Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Thirty-three short stories and novelettes by prolific 1920s-1930s-1940s pulp writer Charles Stevens Montanye. He wrote for virtually every pulp genre including romance, but the bulk of his output was aimed at titles such as "Thrilling Detective" and "Black Mask". Like all but a few pulp writers he had several series running: Jim McLain, homicide cop; Johnny Castle, reporter; "A Broadway Decamaron Nights", and others. A handful of these stories appeared in editions of "Past Masters", my short stories series. I have gathered those in with many others to form this BIG collection (200,000 words).

THIS MURDER'S ON ME
and other stories

C S Montanye

2020

Collected and produced by Pulpmeister

Contents

1: It Was a Sight!

2: Are Chorus Girls on the Square?

3: How Did He Know That?

4: The Puzzle Girl

5: Under Sparkling Lights

6: The Lady-Killer

7: Slight Touch of Satan

8: Sue as in Suicide

9: Fog is Necessary

10: Death With Music

11: Merry Month of Mayhem

12: Come Back to Aaron

13: A Shock for the Countess

14: This Will Kill You

15: Ink

16: Ivan’s Foe

17: Murder In Red

18: A Thousand Berries a Week

19: Publicity For The Corpse

20: Crepe For Suzette

21: Five minutes from the Grave

22: The Man Who Never Forgot

23: At 9.30 Precisely

24: Nobody's Business

25: Quick Money

26: Open and Shut

27: Twenty-Four Hours to Leave Town

28: Shoulder Straps

29: The Perfect Crime

30: Little Pieces

31: Don’t Meddle With Murder

32: This Murder’s on Me

33: Broadway Bait (a play)

____________________

1: It Was a Sight!

Hot Dog, Aug 1922

NO ONE ever denied that little Flo Jarvis of the chorus at the Springtime Gardens wasn't a Queen for class and a Shark for looks. Even Miss Verona Hurlingham, her dressing-room mate, pal and confidante, handed the Beauty Cup to Flo without a breath of envy or malice.

"And when," Eddie Garvey, the affable stage manager at the Gardens frequently remarked, "one Doll admits another of her sex is a Cuckoo of a Looker and a flash, take it from me, there's something to it, if anyone should call you up by radio and ask you!"

Little Flo was as blonde as an omelet. Her figure was an exquisite 36 and she had a pair of legs so shapely that the occupants of the first rows at the Gardens dropped in at their oculists immediately upon observing them. And not alone these visible wiles but Flo's voice sounded like the interior of a bird store. She featured a smile as dazzling as diamonds and had a way with her so vivacious that the Johns stood three deep at the stage door waiting to lamp her when she came out.

Around the Broadway amusement temples, it was common gossip that Flo liked them all but toppled for none. This, however, was not strictly authentic. Some six months previous the young lady had leased her heart out to an Artie Jackson. Jackson was a young haberdashery clerk who warranted an insult of eighteen bills a week in a Times Square neckwear and silk shirt emporium. What there was about Jackson no one except Flo had ever been able to discover— Miss Hurlingham least of all. Flo's pal was willing to admit that Artie had the usual number of arms and legs but outside of that differed not at all from any of Gotham's male populace except that he had managed to jimmy a way into her roommate's affections.

But Flo pulled strong for her Artie. Those who were inclined to ask if she had ever fallen out of a chair when a child learned to keep their questions and opinions to themselves. The little chorine packed a dangerous wallop— as was well known backstage.

"If you'd put the skids under this Cravat Hound," Verona said to Flo when they were in their dressing room at the Gardens one June evening, "you could attach yourself to some wise money and inhale a little of this Joy o' Life stuff. Honest, I can't for the life of me figure the chances you pass. Sweetie, it don't add up right!"

Flo, an entrancing picture in her pinkies, began to put on her second act costume— a creation composed of almost a yard of lace.

"Forget it," she said briefly.

"I won't forget it!" Verona retorted warmly. "We've shared each other's secrets and room and we've fought and dressed together. We're pals and I hate to see you play the idiot child and flag the Simp Express when you could hop aboard the Kale Unlimited and have your own apartment, coon maid and a red Pekingese to shed its hair all over your expensive upholstered furniture. Listen, Babe, after the show tonight I got an invite for a deep sea cruise around the Alley hooferies. Mr. Milton B. Trossel is the blue-eyed pilot. It's his bus that we're going to sail in. Be a good kid and let me slip you into the merry gathering. Milton can't see me for more than a friend but he's crazy about blondes and I want you to meet him. Will you do me a favor and be a Regular for once in your life?"

Verona expected her pal to shake her head disdainfully. To her surprise Flo hooked her dancing corset and pursed her ruby-red lips. "I would like to go out for a time," she said thoughtfully. "Artie has to work late tonight and I feel like something better than a midnight walk in the Park. I'll sit in tonight but don't make it a regular habit."

Verona kissed her impulsively.

"Maybe," the other hinted darkly, "Artie Jackson will be Paradise Lost after you meet Milton. Sweetie, you seem to be getting back your sense at last!"

The midnight party of Trossel's one of the Broadway butterfly boys, was everything Flo expected and liked the best. The crowd invaded the fire-water pavilions that still did business along the Lane and exercised their ankles until the small hours of the morning. The party split up at Wisenfeather's, Trossel winning Flo's consent to be allowed to roll her up to the prune mansion where she and Verona shared a telephone booth that was often referred to as a "hall bedroom."

Association with the irresponsible spendthrift had made Flo familiar with the fact that Milton could have been a great deal better and considerably worse. Apart from bearing a striking resemblance to a trained seal and displaying a deep interest in her hosiery, the young man wasn't as bad as she had expected. His dinner jacket looked as if it had been put on with glue and his slightly protruding eyes were filled with the fire of youth. It was true that his ears looked like a pair of mismated oysters but his big car was as comfortable as a hammock and Flo felt a little thing like a couple of listeners shouldn't be held against him.

"I don't mind admitting," Milton breathed, when they were in the vestibule of the boarding house, "that in the language of pianos, you're grand, Miss Jarvis. Meet me tomorrow in the lobby of the Ritz so I can say it with jewelry and I'll present you with a little token of my esteem. Right?"

"It all depends on my alarm clock," Flo answered, surrendering a kiss.

A week later the inmates and employees of the Springtime Gardens had it that Flo had speared a live one at last. She and Trossel motored, danced, dined and wined daily and nightly.

"I knew you'd like him," Verona Hurlingham said, a few days after the first party.

"He could be worse," Flo replied shortly.

Saturday arrived and the two girls were giving a good home to a couple of hot roast beef sandwiches in a Longacre armchair lunch, when Flo looked across at her pal.

"Tonight," she said abruptly, "I'm taking the leading part in a little drama of my own. Milton and I are going to split a few bottles of grape he just got from Canada— up in his apartment. He says he wants to tell me something."

"Is Artie still working nights?" Verona murmured.

The blonde girl shrugged, without comment.

"And I had you tabbed as a dumb skull," Miss Hurlingham added retrospectively.

Sunday morning brought the sunshine of June into the top floor hall bedroom of the boarding house the girls shared but failed to reveal the small Miss Jarvis. Verona awakening between ten and eleven, became sleepily introspective once she found the room deserted save for the usual furniture and dust.

"Limousines and bock-rocks," she thought dreamily, "Sable coats and charge accounts. It's the only life after all!"

There was no word or communication from her missing chum and no sign of Flo until ten minutes of seven on Monday night. Then Verona, entering the dressing room they shared at the Gardens, found her friend disrobing.

"So there you are!" she said.

"So it seems," Flo answered. "Sit down and give your heels a rest. I've got something I want to tell you."

"You don't want to tell it half as much as I want to hear it!" Miss Hurlingham averred hastily. "Where have you been since Saturday night? What kind of a car is he going to give you? Does the dog bite? Spill it, kid, spill it!"

Flo put on silver stockings.

"Well," she began, hiding her knees, "I wish you could see Milton's apartment. Some place! The minute I got there I thought I had made a mistake and 'wandered into the Museum of Art, Rugs and furniture—"

"Snap out of it!" her friend pleaded. "I can see those in any department store window. What happened?"

"There was nobody home," Flo resumed, "except Milton. We kidded around and chewed the fat and then he broke out the bubbles. After that he passed me the old proposition on a silver plate. He told me to think it over and blew for the icebox to get another bottle of sparkle—"

She paused to tuck a tendril of her canary hair in place. Verona swallowed.

"I did start to think," Flo went on calmly, "But just as I did so I suddenly remembered something that came to me like a flash of lightning. You know how much pride I have and — well, my hat was in the hall and Milton was still in the kitchen. I had Morvich looking like a Lame Parrot for speed. In ten minutes I was away from there and down on Times Square. Artie was just closing up the store when I arrived. We— ah— the both of us were married this morning in Hoboken!"

When Verona Hurlingham was able to speak again, her voice was weak and husky.

"But what made you duck away from Milton's flat? What did you remember that made you quit cold?"

The blonde girl pivoted on the heels of her silver slippers and smiled.

"While I was sitting there waiting for him to come back with the Juice", she drawled, "it came to me all of a sudden that the brassiere I had on was that old, mended one you were making fun of last week!"

_____________

2: Are Chorus Girls on the Square?

Hot Dog, Dec 1922

A BLUE MOOSE by the name of Bill Shakespeare once tossed off a mean eruption entitled The Merchant of Venus which featured a party known as Skylark and dragged down big dough for Bill.

Another Wazo named Wellington Winch spent twenty years of his life tossing off masterpieces at night and couldn’t give them away. The difference between them two authors was a hundred and fifty years more or less.

By day Wellington Winch worked on a newspaper known as the “Morning Bun.” For wearing out six pairs of shoes a week he was insulted with sixteen paper crinklers every Saturday night.

The advantage of the salary was that none of his friends ever believed he was leading a double life or taking women around like a regular rounder.

One morning when Wellington Winch showed up for work, the City Editor, a man famous for his ability and the dirty shirts he wore, had Winch summoned into his presence.

“The Saturday night magazine supplement requires a special article,” the C. E. stated. “The title of it will be ‘Are Chorus Girls On The Square?’ Jackson, who knows more about them than their own mothers, was out with a bootlegger last week and is still in the hospital. I’m sending you out on the assignment. Do you think you can handle it?”

“I can handle anything except watermelon and keep my ears dry,” Winch replied modestly.

The City Editor grunted

“Then snap out and introduce yourself to some chorine. Grab off her life story and hurl it on the typewriter. When you’re finished let me have it. Do your stuff now and make it snappy.”

The next night Wellington Winch had picked out his victim. She answered to the name of Angeline St. Clair. She contributed two good reasons for seeing her show which was called The Nonsense of 1923

Angeline had a figure that would have made the Sultan of Turkey burn up his harem. She wore golden curls and orchid color underwear. She had red lips full of rouge and passion and startling blue eyes. If there was music in the rustle of a skirt there were six or seven grand operas tied up in every costume Angeline wore.

She was the kind that drove men to the river!

When Wellington Winch had definitely decided on the astounding Angeline, he pulled a Nifty. First he bribed the stage doorman at the Folly Theatre with six dollars and forty cents and a half a package of Egyptian Taxis cigarettes for her address. When he had it he figured Angeline wouldn't want to toss off her life story after a hard night in the show shop and so breezed up to her apartment the following morning at the hour of ten.

The building was located in that section of idiotic Manhattan known as Morningside Heights. The rents ranged from seventy-five dollars a room upward. Not being a Simp in a Silk Suit, Winch doped it that the attractive Angelina could do more on forty dollars a week than Morgan could with half of Wall Street.

The dark cloud who ran the elevator slipped him the number of the apartment wanted. Wellington Winch polished his shoes on the back of his pants and rang the bell

A little maid opened the door

“We don’t want any books.” she stated

The reporter swallowed.

“Or vacuum cleaners,” the maid continued, “or sewing machines or subscriptions to magazines or life insurance or electric toasters or anything else Good day!”

“Good night!” Wellington Winch sighed as the door slammed in his face

He rang the bell again. No answer. He rang the bell again. No answer. He rang the bell again.

This time the door flew open and he found himself looking into the luminous, cerulean eyes of the beautiful Angelina, who looked like a million dollars with the income tax all paid.

“Listen, Nuisance,” the chorus girl snarled, “if you ring that bell again I’ll have the janitor, his two helpers, the elevator boy and the cop on the corner throw you out! Beggar's ain’t allowed in this building.”

“I’m not a beggar,” Winch protested, “I’m a regular reporter on the ‘Morning Bun.’ I’m here to get your life story for the Saturday magazine section.”

The beauteous chorine smiled brilliantly.

“Oh, that’s different. Come right in. Such lovely weather we’re having, ain’t it a fact?”

She ushered Wellington Winch into a living room that had probably been designed by the man who invented telephone booths. The reporter knew it was a room because it had a ceiling, floor and windows

He sat down beside the fair Angeline on a couch arm looked her over.

She wore some sort of a negligee, a lot of which was conspicuous by its absence. Evidently she had just finished a kip on the pad when he crashed in because under the negligee she was featuring a thin French nightie. She had two Japanese bath sandals on her pink, bare little feet and wore an Italian boudoir cap.

Wellington Winch hoped that they would be good friends and that he would see a lot of her. He sighed when she gave him the sunshine of her smile and felt like a fly in a delicatessen store

“What nice eyes you have." Angeline gurgled

Winch took out his notebook and pencil.

"How clean cut you are,” the chorine murmured. "Oh pardon me. I forgot you were here on business What would you like to know about me?”

Wellington Winch fanned himself with the notebook

"Everything!” he replied promptly

TWO HOURS later he left the apartment with the first instalment of her biography. Bright and late the next morning he went back for a second helping and on the third morning returned for another dish of it.

“How about that chorus girl article?" the City Editor inquired on the fourth morning.

“I’m going up to the flat of the one I picked to get the punctuation straight.” Winch answered, reaching for his lid and flogger.

“What you got in that package?” the City Editor growled.

“A quart of furniture polish,” the reporter answered.

About twelve o’clock the same day, the alluring Angeline, snug and warm on Wellington’s lap, finished with the punctuation. The reporter put on his coat and tucked the stuffed notebook in his pocket. Then they split a couple of dozen kisses two ways and after he had verified her telephone number, listened to the call of duty and took the air.

As he walked toward the subway, Wellington Winch felt like a hoppy who had too much scammish on board. As he rambled along he presently grew conscious of what lovely weather it was— of the air— soft as someone’s breath ; of the sky— blue as a certain pair of eyes; of the sun— bright as a red lipped smile; of the leafless trees— as bare...

He reached the office of the “Morning Bun" and took the article into the chief who paid the freight.

“Keen work!” the City Editor said, after he had glommed an eyeful of the dirt. “You’ve put a Shakespearian touch to it but you’ve forgotten to answer the question propounded by the title. Are chorus girls on the square?”

Wellington Winch blushed like a Dollar’s Worth of Tomato Soup.

“From observation, sir,” he declared, “I would say the title of the article is all wrong. From personal experience I would say that chorus girls are nearly always on the level...”

_________________

3: How Did He Know That?

Hot Dog, Nov. 1922

EVERYBODY who dragged the dogs along Broadway knew that Tony Spagoni was a hound with the scissors and a shark at the blade.

The crowd that patronized the Longacre Tonsorial Parlors always made a play for Tony's chair. He could do more with a comb and a pair of clippers than a chorus doll could with a dollar's worth of rouge.

Tony was a Beast when it came to shaving a neck and trimming around the ears.

For a son of sunny It, he was pretty well Gothamized. He could dish all the latest Alley dirt, knew what kind of garters the girls up on the Roof wore, and was a pig for the chicken stuff. The bunch had Tony tabbed for a pretty wise wop. The light of Sicilian skies was in his glance, he featured a fur-bearing upper lip and disposed of more salve than a drug store.

Tony's peace of mind was rudely shattered one April morning. When the barber shop opened, he blew in and found a new frail at the first manicure table near the door. This was an eye-arresting skirt. She had looks enough for a dozen and a shape that would have made the King of Siam break his crown in half.

"Keep off the grass," the barber at the next chair warned. "This wren is a particular friend of the boss. Get me? He brung her here and he's going to keep her here!"

The boss, Mike O'Shea, was a red-headed mick and a hard egg. He was as tight as a union suit in August and had been in jail twice for beating up innocent citizens.

Tony learned the vision's name was Flo Lewis and thereafter sighed every other minute.

For the next week he contented himself with longing looks. There was no doubt that Flo had all the other blondes nailed to the deck. There was music in her walk, poetry in her glance, romance in the way she shook an orange-stick and Paradise on her red, red lips.

Every time Tony looked at her, he shivered. Every time he looked at O'Shea, he shook.

"Dis make-a me go craz' insane!" he moaned.

When the barber shop closed O'Shea walked Flo out on his arm. Tony had a habit of going home and sharpening a couple of stilettos. After he tested them he threw them aside.

He could give O'Shea a ride in a glass carriage but that wouldn't win him Flo Lewis. For all the notice she took of him he might have been a leopard alive with eczema.

One month later O'Shea announced his engagement to Flo. The girl wore a four carat hock-rock and was as pleased as a baby with a box of matches. Meanwhile, Tony heard that before she became interested in cuticle she had been an artist's model. He also heard O'Shea was spending good jack buying up all the paintings he could get of her.

One evening, two weeks before the wedding day, Tony was limping down Sixth Avenue when he saw a familiar figure wandering south. There was only one shape like that in all the world and no sign of the boss around. He stopped, looked, grabbed another eyeful, licked his lips like a hungry wolf and threw his brogans into high.

"Why, hello, Wop," Flo Lewis cried pleasantly when he touched her arm. "What are you doing way over here by yourself?"

"I take-a da walk," Tony mumbled.

"That's nice," the girl cooed. "Suppose we take-a da walk together?"

The day before Mike O'Shea got married he drew Tony aside during the noon hour.

"I hear you're a wiz on Art," O'Shea said.

"Sure," Tony replied modestly.

The owner of the barber shop conducted him to a back room and indicated a tall paper package with a gesture.

"Listen," he explained. "I've been buying up Miss Lewis' pictures and sticking them in the stove. This here one I picked up this morning. It looks pretty good to me. But I don't know whether it's Art or not. I can't ask everybody's opinion. I'm asking you because you're only a dumb Greek. I want you to tell me if the picture is good enough to keep. Don't be afraid to tell me if it's Art or if it ain't."

"I tell-a da truth," Tony replied. "Art she's like-a sis' to me. I love her— um, um!"

O'Shea tore the brown paper from the canvas. Revealed was Flo Lewis, clad in a smile, pivoted on one foot with hands outstretched to catch a butterfly.

O'Shea looked at Tony.

"Well, what about it, Nuisance? Is it Art?"

Tony appeared to become violently excited.

"Moderato andantino!" he screamed. "Dis pitch' he's-a damn fake! He's-a lie! Molto animato! Dis is what-a you call-a da humbugs!"

"Wait a minute!" O'Shea ordered. "What do you mean?"

The barber filled his lungs with air.

"I mean it's-a da lie— a fake! Da gooda artist he paint true to da life! Dis wan he's-a da loafer. It's no-a da true to da life!"

"Why ain't it true to life?" O'Shea bellowed.

Running his hands through his hair, Tony walked over to the picture and laid a finger on the pink hip of the painted Miss Lewis.

"Where's da mole dat's here?" he shrieked.

There was quite a crowd around the Longacre Tonsorial Parlors when the ambulance arrived.

____________________

A novelette

4: The Puzzle Girl

Saucy Stories, Feb 1921

Chapter 1

YOUNG April and a day radiant with sunshine! David Ferran, turning into the Jackdaw, Polly Ann's popular Fifth Avenue tea-room, felt that on this day there were things in the world other than the designing of houses.

It was a day to make one forget the prosaic business of architecture. It was a day to inspire vague longings for the great world of outdoors—to kindle desires for singing streams and the spread of meadow.

David shrugged his shoulders as the entryway of the Jackdaw engulfed him. He found a table half way down the room and pulled out a chair. Had he known it, the complex machinery of Fate had begun to spin a web about him. Before another cycle of hours passed he was destined to be plunged into a turbid whirlpool of events. From it he would emerge triumphant, the cold hand of a girl within his own, the light of promise in her eyes and haggard face.

David picked up a hand-painted bill-of-fare. He invariably lunched at the tea-room. The Jackdaw was of no great dimensions and at this hour was comfortably filled. A pleasant buzz of conversation mingled with the muted clash of crockery; stenographer and employer faced each other across the Flemish tables, exchanging banter never permissible in business hours.

Everyone appeared complacently contented. Still, as David allowed his eyes to roam, he perceived there was at least one person in the Jackdaw that was neither part or parcel of the luncheon crowd.

She was a dark-haired girl seated at a table almost directly opposite him. She wore somber gray that seemed to be the reflection of a distress shadowing her wistful, hauntingly pretty face.

Her table held one other diner. This was a hawk-faced man in blue serge. David noticed that from time to time the man eyed the girl in gray with quick, sidelong glances. Once or twice he looked at a pigskin brief-case propped up against a chair beside her.

David could not explain why, but he was certain the man’s interest was not entirely frank admiration for a pretty girl he had chanced to observe.

The girl made a shallow pretense of consuming what was placed before her. The effort, at best, was so half hearted as to attract any keen attention. That she harbored a secret agitation so poignant as to flutter her fingers and cause her to move restlessly, toe of one slipper nervously tapping the floor, was not to be doubted.

David was mystified. She was pretty, dainty and obviously refined. She was too young to be troubled by anything grim or dire. What, then, was the interest she aroused in the hawk-faced man who continued to regard her slyly?

David’s thoughts were disturbed by the arrival of a man who took the chair opposite him. The newcomer was a swarthy, under-sized individual with a cruel cast of feature. He was Italian or Spanish and not at all the class of client Polly Ann welcomed. A furtive, cunning air hung about him, so pronounced that David felt his brows draw together. He watched the man who, displaying scant interest in the menu of the day, dropped one hand to the table, bent forward and raked the room with a swinging, sweeping gaze.

He twisted and craned his neck until David heard him draw a sibilant breath. The brown hands of the man tightened on the edge of the table until his knuckles whitened. His black eyes, blazing with an inner fire, had leaped across the room, and fastened upon the figure of the girl in gray with such avid ferocity that David felt a strange thrill.

“May I have your order?”

A trim waitress appeared beside the table. Twice she repeated the inquiry before the man turned his head with a jerk.

“Anything—it does not matter—bring me anything.”

The waitress lifted polite brows.

“Do you wish the regular lunch, sir?”

The foreigner made an impatient gesture.

“Yes, yes—the regular lunch!”

The waitress glided away and the man resumed his contemplation of the girl; twice he darted swift glances at the pigskin brief-case and drummed on the table top.

David lighted a cigarette. Some sort of drama was having an inception in Polly Ann’s tea-room. What was it and in what way were the hawk-face and the swarthy man before him concerned? Indisputably both betrayed a burning interest in the puzzling girl in gray.

Suddenly she turned her head. For a moment her dark eyes wandered. She had evidently felt the magnetism of the man’s stare.

In a watch-tick she saw the foreigner at David’s table and stiffened to stone. Her red lips dropped apart, her breath grew uneven and rapid, and what color glowed in her smooth cheeks was drained away. With disconcerting rapidity she attained her feet, caught up her check in a quivering hand and turned to the door, hurrying down the center aisle with flying feet.

It was the next instant that David realized that she had forgotten the pigskin brief-case in her haste. It still reposed by the chair next to the one she had occupied. Immediately he stood up and crossed the aisle. The man with the hawk-face was leaning forward, staring after the girl who was passing through the doorway. David caught up the brief-case and a minute later was out on the pavement.

He was a trifle too late. A taxicab had moved away from the curb. Through its rear window David caught an impression of the girl’s profile. The cab was swallowed up in the flood of traffic, leaving David acutely conscious of the brief-case in his hand.

“Damn!” he said fervently.

Events moved rapidly thereafter. The man with the hawk-face came out of the Jackdaw, to be joined by another man who stood at the curb, farther up the street. To him the wearer of blue serge spoke briskly in a cold, metallic voice:

“How did she go? Is she trailed? She was out like a shot.”

“Taxi,” the second man answered laconically. “Hall and Fielding grabbed the ark behind her. They won’t lose her. Are you sure she’s the gal from Oyster Point?”

“I am now. Come on, no use delaying here.”

They jumped into a passing cab which vanished around the comer. David did not know it, but when the vehicle had left the avenue the second man got out and rounding the block, took up a station behind him and skilfully stuck at his heels until the evening hours.

“I believe you found that case?” a voice, spiced with a European accent, said at David’s elbow.

The man resumed his contemplation of the girl; twice he darted swift glances at the pigskin brief-case .

He turned, to look into the face of the swarthy little man responsible for the girl’s flight.

“You found the case in the restaurant. It does not belong to you. Please give it to me.”

David smiled faintly.

“Does it belong to you?”

The eyes of the other were fired with black gleams.

“Yes! The case is mine! I want it.”

David laughed.

“My friend,” he said pleasantly, “you are lying. The case does not belong to you and I have not the slightest intention of giving it to you.”

The other fell back a step or two.

“Gentleman,” he said, with a change of tactics, “name your own price for the case. We will not argue about it. How much?”

David was moved to another laugh.

“The case is not for sale. I think you had better move on. I am very apt to become annoyed with you, and when I am annoyed with anybody I am not a pleasant person by any means.”

The man thrust his dark face forward, untamed savagery in his eyes.

“You give me that case or I will call a policeman and have you arrested! We shall see!”

David pushed him gently but firmly from his path.

“Call two if you like—”

A corner distant he looked back over his shoulder. The foreigner was skulking after him. David turned into the building where his office was located and took an elevator. Whether or not he had eluded the man by the move he did not know.

On the seventh floor he admitted himself to his suite and handed the briefcase to his secretary with the instructions it should be locked up in the safe. Later, when he had the opportunity, he would examine it in the hope of finding a clue to its owner. Meantime, the rush of work confronting him demanded studied attention.

The opportunity to search the pigskin brief-case became possible in the middle hours of evening. In the privacy of his bachelor apartment, David rammed some shag into his pipe and picked up the case.

What mystery revolved about it? In what sinister manner was it mixed up with the girl in gray and the men of the Jackdaw?

The brief-case was practically new. It was of excellent material and evidently expensive. A brass lock held down the flap. There was no key to it, but it opened when David pressed it. He drew out some six pieces of music. Inspection proved that they were concert songs for soprano voice.

David frowned. It was not possible that the small foreigner had used bribes and threats to obtain the music. There must be something else. He laid the songs aside and delved deeper. His roving fingers touched crinkly tissue paper. He drew out something that felt hard to his touch, and eagerly tore away its paper shrouding.

Winking at him in the light of the table electrolier was a blue-white diamond necklace of superb brilliancy and sparkle!

For five minutes David fingered the stones. He turned to the music in quest of a possible written name, but found nothing. He picked up the brief-case again and examined it with scrupulous care. On the very inner side of the flap, printed in small letters were the words, Count Nicolas Tarasova —under the name was an address that read, Hotel Bennington, N. Y. C .

A faint gleam of light! David laid aside his pipe and searched his memory. Try as he might he had no recollection of ever having heard the name of Tarasova. Could it be that the foreigner of the Jackdaw was the Count himself? It did not seem possible. The man appeared to be of anything but the nobility.

Replacing necklace and music in the brief-case, David laid it on the table. In the morning, he decided, he would go to the Hotel Bennington and ask information. He looked at his watch and helped himself to a cigarette.

The face of his Puzzle Girl, wistful and haunting, swam through his imagination. Whom would he discover her to be? Surely crime had not touched her with crimson fingers. Whoever or whatever she was, she had come by the necklace honestly. David was positive of that.

An hour later, with window elevated and curtains stirring in the night breeze, he sank into the abyss of a deep, untroubled slumber.

How long he slept David did not know, but it was some time in the cold hours before dawn that he awoke with a spasmodic start. He sat up, wide awake, every nerve alert. Something unexplainable had aroused him. He tilted his head forward and strained his ears.

Presently he remembered the open window in his living-room, the fire-escape landing it looked out on, the brief-case on the table where he had left it. He jumped out of bed and thrust his feet into slippers.

The bedroom opened into a small corridor that connected the front rooms of the apartment with those in the rear. David listened. No sound disturbed the heavy, unruffled silence.

He made his way along the corridor, brushed aside the portieres of the living room and entered it. The pallid shine of waning stars crept through the open window. A clock ticked slowly and monotonously.

A few steps away from the threshold David halted. A crafty chill mounted the length of his spine. An uncanny, inner feeling that he was not alone became painfully apparent. In the dusky shadows some living thing was concealed, crouched to spring. He began edging toward the table in the drawer of which was a very dependable and new automatic revolver.

He was half way to the table when a bulky, muffled shape leaped forward out of the blackness.

Not entirely unprepared, David swung around to meet the attack, whipping out both fists with such rapidity that flesh and bone crunched under them. A grunt sounded.

Instinctively realizing that it was now his opponent’s turn, David threw up his guard. A cruel heel was brought down with crushing force on the instep of his bare foot; at the same time a knee was driven into the pit of his abdomen and, his hands falling, his jaw was stung with the kick of a wicked blow that threw him a half-dozen feet across the room.

Sinking almost to his knees in an extreme agony of pain, David blundered against a chair and clung to it, setting his teeth against his lip to keep back the cry that would have emerged.

He heard the patter of feet, a mocking laugh and saw the shine of the jaded stars blotted out as his visitor climbed out on the fire-place and vanished.

Some minutes later David was able to switch on the electrolier. The pigskin brief-case with its diamond necklace had disappeared into the night. The table was bare. The mystery of the Jackdaw at noon had penetrated to his apartment in the gray hours of dawn.

Chapter 2

BAG, MUSIC and necklace had disappeared, but the name and address David had found could not be filched from his mind. He breakfasted in his rooms, bruised from the morning’s encounter but not discouraged. He had every intention of seeing the thing through. He would lose no time in getting down to the Hotel Bennington and—

The tinkle of his front door-bell disturbed his thoughts. Opening the door David found the hawk-faced man in blue serge that he had last seen on the pavement in front of Polly Ann’s tea¬ room.

“Mr. Ferran?”

The cold, metallic voice clashed on his ears like the ring of steel. David bowed. “If you can spare just a minute, Mr. Ferran.”

Ushering the stranger into his living-room, David indicated a chair. The man, emotionless and inflexible, came to the point without waste of time.

“You were at the Jackdaw yesterday, Mr. Ferran—about noon?”

David nodded.

“I was.”

“And when you left you took with you a pigskin brief-case forgotten by its owner.”

David looked at the man without replying.

“Perhaps,” he ventured at length, “it might be a good idea for you to introduce yourself.”

“My name,” the caller said, “is John Steele. I am a Federal officer, winding up a case of some two years’ duration.”

Drawing back his coat he displayed for a moment his badge of office.

“In the interest of justice, I ask that you turn the brief-case over to me at once. It is important that I examine it."

David concealed a smile.

“You are,” he said quietly, “a few hours too late.”

Briefly he explained what had transpired. The man who called himself John Steele listened without comment. He looked at the window through which the intruder had entered and put on his hat.

“You will oblige me,” he said in a more genial voice, “by not reporting the affair to the police. Say nothing and do nothing. Your caller will be taken care of.”

At the door David drew a little breath.

“By the way,” he murmured with assumed indifference, “I wonder if you know the young lady in gray who left the bag at the Jackdaw?”

Steele dropped the lids over his eyes.

“Yes, I happen to know the young lady in question. Very shortly I hope to
know her even better. Thank you and— good day.”

David returned to the living-room. Steele’s statement haunted him. The words could mean only that he hoped to place the girl under arrest. David picked up his hat and let himself out. He knew the Hotel Bennington as a small, select hostelry in the upper Forties, situated half way between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

The morning was as warm and pleasant as yesterday had been. David decided to walk.

When he reached the hotel and went in, it was to find the usual confusion of before noon. Porters with the luggage of departing guests hustled about; maids in black and white pushed vacuum cleaners over yards of carpet. A squadron of window washers was at work, with pails and brushes.

David crossed the lobby, which was fairly spacious and adorned with marble columns. He saw that the clerk on duty was engaged in conversation with a man at his desk, and halted. Something familiar about the man the clerk spoke with caused David to stare. Then he saw a profile that he had looked upon no less than thirty minutes past, and closed his hands.

In some way John Steele had found the scent. Was he, too, in search of information concerning Count Nicolas Tarasova?

David determined to find out. Fortunately the Federal officer had his back turned to him. He located a marble pillar set to one side of the clerk's desk and edged toward it. Behind the column David found that by listening intently he could just hear what was being said.

“You say Tarasova left here in March?” Steele was questioning. “During what part of March?”

“The first week,” the clerk replied. “I remember the day distinctly. But if you wish me to be positive I will have the bookkeeper look up the exact date.”

“Never mind,” Steele cut in. “Just answer me this: Did Tarasova leave with his wife, or did she leave before or after him?”

“The Countess left a few days before he did. I understand that she went back to France. The Count left with his secretary and his valet.”

David saw Steele lift his brows.

“Secretary?”

“A Miss Diana Dysart— a very attractive young lady. I think she was studying for the stage. I recall that she took vocal lessons. She was very dark and good looking.”

David felt his heart leap. The girl in gray, without question!

“One thing more,” Steele said. “Have you any record that the Count left luggage here? Does mail come for him yet, and where do you forward it to?”

The clerk shook his head.

“We don't. He left no address of any kind. From the day he gave up his suite we never saw or heard anything further of him.”

Steele murmured a word of thanks and moved away, David circled the marble pillar and allowed the Federal agent sufficient time to reach the street before he followed.

When he passed through the high doorway of the hotel he saw Steele stepping into one of the taxis at the curb. It moved toward Sixth Avenue. David promptly climbed into the first of the idle cabs and gave the chauffeur precise instructions.

“Follow the taxi ahead. Don’t draw up too close but do not lose sight of it.”

He settled back on the worn upholstery, leaning forward. The vehicle Steele had hired turned into Sixth Avenue and ran south.

David’s pulse beat with anticipation. Steele was the only connecting link of the shadowy drama being played. He would stick to the man's heels until he learned something of importance— something that might give him an insight into what had occurred and was occurring.

In the upper Thirties Steele’s taxi cut east. It crossed the ribbons of a number of avenues and delved into Tenement Land. A huddle of miserable brick flats, flaunting the wash of yesterday, raised tawdry heads. Gutter, curb and dirty sidewalk were crowded with push-carts and their frowsy customers. Small children played on the broken flags. Its was a region of poverty and adversity unmasked and unashamed.

Close to Second Avenue Steele’s cab stopped before a garage. David halted his own vehicle with a word to the driver and looked ahead through the windshield. He saw Steele alight and walk briskly into the garage. David meditated the next step.

“Look here,” he said to the chauffeur, passing a bill through the window, “I want to find out what the tall man in blue serge, who just got out of the cab ahead, is doing in the garage. I can’t go in myself for the reason that he knows me. Do you suppose you could wander in and find out what he is up to, without making him aware of it?”

The chauffeur, a product of Manhattan's streets, descended to the pavement.

“Sure I can. This here is Mike Brennan's garage. I know Mike well. It will be a cinch to pick up an earful. Stick here, boss. I will be back right away.”

He set off down the street, greeting a lounging mechanic in front of the garage, into which he stepped blithely. David looked at his watch. It was rapidly approaching the noon hour. He hoped something worth while would develop. Neglecting his business, without some reward, was not to his liking.

The passing of five minutes brought Steele out of the garage. He entered his taxi and drove off, wheeling into Second Avenue and turning north. A minute later his own chauffeur appeared. David saw from the expression on his face that his quest had not been altogether in vain.

‘'Boss,” he was told, “your man stepped in to hire a touring-car off Mike. The car is to be ready at seven o’clock tonight. It’s going up to a place in Connecticut what is called Oyster Point.”

Oyster Point! Somewhere, sometime David had heard that name. He handed the chauffeur another bill and gave the Grand Central Terminal as his future destination.

Oyster Point— the name rankled in his mind. All at once David recalled where and when he had heard it. It was the name spoken to Steele by the man joining him outside of the Jackdaw the previous day.

At the giant railroad terminus David sought the information booth. In no great length of time he learned several interesting facts! Oyster Point was a fishing town in upper Connecticut, the station above Bridgewater; it was some two hours distant from the metropolis. The information clerk informed David that there was a four o’clock train from the station that was an express, stopping at Bridgewater; from there, a trolley might be taken to Oyster Point without loss of time.

David purchased a ticket for the express and retraced his steps back to Forty-second Street.

He lunched at the Jackdaw. It was hard to imagine that only yesterday the curtain had lifted on die drama into which he had stumbled. He looked around, almost ready to believe it was all a joke— that there was no Puzzle Girl to perplex and intrigue him, no elusive Count Tarasova, no cold, imperturbable John Steele, or small, skulking foreigner.

When he stopped at the desk of Polly Ann to settle for his check, the blonde, attractive proprietress of the tea-room favored him with a shadowy smile.

“Did you find Miss Dysart yesterday?” she asked placidly.

David’s heart stood still.

“Miss D-Dysart—” he stammered.

Polly Ann inclined her coronet of spun-gold hair.

“I saw her come in carrying a briefcase and I saw you rush out, after her, with it. The inference was plain. Did you manage to catch her?”

David swallowed. An absurd desire to laugh assailed him. In a way it was ludicrous. He had grimly sought information in a furtive, secret manner, and the owner of the restaurant where he had lunched for the better part of two years knew and had known the identity of the girl!

“She was too quick for me,” he confessed. Then, struck with an idea, he continued glibly: “I wish you’d tell me where to find her. I should like to return the case to her.”

Polly Ann gave her attention to a departing patron.

“Miss Dysart,” she resumed, when she had made the change, “at one time lunched here regularly. The reason you never encountered her was because she always came in after you had gone. She was formerly the secretary of a French Count, but she told me yesterday she had resigned and was back in town for a few days. She is staying at the Green Gables on Madison Avenue.”

David thanked her and made for the street. At last something definite, something concrete, something to work on. He knew that the Green Gables was a better-class lodging-house across town. It was only a dozen, blocks away.

On feet spurred and winged with a gathering excitement, David made his way to the Green Gables. The place was a series of old-fashioned private dwellings that had been connected and remodeled into one large, long building. He was admitted by a colored boy and asked his business. A telephone on a table was handed him; he was directed to call the office of the Gables, located in the end house of the row.

“I wish,” he said, when a voice answered him, “to speak with Miss Dysart.”

There was pause.

“Just a minute, please,” the voice said.

David’s hands tightened on the rubber receiver. Perhaps the adventure was running out like sand through an inverted hour-glass; perhaps Miss Dysart, his Puzzle Girl, would prove to be no different from ten thousand of her sisters, each striving for independence in colorless ways; perhaps, too, she might explain the necklace and the swarthy little man of the tea-room, and in explaining rid the affair of its mystery and prove it to be something vastly different from melodrama.

The voice in the receiver spoke again.

“I am sorry,” it said, “but Miss Dysart is no longer a guest here. She left an hour ago with a Mr. Steele.”

Chapter 3

TWILIGHT was slowly gathering when the rocking trolley David had taken at Bridgewater arrived at Oyster Point. The combination pilot and conductor gave him directions how to get down to the Point, ran the trolley into a weather-beaten shed and departed in quest of dinner.

David set off down the road pointed out to him. It curved to the east. The Sound was not far distant. As he trudged along, damp, salty air blew against his face. Far at sea a siren sounded like the voice of a melancholy ghost. The heavens were dark and unadorned by the first stars of evening. It appeared that rain before morning was possible.

The road was narrow and dusty. In the purple twilight it unwound like a spool of black ribbon. As David passed along it, he wondered if his pilgrimage was not the errand of a fool.

John Steele had found Diana Dysart. It was reasonable to assume the Federal officer’s contemplated motor trip might now be cancelled. The nest of the mystery might well be discovered empty.

And yet David was certain that Oyster Point figured largely in the affair. This fishing hamlet must yield enlightening facts.

All at once lights twinkled ahead in the gloom. The air became damper, and heavy with the salt reek. The road crossed a wooden bridge, over a sleeping canal, and ended in a pathway of broken clam and oyster shells. A stretch of beach, fringed by waving sedge grass sprang up; over it the Sound was visible— a black expanse of restless water, churned into white-caps by a stiffening wind.

David endeavored to obtain bearings. To the north lay the sandy arm of the Point, curving out into the Sound and making a small harbor in which fishing smacks, sail and motor-boats with hatches covered, lay at anchor. To the south was the light punctured bulk of a large building, resembling a medieval castle or chateau, sprawling to the water’s edge. A half mile away from it a number of lighted windows hinted of the presence of a fisherman’s rest or hotel.

David walked up the beach. When he drew near the lights he found that they glimmered in the first-floor windows of an inn, time-worn and weather-beaten. He ascended to a sagging veranda. On one side of the inn was the termination of a cement road, coming in from the south. An automobile road, David concluded, built over the marshes. He looked at it with mounting interest. If John Steele came, it would be over this road.

David opened the front door of the building and stepped into the dining-room. In the lamplight, a girl with red hair was setting a number of bare, wooden tables. The cheerful aroma of cooking seeped into the room.

The girl looked at David with a friendly smile, heard his requirements, and raised her voice:

“Oh, pa! Someone here to see you!"

A door in the rear of the dining-room banged open and a man in rubber hip-boots came through it. The girl indicated David with a nod.

“Gentleman wants dinner and a room for the night, pop.”

The keeper of the inn looked David over with something that might have been a faint suspicion.

“Just going to stay for tonight, are you ?”

When David told him that was his intention, the other fingered a beard-rusty, aggressive chin.

“Hm-m— well, I guess I can fix you up. Dinner’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes. Go upstairs if you want to get washed. You’ll find the sittin’-room across the hall. The New Yawk papers just came in.”

It was after David had removed the stains of travel and had located the “sittin’-room” that he was struck with an idea. He made his way back to the dining-room where the red-headed girl was filling a huge pewter pitcher from a water cooler.

“I wonder,” David said, “if you happen to know a young girl whose name is Diana Dysart? I believe she comes from Oyster Point.”

The girl looked thoughtful. She shook her head slowly.

“Nope. I never heard of no one by that name and I know everybody around the Point excepting them what come up in the summer.”

David was about to turn away when she arranged some glasses, filled them and continued:

“Maybe the lady you are looking for is over at the Castle. The Count has always got people coming and going. Now that I think of it, I remember I did see a young lady over there last week. I saw her in one of the Count’s boats. She could handle it, too, believe me!”

David gripped the back of the chair.

"Count?"

The girl with the red hair giggled.

“Sounds funny, don’t it— a real, live Count in a place like this? Tarasova is his name. He came up here about three weeks ago and hired the Castle. I guess you must have seen the place— it’s just back yonder a way. The State road runs along one side of its wall. A millionaire built it a long time ago but he never lived in it and it has been for rent for more^ six years. Then the Count come along and hired it. I guess he has money, too. He built a big wireless station on the roof. The folks around here says that he gets messages from ships hundreds of miles out at sea. Do you know the Count?”

“Perhaps, if you describe him—” David hinted.

The girl wiped her hands on a faded blue apron.

“He is a tall man with black hair. He always carries a cane and he walks with sort of a limp. I don't know much about him but I guess he’s afraid of getting robbed or something because he always has dogs running loose around the Castle. Folks around here are mighty curious, but no one ever found out very much about him. He’s sly, the Count is.”

Save for two bare-armed fishermen David was a solitary diner. He ate abstractedly. Once more he had chanced across information sufficient to kindle fresh hope. He had made no mistake in coming to the Point. His Puzzle Girl was mixed up in some way with Tarasova. And Steele was coming. The combination should prove advantageous.

David began to be reasonably sure that at last he had made some progress and stood in a fair way of getting to the bottom of the mystery.

When he went outside he found that the wind had increased. It came in from the southeast, blowing in buffeting gusts that bent the sedge-grass double.

David pulled his cap over his eyes and set out toward the residence of Count Tarasova. It was some ten minutes distant from the inn, lying between highway and beach. It was an estate of architectural dignity. Back of a high brick wall the Castle rose, turreted and lofty. It covered several acres of land and boasted a grove of beech trees at its farther end.

David skirted the brick wall, seeking an opening he did not find. He noticed that only one window in the building showed a light, and that one was guarded by a jealous blind. It was an ideal location for anyone who wished concealment. In this isolated spot anything might transpire and no man would be the wiser.

Half way along the wall David stopped and lifted his head quickly.

High above the foremost turret of the Castle blue electric sparks had begun to vibrate. Wireless! David listened to the crackling intonations, thrilled. The apparatus was either receiving or casting a message into the wilderness of the night. For five minutes without ceasing the blue sparks glinted. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it grew silent and the window in which the solitary light shone turned black. The occupant of the room had plunged the light out.

David drew a breath. Something was brewing of which it was impossible to get an inkling. He rammed his hands deep into his pockets and felt impatience consuming him. The enigma was not unlike the wall of the Castle he circled. Try as he might, he could find no loophole, no opening through which he might look to see what was going on beyond him.

Over the wall a door banged open and a dog barked.

“Down, boy!” someone exclaimed in English tinged with a French accent. ‘“Bring the lantern, Pierre. Where is that Alf? Mon Dieu! He is never to be found when needed!”

The dog growled throatily. Over the top of the wall David caught the glimmer of the rays of the lantern. A desire to see who it was that spoke became irresistible. He looked at his surroundings. Close to him grew a giant oak with thick, low-hanging branches. As he sighted it, David read the solution of the problem. He caught the lower branches of the tree and drew himself up to a vantage point where, hidden by the foliage, he could observe without being detected.

Below him was a paved inclosure that resembled a courtyard. Two men stood at some distance from an entry way into the Castle. One, a tall, dark man of military bearing was Count Nicolas Tarasova himself, if David was to judge by the cane he leaned upon heavily. He wore a light ulster and rested one hand on the head of a huge hound that he was in the act of releasing from a clinking chain.

The man beside the Count, David recognized even in the uncertain radiance of the lantern. He was the small, swarthy foreigner of the Jackdaw— the man who had endeavored to possess himself of the pigskin briefcase.

Hardly had David scrutinized the pair when a brass-bound door in the Castle opened and another man joined the Count and his confederate.

The newcomer was a burly individual, clad in cap, sweater, soiled duck trousers and rubber sneakers. When he drew into the yellow circle of lantern light David saw that his ugly face was decorated with a black eye. There was something strangely familiar about the fellow. Unless he was very much mistaken, the man was his guest of early morning.

The black eye, David appraised with distinct approval. Though he had been bested, to find that his marauder had not escaped unmarked, gave him a feeling of savage satisfaction.

“So it is you, Alf,” Tarasova said. “I have been inquiring for you. There is much to be done. A telephone call from New York came in. Sacre! Some friends of ours have left town in a motor. There will be work for you to do.”

The man gave a twist to his cap.

“I’ve been down on the dock,” he replied sullenly, “You told me to fill the Ghost's tanks. Well, I’ve been doing it.”

The Count raised a hand to his spiked mustache.

“Exactly. She must now be ready for her little trip, oui? The Arcania has wired Fire Island. I picked up the message. She will be on time. Come inside, I will instruct you in what you must do when the car from the city arrives.”

The three went into the Castle, the Count limping heavily. David waited until the door closed, and climbed out of the tree. The conversation he had picked up was vivid in mind. A new lead had been supplied, in Tarasova’s reference to the Arcania. The liner was the fastest vessel of the Black Star fleet. It plied between Cherbourg and New York.

From the way Tarasova had spoken it sounded very much as if it was his intention to meet the incoming ocean greyhound. Instead of clearing up, the tangle had become more complicated.

Thoughtfully, David returned to the inn.

He had almost reached the sagging veranda when the twin headlights of an approaching motor spotted the highway. David darted into the obscurity of the veranda’s far end. The car drew up even with the inn with motor panting. Brakes whined and figures alighted.

The front door of the tavern opened. The innkeeper came out on the porch and went as far as the steps. The metallic voice of John Steele sounded:

“Is that you, Kling? We are here at last.” A pause, then: “This way, Miss Dysart.”

David opened his mouth in amazement. The girl he had firmly believed to be under arrest ascended the steps beside the Federal officer. Revealed in the light streaming out of the open doorway, David saw that she wore a long, dark cape and a chic turban. Two other men followed up the stairs but David did not recognize them.

“Anybody here, Kling?” Steele asked.

“Only a young guy staying overnight.”

“What is his name?”

Kling shrugged.

“Don’t know— I forgot to ask him. He’s all right, Mr. Steele. I can always spot them what don’t mind other people’s business. Come in. Dinner’s waitin’ for you. I got some news, too.”

The party entered the inn and the door closed. As crafty as any miscreant, David drew himself up on the porch. Finding a tear in the shade of one dining-room window, he flattened his nose against the glass. Steele and his party were not occupying the room inside. He waited a few minutes before going in himself.

The girl with the red hair had removed the last dish from the table and was turning out the dining-room lights, one by one.

“You have visitors, I see,” David remarked pleasantly. “I thought it was a trifle early in the season for guests.”

The girl moved her shoulders indifferently.

“They’re some people up from the city. Steele, one o’ the men, hired a motor-boat from pop. Funny doings, I call it. What’s he bringing a woman up here for, this late at night? It don’t look respectable to me. Pa’s queer in some ways. He knows a lot more than he tells me. I guess he thinks it’s none of my business.”

“Where have they gone?” David inquired smoothly.

The girl extinguished the last lamp but one and jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

“Back in the dining-room where pa and I eat, down at the end of the hall. Well, I’ll say good night. I get up at five o’clock and when night comes along I’m dog-tired. Why don’t you go in the sittin’-room and read the papers? There is not much doing up here at this time of the year. Good night.”

She retreated with a yawn and a smile. In the small drab sitting-room of the inn, David lighted a cigarette and dropped down on a horse-hair sofa. He ached with a desire for action. He wanted to tear away the obscuring veil and solve the mystery. To sit at ease while only a few feet distant was the dark-eyed girl of the Jackdaw, was maddening.

David drew away his cigarette and went to the door. It opened into a corridor that was long, narrow and straight. A kerosene lamp on an iron bracket gave what wan illumination there was. At the very end of the hall sounded the murmur of conversation.

David compressed reflective lips. Did he dare listen at the door of Kling’s dining-room? It seemed that he was fated always to overhear conversations from which he learned nothing. Still, there was always the chance, and it was time wasted to idle about and expect developments that never came.

The corridor was roughly carpeted. His feet made no noise as he traversed it. It twisted to the left at its end, affording a temporary refuge if David’s presence became known. He moved silently to the door of Kling’s dining room and found that he could hear perfectly what was being said within.

“The question is,” John Steele was saying, “whether or not your boat will make faster time than Tarasova’s? There must be no possible chance for him to slip through my fingers at the final minute. Too many times he has stolen away. Tonight must be the definite ending of it.”

“I’ll guarantee this here boat,” Kling said. “As soon as I got your wire I took the Ford and went over to the yards. This little boat ain’t as large as the Count’s Ghost but she’s got stuff in her that’s built for speed. Wait and see!”

“The Count is clever,” Diana Dysart murmured in a low, musical voice. “And Pierre is an excellent sailor. He seems to know everything about a motor-boat that is to be known.”

Kling chuckled.

“Is that so? Well, he will have to sail his silly head off if he wants to out-foot us. I’ll take you through and back and bet you half of hell I sail rings around the Ghost either way! What time does the Arcania pass Montauk Light?”

“Sometime close to midnight,” Steele answered.

“There is no chance for the Count,” one of the other men remarked. “We will grab him with the stuff, hands down. The only thing that worries me is that he will get suspicious and won't make a try for it. Mike Brennan told me there were two people asking information about where the car was going. One was a chauffeur of a taxi and the other was a wop. Mike said that if he had been around nobody would have gotten the dope on it. Some mechanic had to shoot off his mouth. I wouldn't be surprised if Tarasova expected us.”

“I think I will have a look at that boat of yours, Kling. Will you wait here, Miss Dysart? Fielding, you and Hall bring the valise from the car,” Steele said suddenly.

There came the scrape of chairs being pushed back on a wooden floor. David swiftly rounded the bend in the corridor. He was not too soon, for he had barely gotten out of sight when Kling came out of the dining-room followed by Steele and his two companions. Footfalls dwindled down the hall and a door opened and slammed shut.

The inn grew quiet. The wind played about the eaves and rattled the ancient shutters. David sat down on the lower step of a stairway that emptied into the corridor's bend and meditated gloomily. So far as he could see, he would be obliged to sit and continue to cool his heels. Indubitably the last act of the drama was to be staged at sea. He knew of no possible method he could use to wedge his way into it.

Far better, he told himself moodily, that he had washed his hands of the affair after the brief-case had been stolen. All that he had to show for his trouble was time wasted and several bruises.

“I'm an idiot!” he said, with fervent disgust.

His ruminations were swept away by the sudden sound of a scuffle and a smothered, choked-off scream. Followed the fall of an overturned chair and another cry, this time faint and muffled.

On his feet in a flash, David ran into the corridor. The noise of combat emanated from Kling’s dining-room. He anticipated that the door would be locked, but it opened with such smooth ease, when he grasped the china knob, that he was tumbled headlong into the room and fell sprawling over the fallen chair before he could check his rush.

The dining-room was small and furnished in the mode of twenty years back. Its single window was wide open, admitting the sweep of the salt wind. Of the girl John Steele had left to await his return there was no visible, trace.

David picked himself up and leaned out of the window. From the roadway came the sound of a throbbing engine. He saw a shadowy figure that seemed to be carrying another, struggling futilely. Significance of what Tarasova had said to the man he called Alf shot through David’s mind. The Count had given instructions to abduct Diana Dysart!

In an eye-wink David had scrambled across the window’s sill.

Chapter 4

DAVID dropped down on a heap of old clamshells and ran forward, narrowly escaping another fall over the front wheel of a bicycle that had been left standing against a wing of the inn. He reached the roadway in time to see the car jump away, engine rumbling.

Quivering with impotent anger, David rushed back to the inn. He pounced up on the bicycle that had almost tripped him and wheeled it out from its concealment. Inspection proved that the tires were inflated and that it was evidently new and in good condition. He mounted it and pedalled out on the highway. Down the State road the red tail-light of the abductor’s machine winked like a scarlet firefly.

David bent low over the handle-bars, calling upon all the energy at his command. He glided past the black wall of the Castle Tarasova, came upon a slight incline and with both wheels humming flew down it, wind-blurred eyes fixed as best they could on the small, guiding tail-light.

The owner of the bicycle had kept it in good repair. It was a fairly large-geared machine and well lubricated. Under the pressure of David’s efforts and the smooth incline, it gathered gradual momentum until it flashed along with the speed of a motorcycle. David clung desperately to the handle-bars and kept his head lowered to the rocking force of the wind.

At the end of the first half mile he grew aware that the motor he pursued was rapidly drawing away from him. He had hoped only to keep it in sight and not to overtake it, but even this seemed vain. Try as he might, the tail-light grew smaller and smaller.

Mechanically David rode on, legs beginning to rebel at the unaccustomed strain put upon them. Another half mile, and instead of growing smaller the light remained stationary. Then, as he darted around a turn in the road, his heart leaped. The car had stopped!

David applied the brake on the bicycle, bearing heavily on the pedals to check its speed. With tires thrumming on the cement of the highway the bicycle bore down on the standing automobile.

The man in sweater, cap and soiled duck trousers was silhouetted against the curtain of nightfall in the glare of the headlights. He had removed the radiator cap and was pouring water obtained from a roadside ditch into it, from a small pail.

With nimble agility David threw himself off the bicycle and, without prearranged method of attack, hurled himself at the kidnapper.

The man saw him coming and threw the bucket at him. It whistled past David’s head but did not stop his onslaught. Burning with a blind rage that gave him almost superhuman strength, David unleashed a vicious right hook. He allowed for the movement of the other’s head. It caught the man between the eyes and threw him against the fenders. Before he could rally, David had countered with his left to such good advantage that his enemy slumped to his knees without having struck a blow in return.

Under ordinary circumstances David would have known compassion. But the Alf who had visited him at his apartment and had stooped to trickery to vanquish him, must be conquered to such a degree that further interference would be impossible.

Blessing his knowledge of fisticuffs obtained at a gymnasium frequented during the winter months, David stepped forward to finish his man. A pounding right to the jaw and a vigorous, neatly timed, short arm punch to the abdomen completed his task.

With a faint moan his adversary collapsed and fell sprawling into the roadside ditch from which he had drawn the water.

Breathless, David rested for a minute against the warm radiator. His hands were bruised and his knuckles were raw. He steadied himself, brute exultation flooding him. The red haze before his eyes evaporated and once more the world grew level and steady under his feet.

Wiping his face with the sleeve of his coat he climbed to the running-board of the car. It was an open motor of familiar lines. Unless he was very much mistaken, it was the car John Steele had hired from the garage in the Thirties.

It was feasible for him to believe that Tarasova’s tool had ridden to the inn on the bicycle, left the wheel there and spirited the girl away in the automobile.

Diana Dysart lay back against the cushions of the rear seat. Her wrists and ankles had been hastily bound together and a bandanna knotted across the lower portions of her face. Above the gag her eyes, clear and unfrightened, glowed like dusky stars. They seemed to be pleading with David to release her. Keenly aware that his enemy in the ditch might return to consciousness at any minute and wage further warfare, David found and opened his pocket knife. He hacked away the girl’s bonds and unknotted the handkerchief about her jaws. She sat up and flexed her arms.

“Quickly! Do you know anything about automobiles? I must get back to Kling’s Inn at once—”

David smiled to himself. She, of course, had no way of knowing who he was or the part he was playing in her own drama. He told her he would do his best, replaced the radiator cap, started the motor, turned the car and started away without another glance at the man, misshapen and motionless, in the ditch.

Conscious of the pale blur of her piquant face, reflected in the wind-shield, David drove the car back up the incline.

At last, Fate had been kind to him. He felt a warm happiness surging through him. When he stopped the car at the inn, the girl jumped out and ran up the steps. She used a rust-encrusted knocker with such good effect that the door opened and Kling’s red-headed daughter, fantastic in a wool kimono as brilliant as her hair, appeared, rubbing sleepy eyes.

When she saw who had disturbed her, the girl’s mouth hung open.

“For land’s sake!” she stuttered. “Pop and Mr. Steele thought someone had swiped the auto and took you off in it!”

“Have they gone Diana Dysart snapped.

The girl with the red hair laughed.

“Ten minutes ago— all of them! Steele sent one of his friends to look for you. I heard him say that he was afraid Tarasova had gotten hold of you—”

Not waiting to hear the remainder of it, Diana Dysart descended the veranda steps. Beside the machine she bowed her head as if in deep thought. David had an impression of her enchanting profile, of the midnight darkness of her dark hair and the long lashes that fringed her expressive eyes.

She raised her head quickly.

“You have helped me so very much. I— I am deeply in your debt. Could—  might I ask your help again—”

David dropped his hand over hers.

“Command me!” he begged.

She disengaged her fingers and consulted the watch on one slim wrist.

“If you will follow me, please—”

She set off down the beach, crossing the bridge over the sleepy canal and making her way down a plank pathway through the sedge-grass. As she walked, free-limbed and rapidly, she tried to furnish David with some sort of an explanation.

“You see, I am trying to aid a Federal officer in making an arrest. It must sound dreadfully like the movies when I say that he is after a French Count who has long been defying the law. I came up here tonight from New York. The Federal agent I speak of wants me to be present at a rendezvous out at sea. He expects the Count to await the passing of an ocean liner. He wants me to make positive identification when the arrest is made.”

They crossed another bridge and moved down a sand slope, leading out on a number of rickety boat-houses and landing piers.

“There is a very fast motor-boat here,” the girl explained, “belonging to a fisherman who lives in Bridgewater. I intend to borrow it and use it to get out to the rendezvous. With your assistance I am sure I can do so in time. If you know anything at all about engines you will aid me greatly.”

David told her he owned a motor-boat himself and, while not an expert, believed he could manage to render some help.

She selected one of the piers, made her way along the elevated runway and stepped into a dory tethered to the end of the float. He picked up a pair of oars, fitted them into their locks and pushed off. She gave him directions and he rowed across the inlet.

David’s warm happiness enveloped him like a garment. The adventure was well worth its initial disappointments. Later, would come a full explanation. Enough for the present that Fortune had been kind to him, that his Puzzle Girl was inches only away from him, confident of his helpful assistance.

Their destination proved to be a seaworthy motor-boat that was a cabin cruiser. David, as he had told her, knew something about boats. He divined instantly that this craft had been built for speed. The name displayed in letters of brass on the stern was Anitra. It was a boat anyone might be proud to possess.

When David backed water and held the dory as steady as possible, Diana Dysart grasped the running rail and drew herself gracefully up to the Anitra’s small afterdeck.

For a minute she stood with face to the sea. The wind modelled her cape sleekly to her body. David thought of a Viking woman as he moored the dory to a bobbing buoy and scrambled into the bow of the Anitra. He disengaged the mooring hook and let it splash. As soon as this happened, the liberated motor-boat began to drift sluggishly shoreward.

The girl, her brief moment of retrospection over, lost no further time. She spoke to David and took the wheel. In quick turn he inspected the gauge on the sixty-gallon gasoline tank, located the battery switch and closed the circuit.

Sliding the hatch cover aside, David leaned over the open engine-pit. He quickly solved the problem of the controlling levers and accelerated the ignition, opening the throttle.

The Anitra got under way with a celerity that told David he had not erred when he had judged it to be a thing of powerful speed. Before its engines were warm it had picked up to fourteen miles an hour with an amazing rapidity. The girl at the helm swung it in a wide arc as it gathered momentum and, keeping well off from the arm of the Point, headed toward the open Sound.

Excitement began to tingle within David. The black waters and the blacker sky, the twinkle of illuminated chart and compass, the rush of the wind and the sting of the spray engendered a supreme contentment. He was no longer David Ferran the New York architect. Here, tending the engines of a purloined motor-boat, he was a buccaneer of the seventeenth century— Black Bart reincarnated.

Off the end of Oyster Point the tide was incoming. Its buffeting strength taxed the Anitra to the utmost. The girl crouched over the wheel, eyes strained into the dim distance. She appeared to have perfect confidence in both the craft and herself.

A mile out the ploughing was better. Now and then a gas-buoy flickered like a phantom spirit. A Sound steamer passed with a faraway echo of music.

At the end of the third mile David sighted the starboard light of some boat that was not far removed from them. He watched it speculatively. Was it Tarasova’s speedy Ghost, or the boat Kling had hired for John Steele?

Something seemed to tell David that before the finish came there would be events to reckon with that would require all of his intelligence, strength and ingenuity.

The Sound crossed, the choppy Atlantic greeted them with slapping waves. David looked at the gasoline tanks dubiously. Would their contents hold out? He gazed south. The lighthouse at Montauk Point was a tiny finger of light, beckoning to the greyhounds that ran the trackless lanes of the ocean.

The stability of the Anitra surprised him. It took a sturdy boat to weather conditions such as they wallowed in. He felt that he would like to shake the hands of its designer and builder.

They found a long, comparatively smooth run of sea beyond Duck Island. It caught the Anitra squarely on the beam. A wave, before the girl could breast it, smashed against the port flanks and soaked David with a cold, drenching shower. Their speed gradually decreased and he became aware that the first leg of the cruise was over. Aft the lee of the island the squabbling wind-squalls passed far overhead.

Diana Dysart raised herself and searched the dark horizon with inquisitive eyes. Presently she lifted her hand and indicated to David the riding-light he had first noticed miles back. From its position it seemed that the boat had likewise relinquished its speed and was lying in wait for passing prey.

“The Ghost!” Diana Dysart cried.

“Its reflector is broken. I know it well. It is the Count’s boat!”

David shivered. What had become of Steele and his assistants? Had the unforeseen occurred, and had Tarasova put the Federal officer to rout?

David was vaguely troubled. He was armed with nothing save his two fists. And experience had taught him that the Count and his confederates were unscrupulous villains who overlooked no trick or subterfuge that might bring victory.

The hand of the girl fell on his arm and tightened. She pointed to the northeast. Against the smug of the night, a mile or two distant, a towering, light-punctured bulk was creeping out of the murk.

David’s heart thumped. The Arcania, by every indication! Diana Dysart seemed to catch his excitement. She grew stiffly still and bent over the wheel, staring transfixed.

The riding-light of the second motorboat began to move again. Those aboard it had likewise sighted the vessel and were stirring themselves. David waited some command from his skipper but none was forthcoming. The girl’s intention seemed to be to play a waiting game. And, whatever the tenseness of the situation, she displayed no impatience or restlessness.

The shape of the oncoming Black Star liner grew larger and larger. Its course was not more than a half mile beyond their lurking station. Already crossing this space was the light of the second motor-boat.

As she saw it, Diana Dysart lost her preoccupied air. She gave a number of brisk orders to David, who opened the throttle again, hanging over the engines to detect a discordant note in their smooth, powerful hum.

Now, the ship standing out before them took on distinct proportions. There was no mistaking the Arcania in the sweep of deck and huge, rakish funnels, powdered with the jewels of live coals boiling up from the stoke-rooms down decks. Quite clearly, David was able to determine the location of salon and forward deck.

The Anitra, rushing toward it, turned in the swinging trough of the sea and headed on a parallel slant with the liner. With a dull roar, similar to that of a dozen trains passing through the same tunnel, the Arcania drew even with them.

Watching breathlessly with every nerve taut, David suddenly saw that on the stern end of the uppermost deck an electric torch was speaking its mute language in nervous, fitful flashes.

A signal!

He saw that Diana Dysart had observed the gleams. She called something to him that was lost in the thunder of the passing liner. The Arcania swung away leaving a frothy, treacherous wake that raked the Anitra from stem to stern. Something small and square that gave out a blue-phosphorescent glow fell out of the sky, struck the choppy sea and blazed up for a brief minute.

Instantly the white beam of a searchlight on the second motor-boat was brought to bear directly on the object David knew had been thrown from the Arcania's upper deck.

A man, armed with a boat hook, had crept to the bow of the pirate craft. The searchlight silvered him. David's hands closed. It was Count Tarasova, who had accurately located that which had been consigned to the sea. Even as David looked the Count drew the object in.

But as he did so there came the windblown echoes of a shot, and the searchlight was extinguished with the fairy tinkle of shattered glass!

Chapter 5

OF WHAT followed, David had only a confused conception. The shot that had plunged out Tarasova’s searchlight was followed by a brisk fusillade of shots. Leaping spurts of orange and blue flame splashed across the darkness.

David’s heart beat again. John Steele had neither been tricked nor outwitted. With hooded riding-lights he had crept to the rendezvous, arriving at the moment when he was most needed.

The exchange of shots over, the Ghost broke cover at a sharp angle. With engines firing like machine guns, it came about and made for the faraway mainland. At once, Steele’s boat, distinguished by lights suddenly uncovered, took up the pursuit.

David saw that the intention of the Federal officer was to block Tarasova’s run to the windward and force him to round Duck Island.

David sensed the fact Steele had recognized their presence and was counting upon their aid. The Count was between them. The man Pierre would have to be an austere skipper to wriggle out of the closing net and escape.

It was evident that Diana Dysart was quick to recognize Steele’s method of attack. Changing their course slightly, she drove the Anitra to the fullest extent of its power, rushing with locomotive speed toward the Ghost.

The Count, finding himself hampered and shut in, elected to make the island his destination. His motor-boat pointed its bows toward the Sound and oceanwashed blur. For some minutes it lay so low on the water that it remained unseen in the bowl of darkness.

Crouching over the engines, David coaxed every pulse-beat of power from them. He was wet to the skin and numb with the cold. But an inner excitement fired him. He forgot everything save that the curtain was slowly descending on his riddle-drama.

The beat of waves on a sandy shore advised him of a journey nearly complete. Tarasova’s run to the island was almost over. With Steele hugging the starboard flank and the Anitra rapidly closing the gap, his skipper plunged toward the island shore.

Leaving the engine-pit, David picked a way to the side of the girl. In a brace of minutes they would enter the crashing mountains of off-shore waves and his assistance would be required.

Diana Dysart raised a white face to him. She, too, knew it was the journey’s end. David threw an arm about her— waiting. With express speed they climbed the gray back of a swollen comber, poised for a split second on its seething summit and crashed with dizzy and sickening haste imp a bubbling pit walled by green waters.

As they began their descent, David’s arm about the waist of the girl grew rigid. He wondered grimly if she could swim, and how long they possibly could keep afloat in the angry surf. Then something struck him with stunning force and tore him from the waist of the motor-boat. Instantly, firm deck left his feet and he was pitched into the maelstrom.

Overpowering though its force was, it did not break the hold of the arm linked about Diana Dysart. He clung to her madly, seeming to sink for miles, revolving with the fantastic gyrations of a pinwheel. He became dimly aware that the girl beside him was struggling as desperately as he was. Dreamlike, he thrilled at her courage. She was magnificent.

Buffeted, bruised and shaken they emerged from the pit to be caught by a second wave. This picked them up in relentless hands and threw them a hundred yards toward a stretch of welcoming beach. Their clash over and the surf receding, David felt his feet touch sandy bottom.

Still clinging to his burden he wrenched himself from shoulder-deep water, staggered up a shelving incline and toppled over, face downward, on a beach.

Minutes— or years— later, he sat up. His gasps, searing his lungs like tongues of fire, gave way to rattling breathing. His trembling ceased, and by degrees he regained control over arms and limbs sorely taxed.

Diana Dysart was sprawled out at his feet. Her eyes were open and she smiled faintly as he peered down at her. After another span of minutes she pulled herself up, with a supreme effort, her dark eyes thronged with questions. He understood their meaning and searched the shore line.

There was no sign of either the Ghost or John Steele’s boat. What had become of pursuer and pursued? Had both come to grief in the surf they themselves had escaped from by such a narrow margin?

As if in answer to David’s question, somewhere down the beach a revolver barked savagely. A galvanizing thrill, that seemed to bring back a portion of his lost strength, leaped through him. He lifted himself to one knee, supporting himself with both hands. A round crystal moon came out from behind sinister clouds and painted the beach with a pallid glare.

David waited. The revolver spoke again— this time closer.

Unsteadily he attained his feet. Down the stretch of sand two running figures came into sight. David fell back against the ledge of a dune. Again the revolver flashed, some yards back of the first figure, and something whistled past. They were only a little way off.

David was able to see and recognize, in the moonlight, the limping, stumbling figure of the Count Tarasova.

As if he knew that the last card had been played, the man struggled gamely to escape the clutching hand of the law at his heels. What course he contemplated employing, David could not guess. He waited until the Count came up to the dune and, throwing himself out, dropped like a football player at Tarasova’s feet.

The Count bounded into him, reeled, and fell heavily.

The next instant the pursuer had reached the scene. Steele, a smoking automatic in one hand, pounced on his prey like a descending hawk. With amazing rapidity he had deftly frisked the fallen nobleman, rolled him over and snapped manacles on his wrists.

Then he jerked him to his feet and laughed with cold satisfaction.

“At last! A long chase but a clean sweep at the end of it! Tarasova, I’ve got you and your plunder!”

The Count smiled stiffly and bowed.

“Monsieur, you are admirable! England, France and America—it was a stern pursuit!”

David turned away. Presently Steele would be taking his captives back to the Point. A few minutes only remained to him, and in that time he must learn the explanation that would clear away the last of the fog.

Diana Dysart was where he had left her, her exhaustion almost at an end. Some color had crept into her cheeks. She shivered with the chill of the night air.

“The Count?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Steele has him.”

Her lips parted.

“I am so glad!”

Rapidly David informed her of the part he had played and begged the explanation that would set a crown upon all that he had endured.

“It is not a long story,” she said, when he finished his recital. “Tarasova is the head of a criminal organization in Paris. Their plunder is smuggled into this country and disposed of. Steele has been trying to catch the Count for months. But Tarasova was crafty.”

“But your part in the affair?” David cried.

A wistful smile edged her lips.

“My part? It was not very much, I am afraid. Last summer I went to Paris to study music. I ran out of funds. Tarasova advertised for a secretary and offered a substantial salary. I took the position and he came to America early last winter. I never dreamed that my employer was a criminal until he hired the Castle at Oyster Point. It was there that I learned by chance who and what he was, and about the jewels. His agents would bring them over from abroad. The Count would meet the ship at sea and the loot would be thrown to him.”

David saw the bobbing lights of lanterns advancing up the beach and knew that Steele was sending for them to lake them back to the mainland.

“And the pigskin brief-case—”

“When I found out what the Count was, I got in touch with the Federal authorities. I was forced to leave the Castle because the Count suspected me. I took my brief-case, never knowing that in it had been hidden the necklace, and just got away in time. Steele had wired me at Bridgewater to meet him at the Jackdaw. I had never seen him, although I had often heard the Count speak of him. It seems that Steele wanted to make certain of me and so did not make his presence known at once in the tea-room. While there, I suddenly saw Pierre and knew my life was in danger. I was so startled that I acted like a silly little fool. What happened after that you already know. I — I guess that is all except that I am dreadfully cold— and I can never thank you enough—”

The lanterns were drawing nearer. David picked up her small, cold hand.

“What little I have done,” he murmured, feeling her fingers tighten over his, “is only one-half of what I would like to do! From the minute I saw you in the Jackdaw something told me we were not only destined to be friends but to—”

The lanterns of Steele’s party were nearly upon them. The girl lifted her face. David touched her fingers with his lips.

“Some time,” he said in a low voice, “some day, I will finish the sentence."

Looking deep into her eyes he knew she had heard and understood.

_______________________

5: Under Sparkling Lights

Top Notch, Feb 1, 1922

Chapter 1:  The Katupur Ruby

WHEN Archer Glendale shook hands with Fosdick, promising that he would dine with his friend before the week was out, he went as far as the curb and saw the other off in one of the taxicabs that invariably fronted the facade of the vast hotel. Then, conscious of having nothing particularly inspiring to accomplish, Glendale made his way back into the ornate lobby of the King William and helped himself to a seat on one of the slip-covered lounges.

New York in August is anything but a prepossessing or desirable spot, especially for one who has left the cool greenery and the deep blue of the Sound off Connecticut shores. The metropolis, since Glendale’s arrival three days previous, had scorched in what was unpopularly known as a “heat wave.”

By day the city lay breathless and panting under a relentless sun; the nights brought but little relief. Thunderstorms, lurking over the Palisades, had failed to make good reluctant promises, and what faint, fitful breezes wandered through the wilderness of the side streets were humid and unwelcomed.

Glendale lighted a cigarette and reflected. He knew that unless Martin Fosdick had some sort of definite good news on the morrow, his stay on the island metropolis might prove to be of some duration. Fosdick was the head and shoulders of the Bryant Agency, a private-detective bureau celebrated throughout the country. Because of their long friendship, Glendale had scorned using the metropolitan police as an instrument to help him recover the family heirlooms stolen from Port Royal, his country estate at Sogesitt.

Fosdick was positive that his operatives were on a hot trail and that before another forty-eight hours should elapse a denouement and climax must impend. So positive was he that he had wired to Port Royal, bringing Glendale to the city where his presence would be necessary when the trap should be sprung and the plunder recovered and made ready for identification.

Glendale tapped the long ash from his cigarette and crossed his legs. He began to allow his mind to roam back over the affair at Sogesitt. It had been a high-handed and bold venture on the part of the miscreants. The Glendale heirlooms, jewelry that was prized more for its sentimental associations than for its actual value, had been kept for years in an antiquated safe at Port Royal.

No one had thought very much about taking the jewels down to the city and locking them up in a vault. Indeed, the heirlooms had not even been insured. It seemed incredible that any marauder should make the safe a target of his operations, for, with the solitary exception of the Katupur Ruby, all the heirlooms sold together would not bring more than a few thousand dollars.

The ruby was different. The stone, large and fiery, polished but not faceted, had been the former property of an Indian rajah. The potentate, for one reason or another, had seen fit to dispose of it to a dealer in Holland who, in turn, had sold it to a Bond Street firm of London jewelers. It was from this concern that old Peter Glendale, grandfather of the present owner of Port Royal, had purchased it more than three decades before.

The stone always had been looked upon as a curiosity rather than a jewel to wear as an article of personal adornment. It was unset and about the size of a pigeon's egg. That its intrinsic value was large had been evident to all Glendales, past and present. None of them ever had thought of either having it mounted or selling it.

Grandfather Peter, somewhat of a lapidary, had brought the ruby home to please his own and the eyes of his friends. So it had remained for thirty-odd years, displayed only when there were guests at Port Royal who wished to view it and who enjoyed the sensation of cupping the stone in a hand where it glittered, glowed, and sparkled like a thing of live, crimson flame.

The robbery at Sogesitt was scarce a week old. At the time of its occurrence, Archer Glendale had been motoring through the Berkshires. The house proper, save for an elderly caretaker and a trio of doddering servants, had been untenanted. The crooks, supposed by Fosdick to have been headed by an arch-rogue known internationally as Hugo March, had gained entry in the small hours of the morning.

The ancient safe had melted before their attack like snow beneath fire. The first servant down in the morning had discovered the outrage and had immediately telegraphed his master.

Thereafter, Martin Fosdick had been summoned from New York by telephone. Glendale had firm faith in the powers of his friend. Fosdick had been a classmate at college. He had founded and become the head of the Bryant Agency more to gratify a keen desire to match his wits against those of crookdom than for any financial reason. Fosdick came of a family of wealth and position which was properly horrified that one of its blood should become what they fondly believed was little better than an ordinary policeman.

A year had changed their viewpoint considerably. It was the long arm of Martin Fosdick that had reached across the ocean adroitly to pluck a celebrated American bank thief from the Limehouse district of London. It was Fosdick who had turned a white light upon the Wall Street “conspiracy” and the group of crooks who had for so long plundered messengers and runners of valuable bonds and securities. And it was Fosdick who had solved in a day an atrocious Philadelphia murder, bringing the criminal summarily before the bench of justice.

He had built up a smooth-functioning organization that was second to none in the country. His employees and agents were the cleverest and most intelligent to be obtained. A large measure of his success was due to the extreme care with which he handled each case. If there were gifts to be guarded at a society wedding, it was some man who looked the part who mingled with the guests and not an unintelligent, cigar-chewing, fat individual whose position was recognized at a glance. If gangster-land was to be invaded, Fosdick sent a slinking roughneck into its jungle and not a flat-footed detective who would have been recognized for what he was before he had gone a pace.

“Martin will recover the heirlooms,” Glendale told himself. “If he can’t no one else on earth can !”

He discarded his cigarette and considered what his friend had told him regarding Hugo March. March was a person who dwelt behind a curtain of mystery. Little or nothing was known about him save that his activities ranged the globe. The New York police department boasted neither his photograph nor finger prints, though some of his largest raids had been made on the island between the two rivers.

March’s expeditions were carried out in bold, sweeping strokes that rendered pursuit futile and arrest ludicrous. Success after success was written in golden ink in the diary of Hugo March’s life. The raillery of the newspapers, because of the failure of headquarters to trap the man, was a rankling thorn in the side of police dignity.

Glendale smothered a yawn and looked at his watch. The hour was well after four o’clock. He turned on the lounge so that his gaze might move through the open doorway and focus on the dusty green of Central Park, a grateful oasis in a bleached desert of steel and stone.

The lobby of the Hotel King William, for all of the heat, was fairly well filled. Out-of-town merchants, who were visiting the metropolis for a usual summertime holiday with their families, rested in the swathed chairs, awaiting wives on shopping pilgrimages.

North and south along the avenue, crowded surface cars, controlled by coatless motormen, clanged heavily past. Taxicabs and motors in a never-ending stream kept pace with them. No matter what the weather, the surge and turmoil of the great city never seemed to lessen.

Glendale’s gaze, idle and retrospective, came to focus on a man in green flannels who occupied a chair to the left of the entryway. The man was tall, sinewy, and darkly tanned. There was something about him, some alert and pantherlike quality, that held Glendale’s attention. He was at a loss to discover what this was until the other lowered the copy of an afternoon newspaper he had been reading and looked at his watch.

It was then that Glendale saw his eyes— eyes that were like swords of polished steel, gray and deadly— eyes that were merciless and without pity.

“Old Hawk Eye, the curse of the crooks!” Glendale thought. “He looks like a tough customer. Not the kind of a person you’d like to meet alone on a dark and stormy night.”

The man examined his watch again and peered across the lobby. Presently he stood with what might have been a shrug and fitted his straw hat to his head. He walked leisurely toward the switchboard and public telephone booths of the hotel. Here he gave the girl on duty a number and after a short wait was assigned to the end booth in line, one that was only a few feet distant from Glendale’s lounge. “Green Flannels” held the door of the booth an inch or two ajar so that he might not entirely bake in the little tin-lined compartment.

The first part of his conversation escaped the man on the lounge. It was only when he let his voice rise sharply that Glendale listened.

“She hasn’t shown up yet,” the stranger said. “You say there has been no word since her first message? That is strange. It is just possible he found her trail and headed her off. She’s not the kind of person to be tardy.”

There was a pause. Then the man in the booth went on: “I’m at the King William. I’ve been waiting here for some time. The appointment was for four o’clock precisely. It’s well past that now. I won’t delay longer— something’s happened. Look for me in twenty minutes.”

He hung up the receiver, paid the girl at the switchboard, and left the hotel without a backward glance.

Speculating absently on the fragments of the conversation and wondering a little what they might concern, Glendale decided to seek his suite on the fifth floor of the building and use the shower. That, at least, was a temporary means of keeping cool. Accordingly he walked toward the elevator shafts.

But before he had reached them, he caught sight of a girl coming into the lobby from the hot street outside, and, standing, Glendale remained motionless.

Chapter 2: A Marked Man

WITHOUT question, the girl who had just entered the lobby was one of the most attractive young women Glendale ever had beheld; so much so in fact, that he stared with kindling eyes, aware of his rudeness, but untroubled because of it.

The girl was neither short nor tall, a brown-hair-and-eyed divinity in whose piquant face bloomed a youthful beauty, a face shadowed by some fugitive distress. She wore a cool, summery frock and a black straw sailor, under the brim of which her lustrous hair was like shining autumn leaves, a light that illumined as well eyes that were twin pools of limpid darkness.

There was about her, Glendale was quick to observe, some sort of harried haste. She clutched a beaded hand bag, and, immediately upon entering, shot a glance first at the watch on her white wrist and then about the lobby. This glance was followed by patent disappointment— something not unlike fear. She took a dozen steps forward, swept the place with still another glance that included Glendale, and made her way directly to him.

It was when she had almost reached his side Glendale seemed to imagine that somewhere, some time, he had seen her before.

“I beg your pardon,” the girl said nervously, “but can you tell me if you happened to notice a tall man in green flannels in the lobby here? I mean,” she added, with a trace of confusion, if you have been here any length of time. You see ”

Before Glendale could frame a reply the girl broke off, stiffened, and stifled a gasp, looking transfixed at the open doors of the hotel.

Following her gaze with his own, Glendale saw that a taxicab had stopped directly in front of the King William and that from it had alighted a small, round-shouldered little man who carried a Malacca stick.

Before Glendale could link the obvious connection between this individual and the girl at his side, she had snapped open her beaded bag and was delving in its depths. In an instant she had produced a small, square package which she pressed hastily into Glendale’s hands with hurried instructions:

"Keep this safe ! Guard it well until you hear from me.”

Before he could understand the significance of her request she had left his side and had slipped into a corridor that led to a side entrance. Glendale pocketed the package, astonished at the rapidity of it all, turned to consider the small, round-shouldered man, and then looked back for the girl, to find she had vanished.

Then an elevator descended, and there was nothing to do but enter it. The episode had flared up like a flash of lighted powder and was over. As the cage began an ascension, looking down Glendale saw the little man standing before the desk of the clerk on duty, engaged in earnest conversation.

Glendale’s suite on the fifth floor consisted of parlor, bedroom, and bath— comfortable rooms that overlooked Central Park. Still a little dazed by the affair in the lobby, he entered his parlor and closed and locked the door behind him.

What mishap of fate was responsible for the occurrence? What was its signification? He crossed to the windows, drew the package from his pocket, and eyed it. It was small and square, possibly eight inches in length, six in width, and five in height. The paper used was stout and ornamented with a number of thick splashes of black sealing wax. Though it was devoid of any markings, it seemed to have been prepared for mailing. From its size and shape it was entirely evident that the paper masked a box beneath it. It was rather heavy.

Glendale finished an intent inspection, as much puzzled as he had been upon receiving the package. He turned away from the window as the telephone on a table beside him rang shrilly; he picked it up, half inclined to believe that it was the girl herself until he heard the telephone operator below say in her drawling voice:

“A Mr. Winter calling to see you, sir. Shall I send him up?”

Glendale drew his brows together. Memory conjured up no recollection of any acquaintance bearing that seasonable name. “Inquire the gentleman’s business, if you please,” he said.

There followed a short interlude in which he heard far-away voices blending.

“Mr. Winter says his business is private and very important,” the operator stated.

Glendale shrugged. “Ask him to come up.”

He rehooked the receiver on its metal arm, dropped the mysterious package in his pocket, and waited.

Some minutes elapsed before he heard an elevator stop down the corridor. More time passed before a brisk knock sounded on the door. Glendale opened it. not greatly surprised to find that the Mr. Winter on his threshold was the same small, round-shouldered man whose appearance had so startled the pretty girl in the lobby.

“Mr. Glendale?”

The other bowed, ushered in his caller, and closed the door behind him. “Mr. Winter?”

The little man nodded jerkily.

Viewed at close range he resembled nothing so much as a work-worn book-keeper or office drudge. In addition to his meager height, he was thin and angular. His scanty hair was in a fringe about a bald pate, his face was gray and wrinkled, his eyes of infantile blue looked out from a guileless face beneath scraggly brows.

His nose had a crook to it, and his upper lip was long and pendulous. He wore a shabby serge suit that apparently had seen better days and of late had known the application of many tailor’s irons. Even his low shoes, highly polished though they were, were well worn.

“I ascertained your name from the desk clerk,” he said, in a mild, almost apologetic voice. “Only a few minutes ago, as I arrived you were conversing with my daughter. I happened to notice that she handed you a small package. She did, did she not?”

Harmless though the blue eyes were, Glendale knew that before their level stare there could be no subterfuge or deception.

“Yes,” he answered frankly; “the young lady did give me a package.”

At once the face of the little man brightened. He jerked his head again in a nod. “Exactly! You will oblige me by turning it over to me immediately.”

Glendale let his face fall into thoughtful lines. Again the words of the girl came back to him. Was it possible the little man was really her father and had a rightful claim upon what had been given him to guard?

“I’m sorry,” Glendale said at last; “I’m afraid I cannot do what you ask. At least, not without some better proof.”

The other’s face darkened. He drew his scraggly brows together in what was intended for an ominous scowl. “Proof be hanged !” he exclaimed. “The package belongs to me. If you insist on the truth I’ll tell it to you. My daughter is little better than a common, ordinary thief. What the box contains is mine and mine only. She deliberately sneaked it from its hiding place. Hand it over and be sure that you’re doing the right thing. Come, my time is limited!”

Some of Grandfather Peter’s stubbornness had been the inheritance of the present Glendale. Once filled with a resolve to do a certain something, persuasion and argument only made him hold the more steadfastly to it.

“I regret it,” he said ; “but I can’t do what you request. The matter concerns me not at all, but I was instructed to care for and guard the package, and I won’t betray my trust. Bring your daughter here, let her tell me to turn the package over to you, and I'll be only too happy to do so.”

Mr. Winter fingered his pendulous upper lip. “Impossible! I’m leaving at seven for the Pacific coast. Once more I ask you to restore what is rightfully mine. Will you or won’t you?”

“Won’t you!” Glendale answered cheerfully.

The teeth of the little man closed firmly. His childlike blue eyes, filling with venom, narrowed to slits. He appeared to quake from some inner storm that rendered him speechless for a long minute.

“Very well, then,” he said at length; “I have asked you as one gentleman might ask another. Mr. Glendale. I'm not a pleasant person when aroused. Possession of the package makes you a marked man. You have utterly no conception of the danger that hems you in while you retain it. Smile if you wish, but what I say is the gospel truth. For the last time, will you return what I’m asking for?”

There was something distinctly amusing in the little man’s bluster. It was like that of a school bully threatening his entire class; the snapping bark of a Pekingese, training to attack a blood- hound.

“No,” Glendale answered. “The package stays where it is.”

With a sigh the self-styled Mr. Winter turned to the door without further comment. Glendale’s last impression before the man departed was of the blue eyes filled with frustrated rage. He shut the door after him, turned the key in the lock, and went back into the room. What, he wondered, was the meaning of it all ? What deep, sinister game was being played? What were the contents of the package that made it wanted so badly? It seemed impossible to Glendale that the pretty, brown-haired girl could be either the little man’s daughter or the thief he had termed her.

Yet, the episode reversed, it was just as possible that Winter had spoken the truth. He had no way of telling, of knowing. Still warm within recollection was the face of the young lady of the lobby. Something told him that she was not dishonest, that she was brave and courageous and was playing a lone hand against overwhelming forces.

“I’ll stake everything on her honesty,” Glendale assured himself.

He contemplated the package once more and dropped it into a drawer in his bureau. It was the solving of tangles of this kind in which Martin Fosdick excelled. Should he call up his friend and ask advice? Glendale shook his head. Fosdick had his hands full with the Port Royal affair; and his friend would think him a spineless sort of being, unable to care or look out for himself in any sort of predicament. It would be better, Glendale decided, to let events shape their own course. Patience always had its own reward. If the package was so badly wanted, it was possible to believe that something would turn up before the evening merged with midnight.

He seemed to know that what had happened was only a prelude to the drama itself, and that there lay in store for him a rush of happenings that would solve to his complete satisfaction the identity of the rightful owner of the box, who the girl was, what part Winter played, and in what manner Green Flannels of the sharp eyes fitted into the picture.

Glendale tubbed, changed to summer tweeds, and at seven sought the grill, pleasantly swept by a battery of electric fans. Almost the minute he sat down at his table he grew aware of the open regard of a dapper youth at a table across the aisle from him.

The young man was blond and immaculate, dressed in fashionable garments. Yet there was a certain set to his jaw and a hardness of expression that were at obvious odds with the impression of refinement and breeding he endeavored to give.

Once or twice he caught the youth’s full stare, but, engrossed with his summary of the afternoon’s incidents, Glendale paid no particular attention. His demitasse consumed, he initialed the bill and sought the lobby. He reached it, to hear his name being stridently bawled by a bell hop who was industriously paging him.

"Telephone call for you, sir,” the boy said, when he overtook him and checked the public use of his name.

With an anticipative pulse stirring, Glendale hurried to the switchboard. The operator assigned him to the end booth in line, the same booth occupied earlier in the day by Green Flannels.

