Riggs is Here | Page 4

close while one of the detectives inspected the bloody wound in the side of the old man's neck. The dick said: "Twenty-five caliber I'd guess. Anyhow the slug's still in there."
Back in the glassed-in office a lab man blew dragon's blood powder over the dark steel of the door to the vault. With one exception, the entire door had been wiped clean. That exception was the print of a hand that the powder brought up on the right side of the door just above the lock.
While the photographer came in and set up his camera in front of it, Tommy examined it. The print was of a right hand and was at a peculiar angle, the fingers pointing toward the left. He figured that there was only one way that it could have gotten there--by a man leaning his right hand against the door while he bent over and wiped off the lower portion of the door with his left. A guy in a hurry to remove his fingerprints and carelessly planting them there while doing so.
And then, when the photographer had finished, he spotted something that brought his eyes wide and a quick exclamation to his lips. He bent over to examine the print. It was smeared in places, but the thumb and third finger were outlined sharply. He recognized the thumb print!
It was Carey's! There couldn't be any doubt about it. An egg-shaped whorl with a tiny scar through the left delta and a ridge count of eighteen from the right delta.
There was more than just that print, though at first Tommy didn't recognize its significance. A wooden door, unlocked, at the back of the warehouse, opened onto an alley. He went out there and, with matches held low, studied the dust-covered asphalt.
There were oil drippings and tire tracks of a car that had parked by the door for some time. The tracks had been left by a sharp tread and he classified them easily: the right rear was B 2/3,9--the left A 6/6,4,6.
Tommy was back inside the warehouse when Carey strode in. The International Agency dick's face was drawn up tight with anger that exploded into curses when he looked down at the body of Pop Dillon.
"The lousy rats!" he grated. "The dirty--" He twisted toward Lieutenant Barnelley. "They got the furs?"
"All of 'en,' the homicide cop said.
"The--" Then Carey spotted Tommy Riggs. He stared at him for a minute, yelled: "You! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I--"
"Beat it!" Carey snapped. "Damn it, do you always have to be under my feet? Beat it outta here!"
Tommy left--thoughtfully. He was even more thoughtful when he saw Carey's car parked at the curb. He examined its rear tires. They matched exactly the traces in the alley.
Tommy swore softly--
Tommy crouched low as he crept up the driveway, kept his body close against the four-foot hedge that bordered it. Carey's house was dark and maybe he wasn't back yet, but Tommy wasn't taking any risks of being seen. He slipped up quietly to where the drive rounded the corner of the house to the garage. There he froze!
Somebody was on Carey's front porch. Tommy saw first the red glow of a cigarette cupped in the man's palm, then the blurry shape of the man himself. He was standing there on the porch, close against the white front of the house.
Tommy sank down lower until his body was buried in the shadows of the hedge, moved on around the corner out of sight of the man. Then he straightened, vaulted the hedge. He retraced his steps on the other side until he could see the red tip of the cigarette again.
He waited there, moving only slightly when his muscles cramped. The guy on the porch snapped his cigarette in a spinning arc to the driveway, kept his place close to the front door. Then Carey came, the headlights of his car throwing a white brilliance up the drive. Carey drove the coup? up to the doors of the garage, left it parked outside. Before the headlights flicked out, Tommy saw that the doors were locked with a heavy padlock.
The man came down off the porch. He called ahead of him softly: "Carey!"
The International Agency dick stopped halfway out of his car. "Yeah? Who is it?"
"Me," was the guy's only answer. He strode up the drive, and Carey met him a few feet from where Tommy crouched.
The guy lit a cigarette. In the second that the match was at his face, Tommy recognized him. He was the guy with the broken nose and twitching mouth that Carey had talked to in the beer joint at Jones and Turk streets. Now he said:
"He's goin' to be ready to move them furs outta town tomorrow mornin'. About ten, usin' a Hedder Bakery truck."
Carey snapped