RGL e-Book Cover 2017©
RGL e-Book Cover 2017©
The Spider, January 1935, with "Ticket to Hell"
The slip of paper was only a pawn-ticket; but to Peter Garth it looked like a one-way, non-stop routing on the highway to hell...
IF Peter Garth had turned the corner two minutes sooner or five minutes later, he wouldn’t have seen it.
Max's Loan Office, where the girl had said she would wait for him, was about one hundred feet down from the corner, on Madison. It was closed for the night.
The girl's hat was on the sidewalk, trampled and dirty; her handbag lay beside it, opened, its contents spewed around. The tall man with the narrow head and the big ears had a bunch of the girl's black bobbed hair clutched in his left fist, and he was slugging her methodically in the face with the right. His own face was impassive, as if he were doing an everyday job.
Peter Garth started to run toward them, and the man saw him. He stopped punching the girl, dropped her, and darted away across the street. The girl's limp body sagged to the sidewalk as Peter came up close. At the same instant someone stepped out of the dark doorway of Max's, and banged away with an automatic at the unconscious form of the girl. Three shots went into her, and her body jerked with each.
Then the man in the doorway raised his gun at Peter. But Garth already had his own automatic out, and it barked once. The man in the doorway was hurled back against the glass panel of the door; his gun clattered and bounced on the pavement. Peter's shot had got him in the heart.
Peter swung toward the fleeing man, the one who had been punching the girl. He caught sight of him diving into a sedan halfway down the block. Peter leveled his automatic, but didn't fire—for the man was already in the car, and the car leaped away from the curb. The tail-light was out; it was impossible to read the license number in the dark.
Peter let the car go and stooped to the girl. She was stirring, moaning a little.
The private detective knelt beside her, raised her head in his arms. Her face was puffed and discolored from the beating; her lips were bloody, and her left cheek was split below the eye. She was wearing a light-colored blouse and a tan skirt, and the blouse was soaked in blood that came from somewhere in her left breast.
Peter stripped the blouse away from her. The three bullets had got her fairly close together. One had gone into the soft part of her breast, was not a mortal wound; but the other two had struck her high up on the left side and must have pierced the lung.
The officer on the beat pounded up. A crowd gathered miraculously where there hadn't been a soul before.
Two minutes later an ambulance and a radio car raced to the curb.
Peter stood up, bleak-eyed, and left her to the ministrations of the interne.
As yet, no one had noticed the body in the doorway of Max's.
THE patrolman from the radio car came up behind Peter. "She dead, Doc?" he
asked the interne.
The latter shook his head. "No. But we better get her out of here quick. We have to probe for the bullets."
The driver of the ambulance got the stretcher out, and they put her on it.
The cop said to the policeman on the beat, "You ride with her, Jack; make out the report at the hospital." Then he asked Peter, "What happened here?"
"I don't know," Peter answered. "I heard the shooting, and came around the corner, and she was lying there."
He stooped and picked up the girl's purse, raked the contents into it. The cop exclaimed, "Hey! Don't touch that. Leave it for the homicide men!"
He snatched the purse out of Peter's hand, but the detective had already palmed a pawn-ticket that had lain in the bottom of the purse.
While they were sliding the stretcher into the ambulance, a headquarters car shrieked to a stop behind it. Detective Sergeant Dave Sayre got out, followed by a photographer, a finger-print man, and Reiner, the assistant D.A., with his stenographer.
Sayre saw the girl stirring. "Who the hell sent for homicide?" he barked. "What is this, April fool?"
His eyes swung to Peter, and he grunted. "Hunh. When you're around, Garth, there's always a stiff some place. What did you have to do with this?"
"I happened to be passing," Peter told him. "I saw the girl on the sidewalk; she'd been shot."
"Yeah," Sayre retorted. "You just happened to be passing. It always happens like that when there's shooting. Who's the dame?"
The ambulance pulled away with the precinct cop riding it. The patrolman from the radio car handed Sayre the purse. "This is hers, Sarge. Maybe it's got her name in it."
Sayre took the purse, dug his hand into it. He pulled out a package of cigarettes, a book of matches, a very thin powder compact of lacquered metal, and a stick of lip-rouge. Then came a little money purse, containing three dollars in bills and twenty-seven cents in change.