With the pulse still stirring, Glendale spoke and waited. For a minute he heard nothing except the buzz and sing of the wires, fairy cracklings and elfin echoes. Then some one asked:

“Is this Mr. Glendale?”

He knew a pleasant exhilaration.

Even across the wires, the voice of the girl with the brown hair, low and sweet, was recognizable.

“This is Mr. Glendale speaking,” he said.

“Listen carefully, please,” she continued. “Would it be possible for you to do me a favor? Would it be convenient for you to bring the package I gave you this afternoon to Au Printemps in a half hour? If so, I will be waiting for you in the foyer on the main floor just beyond the entrance.”

The place she named was a popular Broadway cafe situated in the early Fifties. Its fame was known even to transient members of the seven million. It was noted for its expensiveness, its dance floor, and its celebrated orchestra.

“It is entirely convenient,” he answered promptly. “Au Printemps in a half hour. Please expect me.”

She thanked him and rang off.

When Glendale opened the door of the booth and stepped out it was to find the blond youth of the grill circling the telephone switchboard like a wolf, drawing closer to bend a head in conference with the operator.

With a shrug Glendale sought his room. He collected hat and stick and wondered if it would be wise to arm himself. His shoulders moved once more. This was New York in an age of enlightenment, not some Western mining camp where it was dangerous to prowl at night without a weapon. He recalled the threats of the stoop-shouldered Winter and suppressed a laugh. Evidently the little man delighted in melodrama.

With his watch showing that five of the thirty minutes had been consumed, Glendale dropped the mysterious package into his pocket, extinguished the light, and let himself out.

The August twilight, thick, humid, and oppressive, had lowered itself over Manhattan’s thirteen miles of table-land. Stars were beginning to swim mistily in the blue-black sea of the heavens; the moon crept up over the eastern rim of the world, hanging like a crystal lamp. Distantly, heat lightning glimmered like the swing of a saber in the hands of a whirling dervish.

On Central Park West, Glendale decided that the best way to reach his destination would be to walk to Broadway and take a surface car. Au Printemps was not more than a journey of ten minutes or less. Accordingly he rounded the corner the hotel was set upon and started west.

The block was old-fashioned and tawdry. Several dingy tenements, a building that had once been a skating rink, a silent armory, and, farther on, a popular night restaurant occupied it. Save for the glimmer of street lamps set at infrequent intervals, the block was dark and untenanted.

It was when he had passed the first tenement that Glendale realized he was being followed. This impression, hazy and vague at first, became a certainty almost at once. He traced the feeling from effect to cause and over his shoulder saw, some distance behind, an idly sauntering figure that slowed when he slowed and went forward rapidly when he quickened his pace.

Glendale considered the problem. Not alone was he weaponless, but no minion of the law was visible. He recalled vividly the threat of the round-shouldered Winter, but this time he found no mirth in it. He had been intrusted with the package and must fight to the last breath to retain it.

As his shadow came abreast of a street lamp and he turned for another backward glance, Glendale recognized the debonair figure of the blond youth of the King William grill. At the same minute a taxicab turned into the block from Columbus Avenue, and, on the wrong side of the street, began to edge toward the curb.

Back of him some one whistled three times. Glendale knew a quick, stabbing thrill of excitement. The appearance of the taxicab and the whistle of the blond youth had a meaning all their own. What in the patois of the underworld was termed a “stick-up” impended.

He realized only too well that if he was to save the package it was up to himself to do something. And, as he groped blindly for ways and means, he saw just a few feet distant the mouth of a small, black alley, made by the last two of the tenements joining.

Quickening his gait not at all, Glendale cut sharply into the alley. His first glance discovered a refuse can filled to overflowing with old papers and trash. In one watch tick he had dragged out the small square package and had buried in the can— in another second a cigarette was between his lips, and he was lighting it, his back to the street.

The match he struck had hardly ignited the tobacco and spluttered out before a footfall sounded behind him, something hard and cold bored into his side, and a suave voice spoke in his ear :

“Put your dukes up! Open your face and I'll scatter you !”

Chapter 3: The Girl Of Mystery

OBEDIENTLY Glendale lifted his arms. A swift, deft, and delicate hand explored his person. It dipped into each pocket, padding him while the gun continued to remain fixed at his side.

“Where's the box?” the blond youth demanded sibilantly.

Glendale endeavored to give every appearance of one badly frightened. “The— the package?” he stammered witlessly.

“Yes, the package!” the other snapped. “Come to life! Where is it?”

“I— I haven't got it with me,” Glendale replied shakily.

With an exclamation the other stepped back and away from him. “You stay here!” he ordered curtly. “Stick here for a full five minutes and keep your mouth shut. If you come out before that time I'll blow your head off!”

Menacing Glendale with the gun he backed out of the alley. He had scarcely disappeared before the door of the taxicab on the wrong side of the block slammed, and the motor thrummed. When Glendale reached the street and peered cautiously out, it was to find the cab headed toward Central Park West and the hotel.

Well pleased by the success of his stratagem, Glendale retrieved the package from the rubbish can, pocketed it once more, and, continuing on to Broad way, boarded a southbound car. He had foiled the second attempt to wrest the package from him. Would the third be equally as successful?

Au Printemps, when he left the surface car and approached the restaurant under the sparkling lights of the Great White Way, was in the full plumage of night, gaudily bedecked with a glowing incandescent sign that bore its name in multicolored bulbs. It was a three-story building of white stucco, pseudo-Spanish in architecture, with long open windows draped in pink silk and protected by square, fantastic awnings. Perennial greens in Roman pots flanked a narrow doorway. From its interior drifted the raucous voice of King Jazz— the laughter of saxophones, the beat of eccentric drums, and the trombone's wail of anguish.

Entering, Glendale stepped into a foyer alcove that was a sort of waiting room. It was filled with a scattering of ornate chairs; back and away from it, through hanging tapestries, was the main dining room and dance floor, well populated, despite the heat, by a gyrating throng.

As he went in and looked around, a girl got up from a cushioned nook and came toward him. Glendale drew a breath. In silhouette against the shaded table lamps of the restaurant and the dim sconces of the alcove, her loveliness was that of a star falling to earth. She wore a little semi-evening frock that was of blue silk and vastly becoming.

Her brown hair had been modishly arranged and jade earrings dangled against the smooth whiteness of her cheeks and rounded neck. Nothing of the trouble shadows of the afternoon marred her piquant face. She seemed animated and vivacious, a trifle excited, as if some unpleasant task was over and done with.

“You have the box?” was the first thing she said.

Glendale, deciding to say nothing of the happening in the alley, inclined his head.

“Quite safe— tucked snugly away in my inner coat pocket.”

She looked at him out of clear brown eyes, and he wondered again where it was he had seen her before— why he should imagine that he had seen her.

“Thank you so much for your trouble. I'll take the package if you don’t mind.”

He gave it to her, waiting while she excused herself to cross to a person who was evidently the manager of the cafe. He was a paunchy, puffy, florid man with an engaging grin and evening clothes that fitted him so well he might have grown in them.

Glendale saw the girl give him the package and heard her request that he lock it up in his safe. He patted her arm and disappeared into a room the door of which opened out on the alcove.

The girl returned to Glendale, her head high. “There! A load is off my shoulders because the package is safe enough now. You might not think so, but Jimmy Hope is one of the squarest men in the world. If every crook in creation stormed the safe he’d defend my package and guard it !”

A silence fell over them. The girl looked at her wrist watch and then at Glendale. He felt his heart slowly sink. Was this the last of the adventure? Had his services terminated when the restaurateur locked up the mysterious package?

Was he now destined to bid her adieu and step back into Broadway, never knowing the answer to the riddle; never to understand the plot of the drama— never to see her again? It was this last thought that filled him with dismay.

“I am wondering,” she said quietly when he looked up, to find her eyes fixed wistfully upon him, “if I might place myself a little further in your debt? You have been so kind that I dislike asking you—”

“Please do!” Glendale entreated.

She gave him a demure smile. “It’s nothing arduous this time. I merely have to go uptown to Seventy-fifth Street, stop off and get a valise. The house has been empty for some time and— well, it will be comfortable knowing some one is with me. If I may encroach upon your time that much further, perhaps we had better start directly.”

She picked up a light summer wrap and draped it over one arm.

They went out upon light-smitten Broadway and found a taxicab. While the girl addressed the chauffeur, Glendale looked over his shoulder as if to find, lurking close at hand, either the little, round-shouldered man who called himself Winter, or the dapper, blond youth of the alley.

“I suppose,” he said, when they were both seated on the worn upholstery of the vehicle, “it is useless to ask an explanation.”

She allowed her hand to flutter out and touch his arm, her voice pensive as she said : “Oh, please don’t think me ungrateful. I would tell you everything if I were free to, I know you must be dreadfully puzzled and perplexed, but be patient for a little while. The skies seem to be getting brighter. Soon, I have every reason to hope, the last card will be played, and you will be in a position to know everything.”

Glendale knew he would have to be content with the statement. “I know I have seen you before,” he continued.  “Can you tell me where it was? Can you tell me how it was you knew my name? Can you tell me your own name?”

She leaned a little toward him. “I have seen you before, but I cannot tell you where. Neither can I tell you how I knew your name, for one concerns the other. I am Marion North— if that means anything.”

The cab had rounded Columbus Circle and was continuing on up Broadway. Glendale compressed his lips, thinking. Marion North— the name told him nothing, left him as much in the dark as to her identity as he had been before. He debated the idea of inquiring whether she was the daughter of Winter, decided she would evade the question as she had the others, and resigned himself to the best sort of patience he could muster up.

“We’re almost there,” she declared after a time.

Glendale looked out of the side window. Despite the traffic flood of early evening, the taxicab had made steady progress. They were already in the lower Seventies. Three more streets put behind, the vehicle sheered west and ran into the gully of a quiet side street where the street lamps were tethered moons, strung together.

It crossed the ribbon of an aristocratic avenue and decreased its speed. Below them lay Riverside Drive, full of the staring eyes of passing motors, the 1 broad, level stretch of the North River, flowing down to the open sea, the gaunt pile of the Palisades.

Glendale noticed that the majority of the private houses they passed had drawn shades and were boarded up, showing their occupants were out of town for the heated months. The brownstone residence they stopped before was one that boasted neither the regular neat shield of a burglar protective bureau nor the wooden sheathing worn by most of the other houses. It was lightless, dark, and obviously deserted.

“We get out here,” the girl said nervously, when the cab stopped. “Please instruct the chauffeur to wait for us one block around the corner on West End Avenue. I don’t imagine we will be long, but I do not wish him standing here. I imagine there is a watchman somewhere on duty.”

Obediently Glendale passed the instructions on to the driver of the cab and assisted the girl to alight. They stood together on the pavement until the taxi disappeared ; then they mounted the stone steps of the house, Marion North shooting anxious little glances back over her shoulder.

The outer vestibule door was opened without difficulty. She fumbled in the beaded bag she carried and produced a fat bunch of latchkeys. With these in hand and Glendale beside her, she centered her attention on the lock of the inner door, this a stout affair of oak, trying each key in turn.

At her elbow, Glendale caught the fragrance of her hair, heard the soft flutter of her breath, and observed that there was a certain furtiveness to the manner in which she tried the various keys. Could it be, he asked himself, that they were trespassing ; that she was attempting unlawful entry; was bound on some nefarious errand?

At length, while he combated doubts, her smothered exclamation of relief sounded together with the harsh click of the lock. The door gave into purple-black darkness. Cool air gushed out, spiced with a musty tang that told of premises long unoccupied.

“So much for that,” she said brightly. “Please close the door tight. Our destination is the front room on the floor above. We will,” she added, “be only a minute or two longer at best now.”

Glendale closed the inner door and struck a match, wishing that he had brought a pocket flash. In the flickering reflection she guided him accurately to an uncarpeted stairway, up which they moved, neither seeing fit to speak until the first landing was reached and the match went out. The hush of the house was disturbed only by those inexplicable sounds of the night, ever to be found where darkness reigns.

Once a board in the floor snapped so loudly that Glendale turned his head, positive that some one was behind him. Mice scampered through the walls, leaving the rattle of falling plaster pebbles. Then followed a deep, eerie silence in which the encompassing murk seemed alive with crouching, sinister shapes and watching eyes.

"Just a step ahead now,” the girl whispered. “Please make another light. I'm afraid that I’m dreadfully frightened."

The second match lasted until they were over the threshold of the room she led the way to. This, so far as Glendale could determine, was a chamber of some dimensions, dusty and devoid of furniture. Drawn shades at double front window’s sealed it like a mausoleum. The blackness was absolute; beyond the small yellow ring made by the match, it seemed to roll forward in thick, oily waves.

“The closet !” the girl said breathlessly. “It is a brown leather valise. Let’s get it and hurry away from here— as fast as we can!”

The closet was to the left of a passage, connecting the front room with one in the rear. The door of it was half ajar. Glendale handed the box of matches to his companion and swung the door wide. She stepped forward, holding the light so that the interior of the compartment was illumined. In it were merely a broken coat hanger, an empty champagne bottle with an inch of candle stuck in its neck, and a pile of dust.

There was no sign of a valise— brown or of any other color.

“Gone!” the girl cried in a stricken voice. “Too late ”

The next instant her hand was on Glendale’s arm, tense as a vise. Even as it moved down and hid itself in his fingers, he detected the reason for the gasp that escaped her lips.

In the  street a panting motor had stopped; the outer and inner vestibule doors closed. There followed voices mingling in the lower hallway. Then Glendale and the girl of mystery heard footsteps on the stairs.

Chapter 4: The Fifth Visitor

IT was Glendale who recovered first from the shock of surprise. With something telling him that the intruders on the stairs were enemies and that observation meant disaster, he quickly drew the girl into the passageway— not an instant too soon. Hardly had they taken up their new stand in the sheltering murk before the mingling footsteps were in the hall, across the threshold of the room they had vacated.

A man’s voice, easily recognizable as that belonging to the round-shouldered little Winter, broke out complainingly: “Well, here we are, Pinkie. A minute now and we can shake a farewell day-day to this town. Once we secure the valise, at least half of our task is done. Then for the charming young lady who is responsible for all this trouble! You’re positive, are you, that Glendale hasn’t the box?”

“I went through his rooms like a cyclone,” the tones of the dapper youth with the blond hair said. “There wasn’t a sign of it anywhere.”

“Then he’s given it back to her,” the other murmured decidedly. “I thought it was only a bluff when she passed it to him in the lobby. She had put through a phone call. Chick found out she had a date with Ranscome. When she saw' me she got rattled and lost her head. Ten to one Glendale handed her the package back fifteen minutes or so after she gave it to him. She’s entirely too clever to let a thing like that be out of her sight for more time than she can help.”

“I don’t think so,” the blond one said. “I think Glendale had it, but smuggled it back to her after I frisked him in the alley. I’ll tell you why I think so. When he came out of the grill he had a phone call and I was just in time to tip the moll on the board to trace it. It was from Au Printemps. That’s where she hangs out, you know, when there’s something stirring.”

“H’m— maybe,” Winter conceded reluctantly.

“Let’s get the bag and blow out,” the dapper youth said. ‘This house gets on my nerves. I always imagine it’s full of dicks waiting to jewel me! Turn on the light, chief.”

Footsteps were heavy on the bare floor. The slender beam of an electric torch lanced the gloom like a golden arrow. With the fingers of Marion North tight in his hand, Glendale peered forward, seeking to realize what climax lurked before them, what a whimsical fate had in store, what the secret was of the brown valise that was conspicuous by its absence.

His ruminations were ended by the jar of the closet door opening— the baffled fury of Winter’s voice:

“Pinkie, it’s gone!”

Whatever answer the man’s helpmate might have made, was blotted out by Winter’s tense whisper: “Sh! Listen! Some one coming!”

The sun of the torch was plunged out. Silence again was unbroken save for the sound of mice in the walls, something that made Glendale’s pulses vibrate. Low, but perfectly distinct, there came to his strained ears the quiet sound of the inner vestibule door closing below, the quick breath of Marion North in his ear, the muted creak of the stairs.

To the quartet in the vacant house was being added a fifth visitor. Who?

The girl released Glendale’s hand; in the staring darkness of the outer room the quiet gave no clew to the person who approached it of the two lurking within its confines. Nearer the footsteps in the hall came until Glendale could almost count the number necessary to carry the intruder into the room. He inclined forward, waiting with every nerve on edge for what he knew must occur and what, without subjecting the girl and himself to a greater peril, he was powerless to prevent.

There came without forewarning, like a bolt from the blue, a harsh order: “Let him have it, Pinkie!”

Winter’s vicious exclamation was followed by the thud of a blow, a thin moan, the clatter of something falling, and the dull slump of a body sinking to the floor.

“Got him good!” the dapper youth cried. “Come on, let’s get out of here!”

“Wait!” Winter said. “Who is it? Make a light. Maybe it’s His Royal Highness.”

Some one struck a match and laughed. There was a pause.

“Swell chance on the big game!”

Pinkie said disgustedly. “It’s only Ranscome after the valise! And that means they haven’t got it!”

Abruptly the two quit the room. Their steps dwindled on the stairs. The outer and inner vestibule doors closed with a slam; outside in the street the murmur of their voices ceased.

“Oh, they’ve killed him !” Marion North cried tremulously.

She pressed the box of matches Glendale had given her back into his hands. Acutely realizing the significance of her action, he stole forward, making a light that trembled despite his efforts to keep it steady. Breathlessly dreading what he knew he must behold and striving not to shrink from it, he found the figure of the fifth intruder and knelt over it.

An explanation of the man’s downfall lay in the broken torch on the floor beside him. The person addressed as “Pinkie” had used it as a blackjack in the cover of the doorway. Yet his blow had not been fatal, for the man breathed and moved.

Glendale let the glow of the match fall on the upturned face. He was not half as surprised as he felt he should have been when he recognized the cold, dispassionate features of the hawk-eyed man who, wearing green flannels, had, that afternoon, lingered in the lobby of the Hotel King William.

Glendale got up and went back to the girl who was at the end of the passage. “Is— is he ” Her voice quavered.

Glendale touched her hand reassuringly, understanding what she feared to say. “No. They struck him with the torch— a glancing blow. He’ll be around all right in a few minutes.”

Her breathing became more regular. “Then let’s hurry back to Au Printemps. They know I met you there. I must speak to Jimmy Hope at once.”

Side by side they picked a cautious way to the well of the stairs, descended the steps, and passed out between the double doors of the vestibule that had seemed so stanch and adequate, but which had been opened so easily by three different factions.

Out in the street, Marion North sighed. Her vivacity, displayed in the restaurant, was gone; once more dejection seemed to weigh upon her. Was this, Glendale thought, because of the mishap that had overtaken Green Flannels or because of the sought-for but missing valise?

The question started a new train of thought. He had believed it entirely evident that two opposing forces were at work. On one side was an alliance between the round-shouldered Winter and the dapper youth. Opposed to them was the girl herself and the man with the hawk eyes. Still it appeared that neither side had secured the wanted valise. Who, then, had taken it?

Turning into West End Avenue, Glendale discovered their taxicab driver dutifully awaiting them.

“Au Printemps,” he said to the chauffeur, helping the girl to enter the cab and seating himself beside her.

They moved off, retracing their way toward the Rialto.

“I had such hopes,” she began, “such hopes that everything was moving for the best. But now I am not so sure of it. If the man who calls himself Winter has failed to get the valise, it is not unreasonable to believe it has got into other wrong hands. And if this is so, the tangle is more complicated than ever.” She sighed again heavily.

“I don't suppose,” Glendale said ruefully, “you can tell me what connection there is between the valise and the package you handed me this afternoon? Yet there must be a connection— I am sure of it.”

The girl’s brown eyes regarded him lingeringly. “Yes; there is a decided connection between the two. When you learn what I mean you will be astonished. I know. It isn’t at all kind to keep you in the dark, but it can’t be helped. Another directs my moves and to this person I have pledged my silence. You didn’t tell me,” she added after a pause, “that you had been held up and searched.”

Glendale explained in a few words, and she nodded. Then Miss North went on:

“You have been awfully kind and brave. I’m sure I don’t know what I ever could have done without you. First, this afternoon— Winter knew I had the box, because, you see, by a stroke of luck I was able to take it from his apartment. The fact I was in the busy lobby of a hotel meant little to him. He is the most dangerous man in the world ; he stops at nothing. I know he would not have hesitated to attack me. Then, to-night, I would have positively expired if you were not with me to go into that house.”

The taxicab was passing the Winter Garden. The hour lacked only a few minutes of eleven, and in anticipation of the theaters closing, lines of motors were beginning to thread the aisle of Broadway. Ahead, Glendale glimpsed the sparkle of Au Printemps, the girl stirring on the cushions beside him.

“One last favor. When we reach the cafe I will wait outside in the taxi. Will you go in and tell Jimmy Hope that I would like to speak to him a minute?”

As Glendale nodded, the cab came to a stop before the dazzling face of the cafe. He alighted and made his way inside, seeing nothing of the rotund manager — which led him to ask a pompous captain of waiters for information.

“Is Mr. Hope about?”

The head of the serving brigade turned. “No, sir. Mr. Hope left about ten minutes ago. He won’t return here until to-morrow morning.”

With the syncopated beat of music, following him like a horde of goblins, Glendale picked his way back to Broadway. On the pavement he came to an abrupt halt, something sinking within him that was as heavy as lead. The night life of the White Way flowed from gutter to gutter in a brilliant pageant, but the curb fronting Au Printemps was free from vehicles of any description. The taxicab in which Marion North awaited him had disappeared.

Chapter 5: Labyrinth of the Unknown

GLENDALE was neither enraged nor astounded to find his rooms at the King William in a chaos of disorder. From what he had heard Pinkie saying to Winter, he knew that the search for the mysterious package had penetrated to his suite. The dapper youth had left no stone unturned in seeking it.

The bedchamber had suffered the most. Here the bureau drawers had been yanked open and their contents strewn about. Pictures on the wall were awry, rugs heaped together, the mattress on the bed slashed in four different places. The living room was upset, but by comparison it was more orderly, for the reason that it offered less chances for concealment. Glendale perceived the miscreant had gained entry through a fire-escape window. A circle had been cut in the glass under the latch, large enough to admit a slender hand.

Glendale tidied up the best he could and retired. When he awoke, the hot sun of another day was well up over the city. From early indications it promised to be a torrid record breaker.

Glendale tubbed, shaved, and breakfasted, resolved that, now he had lost all traces of the mystery, it was time to seek the advice of his friend Martin Fosdick. Perhaps, he concluded, after all he had made a mistake in not telephoning him the previous evening.

How was Glendale to know that some malignant fate had not overtaken the girl with the wistful brown eyes and the lustrous brown hair? Try as he might, he could not put from him the recollection of what she had termed Winter. “The most dangerous man in the world,” she had called him. And secretly, though he would not admit it, he felt that it was the hand of the round-shouldered man that had drawn the taxicab away from the entrance of Au Printemps.

Breakfast completed and the first cigarette of the day afire, Glendale obtained his hat and stick. He informed the management of the hotel that his suite had been broken into; then he went out. Martin Fosdick’s agency occupied two floors in Harpsichord Hall, a modern office building on Forty-second Street, across from Bryant Park and the Public Library.

When Glendale reached it his card was taken in by an office boy who requested that he seat himself in the waiting room. Five minutes elapsed before a blond young woman, whom he recognized from previous visits as his friend’s secretary, came in with his card.

“Mr. Fosdick," she said, “will not be in to-day. He is away on a very important case. I don’t expect him here much before to-morrow afternoon.”

Back on Forty-second street Glendale knit his brows. Fate appeared to be in a jesting humor. He could think of no possible means of finding a way back to the girl through the labyrinth of the unknown. As shadowy as the preceding night itself, the drama with all the characters concerned in it had vanished into thin air. It was as if a curtain had rolled down between a stage and the audience of one. The riddle intricate had got away from Glendale.

It was only when he was crossing Times Square he suddenly remembered that, alone of all things, something still was stationary and permanent, bulking largely through the mists of his perplexities.

This was the empty house on Seventy-fifth Street which he had penetrated with Marion North so recently.

Could he hope to find in the building some tangible something that would reward his labor? Did the hawk-eyed Green Flannels still lie supine on the floor in the front room on the second story? At least, he told himself, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain if he decided upon a pilgrimage to the house. Recrossing the Hub of the Universe, Glendale hailed a surface car and boarded it.

There was no chance of mistaking the house in the vivid shine of the hot August day. The block itself displayed but little activity. A coal truck was running a stream of black diamonds down a hole in the pavement; an express wagon, piled high with trunks, was receiving more from a house nearest the corner of West End Avenue. A maid was lowering the awnings of a place across the street.

Glendale continued until he was abreast of the house in which he had lurked the night before. Viewed by daylight it was a complacent affair of brownstone, different neither in size, shape, nor appearance from those hedging it in. Its windows were fairly clean ; save for the fact that every shade was jealously drawn, it appeared inhabited.

Glendale appraised the house quizzically, passing its stoop and trying to decide if it was worth while to test its double doors and seek admittance. He was a pace or two away from it when something shot through him that was like the flash of a spark along a fuse.

This was the closing swing of one of the doors he had been thinking about, and the sudden appearance on the top step of Pinkie, the dapper youth with the blond hair.

Lifting his hands to shield his face, in the attitude of a person trying to light a cigarette, Glendale stopped in his tracks and used his eyes. Without the trouble of a glance about him, the youth ran lightly down the steps and turned in the direction of Broadway. When he had crossed West End Avenue, Glendale leisurely followed.

There was a cigar store on the south-west corner of the street’s intersection with the avenue. The blond youth promptly stepped into it. When Glendale reached it and looked cautiously through the open door, it was to find that the person he followed was in the act of entering a telephone booth, four of which were at the rear of the store.

Judging the proximity of the cigar counter to the booths, and deciding to risk it, Glendale entered. Keeping his back to the rear of the shop and his face out of range of the other’s vision, through the door of the booth, he edged along the plate-glass case, bending and considering the cigars on display. When he had backed to within earshot of the booth, he heard the blond youth give the central operator a number which was unintelligible. His words, however, which immediately followed, were not.

“This is Pinkie speaking, boss,” he said. “I just left the house. Ranscome’s gone. I don’t know whether he pulled out by himself or if some one helped him. Anyway, he’s taken the air. What’s the next thing on the books? I'm up here on the corner of Seventy-fifth Street.”

Glendale tingled. Without question the youth was conversing with Winter. He had taken the one chance and made good on it. At last he was on a highway that led to something definite. He purchased three cigars and continued to hang upon every word that filtered out from the booth.

“I’ll fix that up right away,” Pinkie went on. “I’ll see Mike Ryan and hire his bus. I’ll be up about eleven o’clock unless I get a bad breakdown here in town. You know what I mean. Have Chick meet me at eleven at the float. Tell him to wait if I’m not there on the dot. Right? ’By,”

He left both the booth and the store hastily, passing so close to Glendale that his sleeve brushed his arm.

When Glendale followed him out, the dapper one was swinging up on the front of the running board of a southbound open car. For a wild instant it appeared that he must make a clean getaway. Disregarding all traffic laws, Glendale surged forward in a fifty-yard sprint that carried him up to the end platform of the car where he scrambled aboard, turned, and discovered his quarry well forward, still unsuspecting.

Intuition told Glendale that there was still much to learn. Whether he learned it depended upon his ability to stick close to the heels of the aggressive Pinkie. What he had heard in the cigar store seemed to suggest that the last scenes of the drama were shifting to a locale other than the metropolis.

Pinkie had spoken of a “bus” and a “float;” the former seemed to insinuate flight, the latter a rendezvous somewhere upon the water. High hope flooded him. At last, after hours of stress and doubt, the girl with the brown eyes seemed somewhere just beyond, not swallowed up and lost in a muffling desert of darkness.

Keeping a wary eye glued to Winter’s accomplice, Glendale allowed his imagination to paint mental pictures of Marion North. Once more she was in the lobby of the Hotel King William, giving him the package. Once more she was radiant and beautiful against the shaded table lights and sconces of Au Printemps. Once more her little white hand rested in his in the blackness of the passage of the empty house. He felt himself strangely drawn to her, with heart and pulses quickening their beat.

He had nothing save his own steadfast confidence and faith to cling to— no logical way of knowing who and what she was ; no certain way of proving she was not Winter’s daughter, an adventuress, a bird of black plumage, a thief. By her own admission Miss North confessed that she had filched the package she had handed him from the apartment of the round-shouldered little man.

But despite this, his heart told him that she was unsoiled and guiltless; a girl whose feet trod dark ways, but whose eyes were turned always to the light.

Glendale’s reflections were ended by the sight of Pinkie arising to give the bell rope a lusty tug. The surface car had delved into the Fifties, and Flash Alley roared just ahead. The dapper youth swung off the car and headed for the pavement. Glendale allowed his conveyance to move on to the next corner before alighting and turning back.

It was now somewhat after the noon hour and the thoroughfare was well populated with pedestrians, clerks, and office hands of the neighborhood bound for luncheons. The throng checked Glendale’s advance and it was three minutes before he discovered Pinkie well down a side street, swinging briskly along.

He took up the pursuit again with a breath of relief, taking pains not to press the other too hard, for, despite his haste, the immaculate youth seemed to have an inclination to look back every now and then, a fact that made Glendale dodge behind people in front of him and linger in doorways until the other put more ground between them.

In this fashion they both crossed Eighth Avenue. It was then that Glendale sighted the destination of the one he trailed. Midway down the block was a large garage. It was into this building that the man turned.

With an introspective frown, Glendale halted and narrowed his eyes. So far his good fortune had been phenomenal. His feet were firmly planted on the brink of clear revelations; he must do nothing to jeopardize his luck, lest, when victory confronted him, it be snatched away, its laurels replaced by the sour grapes of humiliation. He decided to maneuver with infinite care and so began to edge closer to the garage.

This, a three-story building, sprawled well along the street. Its fireproof doors were drawn wide. Out of them floated the splash of a hose, the purr of a motor being started and stopped, the cheerful sound of whistling. Because the hour was lunch time, no chauffeurs idled before it.

Prudently Glendale approached the first open door. Though he was favored by no loungers loitering about to speculate upon his presence, this piece of luck was balanced by the fact that some one from within might glimpse him and come out to learn his wishes. But the good fortune that guided him continued to smile, for he had hardly taken up his new stand, before the voice of Pinkie, loudly lifted, sounded.

“Where’s Ryan, Eddie?” he called to some one presumably in the rear of the place. “Hey, Eddie, come here a minute, will you?”

The purring of the engine ceased.

“ ’Lo, Pinkie,” some one said cordially. “Looking for Mike? He went over to see about getting some tires vulcanized. What’s on your mind besides your hat?”

“How are the chances for getting the Packard at ten to-night? I got a lot of things to do this afternoon and I can’t fool around and wait for Ryan to come back. You know whether the bus is booked or not, don’t you? What’s the answer?”

“She’s booked up to six,” said the other. “After that you can have her any time you want. Where are you going and how long do you want to keep her?”

Glendale’s lips tightened. On the answer of the blond youth hinged the complete success or failure of the enterprise.

“We’re going up to Bailey’s place beyond Pelham Bay Park. I’d like to have a clever boy at the wheel. The boss and me might have to get out in a hurry, and I want some one who knows how to drive a few on the job. I’ll hire the bus until five or six tomorrow morning. Write me a ticket for it and tell Ryan I will be here at ten o’clock sharp. It’s worth a century. Got that all straight, Eddie?”

“Got you!” the second speaker said. “She’ll be ready when you want her, and ”

Glendale waited no longer.

Aware that what else he might hear probably would l)e inconsequential and that Pinkie was likely to come out at any minute, he crossed the street and headed for Broadway. A warm flush of success rioted in his veins. The last link in the chain seemed welded. “Bailey’s place beyond Pelham Bay Park !” He had learned the setting for the last act of the mystery, a definite clew to the whereabouts of the picaroons who he was sure had everything to do with Marion North’s disappearance.

On Broadway he determined to put into effect a plan he had stored in the back of his mind and walked south, to the outskirts of theater land.

An Printemps, two streets below, was a different place by day. With its glittering sign extinguished and its pink draperies limply disconsolate in the streaming August sunshine, it was cheap and tawdry. Glendale entered between the Roman pots of plants, stepping into the foyer alcove where, the previous evening, the girl with the brown eyes had arisen to meet him.

The cafe catered principally to the night crowd of the Rialto. But few of its tables were occupied by diners consuming a midday meal. Tranquillity prevailed ; the restaurant was a very different place from what it had been on the occasion of his last visit.

The door of the manager’s office was ajar. Within it, Jimmy Hope, in flamboyant black-and-white checks, a pongee shirt with a soft collar speared by a jeweled pin and a knitted cravat, sat before his desk, engaged with a cigar and a heap of bills.

He looked up as Glendale’s shadow fell athwart his desk and nodded affably.

“How are you? Not looking for Miss North, are you?”

“I was wondering.” Glendale began awkwardly, “whether she had called for the package she gave you last night?”

The restaurateur shook his head. “No; not yet. It is locked up in the safe and it’s going to stay locked up until she comes here and asks me for it. Say, what does the darn thing contain, anyway? You’re the third person who’s been in here this morning trying to get a line on it.”

“The third !” Glendale exclaimed.

The manager grinned mirthlessly. “Yes; the third! One— two— three, count ’em. The first was some chap with patent leather, yellow hair, and a pair of shifty eyes. He had the nerve to tell me that Miss North sent him down for the package. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about and sent him on his way. The second was a little better. He just came in a little while ago. His name was Ranscome, and he seemed to be trying to get a line on where Miss North was.

“I gave him all the information I had until he began to chirp about the package,” Hope continued. “Then I told him not to slam the front door on his way out. You’re the third one. I don’t know what the idea is, but I’ll tell you this much. The one who gets that little package out of my safe will have to use either hypnotism or dynamite!”

Chapter 6: Wearing a Mask

AGAIN on Broadway, Glendale turned in the direction of the Bryant Agency, which he soon reached. Fosdick had returned, it appeared. The office boy once more disappeared with his card, came back, and bade him follow.

With anticipation keen within him, Glendale was ushered into the private office of his friend. Fosdick sat before a glass-covered desk. He was dictating a letter to his blond secretary, but dismissed her and turned to Glendale.

‘‘Hello, Archer! Sorry I wasn’t in when you called this morning. I returned about ten minutes ago— didn’t expect to, but affairs rather slumped at the last minute. You look worried. Here, sit down and tell me all your troubles.”

Glendale seated himself and without prelude plunged into his story. He began with the scene in the lobby of the King William, building the tale step by step until he concluded with his visit to Au Printemps. Fosdick listened without comment, punctuating the narrative once or twice with a nod, but otherwise displaying no particular interest or concern.

“I’m going up to Bailey’s place beyond Pelham Bay Park to-night. I’m going to follow the Packard this Pinkie hired,” Glendale added after he had finished the narrative of past events.

“If your friend spoke about a float,” Fosdick said, “it means his destination is somewhere other than Bailey’s. I know that place well. The chances are that the rendezvous is at Cranberry Island, farther out.”

For some time the two spoke earnestly; Fosdick became attentive, anxious, displaying a flash of animation which told the other that the detective’s indifference had been merely a bland mask which hid a keen interest.

“Another thing,” Fosdick said at last. “I’ll supply you with a car so you can follow the Packard. I’ll send it up to the hotel at half past nine. Drop a gun in your pocket before you start out.” He stood and offered his hand.

“Do you believe there’s something big in it?” Glendale asked.

The detective donned his mask again and shrugged. “Perhaps. It won’t hurt to look into it. It’s an interesting story. You can never tell what’s going to result until you probe things.”

They shook hands, and Glendale departed.

Chapter 7: Birds of Prey

THE night held the promise of thunderstorms. Far away lightning flickered; thunder was like the echoes of elfin artillery. The metropolis, expectant of cooling showers, lay in a breathless calm. The street noises were hushed. The city seemed to go on tip-toe; a spirit of adventure was abroad, Orientalizing street and avenue that writhed in a welter of their own heat.

In the two-seated racing roadster that Fosdick had sent to the hotel for him, some forty minutes previous, Glendale lurked a hundred yards west of Ryan’s garage. The car was drawn toward the curb in such fashion as not only to command a view of the doors of the place, but to be free to spring away in instant chase, once the pirate vehicle chartered by Pinkie made an appearance.

His watch marking the hour of ten precisely, Glendale lifted his gaze to the chauffeur. The man, lank and tall, had introduced himself as Gus Tremaine. Whether he was one of Fosdick’s aids or only drove for the Bryant Agency, Glendale had no way of knowing. The man sat moodily taciturn, only the brightness of his eyes betraying his interest in the proceedings.

Glendale turned his gaze from his watch to the open doors of the garage. “We shouldn’t have to wait long now,” he remarked. “The man we’re to follow said ten o’clock. When the Packard appears I don’t want you to crowd it too closely; neither do I want you to lose sight of it. A happy medium between far and near will be the right thing, I think.’’

“He won’t get away,” Tremaine promised.

Ten more minutes elapsed without sign of the dapper Pinkie or the hired car. Glendale trained his glance on the garage. A night-hawking taxicab was having its tank filled from the gasoline pump on the sidewalk. A limousine with a chauffeur dozing on its front seat was the only other car before it. Somewhere inside a dim light burned and the splash of the hose sounded again. Fifteen more minutes elapsed. At last half past ten arrived and then twenty- five minutes to eleven.

“Looks like he wasn’t coming,” the lean Tremaine remarked casually.

Glendale grew restless. Had something unlooked for cropped up to mar what seemed a perfect plot? Had Pinkie been aware that he had been trailed and had he made the arrangements to throw his shadower off the scent?

Mature consideration of the idea made Glendale conscious that his deductions might be correct in every particular. Thinking it useless to sit and speculate idly with the minutes running away, lie opened the side door of the car and got out.

“Wait here,” he said to Tremaine. “I’ll be back directly.”

Slipping across the street he found it an easy matter to peer into the garage from the outer gloom. Visible within the place were two men in rubber hip boots who with hose and sponges were industriously cleaning a seven-passenger touring car. Of Winter’s partner there was no sign ; neither did Glendale see a Packard standing in readiness for use.

With a twitch to the soft cap donned for the occasion, he entered the garage and addressed the mechanic who was using the sponge. “Seen anything of my friend Pinkie? I was to pick him up at ten-fifteen and he hasn’t shown himself yet.”

The man tossed his sponge into a pail of water and signaled the custodian of the hose. “What time did Pinkie’s bus roll out, Eddie?”

The other rubbed a cauliflower ear.

“Fifteen after nine. It was to pick him up at Skelley’s place in Harlem at quarter of. If you’re looking for him you’re out of luck, bo. By now he’s halfway up to Bailey’s place.”

“What’s the quickest way to get up there?” Glendale inquired.

The man shifted his tobacco from one side of his face to the other. “Straight up "to Pelham Parkway. Follow it to the Shore Road. Take the City Island turn to the right, but turn left before you reach the bridge. It’s a dirt road all the way out to Bailey’s, but it ain’t so bad. Stay on it, and it will take you right out at the hotel.”

Glendale thanked him and returned to the roadster. He informed Tremaine of the new turn of events and asked an opinion.

“The best thing is to get right out there,” the other advised. “If your man hasn’t got too much of a start on us we can overtake him on the road. Jump in and let’s go!”

Through the lower part of the city and the Bronx Tremaine drove with a vast respect for traffic rules and regulations. But once Bronx Park was passed and the smooth level of Pelham Parkway began, he coaxed the roadster forward, swinging the needle of the speedometer far over.

They rushed through the night like an express train striving to make up lost time. A self-created wind whistled by Glendale’s ears; the arc lights dipped past like shooting stars; twice he heard the scream of a patrolman’s whistle and once glimpsed a chasing motor cycle which they lost instantly. The boulevard ran straight and true into the Shore Road.

Here Tremaine slowed the roadster to a more decorous rate of speed, snapped back a lever on the dash he had pulled up before their flight, and chuckled.

“A little invention of Mr. Fosdick’s. When I open her up wide I pull the switch and a couple of wires turn the license plates over so nobody can read them. ‘Of course the cops will phone ahead, but the description they got of us when we passed don’t cut any ice. I'll put up the top and dim the big front headlights and nobody will as much as speak to us. Wait and see if I’m not right.”

Nobody did halt them though they passed a patrol booth at the City Island turn, where two policemen with motor cycles were watching the highway.

“First road to the left before you reach the bridge,” Glendale said.

“I know the road,” Tremaine answered. “It leads to Bailey’s old place. It used to be a hang-out for picnickers, bathers, fishing parties, and soaks in the old days before prohibition came along. Now it’s pretty well run down. I’ll open her up again as soon as we make the turn.”

The dirt road the mechanic in Ryan’s garage had spoken of was discovered without trouble. It was perhaps five miles long, narrow, and full of unexpected twists— turns that bothered Tremaine not at all.

Once more he shot the car along like a locomotive, slowing only when the road became full of broken clamshells, and a mile ahead the misty vista of the Sound spread out like a flat, black mirror, hung with filmy curtains.

They turned twice and then struck a down grade that led to some sort of a shelving beach, back from which bulked a huge, ramshackle wooden building, dark except for the shine of a kerosene lamp in one window that overlooked a rickety porch with a sagging railing.

“That’s Bailey’s,” Tremaine announced. “Looks like the Ritz, don’t it? Lot of folks mistake it.”

The car stopped. Staring, Glendale stroked his chin. To the east, in the night, the north shore of Long Island loomed vaguely, like a low-drifted bank of cloud. Off to the left were the faraway lights of some town that might have been New Rochelle or Larchmont. Between the two, a wall of humidity, dull and lusterless, had taken body since the twilight, masking the skies and shut- ting down upon the sea like the rim of some great bowl.

Glendale shook himself. This was the setting for the last act of the drama. What would come out of it? What were the true characters and the identity of those who took the leading roles? He alighted from the roadster and looked at his watch. It was some twenty minutes after eleven— twenty minutes past the time that Pinkie had promised to be present at the “float.”

He wheeled and surveyed the night- draped panorama in front of him. Before the dilapidated building was a sort of wooden runway that led across the beach, against which small, puny wavelets flung themselves monotonously, to a landing wharf of some size, close to which a few dingy boats nestled wearily.

As his eyes fell upon the float, Glendale recalled what Fosdick had said concerning Cranberry Island. He knit his brows, wondering if the speculation of his friend were correct— determining to verify it.

Putting his feet in motion he made his way to the empty hotel, mounted the veranda steps, and knocked loudly on the weather-stained door. The summons was such as to bring him face to face with an angular man, whose seamy, tanned face wore a sandy stubble of several days’ growth. This individual was attired in a soiled, collarless shirt, a pair of khaki trousers, and apparently not much else.

He favored his caller with a sleepy stare. “What you want?”

“I’m looking for a pal of mine,” Glendale replied glibly. “Friend by the name of Pinkie. I was to meet him at Skelley’s at a quarter of ten, but I was late and missed him. Do you know if he’s got up here yet?”

The man in the doorway hesitated a moment ; then he said: “He went out to the island about twenty minutes ago.”

Glendale knew the tingle of triumph. Fosdick was right. It was an island!

“You mean Cranberry Island, don’t you?” he questioned.

“Sure. What do you think I mean— Blackwell’s?” the other answered sarcastically. “If you want to get out there you’ll find boats a plenty down at the float There’s oars in the boathouse. The door of it’s open. Bring the boat back and tie it up when you get through with it.”

“How do I get out to the island?” Glendale asked dubiously. “Where does it lie?”

The man laughed unpleasantly. “Say, sonny, don’t you know nothin’?”

“Pinkie didn’t tell me,” Glendale replied smoothly. “I was supposed to meet him here and go out with him. I’ve never been up this way before.”

“Well, it’s a mile and a half straight out,” his informant said sullenly. “Just lay on to the oars and mind the rocks when you get offshore. There’s not much current to speak of. Pull straight and you can’t miss it.”

The door, slamming in Glendale’s face, cut short his thanks.

He returned to the roadster and found Tremaine drawing meditatively on a corncob pipe. Glendale’s watch showed him that it was half past eleven. He turned to the road and listened.

“Are you one of Mr. Fosdick’s assistants?” he asked the silent Tremaine.

The man stirred and looked up.

“No; I only drive for him.”

Glendale, after a few more words with Tremaine, located the boathouse the angular gentleman in the khaki trousers had spoken of, helped himself to a pair of oars, and made his way down to the wharf. Here, with the aid of a pocket flash he had brought, he selected a fishing dory that seemed cleaner and lighter than the other boats about it.

With pulses beginning to hammer anew, Glendale, alone, took his bearings, cast off, fitted the oars to rusty locks, seated himself, and pulled lustily toward the open Sound.

The humidity walled him in; the lights of the waiting roadster became firefly specks and then disappeared entirely. Fantastic water sounds floated back to him from the open sea. Once he heard the pant of a ghostly motor boat passing on the starboard beam; once the sucking gurgle of a whirlpool; the unceasing toll of a bell buoy, and, far away, the grind of the propellers of some night-prowling Sound steamer. Glendale continued to row. He stopped only to consult his watch in the light of the flash, judging his distance by the elapsing minutes more than by anything else. His strenuous efforts at the oars brought no fatigue to weigh heavily upon him.

He seemed as fresh and vigorous as an athlete ready for some grueling, crucial test of strength. His nerves were steady and alert; he believed that he was ready to face what might confront him, resolute, spurred, fired, and inspired by the knowledge that each and every tick of his watch and stroke of the oars brought him closer to information concerning Marion North.

It was almost a half hour later before his quick ears caught the sibilant sigh of the Sound along a sandy shore, the beat of it against rocks. Backing water, he stared narrowly over the bow of the dory, detected the dim outlines of the island, and began sculling cautiously in.

He discovered the rocks spoken of, negotiated a careful passage through and between them, and came upon placid water that flowed up to the edge of a natural beach out from which a dock jutted and two motor boats, a dinghy and a rowboat with an Evinrude motor at its stern, were moored. Glendale shipped his oars quietly, secured the dory to the landing pier with a length of ill-smelling bowline, and climbed out and up on the dock.

A minute later his feet were planted firmly on solid terrain. Through the mist, less than a quarter of a mile away, a light burned steadily. He walked toward it, his right hand dropping to the fully loaded automatic he had stored away in his hip pocket. Come what may, he informed himself grimly, this time he would not be found weaponless and unprotected.

The light grew. Closer to it, Glendale saw that .it burned behind the drawn shades in the first-floor window of a building that appeared not a whit different from Bailey’s hotel that he had left on the mainland. Here before him was the same bulk of decaying wood, rickety, weather-beaten porch, tumbledown steps, and broken railing. He stood still and considered it, asking himself if, at last, his journey had ended; if perplexity was over and done with for once and all.

The sand muffled his footsteps effectually. He crept up to the window and listened at its sill. Voices were faint and indistinct within; for all of its antiquity and desuetude, the place had stout and substantial walls. Moving away, Glendale continued on, circling the place and seeking a means of entrance which he presently found in a small, rear door that hung on a single hinge.

He used his flash, entered, and found himself in a small hallway that skirted what, in an earlier and happier day, had been kitchens and serving rooms. The passage ambled complacently around bends and corners, ending at length in a wide, oblong space in the front of the building where Glendale hesitated, a thrill of excitement stabbing him.

Directly opposite from the place where he stood, light stained a grimy transom and gushed out from under the closed door. He was separated only by a few feet from the black birds of prey.

Drawing his automatic he inched his way toward the door, reached it, and crouched beside it. The voices now were perfectly audible. He heard some one giving an order and then a careless answer:

“Sure! I'll fetch her in right away!"

Before Glendale could move, the door he crouched against was yanked open from the inside, and a rush of illumination blinded him.

In a flash savage arms gripped his throat, wrested the weapon from his hand, and dragged him forward while a harsh voice, filled with a jubilant note of surprise, rang in his ears:

“Well, well ! Will you look who's here! If it isn't our merry little playmate of the King William with a popgun and everything!"

Chapter 8: In the Murky Light.

BEFORE he could strike a blow in his own defense or wrench himself free from the clutching fingers of the dapper, blond man, some one in back of Glendale pinned his arms to his sides, holding him with strait-jacket force. Simultaneously another occupant of the room, a burly man with the dark, vice-marked face of an underworld gangster, caught up a coil of tarred rope from one corner and surged forward.

In a trice Glendale was securely trussed up and pushed into a backless chair. The one who had seized his arms stepped around in front of him, looked him over with a half smile, and turned to the man who resembled a gangster.

“Slip out, Chick," the round-shouldered Winter said, “and see if our friend brought any of his pals or relatives with him. Take a good look while you’re at it and don’t be afraid to use your rod."

The gangster left the room; Winter, as harmless and inoffensive appearing as ever, blinked his mild, blue eyes and turned back to Glendale.

“So it’s you," he said unconcernedly. “Frankly, your perseverance and stubbornness astound me. Will you never learn to stop butting in on what does not concern you? You’re almost as annoying as some of these stupid detectives I occasionally jest with. What brought you here? What do you want? What’s the idea?"

The angry retort on Glendale’s lips remained unuttered. After all, words would avail him or aid him but little. He realized that the most important thing was to keep a cool, level head and try to reason a way out of his predicament— which appeared so hopeless as to be ludicrous.

“Pretty foxy," Pinkie chuckled, touching his slightly disarranged cravat. “Trailed us all the way here from the city like a great big man and was planted right at the front door the minute I opened it. What’ll we do with him, boss ?"

Winter's wrinkled face assumed an owlish expression. “Do? Leave him to cool his head and heels and to ponder what it means to be rash. Ah, Chick. Coast clear ?”

The burly gangster, returning, closed the door behind him. “He’s alone, boss. He come out in Bailey’s dory. There’s no one else around.”

Winter nodded. “I thought so. Get the girl, Pinkie. We can’t afford to waste all night on this interfering gentleman, as much as we love his company.”

As the blond youth left the room, Glendale’s heart leaped and hammered. Marion North was a prisoner in the island rookery! Hot blood pounded within him. He strained forward in his chair; but he was forced to content himself with working his bound wrists together behind his back and letting his eyes roam the chamber.

Though the rest of the building was falling down, the room was neatly appointed in somewhat the style of a modern office. A huge steel vault was opposite Glendale. Set between the windows with the drawn shades and a squat, metal filing cabinet, was a large mahogany desk. A fairly presentable rug was on the floor. The bare plaster walls were hung with shotguns and rifles. The light was from a copper ship’s lamp suspended from a chain on a bracket.

“Yes,” Winter said pleasantly, shrewdly interpreting what the medley of thoughts in Glendale’s mind concerned; “your pretty young lady friend is here, safe under lock and key. I might explain that I was standing in the shadows on the north side of Au Printemps when you and she drove up last night. When you got out of the taxi I got in.

“The slight and delicate pressure of a .38 is a remarkable thing for making the feminine sex change their minds,” Winter went on. “This is the first opportunity I have had to interview her. Possibly you may be interested in hearing some of my questions and her answers. Do stay a while and make yourself perfectly at home. I might add there is a humorous side to this affair which tickles my risibilities and―”

He was interrupted by the opening of the door.

Pinkie entered, a step behind Marion North, who, unbound, crossed the threshold. Her gaze, weary and wistful, darted to Glendale; her pale face mirrored a faint, sensitive flush. He answered the look with a smile that was intended to be brave, reassuring, and free from chagrin, but which he knew was, at best, only a stiff, distorted grin.

She still wore the pretty evening frock of the previous night. Though she had undoubtedly suffered and was at the lowest ebb of her endurance, she held herself proudly erect as Pinkie escorted her to a chair beside the mahogany desk and waved her into it.

“Good evening, my dear Miss North,” Winter said, with a bow. “I sincerely trust you have entirely recovered from your indisposition of last evening. Do sit down and compose yourself. There are several matters which I must talk over with you. I presume you can imagine what they are.”

Glendale, working at the rope at his wrists, saw Pinkie jauntily light a cigarette and wink at the burly gangster. Both took up a station on either side of the chair that the girl occupied, obviously interested to learn what Winter would say.

The little man dropped into the swivel chair and faced Marion North across the desk. He clipped the end from a symmetrical cigar, lighted it, and sat back with the same languid ease he might have used in a club lounge.

“My dear,” he began, with almost parental concern, “surely you are now beginning to realize how extremely silly it is to hope to outwit me. I admit it was very clever of you to learn the location of my apartment in town and to slip in and get the box. But to hope to retain it any length of time is only the fatuous idea of a very unsophisticated young person. By the way, did you happen to tell Mr. Glendale what the box contained?”

“No; I did not,” she replied in a low voice.

Winter exchanged a glance with his confederates. They smiled broadly.

"This is deliciously amusing,” the little man said cryptically. “But to get down to business, I’m going to ask you a frank question and I want a like answer. Was it your charming employer who removed my brown valise from the house on Seventy-fifth Street last night?”

Marion North moved her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “My instructions were to go there and get it. I was given skeleton keys to open the inner front door. When we — when I opened the closet I found it was empty. I don’t know who obtained the valise.”

Glendale saw a shadow of worry darken Winter’s sallow face.

“The presence of Ranscome,” he said, “would seem to indicate that your employer didn’t get the grip. Ranscome,

I have been told, left the building.”

The brown eyes of the girl lighted. “I’m glad !” she said. “It was a dastardly thing to strike him down in the dark!”

“I ought to kick myself in the ribs for not having put more stuff on the torch!” the blond man declared viciously. “I ought to have caved his roof in instead of pulling the soak. That’s what I get for being kind-hearted !”

Winter fingered his chin. “Let’s return to the box,” he said purringly, “for, after all, it is that which concerns us most. I trust the hours you have been held captive have not been spent in vain. I hope, my dear girl, you have at last come to your senses and will try to hoodwink us no longer.”

With his docility and apparent gentleness vanishing into thin air, Winter swung forward in his chair and rapped out a quantity of staccato sentences: “Where’s the box? What have you done with it? I want it! I must have it! I will tolerate no more delay or subterfuge! Where is it?”

The words cracked like the snap of a whip. In white-lipped desperation, Marion North stared into his wrinkled face, small hands clenched and quivering at her sides, her eyes wide and frightened.

“I shan’t tell you!” she whispered.

Straining at his bonds and rewarded by a slight loosening of one rope, Glendale flushed with admiration for her courage. Transfixed, he watched Winter’s face turn to brass, impenetrable, inflexible, creased by the gash of a grim smile.

“Is that,” he asked suavely, “your final answer?”

“I shan’t tell you!” she repeated, closing her lips on a little sob that forced itself between her shut teeth.

Pushing back his chair, Winter got up. He tapped the ash from his cigar and frowned at his watch. “Then, my dear,” he said, with perfect urbanity, “you automatically commit a great crime. By refusing and continuing to refuse to tell me what you know, you definitely put a quick end to the existence of the young man seated on your immediate right. Do I make myself clear?”

With a startled gasp Marion North jumped up. All the color drained from the piquant oval of her face, leaving it pallid, drawn with the agony of a fear she flinched before.

“What— what do you mean?”

Winter looked at the glowing tip of his cigar before turning his back on her to address the blond Pinkie: “Slip your gat out. I shall count three. If this distressed young lady refuses to divulge the whereabouts of the package before I end the count, you will let our interfering friend here have the whole clip. Catch the idea?”

The dapper one smiled eagerly. “Got you coming and going, boss!”

He promptly dragged out an automatic revolver with a short, sawed-off muzzle. Cold perspiration sprang to Glendale’s brow. There was no mistaking either the meaning of the vibrant undercurrent in Winter’s command or the light of unholy satisfaction that fired the shifty eyes of his associate.

Glendale stared straight into the round, black mouth of the weapon that drew a bead on him. while Winter began to count:

“One— two―”

Marion threw herself forward with a strangled cry: “Wait ! I will tell you everything!”

The breath that had caught in Glendale’s throat left it. He blinked away the perspiration that trickled down into his eyes as Winter laughed with quiet good humor.

“Didn't I tell you there was nothing like a gun to make young ladies change their minds?” the bandits’ leader said smoothly. “Come, speak up, my dear. Where’s the box?”

Exchanging a look with Glendale that was filled with the dull hope that flickered low within her, Marion North laid her shaking hands on the desk top. “I gave the package to Jimmy Hope last night,” she whispered in a lifeless voice. “He locked it up in the safe at Au Printemps.”

The faces of the marauders wore smiles of triumph.

“I knew it!” Pinkie cried. “Hope gave me a song and dance and tried to play the dumb Isaac, but I knew it was a stall!”

Winter tugged at his chin, thinking. “Get the young lady’s wrap, Chick.” He looked keenly at the girl. “My dear, you and I will journey forthwith to Broadway. It’s scarcely one o’clock, and we can reach the cafe in an hour if we hurry. I dislike rushing you, but you must get me that box to-night. Mr. Glendale will remain here as a hostage.

“You, Pinkie, and you, Chick, will endeavor to entertain him to the best of your ability,” Winter continued. “If for any reason Miss North should change her mind and refuse to give me what I want, I will telephone old man Bailey and have him row out and tell you. This time we won’t bother to do any counting. Just fill Glendale full of lead and let it go at that!”

“Sure thing!” Pinkie said cheerfully, as Chick left the room. “Nothing would give me more pleasure. I owe this lob something on account! I’ll croak him the minute I get the word!”

Awaiting the return of the gangster, Winter puffed placidly at his cigar. The girl rested wearily against the desk, head lowered. Perceptible shadows were beneath her eyes and cheek bones, pathetic records of what she had endured, of the stress and tumult within her.

Glendale saw and knew; his throat tightened inexplicably. In a frenzy of desperation he renewed his efforts to free himself, his heart leaping with excitement when one strand of rope dropped over his fingers and his wrists separated, first an inch— more— two inches. The light was dim, and Winter did not see what the captive was doing.

He encountered the brown eyes of Marion North again as Chick returned, bearing her smart, summery cape. She donned it without a word and looked at Winter, who, fitting a cap to his tonsured head, darted another glance at his watch.

“Ready?” he inquired.

Together both moved forward.

“Watch our friend carefully,” the little man said over his shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” Pinkie returned, toying with his automatic. “All the cops in the big burg couldn’t spring this baby when I’m on the job!”

Winter reached the door and dropped a hand to the knob.

As he did so, Glendale dropped the bonds that had circled his wrists and leaped for Pinkie.

It was the unexpectedness of the move of one supposed to be securely manacled that crowned the stratagem with success. He knocked aside the arm of the blond youth as the automatic exploded harmlessly, tore it from his hand in a twinkling, hurled him into a corner with a short-arm blow, and swept the room with the captured gun; the smothered cry of the girl was music in his ears.

“Back to the wall and hands up! I’ll shoot the first one who makes a false move!”

Glendale’s order was complied with at once. The burly gangster placed his shoulders to the wall and lifted grimy hands. Winter, less rapid in his movements, allowed the fingers of his right hand to stray toward his jacket pocket.

Glendale took up a position back of the desk. “Up with your hands, Winter! Don’t make the mistake of reaching for a revolver! Miss North will attend to getting the artillery out?”

In a silence profound, the little man stretched for the ceiling. The sleek Pinkie, muttering imprecations, attained his feet and took up a stand beside the gangster.

“What now?" Winter inquired placidly.

Glendale surveyed the room with a stern, relentless gaze, master of the situation at last. “Miss North," he said, disregarding the question of the little man, “you will be good enough to remove the weapons of our friends and place them here on the desk before me. Begin with Mr. Winter, and―"

His words were blotted out by the crash of a revolver— the sudden sweep of blackness as the brass lamp on the bracket plunged out with the silvery tinkle of broken glass.

In a watch tick the stark, awesome darkness was torn with the surge of conflict, the stamp and scuffle of feet, heavy commands, the shrill voice of Pinkie screaming an oath.

Glendale felt the air kicked up by a whistling blow that fanned his face. He rounded the desk, to collide with an invisible body the arms of which promptly twined about him.

“Here's where we even up!” The rasping voice of the burly gangster panted in his ear. “Here's where you get yours!”

Glendale lashed out with both fists. His right crashed to the unseen face of his antagonist with such force as to hurl the gangster away and back from him. The man endeavored to clinch, but Glendale fought him off, finding his jaw with a left hook that had behind it every ounce of power at his command.

The gangster reeled away, toppled, and fell with a crash at the same minute the battle, which had begun so unexpectedly, terminated with disconcerting suddenness.

“Lights!” some one ordered briskly.

The glow of a lamp grew until the room was completely illumined again. Glendale blinked at the shadowy figures filling the room.

Near the door Ranscome, the hawk-eyed man in green flannels, stood guard over the battered Pinkie whose wrists wore steel handcuffs. A pace distant three men with drawn guns hedged in the round-shouldered Winter.

Back and away from them Fosdick stood with an arm about Marion North.

“Ah, Archer, safe and sound, I see!” the detective said. “Sorry I was late, and so unable to meet you at Bailey's, as you and I arranged to-day. We had two blow-outs on the way up which delayed us. Tremaine told me where you were, but, to cap the climax, we got lost in the mist and almost rowed to Europe. Excuse us for putting out your light. Ranscome, here, didn’t seem to know that you had our friends just where you wanted them!”

Fosdick indicated the silent Winter with an airy gesture; then he went on: “Archer, as a detective you’ve got me backed off the boards! I had a suspicion who these individuals were, but to you alone must go the credit of bagging your own crook! I didn’t tell you to-day. I, too, was after the alleged Winter, because I wanted to give you a little surprise. Let me introduce you to the Port Royal thief— a man I've pursued for many a long day— Mr. Hugo March, alias Winter!”

Chapter 9: Dreamy Stars.

BY dead reckoning the hour was two o'clock in the morning or something later. A thunderstorm had come and gone, and the air was fresher, cooler. Stars, cold and glittering, were white ships in the blue sea of the heavens. Among them the moon hung like a crystal lantern.

In the roadster driven by the taciturn Tremaine, leaving the City Island road, Glendale looked down at the shadowy face of the girl beside him. Since that minute they had left the room in the island rookery, which he had come to understand was Hugo March's treasure chamber, she had said but little, consenting with a nod to his proposal that he take her back to the metropolis, so that she would not be compelled to ride in Fosdick’s machine with the heavily ironed prisoners.

Now, as he bent his gaze upon her, she looked up and smiled faintly.

“I can tell you at last!” she murmured.

“You are one of Martin Fosdick’s operatives?” Glendale said.

She inclined her head slowly. “Yes; one of his agents. Don't you understand now where it was you saw me first? It was that afternoon when you came to the office with Mr. Fosdick. You passed me in one of the outer rooms, but you didn’t appear to take much notice of me.

“It is not a very long story,” she went on. “Our chief knew that it was Hugo March who had broken into your country estate. We found him here in New York and ringed him in. Ranscome, the man in green flannels, who is another of Mr. Fosdick’s agents, discovered that March had split the loot in half. The heirlooms they packed away in a brown leather valise which, I just learned, was taken by Mr. Fosdick from the house yesterday afternoon. The Katupur Ruby ”

All at once knowledge swept through Glendale. “And the ruby,” he exclaimed, “is in the box that is in the safe at Au Printemps!”

The red lips of the girl parted in a smile. “Yes; yours when Jimmy Hope returns it to me on the morrow! He has often aided me before, because, in the cafe, I have found the beginnings of many trails. You see, when March knew he was trapped, he wrapped the box up and prepared to mail it to himself at some address out of town. By the barest chance I was able to make it mine before he was able to carry out his plans. He learned that I had taken it and hemmed me in closely.

“Meanwhile,” Miss North continued, “I had got a telephone call through to Ranscome and arranged to meet him at the King William so I could give him the box. I’m not certain if March learned of the call or if it was just an accident that brought him to the hotel. Sufficient to say that at the sight of him I completely lost my nerve.”

Glendale drew a breath. “And the presence of Ranscome last night in the empty house?”

“He wasn’t aware that Mr. Fosdick had already made the brown valise with the heirlooms his,” Marion North explained. “He had the same orders I had and a duplicate set of the skeleton keys to get in with.”

They were on the Pelham Parkway. To the southwest the island metropolis lay supine, still lifting its garish reflection to the clouds. Glendale glimpsed it before looking down again at the girl whose brown head drooped wearily to his shoulder.

“Is this the end?” Glendale asked in a low voice. “Does the termination of our riddle intricate mean that we are never to see each other again? When may I come for you?”

The brown eyes she gave him were like dreamy stars, confident and trusting. “To-morrow — if you wish,” she whispered.

At the wheel, Tremaine moved his long legs. “It looks as if it’s going to be cooler,” he said succinctly.

_________________

6: The Lady-Killer

Blue Book, Nov 1919

SHOW me the bird what believes every gal in the world is crazy and mad about him, and I’ll show you a guy worth his weight in ivory. Or better still I will introduce you to no less than Oscar Morton. Oscar, or Ox as the bunch calls him, is a Columbus of beauty. Which is to say he discovers more good-looking dames in one day than Columbus ever did in the way of real estate, in all of his life. With Oscar it is just one gal after another, and it’s about as hopeless to keep his mind off of the sex feminine as it is to eat vegetable soup with a fork. Oscar was a born lady-killer and will continue so as long as he is able to totter around. Here is the way I got acquainted with the male vampire:

I AND LARRY HIGGINS has took his baseball team down to White Springs, Texas, for a period of training. The reason I is going along is due to the fact I’m the manager of the team and Larry hisself says that when it comes to whipping a nine into shape and bringin’ them back North, fit and ready to cop out the pennant, I is second to nobody at all.

We get down to Texas on the second day of March. Down there the climate can’t be told from July in Coney Island. White Springs has everythin’ that goes with hot weather. They is dust, perspiration to be had by all, to say nothin’ of ice-water and hot sunshine and silk shirts. The boys, however, after leavin’ the big town in a howlin’ blizzard, is gladder to see the sun and feel the heat than they is to grab their salary checks.

We all repair, as the guy says what wrote it, to the Hotel Springs— called so no doubt on account of the leaks in the roof and what we sleep on. We’re given a welcome better’n what the President got off of the Frenchmen. The whole town is out to meet us, the hotel clerks out to do us, and altogether they is more excitement over our comin’ than they is in Russia at any hour. We’re led up to the hotel by a cheerin’ mob. Larry, bein’ the owner of the team, smilin’ like a conquerin’ hero.

“Some welcome!” Larry keeps sayin’.

“Yeah,” I answers. “Some welcome is right! I guess they hasn’t been a nickel spent in this here town since we was here last winter!”

We reach the hotel what is to be our headquarters durin’ our trainin’ period, and they is as much yellin’ and noise in the lobby as they was at Shadow-Thierry when the Marines gave the Huns the worst of it. Everybody is shakin’ hands and’ stumblin' over somebody’s else’s suit-case, and they is a big banner hangin’ all the way across the lobby which reads, “Welcome Brown Sox.”

After the boys finally beats it away upstairs to their rooms, and Larry starts gettin’ familiar with the ice-water tank I grabs a cigar and goes outside on the porch, which is two degrees warmer than it is in the lobby. Outside they is nothin’ but bum scenery, heat waves, sky and dust. I is just about the duck inside again and horn in on Larry’s acquaintance with the chilly drink, when up the road what leads to the hotel I perceives the figure of a young man approachin’, staggerin’ under the weight of a suit-case what is really a young trunk with handles on it. I watches him, smilin’ at the way he is creepin’ along, until he reaches the hotel, chucks down his grip and falls on top of it sheddin’ both moisture and gloom.

“Oh, boy!” he says. “I learned in Sunday-school that Hades is away down under the ground, but whosoever made that one up has a guess more. It is right here!”

I grins at him sympathetically, noticin’ he is not a bad-lookin’ guy. He is one of these here individuals known as “neat dressers” and has got curly hair full of waves and dust. For the rest they is gray eyes what match his suit, a good jaw and a nice smile. They is only one thing against him. On his upper lip they is somethin’ what masquerades as a mustache but what looks to me like a sick caterpillar has crept Up there for a sleep. Outside of this he seems to be a normal human bein’.

“Yeah,” I says, “the weather is slightly warm here. But, however, if you wants to enjoy hot weather, wait until the end of next month when all the thermometers in town busts outa the top of their glass cages! This is cold compared to what will be!”

At this he moans and shakes his head from one side to the other.

“Well, thank goodness,” he answers, “I wont be here then.”

“Is that so?” I says to be polite.

“Yeah,” he replies, moppin’ off his face. “By that time I hope to be up to the North, pitchin’ the Brown Sox to victory!”

I looks him over carefully to see if I is bein’ kidded, but his face is as straight as a yard of string.

“You don’t tell me!” I says. “Has you signed with them?”

He shakes his head some more. “Not yet, but I expect to, once the manager of the Sox, a bird called Joe Miller, sees me work.”

I has to laugh. “What did you say your name was?”

He looks surprised. “I didn’t say. But— but do you know Joe Miller?” “Yeah,” I says. “I have known him since the day I was born. Joe Miller is my name, and I happens to be the manager of the fastest baseball club in the world and White Springs— the Brown Sox what is the property of Larry Higgins!”

NO sooner do I get the words from out my mouth than he jumps off of his suit-case and begins grabbin’ my hand and shakin’ it. This over, he takes a breath and busts out in autobiography. In a coupla minutes I knows the history of his young life by heart. He tells me his name is Oscar Morton, that he is twenty-seven years old, that he comes from Houston but that I shouldn’t hold that against him, that he is a Baptist and has pitched semi-professional ball for the Houston Giants. Also, so he says, he is the inventor of the famous down-hop ball and has newspaper clippin’s in his grip to prove the same. Accordin’ to him, what he don’t know about speed, control and strikin ‘em out is less than nothin’. He goes on to confide that he is sick and tired of both small-time baseball and waitin’ for scouts, what never showed up to discover him. Realizin’ that what Shakespeare says, “Everythin’ comes to him who waits― if he waits on hisself,” true, he has quit Houston cold, packed his grip, and has come to White Springs to let me know they is such a person as hisself alive, and that I will make the mistake of my life by not immediately takin’ him on.

When he gets all through with his spiel, he wipes his face off again and mutters somethin’ to the effect that while Houston is hot, he will have to wear a fur overcoat when he gets back there again.

“Well,” I says, thinkin’ over his story, “seein’ you has come all the way here, the least I can do is to give a workout. Good pitchers is as scarce as money, and if you is one half as good as you say you is, they will be a berth for you with the team.” I stops and then adds: “I give you fair warnin’, however if you has not the stuff, you is wastin’ your time and mine. I can pick up the twirlers what is ‘almost there but not quite’ without goin’ five minutes away from our hometown diamond.”

This don’t take the smile off of his face and together we goes into the hotel where Oscar gives over his suit-case to a coon bell-hop, the dinge weighs it with both hands and then whistles for six or seven of his playmates to help him. Then Oscar wipes over his face some more and suddenly begins starin’ across the lobby like he has seen either a old friend or a bill-collector. I turns around to see what has caught his eye, but they is nothin’ at all in sight outside a little blonde telephone girl, chewin’ on a bit of gum and toyin’ with both a novel and a powder-puff.

“Pardon me,” Oscar murmurs in a funny voice, leavin’ my side and steerin’ for the switchboard.

When I leaves the lobby ten minutes later, and goes in search of Larry, Oscar has pushed a chair almost up on the top of the switchboard and has curled up on the blonde gal’s ear, chewin’ the rag somethin’ awful. Even then I didn’t get wise to the fact he was one of these here musicians what finds grand opera in the music of a skirt. I should have taken a tumble but didn’t. After the dinner I has to use the telephone in the lobby, to call up the caretaker of the grounds on which we conducts our practice, and whilst Goldilocks is gettin’ the number for me. I gets curious about her and Oscar.

“Old friend of yours, hey?” I chirps, mentionin’ the name of the newcomer in our midst. “I suppose him and you was childhood friends in that Houston place. I'll bet you was glad to see him again, hey?”

She looks at me with one of these here dreamy gazes and sighs.

“You is a bum fortune-teller,” she says. “you is referrin’ to Oscar the pitcher, I cant tell a lie. I only seen him first this afternoon. But”― she sighs again― he is awfully nice. And he is gonna give me a photo of hisself when he gets the uneyfonn of the Brown Sox on him.”

I has to laugh.

“Is that so? Well, blondie, maybe you will never have the pleasure of gettin’ that photograph. Who knows?”

She gives me both my number and a cold look at the one and the same time.

I tells Larry about Oscar’s comin’ to the Springs, and the boss gets excited. He says maybe the boy is another Marquard, and who knows? Anyway, so Larry says, I should give him a stiff tryout and also plenty of chances to see what he has got.

THE next day it is rainin’ with drops as big as fifty-cent half-dollars, so the boys stick around the hotel, performin’ with dice and cards. Oscar, who has got introduced to them all, excuses hisself from the family circle and hangs around the switchboard like he was expectin’ a long-distance call from Mary Pickford.

The followin’ day the rain stops as quick as it begun, and ten minutes of White Springs sun makes the ground drier than prohibition has made the country at large. In festive array, as the guy says what composed it, we start for the ball-grounds escorted by the male population of the town. The grounds is nothin’ to go crazy about, they consistin’ only of a diamond that is flat as the top of a billiard-table; a grandstand what looks like Noah give the contractors that built it the lumber from outa his ark; bleachers what is bleached to splinters and a coupla benches that still can be sat on by them what carry accident insurance.

“Slip Oscar into the box.” Larry says to me, “and let us get a look at what he can do besides talk about hisself.”

I picks Oscar from outa the bunch and sends him out to the box, gettin’ in back of him so I can see if he knows where the plate is and what it’s meant for. Larry gets up and moves behind Eddie Bush, same bein’ our star catcher, whilst I signals to Terry Flynn to grab ahold of a bat.

Terry is the heaviest hitter in the Tri-City League. He has a .292 percentage, and I knows a ball has to have somethin’ on it to get past him without his cloutin’ the cover off of it.

“All right, kid,” I says carelessly to Oscar, who is toyin’ with a brand-new ball. “Let’s go!”

He nods, leans down to get some dirt on his fingers, makes a short wind-up and burns the plate with a ball what sounds like the shot outa a gun.

“Strike!” hollers Larry.

“What is the matter?” he says to Terry. “Do you want ‘em brought to you on a silver dish?”

Flynn grins. “No, but I’d like to have them keep goin’ and not do no tricks when they gets to me, like that there ball did!”

For twenty minutes straight runnin’ Oscar shows us everythin’ he has got and the further he goes, the better he gets. His work stands out like a chorus girl in a room full of washwomen and he has the team gaspin’ for breath and hollerin’ for help.

He uses a fancy ball what he calls the down-hop and which same leaves his hand with the speed of an Erie train and travels up to the plate like it was sick and tired. Just when the batter gets ready to knock it so far that nobody but Peary can ever find it, the down-hop suddenly gets full of pep. It spins around, and as the bird at bat makes a swing, it turns a somersault, hops over the willow and flops into the mitt of the catcher. Some ball!

Oscar has also got another one what has more curves to it than a scenic railway, a fast inshoot what leaves the air hotter than it really is, and a slow drop what is a bear. Altogether, they is more tricks to him than they is to a Chink magician, and when a half-hour is over, he has my heaviest hitters runnin’ about in circle’s and Larry doin’ everythin’ but kissin’ him.

“Great stuff!” the boss keeps on sayin’. “Great stuff! C’mon up to the hotel, kid, and we shall frame up a nice contract!”

I draws Larry to one side and proceeds to furnish him with some information and advice.

“Listen,” I says. “This bird might be the child wonder of the western hemisphere, and he might know about the art of pitchin’ than Charley Schwab does about makin’ steel, but thirty minutes of his work don’t prove to me he is another Plank or Mathewson. The boys is not anyways near their form yet, and no doubt this Oscar guy has been pitchin’ all winter in that Houston place. Don’t go nutty Larry, just because he shows a flash. Let him string along with us and if at four weeks from today he still deliver the same stuff he pulled just now, and get away with it, all well and good. Then I’ll say go ahead and sign him. If he is as good then as he is now he can have anythin’ I has got, includin’ the shirt off of my back!”

Larry cools down at this and thinks it over. After a while he decides it’s better to look before leapin’ and tells Oscar that while he was a little hasty about the contract thing, still he is gonna make some kind of a arrangement whereby he will get paid while with us, whether he works or whether he don’t. This suits the pitcher, and they is nothin’ more said on the subject.

TWO weeks pass us by, durin’ the time of which Oscar is still holdin’ to his form and makin’ suckers outa the boys. In addition to his pitchin’ he is as fast as lightnin’ on the bags, no rummy at the bat and isn’t too proud to run in for bums or to grab a fly when the same is anyway within six or eight feet of him. Takin’ all in all, he still looks as good to me and Larry as a new million-dollar bill.

But I keeps my fingers crossed. They is one thing about the boy what has got my goat. This is the fact he don’t seem to want to mingle with his team mates but sticks around the blonde telephone operator like he was a reporter tryin’ to make her speak up. Not only does he hang around her, but he is on flirtin’ terms with the dame in the White Springs post office, the gal who handles the soda-water counter in the village drug-store and the lady cashier in the quick lunch room what is next door to the station.

Oscar don’t play no favorites, but I sees the cutie at the hotel is aces high with him. The others is just merely there to fill up his spare time and keep him from gettin’ bored.

Kiddin’ and jokin’ about three gals don’t have no effect on him whatsoever. The gang, once they tumble to the fact Oscar is a lady-killer, starts in to ride him somethin’ terrible, but for all the fun they gets outa it, they might just as well have laid off the stuff. Wise cracks and joshin’ don’t get under Oscar’s skin which, no doubt, is tough enough as that of an elephant. He takes all they has and begs for more. On accounta his indifference and the way he takes punishment, Terry Flynn christens him with a new name. Terry call, him Ox and in practically no time at all everyone is callin’ him the same.

“Listen,” I says to Oscar one night, trippin’ over at the bar in the drug-store, where he is watchin’ his lady friend shake up sodas behind the fountain. “Listen,” I says, “the poets has told us they is nothin’ worse than a woman’s scorn. If such be true, take a free tip off of me. Keep this under the covers or the little peroxide telephone gal up at the hotel will be after you with her hatpin ready to put more holes in you than they is in any golf links!”

Oscar laughs and tears away his gaze from the gal he is watchin’ like he is a detective or somethin’.

“The sex attracts me,” he confesses without a blush. I can no sooner resist a pretty face than I can strikin’ them out.”

WALKIN’ back to the hotel with him, accompanied by a lot of friendly mosquitoes, he tells me that he must be a relation of a guy known as Romeo, because every feminine person what sees him immediately falls in love with him. He tells me handin’ out pictures of hisself to all what are crazy about him keeps him always broke. Then he goes on to say that gals is an inspiration to him, and without a couple around to cheer him up he feels as blue as a June mornin’ sky. Females, accordin’ to him, is divided into two classes— them with brains and them with beauty. To show he has a kind heart. Oscar says he don’t pass up the first-mentioned because they are minus what the second has, or the second because they is not a bunch of Lillian Russels. No, he loves them all, it seems, tall, short, beautiful and ugly, stupid or smart.

By the time we gets back to the hotel, I has a pretty fair angle on Oscar. I has decided that as a pitcher he is there, but that in other things he isn’t. I has also made my mind up that if he weighs a hundred and sixty pounds, one hundred and fifty-nine of the same is weight above the ears!

When four weeks is up, Oscar gets his contract, a new uneyform and the glad hand from Larry and the bunch.

The boss is tickled to death with the boy and as happy as a child with a new toy. He talks Oscar, and dreams Oscar, believin’ he is gonna set the world on fire and that they is a lotta credit comin’ to him for holdin the kerosene can. Also’ in addition to this, Larry has got an idea in his bean that once he uncovers his marvel, all the big leagues doin’ business will be breakin’ their necks tryin’ to buy him up.

By this time I has hammered the Brown Sox into some kind of shape, and like we has done in former years, we begins fixin’ up games with local teams. After givin’ the worst of it to the best White Springs can offer, we proceeds to a little town called Spartan where they is spent a very pleasant Saturday afternoon givin’ the Spartan fielders a lotta exercise, and teachin’ the native people of the burg how baseball is played.

Larry is happy as a show-girl with a string of pearls at our showin’, and because Oscar has pitched great ball, and has kept the Spartans away from first base, like they was a band of burglars and the sack a bank. Ox is still there with his down-hop ball and all his other tricks, and he has our opponents gnashin’ their teeth and sayin’ things under their breath, whilst we lose more balls on them than a guy just learnin’ this golf thing.

“Some pitcher!” Larry says to me after the game. “I just wish John McGraw or Connie Mack or Frazee could stick an eye on this lad of mine! I guess maybe they wouldn’t hock their whole team to get him, hey?”

I has to admit Oscar has kept to top form, but still I can’t help but figure out a couple of games with some Texas Bolsheviki bears no relation to goin’ into the box and pitchin’ Tri-City stuff.

“Yeah, he looks good,” I says to Larry. “But one swallow don’t make a summer!”

The boss grins. “No, but one off of Oscar makes a sucker outa anyone! Joe, you was always a knocker. Wait until the series is over and the big money split up. Then you will be singin’ another song.”

“Maybe.” I retorts, “the name of the song will be ‘Break the News to Mother!’ ”

Directly after the Spartan game Larry looks over the ground, and the first thing I know, we’re to journey to Dallas and mix up with the Dallas Giants. This is the last game we’re to play before goin’ to the North to open the season, and once the gang is let in on the secret, they bust into cheers. One game and then home! Oh, lady!

The only one what doesn’t show great joy is little Oscar. He draws me to one side and informs me his heart is broke on accounta leavin’ White Springs, the post office, the drugstore, the lunch-room and the switchboard at the hotel. It is only when I tell him what swell-lookin’ babies they is up North that he cheers up again, and says he hopes Myrtle, she bein’ the blondie who handles the calls, can bear the separation from him.

The night before we leaves the Springs for good, he takes three hours off, and goes around biddin’ his friends farewell and tellin’ each one she is the only gal he cares for and so forth. Then, when we finally piles onto the train what is to take us to Dallas, I has to hold him by the arms to keep him from jumpin’ off, and rushin’ back to the little phone operator who is standin’ on the station wavin’ a handkerchief to him and usin’ the same frequently.

“Love is a awful thing,” he moans, dashin’ tears from his eyes. “I hope Myrtle doesn’t do anythin’ desperate. I would never forgive myself if she did.”

AS White Springs fades outa sight, I drags him into the train and throws him into a seat.

“Tear your mind away from the ladies,” I begs, “and tell me how that wing of yours is feelin’.”

He sighs. “My arm is O. K.,” he replies. “It’s my heart that troubles me!” He looks so sad I busts out laughin’, winkin’ at the same time at Terry Flynn who is busy oilin’ up his glove.

“Oscar,” I says, “that little guy what shoots arrows from out a bow and arrow, what don’t wear no clothes worth speakin’ about, and what has got wings on his back, must be kept terrible busy where you is concerned. I is speakin’ now of none other than the well-known kewpie—”

His answer is nothin’ but a groan.

Three quarters of the trip is made by him in silence. The bunch is skylarkin’ around, playin’ pranks on each other and occasionally stoppin’ to kid Oscar. Then they start playin’ polka, and Oscar, to relieve his mind, goes off into another car.

Lookin’ to see what he is doin’ a half-hour later. I see he has recovered. He is settin’ in a seat next to a pretty gal, chewing the rag and laughin’ more than if he was at a vaudeville show.

We gets into Dallas as the shades of night is fallin’ fast, and Larry, wantin’ to do the thin’ in style, hires a fleet of Texas cabs to roll us all up from the station to the hotel. We is all climbin’ into the cabs when I suddenly get wise to the fact that Oscar is not one of us. I remembers the dame on the train, and knowin’ the habits of my pitcher better’n I knows my own name, I ducks back into the station.

The train is still standin’ there, takin’ on mail and freight and givin’ Ox a chance to gaze up at the gal he has got acquainted with, she bein’ in the open window of the train, smilin’ sadly down at him.

“Listen,” I says, gettin’ sore at the sight. “Lay off of this stuff and string along with the gang, or you’ll be alone in a foreign city with no helpin’ hand to guide you. Can the chatter— you is holdin’ up the railroad!”

He don’t pay no attention to me but keeps on talkin’ to the gal in the window.

“Good-by!” he says. “Good-by Gladys! Don’t forget to write every day and take good care of that photo I has gave you. It is the last I owns except one more!”

I pries him away from the train, throwin’ kisses off of his hand to the gal who is beginnin’ to cry, and manages to get him into a cab.

“What you need,” I says, “is a nurse to take care of you!”

He nods his head. “I think so, too,” he agrees. “Do you know of any blonde ones?”

THE hotel to which we arrive at is nothin’ but class and tone. It is as different from the one at the Springs as a loan shark is from a human bein’. In the first place they is electric lights, hot water which is really hot, a telephone in each and every room, to say nothin’ of paper on the walls, carpets on the floor, and beds what look like they was made to be slept in.

After I and Larry has grabbed somethin’ to eat, we start out to look up the manager of the Dallas Giants, leavin’ the boys to their own devices, which same consists of pool, billiards and bull.

We hire a guide and in no time at all meet the man we’re out to see. They is not so much to it, and after a hours has passed, we has doped out a percentage arrangement as to the nine inning’s to be played and so forth. Then, when we gets this all fixed up without comin’ to blows, Larry, for good measure, and with his mind still full of Oscar, lays a thousand bucks at even money we will win with five runs to spare.

“it is just like pickin’ up money outa the gutter!” the boss chirps, as we wend our way back to the hotel. “The manager of these here Dallas Giants is a good sport, and I hates to see him lose a thousand berries in one settin’, but still I aint runnin’ a ball team for my health. Easy dough, hey, Joe?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“They must think they is pretty good,” I answers. “No man is plunkin’ down that much money unless he thinks he has somethin’ behind him.”

Larry chuckles. “Sure— but I has Oscar behind me!”

“I hope he stays behind you,” I retorts.

WE get back to the hotel, and Larry breezes away to see what the bunch is up to, while I runs into Oscar, who is gettin’ in the shadows in one corner of the lounge room, holdin’ hands with a pretty black-haired gal I has never before laid an eye on.

“Excuse me for buttin’ in,” I says, “but it is now eleven o’clock, more or less, and you is a ball-player, Oscar, and not no night watchman. For this reason it is up to me to ask you to seek the feathers!”

His little friend giggles whilst he gets up to his feet and makes a bow.

“Ruth,” he says to the gal. “let me introduce you to Joe Miller, who is manager of the Brown Sox. Joe,” he says to me, “shake hands with Ruth Cooper, a dear friend of mine!”

After the introduction is over and finished with, Oscar coughs a coupla times.

“Joe,” he says, “how are the chances of gettin’ a box seat at the game to-morrow for this here little lady?”

“If you gets to bed now,” I barks, “the chances are pretty good. If you don’t, the chances are nothin’!”

The gal giggles again. “You’d better retire, Sir Pitcher,” she murmurs to him. “And don’t forget that picture of yourself to-morrow!”

Oscar, lookin’ as happy as a bird when the doctor tells him he must lay off smokin’, bids us good night and crawls into a elevator, leavin’ me and the dame alone.

“Old friend of yours, no doubt?” I says in order to say somethin’. She colors up and finds a view of the ceiling is interesting’.

“Well— well,” she stammers, “not exactly. You see Mr. Morton mistook me for a girl he knew in Buffalo.”

I has all I can do to keep from bustin’ out laughin’. A gal he knew in Buffalo! Oh, boy!

She smiles. “But do I get that ticket?” she wants to know. I slips her my card with some handwriting on the top of it. She thanks me like it was a check made out to bearer, and smilin’ all over her face, says good night and beats it.

THE NEXT DAY is as bright as a Tiffany diamond and hot as a red stove. We finds the Dallas ball park to be some peach of a place, with a fast diamond, large stands made outa cement, a clubhouse what can’t be told from a swell private house, lawns, flowers and plenty of cold water handy. Half of the mornin’ is spent tunin’ up, and by the time the game is called, the Sox is as smooth as velvet and works like machinery or a orchestra ready to tear off one of these symphony things. The city is evidently baseball-hungry, for it declares a half-holiday, and they is an angry mob at the gates almost tearin’ them down, tryin’ to get in. Soon they is more people in the grandstand than they is in a Bronx subway train any evenin’, and the bleachers is so full, it is almost bendin’ in half.

As we is to drag down a piece of the gate, Larry, after givin’ the stands the double-O can hardly be kept from shoutin’ out loud with joy.

“Oh, lady!” he yells. ‘The money I is gonna take from out this burg is a crime!” He keeps on ravin’ whilst I suddenly lamps Oscar leanin’ against the grandstand and smilin’ into the eyes of Ruth Cooper, who is reposin’ in a front-room box seat. Just as I sees him, so does Terry Flynn, and the catcher sends a howl over to him.

“Hey, Ox,” he bawls, “leave go of that lady’s hand and come over here and run over the signals with me!”

The stands lets out a roar and Ruth Cooper ducks down behind a newspaper to hide herself, whilst Oscar, no more disturbed than if he is a deaf and dumb mute, grins and hurries away. Oscar goes in, and for three innin’s the Giants don’t get a smell of the ball. Meanwhile Terry Flynn knocks out a three-bagger and is sent home by little Jerry Deacon, our shortstop. By this time the whole city of Dallas is wise to the fact they is seein’ a great pitcher in action, and they leaves off kiddin’ Oscar and begins cheerin’ him when he is in the box.

“Can you beat that!” says Larry “A strange guy in a strange town, and look at how they yell their heads off for him!”

“Yeah!” I snaps. “But this single, solitary run we got don’t suit me at all! Outside of Terry and Deacon, none of the boys seems to be able to get to this Giant pitcher. He is not good, but he is not bad, and he is holdin’ us. If they ever solve Oscar, it will be roses for us and make no mistake!”

The boss takes a puff on his cigar. “Don’t worry none about that,” he says. “Them five runs I need to win on is comin’ along soon, and when they get on the down-hop, silk shirts’ll be sellin’ at twenty cents apiece!”

Up to the endin’ of the seventh Oscar keeps sendin’ them over, and each Giant takes three chances at ‘em and retires in a hurry. For our part the team has got wise to the Dallas twirler and has fallen on him for exactly four more runs, which, with the one Terry presents us with, makes five in all. The game is drawin’ rapidly to the end of it and I begins once more to breathe natural. But, as the guy says what tells us, every rose has its thorn and every fur coat its moth. Just as things is lookin’ like Larry will soon have his little thousand back, with another to play around with it, Oscar comes over to me, whilst we is at bat, white as a quart of milk.

“Joe,” he yelps, lickin’ his lips, “I—I don’t think I can finish out this here game!”

I almost falls but manages to keen my balance, lookin’ him over from head to feet.

“Where do you get that stuff?” I snarls. “This here game is sewed up, and all you has got to do is to serve them with a few more of the same brand you has been sendin’ over!”

