Jerry, the Boaster

by Johnston McCulley

Jerry, the Boaster

By Harrington Strong
Author of “The Unwiped Blade,” etc.

CHAPTER I.
ONCE TOO OFTEN.

FOR a moment Jerry Tandon crouched in the darkness of the theater office before the safe, scarcely daring to breathe, listening intently, with a sudden fear clutching at his little black heart. But it was only for a moment. No sound came to thrill him with alarm again, no footstep to frighten him, no stentorian command for him to elevate his hands and surrender.

The flash of light that he had dreaded for an instant did not come to reveal him in a compromising position. And Jerry Tandon told himself that he had been a fool. If he really had heard a noise, it had been some natural one, possibly made by scampering rats, and had nothing at all to do with his presence there in the office of the big theater.

Yet he listened intently for a moment before he turned toward the open safe again. His lips were curled in a sneer of defiance at things in general. His mental vision was distorted, for his mind was as black as his heart. He seemed to be feeling a premonition, though he would have been unable to explain what a premonition was had he been asked. Jerry Tandon would have called it a “hunch.” And his present hunch had been that there was trouble in the air, and that it was directed toward him.

He remembered, though, that he had felt that way often while at work on a big job. One reason for it, he supposed, was that he always worked alone instead of with a companion in crime, and did not have the satisfaction of knowing that there was some clever lookout protecting him, ready to signal him if danger was near. For Jerry Tandon assumed that all other men were of the same ilk.

And now he remembered, also, what an old crook had told him less than a week before—that once too often he would plan and carry out a crime and boast of it afterward. For he was known as “Jerry, the Boaster” to crooks and the police alike. It was an alias in which he gloried. He liked to boast of his crimes and his cruelty. But he always did his boasting in the presence of only one man, at a time and in places that he deemed were safe.

Now he flashed his electric torch cautiously once more, shielding the light with one side of his coat, and bent toward the safe again. This haul was going to be a good one. For some time Jerry Tandon had been watching this big theater and making his plans for a raid. He knew as well as the manager of the theater that all the receipts for Saturday and Sunday were kept in the office safe to be banked Monday morning. And this was Sunday night—or, rather, Monday morning at almost two o'clock.

Jerry Tandon stuffed his pockets with the currency that he took from the safe, which was considerable. He took only a small amount of the silver, knowing that it would be difficult to carry. He estimated that the haul was about three thousand dollars, the biggest part of the gross receipts of three theatrical performances. Jerry Tandon was glad that the show now running at the theater was a good one and attracted the public, and that there had been a heavy Saturday matinée.

The currency safely stowed away in his pockets, Jerry Tandon closed the door of the safe and then whirled the combination knob. He wanted things to look as natural as possible. He knew that it was good business policy to delay the discovery of the crime as long as he could. Opening that safe had taken considerable time, though it had not been at all difficult. Jerry Tandon knew a great deal about safes.

And Jerry Tandon was not the man to leave his finger prints scattered around, either, knowing that it would be the same as leaving his calling card. Jerry Tandon's finger prints were well known. They were on file down at police headquarters, and there were men down there who would rejoice if they could catch him with the goods again, particularly a certain detective, Walt Bryan. Tandon snarled when he thought of Bryan, the bulldog of the force, the man who never quit, and who had sworn to get him. Bryan had gone out of his way to make the attempt, but so far it had come to naught. Jerry Tandon considered that he was too clever for Detective Walt Bryan.

Snapping off his electric torch, Tandon slipped it back into one of his pockets. But he did not strip off the thin rubber gloves that he was wearing; he would not remove them until just before he left the building. He did not intend to grow careless and leave his finger prints on any of the woodwork.

Jerry buttoned his coat and crept silently through the darkness to the door of the office. There he stopped to listen for a time, but heard nothing. Cautiously he opened the door and stepped out, closing the door behind him again. Now he was in the foyer of the theater, He would follow a side aisle down to the stage, descend into the dressing rooms, and then leave the building through a little window that opened into the dark alley.

Once in the alley he could make his way to the street and hurry along it to the furnished room that he called home. Jerry had prepared a way of hiding the currency so that it could not be found in case of a search by the police, and he would keep, it hidden as long as there was any danger of the crime being traced to him. He had an alibi prepared, too. Three men would be ready to testify that Jerry Tandon had been playing poker with them in a little back room of a cheap lodging house. The three men actually were there now, playing poker. It cost Jerry Tandon something, but the protection was worth it. Not that he trusted the three men! But, in addition to the money that he gave them, he “had something” on each of the three, and they certainly did not want him to tell what he knew.

Again he stopped to listen. There was an old watchman in the theater, Jerry Tandon knew, but he also knew the watchman's habits fairly well. The old fellow generally spent the greater part of the night at the stage-door entrance, reading and smoking, getting up a few times during the night to ring in his report and to walk through the theater on the lookout for fire. About this time, Jerry judged, the old watchman would be eating his midnight lunch. And he would be on the opposite side of the stage.

“Might as well be goin',” Jerry Tandon muttered to himself. “This has been a cinch.” He started forward, walking upon the toes of his shoes, making very little noise, and with every sense alert. He came in time to the head of the aisle and started to turn down it toward the front of the house.

