Dan and the Death-Cell Bluff

Richard Deming Dan and the Death-Cell Bluff

Chapter One

The little sad-faced man in the worn seersucker suit arrived in Lake City on the nine-thirty A.M. train. He shook his head at the redcap who tried to relieve him of his bag, shook it again at the ring of eager taxi drivers, found his way to the waiting room and hunched his meager frame onto a bench in the farthest corner. For an hour and a half he sat there quietly, staring sadly at his folded hands, and he was such an insignificant little man, no one gave him a second glance.

The big, heavy-shouldered man with the perennial lopsided grin arrived in Lake City on the eleven A.M. train. He, too, shook his head at the redcap, but he grinned when he did it, as though amused at the thought of hiring a youngster half his size to carry his heavy bag. He grinned again at the eager taxi drivers, said, “Later, maybe,” and went on to the waiting room.

He was an enormous man, probably six feet four and two hundred and seventy pounds, but he moved with the controlled grace of a ballet dancer. His square, craggy face, lined by weather and seamed with laughter lines, looked forty; his iron-gray hair looked fifty. Actually he was thirty-six.

The little man barely glanced up when the big man entered, then returned his sad eyes to his hands. But suddenly the hands were clenched tautly together.

With his huge suitcase hanging as easily at his side as though it were a bag of cream puffs, the big man scanned the benches of the waiting room. His eyes touched the little man without interest, moved over the assorted dozen other people in the room and settled on a black-haired girl reading a magazine. She looked up at the same moment.

He grinned his lopsided grin, waited expectantly, and after studying him a moment, the girl rose and approached him.

“Mr. Fancy?” she asked tentatively.

He nodded, widening his grin and examining her with frank appreciation of her beauty, for she was as trim and flawless as a cut cameo. And not much bigger, the big man added mentally.

“Mr. Dan Fancy?” she persisted.

“How many people named Fancy do you think you’d find in one waiting room?” he asked quizzically. His voice was a husky, almost rasping bass.

She grinned, then, too. “I’m Adele Hudson. Mr. Robinson wired me to meet you and explain about the town.”

“I know. Can it wait till I settle in a hotel and catch a shower? Trains make me feel gritty all over.”

She was looking beyond him, through the waiting room door, and her face was suddenly pale. “I’m afraid it will have to wait,” she said.

Dan turned so effortlessly, the movement seemed deliberate, but he was facing the door before the girl’s sentence was finished. Two men in expensive gabardine suits entered the waiting room and stopped in front of him. One was a wide, barrel-chested man nearly as broad as he was tall, with a flat, swarthy face and a low forehead. The other was tall and lean, and carried himself with a sort of rawhide tenseness. He had a thin, cruel face and eyes containing no expression whatever. The tall man did the talking.

“Your name Fancy?”

Dan merely nodded.

Both men flashed badges, then slipped them back in their pockets.

“We got a tip you were arriving,” the tall man said. “I’m Lieutenant Hart of Homicide and this is Sergeant Bull.”

Dan examined the swarthy sergeant with interest. “Haven’t I seen your picture on a reward poster somewhere?” he asked mildly.

Sergeant Bull’s face reddened and his lips drew hack in a snarl, but the tall lieutenant waved him aside and said quietly, “We don’t like gunmen in Lake City, Fancy.”

“So?” Dan asked.

“So let’s start by turning over your gun.”

Swinging his huge suitcase slightly forward, Dan let it drop with a crash. The barrel-chested sergeant jerked his toes out of the way just in time, turned brick red and stepped toward the big man with one hand raised to deliver a back-hand slap.

Dan regarded the sergeant’s jaw with calm calculation, his lips grinning but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. The barrel-chested sergeant hesitated, let his hand drop and contented himself with snarling, “You heard the lieutenant. Let’s see your heater.”

“Sure,” Dan said obligingly. His right hand flickered under his coat and reappeared with a forty-five automatic, which cocked with a distinct click. “Take a good look.”

For a moment the bore centered directly in the sergeant’s stomach, then Dan’s thumb dropped the hammer to quarter-cock and the gun disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

“For the information of you lads and any other hoods around here who wear badges,” Dan said huskily, “my permit to carry a gun is signed by the governor. So is my appointment as special investigator to find out what in hell’s going on down here.”