Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

Fowler grinned wickedly. “You didn’t kill Groh for nothing. I know you’re not Matt Squeer. You’re some new hood working for Frenchy Peck. Frenchy sent you up there to knock off Groh and get the gun. All right, I want it. Talk!”

Paul said quietly, “Better not hit me with that gun, Fowler. It might be the last smack you’ll ever take at anyone.”

As he said it he slipped off the safety catch of the automatic.

Fowler heard the snick, and he started visibly, glanced downward, and saw the ugly black muzzle of the little automatic pointing at his belly.

He grew pale. Slowly and carefully, he lowered his own gun hand, being careful not to appear to be trying to point the revolver at Paul.

Paul Tyler enjoyed that moment. He knew now how it felt to be a feared and dangerous gunman. Fowler had no doubt that Paul would shoot him in the guts if he made the slightest wrong move.

Paul grinned, and reached out his left hand, dragging the right along with it by the handcuffs, and took the revolver from Fowler. He now had two guns.

“Turn around,” he said.

Fowler was green around the gills. “You... you’re not gonna knock me off?”

“Don’t worry,” Paul assured him.

Fowler was all the way around now, and Paul clubbed the heavy service revolver, struck the detective once behind the ear. Fowler’s breath escaped in a quick gasp, and he folded over, slid down to the floor of the cage.

Paul bent over him, dug into his pockets until he found the key to the handcuffs, unlocked them and threw them off. Then he pocketed Fowler’s revolver and sent the cage down to the ground floor. He was remembering what Gisling had told him about two of Frenchy Peck’s boys waiting for him in a getaway car.

He could, at that moment, have walked out of the apartment house, ducked down the street, and escaped. But he realized that he would still be Paul Tyler, ex-vacuum cleaner salesman, wanted for murder. Lawrence Cleverly had been able to frame a man like District Attorney Hastings for murder. Why couldn’t Frenchy Peck arrange to leave him, Paul Tyler, likewise framed for a murder? Paul Tyler would become a fugitive from justice for the rest of his life. The real killer of Groh — Matt Squeer — would bring the all-important gun to Frenchy Peck, who would no doubt turn it over to Lawrence Cleverly. District Attorney Hastings would never be able to prove his innocence. And Helen — Helen with the pert little face and the red hair — would become the daughter of a disgraced official.

All that would follow if Paul Tyler ran out of the picture now. Instead of running out, he was going to try fighting it out. His brain, rendered subtle and keener by his last hour of life as a hunted criminal, had already evolved a course of action which he immediately proceeded to carry out. He bent down and took Fowler’s hat, and put it on his own head, pulling the brim down as low over his face as he could.

He opened the door of the cage, and at the same time raised his automatic in the air and fired two quick shots at the ceiling. Then he started to run for the front entrance. He heard the door of the second elevator cage opening behind him, but he didn’t turn. He saw the doorman looking at him with distended eyes. He waved the gun, and the doorman dropped flat on the floor.

Then Paul was out in the street. Sure enough, just as Gisling had said, there was a black sedan in front of the door with motor running, pulled up just in front of Helen Hastings’ coupe. There were two men in the rear of that car, and a driver behind the wheel.

Paul hesitated for a second. He had counted on only two men altogether. Then he shrugged. What were the odds? He leaped across the sidewalk, still with his hat-brim pulled low, and the door of the sedan opened swiftly.

He leaped into the car, and the driver gave it gas. Almost before he was altogether in, the sedan was ten feet away from the house. And before he got into the seat between the two men in the rear, they were around the corner.

Paul got only a single backward glimpse of the front of the apartment building, and of Helen Hastings, coming out after him and getting into her coupe. Then they were racing eastward. It was after six o’clock now, and pretty dark, but he would have recognized that boyish young figure of hers anywhere.

He could feel the closeness of the two men on either side of him, and he could see the back of the driver’s head, with a pair of enormous ears that stood out almost at right angles, under a tilted derby that squashed them downwards. Big Ears could certainly handle a car.

And then the man at the left was talking to him. “Did you knock off the dick, Baby Face?”

It was hard to see the features of either of his companions, for the driver did not even have a dashboard light on. Paul kept his hat low over his face, and merely grunted. He still had the automatic in his hand, and he wished that he were on the end instead of in the middle.