This don’t get me nothin’, and Ox lets out a groan, his manly brow wet with perspiration what wasn’t due to the heat. “I—I can’t pitch another ball!” he croaks.

Just as I is about to snap at him, Larry comes bustin’ over to see what is the matter. Oscar turns to the boss and begs he shouldn’t be sent in no more but should be lot go to the showers immediately if not sooner. Instead of doin’ the same, Larry gets red in the face.

“You big tramp!” he hisses. “What has got into you that you is tryin’ to quit cold at a time like this?”

Ox licks his lips some more.

“I’m sick,” he moans. “I think I has got a fever!”

“Sure!” Larry sneers. “A yellow fever! You big stiff, my thousand berries depends on you! Stay in and I’m plus! Quit and I’m minus! I don’t wanna hear no more excuses out a you! Take your cold feet to the box and warm them up!”

Oscar pulls on his glove whilst the rest of the team, seein’ they is somethin’ wrong is starin’ over.

“All— all right,” Ox says in a voice what can be hardly heard. “I’ll— I’ll go in, but if I toss this game away, don’t blame me—”

“I wont blame you,” Larry hollers. “I’ll bust you in the eye!”

I sees it is a time for some of this diplomacy stuff, and I follows Oscar, who is creepin’ away, shakin’ in every limb, and lays a hand on his arm.

“Grab hold of yourself!” I pleads. “You is scared about somethin’,—I know the signs— and that is all the matter with you. But remember. Ruth Cooper is settin’ up there with her eyes on you. If you cracks now, she is sure to think you is a false alarm!”

He shakes his head, groanin’ whilst the stands begins howlin’ for a little action.

The two innin’s what follows is cruel. Oscar is as wild as a coupla uncaught lions, and for all he knew, the home plate might be located in Egypt. He keeps the whole team on the jump and wears out the bases lettin’ the Dallas Giants around them. In the eighth they piles up fifteen runs and only quit then they needs a rest.

By this time Larry has tore out the most of his hair, and it takes the combined efforts of the team to keep him from rushin’ out and committin’ murder. The first half of the last innin’ ends with him hollerin’ his head off at Oscar and shriekin’ like he was crazy with the heat. I has sent Terry Flynn in to bat for Ox and they is already two outs. Terry pops up a little fly and the game ends with the city of Dallas screamin’ so loud the noise must have been heard in Scotland.

As the game ends, with the Dallas Giants doin’ a war-dance, Oscar, who is tryin’ to make a dash for the clubhouse, is prevented from doing the same by Larry, who tells him all over again just what he thinks of him.

Oscar puts an end to it by suddenly duckin’ behind me. As he does so, they horns into the family circle a blonde gal who carries a green umbrella. Zing!!

I dodges, and poor Ox catches the shot on top of his nut, the umbrella bustin’ into sticks. Then, the next thing I knows, the blonde has got ahold of Oscar by the collar and is shakin’ him so hard his teeth rattles.

“Good for you, Lady!” Larry hollers. “Give him one for me!”

For the next three minutes they is nothin’ but confusion made more so by the sudden appearance of Ruth Cooper, who jumps into the fray and tries to pull Oscar away. They is scraps enough to feed all Russia, believe me! Finally the one what has started all the trouble leaves off beatin’ Oscar and turns to Larry.

“Who runs this here ball-team?” she wants to know.

When the boss, backin’ away, admits he is guilty, she almost lets Ox go, to get at him.

“Don’t you know no better than to give a job to this good-for-nothin’!” she screams. “And why do you pay him good money what he throws away on havin’ his picture took so he can give them to poor unsuspectin’ gals!”

At each and every word she speaks, Oscar shivers from head to foot and throws up his hands like she was still tryin’ to knock him.

“Aw, Mae!” he pleads. “Have a heart—”

BY this time they is quite a crowd around us, which is to say the whole city of Dallas has got an ear open and reporters is workin’ overtime, gettin’ the stuff down whilst it is still hot.

“Hey, lady!” chirps Eddie Bush, gettin’ fresh. “What has Ox ever done to you that you should beat him up?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” says Ruth Cooper, glarin’.

The blonde gal laughs in a way that makes cold chills run up and down my spine and turns to Oscar.

“It’s a good thing,” she says in a voice full of icicles, “that you told my brother, before you sneaked outa Houston, you was gonna join the Brown Sox! And it is a good thing I found out the team was playin’ here in Dallas to-day! Oh, you has been cute and foxy, all right, but not enough! You’d have to be better’n Shylock Holmes and smarter than Marshal Foch to put anythin’ across when I is on the job!”

“Just a minute,” I butts in. “This aint gettin’ us nowhere, and all it is doin’ is givin’ this here crowd enough gossip for the next fifty years! Come through. Is you Oscar’s sister or what?”

“His sister!” she screams. “Is that what he told you! The liar! I’m his wife—the first one he ever gave a picture of hisself to!”

No sooner she gets the words said than it is Ruth Cooper’s turn to be heard.

“Oh, you big hound!” she hollers, kickin’ at Oscar’s shins. “You told me no longer ago than last night I was the only one you ever loved!”

She busts into tears and is led off.

Then Oscar’s wife gives him a yank by the collar, and the last any of us ever sees of the pair of them, is her leadin’ him away, whilst the entire population of Dallas is hootin’ and jeerin’ at poor Ox.

“There goes the best pitcher what I ever seen,” says Larry in a sad voice. “And the worst husband!” chimes in Terry Flynn.

They is a silence. Then I hears some one callin’ my name, and turnin’ around, I almost collapses. Comin’ through what is left of the crowd I sees no less than Myrtle, the little blondie telephone gal of White Springs. She too has got the habit and is weepin’.

“Oh, Mr. Miller!” she sobs. “My train was late and now it is too late. My heart is broke—”

Whilst we all stares at her like we is seein’ things, she mops her eyes. “Some vampire has stole Oscar away from me! I seen her with him just now and— and— she had her arm around his neck— and—and he made believe he didn’t see me—”

_________________

A Johnny Castle story

7: Slight Touch of Satan

Thrilling Detective, Aug 1944

Chapter 1: Trigger Mortis

THE semi-final came up after the main fracas— to make the exiting easier. But most of the cash customers, bored by the time the main bout concluded, began filtering out.

“Cauliflower Acres,” or the “Land of Dreams,” as I sometimes referred to Madison Square Garden in the sonnets I wrote for the Orbit, had a gallery of around twelve thousand that night. Which made the gate approximately forty grand.

I left the press department and shoved along with the others bound for the cool night air. The star go hadn’t been much. A couple of second-rate welters had traded leather without a knockdown. There had been a minimum of gore. Which, of course, hadn’t set well with the fans who liked eyes gouged out and faces torn apart. There was grumbling all around me.

I issued out on Eighth Avenue, still hemmed in by the mob, and thinking about Harvey’s Chop House around the corner, when a hand came up and grabbed my arm.

“Mr. Castle! Just a minute—”

The party who put on the stop didn’t scale an inch over five feet in his nude feet. If he weighed a hundred and ten pounds, dripping wet, the scale was screwy. He had a wrinkled, young-antique pan, and a couple of worried eyes. Also, he was perfumed with the rare, ripe odor of bottled goods. I recognized him as Eddie Ring, an ex-jockey who, the year previous, had been ruled off the turf forever. The judges had gotten tired of setting him down. Eddie was an expert when it came to whaling heck out of a horse with one hand and choking him to death with the other. He had plenty of pull, but it wasn’t the right kind!

Yet, the kid had been one of the best jocks the hide ovals had ever known. His judge of pace was beautiful. He had a pair of unequaled hands, a daring in the saddle. When he rode honest, he had brought in winners that looked like dray horses anywhere from the start to the four-furlong marker. I was really fond of the little tosspot.

Once I had written quite a piece about Eddie Ring. It was the day after he had piloted Reggie Allerton’s great bay colt, Sir Rodney, first under the wire in one of the Belmont classics. And that after Sir Rodney had been practically knocked to his knees as he was leaving the gate!

“Can I see you a minute?” Eddie’s straight Bourbon voice shook a little. He looked scared to death. “Any place! But— quick! I’ve got a tail on me!”

We ebbed out to the curb. Cabs came up in a long line. I didn’t ask questions. I opened the door of the nearest taxi, pushed Eddie in  and followed.

“Uptown, driver. Lenox Hill Apartments.”

Eddie took a gander through the back pane before he relaxed with a sigh. “I think we slipped him.”

“What goes, kid?”

He twisted around. His teeth began to chatter like a couple of castanets. Now that he had shaken the one following him, the reaction left him jittery.

“Duke Kimball— somebody gunned him not thirty minutes ago!” He husked the words out, shivering. “I— I stopped in to see him! He was stiff and I ducked. There was a car in front of his place! Some guy got out and trailed me—”

I sat up straighter.

The Duke Kimball mentioned happened to be the trainer for the same wealthy Reginald Allerton who owned Sir Rodney. Kimball was the turf’s leading trainer. What Eddie Ring told me represented news— important news for anyone drawing weekly wages from a metropolitan newspaper. In his own way, the Duke was as well known as the Brooklyn Dodgers, only nobody ever called him a bum.

“Hold it!” I grabbed the kid’s arm. “Where was Kimball bumped, what’s the address?”

Eddie spilled and I told the hackie to pull to the curb.

“You’re leaving!” Eddie’s tone had a touch of hysteria when he saw me reach for the door handle.

I spoke fast.

“Look, kid. You go up there and wait. Apartment Four F. I’ve got something to nose into. I’ll be back as soon as possible. Roll, bud,” I directed the driver, handing him a couple of bucks. “Take this gentleman to where I told you. Get going.”

Then I cut across the avenue, flagged a southbound cab and hopped aboard.

Ten minutes later the cab wheeled up to the Hotel Craven, a small hotel in the West Forties. I knew it well. Patronized by stage and sporting people, the Craven was managed by Hal Bernard, an old friend of mine. I recognized a police prowl car further up the street. That meant the cops were already on the job. One of them, an Ed Wheeler, who ran with the well-known Homicide Squad, captained by my old friend and enemy, Fred Mullin, was in the lobby when I went through. I made like I didn’t see him and headed for the single elevator in the rear.

“Mr. Kimball’s floor,” I said to the elevator. At the same time I handed him a bill and that got service.

“The cops are up there, mister!” the operator wheezed.

“So what?”

He didn’t have an answer on tap. He stopped the lift at the fifth floor and slid the door open. “Down the hall—to the left, mister.”

The door of Duke Kimball’s two-room suite was open. Detective Larry Hartley, and toothpick, were propped up against the jamb. Larry gave me a cold stare when I leathered over.

“You can’t go in there, Castle,” he said. “On account—”

He stopped when the medical examiner, bag in hand, breezed out. He was Doc Sterling. Once a month I played poker with him. Just to keep on the right side I let him win a pot or two and that pleased him no end. The doc was a fiend for breaking even, if he couldn’t show a profit.

“Hello! Johnny. Game Friday?”

I said “yes,” took advantage of the break and walked in.

Captain Mullin, with a couple of assistants, were in the center of a small living room, kicking the ball of conversation around. Mullin, a short, stocky little guy, had pale, suspicious eyes and a jaw that looked as if it had been made from stuff out of a scrap drive. Once I had made a monkey of him in the Orbit, and the captain had never forgotten. He liked me the same as the Nazi army does a Russian winter!

“What’s yours, Castle?” Mullin broke away from the group and got in front of me. “Don’t hand me any of that newspaper-pass stuff. You’re a sports writer. This is murder!”

“Kimball happened to train race-horses,” I said. “Skinners come under the heading of sports, I believe.”

I could have bitten off my tongue. Mullin snapped that up in a hurry. “So you know Kimball’s dead? Who told you? I had a faint idea this was official police business, hadn’t been released yet. What do you do— consult fortune-tellers?”

“Possibly.” I tried to make it sound light and whimsical, but I felt like a dope caught in my own booby trap. The lids came down over Mullin’s glinting eyes.

“You’d better stop down at Headquarters tomorrow, Castle. I think I’d like to have a little chat with you.”

“Sure, sure. Meanwhile,” I said, “I’ll just smell around.”

“You’d be closer to right,” Mullin said from the corner of his mouth, “if you left the ‘around’ out.”

I let that ride and took a glance at the place.

The living room was typically Hotel Craven. Three-piece upholstered suite, regulation pictures on the wall, radio cabinet in a corner. Telephone on a stand. I noticed it was a private telephone. Its exchange number was under celluloid in the center of its dial. I went on into the bedroom beyond. A big cop leaned against the wall there. He didn’t pay much attention to me. I stopped on the other side of the threshold. The bedroom looked as if a cyclone had hit it. There was blood all over the place, furniture knocked down, a general upheaval. Duke Kimball had evidently put up a better fight than the smackers I had looked at, such a short time previous, at the Garden!

The trouble was it had all been in vain. The Duke was reposing on the disordered bed. He was in what was left of dark green pajamas. There was a bullet-hole in the side of his head so big you could have sailed a freighter through it. And his face wasn’t pretty. The killer had gone to work on it, probably with the butt of his gun, and with a perfect score. Nobody in Kimball’s family would have recognized him! The whole set-up had a slight touch of Satan in it— a fury both demoniacal and terrible. Beside the bed, I stared down on the Duke. Trigger mortis had set in, but that didn’t prevent me from getting a gander at the gold wrist-watch Kimball wore. I leaned over and saw the watch had stopped at exactly twenty-two minutes after ten o’clock. Then, with a wrench at my stomach, I turned away and went back to the living room.

“What’s the angle, Captain?” I asked Mullin.

“See your fortune-teller.”

I did better than that. In his office, off the lobby downstairs, I lapeled Hal Bernard. He was a big lug, six feet two, strong as an ox. I noticed he was drying a handkerchief on the windowsill.

“This is terrible. You know how murders kick back on hotel trade, Johnny. Now I suppose you want all the details for your paper.”

“Who found Kimball?”

“One of the bellboys. Kid named Andy Garson. He took ice-water to Kimball every night at ten-thirty.”

“You’re sure about the time?”

“Tonight,” Hal said, “Andy tells me he was about five minutes late. Why? Is that important?”

“Everything’s important in a murder case. How about the elevator operator? Did he take anyone up, or bring anybody down, that struck him as being suspicious?”

Bernard rubbed his chin and shook his head. “I haven’t had time to check with him. The police asked a lot of questions before they let him go.”

The door opened and Hartley lounged in.

“The captain wants to see you again, Mr. Bernard.”

I said so-long to Hal and took to the street. The morgue cart was at the front door. I hoofed over to the Orbit office and found Bill Jamison still around. Bill handled the mystery stories for the sheet. I passed him what details I had on the Kimball murder, he jotted them down and looked thoughtful. “Funny this should happen on the eve of the mayor’s inspired investigation of race-track bookies, syndicates and the like. Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said, and took another taxi up to my place.

Chapter 2: Time: 10:27

NOT having my key I had to ring the bell. I expected Eddie to open the door. Instead, a blond doll with delft-blue eyes, earrings, a lipsticky mouth and perfume answered the buzz. She was rather small. She had a good figure and was a reasonable facsimile of a hot spot chorine from the top of her bleached hair to the stilt heels of her little open-toed sandals. Blue eyes drilled me.

“What’s yours?” she asked, and her voice had a touch of palsy.

“New maid?” I made it sound cheerful. The eyes kept on boring me.

“If you’re looking for Mr. Castle— the party who lives here—he isn’t home.”

“He is— now,” I said, sliding past her. “Where’s Eddie?”

“In here.”

The little guy got up from a sofa where he’d been parked. I hung up my hat and coat, aware that Eddie looked better. His complexion was still a shade on the pea-green side, but at least he wasn’t shaking like a pair of dice.

“I thought you were never coming back,” he said.

I looked over at Blue Eyes. “Who’s the babe?”

“Araby Rogers, my gal friend. I called her on the phone when I got up here. Honey, meet Mr. Castle.”

“Pleased to meet you. Pardon my mistake at the door. For a minute I had an idea you might be a copper.”

“Araby’s over at the Macarimbo— in the floor show,” Eddie pointed out.

“Yes, and I’ve got to get right back,” she stated. “But not before a drink.”

“There’s nothing in the house,” Eddie piped.

“You didn’t look in the right place.” I got what was practically extinct liquor and a bottle of soda. I took the Scotch back to the living-room, breaking the seal en route.

Eddie whiffed his off like it was so much fresh air. Araby shook her peroxide topknot.

“I’m on the wagon.” She went over and kissed the former jockey. “Take care of yourself, Sugar. You won’t let nothing happen to him, Mr. Castle!” she added anxiously.

“Not a thing,” I promised. She put on a mangy-looking cape. I went to the door with her, dropping a hint that it might not be smart to tell anyone where she had been or that Eddie was my guest.

“What do you think I am— a maroon?” she grated. I listened to the stilt heels click off to the elevator and then shut the door and went back to Eddie.

“Let’s hear it, kid.”

His story wasn’t complicated. Every Friday night Eddie had been in the habit of stopping at the Craven to see Kimball. The Duke hadn’t forgotten that Eddie’s winners had done a lot toward making him a top trainer. So, as the kid explained, Kimball had been giving Eddie dough every week. Not much, just a touch to keep him going. Tonight, so Eddie explained, he reached the Craven around ten-thirty. He wouldn’t take an oath on the exact time, but it was near that, either way. “Duke had been living there for a long time, when he wasn’t down at the track. If he wasn’t in he’d leave the key for me under the mat, my money in an envelope on the table in the living room.”

Eddie stopped. I saw sweat break out on his wrinkled face.

“Keep going.”

“The key wasn’t there, so I figured he was in. I touched the button, rang the bell. There wasn’t any answer. Then I took hold of the knob and it turned in my hand. I went in—”

He stopped again, beginning to shiver.

“What else?”

“There was a lamp lighted in the living-room. A funny smell, like burned gunpowder, was in the air. There was a light in the bedroom, too. So I—I walked to the door there and—” He shuddered, reaching for the Scotch with a trembling hand. I let him gulp some down before giving him the prod again.

“Then you ducked. Okay. Tell me about the guy who tailed you. You said something about a car outside the hotel.”

“That’s right.” Eddie tried to pull himself together. “It was to the left of the entrance. A little blue sedan. I passed it and crossed the street. Just as I reached the other side a guy dropped out of the heap. Before I had gone a street I knew he was following me. Then, when I got to the Garden, I dived into the crowd coming out and you know the rest.”

“Did you recognize the tail?”

Eddie hesitated— a couple of seconds too long.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You don’t know any reason why you were followed?” He shook his head and I let it go at that. But I had a feeling Eddie was holding out. His story was plausible enough. It dovetailed with the bump at the Craven, but my hunch was he knew more than he had lipped. Did he have a part in the actual killing! On the face of it, gunning the Duke didn’t fit. People didn’t go ‘round shooting their benefactors. Unless, of course, there was some deep, dark and secret motive behind it. I gave the kid the guest-room and sat up listening to the radio.

I thought about Kimball. Then I thought about Reggie Allerton, the man he had trained for. A week ago Allerton had announced his engagement to Lizzie Wandell. Liz hailing from one of the oldest and finest Knickerbocker families, was the granddaughter of “Honest” Sam Wandell, one of the turf’s leading sportsmen and a power in the local Jockey Club. The Orbit’s sob sister, who had toyed with the item, said, it was, “the perfect wedding— the merging of two top families, the blending of two famous stables. Society and the turf would be sure to benefit.”

Just before I put out the light I came up with a recollection of Hal Bernard. Big, powerful Hal— and the handkerchief he had been drying on the window-sill.

Next morning I told Eddie to stay planted, sent him breakfast from the grill around the comer and took my A. M. newspaper with black coffee.

The Duke’s demise had reached the front page. Jamison had done a good job on what scanty material I had supplied him with. He had also gone to town on the Mayor’s Investigation. I read that through. It seemed that His Honor boiled again. This time over a reputed bookmaking syndicate that had an octopus hold on the town. Several names were mentioned. Among them was Joe Manion’s.

That was news. Manion, I happened to know, was an underworld overlord. Mixed in several Black Market matters, he had never been entirely reached by the law. Now, Manion was mentioned as a possible lead for a Grand Jury probe. I smiled when I read that. By the time they got around to Manion he’d be somewhere in South America, working rackets on the mañana mob.

At the office I stopped long enough to talk to Beth Wheaton. Beth, one of the phone gals, was as sharp as a January morning and just as chilly.

“Look, sweetheart,” I began, before she interrupted.

“We can dispense with the sweet talk. What’s on your mind— legitimately— Mr. Castle?”

Beth had brown eyes and hair to match. I gave her the telephone number that had been under celluloid on the instrument in Kimball’s living-room— his private wire.

“I want you to do some sleuthing. Get the phone company to supply a list of all calls made from this number last night.”

Beth sniffed. “Oh, mystery? Who got rubbed this time?”

“Why don’t you read the Orbit?” I suggested, and went on down to Headquarters.

Mullin was in his private room, busy with a couple of plainclothesmen. He waved me to a chair and let me cool there for ten minutes or more. Finally, when he got rid of the plainies, he moved his swivel-chair around so he could face me. The pale, suspicious eyes met mine.

“Give, Castle. What do you know about Kimball?”

“Next to nothing.”

“Did you blow him up, walk out and come back later?”

“What do you think?”

Mullin began to get mad.

“How did you know Kimball was dead? Who tipped you?” I tried to make it sound good. I didn’t know if Ed Wheeler remembered seeing me walk through the lobby. I took a chance that he hadn’t. “It happens a pal of mine operates the Craven. Hal Bernard. I got the dope from him, including the slant on the bellboy who found the body.”

I could see Mullin didn’t believe me.

“That’s all?”

“Certainly, fortune-tellers to the contrary.”

Mullin let that go and began to smile. I didn’t like it. It had kind of a wolf leer to it.

“By the way,” he went on, casually. “You know Eddie Ring, the former jockey?”

That was striking close to home. The suspicious eyes kept boring into mine. It was a beautiful spot for a wrong expression, an incorrect answer. So the captain had a lead— on the little guy with the ginny breath and the worried pan?

“I know who he is. I guess everybody knows Eddie. He was the greatest horse rider in the country a year or so ago.”

“Seen him lately?”

I made believe I was thinking. “No, not recently. Why?”

“Ring went to see Kimball last night. Around the murder hour. He’s been in the habit of dropping there every Friday evening. The elevator operator recognized him. And Ring,” Mullin added, “isn’t at his home address, or any of the drinkeries where he usually hangs out.”

“So?”

“I figure,” Mullin continued, putting his feet on the desk, “it was this kid Ring who tipped you to the Kimball slay. And I figure you know where Ring is. In fact, you know a whole lot more than you’re letting on. Okay, Castle. If that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll go along with you. But in my way!”

His threat rang in my ears all the way over to the Pioneer A. C. where I had to interview the manager of a visiting professional basketball team and clear a couple of other minor matters for the Orbit’s sporting page.

It was after one when I got back to the office.

Beth stopped me on the way in with the report from the telephone company.

“Here it is, Mr. Castle. Service with a sneer.”

“Thanks.”

I sat down at my desk and looked at the report. There had been two outgoing calls on the Kimball line the previous night. One at 8:30. That, according to the statistics, was to a Miss Libby Hart, whose address followed. The other, the second call, made something tingle up and down my spine. I read the information over twice. At 10:27 P.M. the Duke’s phone had been used to put a call through to Reginald Allerton at the Abbingdon Chambers on Park Avenue. According to the wrist-watch on Kimball’s arm, he had been knocked off at precisely 10:22. No one could be certain that the watch stopped when the Duke was struggling with his assassin. But, all things considered, it was a peg to hang the death time on. If it were right it meant that, five minutes after Kimball was killed, someone had used his phone to call Reginald Allerton!

Chapter 3: Johnny is Floored

BUZZED my place on the hello box.

“Eddie?” I said.

“Right here, Mr. Castle.”

“Did you call Allerton on the talkie last night when you were in the Duke’s suite?”

“Call— nix! Like I told you, I got out fast. Why?”

“I was just wondering. You’d better stay hidden out today,” I told him. “You’re hot. I saw Fred Mullin of the H. S. and he’s got a net out for you. The lift pilot at the Craven identified you.”

I hung up and reached for a cigarette. After all, the Duke Kimball murder, with its satanic touch, was none of my business. It didn’t enter my department, as Captain Mullin had already pointed out, and it was no skimmed milk off my cereal. Yet, it had a certain fascination. For one thing, I didn’t want the cops to scoop Eddie in and give him more bad publicity. I didn’t want the kid inquisitioned and locked up. Maybe his story had a couple of detours in it, but the more I thought of it the more unlikely and unreasonable it seemed to assume that he had anything to do with the untimely passing of Reggie Allerton’s trainer. Who was Libby Hart?

I didn’t know, but I decided to find out. The address the phone company supplied was in the middle Eighties, on West End Avenue. It was a nice apartment house, high-class and boasted a doorman. But, it developed, the Hart frail, merely roomed there. With a family named Borden— on the third floor. She was out. Mrs. Borden, a middle-aged, pleasant dame, told me that when I pressed the pearl circle of the front door-bell.

“She’ll probably be back here toward six. She’s employed, you know.”

I didn’t, and said so.

“Yes, she’s a private secretary to Mr. Reginald Allerton.” She mentioned the address of a Fifth Avenue office building. With a word of thanks I went back to Riverside Drive and a bus.

The Rhinelander Building was up near Radio City. The directory in the entry read:

REGINALD ALLERTON, 903.

I took a local, got off at the ninth and followed an arrow around a bend in the corridor. I figured the lay. Rich guys like Allerton often maintained offices, and staffs, to handle the details of investments, taxes and so forth. Allerton’s outer office was like the living room in a mansion. The walls were paneled in brown mahogany. The furniture was upholstered in tan leather. The rug underfoot was a tobacco brown and indirect lighting fell on the sporting prints along the walls. It also shone on the polished black hair of the good-looking chick who was busy at a beautifully-carved desk in the exact center of the room.

I looked at her. She was worth anybody’s third glance. In addition to the ebon hairdo, she advertised a creamy complexion, lashes so long they made shadows on her smooth cheeks, a classically perfect nose and a set of magenta lips. She wore a severely plain dark dress and no ornaments. She didn’t need any.

When I got through with the eye massage and went over to the desk she looked up at me quickly. It was odd. I might have been all wrong, all damp, but in her liquid, starry gaze I thought I detected the same scared look that had been in Eddie Ring’s eyes and face when he had put the stop on me outside the Garden.

“What do you want?” Libby inquired, after I had mentioned the Orbit. Reference to the sheet sent the lashes down again.

“Just a dash of information. Mind if I sit down?” I took a chair before she could answer. “You know Duke Kimball, Allerton’s trainer, was given a dose of acute ventilation last night?”

A full minute passed before she nodded.

“Yes, I read about it.” Her pretty face was placid, but her slender, white hands were a give-away. They fluttered like a couple of adolescent doves on the edge of a cote.

“Would you mind telling me why Kimball telephoned you last night at eight-thirty?”

The polished head jerked up. The magenta lips parted. Her teeth were nice, too. White, even, glistening. She looked at me as if I were a magician hauling a bunny out of a silk dicer.

“You— know—”

“Look, Miss Hart. There’s nothing complicated. The Duke had a private wire. The phone company furnished the calls made on it last night. Yours was one. I found that out. So will the police. It’s one of the first rules.”

“Mr. Kimball did call me.”

She wove her fingers together. Maybe to keep them from shaking off. Her expression changed. It went from fright to tight. I could see the facial muscles tense.

“I’m sorry, I have no information,” she said. “The call was strictly personal. I see no reason to discuss it with you.”

“How about the police?” I ran an eye around the prints. One of them was of the famous Sir Rodney and from where I sat it looked as if the kid who had the leg up was Eddie Ring. “I shall tell the police the same thing— if they ask me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to have Kimball’s murderer tucked in the poogie?”

“Yes, but— please don’t ask me any more questions.”

“Only one. Mr. Allerton in?”

She gave me a startled glance. “No, he isn’t. He’s gone for the day.”

I threw a final gander at her profile and got up. “Then I’ll find him at the Abbingdon Chambers?”

“You’re more likely to locate him at the Turf Club.”

“Thanks. Thanks very much. Now I’ll tell you something. I think you’re being very foolish— holding back. Captain Mullin is an uncouth guy, nothing at all like I am.” I grinned. “He has no couth at all and never uses kid gloves. I might be able to keep you out of the papers— if you’d care to cooperate.”

But she shook her dark head.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Castle.”

The Turf Club was a couple of streets east and a couple north. A brownstone, old building with a mansard roof and nothing in the way of a sign to indicate its identity. It was one of those places hard as heaven to get into. Once a member, only the Grim Reaper gave you a check to get out. I looked the party who opened the door for me straight in his mutton chops and asked for Allerton.

“Who’s calling, if you please?”

I didn’t mention the Orbit. I didn’t want the guy to throw a stroke. I said I’d just come from Allerton’s office and told him my name. I let him infer my mission had something to do with Allerton’s business. That worked.

“One moment, if you please.” He went away, stayed a while and then came back.

“Mr. Allerton will see you in the library.”

Reggie was in the big front room on the second floor. I recognized him because I’d seen him frequently at the track. He was a tall, slender, aristocratic-looking lug. He wore his hair parted in the middle, a set of snobby threads and a complexion that indicated high-blood pressure. Allerton turned out to be excessively friendly.

He listened to everything I said and, instead of yelping for the Palace Guards to come and pitch me out, told me he’d try to help me in any way he could.

“I’m naturally very distressed about what has happened to Duke. He’s been with me for several years. In addition to being a fine trainer, Kimball was a very likable chap. I was genuinely fond of him.”

“He never mentioned having any enemies?”

“Never. He had a host of friends. I don’t know anyone who disliked him.”

I let that pass. Any guy training horses to win races had enemies— touts and gamboliers who socked it in on long shots and shuddered when chalk horses won. “About the phone call made at ten twenty-seven to your apartment last night.”

I gave him the lead and waited. Important developments hinged on Reggie’s reply. It was a six-to-five bet that the murderer had made that call. Allerton rubbed his aristocratic nose and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Castle, I know nothing about it. I wasn’t home at all last evening. I happened to be at the theater.”

“Someone at your apartment must have gotten it. The call was made. It’s on the record. Mind calling your place and checking with your servants?”

“Not at all.” Allerton stood. “I want to do everything possible, in every way, to solve the riddle of Kimball’s death. Pardon me a minute.”

I sat and looked at books. Hundreds of books, thousands. I thought of all the cattle who had laid down their lives to make the pretty bindings. It was an intriguing thought. I was still building it up when Allerton returned.

“What luck?”

“The call came through, just as you said. My man took it. It wasn’t jotted down, as other calls are, because the person who called left no name. He simply asked for me and rang off when informed I was not at home.”

“Thanks,” I said, disappointment kicking me in the teeth.

It was almost six o’clock when I broke away from the office and got up to my apartment. I wondered how Eddie had passed the day. I had locked up the Scotch. I hoped he hadn’t gone out for a snifter. I hadn’t given him any money and I remembered he hadn’t made his usual collection from Kimball. I didn’t think his saloon credit was worth much. He had probably stayed holed in, with the radio for company.

As I slid my key into the front door I had a funny feeling. One of those intuitive flashes everything wasn’t at par. It deepened when I stepped into the foyer. The air was warm and stuffy. It might have been imagination but some of Araby’s perfume seemed to be still loitering around. Or maybe it was a hangover from the previous evening.

“Hi, kid.”

No answer. I dropped my skimmer on the table under the hall mirror, took the seven steps to the living room door. One glance was enough. The room looked as though The Chief had gone through it at top speed. Like Kimball’s bedroom, only without the plasma, the furniture was tipped over, one of the drapes ripped down and some of my prized old glass reduced to splinters. But that wasn’t as important as Eddie Ring!

And Eddie, I had a hunch, was among those absent. Somebody had called at the apartment to remove the jock. He hadn’t wished to be exited. He had even fought against it, but not with success.

I started toward the bedroom. Then, as I passed the half-open bathroom door, I imagined I heard a step behind me.

A quick, quiet step!

Instinctively, I wheeled around.

I never saw what hit me—or who delivered the blow. Like a switch pulled open and plunging out all existing light, a wave of blackness came up from the floor and blotted out everything. My knees buckled. I floated off on a soft, billowy cloud.

Chapter 4:  At the Macarimbo

AFTER a while the song birds stopped warbling. The black, chiffon clouds rolled away. I opened my eyes, a pain in my knob sending out a boogie beat that echoed in my ears. I sat up, listening to it. Only it wasn’t in my head. It was at the front door.

Somebody was knocking.

Except for an egg-sized lump over my left ear, I didn’t seem too badly off. I was a trifle dizzy when I made my full height. But that wore off when I put the brogans into high. I opened the door and Detective Larry Hartley wandered in.

“What’s the matter with your front doorbell, Castle? It don’t work.”

I tried to stall him in the foyer. No dice. He headed straight into the living room and looked around with a kindle of interest. I could see his bushy eyebrows form a great big interrogation point.

“Cute, eh?”

“What’s been going on?” Hartley grunted. “Looks like the happy end of a Greenpoint picnic. Your friends play rough.”

“What’s wanted?”

“You!” Hartley squinted at the lump over my ear and grinned. “Get your hat— get two hats. The captain craves your company. Come on, we’re due downtown.”

Mullin didn’t pull any punches. My head still ached dully. The captain wasn’t any bromide.

“Wheeler tells me he saw you going into the Craven last night. He said you didn’t stop to talk to Bernard until you came down.”

“All right, I’m a liar. So what?”

“You know where Ring is.”

Mullin began to get red around the gills.

“I wish I did!” I replied fervently.

“You knew where he was last night. All the time I was looking for him you could have put the arm on him for me!”

“That’s possible.”

Mullin curled a lip. That made him look more like a bulldog than a bulldog. He leered up at Hartley, with one of those “See-what-I-mean” expressions.

I didn’t have anything to hide now. So I unloaded with truth and candor.

“I let Eddie Ring stay at my apartment. Why? Because the kid’s clean and I didn’t want you to go to work on him. Somebody hi-jacked him. But not without a brawl. If you don’t believe me ask your bloodhound. Hartley saw the going-over my living room got.”

I refrained from mentioning the gent in the bathroom— the one who had jumped me and laid the egg on the side of my noggin. That was beside the point, irrelevant.

Fred Mullin’s facial hue went from rosy red to deep vermilion. For an instant I thought he was going to barge over and start socking, he looked that mad. He showed me all his teeth, all twelve of them, in a snarl that would have interested a tiger.

“By rights I ought to slap you in the clink, Castle!” He spat it out humidly. “You’re a nuisance, a menace. You made a fool of me once and you’ve been trying to repeat ever since! I’ve got a good mind—”

Hartley leaned over and whispered something to him. Mullin stopped talking, but kept on glaring, while he listened. Finally he nodded and sank back in his desk-chair.

“That’s all, Castle. Beat it, get out of here! I don’t like the looks of you. You make me sick.”

“You don’t give me much appetite, either,” I told him. I thought it was a gag, but nobody made a move to check me.

I left the office and Headquarters without a hand, or a foot, barring the way.

That was one for the book. What had Hartley told Mullin? What had made the captain lay off? From what I knew of his methods it wasn’t anything pleasant. He had quit putting on the crush for some other trick he had thought up. Something sponsored by the toothpick-chewing addict, Mr. Hartley.

“Rats!” I said, and went back to straighten up my disordered living room.

I was worried about Eddie. So worried I called the Macarimbo, trying to get hold of Araby Rogers. I was informed that the “ladies of the ensemble” were not permitted to answer the telephone. I got a bite of dinner at a nearby chophouse and went back to the suite. I listened to war news and put witch hazel on the bump. It felt larger than ever. Then I must have dozed a bit because when I snapped out of it the war bulletins had turned to a dance band and the telephone beside me was ringing merrily. I picked it up and was jolted wide awake.

“That you, Mr. Castle?” Eddie asked.

“You little rat!” I was so glad to hear from him I didn’t care what I said. “Where are you? What have you been doing? Who tore up my apartment and busted my expensive glass knick-knacks? Talk!”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. That’s why I called. Look, I’m over here at the Macarimbo. I’m phoning from the booth near the dressing rooms. I’ll wait here for you. Can you come right over?”

The night club was a half-dozen streets south, in the fabulous Fifties. It was in the middle layer, neither cheap nor expensive. One of those hoof-and-tipple resorts where they clipped you on the check if you were at all muddled. It bragged about its floor show, name band and master of ceremonies. You could have taken all of them, tossed them out in the alley and the world would have been a better, fresher place.

As I left the apartment, heading for the Macarimbo, I felt I was being trailed. It was one of those uneasy, elusive but positive feelings. I tried to trace back from effect to cause. Nothing definite. I began to think I was mistaken. If I were tailed, it was being done by an expert. Somebody who gave plenty of leeway and kept discreetly in the background.

When I reached the Macarimbo, and went in, there wasn’t a soul on the street. The bar, in front, had ‘em packed in like sardines. Only sardines were better off because they were lying down. Babes from penthouses and frowzy rooming-joints— dames who looked like Salome and acted like salami— went in or came out of the powder room. For the most part their escorts were equally as ill assorted. Guys as Blue Bookie as Reggie Allerton or just plain bookie. There were plenty of uniforms at the tables. Army, Air Force, Marine, Navy, with the feminine sections of the services also ably represented.

I eased over to the head man. He wore a tux and a maltreated ear. Once he had pushed leather. Now he shoved waiters around.

“Hello, Yorkie.”

“How’ya, Johnny boy?”

“How do I get back to the dressing rooms?” Yorkie rolled an eye.

“Uh-uh.” He supplied directions. I went around back of the coat-room counter, down a flight of smelly stairs. A wooden-floored passage led past the kitchens. I looked through the steamy entrance. A chef in a big white hat was bobbing and weaving as he stirred and tasted.

A door at the end of the corridor opened on a squared-in recess and just beyond that was an aisle of dressing-room doors. Some were open, some shut. Gals were laughing and gabbing, arguing and swearing. As I went up the stairs, Araby Rogers came out of one of the rooms. She was in lace and spangles, a costume that didn’t cover too many of her charms. The little canary saw me, stopped as if she’d been shot, and dashed over.

“Mr. Castle,” Her breath caught in her throat.

“Is Eddie—”

“Okay. He phoned me to meet him here.”

The blue, blue eyes went wide and panicky. She grabbed my arm, pushing me out of earshot. I could feel her fingers growing chilly when they dropped to my wrist.

“Eddie— phoned you— to meet him here! Oh, something must have happened! He hasn’t been here, he never comes here! Are you sure it was Eddie?”

“Positive.” She gave me a stricken look. Her voice sank to a whisper.

“I’m scared, Mr. Castle. Honest I am. This don’t sound good to me. He’s in trouble! He never called you, and told you that stuff, unless he had a gun pointed at him!”

It began to look that way. Whoever had snatched the kid was using him for a purpose. What was it? To get me out of the apartment? Or to take me to the Macarimbo for some further going over?

“Who’d want to put the clamp on Eddie?” I said, reassuringly. “He’s as harmless as talcum powder.”

“Yeah? Then why did ‘Link’ Bronson follow him last night?” Araby asked unsteadily. My ears went up.

So Eddie had known who had tailed him! One of the kinks in the story he had told me straightened out. Bronson? He was one of Joe Manion’s henchmen, a gun-happy hoodlum who had been in plenty of trouble!

“I’ll duck back to the flat,” I told the blondie. “If Eddie does show up here you ring me this time.”

I left her. She had a bewildered, blank stare on her grease-painted face. Just as I went down the steps some guy went in and I heard him saying:

“C’mon, dolls! Get into it! You’ve got a show in five minutes. What are you gazing at, Rogers—”

There was another door midway down the passage, a little beyond the kitchen entrance. I hadn’t noticed it before. Now it was slightly open, letting in some of the cool night air to battle with the steam. A man lounged there, a hand in his pocket. He had a cap pulled down over his forehead, a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. My nerves telegraphed a warning. Danger was written all over him. I didn’t like the hand in his pocket, either. I slowed down, stopped and gave an imitation of someone who had forgotten something and was about to retrace my steps when the inner telegraph system flashed a new warning.

Another man was coming along the passage, from behind me. A guy in a gray felt hat, with a thin, pinched face. A tall guy with stooped shoulders and a funny kind of a shuffling walk. I was hemmed in. I thought of the kitchen, but before I could take a step toward it, the lounger with his hand in his pocket slid up to me.

“Just a minute, pal! Got a match?” I started to shoulder him aside, but Felt Hat didn’t approve of that. Several inches of cold steel slipped out from under the left side of his coat and jammed up against me.

“Easy, friend.” His voice was smooth and quiet, but under the brim of the hat I could see his eyes like twin, glittering sparks.

“Frisk him, Link,” he directed. Quick, deft hands investigated. Link—I recognized him now— nodded and the Hat closed in.

“We’re taking a little roll uptown, friend! You’re coming along. Act smart and you’ll get there with all your health. Try any tricks and I’ll make you look like a kitchen colander!”

Chapter 5:  Miracle Gun

OUTSIDE, in the shadows down the street, a small blue sedan hugged the curb. I was conducted to it, urged along by an arm and the pressure of the smoker transferred over to my side. Link opened the rear door. There was a guy at the wheel.

“Get in!” Bronson ordered.

“All clear,” the driver said.

I sat between Bronson and the party who wore the felt hat. He was referred to as “Rube.” The chauffeur was addressed as “Smitty” and the gun, cuddling me, never moved an inch.

“What’s this all about?” I inquired, with real curiosity.

“Shut up!” Rube said in his quiet, silky tone.

“I think,” I went on, amiably, “you’ve got the wrong one. You don’t want me. I’m only a newspaper reporter who—”

“If that bull hadn’t knocked on your front door, after I snapped the bell wires,” Bronson interrupted, “you’d been up to where we’re going, a long time ago! As it was I had to check out of your place in a hurry.”

“So you’re the bathroom boogey man?”

Bronson laughed. He didn’t say anything further and I relaxed against the worn upholstery. I didn’t like any part of it. They didn’t have the wrong guy! They wanted me and they had me! But what for?

I watched the mid-city streets drop past. Smitty drove at a legal speed, careful of the traffic lights. He didn’t want any cops stopping him, asking questions. My mind went around like a squirrel in a cage. Gleams of intelligence began to filter through. I lined up the facts as they came along.

First, Eddie Ring knew that Bronson had tailed him last night. That meant that Eddie had blundered into Duke Kimball’s suite at the Craven while the killer was still there. Eddie had seen and recognized the trigger man. Like the ex-jock said he had gotten out in a hurry— but with Link sent out after him to make a score. Okay for that. Bronson must have seen Eddie with me outside the Garden. Okay again. That told him that Eddie had probably spilled. Therefore, I knew who had murdered the Duke and had to be dealt with accordingly.

Bronson’s first attempt to knock me out had failed. As Araby had dreamed up, they had snatched Eddie and, to get to me, had used the little guy to make the appointment via phone. So far so bad.

My thoughts limped along. Link Bronson worked for Manion. Manion faced a Grand Jury hearing. In some way that tied in with Kimball. Kimball must have known something about the activities of the syndicate under official fire. Known so much Manion was afraid of him! So, abiding by all underworld rules and regulations Allerton’s trainer had to be smeared before he had a chance to open his trap. That hung together sensibly. It had its flaws, naturally. But I believed I had a general synopsis of the situation. And, as I mulled it over, the personal angle— my own nosy part in it— wasn’t at all attractive at the moment. In fact, the smell of lilies seemed strong around me.

The blue sedan went up through Washington Heights. It kept cutting west. Above Kingsbridge it turned left, descending a hill and took a street that ended in a road. The Hudson wasn’t far away. In the faint moonlight I could see the Palisades looming opposite. They made a pretty picture. I fervently hoped I’d be around to get a glimpse of it in the future.

Then, abruptly, I knew where we were bound. Near the bank of the river was an old stone mansion. It had been called The Castle Orme. Once it had belonged to one of Manhattan’s merchant princes. That had been fifty years or more back. Several people had owned it since. The last had lost it. A downtown bank had taken it over and rented it at a negligible figure. No one in his right mind— or without ulterior motives— would have been interested in the rambling rookery. It was like leasing the Grand Central Terminal— without modern touches.

The car went through an open iron gate. It passed what had once been formal gardens. It went by a tremendous hot-house. Most of the glass had been broken or taken away. We parked under a couple of colossal trees near a side entrance.

“We get out here,” Rube said.

All three alighted. Keeping me in the middle they gave me a personal escort through a door that was a foot thick. We went along a flagged hall.

“Hold him in the wire room,” Link Bronson said to the others, “while I talk to the boss.”

He opened a door. I was ushered into what must have been the main reception room once. Now it was the most complete kind of a horse parlor.

In the shine of a green-shaded, dangling light I had a glimpse of cashiers’ cages, tables and chairs, blackboards with the odds of the last races of that afternoon still chalked on them. Over the boards was a loud-speaker. Entries were thumbtacked on one wall and the floor was covered with cigarette stubs. Rube shoved me up against a table and grinned.

“Relax, sucker.”

“Where’s Eddie?” I asked.

“He’s around—but not for long.”

“It looks to me,” Smitty put in brightly, “like another cement job. The boss was asking about barrels this afternoon— three of ‘em.”

“He got them.” That sounded interesting. A croak, gangland’s old device of stuffing the corpse in wet cement and the convenient river at the edge of the Castle lawn! But three? Who was the third barrel for?

Bronson came back.

“Bring him along.”

The next stop was in a rear room, a vaulted-ceilinged place of oak-paneled walls and an ecclesiastical aspect heightened by the pipes for an organ that had been removed. The furnishings were flamboyant, glorified junk. Grand Rapids at its worst. Tapestries and odd pieces collected solely because of their size. A litter of tables and chairs, sofas and cabinets made the huge room resemble a furniture warehouse. But not a very good one. Lounging in a chair that had carved dragons for arms, Joe Manion sat uncomfortably at ease.

He looked like Humpty-Dumpty, he was that round and fat. He had thin hair, plastered over a bald spot, baggy eyes and a dewlap. His face was circular in shape, shaved very close. His nose was like a lump of putty that had been slapped on as an afterthought. He looked too stupid to be dangerous, but I didn’t let his gray-flanneled appearance fool me. Manion and a coiled cobra were brothers under the scales!

“So you got up?” Manion spoke slowly, as if it were an effort to get the words out.

“What’s the frame, Manion?” I asked directly.

“I don’t like snoopy people.” His smile made folds in his face. “Guys who go ‘round checking on telephone calls and the like. Guys who know too much for their own good.”

“Such as Kimball?” I suggested.

“Right. Such as Kimball. You can say hello to him when you get to where you’re going.”

“Wait a minute.” I bent forward. “What good is another knock-off going to do you? It is not going to stop the Grand Jury’s machinery. Personally, your business is none of mine. If you want to lay it on the line for the death-house at Sing Sing that’s your privilege.”

“Look, Castle. I’ll talk, you listen. I’m going to beat the investigation. All right, smile. I’ve taken it before and I can stand up under it again. But I’m not going to have a lot of people running around loose with an in on the Kimball thing. That’s why I had you lifted tonight and that’s why I’m giving you a decent funeral. Buried at sea!”

He shook with a brief spasm of amusement. The laughter made my blood run cold. But not as cold as it did when one of the many doors in the room opened and two of my other comrades in trouble were led in.

The first was Eddie, looking dejected and slightly mussed. He was wearing the latest thing in black eyes. That was tough with ration points what they were on beef. He gave me a hangdog, appealing look.

I let it go and stared hard at Libby Hart. She was certainly attractive. Even against the nightmarish background she stood out like a bottle of rum at a prayer meeting. Her black hair looked more polished than ever, her skin whiter and her eyes more starry, liquid. She walked in with dignity, free-limbed, as if to the music of the organ that wasn’t there. My heart went bump-bump. The dark eyes encountered mine. I saw a spot of color creep into her smooth cheeks. Her lips parted slightly and pearls such as Tiffany never had for sale glimmered between them. For a moment I forgot Manion, Eddie, the vaulted room and why we were all there!

I gave Libby a smile I didn’t feel and turned to the Dumpty whose fingers were caressing the dragons. “The gal, too. Where does she fit?”

The telephone, somewhere in the back of the room, rang. Manion nodded and Link took it. Manion turned back to me.

“Like you, she’s smart. Kimball’s been passing it along, feeding it to her.” He grinned.

“The jock, likewise. You three are the only ones with a mark against me. Catch it?”

“It’s Scollard.” Bronson capped the mouthpiece of the phone with a skinny hand. “He wants to talk to you, Boss. It’s important!”

Manion puffed out of the chair and went across the room.

“Hello?” I heard him say, “Didn’t I tell you never to call me here?” Then, after a pause, “Confession? What do you mean? He— he—” Manion stopped and stiffened as much as a load of fat and flesh could.

The round face darkened. He choked out something and banged the receiver back on the hook. I did some fast thinking. Confession?

While the phone call had been going on I had a gander at a door that seemed to be open an inch or two. A door that was part of the paneling, to the left of the dragon chair. Slowly, unobtrusively, I edged toward it, my face to the others, my nerves taut. Any chance, logic told me, was better than standing there and having the Valentine’s Day massacre repeated on a small scale! Libby was watching me intently. So was Eddie.

Manion, apparently shaken by the call, got Bronson aside and was doing some swift whispering with gestures. I backed another foot and felt the oak paneling press against me. Then a miracle happened! From the door a hand touched me. A gentle, persuasive, significant hand. It seemed to be telling me in a mute way that it wanted to reach my fingers! So I slowly slid my arm back. A gun, coldly ominous, but comforting as an ice-bag on a fevered brow, was laid against my palm!

Manion, finished with Bronson, waddled back to the center of the room.

“All right, line them up! You do the shooting, Rube!”

As he barked the order, Bronson, giving his cap a pull over his forehead, left the room. Rube began to reach for his heater. I stopped his hand halfway to his shoulder-scabbard with a quartet of words.

“Hold it! Start reaching!” The miracle gun came into full view. Manion looked at me as if I were something that had stepped out of a glass case in a museum. The shock of what I said, and how I backed it up, straightened Rube’s stooped shoulders. He gaped at me incredulously.

“You dope!” Manion’s voice trembled. “You bring him here without frisking him! Go get him!”

“Ladies first!” I kept the two covered.

Libby didn’t need a second invitation. She glided over to me as if on wires. Eddie, amazed, hardly moved.

“Come on, kid,” I ordered. “Get the lead out of your shoes. Put on a whip finish. We’re getting out of here!”

Chapter 6: Confession a la Mode

LIGHTNING-LIKE, I slammed the door leading out to the flagged passage. I didn’t kid myself. Miracle gun, or not, we weren’t in the clear yet!

The proof of that came when Eddie tore open the side door of the Castle and we piled out into the night. The stars never looked better, neither did fresh air ever feel fresher or smell more like perfume. Or maybe that was the scent of Libby, hurrying along beside me.

But Link Bronson was out there. Manion’s first lieutenant, starting the blue sedan, must have seen us framed against the light as we came out the door. He sized up the situation at a glance and acted fast. Out of the car, he ripped a gun loose and began firing.

I urged Libby Hart into the stone shelter beside the door’s entrance. Eddie flopped full length. I held my fire until Bronson came cautiously out from the car’s bulk. No more than sixty seconds had elapsed, but it seemed like a thousand years before he came into view. I could see him craning his neck, ready to count bodies. It was almost impossible to miss. The shot I squeezed from the gift gun caught him in the shoulder. He let out a yelp, dropped his own Roscoe and did a nose-dive into the shrubbery.

“Okay! Come on!” I grabbed Libby’s arm and sprinted for the car. Just as we got in I heard a cannonading from the interior of the Castle. That meant my unknown pal on the other side of the oak paneling had gone to work!

Link had obligingly left the motor running. I let off the brake, pressed the gas pedal and went away from there like one of the honest horses Eddie Ring had ridden in his palmy days!

“For a couple of minutes,” the kid chattered, “I thought I was all through! Where’d you get the gun? How come they missed it! Who was shooting when we left?”

He rolled the questions out like a red carpet at a wedding. I paid no attention.

“Give,” I said to Libby. “How did they pick you up? Why?”

“A fake phone call. Supposedly from Mr. Allerton. This car was on West End Avenue when I went out. A man— the one you shot— stepped up to me and forced me into it. Why?”

“Yes, why?”

She drew a long breath. By that time we were almost over to Broadway and for the first time I began to feel a trifle safer.

“Haven’t you figured it yet?”

“I know Kimball was ready to squeak. They didn’t like that and dealt with him accordingly. Manion, or Rube, went to work with artistic touches. They’re the killers, either of them, but there’s someone else in on it. The ‘man higher up’, as we say in the newspaper business.”

“You mean—”

“Patience. If this heap has plenty of gas you’ll find out presently.”

The fuel tank gauge said three-quarters full. It must have been. We sailed down Park Avenue in style. I pulled up in front of the Abbingdon Chambers, told my passengers to wait and ducked into the building’s rococo lobby. I was bound for Allerton’s suite. I didn’t figure there was much chance of seeing him, but the angle was hot and I had to follow through.

An elevator took me up. Maybe I was all wrong. That single word “confession,” and what Joe Manion had unwittingly let drop when I had first gabbed with him, seemed to make it airtight and foolproof.

I rang Allerton’s front door-bell. I had the feeling, when no one answered, I was too late. Then the door opened. A little guy with a smug, obsequious face stepped out. He wore a black coat, a derby and carried a cowhide bag. He jerked an inquisitive look at me as I reached out and pushed him against the door he started to close.

“Mr. Allerton in?”

“No, sir.” His eyes blinked and his lips twitched.

“Who are you?”

“Scollard, sir. I— I’m—” I took his bag, tossed it inside and put the gun on him. As soon as he felt it he began to shake all over. He didn’t try to argue or block me. With perfect docility he let me back him into the apartment and led the way, through a maze of rooms, to Allerton’s study.

Reggie, his hair still parted in the middle, lay on the floor there, in a posture that wasn’t lifelike. The automatic he had used to go harp-strumming was still clutched in his aristocratic right hand. He was as dead as anybody could be with a .45 slug in what had been his brain.

“Okay, Scollard,” I said to the little guy. “Now, hand over your late employer’s confession and stick around while I put in a call to Headquarters!”

“Yes, sir,” he answered meekly.

TWO hours later Eddie, Libby and I had a table at the Macarimbo. It was no place to take a gal of the Hart number’s quality and intelligence, but Eddie had a yen to see Araby and I couldn’t refuse him. I was amply rewarded when the final floor opera began. Because then the gilt top, prancing roguishly out with the other lovelies, suddenly spied her Eddie, black eyes and all, sitting there grinning like a wolf. Araby almost fell over her own feet from the shock.

“Get around back and comfort her,” I advised Eddie, when the number ended. “Show her you’re not a ghost!”

He lammed.

I turned to Libby.

“Well, let’s fill in the blank spaces. From a peek at Allerton’s confession I’m wise to a lot of things. That most of his dough came from Manion. That he was a silent partner in the syndicate. That he realized an investigation would wash him out and hang him up to dry. That it would kill his chances of matrimony with Wandell’s granddaughter and finish him on the turf as well. So much for that. Now it’s your turn.”

“Kimball had found out a lot about Allerton’s connections with Manion. I’m sorry to say the Duke tried to use this information for his own profit.”

“I get it. He tried to blackmail Reggie. That’s why Allerton passed the word to Manion to blow Kimball up. And it was Manion who used the Duke’s telephone at ten twenty-seven. No doubt he called Allerton to tell him the job had been taken care of. That was the call,” I explained, "that gave the show away.”

Libby’s arched brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”

“Manion said he didn’t like guys who went around checking telephone calls. I hadn’t told Eddie and I hadn’t told you about the ten twenty-seven buzz. But I had told Allerton. I went to see him about it. So when Manion let it slip I knew that Reggie was in on it.”

The dark head nodded.

“And you figured out ‘confession’ and Scollard all by yourself?”

“That wasn’t hard. The thing that baffled me was the gun slipped into my hand up there.”

The liquid, starry eyes met mine.

“You haven’t cleared that up,” Libby murmured.

“My old side-kick, Captain Mullin of the Homicide Squad, obliged. You see, when I turned over the defunct power behind the syndicate, together with a neatly-typed confession, Mullin was grateful— grateful enough to tell me how it happened. One of his best men had been planted at the Castle since the mayor started the ball rolling. Planted there, gathering evidence. He shoved me the heater, figuring I’d need it more than he did. I guess he had another one on him because he blocked Manion and Rube when they tried to follow us.”

“And they’re both in jail?”

The band was letting go with one of my favorite numbers. I got up. So did Libby.

“Nothing like a dance to get acquainted.” I led her out to the wax. “Tell me something frankly. Is or isn’t this the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Funny, I sort of had an idea you might be carrying the torch for Kimball.”

“On account of that phone call?” She laughed. “I had helped him, up to the time I realized what he was doing and why he wanted information about Allerton. But, sentimentally—”

She made a grimace.

I liked the way she pursed her red lips— the way she wrinkled her nose— and kissed back!

_________________

8: Sue as in Suicide

Thrilling Detective, Oct 1949

THE MINUTE the little guy in the brown suit and the hand crocheted tie checked in at the Raleigh-Plaza, Len Royal, the house dick, became interested in him.

The little man registered as Merrill T. Wagstaff from Frankfort, Kentucky. To Royal he looked, and sounded, as much like a native of the Blue Grass State as a citizen of Flatbush. Wagstaff was in Room 603. He didn’t spend much time around the rococo lobby of the big hotel. He came and went with all the fanfare of a mouse.

Merrill T. Wagstaff got his key from George Bixby, the night clerk, one Wednesday evening a week after he checked into the hotel. Royal, tall, redheaded and sardonic was staked out in his cubicle back of the manager’s office. The door was open and he had a diagonal view of the clerk’s desk. He saw Wagstaff thanking the fastidious Bixby, before the guest picked up his key and disappeared toward the elevator.

Royal uncoiled himself from his tilted-back chair and rested a shoulder against the connecting doorway.

“I’m stepping out for a change of breath, Georgie,” he said to Bixby. “I’ll be downstairs if you want me.”

The Blue Bar was down one flight of wide, marble stairs. It was a popular rendezvous from the time it opened in the morning until closing. Royal smiled faintly to himself as he went down the steps. Albert Kenyon, the stuffed shirt manager of the Raleigh-Plaza Hotel, had a strict rule against any of the hotel employees stopping in at the bar at any time of day or night. Royal didn’t like Kenyon. He often wondered why the pompous director-in-charge didn’t fire him.  He had been house detecting for two years at the big Park Avenue caravansary. He had obeyed few of Kenyon’s rules and regulations during his berth there.

In the crowded, hazy, semi-purple glow of the Blue Bar, Royal propped himself up at the end of the damp mahogany and looked around for a girl with dark, polished hair and thickly lashed eyes. He saw her after a minute’s search. She was in one of the leather-tufted compartments on the far side of the room. Two men were with her, one beside her, the other across the narrow table. Steve, Royal’s favorite barman, bobbed up.

“What’s your poison, pardner?”

“Vat Thirty— as if you didn’t know. No chaser, Steve.” Royal smiled thinly. “Clever idea— putting the water right in the liquor.”

His gaze went back to the compartment. One of the two men with Sue Conway was recognizable, the one seated beside her. He was Harry Powell, who until recently had been the owner and operator of a 53rd Street night spot known as the Club Coronet. The girl with the sleek dark hair and the widely-spaced, heavily lashed eyes had done a piano specialty as part of the Coronet’s entertainment. She had sung sophisticated, slightly risqué songs in a fascinatingly husky voice while accompanying herself on a gleaming white piano.

Powell was a sloppy looking guy. His blue serge needed pressing, his shoes could have done with a polish and the stringy tie he wore was no asset. He had a square, empty kind of face, dead panned and yellowish in the purple light. The other man, the one across the table, made Len Royal’s brows draw quizzically together. He was also big all over, but he didn’t have any of Powell’s untidiness about him. He was a strong-jawed, youngish man, sandy-haired and alert.

Royal couldn’t place him, but there was something about him that held the detective’s attention— something that made the Raleigh-Plaza’s house dick thoughtful. Royal had finished his first gargle and was pouring a second when Harry Powell got up and shuffled toward the double doors that led out to the marble steps. A few minutes later the other man in the compartment nodded to the girl and went out. Royal, small glass in hand, detached himself from the bar and dropped down into the seat across from Sue Conway.

“Mind if I drop anchor here?”

He made it sound casual.

“Why not?” The dark eyes were indifferent.

“Thought there might be a cable crossing.”

Royal set his glass in front of him. For the past six months the girl had been a guest of the hostelry. She had a single room on the eleventh floor. Royal wondered if she were going to stay on now that the Club Coronet had folded like an Arabian tent. He looked her over with interest and admiration. Her hair, black as the nine of spades, accented the creamy white of her oval face, the startling red of her curved lips and the satiny sheen of her throat. Her eyes, despite their indifference, were made for dreaming. There was a charm to her that Royal had known and felt from the first time he had spoken to her, weeks before.

“Off duty?” Sue Conway’s speaking voice had the same husky quality of her singing register.

Royal shook his head and said, “No, I’m just breaking a couple of Al Kenyon’s iron-clad rules. No tippling or mingling by the hired help.”

“Then your visit is strictly social.”

She rattled the ice in her tall glass. Her nails were long and a deeper red than her mouth. “I’m a curious so-and-so. Something interests me and I peg away at it until I learn what I’m after. In this case it answers to the name of Merrill T. Wagstaff.”

The dark eyes held his own steadily.

“And?”

“Who is the little guy? He’s supposed to come from Kentucky. What’s his grind?”

“Why ask me?” Sue Conway’s vivid lips parted in a faint smile. “I don’t know him. Or do I?”

“You were down here with him Sunday night, lifting a few,” Royal said in the same carelessly conversational tone. “Over there, compartment two. Remember?”

“Oh, the little man with the hand crocheted tie. He bought me a drink,” she said, just as carelessly.

Royal looked at her, frowning. “Just a drink? He didn’t give you any background material?”

“Why should he?” Her arched brows lifted slightly. “What’s he done— that you’re checking?”

Royal shrugged. “Put it down to curiosity.”

“Sorry, I’m fresh out of answers.”

She looked at the tiny, jeweled octagon ticking on her left wrist and got up. Royal, remembering his manners, stood. She gave him the ghost of a smile and stepped past him. Royal shrugged again and let her go.

But he wasn’t satisfied. He had the feeling that what he had seen in compartment two on Sunday night was more than a stranger in town buying a pretty girl a companionable drink. Royal took his whiskey glass back to the bar. He didn’t like mysteries when they weren’t printed on paper or flashed on sound screens. And he had a deep rooted conviction that Sue Conway had known Merrill T. Wagstaff before their Sunday night meeting.

Upstairs, the Raleigh-Plaza’s gilded lobby had assumed the quiet of the late hour. A few expensively gowned women with well groomed escorts waited at the elevators or were moving toward the revolving doors. Bixby, at the circular, black onyx desk, was polishing his horn-rimmed spectacles with a delicately scented handkerchief when Royal, glancing at the clock over the elevators, stopped.

“Time for all sleuths to knock off, Georgie. Anything you want to say before I reach for the innerspring?”

Bixby coughed. “Possibly, one. You’ve been so interested in Mr. Wagstaff, six-o-three. Well, a little while ago a man came up from the Blue Bar. He wanted to know what time Mr. Wagstaff left in the morning and if he had his breakfast here. It struck me as peculiar—such personal inquiries.”

“What did he look like?”

Bixby coughed again, and adjusted his glasses and furnished a description. Len Royal didn’t interrupt, but his mouth tightened. The night clerk was supplying a word picture of the other man who had been with Harry Powell and Sue Conway in the Blue Bar compartment.

“What did you tell him, Georgie?”

“I informed him,” Bixby answered stiffly, “that it’s against the rules for me to give out any information concerning our guests. And don’t call me ‘Georgie’. You know I abhor familiarity.”

“Sorry, a slip of the lip.” Royal grinned. “Goodnight— Bixby.”

His own small room was on the twentieth floor. In bed, the light out, Royal had a time getting to sleep. Merrill T. Wagstaff kept sliding in and out between the sheep he counted. And when the little man with the hand crocheted tie wasn’t there, the glamorous Miss Conway replaced him. Royal pulled the sheet up to his chin. What annoyed him was not being able to put a finger on the cause of his speculations. He had a deep, intuitive hunch that the man who had registered from Frankfort was a phony. Royal couldn’t help feeling that Wagstaff wasn’t what he pretended to be— a quiet, unassuming, harmless person. And there was someone else interested in him, Royal thought. A big, strong-jawed character who packed something that Royal had noticed and puzzled over in the Blue Bar....

He must have dozed off. The ring of the telephone on the table beside his bed jarred him to a sitting position. Royal reached for the telephone, still in a hazy, half awake condition. George Bixby’s voice sounded agitated: “Len! Get dressed as quickly as you can and go to six-o-three! Something terrible’s happened!” The wire clicked and went dead. Royal turned on the light and got out of bed. Ten minutes later he was on the sixth floor.

The far end of the corridor he saw ‘Shorty’ Harrigan, one of the bellhop brigade, several of the Raleigh-Plaza’s guests and the portly figure of Albert Kenyon. The manager seemed to be trying to get the guests back to their rooms.

Harrigan, when Royal approached, looked pale and slightly green around the gills.

“What’s the complaint?” Royal saw that the door to 603 was open on a crack. The soft glow of shaded light slanted across its sill.

“In there!” Shorty pointed with a not too steady finger. “A guy’s been shot up! And me— I walk right in on him— with his carafe of ice water and the oranges he ordered every night.”

Kenyon, successful in getting the last of the hotel’s clientele out of the way, came quickly toward Royal. His usually smug, pompous superiority was conspicuous by its absence. Kenyon’s jowly face was troubled. Even his closely clipped gray mustache had lost some of its dignity.

“About time you showed up,” he said to Royal. “Mr. Wagstaff’s had an accident. You’d better go in and see what it’s all about. I’ll wait out here for your report.”

Royal shouldered the door wider and went into 603. The soft light came from the lamp on the night table beside the desk. Royal, with narrowing eyes, centered his gaze on the bed. He felt the slow crawl of his nerves, a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach, a cold, clammy chill that started somewhere at the end of his spine and moved stealthily to the top of his scalp.

He didn’t mind the sight of blood, or a man who was definitely and thoroughly dead. But he did object to being peered at with glazed, staring eyes which resembled two holes in a mask made of a red ooze. The blood came from a head wound over the right temple. The blood had run down into the hollow at the base of the dead man’s neck.

Royal’s gaze moved over the pajama-coated figure to the floor and the gun that lay half under the dust-ruffle on the four-poster bed. He whipped out a handkerchief and picked the weapon up.

Holding it to the light he saw it was a Smith and Wesson .32 caliber revolver, the kind known as a hand ejector. Royal saw that it was a new gun. Its nickel finish was bright, unscratched. Its checkered walnut stock was unmarred, highly polished. It had a four and a quarter inch barrel, weighed about eighteen or nineteen ounces and had one empty cartridge in its chamber.

He laid the gun on the blotter pad of the desk on the other side of the room and let his eyes move around in a slow arc. There was nothing revealing. The room was orderly, the adjoining bath still steamy, the shower curtain still wet.

Royal looked at the neat pile of Merrill T. Wagstaff’s clothing on a chair in a corner. The shoes were placed under it, the hand crocheted tie folded on the bureau’s glass top. Next to that was a pigskin wallet. Royal used his handkerchief again to examine the wallet. He went through it quickly, counted the money it contained and riffled through the memoranda in its divisions. He found an auto driver’s license, stared at it thoughtfully and slipped that into his pocket. Then dropping the wallet back where he had found it, Royal walked to the door and stepped out into the corridor.

“Is he—” Albert Kenyon broke the question off.

Royal nodded. “Yeah. You’d better call the police.”

“Police?” The fat hotel manager took a backward step. “But— but think of the publicity. Murder in the Raleigh-Plaza! We can’t have it!”

“You’ve got it,” Royal said without humor.

Kenyon rubbed his chins with a pudgy, not too steady hand. A foppish dresser, he went in for jewelry. A wristwatch with a gold bracelet strap, an old fashioned stickpin, a jeweled tie pin and two rings. One was on the third finger of his left hand, the other on the fourth. His pinkie ring was a reddish, oval stone with an intaglio bird. The setting was antique gold.

Len Royal looked at the two rings while Kenyon patted his double chins.

“I’ll telephone.” He sucked in a wheezy voice. “The management isn’t going to like this. They’re not going to like it at all. Murder!”

He shuddered and waddled away.

Royal watched him go. Harrigan, the bellhop, had been ordered back to the lobby. Except for two or three doors opened just a crack so those behind them might hear what was going on, the long, wide corridor was quiet and deserted.

Royal walked as far as the stairs. The light was better there. He sat down on the third step and took out the driver’s license he had removed from the wallet.

A frown creased his forehead. The license had been made out to Arthur Parrish. The address on it was 29 Walnut Street, Center City, N.Y. The date of birth and the height tallied with the little man who had named Frankfort, Kentucky, as his home town.

Royal slipped the license back in his pocket and took an elevator down to the lobby. In a public telephone booth near the south entrance to the hotel, he laid a stack of change on the counter, got a long distance operator and told her: “I want to get Center City, New York. I want to talk to the Chief of Police there. I’ll hang on.”

TEN MINUTES later he left the booth, the wail of an arriving squad car in his ears. A moment later Royal saw men coming into the lobby. He went back to Room 603.

Homicide with all its props had taken over. The room was full of cigar and cigarette smoke, burned flash bulbs, conversation and movement. A man Royal recognized as Lieutenant Hartley gave him a curt nod.

Hartley said, “You’re the house detective. You were in here— after the bellhop discovered the body. What have you got?”

“Not a thing.” Royal shook his head. “I took one quick look and told Mr. Kenyon to call you. This isn’t my department.”

“No suggestions or opinions?”

“None.”

Royal backed away. Nobody stopped him. He went back to the elevators, pressed the up button and got off at the eleventh floor. At the end of the corridor he knocked on a door. A pencil of light along its crack told him that Sue Conway was still awake. She opened the door after a minute. She had changed to a quilted housecoat with a broad cerise sash. Her small bare feet were in fuzzy white scuffs. She had removed her makeup but her lips still glowed, warm and red against her creamy skin.

“I want to talk to you.”

Royal elbowed the door open and pushed it shut with a foot when he was on its other side. The room he was in was smaller than six-o-three. The bed hadn’t been turned down and there was a bottle of bourbon and two glasses on a tray on the night table. He switched his glance from the tray to her pretty face.

“Heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Wagstaff’s dead. Hole in his head. Thirty-two caliber. I thought you might want to know.”

He watched her closely. She seemed to freeze, but her face remained expressionless. The lashes were down, screening her dark eyes so Royal couldn’t see what they hid. But he did notice her tapering fingers close tightly.

“Why tell me about it?” The husky voice was level and steady.

“Look.” Royal spoke impatiently. “The cops are down in six-o-three now. They want to scrape up every scrap of information they can get hold of. You know more about the little guy than you’re letting on. Maybe I’d better tell the law to ask you a few questions.”

She drew a deep breath. She walked across to the dresser and shook a cigarette out of an open pack. She lighted it, inhaled and turned to Royal.

“What do you want to know? What’s your angle?”

“Curiosity— to answer your last question first. I figured Wagstaff wasn’t right from the minute I saw him. You had more than a chance drink with him. You knew him. And you knew his real name wasn’t Wagstaff.”

Sue Conway sat down on the edge of the bed. “He asked me not to air our friendship. I figured maybe he had a wife. Maybe that was why he used the name of Wagstaff instead—”

“Of Arthur Parrish,” Royal said abruptly. “What else did he tell you?”

“That he was a banker up-state.”

“He was a cashier until a couple of weeks ago. I got it from the Chief of Police there, via the Bell System. At that time Parrish walked out— with thirty grand of the bank’s coin.”

The girl leaned to mash her cigarette out in a dish. Royal was treated to a delightfully distracting view.

“I heard about that tonight— downstairs in the bar,” she said. “You saw me with Powell and that other man. He was a detective from Center City with a warrant for Arthur’s arrest. He was going to pick him up later to-night.”

“How long did you know Parrish?”

“Since around Christmas. Harry Powell met him at the Coronet. Arthur said he was a small town banker, that he was in New York on a mid-winter vacation. He spent most of his time at the Coronet. Harry said Arthur had tumbled for me, that I was to kid him along. That sometime he might come in handy— for financing.”

Royal began to get it.

“Business dwindled, the Coronet needed dough to keep going. So you brought Parrish back— with his thirty G’s?”

Sue Conway nodded apathetically. “I wrote him a letter. That— that detective must have found it.”

“What about the thirty thousand?”

“I don’t know. Harry and Arthur have been hashing it over. Arthur wanted me to star in a big revue at the Coronet when it was reopened. They expected to come to terms this week.”

“Then no money changed hands?”

“That’s what the detective asked. Not a dime.”

“Parrish must have stashed the lifted dough. Not in the hotel safe—according to Bixby.” Royal spoke, half to himself. “There was seventy dollars in his leather. He might have had the coin cached out in his room.”

“He—he wasn’t a bad little guy.” Sue Conway’s voice had a catch in it. “He did the caper for me! Because he was in love with me! Even if he was a crook I—”

Royal nodded toward the bottle and the two glasses on the tray. “You expected him up to-night?”

“No—”

“Then who did you expect?”

Her dark eyes fluttered up to meet his. A full minute ticked away before she answered....

The police were still in 603. Royal didn’t stop there. He went on down to the lobby. A disturbed and apprehensive Bixby shook his head when Royal opened the door that led to his own retreat.

“Murder!” Bixby bleated. “It’ll be all over the front pages. As if this hotel were a Bowery flophouse!”

Royal didn’t say anything. There was a light in the row of offices to the left of where he stood. After a minute he saw Lieutenant Hartley come out of Kenyon’s private sanctum. Royal watched him go, his eyes narrowed and his face shadowed. He waited until Bixby turned back to his work, went down the short passage and up to the frosted glass door with Kenyon’s name gold-leafed on it. He pushed that open and looked in. Kenyon saw him and called out, “Come in, Royal. Got news for you.”

He sat at his long, flat-topped desk. The worry had gone out of his joweled face. The close-clipped mustache seemed to have regained its lost jauntiness. He pointed to a chair with a spatulate finger. Royal shut the door, but didn’t sit down.

“What news?”

“About Wagstaff— or Arthur Parrish, to give him his right name. It wasn’t murder. It was suicide.”

“Suicide?”

Royal didn’t move. Kenyon nodded.

“Doesn’t take the police long to find these things out. Right in the middle of their investigation a detective from upstate walked in. This Wagstaff—or Parrish—had embezzled funds from a bank where he worked. He knew the law was on his heels. He took the easy way out, the quick way. He shot himself!” Still Len Royal didn’t move.

He said, “So that’s what happened?”

“They found his prints on the gun. Faint, but his without question.”

“But they didn’t find thirty thousand bucks?” Royal said.

Albert Kenyon looked surprised. “So you knew the amount?” He tipped back in his chair. “No, they haven’t found that as yet. But they will. Parrish probably has it in a bank under another phony name. They’ll dig it up in time. They never miss.”

“They missed to-night.” A faint, sardonic smile twisted Royal’s mouth. “Parrish didn’t do the job on himself. He was murdered for the cash. The killer planted Parrish’s prints on the gun and left it on the floor beside his bed, making it look as if it had slipped out of a dead hand.”

Kenyon’s chair clicked as he straightened up in it. His double chins shook with emotion. “What do you mean by making an absurd statement like that?”

“Not so absurd.” Royal moved a step forward. “I’m interested in that ring you’re wearing. The one on your pinkie, with the red stone and the bird engraved on it. That ring belonged to Parrish.”

Kenyon’s mouth opened. His eyes widened as he swallowed. But his expression remained unchanged.

“That’s right. I love jewelry. I admired the ring when I first saw it. I bought it from Parrish, the second night he was here.”

Royal shook his head. “No good, Kenyon. You didn’t buy anything from him. You helped yourself. You’ve got the thirty G’s. You were going to use them to do something for Miss Conway— out on the West Coast. You’ve had a yen for her for a long time. You’ve been letting her have a room here and you’ve been footing the bills. You’ve—”

Kenyon’s hand came away from the top desk drawer. His fat fingers were clamped about an automatic. In one move he had the gun up and was out of the chair.

“Smart dick! I didn’t give you credit for it, Royal. I thought you were just a lazy, red-headed, imitation gumheel who took this job because you didn’t have enough ambition, brains or guts to get with a private agency. Looks like I made a mistake, doesn’t it?”

“Miss Conway gave me the tipoff,” Royal said quietly. “It was easy figuring after I had the word— and had seen the ring. By the way, did Bixby tell you I was in here a few minutes ago— tampering with that gun? I never take chances and—”

Kenyon turned the automatic, his thumb on its safety, giving Royal the split-second he needed.

He was across the desk and on the fat man before Kenyon could get the gun back in a firing line. Royal wrenched the rod out of Kenyon’s sausage-like fingers with one hand and smashed his free fist into the man’s soft face. It was like sitting on a box of marshmallows. But Royal wasn’t finished. He brought the gun down in a vicious butt-whip across Albert Kenyon’s skull.

The man staggered back, over the swivel chair and into a steel filing cabinet. He clawed at it, his legs turning rubbery, his expression suddenly one of imbecilic blankness. Royal laughed as he grabbed him by the lapels and jerked him across to the flat-topped desk.

He raised his voice, calling for Bixby. When the frosted glass door burst open, Royal said; “Buzz six-o-three, Georgie. Have a cop sent down. Tell him I’ve got a killer— on ice and ready for frying!”

The glass door stayed open while Bixby disappeared. Kenyon panted like a porpoise out of water. He made sounds deep in his throat.

Prodding him with the automatic, Royal said; “It was the red ring with the bird, Kenyon. You said you bought it the second evening Parrish was here. But I saw it last night on his finger, when he stopped for his key! Too bad you couldn’t resist wearing it. That ring tolls your death knell, Kenyon!”

_______________

9: Fog is Necessary

The Popular Complete Stories Feb 1st 1932

JOE TRAILL was complaining loudly as the elevator came to a stop at the fifth floor. “What a place! Even the goats run the wrong way here. Boy, if I ever see Belmont Park again, I’m going to get right down on my knees and holler out for the world to hear: ‘Widener, here I am! London? I’ll sell you the whole works for a dollar twenty-nine!”

The “Canary Kid” smiled as he fitted the key to the door of their small suite. He opened the door, switched on the light, and watched

Traill wander morosely in. The Shaftesbury Hotel, on Great St. Andrew Street, north of the Strand, was unpretentious. The Kid had selected it for their brief stay because it suited his purpose, which was to be as inconspicuous as possible.

“Even the dough here,” Traill continued, “is cockeyed. Imagine calling a crown a ‘dollar’ when it’s only worth five shillings. Listen, when do we shove off? Another week around these parts, and I’ll be ready for a pine raglan. I don’t mean the kind with buttons, neither.”

The Kid lighted a cigarette, and drew the shade at the window of their small parlor. The glass reflected him darkly. The tweeds he had worn to the races at Hurst Park that afternoon had come from a tailor on Moorgate Street. In them the Kid, slender and blond, looked not unlike one of the wealthy idlers who exercised their mounts on the bridle paths of Rotten Row.

He turned away and dropped into a chair. Traill and he had lost nearly three hundred dollars on the races. The Kid smiled faintly. The unfamiliar thoroughbreds, on the turf course, had run the wrong, way for them. Like Traill, the small, wizened little crook suffering so acutely with nostalgia, he, himself, was homesick for New York. A profitless fortnight in London had made him anxious to press on.

“Tell you what I’ll do, Joseph.” The Kid spoke deliberately. “If we don’t get a break by Wednesday, we’ll run across to Paris, look that slab over, and sail from Cherbourg on the twenty-first. Fair enough?”

“Twenty-first? That’s a long way off. Paris, you say? Why go there?— ’at’s only a city of dressmakers.”

He shrugged. “You’re the head man, so I suppose I gotta keep my face shut and sit up on my hind legs whenever you snap your fingers. But get this, pal,” he added fiercely. “When I plant my dogs on Forty-second Street, they’re going to stay there permanently. On the level, you can pick up more mazuma in five minutes on the main stem than you can over here in five years. No wonder this Scotland Yard place packs such a heavy rep. The elbows don’t have to arrest nobody. Why? Because there’s nothing to steal!”

“I wonder,” the Canary Kid murmured thoughtfully.

“While you’re wondering,” Joe

Traill stated crisply, “I’m gonna wash up, hop out, and grab me off a music-hall show. I think I’ll nod in at Daly’s. Don’t you want to string along?”

The Kid shook the golden head from which his nickname had been derived. “No, I think I’ll stay here a while. I expect a visitor a little later. You go and enjoy yourself, but remember this: pockets over here are sewed up tight. Don’t make the mistake of trying to get your fingers in any of them.”

Traill grunted and left.

The Kid, alone, picked up a sporting magazine. He turned the pages idly, his attention straying. He began to think about Sir Wilfred Parish and the office at the Croydon flying field, where, the previous day, he had first glimpsed the man. Deep within him the Kid’s intuition stirred. He had no definite way of reasoning out the feeling, but he was almost certain he had one of his old, lucky hunches. The Canary Kid shrugged well-tailored shoulders and looked at his watch. It was nearly nine o’clock.

Discarding the magazine, he took a nervous turn or two around the room. Sir Wilfred Parish. Croydon to Le Bourget. After a minute the Kid went into the adjoining bedroom, and strapped on his rubber shoulder scabbard. Into the holster he pushed a flat automatic revolver, after a glance that made certain the ammunition clip was filled. Somehow the familiar feel of the weapon close to him had a soothing, inspiring touch. Once more he was the adventurer, the lone wolf prowling the danger trail. He trusted his hunches, believed implicitly in his own luck, was a fatalist in all matters of chance. And chance, he was confident, had dealt him a new hand there in the flying-field office, where he had gone for information concerning the plane schedule between England and France.

SOME fifteen minutes later a knock sounded on the door. The Canary Kid opened it. The man he admitted was a bluff, florid individual, whose bowler hat, umbrella, and shabby serge suit hinted of Bloomsbury. He selected a chair while the Kid looked his guest over speculatively. He had met James Mandeville that afternoon at Hurst Park. Mandeville had acted as his betting commissioner and, once the Kid had broached his subject, had agreed to assist him for a certain remuneration.

“Well, saying good evening to you, sir, here I am ten minutes late,” Mandeville began, uneasily fingering his bushy, dark mustache. I hurried, I did, but I was delayed a bit.”

“What did you find out?” the Kid inquired.

Mandeville unfolded a piece of note paper. With a cough he spread it out, fumbled for silver-rimmed nose glasses, and read sonorously:

“In the matter of Sir Wilfred Parish, 29 Mount Street, Mayfair. Sir Wilfred is the son of the late Marshall Parish, of Lincolnfield, and the former Betty Hammersmith. He attended―”

“I know,” the Kid interrupted. “I read that much myself this morning in Burke’s Peerage. What has Sir Wilfred been doing since five o’clock this afternoon? What have you been doing with your time and the money I gave you? Come, Mandeville.' You know the sort of information I want. Let’s have it.”

The Kid’s visitor removed his glasses and coughed again. “That I do know, sir. But why you should want Sir Wilfred investigated is beyond me. Quite. Such a fine gentleman, sir. Why, as the senior partner in his counting house on Dysart Street and with a summer place at Brighton, there don’t come no finer than Sir Wilfred, sir. Still, a job’s a job.” He sighed ponderously. “I’ve been observing him for you, sir. I’ve written down a few things here, and with your permission I’ll read them.”

He polished the glasses, set them astride his nose, and turned to his notes. While he read in a precise tone, the Kid’s mind leaped on in advance of what his caller said. Out of Mandeville’s statement the Kid seized upon certain facts. An inner satisfaction warmed him pleasantly. After all, the idle fortnight might not have been entirely wasted. One thing was certain. His old ability to recognize a thing of importance wearing the mask of triviality was unchanged. Yesterday’s hunch, he was sure, had not been false.

“And so,” the Kid said, when the other completed his reading, “Sir Wilfred Parish has reserved an after-theater table at the Hertford Gardens? I presume evening clothes are obligatory there.”

“Quite, sir.”

The Kid nodded. “Fair enough. I think that will be all, Mandeville. You might look in on me to-morrow morning. One thing else. Be a good fellow and call up the Hertford Gardens. Reserve a table for John Alden as close to eleven as you can make it.”

“Right-o, sir. Anything else?”

“You might,” the Kid said, “tell me why you carry an umbrella on a perfectly clear night.”

“It’s the fog, Mr. Alden,” Mandeville explained, using the Kid’s latest alias. “You never know when the blinking fog is going to come. Clear nights don’t mean a thing, sir. Why, I’m willing to risk a bob it will be foggy before midnight, sir. Midnight to-night, I mean.”

“You can’t get odds from me,” the Kid smiled. “I don’t know your London weather well enough. By the way, are fogs worth anything? What good are they?”

James Mandeville coughed for the third time. “Fogs,” he declared, “are necessary.”

The Kid showed him out and switched on the bedroom light. A table at Hertford Gardens meant a complete change of raiment. He turned to his steamer wardrobe trunk and laid out the necessities of evening apparel. About to shut the top drawer, from which he had taken a dinner tie, the Kid hesitated. He removed what appeared to be a flat, hammered cigarette case. For a minute he toyed with it. Once, in a New York speakeasy, the contrivance had served him well. The Kid tucked the thing into the pocket of his dinner coat and set about the business of changing his clothes.

Dapper and elegant, the Kid had slipped on a topcoat when he heard a familiar footfall in the -hotel corridor. A key scraped in the lock. Joe Traill, an inch of cigarette in one corner of his thin, furtive mouth, opened the door and came in. He stared at the Kid, who, tucking a cane under his left arm, pulled chamois gloves on his well-shaped hands.

“Strike me pink,” the small crook said in his best cockney accent, “what ’ave we ’ere? A blinkin’ toff. I say, what’s hit all about?”

“I’m suppering at Hertford Gardens,” the Canary Kid said briefly.

Traill stared harder. “Yeah? Stepping out, huh? You plaster yourself with swank and circulate around, while all I get is a load of punk vaudeville, and now the pad to sleep it off on. What a break— for me! Look. Don’t you need some one to go along and hold your horse or something?”

“This,” the Kid informed him, “is a one-man job.”

Joe Traill’s deep-set, gray, ferret eyes widened. “Job?” He moved closer to the Kid. “Job? No fooling. What’s the lay, pal?”

Smiling, the Kid buttoned his gloves and shook his head. “I don’t know myself— yet. It’s one of the old hunches, Joseph. Do you recall yesterday, when we asked about the plane schedule at the flying field? Do you remember the man we had to wait for?”

“The big punk with the high dicer, the puppy canopies, and the trick eyeglass? Let’s see what kind of a memory I got. I’ll give you eight to five I can spot him. The clerk there called him Sir Parish. Do I win or lose?”

“You cash, Joseph, my bright fellow.”

“And he’s the bloke you’re checking up on? Come clean. Kid. What is it— jewelry or currency? Better let me play ball. Only a couple of days ago I oiled up my heater. Boy, what a slippery trigger that cannon features!”

“The setting for to-night’s drama,” the Canary Kid pointed out coldly, “is the Mayfair district of this city and not Chicago.”

“Then you won’t wish me in on it?”

“I’m afraid not, Joseph. For you I recommend your downy cot. Early to bed and early to rise. Don’t forget we’re flying to Le Bourget any fine morning now. I have a feeling you’ll need all your strength for the journey.”

“I ain’t even decided if I’ll go in one of them cloud crawlers,” Traill retorted. “Still, it looks like I’m out of luck either way. I heard them tell how the channel boats are as rough as a gangsters’ convention. This is only putting a turn on the subject. Do I go with you to-night or not?”

“Not,” the Kid replied, letting himself out of the suite.

Outside, in Great St. Andrew Street, the Canary Kid saw that the wager James Mandeville had proposed would have won the other his bob. The clarity of the London night was obscured by fog. It bulked close, misty, thickly opaque, so damp the Kid felt it on his face like rain. The Strand, viewed through the yellowish curtain, was a wall of splotchy lights. To the visitor from America the night took
on an eerie, strange character.

Yet, for the watchful cabbies, the lowering of the fog helped rather than hindered their trade. With eyes long accustomed to the mist, a cabby drove his vehicle to the curb. He addressed the Kid from his box:

“Keb, sir? Tyke you anywhere you want to go, sir.”

He leaned and opened the door of his conveyance. The Kid gave him his destination, and they joined the ghostly legion of traffic wheeling across the Strand. A round of minutes, and the Canary Kid exchanged the fog-ridden night for the lighted, music-filled Hertford Gardens.

The place was a smart supper club, a rendezvous for wealth and fashion. A New York jazz orchestra played the latest Broadway hits. For a minute the Kid fancied himself back home again. He had seen London, walked its streets, attended its theaters, dined in its celebrated chop houses, and visited one of its race tracks. In all, his first five minutes within the crowded confines of Hertford Gardens made him imagine he was back, close to the throbbing heart of Broadway, more than any other thing.

The table Mandeville had reserved by telephone proved to be in a fairly desirable location near some windows. A waiter seated the Kid and took his order. It was, the Kid saw, not going to be an easy task to find Sir Wilfred Parish in the crowds. Still, the Kid was accustomed to crowds. He had a systematic way of checking them over. He began his close scrutiny of those at the tables near the main entrance. His glance ranged to the dance floor, and traveled along the far side of the place. Suddenly the Kid saw the man whom he had come to watch.

Sir Wilfred Parish’s table was the third from the last in the line almost directly opposite. Parish was alone. He sat with a glass before him, and a long cigar balanced between his fingers. One elbow rested on the edge of the table, and in the mellow light the Canary Kid saw the same strained, odd look in the man’s face that had first caught and arrested his attention the previous day. The Kid could not analyze or define the expression. Somehow it hinted of sinister matters secret in the one on whose pale, aquiline face they were so deeply engraved. For the rest. Parish was a man apparently in the late forties, a tall individual with dark, gray-sprinkled hair, a black mustache, and the poise of the true aristocrat. His evening clothes were in perfect taste. He sat watching the animated throng of dancers, and the Kid, surreptitiously regarding him, again remarked Parish’s extreme nervousness.

