Two dead men

Front matter

Class _ii-2s_S

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

TWO

Prologue

A BOUT 9 o’clock one spring evening, Thorvald Hansen, a small humpbacked cobbler, was putting a room in order at the back of his basement shop in Saxo street. The window was covered by an old, ragged rug heavy with dirt. It looked up into a funnel of a court, one of a whole line of courts stretching up to Dannebrog street.

A lamp with a chipped shade burned on the bare pine table. Two crippled chairs with ragged cloth seats were placed beside it. An unmade bed was visible in the rear of the room, a rusty iron skeleton filled with a heap of filthy rags. The cobbler’s father, the “Old One,” as they called him, had flung himself upon it and was snoring off the effects of a recent drinking bout. Ordinarily he occupied a room up in the garret.

The air in the room was close and oppressive, due partly to the Old One’s exhalations, and partly to the tobacco in the cobbler’s well-chewed

TWO DEAD MEN briar-pipe. A framed motto over the bed expressed the pious wish that God would hold His Hand over this Home.

The cobbler had now swept the dust and dirt into the corners and brushed the bread crumbs off the table. He put the broom away outside in the shop.

His father was tossing in an uneasy sleep — and snored. The cobbler lounged over to him and suddenly clapped a hand on his shoulder and began shaking him:

“They may be here any minute now.”

The old man half woke and wrenched himself away.

“Let me alone, d’ye hear — ”

“No, I’ll be damned if I will — ” and the son gripped him again.

“Then give me just a little drop — ” begged the old man, and raised himself on his elbow, “I am so thirsty.”

The cobbler did not loose his hold. But an evil smile slipt over his pallid, fatty countenance under the parted coal black hair. His eyes became fixed. His brutal jaw with its blue-black stubble tightened like a muscle.

“Certainly, my dear sir, — anything you like — That’s just what I’m here for, you know.”

He grinned sarcastically, evilly. But there was a furious strength in his hands as with a sudden snatch at the old man’s shoulder, he tore him out of bed:

“Get out of that!”

Hansen straightened the rags that served as bedclothes. The Old One got up laboriously, dragged himself over to one of the chairs and slumped down on it, slapped his arms on the table, and hid his face in his hands.

“Don’t tip over that lamp,” barked the cobbler as he knocked his pipe out on the stove over by the bed and filled it anew. The Old One sat swaying and groaning. The cobbler grinned maliciously.

“There is always a worm in the core, eh?”

The Old One suddenly took his hands away from his face, blinked at the light and looked about. First recognizingly, then surprised, then disapprovingly.

“Why is everything tidied up so this evening?”

“Because we are going to have company,” — grinned his offspring.

Slowly the old man remembered.

“Ah, that is true! Elly and her new intended are coming.”

“‘Intended!’” the cobbler leered. “It won’t

TWO DEAD MEN last long, I’ll bet. She’s a flighty one, is Elly. She likes variety. He’s a queer bird, anyway.”

“A genius they say,” grunted the old man.

“Genius — yes, so she thinks. He’s only a printer, he is, and he hasn’t even got a job. It’ll be hard going if they’re going to live by his trade.”

The Old One nodded and cleared his throat.

“Right you are, m’boy! Right you are — a-ah, my throat! — If you only — ”

He looked beseechingly at his son who sat on the edge of the bed.

“Hey?” asked that worthy crossly.

“ — could spare me a little drop — ”

“What are you whining for now?” demanded the cobbler with a leer even more evil, if possible, than before.

“You’ll not get a drop to drink!”

A sudden rage seized the old man. He banged the table with his fist and threateningly endeavoured to get up, but could only wave his arms wildly.

“Do you know whom you are talking to?” he gasped. “What, rogue — a man with whom His Majes — ”

“Yes, yes, I know very well that His Majesty shook hands with you,” interrupted his son. “I know the whole lesson. But even if the Pope him- [ 10 ]

TWO DEAD MEN self had kissed you, you wouldn’t get another drop. I don’t want you any more drunk than you are already. D’ye see?”

He had been rapping his pipe on the edge of the bed to keep time to his words. . . . The Old One had completely missed his heroic oration. He simply sat and stared dully at the table.

“I am an old man, whom His Majesty — ” he whimpered.

The cobbler rose and bent threateningly over him.