Again the premonition clutched at his heart for an instant, and Jerry Tandon stopped abruptly. At the same moment there came to his ears a soft “click,” and the corner of the theater in which he stood was bathed suddenly in bright light.

Jerry Tandon gave a little cry of fright and recoiled, his right hand darting toward his coat pocket. Before him stood the old watchman, one hand on an electric-light switch, the other holding a revolver.

“Once too often!” flashed through Jerry Tandon's mind, as he crouched against the wall.

CHAPTER II.
A MOMENT OF TERROR.

THE old watchman had been engaged to watch out for fire more than anything else. He was aged and infirm, an old actor known to hundreds of the profession. Younger men and women of the theater adored him, listened with interest to his reminiscences, and asked him for advice.

Though he carried a revolver and handcuffs and wore the star of a special officer, the old watchman never had expected to come face to face with a desperate criminal. And the first glance told him that Jerry Tandon was desperate, that he had come from the office, and probably had been robbing the safe.

Jerry Tandon's little eyes glittered in his white face; his yellow teeth showed in a quick snarl. But the watchman did not hesitate, now that he faced a duty. He removed his hand from the electric switch and advanced a couple of paces, holding the revolver so that its muzzle menaced Jerry Tandon's breast.

“What are you doin' here?” the watchman demanded.

Jerry Tandon recovered a certain amount of composure. He sensed that the old man before him was not an experienced officer. Perhaps there would be a chance of escape, if he played the game carefully. Surely, he thought, he could outwit an ancient watchman.

“Oh, I've always liked the theater,” Jerry Tandon replied, trying to grin. “I was just lookin' around. You've got quite a nice place here.”

“You've been in the office,” the old watchman accused. “You've been at the safe. You're a housebreaker. We'll just call for the police.”

Jerry Tandon was suddenly alarmed. He felt cornered. And he told himself that it was ridiculous to let himself be cornered by such a man. Currency from the safe was in Jerry's pockets. If the police were called there could be but one ending to this—a long term in State's prison. Jerry was thinking rapidly as the old watchman wasted a moment in indecision.

“You've got me,” Jerry said frankly. “Yes, I've tapped the safe. But what do you care?”

“Why, you——” the old watchman began.

“Just a moment, now, before you explode. You're a watchman, workin' for about seventy a month and maybe less,” Jerry said. “What do you care how much coin the big boss loses? He's got his thousands, I reckon, and he don't give you very much for stayin' awake all night around here. Maybe we can come to terms.”

“What do you mean?”

“How about a little split?” Jerry Tandon asked, leering. “What good will it do you to call the coppers and hand me over? That won't get you anything. The boss may pat you on the back for catchin' me, and maybe he'll just cuss you out for lettin' me get in here in the first place. If we can fix up a little split——”

“You mean to give me some of the money?”

“That's the talk,” Jerry whispered. “I got a haul of about three thousand, I think. Of course, I did all the work. Suppose I count you off about a thousand and let you hide it somewhere around the stage. Then I'll tie and gag you and skip. They'll find you in the mornin', or maybe later to-night if they investigate because you don't ring in your report. Them you'll have the thousand, and nobody'll suspect you if you're found bound and gagged. You can tell some kind of story. There's a scheme! They may fire you, but what of it? You'll have the thousand.”

“Why, you low-down crook,” the old watchman cried.

“Maybe I might make it fifteen hundred.”

“Not for a million! This is a theater. Understand? A theater! I've worked in theaters all my life. Theater folks stick together, you crook. Let you rob a box office and then split with you? Why you——”

Jerry Tandon saw that he was on the wrong track. He failed to understand loyalty such as this, but he realized that he had made a mistake, that his method of approach had been wrong.

“You just think of that thousand,” he said. “You could do a lot of things with a thousand, couldn't you? In the theater all your life, huh? And what has it got you? You're a simp! All your life workin' for the theater, and you've got nothin' but a night-watchman's job.”

“Your kind wouldn't understand,” the old watchman told him frankly. “No decent man would expect you to understand. Now you turn around and walk back to the office door, and you keep your hands up, and be mighty careful about it. The telephone is in the office. March!”

Jerry Tandon hesitated only a moment. He did not like the sudden, hostile gleam in the old watchman's eyes. He turned around and walked slowly back toward the office as the watchman had indicated; he was desperate in truth, now. He had spent one short term in prison, and he never had forgotten the horror of it. And now a vision of it came to him, and he shuddered. And, if they sent him there again, it would be for a long term.

“I've noticed you hangin' around the theater the last week or so,” the old watchman was saying. “You've been plannin' this thing for some time, I suppose. Well, you'll go to prison now. You'll learn not to steal from a theater, all right!”

Jerry Tandon found himself shivering again at the watchman's words. They meant that he was recognized; that, even if he managed to make an escape now, they would capture him later because of the description the watchman would give. Probably Detective Walt Bryan would catch him! Again came the thought of the big prison and what a term of years behind its walls would mean. Jerry Tandon never had killed a man, but he felt that this was the time to do it, if he could manage to catch the watchman off guard. He must be silenced forever, if Jerry was to remain free.

