The Mysterious Mickey Finn (26 page)

‘This ain't the Mec,' roared the thug.

‘Duck,' yelled the partner, for Hjalmar, seeing a hitch had developed in his plan, had sprung to his feet, automatics in hand.

‘Hands up,' Hjalmar yelled. The pair aboard the
Deuxième Pays
stuck up their hands with such alacrity that Jackson, whose head as he was dropped struck squarely on a binnacle, felt everything swim darkly around him and, considering the circumstances, was quite as well satisfied.

The machine gunner aboard the tug could not shoot without riddling his pals, and to riddle one's pal is against the unwritten law of the Paris underworld unless the pal is buzzing one's moll. Since there was no moll known to the substitute triggerman within one hundred kilometres, he leaped to the engine room and pulled the lever to the point marked ‘Full Steam Ahead'. Unfortunately for him, he forgot that the tug was tied firmly to the
Deuxième Pays
. There was a hideous jerk, which nearly caused Hjalmar to lose his balance and did result in toppling headlong the two gangsters he was covering. They had the presence of mind, however, to keep their hands up as best they could and Hjalmar, never unnecessarily severe, took the will for the deed and spared their lives.

Sosthène, at the
bistrot
, intead of hearing three shots in rapid succession, saw the snub-nosed tug go steaming past with the
Deuxième Pays
in tow. He waited for nothing further, but started full speed into the woods. Decidedly he didn't like the look of things. Mme Sosthène, less easily daunted, dragged the corpse to the doorway, yelling and shaking her fist.

‘You can't leave this in my saloon,' she shouted.

‘Sorry,' yelled Hjalmar, without turning his head. He was thinking hard again, which he had had to do too often that afternoon. He was getting fed up with cerebration under strain, still he had to carry on. Before the next bend was reached he had evolved a tentative plan.

‘Say, you mugs,' he said to the prostrate pair, ‘are you sick of living?'

Sulkily they refused to answer. He prodded them with a hobnailed boot. ‘Speak up,' he said,' or I'll drill you full of holes.'

‘Our lives are as dear to us as the next man's,' said the elder.

‘Maybe you'd like to prolong them a bit,' Hjalmar suggested.

‘If we can do it with honour,' the spokesman replied.

Hjalmar began to roar. ‘With honour. That's a good one. Honour ! Jesus Christ! That's rich.' His rumbling laughter was the first sound to reach Tom Jackson's ears.

‘What's the joke?' asked Tom, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

‘With honour,' chuckled Hjalmar.

‘Have you gone nuts?' Jackson asked. ‘And where are we? Holy mackerel, we're afloat.'

‘They spotted you as an American,' Hjalmar said.

‘I might have known,' Jackson said. ‘It always happens, no matter what I wear or say. Well, what next?'

‘Frisk these bozos,' Hjalmar said, ‘only keep them between you and the tug. Otherwise, Robinson Crusoe there might take it into his head to pop you off.'

The frisking netted four potato mashers, two revolvers, some brass knuckles, a rusty pair of high forceps and a crumpled roll of flypaper. Jackson, smeared with blood and in the corpse's clothes, was as near to not looking American as he could ever hope to be.

‘I was telling these gents, when you woke up, that if they wanted to live a while, they'd better order their pal on the tug to run her nose into the bank and then hold up his mitts,' Hjalmar said. ‘If he's any kind of a buddy, he'd do that to save his buddies' lives.'

‘More likely he'd cut the hawser and make his getaway solo,' the elder thug said, sadly, in an undertone.

‘In that case I'd have to use you as a screen and shoot him in his tracks,' Hjalmar said.

‘Better make that clear to him first,' advised the younger mobster.

‘Thanks. You do the talking,' Hjalmar said.

The request and alternatives were shouted in argot to the helmsman
pro tem
. ‘How do you stop the damn thing?' he yelled.

‘Turn the lever to the place at the bottom of the dial where it says “zero”,' the elder explained. ‘Then turn the wheel counterclockwise. That'll do the trick. And make it snappy. This gorilla who's got us covered hasn't got much patience. He's not a flatfoot, either. He ain't made it clear yet just where he stands.'

‘I'm a friend of the guy you kidnapped and tried to blow into smithereens,' Hjalmar said, his face darkening.