“What are you muttering about?” he rasped.

Just then they heard a noise at the door to the shop. They both froze and listened. Then came a series of knocks.

The cobbler breathed easier.

“It’s Elly’s knock,” he said and gave his father a push in the ribs. “Straighten up now a bit. D’ye hear?”

The Old One obeyed and the cobbler went into the dark shop. Before he opened the door he asked :

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Elly,” he heard his sister say, “and my friend.”

Then Thorvald Hansen undid the door.

“God’s peace and welcome,” he bleated loudly.

“Cut out the play acting,” said Elly. “Nielsen knows you from hearsay. Yes, he’s here, too.”

Nielsen greeted him and went with Elly and the cobbler into the back room.

“The Salvation Army often have people out here in the street,” grinned the cobbler to his sister, “and souls must be saved. That is why I laid it on a bit thick.”

Nielsen ignored the cobbler’s outstretched hand.

Thorvald Hansen regarded him covertly. His appearance was anything but prepossessing. He was tall, slender but broad-shouldered. His thick brown hair was uncombed, and he wore eye-glasses that seemed rooted to his nose but that did not in the least obscure the glances from his keen eyes. He was vilely unshaven, and his brutal mouth was extremely disfigured by several long, yellow front teeth which hung tusk-like over his lower lip.

And as for his clothes — the cobbler was really almost ashamed on his sister’s account, when he saw the dirty paper collar and dickey, the long shabby Prince Albert, the greasy vest and the baggy and wrinkled blue trousers badly frayed at the bottom.

Not to speak of cuffs, which were missing.

TWO DEAD MEN His boots were the only decent thing about him, and even they were patched. And his tie, too, was Worn and spoke of better days.

And Elly, who could play around with counts if she wished. That one could sink so low! And worse yet, she was in love with him.

“Nielsen has brought some cognac along,” said Elly and threw her hat and coat on the bed.

The cobbler smiled oilily and offered Nielsen one of the lame chairs.

“I will fetch some glasses,” he promised and disappeared in the kitchen.

“Nielsen has brought two bottles so we had better start in,” said Elly.

The Old One’s eyes gleamed a bit, bleared though they were.

“A little night-cap,” he mumbled feelingly and turned suddenly toward the daughter, and gestured majestically with his hand.

“Your father is proud of you,” he said.

“Nonsense,” smiled Elly. She was junoesque, golden-haired, and fresh as if she had lived a life among sunlight and flowers.

The cobbler returned with three glasses. What was just right for three, was too little for four. Elly poured her portion into a cup.

“Welcome, brother-in-law,” toasted the cobbler, “and good luck to it.”

“Luck to it,” seconded the Old One.

They drank. Nielsen refilled the empty glasses.

“Is this all there is to the place,” he asked and his keen glances darted around the room and into the darkened store.

“There is a little kitchen outside,” and the cobbler indicated it with a gesture that he sought to make superior. Nielsen irritated him. There was something curt, almost commanding about him.

“Let me see this kitchen,” said the printer. The cobbler emptied his glass, and got up and opened the door to the kitchen.

“This is all there is of it,” he said.

The room was small and pitch dark.

Nielson lit a match and looked about. There was a little window on the court, thick with dust and dirt. He tried the door to the kitchen stairs. It was locked.

“Is it sound proof?” he asked and pointed to the ceiling.

“As the grave,” affirmed Hansen and added: “You are a careful man, brother-in-law.”

“Yes, careful,” smiled Nielsen with a nod, “but not afraid, as are some others who daren’t open

TWO DEAD MEN the door for their own sister, for fear that it might be a detective.”

“You haven’t three years behind you, brother,” grumbled the cobbler, “and I don’t want to do it again, the devil take me. It’s a real hell for my lungs.” The cobbler coughed.

“Isn’t the Old One going soon?” asked Nielsen.

“I’ll get him on his way,” promised the cobbler.

“Let’s go in again,” said the printer.

As they stepped into the back-room, the Old One stood swaying with the cognac bottle in his hand, and had nearly emptied it. Elly was ready to die with laughter at him.

“God! how delightful he is! He drank it as if it was fresh milk.”

Hansen tore the flask from his hand.

“The old swine,” he snapped.

“Put him on the bed,” proposed Nielsen, and examined the shop carefully.