If he could settle the watchman and get back to his room he would be safe. The three men who were standing alibi for him would be ready with their testimony. The police would not be able to fasten the crime on him then.

“Stop!” the watchman commanded suddenly. “Open the door.”

Jerry Tandon reached forward, turned the knob, and threw the door open. The old watchman stepped closer, still alert, still holding the revolver in a menacing position.

“You reach just inside that door, on your right, and throw on the lights,” the watchman instructed. “You'll find the button there. Make it quick!”

The old watchman was trembling, and his face was white and his lips quivering. But he was determined to do his duty. He would call for the police and hand this man over to them. Catching burglars was not his business, but he could do it when called upon to do so in the line of duty.

“Make it quick!” he commanded again.

Jerry Tandon leaned against the side of the door and reached his hand inside. “Can't find the switch,” he whispered hoarsely.

The old watchman took a step nearer. “On the right side, and just about even with your shoulder,” he instructed. “The button's there. Turn on those lights!”

As he finished speaking, Jerry Tandon whirled suddenly, ducked low, and sprang! He tore the revolver from the old watchman's grasp and hurled it to one side. With the next movement he grasped the watchman by the throat. A knife flashed in the fitful and uncertain light that came from the head of the aisle.

One groan came from the throat of the old watchman, and he sank to the floor. A single glance was enough to tell Jerry Tandon that he had done his work only too well, The watchman never would tell the police that Jerry Tandon had been prowling around the theater for a week or so, and that he had been caught there after robbing the safe.

Now that it was done Jerry shivered for a moment, and then darted back to the head of the aisle and turned off the light. He listened intently for a time, but heard nothing. Snapping on his electric torch, he hurried back to the side of his victim, kneeled, and cleaned the blade of the knife on the old watchman's coat. He forced himself to take plenty of time and make a good job of it; he could not leave the knife, for he had owned it for a long time. Many men had seen it in his possession and it might be traced to him. He made certain that there were no crimson stains remaining on the blade or the handle, and then closed the knife and put it back into his pocket. He inspected his clothing carefully, but found no stains. There were some stains upon the rubber gloves, but he intended to discard those.

Now he went swiftly to the head of the aisle, and along it toward the stage. He flashed his torch when it was necessary, and stopped now and then to listen. Down in the dressing rooms he tore off the rubber gloves and threw them aside. He did not worry about the gloves, knowing that they could not be traced.

In a short time he found himself at the little window. He was eager to be away from the scene, wanted to get back to his little room and hide the currency and get to bed, and then he would feel safe. But he forced himself to stop at the window and make another careful inspection.

Sure that there were no stains upon his clothing, Jerry Tandon took a deep breath, then forced his breathing to normal. Then he opened the little window and crawled through it and into the darkness of the alley. There he stopped another moment to brush the dust from his clothes.

He crept through the darkness to the side street and peered around the corner of the building. There was no pedestrian in sight, no vehicle. Jerry Tandon slipped quickly into the street and started to walk briskly yet naturally along it. He reached the corner, turned into the wider street, and continued toward his lodging place. He was commencing to feel safe now. The horror had passed. Only the money in his pocket could fasten guilt upon him now, he told himself. If he could get safely home with the money and have time to hide it, he would be prepared to face any inquiry. Did he not have an excellent alibi?

This would be something to boast about afterward, Jerry Tandon thought. This was a real exploit. To take a life after being caught in robbery, and to escape the consequences was something that not every man could do.

On he went up the street. He began whistling softly as he hurried along. Two more blocks up the avenue and he would turn into another and narrower thoroughfare and soon be at home, and safe.

A man stepped from a dark doorway ahead of him. “Hello, Jerry!” he said.

Jerry Tandon stopped abruptly. His heart seemed to cease beating for an instant; he had a moment of terror. The man standing before him was Detective Walt Bryan!

CHAPTER III.
UNDER SUSPICION.

TWO things saved Jerry Tandon for a moment. The first was the fact that it was dark in the street, and while the detective was able to recognize him, yet he could not see Jerry Tandon's face plainly and read the signs of terror in it. The second was Jerry's hatred for this man, a thing that put him instantly upon the defensive and caused his wits to work.

There was silence for a moment as Detective Walt Bryan stepped nearer.

“Out a bit late, aren't you, Tandon?” he asked.

“Yeh,” Jerry replied easily, though his heart was hammering at his ribs. “Been in a poker game.”

“Are you certain that it wasn't some other kind of a game?” the detective demanded. “I wouldn't put much of anything past you, Tandon.”

“You'd better lay off me, Bryan,” Jerry Tandon replied, showing some anger. “You're always pesterin' around me instead of bein' busy chasin' regular crooks. Just because I made a little slip a few years ago and got eighteen months in stir——”

“We can do without the comedy, Tandon,” the detective told him. “Tell it to somebody who'll appreciate it, and believe it. I'll admit, Tandon, that you're a smooth article, and that I haven't caught you with the goods—yet. But I know, just the same, that you are turning tricks continually. And one of these days——”

Jerry Tandon snarled at him like a beast. “Wait until you catch me, then!” he said.

“Where did you say that you'd been?”

