No Quarter
By ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
CHAPTER I.
CONFIDENCE MAN.
Rhoda Marchand, who drew a salary of three hundred dollars a month because of her extraordinary ability in clipping and classifying crime news, snipped the scissors along the edge of the newspaper column and took the article she had clipped into Jax Bowman's private office.
Jax Bowman regarded her with a slightly quizzical expression.
"Have you got something unusual, Rhoda?" he asked.
"Naturally," she told him, "or I wouldn't have come to you personally with it."
Bowman lowered his eyes to the clipping, but Rhoda Marchand didn't extend it to him at once. Her voice was rapid, nervous and high-pitched.
"You're paying me an excellent salary," she said, "to clip crime news out of newspapers. I cover newspapers of all the large cities. I classify them according to modes of operation. Whenever I find clippings that seem to indicate some gang of criminals has become too powerful for the police and is operating from city to city, using about the same methods, I call those clippings to your attention."
Jax Bowman's voice was suddenly hard.
"And you draw," he said, "a very handsome salary, as secretarial salaries go, for your work. Do I understand that you are dissatisfied?"
"No," she said, "I wanted to ask you some questions."
"I believe," he told her, his tone cold and formal, "that you wished to see me about a clipping?"
"Yes," she said, "a newspaper clipping from the Times Picayune in New Orleans. It deals with the breaking up of a criminal ring that had successfully baffled the police of San Francisco, Denver and Kansas City. The police don't know exactly how the criminal ring was broken up, but they do know that two men figured in it. Both of these men wore masks, and there were white rings around the eye-holes of the masks. A Negro servant got a glimpse of the two men."
Bowman's face was absolutely without expression. His voice said coldly, "Most interesting, Rhoda, and I presume you want to ask me about where it should be filed?"
"No, I don't," she said, "I wanted to tell you that the criminal ring that was broken up was the one concerning which I gave you clippings from the San Francisco, Denver and Kansas City newspapers."
"Yes?" said Bowman in the rising inflexion of a question.
"Yes, and immediately afterwards you and Mr. Grood left the city on an unexplained trip."
Bowman said nothing.
"It is, of course," Rhoda Marchand said, "too weirdly spectacular to warrant serious consideration—this talk of two master minds who are invading the underworld, wearing black masks with white rings around the eyes. Nevertheless, this is the fifth clipping that I've seen which has mentioned the possibility that such men are preying on the organized underworld."
"And you wish to ask me about it?"
"I wanted to tell you," she said, "that I was saving these clippings. I also wanted to let you know that when I took this job I couldn't understand why a multi-millionaire, with the extensive business interests that you had, and the suite of offices in other buildings, should have bothered to open up this office, in which your name doesn't appear on the door. I wondered what the association between you and 'Big Jim' Grood was. It's not often that a multi-millionaire forms a business association with an ex-police officer whose sole business qualifications are those relating to the underworld."
Bowman reached in the drawer of his desk for a check-book.
"I presume that you're about to tell me," he said, "that you wish to resign, is that it?"
"No," she said, her eyes staring steadily into him, "I was about to tell you that if you ever wanted to use me for any activities outside of the office, I too could wear a mask with white rings around the eye-holes."
Jax Bowman closed the drawer. His finger-tips drummed silently upon the top of the desk.
"I think, Miss Marchand," he said, "we won't discuss the matter any further. You are giving excellent satisfaction in your present position, and your present work is comparatively safe."
"Very well," she told him, "I simply wanted you to know that it wouldn't be necessary to pull your punches, as far as I'm concerned."
Jax Bowman's face softened.
"Good girl," he said. "And would you mind asking Jim Grood to step in here for a moment, please?"
Miss Marchand got to her feet, flashed Jax Bowman a smile.
"Some day," she said, "I think you're going to need my assistance outside of the office. I think you'll need a girl who can think straight and who can shoot straight. When you do, please remember that I put in my application for the job."
Jax Bowman nodded.
"Your salary," he said, "has been raised fifty dollars a month, and I think we understand each other perfectly."
"I'll tell Mr. Grood to step in," she said, "and, thank you."
Her manner highly efficient, she closed the door of the office behind her.
Jax Bowman sat perfectly still, staring at the door through which she had disappeared. He didn't turn until the door opened, to frame the figure of Big Jim Grood.
"Rhoda told me you wanted to see me," Jim Grood said.
Jax Bowman nodded, indicated a chair.
Big Jim Grood had a cauliflower ear. The knuckles of his hands had been reinforced with bony deposits, until, when he doubled up his fist, it seemed like some ungainly battering ram. His shoulders were broad. His neck was thick. His eyes held the aggressive stare of one who has long been accustomed to putting other men on the defensive.
Jax Bowman nodded his head toward the door through which Rhoda Marchand had departed.
"She knows," he said.
Big Jim Grood stretched out his massive legs, stared at the broad-toed shoes.
"Yes," he said, "she would. She's clever, that girl. What's she going to do about it—anything?"
"She wanted to help," Bowman told him.
Grood slowly nodded and said, "Yes, she would."
Bowman fingered the clipping on his desk thoughtfully. He raised his eyes to regard Big Jim Grood.
Bowman was in the early thirties. His skin was bronzed from exposure to sunlight. There was a disconcerting steadiness about his eyes, a keen appraisal which seemed to strip aside all subterfuge and penetrate to the very soul. His motions were as quick and swiftly efficient as those of a bird hopping about on the ground, picking up insects. He radiated power and vitality—not the type of radiant energy that is scattered from the so-called human dynamos, but a focus power as dazzlingly concentrated as the spot of sunlight which is gathered by a big reading glass.
No one knew the extent of his fortune. Perhaps Bowman himself didn't know. His money matters were delegated to subordinates who occupied several floors in a skyscraper office building in a different part of the city.
"Jim," he said, "we've got to find that woman."
Big Jim Grood said casually, "What woman?"
His tone was just a bit too casual, his expression just a little too innocent.
Jax Bowman's keen eyes stared steadily at the face of his big confederate.
"Rita Coleman Crane," he said. "The woman who was a tool of that New Orleans gang; who thought there was a stain on her record, and who vanished into the underworld. Her connection with the affair was innocent. She risked her life, when she realized what she had been doing, to rectify the wrong she had unwittingly done."
Big Jim Grood nodded.
Jax Bowman repeated in that tone of steady insistence which secured such surprising results, and made big financial giants bow to his will with the docile obedience of servants. "We've got to find her."
Big Jim Grood stared thoughtfully at the light blue smoke which ribboned upward from the tip of his cigar.