Continental Op Stories · One Hour (2/2) (2/2)

“Here’s my guess: This Van Pelt is a Dutchman, and he had some plates for phony hundred-florin notes. He hunted around until he found a printer who would go in with him. He found Soules, the foreman of a shop whose proprietor was now and then at home for a week or more at a time with a bad heart. One of the printers under Soules was willing to go in with them. Maybe the other two turned the offer down. Maybe Soules didn’t ask them at all. Anyhow, they were discharged, and two friends of Soules were given their places.

“Our friends then got everything ready, and waited for Newhouse’s heart to flop again. It did⁠—Monday night. As soon as his wife called up next morning and said he was sick, these birds started running of their counterfeits. That’s why they fell behind with their regular work. This spell of Newhouse’s was lighter than usual. He was up and moving around within two days, and yesterday afternoon he came down here for a minutes.

“He must have walked in while all of our friends were extremely busy in some far corner. He must have spotted some of the phony money, immediately sized up the situation, grabbed one bill to show the police, and started out for police headquarters⁠—no doubt thinking he had not been seen by our friends here.

“They must have got a glimpse of him as he was leaving, however. Two of them followed him out. They couldn’t, afoot, safely knock him over within a block or two of the Hall of Justice. But, turning the corner, they found Chrostwaite’s car standing there with idling engine. That solved their getaway problem. They got in the car and went on after Newhouse. I suppose the original plan was to shoot him⁠—but he crossed Clay Street with his eyes fastened upon the phony money in his hand. That gave them a golden chance. They piled the car into him. It was sure death, they knew⁠—his bum heart would finish the job if the actual collision didn’t kill him. Then they deserted the car and came back here.

“There are a lot of loose ends to be gathered in⁠—but this pipe-dream I’ve just told you fits in with all the facts we know⁠—and I’ll bet a month’s salary I’m not far off anywhere. There ought to be a three-day crop of Dutch notes cached somewhere! You people⁠—”

I suppose I’d have gone on talking forever⁠—in the giddy, head-swimming intoxication of utter exhaustion that filled me⁠—if the big sandy-haired patrolman hadn’t shut me off by putting a big hand across my mouth.

“Be quiet, man,” he said, lifting me out of the chair, and spreading me flat on my back on the desk. “I’ll have an ambulance here in a second for you.”

The office was swirling around in front of my one open eye⁠—the yellow ceiling swung down toward me, rose again, disappeared, came back in odd shapes. I turned my head to one side to avoid it, and my glance rested upon the white dial of a spinning clock.

Presently the dial came to rest, and I read it⁠—four o’clock.

I remembered that Chrostwaite had broken up our conference in Vance Richmond’s office at three, and I had started to work.

“One full hour!” I tried to tell Coffee before I went to sleep.

The police wound up the job while I was lying on my back in bed. In Van Pelt’s office on Bush Street they found a great bale of hundred-florin notes. Van Pelt, they learned, had considerable reputation in Europe as a high-class counterfeiter. One of the printers came through, stating that Van Pelt and Soules were the two who followed Newhouse out of the shop, and killed him.