Delphi collected works o.., p.568
Delphi Collected Works of Peter Cheyney Illustrated, page 568
But he knew that she would never have promised to go with him unless he had money. She worshipped money. Most girls of her sort did. Quite a lot of the mannequins who worked with her were kept, or had an eye on some old gentleman whom they intended to marry. They all wanted what they called “good times.”
Well, he had money — or would have to-morrow after he had sold the bracelet to Primpeau. He felt rather pleased at the manner in which he had got it. There was rather an Arsène Lupin touch about the whole business he thought.
He had noticed that the old girl always wore the bracelet when she went out to a cocktail party. When she returned she would take it of! and throw it on to her dressing-table, before she went off to bath and dress for dinner. She left most of her jewellery lying about on the dressing-table, but she always locked the bedroom door after her on her way to the bathroom, and kept the key looped over her finger with a piece of string.
Musket had waited three weeks to get a chance to take an impression of that key. He had walked about with a piece of wax in his pocket all that while. At last opportunity came his way.
On her way to the bathroom one night she had met him in the passage and had stopped to kiss him. The key had fallen off her finger and over the balustrade on to the stair-landing below.
He had gone down for it; had pretended to accidentally kick it even farther down. Bringing it back to her he had pressed it against the wax cake in the palm of his hand and had got the impression. Getting the key made was easy.
Three-quarters of an hour ago he had got the bracelet. She had gone to a cocktail party wearing it, and also had told him that she would be back again at a quarter to seven and would want him to take her out to dine at eight o’clock. He was to come and pick her up at seven-thirty.
He went back to the house at seven o’clock. He knew that she always spent half an hour in the bathroom with her maid, fussing about with creams and lotions. He let himself quietly into the house with his own key with which she had supplied him; ran quickly up the stairs; listened for a moment at her bedroom door, then unlocked it, entered, picked up the bracelet and walked out of the house. No one had seen him. No one had been about.
Then he had had a quick whisky and soda, just to wish himself good luck, and had gone to meet Myra.
He grinned to himself as he thought of the old girl’s face when she went back to the bedroom and found the bracelet gone and, in its place, the note he had left. He imagined her tearing open the envelope with her plump beringed fingers and reading what he had written:
I’m sick of you. I’ve had enough of you. It was bad enough when you let me have enough money, but since you’ve been mean it’s unbearable. I’m off for good. Of course, you can go to the police but you won’t. I’ve too many letters of yours.”
He lit another cigarette.
Where the devil was Myra? It was nearly a quarter to eight. Coming towards him he saw Freda Ballaston — one of the mannequins at Myra’s place. He walked towards her.
“Hello, Freda, where the deuce has Myra got to?”
She looked at him with a sly smile.
“Don’t you know?” she asked, smirking. “Surely she would have told you. She was married this morning. She married that fellow from the Argentine — the dago.... I am surprised that she didn’t tell you about it. It’s been on for a long time.... Well.... Good night.”
She smiled at him again maliciously, and walked off.
Muskat stood transfixed. Then he thought that Freda must be fooling. He dashed up to Bond Street tube station and telephoned Myra’s flat.
It was true enough. The housekeeper confirmed it. She had been married that morning. All along she had been making a fool of him. Stringing him... laughing at him.
He came out of the telephone booth and walked down Oxford Street cursing. He was livid with rage. To be made a fool of by a girl like Myra!
Soon his anger began to abate. Muskat had not enough character to be angry for long. Anyhow he had the bracelet. He would go over to Paris to-morrow and fix things with Primpeau. There were lots of other girls in the world, just as attractive and young and vital as Myra.
He hailed a taxi and drove to his rooms in Knightsbridge. His disappointment over Myra was, in some measure, appeased by his thoughts of the old girl’s fury over the loss of her bracelet. This idea amused him. He was glad that someone else was hurt.
By the time he arrived at his rooms he was almost in good humour. Life was not so bad and it was going to be better. He would set himself up in Paris. Maybe he would start some business — or better still, find some fool woman — there were lots of them about.
