Joe noted a large car parked in a driveway alongside the house. Its parking lights were on, and the detective recognized the automobile as the acting commissioner’s car.
A stocky servant answered Joe’s ring. The menial ushered the detective through a large, dimly lighted hall, into a fair-sized room that looked like a library. Here Cardona found Barth and Caffley awaiting him.
The acting commissioner greeted the detective with a sour smile. Cardona sat down in a chair that Caffley indicated, wondering what he had done to incur Barth’s displeasure.
There was a telephone on a table beside the commissioner. It was probably from this room that Barth had made his call. All about the library were bookshelves. Cardona had come in from a side door; directly opposite was an exit to a sun porch. Joe noted a curtained doorway at the front of the room; another at the rear.
“Well, commissioner,” asserted the detective, “I’m here. I made good time, too. Couldn’t break away from Dreblin’s right off; but it didn’t take me more than five minutes to get started. Came out by cab, like you told me. What’s up?”
Cardona thought this to be a good introduction. He wanted to let Barth talk first, for he felt sure that the commissioner had nothing more than trifling information. That meant that Cardona would provide the real life of the conference when he spieled his own adventures.
Oddly, it was Caffley who answered. The gray-haired man took it upon himself to be spokesman without so much as a glance toward Barth.
Cardona wondered at that fact; he was also puzzled by the peculiar smile which appeared upon Caffley’s droopy and usually solemn face.
“LESS than an hour ago, Cardona,” asserted Caffley, “I called the Cobalt Club, hoping that Commissioner Barth was still there. He was; and I told him that I had discovered some important letters which Newell Frieth had written me while he was promoting Duro Metal.
“I asked Commissioner Barth to come out here and study that correspondence with me. I requested also that he bring you along. I was rather surprised when the commissioner arrived alone. He then informed me that he had thought it unwise to disturb your interview with Philo Dreblin.”
“But you did call me at Dreblin’s, commissioner,” put in Cardona, turning to Barth. “Did you change your mind about it after you arrived here?”
“I did,” replied Barth, with a short nod.
Cardona stared at the commissioner, puzzled at Barth’s manner. The detective heard Caffley speak again; the man’s voice carried a sarcastic touch.
“I persuaded Commissioner Barth to call you, Cardona,” came Caffley’s statement. “I also suggested that he make his statements brief; that he order you to come alone—”
“It was not his threat against me, Cardona,” blurted Barth, coming up in his chair. “I would not have done it on my own account alone. But the scoundrel had captured Lawrence, my chauffeur! He said that unless—”
Barth was glaring furiously toward Caffley. Cardona swung about, to see the gray-haired manufacturer of ferroluminum standing in the center of the room. Caffley had drawn a revolver from his coat pocket. He held the weapon lowered but in readiness.
“When I persuaded Commissioner Barth,” affirmed Caffley, in a dry harsh tone, “I used this weapon as a means of pressing my point. But as the commissioner says” — Caffley’s eyes were narrowed; his mild face had become vicious — “my threat might have failed, had I not told him that I held Lawrence helpless.
“I then convinced the commissioner” — Caffley’s words held an insidious twang — “that it would be wise to bring you here, unaware of the situation. I told him that you were the only man with whom I would discuss a compromise. I added that—”
CARDONA, hands gripping arms of chair, had been slowly steadying himself for a spring. Gauging the distance between himself and Caffley, he felt sure that he could pounce upon the villain before the man had time to level the revolver and discharge it.
Cardona tightened for the crucial leap. Barth, closer than Caffley, saw the coming move. Quickly, the commissioner uttered a warning cry — an order for the detective to forgo the mad attempt.
Cardona came to his feet as Barth shouted the warning. He stopped his leap instinctively, sensing that it would prove futile.
It was well that Cardona did so. The cackle that came from Caffley’s lips proved that the man had not been unready. Cardona stared at Caffley’s gun; the weapon was still lowered. Then Joe gazed to left and right. His jaw fell; he remained open-mouthed.
Two men had stepped into view: one from the door to the sun porch; the other from that curtained entrance at the front of the library. Both were men whom Cardona had seen before; their presence here left the detective dumfounded.
The man from the sun porch was George Garsher, the stubby, red-faced cigar salesman who had reported the finding of Jeremy Lentz’s body. The man from the curtained front of the room was Al Sycher, the pale, long-faced elevator operator at the Belgaria Apartments.
Each of the rogues was ready with a leveled gun. There had been no need for Caffley to raise his weapon. Indeed, he was both deliberate and disdainful as he pocketed his own revolver and pointed to the chair from which Cardona had risen.
As Joe subsided, Caffley turned toward the entrance at the side of the room; he snapped his fingers loudly. The servant who had admitted Cardona appeared and caught Caffley’s nod. Retiring, the servant reappeared a dozen seconds later, accompanied by another stalwart menial.
Between them, they were lugging Lawrence. They shoved Barth’s chauffeur on a long divan. Lawrence groaned slightly. Cardona knew that the fellow had been slugged.
Garsher and Sycher advanced until they were flanking Caffley. Garsher was covering Cardona; Sycher had his revolver trained on Barth. Caffley nodded to the servants; the two went out through the side door. Their footfalls faded off into the house.
Hiram Caffley chuckled as he drew up a chair and planted it squarely before Cardona and Barth. Seating himself, the millionaire faced his prisoners, confident in the security furnished him by the guns of Garsher and Sycher.
It was plain that Caffley was ready to talk terms. Wainwright Barth was glaring through his pince-nez spectacles, indignant at the humiliation under which he had been placed. To the acting police commissioner, the coming discussion was one that must be met with challenge.
But to Joe Cardona, the situation was far different. The detective could see deep evil lurking behind that smile that Caffley wore. Barth might think that this was a dilemma from which there would be some salvation. Not so Cardona.
The ace had gained one of his hunches. In his eyes, Caffley was a murderer. No matter what terms the villain might offer, there was only one fate that he would be willing to deliver to his victims.
That, Cardona sensed, would be death.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FINAL TERMS
“BEFORE I discuss your individual predicaments,” began Caffley, to Barth and Cardona, “I should like to make a few criticisms of your methods. Until tonight, I was unable to find any point upon which I could commend your efforts in tracing crime. Tonight, however, you, Cardona, managed to perform the unexpected.
“You caught me unaware when you attempted to seize Albert Sycher. Had your men been able to effect his capture, you would have had me at a decided disadvantage. Sycher and I were avoiding contact. I would not have known of his arrest until, perhaps, too late.
“Your mistake, Cardona, came when you did not inform Commissioner Barth of your attempt. I decided that you had not traced the connection between Sycher and myself. So when Sycher fled here and told me his story, I countered promptly with the pretext that brought Barth into my power.”