“They won’t let me in my drugstore,” the Finn complained. “I think you should do something.”
“They won’t let me in my office and I’m supposed to be a detective,” Horne shot back. “I think you should do something.”
The Finn sat down on the curbing and propped his chin in his hands. Horne lifted his eyes and searched the roof tops of the buildings on the opposite side of Wilsey. Rapidly he walked west, away from town. There was no alley in this block. Continuing on to the next street, he turned and slowed his pace, searching for second-floor stairways. He found one almost due west of his own office building.
Climbing the stairs to the second floor, he searched along the corridor for a way to the roof. There was none, but there was an open window at the far end of the corridor. He put his head out the window and looked up. A steel fire ladder ran from the roof to the ground. The wall of the adjoining building was but two or three feet away, leaving no room for a regulation fire escape.
Without hesitation he swung out the window and climbed the ladder. The rungs were filthy from the weather, soiling his hands. The black coat of tar on the roof was hot and sticky from the baking sun. His shoes made soft indentations as he walked across the roofs towards Wilsey Street. There were three fire walls to hurdle.
The brick front of the building overlooking Wilsey jutted four feet above the roof top. He removed his hat, bent his knees before he reached it, and peered cautiously over the edge.
Below him he saw a bent-over and nearly-bald stranger standing in the bottom of the crater that had been blasted out of the street.
The stranger was clad in a dark gray business suit and was wearing thick, white cotton gloves. Slowly the man moved across the crater and Horne noted his feet were wrapped in heavy canvas boots. Held tightly in the gloved hands was a small thing that looked like a box, apparently made of black metal and glass.
Everyone in the street below him seemed to be staring at the box and listening. Listening intently.
Charles Horne saw a shadow of movement on the street below him, and discovered it was the shadow of his own head, peering over the wall. The sun was behind him. He ducked away from the wall and sped towards the fire ladder.
At five that evening, entering the Blue Mill for supper, he saw the nearly-bald stranger and a companion seated at a table. Sauntering past them, he suddenly paused and stared.
“Why, hello, professor!”
The two men stopped eating to glance up.
“I’m sorry,” said the stranger. “I don’t seem to place you.”
“My fault, really. We’ve never really met. I heard you lecture at Northwestern a couple of times.” Horne beamed what he hoped was a friendly smile.
The stranger returned it.
“Then it must have been some time ago,” he replied courteously. “I haven’t lectured for several years.”
“Oh,” Horne explained glibly, “this was before the war. Excuse me for butting in, will you?”
He left them and pushed his way along the crowded aisle, searching for a table. A waitress grabbed his arm and tugged.
“This way, handsome. I’ve been saving it for you.”
“Remind me to leave you an extra ten-dollar tip, Judy. What would I do without you?”
“You’d keep right on telling lies, handsome. How’d you know those guys were professors? And why did you tell them you went to college?”
He seated himself at the table as she spread napkin and silverware before him.
“I guessed they were professors and I had to find out if they were from Northwestern because that adds up to something hot and I never said I went to college. I only said I had heard him lecture there. So it isn’t a lie, it’s only a stretched truth.”
“I think you’re goofy at times,” Judy pronounced.
“You’d think I was a hell of a lot goofier if I told you what actually happened in Boone last night!”
Six
The private detective sat in the open window of his second-story office waiting for the sun to go down.
A cold pipe was clenched between his teeth and his shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbows in a futile attempt to evade the heat of the summer evening. Below him Wilsey Street was still closed to automotive traffic but hundreds of curious pedestrians surged the length of the block. The crater was roped off.
Just twenty-four hours ago a svelte redhead had walked down Wilsey Street and destroyed the peace of Boone.
The detective turned from his contemplation of the street to stare at his telephone. Abruptly he walked over to it, removed the earpiece and dialed police headquarters.
“I want to speak to Sergeant Wiedenbeck.”
While he waited for the sergeant to be found he wondered if the wire tapper were listening in. There had been no betraying click but that was a negative proof. The eavesdropper may have cut in while he was still dialing.
The sergeant came on the wire.
“Hello. This is Wiedenbeck.”
“This is Horne. How are you?”
“You asking about my health?”
Horne shrugged. “Well, I had to start with something. I have to send a report to the insurance company tonight. Did you make anything of that file card from Deebie Bridges’ files?”
“No more than you did, hot-shot. Nothing. Lots of suspicions of course, but they don’t add up, not yet.”
“I was afraid of that. How about the dope from the motor vehicle office? You said this afternoon you had wired them.”
There was a brief pause. Horne heard the rustling of paper. Wiedenbeck said, “Here it is. License number D-one million. By request, year after year.”
“D-one million,” Horne repeated laconically. “Delusions of grandeur maybe.”
“Maybe. Channy applied for a driver’s license in 1940, got it, applied for his first one-million a few weeks later, got it, and has held it ever since. He drove a new car, of various makes, each year for the years 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1946. One of the boys found that he’s on the waiting list for a 1947 Kaiser.”
“Money, money, money,” Horne whistled. “That guy is rolling in dough. I had a look at his apartment this afternoon. Nice landlady — very co-operative, that landlady.”
“Yeah,” Wiedenbeck cut in gently. “I was there a little while after you left. Much to my surprise she told me a police officer had just left.”
“Don’t get gentle with me, sergeant. I know you from away back, remember? I didn’t tell the old girl I was a police officer. I just let her look at my badge. I mentioned something about a quiet investigation. She took it from there.”
“You didn’t,” the sergeant pointed out, “correct the misimpression that you were from the police.”
“Sergeant, a long time ago I learned not to attempt to change someone’s mind, once they had made it up. Especially a woman. They’re happier if you let them go along believing what they want to believe. I’ll swap you information.”
“About what, hot-shot?”
“I talked to the ticket agent at the Union Station a little while ago.”
“What kind of a police force do you think we got here, Horne? That landlady told me, too, that Channy dropped out of sight one or two weeks every month. And left his car in the garage.”
“Well, it was a try. Didn’t want you to get the idea that I was always hanging around begging for information. Oh — do you know about the Credit Bureau, it—”
“Horne.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Exactly what are you after?”
“Information.”
“I know,” dryly, “but what particular piece of information?”