Joe Clark hurried
into the Model Garage shop. "There's a man in the office who wants his motor
tuned up in a hurry," he told his partner Gus Wilson. "Can you handle it for
him today?"
"Not a chance," Gus
said flatly.
"This fellow looks like big money,"
Joe persisted. "His name's Jonas I. Whittman. He's from
Boston, and he's staying down at the Park
House while he's looking over some manufacturing plant he's thinking of buying.
We've got to think of after the war, Gus, and he might turn into a good customer
if we did him a favor now."
Gus grunted and
waved a grease-blackened hand at the cars that crowded the shop floor. "Every
one of these jobs belongs to someone who's a good customer now," he observed.
"And every one of them needs something a lot more vital than a tune-up to keep
rolling. You're a salesman, Joe. Sell your new friend the idea of waiting his
turn the same as everybody else these days. Let's see now," He scratched his
ear as he thought over the various jobs. "Wednesday's the best I can do," he
decided. "Tell him if he has his car in here by
noon I'll have it ready at five."
Just before
noon on Wednesday, Stan, the grease
monkey, came into the shop and said: "Party by the name of Whittman just left a
bus outside."
"Drive it in," Gus
directed. Stan did. Gus's eyes told him that it was an expensive five-year-old
car that hadn't had good care. His ears told him that there wasn't anything
seriously wrong with its straight-eight engine, but that it had been driven hard
and probably far since its last overhand.
He checked the
engine, and then started to give it a good going over. When he got to the air
cleaner he found it clogged with an unusual amount of sand. He spilled a little
into his palm and robbed the grains with a forefinger. In a wink he was 2,000
miles away from the Model Garage. Through the beat shimmer he could see far-off
mountains gray-green with greenwood and purple with sagebrush. 'The sun was
scorching the back of his neck; the hot, thin air of the high desert was in his
nostrils…
Gus shook his head
and laughed. "Doesn't a man ever get old enough for his feet to stop itching?"
he asked himself.
Shortly before
five o'clock two men came into the
shop. One of them was stout and heavy-cheeked and had a manner in which
authority was tempered by geniality. His companion had shifty eyes that looked
like pale agates set close in a pretty-colored face.
"I'm Mr. Whittman,"
boomed the heavy man. "My car ready?"
"All ready," Gus
told him.
"Fine," Whittman
said. "Much the matter with it?"
"Engine needed
tuning," Gus said, "and your oil was dirty. I drained and flushed out the
crankcase and refilled it."
"Fine," Whittman
repeated. "Got to have the old car in good shape - I keep Blackie here busy
driving me around these days, don't I, Blackie?" The man with the pale eyes
nodded silently. "I'm from
Boston," Wittman went on expensively, "looking
over some small manufacturing plants with the idea of buying one of 'em."
"You've been in the
Southwest recently - " Gus started pleasantly.
The pale-eyed man
jumped backward as if he had stepped on a rattlesnake, and Gus saw his right
hand glide into his coat pocket. Whittman glared at Gus. "What's that about
the Southwest?" he rasped.
Gus laughed, "When I
took off your air cleaner," he explained, "I found it pretty well loaded with
sand."
"You're quite a
detective, aren't you?" Whittman said poisonously. "But you figured wrong this
time. I've never been west of
Chicago, and neither has this car."
He laughed suddenly,
and all his geniality came flooding back. "That sand - now where could it have
come from?… Why, of course! Last month I was visiting my brother in
New Hampshire - he's in the sand and gravel
business. While his car was in the shop I let him use mine to get around to his
plants. That's where it picked up the sand. Well, my friend, how much do I owe
you?"
He paid his bill,
forced an expensive cigar on Gus, and the silent Blackie drove him away. Gus
shrugged. "It's none of my business," he told himself, "but no car in the East
ever collects that much sand in the filter, and besides in the sand and gravel
business they use a coarse sand."
Trooper Jerry
Corcoran, jaunty as usual, sat on Gus's workbench and lighted a cigarette. "Had
any radiator jobs lately?" he asked. "Not for folks you know - a stranger with
a leaky radiator?"
"The last one was
months ago," Gus told him. "Why?"
"Read about that
bank robbery up in
Valleyfield yesterday?" Jerry inquired.
"I saw the morning
paper," Gus said, "but
Valleyfield is 70 miles upstate, so I didn't
read the details. They shot a feller and ran over a kid on a bicycle making
their getaway, didn't they?"
"That's right,"
Jerry replied. "When the thugs ran over that boy outside the bank they must
have busted their radiator, because they left a trail of water in the street.
And a farmer five miles out of town says that about the time of the stick-up a
big black sedan with its radiator steaming like nobody's business passed his
place doing over 70. That car answers the descriptions of the stick-up bus.