As the Kid moved his gaze he became aware almost at once of the fact he was not the only person at Hertford Gardens that night who watched Sir Wilfred Parish. A half dozen tables beyond, a youth, who was accompanied by a pretty, blond girl, divided his attention between his escort and Parish. The young man made a show of giving the girl his entire consideration, but every other minute he darted short, quick glances at Parish. What was there about Parish, the Kid mused, that had aroused him? Mandeville’s dash of biography cribbed from Burke’s book was not revealing. Sir Wilfred Parish differed but little from any other descendant of an old English family who, at the moment, held down the eminently respectable position of senior partner in his own counting house and private banking establishment. The Kid recalled several of the high lights in James Mandeville’s oral report. Again he was confident he was on the right track; that, with any degree of luck, the night would yield him a nice profit, and that his sojourn in London would not be entirely wasted.

Of a sudden. Parish signaled for his check. The Canary Kid shot a glance at the man with the pretty, blond girl. He was paying his bill, making ready to quit the place without delay. The Kid waited no longer. As luck had it his own waiter was close at hand. The Kid was hard on the heels of the two at the other table when they passed through the entry foyer and reached the fog-swept street outside the Hertford Gardens. The two conferred together in low tones. Then the youth engaged a cab and handed the girl in.

“Good night, Lucille,” he said, and shut the door.

The cab melted into the fog. The youth turned left and disappeared. A pace back from the entrance into the restaurant the Canary Kid waited. In no more than another minute Sir Wilfred Parish, draped in a voluminous waterproof, appeared on the top step. The doorman ran out and blew his whistle. A black sedan slid to the curb. Parish stepped into the car, which moved away with a purring motor.

Now, the Kid saw, the prologue to the real work of the night was over. He knew he had to move, and move rapidly. He swung around and addressed the driver of the next cab in line behind the one the blond girl had taken.

“Mount Street, No. 29,” the Kid rapped out. “Double fare if you hurry.”

The driver replied cheerfully. His whip snapped, and the vehicle rolled off. The Kid realized the advantages of a horse-drawn vehicle on such a night. Where a taxi would have had to make slow progress, due to the fog blanket, the animal between the shafts possessed some instinct of direction. They rounded a corner, clattered down an avenue, and made several more devious turns, while the Kid impatiently urged the driver to greater speed. After a time the conveyance slowed.

When the Kid looked out, he found the driver climbing down off his box. “This is Mount Street, sir. If you’ll wait. I’ll find the right house for you. It’s on this street, I’m sure. Blast the fog!” he added, with a good British oath.

“I’ll find it myself. How much do I owe you?” the Kid asked.

The cab went on, and the Canary Kid, walking Mayfair’s very exclusive pavements, presently found his destination on the corner beyond. The residence of Sir Wilfred Parish was a large stone building, behind decorative iron grilles. To the passer-by it presented an unlighted façade, standing serene in the fog as if representative of the neighborhood’s solidity. Yet, the Kid was quick to observe, the house contained the person who interested him, for, waiting at the curb was parked the black sedan that had taken Parish from the Hertford Gardens.

The Kid turned into the vestibule. The fog had its advantages. There he might work without being observed by any one in the street. He bent to the lock on the inner door, turning the knob, listening to the sound of the latch’s mechanism. There was nothing very difficult to the lock itself. The master-key he always carried with him solved its intricacies. Cautiously, he pushed the front door to an aperture large enough to glide through.

The Kid closed the door behind him, and waited until his eyes grew accustomed to the murky darkness of his surroundings. Warmth enveloped him. He strained his ears. After a long minute he heard sounds of movement on the floor above; the opening and closing of drawers, rustle of papers, a low cough. The Kid’s hand reached for and felt the flat bulge of the rubber shoulder scabbard. Then, urged on by a desire to learn how incorrect or perfect his hunch had been, he mounted a wide staircase that went up into the dim regions above.

On the first landing the Kid marked his destination. An edge of light came from under a shut door at the end of the passage. From behind this door the sounds emanated which he had heard while downstairs. With one hand on the balustrade, the Kid kept his ears attuned to the quiet of the mansion. Besides Sir Wilfred Parish, he had the servants to reckon with. James Mandeville had neglected to tell him how many inhabited the house. With a shrug the Kid moved closer to the door. He tensed himself, his automatic sliding out and into his hand. Then, after a short pause, the creak of a door opening behind him whirled the Kid around.

At the same moment something hard and ominous prodded and came to rest at a point between his shoulders. A low voice gave a sharp, quiet command:

“Stand exactly where you are! Don’t make the mistake of moving! I’ll take your weapon.’’ The Kid allowed his fingers to be emptied of his gun. “Now walk forward, and remember I will not hesitate to shoot if you attempt trickery. I want a look at you.”

The man behind him opened the shut door at the end of the passage. The Canary Kid passed into a lighted study. Its oak-paneled walls and antique furniture gave it an old-fashioned charm. But the Kid was more interested in the man who, covering him carefully with his revolver, backed him to one wall. Sir Wilfred Parish considered the Kid with a frown.

“I saw you from the window. My dear fellow, just what is your business here to-night? You’re no housebreaker. At least you do not appear so.”

“You flatter me,” the Kid murmured.

“Come, come,” Parish cut in quite crisply. “I’m in no mood for procrastination. Who are you?”

“One,” the Kid replied, “with a hunch. A rather indifferent hunch at that, it would appear.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Stop me if I bore you,” the Kid requested. “My explanation is rather whimsical. It begins yesterday morning in the office of the Croydon flying field. I had to wait quite a little, while you made inquiries concerning the first plane leaving Croydon tomorrow morning for France. I noted your look, your agitation, the care with which you booked passage and the name you gave. Perhaps I would have never thought about it again had I not seen you in the parking space when I left the office. If you remember, a limousine drove up. A stout gentleman who wore a monocle such as yours, hailed you. He addressed you as Sir Wilfred Parish.”

“Go on.”

“That,” the Kid continued, “struck me as odd. You book passage under one name, and I hear you called by another. While waiting for my taxi, I overheard the stout gentleman make a luncheon date with you at your club for to-morrow noon. Again, I thought it odd. You were flying to Le Bourget, and yet you were making luncheon dates.”

Parish smiled thinly. “You Americans,” he declared softly, “are observing chaps. What else?”

The Kid shrugged. “Nothing of any importance. I wanted to play my hunch through and find out what you were up to. That’s about all.”

The other, without relaxing his vigilance, rested against a table in the center of the study. Parish’s brows drew together in thought. He glanced at his watch and looked at the Kid meditatively. At length he spoke.

“I don’t know whether to turn you over to the police or not. Your story is ingenious. It just happens I might be able to use you.”

The Canary Kid was struck by Parish’s musing tone. He didn’t like the sound of it. There was something almost sinister in the other’s expressive face. Sir Wilfred Parish laughed under his breath.

“Yes, you might be useful to me. It would be rather amusing to have you arrested and held on a charge of bank robbery. A bit thick for you, my good fellow, but fortunate, perhaps, for me. It so happens the safe in my Dysart Street establishment was opened and cleaned out late this afternoon. If you were arrested with some of the securities and money on you―”

He broke off abruptly. The Kid, motionless against the wall, tightened his lips. All at once a ray of understanding flashed through his mind. Parish’s alias at the flying field, the luncheon date which was impossible for him to keep, his expression and nervousness. The Kid told himself it needed no high order of intelligence to put the facts together and arrive at an accurate conclusion. Sir Wilfred Parish, preparing for flight, had robbed his own safe!

Even as the Canary Kid reached his deduction he saw that the man confronting him knew that he knew. Parish’s face darkened. His gaze involuntarily flickered across the sombre study.

For the first time the Kid glimpsed the small, neat pile of luggage in one shadowy corner of the room. He drove his thoughts faster. Once, back home in the States, he had served a penitentiary sentence. All during the long, grim, gray months in that city of silent men he had vowed that never in the future would be again hear steel-barred doors clang shut behind him.

He studied Parish through narrowed eyes. The man was a worthy adversary. Parish, recovering himself, would think up some clever way to pass the buck. The Kid’s hands closed. What would his word— the word of an American crook with a prison record— avail against that of the man who faced him? The Kid realized the tightness of his predicament. There was obviously one chance in a hundred left. He decided to put the thought of gain away, and seize the slim chance of escape.

“I'd like to think it over. Holding the bag is not always pleasant. May I smoke?”

Parish, in reply, ran a hand over the Kid’s person. When he found no further weapons, the man assented. The Kid produced his hammered-silver case. Before he could open it, there was a quick and unexpected interruption. A shadow fell across the study floor. A step sounded on the threshold, and a voice uttered a sibilant command:

“Put down your gun. Sir Wilfred! Please don’t misunderstand me. It would afford me a great deal of pleasure to shoot you where you stand!”

Parish’s gun clattered loudly to the floor. The Kid, the silver cigarette case in one hand, felt a quickening beat of his pulses. After all, he told himself, there was nothing startling in the appearance of the youth who moved leisurely in from the outside corridor. He was the same individual who, with the pretty, blond girl at the Hertford Gardens, had watched Parish so intently.

“What does this mean, Morrison?” Parish asked stridently.

The intruder glanced briefly at the Canary Kid before answering. The automatic in his hand glinted in the lamplight. It was a new, shiny weapon.

“What am I doing? I am about to make my fortune. You thought you were alone this evening at the office, but you weren’t. Sir Wilfred. It happened that when I finished my accounts I had to go into old Hager’s room. I heard you in your office and, being of a curious nature, it was impossible to resist the impulse to glance in. Fancy my surprise when I saw you transferring the contents of the safe to two open bags on the floor before it. I’m quite certain I would not have thought anything of it, had it not been for your furtiveness, the look in your face.”

Parish said nothing. The Kid met the youth’s stare. Morrison, as Parish had called him, went across to the corner. Out of the luggage pile he selected two small Gladstone bags. He placed both on the table, the automatic in his hand still leveled, and spoke again:

“I believe these are the bags with the money and securities. Sir Wilfred, I might add that during the year of my employment with you I have been fully aware of your losses in the rubber market, as well as your cleverness in using your clients’ money to speculate with. I have been patient. Sir Wilfred. Patient and persevering, as one should be when one plans to leave England with a small fortune.”

“You’ll never make it, Morrison,” Parish said. “In the morning the police will be watching every vessel.”

“You would have made it,” the youth replied. “I don’t know how, but you would have gotten away. Don’t worry about me. By tomorrow night Lucille and I will be far beyond the range of Scotland Yard. Besides, Sir Wilfred, you really owe me a debt of gratitude. By relieving you of what was in the safe, I am keeping you partially honest. I think that’s about all. Oh, yes. When I leave here it might be best for you to let me go as quietly as I came in, through the front door, so obligingly left unlocked for me. Any call for the police would be as embarrassing to you as it would to me. I imagine I make myself quite clear.”

While Morrison tested the weight of the bags and arranged them so he might carry both with his left hand, the Canary Kid’s eyes wandered to the gun Parish had dropped. The Kid gauged the distance to the door and placed the position of the lamp in mind. Then, turning the silver case over in his hand, he spoke for the first time since Morrison had entered.

“Won’t you have a cigarette before you go? Nothing like a smoke to relieve tension. Sir Wilfred gave me permission, and I’m sure he’ll have no objection―”

The Kid walked across to Morrison, the case in his outstretched hand. The easy smile on his lips covered the rushing beat of his heart, the pounding pressure informing him of the split-second climax in wait. Would Morrison fall for the ruse? Would, after all, the Kid’s hunch, directed by a twist of the same capricious fate that had taken him to Mayfair, work out successfully?

“I don’t care for a cigarette,” Morrison said. “Step aside. I’ve got to be on my way.”

But the Kid was close enough now. His thumb pressed the tiny silver trigger. The lid of the case snapped open automatically, sparking the flint that exploded the case’s charge of photographer’s flash-light powder. It flared up in a greenish-yellow flame. As it went off in Morrison’s face, the Kid’s left fist smashed against his jaw. The youth tumbled back and fell across the desk. The Kid twisted the gun from the other’s hand and straightened Sir Wilfred Parish up with it. The other man’s attempt to snatch up his own discarded revolver left him with both hands elevated. The Kid reached for the two small Gladstone bags, switched out the light, and made for the door.

He had reached the front door below, and was opening it, when he heard the scream of the police whistle blown from the study window. The Kid plunged out into the swirling fog. The shrill summons of the whistle had brought results. The neighborhood was evidently well guarded. Answering whistles responded, and the Kid saw smears of approaching light through the yellowish fog.

Parish’s car was still at the curb. The Canary Kid climbed into the front seat. The somnolent chauffeur at the wheel straightened up with a gasp when the Kid’s gun nudged him.

“Drive!”

The engine coughed and sputtered. It seemed an eternity before the gears meshed. The sedan sprang away. Dim figures, running toward the house, shouted for it to stop. The Kid pressed his gun closer to the chauffeur’s side.

“Keep the gas pedal all the way down!” he ordered. “You’re taking me across town as far as the Strand. Whether or not you eat breakfast to-morrow morning depends on your intelligence. Grasp the idea? You’ll find you better do as I say.”

“I— I’ll do anything you say, sir,” the other assured him.

The Canary Kid settled back in the seat, the two bags on the floor at his feet. The full measure of his luck, and the narrowness of his escape, were too recent to be fully appreciated, but something Mandeviile had said earlier that evening echoed in his mind. The Kid looked back, thinking of his getaway.

“Fogs,” he told himself, “are necessary!”

____________________

A Johnny Castle story

10: Death With Music

Thrilling Detective Feb 1944

Chapter 1: Swell Night for Murder

BROADWAY had all the flash, sparkle and brilliance of a backwoods town buried deep in the sticks. Under the dimout regulations Dream Street looked like the main thoroughfare in Podunk. And to make it worse the sky was conspiring with the War Department.

There wasn’t a moon or the glimmer of a star anywhere. The whole set-up was dark as the Cotton Club’s beauty chorus.

I cut from the main boulevard, east through Fifty-first Street, heading for that resort of pleasure known to all and sundry as the Tallyho. This was a popular night-spot. One of the better columnists often referred to it as a “concentration camp with a floor show.”

The Tallyho was owned and operated by Alf Linkhart, a smart hustler who knew all the angles and most of the answers.

As first string sports writer on the Orbit I had been tipped off that afternoon that Silk McCall, a fight manager of some prominence, was about to make a deal with Andy Best to purchase Patsy Keegan, a promising young welterweight. As Keegan was right in line for a crack at the title—and figured to have a better than even chance to wrap it up—the thing was news.

I knew McCall usually hung out at the Tallyho. In fact, a phone call to the Orient Athletic Club, where Silk’s sockers trained, brought the information that McCall was at his favorite dive.

The Tallyho graced the center of the street. It was on the north side. Its big Neon sign had been turned off.

Heavy draperies muffled all the windows. Only “Seven,” the colored doorman on duty, was the same. Seven, in his gold-braided uniform, with teeth that lighted up the gloom like hundred-watt Mazdas, flashed them at me as I cantered up.

"It’s Mistuh Castle, sho’ enuf,” he greeted me. “Yo’ ain’t been around fo’ quite a while.”

“Sho’ enuf,” I said. “How’s the ivory stock market?”

"Fair to middlin’, suh.”

“Silk McCall inside?” I asked.

“Yes, suh.”

Seven opened the door and I exchanged darkness for light.

Sunburst Alley might have changed on the exterior but inwardly the Tallyho was just the same. The same rococo and cheap gilt decorations. The same tables, stamp-size dance floor, hot band and smoke haze.

Also, noise.

I had just finished trading my ten-dollar felt for a brass check when Alf Linkhart, owner of the Tallyho and ex pug, came down a flight of stairs that emptied into the right side of the foyer. He was a worried-looking fat guy, with a broken nose and twisted ears. His complexion, strictly Ossining, N. Y., was a hangover from a six-year vacation he had once taken there at the Government’s expense.

Linkhart saw me and headed over.

“Well, if it ain’t Johnny Castle. You haven’t been around in a long time. How’s tricks, kid?”

I got to the point. “I understand Silk McCall’s here.”

Linkhart’s small, slatted eyes retreated under their creepy lids.

“Could be. I ain’t noticed him. You sure he’s around, Johnny?”

“I was told that,” I said. “By your own doorman.”

“Stick around and I’ll ask Ben.”

Ben was Benny Grant, a small, dapper little man with false teeth and a smile to match. He managed the Tallyho for Alf Linkhart and also doubled in the role of headwaiter. Linkhart went between the heavy draperies and into the main part of the place. He had hardly left before the door of a phone booth on the south side of the foyer, opened and a red-headed girl stepped out.

She was in a costume that marked her as being part of the floor show’s dancing line, consisting of some glittering green-blue spangles and net. A little here, a little there. The gal was a looker. Her profile was swell— all the way down.

Yet I could see there was something on her mind, something that made her delicately arched brows draw together and stay that way. She stood there, looking at nothing, while she nervously chewed her lower lip. Just then Linkhart came back.

“Hello, Putzi. What are you doing around front?”

“I had to make a phone call.”

“Better watch the time,” Linkhart said. “You go on in a couple of minutes.” He shifted his cigar. “By the way, meet Johnny Castle. He writes pieces for the paper. Johnny, this is Putzi Russell.”

“Hello.” I nodded to the girl. “Glad to know you.”

She looked at me without much interest and nodded back.

The shaded lights fell on her red-gold hair, pointing it up with gleams of fire. They made the green-blue spangles shimmer. I noticed her skin was like smooth satin and her eyes a deep, lovely shade of blue.

The girl said something about having to duck and vanished through a door which I happened to know led down to the basement dressing rooms.

“I can’t find Ben Grant,” Linkhart said to me. “He’s probably downstairs. I left word for him to come up here.”

I hardly heard what Linkhart said. “Putzi Russell?” I stared at the door the green-blue spangles had faded through. “New, isn’t she?”

Linkhart nodded, clearing his throat. "I grabbed her out of one of these dance dens. You know, rhumba in six lessons. South American stuff—like bananas. She was one of the lady teachers. Imagine ! A fancy babe like her pushing Bronx bookkeepers around at so much a tangle!”

He laughed and went in between the coatroom counter and the cigar stand where the door of his office backed up.

I pushed the draperies aside. The restaurant was fairly well crowded and the floor show was about to commence. I recognized Cary Blynn, one of Tin Pan Alley’s dime-a-dozen pianists as he sidled out and took his place in front of a baby grand.

Blynn was a nice-looking boy, tall and smooth. He wore his blond hair long and brushed back. A white dinner coat and blue trousers set him off to perfection. I’d overheard that Blynn was terrific with the ladies. He couldn’t have had more dames flocking around him if he had been a basement bargain sale.

Blynn rippled the vamp of some new tune. An orange spotlight hissed down from the battery of balcony lights and a girl stepped out and into its glare.

She was very dark, very sleek, with blazing black eyes and a mouth as red as a Connecticut barn.

It didn’t take much Broadway knowledge to peg her as Lolita Diaz, a recent import from Rio.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. Ben Grant showed me his phony choppers in a broad grin.

“Silk’s upstairs in Room Two-A, Mr. Castle.”

“Thanks,” I said.

It was a cute song. Lolita knew how to put it over. She gave it all she had and a little more, smiling at her accompanist while he smiled back at her. I hung around until it ended. Four babes with bare stems breezed out for a rhythm grind and I started up the stairs.

I couldn’t explain it, but a funny feeling began to grow in the pit of my stomach.

Twice before, in the past, I’d had it. Once, the night a couple of expert targeteers from Toledo wandered into a Second Avenue drinkery and just for fun shot the joint up.

And once on an icy morning when a taxi I rode went into a skid and headed for an El pillar. It missed but stopped halfway through the front window of a delicatessen store.

I remembered picking salami out of my hair and brushing off potato salad until the medico, on the rear of an ambulance that clanged up, told me I was all right.

My scalp crawled and for no reason at all the palms of my hands began to get damp. Downstairs, the beat of the band died to a thin, monotonous note—a continual thumping like the pound of my heart.

The corridor was dimly lighted. On either side of it were private supper rooms. Sometimes speculators used them for card games. Occasionally, suckers were lured into them and clipped. Now, I saw most of the rooms were empty, with the doors standing half ajar.

I looked at the numbers as I went along and found that 2A was at the end of the hall.

There was a light over the transom, a sliver of gold along the sill. I expected to hear Silk McCall’s high, whining voice on the other side of the door. McCall was a great talker.

Over at Jacobs Beach they had a saying that McCall could talk a cripple out of his crutches.

I remember what had brought me to the Tallyho. I had known McCall for quite a while. I’d always given him a break in my sheet and he appreciated it. So much so that when anything important came up he let me have it exclusive. If he were angling for Keegan I’d know about it.

I tapped on the door.

Ben Grant hadn’t mentioned who was with Silk McCall, but it was a cinch it would be “Red” Herrin, one of McCall’s ex-heavyweights. For some time Herrin had been all through as a leather dispenser. Lately, he had been playing bodyguard to his boss. Why Silk McCall, a friendly guy, needed a strongarm everywhere he went, was one for the book.

There was no answer to my knock. I gave the panels another rap. Still no answer. I dropped a hand to the knob and turned it

The door opened and I walked in on murder!

Silk McCall, on his back, sprawled on the carpet, half under a table, half out in the open. He was dead, all right. What made him that way was the knife with the ebony handle protruding from almost the exact center of his chest.

All around McCall was an ooze of crimson. From the look of the blood I figured he hadn’t been knocked out very long.

I shut the door with a foot and took in the details of the room. Nothing was disturbed to indicate brawling. An eight-ounce bar glass stood on the table, the ice still melting in it. It was my guess that McCall’s death was as much a complete surprise to him as it was to me.

I stood looking down at him. The music drifted faintly up. So far as I knew McCall wasn’t the kind who had a lot of enemies on his tail.

Who and why? I must have stood there another minute before something caught my eye.

I followed the glitter of it along the floor and found it a foot away from where Silk lay, under the table.

It was a green-blue spangle that glinted and sparkled like a diamond in the room’s light.

I held it in the palm of my hand, thinking hard.

Then I put the spangle in my handkerchief, opened the door and went downstairs.

Chapter 2: For the Law

ALF LINKHART took the news hard. He mumbled two words around the cigar in his mouth.

“Silk— killed!” he exclaimed.

“If he isn’t,” I said, “he’s giving a pretty good imitation of a stiff with a shiv in him,”

Linkhart pawed at me. “Wait a minute, Johnny! What are you going to do?”

“Give the police something to worry about,” I said, and ducked into the phone booth.

I watched Linkhart through the glass door while I eased the call through to Centre Street and the proper parties.

McCall’s demise had shaken Linkhart down to his reclaimed rubber heels. He looked flabby and flattened. The Sing-Sing pallor turned from a rich cream to skimmed milk. His hands were shaking like a line of wash on a windy Monday.

“This’ll ruin me,” he bleated, when I hung up and stepped out of the booth. “They’ll snatch my license! What with gas and rationing, I’m having a tough time getting by. This’ll wash me up and wipe me off.”

“That was Captain Fred Mullin, of the Homicide Squad, on the wire. He’ll be up here before you can say ‘What’s the motive?’ He passed out some advance official instructions. The law says nobody is to go in that room or touch anything until he arrives.”

Linkhart shivered. “Ruined! Closed up! I might as well find a dock and jump in!”

The floor show chorus was warbling a hot number. I pushed the curtains aside and stared. Twelve not-so-bad-looking girls were cavorting in the cleared space beyond the tables. It wasn’t hard to pick out Putzi Russell. I saw her red-gold head on the right end of the dancing line.

All the costumes, if you wanted to call them that, were alike except for the color of the spangles. And Putzi’s, I noticed, was the only one that matched up with the spangle wrapped in my handkerchief.

The girls danced off and sirens wailed out-on- Fifty-first Street. The front door of the Tallyho opened. Captain Mullin with two plainclothesmen in tow loomed up in the doorway.

Over their assorted shoulders I caught a brief glimpse of Seven’s dusky face. The eyes of the dice expert resembled a pair of hard-boiled eggs looking for two slices of bread.

“Shut that door and lock it,” Mullin directed briskly. “Stay and cover it, Larry.” He turned to Linkhart. “I’ve got a squad around the building. Nobody gets out of here until I give the okay. Where’s the body?”

“Upstairs,” Linkhart choked.

“Who found it? Who phoned me?”

“I did—both items,” I said.

Captain Mullin stabbed me with a couple of pale, suspicious eyes. He was a short, stocky man, hard as nails all over. A typical old-time, club-swinging, knock-down-drag-out copper, Mullin had come up the tough way—from a beat on Staten Island to the captaincy of the Homicide Squad.

Mullin didn’t go in for fancy detecting, but he usually got plenty of results by his own methods.

“You,” he said shortly, and there was a universe of meaning in the one word.

Mullin and I didn’t sing any close harmony duets. Once, early in his career as Lieutenant, he had tried to close up a certain fight club, claiming it was a gambling dive. It happened that a couple of floaters, entirely unrelated to the place, had drifted in and staged a card game. The close was so unfair that I had written about it in the Orbit, slapping on plenty of indignation.

The charges had been squashed, and Broadway had enjoyed a laugh at Mullin’s expense.

Like elephants, the captain had a good memory. I knew he had had it in for me, trying to even off. I had hit him in his vanity, the worst possible place, for Mullin had no sense of humor. He didn’t like folks snickering at him.

We went upstairs.

I opened the door of Room 2A, and Mullin walked in slowly. His gaze shifted from the late Mr. McCall to the furnishings of the room and then back to me.

"When did you find him?”

“A few minutes before I buzzed Headquarters.”

“What did you bump him for?” Mullin growled. “What did he ever do to you?”

“Not a thing,” I said. “That’s why I didn’t kill him.”

Mullin’s colorless eyes focused on the disturbed Alf Linkhart “You kill him?”

“Not me.” Alf shook his head violently. “Silk was a pal of mine. One of my best customers. Would I be crazy enough to murder customers who come in here and spend money?”

Mullin knelt beside the corpse. He threw a handkerchief over the handle of the knife and drew it out slowly, inch by inch. In the light the long blade glittered wetly.

Mullin studied the murder weapon for a moment, put it on the table and shrugged.

“That shiv was in for keeps. He must have gone out in a hurry. How long has he been here? What time did he come in?” Mullin fired the questions fast at Linkhart. “Come on, speak up.”

Alf Linkhart did.

McCall, alone, had entered the Tallyho at twenty-five minutes after nine. He had told Linkhart he expected a friend. He asked for an upstairs room and Linkhart sent a waiter up to 2A with him.

“He ordered a single Scotch. That’s all I know about him until Castle, here, came down and told me Silk was all through.”

I raised an ear and an eye at Linkhart’s new version of McCall’s presence. A while ago Alf Linkhart had pretended he didn’t know if Silk was on the premises.

“So you were the party he expected?” Mullin said to me.

“Wrong,” I answered. “He didn’t expect me. He was to meet Andy Best here. Silk wanted to proposition Best and take over Patsy Keegan’s contract.”

“Where’s Best?”

“Apparently he didn’t show up, Captain,” I said.

“Get the waiter who served McCall,” Mullin ordered.

The waiter appeared a few minutes later. The sight of the object on the floor did things to his complexion and digestion. He turned a delicate pea-green and began to burp.

“What do you know about this?” Mullin asked.

"Not much, sir. The boss told me to take the gentleman up here. He said, ‘Scotch’ and I went down to the bar to get it. When I brought it up he was sitting in that chair, with a lot of papers on the table beside him, sort of reading through them.”

“You didn’t come in again after you served his drink?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s all.” Mullin rubbed his chin. “Lot of papers, eh?” he said, after the waiter blew.

Mullin knelt again and began searching through McCall’s clothes. He pulled out a couple of letters, a wallet well-lined with dough, a bunch of keys, two packs of cigarettes and matches. But there were no papers.

Mullin skimmed through the sheaf of money in Silk’s poke.

“Almost four Gs. That’s a lot of coin.”

"I told you he was angling to buy Keegan’s contract,” I put in. “That would take a lot of dough.”

Mullin made a routine inspection of the room. He raised the window and looked out. When he closed it Ed Wheeler, one of his plainclothesmen, came in with a wine card that had a lot of writing on the back.

“I jotted down a quick list of the guys in the main room that you might want to talk to.”

Mullin nodded. “Send them up one at a time. Who’ve you got first?”

“Corbin, the bookie.”

“Fine.” Mullin smacked his lips. “It’ll be a pleasure to rake that sharpshooter. Go get him.” Then the cold eyes flickered in my direction. “That’s all, Castle. If I want you I’ll call you. But don’t go traveling for a few days and don’t tell me you couldn’t get to the Battery because you’ve got an A card.”

I hesitated.

After all, it wasn’t my affair. Why not hand Mullin the green-blue spangle and let him take it from there? Something checked me. I couldn’t figure what it was. Maybe two lovely blue eyes. Maybe highlighted hair, soft and shiny—or two tempting red lips.

I wanted to stick around and listen in on Putzi Russell’s answer to the captain’s questions, but Mullin had other ideas.

“What are you waiting for, Castle— a good-by kiss?” he asked me.

Larry Hartley stepped aside when I went downstairs. I walked out into the dark of Fifty-first Street, continued on as far as Sixth Avenue and turned into a beer stube.

Propped up at the end of the bar I toyed with a beaker of brew, my mind working hard.

The spangle sparkled in my handkerchief when I opened it up. I frowned at it. The girl with the blue eyes had been in Room 2A that evening. Why? What for? I remembered her troubled look when she stepped out of the phone booth in the foyer. Slowly, I folded the handkerchief in half and put it back in my pocket.

After thinking things over I had decided to horn in on the McCall killing. I believed I had three good reasons. I chalked them up in order of importance.

My main reason was that first, last, and in the middle, I was a newspaperman, with the best interests of my sheet at heart. If I could find and put the digit on Silk McCall’s killer, and give it to the Orbit, so much the better.

My next reason was, it would be a pleasure to tangle with Captain Mullin again, and find out if the stuff above my eyebrows was still as good as his—or better.

My final reason concerned what might be classified as a sudden cardiac disturbance. It was cockeyed, building up a split-second interest in a dame whose nod to me had been as cold as a polar bear’s paw. But there it was and I didn’t argue.

Summed up, I saw I could toss out Reasons One and Two and still be half-witted enough to go ahead on my own. My first stop was the Orient Athletic

Club across town. That was the gym where Silk McCall’s boys trained. It was late and I didn’t expect to find anyone on deck. I didn’t—except for a night watchman.

“All locked?”

“Tight as a drum.”

“Where does Herrin hang out after hours ?”

I lined the question with a dollar bill. The watchman palmed it, pondered and let go with some tobacco juice.

“Red? He lives with Mr. McCall. At the Hotel Reginald.”

Of course. Being Silk’s strongarm, Herrin would be camped in at the fight manager’s home address.

A clock-ark buzzed me across town and uptown again to the Reginald. It was in the Forties, a rock’s heave from Lexington Avenue: There was no one around except the night clerk doing a crossword puzzle at the desk.

He listened, then spoke. “Mr. Herrin isn’t in. I know that. Somebody called the suite twice in the last hour.” He glanced at the rack back of him. “There’s McCall’s key.”

“Much obliged,” I said, and laid leather on the sidewalk, outside, again.

Captain Mullin had evidently finished quizzing the customers at the Tallyho and had let them go. They were filing out singly and in pairs when I gave Fifty-first Street a playback. I noticed the medical examiner’s car standing behind one of the prowls. The morgue wagon came around the corner and Silk McCall went away in a basket.

I camped in the vestibule of a furnished rooming house on the south side of the street and watched.

The girls of the floor show came out and hurried away. I looked for Putzi Russell, but didn’t recognize her. I didn’t think I would— with her clothes on, in the dark. More time passed and then Mullin, Hartley and some plainies tumbled out and the prowl car whined off.

I figured Mullin had left a cop on duty; that didn’t check me. I hadn’t been an old-time patron of the Tallyho for nothing. There was an alley on the east side of the building. In the Prohibition era, when the spot had been a speak, the beverages used to be delivered down that alley.

I followed it along until I came to the door at its end.

It was locked, but didn’t take a lot of trouble to open. The blade of my penknife moved the catch back and a shoulder did the rest. I walked into smelly darkness.

A lighted match showed me a flight of stairs. These led from the cellar to the dressing rooms. At the far end of the hall a couple of dim lights had been left burning. I padded along the cement until l readied the same door Putzi Russell had used earlier that evening to fade through.

Now I had to be careful. Mullin’s watchdog, in all likelihood, was planted in the foyer. Or was he? I inched the door open and gave the foyer a gander. Luck was good. It was deserted.

A light seeped out of Linkhart’s office. Someone was moving around in there. I tossed a quick look at the stairs and tiptoed fast to the door between the cigar counter and the coatroom wicket.

Alf Linkhart, at his desk, jerked his head up when I slid in and quietly shut the door behind me.

He still looked like a lump of putty. But his slatted eyes were bright and dangerous when they fastened on me. He opened the top drawer of the desk and—reached.

So did I!

My fingers wound over his wrist. I put on the pressure and helped myself to the blue-black automatic Linkhart had grabbed for. He quieted down when I let him look into the muzzle.

“Where’s Mullin’s man?” I asked. “Upstairs.”

“No capers, Linkhart,” I warned. “You were as phony as the Bell System tonight. I want a clean bill. If I don’t get it I’ll spill plenty to the captain. You know what I mean. You were upstairs with McCall just before I came in.”

Linkhart’s shapeless mouth twisted. I kept watching his hands. I didn’t want any more drawers opening, guns popping out. Alf Linkhart had a swell excuse for drilling me. He could blow me open and tell Mullin I was Silk McCall’s murderer.

The cops would love it that way. A quick crack for what looked like a tough nut and no questions asked or answered!

“What do you want?” Linkhart growled.

“How far are you in on this?” I leaned across the desk. “For my dough you’re the party who jabbed Silk with the steel.”

Linkhart shook his head. “You’re wrong, Johnny. Murder ain’t up my alley.”

“What did Mullin find out?”

Linkhart relaxed a trifle. I put his gun in my pocket and a hand over it. His slatted eyes kept watching the pocket.

“Nothing—much.”

"Was Andy Best here tonight?”

"Not that I know of.”

“You’ve got an angle,” I insisted.

For the first time he smiled. “Mebbe yes, mebbe no. Why all the interest, Johnny? You ain’t a copper—what business is this of yours?”

“I’ve declared myself in. Just because and for instance. Who killed McCall—if you didn’t, Alf ?”

“You figure it. I’m not talking.”

I moved in closer. He sat there, his chins pushed up by his collar, looking like a creamy balloon that would ssst out at the prick of a pin.

“No gab?”

“I’ll tell you this much,” he said earnestly. “This is one for the law to handle, Johnny. Look, you take my advice and leave it alone. Otherwise, you might get your good-looking pan bent out of shape. See what I mean?”

“For the law?” I said. “Okay. Now tell me where I can find Putzi Russell. Or don’t you know that one, either?”

“Putzi? Easy to answer. She has a room at the Burgoyne.”

“I’ll take this up with you later, pal,” I said and backed toward the door.

Linkhart didn’t move. He kept his gaze on the pocket while I opened the door and went through it.

The foyer outside was still empty as any last year’s love nest. I drifted rapidly out of the Tallyho by the same way I had come in.

Ten minutes later a cab dropped me at the Burgoyne.

Chapter 3: Night Ride

THE hotel was medium class. Perhaps a notch lower. It got most of its play from the theater crowd, the Times Square element, so callers there at any time of the day or night weren’t unusual. The elevator hoisted me to the second floor. There was only one corridor which split the building in the middle. Two long straight lines of numbered rooms lined the hall on either side.

As I got out of the lift a door opened and a tall, good-looking guy came walking down the hall. He didn’t wear a hat. His blond hair was brushed back and half a glance tabbed him as Cary Blynn, the piano player at the Tallyho.

"Down!” Blynn called out, when he saw the descending elevator.

When he had gone I went on to the door he had come from. The girl with the blue eyes and the red-gold hair opened at my first knock. It was Putzi Russell.

Maybe she thought it was Blynn stopping back for something.

"Oh!”

I walked into a good-sized bedroom living room. There was a lot of furniture around. The only thing of interest around there for me was Putzi in a glamorous velvet robe that fit like her skin. At close range, with the make-up off, she was even more attractive— younger and cuter—than she had been at the night-spot.

"Remember me, Miss Russell?”

She drew the broad sash a little tighter about her curved figure. I looked deep into her eyes. A girl with eyes like hers couldn’t be guilty—of anything ! Anything, that is, outside of possessing deadly weapons. And what I gazed into were twice as dangerous as the gat in my pocket.

"You’re Mr. Castle.”

She had perfume on her hair. When she came closer I breathed it in. I wondered what business had brought Cary Blynn to see her here. Business concerning McCall and Room 2A?

It looked that way to me.

"I want to talk to you,” I began. “About what?”

“Silk McCall’s sudden death.”

A pulse throbbed in her throat The lamplight turned her hair to burnished gold. Slender fingers played with the tassels of the sash, making them swing, pendulum-like.

“You’re a copper?”

"Wrong. Newspaper. I want to help you. Maybe you don’t know it but you’re in a spot—if Mullin finds out—things.”

Her eyes widened. “What kind of— things?”

“Information. That you were in Room 2A tonight at the Tallyho. That you were with McCall—when he was dead or when he was alive. You didn’t tell Mullin that when he questioned you.”

The red lips parted. In the room adjoining, a card game was going on, and the grumble of voices and the clink of chips crept in through the transoms, noticed she had stopped swinging the sash ends.

“What makes you think I was in that room, Mr. Castle?”

“You left something. Luckily, I found it before the police did."

I opened the handkerchief and showed her the green-blue spangle. The same troubled look she had worn out of the telephone booth came back to shadow her pretty face.

“What do you want me to tell?” Her voice was low and strained.

“Who finished Silk?"

“I don’t know!” I heard the quick breath she drew. “Really, I don't know."

“You were in that room. You saw him.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I saw him. He was alive then. I slipped upstairs because I wanted to talk to Silk.”

“What about?”

I felt like a Centre Street bully, putting on the clamp, but I had to play it through. Mullin was nobody’s fool. Somebody else at the Tallyho might know about Putzi Russell’s visit to 2A. I had to help her. And to do it I had to be tough.

“I can’t tell you.” Her look was tragic. She was either putting on a good act or I was wringing her out. “I swear I had nothing to do with his murder! I swear I don’t know who did it! He was alive when I left him."

I believed her.

“Did you see anyone else up there? Anyone in the room, or the corridor? Anybody pass you?”

She shook her head. “Nobody.”

“What about Blynn? I saw him a few minutes ago, outside. What was he doing here?”

She was standing, facing me. My back was to the door. I saw her eyes switch from my face and shift swiftly to a point over my left shoulder. That should have been enough warning.

But it wasn’t. Neither was the draft I felt blowing against my ankles or the steps on the carpet— behind me.

Quick, gliding, catlike steps that stopped abruptly.

Then Putzi Russell, the room, the lights and everything else—including myself—went out....

I MUST HAVE BEEN away for quite a while. When I finally broke through, I woke up lying on a blanket on a stone floor.

The first thing I saw— when objects took shape out of the nebulous haze—  were feet. Two pairs of feet in shoes that had been purchased a long time before you needed a coupon to get them.

They belonged to a couple of shabby roughs who were sitting at a table playing cards. I had a worm's-eye view of them, an earful of their moronic chatter. From the repartee I gathered that one was Sam and the other Steve.

Steve was big, built like a bridge, with a lantern jaw. That probably explained why his face lighted up every so often. Sam was shorter, but no less husky. Neither was familiar.

I looked at my surroundings. They certainly didn’t resemble the Burgoyne. All concrete. Floor, walls and ceiling of the small room were stone. I had never seen this place before. The light came from a dangling, shaded bulb suspended over the table where they played with the pasteboards.

I felt like something that had stepped out of an electric fan. My head ached dully and my mouth tasted like a musty cellar smells.

“Ten of twelve.” Sam slapped the last card down and yawned.

“That’s three bucks fifty you owe me,” said Steve.

“I know. We move at twelve. Let’s kick the sucker awake.”

Steve turned to -drop his cigarette and grind a heel on it. He saw me looking at him and grinned.

“He’s out of it.”

“Yeah?”

Sam came over and they both looked down at me. From my position on the blanket they seemed about seven or eight feet tall.

“On your pins, punk!” Steve ordered.

I DODGED his brogan and got up. The stone room rocked a little. So did I. Sam shoved me up against a wall. He reached out and picked up a piece of thin rope hanging over the back of a chair.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

He knotted the rope around my wrists. I used the old Hegeman trick of throwing out the joints so, when the final knot was tied, there was slack when I pulled them in.

“What’s the idea?” I inquired mildly.

Neither bothered to answer. Sam, meanwhile, had whipped out a dirty bandanna. He folded it into a hood and tied it over my eyes. Then somebody stuck a gun in my back.

“Start walkin’.”

I did.

Damp cold hit me in the face. The gun urged me forward, I stumbled down some steps and across a stone floor. From the sharp smell of gasoline and the slip of oil under my soles I figured I was in a garage.

"Climb in!”

I was pushed through a door and onto the rear seat of a car.

Another man was sitting there—waiting for me. I floundered around. He grabbed my arm and jerked me forward. He slammed me back against the upholstery.

Then an overhead steel door thundered up and the car rolled out.

I hadn’t any idea where I was. A few minutes later I imagined we were on an express highway. There were no lights to slow us down or stop us. Not much traffic, either. Only occasionally I heard the whirr of a car going by.

My head began to clear. I began to think better. I didn’t like it. The car and the guys in it bore too much of a resemblance to the good old carefree gang days when you were taken out for a ride and seldom brought home.

My mind went back to the room at the Burgoyne.

I was sure Putzi had no part in the snatch. She had been just as surprised
as I was at the intrusion. Then—who had sent the huskies around to pick me up?

After a while I thought I had the answer. What was the matter with Linkhart for an angle? Alf, and no one else, knew I was on my way to the Russell girl’s address.

I was confident I hadn’t been tailed at any stage of the short trip from the Tallyho to the Burgoyne.

So it must be Linkhart. Okay. What about it? A lot about it! Since he wanted me dealt with, it looked like Alf Linkhart was nervous. Nervous about the things I’d told him I was going to do. Nervous enough to want me out of the picture.

“Fair enough, Mr. Linkhart,” I said to myself. “There’s no harm in trying-!”

A half-hour must have passed. The car began to slow. It went off the smooth cement and bumped over car tracks.

“About a mile. Take the first turn to your left,” the voice of Sam said.

A mile. The last mile, maybe. The final mile for John Castle.

It was all or nothing!

I had worked the thin rope off my wrists, keeping my hand behind my back to make it look good. Now I pulled them out into full view. I had to show them, to pull off the bandanna. Jerking it away, I staked everything on speed. Speed and the element of surprise. I nailed the man on the cushions beside me with a short left that had everything I owned behind it. It tipped him back and dropped him, head down, on the floor.

STRANGELY, as he slid off the seat, my fingers brushed the coat he was wearing. The material of it felt like warm moss, soft and spongy. Funny material to make a coat of, but I wasn’t thinking of that then.

I got the door beside me open with my right hand before the two monkeys in the front were aware of what had been going on.

Sam turned, just as I got the door unlatched. I hit him so hard with my left fist that I thought I’d broken it. He yelped, but I didn’t wait to hear Steve’s reply. I fell out on the road, the car going on a short way before the brakes thudded.

In the pale moonlight I saw a fringe of woods close by.

Picking myself up, and paying no attention to the blast of fire and the slug that whistled past, I headed for the trees.

I’m sure that Alsab, in his match with Whirlaway, never turned it on the way I did. More slugs sizzled by, but all they did was to make me go faster—toward the woods— toward safety!

Chapter 4: From Headquarters

GENERALLY speaking, Bill Jamison had handled the McCall demise pretty well for the Orbit. I read the details at breakfast the next morning. There were a few items I hadn’t known about.

One, Andy Best, when questioned by Mullin, stated he had been headed off from his appointment with McCall at the Tallyho by a nine o’clock telephone call. Some guy, whose voice Best said he didn’t recognize, canceled the meeting.

Then, Mullin claimed he had a hot angle he was working on. He promised the press a break within twenty-four hours. A large order, but it made good reading.

Mullin was in his office at Headquarters when I stopped around to see him shortly after ten. The hard-hitting copper didn’t look too happy. He dug up one of his best sneers when I sat down opposite his desk.

“What’s yours, Castle?’’

“Maybe you won’t believe me, but I want to report a near-snatch. Also, the theft of my wallet with sixty bucks in it and an automatic.”

“You’ve got a license to carry firearms?” Mullin growled. I let that go and he leaned forward. “Who’s the dame that called in late last night and said you’d been picked up by a couple of gunmen and lifted out of her apartment?”

I sat up straighter. So Putzi Russell had buzzed the law! That meant she hadn’t been tied in with the two hoodlums who had lugged me off to the garage. More than ever, now, I was convinced Alf Linkhart was back of the incident.

“I haven’t the slightest idea— who called you, Captain.”

Mullin gave me a dirty look. He reached for a pad and pencil. “What are the particulars? Who heisted you?”

I told him. Mullin’s expression was bored when he jotted the facts down. That is, until I mentioned the garage. Then his colorless eyes gave me a fishy stare.

“Know where you were?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Mullin sighed. “Okay, Castle. I’ll put a man on it. I’ll let you know if anything develops.”

I could imagine how much work he’d have the department do for me. Instead of taking the brush-off and ducking, I sat further back in the chair.

“While I’m here, Captain, how about a slice out of the McCall pie? I’ve been wondering about the knife that decorated him.”

“You don’t have to. No prints. The killer wiped it clean.”

“You didn’t happen to find out where it came from?”

Mullin grinned. “Sure, I did. Right out of the Tallyho’s kitchen. So what?”

“So you must have an idea.”

“Several.” He screwed his mouth up and looked at me quickly. “I think Linkhart did it. What do you think?”

I shrugged. “My thoughts aren’t worth a thin dime. But why Linkhart?”

“Mebbe,” Mullin said slowly, “Alf and McCall were doing business together. Mebbe Linkhart didn’t like his cut, and decided to do something about it.”

“Could be.” I got to my feet. “Only I don’t think so.”

I LEFT him to mull that over, and hit uptown for the Reginald.

I was careful nobody tailed me. Nobody did. The day clerk at the hotel told me that Red Herrin was upstairs. I got out of the elevator on the ninth floor. Red, in a worn dressing gown, opened the door.

“Well, Johnny. Come on in.”

I entered a room lined with framed photographs of past and present maulers. Red, in characteristic fighting crouch, graced the wall over Silk’s flattop desk. The photo of him had been snapped a long time ago. Even in his prime Herrin hadn’t been any world shaker. Just a third-rate heavyweight with a piece of bric-a-brac under his lower lip. He was tall, redheaded, with a pair of shoulders custom-made for piano moving and a pot under his belt that had swelled out in the last few months.

“Condolences, Red. Too bad about Silk.”

“Terrible, Johnny.” Herrin’s voice was dull. “I keep blamin’ myself. If I’da been with him it wouldn’ta happened.”

“How is it you weren’t?”

“I had to go over to Jersey to see my brother-in-law. He got hit by a taxi. One stem broke below the knee. I heard the news about Silk on the radio and come right back.”

“Any ideas ?”

“Not one, Johnny! I couldn’t sleep, tryin’ to dope it. All I know is Silk says he’s goin’ to the Tallyho to rumble with Andy Best. Where’s the poison in that? So I let him go.”

We talked about McCall for a few minutes more. Then I went back to the office.

“Message for you, Mr. Castle.”

Beth Wheaton, one of the switchboard operators, saw me when I went in and shoved a memo in my face. It was from Putzi Russell. It said she wanted to see me as soon as possible.

“ ‘Putzi’?” Beth laughed. “If I had a name like that I’d take something for it.”

“Yeah, what?”

"Probably gas.”

I didn’t bother to answer. Turning on my heel I started uptown.

When I arrived at the Burgoyne, the girl with the blue eyes was dressed in a neat skirt and white blouse, and she looked younger and less sophisticated than at any time I had seen her. But this time I took no chances of intruders. I closed the hall door of the bedchamber-living room and turned the key in the lock. Then I turned around and faced her.

“You’re all right?” Putzi led off.

“All in one piece—so far.” She slipped her fingers into mine and I hung on for a long minute.

“The boys who took me away from here, treated me to a drive up around Yonkers,” I said. “Somebody ought to tell them about the rubber situation. To make a short story shorter, after a couple of them were unexpectedly taken unconscious, I hopped out of the car, hid in some friendly woods and got a lift as far as a subway. A New Lots train brought me back okay.”

“You don’t think I invited those crashers in, Mr. Castle?” Her tone was worried. “They must have followed you. I couldn’t even warn you, they came in so fast.”

I sat down beside her on a four-foot divan. I could smell the perfume on her hair. It was something the angels themselves must have distilled. When she moved her shoulder brushed mine. I didn’t feel much like talking. It was enough to just sit there and admire her. Nevertheless I made a try.

“Let’s see. Last night before we were so rudely interrupted we were speaking about Blynn. Cary Blynn. I asked you what he was doing here. Remember?”

SHE turned her head. She didn’t say anything for a minute. The red lips swam before me like a couple of hothouse roses. The fifty-dollar-a-dozen kind.

“Yes, Cary was here. He left just before you came in.” She dropped her voice to a husky note. “I’ve thought it over. I do want you to help me—in case the police find out I saw McCall. So I’m going to go clean on it.”

My heart picked up a faster beat. She pushed her shoulders back against the wall. As she crossed one trim ankle over the other, I caught a glimpse of symmetrically filled silk hosiery. Or maybe it was rayon. Gorgeous in either case.

“It was about Cary that I went to see McCall,” she said.

I absorbed that. “You’re— in love— with Blynn?”

She smiled faintly. The lashes came down over the blue stars she used for eyes. She shook her head slightly.

"I like him— I have reason to. Cary Blynn’s my brother. Blynn’s my right name. Putzi Russell’s my stage name.”

“Oh!” was all I could manage.

“How much do you know about Silk McCall?” she went on, quickening her words. “You’re a sports writer. Outside of his ring activities, how much do you really know about McCall’s private life?”

“Nothing.” “Then I’ll tell you something.” She
glanced at the door as if to make sure it was still locked. Her fingers tightened over my arm. “Silk McCall and Alf Linkhart went into business together. Black market business. To sell meat. You must have read about the illegal meat-peddlers in the papers. What they do and how they do it—like the old bootlegging trade—only safer!”

That was news. I digested it. I recalled what Mullin had let drop about Alf Linkhart and McCall being in business together. The captain had already stuck his nose in it.

“Where does your brother fit in?”

I could see the pulse in her throat again, where the collar of the white blouse opened. She parted her lips.

“Silk wanted him to give up piano playing and deal in meat. Cary didn’t tell me. He told Lolita Diaz—he’s engaged to her. She got scared and came to me.”

“And you went to McCall? That’s why you slipped up to Room Two-A last night?”

Putzi nodded. She twined her fingers together nervously.

“I told Silk McCall that if he took Cary in with him I’d report him to the F.B.I. He laughed at me. I didn’t stay in the room more than a minute or two. Just long enough to warn him. He was still laughing when I left him.”

“Then you came. downstairs and popped into the telephone booth. Who were you calling?”

“I phoned Red Herrin at the Reginald. I know Red quite well. I knew he had a lot of influence with McCall. I thought maybe he’d do something for me. But he wasn’t in. I called him twice within an hour. Both times there was no answer.”

“Who do you think killed Silk?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. A warm flush tinted the velvet skin. She looked straight at me.

“I’m not sure, but if I had to lay any bets I’d put them on Linkhart as being the one. I think Silk was trying to chisel. That’s just a guess. This black market stuff is bound to cause trouble.”

A knock on the door stopped her. Putzi got up. She looked at me and from me to the door. The knock sounded again, sharper, more insistent.

“Open it,” I told her.

She did and Detective Hartley, Captain Mullin’s stooge, walked in. He saw me and raised an eyebrow, smiling with the corner of his mouth. I didn’t like anything about it—his being there, or the smile, or the way he looked at Putzi.

“You’re Miss Russell?”

Putzi stared at him. I walked in between them.

“What’s this about, Larry?”

“Police business.” Hartley’s smile broadened. “Mullin wants to re-question this dame. Any arguments?” He waited a minute or two and looked past me at the girl. “C’mon, sister. Get your hat and we’ll travel downtown together.”

Chapter 5: The Coat

WHEELER was playing watchdog at the Tallyho. Wheeler let me in some twenty minutes later when I knocked on the door. He was  so glad to see anybody that he beamed.

“Look, Castle. One of the best bars on the street and double padlocked. Tie that.”

“Tough,” I commented. “Where’s Linkhart?”

“Downtown. Mullin wanted to ask him some more question. Between the two of us, I think Alf’s guilty.”

“Who’s around?”

“Ben Grant. A porter and a cook. Why?”

“Mind if I snoop? I was here last night, as you know. I’ve got an interest in the thing.”

Wheeler laughed. “Burn this dump down and see if I care.”

I went upstairs. I checked on the private rooms along the corridor. I passed 2A and turned the corner of the hall. A gents’ washroom was on one side. On the other, an iron ladder led up to a roof scuttle.

A regulation fire department red light was beside the ladder. The word exit was painted beneath it. I climbed the ladder and looked hard at the handle of the scuttle before I turned it. I wondered if Mullin had checked it for prints.

The scuttle tipped back on well-oiled hinges and I stuck my head out of the opening. That gave me a view of the flat expanse of the night club’s tarred and graveled roof. Toward the rear of the roof, on the east side, another iron ladder, acting as a fire-escape, hugged the brick wall all the way down to the alley below.

I went down to the kitchen. Benny Grant and the cook were checking the stuff in one of the huge iceboxes.

“All this meat and no potatoes.”

Grant pulled a face. “The boss said we might never open again. What do you think, Castle?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Benny Grant left the cook to put the meat away and walked to the door with me.

“That stuff’s going to spoil if we have to keep it here.”

“Send it to a hospital,” I suggested. “Leave the floor show out and they’ll appreciate it. Linkhart can get all the meat he wants, I understand. What are you worried about?”

“Me— not a thing.” Grant’s double row of porcelain choppers glimmered when he laughed. “I told that to Herrin last night.”

I pulled open the kitchen door. “What did Red say?”

Grant laughed again. “Nothing much. I hear they’ve got the boss downtown now. He’d better make it good.”

“He will,” I said, and went upstairs to the foyer.

Ed Wheeler had a tabloid spread and was lapping up the gory details of the crime.

“Find anything, Castle?”

“A lot of meat. Need any?”

“Me? Nix, I’m strictly a vegetarian these days. How are you off for lettuce?”

The minute I left the Tallyho, I knew a tail had picked me up.

Down Sixth Avenue and across town. It was a swell day for walking. The only trouble was I kept thinking about Mullin and Putzi Russell. What he might dig up, what she might spill and the mess he might get her into.

It didn’t look good. The last thing I wanted was a splash of publicity for the girl with the blue eyes. And she’d get plenty if Mullin thought she was holding out on him.

The tail was a little guy in a gray suit with a snap brim, lightweight felt jauntily perched on one side of his head. He didn’t look dangerous, but I remembered the old gag about the book and its jacket. Mullin’s man? Or an agent of the people who had motored me up to Yonkers last night?

The thing began to tie together. Captain Mullin had shown interest when I mentioned being confined in a garage. Garages were places where they kept trucks. Trucks could be used to move meat. Meat had been McCall’s racket—illegal meat. One and one added up to two and left me mentally confronting Linkhart again.

The ex-con was afraid of me. Afraid of what I might know and how I might use it. The old power of the press again! I reached the Hotel Reginald and cut into it while the little bird in the gray suit was turning the corner.

This time I didn’t pause at the clerk's desk. Trying to look like a resident who knew where he was going, I stepped into the nearest elevator and said, “Ninth, please.”

There was no answer to my knock. Red had gone out. That suited me fine. Only the door was locked. I didn’t know what to do about that until I spotted a maid coming down the hall with an armful of towels.

"I’m terribly sorry,” I told her. "I’ve forgotten my key.”

She was either dumb or I looked more respectable than I imagined. Without a word she reached into her apron pocket and fished out a passkey.

“You’re welcome,” she said, taking my quarter with a smirk.

I shut the door behind me, breathing a little faster.

The framed photos of the leather pushers on the wall glowered suspiciously down at me. I let them look for a minute or two. Then I began to prowl around.

There were three rooms in all, not counting a bath. One was the late Mr. McCall’s chambre a coucher. It connected with another bedroom— Herrin’s, I crossed the threshold and pulled the shade up a little. I spied a closet.

That was what I wanted, principally. Just an ordinary closet full of clothes. Clothes, perhaps, that might contain a coat made of queer moss-like material, soft and spongy. A coat worn by the silent man, with the glass chin, on my night ride north so few hours ago. The party I had socked, head down, on the floor of the sedan.

If it had been Red Herrin, I had something to toss to Mullin. Herrin hadn’t been with McCall, but he had been in the kitchen of the Tallyho. The knife with the ebony handle had come out of that same kitchen. The knife that stuck out of Silk’s chest.

There were four suits and three sports jackets. Loud, flamboyant garments, befitting a former pug whose taste was all in his gloves. My hand touched a familiar spongy sleeve. I lifted out a checked, tan jacket. The material was unusual, to say the least. It looked like terry cloth only it was wool. Then I had a surprise.

Somewhere in the other room a door opened and closed. I dodged back of the closet door. That gave me a bias view through the bedroom to the living room. Red had come in and was throwing down a sheaf of mail.

My one idea was to get out— quick!

That was wishful thinking on my part. The way Herrin took off his hat, sat down, lighted a cigarette and began opening the letters seemed to indicate that he intended to stick around awhile. I gave the window in the room a gander. Nothing below the sill except nine stories of painted brick. I couldn’t get out of the suite without going through the living room. For five minutes, maybe ten, I stood there sweating, holding on to the jacket.

Herrin got up finally. He walked out of view. I heard him unhook a receiver, give a number to the girl on the switchboard in the lobby.

“That's right, sister,” he said. “Give me a ring when you get it. Thanks.”

He hung up and the next minute his footsteps sounded on the wood of the floor beyond the bedroom door.

He saw me before I dropped the coat. His hand slid in under his vest. I made a straight lunge for the door. Herrin whipped out a gun. I crashed into him before he could aim, much less fire it.

The jaw that had stood me in good stead last night beckoned like a lighthouse. I swung a left at it. But he was too fast. He let it flick harmlessly by with a jerk of his head. His arm went around me and the nose of the gun dug into my belly.

“Smellin’ around, Johnny? Tck-tck! You’re old enough to know what happens to guys who do that. Start reachin’ if you know what’s good for you.”

I did.

He shoved me up against the bedroom wall, drawing away a pace and keeping his gun on a heart line— my heart. The weapon looked as big as a Russian siege gun. It was probably a Luger. How he carried it around without it bulging him out of shape was a mystery.

“So you were the host who took me buggy riding last night?” I said.

He grinned crookedly. “That’s right, Johnny. If you hadn’t caught me by surprise you’d be three feet under some wet ground right now.”

“You mean if those two gorillas had brushed up on their target practice. Herrin, I’m a little sorry about all this.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ll dust the chair off for you and have it waiting. You bumped Silk. How do you think you’re going to get away with it?”

A laugh shook him. A deep, silent laugh that wasn’t nice to listen to.

“Sure, I bumped him and I’ll bump you just as easy. I knifed McCall because he wouldn’t give me an in on the new gravy.” He nodded. “Mebbe you’re interested, Johnny. What do the cops call it— motive? That’s what my favorite tab printed this mornin’. ‘What was the motive behind the McCall slayin'?' You’ve got it now— you know more than the cops and the papers put together!”

“He wouldn’t give you an in?”

The laugh shook Herrin again. “The toad! After all I done for him. Okay. I figured it out careful. What’s to keep me from takin’ over. Linkhart? That load of baloney? Once I have Silk’s customers, prices and accounts, I can make Linkhart get down and clean my shoes. Okay. So I stick the boss and now I've got to blow you up to make it even. Say your prayers, Johnny.”

There was a quiet tap on the door. Red Herrin’s strained eyes flickered in the direction of the living room. A sidelong, hasty glance, but it was all I wanted, all I needed.

Herrin’s Luger roared like a cannon. Something scorched my face as I hung a stiff one on his glass jaw. That dazed him, so I played rough. Anything went. I stuck a knee in his abdomen and socked his face with the same amount of power I had put behind last night’s clout.

I heard the Luger bang to the floor. There was a haze in front of my eyes. Herrin’s arms were around me. He put on the pressure and I remembered Alf Linkhart saying something about keeping clear or running the chance of having my pan bent out of shape.

A body blow rocked me down to my ankle bones. Herrin slugged and I slugged back, aiming for his crockery chin. He was pounds heavier, but the pot under his belt had slowed him some, and he couldn’t take it in the face. I made a grab for his throat and got it. I hung on— like a terrier— digging my thumbs into the vulnerable spots on either side of his windpipe. Sweat rolled, down into my eyes. My breath was like a furnace in my lungs.

But I stayed with it and that did it!

We hit the floor together— I on top. There was still some fight left in him. The big gun was only inches away. I picked it up and tapped him on the head.

Then the living-room door burst open and the little guy in the gray suit with a cop in uniform, and another lug I recognized as running with Mullin’s pack, came in....

PUTZI RUSSELL nee Blynn looked at me through the shaded table light. We were at the fashionable Spinnaker on East Fifty-fifth Street, listening to high class music and eating plenty of expensive chow.

It was the same night.

Putzi was temporarily unemployed. I had finished a busy afternoon at the Orbit, collaborating with Bill Jamison on the windup of the McCall opus. Herrin and Linkhart occupied a pair of cells, separately, and Putzi had just gotten through asking me if I’d like to be her brother’s best man Thursday morning at the Little Church Around the Corner. I told her I’d love that.

“Why not make it a double-header?” I suggested. "Maybe they’ll give us a discount.”

She looked at me. The blue eyes were certainly heavenly. Bluer than ever with the table light in them and laughter crinkling the corners.

“You're a guy in a hurry, Johnny. And I hardly know you. I don’t know you.”

“Well, I’m taking the same chance,” I said. “That’s life— chances.”

“Come on, stop being silly and let’s dance. You know, not hoofing tonight makes me feel funny.”

We got up and went out on the floor.

“I hardly ever dance and I feel funny. Look, is it a deal? I’ll give you a blueprint on my career, past and present. What else do you want?”

She smiled up at me. The satin skin was like ivory. She wore a sort of coral colored dress, cut low all around.

“Six months— to get used to you, Johnny. Fair enough?”

Maybe the customers were watching. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I stood still and my hands slid up her arms until they came to her powdered shoulders. It might have been imagination, but I had the impression the red lips were waiting for the business I gave them.

“It’s a deal!” I said.

_____________________

11: Merry Month Of Mayhem

Thrilling Detective, Aug 1947

Chapter 1: Five Grand for a Job

SHE sat at a desk that was as polished as her taffy-colored hair, in the anteroom of Mayor Jonathan Hargen’s office. She was rather tall, Steve Dix decided. She wore a white blouse, unwrinkled despite the terrific noonday heat, and a powder-blue skirt. He couldn’t see her gams from the side of the desk where he stood, but he had an idea they’d be all right.

The eyes focused on him were bluer than her skirt, purple in their depths. Dix liked the way the lashes curled up in a black fringe. She didn’t use eye shadow or any phony stuff. Even her curved, warm, red mouth was only lightly touched with lipstick.

In addition to all that, she looked intelligent, as sharp as a tack.

“The Mayor is expecting you, Mr. Dix,” she said. “Your plane must have been on time.”

“On the dot,” Dix told her.

She snapped down the lever on a sound box, pressed a button, and said in a rich, slightly husky voice, “Mr. Dix is here, Mayor Hargen.”

A crisp reply crackled out of the box. “Have him wait a minute, Miss Madlyn. Ask Payson and Leach to come up.”

Ann Madlyn nodded, smiled across at Dix, and used the telephone.

Dix sat down in a leather chair as new as the city hall. Which meant that it hadn’t been used for more than a few weeks. He wondered what Mayor Hargen wanted from him. Something important or Hargen wouldn’t have wired Dix’s Los Angeles office. Hargen wouldn’t have insisted that Dix leave everything and take the first plane to Laros, Nevada.

Dix shrugged. He had been pretty busy. This was May, and things had crowded in on him. The merry month of mayhem, he thought. People sowed the seeds of crime along with flowers. He listened absently to the girl talking over the telephone. Fascinating voice. Nice timbre, nice diction.

He fumbled for a cigarette, his mind going back to Hollywood and beautiful “Cappy” Tyne and Lou Diamond, her bodyguard. Dix had almost closed a business matter about the Excello Pictures star for Al Krakow, the producer. Mayor Hargen’s wire had kept Dix from going over to the studio and laying the facts on the line for the producer.

Al Krakow could wait. Likewise, the temperamental Cappy Tyne.

An electric fan hummed from the top of a tall, chrome tube. It sounded like a bee. Dix listened, toying with the speculation of what Mayor Hargen wanted with him. Dix had been a private eye for a couple of years now. Long enough to know his way around.

The fan blew against rich book bindings in a pickled-pine bookcase. It stirred the light Nevada air. Waves of it blew against Dix’s tanned, good-looking face. He shoved his long legs out further in front of him. The Madlyn girl finished her phone conversation.

“Hot town,” Dix stated.

“I’m used to it. I rather like it.”

He turned that over in his mind. From what he had seen of Laros since the four-motored transport had let him off at the Laros municipal airport, Dix thought her statement was open to debate.

A raw town, he decided, from his glimpse of it. A reasonable facsimile of Reno, a pocket edition of Las Vegas. A wide-open town, he understood. Card palaces and night spots, and all kinds of fancy vice for the asking.

After a while, two men came into the anteroom. They spoke to Ann Madlyn. After a glance at Dix, they went into Hargen’s office.

“Payson and Leach?” Dix asked.

Miss Madlyn nodded and moistened a postage stamp on a rubber sponge. She fixed it to an envelope. She pressed it down firmly with the heel of her slender hand. “Bob Payson,” she said, “is the highway commissioner. Leach is the city comptroller.”

Before Dix could comment, the sound box hummed, “Ask Mr. Dix to come in.”

The three politicians sat around a modernistic office that reminded Dix of the observation room in the Plantagenet Bar back in L.A. Long, glass windows were hung with Venetian blinds that shut out some of the burning sun. The walls were a delicate, pastel gray, like the color of a mourning dove. Against this background, black-glass cabinets and honey-colored furniture were set off to advantage.

Dix shook hands with Jonathan Hargen. The mayor was a fat, red-faced, typical politician. He was doing something about the bald spot on the back of his round, over-large head. Some sticky substance glistened around the edges. He had false teeth, uppers and lowers. They didn’t fit very well and clicked when he spoke.

“Dix, meet Robert Payson and Martin Leach, both part of my government.”

Payson was a mild-looking man in his middle forties. Pleasantly colorless. A type you glanced at and forgot.

Leach was different. The comptroller was a big, broad-shouldered man with a tight face. He had a brooding look under his mink eyebrows. At some time in his career his nose had been broken. It was still off-center. He had a deep cleft in his chin and a very small, thin mouth. Like the other two men, ire a seersucker suit. His could have stood a pressing.

Dix sat down at the right of Mayor Hargen’s immense, flat-topped desk. Leach got up and went to one of the black-glass cabinets. He opened it and came back with a bottle of scotch and glasses. Then he went over to a water cooler and took some ice cubes out of its rear drawer.

“Along about this time of day,” he said, “I get thirsty.”

He slopped liquor into four glasses and motioned to the water cooler for the others to help themselves.

Dix surreptitiously let most of his whisky trickle from his glass before he pressed the cooler’s spigot. He always drank sparingly at these times, for whisky and hot weather don’t mix. He took his glass back to his chair.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I sent for you,” Mayor Hargen began. “It’s about a certain party here in town. Paul Graymar. He operates a place called the Chantilly on Main Street. Ever hear of him?”

“Not that I remember,” Dix answered.

“Graymar,” Hargen went on heavily, “is a menace to the good name of our community. He has a franchise for his place, but it’s a dive. Unfortunately, he’s clever. I can’t close him up. He’s good for two more years. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Dix cooled his wrist against the glass beside him. Its icy touch felt good.

“What we want,” Martin Leach broke in a bit impatiently, “is to get something on Graymar that will let the mayor move in. That shouldn’t be hard. Graymar is as wide open as the range beyond Mount Baldy.”

Bob Payson made no comment. Hargen took it from there.

“Martin means that Graymar’s a bad hombre. I’ve heard enough and know enough to understand he’s a criminal character. We don’t want him here. He’s no asset. Personally, we three are willing to pay a substantial fee for spot evidence strong enough for us to crack down and run Graymar out of town.”

“How much is the fee?” Dix sat up straighter.

“About five thousand,” Payson said, speaking for the first time.

“But the evidence has got to be conclusive,” Leach cut in rapidly. “It’ll have to stand up before the citizens. It can’t be a phony push-out, a trumped-up charge. It’s got to be authentic, and it’s got to be filed within the next ten days.”

“Interested?” Hargen asked Dix, knuckling his red face with a pudgy hand.

“I'll try it for size.” Dix reached for another cigarette. “I’ll have to have one half the money down in advance. And I want a lot of particulars about

Graymar.”

“Both are okay.” The fat mayor opened a drawer in his desk. “Martin will have the cash for you later this afternoon. You’re staying at the Mansion House?”

“I left my bag there,” Dix replied.

“Martin will meet you at the bar there at—”

“Say four-thirty,” Martin Leach filled in.

“And here,” Hargen continued, taking a long envelope from the drawer, “is a word picture of Graymar’s background, as much as we’ve been able to dig up.”

Dix put the envelope in his pocket without opening it. Hargen added a few more particulars. Dix felt they weren’t necessary. He had the setup pretty well in mind. Three men were trying to hang a fourth. Five Gs to make a wedge to open the way.

Dix shrugged his shoulders, wondering why he should care about their civic differences. Five grand was five grand.

“At four-thirty at the Mansion House bar,” Dix said and went out.

Ann Madlyn, riffling through some legal-looking documents, lifted her long-lashed gaze when Dix shut the door of the Mayor’s office and crossed the anteroom.

“Mr. Dix,” she said as he picked up his felt hat from the chair where he had left it. He half turned, and she shot a quick glance at the door he had closed. Her husky voice dropped a pitch. “After dark,” she said, “this town is apt to be a bit dangerous, if you don’t know your way around. It might be a good idea to be a little careful.”

‘Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

She smiled as he went out to a gleaming, marble-tile corridor. So the girl with the taffy-colored hair was warning him. Nice of her, Dix thought.

Chapter 2: The Lady Waits

THE Mansion House was as new and as modem as the city hall. A sprawling, over- pretentious structure with a flamboyant lobby and an air that seemed to ask what Reno had that Laros didn’t have.

Dix registered. A thin, anemic-looking bellhop in a royal-purple uniform and a red, pillbox cap banged Dix’s airplane suitcase into one of the three elevators. Then he led the way down a wide, mossy-carpeted corridor.

“Right in here, sir.”

The boy pushed open the unlocked door of room three hundred and eighty- nine. He set Dix’s bag down on a luggage rack. Dix gave him half a dollar.

"What’s your name, son ?” the private eye asked.

“Felix.”

“Like it around here?”

“It’s not bad when we’re doing business. Some day this is going to be the divorce center of the country. I’ll do better when that time comes.”

Dix grinned as Felix went out. Dix shut the door and looked at his accommodations. Comfortable enough. A good-sized room and a hall with a bath at its end. A glass-enclosed shower. A big wardrobe closet stood midway between the bathroom and the bedroom. He opened his suitcase and hung up a tropical-weight suit.

His gun was in the bottom of the suitcase. A .38 caliber Bronson-Garland automatic of British manufacture. He left the rod there and put the suitcase on the wardrobe shelf.

Then he adjusted the Venetian blind and sat down to read about Paul Graymar....

MARTIN LEACH came into the Frontier Bar of the Mansion House when the topaz-faced clock over its entrance pointed to four-thirty exactly. Leach ordered two planters punches and sat down opposite Dix in a compartment. He took an envelope out of his pocket

“Twenty-five hundred dollars,” Leach said, passing it over. “I wouldn’t count it here. You’ll find it’s the right amount.”

Dix put the envelope into the inner pocket of his smartly tailored flannel coat with one word. “Thanks.”

“Have chance to read what the mayor gave you?” Leach asked.

“I glanced through it.”

“We’re only interested in results,”

Leach said. “We’ve been told that you deliver. You’re said to be the best private operator in California. You’ve been working for Excello Pictures.”

Dix looked at him curiously. “Who told you ? That was supposed to be confidential.”

“We picked it up,” Leach said carelessly. “The point is to get rid of Graymar. You won’t find us ungrateful. We can do you a lot of good.”

Dix knew what he meant. Cleaning up an assignment satisfactorily would bring Dix plenty of future business from Laros. Leach meant that when the town began to challenge Reno on divorces, there’d be plenty of scratch for any private eye if he had the right connections.

“I’m getting busy immediately,” Dix said.

Leach had another drink, then said he had an appointment to keep. Dix bought an afternoon copy of the local newspaper, the Leader, and he went up to his room.

The minute he unlocked the door, he knew that somebody had been nosing around since he had left the room an hour before.

He stood still and let his gaze wander. The prowler hadn’t closed the bottom drawer of the bureau far enough. He must have looked under the pillow of the high-mattressed bed. The George Washington counterpane wasn’t as neat as when Dix had first come in.

Dix took his suitcase down from the wardrobe shelf. He opened it and found that his gun was missing.

Dix put the suitcase back on the shelf and narrowed his eyes. After a minute, he picked up the phone and asked a sultry-voiced operator to send Felix up. He counted the money in Leach’s envelope while he waited. Then he took a five-dollar bill from his poke and folded it lengthwise.

“Somebody stopped in to visit me when I was downstairs,” Dix said when the boy came in. “Any ideas?”

Felix looked at the bill. “One or two.”

“I’ll buy them both.”

The bill changed hands.

“Lenny Sertig, the chief of police,” the bellhop revealed. “Sertig and Hen

Vasson came up about five minutes after you went down. They got your key from Ronald Bates. He’s the clerk who registered you.”

“Where’s the police headquarters?” Dix asked.

“Down two blocks, over one.”

The jail was connected with the police headquarters building, which was brick and had an authoritative look to it. Two expensive prowl cars with the town’s name and numbers painted on the doors stood at the curb, one behind the other.

Dix went into the building. A frowsy, heat-wilted police sergeant was at the high desk. He lolled back in his chair, doing things with a toothpick. He looked at Dix, yawned, and registered more interest in his second glance.

“Chief in?” said Dix.

“I guess so. Who wants to see him?”

“I do.”

“What’s the name? What’s your business?”

“Name’s Dix and my business is none of yours.”

Before the sergeant could answer him, a door to the left opened. A man came through it. He was as bald as an egg, with a thin, sharp face. He wore sloppy pants and a cowboy shirt to which a police badge was attached, and a wide belt with a holstered gun on his right hip.

“This party wants to see the chief,” the desk sergeant said. “His name is Dix, Hen.”

Hen Vasson turned around and looked Dix over. He looked him over carefully and critically, down to the last inch.

“I guess that’s all right,” Vasson spoke with a slow drawl. “Go right in, sport.” He nodded to the door he had come through.”

Dix passed him. The place he entered was a sort of waiting room to the chief’s star chamber beyond. It held a table large enough for card games, chairs, and a lumpy sofa.

Dix pushed open a half-shut door at the back and breathed in the spicy smell of pipe smoke. Chief Len Sertig was at his littered desk, his feet comfortably crossed on its open, top drawer. A blackened, corncob pipe was clamped between his gold-filled teeth. Like Vasson, he was in trousers and shirt.

Sertig reminded Dix of a bloodhound. He had the same kind of dragged-down, red-rimmed eyes, and a loose dewlap and weathered skin that hung in folds. His hair was rough and matted, his gaze impersonal and expressionless.

He was about six-feet-two. He reminded Dix of a horse-opera character. He might have stepped out of a grade B Western, the kind with which Excello Pictures paid their overhead.

“I want to report a stolen gun,” Dix said as he stood a foot away from the desk.

Sertig gave him a casual glance. He tapped his pipe empty on a run-down boot heel and set it on the desk.

“Talk to Johnson outside.”

“I’m talking to you.” Dix kept his tone amiably even. “The shooter was lifted from my room at the Mansion House while I was downstairs in the bar. I want it back.”

“What’s your name?”

“You know it. You knew it well enough to get my room key from the desk clerk. Look, Sertig, I’m here on business. I might need that gun. Hand it over.”

The police chief tilted back in his chair. A half smile began to make more creases in his leathery face. He aimed at a brass cuspidor, missed, and yawned.

“Private detective, aren’t you? We don’t like 'em in this town. I don’t know anything about your gun. Make the usual complaint with the desk sergeant, and we’ll do the best we can.”

With an effort Dix kept his temper in control. So that was it? Sertig must have known about his plane reservation. Sertig must have checked Laros’s several hotels. But why?

Dix turned on his heel and went on through to the front of the building. Hen Vasson, propped against the railing below the sergeant’s desk, gave him a stare.

“Everything all right, stranger?”

“For me but I don’t know about you boys,” Dix laughed and went out.

THE Nevada night came down like a purple curtain, suddenly and all-at- once. As if by signal, Laros turned on its incandescent finery. Its main thoroughfare blazed with multi-colored lights. By day, the long wide principal street had been sun-baked and deserted.

As Dix now left the police station, the street was full of people and traffic. He got the feel of Reno for the first time. Lights and vibrant movement. Fluent, restless crowds and the hum of car engines.

The Chantilly was almost diagonally across from the Mansion House. Its neon sign, an elaborate signature in gold and crimson, winked on and off. Dix leisurely waited for the traffic to stop, then crossed to the night club.

He went in to overdone decor. Pseudo-embassy stuff. Hanging tapestries, frescoed ceilings, little lamps that hung like silver stars. An orchestra whispered persuasively for the dinner guests. Later, a hot-jump, broadcast band would take over.

Dix steered his way to the hat-check counter. A little blonde with heavily carmined lips and blue eye-shadow welcomed him with a big smile. He looked at her glassy-perfect hair-do and laid his hat before her.

She gave him a brass check. He put that in his pocket, marveling at her hair. It looked as if it would break if he touched it. It looked like spun sugar. “Stranger?” she asked.

“You’ve made your point. Roll again.” Dix smiled and her eyes came up to meet his coquettishly. She had a nice figure, stream-lined, gently rounded in the right places.

“Your name is Dix,” the girl said. “You’re in from L.A.”

“What else?” Dix stopped smiling.

“There’s a lady waiting for you in the main dining room. She told me to tell you when you came in. That’s about all, except that I’m off duty at ten-after twelve.”

Dix went down some steps and into the room where the music murmured. He saw the lady almost at once at a table set for two.

“I guess I’m a little late,” he said to Ann Madlyn, pulling out the chair opposite. “You shouldn’t have waited.”

In the mayor’s office Ann Madlyn had been attractive to Dix. Now, against the colorful background of the Chantilly, she stood out like a Broadway beauty in line of scrub women. She wore a white dress. Plain, severely simple, but richly perfect.

She was hatless and her taffy-colored hair glimmered with hidden gleams. The purple in her eyes seemed accented, too. Her femininity was warm and compelling. So was the perfume that Dix caught when he shook out a napkin and smiled across at her.

“You figured I’d drift around?”

“Naturally. I counted on it.”

“That’s nice.”

He began to lose most of his afternoon annoyance. An odd anticipation tingled through him. He hadn’t felt this way since the evening he had clinched the Cappy Tyne matter after obtaining the information he had stalked down.

“Ordered?” he asked.

She hadn’t, so he did, and then she asked, “How do you like our town?”

“It’s better after dark. Native?”

She shook her head. “No, I came here from Iowa several years ago with my dad. He was general manager of Regal Silver before he died. I started doing secretarial work for Jonathan Hargen before he took office. He has a large ranch at Seven Forks, a really big spread. When the reform crowd elected him, he brought me along to City Hall.”

Dix absorbed that along with his martini. There was a hint of loyalty in her tone. Loyalty toward the red-faced, fat Mayor. Dix discounted it and asked who had found out about him in Los Angeles. She said that Leach had done so. Dix noticed the way she held her cocktail glass, how tapering her fingers were.

“He seems to know all about your work,” she added.

“Tell me about Leach and Payson.”

“They’re both part of Laros.” She spoke slowly, carefully. “Born and brought up here, native sons.”

“Level ?”

“Of course!” Her blue eyes flashed. “Mayor Hargen only has honest people holding office in his administration.”

“I just asked. What about this Paul Graymar they want the finger on?”

Something in her expression made Dix stop. It was like the wave of a red lantern. The look vanished instantly, and a smile replaced it. Her eyes moved to a point over Dix’s shoulder.

“Good evening, Mr. Graymar,” she said.

Chapter 3: Slugged and Framed

I GOT UP. The man who had paused beside their table, was small and nondescript. That afternoon, Dix had formed a mental picture of the man he was being paid five thousand dollars to run out of town. It was nothing like Graymar himself.

Paul Graymar in white coat and dark blue trousers could easily have been mistaken for one of the band men. Or one of the hired help. He was narrow in face, shoulders, and torso. Delicately made, with little hands and feet, but his eyes were alert enough, bright and intelligent eyes, set well back in his skull.

“Delighted.” Graymar offered Dix his hand after Ann Madlyn introduced him. “Staying long, Mr. Dix?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll like it here,” Graymar assured him. “After your first few sweats. I gave myself a week when I first arrived. Wild horses couldn’t pry me away now.”

He exchanged a few more words and wandered on to another table. Dix sat down. He wondered if the typed report on Graymar was straight stuff, or if Leach and His Honor had touched it up for their own purposes. If they were right, the little man should be measured for a noose.

It was after nine when Dix and Ann Madlyn finished their demitasses. They went out to the street. There were three taxis at the curb in front of the Chantilly.

“I’ll take you home,” Dix said, handing her into one of the cabs, then sitting down beside her.

“You forgot your hat. Or didn’t you wear one?”

The cab drove off.

“I left it there.” Dix touched the brass check in his pocket. “Always a reason for going back later. You’d better tell the hackie where you live.”

She did and turned to him quickly. “You’re going back tonight?”

“I want a better view of that sink of iniquity.” Dix laughed. “You blocked my vision. According to Hargen, Graymar’s place is a hotbed of vice. I’ve got to see for myself despite what you said this afternoon about it being dangerous. Exactly what did you mean by that?”

“We’re not entirely grown-up yet in Laros.” She made the statement sound like a quotation from a primer. “This is still the West, rough under its veneer. We’re civilized to a point. Anyone who doesn’t understand us, who walks blindly—”

She broke off. Dix breathed in the fragrance that hung around her.

“That anyone has only himself to blame if he gets cut down,” Dix said. "Fair enough. I’m getting the picture in pieces. Funny but Paul Graymar doesn’t look like a desperado.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” she said hastily.

“Or Police Chief Sertig?”

In the dusk of the cab Dix could see her eyes. Like stars in the gloom, they were looking straight at him.

“Leonard Sertig is Martin Leach’s appointment,” she said precisely. “Maybe you don’t think Sertig is what he should be. As I said before, we’re still growing. We need a man like Sertig to keep order.”

The taxi had reached the outskirts of the city. It went down a quiet street.

To Dix’s surprise, he saw a row of three-story apartment houses on the left. Neat brick-and-wood dwellings. Each had a Saguaro cactus heavy with orchid-like blooms on the front lawn.

The taxi stopped before the second house. Dix paid the driver.

“You don’t want me to wait?” the taxi man asked.

“I'll walk.”

The taxi rolled off. Dix followed Miss Madlyn up a paved walk to a white door. She took a key from her smart bag. She looked at him speculatively.

“Thank you for dinner and for bringing me home. You shouldn’t have bothered.”

There was a note of finality in her tone that told Dix he wasn’t going to be asked in.

“It was a pleasure,” he said. “I mean that.” He did. “Well, good night. I’ll be seeing you at the main place.”

“Good night, Mr. Dix.”

The white door opened and closed. A light went on in a second-floor window when he reached the sidewalk. He looked at it, shrugged his shoulders, and started down the street.

Whose side was Ann Madlyn on ? Dix remembered the defensive note in her voice when Hargen had been mentioned. He thought about Paul Graymar and the hat left at the Chantilly. He decided he had better get busy and start to earn his fee.

A block beyond the row of apartment houses, the night closed in tightly. There were open stretches of terrain. The glow of Main Street was a mile and a half beyond. It might have been Dix’s imagination but it seemed cooler. He liked to walk. Somehow, it seemed to help him think better when he was in motion. He had gone no more than a half
block farther when a car came up even with him. It went on a short distance, stopped, and two men got out of it.

“Just a minute, friend,” one of the men called to Dix. “We’re looking for Over Rock Road.”

Dix stopped. He began to turn sideways to keep them both in front of him. He had the impression that they were of a similar size. They wore gray hats and had their hands in their pockets. The one who had spoken advanced. The other cut into the right. And Dix found he was between them.

“Sorry, but I’m a stranger here,” Dix started to say when a sixth sense telegraphed a warning.

The man who had cut in on him lunged forward. Dix threw himself to one side. The sap that struck at Dix viciously whizzed by his head, missing by inches.

Dix tried to grapple with the other man. Dix did get a fingerhold on his coat. This man had drawn a gun, and he ripped out an oath as he reversed the barrel in his hand to make the butt an excellent bludgeon.

His foot tripped and this accident probably saved Dix’s life. As the man went off balance, his gun butt struck Dix a glancing blow on the side of the head. Dix pitched forward, clawing at the empty air.

“Okay, Shavelle! That does it!”

Something more was said, but Dix didn’t hear it. Blackness welled up to ring him in and pull him down into its far, feathery depths. . . .

WHEN DIX STEPPED up to the hat-check counter of the Chantilly an hour later, the little blonde with the glass-like hair and the carmined mouth gave him a heavy-lidded inspection. The Chantilly was crowded now. The jump band beat it out, and voices and dancing feet mingled in vibrant overtones. The blonde drew her thinly arched brows together.

“What happened to you?”

Dix touched the patch of plaster over his right ear.

After he had snapped out of it, he had gone back to his room at the Mansion House and had fixed himself up with a drink and some home first-aid. Only his skin had been cracked. The man called “Shavelle” had probably figured for a fractured skull at least.

“My hat, if you please.” Dix handed over the brass check.

"I get off pretty soon now.” She lowered her voice, making it private between them.

"Where’ll I find Graymar?” Dix asked.

The girl looked a little disappointed and hurt. She drew a breath and touched her chin with a mahogany-tipped finger.

“What would you give to know?” she asked coyly.

"Look, darling, don’t let’s play games. Believe it or not, I’m a busy man. I’ve got work to do. Where’s your boss?”

She told him, and Dix thanked her before he went up a flight of stairs. He got a little of what Mayor Hargen had meant that afternoon when he went down a large corridor. Behind its thin partition he heard the whirr of a roulette wheel and the droning conversation of many voices. He heard the familiar click of dice ricocheting off what he knew was a rubber-sided table. He heard the clink of chips, the tinkle of ice in glasses, laughter, excited or forced.

Dix went on down to the far end of the corridor. He stopped before a door that was stenciled with the word office. Its transom was lowered, its glass painted with inner light. The door was unlocked. Dix opened it and walked in.

He shut the door behind him, stiffened to stone. It was a regulation office. A couple of desks and steel, filing cabinets kept company with a hooded typewriter on a table. Framed sporting prints were on the walls. A photograph of Jack Johnson mowing down the great Jeffries that long-ago afternoon. A picture of Sun Beau when the horse had been the nation’s leading-money inner. Pictures of stage favorites, burlesque queens. But Dix saw those things last.

H IS gaze, strained and taut, went to Paul Graymar—to where Graymar lay half behind his desk and half out on the office floor. The man was doubled up and definitely dead.

Dix moved in closer. A lamp on the desk shed triangular illumination, just enough for the private detective to see the round dark hole in the center of Graymar’s forehead. Dix studied it, shifting his glance to the pool of coagulated blood that the owner of the Chantilly had leaked.

The shoulder of Graymar’s white coat was soaked with crimson, and so was the floor behind the desk. Dix let his eyes sweep on. There didn’t seem to be any gun in evidence. There wasn't any. He was sure of that after he had investigated.

A single-door, steel safe between the windows was open. Its cash box had been yanked out and tossed into a corner. A few coins lay around. Dix used an elbow to push the safe door open wider.

He squatted in front of it. A hard, cynical smile began to twist the corners of his mouth. Mayor Hargen and his two associates had wanted Graymar run out of town. It was too late for that now. Graymar would ride away in a horizontal position. They didn’t have to worry about him any more. Graymar was completely out of their way, and their purpose had been accomplished. Whatever the purpose was!

Dix helped himself to some of the documents in the back of the safe. He skimmed through them, selecting one or two and tucking them away in his jacket. He worked fast. He didn’t want to be walked in on. He had an idea that Police Chief Sertig would like very much to find him at the safe with Paul Graymar’s body across the room.

Finally, Dix got up. Using his handkerchief to wipe his prints from the inner and the outer knobs of the door, the detective waited until the wide corridor was empty.

He started down the stairs but stopped midway. Below him, he had a view of the foyer and the hat-check counter. The blondie was busy with an out-going customer, a well-built handsome young man with inky-black hair and a Latin look. His profile was as sharply clear as that on a new coin. His smile showed a perfect line of flashing white teeth in his brown-skinned face.

He retrieved an expensive Panama hat, gave it a rakish slant, and turned to a woman. She was glancing into one of the pillar mirrors and wiping a little lipstick from the corner of her full, curved mouth.

Dix’s fingers tightened on the bronze, staircase rail. He had no trouble in recognizing Lou Diamond as the man in the Panama hat. And Cappy Tyne, the Excello Picture star, was the woman looking into the narrow mirror.

Dix’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t expected to run across either or both in Laros, Nevada.

Cappy Tyne was supremely lovely in a lime-green gown that was a chalice for all her opulent charms. She wasn’t as tall as Ann Madlyn or, to Dix’s way of thinking, as intriguing to the senses. Cappy’s charm was a sort of manufactured loveliness. Too perfect, a trifle too obvious.

She wore no hat. Her chestnut hair cascaded to her shoulders, so sleek and together that no one strand of it was visible from the others. Her oval face, almost gold in the shine of the silver lamps, looked enameled. Her eyes were a greenish-gray, elongated, lazy as a cat’s. Her figure was flawless all the
way down from shoulder to ankle.

She had, Dix knew, come a long way in the past year, up out of nowhere, a cinematic sensation, a box-office smash. Now the matter of a contract renewal with Excello Pictures was on Al Krakow’s desk. Cappy Tyne was shooting for a high take. So many pictures a year, so much per picture.

