In spite of her fear of Dickinson's vengeance over the removal of his snare, the religion of her girlhood surged forward in her thoughts. Father O'Laughlin must be saved. To think was to act. Hastily grasping the chain, she gave a mighty heave and pulled the trap out of the dirt and dragged it into the house. Pulling down the blanket on the battered bed, she laid the trap on the mattress, and laid the covering over it again. Then, she dived hastily under the bed, just as she heard the priest's step outside the door.

  Father O'Laughlin, receiving no answer to his repeated rappings, turned sadly and wended his way back again down the mountain path.

  With fear and trembling, Creole May listened to the padre's retreating footsteps. Then, as they died away in the distance, she arose and, seating herself in one of the two broken chairs the cabin afforded, she gave way to meditation and tears, sharing her troubles with black Michael, her only friend.

  Dickinson, returning earlier than usual, found the cabin in darkness and May in tears. The moon, shining brightly on the front of the shack, showed him that the trap had been removed, ere he reached the spot.

  With a bellow of rage, he leaped through the open doorway. He stood for a second, his single, bloodshot eye accustoming itself to the darkness of the interior. Then, with a snarl, he turned upon the woman.

  "Where is he?" he demanded, shaking her as a terrier shakes a rat. "Damn you, tell me! Where's the man you had in here?"

  She attempted to answer — to explain. He refused to listen. The words were choked off in her throat by the pressure of his huge muscular fingers. Then, holding her at arm's length with his left hand, he smashed blow after blow into her face with his right until, tiring, he hurled her into the corner, a dying, battered, unconscious heap.

  The cat, true to its nature, spit angrily at the invader. Roaring like a maddened bull, Dickinson aimed a kick at the animal. Michael, attempting to dodge out of the crazed man's way, became tangled between his legs. In the darkness, Dickinson stumbled and fell, sprawling, across the bed.

  His huge head struck the trigger of the bear trap hidden beneath the blanket, squarely, and with the force of a battering ram. The jaws flew together with a snap, closing about the thick neck with a grip that had been made to hold a grizzly king.

  Dickinson threshed about spasmodically for a second, his eye bulging out of its socket… His finger worked convulsively… then, twitching slightly, he lay quiet.

  On the foot of the bed Michael, his greenish-yellow eyes gleaming like twin fires, humped his back and spit in accordance with the prophecy of Cheeta, while Jim Dickinson's worthless soul entered into Hell.

  Two nights later I helped Doc. Wright claim the head he had won, and which Jim Dickinson was ready to pay.

  The Triple Murder in Mulberry Bend

  by Christopher Hawthorne

  I

  "You will find three dead men in Molspini's cellar in Mulberry Bend."

  The single typewritten line was undated and unsigned, but on the lower right-hand corner of the paper were three distinct finger-prints, made with such precision that, obviously, they were placed there with a purpose.

  "Silent" Cass, lieutenant of detectives, read the note without visible excitement or interest.

  "Looks like the real thing," he grunted, tossing it across the desk. "What do you think, Gatty?"

  Sergeant Gatty glanced stolidly at the writing, arose slowly and put on his hat. Cass also stood up, shifting a small automatic from his hip to an outside coat pocket.

  "Let's walk," he said. Mulberry Bend was only ten minutes from headquarters.

  Anonymous letters belonged to the routine, but they rarely yielded anything worth while. Sometimes they came from revengeful crooks bent on getting even; often they were of the "poison pen" variety, written out of sheer malice and more frequently they could readily be identified as the fulminations of half-cracked persons moved by morbid obsessions.

  But this letter, which had been left at the outside rail at headquarters, addressed "To the Police," did not fall within any of these categories. Not that it appealed to a "trained sixth sense" or any such nonsense. The simple fact was that Mike Molspini's place was known to both men.

  In the shadowy past, when as lusty young cops on the lower East.Side they had pounded the pave together, it had been the resort of such picturesque criminals as The Wolf and The Ox and had achieved a malodorous celebrity as the scene of a "barrel murder." Latterly, however, its evil repute had waned and Molspini was conducting the place as a provision shop, falling in line with the growing respectability of the quarter.