He put his key into the door and opened it. As he switched on the light he noticed an envelope in the letter-box. He picked out the letter and glanced at the handwriting.
It was from the old girl....
He tore open the envelope and read:
Monkey Dear,
I know you’re fed up with me and I know I’ve been keeping you short of money, but I haven’t been able to help it. Dividends have been bad and it would have been criminal to sell stock with the market like it is.
But I want to give you a chance and I realise that I’m just an old woman who ought to be through with love, so I’ve sold my best bracelet this morning. I’ve had a paste imitation made that looks very good so no one will ever guess.
And when you come to dine with me to-night I’m going to give you the money and your freedom. Don’t be late, dear.”
Muskat tore the bracelet-case from his hip pocket and opened it. He took it under the light and stood looking at the worthless imitation.
Outside a taxi-cab hooted.
THE LAST STRAW
From the narrative of Samuel of Chicago, ex-racketeer
“IN MY EXPERIENCE guys don’t reform until they have to; and they have to when things gets a bit too hot for ’em — see?
“I ain’t no moralist. I been paid to bump off guys an’ I’ve bumped ’em off an’ slept the same night just like I did when I was a kid. Still, that don’t prove nothin’. Maybe other fellers would have kept awake.
“The whole thing is that any guy is liable to go soft; an’ if a guy goes soft there’s only one reason — a woman. But when a sap in my late profession goes soft it ain’t likely to be so good for him. See? Somebody is sure goin’ to get him an’ there ain’t goin’ to be any Victoria Cross issued to him after he’s dead. No, Sir!
“I can tell you a story. It happened in Chicago. Maybe you’ll find a moral in it. Some of you writin’ guys’d find a moral even if there wasn’t one. Well — here goes.”
CHARLES LETTEN was all right until he linked up with Hymie Characq — commonly known as “French,” and Rosanna was all right until she linked up with Charles. Then the trouble started.
Charles was all right. He was working for a big firm of wholesale stationers, and everything was going well until he started to poke his nose into things that didn’t concern him. That’s when he got up against French. French gave him the opportunity of being “taken for a ride,” right away, or joining up with the gang.
Charles didn’t want to die, so he joined up.
A year or so ago bad men in Chicago used to be pretty bad, believe me, and French was probably the worst of them. He was just as evil as he could be. There wasn’t a thing that he would boggle at. He was just as tough as hell; and there was only one person who was a bit tougher than French, and that was his wife — commonly known as The Boss. She was good-looking, cruel, and generally awful.
Even French was afraid of her.
Charles went on working for the firm of stationers, for French liked his people to have the cover of a real job. It was about three months after he had started in with the gang that Charles — who, by the way, was inclined to be a decent kid — met Rosanna.
He fell in love with Rosanna. She was slim and lovely and was secretary to a banker. She believed in Charles. He said nothing of his connection with the French crowd. He was hoping, rather desperately, to break away from it. He had a hope!
Then French’s wife found out about Rosanna, and that just tickled her silly. The idea of busting up a romance looked swell to her. So she had an anonymous note sent to Rosanna telling her that Charles was a crook. Rosanna tackled Charles about it and he spilled the beans. He told her what had happened to him.
Rosanna was angry. She had lots of grit. She found out The Boss and told her just what she thought of her. That wasn’t a very wise thing to do. She made an enemy who would stop at nothing.
The Boss got annoyed. So she had a little conversation with her husband and fixed things for the girl. Nothing would content that tough, blonde wife of French’s but that she must ring Rosanna into the gang too — and she did.
French had influence with all sorts of people in Chicago, and the police “pulled in” Charles on a charge framed up by a friend of French’s. Then French gave Rosanna the chance of either joining up and working with the crowd or seeing Charles sent up the river for a five-year stretch. Rosanna was in love with Charles, as I have said, so she chose the gang.
They had a bad time, those two, when Charles was released. The Boss and her husband went out of their respective ways to make life generally awful for them, and they succeeded.
