Our story today is called "The Gatewood Caper". It was written by Dashielll Hammett. Here is Harry Monroe with the story.

Millionaire Harvey Gatewood had a desk as big as a bed in the middle of his office. He looked almost as big as his desk. Gatewood had become rich by knocking down anyone who stood in his way. Now he leaned across his desk and began shouting at me, "My daughter was kidnapped last night. I want you to find her and the people who did this." "Tell me about it," I suggested. Gatewood said his daughter Audrey had gone out for a walk the night before at 7 o'clock. She never came home. The next morning Gatewood received a letter from her kidnappers. They asked 50,000 dollars for her and put one of her favorite rings in the envelope to prove they had her.

Gatewood had called the police immediately. But a few minutes later he decided to hire his own private detectives. That's why he called me at my Continental Detective Agency. "Find her!" he barked at me.

I left his office and went to his home. The servants told me Audrey was 19 years old and Gatewood's only child. They said her mother was dead and Audrey and her father did not like each other. I went to her room where I found a picture of her. She was a pretty girl with big blue eyes and a small pointed chin. I took the photograph with me when I went back to my office. I decided to call the police detectives O and T who were working on the case. They said that I could take a look at the letter the kidnappers had sent. The envelope had been mailed from San Francisco on Sep. 20th. The same night Audrey had disappeared. The postmark on the envelope was stamped 8pm.

While I was at the police station, a young policeman stuck his head into the room. "Gatewood just called," he said, "he wants all of you in his office right away." I ran out with O and T and jumped into one of their police cars. Gatewood was walking up and down in his office. His face was red with anger. "She just phoned me," he shouted as soon as he saw us. "She said 'Oh daddy, Do something. I can't stand this. They are killing me.' Then I heard a man's voice yell something and someone hung up the phone." Gatewood began banging his desk with his huge hands. "Have you people done anything?" We had to admit that we had discovered nothing yet.

That night I went home with Gatewood. At 2:30 in the morning, the telephone rang. I listened on the telephone downstairs while Gatewood talked on the telephone by his bed upstairs. A man's voice said, Gatewood, put the money in a bag and leave the house with it immediately, walk down K Street to the river, you'll meet someone with a handkerchief over his face. Drop the money and go back home. You'll get your daughter back in an hour or two. The stranger hung up the telephone.

"Do what he told you to do," I said to Gatewood, "and don't try any tricks." A few minutes later, Gatewood left his house carrying a white bag of money in his left hand. I followed him as he walked down the dark streets for about ten minutes. No one was around. Suddenly out of nowhere, a tall woman appeared. She was wearing black clothes and holding a handkerchief to her face. Gatewood stopped. He dropped the bag of money, turned around and walked quickly away. The woman ran to the bag, picked it up and disappeared down a dark side street.

The side street was empty when I reached it. I looked for an open window or door that would show me which building the woman had run into. Nothing. All the doors and windows were locked. I picked one door and broke the lock, I was lucky. Inside I found a woman's skirt, coat and hat, all black on the floor near the door. I knocked on a few doors in the building and one of the people told me that a tall man named Lytton had rented an apartment there only three days earlier. Lytton was not home when I knocked on his door. But now I understood how the mysterious woman had disappeared.

Lytton had put on women's clothing over his own. Then he had gone out the backdoor of the apartment building, leaving the door open. After getting the money, he ran back into the building, locked the door and took off his disguise. Then he must have left the apartment building through the front door. The next morning there was no word from Audrey. We still had heard nothing by afternoon.

I began to wonder about some things. I checked with Audrey's girlfriends, and found that one of them was the last person to see Audrey before the kidnapping. Agnes Danger Field told me she saw Audrey walking down Market Street alone the night of the kidnapping between 8:15 and 8:45. I took a taxi to the shopping district where there were a lot of large department stores. I went into each one asking if a tall man had bought clothing that would fit Audrey. At the fifth department store, I got good news. A tall man had come in the day before, buying clothing in Audrey's size. He had bought a lot of clothing and arranged for it to be delivered to his apartment on 14th street. He signed his name Theodore Alfred.

When I arrived at the address he gave, I saw a fat lady leaving the building. I told her I was a private detective and asked her about Alfred. She said he and his wife had rented apartment 202 only a week ago. She stopped talking suddenly as a tall man walked past me into the building. She said he was Mr Alfred. But I recognized him as Penny Quail, an unimportant little thief. I knew he recognized me too. I followed him into the building and ran up the stairs to apartment 202. I rang the doorbell three gunshots answered and the middle of the door had three bullet holes in it. Those bullets would have been in my stomach if I hadn't learned year ago to stand to one side of strange doors. I kicked at the door and the lock broke. As I ran into the room I saw Quail and a woman struggling on the floor. The woman was Audrey Gatewood. She had a gun in her hand. I grabbed it and yelled, "That's enough! Get up, both of you." Quail sat down in a chair trying to catch his breath. But the woman stood in the center of the room.

"You are just lucky I didn't shoot you," She said angrily, "How did you discover the truth?" "In several ways", I answered. "First one of your friends said she saw you on Market Street between 8:15 and 8:45 the night you disappeared. But the postmark on the letter to your father read 8 pm. Quail here should have waited longer before mailing the letter. When you didn't come home after the money was paid. I had an idea, you kidnapped yourself. Then I thought you would need to buy clothing. You left home that night just to take a walk. You couldn't bring a suitcase full of clothing with you. I knew you had a man helping you. I thought perhaps the man would buy what you needed, and it turned out that he did. But he was too lazy to carry the packages from the store himself. So he had the store send the clothing to this place. That's how I knew where to find you.

Gatewood met his daughter at the police station. I had never seen him so angry when he learned the truth. Gatewood told the police to lock up his daughter. But Audrey threatened to tell some of his business secrets to the newspapers. Gatewood must have believed she really would do it too, because he told the police he had changed his mind. And the father and daughter left for home. I could see the hate they had for each other. Not a very happy reunion.

The police were still holding Quail. But he wasn't worried. He knew if Audrey was free. He would not be punished either. I was glad it was over. It had been a rough job and a strange adventure. The Gatewood Caper.

You have just heard the story called "The Gatewood Caper". It was written by Dashiell Hammett and adapted for Special English by D. It was published by M book company in 1965 in "The Realm of Fiction", 74 short stories. Your story teller was Harry Monroe. The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week at the same time to another American story. This is Shirley Griffith.