The Million-Dollar Suitcase Part 14

"I do. Lock them both up, and come take the telephone at the table there. Press down Number One b.u.t.ton. 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 a la mode. It wouldn't have been mine; but I was glad to note that he'd guessed right. The youngsters fell to with appet.i.te. 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 s.h.i.+ny 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 examination of hers in Clayte's room at the St. Dunstan; the crisp, new-looking bedding, the unworn velvet of the chair cus.h.i.+ons; the faded nap of the carpet, quite perfect, while that in the hall had just been renewed. Even had the room been done over recently--and I knew it had not--there was no getting around the total absence of photographs, pictures, books, magazines, newspapers, old letters, the lack of all the half worn stuff that collects about an occupied apartment. No pinholes or defacements on the walls, none of the litter that acc.u.mulates. The girl was right; that room hadn't been lived in.

"Beautiful," I said in honest admiration. "It's a pleasure to see a mind like yours, and such powers of observation, in action, clicking out results like a perfectly adjusted machine. Clayte didn't live in his room because he lived with the gang all his glorious outside hours.