Every bit of dirty work that had to be done was just another job for Rosanna and Charles. French’s chief lieutenant — a terrible fellow, a Swede named Gorltz — managed to make life appalling for them.
You may wonder why they didn’t try to make a getaway, but if you had known Chicago in those days you wouldn’t wonder. A man like French was a big shot, and he could pull anything he liked. If those two had tried to escape they would have been pulled in on something or other before they had got ten miles.
Then the funny thing happened.
French’s gang pulled a job. They held up a motor-car and took a diamond necklace off the dame that was in it. That wasn’t so good, because the dame happened to be the wife of a U.S. senator and there are limits to things that you can do even in Chicago. The police began to get busy and French was tipped off that it was an established fact that his gang had pulled the job and that somebody had got to get “sent up” for it, and pretty quick, too!
Then French’s wife had a funny idea. She thought it would be a good joke to plant the necklace on Rosanna and send her off out of Chicago accompanied by Charles. Then the police could be tipped off and the pair of them arrested.
Everybody would then be happy, thought The Boss. The senator’s wife would have her necklace back; Charles and Rosanna would go “up the river”; the police would be satisfied and French’s gang would be well rid of a pair of puling infants whose hearts had never been in their “work,” anyway, and who, she thought, were a pair of sick headaches.
A nice woman, The Boss — !
French thought it was a great idea and sent for Gorltz. Gorltz suggested that Charles and Rosanna should be sent to New York on a pretended job; that the necklace should be slipped into Rosanna’s dressing-case while it was being taken to the railroad station, and that when they had started, somebody could telephone the detective bureau who could then “wipe-up” Charles and Rosanna at the station. After a bit he decided that he didn’t like the dressing-case idea and would think up something a bit better. So that was that!
Gorltz went on to suggest that French and his wife should themselves “blow” out of it to their house in Pennsylvania at the same time, so that they should be out of Chicago while Charles and Rosanna were being tried.
It was all fixed up. Gorltz went round and saw Charles, and told him that he had to go to New York with Rosanna and explained what he had to do there; then he went along and saw Rosanna and gave her instructions. He was always very nice and polite to her, was Gorltz, with a sneer in his voice and an evil grin on his face.
He was still grinning when, that evening, he gave Charles a beautiful fur coat to give to Rosanna.
“The kid’ll wanna look swell in New York on this job,” he said. “And besides, Charlie, she’ll just love you for that coat — eh, boy?”
Next evening they all met in French’s flat. French and his wife were leaving on a train half an hour before the New York Flyer was supposed to be taking Charles and Rosanna.
It was a bitterly cold evening and the five of them sat around drinking coffee.
Then Gorltz got up.
“I’ll get your luggage taken down to the station,” he said to Charles, and the boy came up and took off Charles’s kit-bag and Rosanna’s dressing-case.
Gorltz spoke to French.
“Chief, you gotta be movin’, too,” he said. “Your train’s due in any minute now....”
He proceeded to help French’s wife into her fur coat. A grin came over his face. He whispered in her ear.
She took the hint.
“Say, baby-face, just hand over to me that fur coat you’re wearin’,” she said to Rosanna with a smirk. “It’s better than mine. You don’t think you’re goin’ to wear a better coat than me — do you? Strip it off, you silly-lookin’ so-and-so!”
Rosanna said nothing. Her spirit was pretty well broken. She just handed over her new coat and took The Boss’s fur coat for herself.
French and his wife prepared to go. They said good-bye to Charles and Rosanna and they were both grinning like fiends. It was a good joke.
When they’d gone Gorltz spoke to Charles.
“Here’s a note for you,” he said. “It’s some further dope on what you gotta do in New York. Read it when you get to the station.”
He wished them good-bye. He was grinning too!
French and his wife were arrested on the Pennsylvania railroad station. The senator’s wife’s necklace was found sewn into the lining of The Boss’s fur coat — Rosanna’s fur coat, that was!
Even they couldn’t pull themselves out of that break. That night found them in jail.