"The usual stuff," Sayre said. "Nothing—aha! This'll give us some dope." He brought out a small, leather-bound memo book. He put the rest of the stuff back, stuck the pocket-book under his arm, and opened the memo book.
The first page had a space for the name and address of the owner. "Marie Joyce," he read. "Four-thirty-one Covent Street. I seem to recall that name." He flipped through the pages, stopped at one, scanned it carefully, and looked up at Peter with a sneering sort of grin.
"So you just happened to be passing, hunh? You don't know a teeny little thing about her, hunh?" He shoved the open book under Peter's nose. "So what's your name an' address doing in her book? Answer me that!"
Peter tried to get an expression of astonishment on his face. "My name? You don't say so!"
Reiner, the assistant district attorney, pushed forward. Reiner was a sour-looking individual, in his forties. He had been trying for years to get something on the private detective, ever since the time that Peter had made a fool of him in court one day.
"So!" Reiner exclaimed. "His name's in the girl's book, is it? This interests me!" He said crowingly to Peter, "Looks like you made a little slip this time, Garth. Didn't think your victim would name you that way, did you?"
Sayre shoved his bulk between them. "Don't get hot over it, Garth. Reiner's just pullin' his regular stuff. I know you aren't the one that messed that dame up—you ain't that kind of a guy; but you do know something about this business that you're holding out. Your name didn't get into her book by accident—and you didn't happen to be coming around the corner by accident, either. Now spill it, boy, and give me a break."
PETER'S frown changed to a grin. "Thanks for the whitewash, Dave." He was
about to add something, when the photographer, who had been poking around the
scene, raised an excited shout.
"Looka this, Sarge!" he called out from Max's doorway. "A stiff!"
Sayre said, "What the hell!" He unceremoniously elbowed Reiner out of the way, and strode over to the doorway of the store, pulling out his flashlight.
Reiner and Peter followed him over.
Sayre swung the beam of his light down so that it illumined the dead man's face, and the hole just above the heart. "Right through the pump," he commented. Then he glanced up at Peter. "This is different, Garth. It looks like your style of shooting. Let's see your gun."
Peter said, "I shot him, Dave. He's the guy that gave it to the girl. There's his gun. You'll probably find three shots fired."
Reiner cleared his throat. "Well, Garth, so it's murder after all. You better give up your gun." He barked down at the kneeling detective sergeant, "Sayre, I want you should place him under arrest at once. He lied before; now he admits killing a man. How do we know this man shot the girl? Maybe Garth—"
Sayre stopped him abruptly. "Dry up, will you, Reiner? This stiff is Nate Mariano, that we've been holding a murder warrant for! I thought he'd skipped to Chi!"
At the name of Mariano, Peter stiffened. But he quickly relaxed and grinned at the D.A. He took out his gun and handed it to Sayre. "Just so you can check up, Dave. See how many shots've been fired out of that. You'll find only one."
Sayre stood up, took the automatic, removed the clip, and examined it. "Right," he grunted.
"Wait a minute," Reiner insisted. "He could have changed the clip, couldn't he?"
"Swell chance!" Peter scoffed. "The cop on the beat came up right after the shooting. Anyway, you'll find that gun there, alongside Mariano, is the one that fired the shots into her. And you'll find Mariano's prints on it—I notice he's not wearing gloves."
Sayre returned Peter's gun. "You better come downtown anyway, Garth, and tell the inspector all about this."
Peter slid the gun back in its clip, said, "Look, Dave. You won't be done here for an hour—the medical examiner hasn't even shown up yet. Suppose I meet you downtown—" he consulted his wrist watch—"at nine-thirty. That'll give you plenty of time to get through, and it'll give me a chance to finish up some business."
"Nothing doing!" Reiner growled. "Garth stays right here." He glared at Peter. "You think you can go around shooting up the whole goddam town and get away with it? How do we know you'll show up at nine-thirty? I want to question you right now—I think you should be held!"