“I didn't say. I've been playing poker, but you needn't think that I'll tell you where.”

“You needn't be afraid to tell me. I'm not raiding dinky poker games,” Detective Bryan told him. “It looks a little suspicious to see you prowling around at this late hour. Maybe you've been where you don't belong.”

“If you think so, take me in,” Jerry Tandon said boldly. “Go on and make a laughingstock of yourself. I'll be able to dig up an alibi, all right.”

“If you say so, I don't doubt it, Jerry,” the detective said. “But one of these days you're going to find that you need more than a fake alibi. I ought to take you in for vagrancy, but I'll wait and get you for something more serious.”

Detective Bryan scowled at him and walked on down the street. Jerry Tandon felt as though a weight had been lifted off his chest. He had experienced real terror for a moment. If Bryan had taken him in, if he had been searched and all that money had been found on him, he'd have been in for it!

Jerry hurried on to the lodging house and got into his room. He did not turn on the light at first, not until he had hidden the money in a hollow space in the floor, and had fixed the loose board securely over it again. Not a single bill of the loot did he retain in his pocket.

Then he undressed and crept into bed, but for a time he could not sleep. He lived again through the adventure of the night. He tried to think of something that he had left undone, some precaution that he had failed to take, and he could not. His plans for the robbery of the theater had been perfect; his alibi was ready if the police questioned him. The murder of the old night watchman had been only an extra incident which did not change things at all.

Yet Jerry Tandon worried considerably about it. He got out of bed once and turned on the light, put a towel over the keyhole, and once more inspected the knife that he had used. There was not a spot upon it, and none upon his clothing.

“Nothin? to be nervous about,” he told himself.

Back to the bed he went, and after a time he fell asleep, almost exhausted. It was a few minutes past the noon hour when he awoke. He sat on the edge of the bed for a time, again living through the scenes of the night before. Repeatedly he told himself that he had a perfect alibi if the police saw fit to bother him, that all he had to do was keep his nerve. They wouldn't be able to find the money. There was nothing at all to connect him with the crime except the fact that Detective Walt Bryan had met him but a few blocks from the theater in the early morning hours.

He smoked a cigarette, dressed, descended the rickety stairs of the lodging house, and went to a little restaurant on the corner, where he ate breakfast.

Lighting another cigarette he walked slowly down the street, intending to run across one of the three men who were handling his alibi, and have a talk. At the first corner a hand halted him.

Inwardly Jerry Tandon flinched. But he did not betray the shock he had felt. He merely turned around slowly, to find a detective he knew standing there. Jerry grinned. “Tryin' to throw a scare into me?” he asked.

The detective did not respond to the grin. His attitude seemed to be strictly businesslike. “They want to see you down at headquarters, Jerry,” he said.

“Want to see me?” Jerry gasped out. “At headquarters? Why do they want to see me?”

“I suppose that you'll find that out when you get down there,” the officer replied. “I just got word to pick yes up if I could. Let's go!”

Jerry Tandon insisted on engaging a taxicab at his own expense. During the long, slow ride to police headquarters he maintained an ordinary conversation, while the detective engaged in monosyllables only.

“I'm gettin' sick of this bein' picked up all the time,” Jerry complained. “Just because I was in a stir once they nab me every time some crook turns a trick. I'm gettin' mighty sick of it, I tell you. I've a notion to quit the town!”

“Maybe there wouldn't be a lot of regrets,” the detective said. “Here we are, Jerry.”

Jerry Tandon walked beside the detective into the building, down a long corridor, and into a little room. Jerry Tandon knew instantly what that room meant—a lot of questioning. They waited there in silence for several minutes, and then a captain of detectives came in, glared at Jerry, and sat down before the desk.

Jerry maintained a determined silence.

“Well, young man,” he snapped out.

“This copper picked me up on the street,” Jerry complained. “He said that you wanted to see me about somethin'. I'm gettin' sick of it. I'm picked up every couple o' weeks.”

“Uh-huh,” the captain grunted. “There's a little matter that I want to speak to you about, Tandon.”

“Yeh?”

“A little matter of murder.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Jerry Tandon, steeling himself against any show of emotion, against making a mistake, laughed lightly.

“Murder? I don't know anything about any murder,” he declared. “I ain't ever heard of any. I reckon that's out of my line.”

“But robbery isn't,” the captain snapped out. “You're a thief and a burglar!”

“There you go. Just because I was caught once——”

“Stop it! I know what you are, Tandon, as well as you do yourself. The box office at the National Theater was robbed some time last night. The watchman was killed—stabbed. What have you got to say about it?”

Jerry Tandon looked him straight in the eyes.

“Why ask me?” he wanted to know. “I'm not in the theater business. It's none of my affair.”

“No?” the captain questioned.

“No!” Jerry Tandon replied firmly. “What's the big idea, cap? Tryin' to hang somethin' on me? Do you think that I had anything to do with the job? Robbin' a big theater and killin' a watchman? That game's too big for me!”

The captain of detectives eyed him for a moment and then touched a button. A door opened and Detective Walt Bryan stepped into the room.

CHAPTER IV.
THE KILLER.

