The Million-Dollar Suitcase, Alice MacGowan [free ebooks romance novels .TXT] 📗

in his calloused palm, she wanted the women asked, and we had a frowsy chambermaid called who denied any acquaintance with our sole leather discovery, insisting, upon definite inquiry, that she had never seen it in Skeels' room, or any other room of her domain. Little Miss Wallace sighed and dropped the subject.

As we stepped out of the elevator, I behind the others, Kite caught my attention with a low whistle, and in response to a furtive, beckoning, backward jerk of his head, I moved over to the desk. The reading gentlemen in the easy chairs, most consciously unconscious of us, sent blue smoke circles above their papers. Kite leaned far over to get his mustache closer to my ear.

"You ast me about Steve," he whispered.

"Yeah," I agreed, and looked around for Barbara, to tell her here was her chance to meet the gentleman she had so cleverly deduced. But she and Worth were already getting through the door, he still clinging to the suitcase, she trailing along with that expression of defeat. "I'm sort of looking up Steve. And you don't want to tip him off—see?"

"Couldn't if I wanted to, Jerry," the Kite came down on his heels, but continued to whisper hoarsely. "Steve's bolted."

"What?"

"Bolted," the Kite repeated. "Hopped the twig. Jumped the town."

"You mean he's not in his room?" I reached for a match in the metal holder, scratched it, and lit my cigar.

"I mean he's jumped the town," Kite repeated. "You got me nervous asking for him that way. While you was on the roof, I took a squint around and found he was gone—with his hand baggage. That means he's gone outa town."

"Not if the suitcase you squinted for was a brown sole leather—" I was beginning, but the Kite cut in on me.

"I seen that one you had. That wasn't it. His was a brand new one, black and shiny."

Suddenly I couldn't taste my cigar at all.

"Know what time to-day he left here?" I asked.

"It wasn't to-day. 'Twas yestiddy. About one o'clock."

As I plunged for the door I was conscious of his hoarse whisper following me,

"What's Steve done, Jerry? What d'ye want him for?"

I catapulted across the sidewalk and into the machine.

"Get me to my office as fast as you can, Worth," I exclaimed. "Hit Bush Street—and rush it."

CHAPTER VIII A TIN-HORN GAMBLER

After we were in the machine, my head was so full of the matter in hand that Worth had driven some little distance before I realized that the young people were debating across me as to which place we went first, Barbara complaining that she was hungry, while Worth ungallantly eager to give his own affairs immediate attention, argued,

"You said the dining-room out at your diggings would be closed by this time. Why not let me take you down to the Palace, along with Jerry, have this suitcase safely locked up, and we can all lunch together and get ahead with our talk."

"Drive to the office, Worth," I cut in ahead of Barbara's objections to this plan. "I ought to be there this minute. We'll have a tray in from a little joint that feeds me when I'm too busy to go out for grub."

I took them straight into my private office at the end of the suite.

"Make yourself comfortable," I said to Miss Wallace. "Better let me lock up that suitcase, Worth; stick it in the vault. That's evidence."

"I'll hang on to it." He grinned. "You can keep the rope and hook. This has got another use before it can be evidence."

Not even delaying to remove my coat, I laid a heavy finger on the buzzer button for Roberts, my secretary; then as nothing resulted, I played music on the other signal tips beneath the desk lid. It was Sunday, also luncheon hour, but there must be some one about the place. It never was left entirely empty.

My fugue work brought little Pete, and Murray, one of the men from the operatives' room.

"Where's Roberts?" I asked the latter.

"He went to lunch, Mr. Boyne."

"Where's Foster?" Foster was chief operative.

"He telephoned in from Redwood City half an hour ago. Chasing a Clayte clue down the peninsula."

"If he calls up again, tell him to report in at once. Is there a stenographer about?"

"Not a one; Sunday, you know."

"Can you take dictation?"

"Me? Why, no, sir."

"Then dig me somebody who can. And rush it. I've—"

"Perhaps I might help." It was little Miss Wallace who spoke; about the first cheerful word I'd heard out of her since we found that suitcase on the roof of the Gold Nugget. "I can take on the machine fairly."

"Fine!" I tossed my coat on the big center table. "Murray, send Roberts to me as soon as he comes in. You take number two trunk line, and find two of the staff—quick; any two. Shoot them to the Gold Nugget Hotel." I explained the situation in a word. Then, as he was closing the door, "Keep off Number One trunk, Murray; I'll be using that line," and I turned to little Pete.

"Get lunch for three," I said, handing him a bill. From his first glance at Barbara one could have seen that the monkey was hers truly, as they say at the end of letters. I knew as he bolted out that he felt something very special ought to be dug up for such a visitor.

The girl had shed coat and hat and was already fingering the keys of the typewriter, trying their touch. I saw at once she knew her business, and I turned to the work at hand with satisfaction.

"You'll find telegram blanks there somewhere," I instructed. "Get as many in for manifold copies as you can make readable. The long form. Worth—"

I looked around to find that my other amateur assistant was following my advice, stowing his precious suitcase in the vault; and it struck me that he couldn't have been more tickled with the find if the thing had contained all the money and securities instead of that rope and hook. He had made the latter into a separate package, and now looked up at me with,

"Want this in here, too, Jerry?"