The older thug became plaintive. ‘What could we do? We had to scram. We couldn't leave a lot of incriminating evidence, now could we? By the way, were the old guy and that Russian caught in the explosion? I got a bet here with Barnabé.'

‘We saved 'em,' Hjalmar said.

The elder sighed with relief. ‘To tell you the truth, I'm glad to hear it. I always liked those guys. Most parties you kidnap are snooty as hell, or else they are,weepers. It was good to meet a couple of victims who can take it.'

The helmsman was still weighing the possibilities of surrender or attempted flight. To help him decide, Hjalmar took a quick shot at his hat, which went into the air like a clay pigeon. Before it hit the water, the man was in the engine room fumbling for the lever. But there his courage failed. He didn't dare show himself at the wheel. Hjalmar, aiming with more care, shot one of the spokes and sent the wheel spinning counterclockwise.

‘That does it,' he said, and held himself in readiness for the shock when the tug would hit the bank and the
Deuxième Pays
the tug.

‘Tell me what's wanted,' Tom Jackson said. ‘I don't know much about navigating but I know what I like.'

‘First hop aboard the tug and drive this bunch of flypaper into the muzzle of that machine gun,' Hjalmar said. ‘When we all get aboard, tie up this brace of outlaws while I go below for the third. Then jump ashore and catch the line I'll heave to you. Make it fast around a stump.'

Everything went smoothly at the landing. The timid gangster gave himself up peaceably, and all three were bound hand and foot, dumped into the cabin of the
Deuxième Pays
and chained to the ladder. Tom was posted at the head of the stairway to watch them and to shoot them playfully in the legs if they made a false move. Hjalmar was busily at work, roaring his favourite, ballad: ‘Never show your bloke to a lady friend'. He had backed the tug away from the bank, set the lever at half-speed, and was heading the craft skilfully into the current, on the way back to the Rendez-vous des Imprévoyants, where there were liquid refreshments, a corpse, and a telephone. Also food, which neither Jackson nor Hjalmar had tasted since morning.

Mme Sosthène was still standing at the
bistrot
door regarding the corpse with hostility and shaking her fist downstream. When she saw the snub-nosed tug returning she bristled with indignation.

‘Gaby, to the attic,' she said firmly.

‘Aw, Ma. Let me stay down this one time. You'll need some help at the bar now Pa's away,' she said.

‘Then you stay right out in the open where I can see you,' the woman said.

‘Oh, goody, goody,' said Gaby, and her mother, hard as she was, was forced to suppress a smile. She was thinking of herself and the A.E.F. The sound of Hjalmar's singing brought her sharply to the present again.

‘You'd better come back. Four bottles owed, and this slob's remains to be took away.'

‘We want eggs and French fried potatoes, stacks of 'em,' Hjalmar shouted happily. ‘Get busy in the kitchen.'

The captive thugs stirred uneasily and Jackson fingered the trigger of his automatic. ‘Don't worry. We won't starve you,' Jackson said. ‘You've got to be fed up well to stand the grilling.'

‘Rough stuff isn't legal,' the elder gangster said. ‘The law of July 16, 1839 ...'

‘If you talk fast enough the law'll protect you,' Hjalmar said. Then to Jackson: ‘Shall we turn 'em over to the bulls at Châtillon or shall we take 'em to Paris in this old wagon? She doesn't steer badly, blast me if she does.'

‘How about our barge?' demanded one of the gangsters. ‘Can't you take that along, too? If our lawyer's the man he always was, we won't be idle long.'

‘Kvek'll want his taxi,' Jackson said.

‘I suppose we might as well take the whole works along,' Hjalmar said.

While Mme Sosthène busied herself at the stove, Hjalmar struggled with the telephone. He got the number Hugo Weiss had given him and soon was talking with the sergeant.

‘I've got 'em all, and the launch, the tug, the barge and the taxi. We'll get into Paris between eight o'clock and nine tomorrow evening. Let Evans know,' Jansen said.

The sergeant did his best to be gracious in thanking Hjalmar and congratulating him on his excellent work, but in the back of Frémont's mind was the approaching quest of the higher-ups and he could not think of that without increasing uneasiness. It was well enough for the obliging foreigners, who did not understand the customs of the country, but he was a policeman and knew no other way of making his living. Once he got the reputation of being presumptuous with higher-ups, his career, in spite of the clean-up of the Rosary Game and the finding of Hugo Weiss, would come to an inglorious end. The reflexion that Hydrangea was being borne nearer and nearer, as fast as the
He de France
could travel, caused a flutter of his heart that obliterated all else for a moment. Still, Hydrangea was not a girl who knew the value of a dollar, much less that of a franc. Without employment, he might lose her again.