The cobbler and Elly dragged the Old One over to the bed.

“ — A man, with whom His Majesty has talked and — ” muttered the cobbler’s worthy father.

Elly giggled.

“Now he is serving that up to us again.”

They threw him onto the bed.

“What kind of a cupboard is this?” they heard Nielsen say out in the shop.

The cobbler went out and opened the cupboard. It was empty.

“Be so good as to look, brother-in-law,” said he and then slammed it demonstratively shut. “Either you are an amateur or else pretty damn careful.”

“Suppose I were both,” said Nielsen laughing shortly.

“Then I should fear,” answered the cobbler somewhat scornfully, “that we would not make so many coups together, such as you have proposed to me through Elly.”

“If you are not too much of a coward, we shall start this very evening,” said Nielsen, “and there’s big money to be made.”

They had gone into the back-room again and had seated themselves about the table. Elly filled their glasses. Now and then as she looked at Nielsen, there came into her eyes a gleam as of unveiled and passionate love — and of anxiety.

The cobbler looked down into his glass.

“It is all right about the money,” he remarked, “and both the shoe business and the straight and narrow is not worth that! There’s nothing in it [ 16 ]

TWO DEAD MEN — I can’t make it go that way. But I won’t get in again. I’ll croak if I get shut up.”

“You won’t get shut up,” said Nielsen shortly. “When you work with me, you risk nothing.”

“May I ask then, why you don’t work alone?” asked the cobbler suspiciously.

Nielsen slowly emptied his glass.

“I’ll tell you why. This work demands both body and soul. And I can offer the soul only.”

The cobbler whistled in comprehensive irony.

“You mean then, that I should face the music if things go wrong. Fine. All you’d have to do would be to lie your way out of it. Or have I misunderstood you?”

Nielsen shrugged his shoulders.

“In one way you’ve misunderstood me, in another, no. I will be the brain, and you shall be the hands that untie the hard knots. You’ll get half the swag.

“But mark you — if you try to bunko or doublecross me, you’ll find it’ll go hard with you. I have a certain, dead-sure way for handling that kind of case” — Hansen rather squirmed in his chair, and opened his mouth as though to speak, but was silent.

“But perhaps you would rather work entirely on

TWO DEAD MEN your own, or with your pals of the old days. It is, of course, a bit risky, but — ”

The printer did not finish. He sat and watched Hansen with his peculiar look, that seemed to bore through one.

The cobbler had always had bad luck when he worked alone, though a clever man in his own line, and he had long ago parted from his comrades.

Therefore he said simply: “I agree.”

Nielsen nodded curtly.

“You are a sensible man, Hansen.”

Over in the bed, the Old One stirred.

“ — A man whom His Majesty — ■” he mumbled and began again his lusty snoring.

“We start tonight, then?” said the cobbler and emptied his glass.

“Yes, now, tonight,” replied Nielsen in a queer ceremonious way. His eyes met Elly’s for an instant. Her eyes fell.

“Well, out with it,” harried the cobbler.

Nielsen leaned whisper ingly towards him.

“Now, get this carefully — ”

He talked for a long time, often interrupted by the cobbler. Elly listened closely, and with deeply interested eyes. Now and then she sipped at her glass.

The light from the chipped shade fell remorse-

TWO DEAD MEN lessly upon the three set and tense faces, so dissimilar, and yet so alike in criminal ecstasy.

A short time afterward a burglary was committed in one of Copenhagen’s best-known jewellery concerns, which in a month’s time was followed by another.

During the summer and autumn four more robberies occurred, quite as mysterious as the first, evidently executed by the same criminals. The police were at a loss either to prevent them, or to find any solution when they occurred.

Then the robberies suddenly ceased.

Chapter 1

STORM had been raging over the city all afternoon and evening.

JL JL Arne Falk sat writing. It was late. Suddenly the outer door-bell rang. He looked up from his work, glancing at the clock. It was halfpast eleven. His house-keeper and the maid had gone to bed long ago.

He laid the manuscript, some notes on criminal statistics, aside, and went out to open the door.

It was Preben Miller, the author.

“Good evening,” said Falk with a smile, “I thought you were terribly angry with me.”