"I do. Lock them both up, and come take the telephone at the table there. Press down Number One button. Then call every taxi stand in the city (find their numbers at the back of the telephone directory) and ask if they picked up Silent Steve at or near the Gold Nugget yesterday afternoon about one; Steve Skeels—or any other man. If so, where'd they take him? Get me?"

"All hunk, Jerry." He came briskly to the job. I returned to Miss Wallace, with,

"Ready, Barbara?"

"Yes, Mr. Boyne."

"Take dictation:

"'We offer five hundred dollars—' You authorize that, Worth?"

"Sure. What's it for?"

"Never mind. You keep at your job. 'Five hundred dollars for the arrest of Silent Steve Skeels—' Wait. Make that 'arrest or detention,' Got it?"

"All right, Mr. Boyne."

—"'Skeels, gambler, who left San Francisco about one in the afternoon yesterday March sixth. Presumed he went by train; maybe by auto. He is man thirty-eight to forty; five feet seven or eight; weighs about one hundred forty. Hair, light brown; eyes light blue—' Make it gray-blue, Barbara."

Worth glanced up from where he was jotting down telephone numbers to drawl,

"You know who you're describing there?"

"Yes—Steve Skeels."

I saw Miss Wallace give him a quick look, a little shake of her head, as she said to me.

"Go on—please, Mr. Boyne."

"'Hair parted high, smoothed down; appears of slight build but is well muscled. Neat dresser, quiet, usually wears blue serge suit, black derby hat, black shoes.'"

"By Golly—you see it now yourself, don't you, Jerry?"

"I see that you're holding up work," I said impatiently. And now it was the quiet girl who came in with.

"Who gave you this description of Steve Skeels? I mean, how many people's observation of the man does this represent?"

"One. My own," I jerked out. "I know Skeels; have known him for years."

"Years? How many?" It was still the girl asking.

"Since 1907—or thereabouts."

"Was he always a gambler?" she wanted to know.

"Always. Ran a joint on Fillmore Street after the big earthquake, and before San Francisco came back down-town."

"A gambler," she spoke the word just above her breath, as though trying it out with herself. "A man who took big chances—risks."

"Not Steve," I smiled at her earnestness. "Steve was a piker always—a tin-horn gambler. Hid away from the police instead of doing business with them. Take a chance? Not Steve."

Worth had left the telephone and was leaning over her shoulder to read what she had typed.

"Exactly and precisely," he said, "the same words you had in that other fool description of him."

"Of whom?"

"Clayte."

Worth let me have the one word straight between the eyes, and I leaned back in my chair, the breath almost knocked out of me by it. By an effort I pulled myself together and turned to the girl:

"Take dictation, please: Skeel's eyes are wide apart, rather small but keen—"

And for the next few minutes I was making words mean something, drawing a picture of the Skeels I knew, so that others could visualize him. And it brought me a word of commendation from Miss Wallace, and made Worth exclaim,

"Sounds more like Clayte than Clayte himself. You've put flesh on those bones, Jerry."

"You keep busy at that phone and help land him," I growled. "Finish, please: 'Wire information to me. I hold warrant. Jeremiah Boyne, Bankers' Security Agency,' That's all."

The girl pulled the sheets from the machine and sorted them while I was stabbing the buzzer. Roberts answered, breezing in with an apology which I nipped.

"Never mind that. Get this telegram on the wires to each of our corresponding agencies as far east as Spokane, Ogden and Denver. Has Murray got in touch with Foster?"

"Not yet. Young and Stroud are outside."

"Send them to bring in Steve Skeels," I ordered. "Description on the telegram there. Any word, Worth?"

"Nothing yet." Worth was calling one after another of the taxi offices. Little Pete came in with a tray.

"All right, Worth," I said. "Turn that job over to Roberts. Here's where we eat."

The kid's idea of catering for Barbara was club sandwiches and pie à la mode. It wouldn't have been mine; but I was glad to note that he'd guessed right. The youngsters fell to with appetite. For myself, I ate, the receiver at my ear, talking between bites. San Jose, Stockton, Santa Rosa—in all the nearby towns of size, I placed the drag-net out for Silent Steve, tin-horn gambler.

They talked as they lunched. I didn't pay any attention to what they said now; my mind was racing at the new idea Worth had given me. So far, I had been running Skeels down as one of the same gang with Clayte; the man on the roof; the go-between for the getaway. My supposition was that when the suitcase was emptied for division, Skeels, being left to dispose of the container, had stuck it where we found it. But what if the thing worked another way? What if all the money—almost a round million—which came to the Gold Nugget roof in the brown sole-leather case, walked out of its front door in the new black shiny carrier of Skeels the gambler?

Could that be worked? A gambler at night, a bank employee by day? Why not? Improbable. But not impossible.

"I believe you said a mouthful, Worth," I broke in on the two at their lunch. "And tell me, girl, how did you get the idea of walking up to the desk at the Gold Nugget and demanding Steve Skeels from the Kite?"

"I didn't demand Steve Skeels," she reminded me rather plaintively. "I didn't want—him."

"What did you want?"

"A room that had been lived in."

She didn't need to add a word to that. I got her in the instant. That