“You cheap heel!” she sneered. “Try and find it. What do you think I am anyway?”
Trixie Monette spoke with dulcet sweetness.
“Oh, we know what you are, dearie,” she said.
The brunette whirled on her once more with sudden insensate savagery. She tore herself free from Crowder’s grasp, leaving a part of her negligee in his clutching hand. She dashed toward Trixie Monette, suddenly detoured, and made for the table drawer, which was partially open.
“Look out,” shouted Crowder, making a dive for her.
The hand came up from the drawer. The light glittered upon blued steel, and then Trixie Monette hurled a paperweight. The paperweight caught the brunette on the temple. She swayed slightly, then slumped to the floor, the gun dropping from her nerveless fingers.
“This,” remarked Crowder, surveying the unconscious form at his feet, “is a mess.”
“Of course she’s a mess,” snapped the manicurist. “The dirty little hussy.”
Crowder shook his head patiently.
“I didn’t mean her,” he said, “I meant the situation.”
Trixie Monette was breathing heavily, as though she had been running. Suddenly she laughed.
“Well,” she said, “you wanted to know how far I’d go; now you’ve found out.”
Crowder used his handkerchief to pick up the gun, careful not to leave any fingerprints. He slipped the magazine from the weapon, then slammed the shell which was in the barrel out into his palm, removed the shells from the magazine and replaced it.
“Well,” he said, “let’s look around, and do it fast.”
They started searching the apartment. “It probably won’t be in a likely place,” he said. “We’ve got to look in some of the less likely places.”
“We’ve got to look everywhere,” she told him, “until we find it; that’s all.”
For more than half an hour they moved purposefully about the apartment, searching rapidly, yet thoroughly. They dumped flour into the sink, poured out sugar and salt, emptied every receptacle they could find, raised up the carpets, kneeded the pillows, pulled the bedding from the bed and inspected the mattress. They looked behind pictures, and, in the end, were baffled.
They stared at each other.
“It isn’t here,” said Trixie Monette.
“Somehow,” said Bob Crowder slowly, “I have an idea it is.”
He walked over to the woman, picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, where he laid her on the mattress. He felt her pulse and nodded.
“It’s still going strong,” he said, “just about the way it was. She’s out, but I don’t think it’s dangerous.”
“Well,” said Trixie Monette, “she was trying to kill us. I don’t know what we were supposed to do.”
“We were, of course,” Crowder reminded her, “entirely outside of our rights in invading the apartment. Furthermore, young lady, let me call your attention to the fact that the police may find out about Ethel Peters and be out here at any moment.”
She nodded, her face showing her bitter disappointment.
“Lord,” she said, “if you knew how I needed that money, and to think that it’s almost in our grasp.”
“Maybe,” said Crowder, “she’s got the gems on her somewhere in this negligee.”
Trixie Monette moved forward eagerly.
“I’ll step out and you can make a search. Better make a pretty complete search...”
“She wouldn’t mind,” said Trixie Monette. “She isn’t that kind. You don’t need to go out.”
“No,” said Crowder, “you make the search.”
He walked out of the bedroom, stood in the doorway of the living-room, his forehead wrinkled in a perplexed frown. A few minutes later Trixie Monette came to him. There were tears in her eyes.
“We’re licked,” she said.
Bob Crowder stared about him grimly.
“Not by a long shot we’re not licked,” he said.
He strode into the bedroom, ripped up a pillowcase into strips about two inches wide.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to fix this young woman so that she’ll stay put,” he told her. “And then I’m going to find out where that necklace is.”
“Where you going to put her?”
“We’ll tie and gag her and put her down in my car,” Crowder said. “We can run her down the elevator without anyone seeing us at this time of night. There’s no one in the lobby.”
“What the idea?” she asked.
“Simply going to put her out of circulation for a while,” he told her.
“Listen,” she said, “I’ve got an idea that beats that. There’s bound to be a vacant apartment on this floor. Suppose we find which one it is, pick the lock, and put her in there?”
“How we going to find out?” he asked.
“I’ll go down and take a look at the mail boxes,” she said.
Crowder nodded, picked up a bunch of keys which he had taken from the moll’s purse, and tossed them to Trixie Monette.
“Better take her keys,” he said, “or you might lock yourself out.”
While she went down to consult the mail boxes, Crowder moved around the apartment, prowling about, looking for some possible nook or corner which had been overlooked.
Trixie Monette slipped back into the apartment.
“There were two on this floor,” she said. “One of them’s almost directly across the hall. Can you pick the lock?”
Crowder grinned.
“I’ll say I can pick the lock,” he said, “but I wish you hadn’t flung such a mean paperweight. I’d like to talk with this baby.”
“She wouldn’t have told you anything; she’s hard-boiled.”
“You never can tell.”
“Well, you can tell about her.”
Crowder stepped across the hall, found the vacant apartment, managed to open the door with the second key he tried. He scooped the unconscious form of the girl into his arms, carried her into the apartment.
“Now what are you going to do?” asked the blonde.
“Now,” he said, “I’m going to show you some of the fancy technique that gets me places. One of these days it’ll probably get me in jail.”
“What’s the idea?” she asked.
“The underlying idea is,” he said, “that crooks read the newspapers.”
“I don’t get you,” she remarked.
He chuckled.
“You won’t,” he told her.
Chapter III
The Hanging Corpse
The window of the department store had a display of gowns draped upon the wax dummies; dummies of slender waisted women who stared from basilisk eyes at the passerby on the sidewalk.
Bob Crowder paused in front of the window display, to select just the type that he wanted — a brunette clad in a filmy lingerie.
The department store was one of the smaller department stores; one that had a fair stock of merchandise, yet was not large enough to employ a private watchman. Crowder’s job of burglary was remarkably skilful and adroit.
When he had finished, he had left no fingerprints or other clue, and the waxed dummy reposed safely in his automobile. Getting it into the apartment of Ethel Peters was a more difficult matter, but he took a chance on meeting some late incoming tenant on the stairs, and arrived at the door of the apartment.
Trixie Monette stared at the dummy with startled eyes.
“Good heavens!” she said. “You must have gone crazy.”
“Find anything?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “I’ve been over every inch of this apartment. I’ve gone over everything that we looked in before, just to make certain.”
“How’s the invalid?”
“She’s conscious,” she said, “and trying to talk.”
“What does she want to say?” asked Crowder.