Enter Jimmy Strange by Ernest Dudley

Author:Ernest Dudley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, crime, suspense, murder, short stories
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

THE MAN AT THE PIANO

The boat-train wasn’t crowded and the two men had the first-class compartment to themselves. They sat facing each other in their corners hunched behind evening papers. There was a certain tenseness about their attitude, an alertness that made their preoccupation with their papers appear superficial. From each thin mouth a cigarette drooped. Each face was shadowed by a soft hat pulled down over the eyes, each chin sunk in the turned-up collar of their overcoats. Neither appeared to carry any luggage, the racks overhead were empty.

Presently the smaller of the two men stirred. Stubbing out his cigarette he got up.

“Think I’ll take a look along the train now.”

Without raising his eyes from his paper, the other nodded and the small man went out, pulling the door shut after him.

He was back in a few minutes. He was smiling, not a particularly pleasant smile. He said:

“I’ve spotted him. Just along the corridor. And he’s alone.”

“Bit of luck,” the other muttered.

“Yeh. I reckon we’d better fix him now.”

“Don’t be a fool!”

“Why not, while the going’s good—”

“Shut up and sit down.”

The small man obeyed and lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking slightly. The other leaned across and said:

“If we fix him now, someone may find him before the train gets in. We don’t want that. So we wait till we’re just running into London. Less chance of him being found until the train’s in the station and we’ve scrammed. Besides there’s a tunnel just outside the terminus. See?”

The small man nodded.

“I get it. Drown any noise.”

His companion gave him a cold stare.

“I thought you might catch on,” he said with mirthless sarcasm and returned to his paper. The train roared on towards London and the small man hunched in his corner staring out at the gathering dusk.

Some time later the other man glanced at his wristwatch.

“Should be in soon. Boat-trains are always on the dot. Better get into the corridor, ready for the tunnel.”

They went out of the compartment. The train whistled shrilly. The small man said: “This’ll be it, eh?”

The other man nodded. “Come on,” he said shortly, and moved down the corridor. They passed two or three compartments that were half empty and gained one whose solitary occupant, in the farther corner, was absorbed in a novel. He was a biggish man, dark and flashily good-looking. He wore a big astrakhan-collared overcoat, which was open and a silk scarf tied loosely round his neck. The luggage rack above him was crammed with opulent-looking suitcases, and on the seat beside him were scattered magazines and newspapers.

He glanced up with casual curiosity as the two men entered, closing the door behind them. The train gave a shriek and thundered through the tunnel.

* * * *

The elements of the underworld are caught up and carried along by numerous crosscurrents. Some move of their own initiative and impulse. Others just drift. But always the direction is the same, all currents merge into the deep and dark waters of crime. A

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