When they arrived at the station Charles opened Gorltz’s note. He read this:
Listen, you pair of pikers. When you get to New York take the first boat and get out of U.S. Give yourself a break. You’re not fit to be gangsters — you haven’t got the heart.
I’m fixing French. I gave them a chance. I suggested to her that she should take your girl’s fur coat. If she hadn’t done it she’d have been all right. As it is, I had the necklace that you two were going to be planted with, sewn up in the lining. I never did like The Boss, and I wanted to see if she’d be mean enough to take the coat off your girl.
You see, I had a girl once, and The Boss fixed her — tool Well — she took the coat, and it was your break. I always did like a joke. Well — so long.
Gorltz.
Charles and Rosanna are in Belgium to-day. Yeah — they got a shop there. Doin’ well.
Gorltz? He was bumped off three weeks later on the corner of the Gregory Boulevard in Chicago.
He always did like a joke.
A LIFE FOR A LAMP
From the story of Charles H — , ex-night watchman, Manhattan Docks
“THERE’S ALWAYS STORIES where there’s docks. I reckon I’ve listened to more stories than most fellers.
“Ef you’re one of these guys that believes in romance you can’t do better than hang around Manhattan Docks ef you wanna get stories.
“The boats come in an’ go out; an’ every boat carries a load of tragedies an’ comedies — but the comedies don’t matter much. There ain’t so many of them.
“My strangest story? Yeah — I got one. Who ain’t? But this story is a real good ‘un. It happened when I was a junior watchman twelve years ago, when I was doin’ the midnight to four a.m. stretch.
“I’ll tell it to you, an’ you kin judge for yourself. I reckon it’s good....
“It sounds funny for a guy to be a junior night-watch when he’s forty-three, but that’s how old I was when this happened.
“The night-watch in charge was a feller named Ollsen. He was a Norwegian, I guess, an’ a good feller too. He was a regular guy.
“Our job was patrollin’ round No. 4 Dock, an’ also keepin’ an eye on the surrounding neighbourhood. We was supposed to tip off anything funny to the Customs men. At this time there was a lot of smugglin’ of one sort an’ another goin’ on.
“An’ Manhattan was a bit funny in those days, y’know. Lots of strange guys hangin’ around. Fellers who’d come back from the war and who wasn’t very pertickler about bein’ quick with a shootin’ rod. They was up to anythin’, and was they tough? They was the sort of guys who’d use manhole covers to play draughts with.
“One night Ollsen and me went to a speak-easy just off Mangrove Court — a place not half so nice as it sounds — and whilst we was there some swell guy comes in. He was buyin’ drinks for everybody and doin’ himself well. I didn’t like the look of him much.
“Ollsen told me to keep clear of this guy. He was a big-time racketeer in the days when a racket was a racket, believe me.
“Apparently this guy’s main stunt was dope-runnin’; Ollsen told me that nobody ever knew how they got the stuff off the boats — but they got it all right. This feller did all the business with the Bowery an’ Chinatown, where he sold the real stuff. As well he used to water cocaine down too, with boracic powder, and sell that to the smart guys who liked to look for new thrills on Broadway. You know ’em!
“I watched out for this feller. He sort of interested me. I like sittin’ back and watchin’ things quietly. Bein’ a night-watchman gets you that way. I suppose it’s walkin’ about by yourself most of the night — thinkin’.
“An’ it was easy for me to keep an eye on him. Everybody was used to see me hangin’ around the place, and as my beat often took me around the streets alongside the No. 4 Dock neighbourhood, a district where the feller used to operate — his name was Tony — he was an Irish-Italian, if you please! — nobody ever took any notice of me.
“An’ what a feller he was for swell dames. You oughta seen some of the dames who used to come down to the lousy speak-easies around there to meet Mr. Tony. They used to look like a million dollars, and he treated ’em just like dirt. Ollsen said he used to do a bit of blackmail as a sorta sideline. A nice guy, I reckon. Anyhow, he certainly had some of those dames where he wanted ’em. They seemed to stand for anything.