ONCE more Jerry Tandon felt like a cornered rat. His little eyes grew smaller and blazed, and he licked at his dry lips and twisted in his chair. Detective Bryan. stepped across to the desk, looked at the captain, and then faced the culprit.

“Tandon, I met you about two o'clock this morning within three blocks of the theater,” Bryan said.

“Sure you did! Sure!” Jerry explained. “What of it? You stopped me and asked where I'd been, and I said playin' poker.”

“Where were you playing poker, and when?” the detective asked. “And with whom?”

“Let me see. I reckon it was about half past nine when I met some of the boys, and we decided to have a little game.”

“Where did you play and with whom?”

Jerry Tandon gave an address, mentioned a little back room, and named the three men he had engaged to furnish his alibi. Bryan made a few notes and left the office. He was gone for several minutes, and Jerry Tandon knew well that he had instructed other officers to pick up the three men, to make inquiries at the lodging house to check up on that alibi.

When Detective Bryan returned he sat down at one end of the desk and glared across at Tandon. “You'd better come clean, Jerry,” he said. “It may get you a life sentence instead of the electric chair. That chair isn't a pretty thing, Tandon!”

“I tell you that I didn't have anything to do with it,” Tandon shrieked. “Just because I got in trouble once, you pick me up. I wouldn't tackle a big job like that if I was broke flat and simply had to have money. And I—I simply couldn't kill a man.'

“You'd kill, all right, if you were cornered,” Bryan told him. “That old watchman, Jerry, was the pet of the theatrical profession in this town. There's a big howl about his murder. He was a kind, lovable old man. The fellow who knifed him is a beast! His murder will stir this town as much as though the mayor had been shot down on the street. And we're going to get the man who did it, Tandon!”

“Get him, but don't bother me about it,” Jerry said. “I'm not the only man in town.”

Bryan and the captain looked straight at him, and then, without a word, they got up and left the room, closing the door behind them. That did not fool Jerry Tandon in the least. He knew very well that in some fashion they could watch him, see his every movement, observe the expression in his face; they were giving him a chance to convict himself.

So Jerry Tandon rolled and lighted a cigarette, made himself as comfortable as possible in the chair, and did his best to appear unconcerned. They'd not catch him! It was easy, he told himself. All that he had to do was to be careful, be alert, and remain always on guard until he was under suspicion no longer.

An hour passed. Tandon smoked more cigarettes. Once he get up and looked at some pictures on the walls of the room. Once the captain of detectives came in and got something from his desk and went out again without speaking.

Jerry Tandon would have grinned except that he was afraid they might see him. So he merely acted bored.

Another hour passed. In another room Bryan and the captain were considering the reports they had received. The three men had asserted that Jerry had been playing cards with them. This looked like sufficient proof.

There was other evidence backing up the alibi. Tandon's room had been searched and nothing incriminating found there.

“Cap, I'm sure he did it!” Bryan declared. “And we've got to get our man. Everybody liked that old watchman, and the newspapers will make it hot for us if we don't get the murderer. I'll have the men working with me go out after other clews, of course. But I'm going to keep after Tandon. I've got a little scheme of my own.”

“Let's hear it, Bryan.”

Detective Bryan spoke at length.

“All right,” the captain said when he had done. “Go ahead with it.”

The captain went back to the little room and looked down at Jerry Tandon again.

“We've checked up on your story, and it seems good, Tandon,” he said. “You can go.'

“All right. I wish you'd stop your men pickin' me up every few days, though.”

“They'll pick you up any time there is a reason to suspect you, Tandon. That's all!”

Jerry Tandon pretended to be angry as he left headquarters. He traveled uptown to his own district, and not until he was some distance away did he allow himself the luxury of a smile. It had been easy! They would watch him for a time, naturally, but he was prepared for that. He would be careful, behave himself, make no slip!

Now he had something to boast about. Only he would wait for a time before boasting. The police were blind fools! Detective Walt Bryan was the worst of the lot. A gang of numskulls drawing pay from the city!

Jerry Tandon spent the afternoon loitering around his usual haunts. He knew well that he was being watched, but he did net care. And he did not return to his room, for that would have been unusual at that time of the day. He knew very well that the room had been searched, and that the police had found nothing. Had they found the money he would net be at liberty now.

At dusk he ate a meal in the usual restaurant, then wandered down the street again, greeting acquaintances here and there, trying to act in a manner perfectly natural. For a time he stood in front of a billiard parlor, watching the passing throng. It had been something of an ordeal, and Jerry Tandon felt in need of a “bracer.” So he went to a rear room of the billiard establishment and procured a couple of drinks of illicit liquor. Then he returned to his lounging place in front.

A man turning in from the street jostled against him, turned, and glared. “Tryin' to take up the whole street?” he demanded.

“What's the matter with you?” Jerry wanted to know.

He did not know the man who had jostled him. The stranger seemed angry about something. He glared at Jerry for an instant, and then swung a fist in a ferocious blow.

Jerry Tandon snarled and returned the attack. In an instant the two men were the center of a crowd. Two patrolmen forced their way to the center and separated the combatants.

“Come along!” one of them commanded.

“I'm not the man you want,” Jerry said. “This fellow started the row.”