  As the detectives turned into the Bend from Centre street a policeman placidly saluted them with one hand while he jingled a handful of coins in the other.

  "Anything doing, O'Hara?" asked Cass.

  "Bunch of crap shooters took it on the run when they saw me coming," chuckled the uniformed man, exhibiting the spoils.

  Sergeant Gatty looked appraisingly into the open palm.

  "Hardly the price of a drink these days," he sighed.

  "Get busy," thrust in Cass curtly. "O'Hara, you just mope along behind us and keep an eye on Molspini's place while we go inside."

  A bronzed, sturdy man of about thirty, with a suggestion of the military in his garb and carriage, sauntered past them, halting for an instant as the lieutenant spoke.

  Molspini was standing in the door of his shop. He greeted the detectives with an over-cordial grin.

  "What 'a you got in the cellar, Mike?" Cass asked the question casually.

  "Not a drop, chief, not a drop. The revenue men got me a month ago with ten gallons of claret. I was let off with a fine, but the next time — whew!"

  Cass and Gatty laughed with him. The revenue men enjoyed no great popularity with the local detectives.

  "You don't mind if we go downstairs and look, do you?" asked Cass good-naturedly.

  "Hell no! Come right in."

  As the detective followed Molspini into the store O'Hara slouched past the front door, his eyes roving over the cinder-covered playground that lay directly in front of the Bend. Any show of interest in the shop would have collected a crowd in no time. If there is anything that a good policeman hates it is an assemblage of curious citizens, mixed with the inevitable small boys and peering old ladies whom one cannot very well wallop with a nightstick.

  The bronzed young man, who overheard the lieutenant's orders to the patrolman, had crossed the street and was standing at the curb directly opposite the shop. As O'Hara eyed him the man drew the "makins' " from a pocket, rolled a cigarette and walked lazily away in the direction of Worth street.

  II

  With care-free alacrity Molspini led the detectives into the rear room and lifted a trap door. A faint flood of light came up from the cellar.

  "Must have left that lamp burnin' all night," muttered the shopkeeper fretfully, as though estimating the cost of his carelessness.

  "Silent" Cass walked half way down the steps. Gatty started to follow, but his superior jerked a thumb over his shoulder and the sergeant remained upstairs.

  "If you find any booze down there, save a drink for me!" called Molspini jocularly as Cass reached the bottom of the stairs.

  The detective looked around the dimly-lit cellar, a vault-like chamber of masonry extending the full length and width of the building. Two small, square windows, closed now, afforded the only means of ventilation. The place was stuffy to a point of suffocation. The rear half was filled with provision cases and the usual litter of a grocery storeroom.

  In a clear space well forward three men were seated at a large round table over which hung a single, dust-covered electric lamp.

  "The rip is half true, anyway," muttered the detective whimsically. "The three men are here, all right, but they're not dead."

  Kicking over an empty egg crate he yelled:

  "Hey, you fellows, stir your stumps — what are you doing here?"

  The men at the table did not move or utter a sound. "Silent" Cass walked over and jarred roughly against the one nearest him. The man rolled from the chair, fell to his back and remained motionless, one arm covering his face with a grotesque crook. The detective reached down and grasped the upturned wrist. It felt like a piece of damp rubber hose. He released it quickly and the arm oscillated stiffly, without alteration of its original position.

  "Dead!" The word followed in the wake of the detective's surprised whistle.

  The two men remaining at the table showed no interest. Cass gripped his automatic and glared at them, jerking the hat off the second man. The head swayed slightly and a wavering glint came from the staring, opalescent eyes.

