Chapter 42 – The Favor

As Penn scaled the brick wall, he had a lot of time to think. Rather than concentrating on how likely he was to die if he fell, he decided to focus on his amazing luck.

Here he was, a man now closer to thirty than twenty, in enviable health, capable of performing astounding feats of athleticism that were the wonder of most of the city’s police force. He had a career that suited him, and he was engaged to be married! Truly, he had to be the envy of every man alive.

“Women!” he growled under his breath.

He knew that once the climbing was done, his resentment for his current predicament would fade, and if he was being honest, it wasn’t really Eleanor’s fault. If she had any idea what he was doing, she would probably object in the strongest terms.

He pictured her concerned face and his own carefree response. That afforded him some joy and boosted his climbing speed.

At any other time, he would have used one of his safer methods to gain entry into Altis’s apartment. Sneaking in through the front door of the building would have required a disguise, and those weren’t difficult. However, that was something the Marvelous Mr. Penn would do, and tonight, Penn couldn’t be himself. This was one heist that he would never take credit for.

Dropping down from the roof would have been easier, but the building was just far enough away from its neighbors that he didn’t relish the idea of jumping.

And it’s not that he minded climbing up to windows—but he rarely had to climb so high! Especially without the support of one or two good friends.

When he reached the second level from the top, Penn jammed his metal hook in the corner of the window ledge. The hold was secure enough, he could lean back for a few seconds to relax and assess his situation.

While leaning back, he saw the most glorious sight a thief could ever hope to see: a partially open window. Mr. Altis must have left it like that when he went to his dinner engagement.

Penn added to his list of lucky things “the perfect summer weather.”

He climbed onto the window ledge and lifted the window. There he crouched, listening for any hint of noise in the apartment beyond. Nothing. Everything was dark. He twitched aside the thin white curtain and hopped into the room, eager to learn what kind of a man Mr. Altis was.

Penn was in the main living area, which Altis had turned into some kind of study, library, living room hybrid. There was a desk, two sofas, and an entire wall filled with shelves. At the far side of the room there was a drinks cabinet under a large mirror. All the furniture had been precisely arranged.

Altis was a neat old bachelor. Fastidious. Penn poked around the equally spaced ornaments that decorated the bookshelf. Most of them were worthless knick-knacks that Altis had collected during his travels, but there were one or two pieces Penn might have pocketed in any other circumstance.

But where did the old devil keep his safe?

When Penn turned to peer at the rest of the room, his eyes stopped on the long drinks cabinet. He smiled, went over, and batted at the wood until he heard the hidden door rattle.

A minute later he had the door open and was working on the safe itself. Opening that took scarcely longer, but when he pulled out his flashlight to check the contents, he discovered it was full of money.

That was disappointing.

Penn turned off his light and slapped the metal door shut. He stood up.

“Now,” he said to the empty room, “I’m a picky old man. I keep my money in my safe, but nothing that’s important to me. Where do I keep my real treasures? And why wouldn’t I keep them in my safe?”

Because safes weren’t all that safe—as Penn had already demonstrated. But the hidden door in the drinks cabinet was suggestive.

Altis was discreet. Altis knew the value of secrets and privacy. Altis wouldn’t keep his treasures behind strong metal walls. He would keep them where no one else could find them.

Penn closed his eyes to picture the layout of the apartment he’d memorized from the prints Stewart had grudgingly procured. Penn needed to find Altis’s bedroom.

The bedroom was as carefully arranged as the living room had been. There was an array of bottles set up along his vanity—more toilet potions than Penn thought any man had a right to own—and they were all arranged according to height with the labels facing forward. Altis’s bed was a massive testament to his love of sleep. It was four poster, dark wood, queen sized, with a thick brocade cover and a wall of fluffy pillows.

The thief double-checked the man’s wardrobe, but there was nothing to indicate that he had a wife to share in this luxury. Altis simply knew what he liked.

Since Penn was already at the wardrobe, he started his systematic search there. It didn’t end until he found a simple wooden shelf under the bed, attached to the frame. On it was a book and a thin metal box.

Penn smiled. “How discreet.”

He pulled out the book and retrieved his flashlight from his pocket. Before he could turn it on, he heard a noise outside in the hall.

The thief held the book to his chest and tucked himself in the shadow of the wardrobe.

There was the rattle of a doorknob, then a beam of steady light bled into the room from under the bottom of the door.

“I’m telling you, Chief Inspector, I think your man must have been mistaken!”

“That’s possible, Mr. Altis. I appreciate your patience with our abundance of caution.”

Penn grit his teeth and, in the confines of his head, called Haley every blasphemous and profane name he could think of.

“Then shall we start in the living room? My safe is in there.”

The safe? The still exposed safe that Penn had forced open?

It didn’t take long for the thief to calculate his odds and decide that getting out of the apartment would be a good idea.

Leaving by a window was impossible. It would take too long for him to climb down. That meant his only hope was to exit through the front door. This seemed like an even better idea since Haley and Altis had walked past the bedroom to get to the living room.

