Complete works of peter.., p.559
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 559
Esteban said: "Listen to me. When this informant goes to Mendanda and tells him that he saw you stealing da Silva's cattle, Mendanda will never think for one moment that the cattle have been driven to the police corral. So what does he do?"
"It is obvious," said Olé. "He will arrest us. He will throw as into that filthy jail in Bana."
"Precisely," said Esteban. "So you go into jail wearing the expressions of martyrs. When you have been there a few hours I will arrange that the cattle are discovered in the police corral, and you, who are public benefactors, have been thrown into jail like common cattle thieves. And Mendanda, in order to save his own skin, in order that the whole population of Bana shall not laugh at him, will pay you the half of the reward which he has kept for himself. He will give you two hundred and fifty silver dollars. This I will arrange because you are my friends."
Olé got up. He said: "Come, my brothers, we have work to do. Esteban, as always I rely on you."
"So be it, amigos," said Esteban. "When I leave you the moon goes out. I am desolate."
Pedro said: "For us it is worse, life is miserable when you are not within the range of our eyes."
THE next morning, on his way to Bana, Esteban called at the hut of old José and collected a hundred and twenty-five silver dollars. These he divided and slipped into his boot tops. He rode leisurely towards Bana.
At ten o'clock he entered the office of Cardona, the insurance company's agent, at the end of the little street.
"Señor Cardona," began Esteban, "I have always had a great appreciation of your mentality. Always I have said to my friends there is no greater representative of an insurance company than Señor Cardona. Always he has the good of his principals at heart."
Cardona nodded. "I am grateful for your good opinion."
Esteban crossed his legs; listened to the pleasant jingle of his spurs as he did so.
He said: "Señor Cardona, information reaches me that a large number of the cattle of my esteemed friend and, I hope, prospective father-in-law, Ramon da Silva, have disappeared. I understand that he has already made a claim against the insurance company. Is that true?"
Cardona nodded. "It is indeed true. The sum involved is considerable. It is perhaps unfortunate that the cattle were unbranded."
Esteban said: "Possibly there were good reasons for this. Da Silva has been ill and occupied. At the same time the company will be forced to pay. It would be bad publicity if they didn't."
"True," said Cardona. "They will pay eventually."
Esteban nodded. "Señor Cardona, I wish to do you a good turn because I have always liked you. I can save you and the company a great deal of time and money. When I leave here I propose to call on our respected and esteemed chief of police, Mendanda. I propose to give him certain information, as a result of which I assure you, Señor da Silva's cattle will be returned to him and the claim which he has made against the insurance company will be withdrawn."
Cardona smiled. "This is very pleasant news. You are indeed my friend, Señor Esteban. My principals on the mainland will be thrilled at the news."
Esteban raised one finger. "One moment. Señor... you will agree with me that the lowest peon is worthy of his hire. Is it not so?"
Cardona shrugged his shoulders. "Indeed, yes... depending, of course, upon what the hire is."
Esteban said: "Would a great company such as yours miss a paltry two hundred silver dollars? Is this too much for a herd of cattle to be returned?"
"I don't think so," said Cardona. "I have no doubt that when the cattle are returned to da Silva they would willingly pay you the two hundred dollars."
Esteban rose. He stood looking sorrowfully at Cardona, his expression a mixture of misery and outraged dignity.
He said: "So you doubt my word. Señor Cardona. You tell me that the company will pay me this paltry sum when the cattle are returned. Perhaps you will be good enough to explain to me why I, Esteban, should trouble to interest himself in their business when they do not trust me. Perhaps you would care for me to wash my hands of this matter. Do you think that I came here to be insulted? People who know me will inform you that I have killed a man for less than this."
Cardona said: "Señor Esteban, I assure you that you mistake me. Never for one moment have I doubted your integrity. In order that you may know this; in order that you may understand my affection and esteem for you I tell you that out of my contingency fund I will pay you the two hundred dollars at once, trusting in your word."