We've checked all the garages and service stations up that way - but no dice.
We're up a tall tree - and so are the G-men."
"How come the G-men
are in on it?" Gus wanted to know.
"They can cut in on
any national-bank job," Jerry said. "But there's something else. The G-man
think this job was done by a stick-up mob that headed East a couple of months
ago after putting several big bank holdups in the Southwest."
Gus thought for a
long minute. Then he said: "maybe there's nothing in this, but just a week
ago…"
He told Jerry about
the desert sand he had found in the filter of Whittman's car and how Whittman
had explained it.
When he had
finished, Jerry slid off the bench and straightened his belt. "I'm going
downtown to see the captain," he said.
Two hours later he
came back. "It fits - part way, anyhow," he reported. "The only member of the
Desert Rat Gang that there's a description of is the man who 'cased' their jobs
and getaways. He worked ahead of the gang, posing as a financial big shot
looking for investment opportunities. Whittman fits his description. He and
the guy they call Blackie are still at the Park House. So is another fellow who
checked in the same day they did.
"We took the trouble
to make a telephone call to every plant in this district, but not one has ever
heard of Whittman. The
Boston police are checking, but we haven't got
enough to make a pinch, but we're giving all three a grilling at the Park
House. Whittman's car is in the hotel garage. We haven't got any legal right
to touch it, but the captain wants you to go with me and see if there are any
indications of radiator damage."
After he had looked
over every square inch of the sedan's front end. Gus shook his head. The only
scratches and dents on it were to be expected on a five-year-old car. "If I
could lift the hood - " Gus mused. "You can't!" Jerry snapped. "No touch!"
Gus had an idea.
"Just what happened when they hit the bicycle?" he asked.
"The boy was knocked
clear," Jerry told him, "but his bike was bent like a pretzel."
Gus nodded. "Give
me your flashlight."
Jerry handed it
over, and Gus crawled under the car. After half a minute he backed out. "The
radiator drain valve has been opened and closed recently," he said. "There
isn't any dust on it, and there are fresh plier marks on the shutoff lever, and
besides, there are scrape on the oil pan. What happened is that, when they ran
over the bike, the drain valve got snagged in the handlebars or something and
was jerked open. When they noticed that the radiator was steaming, they stopped
somewhere, closed the drain cock, and filled the radiator."
"Come on," Jerry
said.
They met the State
Police captain in the lobby. After he had listened to Gus's story, he rubbed
his square chin. "Well, Mr. Wilson," he said, "that isn't evidence that would
stand up in court, but maybe it'll worry Whittman and his pals. We'll go up,
and I'll question you before them."
There were several
State troopers, the town chief of police, and three G-men in the room. When Gus
went in, Whittman smiled sneeringly, Blackie glared, and the third prisoner, a
husky fellow Gus hadn't seen before, eyed him cagily.
The captain asked
his questions, and Gus answered them. Whittman laughed, "You're either lying or
you're nuts," he told Gus. "That radiator hasn't been touched in months, you
nosey whistle-stop jerk!"
Gus's voice didn't
show that he was mad. "I suppose," he said casually, "that your radiator hasn't
boiled over or your engine run hot for months either."
Whittman snapped!
"No, it hasn't!"
"That being so," Gus
said, "why not give me permission to examine your engine?"
Blackie shook his
head, but Whittman overruled the unspoken advice. "All right - go ahead and
play detective," he sneered.
Down in the Park
House garage, Gus jacked up the front end of Whittman's car, held a piece of
cheesecloth under the crankcase drain, and began straining oil through it into a
pail. After a moment he screwed in the plug, examined the cheesecloth, and
showed it to Jerry.
"What's that dark
stuff?" the trooper asked. "Coffee grounds?"
"It does look like
fine coffee grounds," Gus said, "but it is carbon deposit - particles of oil
drops that have been
'cracked' by coming
into contact with the underside of extremely hot platforms. I filled the
crankcase with clean oil a week ago. These carbon particles in it prove that
since then the engine has been badly overheated. Send the oil in the crankcase
to a laboratory for analysis, and you'll get evidence that will stand up in
court."
A few days later
Jerry came into Gus's shop whistling. "Your coffee grounds turned the trick,"
he said. "When the laboratory report came back, the boss showed it to those
three beauties separately. Blackie lost his nerve and squealed. They're part
of the Desert Rat Gang, and they did the Valleyfield job. Three others got away
in another car with the take - over 20 grand - but Blackie told the G-men where
they can pick them up… The captain wants to know when you're going to join the
force."
"I'm not," Gus
said. "The first time they put me on a case that didn't have an automobile in
it, I'd lose my job."
END