Penn crept over to the bedroom door and eased it open.

His stealth proved to be worthless. Haley’s abundance of caution had included leaving a man in the front of the hall. The moment Penn emerged from the bedroom, the policeman called out for his superior.

Penn ran to the officer, swept out his legs, and shoved him into the wall, then he ran through the front door and didn’t bother shutting it behind himself. Penn could hear two men coming after him, and he knew at least one of them was a fast runner.

The thief ran out to the building’s main hall. He turned toward the elevator. There were two policemen. He turned the other way. There were three policemen!

Penn turned to his pursuers. “My god, Haley! Did you bring a whole squad?”

Haley slammed his arm across Penn’s upper chest and threw him to the ground.

Penn saw another policeman leaning over him. The officer’s cuffs were already open. Penn kicked out with both feet. One foot smashed into the policeman’s hand, spraining his wrist and causing him to drop his cuffs. The other crashed into his chest and sent him falling back.

When the thief tried to roll away, Haley grabbed Penn’s arm and twisted it up between his shoulders. Penn jerked his head back, hoping to break Haley’s nose, but Haley had seen that trick before. He dodged out of the way. This loosened his grip enough Penn could break free. The thief snatched up the book and took the only path left to him; he ran up the stairs that led to the roof.

He could hear Haley pounding up the steps behind him. A few seconds later, more policemen started climbing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be catching a murderer?” Penn yelled.

“I told you not to steal anything!” Haley yelled back.

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“Maybe I was only visiting!”

“Then don’t come in through a window!”

Penn decided to save his breath. There was no reasoning with some people.

The thief couldn’t risk the door to the roof being locked, so instead of trying the handle, he slammed into it with a brutal kick. Shards of wood fell away as the door burst open.

In front of Penn was the flat of the roof, but he could see the tiny iron fence ahead, signifying the point where the angle of the roof dropped away. It was at least four feet before the edge of the building’s brick face. He needed those four feet! He needed every inch of them! That meant he had to leap from one of the ridges of the three great gables.

There was a slope leading up to a ridge on his right. It was steep enough to be another climb, all by itself.

Well, there was no time like the present!

Penn had made it to the row of chimneys halfway up the slope by the time Haley rushed onto the roof. The inspector showed an unfortunate amount of sense by stopping to look around and locate his quarry. Penn’s feet scuffed down the roof, losing several inches of elevation and giving away his position.

Once upon a time, Penn might have stopped to see what Haley would do, but by now, he thought he could guess.

Sure enough, he heard Haley start to scrabble up the steep incline.

Penn grabbed onto the brick chimney and swung around. “A man should learn his limits, Haley!”

“Don’t worry”—the inspector grunted as his foot slid—“I’ll be there when you do.”

Penn looked behind the inspector. The other policemen had arrived, but they had wisely decided to guard the flat of the roof rather than try to join in the chase. They lined themselves up along the bottom of the slope. There was no other way out now.

Penn continued to climb. When he made it to the ridge, he could see all the way to the edge of the building, and beyond that, the leap of a lifetime! He laughed.

“Don’t do it, Penn.”

Haley was already past the chimneys.

“Please, Inspector. You’ve seen me jump before, and you never tried to talk me out of it.”

“If you failed those jumps you broke a leg. I thought it would make you easier to catch. If you fail this jump, I’ll never get the joy of arresting you.” The inspector curled his fingers over the ridge and hoisted himself up.

“I’m sorry, but I have a job to finish.” Penn saluted him with the book and started running.

Haley ran after him.

Penn had almost made it to the edge—he was readying for the jump—when he heard a grunt and a scraping sound behind him.

No!

Grabbing onto the ridge so he wouldn’t fall, the thief dropped into a squat and turned.

Haley was flat on the roof, and he was skidding down the steep slope.

Penn could see in a second what had happened. Like any sane man, the inspector had kept his weight slightly to the left so that, if he stumbled, he would roll onto the flat of the roof, rather than fall nine stories and hit the street.

But they were too far out. The safety of that little metal fence was a foot behind Haley. The only thing he was going to encounter was another steep slope and a long drop.

Penn threw the book and ran back along the ridge until he was even with the flat roof. Then he turned, put his hands on the shake, and scraped his way down the incline.

Four policemen were there to meet him when his shoe hit the metal rail of the fence.

“Back off if you want him to live,” Penn said.

The thief’s face was so fierce, they all stepped away.

Penn drew a rope from his side, tossed it over the fence, pulled it halfway through, then took both sides in his hands. He let himself out over the slope and walked his hands down the rope as he descended.

Haley had skidded all the way down to the valley between the slopes, where, at last, he stopped sliding. He kept his body as flat as possible, barely daring to breathe. His fingers pressed into the wood shake until he couldn’t tell the difference between the ridges of his fingerprints and the splinters of the wood. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he felt someone grab his arm.