“Oh, because of that note you wouldn’t indorse?” said Miller, hanging up his hat and stick. “Bosh! A little thing like that doesn’t bother me.”

“Thank the Lord,” sighed Falk ironically, “but come in where it’s warm. 9 '’

M(iller followed him.

“I come, really,” he said, “to take you along on a slumming tour. My ‘Darkest Copenhagen’ lacks a chapter with the heading ‘Behind the Scenes in the Dance Hells,’ or something like that. And Figaro is wide open tonight.”

Falk looked at him in comic despair.

“You’re much too greedy! For the last nine months Fve been introducing you to all the crooks of Copenhagen who amount to anything. You know their hiding places and all their tricks. And now you want the dregs of the dance halls too!

“Let’s put it off till another evening, old fellow. Let’s have a little whisky and a talk here instead. Why it’s snowing and storming outside, worse than it ever did in any self-respecting December!”

Miller lit a cigar.

“It stopped snowing half an hour ago,” he said. “The storm has let up too.”

Falk looked out. It was moonlight with a crackling frost.

“And where’s your overcoat?” he demanded, turning to his friend.

“I’m toughening myself,” smiled the writer, and straightened his rather stooping shoulders, “and besides my winter coat is in hock somewhere. I have only my old one to wear, and I hate like the deuce to risk my reputation as the best dressed man in town. We all have our little weaknesses.”

Falk put out the light.

“You are a silly ass,” he said to Miller, pulling on his overcoat. “ You’re one of the best of our myriad scribblers, and you’re as prolific as a rat — ”

46 — and in spite ot that always broke,” continued Miller with a sigh, and went down the stairs followed by Falk.

44 And why?” asked the latter.

44 Ask my tailor and my favourite waiter,” said Miller languidly. He had an odd, lazy way of speaking, and gave the general impression of being rather easy-going.

“And your uncles,” Falk went on, “and your women.”

“Suppose we stop there,” suggested Miller. “Anyway, you’re a good one to preach.”

Falk ignored the insinuation.

“Why don’t you make a good match?” he asked.

Miller smiled, so that his gleaming white but false front teeth were visible. His own had been knocked out in a coasting accident at Dalame in Sweden.

“Why? Now you are talking. Who in the wide world would have me?”

“Ada Stock, for example. There are others besides myself who have been hoping that you two would make a match of it. She is the daughter of your late father’s best friend — you have known each other from childhood, and then, Captain Stock is quite wealthy — ”

“I, too — ■” sighed Miller, “hoped one time — well, you know.

“She has, you see, become engaged today. Not that my heart is broken. But undeniably it is, what one in certain circles — which you have done me the honour of acquainting me with — would call a black eye.”

“Whom is she engaged to?” asked Falk with surprise.

“To Lange, Einar Lange.”

“Oh, the Futurist! How did he meet the Stocks?”

“Well, Ada has artistic leanings. She has studied under him. He told me himself about the engagement this very evening. I took a little run up to see old Saabye. Lange came just as I was about to leave.”

“Isn’t Saabye his foster-father?”

“Yes, he has been a father to him since Lange at seventeen entered the Academy, which he now so heartily detests.”

“Wasn’t there a bit of a row between them about a year ago?”

“Yes, Lange wanted to marry a girl who did not suit his foster-father’s taste. And Saabye isn’t the man to keep his opinions to himself. There is nothing wrong with his intellect either.

“The girl had the lad going pretty strong, was pretty expensive, and a Vestal Virgin she certainly was not! Old Saabye prophesied that it would come to no good, and said right out that if Einar was bound on making himself a laughing-stock he was not going to do it on his money at any rate, etc., etc.”

“And did Lange rage?”

“Of course! He was young, barely thirty, and as temperamental as a Southerner. He told Saabye to go to the Devil.”

“But he didn’t marry the girl, then?”

“No, she didn’t really care for him anyway. When he couldn’t get any mpre money out of the old man, she gave him the gate. And Lange didn’t commit suicide on her account.”

“Who was she?” asked Falk.

“A child of the people,” smiled Miller. “Genuine Saxo street. But a remarkable woman, with an uncanny attractiveness to men. Large, blooming, and blond. And with the same shining fresh exterior that a worm-eaten fruit can have — ”

“You seem to know her,” smiled Falk.

