Malone gazed dreamily at the fly-specked mirror. “I have a feeling,” he said, “that Gilda can handle her problems without any help from us. Furthermore, I have a faint hope she’s going to be a great help in handling some of our problems. The main one of which is Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx.”
He rose, and flicked ashes from his cigar. The mutt rose, too, and stood wagging his tail and watching Malone. “Much as I hate to leave you charming people,” the little lawyer said, “I have a few trans-Atlantic telephone calls to make.”
“You’ll run into von Flanagan,” Helene reminded him.
“If I do,” Malone prophesied, “he’ll be very, very sorry.” He waved a finger under Helene’s nose and said solemnly, “I’m not at all satisfied with the evidence in this case. There’s more to the eye than this meets.”
“You mean an eye for an eye and this for a that,” Helene said. “Malone, you’re drunk.”
“And about time, too,” Malone agreed. He added earnestly, “Before I talk to you again, think of everything you know about all the Fairfaxxes and all the Lacys and Gilda.”
“Anything in particular you want to know?”
“Yes,” Malone said, “I’d like to know who would go so far as to murder three inoffensive postmen in order to keep old Rodney Fairfaxx from finding out that his long-lost sweetheart Annie was still alive and writing to him.”
Chapter 7
Malone tried his office door. It was locked.
He breathed a long sigh of relief. Maggie had gone home early.
He looked down at the mutt and said, “Best luck I’ve had today.”
Maggie would never have approved of the telephone calls he was about to make. Not with finances in their present state. He doubted that she would have approved of the mutt, either.
He opened the door, switched on the lights and said to the mutt, “Make yourself at home.”
There was a folder on his desk, marked “MR. MALONE. IMPORTANT.” He opened it, glanced at it, saw the words “Mr. Malone, the building agent called about the office rent and…” He closed the folder and stuffed it in a desk drawer. The mutt curled up at his feet and went to sleep. Malone sighed, picked up the phone.
Nearly an hour later he pushed the phone away, rose and walked to the window. The snow had stopped falling and had given way to a mist that was turned a lurid orange by the reflected light from electric signs. He looked at a dismal vista of roof-tops and wondered if there was a moon, somewhere too far away to be seen.
There was something about this case he didn’t like, and he didn’t know for sure what it was.
“The trouble with me,” he said to the mutt, who had come over to look out the window with him, both front paws on the sill, “is that I hate to see unpleasant things happen. Even to people.”
Unpleasant things were going to happen, and he knew it. To people he liked.
At that moment the mutt gave out with a long, sorrowful howl.
“Damn you,” Malone said. “Let’s don’t both of us be superstitious.”
He turned away from the window, thinking. There was nothing, now, he could do till morning. Except, of course, go home and get a good night’s sleep. He looked at the desk clock a friend in the city hall had given him last Christmas. Too late for dinner, and too early to go to bed. Not enough cash on hand to get into a poker game.
The mutt looked up at him and whined hopefully.
“Don’t worry,” Malone told him reassuringly. “We’ll go somewhere and do something.”
It occurred to him that perhaps if he explained his prospects to Joe the Angel, he still might be able to manage that poker game. Not that right now he felt like engaging in a poker game. But it would be something to take an unpleasant premonition out of his mind. And besides, with only reasonably good luck, he wouldn’t need to worry about his retainer from the Fairfaxx family until another day.
The night elevator man said, “Say, Malone, there was a cop here looking for you.”
“I hope he found me,” Malone said. He walked through the lobby, past the closed magazine stand, and paused just inside the door to the street.
Von Flanagan was looking for him. Malone wasn’t sure just why. But he didn’t want to become involved with the police department right now. Not until he’d had a good night’s sleep.
He pushed open the door, glanced out into the street, and drew back.
He felt a sudden sense of fear, a feeling of terror. Through the glass doors he could see the pale snow beginning to fall again. Out there was a street he had seen a hundred, and a thousand, and a thousand-thousand times before. Now, suddenly, it frightened him.
The mutt whimpered.
“Are you a dog or a mouse?” Malone asked indignantly. He kicked the door open and strode out into the white-streaked darkness. For just a moment he paused, then he turned in the direction of Washington Street. The mutt, complaining softly about the snow underfoot, followed close at his heels.
Half a block later the mutt let loose a low, ominous growl. Malone slowed down, glanced in a reflecting store window. He walked on, glanced in another window. As he reached a third window, there was another low-pitched growl from the mutt.
There was no doubt about it. He was being followed.
The fourth reflecting store window revealed that he was being followed by a man or woman who was extremely tall and extremely thin, and clad in black. Malone walked a little faster, and the mutt scuttled in front of him.
“Perfect nonsense,” Malone told the mutt. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Another glance in a store window showed a black-clad monster moving through the gently falling snow. About nine feet tall, Malone estimated. He quickened his steps. The mutt began to trot. The monster kept right up with them.
Malone made a quick turn into an alley near the Sherman Hotel to see if the following monster would pass by. He waited there a good five minutes, the mutt quivering at his heels. Then he poked his head gingerly around the corner. There was a dark shadow down the street.
Malone nudged the mutt and said, “Let’s go!” It wasn’t far to Joe the Angel’s.
The something followed. Experimentally Malone slowed down. The something slowed down with him. Malone speeded up, and so did his follower.
The lights were bright on LaSalle Street, and people were walking and chattering on the sidewalks. Malone reminded himself that he had been followed before, by experts with lethal intent. But never before by a thing.
He didn’t dare look behind him.
At last he turned one more corner, saw the lights of Joe the Angel’s bar, and ran like a rabbit.
The mutt was ahead of him by the time they reached the door. Malone slammed it shut behind him, caught his breath, slid onto a barstool and said, “Joe, I’m being followed.”
Joe the Angel leaned over the bar and said, “By the dog-catcher?”
“By a monster,” Malone said, still breathing hard. He closed his eyes for a moment.
Joe slid a drink in front of him and said, “By the cops, too.” He added, “Nice little dog. Where you steal him?”
“He stole me,” Malone said. He gulped his drink and said, “Give him a saucer of beer. On me.”
“On me,” Joe said. “For the little dog, a drink on the house.” He patted the mutt and said, “I would like a little dog like that. Malone—”
“We’ll talk about it later,”