Krakow couldn’t afford to turn her down, yet there were extenuating circumstances. And it was Steve Dix who would give the producer the final word to say in the end.

Cappy Tyne took Diamond’s arm. She shifted the silver fox she carried, gave it to him, laughed at something he said, and went across the foyer and out through the main door.

Dix continued down the stairs. The check girl had her back turned in order to wedge a ticket into one of the straw hats on the rack. The manager had come up the steps from the dining room. He looked hard at Dix.

Dix went on out to the street. His mind hummed like a plucked violin string. He crossed the pavement and went into the Mansion House. There were quite a few people in the flamboyant lobby. He stopped at the desk. Bates was off and a new clerk was on night duty.

“Miss Tyne registered here?” Dix asked.

“Yes, sir.” The clerk’s tone was hearty, his smile expansive. “She has the Silver Suite on the fourth floor. She’s not in at the moment. If there’s a message—”

“There isn’t, thanks.”

Dix went to an elevator. He hadn’t bothered leaving his key when he had gone out. He fingered it when the lift slid to a stop. He opened his door, switched on a lamp on a table beside the bed, and pulled the Venetian blind as high as it would go.

Chapter 4: On the Lam

OUTSIDE, a balcony ran from one end of the building to the other. Broad, iron stairs zigzagged down from floor to floor. A few wan stars struggled mistily in the vault of the night sky. The garish reflection of the main thoroughfare was like the flame of a bonfire.

Dix stood for a minute, looking out. He went back and sat down on the edge of the bed. He took out what he had brought away from the safe in Paul Graymar’s office, a couple of letters and what might have been a cash book.

He thumbed through the book, his face shadowed. But he had turned only a few pages when he heard the elevator click to a stop and voices sound in the hall.

Footsteps came up and ended at his door. As the knob began to turn, Dix quickly put the little book and the letters under the pillow on the bed. He had hardly time to smooth the George Washington counterpane back in place before a knock, staccato and insistent, beat out on the panels of the door.

Chief Sertig and the bald-headed Hen Vasson pushed past him when Dix opened the door. Vasson, sucking on an inch of cigarette, shut the door, then turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. Sertig ambled over to Dix.

“Just stay where you are,” said the chief of police. “Don’t make any wrong moves. We’re taking a look around.”

Dix’s mouth tightened. He could feel his nerves begin to crawl and then grow taut. He looked from the leathery-faced police chief to Vasson.

“I suppose you’ve got a search warrant, or don’t you need ’em in this town?”

“And don’t talk,” Sertig ordered.

“I’ll nose around,” Vasson said.

“You’ve got the equipment to do it with,” Dix told him. “For your information, I’m working for Mayor Hargen. I think I’ll telephone him and see what he has to say about this.”

Sertig hit him with a ham-like fist when Dix started to pass him. It was a dirty blow, brought up at an angle. Unexpected and hard. Dix staggered and sat down on the bed. He caught the wooden foot post and held on. Twice in one night, a sock with a gun butt, and then a bunch of knuckles. He shook his head to clear it.

Sertig loomed up before him, big against the lamplight. “Look around, Hen. See what you can find. I'll keep this guy quiet.”

Vasson went into the hall. Dix heard him strike a match after the wardrobe door creaked open. He heard Vasson fumbling around.

Then came the bald-headed man’s exclamation: “I got it. Chief! Right here on the floor!”

Vasson came back, an open handkerchief in his hand. On top of it, Dix saw his own automatic.

Sertig grunted approval, sucking air through his teeth. "I guess that’s enough. I’m wrong all around if it ain’t the gun that washed out Graymar. You’re in, Dix. Get up and we’ll take a walk. You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Dix acted fast. His foot shot up and landed with remarkable and tremendous accuracy in the pit of Police Chief Sertig’s stomach. The man belched half a scream of agony and dropped back.

Vasson, his hands busy with the handkerchief-wrapped gun, was an open target for the straight right Dix planted in his face. Dix felt Vasson’s teeth bend under the impact of the blow. Sertig’s bald-headed deputy backed all the way to the wall. He banged off it, spat blood, collided with a chair, and fell sprawling. He let go of the gun. It skidded across the floor, and Dix grabbed it.

Dix didn’t wait longer. He went through the window, taking part of the curtain with him. The broad, iron stairs were just beyond, past a series of lighted windows. He went down them fast.

That brought him to a cul-de-sac at the hotel’s rear near the garages. Dix cut down a cement ramp and hurried out to the main thoroughfare. A prowl car stood some little distance from the Mansion House. But no one was flatfooting toward it.

Dix signaled the first empty taxi that came along, passed an address to the driver, and hauled out the gun. A sniff of the barrel told its own story. So did the empty shell in its clip. Dix stowed the rod away and knit his brows. Unless he was mistaken, and Dix knew he wasn’t, the round black hole in Paul Graymar’s forehead had been made by his, Dix’s gat.

He sat back on the cab’s worn upholstery, thinking hard. The rig had angles. Somebody wanted to see that he got a breath of gas, the gas Nevada gives killers. Who? Why? Dix shook his head.

A few minutes later, the taxi pulled in at the second building in the row of apartment houses on the outskirts of town. Dix told the man to wait, went by the Saguaro cactus, and, after inspection, pressed a bell in the tiny vestibule.

Almost at once, the electrically controlled latch clicked. Ann Madlyn had her door open when he arrived upstairs. He had the impression of taffy-colored hair shimmering and haloed with light. She wore a raspberry-pink house coat and perhaps not much else. Mexican slippers held her small, high-arched, bare feet. She hadn’t been asleep. There was no drowsiness in her pretty face or blue eyes.

She held the door wide, shutting it after Dix came in. He stood in a room furnished as a lounge, a comfortable place of chintz and varnished reed, of cool walls about the same color as the gown Cappy Tyne had been wearing. Flowers were clustered in a white vase. A copper-base lamp made a golden glow. The rug under his feet was Indian grass, in large geometric patterns.

“Graymar’s been eliminated,” Dix spoke quickly but quietly. “Within the last hour, your police chief and Vasson had it rigged for me to be brought in and taken care of. I left them both in my room at the hotel.”

He saw her stiffen, her eyes wide and her warm mouth open. She didn’t move, but he knew she was drawing together like a steel spring.

“You’d better get in touch with Mayor Hargen.” Her husky voice wasn’t entirely steady. “I don’t know what this means.”

“I do. Get him for me, please.”

She picked up a French telephone. She called a number. She pressed one hand over the mouthpiece, staring steadily at Dix. He helped himself to a cigarette in an open, glass box. He dragged in smoke greedily as if he hadn’t had a cigarette for days.

“They don’t answer?” she asked the operator. “Are you sure? Six nine J. Keep trying, operator.”

“What about Leach?” Dix suggested. She shook her head, putting the telephone back on its cradle. The wonder had gone out of her face. The shadow of fear replaced it. a blend of sudden fear and worry. She went across to a small table-model radio, and snapped its switch.

While she waited for it to warm, she said thoughtfully, as if to herself, “Not Leach. I don’t trust him. It’s got to be Hargen. Where is he? He must be at the ranch.”

A voice coming out of the radio interrupted. A precise, well modulated, deeply pleasant voice—

“We interrupt this program to bring you an important news flash from headquarters. Paul Graymar, owner of the popular Chantilly, was shot to death in his office tonight. The police are looking for Steve Dix, a Los Angeles private detective. So far, Dix hasn’t been apprehended. His description is as follows—”

Ann Madlyn shut the radio off. Dix mashed his cigarette in a tray and pulled up his sleeve to look at his watch.

“Keep pegging away at Hargen,” he advised. “I want protection. I have an in on what this is all about Let me have your telephone number, and I’ll call you back. I left a cab at the door. I'm going back to town.”

She touched his sleeve. “Is that wise? They’ll pick you up.”

“I’ve got to. I’ve got to beat them to the draw. If Sertig trips me while the ends are untied. I’m as good as gone. They probably love lynchings in this town. Didn’t you say you weren’t quite civilized? And I’m allergic to hemp.”

Ann Madlyn’s hand stayed on his sleeve. “Wait until I get Hargen. He’ll know what to do. You can stay here.”

“Not a chance, because they know all about this charming spot. A couple of hoodlums followed us when I brought you home. Sertig’s sure to stop in. Don’t worry. I’ve been in close quarters before. This is going to work out all right, but get Hargen.”

He jotted down her telephone number and let her open the door. For an instant she stood close to him. The same fragrance he had caught at dinner reached him.

Dix laughed under his breath and took her in his arms. Her lips were warm but unstirring under the pressure of his own. He could feel the flutter of her heart, the tremble of her slender hands on his shoulders. Then her lips awoke and responded.

Dix let her go and faded down the stairs. He was afraid there was a radio in the taxi, but there wasn’t. The hackie sat slumped down under the wheel, half asleep. Dix piled into the vehicle and slammed the door to wake him up.

"Take me back to town,” Dix ordered. “I’ll tell you where to stop.” He remembered something he had forgotten to ask the girl with the taffy hair. “You must ride a lot of guys. Know anybody named Shavelle?”

“Do I?” The driver turned his head. “A tough character, mister. Hangs out with Verne Stacey and that crowd. Used to do some box-fighting around Carson City.”

"Who’s Verne Stacey?”

"The big guy with the dough. Used to run the city hall before Hargen got elected. Stacey is out in the cold now. Only it ain’t ever very cold around here. Stacey and all his mob. “Buddy” Shavelle included, they’ve been hungry since the reform party moved in.”

Dix was interested. “Then there’s none of the old guard left?”

“One lone sucker.” The hackie snickered, mentioning a name. “Maybe they got him tied down, then mebbe not. Where did you say you want me to drop you?”

The taxi stopped a block away from the Mansion House. Dix paid the meter charge and got out. He pulled his hat down close to his eyes. He didn’t doubt that the bloodhound-eyed Sertig had a plant watching the Mansion House. From here through to the windup, Dix understood, it was a question of how lucky he’d be.

For a second time, he went along the cement ramp to the cul-de-sac at the hotel’s rear. He stood there in the shadows, searching the gloom for the sign of a sentry. Finally, he shrugged and started up the broad, iron steps.

He kept going until he reached the fourth floor. Momentarily, he expected a challenge from below and the whine of lead. But there was no sound except the nocturnal murmur of Laros. At the fourth floor, he walked the balcony to the building’s east end. The choice suites, one above the other, were located there. A softly lighted window shone like a beacon for Dix. He passed it and crouched beside a darkened window some little distance beyond it. The window was open at top and bottom.

Dix drew the lower sash up enough to climb through. He felt heavy carpet under the soles of his polished, custom-built shoes. The smell of cigarette smoke, faint and pungent, drifted to him. He waited until his eyes became accustomed to the thick murk before he crossed to a door. He stood beside it and listened.

After a minute or two, he turned the knob slowly and quietly. A few feet of passage separated him from the parlor of the Silver Suite. A hanging drapery was at its arched doorway.

Cappy Tyne, still in the lime-green dress, had arranged herself comfortably on a brocaded sofa, one symmetrical leg drawn up so that its knee dented her slinky skirt. A frosty gin drink, half consumed, stood beside her, its essence of juniper aromatic on the warm, stirless air.

Dix watcher her for a minute longer. He pushed the drape aside and walked in. Cappy Tyne sat up with a jerk. Her face was a study in conflicting emotions.

He thought she had never registered surprise and fear to more convincing degree in any screen role. He saw her knuckles whitening as her small, shapely hands gripped the divan’s arm.

Her eyes, like twin tourmalines, shone hard and very bright as they met his.

“You can’t be too surprised.” Dix continued walking until he reached the divan. “You knew I was down here.”

“I didn’t!”

He let that go and glanced around the highly decorated room. Some Hollywood stylist had probably been turned loose in it. Its silver motif, splashed with scarlet, made him think of a Technicolor musical show. All it needed, Dix thought, were some under-dressed girls on some white horses.

“Where’s the bodyguard?” he asked.

Cappy Tyne shook her head. “Lou left me a little while ago. He’s gone.”

“Where?”

Her eyes began to lose some of their first fright. Like a veil, he saw the mascara lashes come down over them. She moved further back among the cushions, brushing fingers lightly over her hair.

“He didn’t say.” Her voice deepened. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? What do you want?”

Dix helped himself to a cigarette from a silver box on a table. He inhaled, smiling thinly.

“I want to know why you set me up for a pigeon. Or was it Diamond’s idea? Don’t bother to go into dramatics. You’d like to see me out of the way, safely and permanently. You knew that Al Krakow rented me to snoop. I know that you know because Krakow warned me that there was a studio leak. You were tipped in advance. So why shouldn’t you play ball with the cops down here? Sertig looks like his price tag isn’t too high.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she exclaimed defensively, getting hold of herself.

Chapter 5: A Woman’s Secret Past

I SAW that she was going to be difficult. Cappy Tyne knew most of the questions and the majority of the answers. But she didn’t know how much Dix had turned up on her in the preliminary investigations. And on that lone point, he intended to crack down hard.

“Look, sweetheart,” he said ironically, “I’m harassed. I’m in line for the gas chamber after the local gendarmes work me over with a length of hose. So I’m not going to loiter around here making small talk. Either you tell me what I want to know or—”

“Or what?”

“I get Hollywood on long distance. I tell Al what he wants to know. I don’t pull any punches. You’re through with the bioscope henceforth and forever. So take your choice.”

From the expression in her face, Dix knew she tried to decide if it were a bluff. She couldn’t. She knew something about his reputation, enough to draw her crescent-shaped brows together.

“I’d have to talk to Lou first.”

Dix laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant-sounding laugh. Like ice being broken, brittle and abrupt.

“No, darling. The only one you’ll talk to is me. And now!”

She drew a breath, and Dix knew he had won when he saw her eyes again. She arranged herself on the divan so there would be room for him beside her. Suddenly, her tenseness disappeared entirely.

“Let’s have a drink,” she said. “A nice cool Collins. I can always talk so much better with one. Be a dear and phone down to the bar. The service here is really wonderful. A waiter’ll be around before you hang up.”

After his talk with Cappy, Steve Dix rode out to a big house not many miles from town. It was a place of irrigated gardens, neat lawns, and the same sweet-smelling cactus that fronted Ann Madlyn’s apartment building. A place of interlaced shadows, of quiet, wheeling stars, and moonlight. Dix approached it diagonally. He passed a lily pool, went up some gravel, and came finally to the porte-cochere of the house.

A three-year-old automobile parked its length a little distance away. He touched its hood. Cool. It hadn’t been used for some time. He turned and went to the front door, going up some native stone steps.

A bell made a musical chime, something like the signature of a broadcasting studio. Dix stood there, his automatic back in its pigskin, shoulder holster, the plaster over his ear almost covered by his hat.

A man servant opened the door, and Dix put his foot in it, saying, “I want to see Mr. Stacey.”

Over the servant’s shoulder, he had a view of spiral stairs, of shadow-boxed paintings, cluttered luxury that combined Chinese Chippendale with English Sheraton and Adam in a promiscuous jumble.

“I don’t know whether—” the servant began to say.

A man was coming down the stairs. A big, bulky individual with frost-silvered hair, a beak for a nose, and a wide, straight-lipped mouth. He wore a natural-colored linen suit, an offset to his tanned skin. He looked as if he had just shaved, as if a valet had just finished with him. Even his white buck shoes were immaculate.

“Who is it, Jim?” he asked in a rumbling voice that seemed to have some difficulty getting out of his throat. Then he got a direct look at Dix and snapped his fingers. “That’s all, Jim.”

Dix shut the door himself. “You’re Stacey of course.”

“Come into my study.” The big man went across the hall and opened a half-shut door. “In here.”

Dix accepted the invitation slowly. The room he entered was furnished with the same mismated conglomeration of periods. A black, teakwood bar hospitably glimmered with bottles and glasses in a comer.

Verne Stacey gestured toward it with a hand. Hair curled on his fingers and along the backs of his hands. A diamond ring flashed with two-carat brilliance.

“Have a drink.”

“Thanks, I never touch the filthy stuff.” Dix went further into the room. “You know who I am?”

"Sure, the dick from L.A. I figured you’d be around before the police pick you up. Bad business for you to drop in and gun one of our leading citizens. Paul Graymar had plenty of friends. They won’t like it. They won’t like it at all.”

“You know I didn’t do it,” Dix said casually, “so don’t bother with that brand of malarky. As a matter of fact, you had a finger in the murder pie. Just what kind of a plum you were reaching for, I haven’t decided yet, Stacey. But I'll know before I leave here tonight.”

The big man mixed himself a drink. A large shot of bourbon in a small amount of soda. No ice. He stirred it with a glass muddler and laughed.

“Sit down, Dix. Make yourself comfortable. Let’s hear your gripe. How do you tie me into this?”

Stacey put all of his weight into a red-leather chair. Dix kept on his feet.

“From certain documents your hired assassin didn’t have time to remove from the safe in Graymar’s office,” Dix said. “A few notations explaining how you had tried to buy the Chantilly with no luck. Graymar wasn't any fool. When you have a gold mine, you don’t give it up unless you have to.”

"All right. I wanted Paul’s dive,” Stacey admitted. “Not so much to make dough as to keep me interested. I’m out of politics. It’s all right to lie around and try to raise roses and tangelos, but it gets boring after a while. Sure, I wanted the Chantilly to play with.”

"Graymar was blackmailing Cappy Tyne. I have the account book with the last payments noted.” Dix kept his tone in the same casual pitch. “You’re a friend of Lou Diamond, Cappy’s so-called bodyguard. You knew I was propositioned by Mayor Hargen. Everybody else knew it. Why shouldn’t you? And you knew that Cappy was paying Graymar through her tip-tilted nose. What did you do but join in with Diamond to knock Graymar and me off with the same stone?”

“What percentage would I get out of that?” Verne Stacey asked. “As I understand it, you were hired to run Graymar out of town.”

“Yes, but that would still leave me. And I was the one about to ruin the Tyne reputation, once and for all. Al Krakow wouldn’t sign her if I handed in the report on what I’d dug up on her. She must have appealed to you. And you decided to do something about it. You did.”

Stacey leaned back in his chair. Outside of the soft lamplight’s ring, his face didn’t look so tanned. Or maybe it was the reflection of his frosted silver hair. He finished his drink slowly, musingly. He put down the glass as a knock sounded on the door.

“Come in, Lou,” Stacey called quietly. “Don’t reach for your rod, Mr. Dix. I shoot awfully fast and seldom miss.”

A long, thin-barreled gun slid into Stacey’s hand. He had made the draw with amazing speed. Dix checked his own hand halfway to his holster. He turned slightly as the door opened and Lou Diamond came in.

Cappy’s bodyguard, as Hollywood knew the boy, had a gun drooping from his fingers. Diamond pushed the study door shut with a heel and stood silently in the background, waiting.

“Now,” Stacey said to Dix, “you are made of clay. You’re wanted for Graymar’s murder, and I caught you in here. You tried to blow me up. I beat you to the draw and shot you five times. Self-defence, I believe it’s called. Where am I wrong?”

He laughed a chuckling, little, amused laugh. As it died away, Dix heard what he had kept his ears strained to hear. The crunch of synthetic-rubber tires on gravel and the low, throaty pulsations of an automobile arriving.

Diamond and Verne Stacey heard it, too. Their eyes flashed to the picture window at the study’s end.

“Before I left town,” Dix said carelessly, “I telephoned Miss Madlyn. I told her I was coming down here and asked her to have the mayor and a couple of other people drop in. I thought we might as well get to the bottom of this thing before the indignant gentry tripped me, presented me with a rope necktie, and strung me up in the public square. Better ask Jim to let them in.”

Dix had to admire Stacey’s calm. The big man shoved his gun under the waistband of his linen trousers. He signaled with a finger, and the weapon in Lou Diamond’s hand disappeared.

At the study door, Stacey boomed, “Let the mayor in, Jim. Have him come in here. Get the lead out of your shoes. Don’t keep His Honor waiting.”

Hargen’s false teeth clicked. His red face was redder than ever. Dix traded a nod with him and glanced at Hargen’s companions. One was Sertig. The other was the bald-headed Hen Vasson.

“There’s my man!” Sertig’s voice had a snarl in it. “There’s the party who shot Paul Graymar and kicked me in the belly!”

Hargen raised a hand and looked hard at Dix. “What’s the meaning of all this? I only came down here tonight because my secretary assured me that there’s some kind of a conspiracy afoot. I intend to get to the bottom of it. What’s it all about?”

“The death of a gambler in this spring month, this merry month of mayhem,” Dix answered whimsically.

“I just accused Mr. Stacey here of being in on the rig to goat me for his benefit. He snapped back with a gun and some fancy talk about shooting me five times in self-defense.”

“Why don’t you grow up?” Stacey said contemptuously. “Coming around here with talk like that!”

Dix shook his head. “No good, Verne. I have the whole story. I got it direct from Cappy Tyne, and it’s pure gold. Oddly, this Sertig lout has been on the level all the time. Just a dumb cluck of a cop listening to whispers in his left ear. Baldy’s whisperings. By the way, Vasson, let’s see your poke. I understand there’s a brand-new thousand-dollar bill in it. Your payoff for killing Graymar, for stealing my gun, and planting it back in my closet. Let’s take a look. Let’s make it a sporting proposition. If Stacey’s grand isn’t in your leather, I’ll turn myself in.”

Vasson’s face contorted. “You dirty louse!” he spat at Stacey. “You ratted on me!”

Stacey did a fast draw again. But this time it was not fast enough. Vasson had jerked a Luger out of his hip holster, and he started squeezing the trigger, hardly seeming to take aim.

The big gun jumped in his hand five times. He pumped a stream of lead into the big man, who, getting up from his chair, promptly dropped back into it. Stacey’s hair-fingered hand fell away from his waistband. In slow motion, it trailed across his stomach to his side, dangling loosely. Red stains mingled into one crimson circle on the left side of his linen coat.

Lou Diamond shot at Vasson twice. His aim was excited, inaccurate. Both bullets gouged the ceiling.

Hargen, petrified, let his upper plate drop, pushed it back into place with a thumb, and scuttled for cover.

Vasson, his face still a mask of frustrated fury, brandished the Luger. “I’ll croak the first guy who tries to stop me! Come on, somebody take a shot at me!”

“And I thought you had a case for me,” Sertig bleated. “I believed in you, Hen.”

Vasson continued to back up. He went past the chair where Verne Stacey sat collapsed with chin on his chest. He continued on to the screened, open window across from the picture window. He stood there for a minute longer, the threat in his hand ominous and deadly. With a shoulder he heaved the screen out of his way and straddled the sill.

“I’m borrowing your car, Hargen. I’ll leave it on the other side of the State line.”

As Vasson drew his other leg up, Dix, gliding in behind the jut of a tall bookcase, fired when the bald-headed man’s knee rose another inch. Dix shot with all the skill that had made him the envy of shooting-gallery spectators whenever he went into his act.

His first shot thudded into Vasson’s hunched figure. His second bored into the bald head. Vasson screamed and fell through the window.

“Now let’s take a look at his wallet,” Dix said, shaking the automatic, so that the last of its lazy smoke could leave the barrel before he sheathed it.

HE HAD breakfast in Ann Madlyn’s dinette. A sunny place of chromium and stream-lined cabinets. The short, frilly curtains at the windows were red, with tiny, white flowers. A canary that she called “Jake” chirped in a pagoda-shaped, black cage. The smell of sizzling bacon and bubbling coffee was very pleasant.

“I owe you a lot for saving my life,” Dix said slowly. “Stacey would have undoubtedly kept his word and punctured me last night. His Honor’s arrival was more thrilling than the coming of the Marines. Nice work on your part.”

She was dressed for the office, in cool, white sharkskin. She wore no ornaments except a freshly picked flower in her taffy-colored hair. Her eyes with the violets in their depths were crystal clear and contented. She moved, Dix observed, with all the sinuous grace of one listening to far-off music.

“Everything’s pretty apparent,” Ann Madlyn said, “except about Miss Tyne and why Verne Stacey would help her out of her trouble. What had you found out about her that was so nerve-shattering?”

Dix rubbed his palm across the small square of an embroidered tea napkin. He wondered if she had made it.

“I had to do a lot of digging into her past before I came up with it. She served three years in a Massachusetts jail for pushing an admirer out of a second-story window. It was quite some time ago. She had it covered pretty well, but you dig and dig, and after awhile you strike pay dirt.”

“And Verne?”

“The lad she pushed the other guy out for! I had to trade with her, but it’s okay.” He laughed. “I agreed to withhold my report from Krakow for the information I knew she was able to give me about Graymar, who, incidentally, had picked up the window episode that she figured in back east. He was shaking her down handsomely. I didn’t care about Excello Pictures last night, and about the renewal of her contract. I was only looking out for the lease on my own life.”

Ann Madlyn frowned. “Then this Krakow—”

“I made the trade with Cappy,” Dix said blandly, “knowing that when Graymar’s murder broke, the whole story of her past would come out with it. I don’t have to tell Al Krakow a word. All he has to do is spend a nickel for a newspaper and read about it. Which reminds me that you make delightful coffee, Miss Madlyn.”

_______________________

12: Come Back to Aaron

Top Notch, Dec 1937

FOR more time than Oscar Doolittle, one of the bell hops at the gilded Hotel Ritzbilt, cared to think about, tips had been as scarce as prickly heat in the arctic circle. And the worst part of it was that Doolittle, running Eddie Elton ragged for favor in the blue eyes of Hazel, the orange-topped switchboard Venus, needed ten dollars just the same way a race horse needed a track, a plumber a leaky pipe, a bootlegger a dark night, and a tardy schoolboy a good excuse.

Thinking it over in leisure moments, Doolittle decided that nine dollars or even eight might possibly suffice. The tragedy of it was there was little chance of getting as much as one tenth of one per cent of the required amount from either Nick McBride, the dapper night clerk, or any of his companions in livery. The whole works awaited pay day and appeared as clean as a package of laundry.

Still, there were a few grains of sunshine in the dark morass of disappointment. The ten iron gentlemen were necessary if Hazel was to be taken to the annual outing of the Hotel Workers’ Association. They would cover the price of the tickets to Treasure Island on the Sound— they would buy innumerable broiled canines smeared with what the French call moutard and they would cover the bus ride to and from the rendezvous.

Likewise, with what change left Doolittle decided he could purchase a sprig of violets for Hazel or a box of candy and treat her to a few of the amusement devices the island had to offer to its patrons.

The outing was scheduled for Saturday and on Tuesday Doolittle was like a sailor lost in the middle of the Pacific without a single sail in sight.

“I hear them tell how you’re chirping about dragging Hazel to the big blowout this week-end,” Eddie Elton sneered that same evening. “What happened— wealthy uncle shuffle off to do a piece of harp strumming and willed you a couple of dollars? Come on, tell me all about it!”

Doolittle, who loved Elton in exactly the same manner an ordinary moth was enamored of a roll of tar paper, grinned witlessly.

“My business,” he mumbled, moving a couple of feet that might have won cup races if equipped with masts and rudders, “ain't nobody else’s business.”

Elton curled a lip.

"Yeah? You can bull frogs and you can kid gloves but you can’t buffalo this baby. I’m broke and so are you. You’ve been scouting around trying to make a touch so you can treat Hazel— the same as I’ve been doing. And you haven’t had the luck of a woodpecker on a tiled roof. Isn’t that so?”

Whatever answer Doolittle would have made was never to be known for exactly at the same minute the bell hop’s signal buzzed and the elegant Mr. McBride raised a finger in a request for both service and action.

“You can have her—I don’t want her!” Eddie Elton murmured, after one glance in the direction of the black onyx desk where a newly arrived feminine guest of the Ritzbilt was in the act of registering. “There’s your gold mine, Oscar. Grab your pick and shovel, and go to it!”

The lady whose three bags and hat box Doolittle picked up was anything save prepossessing or one who gave any hint of lucrative gratuities. She was thin, she was elderly, she possessed a countenance that would have caused consternation in any clock factory and she wore a blond wig decorated with coy corkscrew curls. Yet she had been assigned to one of the best suites on the third floor and Doolittle, struggling manfully with the luggage, felt a flicker of hope.

Possibly this woman was a millionairess, eccentric to the point of starvation, with enough money to buy up New Jersey and close it for good. He set the bags down in her rooms and waited patiently. Nothing was forthcoming save words.

“What is your name, boy? How long have you been employed here? Are you honest and ambitious? Do you live home with your parents? Do you go to Sunday school and can you repeat the Ten Commandments?”

So rapidly did she speak that Doolittle blinked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. “No, ma’am.”

The woman transfixed him with a pair of singularly keen eyes.

“Which is it?”

Doolittle rubbed his ears and fingered the brass buttons on his jacket.

“Both,” he answered stupidly.

“The reason I ask,” the woman went on, “is because I will have an errand for you in a day or two that will pay you ten dollars. You look like a bright, respectable little chap, who could be relied on. Are you?”

“I had a good one last winter,” Doolittle returned politely. “Chap, what I mean. Don’t forget me when you want that errand done, ma’am. I’ve been hunting for ten dollars for the last week and a half.”

The woman said she wouldn’t and Doolittle returned to the lobby walking on clouds of air. It was the work of a minute only to discover she had registered as Mrs. Brighton Early, from Chicago.

“One of those big-hearted, rich Western women,” Nick McBride ventured carelessly. “If you had more sense you could get the dollars, Oscar. Most of these exiles from that section of the country where a bird in the hand is worth two on the plate are prodigals when it comes to soothing the itching palm. Too bad you’re so thick!”

Back on the bench Eddie Elton grinned sarcastically.

“What did you get, fellar? Come on, open up the mitt and let’s pipe the plunder.”

Settling back on the bench, Oscar Doolittle stared dreamily across the lobby. He was just able to glimpse the gleaming crown of Hazel's blond head. One of her slenderly arched brows he glimpsed and a portion of her cheek that was as white as sun-washed ivory. His imagination glowed fancifully with a picture of Treasure Island, sizzling fox terriers done up in crisp rolls and a scenic railway that was a first aid to erratic digestion.

“I didn’t get any money— yet,” he replied truthfully, “but I did receive a promise— and, oh, Eddie, what a promise !”

Elton snickered and tossed a wink at a couple of his other companions in toil. They returned the wink.

“A promise, eh? Try and spend that up at Treasure Island next Saturday and see how far it goes!”

ii

THERE was no word forthcoming from Mrs. Brighton Early who stayed closer to her expensive suite than a moth to a fur coat, until that Friday noon. Then she sent for Doolittle and let a razor-like glance pass slowly over him.

“I’m going to send you down to John Street,” she began, “with a pearl necklace. It is a very valuable pearly necklace worth possibly fifty or sixty thousand dollars. You are to take it to the firm of Ford & Rattle, the large jewelers. I have just telephoned and they are expecting the necklace which I am sending to have its catch repaired. Do you suppose you can deliver it safely?”

“Do birds fly?” Doolittle answered succinctly.

The woman opened her desk and lifted out a long leather box. She opened it, glanced briefly at the coil of pearls it contained before wrapping the box in brown paper and securing it stoutly with heavy twine.

“Here is your carfare. When you return with the receipt from the jewelers I will reimburse you with the ten dollars as I promised. Let me caution you again to be careful. You will?”

“Well,” Doolittle replied diplomatically, “I haven’t ridden" in an ambulance yet!”

John Street, as information divulged, was in the lower regions of the city, a short distance from the financial district. The subways were still doing business, so Doolittle, some fifteen minutes later, shot a nickel into the noisy turnstile and boarded a southbound train.

The train was jammed and he was too small to reach the beautiful overhead straps. So he compromised by seizing the coat tails of a middle-aged gentleman with eyebrows that looked like question marks and a nose that jutted out over the waterfall of a mustache. There was another man close to him that resembled a minister. This second individual had a long, lean, melancholy visage and a chin so pointed that it could have opened any bottle of olives. He appeared to have his hands folded in prayer and Doolittle, shoving Mrs. Early’s package into his hip pocket, favored him with only a solitary glance.

All the way down to his destination, thoughts of Treasure Island and the big outing kept pace with the speed of the train. Hot dogs, scenic railways, and the delicious Hazel. A king could ask no more!

Doolittle snapped out of his trance when he reached the proper station. He alighted and headed for the stairs, but before he had placed his foot on the second step that led up to open daylight above, he made a discovery so terrifying and unnerving that he nearly fainted.

Quite by chance his hand automatically sought his back pocket. He half expected the comforting feel of Mrs. Early’s package, but instead his fingers brushed nothing except the material of his suit. With a wild cry Doolittle fumbled madly for the missing package until, in another round of dizzy seconds, the terrible truth dawned significantly and fully upon him.

Either some crook had used agile fingers or—he had lost the valuable pearls!

iii

FOR a confused minute Doolittle thought of two things. One was police headquarters, and the other the lost-and-found bureau of the underground cannery. Mature reflection, painfully agonizing, made him decide that it was better to go to Mrs. Early with the horrible news and allow her to act.

“After all,” he told himself, “the pearls belonged to her. She’d better call the cops!”

Back at the Hotel Ritzbilt, Doolittle made a miserable way into the lobby. He broke the sad news to the exquisite Mr. McBride who shook his head and he told Eddie Elton who failed to display any degree of sympathy in Doolittle’s trouble.

“So you let some dip get you for sixty thousand dollars’ worth of neck-beads?” Elton said. “Really, it’s a wonder a dumb Bennie like you gets home at night without having your elbows picked off or your eyes crooked or something. Well, you must pardon me while I guffaw. This just about bakes your outing with Hazel to a fricassee. Still, it’s only what might be expected from you.”

Doolittle turned sadly away and used an elevator. McBride had evidently phoned the news up to Mrs. Brighton Early. The woman was pacing the floor with the air of a lioness suffering from insomnia when Doolittle plucked up sufficient courage to enter.

“And I thought you could be trusted!” she snapped. “I thought you were alert. I was certain that you could be relied upon.”

“How about the police?” he stammered thickly. “Honest, we got some swell bulls in this town. I know a party who lost a valise with a pair of pajamas in it and when the flat feet got it back to him it was filled with sterling silver. I know—”

“I’ve already communicated with the law,” the woman said. “I suppose you realize I have no intention of paying you for your errand. Those pearls were worth―”

A knock on the door interrupted her. She crossed to it rather slowly and opened it. Two men entered, one briskly and one reluctantly. Doolittle, with a stab of surprise recognized the brisk one as being the same gentleman with the question-mark eyebrows whose coat tails he had clung to in the subway. And the other was the same melancholy-faced, ministerial appearing person who had stood beside him in a solemn and prayerful attitude.

“Mrs. Early?” the brisk one began, removing a familiar package from his inner pocket. “Your pearls. I might suggest that you take better care of them in the future. I just stopped in on my way to headquarters with my friend Aaron Hawks, whom you probably know.”

“You bet she knows me,” Hawks growled. “And believe me, if they are going to job me I’ll blow like an electric fan.”

The unprepossessing countenance of Mrs. Early grew pallid.

“I— I don’t know a thing about all this,” she began. “Does this person infer―”

“I happen to be Algernon Wells,” the first speaker interrupted. “I represent the insurance company writing the policy on those pearls. In a word, we’re been rather suspicious of you, Mrs. Early. I came on from Chicago to sort of keep an eye on the jewels. I got the conversation you had over the wire this morning with Hawks here from the remarkably pretty operator downstairs. Hawks, one of the cleverest pickpockets in the business, is very familiar to me.”

“And you think―”

Wells lifted a polite hand.

“I would not want to think that you had employed Hawks to trail your messenger and relieve him of the necklace so that you might collect the insurance. I wouldn’t want to believe that, so I’m merely suggesting that you take better care of the necklace until the policy expires. Good afternoon.”

Having nothing better on hand, Doolittle followed Wells and the sharp-chinned individual into one of the lifts that was going down. He fingered an ear, shuffled his feet hopelessly and drew a breath when the car reached the lobby level.

There, in the act of alighting, the representative of the insurance company appeared to remember something.

“Oh, by the way,” he said to Doolittle, “I hope you don’t lose anything on this. Here. I owe you ten bucks. Take it and hide it in your shoe.”

He pressed a bank note into the bell hop’s nerveless hand and added a dash of explanation.

“Never mind the thanks. If you hadn’t been so— ah— easy, Hawks would have never picked the pearls and they wouldn’t have— ah— come back to Aaron, as it were. Get the point?”

Doolittle slipped the bill up his sleeve, glanced across at the switch board and found a smile.

“No, sir,” he answered. “Yes, sir.”

_________________

A Countess d’Yls adventure

13: A Shock for the Countess

Black Mask March 1923

FROM THE TERRACES of the Chateau d’Yls, the valley of Var was spread out below Gattiere, threaded with the broad bed of the River Var, swirling over its stony reaches from its cradle in the Hautes-Alpes. The snow-crowned mountains frowned ominously down but in the valley summertime warmth prevailed— quietude disturbed only by the song of birds and the voice of the river.

On the shaded promenade of the Chateau, the pretty Countess d’Yls stared thoughtfully at the unwinding river of the dust-powdered highway, twisting off into the dim distance. Beside her, a tall, well-built young man in tweeds absently flicked the ash from his cigarette and tinkled the ice in the thin glass he held.

Once or twice he surreptitiously considered the woman who reclined so indolently in the padded depths of a black wicker chair. The Countess seemed rarely lovely on this warm, lazy afternoon.

Her ash-blond hair caught what sunshine came in under the sand-colored awning above.

Her blue eyes were dreamy and introspective, her red lips meditatively pursed. Yet for all of her abstraction there was something regal and almost imperious in her bearing; a subtle charm and distinction that was entirely her own.

“I do believe,” the Countess remarked at length, “we are about to entertain visitors.”

She motioned casually with a white hand toward the dust-filled road. The man beside her leaned a little forward. A mile or less distant he observed an approaching motor car that crawled up the road between clouds of dust.

“Visitors?”

The Countess inclined her head.

“So it would appear. And visitors, mon ami, who have come a long way to see us. Observe that the machine is travel-stained, that it appears to be weighted down with luggage. Possibly it is our old friend Murgier,” she added almost mischievously.

The face of the man in tweeds paled under its tan.

“Murgier!” he exclaimed under his breath.

The Countess smiled faintly.

“But it is probably only a motoring party up from Georges de Loup who have wandered off the main road, Armand.”

The man in tweeds had torn the cigarette between his fingers into rags. As if held in the spell of some strange fascination he watched the motor grow larger and larger.

“There are men in it!” he muttered, when the dusty car was abreast the lower wall of the Chateau. “Four men!”

The woman in the wicker chair seemed suddenly to grow animated.

“Mon Dieu!” she said in a low voice. “If it is he, that devil!”

The man she addressed made no reply, only the weaving of his fingers betraying his suppressed nervousness. The hum of the sturdy motor was heard from the drive, way among the terraces now.

There was an interlude— voices around a bend in the promenade— finally the appearance of a liveried automaton that was the butler.

“Monsieur Murgier, Madame.”

The man in tweeds stifled a groan. The Countess turned slowly in her chair.

“You may direct Monsieur Murgier here, Henri.”

The butler bowed and turned away. The man in tweeds closed his hands until the nails of them bit into the palms.

“God!”

The Countess laid a tense hand on his arm.

“Smile!” she commanded.

The Monsieur Murgier who presently sauntered down the shaded promenade of the Chateau was a tall, loose-jointed individual with a melancholy mustache and a deeply wrinkled face. A shabby, dusty suit hung loosely and voluminously about his spare figure. A soft straw hat was in one hand; he was gray at the temples.

When he bowed over the slender fingers of the Countess there was a hidden glow in his somber eyes.

“To be favored by the presence of the great!” the woman murmured softly. “Monsieur, this is an honor! May I make you acquainted with the Marquis de Remec?”

She introduced the visitor to the man in tweeds, who bowed stiffly. Somewhere back around the corner of the promenade the drone of the voices of those who had been in the car sounded faintly.

“A liqueur, m’sieu?” the Countess asked. “A cigar?”

Her visitor shook his head, gazed on the peaceful panorama of the valley of the Var.

“Thank you, no. My time is limited. My journey has been a long one and I must make a start for Paris with all due haste. You,” he explained courteously, “and the Marquis will put yourselves in readiness with as much rapidity as possible. You are both my guests for the return journey!”

The man in tweeds whitened to the lips. His startled glance darted to the Countess. The woman had settled herself back in the black wicker chair again and had joined her fingers, tip to tip.

“Accompany you to Paris?” she drawled. “Are you quite serious?”

The wrinkled face of Monsieur Murgier grew inflexible, brass-like!

“Quite serious,” he replied. “You are both under arrest— for the theft of the de Valois pearls!”

FOR A WEEK, intermittently, Paris had known rain— the cold, chilly drizzle of early springtime. Because of the weather cafes and theatres were crowded, fiacres and taxis in constant demand, omnibuses jammed and the drenched boulevards deserted by their usual loungers.

From Montmartre to Montparnasse, scudding, gray clouds veiled the reluctant face of the sun by day and hid a knife-edged moon by night.

The steady, monotonous drizzle pattered against the boudoir windows in the house of the Countess d’Yls, mid-way down the Street of the First Shell. Within, all was snug, warm and comfortable. A coal fire burned in a filigree basket-grate, the radiance of a deeply shaded floor lamp near the toilette table, where a small maid hovered like a mother pigeon about the Countess, diffused a subdued, mellow glow.

The evening growl of Paris came as if from faraway, a lesser sound in the symphony of the rain.

“Madame will wear her jewels?”

The Countess turned and lifted her blue eyes.

“My rings only, Marie, if you please.”

The maid brought the jewel casket, laid it beside her mistress, and at the wardrobe selected a luxurious Kolinsky cape which she draped over an arm. The Countess slipped on her rings, one by one— flashing, blue-white diamonds in carved, platinum settings, an odd Egyptian temple ring, a single ruby that burned like a small ball of crimson fire.

When the last ring glinted on her white fingers she dropped the lid of the casket, stood and turned to a full-length cheval mirror back of her.

The glass reflected the full perfection of her charms, the sheer wonder of her sequin-spangled evening gown, the creamy luster of her bare, powdered arms, shoulders and rounded, contralto throat. Standing there, the soft light on her hair, she was radiant, incomparable, a reincarnated Diana whose draperies came from the most expert needles of the Rue de la Paix.

“I think,” the Countess said aloud, “those who go to fashionable affairs to witness and copy will have much to occupy their pencils on the morrow. My gown is clever, is it not, Marie?”

“It is beautiful!” the maid breathed.

With a little laugh the Countess took the Kolinsky cape.

“Now I must hasten below to the Marquis. Poor boy, it is an hour— or more— that I have kept him cooling his heels. Marie, suspense, they say, breeds appreciation but there is such a thing as wearing out the patience of a cavalier. The really intelligent woman knows when not to overdo it. You understand?”

“Perfectly, Madame,” the maid replied.

The Countess let herself out and sought the stairs. She moved lightly down steps that were made mute by the weight of their waterfall of gorgeous carpet. Murals looked down upon her progress to the lower floor, tapestries glittered with threads of flame, the very air seemed somnolent with the heaviness of sybaritic luxury.

Humming a snatch of a boulevard chansonette, the Countess turned into a lounge room that was to the right of the entry-hall below. The aroma of cigarette smoke drifted to her. When she crossed the threshold the Marquis de Remec stood, a well-made, immaculately groomed individual in his perfectly tailored evening clothes.

“Forgive me, Armand,” the Countess pleaded. “Marie was so stupid tonight— all thumbs. I thought she would never finish with me.”

The Marquis lifted her fingers to his lips.

“How lovely you are!” he cried softly. “Ah, dear one, will you never say the word that will make me the happiest man in all France? For two years we have worked together shoulder to shoulder, side by side— for two years you have been a star to me, earth-bound, beautiful beyond all words! Two years of—”

The Countess interrupted with a sigh.

“Of thrills and danger, Armand! Of plots and stratagems, plunder and wealth! I think, mon ami,” she said seriously, “if we are successful tonight I will marry you before April ends. But wait, understand me. It will be a secret. I will still be the Countess d’Yls and you will remain the Marquis de Remec to all the world but me. Then, my friend, if either of us suffers disaster one will not drag the other down. You see?”

She seated herself beside the Marquis, considering him wistfully.

“But tonight?” he said in a stifled voice. “The de Valois affair is the hardest nut we have yet attempted to crack! Tonight we will need all of our cunning, all of our wits!”

The Countess lifted airy brows.

“Indeed?”

The Marquis leaned closer to her.

“There is not,” he explained rapidly, “only Monsieur Murgier of the Sûreté to consider— the knowledge that he has been blundering after us for months— but the Wolf as well! An hour ago only, François picked up some gossip across the river, in some dive. The Wolf steals from his lair tonight  questing the de Valois pearls! Do you understand? We must face double enemies— the net of Murgier, the fangs of the animal who sulks among the Apache brigands of the river front. And this is the task you give to set a crown upon my every hope!”

The Countess d’Yls touched his hand with her pretty fingers.

“Does the threat of Murgier and the presence of the Wolf pack dismay you?” she questioned lightly. “You, the undaunted! You who have been the hero of so many breathless adventures! Armand, you— you annoy me.”

De Remec stood.

“But this is different!” he cried. “Here I have something at stake more precious than gold or jewels— your promise! I— I tremble—”

The Countess laughed at his melodrama.

“Silly boy! We shall not fail—we will snatch the famous pearls from under the very noses of those who would thwart and destroy us. Voila! I snap my fingers at them all. Come now, it grows late. Had we not better start?”

The other glanced at his watch.

“Yes. Francois is waiting with the limousine—”

When they were side by side in the tonneau of the purring motor, the Countess glanced at the streaming windows and shivered.

“Soon it will be late spring,” she said quietly. “Soon it will be our privilege to rest city-weary eyes on the valley of the Var. I intend to open the Chateau in six weeks, mon ami. It will seem like heaven after the miserable winter and the rain, the rain!”

The car shaped a course west, then south. Paris lifted a gaudy reflection to the canopy of the frowning clouds, flashing past in its nightly pursuit of pleasure. The Countess eyed the traffic tide idly. Her thoughts were like skeins of silk on a loom that was slowly being reversed. She thought of yesterday— of the little heap of jewels in the boudoir of the villa at Trouville that had been the scene of that week-end party, of herself stealing through the gloom to purloin them— of the Marquis bound on the same errand— of their meeting— surprise— their pact and the bold, triumphant exploits they had both planned and carried out.

The red lips of the Countess were haunted by a smile.

It had all been so easy, so exciting, so simple. True, the dreaded Murgier of the Law had pursued them relentlessly but they had always outwitted him, had always laughed secretly at his discomfiture, rejoicing together over their spoils.

Now, tonight, it was the de Valois pearls— that famous coil the woman had had strung in Amsterdam by experts. Tomorrow Madame de Valois would be bewailing its loss and the necklace— the necklace would be speeding to some foreign port, safe in the possession of the agent who handled all their financial transactions.

“The Wolf!” the Countess thought.

Surely there was nothing to fear from the hulk of the Apache outlaw— a man whose cleverness lay in the curve of a knife, the slippery rope of the garrotter, the sandbag of the desperado. How could the Wolf achieve something that required brains, delicate finesse? It was only the chance that Murgier might upturn some carefully hidden clew that was perilous—

“You are silent,” the Marquis observed.

“I am thinking,” the Countess d’Yls replied dreamily.

A dozen more streets and the motor was in the Rue de la Saint Vigne, stopping before a striped canopy that stretched from the door to the curb that fronted the Paris home of Madame de Valois. The windows of the building were brightly painted with light. The whisper of music crept out. Set in the little, unlighted park that surrounded it, the house was like a painted piece of scenery on a stage.

A footman laid a gloved hand on the silver knob of the limousine door and opened it. The Marquis de Remec assisted the Countess to alight. Safe from the rain under the protection of the awning, they went up the front steps and entered the house.

“You,” the Countess instructed cautiously, “watch for Murgier and I will take care of the Wolf whelps! If the unexpected transpires we will meet tomorrow at noon in the basement of the Cafe of the Three Friends. Francois has been instructed?”

“He will keep the motor running— around the corner,” the Marquis whispered.

Then, pressing her hand: “Courage, dear one, and a prayer for success!”

To the Countess d’Yls it seemed that all the wealth and beauty of the city had flocked to the ballroom which they entered together.

Under the flare of crystal chandeliers Fashion danced in the arms of Affluence. Everywhere jewels sparkled, eyes laughed back at lips that smiled. Perfumes were like the scents of Araby on a hot, desert breeze. Conversation blended with the swinging lilt of the orchestra on the balcony— the shuffle of feet and the whisper of silks and satins filled the room with a queer dissonance.

Separating from the Marquis, the Countess, greeting those who addressed her with a friendly word, a smile or bow, promptly lost herself in the crush. Murgier’s assistants she left to the attention of de Remec. She decided, first, to mark the presence of Madame de Valois and the pearls— after that she would seek the Wolf or his agents in the throng.

After some manoeuvering the Countess discovered the location of Madame de Valois. The woman was dancing with a gray-bearded Senator— an ample, overdressed burden from whose fat neck the famous rope of pearls swayed with every step. The Countess watched the woman drift past and then turned to seek the footprints of the Wolf.

In and out among the crowd she circulated, disregarding those she knew, scanning anxiously the faces and appearance of those she had never before seen. An hour sped past before she believed she had at last discovered the man she sought. This was a beardless youth in shabby evening attire who lingered alone in a foyer that adjoined the south end of the ballroom.

Watching, the Countess touched the elbow of a woman she knew, discreetly indicated the youth and asked a question.

“That,” her friend replied, “is a Monsieur Fernier. He is a young composer of music from the Latin Quarter. Madame de Valois invited him tonight so that he might hear the orchestra play one of his own dance compositions. He is so melancholy, do you not think?”

“From the Latin Quarter,” the Countess told herself when she was alone again. “I will continue to watch you, Monsieur Fernier!”

A few minutes later the Marquis de Remec approached.

“Three agents of Murgier present!” he breathed, drifting past. “The doors are guarded. Be cautious, dear one!”

Another sixty minutes passed.

It was midnight precisely when the Countess saw the putative student from the Latin Quarter make his first move. The youth took a note from his pocket and handed it to a footman, with a word of instruction. The servant threaded a way among the crowd and delivered the message to Madame de Valois. The woman excused herself to those about her, opened the note, read it, and after several more minutes began to move slowly toward the ballroom doors. The Countess, tingling, tightened her lips. A glance over her shoulder showed her that Fernier had left the foyer.

What was the game?

A minute or two after Madame de Valois had disappeared through the doors of the ballroom the Countess had reached them. She looked out in time to behold the other woman crossing the entry-hall and disappearing through the portieres of the reception room beyond. There was no one in evidence. Certain she was on the right trail and filled with a growing anticipation, the Countess waited until the portieres opposite ceased to flutter before moving swiftly toward them.

The metallic jar of bolts being drawn, a scraping sound and then a damp, cool current of air told the Countess that without question the long, French windows in the reception room, opening out on a balcony that overlooked one side of the park, had been pushed wide. She parted the portieres cautiously and looked between them.

The chamber was in darkness— Madame de Valois was a bulky silhouette on the balcony outside— voices mingled faintly.

On noiseless feet the Countess picked a stealthy way down the room. Close to the open windows she drew back into a nest of shadows, leaned a little forward and strained her ears.

There came to her the perplexed query of Madame de Valois:

“But why do you ask me to come out here? Who are you? What is the secret you mention in your note?”

A pause— the suave, silky tones of a man:

“A thousand pardons, Madame. This was the only way possible under the circumstances. My secret is a warning— unscrupulous people are within who would prey upon you!”

“You mean?” Madame de Valois stammered.

“I mean,” the man replied, “your pearls!”

Another pause— plainly one of agitation for the woman on the balcony— then the man again:

“Madame, allow me to introduce myself. Possibly you have heard of me. Paris knows me as the Wolf! Madame will kindly make neither outcry nor move—my revolver covers you steadily and my finger is on the trigger! I will take care of your pearls and see that no one takes them. Madame will be so kind as to remove the necklace immediately!”

Madame de Valois’s gasp of dismay followed hard on the heels of a throaty chuckle. Came unexplainable sounds, the words:

“Thank you. Adieu!”

—then the woman tottering in through the open windows, a quivering mountain of disconcerted flesh, making strange, whimpering sounds.

Madame de Valois had hardly reached the middle of the reception room before the Countess was out on the balcony and was over its rail. A single glance showed her the shadowy figure of the Wolf hastening toward the gates at the far end of the park that opened on the avenue beyond.

With all the speed at her command the Countess ran to the other door in the street wall that was to the right of the house. The door was unlocked. She flung it open and surged out onto the wet pavement, heading toward the avenue, running with all speed while her fingers found and gripped the tiny revolver she had hidden under the overskirt of her evening creation.

She reached the gates at the northern end of the park at the same minute footsteps sounded on the other side of them. They gave slowly, allowing a stout, bearded man to pass between them. The Countess drew back and waited until he turned to close the gates after him.

Then she took two steps forward and sank the muzzle of her weapon into the small of his back.

“Do not trouble yourself to move, Monsieur Wolf,” she said sweetly. “Just keep facing the way you are and I will help myself to the pearls without bothering you.”

She could feel the quiver of the man’s back under the nose of the gun.

“You will die for this!” the Wolf vowed.

The Countess found the smooth, lustrous coil of Madame de Valois’s necklace in his side pocket and stuffed it hastily into her bodice.

“Possibly,” she agreed amiably. “But this is no time to discuss the question. Pay attention to what I say. If you move before two minutes elapse I will shoot you down in your tracks! Continue to keep your face glued to the— gates—  and—”

Dropping her weaponed hand, the Countess surged around the turn of the wall where the avenue joined the side street and raced across the petrol-polished asphalt toward Francois and the waiting limousine. Hazily aware of the growing tumult in the house itself, the Countess was stunned by the sudden crack of a revolver, the whistle of a bullet flying past her, the hoarse bellow of the Wolf’s voice:

“Police!… Police!… Thieves! There she goes!… In that car…”

Pausing only to fire twice at the howling Apache, the Countess, sensitive to the fact that a machine was rolling down the street toward her, climbed into the limousine.

“Quick!” she cried breathlessly. “Off with you, Francois!”

Like a nervous thoroughbred, the car sprang toward the junction of the avenue beyond. The Countess pressed her face to the rear window. The other motor was a thousand rods behind, a car with pale, yellow lamps—a police car— one of the machines of the Sûreté.

“Across the river!” the Countess directed through the open front glass of the limousine. “We will shake them off on the other side of the Seine!”

Across a bridge— over the night-painted river— past cafes and then into a district of gaunt, silent warehouses, the limousine panted. Twice more the Countess looked back. The pale, yellow lamps behind followed like an avenging nemesis.

“Round the next corner and slow down,” the Countess commanded crisply. “The minute I swing off, speed up and head for the open country—”

On two wheels the limousine shot around into the black gully of a narrow, cobble-paved side street. Its brakes screamed as it slowed for a minute before lunging forward again. Shrinking back behind a pile of casks that fronted one of the warehouses, the Countess laughed as the second car whirled past.

“The long arm of Murgier!” she sneered. “What rubbish!”

Still laughing a little, she moved out from behind the casks— to stiffen suddenly and dart back behind them again. A motorcycle had wheeled into the silent street and a man was jumping off it.

The Countess, frantic fingers clutching the pearls of Madame de Valois, knew it was the Wolf even before his level tones came to her.

“Mademoiselle,” the Apache said. “I know you are there. I saw the shimmer of your gown before you stepped back behind those casks. You cannot escape me. Hand the necklace over!”

“THE THEFT of the de Valois pearls?” the Countess d’Yls cried softly. “Monsieur is joking!”

Murgier, on the shaded promenade of the Chateau, touched the tips of his disconsolate mustache.

“There is really,” he said almost wearily, “no use in pretending surprise or indignation. Four days ago we bagged the Wolf— he made a full and complete confession…”

The sunlit quiet of the promenade was broken by the throaty cry of the Countess d’Yls. She jumped up, her blue eyes cold, blazing stars.

“Yes, you devil!” she said unsteadily. “Yes, Monsieur Ferret, we took the pearls— I took the pearls! The Wolf did not get them! No one else shall! I have hidden them well! Take me, take us both— jail us— you will never find the necklace— no one ever will!”

Murgier snapped his fingers twice. The men who had come up the dusty road in the travel-stained motor rounded the corner of the walk. The Countess laughed insolently at the man who faced her.

“In a measure,” Murgier said quietly, “your statement is true. No one will ever reclaim the de Valois pearls. Let me tell you something. When the Wolf made his appearance that night at the warehouse, you saved the necklace from him by dropping it into the mouth of an open cask. Is that not correct? You marked this cask so you might distinguish it again. When you foiled the Wolf your agent began a search for the cask. It had been stored away in the warehouse— there were difficulties— so far your aid has not been able to locate it— but you have hopes. Madame Countess, it is my duty to disillusion both you and—” he nodded toward de Remec “—your husband. There was one thing you over-looked—the contents of the cask in question—”

The Countess drew a quick breath, leaning forward as if to read the meaning of the other’s words.

“The contents?”

Murgier smiled.

“The cask,” he explained, “we found to be half full of vinegar. The pearls are no more— eaten up like that! Pouf! Let us be going.”

________________

A Johnny Castle story

14: This Will Kill You

Thrilling Detective  Oct 1947

Chapter 1: Date With the Girl Friend

IT WAS one of those rainy autumn nights when you seemed to be looking at the blurred lights of Broadway through an even half dozen Scotches and sodas. Getting a taxi was as easy as trying to get gracious language from a harried head waiter.

I snapped up the collar on my leak-proof slicker and headed for Dufrey’s on leather. That inhospitable lift-and-drain tuckaway was half down 45th Street, a pebble’s toss from the Imperial Theater. Why Libby Hart, the principal character in my dreams, had designated that as a meet-me-there-at-nine rendezvous was a bigger question than the Middle East.

But Mrs. Hart’s only girl child had laid it on the line and didn’t like arguments. So, when I checked out of the Orbit, that high class newspaper for which I concocted various sporting page pieces, there was nothing to do but duck the drops and keep the date.

Dufrey’s, dressed up to represent an Old World Sicilian grotto, was no place for a lady like Libby to be waiting for anybody.

Its customers were the flower of the underworld, a mob of not so nice smelling tiger lilies. I had reason to know that Brian Esthay, one of the town’s toughest muscle men, owned the major slice of Dufrey’s and made it his headquarters.

In the few times I’d been there the faces of the patrons had haunted my nightmares. I walked faster, trying to beat the gal friend to its doorstep.

But there wasn’t any need to hurry. Libby was a charter member of the Ladies Never On Time Association. When I went past the circular bar in the front room there was no sign of her. Nor in the Florentine Room in the rear. Or in the foyer, or emerging from the powder room.

I took a short beer to a table and sat down. Over to the left Brian Esthay was dining a couple of pals. Esthay, a big, benevolent mug with a face like a friendly St. Bernard, was laughing heartily at one of his own gags.

Esthay was always laughing. Around the Main Stem he had a reputation for his constant good humor, wisecracks and witticisms, charity and unfailing memory for friends, near and far.

One of the “far” ones, I recalled, happened to be Dolf Callise, a dead-panned young gentleman who had acquired the unhappy habit of borrowing jewelry from wealthy people and forgetting to return it.

In fact, Callise seldom asked for the loans. He simply dropped in when the folks were out and helped himself. He had done that in the case of a Mrs.

Randall Westcott. That wealthy dowager maintained a fourteen-room Park Avenue dude ranch. Mrs. W, through Callise's visit, found herself minus a collection of jeweled trinkets insured for a mere sixty grand.

Callise promptly disappeared from the Rialto scene and I had reason to believe that big, amusing Brian Esthay was suspected by those in the know of having not only arranged Dolf Callise’s departure to an unknown address, but had profited by the Westcott glitter.

I could feel him looking at me. I finished the beer and looked back. Esthay nodded and called out:

“Come on over and sit in with us, Castle. Why the lone wolf stuff?”

I said, “Waiting for my fiancée.”

“Bring her over when she shows up, if she does,” he replied. “Personally,” he guffawed, “I can’t imagine any dame meeting you.”

“You mean— here?” I said, and he laughed harder.

A radio made thin, twittery music. The drinkers at the bar clinked their glasses and fifteen minutes seemed like fifteen minutes. I stole a peek at Esthay's pals. Not good—hard looking jobs with small amounts of chin and eyes sharp enough to shave with.

The kind that would break your arm without hesitation and then tell you to go and have it gift-wrapped.

“Hello, Johnny. I’m terribly sorry I'm late. This rain and everything delayed me. You understand, angel.”

Libby sat down before I could get up.

“Don’t use the word angel in here. Too many people have been measured for wings. And why,” I inquired, “did you select a place like this in the first place?”

“Because,” she answered, giving me one of her widest smiles, “I have to meet a man here.”

“You’ve met him.”

“Not you, silly. Another man. Buddy.”

“Buddy?”

“Bohen. He’s a sunburned sailor. You see,” Libby explained, when a waiter finally nodded over and I said ‘old-fashioned,’ and didn’t mean his Tuxedo coat, “this Buddy Bohen works on a ship called the Star of Brazil. He’s just up from a cruise to South America and he’s going to give me a lot of material for an article I’m about to write for Happy Vacation, that periodical that tells you where to go in nice language.”

“A sunburned sailor.” I looked hard at her. “Where’d you dig him up? Or did you just tear the ship apart and there he was ?”

“If you think what I’m thinking you’re thinking,” Libby said frostily, “you’re entirely wrong, cream-puff. I was introduced to Buddy by Joe Giff and I’ve known Joe since I was knee high to a bar stool.”

Brian Esthay caught my eye. He pointed at Libby with a bony forefinger. I shook my head. He went into a spasm of laughter and Libby raised her arched brows.

What’s funny, Johnny? What’s the man laughing at?”

“The story about the dentist who made his patients pay through the teeth,” I said. “For your information that’s Brian Esthay. He’s one of Manhattan’s number one bad men.”

“He’s cute.” Libby looked over. "And those people with him.”

“Members of the human race, believe it or not,” I said.

“I don’t.”

The drinks arrived and we put some of the outside chill back where it belonged. Libby was at her loveliest. She looked sleek and polished. Her dark hair was high lighted to the brimless twenty-two dollars’ worth of hatless hat on her softly waved tresses. Her eyes, like misty stars, hid behind long lashes. Her mouth was the color of ripe strawberries and her skin held a golden glow.

In her simple little black dress she looked good enough to eat with a spoon. I was willing to back her as a sure winner in any beauty derby, against the field!

"Curious,” she said, looking at a clock over the bar door. “Buddy said he’d be here at eight-forty-five. If he doesn’t show up I’m to go to his apartment. That’s why I wanted you to meet me— to go with me.”

"Sunburned sailors with apartments, in a housing shortage. It doesn’t come out even.”

"This does,” said Libby. “It’s his sister’s place and she's in Michigan.”

She went on to tell me more about the setup, but I wasn’t listening.

At that minute a girl had come in from the foyer and was heading for Brian Esthay.

She was a frail, beautiful blonde. Hair the color of strained honey was done in a swirl on her shapely little head. As she passed I got a flash of violet colored eyes, a tip-tilted nose and a full-lipped, tantalizing mouth.

She wore a party dress, something with spangles in it and a couple of diamond bracelets that lit her arm up like . the stage of the Music Hall. High heels tapped on the tiled floor. When she went past she left a trail of perfume in her wake.

“ Stratosphere ,” Libby murmured, sniffing the scent. “Thirty dollars an ounce and you smell to high heaven. Who is she, Johnny?”

“Gilda Gulden,” I answered, automatically. “One of Esthay’s lightweight feminine acquaintances. She circulates at the Forty-Four Club and shoots people in her spare time.”

Libby fished the cherry out of the bottom of her glass, looked at the clock again and said, “Let’s go up to Buddy’s apartment. I don’t like it here, too much competition. I never could tangle with a blonde and manage to keep your eyes in place.”

I paid the bar check and we passed out into the rain.

Chapter 2: Heel and Toe

THIS TIME I had better luck.  There was an empty cab in front of Dufrey’s. The hackie was about to make off when I stopped him and helped Libby Hart in.

She supplied an address in the West Fifties while I shut the door and sat down beside her.

The minute I did I got a whiff of perfume, the same aroma Gilda Gulden had exuded not many minutes before. Then, I thought, this was the taxi she had arrived in. I looked at the chauffeur’s photograph and name on the license in the slot facing the rear seat while Libby took off her slippers and pulled her nylons out at the toes.

“You’ll like Buddy,” she said confidently. “He has the most thrilling blue eyes.”

“Two?”

“You don’t have to be sardonic— or jealous.” Libby laughed under her breath. “After all, we’re not married yet.”

“A sunburned sailor with blue eyes.”

I shuddered, and kissed her. "Don’t mind me. If your literary career means tackling tars at this late hour, I’m with you all the way.”

“Good old Johnny,” Libby whispered, and kissed me back.

In about twenty minutes we had fought the battle of the red lights and were in front of an ordinary apartment house on an ordinary street.

“Shall I wait?” the hackie queried.

I gave him a buck and sent him on his way. Then I followed Libby into a vestibule and lighted matches so she could see the names in a battery of mail-boxes.

“Here it is, Johnny. Mrs. Herbert Hotchkiss. Apartment One D. First floor, no doubt.”

She used a manicured fingertip on the bell, but that wasn’t really necessary. The door was open. I held it wide and led the way down a corridor, toward the rear. The alphabet painted on the imitation fireproof doors went as far as D, where we stopped.

There was no one around. From the floors above a faint, cacophonous medley of all apartment house sounds blended into one and came down the well of the stairs.

Like the front hall door that of One D was hospitably ajar. Light, dim and subdued, came through its aperture. Libby rang the bell and then called through the door:

“Buddy! Oh, Buddy. May we come in?”

There was no answer. Her dark eyes rolled in my direction.

“Maybe he’s below deck,” I said. “Or catching twenty winks in his hammock. Let’s cruise in and see.”

A small entry hall opened onto a regulation living room. That was where the light came from. A tall, metal floor lamp stood in one corner. It boasted four bulbs but only one was turned on. Libby paused beside me while I looked around.

The room was as empty as the average chorine’s head.

“He probably stepped out to mail a letter or get his shoes shined.” I waved a hand at a nearby divan. “Might as well sit down and sweat it out.”

A trifle doubtfully the girl friend arranged her skirt on the green upholstered furniture I designated. I wandered around, looking at Mrs. Hotchkiss’ knickknacks, until I reached a short passage.

I stopped there.

On one side was the bath. On the other, the open door of what was undoubtedly the apartment’s bedroom. The subdued light from the tall lamp just about lasted until it got to the sill. In its faint shine I saw a shoe. The peculiar thing about it was that its heel was on the floor and its toe pointed straight to the ceiling!

There was a foot in it. The foot was attached to a leg and the leg was covered with dark blue cloth. I moved a step closer and took a better gander. What I saw turned me around and walked me back to Miss Hart.

“Before you step outside and faint,” I said, “make a note to tell the editor of Happy Vacation your article will be temporarily held up. From here on in this is strictly a newspaper job. I’m sorry to say that your sailor’s thrilling blue eyes are closed, forever!”

Libby jumped up with a strangled exclamation. “Johnny! You don’t—”

“I do! Sit tight while I investigate further and don’t look. I won’t be long.”

I wasn’t.

With a handkerchief to keep my prints quiet, I flicked on the wall switch. Bohen, if it was Bohen, lay flat on his back between a maple bed and a three-mirrored dressing table. He had leaked gore on the plain taupe carpet. That was natural inasmuch as somebody had been at work on his curly head with either a sap or the butt of a gun!

I hadn’t been exactly authentic about his eyes being closed. They weren’t. They were wide and staring, filled with the vague emptiness of death. When I bent closer I saw they were blue, a deep blue that matched his nautical outfit. And he was sunburned, tanned to a rich mahogany shade which even the handiwork of the Grim Reaper hadn’t been able to fade out.

Both his arms were flung wide. There hadn’t been any battle prior to his passing. The room was neat and orderly, a place for everything and everything in it.

Evidently Bohen had been washed out with eclat and finesse!

Rain pattered against the windows. I stood there sniffing the motionless air. It might have been imagination but the same scent I had first caught at Dufrey’s and then in the taxi seemed faint on the atmosphere!

I looked around curiously. Often in the past I had run into murder. Usually there was a clew or two about, something to stumble across which, in the end, hung it on the guilty party.

But the bedroom had nothing to offer. Only the dead sailor, the ooze on the carpet and that reminiscent perfume, if I wasn’t imagining it.

I went back to the frightened Libby and nodded at her wide-eyed stare.

“Curly hair?” I asked. “Sort of brownish?” and she nodded back.

There was a telephone handy. I picked that up and dialed a familiar number. A few minutes later the ice water voice of my old pal, Captain Fred Mullin of Homicide, drifted harshly across the wire. As usual, Mullin sounded annoyed. He sounded more than that when I spoke my piece.

“Castle, of the Orbit, Captain. I want to report a murder!”

I held my hand over the receiver end of the phone so Libby couldn’t hear what he roared. When he cooled a bit, I gave him the name and address and hung up.

“Can we go now, Johnny?” The girl friend shivered again and looked in the direction of the bedroom.

“You can. I’ve got to stick and greet the chief. By the way, you spoke of Bohen’s friend, a Joe Giff. Remember where he hangs out?”

Libby frowned. “I don’t know where he lives but Buddy said Joe did most of his tea tasting at Cliff Maddigan’s Club Forty-Four.”

I got her to the door, divided more osculation in two equal parts and sent her on her way with a promise to buzz her apartment the minute Mullin was through with me.

“And don’t tell anybody you were here, Lib. I’m not having you hooked into this. Powder now and I’ll see you later.”

She blew and I went back to the telephone. This time I called the paper. While I was talking to the city desk I noticed something glimmering on the carpet to the left of the divan.

After I had finished gabbing with Bill Jamison, the Orbit’s specialist in all forms of murder and mayhem, I put the telephone back and went across the room.

The thing that glimmered was a tiny round piece of yellow glass. I put it in the palm of my hand and let it blink at me. Then I tucked it in a vest pocket and a few minutes after that listened to the wail of a police car siren in the street.

Captain Mullin and his Homicide Squad gumheeled in, Mullin in the vanguard, jaw protruding. The chief wasn’t in an amiable frame of mind. He seldom was when I happened to be around. I seemed to curdle Mullin. As he did me. Which was strange because, in the final analysis, the Captain was a good cop.

He had climbed to power, bulldozing his way up from a beat on Staten Island, using the old fashioned tried and true methods of beating confessions out of suspects and hosing his pickups into lap dog submission. But with all that the Captain had rung the bell on several tough cases, playing it lucky as well as safe.

He glowered at me as I led the way to the bedroom.

“In again, Castle. What do you do, front for a funeral parlor? Every time I hear from you, you’ve got a corpse up your sleeve.”

“I’ve got big sleeves,” I said pleasantly.

Mullin’s fishy eyes played over me like a couple of scalpels. “Yeah? Well, be careful you don’t fall out of one some day.”

I stood aside in the little hall and waved a hand.

“Help yourself, Captain. It’s all yours!”

Detectives Larry Hartley and Ed Wheeler, two of Mullin’s trained seals, barged in. The captain turned a smile into a sneer. He jabbed a finger in my direction.

“I’ll take care of you later, Castle. Park it somewhere and get your facts straight. You’re gonna do a lot of oratory when I’m finished here.”

I went back to the divan. Ten minutes later “Doc” Nesbitt, the department’s star medical examiner, yawned a way in and went to work. From where I sat I could hear him talking to Mullin:

“This guy’s been dead about four hours. The amount of adrenalin produced in the blood of a person by intense fear may be so excessive that, when he is struck down, it will contract his blood vessels and arrest the hemorrhage. That causes coagulation to take place about three to five times faster than when fear does not precede the injury.”

“Yeah?” said Mullin. “What makes you think this guy was scared, Doc? With that smile on his pan.”

“I didn’t say he was. I merely stated a fact.” Nesbitt loomed up in the door. “I’ll have the basket up in a little while, after I sign the papers. Right ?”

He snapped his bag and grinned at me. Then Mullin flatfooted into the living room and over to the divan.

“All right, Castle. Start talking.”

It was almost an hour later before I got out of the place. It was still raining. Rain as cold as cheap hotel coffee.

I found an empty taxi and climbed in.

“Where to, boss?”

"Club Forty-Four,” I told the driver. “And keep your wheels on the ground.”

Chapter 3: Guys With Guns

CLUB FORTY-FOUR was well illuminated. So were a lot of its patrons. It was one of those hurdy-gurdy resorts, where the customer was always the monkey and the liquor Communistic, divided equally with water so no one would get too much.

I had a nodding acquaintance with Evie Something-or-Other. She was a friend of Beth Wheaton, my favorite switchboard operator at the office. Evie sold cigarettes and cigars out of a ribbon-decked basket. The grift must have been good.

The kid had an order in for a Cadillac coupe— if and when.

I found her sorting her merchandise in the sub-foyer. She had little russet curls, greenish eyes and a tight-lipped smile. Evie knew the book and kept to the text.

“Mr. Castle!” she exclaimed, when I rolled over. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for information,” I said. “Know a party by the name of Giff, Joe Giff?”

Evie wrinkled her nose. “That big deck swabber? Sure. What about him?”

“Would he be around?”

She shook her curls.

“Not so far.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Sure I’m sure. The first thing he does when he gets here is to make a pass at me.”

“I’ve got ten bucks to trade for his address. Or his phone number. Or a point-out.”

“I don’t know where he holes in, Mr. Castle. I can’t tell you how to get him on the chicory, either. But I can give you a knockdown if he shows up.” She laughed under her breath. “Do you know what Joe called me last night? I can’t figure what he meant. He said I was a human gimme pig. What do you suppose he meant?”

I told her I didn’t have the slightest idea and asked her to page me if Giff appeared. Then I nickeled a way into a telephone booth and called Libby Hart’s apartment.

She had gotten in and was all right. I dosed her with what had happened after she had left the Hotchkiss mortuary and was just hanging up when through the glass door I caught a glimpse of two people coming in.

One was the jocund Brian Esthay, the other the frail blond Gilda Gulden, who was hanging on his arm.

Esthay got rid of his skimmer and flogger at the coat check counter. He must have told the babe in charge some gag because she laughed fifty cents’ worth and handed him a brass check. Esthay and the dame were ceremoniously conducted to a reserved table. I opened the booth door and saw Evie wig-wagging from the mezzanine stairs.

First she pointed several times in the direction of a big lug who had just barged in. Then Evie held up ten significant fingers. I okeyed it and went after the one she pointed at.

“Mr. Giff?”

He looked surprised. “I’m him. Why?”

“The name’s Castle. I’m a friend of Miss Hart who’s a friend of Bohen. Who, I’m told, was a friend of yours.”

“What do you mean— was?”

I towed him into a nearby smoking room and shut the door. In his first mate’s uniform Joe Giff looked as large as one of the downtown skyscrapers. You could almost see him lifting a ship when the barnacles had to be scraped.

He had lots of face, not much hair and a Rock of Gibraltar jaw. He looked at me suspiciously. I told him to sit down and let him have it, briefly.

“So Buddy’s gone?” He made a noise in his throat, opening and closing his hands. “Show me the one who did it and I’ll save the State electricity! A right guy and they knock him off no sooner than he’s ashore! They warned me about this slab. They told me it was a tough town. Now I’ve lost my best pal and forty bucks. He owed me that out of the last dice game on board.”

I asked questions. Giff liked to talk.

He spun a long drawn-out yarn about some town in Brazil tagged Santander, which I found interesting after he went into minute details.

As Giff’s story unfolded it began to tie in with what had happened that night at the Hotchkiss apartment across town. It wasn’t entirely crystal-clear, but it made plenty of sense. Any guy with the ordinary amount of imagination could twist it around and make it come out even.

I tried, while Giff talked.

“And that’s about all,” he finally wound up.

“That’ll do. Thanks. Now tell me something else. You introduced Bohen to Miss Hart? How did you happen to know her?”

Giff laughed. “Me and Lib? We were neighbors back home. Her folks knew mine. I knew Lib when she was in the third grade. I used to carry her books, and the torch. Swell gal, Lib.”

“I believe you implicitly,” I said, opening the smoking room door.

“I guess I’d better wire Buddy’s sister,” Giff murmured. “After I buy a deck of cigarettes.”

He went on the prowl for Evie and I took his information to a table in the rear and mulled it over. I was still doing that when I noticed Esthay and the blonde get up and head for the lobby, the gal in the lead.

Esthay wasn’t smiling or laughing now. He looked as serious as meningitis. They passed my table and I heard him saying:

“Now, don’t get peeved, baby. I was only kidding. Listen, you can’t powder on me!”

“Can’t I?” Gilda said. “Try and stop me!”

I paid the overhead and bee-lined for the street. Brian Esthay was coming back from the curb. A taxi was pulling away from it. I didn’t know whether Esthay recognized me or not. I didn’t care. I had one ambition and sprinted to achieve it.

The clock-ark was going into second gear when I ripped open the door and joined Gilda on the rear seat.

She let out a strangled cry and swung a couple of fists in my direction. I ducked and pushed her back on the seat. The chauffeur twisted around with a what’s-this-about look.

“It’s okay, pally,” I assured him. “You know how dames are. They walk out on you.”

“Sure,” he said, and closed the glass partition.

The blonde found her voice. It was all choked up with anger and indignation.

“What’s the meaning of this outrage? Who are you?”

“Headquarters, honey.” I tried to make it sound professional and opened my coat at vest height to let her see a badge that wasn’t there. “Just a few questions, after you tell me where you’re going.”

The way I said it tamed her a trifle. She relaxed against the worn upholstery, peering at me through the gloom. Her perfume was overpowering at close range.

After a minute she said, “I’m on my way home. So what?”

“So we’ll talk when we get there. Much better than this rattletrap.”

It wasn’t far. Up half a dozen blocks and over one. I dug for the meter toll and followed her into a self-service elevator in the narrow entry hall of an apartment house that wasn’t cheap or expensive.

Gilda jabbed at a button numbered “3” and violet-eyed me as the lift went up.

“I’ve seen you around. You’re no cop!”

I let that go and got out on the third floor. She fished a key from a soft velvet bag, opened a bag and turned on lights. More of the perfume smacked me when we were in the bandbox living room of her place.

A fairly large room with colored photographs of her all over the walls. In a bathing suit at Atlantic City. In rompers on the farm. In spangles at Miami. In tweeds at the Plaza. Her roguish gallery showed every angle, as well as every curve.

I let the daguerreotypes ride and looked at the living Gilda. I liked the smartly designed gown, the Delman stilt-heeled booties with their ornate decorations, rolled over tongues studded with yellow stones.

Those stones were bits of glass the same color as the piece I had in my vest pocket. And that piece, I saw in the next glance, was an exact fit for the empty space in the left slipper’s tongue. There was a vacancy there that made a positive link for the scent I had breathed in at Mrs. Hotchkiss’s.

“Now, what’s the gimmick?” She asked it petulantly, her pretty face mask-blank.

“I want to return this.” I took out the piece of yellow glass and gave it to her. “Off your cute little brogan. You might have a job matching it.”

The violet eyes hid behind crinkly lashes. She tried to stay bland but a muscle in her white throat twitched and betrayed her.

“Where— where did you get it?”

“On the floor, not far from the dead body of Buddy Bohen. Remember him?”

Gilda sat down. She didn’t exactly sit— she seemed to collapse loosely in a chair. The long lashes flew up and her eyes stared at me, wide, wondering and full of fear.

“It’s a gag! He— you don’t mean— it can’t be—”

I let her sputter out and shrugged.

"Unfortunately for Mr. Bohen, it is true. Whether it’s unfortunate for you is going to depend on what you say. Let’s have it.”

She began to get foxy. Instead of blurting out explanations she drew into herself. Only her white, slender fingers kept weaving together in her silk lap. She coughed and bent forward.

“I haven’t anything to say to you! You’re no dick. I’ve pegged you now. You’re a newspaper reporter. I don’t talk to newspaper reporters. You can bow yourself out, smart guy! There’s the door. Use it!”

“I’ll try the phone instead.” I moved toward one that stood on a little three-tier bookcase in the corner. “Murder might be amusing to you, but the folks at Centre Street have other ideas.”

But I didn’t dial the number.

As I lifted the telephone off its prongs I heard the click of a key turning in a lock. A door opened, a draught of air blew against my angles. A couple of people came in and one of them said authoritatively:

“Hold it, kid! Put that telephone back and let’s see how high you can reach.”

Brian Esthay, a large piece of artillery featured in his right hand, and pointed in my direction, laughed under is breath as he came deeper into the room.

A step behind him, I had a narrow-eyed glimpse of one of the two thugs who had been with Esthay at Dufrey’s earlier that evening.

He, like the big man with him, was clutching a gun and peering at me, a vicious, twisted grin on his shapeless mouth.

I laid the telephone gently back in its cradle and obediently elevated both arms.

Chapter 4: Rogues’ Gallery

ESTHAY walked over to me. He took a good squint and shoved his rod back in his belt. The amusement went out of his horse-type face. He blinked once or twice.

“Why, Castle. This is funny. This is really funny!”

“Where’s the joke?” I asked, while

Esthay made a sign to the super-mouse with him to lay off and hide the firearms.

“I turned around, after Gilda left me, and got a curbside view of somebody crashing her cab. It didn’t look good. From where I stood it sort of seemed like a stick-up. Naturally I was worried. Naturally I had to pick up Louie and drop around to see what it’s all about.”

Blondie spoke for the first time. “Now you’ve seen, so take the air!” Her tone was as brittle as spring ice. Her violet eyes had turned a deep purple and her red mouth had contracted.

“Aw, baby,” Esthay started, measuring out the syrup. “I’m sorry about what I said. You know I trust you. I was only kidding.”

He would have said something else but the golden-haired Gilda laughed in his face.

“I know how much you were kidding. Why don’t you grow up and crawl out of the comic section!” She turned her gaze on me. “And get rid of this late edition. He doesn’t give me any appetite, either.”

It was a good suggestion. I reached for my hat, Louie watching me speculatively. Esthay laughed loudly.

“Not sore, Castle? It’s all in fun. Me trying to protect the little woman.” He shook with mirth. “Remind me to tell you the one about the guy who was keeping an eye on his gal friend and his pal at the same time. You’ll go into stitches.”

I put on my hat and took a couple of steps toward the door. The Gulden dame stared at me stonily. Louie’s twitching fingers ran up and down the front of his coat. Esthay, a big grin on his pan, watched me go.

“By the way, Castle,” he said, when I reached the door. “I’ve got a Police Department permit for this gun. So has Louie.”

I shut the door behind me and went down the stairs fast.

The first person I met when I got back to my own two, rooms and shower, a whistle away from the Winter Garden, was Detective Hartley. Larry smoked the best cigar a nickel ever bought and was waiting in the front seat of a prowl car. He had evidently been there for some time, which hadn’t sugared his disposition much.

“Climb in, Castle.” He threw the cigar in the gutter and opened the door.

“What now, officer?” I asked.

“The Chief. He’s not satisfied with your story. He craves more conversation. Hop in and don’t give me an argument. I’ve been staked out here for the better part of an hour.”

I got in beside him.

Twenty minutes later I was in Mullin’s office on Centre Street. The Captain looked a trifle worn around the edges, but his sneer was bright and polished and his fishy eyes still without any trace of human warmth.

“What’s on your mind, Captain?” I made it sound chummy and sat down beside his desk in a chair that needed dusting.

“You!” Mullin answered. “You haven’t come clean with me, Castle. You’re holding something back. I know you. You’d double-cross your grandmother.”

“I haven’t any.” I kept my tone light and pleasant, full of sunshine and flowers. “What do you mean, I’m holding back?”

“Your story creaks,” Mullin said.

“Since meeting you last,” I continued, “I’ve run into a few interesting facts. Care to hear them, Captain?”

The pale gray eyes began to glitter.

Mullin straightened up in his desk chair. “Yeah, what are they?”

I went back to Joe Giff’s yarn as delivered in the smoking room at the Forty-Four.

“Bohen had plenty of dough of his own,” I began. “Ten thousand bucks’ worth, I’ve just learned from a shipmate of his. Remember that. The boat they were on docked at Santander. That’s a banana port in Brazil.”

“Never mind the local color. Get to the facts.”

“Bohen had some business with a guy at Santander. He met him the first night he went ashore. And when he came back to the Star of Brazil, he didn’t have his ten grand. But he didn’t say what he had done with it.”

“Probably dropped it in some gambling joint,” Mullin said. “What else?”

“Bohen didn’t tell his pal any of the particulars. He was forty bucks short when the ship docked at the Erie Basin. He dropped that in a dice game to the party who handed me this fable. Another thing; Bohen was followed away from the pier when he left the boat. He told his friend that.”

Mullin curled an upper lip when I finished. The sneer he wore increased its shape and size.

"What kind of dream stuff is that, Castle? I’m looking for clews, not fairy tales.”

"Okay. I just thought I’d give you a motive. Figure it out. Bohen gets rid of ten thousand bucks in Santander. Guys with murder on their minds are waiting for him in Brooklyn. Add it up.”

Mullin rubbed a chin that needed shaving. It gave off a gritty, sandpaper sound.

"You told me you had a date with Bohen to get some dope on a magazine article. That you went up to his sister’s apartment to meet him. Since when have you been writing magazine articles.

I had handed him that line to keep Libby out of it. I didn’t like the way he threw it back at me.

"Since I traded in my nursing bottle for a four-fifths size. Sure, I’m interested in Bohen’s cutdown, but strictly for my sheet. I’m in the newspaper business, first and last.”

“Where have you been since you left the Hotchkiss flat?”

That was easy. “Talking to Bohen’s pal, Joe Giff, by name, at the Club Forty-Four.”

The Captain grunted again. I could see him fumbling around for something to hang on me. He couldn’t reach it and shrugged.

“Get this Giff guy down here first thing in the morning. I want to talk to him.”

I got up. “Sure. How about doing me a favor, Cap? I’d like to have Giff give the gallery a gander. Just an idea.”

"Get him down here early.”

I went home and tried to sleep it off. It wasn’t so simple. Brian Esthay, the big cannon in his hand, the sweet smelling Gilda and the shoe with its heel on the carpet and its toe pointing straight up, mixed with Libby’s frightened dark eyes, made first class nightmare material.

Dawn was rattling its milk bottles along the street when I finally corked off.

Next morning Bill Jamison came around to my desk at The Orbit. Bill had been on the prowl. He needed a shave worse than Mullin had, but his breath was full of flowers. Four Roses.

“The sailor washout is one for the aspirin division.” Jamison sat down wearily on the edge of my desk. “And Mullin has shut up like a clam.”

“Homicide had to. They don’t know any more than you do.”

Bill rolled a weary eye in my direction. “Who does know anything? You?”

I tipped back and hoisted leather to the desk. “Right. I may be wrong, but I think I’ve got this bump-off pegged correctly. I think I know the motive and who did it. In a half hour I’m going down to Headquarters with a party who's well hooked into it. What happens there will clinch it or write me off as entirely wrong.”

“Spill!” Jamison croaked avidly.

“Later. You’ve got my promise. I’ll phone you the minute the string’s around the neck of the bag.”

He went away and a couple of minutes later the phone hummed. That happened all day. It was usually some fight promoter with an undiscovered miracle man under his wing, looking for publicity.

Or a member of the free-ticket brigade. Or some visiting basketball celebrity. Or the hockey crowd with exclusive news they wanted to share with all the papers.

Beth Wheaton, the cutie of the long plugs, cooed in my ear:

“I’ve got a lady on another wire for you, Mr. Castle. Say please.”

"How do you know she’s a lady?” I answered. “Put her on— please.”

I thought it would be Libby, but it wasn’t. Gilda Gulden’s dulcet tones sounded. And dulcet was the word.

“I want to apologize for last night,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry about it.”

“That’s all right. Think nothing of it. I’m used to playing target for the underworld.”

“You see,” Gilda continued, “I’d had an argument with Brian and then you came along. I wasn’t feeling exactly happy. But I am sorry.”

She stopped. I could almost read her mind over the wire.

“You’re worried about that piece of yellow glass,” I said slowly. “Forget it. That’s private between us— if you’d care to explain to me.”

“That’s exactly why I called you. I do want to explain.” Her voice brightened considerably. “Suppose you drop in and see me around five this afternoon.”

I could feel my pulses begin to tick like nickel-plated watches. I told her that would be fine, said good-by, hung up and stared at the copy on my desk without seeing it.

Ten minutes after that Libby buzzed me. I made a lunch date with her and got my hat.

Then I picked up Joe Giff and piloted him down to the local crime clinic via subway.

Mullin let Giff lean on his ear for the better part of a half hour. After that, the Captain gave us an Annie Oakley to the Rogues’ Gallery. We went over the pictures carefully, one by one.

Joe Giff didn’t say anything for quite awhile. Then, finally, he stuck out his jaw, drew a breath and pointed.

“That’s the guy,” he announced, a ton of conviction in each word. “That’s him!”

Chapter 5: Bad Ten Minutes

SO I TOOK the daughter of the Hart family to Marty Keeler’s for lunch. It was corned-beef day at Marty’s and the cabbage addicts were out in quantity. I managed a table on the balcony with a pigeon’s-eye vista of the first and last citizens of Longacre Square, below.

Last night’s shocks still had Libby down. She was nervous and didn’t try to conceal it. I told her about Giff, omitting all references to the girl with the honey-colored hair. And I purposely refrained from mentioning my five o’clock appointment with La Gulden.

No use, I decided, throwing another worry on the fire. Libby pecked at the viands and glanced over at me. “I suppose you’re in this murder, up to your ears, Johnny, as usual,” she said.

“I’m interested, naturally. You don’t walk into a room with a body and forget all about it.”

“I suppose,” she went on dreamily, “you think you can pull another rabbit out of a hat.”

“If I lived in Danbury,” I said, “I’d make a hat out of a rabbit. I’m not thinking anything at the moment. So set your little mind at ease and put more pressure on your fork."

“Sometimes,” Libby told me, “I wonder if it’s the sensible thing to do.”

“What, Jewel of my Turban?”

“Marry you.” She sighed. “I can see you now getting out of bed in the middle of the night to find a corpse somewhere and have gunmen aiming pistols at you! What a prospect!”

I was five minutes early for the date with the gorgeous Gilda.

Once more I stepped into the dime-sized, self-service elevator, made a pass at button Number Three and started up. Once more I braked in front of Blondie’s front door. She answered at the first chime and once more I was in the band-box living room with the colored photos on the walls.

This time I didn’t look at them. I looked at Violet Eyes.

Gilda had rigged herself up like Mrs. Aster’s favorite steed for the five o’clock tête-à-tête. The housecoat she wore looked like something out of Vogue. It fitted like the wrapper on a sausage, smooth and without a wrinkle anywhere.

