Delphi collected works o.., p.185
Delphi Collected Works of Peter Cheyney Illustrated, page 185
“Sweet figuring, Caution,” he says. “You’re dead right, and I’ll tell you just how we’re going to do it. I got a boat down here — a big motor cruiser — a swell craft. Well, the original idea was that Ricky Vandellin was going to bring Esmeralda down here to try out my new boat. We were going to slip her a nice little drink of Dutch drops to put her to sleep, run the boat down the river and up to the Nore, where a boat was going to meet us. French Fernandez, who is in on this job with me, has got his yacht waiting up there. Well, it didn’t work exactly like that because Ricky Vandellin gets himself bumped off in the meantime. But that’s the way it’s going to work tomorrow.”
He laughs. “I reckon Esmeralda will be glad to come down here,” he says, “just so’s she can forget about her brother’s sad death, and when she gets down here we’re going to stick her on that boat and carry out the job as originally planned. And how do you like that?”
“I think it’s swell, Francelli,” I say, “except that it won’t happen.”
He laughs again. “So it won’t?” he says, gettin’ up. “An’ who’s going to stop it? You — and who else?”
“I’ll stop it, Francelli,” I say. “Listen, big boy, you’re dead from the neck up. If you send your little friend Squilla here down to the boathouse you’ll find by the time he has got down there the cops are already there. I got that bunch of thugs who were sittin’ around there so tied up it’ll take a year to undo ’em. An’ as for the motor-boat, I reckon I smashed enough of that engine to put her out of action for weeks. So where do we go from there?”
He looks at Squilla, an’ he ain’t lookin’ pleased.
“Hey, Squilla,” he says, “maybe this punk’s four-flushing. I heard about him. He’s got a sweet way of telling some lovely story when he’s in a tight corner so as to get himself out of it.
“I reckon I’m going to check up on this. Look, get out by the side door and work down over the lawn towards that boathouse. Be careful that nobody sees you just in case what this punk says is true. If the cops ain’t there leave those mugs down there tied up like they are. Let ’em pinch ’em. What do I care? And then you scram out of it, get back in your car and meet me — you know where.”
He looks at me. “Even if I have to call this snatch off,” he says, “I’m still doing good business, Caution. It might interest you to know that Squilla here collected twenty thousand bucks off Ricky Vandellin yesterday.”
“You don’t say!” I tell him. “That ain’t bad goin’, is it?”
Squilla gets ready to go. “What about this punk?” he says.
Francelli looks at him an’ drops one eyelid. This guy has got the cruelest face I have ever seen.
“Til look after him,” he says. “You get a move on, and scram down to that boathouse and check up.”
“O.K., boss,” says Squilla. “Til be seein’ you.”
He goes out.
I go to put my hands down.
“You keep ’em up,” says Francelli. He puts his hand under his armpit an’ he pulls a rod. Then he goes over an’ picks up my gun off the floor where I dropped it when Squilla slugged me. After this he goes back an’ sits down in the chair.
“I reckon you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself, Caution,” he says. “I reckon you think that I’m all burned up just because I don’t get away with this snatch — that is, supposing what you say is true. But that don’t worry me. There’ll be another chance, and if there ain’t — well, I reckon there are plenty more ways of making money.”
“An’ you know ’em all,” I say. I laugh.
“You’re a wise guy,” I tell him. “So wise that one of these fine days you’ll be takin’ a little walk from the death house to the chair. They tell me that seems the shortest walk a guy ever did. I’ll buy myself a nice buttonhole the day they fry you, Francelli,” I tell him.
He looks over at me. “You’ve got your nerve,” he says.
“Maybe I have, an’ maybe I haven’t,” I say, “but I reckon I got you where I want you.”
“Yeah?” he says. “Who’s got the gun, me or you?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” I say. “You got the gun all right, but you can’t use it.”
He looks surprised. “Who says I can’t?” he says. “You wait and see.”
“O.K.,” I tell him. “But the way I figure it is this. The cops over here ain’t got anythin’ on you, Francelli. If Squilla took some money off Ricky Vandellin for blackmail yesterday — well, that ain’t got anythin’ to do with you. As for the Esmeralda snatch — well, you ain’t pulled it, so they ain’t got that on you. That’s why you won’t shoot me. If you bump me you got a murder rap to face, an’ this is a hard country to get out of once you kill a guy.”