“You come along, Tandon! You've been drinking,” one of the policemen said. “I can smell it on your breath!”

Jerry and the other man made the journey in a patrol. An officer sat between them. They reached the station and were taken inside.

Once more Jerry Tandon started to explain. He offered cash bail on the charge of fighting and disturbing the peace. But the desk sergeant refused it.

“You're drunk,” he said.

“I'm not drunk,” Jerry declared.

“You'll stay in a cell for a while, anyway,” the desk sergeant told him.

Jerry found himself put into a large cell in which there was no other prisoner. It was a detention cell, in a room where no other men were incarcerated. Jerry sniffed at the back of the retreating jailer.

He understood it, he told himself. This was a frame-up. They were sore at headquarters because they could not fasten that robbery and murder on him. This was old stuff. Possibly they'd even take a minor revenge by jailing him for a few months for vagrancy.

Jerry Tandon felt like grinning. He did not relish spending a few months in jail, but it would be better than standing trial for robbery and murder. It would make him safe. If they did that, it was a sign that they could not touch him for the other.

“Fools!” Jerry Tandon scoffed. “I'll get that Bryan one of these days—like I got the watchman!”

Which shows that Jerry Tandon had taken the last step. He had become a killer.

CHAPTER V.
TANDON BOASTS.

THE jailer had allowed him to retain tobacco and matches. Jerry Tandon rolled and smoked a cigarette, and then threw himself upon the hard bunk in one corner of the cell.

Mentally he was sneering at the police again. They were no match for him! Here he had got away with the greatest crime of all, and had dodged them. He had met Bryan when he had his pockets stuffed with stolen currency, and Bryan had not even searched him. The police were fools!

The soul of the boaster surged up within him again, but he had nobody to whom he could boast. They might throw him into jail for three months, or even six, for vagrancy, but he cared little for that. When he came out he would have about three thousand dollars to enjoy, and he would be safe as far as the greater crime was concerned.

He slept for a time, and then got up and smoked again, and walked around the cell, wondering whether they would have him in the night court or merely keep him there until morning and let him go.

It was perhaps two in the morning, and Jerry Tandon was preparing to get some more sleep, when the corridor door opened and the jailer and another officer appeared suddenly with a struggling captive in their midst.

Jerry Tandon sat up and showed sudden interest. The prisoner seemed to be past middle age, and quite a large man. He was putting up a struggle, and a good one.

The jailer unlocked the door and tossed the prisoner inside. He was upon his feet again instantly, shaking at the bars, screeching maledictions at the officers. They laughed and went back along the corridor, closed the door, and locked it. The latest arrival turned around and regarded Jerry Tandon.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“What do you care?” Jerry asked.

“Not much! But I'd like to kill a couple of those cops. Run a man like me in, will they?”

“Why not?” Jerry asked, laughing. “They ran me in.”

“You!” the other said sneeringly. “You? Drunk and fightin', I suppose, or maybe just a suspect. You! Huh!”

“Well, don't get your back up about it,” Jerry cautioned. “Who are you, the governor of the State?”

“Huh! Wouldn't you like to know! Wouldn't those coppers like to know!” the new prisoner said. “Run me in. Do you know what they did to me? Ran me in because I wouldn't move on quick enough to suit some new dude of a patrolman! Me!”

“Yeh? Who're you?”

“I'm Alex—that's enough!”

“That don't tell me anything,” Jerry said, grinning. He had seen these outbursts before. Alex evidently thought that he was far too important to be arrested. It made Jerry Tandon want to laugh. Alex, and his importance!

“I wouldn't have cared so much if they'd arrested me for somethin' important,” Alex declared. “But if my friends ever hear of this they'll laugh me out of the country. Pinched for refusin' to move on! By a common cop in uniform! And then put in a detention cell—with you!”

“What's the matter with me?” Jerry wanted to know.

“You're a bum—a common bum,” Alex told him. “Put in a cell with a common drunk! I'll get square with these coppers if it takes me ten years.”

“Say, where do you get that common-bum stuff?” Jerry Tandon demanded angrily. '“You're not so much!”

“I said a common bum, but that's what I meant,” Alex declared. “It's a dirty insult. Wouldn't take bail, either. Haul me up to the night court, I suppose, and fine me ten. It's a disgrace! Pinched by a common cop and put in a cell with a bum!”

“You lay off that bum stuff,” Jerry demanded.

“Why should I?” Alex asked hotly. “That's what you are, ain't it?”

“Yeh? And who are you to talk so big?” Jerry Tandon wanted to know.

Alex stopped pacing the cell and stood before him. The expression in his face changed, and cunning showed there. He stepped nearer. “Wouldn't you like to know,” he said.

“I think you're a bluff, if you want to know,” Jerry Tandon said.

“Yeh?” Alex looked quickly around. Then he stepped still nearer and lowered his voice. “Let me tell you this, lad,” he said. “If these birds knew who they were entertainin', they'd give me a special cell and maybe put a guard in front of it!”

“Don't make me laugh,” Jerry implored.