  "Dead!" This time the word was uttered in a tense staccato. An echo seemed to come from the dim recesses in the rear. "Silent" Cass wheeled and backed slowly against the masonry, his eyes darting about the cellar…

  The third man was seated in the most natural position possible. His chin rested within his hands and he seemed to be asleep. Cass moved toward him cautiously and with the broadside of his left arm swept the hands from under the chin. The man lurched forward, his head striking the table with a bang. A couple of playing cards fluttered from under him and fell to the floor, face up.

  "Dead — the three of them!" Cass glanced down at the cards. "Buried aces, hey? Gun or knife play, I suppose."

  Again Molspini's laugh sounded through the open hatch. The detective wheeled in sudden wrath.

  "Hey, Gatty," he shouted, "truss that fellow up and throw him under the pool table."

  A swift scuffle, a snarl and a thud as from the impact of a billy on a skull came to the ears of the listener below, then a bleating protest from Molspini: "Don't, sergeant, don't — I'll be quiet." Cass heard the snap of handcuffs and a heavy sound as though a sack of potatoes had been tossed to the floor.

  A moment later Gatty's head appeared at the top of the stairs.

  "What's up, chief?" he asked eagerly.

  "Lock the door and fetch the wop down," answered Cass.

  Somewhere in the back of his head lurked the thought that the presence of the three dead men in the cellar would be a surprise to Molspini.

  "Spanish Joe and Louie the Lawyer," he muttered, gazing into the faces of two of the dead men.

  He was about to lift the head of the third when Molspini stepped gingerly down the steps, followed by Gatty.

  The shopkeeper gazed in stupid bewilderment at the three inanimate figures. Cass watched him keenly. If the man was acting he certainly was a t master of dissimulation. Lifting his manacled hands above his head he yelled:

  "Arrest those guys — they ain't got no business in my place!"

  He had started toward the table when Gatty seized him and threw him back into a pile of crates under the steps.

  "Stay there till your number is called," snarled the sergeant, leaping toward the table. Like his superior he instantly recognized the two whose faces were revealed.

  "There must have been a hell of a time in hell when those birds flew in," he said grimly.

  "Silent" Cass laid his hands on the third man's shoulders. As he drew back the head, the light, reflected from the oilcloth on the table, cast a ghastly green shadow across the face. Both men looked long and earnestly at the rigid features.

  "I don't get that bird, do you?" said Gatty finally.

  Cass shook his head and beckoned to Molspini. The shopkeeper, sprang to his feet and ran to the talkie. For a single instant his frightened eyes rested upon the dead face of the man at the table. A shriek, womanish in its intensity and shrillness, broke from him. He strained vainly for a moment at the irons, then, with incoherent gibberings, slithered around the table and kissed the dead man's forehead.

  A look of loathing passed between the detectives. Neither made any effort to sustain the man as he swayed for a moment and crashed to the floor without uttering a word.

  Cass drew the anonymous note from his pocket, glanced at the finger-prints, then at Gatty. The sergeant seized the right hand of the man on the floor and examined the index finger. A faint smudge appeared upon it. Similar smudges were discernible on the corresponding fingers of the other two.

  "Signed their own death warrants," surmised Gatty.

  "Silent" Cass shook his head. "Sealed them after death more likely," he said. "The person who left the note at headquarters probably did the job."

  The lieutenant had taken the pendant lamp from the hook, uncoiled the loops and was holding the light close to the face of "Spanish Joe." The countenance wore a look such as might be possible to one which in life bore the marks of all evil passions. The black, patent-leathery hair was banked smoothly down over the forehead, the clothing was undisturbed and the whole attitude of the body that of some poisonous thing suddenly bereft of life by being sealed in a vacuum. In whatever guise death had come to him, it had borne no message of terror to "Spanish Joe."

  With deft fingers Gatty ran over the upper part of the body and under the clothing. There was no sign of blood. From a secret pocket in the vest under the left arm-pit he drew a poniard. It glinted in the light as he held it up.

  "Clean as a hound's tooth," said Cass.

  Gatty turned to examine the other two.