Gilda’s feet were bare and Gilda’s toenails were beautifully manicured. They peeked out of open-ended wedgies like white mice with red eyes. Her ankles were pretty good, too and her legs something Varga might have drawn in an inspirational moment.

All that combined with the glimmering pale gold hair, the violet eyes and the provocative, tempting mouth had the potency of a rum Collins at ten a. m.

She smoked a cigarette in a long black holder, her smile warm and friendly. She parked me on a spindly settee and asked me how thirsty I was.

“Nothing, thanks. I don’t touch the filthy stuff. Let’s,” I suggested, “get down to cases— murder cases.”

Gilda shuddered politely. Across the room was a little electric clock, wedged in among the tintypes in silver frames, on a mahogany table. I could see the topaz hands pointing to three minutes after five exactly.

Gilda let her eyes trail in the direction of the rear door in the room. That was closed. She arranged herself picturesquely in a deep-seated chair across from me and draped one slender ankle over the other.

"It was awfully sweet of you to keep that shoe ornament quiet, Johnny. You don’t mind if I call you Johnny, do you ?”

“When you say it, it sounds like music,” I murmured. “I’ve kept it quiet because I’m sure a lovely girl like you couldn’t have had anything to do with Buddy Bohen’s demise. But,” I added, “I know you were at his sister’s apartment last night.”

Gilda nodded. “For a few minutes. Every time Buddy came back from a cruise he used to champagne me at the Forty-Four. This time he called me up, said he couldn’t make it, but that he had a present for me from Haiti, a native girl’s bathing suit. He said if I could taxi up to the Hotchkiss’s he’d give it to me.”

“And you went?”

“Yes. I was only there about ten minutes. When I left he was as alive and healthy as you are.” She shuddered again. “Whoever killed him must have come in right after I left. It’s terrible! I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about him.”

"Neither could I,” I told her.

“You’re not going to mention the fact I was probably next to the last person to see Buddy alive? You wouldn’t do that. Johnny. You wouldn’t want me to have a lot of unpleasant publicity, publicity that might ruin my career. I know you wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Of course not,” I assured her.

“That’s why I didn’t want to talk to you last night, when I spotted you as a reporter.”

“What changed your mind?”

She pursed her full, crimson lips. “I’m not usually rude. After you’d gone I thought it over. I’d much rather have you as a friend, a dear friend, than an enemy.”

“Then Esthay didn't have anything to do with it?” I hinted.

“Certainly not. And don’t get Brian wrong, Johnny, just because he happened to come in with a gun. As he told you he was protecting me. Really, Brian’s so tender hearted he can’t cut the pages in a book.”

I tried to keep from smiling. “I’m wondering if you found anything up at the apartment last night,” she went on. “The paper said you were the first one in there, that you found poor Buddy. You didn’t find anything else?”

“Such as?” I asked, and clipped off short, when I heard the door in the back of the room creak open.

“Such as a small package you could put in your hip pocket,” Brian Esthay answered, coming in.

Louie was with him. looking more vicious than usual and, doing a double on the previous night, both had their heaters on exhibition, lined up on me!

I looked from Esthay’s St. Bernard face which, on occasions, also had an equine resemblance, to Louie and from there over to the glamorous Miss Gulden. “A frame?” I said, amiably.

Esthay nudged his private gunbearer. Louie told me to stand up and gave me a professional frisk, but he wasn’t looking for weapons.

Instead, his quick little hands roved over the lining of my. jacket. They took a feel of the belt I was wearing. They passed lightly but thoroughly over all the yardage of my tweeds.

“Nothing,” he announced. “Guy’s clean.”

Brian Esthay began to laugh. A low, chuckling laugh that made Gilda’s violet eyes grow suddenly shadowed.

“Look, Castle. Let’s understand each other. We’ve been on a hunt for a certain little package we know the Bohen lad brought up with him from South America. We didn’t have time to put in a good hunt for it last night. We have an idea you might have located it, because, otherwise, you would have brayed to Homicide about the glass shoe “button you found up there.”

I listened carefully, a cold chill beginning to reach from one end of my spine to the other. What Esthay said was practically a confession of murder. That he made it to me was too significant for comfort.

It reeked of the fact he didn’t intend I was to live long enough to mention it— to anyone!

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to slip some nonchalance into it, but to my own ears it sounded pretty trite.

“Don’t let’s play games, Castle. Let’s talk business. How much?”

I could have laughed in his St. Bernard face. How much? As if Brian Esthay would pay off and let me walk out of Gilda’s apartment unpunctured!

He must have got what I was thinking. A smile turned the corners of his mouth down. A minute before they had been up.

I looked at the electric clock. Seventeen minutes past five. The palms of my hands were beginning to get damp. So was the back of my neck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I repeated.

Esthay looked at Louie and shook his head, Gilda still crouched in the chair. Her eyes never left me. She leaned tensely forward. I could see her hands tighten, almost convulsively.

Esthay blew against the barrel of his Smith & Wesson.

“You don’t know anything about it? You don’t know anything about anything. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Not exactly. For instance,” I went on, making a desperate stall for time, “I’ve figured out the Bohen thing. You used him for a custom-made double-cross, Esthay, one that will go down on the records with a big black mark next to it!”

“Is that right? Let’s hear about it.”

I snapped at the invitation like a pooch at a shinbone.

“You wanted something your agent in South America had. You turned Sweet Stuff loose on Bohen.” I tossed a glance at the blonde. “You knew that Bohen had some dough, ten thousand bucks, which he’d recently inherited, so Gilda supplied the build-up. All Bohen had to do the next time he was in Santander, Brazil, was to see. a certain guy, buy a certain something, bring it back to the States and triple his money.”

Louie’s ears stuck out like a couple of small umbrellas. Esthay rubbed his nose on the back of a hand. Gilda never moved.

“Go on. Go on, Castle. I think you’re warm.”

“So Bohen followed the prescription without a slip anywhere. He met your man, closed the deal and went back to his ship. Your man wirelessed you that it was all wrapped up. Then all you had to do was tail Bohen when the Star of Brazil steamed into the Erie Basin, tail him, pick your spot and go to work on him with a jack. Easy as that.”

Nobody said anything.

“Only,” I added, “like all double-X’s, something boomeranged. You knocked Buddy off but he wasn’t wearing the stuff that night. And now you’re worried because he can’t tell you where it is and you can’t figure who’s got it.”

“Very logical. Well thought out.” Esthay began to laugh softly. “Plenty of brain work, Castle. I suppose your boozin’ friends down at Headquarters know all this, too. Or do they?”

“What do you think?”

“I think your newspaper’s going to have an opening on its sporting page," he said. “Because, Castle, Louie’s going to work you over with a cute little sap he carries up his sleeve. We’ll do that in the bathroom where it won’t be too messy. Then we’ll put you in a trunk I have ready and ship you somewhere.”

Louie licked his lips. “Say when, boss!”

“Get up, bright boy!” Esthay chuckled deep in his throat. “Before we step outside, did I tell you the one about the kid who fell out of the balcony? He landed down in the orchestra, broke his neck and—”

Gilda interrupted him. She was on her wedge slippers in the next breath. The violet-colored eyes gleamed dangerously. She whirled around on Esthay, snarling like a golden tigress.

“No you don’t! You’re not using my bathroom for an abattoir. You’re not killing him on these premises. You dope, he’s probably told somebody he was coming here!”

The cold chill had left the vicinity of my spine. I looked at Louie. He was staring open-mouthed, and bad-toothed, at the girl. She was in front of Esthay. Which made it a now-or-never opportunity.

I grabbed it!

I was out of the chair like a quarter horse. I picked up a heavy metal book-end from the table beside me. I let that fly at the front window. It went through it like a six-inch projectile.

Then I got both arms around Gilda Gulden. I remembered something about hiding behind a woman’s skirts. This was a new switch, hiding behind a Saks Fifth Avenue housecoat!

She squirmed and let out a smothered scream. I hung on, prying her away from the spot in front of Esthay. She was soft and pliable, all curves and contours. I kept thinking I was lucky Libby wasn’t there to see me embracing a strange dame. She tried to kick at my ankles. I didn’t even feel her heels. I got her as far as the radio cabinet when Esthay went into action.

“Get behind him, Louie!” he roared.

The little toughie promptly streaked for my left side. Esthay, waiting to use his rod, began to barge in from the right. I couldn’t watch both of them at the same time and hang on to Gilda who started to yell and struggle harder.

Like magic a leather-covered billy slid into Louie’s hand, probably the same instrument that had supplied Buddy Bohen with a one way ticket to a happier land.

Louie hovered closer and closer, waiting for a spot!

Esthay was snarling something through his nose.

The gun went up when Gilda wrenched herself away from me.

Lead sizzled by my chin, missing it by a hair. Plaster puffed from the wall beyond.

I let Gilda go and made a flying tackle at Esthay!

We hit the floor together—he on top.

Chapter 6: Some Time Later

FOR a couple of minutes that seemed like a couple of years the comic from Dufrey’s tried to scoop my eyes out. In his stumble he had let go of the gun. Gilda had snatched that up and was evidently using it as a persuader on the chinless Louie.

Vaguely, like a voice in a dream, I heard her saying, "Stand still, muscleman! I know how to use these things!”

So that left only Esthay. Which was plenty!

He got me by the throat. The air went out of my lungs like that in a tire running over broken glass, and black spots began to swirl in front of my eyes. My lungs felt as if they were being squeezed flat and rolled out like crepe suzettes.

So this, something told me, was the way you died, slowly, painfully, fighting for a gasp of air and not getting it!

I tried to keep slugging him with the hand his knee wasn’t on. A butterfly’s kick would have been more effective. Then, when blackness was settling down for keeps, the miracle happened.

Esthay let go!

He rolled off me. From ten thousand miles away I heard the Gulden chick telling him to get up and put up! Then I heard other sounds, such as doors being banged open, feet, big and flat, slapping on the floor.

And finally the pleased tone of no one else but Captain Fred Mullin, ten minutes late for the round-up I had phoned him about before hitting for the Gulden lair!

“Look at Castle!” Mullin exclaimed, and it was the first time I’d ever heard a note of pleasure in his voice. “He’s practically purple. Throw a pail of water on him, Ed.”

I TOOK Libby Hart to dinner, that night, in the Flamingo Room of the staid, eminently respectable Hotel St. Clair. We had, as a guest, First Mate Joe Giff of the Coastal Line.

We sat at a table surrounded by people whose ages ranged anywhere from the early sixties to the middle eighties. Musak supplied a faint, murmuring melody, just right to talk above.

I ordered soft food and watched Giff toy with a steak large enough to saddle. Libby ate sparingly and kept her starry dark eyes speculatively on me.

“Quite a town,” Giff said, coming up for air and wiping off his chin. “Believe me, Mr. Castle, I’m glad we’re sailing with the tide in the morning. I’ll take a South American revolution and you can keep your Broadway hatchetmen.”

I shrugged. “It’s not so bad, Joe. Like a rash it breaks out every so often. And like a rash the police know what the cure is.”

“The chair for this Esthay guy and his partners.” Giff used his napkin again. “Maybe I helped a little, picking out that photograph this morning. Who did you say it was?”

“Dolf Callise. As I told Miss Hart the other night, Callise had left town with a lot of Mrs. Randall Westcott’s hygeia. He kicked out in such a hurry he didn’t give Brian Esthay his cut.”

“So,” Libby put in brightly, “Esthay dreamed up a plan whereby he could get his cut and Callise would have ten thousand American dollars.”

“Exactly,” I murmured, from the good side of my mouth. “Buddy Bohen bought an attractive box of Mrs. Wescott’s diamonds which Callise had unmounted in his spare time. The rest you know.”

Giff finished the steak. For a minute I thought he was going after the bone. He pushed his plate aside and grinned.

“When the cops began to question me about Buddy and the package he brought back to the ship that night at Santander,” he said, “right away I remembered Buddy had given it to the Purser to lock up in the safe.”

“And in the safe it was,” I told the girl friend. “All ready for Customs, and the insurance company, to take charge of.”

She looked at me for a moment, in silence.

“Which is a much better place for it than in Mr. Esthay’s coat pocket,” Libby said, seriously. She frowned a little. “What’s going to happen to the blond girl with the violet-colored eyes?”

“What always happens to blondes?”

Joe Giff thought that over for a minute or two. “They get away with murder!” he decided.

“But Gilda didn’t actually have a manicured finger in Bohen’s departure,” I told him. “She’ll get something, but not too much. You know how juries are where— ah— limbs are concerned.”

“And he’s not talking about trees,” Libby said, opening her bag and taking out a handkerchief. She said, “Darling, the next time you buy me a present, how about a bottle of perfume? Some of that wonderful, wonderful Stratosphere.” I remembered— and shuddered.

“I’ll get you a vial of scent, but it won’t be that brand. Too many poignant memories.” I ran a finger around my throat.

“But you will get me some perfume?” Libby asked, in the soft, persuasive voice. “What kind?”

“The very latest,” I promised, squeezing her hand under the table. “What all the debbies go after, April in Scranton.”

__________________

No 25 in the author's "Broadway Decameron Nights" series

15: Ink

Breezy Stories, July 1922

SHE was just a little chorine, a pretty child with innocence limned in her piquant face, with sloe eyes that were like brown, velvet stars. Broadway knew her as Miss Feo Marr. The story of her beginnings, like so many other similar volumes, reached back to Gotham's shabby side, to gray tenements, streets that in the summer were open bake ovens, and in the winter freezing Siberian highways, filled with the frosty breath of the Hudson.

She had graduated from cabaret work into vaudeville and from vaudeville had made the next step into musical comedy. Stage managers remarked her intelligence, the rapidity with which she learned songs, her manner of assimilating “business” and dance steps. She made-up wonderfully well, was inspirational with her verve, the sheer bubbling vivacity which she displayed before the footlights. Countless of the tribe of Tired Business Men, to say nothing of Jersey deacons and amateur rounders from points West, felt sluggish pulses stir and thin blood warm at the sight of her twinkling legs, her bodily grace, the flickering sunshine of her smile that came, lingered, vanished.

It was while she was with the “Dancing Widow” at the old Knickerbocker, that Feo first became attracted by and attached to young Mr. “Happy” Osgood. The gentleman in question, a “wise money hopper” had hit the Broadway bookies hard, had cleaned up royally on a “good thing” some “guns” had uncorked at Aqueduct to run for the “family jewels.” There was nothing unconventional about their meeting. Osgood, in a box that night, had beheld Feo and had found her good to look upon. Thereafter, he had loitered about the stage entrance until she came out, had presented himself, had taxied her up to the Cafe de la Paix, there to shoot a lot of seed. Feo liked Osgood from the first; he was so good-looking, so debonair, even-tempered. He wore modish raiment with the genteel air of a Rialto leading man, was a perfect dancer, understood women and made love like they did in the movies. He was also generous to a fault— particularly after he had made a “break.”

Later, Feo was to discover that Osgood existed entirely by his wits, maintained an office in his waistcoat pocket, and was married to a girl who had left him for a motion picture director in far Hollywood. Still later it was Feo’s privilege to discover that her lover was not above engaging in shady transactions that were on the fringe of the law. Once or twice he had hinted that her assistance in some of his “deals” would be highly appreciated but Feo, despite her affection for him, steadfastly refused material aid. She felt that she could never forget one bleak evening she had known in her twelfth year. Then a couple of very tall patrolmen had entered the tenement to pinch a pickpocket who resided just across the hall. They had used their nightsticks rather vigorously when the poor wretch had tried to make a quick and furtive escape...

IT WAS a morning in August.

The hour was eleven o’clock or something more. The sunshine that poured in the open windows of the two-room and bath suite “Happy” Osgood maintained perennially on the fourth floor of the Hotel Timbledon, was hot and brassy. It painted the windows of the unprepossessing, musty hostelry that had been a gaunt sentinel on the corner of Broadway and Fifty-first Street since the day that the First Crusaders were in bib and rompers. Across a card table, being used for the more worthy purpose of holding breakfast dishes, Osgood alternately endangered his eyesight by drinking coffee with his spoon in the cup and looking sleepily across at Feo who, in her bright tan-and-green kimono, was as radiant as a summer butterfly. He watched her daintily crack one of the eggs she had boiled on the electric grill, yawned once or twice, reached for his Piedmonts, lighted one and inhaled deeply.

“Hot, isn’t it?” Osgood murmured. “Must be tough on you, baby doll, down in the show-shop.”

Feo, scooping out the egg with a bent spoon, nodded.

“Compared to it a three alarm fire is zero! Still, I don’t mind it very much. It’s better than rehearsing with a new piece or haunting the agencies.”

The reference was made to her present occupation with a summer revue current at the Ambassador. Osgood flipped the ash from his cigarette, some of his enervation patently disappearing.

“If you weren’t so damn straight-laced,” he growled, “you wouldn’t have to be swinging a foot and chirping in this kind of weather. No, the two of us could be down at Atlantic City, having a smoke roll us around in one of them boardwalk chairs. Either that or up at the Spa, making suckers out of the books and running them ragged at the faro layout in Ernie Schwartzbaum’s place. I got a deck marked that’s money from home, but I’ve got to have a rib to help me crack it and,” he sighed, “I might as well ask a Methodist minister’s wife to help me as to ask you!”

Feo smiled a little but said nothing.

“There’s no telling,” Osgood continued, “how much jack is in the pot. It’s a gold mine, ready to be worked. Not only that but it is as safe as a convent— we could pull it and walk up to a cop on any beat, laugh in his face and say, ‘The haitch with you, feller. We’ve just stuck over a nifty. Let’s see you put on the cuffs, you great big fathead, you?' That’s the kind of a pipe it is. Feo, it’s the cat’s pyjamas!”

But the girl opposite him continued to evince no particular interest and Osgood scowled.

“Lemme tell you about it,” he said heavily. “I’ve been on this for the past three days and it’s absolutely airtight. It’s such a safe best that I can take an oath and swear that if you’ll help me lam it over, I’ll be wearing Mortie Quellton as a watch charm. Quellton, mind you! And that’s no Spanish cow! It’s a cinch to call the turn!”

For the first time Feo stirred a little. Mortie Quellton. The name struck a responsive chord within her and made it vibrate like the plucked string of a violin. She knew Mortimer Quellton; everybody knew him, for Quellton had been one of the sniffing Alley hounds who had excited the envy and reluctant admiration of the Rialto by marrying a million dollars. Some four years previous, Quellton, then a “barber shop chord” baritone, singing at the cafe of the popular Milt Wimble, had become acquainted with and ultimately married a Mrs. Cary Carney, she, the wealthy widow of an interior decorator upon whom the blight of prohibition had had not the slightest effect.

Rumor tabbed Quellton as being as sharp as a razor, as being as clever as they came; becoming the husband of the former wife of the bibulous Cary Carney had proved and verified the fact. Quellton had seated himself in the soft lap of luxury. The old haunts along the White Way saw him only infrequently; he dined now at the new Park Avenue place of Monsieur the Sherry, danced at the Club Septembre and got tight in his wife’s establishment on East Seventy-first Street.

This information Feo recalled as she looked at the scowling face of her loved one.

“Want to help me?” Osgood asked.

She shook her head.

“No.”

“Give you half of what I get,” he persisted. “How about it?”

She shook her head again.

“Nope.”

“Happy” Osgood’s scowl darkened.

"Don’t!” he snapped. “You and them lily-white ideas of yours give me a pain. I haven’t levelled since Miss Lizzie won last month at Belmont. Never mind, I’ll stop off at Santanyanna’s a little later and get a hold of Beth Wildey. She’ll get down on her knees and beg me to let her string along, once I pass her the set-up.”

Feo stood, went around, hung over the back of Osgood’s chair, her arms draped loosely about his shoulders.

“My boy’s such a roughneck,” she cooed. “He gets as sore as a gumboil and goes away up in the air at the least little thing, doesn’t he?”

“You’re enough to make me nutty,” the object of her attentions said in a more amiable voice. “Can’t you ever do anything I ask you to like a regular fern?”

Feo drew a slim, pointed finger across one recently shaven cheek.

“As a matter of fact,” she stated, “I’ll help you this once and I won’t ask for a nickel kick-in if you’ll swear an oath that you’ll do something for me”

Osgood jumped up; he caught her elbows in his hands and searched her pretty face with a darting glance.

“What do you want me to do?”

Feo drew a breath. It seemed to require all of her courage to make answer. Yet her voice, when she replied, was curiously cool and calm:

“Get a divorce and marry me!”

She expected Osgood’s hands to drop away and his eyes to narrow coldly as they had invariably done on other occasions when she had made the same request. But he stared without blinking and his fingers gripped her arms the harder.

“If you mean that,” he said slowly, “I’m on! There’ll be enough cash in this to pay Horowitz and Sanger for a gilt-edge divorce decree and a couple of bones left over for a marriage license and one of them orange blossom wedding rings. Baby doll, help me stick this across, be on the level with me and I swear it will be a case of from altar to halter fifteen minutes after Horowitz pries me away from that double-crossing whiff of mine! What do you say to that?”

The brown eyes of Feo were eloquent.

“Hold me tight— just for a minute, Honey Lamb!” she crooned. “Oh, close— lose!”

It was perhaps ten minutes later before Osgood was able to briefly outline his idea. Mortie Quellton had been, it appeared, in Dutch with his wife and was on probation. His bank and better half had learned of one of Mortie’s indiscretions and while the matter had been patched up, the slightest error on Quellton’s part meant a definite and conclusive break. This break, Osgood exclaimed, meant the former cafe singer would be ousted from the lap or luxury and tossed out into the cold. It was indisputable, he declared, that Quellton would take mighty good care that his wife would have no opportunity to censure him. Yet, so the explanation ran, Mortie had never loved the woman he had married and could no more resist temptation than a starving man could a plate of steaming soup. It was upon Quellton’s known weakness for youth and pretty faces that Osgood laid the foundation for his schemes. And, as he unfolded it, the eyes of the listening Feo widened; her cheeks grew warm and flushed.

“But suppose,” she said fiercely, “he got to it before the showdown—before you butted in? I— I simply couldn’t—”

Osgood understood and smiled grimly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be Sidney on the Spot. You exit with me after the razz and that’ll be all.”

He took her lips and then consulted his watch.

“Now I gotta breeze. Remember what I told you and don't worry about nothing. I haven’t stored this for three days without knowing the words and music from the vamp to the second ending of the chorus.”

After Osgood had departed for a pool room on Thirty-sixth Street and Feo was in the privacy of her bedroom, she went retrospectively about the business of dressing. She pondered a number of things as she brushed out the mane of her umber hair, prior to dressing it. She would entice and win through the magnetic appeal of her fringed eyes, the petal-redness of her inviting mouth, the imaginative and inspiring appeal of her rounded, softly-curved body, the charm and animation of her manner. She tried to remember everything that Osgood had told her as she snapped the hooks on her brocaded silk camisole, adjusted the elastics on her pink knickers and swathed her symmetrical legs with gossamer-thin silk hosiery.

“It means so much, so much to me!” was the thought that repeated itself in her mind, like the never ending refrain of a popular song hit heard for the first time.

All afternoon she thought of it; during the evening performance of the show at the Ambassador it imitated her dance steps, lurked at her elbow.

It’s voice dwindled when she had changed to street clothes and had crept down the stage door alley. Now she was face to face with actuality. When she reached Callag’s and was seated at a table toward the rear, under the balcony, she was breathlessly aware that the curtain on the stage of her own drama was slowly rising. Osgood had told her that he had positive information that Quellton would be at Callag's around midnight. She realized the magnitude of her lover’s knowledge when, as the smoke-wreathed clock at the far end of the cafe marked midnight precisely, Mortimer Quellton threaded a way down the centre aisle and seated himself, two tables distant from her.

He wore a finely-tailored Tux, a soft silk shirt and a diamond ring that blazed like a ball of fire on the smallest finger of his left hand. Quellton was a well-built, not unattractive young man. evidently in the early thirties, whose mouth was a trifle too thin and whose eyes, small and bright, were set too close to a straightly modelled nose. Broadway had known him well in his singing days and Feo had seen him often around the Lane. Yet, with his present elegance and in his lounging, moneyed ease, she recognized but little of the former Alley hound.

Quellton ordered a drink— this, after a whispered conference with a new waiter. He wedged a cigarette in a jewelled holder and surveyed the place with idle indifference. From the frown that shadowed his face, Feo saw that he was out of temper, was morose, illy-pleased with the world in general and himself in particular. Fie drank the Pink Baboon —the latest alcoholic concoction served as a slap-in-the-face to the dictates of Mr. Volstead—and drummed on the table top nervously. It was when twenty minutes or more had elapsed that Feo decided it was high time to get busy, to take her cue and put the stage beneath her feet.

Accordingly she asked for her check; when it came she considered it carefully and then opened her handbag— to search through it first methodically, then anxiously, and finally frantically. Meantime the waiter, a fair specimen of his profession, with distrustful eyes and a bulging jaw, watched her efforts with interest.

“I'm afraid,” Feo said at length, “that I left my pocketbook back in the dressing-room at the theatre.”

“Left your pocketbook back in the dressing-room at the theatre!” the waiter mimicked.

“Either that or lost it!” Feo went on desperately. “Oh, what shall I do? I— I—”

Her servitor interrupted by taking a step closer to the table. He leaned over and let words fall from the corners of his twisted lips:

“Women, I heard that old jazz a million times! You glad-rag dolls think you can get away with apple sauce just because you’ve got a good-looking mug, neat scenery and a canary voice! I hate you cheap frails! You break through with the figure on that check and slip me a fat tip or I’ll razz you noble!”

Feo, standing, registered utter indignation.

“But I’m telling you the truth,” she protested. “You don’t suppose I would lie to you, do you ? Why should I trouble to tell an untruth to a person of your class?”

This, as she expected, aroused the full ire of the man that confronted her.

“You’re all liars!” he said with an oath. Then, raising his voice: “Dig the gilt out of your sock where I know you’ve got it hid or I’ll call a cop! Them’s the boss’s orders. Put up or get locked up. Chirp an answer!”

The answer he requested was furnished by Mr. Mortimer Quellton:

“What’s the amount of the young lady’s check?” he asked quietly.

Feo felt the thrum of her heart, the warm flush of victory, Osgood had told her that it would work out just as it had! She encountered Quellton’s raking stare, banking on the innocence written in her face; he looked for a full minute then considered the paper slip with her account on it and threw down a bill.

“There’s your money.”

The waiter looked at it with a sneer.

“How about my tip? Don’t I get no tip?”

Quellton’s ill-humor flared up in his small, bright eyes. He thrust his face forward:

“I'll give you a tip, you noisy four-flusher ! This is it: The next time you shoot off your trap to a lady in a jam, be careful some one don’t shove your teeth down your throat! On your way now before I buzz the captain!”

Without further comment the waiter turned on his heel, picked up his tray and departed.

“I have a ring here,” Feo quavered, “that -I wish you’d keep as security— until I can pay you back to-morrow. I’m with the revue at the Ambassador and I really did leave my little purse on the dressing table. Oh, I’m so ashamed—you have no idea.”

They sat down after Quellton had pulled out her chair for her.

“Don’t worry about the money,” he said kindly. “I happen to know you’re telling the truth because I saw you not two hours ago at the theatre in question. Good show— plenty of kick and nice music. Won’t you tell me your name?”

Feo did so, recalling Osgood’s instructions and adding naively:

“And you’re Mr. Quellton, aren’t you? I remember I used to see you at Wimble’s when I first went on the stage. That’s ages and ages ago now. I want you to know how grateful I am for what you did. If you hadn’t come to my rescue and helped me out, that big ham would have called an ossifer. This place isn’t what it used to be.”

She rattled ingenuously on, giving Quellton ample opportunity to appraise and study her. She saw his gaze drink her in, focus on her face, wander to her shoulders, over her rounded arms. Would she stand inspection? Her spark of hope wavered, went out, then at his next words burst into a tiny flame.

“Let’s get out of here,” Quellton murmured. “This place is enough to give you a headache.”

She tried to lend the impression that, realizing just whom he was, she was slightly awe-stricken by his favor, his attention. Feo waited while he got his smart straw hat and stick at the cloakroom window, then let him take her arm as they traded Callag’s for the pavement of the Broadway that was outside.

The Rialto, under the summer moon, was a painted city, so colorful that it might have been designed by either the great Urban or Pierre Markanoff, the famous Hungarian muralist. For all of the heat and humidity, it was as crowded as it might have been on a March night. Those of Flash Alley’s inner circle, its women, its parasites, its sharpshooters and the motley mob who were drained away by the shore and Saratoga, had been replaced in generous measure by the out-of-town visitors and vacationists who annually travelled to its Mecca, their prayer rugs ready to be thrown down in the shadow of the minarets of Longacre. The lights of a million incandescents set the night on fire, accentuated the stuffiness of the city, rivalled the promise of dawn which was not many hours distant.

Feo, Quellton’s arm holding hers, walked south. She wondered acutely what lay just ahead. Surely it was ordained she was to conquer— otherwise she would have been dismissed ere this. Had she fitted into that hiatus of Quellton’s nature that needed always the comforting snuggle of a pretty girl or woman. Was it fated that Osgood was to have the privilege of making a dent in what Quellton was known to have cached and put aside for himself out of the former Mrs. Cary Carney’s wealth? The question filled and thrilled her; a satisfactory answer meant the gratification of a dream that had been ever hers by night and day. Marrying her “Happy” was a diadem to be placed on the head of every hope that existed within her, every ardent desire and wish.

“Suppose we take a turn or two through the Park and get a breath of air?” Mortie Quellton suggested, as they passed the Palace and reached a Yellow Taxi stand, where a dozen orderly vehicles with disc wheels were strung out in line.

“I’d like to very much,” Feo answered. “Only—”

“Only what?”

“I don’t want to get you in any trouble with your wife,” she said frankly. “I’m a chorus girl you know and they’re all vamps and home-wreckers.”

Quellton’s reply was to open the door of the nearest taxi, assist her in and speak to the driver.

“My wife,” he declared, when the cab edged out into the river of nocturnal traffic, “is up at her camp in the Adirondacks. What goes on down here I take precious good care that she doesn’t learn. I'm quite capable,” he added, with a smile, “of looking out for myself and for my friends as well.”

Feo knew this wasn’t exactly the truth but kept silent. She reclined gracefully on the upholstery, glad of the faint, warm breeze the cab created by its own momentum. They passed the Winter Garden, the ugly bulk of the Timbledon; Feo looked up and saw the darkened windows of the room on the fourth floor.

In another minute they were over the threshold of Columbus Circle and in the Park, pursuing a smooth course through a floating island of darkness that was dappled with the shine of the arcs, benched with lovers who exchanged tender vows in the shadows, tenanted by those poor souls who stole out of airless tenements to sleep under the arch of the open sky.

They went up to One Hundred and Tenth street by the west drive, skirted the irregular lake near the old Block House and drifted south by the east side. Feo was able to see the darkened piles of the homes of the children of the rich, mausoleums deserted save for caretakers, silent in the humid night. Far south the Plaza was a pinnacle over the land of smart shops; to the right a glow on the clouds marked the location of Broadway. In the middle distance, to the west, the roof sign of the Century Theatre seemed to hang suspended on golden cords. Back and behind it, huddles of taller buildings made the gully of side street and avenues.

“How about a little drink?” Quellton said, his voice arousing Feo from the
lethargy into which she had slipped. She lifted her gaze to find his small, bright eyes on her face.

“I don’t mean in any of those hot Alley dives,” he hastened to add. “I’ve got a few rooms I’ve kept over from my bachelor days just a little way from here and a cellarette that has some stuff in it that I’m not ashamed to offer anyone. Wouldn’t you like something with ice in it?”

Feo dropped the lids over her eyes, tried to mask the satisfaction they might have otherwise revealed. Every new turn of events hinged accurately on “Happy” Osgood’s scheme— his plans. She had first anticipated the need of all of her wits, of ingenuity, of crafty stratagems to get him to take her to this same place he mentioned for it was at his “apartment” that Osgood contemplated a crash-in at the proper moment. Luck, to Feo, seemed so great to make her almost suspicious.

“I wouldn’t mind it at all,” she said slowly. “Only—”

“Only what?”

“Are you sure it is all right?”

Quellton touched her arm reassuringly. He passed an address to the chauffeur and laughed under his breath.

“Believe me, it is! I’m a pretty cagey person as you possibly have heard. I seldom make mistakes and, when I do, I’m ready to pay the penalty. But don’t worry— there’ll be no penalty I assure you. Like an umbrella I cover myself.”

Feo felt she could have made an appropriate reply to him and suppressed a smile of satisfaction as the taxi left the Park and a few minutes later was stopping before the narrow façade of an apartment house in a quiet side street where the darkness was a murky drugget.

Mortimer Quellton settled with the chauffeur, piloted Feo through a front door whose light had long since been extinguished. They went up a flight of stairs together, hesitated while the husband of the wealthy woman who had been Mrs. Cary Carney fumbled for his keys, and then entered the bandbox apartment, penetrating a living-room where an electric fan droned and an artificial springtime coolness prevailed. The room was furnished with a bachelorian touch; framed nudes by Castigny were on the walls, mingling with photographic posters depicting Montmartre scenes, lettered in French. The room adjoined a bedchamber and was only indifferently appointed ; its furniture had seen signal service, its rug was worn and an air of desuetude lingered over all like a venerable hag, work-weary. Its most modern furnishing was a handsome teak wood cellarette with a shiny brass lock, which Quellton used to house one of the keys on his ring.

“One minute and I’ll put together something that will make you think of Greenland on a January afternoon.” he said, taking from the cabinet several bottles before wandering off in the direction of the kitchen at the end of the hall.

“Bar-boy is one of the best roles I play!”

Feo, when she was alone, crouched her chin in the palm of her hand and turned so she might face the whirling fan. She thought of Osgood, of herself, of the significance of the chamber that contained her and shuddered a little. Money, as it invariably did, lay at the root of it. Money, it appeared, was the basis upon which everything was founded, the freshet that nourished every river, every dark and sinister stream, every bright ocean and turgid, unhealthy pool. Its possession was a curse that might never be lifted; it made Broadway what it was, purchased the affection of passion-slaves, sent men down into dark, unholy paths that twisted through the subterranean swamps. Yet, Feo reflected, it was Quellton’s money that must purchase her entire happiness, place a golden circlet on her finger, usher her through the swinging doors of Respectability, and make her dreams come true. The irony of it made her smile...

THE TRAY that Mortimer Quellton brought into the room held two frosty goblets, ornamented with the peels of lemons and the cubes of diced oranges. Feo tasted hers and found it delicious; she helped herself to a Russian cigarette and smoked pensively, while Mortie Quellton chatted, his small, bright eyes fastened first on her feet, then on her rounded legs, then on the swelling lines of her torso, her breast, and the rounded column of her throat. While he talked, Feo looked out of the open window into the street below. Her gaze idly roved its deserted length; presently she grew aware a man had turned the corner and was prowling through the shadows. There was a certain familiar swing to the shoulders, the way he held himself, that parted her lips. Nearly opposite the apartment building she saw the saunterer look up, beheld the blurred moon of his face ere he drifted past and merged with the darker darkness that was between the block’s two lamp posts.

The drinks consumed and the cigarettes burnt to their tubed stubs, Quellton got up and seated himself on the arm of Feo’s chair. His eyes were filled with a myriad of questions; he inclined forward and touched the thin, silken stuff that shrouded her shoulders.

“I guess you know you’re a winner,” he said huskily, obviously stirred by the sonnet of her beauty. “I knew you were different the minute I saw you in Callag’s. Tell me something about yourself. No, don’t! It might spoil it all.”

Feo sensed the approaching climax; her breath came more quickly; her eyes were velvet stars. All at once, under the stare he bent upon her she became a fairy, palpitant, night-crowned creature, wrapped in a bit of dawn. Followed a hush; their eyes swam together. She moved only when he had switched the electricity in the floor lamp off and felt him reach for her in the August dimness. There was another interlude of quiet. Quellton’s whispered words came from miles away:

“Oh, girl, girl―”

Then she was like a soft fire in his arms, warmer, more penetrating than the sun, knowing he breathed the odor of her skin, hair and breath—keenly sensitive to the lips that found and joined with her own....

HOURS or years later, the silence that brooded like a slumbering dragon over the chamber was cleft by the shrill clamor of the front doorbell. It was some time before the floor lamp was lighted and Mortie Quellton had stumbled into the hall. Feo knew the intruder was Osgood, her “Happy,” even before she heard his voice in the hall, saw him looming up in the doorway, looking at her with the stricken gaze of a Barrymore.

“You— Feo—” Osgood murmured brokenly. “I thought you were on the level— I thought you were square! Then Eddie Pilzer— it was his taxi that picked you both up— he told me you were here—”

Mortimer Quellton, halfway between the window and the lamp smiled thinly.

‘‘Well, so long as she is here, what are you going to do about it?”

Osgood turned to him.

“I'll even up!” he vowed. “I know you—you’re Quellton, Mortie Quellton who married Mrs. Cary Carney! I’ll even up! I guess maybe your wife would be only too happy to know what’s going on down in this dump! You can’t cop my girl and get away with it—”

It was a superb piece of acting— the perfect role of an outraged lover, broken, disillusioned, humiliated.

“You’re not going to do anything rash,” Quellton stated pleasantly.

Osgood drew a quivering breath.

“I’ll even up!” he iterated.

“No, you won’t,” Quellton differed affably. “I’ll tell you why you won’t. Suppose I did cut in on your gal? What about it? There’s three women to every one man in the world, and so you’ve got two more coming to you. Not only that, but I’m going to pay you well to keep a padlock on your tongue. I’m going to make you a present of a couple of thousand dollars. What’s a woman compared with two grands, eh?”

Feo’s throbbing blood tingled in her veins. Two thousand dollars! It was a clean-up greater than every expectation !

Mortimer Quellton had lighted a small lamp over a desk in one corner of the room; sat down before it. He spread open a green-leafed check book and, humming, fumbled in a drawer until he discovered an ornamental gold-and-silver fountain pen. This he uncapped, scratched off a check, tore it loose from the book and handed it to Osgood.

“There you are! I wouldn’t,” he advised, “try any monkey-business.”

Osgood nodded, still avoiding Feo’s burning gaze. He crossed to the door that led out into the hall, put on his checked cap and dug up his cigarettes. It was then that the cold chill of knowledge swept through her, blighting the bud and blossom of the wonderful plant of love that had reared up in her soul like a magic flower. With panic in her heart she stood, took an uncertain step forward, extended both arms.

“Happy,” she faltered.

Osgood turned casually.

“Aw, forget it!” he said curtly.

After a time the door closed.

Some time later Feo lifted her lifeless gaze and saw Quellton was beside the lamp again, fingers lifted to plunge it out....

IT WAS a week later.

In the living-room of the “apartment” out of which “Happy” Osgood had marched seven nights previous, Mortie Quellton paid his tailor, glanced at the neatly pressed pile of garments the man had delivered, and indicated the bill with a gesture.

“Just receipt it, will you?” he asked.

The man of needle and the pressing board, sat down before a desk that was in one corner of the room, spread open the bill and picked up an ornamental gold-and-silver fountain pen. He uncapped it at the same minute that Quellton caught sight of it.

“Here!” he said quickly. “Don't use that pen— use the quill.”

The tailor raised his head.

“No, why not? There’s ink in it yet.”

Quellton, as if struck by the recollection of something distinctly humorous, smiled.

“To be sure,” he agreed. “But I like my receipts to stay receipted. You see it’s a whim of mine to keep the fountain pen filled with sympathetic ink— the kind that dries up and disappears on hour or two after it is used. Really, you never know when it is going to come in handy.”

The tailor, plainly puzzled, helped himself to the quill.

______________________

16: Ivan’s Foe

The Popular Magazine, Sept 7, 1924

ONCE upon a time a couple of brothers who rejoiced in the family name of Grimm knocked out enough to pay their income tax through the simple medium of throwing together fairy tales to delight a bunch of credulous kiddies. Mr. Father and Mrs. Mother, whose duty it was to read the bedtime stories to their youngsters, undoubtedly held the strong suspicion that the Grimm boys were either taking it in the wrist or smoking it in a, bamboo pipe. That, however, was in the sweet old days and times have changed. Right now there are more fairy tales in any evening newspaper than the enterprising Grimm twins hopped up for the tots and if you’re the least bit skeptical tell me what fairy tale has it on the radio, the photographs they send by wireless, the airplane flights that begin with breakfast in China and end with dinner in Brazil, the machines that give anybody a look at their own interiors and— finish it yourself. Because of this, the yarn of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Princess Kind Eyes” and “The Wicked Dwarf” are enough to make the average child throw away its cigarette, yawn and inquire where that stuff was obtained from.

This spicy narrative can’t be properly called a fairy tale even if it reads like one. For the benefit of those who weren’t seated before the first curtain let me present our hero, Prince Charming Scandrel, set the prologue in the Night-and-Day Garage, a twenty-four-hour gyp joint for the cans, and drag on Ivan the Terrible, Moe the Ogre, Winnie the Beautiful and all the rest of the characters that make merry while the plot unfolds.

To begin at the beginning, Ottie had bought the Night-and-Day Garage for a song and a dance. The trap was nearer the East River than the Hudson, had prices like those of a Rialto café private wine list and prospered under the direction of the big clown. Scandrel took to the legalized-highwayman thing like a soldier to gunpowder. Really, the way he could figure an estimate on a repair job was nothing less than remarkable. Ottie could tell how much the cost of overhauling a motor would be by sniffing the fragrance of its burning gas. He decided how much new axles would add up to by merely feeling the upholstery, and a broken rear end was always priced according to the length of the running board. The ludicrous part of it was that when the arks were given the K.O. and put on the street again they ran like a commuter for an early-morning train!"

As the proprietor of a busy garage my boy friend was a laugh. The fact that he knew absolutely nothing about the profession bothered him less than the monthly milk bill does the family cat. Ottie, certain that the thing was as simple as a kindergarten, spent most of his time rushing around doing nothing and ran his mechanics with a heavy hand and foot. An example of his directorship was presented quite vividly one afternoon between Monday and Sunday when I chanced to stop in at the garage office, a chamber that made a telephone booth look like a ballroom, and found the world’s most noted half-wit bawling out a hapless mechanic who listened to everything he said, a wrench in one hand and an egg sandwich in the other.

This party was worth anybody’s second glance. Not only was he a symphony in grease but wore overalls that could have been coasted on, had ears that resembled sails, a head that came to a point and a witless smile that seemed to tell the world he didn’t know what it was all about and cared less.

“Honest, you’d make a fish seasick!” Scandrel was raving, when I closed the door and entered. “I ought to hit you a kick, you little stiff. The next time there’s a soap convention in town I’m going to attend so I can wash my hands of you. You’re ignorant, your heels are too close to your ankles and you’re a tight connection. Are you listening?”

The mechanic shuffled his feet, took another generous bite out of the sandwich and sighed.

“I hear you. What was you saying?”

“What’s all this?” I inquired, while Ottie reached for a ledger.

“These here ignoramuses, Joe!” he moaned. “I can’t trust none of them out of my sight for more than five minutes, Eastern standard time. They’re trying to shove me into bankruptcy. This frozen knot here— Ivan Mulligan by name— is the dumbest of the lot. He knows more about rattles than Henry Ford and he repairs a mean motor, but he’s got cement looking like skimmed milk for thickness and to make it even all around he’s one of these superstitious monkeys. You talk to him.

Ask him why he lets a thirty-one dollar repair job go out for thirteen washers when the amount was plainly wrote on the ticket.”

Mulligan finished his lunch, put a crust of bread in one pocket of his overalls, scratched his ear, took out a bunch of four-leaf clovers, looked at them, put them back and giggled.

“I read the repair tag backward. Anyhow, thirteen is a lucky number and thirty-one ain’t, positively. My old gent was thirty-one years old the day they chased him out of Russia and into Ellis Island. I got a cousin in Brooklyn whose house got burned up in a fire with no insurance on Thirty-first Street and I know a party who got gunned because he had thirty-one dollars in his kick. Should there be thirty-one cars in this here―”

“Shut it off!” Ottie yelped. “You and that luck stuff bend me out of shape. You’re proving yourself more absurd than ridiculous. Make your conversation fewer and better; remember that on Saturday your pay envelope will be minus the difference between thirty-one and thirteen and get outside and line them brakes on that Curb Creeper or I’ll knock you so far there won’t be enough gasoline in the world to run a car out to bring you back!”

Ivan Mulligan fingered a chin well paved with cup grease.

“Mister, I forgot to told you that it was on the thirty-first day of three months ago that Moe Morowitz lowbrow crooked my gal off me. Don’t be telling me nothing about thirty-one. It’s a bust and there: ain’t even good-luck symbols to hold it off!”

In the act of cuffing him, Scandrel paused, glanced in my direction and lifted a brow.

“Moe Morowitz, you say? Do you mean ‘Queensboro Moe’ Morowitz, the lightweight leather pusher who’s been rurining after Benny Leonard lately?”

Mulligan nodded glumly.

“That’s him— the baby I’m going to get even with if it takes from now until beer and light wines come back!”

“And he stole your girl?” I put in. “That wouldn’t be anything unusual,”

Ottie smirked. “Any guy that will turn a trick like sending out a repair job for thirteen kisses when it’s tagged thirty-one could have his elbows swiped and wouldn’t know it until he sat down to eat. What surprises me is that he ever had a gal. What was the matter with her?”

Asking Mulligan the question was identical with hitting a nervous thoroughbred with a whip. He lost little time in getting started.

Briefly, the mechanic’s cheerful story was along somewhat familiar lines. It seemed that he had lived next door to a Stella Brady, had tumbled in love with her when a child and had grown up beside her. If Ivan was to be believed, this ringer for Eve was the most beautiful creation that had ever blossomed on the East Side. We were informed of the fact he had proposed matrimony once a month for six years and had finally been accepted. Then, so he said, he squandered his life’s savings on a diamond engagement ring, rented an apartment in Astoria and furnished it to the queen’s taste. After that he consulted a crystal gazer, found an auspicious day some two months distant and set about making arrangements to throw a wedding.

Stock stuff.

While waiting for the happy day the fair Miss Brady, at a dance, had become acquainted with Queensboro Moe Morowitz, a neighborhood socker who enjoyed high popularity and who was foot free and fancy loose. The leather pusher, so we gathered, had a charming personality, a collection of classy clothes, money enough to stop a strike and a fast line of gab. The upshot of the meeting was that the incredible Stella, being both fickle and feminine, had, in an absent-minded minute, forgotten the faithful Master Mulligan long enough to run off and change her name from Brady to Morowitz.

It was a sad, sad story but something about it amused Scandrel.

“Ha-ha!” he laughed. “So Morowitz gloms the rib and gives you a push-out, hey? You poor half-wit, you! What good will revenge do you now when he’s got the moll and they’re tied?”

Ivan made a gesture.

“They done it so quick I couldn’t have chance to think of nothing before, mister. The two of them got married on St. Patrick’s Day and it’s bad luck to hit an East Side boy on an Irish celebration. But listen. Mebbe it’ll take a week, mebbe a month, mebbe a year, but I’ll get him in the end. I’ll show him. I’ll even up!”

“Outside!” Ottie ordered. “You talk like a dime novel and we ain’t got no time to listen to all that jazz. Tear them brakes apart and if you can accidentally knock a hole in the radiator while you’re doing it, so much the better.”

The mechanic picked up his wrench, pulled up his overalls and tottered out.

“So he’s superstitious?” I murmured.

Ottie curled a lip.

“That isn’t the half of it. I don’t mind him hanging a gander’s shoe over the front door, but when he brings in one black cat on Tuesday and has a cellar full of black cats on Friday it’s time to give him the gate. Just a minute now and I’ll be with you. I’ve got to hand Central a telephone call. Er— maybe you’ve heard of this party I’m ringing up— Stephen Fosdick?”

There were few in hilarious Manhattan who didn’t know of Stephen Fosdick and of Fosdick’s sensational rise to prosperity.

In the days of brass foot rails and cracked ice Fosdick, with nothing except two hands, some brushes and a bootblack box, had started cleaning up shoes around Park Row. He had gradually saved enough to start a small factory to manufacture the same paste the shine boys put on your shoes and quickly rub off with a rag. The factory had prospered like a pickpocket at a circus, one factory had meant another, another still another, until Fosdick was reputed to be worth a hot million.

Because of the bootblack business he called his vast New Jersey estate Sunshine Corners, was rumored to be a democratic Republican who wasn’t too proud to be seen in his shirt sleeves, drink his coffee from a saucer or show up at his office with a dinner pail.

“Fosdick, eh?” I murmured.

Ottie came out of the phone book, gave the combination to the operator and grinned crookedly.

“You do ask questions, ain’t it so? Fosdick’s opening a new factory over on the East River and until his own garages are finished he wants to know can he park six of his delivery trucks here at night, how much, why and where. I’ll take him and no mistake there. Just a minute now and I’ll tool you up to the Bronx.”

There had been considerable talk around my uptown gym to the effect that Looie Pitz, the well-known fight manager, had a dark horse under contract that was going to show the Gotham fight fans a new wrinkle in the line of give and take. Pitz, poverty stricken for years, had finally hit a winner in a welterweight wonder that had packed his poke with paper and sent him on a tour of the country. Because of the travel thing nobody around the Bronx had seen or heard from him more than a postcard’s worth until he had wired from Chicago that he was due home again.

It was curiosity to learn whom Pitz had signed, how he was making out under the stress and press of wealth and what his plans were that took Scandrel and his usual sneer up to the gym in a car borrowed from those sheltered at his garage. When we reached our destination we found two motors standing at the curb in front of the gymnasium. Both were of the same brand and aroma, and both had cost in the vicinity of six thousand dollars apiece.

As we docked, the door of the second car opened and Looie Pitz, himself, alighted.

“For crying out loud!” Ottie bawled. “The kid himself back from the great souse-West and dressed like an undertaker! Look and laugh, Joe! Ain’t this a darb, I’m inquiring?”

Pitz was groomed in a cutaway coat with braided edges that hung on him like a tent. An English bowler was on a level with his eyebrows, he featured a pair of trousers with one leg longer than the other, carried a walking stick thick enough to have ended a dog fight and smoked a cigar that had three bands on it.

Scandrel’s laughter made Pitz color up. He took off his hat, looked at it, put it back and made sure his suspenders were tight all around.

“What’s the matter with me, O’Grady?”

“The matter with you?” Ottie bellowed. You’re a picture that no artist would want to paint. Look at that coat, Joe, will you? Treat yourself to the legs on them pants, and the shoes! Slant them shoes!”

“Still suffering from chronic dumbness!”

Pitz snapped, making a pass at him with the blackthorn. “You’re the kind who wouldn’t give credit to the party who invented electric light. You big sapolio— chuckle at me and I’ll summon an officer.”

“One minute!” I cut in. “This will be enough of that. Inside with you both before somebody rings for the green wagon.”

Upstairs, the reception Pitz received from the studio gang that had never taken the trouble to notice him when he went through life on ten cents, a transfer and a celluloid collar, put him in better humor. He shot his cuffs, turned his back on the still hysterical Ottie and made a break for one corner of the room where a youth who looked somewhat familiar was holding court. As they shook hands I looked the stranger over. He was a tough-looking proposition possessing a face that was his misfortune, a bugle that had evidently been Roman before it had been hammered out of shape, a pair of wise eyes, the same number of ears and a chin as square as a soap box. Pitz pried him away and introduced him with a flourish.

“Meet the new lightweight I’m managing now— Queensboro Moe Morowitz, the biggest sensation that’s hit this town since they first took down the swinging doors! This boy is guaranteed fast, so tough he uses a rock for a pillow, as clever as a ventriloquist and has more punch than a bowl of it.”

“Why not?” Morowitz muttered with a shrug. “Tell him how I take punishment and how I stand up under it. But if they’re city fellars don’t bother. I guess they heard of me.”

I expected Ottie, who never tolerated any one with more conceit than himself, immediately to go up in flames. Instead, the big buffoon amazed me by shaking the lightweight’s hand with what passed as high enthusiasm.

“Well, well, well! So you’re Queensboro Moe? Then that big boiler downstairs must be yours. I seen M. M. on the door. Am I right or wrong?”

“That’s my car and I can prove it,” the lightweight shot back. “I did buy it second-handed but if it’s a stolen job that ain’t my lookout. If the cops can’t stop these crime waves―”

“Come out of it!” Ottie hollered, producing one of his cards. “If I’m a flatfoot you’re a tenor and what a heck of a note that would be. Here’s my card. I’m running a clean and honest garage and I don’t expect your patronage— I demand it. Repair jobs are a specialty. Give us a fair trial and be convinced. When will you come in?”

“To-morrow,” was Morowitz’s answer. “Er—Looie and I just come in from Chi together and I ain’t made no garage arrangements yet. I’d rather I should do business with one of my admirers than some gypper who might think I was a lamp and try to trim me. Does Pitz do business with you too?”

“Do I look insane? Put on the pillows, Moe, and step a few frames for the benefit of the crowd.”

The product of the East Side had a sneer for the suggestion.

“Get away with the benefit stuff. I’ve got a date with my wife to take her down to Coney Island to a hot-dog show. Er— can I leave you off somewhere downtown, gentlemen?” he asked Ottie.

“Certainly,” Scandrel replied. “And on the way I’ll tell you all about the garage and how we turn out a repair job. Listen, Joe. Leave that car we come up in stay downstairs at the curb. I’ll send a mechanic over to bring it back to-night.”

“If the street cleaning department don’t beat him to it!” Pitz snickered.

True to his word, Morowitz took his big car to the Night-and-Day Garage the following afternoon for space with service, but no casualties were reported after a meeting between the lightweight and his superstitious enemy. Ottie, who enjoyed every minute of it, explained that the lubricating oil combined with the grease that Ivan Mulligan wore was a sufficient disguise to keep him from being recognized. A day or two after that a slight hint of the jilted suitor’s feelings was apparent when Morowitz dashed in from the curb, shot his bus up the runway, knocked down two car washers who were doing their best to destroy the paint on a limousine, pulled on the brakes and lighted a cigarette.

“Hey, you!” he shouted at Mulligan. “Give this craft a drink of water, fill the radiator and tighten up that rear fender— it’s noisy. Have it ready in a half an hour. I’ll be around with my wife to get it. And don’t try to push the price up. I’m Queensboro Moe Morowitz, I am. I guess you know me.”

“Yes, I know you,” Ivan mumbled, his itching fingers straying toward a hammer that Ottie promptly came out of the office to take away from him.

Once the box fighter had checked out, Scandrel tried to find out why the carpet tacks he had sprinkled along the runway hadn’t worked, added another two dozen and went back where the six-thousand-dollar car was planted.

“That crook!” Mulligan moaned, burning three of his fingers on the radiator cap. “First he steals my gal off me and then he asks me do I know him? I suppose next he’ll want to know if I’ll be sore if he kisses me.”

“Pipe down!” Ottie hissed. “Snare yourself some common sense. What if he did walk out with your sweetie? There are plenty more fish in the brook.”

“Sure, but I spent all my bait!” Mulligan moaned. “To-night I’ll go by the fortune teller I do business with. Mebbe I got a little luck coming to me that I don’t know nothing about.”

“You’ll have something coming to you that you won’t know nothing about if you don’t get back to work on that chariot!” Ottie promised. “Every time I listen to you my ears hurt me for an hour afterward. Come on inside now, Joe. I think there’s somebody in the office waiting for me.”

There was.

This was a brunet girl with eyes as dark as Easter night, lips as red as paint, though without it, and a certain charm that couldn’t be concealed by the rather shabby little gown she wore. A three-cornered but sadly worn hat was another article of her street apparel, a pair of cracked patent-leather slippers were on her little feet and her pretty hands were as devoid of rings as the telephone of any one looking for charity.

Scandrel, usually the most enthusiastic pursuer of poultry the world had ever rolled an optic at, amazed me by merely glancing at the young lady briefly and coughing slightly.

“What’s on your mind, sister?”

“I’m from Mr. Fosdick’s factory over on the river,” she explained. “This is my lunch hour and Mr. Gorman, the superintendent of the traffic department, requested me to stop in and ask if it would be convenient for you to take six of our trucks to-night.”

At this Scandrel became all business. First he looked at a calendar from which the previous month had not been removed. Then he went to the safe and dipped into three ledgers. After that he consulted the loose-leaf filing index, looked up the petty cash account, helped himself to a glass of water and jotted down a note or two on his cuff.

“Yes,” he said finally, “I think we can accommodate you but I’ll find out for sure in a minute, Cutey.”

“That isn’t my name,” the young lady smiled. “It’s Winifred— Winifred Blake.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Ottie smirked, throwing open the office door. “Hey, Luck,” he hollered at the industrious Ivan, “come here a minute, will you? I want one-two-three words with you.”

The revenge-seeking mechanic dragged up his overalls, removed a quarter of a pound of grease from his chin and shuffled in. I saw him look at Ottie and then at the employee of the Stephen Fosdick factory. Mulligan’s jaw dropped like a white hope, his eyes widened and he gaped witlessly while he nervously produced the foot of a cottontail he carried with him and began to rub it idly.

“This here young lady wants to know can we accommodate six of Fosdick’s delivery trucks, kid. Can we? Have we got room in the back of the pavilion?”

“Absolutely, certainly,” Ivan replied vaguely. “What— what did you say, mister?” he added, coming to himself with a start.

“I’m saying it now— get out!” Scandrel snarled. “You’re as cuckoo as a Swiss bird. It’s all right, Winnie,” he went on, turning back to Dark Eyes. “Tell your boss to gas them around any time to-night and we’ll find room for them. Er— I’ll look ’em over myself, personal. Maybe they’ll need a little repairing. The brakes on some delivery trucks are like women and cigarettes— some smoke and some don’t. You won’t forget to tell him it’s all O.K. here?”

The girl gave Ottie a long look and shook her head.

“No, I won’t forget. Thank you so much for the information. Good-by.”

“Goo’-by!” the voice of Ivan Mulligan mumbled behind us. “Mister, that gal has something about her that reminds me of Stella. Mebbe the way she stands, mebbe the way she walks, mebbe them black eyes of hers.”

“I’ll give you a couple myself if you don’t lay off!” Ottie roared, wheeling around and slapping him. “What are you doing in here when I told you to go out fast? You’re going from terrible to much more so. Beat it before I crack a couple of your ribs!”

“Possibly,” the astonished Mulligan murmured, under his breath, “she’s the dark female the fortune teller meant. I’ll look him up to-night after work and make sure. She’s got a job over in Fosdick’s factory and her name’s Winnie? I can remember that because it’s the same as the noise a horse makes. Mebbe―”

He dodged a chair Ottie tossed at him, picked up his wrench and went back to spoil the upholstery in Queensboro Moe Morowitz’s expensive vehicle.

Sheer curiosity if nothing else made me loiter around the establishment for the better part of an hour to see what might ensue when the fickle Stella and Ivan’s enemy appeared on the scene to reclaim the repaired roadster.

“She’ll see through him like glass,” Ottie said when I mentioned the subject. “Trust a skirt to pick a broken heart, grease and all. You can’t beat a woman— and I don’t mean because it’s against the law either. I’ve got a sawbuck that says Stella or Mary or whatever her name is, spies Ivan and recognizes him immediately. Picture the rest. Then Morowitz puts the best one of his feet forward and clouts the nozzle stiff. Is it a gamble with you at even money, Joe?”

I glanced out the office window and saw Mulligan’s complexion.

“I’ll take you for ten and, believe me, you’ll pay up if you lose!”

“As if I never did!” Ottie snarled indignantly.

Twenty more minutes dragged past before Looie Pitz’s new lightweight, wearing his better half on one arm, blew in from the street. One look was enough to reveal the faithless Stella as a person with a mind of her own and a frequent inclination to express it. She was modeled along the same lines as Winifred Blake, had coppery red hair, eyes as black as chips of anthracite and a look as cold as the bill of an Eskimo.

“Don’t miss a minute of this!” Ottie muttered, rubbing his hands. “Look at the pan on that wren. Imagine coming home to that after a hard day’s work with a pick and shovel. If you ever held a quarter out of your pay envelope she’d have private detectives following you to find out what moll you were running around with. Watch ’em now!”

Halfway over to the motor on which Ivan was putting a few finishing touches, the lightweight’s wife came to a sudden and complete stop.

“What do you mean by bringing me into a disgusting hole like this, Moe?” she demanded angrily. “Look at the grease and dirt and oil! Is this all the respect you have for me? This isn’t fit to bring a pig into!”

Morowitz nervously patted her arm.

“Ssh, baby! It’s all right. This ain’t no time to be talking about pork. Look at the hour we saved by walking down here. It is a little untidy but―”

“Untidy!” the girl screamed. “It’s disreputable! I can actually feel the oil oozing through the soles of my shoes! You needn’t bother to get the car for me. I’ll take one that runs on tracks over to Aunt Minnie’s house.”

“Baby, listen!” Morowitz pleaded. “Jump in and in two minutes―”

“Don’t you dare to baby me! And take your hand off me! On second thought I’m not even going to Aunt Minnie’s. This has given me a nervous headache. I’m going straight home. And you needn’t try and detain me, either, you bully!”

While Scandrel and myself stopped, stared and listened the girl wrenched her arm away, picked up her skirts and flounced out. She was hardly gone before the temperamental Ivan’s emotions overwhelmed him.

“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “This place ain’t fit for a pig and she ain’t going to Aunt Minnie’s either! Don’t you dare to baby me and you needn’t try and detain me, you bully!”

The sound of Mulligan’s hysterical laughter seemed to freeze the fuming Morowitz to the spot. For at least a round of minutes he glared speechlessly at the superstitious car wrecker before him. Then, yelling like an Indian, he surged forward.

“At whom are you laughing, at whom? Has it got to be that the conversation of a married man and wife ain’t private no longer? I told you that I was Queensboro Moe Morowitz but I guess you didn’t believe it. Now I’ll prove it!”

“You put in a call for an ambulance and I’ll get a crowbar!” Ottie bawled, throwing the telephone at me before leaping for the door.

Twenty steps carried the frothing pugilist across to Mulligan. Morowitz pulled back his right for the Ostermoor jolt but the punch never was delivered for the reason he couldn’t set himself on the grease-finished floor. He slipped and fell directly onto the quick guard that Ivan had thrown up. As misfortune would have it the lightweight brought his chin directly down on the mechanic’s fist and little more was necessary. Spinning around he did a nose dive under a twelve-hundred-dollar sedan, out completely as Ottie and I reached the scene together.

“Did you see that?” Ivan shouted, wildly excited. “I knocked the low life out!”

Like a tiger with its first kill the youth took a punch at both of us, threw his wrench at a startled taxicab owner who had come in to get his rig out for the evening plunder and chased two of his coworkers to the street. To get attention Ottie had to stiffen Mulligan. This done he fished Morowitz out from under the closed car.

“Oy— this is terrible!” the lightweight moaned, once he was on his feet again. “Er— if them newspaper fellars ever hear of this they’ll kid the silk shirt off me. I should croak in a Christian neighborhood. Er— keep this quiet, friends. By me it’s accidental and by you it’s a secret. Here— get yourself a new necktie or something.”

Stopping only to peel two bills from his bank roll and hand them to us, he jumped into the roadster, threw it into reverse and went out the garage with extreme speed.

“Well, I see I lose that bet we made,” Ottie mumbled, peeking at the gift bank note and discovering it was worth ten dollars anywhere. “But you never hear of me welshing on no wagers, Joe. Here— take your money and scratch it off. I’m the prince of good losers, if I do say so myself.”

He handed me the green smacker as Mulligan pulled himself up on the running board of a car, felt the spot on his jaw that had put him on ice and, to ease the ache, tied a handkerchief around his ankle.

“ ‘What do you mean by bringing me into a disgusting hole like this, Moe?’ ” he mumbled faintly. “ ‘This has given me a nervous headache.’ And I knocked him cold with one punch!”

“You’re even now,” I pointed out.

“Yeah—so get back and make a space for Fosdick’s perambulators,” Ottie ordered. “You’re creating a theyater out of my garage. I suppose you’ll be bringing in an orchestra next to give musical comedy. You pasted Morowitz, you got your revenge, so get back to work.”

Ivan checked off his teeth, pulled up his overalls and shook his head dumbly.

“That wasn’t no revenge,” he declared. “When I get him I’ve got to get him in public— I’ve got to show him up in front of a crowd.”

“You’re undoubtedly out of your mind!” Ottie snapped. “Instead of trying to lay this, boy you ought to save up your salary and send him a present for stealing that gal away and marrying her!”

To continue.

Mulligan, once he had dropped in to visit his favorite fortune teller and was given a liberal dose of the future, promptly began tripping over to Stephen Fosdick’s shoe-paste factory the minute he had tightened up the last nut of the day, had slid out of his greasy costume and had let one of the car washers spray him with a hose. As the Fosdick layout didn’t lay off until six bells, Ivan had ample time to make himself fascinating for the dark, dreamy eyes of Miss Winifred Blake. How, why, and in what manner he had been able to capture the girl’s attention was a complete mystery but the fact remained that Mulligan had escorted himself in right and was taking the little brunette places after business hours. Twice they passed the garage, Ivan strolling along like Romeo with an eye out for a balcony.

This budding romance vastly amused my egotistical boy friend, who had nothing but a sneer for the mechanic, another for the young lady herself and a couple more for love’s young dream as it was being tenderly unfolded.

“Picture a snapper like her bobbing for Grease-ball,” he giggled. “She must be minus upstairs the same as him.”

“It’s odd,” I murmured. “Miss Blake is decidedly attractive and in the entire history of our acquaintance I’ve never before known you to pass up an opportunity to impress your personality upon some attractive young lady.”

“Banana oil for that jazz, Joe! You’re rapidly approaching the verge of lunacy. What do I want to be bothering with a factory canary for when all I need is a shave and a clean collar to step out and take my pick of the debutantes? I’ve kept away from the orange blossoms too long now to topple for anything short of Fifth Avenue. The gal I wed is one who’s going to have plenty jack and who can support me in the style to which I’d like to be accustomed. So much for that. Where are you bound?”

“Up to the Bronx.”

“Wait until I borrow somebody’s car and I’ll chug you up. And that reminds me. I must ask Harry Water, the head washer, if anybody ever brung back that last truck we borrowed.”

As it was an hour at the gym when Queensboro Moe Morowitz pulled a bout with whatever sparring partners Looie Pitz could bribe to go in against him, we found half of the East Side present when we arrived in the more remote spaces of the Big Town.

“They’re packed in like sardines,” I said.

Ottie snickered.

“Yeah, but sardines are better off because they’re laying down. Ain’t that Looie over there? Trap him and we’ll get away from these bandits before they get to us. I just got three teeth filled with gold and I don’t want to take no unnecessary chances.”

Pitz, to prove he had more than one complete change of raiment, was turned out in a frock coat, a silk tile and another cane. We managed to entice him away from the gym ring and into my private office where Ottie began.

“The— now— coat, Looie. What kind of a coat do you call it— an overcoat?”

“It’s a frock coat,” Pitz explained with some pride.

“Yes, but is it an overcoat?” Ottie insisted. “Do you put a coat over it or under it and if so when?”

“It’s a frock coat!” the little fight manager repeated stubbornly.

“But is it an overcoat, Dummy? I ask you and you tell me the same thing over again.”

“You’ve heard of a frock?” Pitz hissed. “Well, this is a frock coat!”

“That’s different. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Scandrel mumbled. “How is that new lightweight terror of yours moving along? You claim that he’s as well known as Little Bo-peep but I don’t see that he’s got any more dates than a cross-eyed gal in a one-horse town. What’s the next scuffle on the book? Tell me lots.”

In reply Pitz produced a letter, opened it and coughed.

“Here’s a fight right here with a chance for a little gravy. I got this letter yesterday. It’s off Steve Fosdick, the wealthy millionaire who makes that stuff they ruin your shoes with on Sunday mornings. Fosdick says that he’s giving a big party and housewarming out at Sunshine Corners, his Jersey estate, at the end of the month as a surprise to his wife. They tell me she’s one of them society dames who’s sick in bed for a week every time she catches Steve with carpet slippers on or red suspenders. In this letter he tells me that he thinks an exhibition bout between Queensboro Moe Morowitz and somebody else will be a crash for the dailies and get him in right with his wife. He wants to know will I be willing to arrange a bout for him for three grand for the night.”

“Three thousand clinkers for an exhibition?” Scandrel chanted, licking his lips. “What do you mean—gravy? That’s a whole steak and not a chance of an error. I bet you sprained an ankle getting to a telegraph office to wire acceptance.”

Pitz smiled sadly.

“Not a chance. I broke this to Moe but he turned me down like an elevator. Benefits and exhibitions to him are the same thing as low tide to a bootlegger. And there ain’t a bit of use of trying to make him change his mind.”

With an exclamation of excitement Scandrel leaped to his feet, threw his cigarette in the trash basket and snapped his fingers excitedly.

“Hold everything! Here’s a bargain for you, Looie. I— er— know more about the plug-uglies than you do. I know how to broadgab with them and make them jump through hoops. If I can compel Morowitz to change his mind will you match him for the exhibition with a jobbie I’ve got down at my garage? This boy is the same weight, religion, color— when he’s washed clean— as Moe and a sweet set-up. I’ll give you a written guarantee that he’s never fought in a ring and is as harmless as a picture book for children. For one third of the graft I’ll fix you up and make Morowitz talk cents. Right?”

Pitz agreed with rapidity and five minutes later we were in the dressing room where the famous lightweight was cooling out after his afternoon’s romp.

“A little attention,” Ottie requested, transfixing him with a glittering orb. “What’s this I hear about you being unwilling to step an exhibition match down at Stephen Fosdick’s big place in New Jersey at the end of the month? Picking on your manager because he’s a little guy, are you? Come on now, tell me something!”

For a long minute Morowitz stared at Ottie and it was a cinch to see that he well remembered the slippery floor of the Night-and-Day Garage and knew that the big clown also recalled it quite vividly.

“Sure, I’m doing the exhibition bout. Er— I was only kidding Looie. Who do I spar with? I ain’t taking no chances with anybody outside my weight class.”

“What’s your boy’s name, Ottie?” Pitz asked, taking the center of the stage.

“Ivan Mulligan.”

“Ivan Mulligan!” Morowitz blinked and straightened up. “This is a fancy! I owe that bird a beating up. The little tramp went and let me steal his gal off him and marry her. Believe me, I’ll give him a ride!”

One hour and twenty minutes after that we were back in the garage again. Scandrel tore Mulligan away from the transmission on a motor, threw him into a corner and explained the proposition in detail.

“Will I fight Moe in public?” the mechanic cried. “Does a violin make music? That’s all I want to do—make a monkey out of him before a lot of people. I’ll fight him and I’ll lick him for nothing!”

“Er— that ain’t exactly necessary,” Ottie giggled. “Just to show you I got your interest at heart I’ll give you five dollars out of my own pocket whether or not you win, lose or draw. Pardon me while I call up Moe’s manager and tell him to go ahead with the necessary arrangements.”

“And pardon me,” Ivan broke in, “while I comb my hair and get ready to keep a date with Winnie. Such a girl— you ain’t got no idea. She won’t tell me where she lives at but she’s got a grand disposition. Last night she said I reminded her of a character in a book.”

“A parsnip in a cook book!” Ottie laughed. “You remind me of the same thing! ”

Fully familiar with the fact that Mulligan had no more chance with Morowitz in the ring than a lame man would have of winning a relay race, Scandrel allowed Ivan to do his training under the cars that were towed in to be overhauled. Looie Pitz dropped down several times to look his lightweight’s set-up over, was satisfied the mechanic was no more dangerous than pastry and at length the day before the house-warming party at Sunshine Corners came along with Mulligan shuffling into the office of the garage to beg for a holiday.

“You want a day off?” Scandrel echoed. “What do you do—lay awake at night thinking up these funny sayings?”

Mulligan looked at me and sighed.

“Listen, gentleman. First of all I got to stop in and see my fortune teller about the fight to-morrow night. For six dollars cash or two for ten dollars he tells me he’ll fix it so I win easy. In the afternoon I want I should show Winnie the animals in Central Park. She’s getting half a day off. Leave me go and I’ll work on the night shift after dinner.”

“That’s fair enough,” Scandrel admitted, after thinking it over. “But nothing doing on the zoo. With them ears of yours I ain’t taking no chances!”

This is what occurred.

ARRIVING at Sunshine Corners the following evening in the classiest limousine Ottie could pick out of the garage, we were met at the front door of the villa by a servant whose powdered wig, swallow-tail coat and black-silk knickerbockers overpowered Ivan with hilarity.

“You ain’t got the manners of a cow in a parlor!” Ottie snarled, cuffing him twice. “Get in order, Dizzy. Don’t you know a footman when you see one?”

“A footman?” Mulligan panted. “Well, he’d better not try to kick me!”

Displaying considerable concern over the valise that held the ring paraphernalia and the gloves he had been made a present of the previous week, Mulligan was conducted off to a subterranean billiard chamber to dress while a butler led us into a lounge room and turned us over to the self-made Stephen Fosdick, himself. The shoe-shine king turned out to be an Undersized little tomato with a weather-beaten countenance and a browbeaten manner. He put on the shoes he had taken off to rest his feet and handed us each a cigar and a nervous handshake.

“This is a little surprise party for the wife as much as a housewarming,” he explained. “I know my daughter will eat it alive because she has funny ideas about money and people putting on airs, but I’m a little worried about how the missus will take it. Florine, the wife, has got ideas of her own. If either of you are married you can understand.”

“I’m still in business for myself but I get you anyway,” Scandrel assured him. “Don’t worry a thing. As long as there’s a chance to gossip the ladies will enjoy themselves.”

“Why shouldn’t Mrs. Fosdick like it?” I inquired.

“Well, I sent out the invitations myself and I didn’t ask none of her friends,” our host explained. “The bunch up to-night are all business acquaintances of mine— the customers who buy stuff off us. I had D. S. N.—dress suits necessary— printed on every card but I forgot that a lot of the boys can’t read English. Let’s go down to the sunken garden. I’d better stay around there in case Florine sinks me.”

The full significance of what Fosdick told us became more apparent when we exchanged the villa for the outside garden. There, disporting themselves with carefree abandon, were at least ninety per cent of all the proprietors of bootblack stands in Manhattan. Really, it looked like a festival day in Naples. Not only were the Italian gardens full of shine artists, but the majority of them had brought along their wives and children and the kiddies were picking flowers, paddling in the marble fountain and having the time of their lives while six or eight of the villa’s staid serving staff circulated among them with silver trays and high complexions.

“The wife,” Fosdick explained, “ate out to-night with some of her tony friends over on Park Avenue, New York. But she’ll be in later. Ah—how does this look to you?”

Ottie patted him on the back, straightened his necktie and pulled down his vest for him.

“It’s the candy! If your wife likes children you’re in while she’s still out. Look at that little monkey over there breaking branches off that tree. What could be cuter?”

The millionaire owner of the establishment left us and a couple of minutes later Looie Pitz dropped anchor, plastered to the brow in an assortment of evening clothes which he claimed had taken his tailors three months to design and six months to stitch together.

“They’ve set up the ring in the grand ballroom,” he explained, once Ottie got through giggling. “I’ve just now examined it and Tex Rickard himself couldn’t have done a better job. I’m told the fight goes on at ten sharp so they can take the ring apart and dance on the floor afterward. Moe’s putting on his ring togs. I hope he lets your boy stay the limit so Fosdick won’t think we’re short changing him. Shall we take a walk around the grounds together?”

“And have some one see you with me and think that I’m a friend of yours?” Ottie grunted. “You got more ideas than a flapper in a jewelry store. Me and Joe are going inside to see how our hustling mechanic is getting along. I hope he don’t steal nothing and get a bad reputation.”

At ten o’clock exactly the guests were seated in the camp chairs some undertaker had supplied, a regulation referee and time-keeper were on the spot and a half dozen New York newspaper reporters wandered about, missing nothing and enjoying everything. Fosdick climbed into the ring, made a short speech in which he stated that he hoped every one would enjoy the bout and after that Scandrel with his chest out and Ivan Mulligan and seconds in tow entered and seated the mechanic in the proper corner.

As much at home as a tramp in a straw-lined freight car, Mulligan sat down and remained seated until Pitz with Queensboro Moe Morowitz and their chorus boys awoke cheers by a dramatic appearance and made the roped inclosure. As they entered it the former admirer of the perfidious Stella Brady jumped up and shook a fist wildly.

“I got you now, you lowlife, you dumber!” he shrieked, to the intense amusement and pleasure of the spectators. “You should never look your mother in the face again. She won’t recognize you after tonight!”

Morowitz promptly showed his dentistry.

“Who’s a dumber? My mother won’t recognize me but there ain’t a camera made that will take a picture of you! You’re going to try and kill me but I’m going to murder you!”

Ottie in one corner and- Pitz in the other finally managed to restore some kind of order. The gong clanged a dozen times or more, an announcer delivered the Gettysburg Address, the ring was cleared with difficulty and a few minutes later the battle was on.

Sweet Rosie O’Grady!

Like two wounded leopards, goaded beyond all restraint, Morowitz and Mulligan met and clashed directly in the center of the ring. The lightweight idol of the East Side had possibly planned his attack but the etiquette of fisticuffs against the jabbing, swinging, snarling and kicking Ivan was as valueless as a blank check. From a sparring match with a few punches tossed in for good measure the affair immediately deteriorated into something one degree lower than a water-front brawl.

In a whirlwind of disorder both went to the mat— lashing out with both fists, squirming and panting epithets. As they went down the crowd got up and the gong clanged futilely. Ottie climbed through the ropes at one corner while the dismayed and alarmed Looie Pitz did the same thing at the other end of the ring. Both, with the aid of the referee, the timekeeper and six of the Fosdick servants pried them apart and dragged each back to his respective stool.

“Foul! Foul!” Pitz protested, trying to make himself heard above the tumult.

“Sit down! You craz’ wid de heat!” a swarthy gentleman in the first row of chairs roared up at him. “For ten-a cents I steek you wid a knife!”

The bell ended some of the confusion and before the ring could be properly cleared Morowitz and Mulligan were up and at it once more. The lightweight, in an admirable endeavor to end the two-man Port Arthur, set out to knock his wife’s former suitor for an immediate goal. Morowitz missed with a left to the head, was short with a right to the body in his excitement and before he could cover up it was all over. Ivan’s right glove slapped up against his chin with incredible force. The mechanic’s left glove went straight to the plexus and Queensboro Moe Morowitz went down on his face as if he had been hit with a sledge hammer!

“I got him— the crook, the loafer!” Mulligan panted, placing a triumphant foot on the shoulders of his fallen enemy. “It cost me ten dollars down at the fortune teller’s but I got my money’s worth!”

The dazed Ottie managed to get his mouth shut while some one practiced first aid on the stricken Looie Pitz.

“What do you mean, it cost you ten dollars?” Scandrel demanded.

Mulligan grinned crookedly.

“I’m telling you. The fortune teller had a couple of good-luck horseshoes— one for six dollars— two for ten. He said if I bought them I couldn’t lose. I’ve got one in each glove here and, gentleman, I win!”

Approach that if possible.

THE NEXT development in the evening’s entertainment happened hard on the rubber heels of this remarkable denouement. The expensive draperies over the main doorway of the grand ballroom were flung back an instant later and a stout woman who wore a diamond dress and enough bracelets to take a trainload of yeggs up the Hudson, appeared, took in the scene with a stupefied gaze and opened her mouth.

“What does this mean, Stephen?”

Fosdick, trying hard to smile, stood and coughed.

“A little surprise party, my dear. Some of my old business customers dropped in and we’ve just finished a highly interesting example of the manly art. As soon as the ring is taken down we’ll dance and―”

His wife helped herself to another look.

“Customers!” she screamed, fainting on the spot.

Stephen Fosdick looked at us and shook his head.

“That was Florine,” he explained colorlessly. “Something told me she wasn’t going to be pleased. Now we’ll have to get her up to her room. Where’s my daughter?”

“Right here, dad!”

A soft, well-remembered voice from the rear wheeled us around and the next watch tick found us staring at the self-styled Miss Winifred Blake who had pushed her way down the aisle.

“Daughter?” Scandrel hollered. “Don’t let yourself be deceived, Mr. Fosdick. That gal ain’t your daughter no more than she’s mine! She’s trying to get away with something because she works in your factory over on the East River!”

The attractive brunette cast a languishing glance at Ivan Mulligan and then another at us.

“Oh, dad knows all about that,” she explained. “You see, I have ideas of my own and I’ve always wanted to be loved for myself and not for father’s money. I persuaded him to let me take a position in the new factory so I could meet a plain man of the masses and be courted as a working girl and not as an heiress. Ivan, darling, take off those funny boxing gloves, come down here and let me introduce you to your future father-in-law.”

And they lived happily ever after!

___________________

17: Murder In Red

Thrilling Detective April 1948

THE radio cruiser in which big Dave McClain, the Homicide dick rode, sirened along the twisting, rutted trail that led down to the lower level of the steep embankment rising from the shore of the Hudson and the tracks of the New York Central Railroad

Mac, chewing on his usual torpedo-shaped cigar, squinted through the brilliant morning sunshine. Down there, in a clearing, he saw the dump-truck, a little knot of people. He shifted the cheroot from one side of his face to the other and grunted.

“Ought to be a law against citizens getting harps in places like this.”

Pat Hurley, at the wheel of the police car, nodded.

“That’s the way some folks are— no consideration. Always thinking of themselves. It’s just as easy to work out a murder in an air-conditioned bar as out here in the tangle.”

As a matter of fact the twisted, rutted road was only a few minutes from upper Broadway and the Dyckman section of Manhattan. But to Mac, and Hurley, who rarely got above Columbus Circle, the district seemed as remote as Owl’s Hoad. McClain shoved his cramped, long legs further under the cowl and took a drag on his smoke.

The call was hot. Not more than twenty minutes old. A driver on one of the dump trucks used for fill on the other side of the tracks, had found the body on his way to the job. He had called Headquarters from a switch tower, half a mile up the line.

Mullin, chief of Homicide, had tossed it over to Mac. The big dick felt like a milk shake when the radio cruiser finally got off the corduroy road and rolled out on the flat floor of the clearing.

A short, stocky man in overalls and a mackinaw was on the running-board before Hurley cut the motor.

"My name’s Ackerman. I’m the party who telephoned. Over this way, officer.” He pointed.

Mac sighed and opened the door. He got one leg out at a time, shivered slightly in the cold morning air and threw the remnants of his cigar away.

“Ought to be a law,” he said under his breath.

Ackerman led the way, past his empty dump-truck, around the small group of men, all in work clothes, and up to a screen of dry-brown shrubbery.

“There!” he announced, using a thumb.

McClain took a few steps forward. Nobody could miss the body. A flash of bright red, through the scrubby underbrush, was like a beckoning beacon.

He narrowed his eyes, leaning forward.

A girl lay huddled there. A girl in a black dress with long, golden-brown hair that shimmered in the sun. A girl in a short, lipstick-red coat that gaped open, showing a leopard lining. A girl, Mac’s trained eye observed, who hadn’t been dead very long.

Expensive lizard slippers with platform soles and absurdly high heels were on her tiny feet. McClain noticed the heels were free from scratches or mud. Which meant that she hadn’t been dragged across the cleared space to the shrubbery. His more interested gaze moved to nylon-swathed, shapely legs— to the slimness of the figure in the black dress— the ring glinting on one crooked finger. He looked at that quizzically.

At least a couple of carats, maybe more. In a platinum set-off. Worth, he estimated, more than a grand. There was a diamond clip on the black dress, too. He saw that when he bent over the body, bringing his glance to focus fully on her face.

The girl was a beauty— or had been. Even in the dark valley she traversed, the radiance of her loveliness lingered. Her skin had been flawless. In death it looked like marble, an accent for the raspberry tint of her lipstick, the very light touch of artificial color on her cheeks. Her eyes were closed, but he imagined they were deep violet, possibly a purplish blue.

A blue, McClain thought, about the same shade as the ugly marks along her throat. She had been strangled to death— gripped by strong hands that had broken into the modified upper part of the trachea, probably dislocating the larynx and ravaging the small bones and muscles of the windpipe.

Nobody said anything. Mac turned to Ackerman.

“That your truck?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did a good job of rubbing out tire marks,” Mac said.

“There weren’t none. I thought of that.”

Ackerman shook his head. “It rained early this morning. Must have flattened them.”

McClain’s next look-around confirmed what Ackerman said. It had showered toward five that morning. And the red coat, when he touched it, was slightly damp.

Something else caught his attention. Off to the left, where the stunted shrubbery grew thickly, he saw a card case. A pinseal thing, with gold corners. He picked it up with a handkerchief, slipped it in his pocket and searched for a means of identification.

There were two pockets in the red coat. One held a crumpled package of cigarettes. The other a pair of doeskin gloves. Mac examined the coat. It wouldn’t be hard tracing the girl down—if he could find the label.

Coats of that type were expensive. There weren’t too many around. The label was that of Jaeger, a Fifth Avenue shop, small but exclusive.

Hurley wandered over and joined him.

“Get anything, Mac?”

“Cardcase.” McClain shrugged. “Better buzz the captain and get the boys up. I’d like to hit this while it’s oven-fresh.”

He asked Ackerman a few routine questions, gave the area around the girl’s body a more thorough examination, found nothing further and, back in his seat in the comparative warmth of the police car, took out the handkerchief-wrapped card-case.

He riffled its twin compartments, lighting a fresh cigar to help him think. There were a few cards in it, a couple of tickets for Friday night’s performance at the Ballet Theater and an I.O.U. for six hundred dollars, initialed L.T.W.

Identification, as Mac suspected, wasn’t too difficult. Jaeger, himself, a gray haired little man with an accent and gestures, listened and cooperated.

“Red coat. Leopard lining. What kind of buttons?”

“Leopard covered.”

“I’ll have it in five minutes.”

Jaeger went upstairs to his balcony office. Mac spread himself out on a brocaded lounge and looked at the dress models on plastic forms. None of them, he thought, were as attractively streamlined as the huddled figure in the shrubbery above the railroad tracks.

“We sold that coat to Miss Linda Mitchell,” Jaeger announced, when the five minutes were up. “On the twelfth of last month. I remember it perfectly. She came in with a tall, blond-haired young man. He paid for it."

Jaeger handed over a scribbled name. On it was an address and telephone number. McClain thanked him and went out.

His next stop was a half dozen blocks east of the avenue and north. His felt hat pulled down over his thinning hair, Mac shoved up the brim when he walked into the lobby of the Maragate Apartments.

The lobby was done in stained oak, with leaded windows and slab-glass lamps. A thick Oriental rug was chained to the tiled floor. A hallman in livery argued with a delivery boy who had tried to come in the front way. Mac steered a course toward a small telephone switchboard around the bulge of an enclosed elevator shaft.

A fat girl with dark hair and glasses was listening in on some conversation. She seemed annoyed at McClain’s presence, put down the key she had half lifted and took off headphones.

“You wouldn’t know if Mr. Hardeen’s upstairs in his apartment?”

“Sure he’s upstairs,” the girl said. “He never goes out until after one o’clock. Who will I say is calling?”

“McClain, Headquarters.”

The eyes behind the lenses of her glasses widened. It took her a minute to make sure he wasn’t gagging. She put a plug in one of the round holes of the board, pressed a button and repeated what McClain had said.

An elevator shot him up to the eleventh floor. Mac heard a door opening down the corridor. A tall, blond young man in a dark green gown and patent leather slippers was waiting for him when Mac reached the door.

McClain displayed his badge briefly. The young man opened the door wider and Mac went into a small lounge room. It was nicely done in tobacco-brown and harvest yellow. A comfortable room with a wall of books. With windows that gave a view of the park beyond.

“You’ll excuse my appearance.” Hardeen waved his visitor into a chair. “I don’t usually entertain the Police Department so early.”

“This yours?”

Mac took out the card case, still in the handkerchief. Hardeen stared down at it.

“Yes, that’s mine. Where did you get it?”

“Found it up the line. In some shrubbery— a few feet away from a body.”

“A body?” Hardeen’s head jerked up. Gray eyes peered questioningly at the big dick. “I don’t understand.”

“Me, neither. That’s why I stopped in.” Mac’s tone was quietly friendly. “Why don’t you ask me whose body it was?”

"All right, I will. Whose?”

“A girl named Linda Mitchell. Mean anything to you?”

Hardeen laughed.

“What is this— some kind of a practical joke?”

McClain shook his head.

“Maybe in your set strangling somebody to death comes under that general heading. I wouldn’t know. But I’m going to find out when you saw her last and—”

He broke off. Hardeen’s expression had changed. What Mac said had finally hit him. And with devastating effect.

He dropped down on a leather sofa, his mouth twisting and his eyes suddenly full of a strange emptiness. Mac saw his hands tighten on the sash of the green robe. Tighten and grow white at the knuckles.

“Linda— dead!” Hardeen said huskily.

“When did you see her last?”

Hardeen didn’t answer for a long, tense minute. He was breathing harder, deeper, through his mouth. Mac waited until he got a grip on himself. If it were an act it was pretty good. Emotionally convincing.

“I had dinner with her last night. We finished about nine o’clock. Linda left to stop and see a friend of hers. I put her in a cab outside of Whitman’s.”

“What friend?”

“A Dorothy Kelsey. She was Linda’s best friend. They’d known each other for years.”

Mac went on with his questions. He switched around so he could get the girl’s background. He wanted all the information on Linda Mitchell he could dig. And this Christopher Hardeen was able to supply it.

The facts began to come through.

LINDA MITCHELL belonged to that strata of society whose day began at twilight and ended with the dawn. Whose world was the entertainment sphere of night club, drawing room, theater, pent-house and all the other places where what McClain called “cafe society” met and congregated.

She had, the previous year, been a Paul Dumas model. She and her friend Dorothey Kelsey. But Linda Mitchell had given it up. For months she had had no employment of any kind. And she had lived, Hardeen said, in an apartment off Lexington Avenue in the Fifties.

Mac got all that down and swung around to his ace in the hole again.

“Thanks. That’s pretty complete. Now tell me about your card case.”

“I lost it a week ago.”

“Where?”

Hardeen hesitated.

“I’m not quite certain. It could have been at any of three places. At the Belgrave on Park where I had dinner that night. In the cab I took over to Sidney Wilner’s place. Or at Jack Leighton’s house where I went for a nightcap.”

“Wilner?” Mac frowned. “The initials on the I.O.U. are L.T.W. Who’s that?”

Hardeen seemed to sink into himself.

“Do you have to know?” He took a deeper breath. “I lent Leslie some money— to make up some card losses she had. She’s Sid’s wife.”

McClain looked at his old fashioned, hunting-cased watch.

“Were you in love with the Mitchell girl?”

“I was awfully fond of her,” Hardeen said, his mouth twisting again, his hands tightening.