Esteban said: "Your words give me great pleasure. How wonderful is friendship and understanding and trust. Give me the two hundred dollars and I will sign a receipt."
OUTSIDE, in the narrow alleyway that led from the main street out towards the mesa, Esteban deposited the two hundred dollars in the bags concealed beneath his saddle-flaps. He tethered his pinto to an adjacent rail; turned back into the main street; walked towards the white adobe one-storey building that housed the chief of police.
Mendanda, chief of the Bana police, sat back in his chair, his feet on his desk. He was dressed in a dirty white shirt, with blue linen trousers, kept up by a piece of lariat rope round his waist; his sombrero was tilted over his eyes, a long cigarro hanging from his mouth.
He said: "God be with you, Esteban. It is a long time since I have seen you."
Esteban sat down on a stool in front of the desk. "I have been busy. Many things have kept me away, but when news comes to me that there is a possibility of trouble for my friend Mendanda then I come to you immediately. A you know, I am your friend."
Mendanda spat out of the window. "This is great news for me. Your smile is like sunshine to me. Take anything I have." He spat out of the window even more artistically than before. "Tell me, Esteban?"
Esteban said: "There are unkind people in Bana. Hear everything. It seems that by some means the corral gate at da Silva's were left open. A herd of cattle strayed. You have heard about this?"
Mendanda nodded. "Did they stray?" he asked. "I have been told that Olé Pedro and Quincho Anzanas were seen driving these cattle to Silver Valley—their usual place of hiding. I have had an information lodged before me. This morning I have arrested them. They are in the jail. When I accused them of this offence they said nothing." He shrugged his shoulders. "They did no even offer me any money not to arrest them, which I regard as being very suspicious."
Esteban said: "Mendanda, you will listen to me. You have been tricked. As you have just said, if Olé, Pedro and Quincho had been concerned in stealing these cattle they would have offered you money not to arrest them. The fact that they have not done so is, as you say, suspicious. This is a plot against you."
Mendanda cocked one black eyebrow. He said: "So... tell me the plot."
Esteban said: "Some fool must have left da Silva's corral gates open. The cattle strayed. News of this came to Olé. He knew perfectly well that if they stole the cattle suspicion would fall or them, so they did not steal the cattle."
Mendanda leaned forward. "I see. What did they do?"
Esteban said: "For once they decided to be honest citizens. They have driven the cattle into the police corral—the purpose for which you built it." He grinned wickedly at Mendanda. "Now they are going to bring an action against you for wrongful imprisonment."
Mendanda said: "It appears to me that there are no longer any saints. It appears to me that there is no longer any justice in the world that this thing should be done to me. I do not like this."
"Listen, my friend," said Esteban. "Why worry? It is so easy."
Mendanda threw a cigarro across the desk to Esteban, who caught it deftly. He said: "Tell me, Esteban."
Esteban said: "It is as simple as this. Da Silva deposited five hundred silver dollars with you—a reward for information about the cattle. Have you paid it out?"
Mendanda said: "Yes and no. Then are no secrets between you, my friend, and me, and you know that for a person of my integrity my pay is very small. I gave the informant two hundred and fifty dollars. I thought I was entitled to the balance."
Esteban nodded. "Listen to me, Mendanda. These people, Olé, Pedro and Quincho may make trouble for you, more especially as they will say it was your business to know whether the cattle had been driven into the police corral or not, even though it is such a long way away and you have not had time to go there. Do this: release them. Tell them that you wish to apologize to them; give then the two hundred and fifty dollars that you have kept from the reward. As you know. I am friendly with them. I will get fifty dollars back for you."
Mendanda shrugged his shoulders. He said: "Everybody in Bana makes money except myself. I get only fifty dollars."
Esteban said: "No, This is my plan. You will send one of your rurales to inform da Silva that his cattle are safe and you will inform him that because of my great regard for him I have volunteered to put his brand on the cattle before they leave the police corral, so that the insurance company will be satisfied."
