Lanagan, Amateur Detective

by Edward H. Hurlbut

I caught only part of Lanagan’s answer. He was talking earnestly.

“I tell you, Chief, my information is correct. I’ve got the only leak in San Francisco into the Camorra and neither you nor the secret service have a man who can tap it. It’s worth a chance, I tell you. We’ll want Brady, Wilson and Maloney. We’ve got to cover every point, take no chances of a murder getting by on us, and smash this thing right on the nose.”

Leslie studied Lanagan long and carefully. He had never been wrong yet.

“Not drinking, Jack?” he asked at last.

“Not a smell in three months,” said Lanagan.

“You’re on,” the chief finally said, decisively.

I grew restive at not being taken “in,” but Lanagan said I was becoming so very bright that a little discipline would do me good; harkening back, I suppose, to that remark about the blackjack. I said no more. They outlined their plan. Maloney was to hide in the yard of the house directly across from the alley gate—in that old-fashioned neighbourhood, tight board fences and hedgerows are common—and Wilson across the street where he could command the window to the room where the blackjack hung. We three, with Brady, were to take our position inside the house. The moment anybody entered the alley gate, or by the front door—Lanagan considered it likely that that approach might be taken under cover of darkness—Maloney was to lift himself to the fence top and strike a match. Wilson, in turn, as though lighting a cigar, would strike a match, and one or the other of us, watching back from the room window of the house, would know that the trap was set. In addition to watching for Maloney’s signal, Wilson’s position enabled him easily to cover the front door. Lanagan, it appeared, had planned the coup hours before and had his coverts already selected.

Their vigil ended on the outside, Maloney and Wilson were then to jump and cover the front and rear doors, respectively, in case of any miscue inside that might permit of an escape. “Miscue” was Lanagan’s word: and I reflected with some apprehension, that any “miscue” with such nervy officers as Leslie and Brady that would permit an escape out of that house would mean that probably all of us would be candidates for morgue slabs.

Dusk found us all drifting one by one to our stations. When I finally entered through the alley door, I could see neither Maloney nor Wilson, and yet I knew they had both gone before me and were in position. I was the last one in and Lanagan was waiting there to lock the kitchen door after me. We trooped silently upstairs, shoes off and in hand.

It was an unreal situation, waiting there as the deeper blackness of night settled down and the night sounds of an empty house assailed us magnified. Brady was standing the watch at the window for the signal. The rest of us were lined up in the broad hall. It was so dark you couldn’t see a man a foot in front of you. Hours it seemed to me must have passed, with no conversation save a scattered whisper or so. We had tried the hall and room floors and the door to the hall closet and they gave out no squeaks.