  The search revealed no outward sign of physical violence — nothing, in fact, but the usual pocket miscellany. A bill-folder taken from the body of "Louie the Lawyer" contained nearly five hundred dollars; nothing unusual, as Louie's wealth was a matter of common knowledge on the lower East Side, if the source thereof was not.

  "Silent" Cass stooped and moved the lamp slowly along the floor.

  Gatty, with face close to the cement, followed the light until he came to the cards.

  "Buried aces," explained Cass; "they fell out from under one of these fellows when I shook him."

  "This didn't happen in a crooked game," said Gatty sagely — "not if the cards were still buried when he died." He picked up a broken Chianti flask near the table.

  "Faugh!" he sputtered, thrusting it out at arm's length, "whatever was in that bottle had an awful kick in it."

  Cass also thrust his nose into the broken flask, then set it gingerly down on the table.

  "Kick!" he echoed. "Why, this bottle seems to be dry inside, yet it's got a kick like a South African jackass. One whiff made me dizzy — wonder if it's wood alcohol?"

  The detectives were erect now and gazing at Molspini's silent figure, so much like the others that he, too, seemed dead. Gatty went to the rear, drew a bucket of water from the spigot, and, returning, threw it over the prostrate man's face. Molspini spluttered and sat up. Gatty dragged him to his feet and faced him toward the dead man whom the shopkeeper had kissed on the forehead.

  "Who is he?" demanded the sergeant.

  Molspini gave a frightened whimper but did not answer.

  "Who is he?" repeated Gatty relentlessly, drawing back his billy.

  Cass thrust out an intervening hand. The man was handcuffed; besides, the lieutenant well knew the futility of confessions made under duress when a case came to trial.

  Gatty dropped the billy back into his coat pocket with a snarling laugh.

  "He'll change his mind after a night in the Old Slip — we'll give him the best room in the house — nice, quiet place where nobody can hear him squawk when we throw the boots into him."

  Cass turned away to conceal a grin from the prisoner. He did not like Garry's coarse third-degree work — there were grits in it.

  Wheeling suddenly upon the shopkeeper, he demanded:

  "When did your brother come from Italy, Mike?"

  The long finger of conjecture touched the point.

  "It's my brother Tony," he admitted brokenly, "but I don't know these other fellows or how they came by their death. Tony had a key to the shop. He was a deserter from the other side and had to keep under cover, so I let him use the cellar once in a while for card games with his friends."

  "You lie!" snorted Gatty. Nevertheless, he turned to Cass and said gleefully: "We cleared up that point, anyway."

  "Did we?" There was a sarcastic note in the lieutenant's voice. "Take this fellow over to headquarters. Better remove the irons and slip out the back way if you don't want to play drum major in front of an East Side procession."

  Gatty and Molspini, both trying to look unconcerned, walked rapidly across the playgrounds toward headquarters, just as three police wagons came clang — into the Bend by way of Worth street. The bronzed young man, who had observed the detectives enter the provision shop, jumped from a bench as the two men passed him.

  "What's the matter over there — pulling a raid?" he asked.

  "Beat it!" snapped Gatty, pushing Molspini roughly ahead.

  The young man smiled but did not resume his seat. Gatty moved along a few yards, then paused uneasily.

  "Wonder if I overlooked a bet in not putting the basket over that guy," he muttered. "He's the same fellow who passed us on our way to the shop."

  When he turned, however, the bronzed young man had disappeared in the crowd that was flocking toward the police wagons.

  O'Hara, in the meantime, had relinquished the task of handling the mob to the reserves and resumed his post. The young man who had been rebuffed by Gatty paused at his elbow. The policeman looked into, the open, smiling face and relieved his chest of a weight that had been lying there since the meaning of the whole affair began to dawn upon him.

  "What chance has a harness bull got in a case like this?" he asked bitterly. "You might as well hang a red lantern on him and send him out with a fife and drum corps."

  The bronzed young man smiled as O'Hara moved disconsolately away.

  "Stone blind — both of 'em!" he chuckled. "The right way to escape the cops is to keep on their heels or hide in the grillroom of the Waldorf."

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20