He laughs, but I can see that I have got his brain workin’.
“You ain’t so bad, Caution,” he says. “I reckon you got brains, but not too many. Say, tell me something,” he says. “Did you know I was Francelli when you was doing that big act with me tonight at the Carlton Hotel — the time you said you thought some thugs had bumped Ricky Vandellin off, and that I might be the next guy — when you gave me that gun of Esmeralda’s?” He taps his hip-pocket. “What did you want to do that for, smart guy?” he says.
“I was just fakin’,” I tell him. “Just playin’ along, you know.” I put my hands down. He don’t take any notice.
“Well, I reckon that what I have said is true, Francelli,” I say. “If you’ve got any sense you’re gonna make a deal with me an’ get out while the goin’s good. But if you iron me out they’ll have you as sure as shootin’.”
He looks up. “And what sort of deal could I make with you, and why should I deal with you, you lousy flat-foot?”
“Well, work it out,” I say. “There’ll be cops bustin’ in here any minute. Now my proposition’s this. I’ll take ten thousand of that twenty thousand you took off Ricky Vandellin an’ you can scram. When the cops come I’ll say that when I came up here there wasn’t no one here. Look,” I tell him, “this is the way I figure it.”
I make some gestures with my hands as if I was gonna explain somethin’, an’ move a coupla steps forward. He don’t take any notice; he is too busy thinkin’ about what I have said. Just for one moment he brings the barrel down from pointin’ at me, and at that moment, I go for him head first, an’ I am lucky. I am on him before he has time to get the gun up. I hit him so hard that he crashes over the back of the revolving chair on to the floor with me on top of him, an’ we mix it.
I’m tellin’ you that this Francelli is a big guy, an’ is strong, an’ all the time he is tryin’ to get the gun round so that he can use it, but I have got hold of his wrist, an’ I am fairly strong myself. One time I had a chance to smack him right out, but I didn’t use it, because I reckon I don’t want this guy knocked out.
After a bit I get a neck-lock on him. I twist him over so that he’s underneath me an’ start pushin’ back his wrist — the one with the gun in it. I get the heel of my hand underneath his chin an’ push it back. The guy is gettin’ hurt plenty. After a minute his fingers unloose an’ he drops the gun. I grab it. Then I get up.
“You’re out of trainin’, Francelli,” I say. “One of these fine days somebody is gonna smack you down so that you don’t get up. Now stand over there by the door an’ put your hands up, an’ I wouldn’t move if I was you, otherwise this gun might go off.”
I walk over to the window an’ I pull the curtains. I can look right over the lawn to the boathouse. There is a patch of moonlight on the lawn, an’ after a minute I see Squilla scram across this patch like the devil is after him. A minute later we hear his car start up. I turn around an’ put the gun in my pocket.
“Well, Francelli,” I say. “It’s all over. The cops are down at the boathouse.”
He does just what I know he will do. He drops his hands and shoots through the doorway. I hear him rush down the passage, down the stairs, an’ a coupla minutes afterward I hear his car roar away.
I give myself a cigarette outa the box. I reckon that everything is workin’ out swell.
I reckon that I have gotta move quick. I ease over to the window an’ stand behind the curtain lookin’ at the boathouse. After a minute I see some figures runnin’ across the bottom of the paddock towards the boathouse. I reckon that this will be Herrick an’ the Flyin’ Squad boys.
I scram over to the desk an’ take a piece of paper an’ write a note to Herrick. Like this:
Dear Herrick,
Havley Gethrin is Francelli. Him and Squilla have just smacked me down and got outa here. But I don’t think that Squilla can get far because he seemed to have trouble getting his car away. Get the boys after him. I reckon he’ll make for the main road.
I’m after Francelli. I got an idea where I can find him, and I reckon I’ll be able to let you know where pretty soon. You stick around here at the telephone and wait for me to ring you, and I reckon we’ll have all this bezusus cleaned up in no time.
So long, John,
Lemmy Caution.
I leave this note lyin’ right in the middle of the floor where it can be seen easy. Then I turn on the other electric lights in the room, an’ pull back the curtains from the windows so that when Herrick an’ the cops are through in the boathouse they will come along up here.