“Yes, indeed, I do. Of course, I can’t think of her as a wife but — ”

“What is her name?”

“Elly! Elly Hansen — strictly lower-class — As a matter of fact, she’s behaving quite well lately, and I flatter myself that I am the cause of it.

“God help me, I think she’s in love with me, old man.”

“Yes, miracles still happen,” smiled Falk a little maliciously.

They turned down Yesterbro’s Passage.

“And so Lange is all fixed with Ada Stock,” continued Falk, “and does the match suit the old man?”

“Yes, he is all sunshine. Old Saabye, that is. Because Stock senior is probably less enthusiastic about it. He counts only army officers as human beings, and understands absolutely nothing of Futurism.”

“Neither do I, thank the Lord,” interjected Falk.

“And even if Lange,” continued Miller, “has talent (as he, as a matter-of-fact, is said to have! What young painter is not full of talent?) he doesn’t earn very much by it.

“I can’t help wondering,” he remarked almost peevishly, “how a cool lady like Ada Stock can go and fall in love with an anarchistic individual like Lange who goes around with baggy trousers and no cuffs.”

Falk smiled.

“Do the Stocks know anything about Lange’s former relation to Elly Hansen?”

“Are you mad?” Miller stared at him, astounded. “Yes, Ada, maybe, or the mother at a pinch! But the father! He is as prudish as an old maid. His ideas about I. 0. U.’s, and the erotic are on a par with the moral standards of a Ladies’ Aid Society.”

“Isn’t he a bit stingy, too?”

“Stingy! That’s not the word for it,” said Miller, shaking his head in denial.

“His wife fights a constant battle to get enough money to run the house. But when it comes to militarism, then his generosity borders on the insane. If I judge him right, Lange himself will have to pay for the whole outfitting, unless he wants machine-guns in the living room and cannon in the bed chamber.”

“Maybe you can introduce him to your moneylenders,” laughed Falk.

“Oh, no, I have more than use for them myself,” sighed Miller and a shudder passed through him. “Besides, — I am freezing.”

They had reached the comer of the street where Preben Miller lived.

“Run up and put your coat on,” Falk advised him. “I’ll wait for you.”

Miller reflected. Falk smiled a bit scornfully.

“You won’t meet any of your imposing acquaintances tonight.”

Miller still hesitated:

“I really cast it off a year ago. And the cut is quite out of style — oh, well, the deuce with it!”

He unlocked the door and went in. Falk went back and forth in front of the house. There were only a few people on the street, and the moonlight made it seem still more deserted, the snow still whiter.

He sauntered over to the other side, saw a light flare up in his friend’s room, and go out an instant afterwards. Four or five minutes passed. Then Miller opened the door. Falk went over to him. When he reached his side, the author began to tremble in spite of his overcoat.

“It is the heat up in the apartment,” he said, “one reacts.”

They went down Vesterbro street.

“Do you suppose the Captain will give his consent to the engagement?” Falk continued their interrupted conversation.

“He has already given it,” said Miller and lit

TWO DEAD MEN a cigarette. “The engagement has been officially announced. You’ll find it in the papers tomorrow, or the day after. You see, Ada has a wonderful way of handling the old man. She simply freezes him into obedience. You know, she’s rather frigid.”

“Her mother has helped her, too, probably?”

Miller shrugged his shoulders.

“She’s very sweet, this Mrs. Stock, but she hasn’t a word to say about anything.”

“It reminds me of a proverb,” said Falk, “that that woman is a goose who does not understand how to manage her husband.”

“Yes, and the one that does not do it,” continued Miller, “a saint. It so happens that she is neither.”

“It’s the daughter then — ■” began Falk but stopped short and gripped Miller by the arm. “Isn’t that Lange?” he asked and pointed to a young man who had wrenched open the door of No. 12, and at that very instant passed them, in the middle of the road, running swiftly.

His clothes hung on him as if he had dressed in furious haste. His shoestrings were untied, his vest unbuttoned and his tie fluttered wildly. He was without his overcoat despite the frost.

“Yes, that’s he,” Miller broke out, astounded, [28]

TWO DEAD MEN and looked after him. He was already down near Old Kingsway. “The Lord knows what’s the matter with him. His face was quite pale — did you notice it?”

Falk nodded.

“Does Saabye live there?” he asked, and pointed to No. 12.