“Think I'm a nobody?” Alex stormed. “You listen to me, lad. I'm wanted in a dozen towns. I can crack any safe that ever was made. And I've cracked more than a safe, too. I cracked a head about three months ago. If these funny cops knew who I was, and knew what know about myself, they'd be stagin' a celebration, Arrest me like a common guy on the street! Throw me into a cell like this, with a man like you! Some vag!”

“Think that you're the whole thing, don't you?” Jerry Tandon said sneeringly.

“I suppose you are, huh?”

“If I told you, you'd think so.”

“Yeh? I don't want to listen to a lot of fairy tales,” Alex declared.

He turned his back and walked to the door of the cell, where he tried to rattle the bars. He shrieked half a dozen times in the general direction of the jailer's office.

“They'll be comin' in here to tame you down some if you don't stop that,” Jerry Tandon told him.

“Yeh? Let 'em! I'm not afraid of the whole gang of 'em!” Alex informed him. “Let 'em come, from the big chief down to the janitor. This is enough to make a fightin' demon of a man.”

“Aw, cool down,” Jerry begged.

“Who's goin' to make me?” Alex demanded. “A man like me to be pinched for refusin' to move on! And put into a cell with a common bum!”

“I'm about fed up with that common-bum talk,” Jerry Tandon told him.

“Yeh? Go ahead and get fed up!” Alex walked back to the bunk and sat down upon the end of it. “A little feller like you can't understand. What are you—a sneak thief?”

Jerry Tandon's eyes glowed. “I think not!” he said.

“No? Don't tell me. Just a common vag—thať's what you are. Never turned a real trick in your life. And if you ever tried it you'd be caught in ten seconds!”

“Yeh? Let me tell you somethin', bo! If the cops knew what I know about me, I'd be havin' a little private cell, too, and maybe an armed guard in front of it.”

Alex indulged in a gale of laughter. “You?” he gasped out. “You? Huh! Pickin' a pocket is about your limit. Maybe you're a moll buzzer!”

“That's enough,” Jerry snapped out. “Moll buzzer, huh? Dip? Me? Huh! If you only knew.”

“Gosh, you can't even make up a story,” Alex told him.

Jerry Tandon felt anger surge within him, He glanced down the long, empty corridor. Nobody else in the big room. The cell stood more than fifteen feet from the nearest wall, and that wall was of solid steel and cement. It was a safe place in which to boast. And he could boast to this one man. If he ever told, Jerry could give him the lie, laugh it off.

“You listen to me,” he said fiercely, “and maybe you won't think that you're the only big fish in the pond. Hear about the robbery of the National Theater and the killin' of the watchman?”

“Yeh, I heard about it. But what's that got to do with a bum like you?” Alex demanded.

“I did it—that's all!”

“Don't make me laugh.”

“I did it, I tell you. I tapped the box for about three thou, and when I was makin' a get-away that old watchman stopped me with a gun. I let him have it with a knife. And then I went right on with my get-away. And I've covered up. They had me on the carpet, and I fooled 'em. I had an alibi.”

“Tell it to some kid,” Alex scoffed. “You can't make me believe that. It was too good a job for a common rat like you.”

“Common rat, am I?” Jerry answered snarlingly. “It's a bigger job than you ever pulled off, I bet.”

“Yeh, if you pulled it off!”

“I did it, I tell you. I've got the three thou soaked away in a safe place. I'm here right now because the dicks are sore they can't fasten it on me. They'll give me a few months for bein' a vag, maybe. And when I get out I'll have the three thou and the laugh on the dicks.”

“If I thought that you was tellin' the truth, I'd shake hands,” Alex told him. “But I reckon that you're lyin'.”

“Go right ahead and think so, if you want to,” Jerry said. “But it's the truth. Who's the common bum now? You never turned a trick as big as that, I'll bet. You're a bluff!”

“You ain't convinced me any.”

“Huh! It didn't bother me, either,” Jerry Tandon went on, “I tossed the rubber gloves away and got out an alley window. I took plenty of time to clean my knife. Didn't bother me at all. I offered to split with the old fool, but he wouldn't. Maybe he wishes now that he had!”

“If you're tellin' the truth, you sure made monkeys out of the dicks,” Alex said with some degree of admiration. “Dang these cops, anyway. Puttin' men like us in a detention cell like a couple of drunk hobos.”

Alex got up and walked to the door again, and once more he rattled the bars and shrieked at the jailer. Then he paced the floor of the cell angrily. “I wish they'd get a move on,” he said. “I want to get out of here. Let 'em fine me ten for refusin' to move on. Only I hope none of my friends ever hear of it.”

“It's a good joke on the cops,” Jerry said, feeling that now he stood en a par with the noted Alex. “Two men badly wanted are right here in their own little jail, and they don't know it. All coppers are fools!”

The door at the end of the corridor was opened suddenly, and the jailer and another officer came in. They hurried up to the cell door.

“Come along, you,” the jailer said to Alex. “Into the night court for yours.”

Alex turned for a moment and winked at Jerry Tandon. Then he went out with them, still berating the police. The corridor door was closed, and Jerry Tandon was left alone again.

CHAPTER VI.
TRAPPED.

THROWING himself full length upon the bunk, Jerry. Tandon puffed lazily at his cigarette and wondered how much the judge would fine Alex. At least, Jerry told himself, he had taught the noisy Alex that he was not the only big man in the jail. It was just like some of those fellows to imagine that they were bad men, and that all others were softies.

