The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 1: 1931-32 by Frederick Nebel

Author:Frederick Nebel [Nebel, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Detective/Hard-Boiled
Publisher: Altus Press
Published: 2013-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

Russian Lallapazza

THE GIRL was an almost-platinum blonde who apparently knew the virtues of cosmetics. Her eyebrows were penciled black; her lips wore a rouge that was very dark. Worth or Patou or someone equally as chic must have sponsored the ensemble of dark blue velvet.

“I called at eight-thirty,” she said. “You weren’t in.”

“I was taking a turn up on the roof and forgot the time. If I’d known you were such a knockout, I’d have been hours early. Smoke?”

She took a cigarette, and he struck a match. Her fingernails were lacquered red. “I’m Lorraine Valhoff,” she said.

He was lighting his own cigarette. “You came alone, I suppose.”

“Why, of course.”

He smiled. “That’s very swell.” He sat down and dropped his chin to his chest. His shaggy mop of hair flopped down over his forehead. “So now what, Miss Valhoff?”

“Well, I was desperate when I telephoned you this afternoon. I am alone in the world, and a woman alone finds it difficult to fight men. Especially when something big is at stake. You were good to grant me an interview.”

“Not at all. It’s my business.”

She nodded. “That’s what I had hoped. And I want to ask you again, Mr. Cardigan: can I be certain that whatever passes between us will remain a secret?”

“Miss Valhoff, I’ll be as aboveboard with you as you are with me.”

“Yes. Yes, of course— These diamonds over which the man was killed are mine.”

“No!”

“Yes. Yes, they are mine. They were stolen from me in Cairo six months ago—five of them. They’re of the first water. My husband, when he died, left them to me. He was a diamond merchant in South Africa. They’re worth approximately ninety thousand dollars.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“If the diamonds are brought to light through the usual channels, I shall have to pay a heavy duty on them. I do not live in America. My home is in Paris. If I could get back these diamonds I would find a way of getting them back into France. That is why I came to you.”

Cardigan said, “You probably know that a client’s engaged me to protect him from a clique that thinks he has those diamonds.”

She said, “I know the man who brought those diamonds to this country.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Charles Wheeler.”

He leaned an elbow on one knee. “Go ahead.”

“The man who took those diamonds from me was named Carl Uhl. He escaped from Cairo, went to Rome and then went to Algiers. There he was attacked by another man who was also after these diamonds. He escaped, but badly wounded, and was taken in by an expatriate England doctor. He died there. It is certain that this doctor took those diamonds, because other effects of Carl Uhl’s were found in his possession. He was killed by the man who killed Carl Uhl, but this man found no diamonds, nor was there any report of diamonds having been found. But Charles Wheeler was intimate with the doctor, and directly after the doctor was killed Wheeler fled to Paris.

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