The Chinese Doll полностью

I wanted to get back to the bathroom to hear what Dunkles was saying. Eleanor murmured something more as I left her. I didn’t catch what it was, not then, but later the words came to me with startling clearness.

Burbee had removed the tape and put handcuffs on the Judge. Dunkles was a whipped man; there was no spirit remaining in him. Thompson seemed disturbed, but vaguely satisfied. He was wishing he knew what Eleanor had done, and yet hoping he never found out. Curiously enough, Dunkles wouldn’t tell. I suspected the old boy still had his vanity.

His story pretty well tallied with what we had patched together. Harry Evans had entertained ideas of taking over the gambling syndicate, so the grapevine had said, and had seemingly convinced Ashley to go along with him. Instead, Ashley prattled to Swisher. Swisher had eliminated Evans in a manner directed by someone big, someone higher up who was affording protection to Swisher and his rotten empire.

Swisher had objected to the roundabout, fantastic method of eliminating Evans and was all for the old reliable popgun. The brains said no. There was to be no outward appearance of murder. Leonore would make it a hit-and-run accident.

When Leonore ran to Swisher after killing Evans, the plan was upset. He had put her to bed, telephoned for help, and later in the evening got her out of bed and put her to driving a taxi. For a purpose. Sometime during the evening she would pick up a supposedly regular customer on a downtown street corner and start for the lake. She would never get there. The supposedly regular customer would see to that.

But that plan, too, had gone astray. By mistake she had picked me up. I had talked with her. I had been consulted by Evans earlier in the day. I had phoned Ashley and hinted I knew a few things. If Leonore died under mysterious circumstances after having talked with me, I was the nosey type that would begin putting two and two together. Therefore, there must be another “accidental” death. At that time, Evans’ death was being accepted as just that — an accident.

No one guessed that a paper match would upset this plan.

Meanwhile, I had been watched because I was considered the dangerous fly in the pudding. No, Dunkles didn’t know who my shadow was or how it had been done. He only knew that my every move was known. He said he had picked up the impression that it had something to do with a girl, but he didn’t know.

When I went to Croyden, Ashley had recognized me from a photograph previously furnished him; it being a foregone conclusion I would visit him sometime soon. As soon as I had left he contacted Swisher and Swisher put a shadow on my tail. The shadow found me at Rothman’s office. No one knew, then, that I had seen Eleanor. They didn’t know that until the next day, after I was in the hospital.

But they suspected I was getting too close, in view of the fact that I had visited Ashley without disclosing my identity, and that I surely knew Leonore’s identity and her connection with Evans by that time.

The Judge had handled the mauling detail, too, from a distance. For some reason not understandable to him, I was taken off the train and to the farmhouse for a purpose. The purpose never materialized. He supposed I was to be bumped off; instead orders were given to muss me up and turn me loose, making sure that I was picked up and taken to the hospital.

“Why?” I demanded.

“I don’t know. I only follow orders.”

“Does only Swisher give the orders?”

“Yes. But he has to follow them, too. From the man he’s getting protection from.”

“Who is that man?”

He didn’t know.

After the phone call to the Judge in the Croyden apartment, the Judge confronted Eleanor with the facts. They then knew she had talked with me.

It was the end for Eleanor, she had betrayed them — unless — well, there was just one chance for Eleanor to redeem herself; did she want that chance? Frightened, she jumped at the chance. And so she had been shot in the shoulder and the elaborate double-cross rigged up. It was her responsibility to get me to the caretaker’s cottage or back to the apartment in Croyden. In either place, someone would be waiting for us.

Us. It would have been curtains for both Eleanor and me, real curtains this time. The “once over lightly” attitude was gone. Events had changed too fast, and for the worse, to tolerate me any longer. That didn’t make a lot of sense to Thompson, but it did to me. It wasn’t that things had become worse since that night at the farmhouse. Oh no, I became the real danger before that night. But they didn’t know how real until the following day or two.

Therefore, curtains, for keeps. Eleanor had never tumbled to the fact that she was slated for it, too.

Meanwhile, Thompson’s wire had been tapped. If he had discovered anything incriminating he had been careful not to mention it on the phone. They were marking time until he made a slip.

Thompson said, “Where’s Eleanor?”