Peter turned, faced him full, eyes narrowed. He said softly, "You're beginning to get in my teeth, Reiner. You've been riding me for ten years now, and I've been lettin' you get away with it because you wear glasses. But one of these minutes your face is gonna bump into this—" he held his right fist close to the prosecutor's nose—"awful hard, glasses or no glasses!"
Reiner shrank from the cold threat in Peter's face. But Sayre put a mollifying hand on the latter's shoulder.
"Take it easy, Garth; what's the use of the rough stuff?" Then he growled at Reiner, "You know damn well that if Garth says he'll be downtown at nine-thirty, he'll be there. He's been a private dick in this town for more years than you've been prancing around in the D.A.'s office. Maybe him and I wrangle a bit every once in a while, but the inspector and me, we take his word for plenty. I say he can go. If you want to order him held on your own responsibility, go ahead—it's your privilege."
Reiner fidgeted. He had done that very thing once before, and been compelled, the following day, to listen to a biting tirade from the senior judge of the Court of General Sessions. Peter Garth had not spent the past ten years in the city without making some very powerful friends in high places.
Peter gave him no time to protest further. He turned his back on him, said to Sayre, "You're all right, Dave. See you later." And he walked away, whistling an unidentifiable tune atrociously off key.
HE turned the corner, back the way he had come, went two blocks up, and
entered the cigar store on the corner. In the telephone booth, he dialed a
number, and when a nervous voice said "Hello," he spoke quickly. "Mr.
Sampson? Garth. I got the ticket. The Joyce girl had it."
The other's voice seemed to hesitate a moment, then said, "All right. Can you—er—come up at once?"
"Be right over," Peter told him.
"Er—are you—alone?"
"Sure I'm alone. Think I carry a brass band with me?"
When he hung up, he came out of the booth and consulted the telephone directory, got the number of the Mount Royal Hospital, and called it. He asked for the accident ward, and said, "Mamie? This is your long-lost pal, Peter Garth. How you like the night shift?"
Mamie was the nurse in charge of the accident ward. She sounded pleased. "Where've you been keeping yourself these months? I thought you'd forgotten me. Listen, Peter, I don't get a night off till Sunday. But I moved last week, and I have the sweetest little room you ever saw. Call for me here at seven in the morning, and you can buy me breakfast, and then we'll—"
"Hold everything," Peter broke in. "Don't say any more; you'll take my mind off business—and this is a business call."
"Oh," she said flatly. Then in a sharp tone, "What do you want to know?"
"A girl named Marie Joyce—beat up and shot three times. Brought in about fifteen minutes ago. What's her condition?"
The answer came to him spitefully. "She's dead! Passed out on the way up in the stretcher—internal hemorrhage." She clicked the receiver down, and the connection was broken.
Peter shrugged as he left the cigar store. His eyes were grim. He got a cab and gave an uptown address. On the way up he took out the pawn ticket and examined it. It had been issued by Max's Loan Office to one Marie Joyce, and certified that a string of graduated diamonds had been pledged by her for a loan of two hundred and fifty dollars. Peter nodded to himself and put the ticket away.
At the large apartment hotel in the eighties, he entered the elevator and told the operator, "Mr. Sampson's apartment."
The operator left him off at the sixth. He rang the bell of the door at the end of the hall.
There was no answer for a moment. Then Sampson's voice called, "Come in."
Sampson was sitting very stiffly at one end of the large sofa. He was close to fifty, rotund, bald. He wore a green dressing-gown over his vest, and he seemed to be very ill at ease.
Peter came up and stood in front of him. "What's the trouble, Mr. Sampson? You were all hot to get that ticket an hour ago, and you rushed me into making a date with that Joyce dame. Now, when I tell you I got it, you sit there like a poker. Don't you want it any more?"
Sampson shifted uncomfortably. He said, "Ugh—ah yes. Sure. Sure I want it. Did you—ah—have much trouble?"
"Yeah. Some. A mean-looking bird beat the girl up. He must be one of the Mariano crowd. Mariano himself was there, and he put three slugs into the girl. So I put one in him—dead center."
"You—ah—mean you killed him?"
