“You go in, kid,” said Tim smoothly. “You know the ropes in these joints and you look slicker than we do. Get the guy in the lobby to look another way and we’ll catch up to you at the elevators.”
Tom went in. No one so easy to fool as a wise guy.
“To see Mr. Haskell,” he said, at the lobby desk.
“Just a moment, please,” the night man said.
He turned to a house phone. And as he turned, like twin shadows, the two Luckow men left the doorway and slid past his back to the automatic elevators.
The night man turned back to Tom.
“Mr. Haskell says it’s too late to see anybody. He is ready to retire.”
“Say it’s about Ballandale,” said Tom.
The night man nodded as he turned from the instrument a second time. “He’ll see you. Twenty-first floor. Penthouse.”
Tom got in the cage where Blinky and Tim were pressed to one side, out of the night man’s sight. He pushed the button for the 21st floor.
Tom’s heart was thudding hard as they went up. He was leaving the straight road entirely, now. No one knew that any better than he did. Haskell wouldn’t talk short of torture.
Well, let it come. The end justified the means. If he could turn up his father’s murderer this way—
The door was opened the instant Tom knocked. A wary, slightly frightened face peered out. The face of Haskell, himself, not a servant. The mention of Ballandale had upset him and made him secretive, all right.
“Crimm! I don’t understand, this is—”
Haskell tried to shut the door when he saw the two men behind Tom Crimm. But Blinky shouldered it open and took a gun carelessly from his pocket as he entered.
“This the guy, kid?” he asked, staring at the broker, a shivering, scrawny man in a violet dressing robe.
“That’s him,” said Tom.
Blinky’s fist flashed out. It got Haskell on the point of the jaw.
Blinky lowered the man to the carpet. Then, methodically, he went from door to door of the living room and locked each. No telling where the servants were.
He went back to Haskell, picked him up and deposited him in an easy-chair. Then he tied him to the chair, and slapped his face, hard. Tom watched with burning eyes. This man knew something of that stock.
Haskell’s eyelids fluttered under the slapping. He opened his eyes and cowered in the chair as much as his bonds would allow.
“Crimm!” he said. “What is the meaning of this? You, the son of my old friend, actually allow this brutality to be inflicted on—”
“That ain’t all he’ll allow, if you don’t sing,” said Blinky, lighting a cigarette.
“Sing?” repeated Haskell, seeming to withdraw into the loose folds of his violet bathrobe.
“Squeal, blow your top, talk,” explained Blinky.
“Talk? But about what?”
“Listen,” said Tom, voice edged like a knife. “You know all about Dad’s purchase of Ballandale stock, don’t you?”
Haskell was suddenly very still. His eyes seemed to retreat far back into his head, on the run from two terrors: this that confronted him and some other fear.
“You had that stock delivered to Dad’s bank instead of to his house, didn’t you?” Tom rapped out. “And yet, he ordered the home delivery. Now, you’ll tell us why you did that. Whose order were you obeying?”
Haskell looked at Blinky as if for help. Blinky grinned almost happily, and took the glowing cigarette from his lips.
“You ain’t got any idea how these things can hurt,” he said, eyes glittering in anticipation.
“Crimm!” moaned the broker. “For heaven’s sake—”
“Speak up!” said Tom grimly. “Who told you to send that stock to Dad’s bank instead—”
Haskell coughed and sagged forward in his bonds. His head rolled on his chest and his tongue hung out a little.
From his chest, a thin stream of red suddenly appeared! It was like magic. Horrible magic!
“Haskell,” said Tom almost stupidly. “Haskell—” Blinky grabbed Tom by the shoulder. “Come on! Scram! Quick!”
“But Haskell—” faltered Tom.
“The guy’s dead! Don’t you know a dead man when you see one? Some ape got him from the door. Silenced gun.”
“Then we ought to get the one who—”
“To hell with the one who got him. We got us to think about. Scram outta here, I tell you! We’ll take it if the cops—”
He and Tim were pulling young Crimm with them as he spoke. Into the elevator. Down to the lobby.
As they stepped into the cage, they heard a door click smoothly shut, far below. The man who had killed Haskell with a silenced gun had made good his escape in another elevator. He’d been so fast, they couldn’t have caught up with him even if Blinky and Tim had wanted to try. Which they hadn’t.
They emerged into the lobby. There was a big urn by the elevator shafts with sand in the top for cigar and cigarette butts.
Blinky picked this up and threw it! The night man, just starting to turn at the sound of the cage door, was on the receiving end. The urn caught him in the face. He went down like a felled ox.
They got to the car unseen. But that fact ceased to comfort Tom a little later, at Luckow’s headquarters.
The police band was tuned in on the mobster’s radio. A voice announced:
“Calling all cars. Wanted, Thomas Crimm. Age, twenty-six. Height, five feet nine and a half. Complexion, dark. Dressed in brown suit and brown felt hat. Last seen near the Trimore Palace Apartments. All cars. Wanted, Thomas Crimm, Age, twenty-six. Height—”
Shivering, Tom snapped off the thing. He hadn’t quite realized how definitely the night man at the building could identify him.
Just him. Not Blinky and Tim. For he had done all the talking. And, of course, he hadn’t anticipated the intrusion of another party with a silenced gun.
Wanted, Thomas Crimm. Wanted for murder, of course. The police don’t delineate murder any more on the air; too many people can listen and speed excitedly to whatever address is given. But that’s what they wanted him for, all right. Murder!
Luckow’s hand touched Tom’s shoulder for an instant.
“Tough, kid. But you stick with us. We’ll keep you under blankets.”
Blinky and Tim left the room to hide their smirks. They were clear out of this, due to a speck of foresight in having Tom do the entering. They’d done that just in case. Just in case—
CHAPTER V
Suicide Heights
Others heard that police broadcast. One was Theodore Maisley, president of Town Bank.
Maisley was driving home in his big coupé. He lived out of New York, on the Jersey side, up along the Palisades. He scarcely saw the familiar road along the cliff edge, with the Hudson far below. The car almost drove itself.
He was listening to the broadcast with terror that was actually a pain in his chest. He seldom had the police wave length tuned in. But of late he’d had it on a lot, listening in a sort of fearful fascination. Wasn’t he, too, a criminal?
Maisley was not of the stripe that makes a good crook. He had too many scruples left. He wanted a lot of money, greedily. But after the prospect of ill-gained millions was presented, the crooked part of it appalled him.
“Young Crimm, wanted for murder,” he whispered to himself, swinging the coupé around a curve in the winding cliff road. The address, Trimore Palace Apartments, had given it all away to Maisley. That was where Haskell lived.
“He went there to make Haskell talk,” Maisley whispered on. “It must have been that way. And Haskell was dead when he came, probably. Or killed right after. To keep him quiet. First Crimm, then Haskell. Two murders!”
He braked a little as he approached an exceptionally sharp curve. It was a very bad one. The cliff, there, was rather grimly called Suicide Heights because of its sheer long drop to sharp rocks, below.