Читать книгу Held for Ransom - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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Before the street floor was reached Skippy had come to a definite understanding with the elevator boy to have the starter order all seventh floor signals ignored until he could get back with the police. He hurried through the busy lobby of the great office building, only to halt in dismay at the sight beyond the revolving door.

A large car was parked at the curb and to Skippy’s observant eyes, there was an ominous significance about its drawn curtains and the tense-looking posture of the man at the wheel.

However, he hesitated but a fraction of a second and made bold to continue his journey around the revolving door and so out of the building. The drugstore was just next door, and being his avowed objective he bravely whistled his way toward it, stealing a glance meanwhile for some welcome sign of the blue-coated law.

The police were conspicuous by their absence and Skippy reached the store without untoward incident. Past the soda fountain he hurried, oblivious of its varied assortment of fizzes and his own particular choice in the matter—all thought was centered on the nearest phone booth.

He put in a call, gave the answering sergeant a breath-taking message and slipped out the back entrance of the drugstore into the alley to await the coming of the riot squad. Then he leaned back against the sun-baked wall of the building and spent a few anxious minutes of waiting by consuming a half-eaten bar of chocolate, already reduced to a liquefied state by an afternoon’s contact in his pocket.

Consequently, the riot squad arriving in the back alley regarded Skippy not a little dubiously. His chocolate smeared mouth and sticky brown fingers were hardly in keeping with the police idea of a wide-awake office boy in a world-famous detective agency. Their credulity was to receive a still further setback when he looked up at them and smiled boastfully.

“Do you say I don’t know ‘Silver’ Curley when I see him, huh?” he asked with a swaggering motion toward the rear entrance of the building. “Even I bet he walked past other cops up to our office and they didn’t know him like I did. Hot dog!”

The detective-sergeant winked knowingly to his fellow-officers. “All right, Hawkshaw, where is he, now that we’re here?”

Skippy winked triumphantly. “I told Miss Purdy, our ‘steno’ to fool with him sort of—you know, kid him like girls can do an’ kill some time till I got back with you guys. He came up right in our office, gave a card that said his name was Mr. A. P. Holden—can you beat that? He wrote Mr. Conne a letter and....”

“All right, kid,” smiled the detective sergeant, “let’s get at Silver Curley first.”

Skippy was in his element for the next few minutes. He felt a secret pride that because of his observance in noting the Curley car, half of the riot squad were summarily ordered to the front of the building in order to apprehend Silver Curley’s waiting henchmen. And, when he led the rest of the squad to the elevators and was told with a marked deference by the starter that all signals from the seventh floor had been disregarded, he felt that he was of some importance in the great city of New York, and not just a mere office boy in the International’s offices.

In the next second when he had crowded into an elevator with the officers, the detective-sergeant took the keen edge off his high hopes by saying, “Silver could have used the stairways if he wanted to, you realize that, eh kid?”

“Sure,” Skippy answered. He was down for only a moment, however, and bounded back confidently. “Do you think I didn’t think of that? But anyhow, he didn’t even see me go out or anything. What’s more I told Miss Purdy she shouldn’t let on but just to kid him like she really believed he was that big guy, A. P. Holden. Gee whiz, she did believe that he was—she didn’t believe me that it was Silver Curley. I didn’t act scared when I saw Curley’s lookout in the hall either. I walked indifferent like so he shouldn’t get wise to where I was really going.”

“All right,” said the detective-sergeant as the elevator wheezed to a stop at the seventh floor, “we’ll hope for the best and look for the worst.” Everything seemed quiet and peaceful when the heavy-footed police invaded the International’s luxurious offices. Miss Polly Purdy was so engrossed in her typing that she did not hear them until Skippy’s reedy voice fell upon her shell-like ears.

“Ain’t he come out of Mr. Conne’s office yet?” Skippy asked eagerly.

“Mr. Holden left about three minutes ago and I didn’t try to detain him with any of your foolish talk, Skippy Dare,” said Miss Purdy with ill-concealed annoyance. “I told you I know a gangster when I see one and I know a man like Mr. Holden when I see one. Besides,” she added, her pretty blue eyes upon the police, “I thought you thought better of your foolishness and decided to go straight down to the drugstore and get a lemon fizz as you called.”

“I said it to put Silver’s lookout off his guard,” Skippy groaned. “Gee whiz, Miss Purdy...gee....”

“Say,” said the detective-sergeant impatiently, “where’s Mr. Conne anyway, eh?”

“In his office,” said Miss Purdy with a hint of impertinence. “He couldn’t very well walk past me without my knowing it.”

And Miss Purdy was right. Mr. Carlton Conne, world-famous detective and head of the great agency was at that moment incapable of walking anywhere at all. Skippy soon bared this fact before the astonished gaze of the riot squad when, after repeated knocks for admittance to his employer’s private inner office, he received no summons to enter and soon flung open the door.

The detective was seated at his desk bound from head to foot and securely gagged.