"Nothing else. I guess they must have got wise that the Joyce girl was crossing them, and tailed her to give her the works. It so happened I got there ten minutes ahead of time, and came into the thick of it. The guy that was beating her up got away. I'd like to meet him!"
Sampson's eyes were looking up at him in a sort of mute agony. From behind Peter a voice suddenly said, "So you want to meet me?"
He felt a gun barrel poking into his back.
PETER stood perfectly still, and started to swear in a low voice.
The man behind him said, "Turn around—slowly."
Sampson gestured despairingly. "They held me up, Garth—while you were ‘phoning. They made me tell you to come up—then they hid in the next room and made me sit here and wait for you."
Peter saw the man with the narrow head and the big ears. A little to one side of him was another man, small, thin, in a peaked cap. They both had guns.
The man with the narrow head reached over and took Peter's gun out of the clip. He said pleasantly, "Don't make any plays, Garth. Pinky and I would both drill you."
Sampson blurted from behind Peter, "For God's sake, Deloya, let's talk business. Let me keep that ticket and I'll pay you the five thousand I was going to give the girl."
Deloya shook his narrow head in a gruff negative, not taking his eyes from Peter. "Chicken-feed," he said, with a curl of the lip. "Twenty-five thousand as a first payment, notes for seventy-five more. You cough up, or we send the ticket to your wife. When she sees that her string of diamonds has been hocked by a dame, you'll wish you'd paid."
Sampson put his head in his hands. He moaned, "Why did I have to play around with a woman like that! Why did I ever give her my wife's diamonds?"
Deloya laughed shortly. "Marie Joyce has made monkeys out of plenty of guys. You got nothing to be ashamed of. All you got to do now is pay up and forget about it."
Peter said, "Forget about a hundred thousand? That's a hell of a lot of dough. You birds do things in a big way."
Sampson groaned. "I can't pay it. My wife would be sure to learn about that, too. I'd have as hard a job explaining the money as the necklace."
"You could say you lost the dough in the market," Deloya said. "It's better than telling her you fell for a dame while she was in the country."
Pinky broke in. "What the hell is all this gabbin' for? This here dick is the one that bumped Mariano. Let's brain him, take the hock ticket an' scram!"
Deloya's mouth twisted into a thin smile. "A very good suggestion, Pinky. Garth probably has that five thousand he was going to pay Marie. We can take that, get the diamonds out of Max's, and go far away. Now that Garth killed Mariano, there's only a two-way split!"
Sampson got to his feet, pleading. "Wait, Deloya, wait! I've got to have that necklace. You don't know my wife!"
Deloya's smile broadened. "But I do. That's why we picked you to work this game on. A guy whose wife has a temper like yours should never fool around with dames—and if he can't keep away from them, the gas-pipe is his best bet!"
"No, no!" Sampson cried. He wilted, sat down in the sofa again. "I'll give you the money."
"And the notes," Deloya added. "Make ‘em payable to bearer."
Sampson took out his checkbook, reached for a fountain pen. "I'll have to give you a check for twenty thousand. Garth can give you the five he has in cash. Will that be all right?"
"Sure. You won't welsh on the check. I'd show it to your wife and explain how I got it. Make it out to cash."
Peter stopped him. "Just a minute," he said. "It's no good, Sampson. No can do."
"Wh-what do you mean?" Sampson frowned. "You've got no kick. I paid you five hundred dollars to go and make the deal with the girl. You—can keep that five hundred anyway." He filled in the check for twenty thousand, signed it.
Peter shook his head. "It's not that easy. That girl—Marie Joyce—died in the hospital. Mariano shot her; this guy, Deloya, beat her up. It's murder, and these two guys are just as guilty as Mariano. I never make deals with murderers—there's no percentage in it."
SAMPSON waved his pen at Peter, angrily. "What business is it of yours
whether the girl died or not? You're paid to help me get that string of
diamonds back."
"Right," said Peter. "But I'm not paid to condone murder. And I hate the guts of a guy who will slam a girl in the face the way this one did. Nothing doing. I won't allow it."
Pinky started to laugh. "Listen to him, willya? He's makin' rules now!" He jabbed his gun viciously in Peter's stomach, and snarled. "You won't even have time to make a will—let alone rules!"
