The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

Fiction

      Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories

      To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories

      Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories

      Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories

      More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories

      X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries

A WORTHWHILE CRIME

      Originally published in Detective Story Magazine, August 19, 1922.

      “It looks to me like a very ordi­nary sort of case,” declared T. Ashley, tilting back his desk chair in the little office-and-laboratory place of his, whereof the door showed the sign in gold letters:

      T. ASHLEY

      Investigations

      “Ordinary!” echoed Scanlon. “You call it ordinary when ‘Big Boss’ Hanrahan himself gets touched for seventeen thousand? I call it most extraor­dinary, I do. Hanged if I don’t!”

      “Oh, I don’t mean that part of it,” T. Ashley disclaimed, a trace of a smile curving his austere lips. “That particu­lar angle of the affair possesses no in­terest for me. The personality of the victim, his affiliations, his control of the city’s political machine are matters wholly beside the point, so far as I’m concerned. All I’m looking at, from the standpoint of my profession, is the technique of the crook. And this case presents no original factors there.”

      The September sunshine through his office window that overlooked the un­ending come-and-go of Albermarle Ave­nue, showed amused lines about the in­vestigator’s shrewd, keen gray eyes. Evidently he found Scanlon’s agitation diverting.

      “It’s all quite a routine sort of thing,” he added.

      “Maybe ’tis,” admitted Scanlon. “But there’ll be somethin’ infernally out o’ the routine happen if that quick-touch artist ain’t rounded up, P.D.Q.!”

      “Indeed? Well, why did Hanrahan send you to me, then? I’m not what is known as a fast worker. I pro­ceed with rather marked deliberation. Why didn’t the boss turn this matter over to the bureau of criminal investi­gation?”

      “And have every double-blanked pa­per in town full of it? Have every cop in the burg wise to it? Have the whole city laughin’ up its sleeve at the boss? What’s this here practical psychology I’m hearin’ about, these days?”

      “Of course,” said T. Ashley. “I see. Ridicule can certainly kill a man, where all the ‘uplift’ attacks in the world would rattle off like peas from a rhinoceros. Yes, yes, I understand.” Contempla­tively he tapped the cover of an an­thropological society’s report. “So I’m to ‘get’ this malefactor for you in a pri­vate and inconspicuous manner. I’m to round up this genius, who’s been clever enough to rob a—er—”

      “A robber,” Scanlon finished the phrase. “Say it, if you want to! That’s what most o’ the papers in town have been printin’ for years. You got the idea, an’ got it right. How much you want for the job?”

      “The investigation,” said T. Ashley, correcting him. “Well, Mr. Scanlon, my fee varies according to the interest I take in a case. Big interest, small fee. Enough interest, no fee at all. Slight interest, large fee. No interest at all—”

      “You’re frank, ain’t you?” inter­rupted the boss’s henchman. “That’s somethin’. I figger, judgin’ from the sympathy you feel for the boss, you’ll want about five hundred bucks for tacklin’ this case.”

      “A thousand,” said T. Ashley dryly.

      “Whew!” And Scanlon rubbed a shaven chin. “Well, if that’s the best you can say—”

      “It is. And not a contingent fee, either. I shall collect that thousand whether I succeed or not. Though in justice to myself I must say that I have still to record a failure. Agreed? Thank you. Now then, let us get back to the evidence. You say there was a window broken in Hanrahan’s house by the crook?”

      “Yep. A pane was busted out in the room where the safe is. The crook get in over the porch, there.”

      “Does anybody know about that broken pane?”

      “Only the boss’s boss.”

      “You refer to Mrs. Hanrahan?”

      “Sure. And the fact that there’s a playground nex’ door, where the kids play baseball, makes that busted win­dow a cinch to explain. Nobody knows about the ‘touch’ but me and the boss. He’s havin’ the pane reset today.”

      “The robbery,” asked T. Ashley, “took place last night, while Mr. and Mrs. Hanrahan were at the theater?”

      “That’s what.”

      “You saved the broken pieces of glass, naturally?”

      “Surest little thing you know! I han­dled ’em with gloves, too, an’ brought ’em along with me.”

      “Good! And then—”

      “Well, the crook just opened the gopher, that’s all, an’ cleaned it like he’d had a vacuum cleaner.”

      “He didn’t use force, I believe you said? No ‘soup’ or thermite. No tools.”

      “Nope. He just juggled the knob, that’s all.”

      “I see. Well,” and T. Ashley pon­dered a moment, pencil, in hand, “I’ll take a run out and look the ground over this afternoon. But—let’s see the glass, first.”

      Scanlon drew a flat package from his pocket, undid a string, opened the pack­age, and spread out various bits of broken glass on the desk. He took good care not to touch them with his fingers, but poked them with a penholder to sep­arate them.

      “Very good, indeed,” said T. Ash­ley. He took pincers from a tray, with which he seized the pieces one by one and examined them. Putting a jewel­er’s loupe into his eye, he gave them a more detailed inspection, turning them a little this way and that to vary the light across their surfaces.

      “H’m!” he said at last, while Scanlon watched him with keen attention, his full-lidded blue eyes squinting a little. “This is altogether too easy. Yes, yes, indeed. Why, there are prints enough here to convict a regiment!”

      “That’s how I jiggered it’d be.”

      “Too bad you couldn’t have turned this case over to the bureau. The whole thing is simplicity itself. You could have saved the boss a clean thousand, and he needs the money. That’s his motto, isn’t it—‘I need the money!’”

      “We all need the money these days,” returned Scanlon. “But other things has got to be reckoned, too. We don’t want no public officials a-tall to get hep to this. Some way it’d leak if I was to give any of ’em a crack at these prints. All the boss wants now is to nab this bird, see, an’ do it without makin’ no roar. The boss is a bearcat for gettin’ back at any guy that passes him the dinkum oil. Oh, he’s a wise old kick, all right, the boss is!”

      “So I understand,” said T. Ashley. “But he can’t get back at this bird, as you call the malefactor, without expos­ing the break and bring­ing down ridi­cule on himself. The minute that the bird is arrested—”

      “Arrested? Who said anythin’ about arrestin’ him?” And Scan­lon laughed twistedly. “He ain’t goin’ to be ar­rested! There’s better ways to get a bird than by arrestin’ him, an’ you can pin that in your lid!”

      “I suppose so. Well, that’s none of my affair. My undertaking is just to earn my fee by locating the bird. After that, what happens to him is none of my affair.”

      “I