was all about. One of 'em came back to me."

"And you beat it, huh? Got yellow—just because a man asked you why you were off your patrol! I suppose you didn't ask him for his badge or anything? He might have been a Federal officer."

"He was a stranger to me," Connor muttered sullenly. The corners of the Police Lieutenant's mouth curved in a contemptuous grimace which gave him an evil expression. His eyes raked the unfortunate Connor with a scorn that stung.

"I suppose you haven't got a gun?" he said icily. "I say you haven't got a gun, have you, you poor yeller rat! You get right back, sister!"

The patrolman drew himself up, his eyes flashing.

"I'm not going back!"

"Oh, no?" Lavine turned to Reil. "Where did you find him?"

"On his way to the station, sir."

The Lieutenant surveyed Connor coldly for some moments before he spoke.

"Now listen, you! You'll go right back to your patrol—"

"I tell you I'll do nothing of the sort!" almost yelled Connor. He was furious now. "Three officers have been killed on that pike since the New Year. Shot down like dogs—for nothin'. Seven officers in three months! I got a wife and three kids—"

"Why, you're nothin' but a kid yourself—a poor, whining, snivelling kid—afraid of the dark—afraid—"

Connor took a step forward and pointed a shaking hand towards the frame on the opposite wall.

"I ain't havin' my badge in that frame and that's a fact!" His tone was openly defiant now.

Lavine's eyes glinted.

"You're not having your badge in that frame, aren't you?" he breathed, slowly and quietly. Then in sudden fury: "I'll say you're not, you rat!"

Taking a quick step forward, he seized the patrolman's badge and wrenched it from his coat.

"I'll say you're not," he repeated. "I'm dumping it in the ash-can and you're going inside, where you belong! I'll have that coat off your back and I'm going to give you a number in the penitentiary! That's what I'll do with you! And I'll tell you something else—"

"Tell me!"

Lavine broke off short and turned round sharply, to meet the scrutiny of a pair of cold steel-blue eyes, whose owner had come into the room unnoticed.

There were stories told in the underworld about the eyes of Captain Patrick John O'Regan; how, for instance, Jake Sullivan had gone to the chair simply because, when he was being questioned, he hadn't been able to stand the penetrating stare of O'Regan's eyes, and had come clean with all the details of his crime; and how Jim Woolmer, as tough a guy as ever worked a racket, suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted: "For God's sake, Captain, don't look at a fellow that way!" It was generally agreed by those who had had the misfortune to come beneath their scrutiny that they made a man feel it was no use lying because O'Regan already knew every little detail which the wrongdoer was trying to conceal. "Tricks" O'Regan, they called him, because he was plumb full of tricks and you never could tell for certain whether he was kidding or not. Usually, it was said, it was safe to assume that he was. However much the devotees of crime in Chester County might dislike the tall, broad-shouldered young man with the keen blue eyes and obstinate jaw, they had to hand it to him that he had been instrumental in seriously thinning their ranks, and that he had not reached the rank of police captain at the early age of thirty-two for nothing.

"What's happening?" O'Regan asked.

Lavine, almost reluctantly it seemed, drew himself up and saluted.

"Patrolman Connor refused duty, Chief. He got scared up on the Washington Pike."

O'Regan walked across the room, hung up his hat and coat and seated himself at his desk.

"Refused duty, eh?" he said at length. "Refused duty—in this happy land where nobody gets killed but policemen! Say, that's too bad!"

He shot a swift glance towards the patrolman—a glance keen yet understanding; a glance that took in every aspect of the situation. Connor had been an exemplary officer for twelve years, with never a bad mark against his name. Yet here he was, his face white, his mouth working nervously, his hands clenching and unclenching, quite obviously in the grip of some very powerful emotion—so powerful as to force him to commit the almost unforgivable offence of refusing duty and of disobeying his superior's commands. O'Regan's glance took in the significance of this immediately; it also embraced every detail of the patrolman's appearance.

The Police Captain pointed to the man's coat.

"You mustn't go out like that, Connor. Your coat's torn. Make a note, Geissel."

"I did that, Chief," explained Lavine complacently.

"I took off his badge—" holding up his right hand, which still held the symbol of Connor's office.

O'Regan held out his hand for the badge.

"On yes? Very interesting—very dramatic," was his quiet comment. "Now we will put it back." He suited the action to the words, pinning the badge on the bewildered policeman's coat. "Now then, Connor, just tell me all about it, will you? You were frightened?"