Sampson exclaimed, "God, don't do that here! Take him out somewhere. I can't have stiffs around this apartment!"
Peter looked down at the gun in Pinky's hand. "You dassn't shoot that off in here, shrimp. The cops would be swarming all over the place; you'd get caught, and burn."
Deloya grinned. "Hold him that way, Pinky. I got it all figured out."
He took a silencer out of his pocket, and began to screw it on the automatic he had taken away from Peter. "We'll shoot him with his own gun," he told Sampson. "Then you can say he bumped himself off. It won't make any noise, and we'll have time to get away."
"You sure it'll be all right?" Sampson asked. "I hope my wife doesn't suspect anything."
Peter stood still, and bit out at Sampson, "You're a hell of a client—willing to see me given the works, so you won't get bawled out by your wife!"
Sampson shrugged. "You brought it on yourself. Why don't you cooperate? Believe me, I'd commit murder any time rather than face Lena!"
Deloya had the silencer screwed on by this time. He raised the gun, his eyes glittering. "All right, punk, here it comes. Pinky, stand away from him!"
Peter was set for a quick sidestep that would put Pinky between him and Deloya. If he wrenched at Pinky's gun hand he might be able to prevent the bullet from hitting him in a vital spot. The rest would be up to the gods.
But even as he saw the tightening of Deloya's mouth that preceded the pressing of the trigger, there was a sound at the outside door, and they heard feet in the foyer.
Deloya turned slowly to the door. He dropped the gun to his side, where it would be hidden from anybody who might enter. He had put his own gun away.
Pinky kept Peter covered, but tried to see who was coming out of the corner of his eye.
The door of the room opened. A large, imposing woman came in. She was in her forties, and she walked with an air of command. She wore a tailored suit which, though expensive, could not hide the stoutness of her figure.
Her brows were knitted in reproval, and she disregarded the others in the room, saying to Sampson, "John! Didn't I tell you never to leave the hall door unlocked? I can't understand such carelessness! I was sure you'd be doing something improper, so I decided to come back a day earlier. Good thing I did—you'd have had burglars swarming all over the place. Imagine—leaving the door unlocked! I've a good mind—"
It was Peter's move which stopped in mid-sentence the seemingly endless tirade.
Pinky had been listening to her, open-mouthed. Deloya's face bore a faint smile, while Sampson seemed to have been stricken with paralysis.
Peter had taken advantage of the diversion to sweep Pinky's gun hand away from his stomach. Pinky's hand contracted on the gun. It exploded once onto the floor! He turned a startled face. Peter swung a neat uppercut to his chin that sent him reeling backward into Deloya.
Peter followed him up, and wrenched the gun out of his hand.
Deloya swung, lifted the silenced gun, and fired.
PETER felt a burning tear along his ribs. He fired into Deloya's body across
the stumbling Pinky. Deloya doubled over with a dazed expression on his face,
and crashed to the floor. The silenced gun slid from his hand.
Pinky was staggering dizzily about, one hand to his aching chin.
Abruptly an avalanche descended upon Peter—an avalanche in the shape of Mrs. Sampson! Plainly she had no fear of guns. Her eyes were blazing.
"Young man," she shouted, "what do you mean by shooting off revolvers in my house? You've killed that man! How dare you? Why don't you have your battles elsewhere? I declare, John"—she turned to Sampson, whose face had gone a terrible white—"you certainly need to be watched! Imagine harboring such low characters in our house! Hereafter I won't even be able to go away for a day! It's—"
Peter had been listening to her with admiration. Now he noticed Pinky, on the floor, wrapping his fingers around the silenced gun that Deloya had dropped.
"Keep away from it!" he snapped.
But his voice was all but drowned by Mrs. Sampson's shouting. Pinky either did not hear him, or else paid no attention. He swung the silenced gun upward, lips drawn back from his teeth.
Mrs. Sampson saw him, and for the first time realized that there was some degree of danger in the atmosphere. She stopped her speech and screamed, rushed at Pinky.
Pinky swung the muzzle up toward her. Peter fired once. Pinky flipped back with a hole in his forehead.
Mrs. Sampson went silent, stunned at last.