“Yes, and Lange was to stay there tonight on account of the bad weather,” explained Miller. “He lives away out in Hellerup, and there are no taxis out tonight.”

They stopped outside the street door. Miller stepped back several paces, and looked up. Everything was dark at Saabye’s.

“He didn’t even have time to light the hall-light,” substantiated Falk.

“Let us go up,” proposed Miller.

They went in by the front door. Falk lit the light. On one of the lower steps lay something which he bent over and picked up. He handed it to Miller.

“Do you recognize this?”

“That’s his stick-pin. He must have lost it as he ran down the stairs.”

“And why such wild haste?” grunted Falk, “and why did he seem so excited?”

The author shrugged his shoulders.

“Who knows?”

They went up the stairs. Falk examined every step without, however, finding anything.

Saabye lived on the second floor. When they had reached it, the hall-light went out. Falk lit it again. The hall door stood wide open.

“That’s not at all like Saabye,” said Miller, astonished, and shook his head.

Falk preceded him into the corridor. The door of the study was also open. They both saw the fire-light from the old-fashioned porcelain stove rest like a dull gold covering on the thick Smyrna carpet that reached almost to the threshold.

“Where’s the switch?” asked Falk as he stepped into the room, followed by Miller.

The latter, accustomed to the house, turned it on. The room in an instant lay bathed in a cosy, dark yellow light. A bed had been made up on the sofa but the bedclothes lay in fantastic disorder, as if Lange, who doubtless had lain there, had been tom from his bed or else had left it in nervous haste.

“We’d better wake Saabye,” said Falk. “Something or other has happened here. Where’s his bedroom?”

Miller reflected a moment.

“I am not quite sure about it,” he said, “because I have never been in any other room but this. But I think it is at the end of this corridor.”

He opened the door to a long, carpeted hall, and found, after some searching, a switch there, and threw it on.

“Where does this door to the left lead to?” whispered Falk.

“Probably out to the kitchen, and to the housekeeper’s rooms.”

“And what is this?”

Falk pointed to a wire, which, quite independent of the lighting connection, ran along the ceiling to stop abruptly or rather disappear in the wall of the study.

“I don’t know,” and Miller shook his head. Bending over, he picked something up:

“Here is a knife.”

He handed it to Falk. The blade was nicked as if it had been used to cut metal. Falk looked up and followed the mysterious wire with his eyes. By the door to the study — where Miller had found the knife, he discovered that the wire had been cut!

Falk’s usually cheerful face became suddenly grave.

“Go out and lock the front door,” he bade softly, “and take the key in with you. I will wake Saabye in the meantime.”

Miller disappeared in the study. Falk again examined the wire where it had been cut. He carefully assured himself of its thickness, hardness and so on. He compared the wire with the knife and muttered, “That is strange.” But finally he abandoned his reflections, and knocked on the door of Saabye’s room first softly, then louder and louder.

No one answered.

Then he shouted: “Hello, Mr. Saabye!” and pounded on the door.

Still no answer.

Then he opened the door. Miller had in the meantimje returned. Falk held him back.

“Stay out here.”

Miller waited and saw Falk turn on the light in the bedroom. An instant later he heard him utter a low cry of horror. He rushed in — and recoiled horror-stricken.

Saabye lay murdered in his bed! With his throat cut from ear to ear.

“Ring up police headquarters and get some one down here, preferably Jensen-Skandrup, if he is there.”

Miller staggered through the corridor into the study where the telephone was.

Falk bent over the dead man. He had been murdered beyond the slightest doubt. And the slash had been made by a sure hand. He had bled to death almost instantaneously.

Falk looked inquiringly about.

On the floor before the bureau lay Saabye’s pocket knife, keys, and watch. The criminal had, no doubt, dropped them in his haste.

He looked at the watch. It had stopped at fifteen minutes of twelve. It was now twelve o’clock. A quarter of an hour ago Saabye had been murdered !

Falk examined the watch closely. To all appearances it had been wound for the night and had stopped only owing to the jar it had sustained when it fell.

He heard Miller come back, and appearing to hesitate as he stepped into the bedroom.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said, and avoided the corpse with his eyes.

Falk smiled involuntarily. Miller had always talked scornfully of people who could not stand blood nor the sight of a corpse.