‘My friend,' shouted Colonel Kvek, clutching the sergeant and spilling vodka down his neck, ‘how can you look so sorrowful? Think of me, an outcast, an exilé, a To-the-Société-Citroën-for-one-taxi-debtor. And I laugh ... Ho ho ho ho ho. I drink. Glug glug glug glug. I sing ! hear me.
Poi
,
lestotszhka poi.
I sing. I schwallow.'

‘All right. Another small brandy,' said the sergeant, trying to resign himself. ‘Just the same. To be out of a job.'

‘I rejoice in being out of a job. Ah, Weiss. That's something you never can feel, the exuberance, the ecstasy of being unemployed. We must drink again, and smash our glasses,' Kvek bellowed.

‘You should have crossed that time on the old
Dresden
.... Weiss hiccoughed happily, tossing down his vodka and laughing as his glass resounded against a seven-branched candelabrum on the window sill.

I
N
the boulevard Sebastopol Evans had no difficulty in finding the freelance expressman. ‘He was something like a priest,' the latter said, but fifty francs fixed that up and Homer was astonished to learn that the No. 1 copyist was none other than Paty de Pussy, and furthermore that in de Pussy's studio Heiss and Lourde were hiding.

‘I thought Gring was the go-between,' Evans said to Miriam. ‘I certainly didn't visualize direct dealings between Paty de Pussy and such lowly types as Abel and Dodo.'

‘But Gring is dead ... so they say. Wouldn't that explain, perhaps?' Miriam said, hesitantly.

‘You have reached the nub of the situation. Of course, Abel and Dodo, by bullying Ambrose or having him followed, found the address they were seeking. Nevertheless, six Grecos cannot be painted in a single night. Not by anyone living or dead.'

‘Shall we go to see Paty de Pussy?' the girl asked.

‘First I must catch up a few loose ends,' replied Evans.

They found a public telephone near the place du Chatelet and learned from Weiss that Hjalmar had collared the entire kidnapping gang and would proceed down river at daylight with the tug, the barge, the prefectorial launch, Tom Jackson, the arms, knives and blunt instruments, explosives and ammunition, the corpse of Eloi le Mec, the motorcycle stolen by Barnabé Vieuxchamp, and the proprietor and his wife and daughter from the Rendez-vous des Imprévoyants. Sosthène, who had come in from the woods after Hjalmar had fired three shots in rapid succession at intervals of five minutes over a period of two hours, was in a state of nerves. Jansen had pacified him by offering him the food and drink concession on the voyage down river. An impromptu bar and grill had been set up on the huge grey barge, the
Presque Sans Souci.
The big Norwegian had had the binding ropes adjusted so the captive kidnappers could drink and pay Sosthène from a pile of their money that had been collected at their feet.

‘It's a shame to miss such a trip,' Weiss said, after giving Evans all the details that had been reported to him. ‘Still, we're having a lively party here. Wish you could drop around.'

‘Would you mind if I sent you our good friend, the ambassador?' Evans asked. ‘I think he's entitled to the honour of turning you in, when the moment comes.'

‘By all means. Certainly. A topping idea,' Hugo said, and the tinkle heard over the wire bespoke the destruction of another glass.

The ambassador was nothing loth. He was delighted that Hugo was safe, although he persisted in believing that the philanthropist had been on a bat and had cooked up the kidnapping story because of the unlucky flood of publicity.

‘I'll toddle right over,' the ambassador said. ‘Gad. This reminds me of the old
Dresden.
We'd cleaned up the liquor in the first and second class ... Boy, if it hadn't been for the Statue of Liberty ... Well. Got to toddle. Like old times, by Jove.'

Evans and Miriam crossed the bridge thoughtfully, side by side. Dusk was settling over the Seine and obscuring the familiar towers. Birds were asleep in the trees along the quai, bookstalls were closed and padlocked, the quai aux Fleurs was deserted.

‘I'm sorry,' Evans began. ‘My next errand is one I shall have to do alone.'