Peter said to her, "I'm sorry, madam. I'm afraid your rug is spoiled."
A dazed expression had come into her eyes. "Spoiled," she said very low. "Rug?" She looked at the blood, then at Peter. She staggered over to the sofa, sat down beside her husband.
Sampson looked from her to Peter, unable to utter a word. But there was a note of appeal in his glance when his gaze met Peter's.
From out in the street there sounded the siren of a radio car.
Peter said, "The police are certainly quick these days." He stooped to the floor and picked up the checkbook and pen which Sampson had dropped. He capped the pen and returned it to Sampson who took it automatically, and put it in his vest pocket.
Peter looked at Mrs. Sampson. Her head lolled on the back of the sofa; her eyes were closed and her mouth was open.
Sampson followed Peter's glance. "S-she's fainted!" he burst out.
"Sure," Peter said. "She's bluffed you all your life. You've been afraid of her tongue. The minute she sees the real McCoy she weakens. Not that I blame her. These two guys are a nasty sight."
Sampson made no move to revive his wife. He looked up at Peter with haggard eyes. "What are you going to do to me, Garth?" He shuddered. "God! I was going to let them kill you—on account of her!"
Peter opened the checkbook, and pulled out the twenty thousand dollar check, which he folded and pocketed. Then he took out the pawn-ticket, and handed it to Sampson. "You can redeem that tomorrow, and put the necklace back in the vault before she learns about it. I'm taking this check and the five thousand in cash as my fee. You were going to pay it out anyway. So you'll pay it as a penalty for putting me on the spot."
Sampson snatched the ticket. The relief in his face was almost pitiable. "Keep the check, Garth. You're entitled to it. I'll never forgive myself for the way I acted. She's had me on the run all my life. From now on it's going to be different. I'm a new man now. Wait'll you see how a man comes into his own!"
THERE was a sound of rushing feet outside. Two uniformed policemen crashed
through the foyer with drawn guns.
Peter called out to them, "Hold everything, boys. Peace has been declared!"
One of the uniformed men took a look at the bodies of Deloya and Pinky. "What the hell happened?" he demanded.
Abruptly Mrs. Sampson stirred, opened her eyes. She heaved herself up. "Officer!" she shouted. "This man shot these men! Take him away!"
The policeman strode up to Peter, gun thrust forward. "Gimme that rod!" he commanded.
Peter gave him the gun, and said, "I'm Peter Garth, in case you don't know it. One of these dead men is Primo Deloya, Nate Mariano's pal. They threatened to kidnap Mr. Sampson here, and he hired me to protect him. They came up, and started shooting. So I killed them."
Mrs. Sampson listening, flung her arms around her husband. "Oh, my poor John! Did those men want to harm you? Why didn't you tell me?" She let go of him, and gripped Peter's hand, pumped it up and down. "I can never thank you, Mr. Garth. I've heard so much about you. You're wonderful. You know, I should never have left poor John alone. He doesn't know how to take care of himself. It's a shame—"
One of the patrolmen had gone to the telephone. Now he called to Peter, while he held the receiver. "I'm reporting to homicide," he said, "and Sergeant Sayre wants to talk to you."
Peter took the phone and said, "Hello, Dave. Sorry, but I'll be a little late. However, you shouldn't kick. When I come down I'll be handing you that Joyce killing on a silver platter. These two stiffs are the rest of the crowd that beat her up."
"Yeah," Sayre grumbled. "As usual, you leave us nothing to do but call the morgue wagon. Don't you ever leave ‘em alive?"
"Nope," Peter told him. "A dead killer can't ever kill any more."
When he hung up, Mrs. Sampson was hovering over him. "Poor Mr. Garth! Look, you're wounded. Your side is bleeding!"
Peter's coat was red and wet. "Deloya nicked me in the ribs," he said. "It's not bad, though. I know a hospital where I can have it treated on the way home."
He dialed the number of the Mount Royal Hospital, and asked for the accident ward.
"Hello, Mamie," he said. "I got scratched up a little—no, don't get excited, it's nothing serious. I'm going to stop in and get glued up. And say, Mamie, how about that breakfast you mentioned before?"