Then I scram. I get outa the house by the front door, an’ I work around the shrubbery and back into the paddock. I go over to my car where I left it behind the bush. I get in, start it up an’ ease slowly down the paddock, keepin’ in the shadow of the wall, an’ get out inta the back turnin’. Then I step on it. When I go through Bourne End I can see the two Squad cars parked against the telephone box, but there ain’t anybody with ’em, an’ so nobody sees me.
I am makin’ for the Last Card, the roadhouse where Johnny Penn told me Squilla stopped. It is stickin’ outa foot that Squilla stopped there to find out where he could contact Francelli, an’ they told him to go on to Gelland’s Place. So it looks like this Last Card dump will be some headquarters for Francelli, an’ he will go back there because he will expect Squilla will go there. I reckon that Squilla has got the twenty thousand he took off Ricky an’ Francelli will stick around until he gets it. Francelli will be waitin’ for Squilla to show up an’ won’t be expectin’ me — which is very swell.
I step on it an’ drive like hell. Pretty soon I come to a main road, an’ I go down this till I strike a coffee-stall. I pull up an’ ask the guy if he knows a dump called the Last Card, an’ he says yes, an’ tells me where it is; but he says it ain’t no good my goin’ there because it closes down at two o’clock. I say thanks a lot an’ scram.
I turn off where he tells me an’ go like hell, an’ fifteen minutes later I see this dump. It is layin’ back in some grounds off the main road, an’ it looks like a private house that has been rebuilt an’ turned into a night dump.
I leave my car around at the side, an’ I get over a wall an’ start easin’ around to the back. I can’t see any lights or any signs of anybody bein’ about, but this fact don’t worry me at all. Around the back I find a sorta tool-shed, an’ above it is a little window. I get up on the roof of the shed, an’ after a bit I get the window open an’ get through.
I am in a staircase hallway. I look down the stairs to the ground floor, but I can’t see or hear anything, so I decide I will go upstairs. Round the staircase at the top is a banister rail leadin’ to a corridor, and along at the end of the corridor is a door, wide open, an’ the room inside is lit up.
I gumshoe along the corridor an’ look through the crack in the door. The room is a sorta office place, an’ Francelli is sittin’ at a table put across the far corner of the room facin’ the door from an angle. He is packin’ some papers an’ puttin’ ’em in a suitcase that is open on the table in front of him.
I pull the gun out, put it in my side coat-pocket with my hand on it an’ give a cough. Then I put on a hoarse voice an’ say: “Howdy, boss!”
He looks up, “Hey, Squilla....” he starts, an’ I step around inta the room. His mouth opens. This guy is plenty surprised.
“Hey, Francelli,” I say. “How’re you makin’ out? I bet you didn’t expect to see me around here!”
He sits there lookin’ at me. I reckon that if I’m gonna play this thing the way I want it played I have gotta be durn careful, otherwise I am gonna get myself ironed out, I have got both my hands in my coat pockets, an’ my right hand is around the gun, but in my pocket with my finger on the trigger an’ the muzzle pointin’ down so that it don’t look as if I’m holdin’ a gun.
“Well, Francelli?” I tell him. “So you’re all washed up. You’re a lousy heel, an’ I’ll be glad when they hang you — that’s what they do over here, you know, an’ they don’t make any mistakes about it, neither.”
He grins. “What’ve they got on me to string me up for, Clever?” he asks.
I do a little grinnin’. “Killin’ Ricky Vandellin,” I say. “You was the guy who shot Vandellin, an’ I know it.”
“You’re a lousy liar,” he says. “I never ironed that guy out. Why....”
I see his hand droppin’ towards the table drawer, an’ I reckon he has got a gun in there. I make out I don’t see anything an’ I go on talkin’.
“They can hang it on you all right,” I say, “an’ you can bet your sweet life they will, especially when they hear what I gotta say. You see, Francelli,” I go on, “I’m the star witness in this case, an’ the funny thing is this. When I went around to see Squilla tonight he told me a punk story about what had happened, and the reason why he went round to see Ricky Vandellin.