“Okay.” Mac got up. “I guess that’s about all for me. Get dressed and we’ll go down to Centre Street. You can talk to Captain Mullin. He’s a great little listener.”

“But—” Hardeen began to shake.

“You see,” McClain told him, “right now— at this minute— you’re Suspect Number One in the Mitchell gal’s murder. Maybe Mullin will stop with you. Figure you used the hand clasp on her throat and tossed her into the shrubbery up there. Maybe he won’t take any stock in the notion that somebody swiped, or found your cardcase, and used it as a tie-in— to pin it on you. Either way, straight talk, on the level, is your best bet. C’mon, reach for your threads and let’s get out of here.”

IT WAS NEARLY two o’clock when Mac, in another apartment building similar to the Maragate, got off at the fifth floor. This time there was no open door, no one waiting. Only a small brunette with tear-red eyes who came to answer his steady ring.

The suite, like Hardeen’s, had been lavishly interior-decorated. Laid on, Mac saw, with a colorful shovel. Bizarre grays and greens— too much of a rainbow effect. He told himself he never did like white carpets and black glass.

He turned his attention to the Kelsey girl, Linda Mitchell’s best friend. He liked the way she wore her dark hair, in a single linked braid over her small, well-shaped head. Her brows were thin as pencil lines, her eyes dusky pools with the longest lashes he’d ever seen. They didn’t look real, but they were real because they stayed on despite the tears wetting them.

She was about five feet five, more or less, a perfect advertisement for any bra outfit, with slender hips and the same kind of symmetrical, nyloned legs the dead Mitchell girl had. Even in skirt and high-necked white blouse, Dorothy Kelsey’s charms were obvious.

McClain tried to put her at ease. Hardeen’s shock might have been faked, but the grief this frail was displaying was as genuine as a sock on the jaw. She had gotten the news over the radio— had been slapped in the face by a newscaster on a noon program.

“I won’t harry you too much,” Mac began. “Naturally you want us to find the party who thumbed and fingered your pal. And because you do you’re going to answer a few questions that’ll make the finding easier— I hope.” He smiled reassuringly. “Right?”

She nodded, dabbed at her tip-tilted nose with a damp, crushed square of linen.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know— anything!”

“Lead off with last night. What time did Miss Mitchell get here, how long did she stay, what did she have to say, where did she go when she left, who went with her or who was she meeting? That ought to do for a starter. Take it easy and if you remember anything else you think is important drop it in as you go along.”

But her story was disappointing.

As Hardeen had said, Linda had mentioned dining with him at Whitman’s. She hadn’t stayed long at Dorothy Kelsey’s apartment— only long enough to get back an article of apparel she had left there the previous Sunday night. She hadn’t mentioned where she was going when she left. The Kelsey girl had thought she was going home.

“What time did she leave?” Mac inquired.

“Couldn’t have been later than a quarter to ten.”

“Tell me about this Chris Hardeen.”

“We’ve known him for about a year. He’s been awfully nice. Linda liked him. So did I. I’m sure he didn’t— couldn’t—”

“Who else liked her?” McClain asked it casually, but his gaze was bright and anticipative.

“Nearly everybody. She didn’t have an enemy in the world. Not one. Though—”

Dorothy Kelsey stopped as if suddenly remembering something. Mac waited but it didn’t come. A trifle brusquely, he said:

“Though— what? C’mon. Miss Kelsey,” he prodded, when still she didn’t answer. “Give out. You said you were going to help. Somebody didn’t like Linda Mitchell. Who was it?”

She looked directly at him.

“Leslie Wilner,” she said. “She was jealous of Linda.”

“On account of her husband?” McClain’s tone staved casual.

The girl nodded and Mac got up. He asked a couple more questions, got a couple of addresses and ambled downtown to Centre Street.

Because the murder of Linda Mitchell had all the angles a morbid-minded public liked— with a dash of sensationalism stirred in to make it spicy— the press had its best men on the story. Mac shook his head as he pushed through the writing brigade, avid for any scraps of information, and flatfooted into Mullin’s office.

Sucking on an unlighted stogie, he draped himself in a chair opposite his chiefs desk and waited.

“Here’s the M.E.’s report.” Mullin shoved a typewritten paper across. “Bagley said she was killed around eleven o’clock, maybe a half hour either way. We tried to get a moulage of a clear tire. No good. Wheeler went through the dame’s apartment. Nothing there either. How about you?”

“Got a couple of leads.”

McClain removed the cigar and looked at it fondly. It was a straight ten-cent smoke. He had intended to hold it for an after dinner puff, but the temptation to get it smoldering was overpowering.

There was a light on against the fast deepening twilight. It stood beside a low, cushion-filled, pickled-pine chair with a foot rest. Deep in it, a highball glass convenient to his reach, a man looked up from his evening newspaper as McClain went through the doorway.

“Mr. Leighton?”

The paper went down.

“That’s right. You’re from Headquarters. What do you want to see me about?”

“A card case, principally.”

Leighton pulled himself further up in the chair, but didn’t get out of it. He was a big man, nearly as tall as Mac, with a square face from which the summer’s tan hadn’t faded. Or maybe he used a lamp to keep it that way.

He was about twenty-six or so. His gray flannel suit was perfectly tailored. He wore woolen socks, garterless, and custom-built shoes. His shirt was soft and white with a long pointed collar over an expensive foulard tie. Wavy hair was brushed back, cut short at the rear and over the ears. There was just a touch of gray at the temples.

One of those young men, powdered prematurely with hair he shouldn’t have until he was in the forties. He didn’t ask Mac to sit down or have a drink. He sat looking at him quizzically.

“Card-case?”

“Chris Hardeen said he lost his here a week ago. What do you know about it— if anything?”

“He told you that?” Leighton laughed. “He’s lying. He never lost anything here except money at cards.” Leighton’s quizzical gaze wandered over his visitor. “You’re working on Linda’s murder?”

“That’s right. What do you know about it?”

“Not too much.”

“When did you see her last?”

“When? About seven o’clock last night. She was at Tony’s for a quickie. She told me she had a dinner date with Hardeen at Whitman’s. I sat at the bar with her for about thirty minutes. I remember she looked lovelier than usual. Black and red. Like a roulette wheel and just as fascinating. She always did things to my imagination. Wonderful girl.”

For a long minute Dave McClain didn’t say anything. He let his eyes wander to the pinpoint lights of the city, the golden threads of the avenues and streets so far below. Then he brought them back to the man in the pickled-pine chair. The man with the young face and the aging hair.

“Who do you think strangled Miss Mitchell?”

Leighton shrugged.

“That’s your department, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. But I like outside opinions. I seem to think Hardeen’s to-day’s one best bet. You know something about the bunch he chases around with. Wilner and the others.”

“I should.” Leighton smiled. “They’re friends of mine.”

“Boozin’ friends. I mark it this way.” Mac held up a finger. “Chris Hardeen was in love with Linda Mitchell. So was Sid Wilner. Wilner’s wife, smart gal, watched it flame. Now, either Leslie Wilner hired somebody to put a pair of thumbs against Miss Mitchell’s windpipe or— Hardeen, jealous because of Wilner’s interest in his heart, did it himself. What’s your honest idea?”

Again Leighton shrugged.

“Why didn’t Sid do it?”

“Because,” Mac answered, “both the Wilners have alibis. I haven’t checked them, but I believe they’ll stand up. Hardeen hasn’t any.”

“Then why don’t you arrest Chris and wrap it up?” Leighton sampled his highball.

His tone and attitude were slightly bored. As if he didn’t understand why he was being quizzed when his caller had a definite idea of the crime’s solution.

“Because,” McClain said slowly, “Chris Hardeen didn’t do the job.”

Leighton put his glass down and turned all the way around in his chair.

“No?”

“No,” Mac said quietly, “You did!”

Leighton got up slowly. He was laughing under his breath. Laughing as he might at a child who had asked some foolish question. Or at a mildly funny gag. He put his hands in his pocket and the amusement blotted out of his face.

“What do you mean by making a crack like that?” he demanded.

“Don’t soldier up on me,” McClain said. “I’m weaving it together. You wanted Linda Mitchell, too. You had a beautiful out— with Hardeen torrid and both Wilners logical contenders. Sid for his drool and his wife for her hate. Natural as a two and a five on the first cast. Sure. You wanted her and you couldn’t get her— because it was the Hardeen lad she went for. You couldn’t bump him— that wouldn’t make her feel any more affectionate toward you. So you pulled the one out of the hat— if the Mitchell dame didn’t take you she wasn’t getting anybody.”

“Dreamer.” Leighton laughed harshly. “Where’s your proof?”

“You’ve got a car?”

Mac made it sound like a statement rather than the question it was.

“So have eight million other people.”

“The difference being,” McClain told him in the same slow, studied tone, “I’ve gone over yours with a fine comb. You thought you cleaned it up pretty well but you forgot some of Linda’s face powder on the front seat— sifted down under the cushion. And the tire moulage we took up by the shrubbery where you tossed her early this morning. A perfect fit, tread cuts and all. Proof? You’d better get your hat and—”

Leighton hit him then. His left curved out like a flash of light. Mac forgot to duck and the blow sent him careening back into the potted plants. It was a choppy sock, with a world of power behind it. It rattled his fillings, sprayed along his nerves like a numbing anesthetic. He tried to reach for his gun, cursing his own stupidity, but the man in the gray suit was cashing in on his advantage.

Leighton grabbed him by the throat. Powerful, steel-like hands with thumbs that dug into Mac’s windpipe— as they had into Linda Mitchell’s soft, white neck— shut off his breath. Leighton hauled him out of the plants and forced him across to the railing at the edge of the terrace.

Above him, Mac saw wheeling stars The rail was bronze piping, ornamental but none too secure. And the street was very far below.

Leighton jammed a knee in his stomach and forced him back over the railing. It suddenly dawned on McClain that he was practically dead. Defunct, crushed and mangled, with a perfect out for his killer. Mullin would rake Jake Leighton over, but there wasn’t anybody to say he had deliberately tossed the Homicide man off his balcony. And Mullin would never know what he knew about Leighton— how in one tense, revealing instant Leighton had given himself away.

There was no evidence against Leighton. Nothing to stand him up before a jury. Nothing to put him on high voltage. Nothing to make front page headlines. Leighton, if he killed him, was as free as air.

All Leighton had to say was that it was a deplorable accident. That Mac was leaving when he had a dizzy spell and fallen— before Leighton could get to him or prevent it.

Those thoughts went through the big dick’s mind while he grappled with the killer. Mac was husky. He had brawled his way through hundreds of knockdown, bare knuckle affairs. But he wasn’t twenty-six or seven. He didn’t have his old power, his old steam. He was overmatched and still groggy from the effect of the clout on the jaw.

Dimly, he felt the railing begin to give. One foot went up off the stone flooring. He tried to get it down, to plant it solidly, but the terrible pressure around his larynx was closing like a vise. Black specks that weren’t part of the night’s darkness swirled before his distended eyes. He knew he didn’t have a chance. His number was up and he was going down—and out!

He tried to remember a prayer. It was necessary to say a prayer when you were making a final exit and knew about it. If you didn’t, St. Peter would slam the heavenly gates in your pan. You wouldn’t have a chance to get inside!

Mac began to gurgle. He’d stopped breathing. The irony of it was, that his own police gun, in its holster, was pressed so hard against him it was cracking a rib. A fine thing for a copper— armed and nonchalant and then cut down by an amateur killer who practised on dames!

Suddenly all the lights in the world went out....

MAC felt the fiery whip of alcohol in his mouth. It trickled down his throat, stinging all the way. It trickled off his chin. It had a bite and a lash and the magic of making him jerk his eyes open abruptly and all at once.

He wasn’t dead. He was in the depths of the pickled-pine chair. The same chair where Leighton had lounged. And Leighton, his slowly clearing eyes showed him, was ungracefully stretched out on the stone flagging, bleeding from a head wound.

McClain stared. He guessed it did pay to live right. He moved his eyes to the doors, feeling his throat to see if it were still with him.

“Thanks, son,” he said. “It sure was a long way to the street and I do like elevators to take me down.”

The Filipino boy showed white teeth in a wide grin.

“Once he got drunk and grabbed me by the throat. I came in the other room. I see him with you and I picked up—”

It was still a perfectly good Bacardi bottle. But there was a lot of blood on the dimpled-in base of it— wet and sticky.

“I hope you didn’t kill him,” Mac said. “I wouldn’t want to miss out hearing this luggie get booked for the Death House!”

But Leighton came around after a brisk young ambulance doctor did come crocheting on his scalp. McClain had a big drink and then another and rode down to Centre Street with Mullin.

“SO YOU thought you’d play it smart,” his chief grunted. “Sit in my office and act dumbed up when all the time you had Leighton ripe for the squeeze.”

“Wrong.” Mac struck a match for the cigar the Captain gifted him with. His hand was steady again. He filled his mouth with mediocre Key West tobacco smoke. A cheap weed but it had an Olympian taste to Mac. “Wrong, skipper.”

“I’m listening,” Mullin said.

“It was like I told Leighton. You heard what he said when you locked the cuffs on him. No Mitchell gal for Hardeen— and he did plant the lost card case near the body. I told him a phony story about investigating his car and that cracked him wide open— and nearly put flowers at my head and feet.”

“Sure, sure,” Mullin grunted again. “But how did you pin it on him? What was the giveaway?”

“When he said she looked like a roulette wheel. Black and red. Murder in red!” McClain murmured. “In a red coat with a leopard lining. That was all I needed after Leighton said the last time he’d seen Miss Mitchell was at seven o’clock last night.”

They were nearly down to Headquarters. Mac was burning the cigar in large clouds of smoke. Mullin wound down a window, did some coughing and shook his head.

“I still don’t get it. You say Leighton saw her at seven o’clock last night in a black dress and a red coat. So what?”

McClain eased his big frame back against the upholstery and shoved out his long legs.

“Nothing,” he said, “except that when Hardeen put her in a cab the Mitchell rib went up to her girl friend’s flat to get a piece of clothing she had left there the previous Sunday night— a red coat with a leopard lining. She didn’t put it on until a quarter to ten when she left Dorothy Kelsey’s place. So naturally Leighton hadn’t seen her at seven in black and red— then. Looks like the roulette wheel dropped the marble in the wrong slot— for him!”

__________________

18: A Thousand Berries a Week

Top Notch, 15 July 1922

1: A Pet Ambition

BASEBALL is a great national game. So is love. Baseball is played by both sexes. So is love. What goes to-day for both, to-morrow is “out.” Both are games hard to dope. In either you never know what’s going to happen from one minute to the next.

Rosie was the wife’s younger sister. She came all the way to Trenton from Centropolis, Ohio. She was about seventeen or so, and what is known to the trade as a “fast worker.” Rosie’s ambition in life was to dress like a vamp and keep a half a dozen chaps on the string at the same time. She liked ice-cream sodas, nut sundaes, and base-ball. She usually got up in the morning in time for lunch. This wasn’t so bad considering she had been strolling around with some handsome steam fitter until the moon went out.

Grace, the wife, thought the world and all of Rosie. Grace’s pet ambition was to marry Rosie to some wealthy young man. Lots of people have peculiar ambitions.

Personally, I liked Rosie with all her faults. She called me Uncle Ed and had a habit of dropping in to see me at my sporting-goods store— whenever she needed money. She usually stopped in once a day. But as I say, I liked her.

And I felt sorry for her when the Trenton Tigers, Joe Bain’s hard-hitting, baseball nine, returned from their mid-August tour of the Jersey wilds and brought along Jerry Duke, alias the, “Million Dollar Money Hound.”

Jerry was the multiplication kid of the western hemisphere.

2:  An Unusual Sight

IT was a little past one o’clock on a hot Saturday, and business at my sporting-goods pavilion was booming. Two children came in and bought a ten-cent baseball. Then they asked for a pass for the afternoon’s game between the Tigers and the Ridgewood Raiders. They had hardly gone when Joe Bain, the manager of the local team, drove up in his demon flivver, jumped out, and came in.

“Have you seen anything of Rosie, Ed?” Bain asked.

“Now that you mention it,” I answered; “I do remember seeing her at dinner last night.”

Bain, who liked my young sister-in- law about the same as a pawnbroker likes interest, fanned himself with a near-Panama hat and looked around the store as if he thought I had hidden Rosie away on a shelf. “I want to take her down to the game this afternoon,” he explained. “It’s going to be a sizzler. The Ridgewood bunch are playing great ball. And I guess you know the pace the Tigers have been going along at for the past month.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about it," I said. “They’re copping two games out of every seven.”

Bain overlooked my remark. He kept fanning himself with his hat and began to look under the counters as if my wife’s sister was concealing herself there. “I want Rosie to see Jerry in action,” he continued. “I want to treat her to an unusual sight.”

“Then let her see you spend a dollar all at once,” I said. “Who may Jerry be?”

Bain looked hard at me. “Did you ever hear anything about the Jamestown flood or the Spanish-American War, Ed? ‘Who may Jerry be?’ You’re supposed to be a baseball fan and yet you ask a question like that. I’m ashamed of you.”

“You needn’t be. Grace is a fan, but up until last month she thought Babe Ruth was a chorus girl. I do recall a Jerry who used to pal around with Tom in the old days before prohibition. What is he doing now for a living?”

Bain snickered. “Jerry is a pitcher. He’s a discovery of mine. I picked him up, two weeks ago when we were in Sawtel. Out there they call him the Million Dollar Money Hound. He has an income of a thousand berries a week. Not so bad, eh?”

“Not at all. I suppose he blows the thousand on candy and cigars and so has to play ball for a living,” I remarked.

“Jerry Duke,” Bain said imperturbably, “plays ball to keep his mind occupied, and because he’s one of these baseball fiends who is unhappy unless he’s in action. He can’t bear idleness, money or no money. He was born with a twirler’s glove on his left hand and all he thinks about is the game. He’s a pitching marvel.

“I gave him the toughest kind of a try-out,” Bain continued, “and he came through smiling, with the varnish uncracked. I’ve got him now under a three-year contract. The minute a big-league scout sees him I’m a made man. All I have to do then is to get measured up for a diamond-studded limousine, a winter palace at Palm Beach, and a hundred and seventy-nine suits of clothes. Awful, eh?”

“Frightful. Do I understand that you’re going to uncork this pitching member of the industrious rich this afternoon, Joe?”

Bain nodded. “I’m going to send him in against the Raiders and let him work the whole nine stanzas. Duke is one of those iron wonders that thrive on plenty of hard work. If you want to treat your eyes to a good time be at the park at three.”

Bain began telling me a lot more about the sensation of Sawtel, but fortunately he was interrupted by the appearance of Rosie and my wife.

Rosie was advertising white silk, rouge, and peroxide. She resembled a Follies girl who had missed the train after the troupe had played Trenton. She carried a black-and-white parasol of the same design as a prisoner’s suit. Her lips were so red that they seemed on fire. She had a glow in her eyes that drove men to the river. She was awful easy to look at, and terribly hard to forget.

“Ed,” the wife said, “we just dropped in to find out if you’re going to close the store at two o’clock.”

“If you know of any one who wants to buy anything, I’ll keep open all afternoon,” I replied.

“Don’t be funny,” Grace snapped. “We’re going out to the game later. We want to know if you’re coming along, too. We’d love to have you.”

“Sure, to buy the tickets,” I said.

This was Bain’s cue to step forward. “Come with me,” he chirped, “and sit in a box.”

“Why, that’s sweet of you, Joe,” Rosie said. “We accept gladly.”

“And don’t fail to see the Million Dollar Money Hound,” I put in.

The wife sniffed. “No dog is worth a sum like that!” she said. “What is it, a Pekingese?”

By the time I had finished laughing, Joe Bain was almost as red as Rosie’s lips. He went into particulars and Grace apologized for her faux pas.

“Jerry is a nice name. Is he cute?” Rosie asked.

Bain shrugged. “He’s got good pitching sense and a great arm,” he answered. “That’s all that is necessary.”

After some more chatter all three left. Ten minutes later I began to close up the store. Just as I was locking the front door the two kids who had bought the baseball came up and asked me to refund their ten cents. Owing to the excessive heat they had decided to invest in ice-cream cones.

3: “Like French Pastry.”

THE hottest place in Trenton was down at the ball park, and I discovered this fact about five minutes after I was in the box with my wife and her sister. A tissue-paper suit felt like a fur coat. Rosie watched the Tigers warm up and I watched the rouge on her cheeks melt. Grace used a fan.

“Aren’t you overheated, deary?” she asked Rosie.

My sister-in-law shook her head. “Not particularly so. Why?”

“Your complexion is leaving you,” I said.

Rosie gave me a glance that brought the thermometer down about twenty degrees. “Do you think my color is artificial?” she asked frostily.

“No, I don’t think it,” I answered.

Grace read between the lines and rushed to the defense of her sister. Blows were prevented by the appearance of Joe Bain. He had the richest young man in Sawtel in tow and proceeded at once to introduce us all to him.

“Jerry,” Bain said, “these are the finest people in town. Ed, here, owns that big sporting-goods store you saw when you came up from the station last night.”

“Twenty per cent off to professionals,” I said, handing Duke a card and a catalogue.

Sawtel’s Million Dollar Money Hound didn’t look any different from other young men of his age. He appeared to have a couple of eyes, a nose; mouth, arms, legs, and hair on his head. He was tall and rather thin. He seemed to be a little nervous. This nervousness increased whenever he looked at Rosie, which was all the time. Just before he left our box to go to the Tiger dugout he stepped on his own foot and apologized to Bain.

“Well, what do you think of the Duke?” I asked my wife and sister-in-law when we were alone again.

“Not a whole lot,” Rosie said indifferently.

“A very ordinary person,” Grace murmured.

“Bain tells me that Duke has an income of one thousand dollars a week,” I remarked.

“Of course,” Rosie said quickly, “you can’t expect me to form an opinion of him when I don’t know him. He isn’t as handsome as Wallace Fairbanks; still he’s very attractive. Did you happen to notice how tanned he was?”

“Yes, I did,” Grace said. “I guess I was a little hasty in saying what I did. Now that I think it over I can see he is a very charming young man and very good looking. Ed, I want you to speak to Joe Bain and see if you can’t induce Mr. Duke to have dinner with us to-night. Understand, I’m not overanxious to have him meet Rosie, but since he is a stranger in town ”

“Say not another word,” I interrupted. “I get the point. You feel sorry for him and you love to cook for company and wash extra dishes. You’ve always been crazy about entertaining people on hot summer nights. I’ll speak to Bain a little later. Perhaps the rest of the team would like to come, too.”

“Mr. Duke will be enough,” the wife answered frigidly.

After a while the game began. Harry Hurley, Trenton’s best catcher, handled Duke’s delivery. The Sawtel Dollar King was everything Bain had claimed he was with a little more added to it. The Ridgewood Raiders boasted an aggregation of the heaviest hitters in the league. And Duke was working with a strange team on a strange lot. That didn’t mean anything to him, however. He pitched perfect ball and nothing in the least perturbed him.

He had a peculiar, snappy way of shooting the pill over the platter. He wound up similar to a crab being pulled out of a net. He had wonderful control, speed, and a lot of stuff on the ball. For four straight innings he held the Raiders to a few stray hits and didn’t let a man get beyond first. He handed them an assortment of fast-breaking curves and some smoky, straight ones that had the Ridgewood crowd calling for the cops.

In the sixth inning Duke got just a little wild. The first two Raiders walked. The visiting fans thought they had his nanny and began to ride him. Their kidding seemed to steady Duke. He settled down and blanked the next three up with hardly an effort, leaving the two he had passed anchored on the first and second sacks.

At the end of the eighth he clouted out a clean homer that cleared, the bases for a quartet of runs. The game concluded with him on the mound, dealing the same variety of air-tight ball that made the local fans shout themselves hoarse.

“A perfectly marvelous pitcher!” Rosie cried when the game was over. “Wonderful!”

“Go and speak to Joe Bain,” the wife ordered.

I did so and the result was that when seven o’clock came and we were sitting down to dinner in the dining room of the bungalow, Jerry Duke was across the table from Rosie.

He might have been a gusher on the diamond, but at a dining-room table he was little better than an oil can. From the minute that Duke began at the soup, his conversation concerned nothing but the town of Sawtel, New Jersey. He rattled along like a worn-out flivver. He gave us the population of the burg at the last census. He told us what the assets and liabilities were of the Sawtel National Bank, how much it had cost to sewer the town, and how many shingles there were on the roof of the Methodist Church. By the time dessert was served I was trying to decide whether to hurl one plate at him or two.

I figured on a pleasant evening with more information concerning Sawtel. When dinner was over we went out on the porch. The minute we hit it Rosie made me forget and forgive a lot of her past errors.

“Are you fond of walking, Mr. Duke?” she asked.

The pitcher shot a hungry look at our porch swing. “Not when I’m tired,” he said. “It’s sort of a warm evening. Suppose we all sit down together. I know that you’re interested in. hearing how Sawtel has grown in the last two years.”

“Naturally,” the wife murmured in her best company voice.

“We’re crazy to hear all about it,” I said, longing for a rock.

“Some other night,” Rosie cut in. “I haven’t had a nice walk in the last three days and how am I going to keep my figure if I don’t exercise? Please, Mr. Duke, you’re surely not too tired ”

The Million Dollar Money Hound cast another lingering look at the porch swing, heaved a sigh, and followed Rosie down the porch steps.

A minute later we heard the front gate shut.

“Heaven,” I said, “will forgive Rosie’s lie about not having had a walk in three, days, I’m sure.”

Grace folded her hands in her lap. “A thousand dollars a week is an awful lot of money,” she said.

“There’s a few things that money doesn’t cover,” I snarled. “Sawtel, New Jersey, is one of them!”

Grace looked across the lawn.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they liked each other, Ed? There’s no good reason why they shouldn’t, either. You probably didn’t notice, but Rosie is looking her best to-night. She’s a beautiful girl. I suppose if they marry she’ll have to live in Sawtel.”

“This is the first time I ever felt really sorry for her,” I said.

I don’t know what time it was when Duke brought my sister-in-law back to the bungalow. At one o’clock Grace left me to wait up. It seemed like a month later when the front gate shut and I heard Rosie humming.

“What do you think of him?” I asked sleepily, after I had locked the windows on the front door, and taken the sidewalk in.

“He’s like French pastry,” she answered.

“How do you mean?” I asked. “Indigestible ?”

“No; delicious!” she said with no large amount of enthusiasm.

4: The Dark Secret.

FOR a week nothing much happened. The Tigers played four games. Two were in Trenton, one was at Mill River, and the other at Asbury Park. Duke pitched all four of them. In consequence the Tigers made a clean sweep. With Bain working the Sawtel wonder every day the Tigers had climbed up to second place in the league’s standing. They were three games behind the Newark White Sox.

Jerry Duke was the idol of the town. To prove how much Trenton thought of him they let him rave about Sawtel to his heart’s content. That seemed to me to be not only the proof of popularity but the greatest test courage could be put to.

About two weeks after the game with the Ridgewood Raiders I got back to the bungalow one evening and found the wife slightly agitated.

“Ed,” she cried, “guess what’s happened?”

“Rosie’s given up rouge,” I ventured. “Or Duke has quit talking about Sawtel.”

“They’re engaged! They’re engaged to be married!” Grace said excitedly. “But keep this tight under you hat. Don’t go running around town telling every one you know. As yet it’s a secret ; only a few people know it. Well, can’t you say something?”

“Sure,” I replied; “but if I did the board of censors would slap a fine on me.

“A thousand dollars a week! Think of it !” the wife said.

“Money don’t cover everything,” I said -Soberly. “Poor Rosie— shipped to Sawtel and linked to a phonograph with only one record in its cabinet.”

I didn’t say anything to my young sister-in-law that gave her the idea that I knew what had happened. And she kept her engagement to Duke very quiet. It was still a dark secret. Three days later only ninety people in the town knew about it. But they weren’t the talking kind.

Rosie bore up nobly under the strain. More than once I saw a wild look in her eyes when anybody mentioned a word that began with s-a-w and ended in t-e-l. As Grace said, one thousand berries a week was so much and a girl would endure a lot to marry a man who received that amount each and every week.

Grace and I were on the porch a few nights after the engagement. We had been there about a half hour when Joe Bain showed up.

“I suppose,” he said, “Rosie is out with Jerry?”

“You’re a good supposer. Do you care?” I asked curiously.

“Well,” Bain said, “he’s an awfully good pitcher— the best Trenton ever had.”

“A really charming young man,” Grace murmured.

“Did he ever tell you about the thriving town of Sawtel ?” I asked Bain.

The manager of the Tigers sat up as quickly as if I had shot him. “Tell me about it? That’s the only thing he knows! I have got so that if anybody mentions that burg in my presence homicidal tendencies seize me. If he wasn’t such a star in the box he’d have a pair of wings on his back and be playing a flute in an angel orchestra. What chance is there of seeing Rosie after Jerry brings her back here?”

“Hardly any,” I told him.

“They keep very late hours,” Grace said.

“Early hours,” I corrected.

Bain looked at his watch. “Well, I’m only a manager and not a pitcher and so I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep. When you see Rosie give her my regard's. You don’t suppose there’s anything serious between Duke and her, do you?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” the wife said.

“Where do you get such strange ideas?” I inquired.

Bain looked at the moon that had defied prohibition by getting full.

“He’s just the kind of a chap to appeal to a young girl. I guess he spends money like water. Don’t you think so, Ed ?”

“I can’t say,” I answered. “I never spent any water.”

Bain wandered toward the steps.

“Well, good night. I suppose you’ll be out to-morrow afternoon to watch the Tigers knock the White Sox kicking?”

“We’ll be there,” Grace promised.

“If,” I said, amending her statement, “you pass us into a box free of charge.”

Bain said he would and the next afternoon did. As the game promised to be one of the best of the season Trenton had turned out in gala array. The White Sox had brought their own delegation of rooters from Newark. The stands and bleachers had the fans sitting on each other’s shoulders. We piped Rosie, wearing a new straw hat, at the right of the grand stand back of the safety net.

“To look at her,” Grace cooed, when we caught her attention and waved, “I ask you, would any one admit that she came from Ohio?”

“No one from Centropolis, anyway,” I said.

The wife handed me a look that had icicles hanging on it. “You’re as humorous as a starving man with ten small children!” she snapped.

5: Lull In The Storm.

THE game began a few minutes later.

I guess it was the first time the Newark White Sox had ever been treated so unkindly. Duke won the distinction of being the first pitcher to hold the Sox entirely scoreless. He held them to seven singles and the ninth was the only round where they got as many as two hits. Not a Sox runner reached third during the game.

With the pride of Sawtel working like well-oiled machinery, the Tigers ended the second frame with Harry Hurley, the catcher, tripling into the outfield and scoring on a sacrifice fly. In the third stanza the Tigers added another tally to their credit after two were out. With the Sox at bat in the fourth inning, the Newarks tried hard to get to Duke but failed dismally. He worked with a broad smile and teased them over. In the last half of this session the Tigers were helped along by Newark’s errors. Hurley singled, stole second and went to third when the Newark catcher chucked past the sack. The Trenton pitcher walked and the pair worked a double steal successfully, Hurley scoring.

There was a lull in the storm until the seventh inning. Duke remained as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. In the seventh the Tigers staged a batting fest. The Trenton right fielder fouled out. The Trenton third baseman singled, but died stealing. Hurley rapped out a one-bagger, and while Duke was at bat the Newark pitcher caught the Tiger catcher off first. The White Sox baseman threw wild to second and Hurley reached the bag safely. He scored a minute later on a clean two-bagger of Duke’s.

Then the Trenton shortstop hit to the Sox pitcher, who lost his head and threw past first. The shortstop anchored on first and Duke pulled up at third. With the delighted howls of Trenton rising on the summer air the Tigers’ second baseman came through with a single that sent the exile from Sawtel home. The busy inning was brought to a close with a pop fly the Sox short leaped for and smothered.

The last two frames were uneventful. The final count was ten-nothing, with Trenton yammering.

“Thus ends the lesson,” I said to the wife. “Let’s go home and see what’s in the ice box for dinner.”

We found Rosie waiting for us outside of the gate. For a wonder Duke wasn’t with her.

“Joe Bain is giving the team a celebration dinner up at the Holly House,” she explained, “and so Jerry won’t be with us to-night.”

“That’s sad,” I murmured. “We won’t be able to hear a thing about Sawtel. I call it tough.”

“You’re horrid, Ed,” the wife said.

I noticed, however, that Rosie didn’t rush to the defense of her Jerry.

When we reached the bungalow we perceived a figure sitting on the top step of the porch.

“It’s that traveling salesman friend of yours from Philadelphia,” Grace whispered. “I know because I can see his purple socks from here!”

“His name is Charlie Brennan, isn’t it?” my wife's' sister said.

“You’ve got a memory like a bill collector,” I told her.

When we opened the front gate Brennan got up and came down to meet us. He sold baseball goods for a wholesale Philadelphia house and always looked in on us when he came to Trenton. He was a short, stout egg, not as young as he had been once, or as old as he would be.

“Sorry I couldn’t squeeze in to see the game,” Brennan said, after he had passed his hand around. “There wasn’t a seat left and every knot hole around the park was occupied. I hear the Tigers cleaned up.”

“Your hearing is perfect,” I said. “You’ve got a good pair of ears.”

“Will you stop and have some supper with us, Mr. Brennan? We’d love to have you,” the wife lied heroically.

I saw Brennan steal a glance at Rosie.

“Thanks. I’ll be glad to if I’m not putting you out any.”

The wife threw a nice meal together.

After I chased the flies out of the dining room we all sat down together. Brennan amused us with stories of his experiences on the road.

“Did you ever happen to take a trip out to Sawtel?” he asked us, after a time.

I looked at Grace. Grace looked at Rosie. Rosie looked at the ceiling as if she had never seen it before. I managed to say that we had never been to the town in question. Believe me, it was some effort getting the words out, and using the hated name.

“I’ll tell the world that Sawtel is one hustling little burg,” Brennan resumed. “It’s a tiny place tucked away in the very corner of the State. But, take it from me, what they don’t know about push and enterprise is minus nothing. They have a chamber of commerce that’s really wonderful. Its members believe there’s nothing in the world like advertising. And that reminds me of Jerry Duke, who is pitching now for the Tigers. I suppose you know Duke?”

“We’ve heard of him,” I admitted.

Brennan chuckled. “I knew Jerry when he was a kid. He’s a hustler if there ever was one. And a great ball player. He deserves all his success.”

“Mr. Duke,” Rosie said, “is a very wealthy young man. Back in Saw— his home town, I should say— he’s one of its wealthiest citizens.”

Brennan laid down his knife and fork. “Is that what he told you? You mustn’t believe everything that Jerry says. He likes to kid a lot. Out in Sawtel they call him the Million Dollar Money Hound because he’s always thinking up stunts to make money and multiplying what he does make by a hundred. His latest one is good. The ferocious chamber of commerce which I mentioned gives Duke an income of ten dollars a week for boosting and advertising Sawtel whenever he’s away from it. Jerry’s a great lad !”

Grace helped herself to a glass of water. She appeared a trifle wilted. Perhaps it was the heat, or the strain of the afternoon’s game. Rosie looked across at Brennan.

“Are you sure about that?” she asked in a funny voice.

“You bet I am,” he answered. “One of the members of the chamber of commerce told me himself.”

My young sister-in-law laid down her napkin and stood up.

“Where are you going, deary?” Grace queried in a limp voice.

Rosie looked back over her shoulder.

“To use the telephone. I want to call up the Holly House and break an engagement I made with one of the members of the team. I’ll be back in a minute.”

When dinner was over I looked at my watch. “If you’ll pardon me for a few minutes,” I remarked to Brennan, “I’ll step down to Sycamore Street and buy the cigars.”

“I’ve got some good ones here,” he said.

“I’ll buy better ones,” I answered. “When we celebrate we want the best!”

6: On The Porch.

THE clerk at the cigar store delayed me twenty minutes talking about the Tiger-Sox game. He played a couple of verbal innings for my benefit. When I got back to the bungalow the wife was on the porch.

No one else was around.

“Where’s Brennan?” I asked.

Grace looked up. “He left about five minutes ago. I guess he thought you weren’t coming back.”

I helped myself to the chair beside her. “Where’s Rosie?” I inquired. “Upstairs in her room crying her eyes out on account of her busted engagement?”

The wife shook her head. “No,” she replied. “She and Mr. Brennan went down to the open-air movies together. I heard her telling him that he had nice eyes. Isn’t it too bad that he wears purple socks, Ed?”

________________

A Johnny Castle Story

19: Publicity For The Corpse

Thrilling Detective, Dec 1944

1: Kid from Rio

THE Brazilian flag was full of flutters, the waiting room jammed, when we reached the La Guardia Airport that morning.

Cameramen, newshawks, the socially prominent, the socially deficient, and a flock of the morbidly curious, who had read some of “Tip” McCabe’s advance hype, were on hand to get a flash of Alfredo Sanchez and party. The folks from Rio were flying in from California and due at any minute.

Somebody in authority took a peek at my press card and nodded. So I started shoving Ellie Horton through the jam, angling for the front row and the big doors leading to the ramp and the cement walk outside. Ellie, a sob sister on the Orbit — the same sheet that paid me off for the sports page stuff I dreamed up— didn’t seem to mind being pushed around. In fact, Ellie was slightly excited.

“Looks like we’ve made it in time, Johnny.”

“See if you can locate McCabe,” I suggested.

But there wasn’t a sign of the big shot Garden matchmaker and pugilistic power anywhere.

Tip McCabe had spread the word around that “Young Juan” Rico, a lightweight sensation in the Good Neighbor country to the South, was the hardest-hitting, fastest piece of boxing machinery that he had ever rolled  a bloodshot optic at.

For months Tip had been trying to get the kid from Rio to come North so he could match him with the present champ of the lightweight division and have ’em hanging from the Garden rafters. It seemed that Rico cuddled comfortably under the wing of Alfredo Sanchez, millionaire coffee planter and amateur sportsman. Sanchez finally had succumbed to McCabe’s wires and letters and was bringing the little leather-pusher to Manhattan—via Hollywood.

However, Rico was not the main draw at the airport.

A babe tagged Bonita Lores happened to  be the flypaper. She, the Betty Grable of the banana districts, had already been photographically publicized through the country.

In her daguerreotypes, dark-eyed, glamorous and somewhat scantily attired, the tropic tomato had been a photogenic sensation.

But there was a drawback. Bonita had been spoken for and from all present accounts happened to be the none-other fiancée of the rich mocha-and-java king Mr. Sanchez himself!

I knew the stop-over in California had been a brief pause in which the gal had been screen-tested for New Era Pictures. Tested and not found wanting. She had signed for a couple of films a year and, it appeared, all the Hollywoodenheads had gone in the tank for her with the greatest of ease and pleasure.

Ellie, leaning against me, had come down to write a piece about Señorita Pulchritude. My assignment was to get a slant at Rico and give my public a general impression of a first-hand gander.

A loudspeaker began to blare and at the same moment I spotted a couple of familiar-looking guys in the mob. One was Dewey Lorch, the other, a Lou Candell. Added together they didn’t spell mother!

These two boys, I happened to know, were notorious grifters, clippers and common felons who had been mixed in various rackets and were more than well-acquainted with the interior of some of our biggest and best jail-houses. A couple of tough hoodlums who wouldn’t stop at anything short of murder and, in fact, wouldn’t pause there if there was plenty of dough on the line.

Finding them in the airport crowd was the same as discovering a pair of roaches in a bowl of consommé!

Just to make sure I passed out a second glance. No mistake. I couldn’t miss Lorch’s strange, parchment-wrinkled pan, his deep-set, lazy eyes or prominent, bony jaw. Or the well-groomed Lou Candell whose round, flat face was a study in vapid stupidity. It was a coin’s spin as to which of the two was the worse. And no matter whether it came up heads or tails you were bound to lose!

“Johnny!” Ellie poked me in the ribs. “The plane—it’s coming in!”

Outside, the queen of the air circled gracefully over the field. In the summer sun it looked like a huge gray gull. It swooped lower, circled again, then set its landing gear gently down and taxied in toward the ramp.

The crowd began to mill. The next instant a little fellow with a dime’s worth of cigar in his puss elbowed up and gave me a nudge. It was McCabe, in the flesh.

“Hello, Castle,” Tip said. “What are you waiting for? Follow me, pal!” Doing a Notre Dame plunge for goal, he yelped, “One side! Leave us through!”

Outside, passengers were already alighting from the big ship. McCabe, bright-eyed and Irish, stood poised and waiting. I could hear Ellie breathing faster, her breath coming in little gulps. More passengers, and then the people responsible for the Brazilian flag and the excitement.

Alfredo Sanchez got out first. The coffee magnate was as wide as he was tall. A light tan edition of Mr. Five-by-Five. His chins were so popular they had gone into a second edition. He wore a wrinkled white suit, a Panama dicer, and a diamond ring on one pudgy finger sparkled like a quart of grape when he stretched out the fin to shake hands with McCabe.

“Well, how do you like this?” Tip gurgled a minute late. “The bloke don’t speak no English!”

Next to alight was a smug-faced man, with a typical May-I-have-your-hat-sir air to him. He was Harry Babbitt, Sanchez’ valet. I didn’t like his looks. Too sleek and obsequious, for entire comfort.

Following the valet, the lightweight sensation of the monkey country slid into view.

I stabbed a glance at Juan Rico and wondered what door he had run into. The kid from Rio sported a black eye, a cut mouth and a large blue bruise on his right cheek. He was slim, wiry, midnight dark as to hair and eyes, and dead-panned. He stood slightly behind Senor Sanchez while all eyes focused on the plane’s door.

All Bonita Lores needed was a fanfare as she climbed languorously down to the ground.

One look was enough to notify anyone that photos and descriptive matter hadn’t been exaggerated. Sanchez’s fiancée was distinctly a dish.

She featured the unusual combination of raven-black hair and gray eyes. Funny eyes for a South American gal. Her skin was as flawless as her figure, and that was more exciting than anything that had ever walked down a Winter Garden runway.

“Only one drool to a customer,” Ellie whispered maliciously. “Push your eyes back in place, Johnny, and let me pass.”

She clucked for Jake, the lens-and-shutter expert we had brought along with us. I edged over to Tip McCabe to get a line on what he was talking to Sanchez about.

Babbitt, the super-smooth valet, was doing a good job as interpreter, but there were too many people around. Tip felt crowded and said so.

“Look, Castle,” he said to me. “This here is no place for interviews. These folks are staying at the Wilshire. Grab a cab and follow us up. I’ll tell the rest of the newspaper boys.”

Thirty minutes later I was in Sanchez’s suite. It was on the fourth floor of the glittering Hotel Wilshire on Central Park South. I found out that the caffeine producer, Harry Babbitt, and Rico occupied the rooms. Bonita Lores had an apartment of her own farther down the hall.

Sanchez, via Tip, was doing it in style. One entire side of the living room consisted of bottled goods and glasses. There was more Scotch there than I’d seen around for months. The newspaper bunch started in and went to work on it. I got Young Rico aside and put on my quiz show.

He spoke pretty fair English. I asked him about the black eye and the taped mouth.

"I fall downstairs— in the dark,” he said, and smiled.

I pumped him for an article and wandered back to Ellie. She had finished her routine with the charming Bonita and was standing in line.

“Coming back to the office, Johnny?” she said. I looked thoughtfully across at the Lores number. She was planted near a bay window, with Sanchez beside her. The sun gave her hair a polished sheen. Her softly-curved lips looked like a couple of scarlet flowers.

“I’ll stick around for a while,” I said.

“But she’s engaged,” Ellie cautioned. “And you know the Latin temperament. When they make a cutting remark the knife goes with it!”

A little while later McCabe threw a speech. It was a build-up for Rico. Tip reeled off the kid’s record south of the Equator. It was impressive, even if it didn’t mean much in Manhattan. While it was going on Rico ducked behind a set of curtains closing the living room off from an alcove.

"Gents,” McCabe wound up, “I’ve arranged for you to get a look at Young Rico in fighting form. Camera guys, come up closer. All right, draw them curtains.”

The portieres whisked back. Rico, in purple trunks and ring shoes, stood in front of a portable punching bag. He got Tip’s nod and went to work on the bouncing leather.

Rico did look good. Lean and hard, he was not too muscled up. He was fast— with his hands and feet. The bag workout was routine, but it was the way he did it that impressed. Cameras snapped all over the place. Flash bulbs exploded.

There didn’t seem much of a chance to cut in on the glamorous Bonita. She was still staked out beside the fat boy with the wrinkled white suit and the duplicate chins. So I hoisted one more and decided to trek back to the office and write my piece.

I shook hands with Sanchez. His mitt in mine felt like a damp sponge in a warm bathtub. He didn’t know what I said, but he smiled. I smiled and turned to the señorita.

But the beautiful Bonita wasn’t there.

She didn’t seem to be anywhere in the room. I wove a way to the door, went through the foyer and out to the corridor. When I reached it, I was in time to see Miss Lores heading for her own suite. But before she made it there was an interruption.

One of the elevators had come up and stopped.

Out of it emerged the two guys from the waiting room at the airport— Lorch and Candell. Both glommed the pretty señorita and put on the stop.

“Just a minute!” Dewey Lorch ordered her. “Not so fast. We want to talk to you!”

2: Sucker

BONITA LORES froze. I could hear her smothered exclamation.

She looked from one to the other. When she spoke her voice was unsteady and the delightful slur she gave the American language was conspicuous by its absence.

“What is it?” she asked sibilantly. Candell spotted me the next second and pitched a signal to his partner. Both pulled books out of their pockets.

“What goes on?” I asked.

With a sharp little breath Bonita wheeled around to me.

“These men, señor! I do not know them and—”

“All we want is her autograph,” Lorch said belligerently. “Any poison in that?”

“Yeah, just her autograph,” Lou Candell chimed in.

I looked from Lorch’s strange, crinkled face to Candell’s moon-shaped pan. Then I caught the appeal in the gray eyes of the girl and decided to make their business my business.

“Go on— scram!” I ordered. “Beat it before I call the house dick!”

“You keep your big nose out of this!” Lorch said. “I know you, Castle!”

“By the same token, I’m acquainted with you.” I pressed the bell for an elevator. “Air!” I said to Lorch and Candell briefly, when the lift arrived. “Make it rapid!”

They didn’t argue. They put their little books away and filed into the cage. The corridor was a better place when they had gone.

“Thank you, señor.” The slur was back again, flavoring each word, but I saw she was still a trifle shaken, frightened. “You were nice to make them go away.”

“It’s okay, honey. Think nothing of it. You don’t know ’em or,” I added, “do you?"

She shook her ebon head. “I never saw them before in my whole life!”

It sounded truthful. I wondered what Lorch and Candell had in mind. One thing was sure. They hadn’t gone to the airport as part of any welcoming committee. Likewise, they hadn’t come up to the Wilshire for an autograph.

They were definitely on the earn.

But how? In what way? Bonita said she didn’t know them. They knew her. They had wanted to lean on her ear. What for?

I let it go and saw Bonita as far as her door. “Just in case they decide to stop around again,” I said, feeling for a card and a pencil, “you’d better have a copy of my phone number.”

I scratched off both phones, office and apartment. She put the card in her bag. The gray eyes came up level with mine. A pair of swell orbs, deep and dreamy, with more appeal and urge than the business end of a tommy-gun.

“Thank you again, señor.”

Back at my desk, it took three typewritten pages on Young Juan Rico and a half a dozen nips from a bottom drawer flask before I could untangle myself from the eyes and lips of the South American bonfire....

TIP MCCABE didn’t waste any time. He matched Rico for a slap at the prevailing lightweight champ. That was a smart little guy named Artie Borden. Artie had won himself the crown the hard way. A veteran, who knew the book, I figured the fifteen-round bout was a natural for a capacity house.

A couple of days passed.

Then Beth Wheaton, one of the switchboard operators, saw me when I was heading for my desk and waved a red flag. Beth shoved a memo in my face. It was from Bonita Lores. It said I was to call her up at the Wilshire.

“Lores?” Beth sniffed. “The dame who’s been getting all the free photography?”

“Pick up the chips,” I said. “You win.”

She sniffed again. “Flying kind of high, ain’t you? I mean, I read how this doll’s movie-contracted and matrimonially inclined. Where do you fit in?”

“Ask Phil Baker,” I said. “Maybe you'll get sixty-four bucks back.”

“It don’t sound regular to me, brother,” Beth remarked.

“Jingle the Wilshire for me. I’ll take it on the desk phone. And don’t bother to listen in. This will be strictly in Spanish.”

A couple of minutes later Bonita’s tantalizing tone drifted over the wire.

“Mr. Castle? I wonder if you will do me a favor.”

“Name it!”

“Would you take me to dinner tonight?”

She had to repeat it before I was sure it wasn't a gag. I told her I’d be only too happy. She said seven-thirty in the lobby of the hotel, and rang off.

“Lucky stiff!” Beth’s voice intruded.

I hung up. Somehow Beth’s last word echoed unpleasantly in memory. "Stiff!” It didn’t sound good. Besides, stiffs were never lucky.

Bonita was waiting in one of the cozy, dimly-lighted little rooms off the Wilshire’s lobby. It was exactly seven-thirty. She wore a cool, summery something that didn’t hide any of the curves or contours. It made a perfect foil for the inky-black hair and the kindergarten complexion.

Instead of nylon she wore liquid stockings. But how she ever got her shapely stems in the bottle I couldn’t figure. The same deep, dreamy look was in her gray eyes when she slipped her slender, lacquer-tipped fingers into mine.

“Where’s Alf?” was my first, and most natural query.

“Señor Sanchez?” She laughed softly. “He and Juan are at a dinner. Señor McCabe is giving it.”

I remembered. Tip was throwing a meal at the Uptown A. C. for the trade. I’d had an invitation, but had passed it principally because it was too hot to sit in a boiled shirt and listen to a lot of windy, ungrammatical speeches.

I was glad now I hadn’t gone.

“Ready?” I asked Bonnie.

I took her up to the Ardmore Roof. Class and quality, quiet and refinement. None of the Broadway tribe to cut in. The setting was a sort of open-air garden, the sky was the roof, and the stars were out in quantity.

Bonita took a look around and nodded approval.

“I like it here, señor.”

“Look, pet,” I said. “Drop the ‘señor.’ I'm Johnny to you and you're Bonnie to me from now on. Right?”

“Of course.”

She took a sherry to match my Martini. I didn’t hurry her. Whatever she had on her mind had to break without pressure. I asked a few questions about Rio. She told me about her home town and nothing much happened until the jellied soup came in.

“Those two men,” she said then, and her voice went down a pitch. “The ones who were in the hall the other day. Remember ?”

“Sure. What about them?”

“The thin one— the one with the funny face— he has telephoned me twice. He says he wants to see me.”

She meant Lorch.

“Did he say about what?” I asked.

“No. But he said it was important. That I would be in lots of trouble if I didn’t talk to him.”

“What kind of trouble?”

That was no good. She didn’t know. Apparently, Dewey had buzzed her and laid on the threat. Bonita explained that Lorch knew about the Uptown Club’s dinner, and that Bonita would have the evening to herself.

“He said,” she went on, “I was to come to an address tonight at half-past ten. That if I didn’t come I would be sorry tomorrow.”

I thought that one over.

“You’ve got the address ?” I asked.

She nodded and I thought some more.

“Okay,” I said. “If he wants to see you, maybe you’d better go. Find out what the  angle is. I’ll go along, too— just to keep it regular and in order.”

Bonita flashed me a look of gratitude. Her eyes widened.

“That is what I was going to ask if you would do for me, señor— Johnny! You must be a mind-reader.”

At my suggestion she passed me the instructions she had received over the phone. Ten-thirty at a number in the Seventies, West Side. I put the paper in my pocket and got the conversation around to another topic.

I was just as curious as she was. Lorch and Candell must have an in somewhere. But what was it? What did they want, and on what basis did they throw out the threats?

Half past ten on the nose our taxi docked before an ordinary six-story apartment house on a semi-respectable side- street. Once the neighborhood had been fairly aristocratic. Lately, the old-fashioned brownstone houses had gone the way of that type of real estate and become boarding establishments.

I knew that a lot of chiselers and strong-arm gentry were making that part of town their headquarters. For a minute I wished I had a gun in my pocket.

But it was too late to go back to my place for the artillery. So I guided Bonnie through a vestibule and into the main hall of the building. There was a list of the tenants on a chart wired to the self-service elevator’s grille. I checked and found “D. Lorch” was “Apt. 5B.”

The elevator, as if it had eyes, stopped at Floor Number Five. I rolled the door open
and hunted for 5B. It wasn’t hard to find. Around a bend in the corridor on the south side of the place. A pencil of light lay along the crack of the door. I pushed the bell and breathed in the fragrance of Bonita’s uncovered head.

“Yeah?’’

The door jerked open. Lorch, in his shirt-sleeves, looked out. A cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth. The wrinkled face went as black as Bonnie’s tresses when he saw me.

“What do you want, Castle?” he demanded.

“Nothing. I brought Miss Lores up as per directions. Being a stranger in town you couldn’t expect her to come alone.”

His lazy eyes flickered from me to the girl. I thought he was about to slam the door in our faces. Instead, with a change of expression, he pulled it wider.

“Come in.”

The room we were ushered into was a typically furnished apartment. Grand Rapids with a vengeance. Dime store objets d’art. Dusty curtains at the windows where the shades were drawn. Musty, cigarette- tainted air.

And Dewey Lorch, leering at us!

Bonita seemed to step closer to me instinctively. I watched Lorch as he sidled around to shut the door. There was a dark mouth of a hall beside me. I looked at that, too.

“I came here,” Bonita said, and her voice trembled a little. “I want to know what you wish. Why have you telephoned me? Why have you threatened me?”

Lorch kept eyeing me without replying. Finally, he seemed to listen to what the girl said to him.

“Just a minute,” he said then. “One thing at a time, babe. I didn’t expect you would be bringing company with you. I don’t like company—this kind. I don’t want him listening in and—”

“Get ’em up!” Candell ordered from the rear. He added the jam of steel to a point between my shoulders as a special persuader. "Up— high!”

Bonita gasped. I followed instructions quickly. Candell’s left hand patted over me in a deft frisk.

“No cannon, Dewey,” he said.

“Take him in the other room.” Lorch spoke out the corner of his mouth. “Shut the door and keep him there until I finish with the dame!”

“Come on, sucker. Step!” The rod pressed in a bit harder.

“Sucker” was right. I’d asked for it, walked into it with open eyes. That didn’t make me feel any better. Being ordered around like some darb without the ordinary quantity of gray matter! Being shown up in front of Bonita Lores’ agitated gaze as a moron!

They were toughies. I knew their record. I knew how far they would go, but I didn’t think about that then. A white-hot flare of anger blazed up like tinder catching a spark. Instead of going forward I used a heel in a quick, savage backward lunge.

I felt a crack as it collided with bone. Candell let out a yelp of pain. The gun shifted, dropped away from my shoulders. Before he could get it in firing position again I spun around with the speed of a crazy top and used both hands.

One grabbed Candell’s throat. The other prisoned his pistol wrist

My right hand felt out a length of windpipe. I closed it off. My left hand twisted Candell’s arm over and back. Lesson One in Jap bone-breaking methods. He screamed like a hurt pup. The .38 he had been hanging onto slammed to the floor.

That was what I wanted.

I put a knee in the pit of Lou’s stomach and threw him off. Then I went after the gun. Everything so far had worked for me. The only trouble was I had temporarily forgotten Lorch.

I heard Bonita’s warning cry. It came a split second before I scooped up Candell's derringer.

Lorch had picked up an imitation hand-painted vase. Before I could get the gun pointed I saw him lift the vase with both hands and take aim.

Bonita tried to grab Lorch, from the rear, but wasn’t quick enough. She didn’t even spoil his shot.

Lorch heaved. I saw the vase coming, tried to duck, but didn’t quite make it.

The big missile caught me between the left temple and shoulder. If he had thrown a truck at me it couldn’t have been more effective.

I quit cold, as a lot of deep, rushing  blackness closed in on me!

3: Crimson Splashed

A HAND kept shaking me. Not a friendly, gentle hand, either, but a rough, compelling grip on my shoulder that had no consideration for the lovely dream I had been dreaming. Simultaneously a voice began to penetrate the fog.

"Come on now, wake up!” it said. "You’re all right! Just a thump on the head. Come on, open them eyes!”

I did and looked hazily into the weather-beaten countenance of one of Commissioner Valentine’s employees.

The big cop grinned. "That’s better. Here, take a drink of this.”

It was ordinary water in an ordinary glass. Not too cold, but wet enough. I sloshed some around in my mouth, emptied it in a convenient flower pot and sat up straighter.

Pieces of the vase Lorch had mowed me down with were all over the floor. The impact had laid me across the threshold of the dark hall, face down on a couple of yards of mangy carpet. There was a buzzing in my ear, a sort of pseudo-paralysis on the left side of my neck.

I got up groggily, bobbed into the living room and flopped down on a sofa. Except for the bluecoat and me the apartment was apparently empty. I glanced up at him. What was he doing there? How had he got in?

“I’m Hagen,” he explained, reading my mind. “We were up Riverside Drive when I got this call in the prowl car. We came right down. What’s it all about?”

Call? I gazed at him stupidly, my mind beginning to click again. If anyone had phoned Headquarters it must have been Bonita. I thought that over massaging my stiff neck.

Bonnie! Oddly, I felt a little relieved. If she had been able to put a message through to the police it meant she must be all right.

"It’s nothing, Hagen.” I tried to make it sound pleasant. “Just a friendly argument —with a dame. She played rough and... No complaint.”

He cocked an eye at me. “Who are you?”

"Castle, the Orbit." I showed him my identification card. “Nice of you to drop around. I guess Helen got worried and thought maybe she’d hurt me.” I flexed my arms and tried to smile. “I’m okay. All in one piece.”

“Helen who?”

“The gal friend— Lorch, Helen Lorch,” I told him as glibly as possible. "Have a drink on me, Officer.” I fished five bucks from my leather and passed it over. "Have two drinks.”

Hagen rubbed his chin. Being a good policeman he wanted to get his teeth in something— all four of them. But the finif and the casual way I tried to make the situation appear, was plenty of herring. Red, good. Hagen shook his head and sighed.

“Okay, if that’s the way you want it, mister. Leaving or staying?”

“Sticking around. Maybe she'll come back and apologize. Good-night, Officer. Thanks. Next time I see the commissioner I’ll speak a word for you.”

“Hmmm!” Hagen grunted, stopping to make a notation in his official book and then flat-footing out.

I went in the bathroom and ran cold water in the basin. I sopped a towel in it, wrung it out and made a cold compress. That helped. In the kitchen I found a can of beer in the refrigerator. That didn’t do any harm, either. Then I got a cigarette going and went back to the couch.

The problem was fairly easy. When Lorch had knocked me out he had got scared. Scared enough to gather Candell and Bonita and duck in a hurry. The call to Headquarters indicated that Bonita had left them, or that they had let her go. I felt better every minute.

There wasn’t a telephone in the apartment. But there was a cheap, flat-top desk. I sat down in front of it and thumbed through the contents of the drawers. A couple of letters looked fairly interesting, so I stuck them in my pocket. Then, after a glance at the bedroom, I turned off the lights and left.

A telephone booth in a corner drug store was ready and waiting when I went in. I dialed the Wilshire. The operator on duty listened to what I had to say, rang the Lores suite and reported there was no answer.

“Connect me with Señor Sanchez,” I said next.

Harry Babbitt answered. The valet’s smug voice came over the wire.

“This is Castle,” I explained. “I’m trying to get in touch with Señorita Lores. Her rooms don’t answer. Do you know anything about her?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

I dropped it there and went back to my own place.

TRYING again at nine the next morning chalked up a better result. Bonnie answered as soon as her phone tinkled.

“Johnny,” I said. I hoped she got the happy note in my voice. “I’ve been worried. Are you all right?”

“I am all right, señor.”

The way she said it, her tone, and the "señor" business, were like a clout on the chin. I could feel the freeze over the wire.

“I want to see you, honey,” I said. “How about lunch?”

“I am sorry, señor. I shall be busy today.”

“Wait a minute. What’s wrong?” The brush-off didn’t set well. Something was as phony as the system I talked over. “You stay where you are. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

That did it.

“Señor! I told you I am busy. I cannot see you! You will waste your time coming here. I mean that!”

She hung up before I could add anything further. I laid the telephone back on its cradle and went out to breakfast.

So Dewey Lorch had put a muzzle on her, had he? The switch made it figure that way. Fair weather last night, snow and sleet this morning.

What did Lorch have on the gal? Something important, if he could shut her up. And he had shut her up. I cast around for a reason, for some hint of an answer, but couldn’t guess. Finally, I decided to let it go.

After all, it wasn’t any of my affair. I had wanted to help, had got conked for my trouble, and sidetracked by the babe in the bargain. . . .

TWO DAYS passed.

The Young Rico - Artie Borden fracas papers had been drawn up and signed. The fisticuffs were set for Labor Day at one of the ball parks. Already the advance ticket sale promised to break records. Rico had gone up to Jack Gavitty’s camp near White Plains, to get an edge. Nothing further concerning the glamorous exile from Rio had developed and, at the Orbit, Beth Wheaton had laid off the puns.

A couple of times I had considered going
up to Apt. 5B and kicking Dewey Lorch’s teeth in. Just as an even-up. But each time I shrugged the notion aside. Why tangle with a dead issue?

Only it wasn’t defunct.

It must have been around two o’clock that Wednesday a.m. when Don Ameche’s invention disturbed my heavy slumbers. The telephone in the front room of my suite kept ringing and ringing. It was one of those hot, humid nights. Airless and airtight.

I finally stumbled in and stopped the jangle.

“Hello? What the—”

“Johnny!” Bonnie’s voice, terse and vibrant, was more of a wake-up than a pail of cold water. “Johnny! Can you come over to the hotel— quick!”

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Alfredo! I can't talk more! I think something’s happened to him! Oh, hurry— please!”

The Wilshire was quiet and deserted when a night-hawking clock-ark dropped me at its marquee. A sleepy-eyed elevator runner took me to the proper floor. I went past the spot where the Lorch-Candell combination had put the stop on the señorita that other morning. I went on to Bonnie’s front door, tapped and got immediate service.

“Come in, Johnny!"

She wore lounging pajamas with a sort of bolero coat. They were a vivid green silk. The big gray eyes were wide and frightened. The red lips trembled. So did the hand that reached out and seized my arm. I forgot all about the brush-off!

“What about Sanchez?” I asked quickly. “I think something’s happened to him! Harry telephoned me a minute before I called you. Harry— Babbitt. He says he heard a noise in Alfredo’s rooms. He says it sounded like someone was fighting. Then he heard a thud. He— Harry says he was afraid to go in. He wanted to know what to do!”

“Come on!” I said.

I led the way straight to the Sanchez suite. The door was unlocked, a light on in the foyer. I almost fell over Babbitt when I went in. The super-smooth valet wore a dressing gown, pajamas and a complexion a shade whiter than skimmed milk.

“He’s in there!” Babbitt said in a husky voice, when we were in the living room. He pointed a shaky finger in the general direction of a small hall that led away from the alcove where Rico had gone through his bag-punching routine for the press. “In there!”

“Stay here while I look,” I directed Bonita.

The little hall ended at the door of the senor’s bedroom. It was half open. No light came out except the shine of the stars at the three raised windows. I fumbled around until I located the wall switch. I clicked that on and immediately was affected with abrupt and sudden mal de mer.

Gazing at the victims of foul play was no novelty to me. Neither was murder. I had run into it several times in the past. But to find the fat, rich Señor Sanchez with the entire back of his head caved in, and the bed on which he lay a welter of crimson, was somewhat nauseating.

I left the light and backed out in a hurry, shutting the door after me.

In the living room, Babbitt licked his lips like a thirsty dog that had just been watered. Bonnie, stiff and tense, watched me come in, the gray eyes full of questions.

"Johnny! Is he—”

I nodded and went on to the telephone. No use wasting time answering questions. I knew the Wilshire outfit wouldn’t like it —calling the cops before they were notified —but that wasn’t any brake.

"Police Headquarters—hurry it up,” I said to the drowsy plug-swinger downstairs. Then, a minute or two later, “Headquarters? Connect me with Homicide!”

4: Mullin Calls

OLD arch-friend, Captain Fred Mullin, Homicide’s head man, together with Detectives Larry Hartley and Ed Wheeler, put in an appearance while I | was still trying to calm the excited Bonita.

Mullin, who had gained prominence by a strong-arm, slug-’em-first and question-them-later system, didn’t seem happy because of my call. Mullin had no sense of humor, nothing except a head resting between a pair of ears, two colorless eyes, a set of hand-sewn features and a stocky figure that would have made a swell model for an October ale keg.

Followed by his two straight men, Mullin, after locking the door of the suite, hotfooted it to the Sanchez bedroom.

He came back, his jaws set. His dislike for me stuck out like a flag at an auction.

The feeling was mutual. Once, I had got in a jam with the captain because I’d printed a piece about him in the Orbit which wasn’t entirely flattering. It was when Mullin had been cracking down on back-alley dice games and letting the big gamboliers continue to ride, unquestioned, in their coach-and-fours.

I had given it a humorous slant and the laugh had been on Freddie for ten days thereafter. Mullin had never forgiven me.

"Who found the body?” he barked.

“I did.” I smiled, adding, “Another one, Captain. Amazing the business I dig up for you.”

Hartley came back and used the telephone. Meanwhile, the hotel clerk had got wind of the Law’s arrival and the house detective and manager were at the locked door, working out their knuckles.

Hartley took care of them while Mullin went to work on Bonita Lores and Babbitt. The medical examiner yawned a way in sometime later and, after I had been given permission to contact the Orbit’s city desk, Mullin said I could go home.

“But no further, Castle!” he warned. "I don’t like the way you’re continually turning up murders. Sooner or later I’m going to tie one on you— for keeps.”

“I’ll bet you tell that to all the ghouls!” I drawled.

He threw me a sneer and Wheeler unlocked the door for me.

I went down the corridor and parked in Bonita’s rooms. I was worried about the dark-haired, gray-eyed tidbit from the coffee country. Worried that she might spill about Lorch and Candell and tie me into the Sanchez bump.

All Mullin had to do was consult Department records and find out that I had handed my right name to Patrolman Hagen several night previous. And in Lorch’s apartment!

I lit a cigarette and did a lot of thinking. Mullin couldn’t hold Bonita as anything except a witness. It didn’t argue that she had dealt Alfredo’s death card. From what I had seen it had taken more power than the little lovely possessed to crack Sanchez’s skull.

Who? Maybe Babbitt. Or Rico ? I threw that one away. Rico was up at Jack Gavitty’s and that let him out. Maybe Dewey Lorch? Lorch had heaved a vase at me, almost making a tunnel of my head. The Sanchez thing was about the same caliber. It could, I decided, very easily be Lorch.

Motive? That stuck me. I was still trying to figure it out when I heard Larry Hartley at the corridor door.

“No trouble at all, Señorita,” the big ape was saying. “A pleasure. Now don’t you worry about anything. It’s going to be all right. You get a good sleep and forget it.”

“Sleep!” Bonnie said under her breath.

I stepped out of eye-range when the door opened. I didn’t want Hartley to see me there. Bonnie shut the door, turned the key, and let her lips part when I stepped back into view.

I put a warning finger over my mouth. I listened at the door until Larry's Number Twelve footfalls faded out down the corridor.

"Poor Alfredo!” Tears brimmed in Bonita’s gray eyes.

“Who did it?” I said.

She sank down on a chair, shaking her head.

“I don’t know, Johnny. That man— the captain— he told Harry he was arresting him! He has arrested Harry for Alfredo’s murder! Why should he do that? Why should Harry have killed Alfredo?”

"I don’t know. Did he?”

She drew a breath. An uneven, rasping little breath.

"Alfredo was his friend. Harry liked him. Harry would do anything for Señor Sanchez.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he did! Let it go.”

I got up and went around to her chair. “What I want to know is what happened the other morning when I called you. When you ‘señored’ me and hung up?”

“I couldn’t help it. He—they—”

"Told you to give me the chill? Don’t you think it’s the proper spot to do a little talking? I took a nasty bang on the head for you. Remember?”

She stretched out a hand and touched my arm. Her eyes were still tragic. Perhaps it wasn’t the right moment to use the spurs. But I wanted to know. I had to know.

"What have they got on you?” I persisted.

"They know— something. A secret!”

“And you can’t tell me?”

“Not now! Johnny, I can’t— really!”

“It must be important.” I reached for a cigarette. “A real clam if you’re afraid to spill to a friend. Maybe I have a slight idea of the picture.” When she looked at me inquiringly, I said, “You’re not a real Brazilian.”

I heard her smothered exclamation.

“I figured it the first day,” I said. “That delightful accent of yours. It slipped slightly, when you met Lorch and Candell. When you got scared. It’s done the same thing several times since.” I laughed. "The real article doesn’t do that.”

“I’m half Brazilian,” she said defensively. "My mother was born in Brazil.”

“And you hail from Brooklyn?”

She shook her dark head. “From this city. I went to Rio two years ago. To visit some relatives. I got a job there. I stayed. Then I met Alfredo.”

"What’s your right name?”

“Bonita Lawson.”

“And all this hooks up with Lorch’s threat?” I said slowly.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“You can’t— and won’t— tell me how?”

“No.”

“But you can tell me this.” I mashed the cigarette out. "The other night, when we went up to call on your vase-hurling friends, you phoned the police after they left the apartment?”

The gray eyes looked into mine. “The first chance I had, Johnny! I was so worried about you! It was all my fault. I had to.”

“Thanks,” I said, and got up.

There wasn’t anything else to gab about. So I said good night and ducked out without letting the cop Mullin had stationed at the doorway of the suite occupied by the late Mr. Sanchez, notice me.

The Bonita angle was a little clearer. I wondered what the good-looking señorita’s secret was. I made up my mind to find out in the not too distant future. I was still mulling it over when I hit the pad, in my own bedroom, and grabbed four hours of oblivion.

Next morning I took all the metropolitan newspapers into my favorite cafeteria. The Orbit, with the story I had phoned in from the Wilshire, was the only one that mentioned me as finding the murdered South American. Not a line, not a credit in any of the other sheets.

Captain Mullin had studiously avoided using my name when he had given the story to the press.

It was a little after ten o’clock then. I left the papers for the next customer, paid my coffee-and-cake fee and headed down to the office.

Wheaton flagged me as I went in. Beth looked excited.

“You’ve got company!” Her voice was full of caution. “He’s been waiting ten minutes.”

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

She didn’t. “It’s Captain Mullin from Headquarters!” she said. “He looks sore enough to snap on the cuffs, Johnny. Don’t forget to do something for me before you go. Tell me what prison so I can send my tear-stained notes to you.”

The captain occupied a chair beside my desk. He didn’t seem particularly happy. He champed on three-quarters of a cigar, looking at the confusion around him with faint interest. His expression changed when I barged up.

“Good morning, Captain,” I said brightly. "What’s good about it?” Mullin’s colorless eyes roamed over me. “What are you so cheerful about?”

“The fact you very carefully kept me out of the Sanchez items. Thoughtful of you, Mullin. So you’ve got the valet under lock and key? That’s a mistake. Babbitt didn’t do it.”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

I shrugged. "Intuition, probably. That sensitive sixth sense you wouldn’t know anything about. What’s on your mind?”

I sat down and waited. Mullin cleared his throat. He dropped his cold weed in a cuspidor and rubbed his lantern jaw.

“You’re right, Castle.” His tone changed. “Mebbe it’s the valet, mebbe not. Anyway, I haven’t got enough on Babbitt to make it stick. The first good lip he gets will throw it out the window. No motive— no prints— nothing."

“Only suspicion because he happened to be in the suite. No good.”

“That’s what I’m telling you.” He looked hurt.

“And you want some advice? You want to know if I’ve dug anything? You’re willing to bury the hatchet— not in me— and come around to see what I’ve got up my sleeve besides the two freckles near my elbow. Fair enough. I don’t know anything.”

Mullin blinked. "You’ve been seeing a lot of that dame Sanchez was engaged to. You’ve been around there plenty. You've got an idea. You must have.”

It was a spot for a secret gloat. Captain Fred Mullin, frankly stumped, calling on me for assistance. I began to love every minute of it. He knew it, too.

“Look, Castle," he said. “I’ll tell you something I turned up. It’s confidential. You know Benny Radmann?”

"The bookie?”

“That’s right. Well, day before yesterday this Harry Babbitt laid six grand at three-to-one on Rico to win the Borden mill. The dough’s in Radmann’s safe right now.”

“Tch-tch! Gambling! Captain, I’m surprised.”

“Where does the Lores gal fit?” he growled.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. This is one time I can’t offer you a clue. I don’t know who smeared the señor. To be candid, I don’t care— too much. It’s your own private little headache so make the best of it."

“Punk!” Mullin grated. “Wait’ll you ask me a favor. See how much cooperation you get!”

“Hmm!” I leaned back in my chair and grinned amiably. “You’d give your right eye, and throw in a leg to make it even, to find me mixed in this thing. Mixed enough so you could slap me into the clink like you did Babbitt.”

He got up.

“You don’t know anything?”

“From nothing, Captain dear. Sorry. Be seeing you around town.”

He waddled away without further comment A second later the telephone on my desk rang.

“What did you do to him, Johnny?” Beth cooed. “He came in like a lion and he went out like a lamb, six red points a pound! Ain’t you ashamed— kicking the Law around?”

5: Green Mouse

WHAT Mullin had divulged concerning the six-thousand-dollar bet Harry Babbitt had placed on Young Juan Rico didn’t seem unduly significant. It might have been Sanchez’s dough. I toyed with the information for a minute or two, then shrugged it off.

What I had said to the captain about not being too interested in the identity of the party who had cracked the coffee planter’s skull was more or less true. What I wanted to find out was the hold Dewey Lorch had on Bonita Lores-Lawson.

I wanted to learn that for two good reasons. One, because of the bump on the head Lorch had presented me with. Two, for the reason that I had been in on the thing from the day Bonnie had flown in from California. I wanted to follow through. I didn’t like leaving loose ends around, untied, unexplained.

But how?

How, with Bonita muzzled? How, with not a thing in the world to hang on either Lorch or Candell? And how, without any definite lead, anything to go on?

The making of a great metropolitan newspaper revolved about me. The presses rumbled. War news poured in from every capital in the world. All was activity, hustle and speed. And I sat there like a bum on a log, thinking about a girl with gray eyes, a punk with a funny, crinkle-skinned pan and another slug with a round, moony mush.

I had a little work to do. A squib about Artie Borden, down in Asbury Park, running off his roadwork on the beach. I reached in an inner pocket for a pencil and pulled out some other stuff with it.

Two letters. Not addressed to me, but to Dewey Lorch! The correspondence I had lifted from the desk in Apt. 5B because it was faintly interesting at the time. I’d forgotten about them.

The first letter was from the Peerless Dry Cleaners on Amsterdam Avenue— “Your Suit Will Suit If We Clean It.” The note was a dun for six bucks Lorch had owed for three months. Would he please pay, and so forth?

I threw that in the trash and took the enclosure out of the second envelope.

This was better. It said:

Dear Dew:

I was talking to Patsy Kline yesterday. He says he’s interested. He’s got a building in back of the Green Mouse that’s a natural for your purpose. Make a swell card and die room. Private entrance, etc. Used to be a table, but now a garage.

Why don’t you stop in and see Patsy? Let me know how you make out.

Yours truly,

Ray Gordon

P. S. I’m writing on account of never being able to get you on the telephone.

I read it over. Pasty Kline. Green Mouse. That wasn’t as tough as it sounded on the surface.

A telephone directory turned up both.

Patrick Kline was listed at an address off Greenwich Street, on the fringe of the village. The Green Mouse, an eatery, was under the G’s at the same phone number, the same address.

IT WAS AFTER eight that evening when I got out of the subway at Sheridan Square and walked south. Carmody Street, a sliver between two avenues, ran crookedly east and west. It was a typical Greenwich Village alley old as time and just as drab and dusty.

The war had brought popularity back to the Village haunts, the cafes and creeps, the better places. They were all making coin as was any place on the thirteen-mile island that had a liquor license and served food that tasted like food.

The Green Mouse, in a two-story ancient brick edifice, slouched at the end of the alley. It boasted a doorman. His job seemed to be to tell the patrons there was a thirty-five cent parking lot two streets away. He didn’t have to tell me so I went on in, left my headgear in the charge of a peroxide-tinted little chick who gave me a soiled cardboard number and a toothpaste smile.

“New around here, aren’t you?” she inquired.

“The paint’s still wet, honey.”

I put the hat check in my pocket and passed into the bar.

It was jammed. The military, the boys who sailed the Seven Seas, civilians, weary war workers trying to snatch an hour’s fun out of a day that had kept them at high tension and top speed.

My secret mission to the Green Mouse was to get a gander at the building in the rear, the one Lorch’s correspondent had mentioned in the purloined note. The letter was postmarked ten days previous. By this time Dewey Lorch and Lou Candell might be in business there.

I had a wine-cooler. I sipped it slowly, keeping a weather eye for anyone I might know. They were all unfamiliar faces around me.

Time passed.

Back in the restaurant part of the Mouse I ordered a large cannibal sandwich— raw chopped beef, raw chopped onion. An hour dragged by. I had about decided it was time to slip out and take a peek at the place that was once a stable, but which at present kept all horsepower under hoods, when I saw Dewey Lorch come in.

He wore a light blue Palm Beach suit, no hat and white buck sports shoes. He strolled into the bar and bought himself a beer. I noticed him give the clock over the pyramid of glasses frequent glances. Just to make sure he wouldn’t lamp me through the open doorway of the restaurant section, I hid my features behind a much thumbed menu.

Lorch finished his beer and walked past the main chow division. Over the top of the menu I saw him open a door in the rear, pass through and close it after him.

"Anything else, sir?”

“My check,” I told the waiter.

I waited for change, left a tip on his brass dish, got my hat from Blondie and slipped her fifteen cents.

“Stop in again sometime,” she suggested.

“I’ll do that.”

She smiled. I smiled. Then I tried to give a passable imitation of a gent who knew where he was going, opened the door Lorch had opened, stepped out and into a cobbled court and clicked the door shut behind me.

It took a minute or more for my eyes to get accustomed to the gloom.

Then I saw the ex-stable directly across the courtyard, toward the rear. A high board fence enclosed the yard. Garbage cans stood in a tier to the left. A sleek gray cat, with a strong stomach, was making its selection. It flattened its ears as I went by, and spat at me.

No lights were visible in the garage. It was designed for four cars. Each had an individual overhead steel door. An outside flight of stairs on the east side led up to the floor above. Over that I noticed another series of dark windows.

The end overhead door was halfway up, with an empty space for a car beyond. I walked m on the cement floor, breathed faint gas and oil fumes, and discovered a door at the end of a work-bench. It was unlocked. I eased the china knob over, pushed the door open a little and saw a second flight of stairs.

I listened.

It was hard to hear anything. Echoes from the other building made a noisy monotone. Grumble of voices, clatter of dishes m the kitchen, the metallic grind of some electrically propelled machine— a dishwasher possibly, or a ventilator— made a constant rumble.

I felt to make sure the automatic I had brought along was still with me. It was.

So I went up the stairs warily, taking time and wondering if this was as screwy as crashing Lorch’s apartment had been that other night.

A narrow hall led away from the top of the staircase.

No lights visible from outside, but a glow over the transoms of three doors along the aisle. I listened again, catching some conversation that came from the first lighted transom, sharply to my right.

“There’s not much business until the theaters empty out,” one voice said. “You drop in from eleven-thirty on and you get plenty of action.”

“It’s a gold-mine,” another voice said. “The cops leave you alone and Patsy’s particular about who he sends over.”

“I’ll stick around and see what the play is tonight,” a third voice said. “If it looks good I’ll wire my partner to come on.”

That wasn’t getting me anything.

None of the voices had belonged to Lorch.

I walked on down the hall. I hadn't any set plan in mind. I had just an idea I wanted to meet Dewey Lorch and make him talk. An automatic made a swell vocal stimulant.

I was determined to get to the bottom of the shut-up he and Lou Candell had put on Bonita.

There were two doors, facing each other, at the end of the narrow corridor. Two doors and two dark rooms. I was turning to wander back, when I stopped moving.

Some people were coming up the outside stairs. I could hear them talking. Simultaneously, the door of one of the lighted rooms across from me began to open. Someone was about to come out in the hall.

I faded back into the murk of the shadowy room whose open door I stood beside. With my foot I eased the door gently shut. Starlight came in through a high window. It showed me a table and chairs, a buffet, a horsehair couch, a connecting serving room and, to the right, the slinky drape of a cretonne curtain.

I pushed that aside. Behind it was a cubicle used for storing empty bottles, trays. The next minute I heard Dewey Lorch, not a half a dozen feet away, speaking.

“I’m in here, Abe. You wait around downstairs. He ought to be back any time.”

“I hear a car now,” someone answered him from further down the hall.

“See if it’s Lou. See if he needs any help.”

The door I had shut creaked open. A click turned on wall lights. It came half a second after I had shoved the cretonne curtain aside and stepped in behind it.

Through a hole in the drape I had a moth’s-eye view of Lorch. He took his Palm Beach suit over to the buffet. There were a lot of bottles and glasses there. Lorch looked the assortment over and poured himself a drink.

After that he opened a drawer, took out a gun and sat down with it at the end of the table.

Two minutes at least ticked away before I knew r what it was all about. Footsteps came down the hall. The swish of clothing rubbing against a wall outside. Then I heard Lou Candell’s flat, uninteresting voice, saying:

“Inside, folks. Make yourself to home.”

I moved my eye from Lorch to the door.

Through it came three people. Young Juan Rico, natty and sullen-faced, black eyes dangerous and his lips curved in a sneer. Lou Candell was behind him, and beside Bonita Lores. Candell in slacks and a hound’s tooth sports jacket that made no impression on me.

I looked hard and long at the pretty Bonita. Fear was in her face again, etched there indelibly and accented by the terror in her wide-eyed gaze. Her coral lips were parted and the slim hand belonging to the arm Candell gripped, shook like dancing leaves on a breeze-stirred tree.

“Any trouble?” Lorch asked.

“Nope.” There was a modest note in Candell’s admission. “They were both right where you said they’d be— at that funeral parlor. I had to wait a half hour for them to come out. Ray was a big help. He eased them over to the car. He sat in the back with them while I drove ’em down. Not a hitch anywhere.”

Lorch grinned. “Shut the door. I crave conversation with the little guy!”

6: Skeletons Rattle

RICO’S burning gaze shifted from Dewey Lorch’s taunting grin to the rod on the table before the man. Bonita sank down in a chair. Candell took up a position a foot or so away, his hand deep in his sports coat

“What do you want?” Rico snapped. Anger didn’t make his English too understandable.

“You!” Lorch laughed. “Smart little operator, aren’t you? Running around, fracturing skulls and thinking you can get away with it!”

I felt my ears go up. That was news! Rico didn’t give me much time to analyze it. He ripped out a string of Spanish curses.

“Don’t blow yourself out,” Lorch advised, lazily. “I’ll do the talking—you listen. You killed Sanchez. Your gal friend over there said she saw last night at the hotel— saw you in Sanchez’s rooms! But she didn’t tell the cops that, and I think I know why.”

Rico swung around to Bonita. The girl had covered her face with her hands. He snarled something at her in his mother tongue and the hands came away from the beautiful face.

“They made me tell them, Juan!” She was crying. “They know everything!”

Lou Candell chuckled. “You bet we know everything. Tell them about Gavitty, Dew.”

“I phoned Jack,” Lorch continued. “Just to make sure. Gavitty said you copped a sneak out last night at ten-thirty. Okay. You rubbed Sanchez because you’re in love with this dame, because the fat guy was getting wise to it and had knocked you around plenty. Remember the day you blew in at the airport? With the shiner and the cut lip? That wasn’t done with mirrors— it was Sanchez’s big fists!”

Some of Rico’s rage melted. I saw him move his shoulders, as if what Lorch was saying was too much to buck.

“What do you want?” he asked, throatily.

"Now you’re being sensible, bud. Sit down.”

"I’ll stand.”

“Anyway you like. But pay attention. We’re not coppers, so we don’t care who you kill after hours. That’s no gravy off our vests. But you’ve got to be taught a lesson. You’ve got to be taught that it costs money to be a murderer and walk around free.”

“I haven’t got money,” Rico answered.

“Don’t hand me that line, monkey! You gave Sanchez’s valet a wad to bet on you. You promised him half the profits if he kept his trap shut about seeing you last night. He’s out, by the way. The cops unlocked him a couple of hours ago.”

“How do you know?”

“We’ve got a private wire to Headquarters,” Lorch said, with another short laugh. "Didn’t Lou tell you we know everything?”

“How much?” the fighter said shortly.

I waited with Rico for the amount. Dewey Lorch’s parchment-like face wrinkled until it looked like a local road map. He pulled down the lobe of his left ear and pulled air through his teeth.

“Ten G’s for a starter,” he said. “Your end of the first purse, win, lose or draw, will leave you plenty even after Morgenthau gets his cut. It’s cheap, kid. Much better than sizzling on sparks. What do you say?”

Rico’s answer was surprising to say the least.

He put it into action rather than words. With one sinuous, forward lunge he grabbed the gun from the end of the table, snaring it before Lorch could get his chair back on an even keel!

Rico ripped out another oath and slapped a left hook to the Lorch button. Dewey’s chair tipped over backward and Lorch rolled out on the floor.

Rico aimed a kick at the man’s head, an instant before Candell began to move. Lou’s gun slid into his hand. But before he could use it Rico winged him in the shoulder with as nice a piece of shooting as I had seen outside a Coney Island gallery.

The little lightweight angled the shot from the vicinity of his knee and Candell thumped against the wall, grabbing for his holed shoulder. Bonita screamed, jumped up and ran toward the drape of the cretonne curtain behind which I stood, my own gat in firing position.

Candell’s wound was in his left shoulder. It didn’t affect his right hand noticeably. That came up, his rod leveling ominously. Before Rico could shoot again Candell started squeezing the trigger.

One— two— three— four shots, so fast they sounded almost like one! At point-blank range he couldn’t miss— and didn’t. Rico’s slender figure twitched as each slug ripped into him. For sixty seconds he stood with his hands up and out, as if he were in the ring looking for an opening.

Then, as if his legs had been disconnected at the knees, he folded and pitched face-down, caroming off the edge of the table like a bag of damp sawdust.

Lorch got up. He remembered to brush himself off.

“Get the dame!” he yelped. “We’re getting out of here!”

Candell, blood coming out from under his cuff and trickling down the back of his left hand, made a bee-line for Bonita. I swept the length of cretonne aside and put in an Act Three climax appearance.

“All right, boys! Stand where you are and don't make a move!”

“Johnny!” Bonita gasped.

Her own symmetrical gams partially gave way, and incautiously, I caught my foot in the edge of the rug. It threw me slightly off balance and gave the eagle-eyed Candell his opportunity. I struck the frame-work of the door as Candell’s heater barked venomously. Lead whined past my face, so close I could almost feel the heat of it.

My shot got him in the leg. He chucked the gun at me. I ducked that better than I had the vase. But there was still Lorch— still Dewey Lorch coming head-on in my direction.

The gun jammed, as guns sometimes do in the movies at critical moments. I didn’t even have time to reverse it and use the butt before he leaped at me.

We went down, wrapped around and around in the cretonne curtain like a pair of mummies. Only not so still. Lorch’s frantic hands clawed at my throat. There was plenty of power in his fingers. Steel-like, pistonlike fingers, searching and grabbing for vulnerable spots.

Hazily I saw his dried-out pan, criss-crossed with the non-effaceable wrinkles, swimming before me. I felt his breath— hot, fetid. I tried to roll him, but he was too smart for that old stevedore trick. He spread his legs wider, making them a vise over me and began hammering my head up and down on the floor.

That was fun.

With every bump more colored lights than shone on Broadway made a rainbow around me. The pain was agonizing. I wondered how many cracks it would take before my head split in half.

Then a shadow came between the wall lights and Lorch’s contorted face. Bonnie. Bonita, with one of the loose guns in the room, bludgeoning Lorch! It was a welcome intervention, doubly so because he stopped banging my skull and grabbed one of her trim, liquid-stockinged ankles. He jerked at it as I squirmed partially out from under, got an arm around his neck and a thumb at the corner of his most convenient eyeball.

I squeezed, and that did it!

Lorch let go of Bonita. He let go of me. He reached up to push his eye back in place and the blaze from Rio shoved me the gun. I jammed it over Lorch’s palpitating heart, shook my head to clear it and got up, dragging him with me by the lapels of the pretty blue Palm Beach jacket.

“Hey! What goes on? What is all this?”

The door had opened and through the knot of interested spectators in the hall a large patrolman had elbowed his way in. Not my old friend Hagen, but a bird of the same plumage. Just to make it even for the vase he had laid me low with, I hit Lorch with the butt of the gun— an accurate, spiteful smack an inch above his left ear. That made me feel a lot better.

I dropped the gun to the table and turned to the bluecoat. He was busy counting corpses, one, anyway.

“Look, friend,” I managed to say. “You don’t understand all this, but Fred Mullin, down at your recreation center, will. Be a pal and give him a buzz. Tell him  Johnny Castle’s up here with the solution to his most recent murder mystery. If he says how come, tell him it’s the salmon in me— struggling to get upstream!”

I WENT uptown in a taxi with Bonita Lawson alias Lores.

“All this for nothing,” she said. “It will come out in the papers anyway.”

“The power of the press, babe. The moral is don’t hide skeletons in your closets. Give them to the bone drive.”

She shivered, looking at the sailing summer moon. I waited until we crossed Twenty-third Street, still going north.

“My picture career, my contract— everything ruined now!” she cried softly.

“Not necessarily. Pistol packin’ mamas are having a vogue at the moment. While we’re talking about the cinema, you can answered a question or two. Information, please. I have a faint idea that what Lorch had on you blends in with the fillum industry. Or doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Give, honey. What was the threat?”

“To tell everybody— New Era Pictures, principally— not only that I was a phony Brazilian, but that my dad, Marty Lawson, is doing a twenty-year stretch for forgery in one of the prisons where Lorch spent some time!”

So that was it!

I patted her softly rounded arm.

“Cheer up. Even that isn’t going to stop you. Don’t you know Hollywood lives and breathes on picture stars’ private scandals ? You’ll go on to be a big sensation, no matter if you hail from Rio or East Fracture, Dakota, either one. This publicity will be a shot in .the arm. Wait and see. And when your old man gets out of stir you can be smart and write all the checks for him.”

Four more streets and I saw a familiar corner. I told the driver to slow, and reached for the door.

“Johnny! When—”

She got out in front of the Wilshire. In the shine of the street lamps she looked like an angel. A little worn around the wings, but pulse-quickening, anyway.