"Yes, sir."

O'Regan sat down at his desk, rested his elbows on the surface and looked up encouragingly at the other.

"Where?"

"Up by the meadow, sir, where Brandt crosses the Pike."

"Where Patrolman Leiter was killed?"

"Yes, sir," was the eager response. "You remember Leiter, Captain? I found him. He said that a man came up to him and asked him what he was doing off his patrol—and shot him. Just what this feller asked me tonight." The words came in a torrent.

"Oh, rats!" The contemptuous interjection came from Lavine. He would have said more, but the cold scrutiny of O'Regan's eyes kept him silent.

The Police Captain turned again to Connor.

"A man came up to you and asked you that, eh?"

"Yes, sir." His voice was tremulous as he went on: "You know, sir, there's a racket around here—a racket nobody understands. Chester County is full of killers."

Lavine's harsh laugh interrupted him.

"Killers, eh? Sure—they frighten policemen to death!"

Again O'Regan silenced him, this time with an imperious gesture.

"Let Connor tell me his story, please. Go on, Connor—I think I understand, my lad."

"Living in this county," continued the man, "is like living in a haunted house. There's always something behind you—something you can't see and you can't hear. You're walking all the time with a gun in your back."

"Uh-huh!" grunted O'Regan. "You only saw one man?"

"Four, sir. They got out of a car—near the meadow."

"Whose meadow is that?"

It was Lavine who answered.

"I guess that's Mr. Perryfeld's," he drawled.

"Thank you." Then, turning again to Connor: "And you got scared?"

The patrolman nodded.

"I certainly did, sir. You think I'm a poor yeller—"

O'Regan cut him short.

"No, no, no, I think nothing of the sort. You simply got scared. It is quite understandable. Personally I have never known what fear is, but I understand it exists—maybe one day I'll make its acquaintance. I've never been to the moon, but I know there is such a place." He sat for a moment or two in thought, his chin cupped in his right hand. Then he turned to Lavine. "Relieve Connor," he ordered. "Put him on the South patrol."

The Lieutenant looked his astonishment. He could hardly believe his ears. Here was a patrolman guilty of the most heinous offence in the police code, and the Chief was talking about "relieving" him! He could not have heard aright.

"Did you say 'relieve Connor', Chief?"

"Sure."

"But you'll be suspending him, won't you?" O'Regan rose, and flicked an invisible speck of dust from his jacket as he replied:

"No, I shall not be suspending him. Do you mind?"

"Very good, sir." Lavine's tone was sullen and the shrug of his shoulders almost offensive. Then, turning to Connor: "Come on, you," he ordered harshly.

"Just a moment." O'Regan held up a detaining hand. "Connor, you'd never seen these four men before, had you?"

"No, Chief. I didn't see 'em rightly, anyway. I told the Lieutenant what I thought."

"Yeh—what you thought!" snorted Lavine. "What do you think with?"

It was O'Regan who answered.

"His brains, which were so nearly blown out tonight." Then, tapping the man on the shoulder: "O.K., Connor."

Lavine and the patrolman paused as they reached the door, giving way to the man who was at that moment entering the room. Walking up to the desk at which O'Regan had again seated himself, the newcomer jerked his head in the direction of the departing pair.

"Trouble, sir?" he asked laconically.

O'Regan nodded. He liked the tall, fair-haired Lieutenant Spellman, his second-in-command at Police Headquarters, as much for his economy of words as for the integrity and loyalty which he had always displayed. He relied a great deal upon Spellman and the handsome-featured young lieutenant had proved that such reliance was never misplaced.

"Refused duty," O'Regan told him.

The other whistled.

"Another, eh? Where?"

"At the corner of Brandt and Washington."

"You've had three men bumped off on that same point," Spellman recalled.

"That's so—and all for the same reason—seeing people who thought they might be identified."

"And three other patrolmen have turned in their badges," went on the lieutenant reflectively. "It looks healthy for Chester County!"

O'Regan rose from his desk with a weary gesture and walked to the wall where hung the frame displaying the seven badges.

"Look at that, Spellman. Those badges belonged to seven men—seven living men, with beds to go to, seven men who went to the pictures at nights and played pinochle and wished they were Rockefeller. And they're dead! Last Thanksgiving they were alive, eating turkey and making dates with girls."

Spellman nodded grimly.

"It's certainly tough, Chief; but that's how it goes."

