“Three,” was the reply. “I remember the occasion because one of them, a short, fat fellow, was some kind of a foreigner. He couldn’t speak much English.”
That would be Osterfelt, Nace reflected.
“What about the other two?”
“I don’t remember much about them.”
Nace described the two men unconscious in his car — Shack and Tubby. “That sound like them?”
“Sure. That’s the pair. I remember now.”
“Any idea what was in the package?”
“Hell no!”
Nace hung up. Shack and Tubby had gone with Osterfelt to get his package. Then Osterfelt had been murdered. Or so it seemed.
A squad car filled with police moaned up in front. Officers blocked the door.
Nace started to leave.
“Sorry, buddy,” he was told. “Something just happened here. A kidnapping, or something. We’ve got to find out what it’s about before anybody leaves.”
Nace nodded meekly, entered an elevator, got off at the second floor, let himself through a window onto the bottom landing of a fire escape and managed it from there to an alley.
He walked around in front, kept parked cars between himself and the police, and entered the coupe. He got away without being discovered.
He drove to his hotel. For the moment, there was nothing else to do.
It would be — he consulted his watch — thirty minutes before Shack and Tubby awakened. Not until then could they be questioned.
As for Julia, no telling where she had been taken. If she got a chance, she would give Nace a call at his hotel. It was the only spot where she could be sure of finding him.
He parked the machine and rode up to his room. He did not wait idly this time. Out of a closet, he dug a zipper-closed canvas bag. This container held tools of his trade. It was his sack of magic.
His clothing was a bit rumpled. He changed to a neat dark blue linen suit. A white Panama came out of a suitcase. He examined it carefully, put it back on.
He extracted a small flask of rubbing alcohol from his bag. Then he went downstairs.
“The room next to mine don’t happen to be vacant?” he queried.
The clerk consulted his record. “The connecting room on the right is unoccupied.”
“I’ll take it,” Nace told him. “A couple of friends of mine have been foolish enough to take on a little bigger load than they can stand. They’re both — well, pretty tight. I don’t like to take them home in that condition. I’ll just put them up there and let them sleep it off.”
The clerk smiled knowingly.
Chapter IV
Tricks
Nace signed for the room, paid the tariff, then went out to his car. He waited until no one was near, then unlocked the rear compartment and dragged out both prisoners.
On each man, he sprinkled a quantity of the rubbing alcohol. The stuff evaporated, but left the strong scent of liquor.
An arm about the waist of each, he lugged them inside.
“Passed plumb out,” he told the clerk.
“I’ll help you,” the clerk offered.
Together, they got the pair up to the room Nace had rented. Nace gave the clerk a dollar for his trouble, and watched the fellow depart.
Nace now used sheets and towels to bind each man. He did not apply the lashings any too tightly. He dumped them on the bed.
He unlocked the connecting door.
He was standing there when the pair on the bed began to squirm with returning consciousness. They rolled their eyes at him, glared. One opened his mouth.
“Go ahead — squawk!” Nace invited. “Cops will be up here thicker’n flies!”
The man changed his mind about yelling.
“Whatcha want?” he snarled.
“Your company is all for the present,” Nace said dryly.
“Huh?” They seemed surprised.
“Sure,” Nace chuckled fiercely. “You see, I’ve sort of got a line on you two punks. We’ll wait around a bit and see what happens.”
He said nothing more, but watched them. They squirmed, testing their bonds. Then they exchanged looks and remained quiet. Each had discovered he could slip the lashings in a very few minutes.
After a bit, Nace went into his own room. He closed the door. Instantly, he could hear the pair struggling with their tyings.
Nace lifted the receiver quietly off his phone, got the operator and asked for the adjoining room.
An instant later, the phone in the next room began shrilling.
He left the receiver off the prong of his own instrument and walked through the connecting door.
Shack and Tubby instantly became quiescent. Their bindings were markedly looser.
Nace picked up the ringing telephone. “Yeah? Oh, it’s you, kid?”
He listened intently for a moment.
“That’s swell,” he declared, pretending the call was genuine. “Canadan spilled the works, did he? Now, let me get this straight! Canadan knew Shack and Tubby had lifted the secret of that infernal heat from Osterfelt. Shack and Tubby killed Osterfelt. They promised to kill Canadan if he told anybody they intended to pull a series of big robberies, the first of which was the theft of the diamond exhibit at the Century of Progress? That it….”
Shack and Tubby were swapping pop-eyed looks.
“You say Canadan has offered to produce proof that Shack and Tubby killed Osterfelt after they got the ingredients for making the infernal heat from the aerial express office?” Nace continued. “That’s swell!.. He can prove they destroyed the diamond and Osterfelt’s skull, too? And that they tried to get me in that television theatre?… He will! That’s even better!”
Nace went through the motions of listening intently. “O.K. They’ll be here when you come up with the cops.”
Hanging up, Nace went over and gagged Shack and Tubby. He did not touch their bindings.
“You monkeys are bad actors!” he said in a blustering tone. “I’m going down and see if I can raise a gun. I’ll need it, maybe, with two mugs like you on my hands.”
He went out, locked both doors, and hurried downstairs. He grinned at the clerk, said, “My two pals are coming along all hunky,” and went out.
He circled to an alley in the rear and watched the hotel fire escape. He wore his Panama, and carried his canvas zipper bag.
Not more than four minutes later, both Shack and Tubby came out of the hotel window. They piled down the fire escape in great haste.
Nace withdrew from view. From his bag, he took a delicate periscope. The stem of this was not much larger than a match, but so perfectly ground were the tiny mirrors and lenses that it functioned with the efficiency of a much larger instrument. It was possible to thrust the thing through a keyhole and survey an entire room.
Using this around the angle of a brick wall, Nace watched Shack and Tubby. When they ran toward him, he withdrew and hailed a taxi.
He was seated on the floorboards in the rear of the taxi when Shack and Tubby came out of the alley. For a moment, he thought they were going to attempt to hail the hack in which he crouched. They did not notice the tiny stick of the periscope.
Another cab came along and they piled in.
The trail led over to Michigan Avenue, then south past hotels which faced the lake, past expensive shops. The twin towers of the Sky Ride in the Century of Progress grounds hove into view ahead. The towers were like girders standing on end. Long rods of light striped their sides.
The two men did not stop at the Century of Progress, but went on southward, dismissing their conveyance at the Twenty Third Street entrance. They paid a fifty-cent admission apiece and passed through a turnstile.
Nace, carrying his zipper bag, trailed them. He kept under cover as much as he could.