Half an hour passed, and then the corridor door was opened again, and once more the jailer appeared. He unlocked the door of the cell and beckoned Jerry. “Come along, young, man,” he said.

Jerry supposed that he was being taken into the night court also, possibly to be accused of vagrancy. But the jailer turned him over to a detective, and the detective led him down another corridor and to a little room.

Almost immediately two other men entered the room, two detectives, one of whom was Walt Bryan.

“Well, Jerry, we've got you,” Bryan said.

“What do you mean, you've got me?”

“For robbing the theater and killing that old watchman, Jerry,” Bryan said. “It's your last trick.”

“Still harpin' on that, are you?” Jerry Tandon answered snarlingly. “I told you I didn't know anything about that, and I don't.”

“How about your little confession, Tandon?”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn't you tell a man in the detention cell that you robbed the theater and killed the watchman?” Bryan demanded.

So that was the way cf it! Alex had run to the cops with the story. Well, it wouldn't do them any good! They had no evidence. And nobody had overheard what he told Alex.

Detective Walt Bryan opened the door, and Alex came into the room.

“What did he say?” Bryan demanded.

“Why, he boasted about robbin' the theater and killin' that old man,” Alex declared. “He said that he got about three thousand dollars.”

“Got anything to say to that?” Bryan demanded, facing Jerry again.

Jerry Tandon tried to laugh. “This bird,” he said, “started to braggin' to me what a great man he was. That's all that I know. I told him to shut up, but he kept on braggin'. And then I told him that maybe I was a bad man, too—that maybe I had robbed that theater. But I didn't say exactly that I had. I just wanted to shut him up.”

“Don't lie to me!” Bryan commanded. “You came right out and confessed that you did that job.”

“This is a frame!” Jerry said. “You can't hang it on me, just because some bum like this Alex tells a lot of lies. You ain't got any evidence!”

Detective Bryan turned to Alex and waved his hand, and then Alex did a peculiar thing. He went to the wash-stand in one corner of the room. First he removed a wig and a part of his eyebrows. Then he smeared cold cream on his face and wiped it with a towel, and when he turned around the lines were gone—the lines in his face that Jerry Tandon had seen in the gloom of the detention cell.

It had an effect on Jerry. He stared and gulped. He did not know that Detective Bryan was playing this little game to break him down.

“What's all this?” Jerry demanded.

“This gentleman is Mr. Alexander Pandel,” Bryan told him. “He is a famous character actor. I called him in to help me, Tandon! He thought a great deal of that old watchman.”

“We all thought a great deal of him,” Alex said in a smooth, refined voice. “He was a lovable old man. And he was struck down by a cowardly cur—that old man who never had harmed a human being in his life. I am very glad, officer, if I have been instrumental in aiding you to capture the murderer.”

The “prisoner” paused.

Jerry braced himself and snarled again. “What kind of a game is this?” he shrieked. “Think that all this play-actin' is goin' to bother me?”

“Tandon, you confessed to this man!”

“Yeh, he says that I did, and I say that I didn't. And so what are you goin' to do about it?” Jerry Tandon answered. “You can't frame me!”

“We're not trying to frame you,” Bryan thundered. “But we've got the goods on you, and you're going to the electric chair! You're a killer, and there's only one end for you!”

“You can't do it on this man's talk,” Jerry cried. “He lies, I tell you!”

“Yes? He says that you told him you got three thousand dollars from that robbery. How can you explain that statement? As a matter of fact, that is about the amount stolen. But it has not been published in the papers. Nobody knew it except the manager of the theater and the police. So how could you know? That's a little slip you made, Jerry.”

“Yeh? I didn't tell him any such thing,” Jerry screeched. “It's a part of the frame-up! But you can't work it!”

“Oh, we have other evidence,” Detective Walt Bryan said, turning toward the door again.

He opened the door and beckoned some one in the hall. Two men entered. One of them held sheets of paper in his hand, and upon the sheets—typewriting.

“Read it!” Bryan commanded.

And then Jerry Tandon gripped the sides of the chair upon which he was sitting, while Detective Bryan regarded him coldly, his face inscrutable. For the man standing in the middle of the room read, word by word, the conversation that Jerry Tandon had had with Alex in the cell, the damning admissions, the confession!

“You see, Tandon, we've got you,” Bryan said. “You always were a boaster, and now you have boasted once too often. There was a dictograph in that cell, Tandon. The whole thing was a trap. That fight was a fake, making your arrest and detention possible. Then we sent this gentleman to your cell, and he did some good acting, and so you had to boast! We've got you, Tandon!”

“I tell you I didn't,” Tandon shrieked. “I never——”

“We've got you,” Detective Bryan said again.

Jerry Tandon looked up and met the detective's eyes. He could bluff no longer. He shivered. A vision of the electric chair came to him again, and he suddenly broke down and sobbed.

“I offered to split with him, but he wouldn't,” Jerry Tandon said.

And then Detective Bryan placed the written confession before him, and Jerry Tandon signed. And then he was taken away, to the private cell to which he had felt his importance entitled him.