The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
the side of the wall where the shadows lay thickest near the door, dropped on his knees, and began to fumble hurriedly with the base-board of the wall, pausing at every alternate second to listen intently.
A minute passed. A section of the base-board was lifted out, the man’s hand was thrust inside—and emerged again with a large roll of banknotes. He turned his head for a quick glance around the room, his eyes, burning out of a gaunt, hollow-cheeked, pallid face, held on the torn window shade—and then, in almost frantic haste, he thrust the banknotes back inside the wall, and began to replace the base-board. But it was not the window shade, nor yet the courtyard without with which he was concerned—it was the sound of a heavy footstep outside the door.
And now the door was tried. The man on the floor, working with desperate energy to replace the base-board, coughed in an asthmatic, wheezing way, as there came the imperative smashing of a fist upon the door panels, coupled with a gruff, curt demand for admittance. Again the man coughed—to drown perhaps the slight rasping sound as the base-board slid back into place—and, rising to his feet, shuffled hastily to the door and unlocked it.
The door was flung violently open from without, a heavy-built, clean-shaven, sharp-featured man stepped into the room, slammed the door shut behind him, re-locked it, and swept a shrewd, inquisitive, suspicious glance about the place.
“It took you a damned long time to open that door, Mister Smarlinghue!” he said sharply.
The man addressed touched his lips with the tip of his tongue nervously, shrank back, and made no reply.
The lapel of the visitor’s coat thrown carelessly back displayed a police shield on the vest beneath; and now, completing a preliminary survey of the surroundings, the man’s eyes narrowed on Smarlinghue.
“I guess you know who I am, don’t you? Heard of me perhaps, too—eh?
Clancy of headquarters is my name!” He laughed menacingly, unpleasantly.
Smarlinghue’s clothes were threadbare and ill-fitting; his coat was a size too small for him, and from the short sleeves protruded blatantly the frayed and soiled wristbands of his shirt. He twined his hands together anxiously, and retreated further back into the room.
“I haven’t done anything, honest to God, I haven’t!” he whined.
“Ain’t, eh?” The other laughed again. “No, of course not! Nobody ever did! But now I’m here—just dropped in socially, you know—I’ll have a look around.”
He began to move about the room. Smarlinghue, still twining his hands in a helpless, frightened way, still circling his lips nervously with the tip of his tongue, followed the other’s movements in miserable apprehension with his eyes.
Clancy, as he had introduced himself, shot up the roller shade, peered out into the courtyard, yanked the shade down again with a callous jerk that almost tore it from its fastenings, and strode over toward the easel, contemptuously kicking a chair that happened to be in his way over onto the floor. Reaching the easel he picked up the canvas that rested upon it, stared at it for a moment—and with a grunt of disdain flung it away from him to the ground.
There was a crash as it struck the floor, a ripping sound as the canvas split, and with a pitiful cry Smarlinghue rushed forward and snatched it up.
“It—it was sold,” he choked. “I—I was to get the money to-morrow. I have had bad luck for a month—nothing sold but this—and now—and now—” He drew himself up suddenly, and, with the ruined painting clutched to his breast, shook his other fist wildly. “You have no right here!” he screamed in fury. “Do you hear! I have not done anything! I tell you, I have not done anything! You have no right here! I will make you pay for this! I will! I will!” His voice was rising in a shrill falsetto. “I will make you—”
“You hold your tongue,” growled Clancy savagely, “or I’ll give you something more than an old chromo to make a row about! I don’t want any mass meeting of your kind of citizens. Get that?” He caught Smarlinghue roughly by the shoulder, and pushed him into a chair near the table. “Sit down there, and close your jaw!”
Cowed, Smarlinghue’s voice dropped to a mumble, and he let the torn canvas slip from his fingers to the floor.
Clancy laughed gruffly, pulled another chair to the opposite side of the table, sat down himself, and eyed Smarlinghue coldly for a moment.
“Sold it, eh?” he observed grimly. “How much were you going to get for it?”
A cunning gleam flashed in Smarlinghue’s eyes—and vanished instantly.
He wet his lips with his tongue again.
“Ten dollars,” he said hoarsely.
Clancy brushed aside the litter on the table, and nonchalantly laid down a ten-dollar bill.
With a sharp little cry that brought on a fit of coughing, Smarlinghue stretched out his hand for the money eagerly.
Clancy drew the money back out of reach.
“Oh, no, nothing like that!” he drawled unpleasantly. “Don’t make the mistake of taking me for a fool. I’m not buying any ten-cent art treasures at ten dollars a throw!”
Smarlinghue’s eyes remained greedily riveted on the ten-dollar note. He began to twine his hands together once more.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he muttered tremulously.
“Don’t you!” retorted the other shortly. “Well, I mean exactly what I say. I’m not buying any pictures, I’m buying—you. I have been keeping an eye on you for the last three or four months. You’re just the guy I’ve been looking for. As far as I can make out, there ain’t a dive or a roost in the Bad Lands where you don’t get the glad hand—eh?”
“I—I haven’t done anything! Not a thing! I—I swear I haven’t!” Smarlinghue burst out frantically.
“Aw, forget it!” Clancy permitted a thin smile to flicker contemptuously across his lips. “You’ve got a whole lot of friends that I’m interested in. Get the idea? There ain’t a crook in New York that’s shy of you. You got a ‘stand-in’ everywhere.” He held up the ten-dollar bill. “There’s more of these—plenty of ‘em.”
Smarlinghue pushed back his chair now in a frightened sort of way.
“You—you mean you want me for—for a stool pigeon?” he faltered.
“You got it!” said Clancy bluntly.
Smarlinghue’s eyes roved about the room in a furtive, terror-stricken glance, his hand passed aimlessly over his eyes, and he crouched low down in his chair.
“No, no!” he whispered. “No, no—for God’s sake, Mr. Clancy, don’t ask me to do that! I can’t—I can’t! I—I wouldn’t be any good, I—I can’t! I—I won’t!”
Clancy thrust head and shoulders aggressively across the table.
“You will—if you know what’s good for you!” he said evenly. “And, what’s more, there’s a little job you’re going to break your hand in on to-night.”
“No! No, no! I can’t! I can’t!” Smarlinghue flung out his arms imploringly.
Clancy lowered his voice.
“Cut that out!” he snapped viciously. “What’s the matter with you! You’ll be well paid for it—and have police protection. You ought to know what that’ll mean to you—eh? You live like a gutter-snipe here—half starved most of the time, for all you can get out of those ungodly daubs!”
A curious dignity came to Smarlinghue. He sat upright.
“It is my art,” he said. “I have starved for it many years. Some day I will get recognition. Some day I—”
“Art—hell!” sneered Clancy; and then he laughed coarsely, as, his fingers prodding