He shrugged his shoulders gracefully. "I am not certain," he continued, "how many cattle are in the police corral but if, for the sake of argument, there are six hundred head it may be that I will only brand five hundred and three, because, after all, some of the cattle may have run wild when Olé, Pedro and Quincho were driving them to the police corral."
Mendanda said: "I see. So that leaves ninety-seven head in the police corral. What then?"
Esteban said: "I have a purchaser. You and I are good friends. Always there has been great honesty between us. When I have sold the ninety-seven head of cattle. I will divide the money with you, Mendanda, because you are my friend; because our interests are mutual."
Mendanda swung his feet off the desk. He opened a drawer; produced an iron ring with a dozen solid keys dangling therefrom. He threw the ring across the table to Esteban. He said: "Let them out. Tell them to come quietly to me and I will give them two hundred dollars, reserving only fifty for myself as commission."
Esteban picked up the keys. "So be it... Adios, Mendanda. When you die the world will be lonely for me."
Mendanda said: "Go in peace, my friend. When the door shuts behind you a cold wind enters my heart."
WHEN the hot afternoon sun disappeared in the west, Esteban came down the Zusta trail. Pilar da Silva waited by the tree. She came towards him.
She said: "How wonderful is life. My father is so pleased. This morning Olé, Pedro and Quincho Anzanas drove back the cattle. It seems they had strayed; had been driven into the police corral. He is a little annoyed because some are missing." She smiled at him archly. "He's pleased with you, too, for your kindness in putting his brand on the cattle before they left the corral. You must have worked hard."
Esteban shrugged his shoulders. "For your father I would do anything. Yesterday right through the broiling sun we four worked on the cattle. Nothing is too much for my Pilar." He put his arm about her. "I have news for you, my sweet. You are to be my wife."
She looked at him, her eyes glowing.
"Always, as you know," said Esteban, "the good will of your father has meant much to me. When he told me that some of his cattle were missing I was able to supply the deficiency at a very cheap price. Some unbranded cattle which I bought last month will be delivered to him tomorrow. Not only that," he said, "but listen to this, light of my soul. He has decided that it would be safer for me and his house that I should be his overseer. He has agreed that you shall be my wife. Now he knows that no longer will his cattle stray; that everything in his house will be at peace. Come, cara, let us go home."
They wandered down the pathway towards the main track, Esteban's pinto trailing behind them. After a little while Esteban threw away his long cigarro, began softly to sing an old Spanish love song.
The Gangster
DID you ever hear of a guy called Jimmy Jason? A big shot now, a G-Man working for Uncle Sam, but I can remember when I was stringing along with him on a sixth floor office on the corner of Broadway and East Eleventh. "Jimmy Jason, Private Investigations," was on the door.
Jason was a wow. He was tall and big and good-looking. Dames used to fall for him. But he was stand-off.
One night him and me is sittin' in the office doin' some heavy thinkin'. All of a sudden the outer door opens and in comes some dame.
Gee was she lovely? I have seen some good-lookers in my time but that dame had what it takes. She was tall an' she was slim. She had black hair an' big turquoise eyes, and her skin was so fine it looked like it was transparent.
She don't waste no time. She opens up her handbag an' she takes out a packet of dough. She puts it on the corner of the desk. Then she starts talkin'.
She speaks as good as she looks and her voice is low and husky. Every now and then she stops and coughs. It looks to me like this dame is sick.
"Mr Jason" she savs, "I've heard about you. They tell me that you are a man who is not afraid to take a chance, and that you are one of the cleverest private operators in New York. There are ten thousand dollars. Tell me, can you get a man out of prison for that?"
Jason grins.
"That depends on the prison, lady," he says.
She tells him the name of the pen and Jason looks at me. It just happened to be one of them dumps where money talks plenty. Then she comes across with the story.
It looks like that she is in love with Tony Fremer. Now everybody knows that Tony was sent up a year before on a ten years' rustication for usin' a gun on Willie Lacazzi. It is also a cinch by the way this dame is talking that she is well stuck on Fremer, and she wants to get him out. When she's finished spielin', Jason says, "I think it might be done. Anyhow, we can try."