The Captain turned round sharply.

"Why should it?" he demanded. "What had these boys done to deserve death? They did nothing but patrol on their flat feet and watch out for citizen's homes. Seven policemen murdered in three months," he went on, half to himself. "And today I've been at the City Hall receiving the congratulations of the Citizens' League for keeping Chester County free of crime!" He gave a short, derisive laugh. "Maybe they don't think it's a crime to shoot policemen. Free of crime—no rackets, no hold-ups—and here, right here, is the biggest racket and the biggest hold-up this country has known. Isn't it marvellous?"

He turned round, to find Lavine, who had re-entered the office, standing by his desk.

"Don't you agree, Lavine? Isn't everything grand?"

"Why, yes, Chief. But then, we've got a pretty good class of people livin' around here."

"Uh-huh. That's so—and a pretty good class of policemen dying around here. Don't forget that, Lavine—"jerking his head towards the frame.

The Lieutenant shrugged.

"I guess we've still got a force good enough to deal with rackets," he said complacently.

O'Regan swung round on him, his eyes alight with the intensity of his emotion.

"So they have in Chicago!" he exclaimed. "So they have in New York—but the rackets go on. The people of Chicago pay a hundred million dollars a year for protection. There isn't a trade that hasn't a grand union attached to it—Butchers' Protection—Baker's Protection! You pay to be a member or you're bombed and your trucks thrown over in the street. If you squeal you're beaten, and if you fight you're bumped. You talk about a handful of Bolsheviks holding down a hundred million people—why, Russia's a girls' school after this country!"

"Oh, say," protested Lavine, "Chester's clean! There hasn't been a booze murder in years."

O'Regan raised his eyebrows.

"That's so. But there have been seven coppers and John Harvey since Thanksgiving!"

"Harvey?" Lavine wrinkled his forehead as if in an effort of recollection. "Oh yes, I remember—but there was a woman in that—"

"Nobody said so," put in Spellman from his desk in the far corner of the room.

"I got the low-down on it, see?" retorted Lavine.

"There was no woman concerned," O'Regan declared. "John Harvey was killed because he wouldn't pay blackmail. That's the racket. Somebody in Chester County is putting the dollar sign on fear." His right arm shot out in a minatory gesture to some invisible enemy. "I'm going to get that somebody into the Smoky Cell. If my badge goes into that frame I'll get him!"

"I wonder," said Spellman, "why these swell families never come to this office? What have they got to be scared about?"

"That's easy," O'Regan told him. "They're afraid that somebody will think they're squealing. And all the people who aren't calling are paying."

"Why?"

"Because they've got to pay if they want to live. That's the big racket. That's why no other racket can live around here. I've seen it coming for a long time. Capitalizing fear—that's a grand racket. No rent to pay, no samples to carry, no booze to run. Fear's worth money—big money. The fear of death! Spell, you'd sooner pay money than die, wouldn't you? I wouldn't, but you would. Death means nothing to me—the O'Regans have always been like that."

There was a simplicity about Tricks O'Regan's boastfulness which robbed it of all offence. It was perfectly true, as he said, that he did not know the meaning of fear, and his simple reiteration of this fact, which, made by any other man, would have been nauseating, gave added charm by reason of its naiveté and obvious honesty.

"But who's to kill 'em, Chief?" persisted Spellman. "There's no gang in town—never been a report of any strangers."

Tricks smiled.

"Suppose they don't live in town? Suppose they come just when they're wanted? Who could report? The patrolmen? What could they report? The arrival of suspicious-looking strangers, that's all." He paused for a moment and into his face came a look of grim sternness as he continued, a shade more slowly: "And the men who could have reported it are dead—seven of 'em! There isn't a patrolman working outside town who doesn't come off his beat looking like the last ashes of hell.... What is it, Geissel?"

The sergeant's head had appeared round the door of the glass-house.

"Murder up at 203A Lincoln Avenue, Chief," he reported tersely. "Guy named Schnitzer—John P. Schnitzer. Shot through the heart."

"Schnitzer, eh? Now who the deuce is Schnitzer?"

"He's that rich financier fellow," supplied Spellman. "We've had an eye on him for some time—all sorts of funny stories about him.... Girls," he added succinctly.

"That's right," Geissel agreed. "There's a girl in this. Byrne's on the wire—he's taken charge of the case—and they're pulling her in. Apparently she was there when it happened."