“It was a lot of lousy lies, an’ he made it up to stop me gettin’ at the truth. But he’s gotta stick to that story, an’ that story is gonna hang you — that, an’ what I gotta say. You see, big boy, Squilla said that some mysterious guy ‘phoned him to go round an’ meet him at Ricky Vandellin’s flat. Now the time of that ‘phone call coincides with the time you left Esmeralda at the Green Grill in Regent Street. So my story is this:
“You leave her at the table, an’ you go out an’ you ‘phone this mug Squilla to meet you at Ricky Vandellin’s place. Then you jump a cab, an’ you go round to Vandellin’s place an’ do a little talkin’ with him. Then you shoot him an’ you scram out. You know the hall janitor ain’t on duty downstairs, but you reckon that he will be by the time Squilla arrives, your idea bein’ that Squilla is gonna get pinched for bumpin’ Ricky Vandellin off. Well, maybe that ain’t true; but it’s good enough, and it’s gonna hang you, unless ...”
“Unless what?” he says, an’ I can see that he is startin’ very slowly to open the drawer in front of him.
“Unless this,” I tell him. “I reckon you got the twenty thousand that was took off Ricky. Well, you hand it over, an’ maybe I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
His eyes light up, an’ I can see the big idea come into his head. I know he ain’t got the twenty thousand, because I reckon Squilla has hung on to this. But it’s good enough for me.
“That’s a deal, Caution,” he says. “I’ll give you the dough now. I got it here in the drawer.”
He pulls the drawer open. As he puts his hand inside I push up the muzzle of the gun in my right-hand coat pocket. As I do this he pulls the gun outa the drawer an’, as I see his hand go up, I jump sideways an’ fire twice through my coat pocket. I get him as he fires. He flops down across the table. He is as dead as mutton because I have got him twice through the pump.
I stand there looking at him. I reckon the best thing I ever done in my life was to shoot this guy. I reckon that the number of palookas — men an’ women — that he has had bumped in his time could fill a coupla graveyards.
I move quick. I go over to him an’ take the gun outa his hand. I put it in my hip-pocket, an’ there sure as shootin’ is Esmeralda’s gun — the one I gave him earlier in the evening. I take this gun out, holdin’ it with my handkerchief, pull the ammunition clip out, take out one shell an’ put it in my pocket. This means that there are two shells missin’ in the gun. Then, holdin’ the gun by the barrel, I put it inta his hand so’s it looks as if the two shots he fired came outa that gun. I then look around in the wall where the two bullets have gone that he fired outa his own gun. Both these bullets have gone in good an’ deep, an’ the bullet-holes are in the shadow, an’ nobody is gonna see ’em anyway.
There is a telephone over in the corner. I go over, ring up enquiry, an’ ask for the number of Gelland’s Place. After a bit I get it. I hear Herrick’s voice speakin’ to me.
“Well, Lemmy,” he says, “how’re you making out? We’ve got Squilla all right. How’s Francelli?”
“I’m durned sorry, John,” I say, “but I hadta shoot this guy. I reckoned that he would go to this Last Card roadhouse — I got an idea that it was the mob’s headquarters over here. When I got in the place he was waitin’ for me with a gun. So I hadta give him a couple.”
“That’s too bad,” he says. “But it’s going to save us a lot of trouble.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” I say. “I reckon you might get over here right away, John, because I got this case sewed up in the bag. Francelli shot Ricky Vandellin all right. The gun he tried to use on me was a .32 Colt automatic, and I bet when we check on it we’ll find it is Esmeralda’s gun.”
“Good work, Lemmy,” he says. “I’m coming right along now.”
It is six o’clock in the mornin’, an’ Herrick an’ me are drinkin’ a whisky-an’-soda in his flat in Fulham Road.
“You know, Lemmy,” he says, “you’re not a bad sleuth even if you are tough.”
“Well, this case was easy,” I say, “an’ if you’ll check up on it, you’ll find that everything works out. Here’s what happened. When Squilla came over here his job was to await instructions from Francelli. So Francelli leaves Esmeralda at dinner, goes an’ rings up Squilla an’ tells him to go round to Ricky Vandellin’s flat. He does this so that he can frame Squilla with the murder charge. What does Squilla matter to him? O.K. He knows it’s gonna take Squilla a good half an hour to get round to Vandellin’s place. He jumps in a cab an’ he gets there himself in six or seven minutes. He shoots Ricky Vandellin with a gun he’s taken out of Esmeralda’s bag, but what he don’t realize is that one of the spangles has come off her dress an’ stuck to his coat. This is the spangle I found on the floor.