"I'm glad you can help, Mr. Jason," she says, "there's only one thing, but it's rather important. You've got to get Tony out before September."
Jason raised his eyebrows.
"You ain't giving me much time, lady," he says. "We're in the middle of July now."
"I'm sorry," she says, "but he's got to be out by September, and if he is there'll be another ten thousand dollars for you."
Jason grins at her.
"O.K., lady," he says. "You can consider him sprung. Just leave your address with Riscoe, will you? I'll contact you later."
She gives me her address, she says good-night, an' she goes out.
"Well, what do you know about that, Willie?" says Jason.
"It looks good to me," I say. "I reckon it'll cost us about five thousand to spring that guy out of that dump and we ought to be on fifteen thousand profit. Nice work, Jimmy."
"Yeah?" he says. "Well, there's something screwy about it. Listen to this. Did you see that woman's shoes? You didn't, you never see a thing. Well, one of them wanted mending, an' her clothes were good but they were darned old. What's a woman in that state doing with ten grand?"
He picks up the bills off the table. They are one-hundred-dollar bills and they are new.
"Listen, sourpuss," he says. "Get around first thing in the morning. Check up on these bills, find out the bank they came from and find out whose account paid 'em.
"When you've done that, do a little checking up on Tony Fremer. I want his record, an' let me know where the contact is between him and this dame."
NEXT morning I rustle around, and at 12 o'clock I have got the dope like he said.
The woman is a dame named Cynthia Fernand, but I can't find out very much about her before she contacted with Tony, which was eighteen months before. She fell for this guy Fremer with a bump, and it looked like she was helping him in a dope-peddling racket that he was running at the time.
Fremer was a bad guy. What a woman who looked as nice as she did was doing stringing along with a slug like him I don't know. Dames do funny things anyway, or ain't you heard about that?
Now about the dough. It looked like that was fairly normal. I traced the money to the Sixth National Bank of Illinois New York branch.
She cashed a cheque there for it, and the cheque had been made out by Fritz Schreit, who was one of the hottest shyster lawyers in the city. He was a gangsters' mouthpiece, and he was good at his business.
It looked like sense to me that Fremer had pulled the usual stunt of turning over his dough to Schreit when he was sent up and it looked like Schreit had done the normal thing and handed ten grand to the woman to contact Jason in order to get Fremer out.
I tell Jason all this.
"Relax, Sherlock," he says. "You'd have thought that as Fremer an' this dame was so stuck on each other, he'd have fixed that Schreit would let her have money for shoe repairs while he was in gaol, wouldn't you? It's funny that this dame should go to Schreit to get the money and walk out with ten grand and bring it round here to us when she looks as if she could do with a man's size steak."
I don't see what all that matters, and I tell him so.
"O.K., Willie," he says. "Now you get busy. You take a little trip up the river. Take a coupla grand of the money and just get around with some of the guards of that prison. See if you can arrange a nice little escape, and see if you can fix it quick."
WELL, I fix it. I get three prison guards in on our side, an' the whole thing is hunky dory. These boys think a nice little escape can be arranged, and I fix it shall come off the first week in August. So we just stick around and wait.
Well, it just don't happen. Fremer is pinched at the last minute by a coupla guards who are not playin' with our team.
I tell Jason this an' I reckon that he will be burned up considerable, but he just says that he reckons that this dame Cynthia Fernand has got tubercular an' I am to go and get a line on whether she is havin' medical treatment any place for it.
Can you beat that? Will you tell me what this dame havin' consumption has got to do with our escape plot goin' haywire?
All right. I find out that this dame is havin' treatment at St. Mary's, and when I tell Jimmy he goes around there, and when he comes back he says that the doctor says that he reckons that this Cynthia Fernand can last about a coupla months. She is as bad as that. He also says that if she could go to some sanatorium in Switzerland she might have a good chance.
