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

what to the which?”

      “Pardon me. I mean, taking too much pains. I must say this so-called bird has been unusually liberal about leaving us his calling cards. I repeat that this affair is most ordinary. It’s so easy as to possess hardly the inter­est of an ordinary, common or garden variety of murder. Still, as I’ve agreed to take it on, I’ll go through with it.”

      “And you’ll call me up?”

      “As soon,” promised T. Ashley, “as I have this predatory person’s name, age, description, record, and present address. After that—”

      “We’ll look out for the ‘after that’ part of it!” exclaimed Scanlon grimly.

      “Quite so. But I tell you now, you’re gunning for small game. A modern ‘house prowler’ who doesn’t know enough to wear gloves must be deficient, indeed. Poor game!”

      “All the more reason why the boss can’t afford to let such a guy run round loose an’ get away with it,” said Scanlon. “Supposin’ it should leak that a third-rater had—”

      “Of course. Well, I’ll let you know. I’ll phone you at your office. Let’s see, now—Scanlon Paving and Contracting Co., isn’t it?”

      “That’s me. Well, thanks!” Scan­lon stood up and extended his hand. But T. Ashley, already once more bending over the fragments of glass, apparently did not see it. “Well—good day.”

      “Oh, good-day!”

      When Scanlon was gone, and the door closed, T. Ashley leaned back and smiled.

      “Vanity,” said he, “thy name is man!”

      II.

      The message Scanlon received over the wire several days later vastly aston­ished him.

      “Hello there! Scanlon? . . . Yes, T. Ashley speaking. I say, Scanlon, what the deuce do you mean by trying to amuse yourself at my expense? . . . Don’t understand, eh? The devil you don’t! Practical jokes are all very well, but—what’s that you say? . . . Oh, yes, I’ll tell you, all right enough. . . . Yes, any time you like; the sooner the better. Have I what? . . . Found out? Good-by!”

      The slam of the receiver onto the hook left Scanlon vastly amazed.

      “Well, what d’you know about that?” he asked himself. “What’s he vaporin’ about now, I’d like to know? Can you beat it? Has that bird gone cuckoo all of a sudden, or what?”

      He took his Panama and departed from the office of the Scanlon Paving and Contracting Co. in more of a hurry than he had been for weeks.

      “I tell you, I don’t get you a-tall,” he insisted, when he and T. Ashley were alone together in the little laboratory office overlooking Albermarle Avenue. “Anybody’d think, from what you just now shot over the wire at me, that I’d been tryin’ to feed you some phony stuff!”

      “And anybody would be quite correct in that assumption,” returned T. Ashley. His jaw looked tight, his eye hostile. “I suppose, from your point of view, it’s an excellent witticism, trying to make sport of a private investigator.”

      “What d’you mean? Come across!”

      “Of course, the department is out to knife a man who’s proved them lunk­heads half a dozen times. That’s quite comprehensible. But I hardly thought the Big Boss himself—and you—would be quite so childish. Another thing: you forget that in trying to bring me into ridicule,” and T. Ashley struck the desk a blow with his fist, “you two may get involved worse than I am! That would be a horse of another color!”

      “What d’you mean, horse? All the horse I see, round here, is on me!”

      And Scanlon shook a puzzled head. He let both hands fall, palms outward.

      “Who instigated this, anyhow?” de­manded T. Ashley.

      “Here’s where I quit!” said Scanlon. “I’d better beat it while my shoes are good. Maybe you know what you’re talkin’ about, but darned if I do!”

      “You—you mean to say you really don’t understand?”

      “Well, you heard me the first time!”

      “You don’t know what kind of a wild-goose chase you’ve been putting me up against?”

      “How many more times d’you want me to say it? Bring a stack o’ Bibles, or something and—”

      “But, what the deuce?” exclaimed T. Ashley. “Whoever in the world gave you those fingerprints?”

      “Nobody! Get that straight, now. I rounded up them prints myself. The boss called me out to his house and told me about the break, and I—”

      “Do you mean to tell me,” and T. Ashley’s eyes narrowed, “that those prints, to the best of your knowledge and belief, were really made by the man who robbed Mr. Hanrahan’s safe?”

      “That’s the way it rides, s’help me! Why?”

      “Why? Oh, by the Lord Harry, now, that’s flogging it! Look at that, will you?”

      And T. Ashley with a flirt of the wrist tossed over a letter on his desk for Scanlon to read. He added, in a tone vastly far from his usual suavity:

      “See what McDonald, of the Federal identification bureau at Leavenworth has to say about it. Somebody has been having a devil of a joke with somebody. Now then, who is it—and why?”

      Scanlon caught up the letter.

      Dear Mr. Ashley:

      Reporting on the microphotographs of the prints, let me say they have been identified as those of Peter W. Blau, alias Dutch Pete, alias The Grayback. His number on our records is 143,297. Will send Bertillon if desired.

      Very truly yours,

      M. S. McDonald.

      Scanlon reread the letter before look­ing up. Then he asked, puzzled. “Well, that’s all right, ain’t it? That’s straight dope. What’s all the roar you’re sendin’ across?”

      “What’s it about? Oh, I say, now!”

      “I don’t see nothin’ phony about this! All it looks like, from where I stand, is the first move toward landin’ this here Dutch Pete guy in the big house, and—”

      “Is that all it looks like, to you?” de­manded T. Ashley, with mordant scorn. “Well, now, where do you suppose I’d have to look to find that man?”

      “How the devil should I know? That’s your job!”

      “My job, eh? A job for sextons, you mean! And I’m not in the pick-and-shovel brigade—not just yet.”

      Scanlon regarded him with eyes of astonishment.

      “Come on, come on!” he exclaimed. “Shoot it across, clean, and get it off your chest! What d’you mean, pick-and-shovel brigade?”

      “I mean,” answered T. Ashley with emphasis on every word, “that this Peter W. Blau, alias Dutch Pete, alias The Grayback, was electrocuted nearly six months ago!”

      III.

      NOW IT WAS Scanlon’s turn to flush with anger.

      “You must be bats!” he exclaimed. “What kind of a gag are you tryin’ to slip over on me, anyhow?”

      “No gag at all, to quote your own choice language! And as for being ‘bats,’ I’m not so crazy as to assert that a dead man can get up out of his grave and go gallivanting round the country robbing safes!”

      “I never said nothin’ like that!”

      “The deuce you didn’t! You brought me a dead man’s fingerprints, with the preposterous assertion that—”

      “I