“Be hungry around one tomorrow,” I told her, “and I'll take you out to lunch!”

___________________

A Johnny Castle story

20: Crepe For Suzette

Thrilling Detective, Oct 1948

Chapter 1

IT WAS one of those warm spring nights when everyone was going somewhere. I sat in a taxi with Libby Hart, bound for the Paladium, a stone’s throw from Columbus Circle where a big ice pageant, called Frozen Follies of the Year, was due to be unveiled at eight-forty-five.

The star of the hard water carnival was Suzette Darcy. And Libby Hart’s interest in the skate opus, I happened to know, had to do with this same Miss Darcy. Lib’s sweatshop, which kept her in alligator shoes and free cosmetics, was known to the trade as Arcady House, manufactured first aids to fading faces. The girl friend did publicity for the outfit, and Arcady House was about to present Miss Suzette Darcy with a cash donation for her signed approval of Perfect Petal Cream, the emollient that made tired eyes pack their bags and leave.

Libby had a pair of Annie Oakleys in her hand bag— the reason for the taxi and the ice show. Though I, as a sport writer for the half-hour I took Mrs. Hart’s only daughter across to a java joint and bought two cups of the Brazilian brew. As we went in I saw Lieutenant Larry Hartley, of the Homicide Division, at the end of the counter, dunking a doughnut. He glanced up, smiled at Libby, and nodded to me.

“Hello, Castle. Been over to the ice cube festival? Sharp show, eh?”

Hartley wasn’t a bad sort. Off and on I’d been tossed in with him on certain murderous matters that had occasionally cropped up. I liked Hartley more than I did his superior, Captain Fred Mullin, a bulldog technician who growled like a man.

Lib inquired, as we found a booth and edged in, “Isn’t that your policeman friend?”

“One of them. But don’t be alarmed. I have nothing in common with the Lieutenant.”

Libby’s dark eyes glinted. “You’d better not have! You promised me you were through with crime. Remember?”

When we’d finished our java and the half-hour was up, we found that to reach the Paladium dressing rooms we had to go down the block and around the corner. Every cab in mirthful Manhattan seemed to have converged on the stage door, when we spotted it. Taxis mingled with chauffeur-driven limousines and hot rods that only determination kept out of the junk yard. The stage door was ganged up with well-wishers, bobby-sox autograph addicts, and florists’ delivery boys. Replacing the legendary doorman, of suspenders and sour disposition, an impressively uniformed party examined Libby’s credentials. He went into conference with a backstage board of directors and they finally decided to pass us in.

“Third floor,” he said. “Take the elevator down the corridor.”

We did, getting out on an overhanging cement tier patterned with doors. The lighting was indirect. Small sofas and chairs, for the comfort and convenience of visitors, were scattered along the way. It was luxuriously different from the backstage world of the ordinary side-street playhouse. The layout was de luxe, from the shining chromium knobs on the stainless steel doors to the clubroom atmosphere. Suzette Darcy’s dressing room was at the end of the tier, near a flight of fire-exit stairs. No one could miss it. The star’s name was gold-leafed neatly over a pearl button.

Libby put a gloved thumb on that. I said, “You don’t need to ring. She’s expecting us— the door is open.”

She pressed the button anyway, giving me a quizzical stare.

“Stop drooling, Johnny. And when I introduce you, look, don’t touch!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Libby rang again— and again. Then she began to frown, drawing her arched brows together and pursing her lips.

“Wait here,” she said finally. “I’ll go in. If she’s decent, I’ll call you.”

No more than two or three minutes elapsed. During it I listened to a murmur of voices coming out of the rooms on the tiers below. Gay, happy voices. Excited voices belonging to the members of the troupe. Overjoyed voices, because the show was in the bag for a protracted New York stay. Suddenly I heard something else— a muffled, strangled scream from beyond the doorway through which Libby had gone!

In a flash I darted inside. Electric lights dazzled me for an instant. Mirrors on nearly all the walls reflected my image, but I didn’t stop for any self-admiration. Two dames were stretched out on the deep rug that covered the dressing room floor.

One was Libby Hart, and one glance was enough to show me she had fainted.

With the other gal it was different.

Suzette Darcy, still in her radiant finale costume, lay huddled between one mirrored wall and a mahogany dressing table that looked as long as a freight car. Her complexion was white where the makeup ended. So white that the ugly crimson stain soaking the front of the costume, and trickling down over one folded arm, was like a bright ruby-red river in the light. It was no faint.

And one glance here was enough to tell me the copper-haired skating star had done her last twirl. The Minnesota sensation had been booked for the long sleep— by someone who evidently had used a gun holding large-sized slugs. It was the kind of slumber that no alarm clock could disturb. Susy was dead!

Chapter 2

IN a tiled Hollywood bath off the dressing room I found an ice-water spigot and glasses. I filled one, snatched up a towel, slopped it in cold Croton and applied it to Libby Hart’s complexion. It worked. She sat up, shaking the dampness out of her eyes and face.

“What happened?” she asked wonderingly. “Somebody turned off the lights and—”

Then she got Miss Darcy in focus and started an encore. I used the towel again and hoisted her up off the rug.

“We’re getting out of here— at least you are, fast! Come on— pull yourself together.”

Libby buckled slightly at the knees, but managed to keep going as I led her toward the stainless steel door. When I reached it, I put a handkerchief over the knob and pulled it open. That gave me a perfect view into slate-gray eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes which belonged to a small pretty blond girl who wore a smart broadtail coat and no hat. She wasn’t smiling. There was grim determination on her vermilion lips.

She looked at Lib, then at me, and asked: “Do you know if Miss Darcy’s busy?”

Libby choked. I answered casually, “Miss Darcy isn’t doing anything at the moment.”

“In that case,” the blond said, “I’ll go in. I am Nan Tinsley.”

She made a move to pass me. I put a hand on her arm. A nice, soft, rounded arm.

“Sorry, but you’d better not go in. Miss Darcy’s just been murdered!”

The slate-gray eyes went wide and dark. The mouth lost its fixed smile. Nan Tinsley shifted her gaze quickly to Libby. The girl friend’s horror-stricken expression was all Nan Tinsley needed for confirmation. The next moment she had spun around on her high heels and was streaking down the cement-lined tier.

When I got Libby Hart in a taxi five minutes later, she still was in a daze, still shaken. I patted her hand before I closed the door.

“I’ll phone later, honey.”

The taxi chugged off and I hot-footed it back to the dressing room and took a look around. On the dressing table were samples from Arcady House. I noticed a pound jar of cold cream in a handsomely decorated container before I glanced about in search of the gun. There wasn’t any sign of it in either the dressing room or the bath. The killer must have walked in, banged away, shoved the smoker in his clothes and walked out.

Then I remembered the difficulty Libby and I had getting past the stage doorman. At the same minute I recalled the fire-exit stairway a couple of strides from the dressing room door. It would have been no trick for anyone to have come up them for target practice and left the same way.

I went back and looked at the dead girl. The folded-back arm caught and held my attention. The hand, graceful and white, was half turned over and half open. Its palm glistened oddly.

Swallowing, I leaned to get a better look. After that I used the telephone in the corner of the room to make two calls. One was to the city desk at the Orbit. The other was to Police Headquarters.

Within twenty minutes the dressing room was full of uniformed authority— the flashlight brigade, fingerprint experts, Captain Fred Mullin and his two trained yes-and-no men, Dave Wheeler and the same Larry Hartley who had been at the coffee joint. They were flanked by a stenographer, and a specialist from Ballistics.

I was high on Mullin’s Hate Parade. It had to do with a piece I’d once written for the Orbit dealing with antiquated police routines as practiced by the captain, with the aid of pieces of hose and thousand-watt electric light bulbs.

Mullin hadn’t enjoyed my sarcasm. He hadn’t forgotten, either. I knew he was waiting for a chance to get even.

“So you’re the party who telephoned?” A pleased smile began to spread over his granite pan. “I’ve been waiting a long time, Castle.”

“Not for this one,” I interrupted pleasantly. “I’ve got an alibi that’s practically foolproof.”

I gave it to him on a plush-lined platter. The smile faded. He barked orders and swung around on me again.

“I’m not through with you yet,” he growled. “Stay put.”

I sat down, chain-smoked, and watched Homicide at work. Doc Bagby, the medical examiner, was busy over a couple of tables that had been drawn together. Hartley and Wheeler were hunting for the gun. The fingerprint gang threw powder around and the photographers exploded flashbulbs.

I did some heavy thinking. Suzette had been on the stage at eleven-thirty. At midnight she was dead. In those thirty minutes she had gone back to her dressing room, but she hadn’t had time to peel off her costume or get into a robe. The killer could have been waiting for her, either in the bathroom or in full view. He must have blasted her fast and left in a hurry. Why? What was his motive? Why should anyone want to knock off a dame as charming and beautiful as Suzette Darcy?

Mullin consulted with his entourage and came back to me.

“Where’s the gun, Castle?” he snapped.

“What gun?”

“The one you must have found while you were moseying into my business—here.”

“No rod, Captain. Not even one you could hang a curtain on.” I got up. “Have a frisk—free.”

Mullin’s fishy eyes drilled into me. He put a big hand between my shoulders and pushed.

“Get out of here! The more I look at you, the less I want to see of you!”

“In my book,” I said putting on my hat, “the feeling’s pari-mutual!”

Instead of taking the elevator, I opened the fire-exit door and took the stairs. Dim lights burned on each landing. On the ground floor the door I figured led to the side street was locked. Back up a flight, I headed for the stage door, forcing my way through a crowd of the morbidly curious outside it, and turned toward Broadway.

I hadn’t gone half a block before I had a feeling that I was being tailed. Someone had pulled away from the knot of people at the stage door and was ambling after me. I slowed down until he walked under an arc light. I had a view of a big, stoop-shouldered, slow moving guy, familiar from the dented-in crown of his dicer to the baggy ends of his trousers. Georgie Bister, Nick Caduro’s jack-of-all-trades.

I braked at the corner, waiting for Bister. That evidently disconcerted him. He was grinning sheepishly when he reached me.

“Hello, Castle. Nice night, ain’t it?”

“Why the tail?”

Bister threw away the match stick he'd been munching on.

“Tail?” he repeated, then as if remembering, he said, “Look Castle, Nick asked me to give you a message in case I saw you. He wants you to drop around to his place for a drink.”

“Tell him thanks. I’m on the wagon.”

That didn’t do. Bister shook his head slowly. “Look, Castle. I don’t want no trouble. I hate trouble. Nick said, when I saw you, I should bring you up to his apartment.”

“And if I don’t want to go?”

Georgie patted his pocket significantly. “I guess you’ll go, Castle.”

He stopped a cab, held the door open for me to get in and in less than ten minutes the meter-cheater pulled up in front of a massive brick building on Central Park West, called the Stanwich Arms. Bister followed me into an elevator and out of it on the fifteenth floor. We went down a hall to a door. Georgie rang the bell and Nick Caduro answered the summons.

“Why, it’s Castle!” He held the door wider. “Come in.”

The shiny-haired bad man had taken off dinner coat and vest. The glossy white of his dress shirt now accented his swarthy complexion. He led the way into a living room where some inferior decorator had been allowed to run loose, and waved me into a chair.

“What’s the idea, Nick?” I tried to sound indignant, but I was worried. I didn’t like making early morning calls on characters of Caduro’s type. He told Bister to shake up some alcohol and hooked his thumbs in the black silk of the suspenders holding up his high-waisted pants.

Then he said, “I hear how the babe who laid ‘em in the aisles at the Paladium tonight got herself shot up.” Caduro’s tone was quietly conversational.

“Friend of hers, Castle?”

“I never saw her until tonight.”

“But you called on her in her dressing room. Georgie saw you and your doll at the stage door. He heard who you were asking for. After awhile you came out and put your gal in a taxi. Then you went back. You were there a long time before the badges arrived. Right?”

“Georgie has twenty-twenty vision. So what?”

“So you’d better let him check on what you’ve got in your pockets,” Nick purred. Bister came away from a mahogany bar and waited for me to get out of the chair.

He said, “Hold your arms up and out,” and began to feel through my pockets.

Caduro’s order for the feel around had an angle. Bister was frisking me to find out if I’d found anything in Suzette Darcy’s dressing room and brought it away with me. Such as a murder gun, for instance. Or some bit of evidence not turned in to Mullin.

Georgie made it complete. He checked my belt, even ran his fingers over the cuffs of my trousers. I took off my shoes at his request and he examined the interiors and heels. Finally Bister straightened up.

He shook his head.

“Clean, Nick.” It was impossible to tell from Caduro’s basilisk stare whether he was disappointed or not. His thin smile still displayed his square, white teeth.

He said, “Sit down, Castle. Have a drink.”

“I don’t use the stuff,” I told him. “Besides, I’m overdue on a date—with a single bed. If you don’t mind, I’ll be running along. Nice to have seen you.”

For a minute the smile faded. His glinting eyes narrowed slightly. He shrugged and nodded.

“I’ll see you out.” We walked to the foyer, with Bister peering after us. “By the way,” Nick went on casually, “if I were you, I wouldn’t nose around with this Paladium thing too much, Castle. I like your slant on sports, the way you write for the Orbit. I’d hate to be reading some new guy’s stuff.”

He stopped at the hall door and slid a cigarette between his lips. I didn’t say anything. Caduro began to smile again.

“Another thing. I wouldn’t mention the fact you stopped in here tonight, either. To anyone.” He opened the door, stepping aside to let me pass. “Because,” he added softly, “you never know when you might get an attack of dropsy, and fall right out of circulation!”

Chapter 3

NEXT morning the front pages of the metropolitan press headlined the mysterious killing of the coppery-haired Suzette Darcy.

Bill Jamison, the Orbit’s top crime narrator, had turned in his usual good job on the dressing room smear. The way I got it, from Bill’s story, Mullin’s score on his preliminary investigation had been a hundred per cent zero. Homicide had been interviewing people to find suspects, with no results.

When I got down to the office, Jamison was at his desk, wearing a green eyeshade and a frayed look. He grinned when I dropped down on the edge of his desk.

“They tell me you found the body, Johnny. You didn’t run across a motive at the same time?”

“No. What do you think?” Jamison shrugged. “Could be anything. Love affair that went wrong, blackmail—whatever brings on sudden death. I learned one interesting thing. Do you know whose dough was backing the skating show?” I stretched for an answer.

“Tinsley?” Bill pushed up his eyeshade. “Right. How did you learn that?”

“Just a guess. I saw him there last night. Tinsley’s a Minnesota taxpayer. Susy came from there. What about Tinsley?”

Jamison looked at his notes. “He’s been a widower for ten years. He’s worth twenty million. He’s the party who bought the Emory Emeralds from some Indian potentate for his late wife. Six perfect green stones, each worth a flock of coin. I suppose you know, Johnny, that Mrs. Tinsley’s jewel collection was second to none in this country. The emeralds, in a short necklace, were the top item. You can get the dope from the morgue files. I did.”

I asked, after a long pause, “Where would Nick Caduro fit in?”

“That punk!” Bill took off the eyeshade. “You don’t mean he’s in on this?”

“Nickie boy was at the ice frolic last night. He knew an about me being in the Darcy dressing room. He was so interested, he sent his trigger-man, Georgie Bister, to invite me up to his apartment in the Stanwich Arms for a drink. After Bister frisked me, Caduro told me I was due for lead poisoning if I mentioned my call.”

Jamison’s eyes began to gleam.

“Caduro, eh? Johnny, if that mug is interested, it might mean plenty.”

“Keep me out of it,” I said. “I like breathing!” As an afterthought, I asked, “Say, where does Tinsley hole in?”

“Hotel Republic,” Bill answered. “He’s got the gold suite there. You’re not thinking of stopping in to see him, are you?”

“No— not him.”

I called Libby at Arcady House, made a dinner date, and glanced at my watch. A few minutes after eleven— a good time for a pre-lunch call.

The lobby of the Hotel Republic, midway up aristocratic Park Avenue, looked like a Hollywood movie set. Telephone calls announcing my presence were relayed back and forth until finally a desk clerk, a wistful-eyed party in a cutaway coat, informed me I could use one of the elevators. The gold suite did business on the twentieth story. A man-servant with the same droopy eyes as his boss ushered me into a lounge room with a view.

Five minutes later the door opened and Nan Tinsley entered. The little blond was wearing a dragon-embroidered Chinese housecoat instead of a broadtail coat. Bare feet were in silver sandals. In the morning sunshine her gold hair glimmered like the stuff at Fort Knox.

He looked at me and I saw recognition in the slate gray eyes.

“Oh!” she said. “I’ll make this brief, Miss Tinsley. I stopped around to ask you a few routine questions.”

“Are you with the police? I was told you were a newspaper reporter who wanted an interview— about my— ah— about television.”

“That’s right. But my interest in Miss Darcy’s murder has a police connection. I’m trying to turn up some clues I can hand Homicide, to help them as well as my paper.”

“What do you want to ask me?” She was beginning to chill.

“You wanted to see Miss Darcy last night. What about?”

“That was a personal matter.” Her tone was suddenly defensive.

“Don’t let’s beat bushes, Miss Tinsley,” I said. “Murder’s murder, and nothing’s personal when investigations get underway. Be frank with me and I’ll save you a lot of assorted headaches.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“The police would like to know why you went to see Suzette Darcy. If I mentioned your call, Captain Mullin of Homicide would want you at Headquarters for some chitchat. Mullin is a most unsympathetic individual. And, there’d be a lot of newspaper reporters with their ears hanging out. They’d have you all over the front pages with pictures. You know—’Millionaire’s Heiress Tied In With Paladium Pass-out.’ ”

The slate-gray eyes darkened. Slender fingers began to move up and down the sash of the Chinese housecoat. She helped herself to a cigarette from a crystal container, took a drag on it, and looked at me thoughtfully. “There’s no mystery about it,” she said finally.

“I’d known Miss Darcy for quite awhile. She came from a town near where I live in Minnesota. I merely wanted to congratulate her.”

She made it sound authentic, but something told me there was more to it than that. I looked at her quizzically. She began to smile. A pleasant smile that said: “Kick that around. What are you going to do about it?”

I got up. It looked like a blank— until I reached the doors. The sad-faced servant who had let me in opened them suddenly and coughed.

“There’s a telephone call for you, Miss Nan. Will take it in here?”

“Phone call?” The blonde mashed out her cigarette.

“Mr. Caduro is on the wire.”

I bowed out, something tingling from the end of my spine to the top of my scalp. Caduro! Telephoning Amos Tinsley’s daughter! I began to understand how far in on the tangle the patent-leather-haired hooligan was!

I was out to the street under the Republic’s bronze canopy when Larry Hartley started up the steps. The lieutenant gave me a glance sharp enough to shave with.

“I’ve been looking for you, Castle. The captain wants to split some more conversation with you— concerning last night. I’ll only be a minute here. Wait!” He went through the revolving door. When he came back his face was expressionless. “Okay, Johnny. Let’s go.”

Captain Mullin was in one of his moody humors. Which meant that instead of employing his usual hillbilly tactics, he would try to be cute and clever. On him it wasn’t becoming.

“So you were pegged coming out of the Hotel Republic,” Mullin said, when Hartley told him where he had found me. “Out of your territory, isn’t it? What were you doing up there?”

I answered. “I’ll have to see a mouthpiece before I answer questions. Or am I under arrest?”

“You will be if you don’t stop trying to be foxy with me,” he growled. ‘‘I’ll tell you why you were there. You went up there to see Amos Tinsley.” As the captain unloaded that he looked as smug as a rabbit that had just pulled a magician out of a hat.

“Tinsley wasn’t in,” Hartley murmured, over Mullin’s lumpy shoulders. “I telephoned up to find out.”

The head of Homicide fastened his fishy eyes on me. He put one half-soled eleven on the slide of his desk and tried to look tough. That didn’t require much effort.

“I’m warning you, Castle. You’re attempting to solve the Paladium thing on your own. You want a beat for your paper, and the hell with the New York Police Department.”

I didn’t say anything. Hartley looked out the window. Mullin went on:

“It’s your duty as a citizen to turn any evidence you have over to me. I see now it’s the same old stuff. You’re playing solo and trying to make a monkey out of me, trying to solve the thing yourself, to show what bright little boys newspaper guys are and what a lot of eggheads are cops.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him nature had beaten me to it, making a monkey out of him. But I didn’t. Instead, I gave him one of my friendliest smiles and shrugged. I said innocently:

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain. It’s all Russian to me. And I haven’t gone far with my lessons with Pal Vishinsky!”

He let that slide. “What did you want to see Amos Tinsley about?” he demanded. “How did you know he was a friend of Suzette Darcy’s? Who gave you the slant on that?”

My ears went up. So the Flour King wasn’t just somebody who came from Minnesota where the dead Susy had lived, but had been a friend of hers. I thought, stick around Headquarters and you learn things.

“That’s no secret,” I said, “It’s public knowledge that Tinsley backed the ice show. Or isn’t it?”

The telephone rang and Mullin reached for it. Before he picked it up he growled:

“You don’t want to do business with me? You’re lone-wolfing it again, huh? All right, Castle. I warned you to lay off. Don’t, and see what happens to you! That’s all for now.”

I got up.

“Drop over to my place some night soon,” I invited.

“What for?” Mullin grunted. “We’ll open a gas jet,” I said— and left fast.

Riding across town in a taxi, I was thinking hard. What the icicle-eyed Captain Mullin had let out of the bag concerning the Flour King, late of St. Paul, and his friendship with the glamorous Suzette had started a train of thought that gathered speed at every whistle stop. I had a double choice. One, to try and see Tinsley and in someway dig information out of him. The kind it was likely Mullin hadn’t got. The other angle was Tinsley’s attractive daughter. The first score had been all in her favor. But I had a stronger in now. The Caduro tie-up seemed to be as good as three kings and a pair of aces. At Longacre Square I dismissed the taxi and headed for a telephone booth in the nearest drugstore. My dime gave me the voice of the old manservant who had admitted me to the gold suite earlier. He said Mr. Tinsley was out. He didn’t know what time he’d be back.

“Let me talk to Miss Tinsley,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sir. She isn’t at home, either.”

“You wouldn’t know where she went? This,” I lied smoothly, “is an old family friend from St. Paul.”

“Which friend?” The voice in my ear dripped honey. I remembered then that he probably had been with the Tinsley’s for years and knew all their pals. So I slipped the receiver back on the hook and went back to the newspaper office.

Jamison’s desk was vacant. There was a load of mail on mine, mostly from fight managers seeking free publicity for aspiring hopefuls. I sorted through it, pushed it aside and thought hard. I was still trying to find an answer when Jamison came in.

“Break?” I asked.

Bill shook his head. “What’s the matter with that cement-head called Mullin? All of a sudden it’s minimum coverage from now on. For security reasons, he says. I can’t even learn if he’s got the gun. It’s a blank wall.”

Jamison lighted a cigarette and slumped down in his chair.

“I’ve got an angle,” I said slowly, “I don’t know how to play it. Tinsley’s daughter knows something, but won’t spill. I saw her after I left here this morning. Somebody was telephoning her when she handed me my hat. The name was Caduro!”

Jamison’s head snapped up with a jerk.

“You’re kidding!”

“I’m leveling. What can Nan Tinsley have in common with that bandit? I’m sure I can shake a lot of valuable talk loose if I can see her again and get her started. How?”

“Why don’t you get Beth to phone her? Maybe the butler’s suspicious of a man’s voice. Maybe he has orders.”

“It’s a notion.” I said, and went out to the switchboard. Beth Wheaton, one of the plug swingers who sailed from Brooklyn and got most of her comedy via the radio, glanced up when I parked.

“Oh, Mr. Castle. You’re wishing a number, maybe?” Dialect went with the question.

“How would you like to earn a five spot?”

“Make it dollars instead of spots and I’ll say yes. You want me to call your girl friend and tell her you’re working late tonight?”

“I want you to call up the Hotel Republic and talk about Miss Nan Tinsley.”

“Oh, society stuff he asks for.”

I took a bill out of my leather and let her see its denomination.

“Okay, Mr. Castle. What do I say and how do I say it?”

I gave her a quick briefing— and waited. The Brooklyn accent wasn’t too good, but the droopy-eyed servant evidently wasn’t suspicious. Beth thanked him and pulled the plug out.

“Miss Tinsley,” she said, “is at the matinee at the Fine Arts Theayter. She’s not returning for dinner. Lucky dame!”

Chapter 4

THE playhouse had a quarter to five curtain. I was propped in the lobby fifteen minutes before the audience came out. The show was heavy, drawing-room drama that looked good for a summer run. Finally the patrons began to come through the lobby doors. They were nearly all out before I had a glimpse of Nan Tinsley, alone, and bee-lining for a taxi. I went after her.

The taxi stopped, and she got in.

So did I.

I pulled the door shut and said to the hackie, “Riverside Drive. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Then I turned and looked into gray eyes full of sparks.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Nan Tinsley demanded.

“Plenty. You held out this morning. I gave you an even break and you tried to cheat. This time it’s going to be different.”

“Yes?” The sparks burned out, but her pretty face still remained as informative as a piece of stone.

“I’ve learned a couple of things. About your father being friendly with Suzette Darcy. So far that’s been under the counter. The police haven’t released it. I’ll have to if you don’t open up.”

She drew her red underlip between her teeth. I made sure the glass partition between the front and back of the cab was shut. I breathed in the smell of white lilacs. It came from the green dress and smartly tailored coat Nan Tinsley was wearing.

“Take me back to my hotel!” There was a snap in her voice. “I have a dinner date!”

“With Nick Caduro?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. From the flash of her eyes I knew I had scored. I said to the driver, pushing the partition open, “Take us down to Centre Street, Police Headquarters.”

He gave me a fast glance, and turned at the first corner going the right way. Nan Tinsley’s lips were a stubborn red line. Her gloved fingers wove together. I waited. Five blocks. Then ten. I had figured she was obstinate enough to keep silent the whole way when she suddenly cracked.

“You’re not really going to take me to the police?” she asked abruptly, a catch in her voice. “What do you want to know?”

“Take us uptown again,” I directed the driver, shoved the partition shut again and turned back to the blonde. “What did you go up to Suzette Darcy’s dressing room for? And don’t say congratulations or autograph.”

It took a long time coming. Nan Tinsley wasn’t the kind who folded fast. But finally she drew a deep breath and straightened.

“My father was at Headquarters this morning. He must have told them about the Emory Emeralds. If they know, everyone else will—sooner or later. I wanted to ask Suzette to return them. They belonged to my mother. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They’re famous and worth a lot of money. My father had no right to give them to Suzette. They really belong to me— my mother wanted me to have them! Dad knows that, but— but—”

“Your father thought they’d go good with copper hair?” I put in. She was started now, and she answered that question without hesitation.

“It isn’t entirely his fault! Suzette Darcy had been working on him ever since she first saw the emeralds. And Dad—well, he’s not as young as he once was and I suppose he was flattered by her attention. You know how men get. He did anything she asked—anything and everything. I didn’t care about the money he spent, but when he started giving her something that belonged to me, I thought it was time to call a halt.”

“The cops could get you a Grand Jury indictment on that one statement!” I murmured.

“I didn’t kill her!” The gray eyes flashed again. “All I wanted to do was see her. She was carefully avoiding me. I wanted to tell her she couldn’t keep the emeralds, that they weren’t my father’s to give! That’s why I went to her dressing room last night.”

It added up. An old man’s infatuation for a glamorous gal who was on the make. This motive was one hundred per cent sound. The emeralds had been green lights to Death!

“What about Nick Caduro?” I asked Nan. “Where does he come in?” Her lips tightened. The stubborn look froze her face again. But I knew the system now. When she shifted her gaze, I made a show of reaching out to push the partition back. That did it.

“Mr. Caduro’s a private detective I hired the other day.”

I could only stare. I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. It wasn’t a gag with her, either. Her tone was as serious as a major operation.

“Private detective?” I ejaculated, and she must have sensed my surprise. “How did you meet him? What did you hire him for?”

She pressed her fingers together. “At first I thought I should have helped to get the emeralds back. I didn’t know what Suzette would do. If she refused to return them, I decided to have them taken away from her. I don’t know much about police methods, but I had an idea a private detective was what I needed. So I engaged Mr. Caduro’s services.”

“But where did you find him?” I insisted, really interested.

“I don’t mind telling you. I was in the cocktail lounge at the hotel. Last Tuesday, about five o’clock. The house detective stopped at my table for a minute. I knew him because he had found a suitcase that had been misplaced when we checked in.”

“What did you say to the house detective?” I asked.

“I asked him if he could recommend a private detective agency. He gave me two or three names, then went away. He hadn’t been gone more than a minute or two before Mr. Caduro, who had been sitting nearby, got up and came over.”

I nodded.

“Nickie boy had overheard you. Opportunity never has to knock twice for him. So he told you he was a private detective and would be glad to offer his services. What did he do for credentials and an office address?”

Nan Tinsley said that Caduro had shown her a badge, and had explained that he was preparing to open larger offices and that until he decided on a location he was operating from his suite in the Stanwich Arms. I could imagine the suave, convincing way he had worked himself into her confidence.

“And,” I said, “you hired him and told him about the Emory Emeralds. What did he say?”

“That he’d get them back for me. All he wanted was a five-hundred-dollar retainer.”

Light began to shine through. Caduro, in the role of a private eye! A fortune in emeralds handed him! The kind of grab that comes once in a lifetime! Custom-made and built to size!

No wonder, I told myself, the sloppy Bister had given me the frisk in Nick’s apartment. That was sufficient to show me Caduro hadn’t got his hands on the green gems.

But because he’d had an idea that I might have found them in the dressing room— that fact brought a swarm of ideas and questions buzzing through my brain.

Someone had murdered Suzette Darcy for the Emory Emeralds! But hadn’t been able to get away with them. Something, somewhere, had gone wrong. They had put on the kill, but had failed to collect. The finger of suspicion leveled at Caduro. He knew about the famous gems, knew who had them. Yet if his gun had hurled the slug into the ice star, there hadn’t been a pay-off for him— yet.

“Can I go back to the hotel now?” Nan Tinsley’s voice had a quaver again.

I said, “Sure,” and gave the driver the Hotel Republic as a new address. Then I said to Nan, “But you’re not keeping any engagement with Mr. Caduro, if you have one, tonight. I’m going to introduce you to a girl friend of mine, a Miss Hart. I’ll see that she keeps you out of trouble.”

Nan’s brows went up. “What kind of—” she began, stopping when I clipped it off short and said, “Private eye trouble! In the fashionable raiment of Nick Caduro.”

Then I explained, giving her a quick sketch of the gent and his activities while the taxi rolled toward Park Avenue and the hotel....

MY WATCH showed it was almost seven o’clock when I got back to my rooms in a building which at one time had been a livery stable. Some smart operator, realizing each stall would make a three-room suite, had done some remodeling. The agent who had rented me the place said it was lucky. There was a horseshoe in every room.

The minute I unlocked the front door I realized I’d had visitors. The place looked as if a junior cyclone had hit it. Someone had given it a complete going over. Every drawer had been emptied on the floor. The mattress had been slashed and pulled apart. Feathers from the pillows lay like snowflakes in the bedroom. Even the pictures had been dragged down from the walls.

Bister? It was the sloppy type of job a sloppy guy like Georgie would do.

So Nick still thought I had the green flash?

That was reassuring in one degree. It meant Nick Caduro would stick around awhile longer. And I needed time to work on an idea that had popped into my mind after I had got Libby on the phone and blarneyed her into playing chaperon for Nan Tinsley that evening. Lib hadn’t liked it. And with her sneaking suspicion that I was up to my old tricks of crime busting again, it had required a lot of soft talk and hard logic to get her to agree.

I put out the lights and left the mess in my rooms as was. It wasn’t hard to figure how my visitor had got in. I’d never bothered to put a burglar-proof lock on my front door. All that would have done would have been to send uninvited callers around to the rear windows. There were a mere five feet from the areaway. When I went out I cased the block.

When Mullin thought I was chiseling on the police he had a habit of sticking a shag on me. It was likely, also, that the unconvinced Caduro might have Georgie hidden out somewhere nearby to watch everything I did, whom I knew. But nobody tailed me to Broadway and the cafeteria where I had some quick cuisine.

The case of the murdered skating sensation was going around in circles. The same kind of dizzy whirligigs Suzette had cut on the ice of the Paladium stage. Only one thing was definite. The Emory Emeralds were still missing.

I doubted, even after what Nan had said about her father seeing the police, that Amos Tinsley had mentioned the gems to Homicide. After all, a man like the Flour King had some pride. And the fact that Hartley had gone back to the Hotel Republic, probably for more questioning, might or might not confirm the notion that Tinsley had kept quiet about the emeralds. What I had in mind was a long chance.

I hadn’t forgotten Suzette Darcy’s folded-back pale white hand. The hand I’d looked at when I had first seen her crumpled figure on the dressing room floor.

The recollection of it came back, swiftly and sharply.

It was a hundred-to-one bet, but sometimes long shots upset the dope and breeze in. I paid my check and started toward Columbus Circle.

Chapter 5

FIFTEEN minutes later I had reached the Paladium. The place had been closed until a new star could be found for the ice pageant. The huge building was in darkness. Passing the gay posters of Suzette Darcy, I went on around to the stage entrance. It was hard to believe that just a few hours ago the place had been the scene of gaiety and excitement, then of confusion and morbid curiosity.

I looked for a watchman. The outer doors were open, the inner locked. A dim light burned in a cement-floored recess. An elderly man, in a tilted back chair, slapped his feet on the cement when I walked in on him.

“Police business.”

I made it authoritative, giving him a flash at my police card. I put the card away and slid a bill out of my hip pocket wallet. That interested him. He looked from the money to me, then back at the cash again.

“About last night?” he asked.

When I nodded he said, “There’s nobody around now. They took the cop off this afternoon.”

I handed the money over. “I’ve got to go up for a while. Okay?”

“Sure. I’m making my rounds now. Take all the time you want.”

He unlocked the inside doors and pulled a switch.

More small, wan lights flickered on inside. I found the stairs and went up to the third tier, my footsteps making hollow echoes. The stainless steel door of the star’s dressing room was shut, but not locked. I felt around inside until I found the wall switch. That turned on a couple of lamps and filled the mirror walls with my reflection. Except that the dressing room had been cleaned up of exploded flash bulbs, cigar ashes and fingerprint powder, everything was as it had been when I had charged in after hearing Libby’s anguished scream.

I glanced at the floor where Suzy had reposed. There was still a blood stain on the rug. My gaze went to the dressing table, the Arcady House products, and on to the door of the adjoining bath. I moved slowly over to that.

As I reached it I felt a cool current of air on my ankles. Then the almost soundless click of the door latch!

Turning, I looked into the round, black O of a .45-caliber Colt automatic, gripped in the hand of Nick Caduro. It was leveled at my heart and steady as a rock. Behind the dapper Nickie, Georgie Bister, a match stuck in one corner of his seamy-lipped mouth, was watching and enjoying every minute of it.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Castle,” Caduro said. “Remember?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Sit down. I want a little conversation with you.”

I dropped down in the same chair I’d warmed while waiting for Homicide the previous night. Caduro lowered the gun to a new level.

“What have you got to say, Castle?” His tone was like the steel he held. A chill that started at my scalp this time worked down all the way to my shoes. I felt an inner cramp, quick and twisting. Caduro’s eyes were as deadly as the weapon he gripped.

“You could have asked me to show George around the premises,” I began, trying to keep my voice steady. “He didn’t have to pull my place to pieces.”

Bister laughed. Caduro snapped, “So you got to the Tinsley dame and stalled her on me? She broke the date I had with her and I don’t need a blueprint to tell me why.”

He took a step closer, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “Let that ride. You know what I want!”

“Sure, emeralds. The Emory Emeralds. But what makes you think I have them? I was clean when Georgie went through me in your apartment. They weren’t in mine. So that’s that.”

Caduro’s lips folded back in a thin, dangerous smile. “Sure. But you’re not clean now. What did you come back here for tonight? I’ll tell you. You found the emeralds last night. You were too smart to walk out with them then. So you stashed them in here somewhere. Where?”

Bister moved away from the door. His right hand dropped carelessly in the pocket of his overcoat. The match stick in the corner of his mouth stopped bobbing and weaving. Caduro’s eyes peered at me. The cold chill spread, wrapping around me like an icy blanket.

“If the emeralds were here when the Darcy girl was bumped,” I heard myself saying, “why weren’t they picked up then?”

“Because,” Caduro rasped, “Bister’s a mouse! The gal screamed and he got scared! So scared his gun went off— this gun!”

“That’s right,” the rum-dum mumbled. “Why didn’t she keep her mouth shut? She wouldn’t have got hurt. All I come for—”

“Shut up, you dummy!” Caduro cut in.

“Knowing about her won’t do him no good where he’s going,” Bister whined. “Come on, Nick. Put him away and let’s get out of here. I’m worried about that watchman.”

Caduro’s .45 burrowed into my chest. He was so close I could feel his breath on my hair and face. There was murder in his mind.

“Last half of the last inning, Castle. Where’s the stuff?”

I could almost feel his finger get set on the trigger. Something came up in my throat, a lump that I couldn’t swallow. My heart slowed to a waltz time tick and then began to rhumba. After all, I told myself, what was my life compared with some green stones? And how did I know the idea I had dreamed up was the right one? Even if I told Nickie about it, and it proved to be correct, he certainly wasn’t going to turn me loose. Not now.

“Try that big jar of cold cream over there,” I managed to say. Caduro stepped back. Bister gulped. It sounded like a seal swallowing a fish.

“What’s it—a rib?” Georgie laughed. “Last night, when I was up here”— I squeezed the words out painfully— “I noticed one of her hands. Something glistened on it. Cold cream. There wasn’t any on her face—”

Bister’s exclamation rang like a bell.“The dame was standing right over there near that jar when I came in!”

“Get it!” Caduro’s command cracked like a whip. “What are you waiting for? Bring it over here!”

The sloppy Bister went for the Arcady House container like a terrier after a rat. Another order from Nick and Georgie brought a folded towel in from the bath. He stretched that out flat on the floor. Caduro handed him the jar.

“Dump it.” Bister complied, but with not too much success. The thick, white stuff didn’t spill easily. Georgie kept rapping the sides of the can with his big hand.

“Reach in, you dope !” Nick snarled.“Feel around!”

Georgie did. My heart stopped its pounding when his fingers waded around and began to come up with something. The lamplight flashed on what looked like green glass when Bister wiped the cold cream from it. Caduro, turning sideward, bent over to see better. The big, untidy hoodlum’s breathing sounded like a calliope warming up.

But all I could think of was that I had been right about when the Emory Emeralds had been cached. I hoped I was going to be right about the impulse beating at the back of my brain. It was now or never! I gripped the arms of the chair and shot out of it.

Nick’s position made him a perfect setup for attack. Bent sideward, he was not only off-balance but in mowing him down he would fall on top of the crouched-over Georgie. A carom shot, if I ever saw one!

My shoulder hit him like a bowling ball between the Number Two and Three pins. It wasn’t so much strength as swiftness and surprise. With a ripped-out oath Nickie boy slammed into Bister and both went down, faces to the rug. The cold cream jar rolled merrily away while I grabbed for the gun that had bounced out of Caduro’s hand.

It was about ten inches from the tips of my fingers. I had to work fast. I was just touching the stock of the rod when Caduro wriggled out from under me and used a knee. It was an agonizing jolt. It made me clamp my teeth down on the groan that burst out of my throat. But I kept on reaching.

I had the gun the next minute. It was off safety and ready to use! The room danced before my eyes. I was full of pain. But I hardly felt the pain when I saw Caduro scramble to his feet and start to come at me.

With a tremendous effort I got the gun up and pressed the trigger.

The roar sounded as if an artillery barrage were being laid down in the room. I kept on pumping the gun madly, wildly, until suddenly, and without notice, the lights went out and the noise stopped. I seemed to shoot down a chute— into a lot of waiting black coal. Only, as the radio comics Beth Wheaton listened to would have said, it didn’t hurt because it was soft coal. Soft as fleece....

WHEN I came out of it I thought somebody had turned the clock back. Because I was still in the dressing room, but it was full of uniformed authority again. I was laid out on an upholstered settee and Lieutenant Hartley was busy chafing my wrists. Over his left ear I saw Captain Mullin. That stocky figure was across the room. The emerald necklace hung suspended from one of his stubby fingers. Somebody must have cleaned off the cream while I was sleeping. Now it sparkled and scintillated like Cartier’s front window.

I looked past Mullin. A couple of plainclothes men were giving first aid to the Messrs. Caduro and Bister. Both had been shot, Georgie in the legs and Nickie boy in the arms. Wheeler was trying handcuffs on them for size, and Georgie was bleeding out a full confession in a mumble-jumble of words.

“Feeling better, Johnny?” Hartley picked up the flask that had left a sting in my mouth.

“I’m okay. What happened?”

“Nothing much except that two of your six shots rang bells. Good thing for you the watchman was handy, heard the racket and came in. Looks like you decided to pass out or something at the wrong moment. But it’s all in and on the books, now. We’ve got the gun, the guy who murdered Suzette Darcy— and the motive!”

I sat up and lowered my feet to the floor. That felt steady under them. Caduro threw a venomous glance at me, but I didn’t pay any attention. I was more interested in Captain Fred Mullin, the smile on his granite pan, and the hand that he held out as he flat-footed over to me.

“Much as I hate doing it,” he rumbled, “I’ve got to hand it to you, Castle. With my help you sewed this case up to the Queen’s taste. How about a lift downtown— or anywhere else that you may want to go?”

“Thanks,” I told him. “All I want is a telephone and a call to the gold suite at the Hotel Republic. When I get my gal friend there on the wire, Captain, you can speak your piece— for me.”

Mullin rubbed his chin and looked puzzled. “Yeah? What do you want me to tell her?”

I grinned and reached for the telephone. “What a swell guy I am, and how you did all the heavy work on this one. I didn’t have a thing to do with it. Right?”

He nodded, and I got the number.

___________________

21: Five minutes from the Grave

Thrilling Detective Feb 1950

THE knocking grew louder. Dave McClain, the big, cigar smoking Headquarters dick, turned over in bed. That didn’t shut the noise out. It continued, stepping up its tempo. Mac opened one drowsy eye. The bedroom was black as the interior of a West Virginia coal mine. He opened the other eye and sat up, rubbing his leathery face. The voice of Anna, the sister he boarded with, drifted in:

“Dave! Wake up! Wake up, Dave!”

McClain grunted, slapped his large, flat feet on the floor and reached for a bathrobe. The phosphorescent hands on his alarm clock told him it was ten minutes after three in the morning.

He said, “Fooey!” switched on a light and bobbed and weaved over to the door. “Where’s the fire?”

“There’s a man here to see you, Dave.” Anna, in a faded kimono, nodded a head full of curlers toward the opposite end of the hall. “His name is Charlie Shramm and he says it’s important! He says he knows you.”

“He’d better know me well,” Mac growled.

Before he could add to the statement he was interrupted by the early morning caller. A young man who wore a taxi driver’s hat stepped in from the apartment’s foyer. Mac recognized him as a guy he had known for some time. A hard working, on-the-level hot rod chauffeur who hacked for the Green Cab outfit.

“I’m just around the corner.” McClain saw that there was a glitter in Charlie Shramm’s eyes. “All of a sudden I remembered you parked here, Mac. I came right up. You’d better hustle down.”

“On account of—what?”

“Me having a stiff in my wagon!”

Shramm answered, with a wheezy, indrawn breath.

The taxi, as its driver had said, was around the corner. It stood in front of a darkened delicatessen store. It was one of the Green Cab Company’s older jobs. It didn’t have the new removable roof, Neon advertising or radio equipment.

Shramm pointed to the curb side rear door.

“Open it and take a peek.”

McClain did. Crumpled on the floor, when he clicked on the cab’s overhead
light, he saw the contorted figure of a young man in a blue suit. A gray felt hat had rolled across the seat. The man’s face was pressed to the floor mat, one hand pushed under his coat in a Napoleonic gesture. The other arm was flung limply wide and rested across the foot rail.

Waxy face and glazed, staring eyes, these told their own story. Dave McClain, who knew more about death than most undertakers, took one look and turned to Charlie Shramm.

“The guy’s an angel. What happened?”

In reply, the hackie pointed down the street. Almost at the corner was a lighted day-and-night  armchair  lunchroom.

Shramm said:

“I stopped here. Thirty minutes ago. I walked over for a cup of mud and a sinker. When I came back this party’s in my cab.”

Mac’s brows drew together. Through force of habit he searched his vest pockets for one of his cellophane wrapped torpedoes. But he had dressed in such a rush that he had forgotten to load before leaving. He was weedless.

“You’re telling me you never saw him before?”

“That’s right. The last fare I had was an hour ago. Two gals and a gent who went uptown. I was bare after I dropped them and rolled down here.”

Fingering a nickel out of his pocket, Mac  said,  “Call  Headquarters.  Get whoever’s on the Homicide desk. Tell him you’re calling for me. Tell him to get a squad car and a medical examiner here in a hurry.”

Shramm  departed  hastily  in  the direction of the lunchroom and Mac turned his attention to the dead man in the cab. He was young, about twenty-four or five. Rather nice looking, cleanly shaved with reddish brown hair and a slim, medium sized figure. The blue suit was well pressed, the black shoes recently polished. Mac’s narrowed gaze, traveling down the body, stopped and focused on the shoes. Something on the soles, in under the heels, caught and held his attention. With a thumbnail he loosened a bit of a gray, granular  substance  and  rubbed  it thoughtfully between his fingers.

Methodically, Mac searched for the cause of death. He found it a minute later. The man had been shot at a point on his left side some few inches above his alligator belt. There was a small amount of blood around the little hole drilled through his white shirt. The hand under his coat had been pressed tightly against the wound as if trying to hold it closed.

McClain frowned. At first he thought the body had been dumped in Shramm’s taxi. A glance at the bullet hole and he wasn’t so sure. The man might have been shot some distance away and, by his own power, walked as far as the cab, opened its door and collapsed when he entered.

The pockets of the blue coat contained identification. Several letters, a memo address book, a wallet with a driver’s license and eighty-four dollars in cash. Mac thumbed the driver’s license out and looked through its plastic window. It was made out to Arnold Malden, at an address on 115th Street, near Broadway. The  money  in  the  leather  seemed significant to Mac. It hadn’t been a strongarm stickup job. Whoever had gunned Arnold Malden hadn’t been after a cash payoff.

Homicide arrived some minutes after Shramm’s return. Mac handed the problem to Lieutenant Larry Hartley and went back to his sister’s apartment. But not to sleep. He made himself a pot of coffee and filled his empty vest pockets with the ammunition  he  needed  for  clear, inspirational thinking. Then, careful not to arouse Anna, her husband or Junior, he washed his coffee cup, put it in the dresser and, leaving a trail of acrid smoke in his wake, went down to the street.

The medical examiner had signed a release for the body. Shramm and his green cab had likewise departed. Mac looked up and down the deserted street. There was no use dreaming things up until he had an autopsy report to work on.

But there was nothing to stop him taking a cruise up to 115th Street and the address that had been on Malden’s license. It was an expensive looking apartment. Gray stone, with a bronze canopy and an all night hallman and elevator operator. Half a block away Riverside Drive fringed the silvery flow of the Hudson River. The neighborhood  was  quiet,  eminently respectable.

McClain  dug  a  disgruntled superintendent  out  of  his  basement apartment. The man, of Swedish descent, was properly impressed by the visit of the law, but resentful of a four-twenty a. m. awakening.

“You’ve got a pass-key to Malden’s apartment,” Mac grunted. “Take me up and open it. I want to look around.”

The super didn’t object. Mac was all ready with a line of gab in case the man started asking to see a search warrant. He didn’t, and a few minutes later they were on the fifth floor.

The door unlocked, Mac went into Arnold Malden’s three-room suite. It  was  nicely  decorated,  nicely furnished. The living room was large and comfortable. The bedroom was done in maple and colorful chintz. There was a bath adjoining it. Also, a good sized kitchen in red and white.

“He lived here alone,” the super explained. “For three years. Quiet. Tipped well and minded his business. He had a cleaning woman come in every other day. Took most of his meals out.”

“What was his business?”

The superintendent shrugged. “None of mine. I don’t know. He paid his rent on the first day of every month. That was good enough for me.”

McClain looked around the living room. An enlargement of a camera snap was silver-framed on a table. He walked over to it. The photo was that of the dead Malden and a pretty girl. Taken at some beach resort. There was an ocean and a beach background, sun umbrellas in the distance. Malden and the girl were in bathing suits.

While the super swung the pass-key idly, Mac flatfooted around, spilling cigar ashes en route. He noticed a pile of Wall Street Journals on a shelf in the hall closet. Beyond that and the picture in the silver frame there seemed nothing to interest him further.

“Thanks,” he said to the superintendent. “That’s all. You can take to the feathers again.”

AT HEADQUARTERS McClain took a look at the flimsy on the clipboard. The medical examiner’s report was on top. Mac sat down to read it over.

The bullet, fired from a .22 caliber gun, had not, so the report stated, been instantaneously fatal. There was a lot of technical stuff describing the abdominal course the lead had taken before it had found a final lodging place. The big dick skipped the medical terms. What he wanted to know about was whether Arnold Malden could have lived ten or fifteen minutes with the bullet in him.

Mac hunted up “Doc” Bagby, who had done the autopsy. The Headquarters’ surgeon was a mousy little man with a wisp of a mustache and melancholy eyes. McClain thought he could understand the look in them. Bagby’s trade wasn’t conducive to mirth and merriment. His patients never gave him the satisfaction of recovering.

“Look, Doc. The stiff in the taxi. Could he have walked around with the lead in him?”

“It’s possible.”

“How far?” McClain rubbed his chin.

“I mean, how long could he have kept on his pins?”

“I don’t know. Maybe five minutes, maybe longer. By the way, he had plenty of liquor onboard. There was a half pint of alcohol in his stomach.”

Mac nodded and went upstairs to check with Captain Fred Mullin, Homicide’s active head.

“How much have we got on the Malden lad?” he asked.

“His memo address book,” Mullin answered, “gave us a couple of leads. Malden had an office at Eleven Pine Street. Investments, brokerage and bond sales. One man outfit.” He reached across the desk, picked up the book mentioned and tossed it over to McClain. “Help yourself. Lots of phone numbers and addresses to play around with.”

“Thanks.” Mac tucked the book in his pocket. “I’ll wander back uptown and see if I can find where Malden came from before getting in Shramm’s heap.”

He went back to the street where the taxi had been parked. Standing there, at the curb, Mac thoughtfully stared up and down the block. Where had Malden walked from? Which direction?

If the dead man had bled profusely, McClain knew, it would have been comparatively easy to pick up his trail. But he hadn’t. With a shrug of his broad shoulders he went across to the same lunchroom where Charlie Shramm had stopped off and took a doughnut and a steaming cup of coffee to one of the armchairs.

While he stirred the coffee McClain thumbed through Malden’s little book. As Mullin had said, there were plenty of scribbled telephone numbers and addresses. Mac combed through them, remembering the photo enlargement in the silver frame. Finally, out of the book’s pages, he selected two names and two numbers. One was entitled Fran, with a telephone in the Endicott exchange. The other said Wilda, and had a Rhinelander call number.

McClain used a booth in the rear of the lunchroom. Wilda’s number didn’t answer. He tried the other with more success. A clear, girl’s voice came over the wire.

“Police  business,”  McClain  said. “Where are you located? I want to come up and see you.”

“It’s much too early for gags,” the voice said. “Who is this?”

McClain hung up and then got the operator back again. The business office of the telephone company supplied the information he wanted. Twenty minutes later he was on the second floor of a five-story apartment building on 71st Street near West End Avenue.

He stopped beside a door numbered 2G. From the other side of it came the ripple of piano music. Not the boogie woogie of a jive specialist, the music McClain heard was classical stuff, strictly Carnegie Hall type.

The pressure of the buzzer button cut it short. A quick tap of heels on a hardwood floor replaced it. The door opened and he looked into inquisitive dark blue eyes fringed with long, thick lashes. Sunny yellow hair caught and held the light streaming in from the window behind her. The girl was small, radiantly youthful, as pretty as Mac had seen off the screen or on any Broadway stage.

“Miss Hollister, Francisca Hollister?”

The McClain authority was pushed over so she could see it. “I called you awhile ago. The police business you thought was a gag. I want to talk to you.”

She led him into the sunny room where the small grand piano he had heard stood with its keyboard away from the windows. It was a sparsely furnished room. She sat down on the piano bench. Mac looked keenly at her small, high-arched feet, the shoes she wore.

“You know Arnold Malden?” When she nodded, her white forehead wrinkling slightly, he added, “When did you see him last?”

“Yesterday— at noon. I had lunch with him. Why?”

McClain said tersely, “He had an accident. Before I tell you about it, you can give me some information.”

She spoke slowly, worried he saw over the word “accident” that he had used. She said she was engaged to Malden, that she had known him for a little over three months. Then she cried softly:

“What do you mean— accident. What happened to Arnold?”

“He’s dead— he was murdered.”

The girl’s hands went up over her pretty face. For a minute McClain thought she was about to faint. She slipped forward on the bench, steadied herself with an effort and peered at him with wide, horrified eyes.

“Ivan must have done it!” Strangled words seemed to tear from her quivering lips. “He hated Arnold! He told me I was a fool to have anything to do with him— that I was ruining my career!”

She stopped, sobbing, overcome with emotion. Mac fumbled uneasily among his battery of cigars. Finally he shook his head and let his hand come away empty.

“Who’s Ivan?” he asked, quietly.

She told him and Mac got to his feet.

He looked at her somberly. It was no act. He knew enough about emotional reactions to know that these were genuine.

“Look, Miss Hollister. Don’t go away. A little later on my boss will want to ask you a few questions. How about your folks? Are they here with you?”

“I live alone,” she said, in a muffled tone.

“If I were you,” Mac said, “I’d go in and lie down. Take it easy for awhile. You’ll feel better later.”

From a drug store he phoned Mullin at Centre Street and then hopped a cab, giving the block with the lunchroom as a destination. All at once Mac’s spirits began to lift. Fran Hollister’s tears faded out of his mind. The bloodhound in him stirred. By a stroke of luck he had grabbed himself a straight lead.

The taxi stopped in front of an old fashioned four-story private house, one building in from the corner of the street. Paying the driver off, McClain stood in the middle of the sidewalk and stared west. Shramm’s rig, at the other end of the street, would be about a three minute hike for anyone under normal circumstances. But a guy with lead in his gizzard and half a pint of alcohol in his stomach would take longer.

“Five minutes, anyway,” Mac said to himself. “Five minutes from the grave!”

Inside, on a vestibule directory, he found the name he wanted. It read, Ivan Russov and said, Studio 3. Mac went up a flight of narrow margined, uncarpeted stairs.

Two men in plaster-stained coveralls, with ladders, were working toward the rear on the landing above. They were doing something to the ceiling. Beyond them, a red light marked a fire exit. Mac skirted the ladder and came to a stop. A narrow flight of stairs led down. At their head were three tall galvanized-iron trash cans. They were filled to overflowing with chunks of the plaster removed from the ceiling. A tarpaulin on the floor was sprinkled with more of the plaster that gritted under McClain’s oversized feet.

He sucked on his cigar meditatively. Then, as he was about to turn away, he caught the blue glint of metal from behind one of the refuse cans.

Mac pushed the can aside and leaned over. Something hot and magnetic sprayed through him as if he had touched a live wire. The workmen weren’t paying any attention to him. He slipped one of Anna’s best ironing jobs out of his pocket, shook the handkerchief open and reached.

When it came back he had a gun in its linen folds. He scrutinized it intently. It was a Smith and Wesson target revolver, the kind called a K-22 Masterpiece. Mac knew it fired any of the .22 caliber rim fire, short, long or long rifle cartridges. Its stock was checked walnut with the familiar S & W monogram engraved on it.

The gun that had had a workout on Arnold Malden? McClain nodded to himself. He was certain he had the murder rod.

Tucking it way, he found Studio 3 across the corridor. Its door was directly opposite the building’s fire exit. Mac pressed the bell and watched the workmen. The door opened. A voice said:

“Yes? You are looking for me?”

McClain stared into a pair of dark, beady eyes. They belonged to a lanky, flat-chested man. He wore a gray flannel shirt, green corduroy trousers, carpet slippers. A cigarette drooped from one corner of his small, tight-lipped mouth.

He had a narrow head, quantities of oily black hair shot with gray. It gave him a sort of wild, temperamental look. Mac noticed his slender fingers were nicotine stained. It was hard to guess his age. He might have been thirty or fifty.

“You’re Russov?”

“Yes. And you?” His voice had a flat, expressionless quality to it.

“I have an appointment with you— as of now. Police check up. How about letting me in?”

Ivan Russov stepped aside. Watching him warily, Mac was ushered into a fairly large room. Fran Hollister’s living room had been sparsely furnished. This one, in addition to two grand pianos, was crowded with furniture, bookshelves, statuary and framed, autographed photographs on all four walls.

McClain gave the studio a swift, comprehensive glance. Russov didn’t ask him to sit down. The man sucked in a lungful of cigarette smoke and rested against one of the pianos.

“What do you want?”

“Information. About a party named Arnold Malden. You knew him?”

“Certainly. He was here this morning— drunk. He woke me up. It was three o’clock. He wanted to come in and argue with me.”

“About what?”

“A young lady. A pupil of mine. He is in love with her. He believes I am trying to break up his romance. He has threatened me several times.” Russov shrugged.

“You’ve got a gun?”

“No.”

“You’ve never seen this one before?”

McClain pulled out the target pistol. Russov gave it an indifferent glance. He said, “Firearms do not fit in with my line of work.”

“Malden was shot last night. Killed.” Mac spaced his words to give them impact. “In this building. With this gun. He was able to walk almost to the corner. Up to a taxi parked there. He got in it— with his last breath. And you’re telling me you don’t know anything about it?”

“Yes.”

“Get your shoes on. You and I are finishing this up at Headquarters.”

For the first time Russov lost some of his nonchalance. The beady black eyes widened. A flush of color crept into his thin face. He dropped the cigarette in a glass dish and said:

“You are arresting me?”

“Certainly not.” Mac grinned. “Just taking you in for questioning. You and Miss Hollister. We want to know all about her relations with Malden and why you hated him so much that you tried to break up their friendship. Go ahead! Stick your feet into leather.”

Two hours later, the fishy eyed, deadpanned Captain Mullin tipped back in his swivel chair at Headquarters and glanced at Mac.

“No good, Dave. Russov can’t be budged. Sticks to his story. Says he had words with Malden through the door, turned him away and went back to bed. I gave him the full count but no sale. A tough baby.”

“How about the gal?”

“Her, too. She admits being in love with Malden. If she’s lying, it’s a good act. Last time she saw him was at noon yesterday— like she told you. She was going to be married to him the first of next month.”

McClain fingered the piece of lead extracted from Arnold Malden. Ballistics reported it had been fired from the K-22 he had found on Russov’s landing. He turned it over idly in his hand, put it back on Mullin’s desk and shook his head.

“Maybe the guy’s leveling, chief. He had a motive, sure. He could even make it self-defense if he wanted. Malden tried to bust into his studio to beat him up. He gunned him to keep him off. It fits.”

“No, it don’t.” Captain Mullin shook his head. “There were no prints on that target revolver. People shooting in self-defense don’t bother to put on gloves or wipe their prints away before getting rid of the weapon. And they wouldn’t hold out on using that angle to hide behind. I’m turning Russov loose, the dame, too. You’ll have to do better if you want it to stick.”

“Okay.” Mac moved his shoulders. “No sleep from three this morning, but that’s all right. Let’s see what I can do.”

“Play it smart,” Mullin told him. “And while you’re doing that, find out where Malden got the ten grand he put in his personal checking account last Wednesday. Might have some bearing on his bow out.”

“Ten G’s?”

“Hartley raked over Malden’s office at Eleven Pine. The bankbook was in his top drawer.”

McClain went down to the squad room. He washed, combed his hair and, with a fresh cheroot fuming, walked out of Headquarters. He thought about the beady-eyed Russov. Mullin did funny things sometimes. Maybe he had deliberately turned Russov loose with the idea that the music teacher would cross himself up.

Maybe, Mac thought, the lanky man with the small, tight-lipped mouth had a yen for pretty Fran Hollister himself. Then Mac’s thoughts centered about the ten-thousand-dollar  deposit  Mullin  had mentioned. That didn’t seem too important. In the brokerage-investment racket Malden engaged in, an amount of dough like that might have been a client’s ante for some stock he wanted.

“Only,” McClain said to himself, “why did he sock it away in his private account?”

It was after five o’clock when, following through on the other name conned from Malden’s address book, he entered an apartment building in the East 50’s. This was different from any of the stops he had previously made that day. It was an expensive layout, higher class than the place Arnold Malden had lived in. This building had an air of wealth and exclusiveness.

A liveried hallman tried to stop McClain from going up to the apartment he wanted, without being announced. He didn’t succeed and a few minutes later Mac was on the thirteenth floor. He wandered down its heavily carpeted length, thumbed a button that produced chimes and looked into the broad, not too intelligent face of a maid who was adjusting her apron straps while she peered out at him.

“Miss Weston in?” When the girl said she wasn’t, Mac, with a foot in the door, added, “I’m a friend of hers. She expects me. She’s coming home soon?” When the maid nodded, he said, “I’ll step in and wait.”

The girl didn’t object. Which explained why thefts were so common in Manhattan, Mac thought, when she led him into an attractively appointed sitting room. She went out without further comment. He put his hat down on a polished table, rubbed his chin reflectively and started wandering around.

The telephone company had given him Wilda Weston’s last name and address when he had supplied her telephone number. Not finding her home, to Mac, was something that might or might not be a lucky break. In any event he decided to make good use of his time.

From the sitting room he quietly opened doors. After a minute or two he found  himself  in  a  mauve-and-gold bedroom. The faint odor of perfume lingered on the air. He listened carefully. He didn’t want the maid to find him there.

From some other section of the apartment he heard her moving around. Quickly, Mac pulled open more doors until he found the one he wanted. He was back in the sitting room, cooling his heels and down to the last inch of his stogy when a key grated in the front door’s latch. The door opened and closed.

A  girl  came  in— slowly,  hesitantly, curiously.

McClain remembered his manners and climbed to his feet. He had the impression of burnished, coppery hair. Of gray-green eyes, a skin almost golden in its warmth. Of curved, vividly red lips and a slender, streamlined figure that was set off to advantage by the smart light woolen dress she wore, the short, fur-collared jacket she slipped off as the gray-green eyes rested on him inquiringly.

She was poised and sure of herself.

Every action and mannerism told Mac that.

“You’re Miss Weston. I’m McClain. Plain-clothes detective from Homicide. I’m checking on murder. Arnold Malden’s murder early this morning.”

“You want to know— what?”

“When did you see him last?”

“In his office, last Wednesday.” Her voice was fascinatingly husky. If she were surprised by her visitor’s blunt, abrupt questioning, she masked it well.

“Why did you go to his office?”

“To invest some money.”

“Ten thousand dollars, for instance?”

The gray-green eyes widened slightly. She seemed about to say, “How did you know?” and changed it to, “Yes, that’s right.”

“Then Malden was only a business acquaintance?” McClain gave her a sharp look.

“Only that. He made investments for me— from time to time.”

Mac shook his head. “That doesn’t stand up. Sorry: You’ll have to do better.”

“What do you mean?” Her tone quickened.

“Sit down, Miss Weston.” He waved a big hand at the chair. “Let’s talk this out. Last night you followed Malden. You followed him after you said good-night to him. Maybe he told you where he was going— to a building in the Fifties. To see a party named Russov about a babe named Fran Hollister.”

Wilda Weston pursed her lips. She smiled faintly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s all right. Few do— at first. I’ll give you a memory refresher without charge. You tailed Malden because he was cutting loose from you and about to commit matrimony with one of Russov’s piano  pupils.  The  Miss  Hollister mentioned. Stop me if I’m wrong.”

She didn’t say anything and McClain went on. “You had a gun with you, a twenty-two caliber job. There are two stairways in Russov’s building. Front and rear. You picked the rear one and waited. Malden didn’t get in to take Russov apart. So you went into action. You drilled Malden from one of the steps down from the landing, stashed the cannon back of one of the refuse cans there and blew in a hurry.”

STILL the girl said nothing. Mac noticed her hands, slender and white. There was no movement to them, no nervousness.

“I figured it was an amateur’s job. Because,” he told her, “a real gunny or hood wouldn’t let a victim walk away. They’d stick around and make sure he was blacked out before exiting. Malden was able to get down the stairs and almost to the corner before he went in for harp strumming.”

Wilda Weston laughed. It was a low, amused little laugh. She walked over to the polished table where Mac’s hat rested. She pushed that aside and took a cigarette out of a silver humidor.

“So this is a demonstration of theory and deduction?” she drawled. “How can you prove what you say?”

“That won’t be too rough. First, Malden is in a bathing suit picture with you up in his apartment. I don’t know. Maybe these brokerage guys take their clients out and get snapped with their arms around them, gazing fondly into each other’s eyes. But that was only a pale lead. I’ve been here for some twenty minutes. I had time to give the closet in the bedroom a gander. Lots of shoes in it. One pair interested me.”

She seemed to freeze. The golden face whitened a little.

“Shoes?”

“One pair with some plaster ground into the soles and heels. Stuff from the landing outside Russov’s door and on the rear steps. That’s important; rule one in anybody’s murder book. Clean your shoes when you walk on foreign matter that can be traced. Otherwise— trouble.”

He broke it off fast. Wilda Weston’s hand had dropped to the drawer in the table beside which she stood. She opened it and snatched a gun out of it in one smooth, quick move.

Wheeling, the gun drew a bead on Dave McClain!

He saw it was a copy of the K-22 he found back of the can. One of a pair. But he was more interested in the set of the girl’s mouth and what was in her eyes than the make of the weapon she gripped.

“I killed Arnold,” she said, her voice like ice, “because he was a liar and a cheat! Because he took my money, not to buy bonds, but to buy himself a honeymoon! I did a little private investigating myself. I killed him and I’m glad! But I’m not going to pay for it— he wasn’t worth it!”

“So,” McClain murmured, “you’re going to bump me and walk? Not far, Miss Weston. Remember, I said I was here for twenty minutes before you came in.”

Arched, narrow brows drew together. The lids came down over her gray-green eyes. Mac’s heart was beating it out; eight to the bar. He didn’t know if it were going to work, but he figured it was his only chance.

A gal with a gun, keyed up as high as this coppery haired beauty, was twice as dangerous as any of the killers he had tangled with in the past. The rats he had mixed with played it out in orthodox fashion. This amateur murderess didn’t know the rules.

Sweat began to trickle down the backs of his ears. He had told his sister Anna to have dinner at seven. Anna was a good cook and he hoped he’d be around to eat it. He drew a deep, silent breath and took the plunge.

“I’m allergic to bullets,” he went on in the same quiet, conversational tone. “In the twenty minutes I found something else besides the shoes in your closet. That target revolver you’re holding. I thought it might be an idea to do what the comedians advise— get the lead out. You’re holding an empty shooter, honey!”

She fell for it like a ton of brick. With a smothered exclamation the gun moved slightly away from McClain as her gaze dropped to it. His forward lunge carried him over to her. He had her pistol wrist in his big, tight grip before she could squeeze the trigger.

McClain tore the K-22 away from her and grinned.

“Sit down, Miss Weston, before we go slumming to Centre Street. In the future, if you happen to have one, take my advice.”

She didn’t ask what it was and he gave it to her, gratis, a minute later. Breaking the revolver and turning it so she could see the brass circle of cartridges in its chambers,

Dave McClain said:

“When anybody tells you a gun’s unloaded, shoot before you see the white of his lies!”

___________________

22: The Man Who Never Forgot

Detective Story Magazine Dec 17 1918

IT WAS KNOWN throughout the Manhattan underworld that “Frisco Ed" never forgot. There were many who, at one time and another, had crossed his trail or aroused his resentment, and while he had said nothing at the time, the San Francisco dip had jotted down the incidents on his mental index, obliterating them only when in some way he had arranged matters to his own satisfaction, causing those he fancied had wronged him ample suffering.

There was, among others, “Limpy Lou,” who unconsciously, in a moment of intemperance, had dropped information into the ear of a certain stool pigeon, concerning a package of bonds Frisco Ed had helped himself to. Frisco Ed, through lack of evidence, had been discharged. He bided his time, and one dark night, several months after the incident, he encountered Limpy Lou in a blind alley adjacent to the Bowery. After the meeting Limpy Lou limped no more.

Thus it was that the friends of one Joe La Grand, a yegg of some reputation and fame, were greatly perturbed when they learned he had, while pressed for immediate funds, stuck Frisco Ed up in a waterfront cafe, relieving him of a tidy bank roll. The friends of La Grand, learning of this, hastened to impress him with Frisco Ed's remarkable faculty for remembering things. They quoted various cases to illustrate the point, but La Grand only laughed at their fears.

“You guys give me a pain!” he said. “If that cheap dip pulls any of that revenge stuff, I'll break his neck!”

His words failed to quiet the fears of his friends. They shook their heads dubiously and begged him to keep his eyes open and his wits about him until the gentlemen from the Pacific coast was picked up and sent along for a stretch at the stir on the upper Hudson. The one they addressed listened to them with a smile on his lips and, when they completed their recital, shrugged his shoulders carelessly.

It was almost a year later that La Grand, dropping into a West Street restaurant known familiarly as the “Dirty Spoon,” seated himself at a wet table directly opposite to Frisco Ed. Time had not treated La Grand any too well. The dip from San Francisco noticed this in a quick glance as the yegg sat down and they exchanged looks.

“Hello, La Grand,” Frisco Ed said pleasantly. “How's tricks?”

The safe blower gave an order to a waiter, who made passing the queer a side issue, and laughed curtly.

“Rotten!” he looked curiously across the stained table top. “You still got a grudge against me for the time I stuck you up at Clancey's?”

Frisco Ed looked grieved. “Forget it!” he said. “What do you think I am? You cleaned me, but I got to give you credit for it. The guy that can get away with it, I take my lid off to.” He laughed. “And it teached me a lesson— never to go out without a gun.”

Slightly relieved, La Grand turned to the watery stew the waiter placed before him, eating vociferously, conscious of the other's gaze upon him as he did so.

“What's the matter, La Grand?” Frisco Ed said after a moment. “Broke?”

His voice was tinged with sympathetic interest. La Grand laid aside his fork and looked up.

“Luck's agin' me,” he replied harshly; “and the town is full of square toes keeping the lid down so tight it's harder to find a box to bust than a million bucks!”

The dip appeared to meditate on this as La Grand finished his stew and gulped down a cup of muddy coffee. Then Frisco Ed leaned across the table, his narrowed eyes suddenly glowing, his voice pitched in a confidential key.

“I think you're the yegg I've been looking for,” he murmured. “I'll tell you why. For the last couple of weeks I've had the dope on a safe, ripe to be cracked, and I've been looking for somebody to tackle it on a fifty-fifty split. How does that listen to you?”

La Grand found the half of a cigarette in one pocket of his shabby coat and set fire to it, inhaling deeply.

“Where's the box?” he inquired.

Frisco Ed's lip curved in the suggestion of a smile.

“Before I go into particulars,” he said smoothly, “I want your word that we do divvy on it. It's a soft job and anybody who can handle soup can get away with it. Private house, family down in Florida for the winter. The stuff is jewelry, cash and bonds. I can get a floor plan of the place inside of twelve hours. It's the softest job that ever happened, and you're the guy that can handle it. Give me a buzz that I figure for half the stuff, and you're on!”

For a moment or two La Grand smoked in silence. Then he tossed away the stub of his cigarette, wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and leaned across the table.

“Shoot the piece,” he said tersely. “I'm your man!”

TWO nights later, La Grand, concealed in the shadows adjacent to the park wall, awaited what he considered the proper hour to make his way into the house which lay slumbering down the quiet side street before him. According to the information given by Frisco Ed, the place was untenanted save for two elderly caretakers, who resided on the top floor.

Lurking in the shadowed gloom, La Grand waited for the patrolman on duty to “ring in” at the patrol box on the corner and start toward the farther end of his beat. The yegg knew that he would have at least an hour before the policeman's return. Finally he saw the bluecoat, whistling, softly, disappear down the street.

When he was out of sight, the yegg gave a twist to the soft cap he wore and, coming cautiously out from his place of concealment, sauntered unhurriedly through the lamplit darkness, passing the house that had been marked as legitimate prey, and continuing to the corner. Then, grinning a little, he turned and retraced his steps.

This time, upon reaching his destination, he dropped quietly down into the basement areaway and crossed to the latticed gate. Here it was but the work of a moment to make certain there was no wiring for burglar alarms and to cut away one of the pliant metal bars of which the gate was made. This accomplished he inserted his hand through the aperture and drew the latch, opening it. Now he was confronted by a wooden door, and several moments elapsed before he found the skeleton key which would unlock it.

He emerged into a darkened hallway, redolent of the faint odor of recent cooking. He had committed the floor plan of the house to memory. Cautiously he felt his way along the narrow corridor to the flight of stairs he knew lay somewhere ahead of him. Presently he found it and, mounting the steps, came out upon a landing on the first floor. Here La Grand employed his small electric torch, catching an impression of heavy rugs, hanging tapestries, and oil paintings in their glass boxes. Then he turned to the stairway looming up before him, and ascended it quietly.

On the second landing he stopped to recover his sense of direction and, turning, cut across the hall and entered the large front room, carefully closing the door behind him.

Now he felt a little easier. At least one-third of the night's work was finished and the balance could be concluded quickly and accurately. The room was furnished as a library. As he explored it cautiously, La Grand laughed to himself, recalling what his friends had once told him of the dip's unfailing memory. He always knew Frisco Ed was a four-flusher, a boob. Instead of remembering the sticking-up incident, the Californian had found a soft job for him. He laughed again as he thought of his promise to divide the spoil equally. He had no more intention of keeping his promise to the dip than he had of being elected president of a temperance society.

The floor plan, as he recalled, showed the safe in the right-hand corner of the room from the doorway. Advancing to the spot, La Grand divested himself of his coat and dropped to one knee, flashing the thin pencil of light across the wall. But instead of focusing upon the outline of a small steel safe, the yellow beam of radiance disclosed the glass front of a bookcase.

He stiffened. As he did so, a sudden footfall sounded from behind him, shattering the silence. His light winked out as he crouched back, cursing silently.

For a tense instant he waited for the footsteps to pass, but, instead of doing so, they drew nearer. He reached for his gun just as a hoarse voice bade him throw up his hands and the room was flooded with electricity from the hanging chandeliers overhead!

Blinking in the white glare of the lights, and cursing fervently, he fell back at the sight which confronted him.

Before him, with drawn revolvers, two plain-clothes men, a patrolman and a roundsman met his bewildered gaze. Cold fear swept through him as understanding came. He had walked into the trap with open eyes! Frisco Ed had not forgotten! There was no job, no safe. He had swallowed the bait like a hungry trout. The place was, no doubt, guarded without as well as within, by those who had simply awaited his coming. The whispered word of a stool pigeon had been enough!

With hands held high above his head, La Grand stepped forward, only his red-rimmed eyes showing the emotion within him.

“You are certainly there with the nerve, kid!” one of the detectives murmured as steel bracelets were neatly and quickly adjusted to his wrists. “Some brass to pick out this place!”

La Grand shifted his savage eyes.

“What do you mean?” he muttered. “Whose dump is it?”

Those about him laughed.

“Can you beat it?” the patrolman said. “He doesn't even know where he is!” He turned to the manacled yegg; the smile left his lips. “This is the chief's home, bo— the police commissioner's house.”

______________________

23: At 9.30 Precisely

Australian Worker 16 Nov 1938

FROM 8 until 9 a.m. Gorman Finley worked hard. In that hour he had to run David Schuyler's bath water,  lay out his clothing, have the correct shoes ready, and make sure that Wands, the footman, would bring breakfast up the instant Mr. Schuyler's cravat was tied. Then Finley had to make certain Hobson, the chauffeur, and the limousine were at the curb outside, ready to take David Schuyler to his City office.

Also there was the matter of the inoming newspaper that had to -be folded accurately to the stock quotations, the cigar and matches in the ash tray, and the carnation for Schuyler's, lapel. The other thing was the three white tablets and the half glass of water for the medicine. Schuyler had been under the doctor's care for months.

Finley 's employer had never suspected how much he loathed his menial tasks. Bad luck in the music-hall profession had sent Finley into domestic service. Once the valet had been an impersonator and mimic.

Schuyler waddled out of his dressing room. He was a huge man with a round face. A dew of perennial perspiration dampened his forehead and hands; Finley never ceased to marvel at the way his employer ate. He had never seen anyone consume food in such quantity. He was through his breakfast and had taken his medicine all within fifteen minutes.

From the window Finley watched him climb into the limousine. He turned as Wands came into the room to remove the breakfast tray. 'In a rush, wasn't he?'

Finley shrugged. 'He always is. That's why he's not going to live long.'

The valet straightened up the room. Then he put on coat and hat, took the valise in which he had packed his belongings and descended to the basement.

Morton, the butler, met him on the way out.

'Where are you going?'

'Mr. Schuyler gave me the day off,' Finley said casually.

He let himself out and took a bus to Waterloo, and put his bag into the cloakroom. He ran his hand over the bulge made by the wallet in his pocket. In it, purchased three days past, was a reservation for a second-class stateroom aboard the Palantic. The reservation had been made in the name of George Alexander. The ship sailed at six o'clock that day from Southampton.

Finley turned into a telephone booth. He dialled a familiar number. 'Good morning,' a cheerful feminine voice said. 'This is Loring and Stevens, stockbrokers.'

Finley pitched his voice in the exact imitation of Diavid Schuyler's tone that had so often convulsed Wands at the house.

'Let me talk to Hugh Loring. David Schuyler speaking.'

There was another pause before a man answered; 'Hello, Dave. What's up?'

Finley spoke precisely:

'Remember those Indiana Utility bonds, the ones I gave you last week to hold? Sell them immediately. I have to have some ready cash by noon. How much can you knock down on them— approximately?'

'Oh, £2000, say!'

'That'll have, to do. Put the money in an envelope and keep it there. I'll send Finley in to pick it up around noon. You know him?'

'That thin-faced valet of yours. Sure I do. Anything else, Dave?'

'That's all. Much obliged. I'm going to a directors' meeting now and won't be back at the office until three o'clock.'

Finley rang off. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction. On the Continent he could live pretty well for a year on two thousand pounds!

A NOON whistle was shrilling somewhere when Finley entered the office of Loring and Stevens. The girl at the telephone looked up.

'Do you wish to see someone?'

'My name is Finley. Mr. Schuyler sent me up here. I'm to get an envelope from Mr. Loring.''

She plugged in on the switchboard, spoke to someone, and looked up again. Finley went through the main room and into a rear office. Hugh Loring pushed aside a sheaf of correspondence and smiled.

'Hello, Finley. How are you to-day?'

'Very well, sir. And your own health?'

'Fine. Mr. Schuyler sent you up to get an envelope. Did he say what was in it?'

'No, sir; he didn't?'

'Well, there's £2000 in cash. Better be a little careful with it.'

Loring handed over an envelope addressed to David Schuyler.

Finley walked out. He had three-quarters of an hour to reach Waterloo.  Two thousand pounds! The world seemed filled with mellow sunshine.

Reaching Waterloo, he retrieved his bag, and was making his way to the platform from which the boat train would start, when a hand gripped on his shoulder. Finley turned and looked into a pair of quizzical searching eyes. The man they belonged to tightened the pressure of his fingers.

'Suppose,' he said quietly, 'the two of us take a walk back to Loring and Stevens with that money!'

For a minute Finley hesitated. Then, with a shrug, he put himself in motion.

'What is all this about?' he asked politely. The man beside him grinned. 'Listen, smart guy. Don't try any of that innocent stuff on me. The next time you do tricks with your voice impersonate a live man!'

Finley's eyes widened. 'A— what?'

The man's grin disappeared. It left his face hard and cold. 'You heard me. David Schuyler dropped dead in his office at 9.30 precisely this morning.'

_____________________

24: Nobody's Business

Collier’s Dec 7 1935

Daily News 19 Jan 1938

(Possibly changed from USA to British setting for the syndication market)

'THIRD table from the left,' Anson said. 'What do you see?'

Kirby looked. 'An attractive girl.'

Anson outlined his chin with his fingers. He rubbed the back of his hand on it. 'Second table right of the band,' he said. 'What do you see?'

Kirby turned his head. 'Chap in evening dress. Sallow face. Looks a bit of a blackguard.'

'What's he doing?'

'Watching the girl.'

Anson nodded. 'It's nobody's business, not ours, anyway. Still, when you get a girl like that and set her out to be watched by a character like him, you've got something interesting. She knows him, too!'

Anson lighted a cigarette.

Tinker's Tavern— so named because it stood on the site of one of London's real old inns, and was the only profitable activity of Joe Tinker known to the income tax authorities— was filled with the after-theatre crowd. Its famous mirror bar had them standing three deep.

'The chap in evening dress is Harry Simmonds,' Anson said. 'He's connected with a gambling house in Mayfair.'

Kirby moved his glance back to the third table from the left. The girl was a knockout. She wore a simple dark blue dress under a velvet wrap. She had no hat. Her softly waved hair was a mixture of gold and brown. The smoky rafter lamps made it glimmer. Her oval face, long-lashed eyes and red, provocative mouth were perfect. She was with an inconspicuous young man. His suit was grey. A waiter stepped up to the table. He spoke to the youth in the grey suit. The young man pushed his glass back and got up.

'Wanted on the telephone,' Anson said.

'Watch what happens next.'

The girl's escort was hardly out of sight before Simmonds was in his chair. He put his elbows on the table. He leaned forward. He spoke rapidly. The girl listened, motionless, her eyes veiled by her lashes.'

'Propositioning her,' Anson said. 'It's nobody's business, but I wish I had an ear big enough to stretch over there.'

'Do you suppose the waiter's message was a dodge?' Kirby, asked.

'It looks like it. Fake telephone call to get him out for a minute. Simmonds has finished. He's making an exit.'

The youth came back to the table. He said something to the girl. She got up, with the wrap over her arm. Harry Simmonds, Kirby noticed, was smiling.

'Well,' he said, 'it's over.'

'It's just begun,' Anson corrected. 'I recognised Grey Suit. He's young Scott Boyd.'

'The playwright?'

'I thought you'd know.'

Kirby frowned. Scott Boyd's smart comedy, 'Good Manners,' was in its fortieth week at a West End theatre. A picture firm had bought it for the cameras. It was Boyd's second box-office success; and Kirby envied him for his own efforts at playwriting had not been remunerative.

'What do you mean, it's just begun?' he asked. Anson folded the bar check in half.

'If you're not busy for the next couple of hours, I'll show you.'

They went put into the steady, monotonous drizzle that superseded the night's sudden rain. Lights were smeared. Streets and pavements were black silk. Anson turned up his collar. They dodged through a red traffic light. On the far side of the Strand, Anson ducked into a building and went up a flight of stairs.

Kirby shook rain from his hat. On the second floor Anson went down a corridor. He stepped before a door. It was lettered with the name: Max Galinat. A bell tinkled when Anson opened the door. Max Galinat sat a table working.

'Hello, Anson,' he said.

Anson outlined his chin with his fingers. 'Who did Scott Boyd marry?'

Max Galinat pushed up his eyeshade. 'A girl named Chandler.'

'Libby Chandler?'

'That's right. She used to be in Manchester.'

'Who is he?' Kirby, asked when they left.

'Max used to be a pigeon for the police. The underworld got to know him before he spilt anything really big.'

'The girl's escort was hardly out of sight before Simmonds was in his chair.'

'So the girl came from the North?'

'So did Simmonds. Coincidence? We'll take a cab.'

The run wasn't long. A half dozen streets north, one west. They pulled in before an old-fashioned private house. Anson gave the cabman five shillings  and told him not to wait. He led the way up the brown stone steps. A man opened the inner door. He looked out before admitting them.

'Good evening, Mr. Anson. Haven't seen you for a long time.'

'Barney around?'

'He's upstairs in the lounge.' Anson directed his steps down a passage and up to double doors. They stood ajar. Light gushed from the room beyond. Anson pulled the doors wide and walked in with Kirby.

'Don't get up,' he said to the gross, florid man who sprawled on one end of a red leather divan.

'Is Harry Simmonds on your pay-roll, Barney?'

The man shook his head.

'I sacked him a month ago: He's so crooked he has to lock up his own money at night— so he won't get up and pinch it.'

'Four weeks,' Anson mused. 'That should put him in a position to need money. Where does he live?'

'Simmonds,' Barney said, 'has a furnished apartment in the Shanleigh Chambers. It's off Piccadilly. Easy place to find.'

'I made a mistake,' Anson told Kirby, when they descended the stairs. 'I should have told that cabman to wait.'

He whistled shrilly for a cab.

'Still live at the Melbourne?' he asked Kirby.

'Yes, but―'

'The Melbourne,' Anson told the taxi-driver. 'I want you to get one of your plays. Bring it along,' he said to Kirby.

The Melbourne was a bachelor apartment near Fitzroy-square. Kirby went to his rooms. He got a copy of one of his plays.

'The Shanleigh Chambers, driver,' said Anson.

'Didn't you come from up north?'

'I used to operate there,' Anson said. 'Manchester. For a couple of years. I had a half -interest in the Oasis, a night club. Had a pretty good cabaret. One morning a chap named Lyndheim got himself erased in one of the private rooms.'

They drew up in front of Shanleigh Chambers. Anson told the cabman to wait. Kirby went inside with him. A uniformed hall attendant confronted them.

'Simmonds,' Anson said. 'Fifth floor.'

Kirby noticed that Anson's thin, shrewd face was shadowed when they stopped at Simmonds' door. The corridor was quiet. Anson pressed a thumb over the pearl circle of the bell. A minute or two passed before the door opened. A manservant with a pockmarked face looked sleepily out.

'Is Mr. Simmonds at home?' Anson asked. 'Don't bother, we'll go straight in.'

He gave Kirby a slight, forward nod. They brushed by the man. The hall was wide and strewn with rugs. At the far end a room was shut off from it by velvet portieres. They parted. Harry Simmonds came out.

'What is it, Sam?' he inquired sharply.

'Just a couple of late callers,' Anson said.

Simmonds stepped back. 'Who―?'

'Mrs. Boyd here yet?'

Anson passed Simmonds. In the small lounge room on the other side of the draperies, he looked at the girl who had risen quickly from the chair where she had been sitting.

'Good evening, Mrs. Boyd. I had an idea you'd be here.'

'What is this?' Harry, Simmonds demanded.

'That,' Anson said, 'is what we came to find out. Suppose you tell us, Mrs. Boyd? It's nobody's business, of course, but we'd like to know. What sort of a proposition is Simmonds making to you?'

'What's this about?' Simmonds said, belligerently.

'Suppose I take a guess and tell you.' Anson slipped off his overcoat and draped it over a chair. He gave Kirby a nod. He pulled down his cuffs and took a cigarette from a silver case.

'My guess,' he continued, 'is that you've got Libby down here to give you some cash. Boyd's doing pretty well these days, what with picture rights and his percentage at the theatre. How much is he asking?' he asked the girl.

'A thousand,' she answered slowly. Anson struck a deliberate match for his cigarette. 'Can you raise it?' She shook her head. 'Not without Scott— my husband-knowing.'

'And if you don't come across,' Anson went on, 'he'll reveal past history?'

'Yes,' she said.

'Then Boyd doesn't know about your one year visit to— to a woman's prison?'

'No.'

'How did you slip him to keep this appointment?'

'I told a lie. I said I— I had to see a girl who worked in a show with, me once. I said I'd be back in an hour.'

Anson looked at his watch. He turned to Harry Simmonds.

'You're a rat. If I had my way I'd telephone for a couple of nice cockney policemen to step around and take you for a walk. If I do you'll open that big mouth of yours and talk. If I don't you'll be permanently muzzled. So I won't.'

Anson turned back to the girl. 'Don't ever pay him a penny. Mrs. Boyd. And don't let him frighten you. His threats aren't worth a penny a dozen.'

She gave him a strained, anxious look. 'You mean―?'

'When it comes to spilling past history,' Anson smiled, 'I can tip a couple of buckets myself. Simmonds knows what I mean. I don't think he'll bother you again. In fact, I'm sure of it.'

The girl's slim, white hands moved unsteadily.

'You don't know how much this means―'

'I think I do. That hour's almost up,' Anson said. 'I think we'll start back. I've got a taxi waiting. We'll drop you off anywhere you want.'

THEY left her at an hotel near Hyde Park.

'You knew Mrs. Boyd in Manchester?' asked Kirby.

'She used to work for me at the Oasis. She sang and danced. I took her on after her period inside. She was in prison for pennyweighting; shoplifting to you. She claimed she was framed. I think she was.'

'And you've got something on Simmonds strong enough to keep him quiet?'

Anson pushed out his long legs. 'No,' he said. 'But Simmonds does not know that. It's only a hunch. I've always had an idea he was the man with the gun that morning at my place. There was a kind of feud between Lyndheim and the gamblers. Simmonds left the town hurriedly. He hasn't been back since.'

Kirby dropped a hand to the bulge in his pocket. 'What about this play?'

'That was a stand-by. Boyd might have followed Libby to Simmonds's apartment. I thought it would be nice if he found you reading it to all three of us. Sort of homey. Perhaps it's just as well he didn't.'

'Why?' Anson laughed. 'It might be a rotten play.' He leaned over and rubbed breath moisture from the taxicab window.

'Look! It's stopped raining.'

__________________

25: Quick Money

Mail (Adelaide) 1 Feb 1941

CLOSE TO the end of the golf course the big sedan with the staring headlights forced the coupe that Dot Cassel was driving to the side of the road.

She missed a tree by inches, pulled on the brake, and found the other car beside her.

'What do you think you're doing?' Her voice shook with indignation. 'What's the big idea? What were you trying to do— crack me up?'

Two men got out of the sedan. One slouched over to the coupe. Dot couldn't see his face very well. The brim of his felt hat was pulled low.

'Take it easy, sister,' he said soothingly.

'I won't take it easy, and I'm no relative of yours!'

The second man had crossed round to the car. He climbed in and pressed a snub-nosed gun ominously against Dot's fur wrap.

'Move over toward me,' he directed. 'Let Turk in; he'll drive.'

Turk got in and edged the coupe back to the road. Wedged in between them, Dot looked from one hard face to the other.

'Are you trying to kidnap me?'

'Real bright, ain't she, Chickie?' Turk said to the other man. 'Gets things in a hurry.'

'Yeah.'

'That's it. sister. We've been tailing you' for the past two days. Waiting for a chance to reach out and grab. We almost picked you up at the cocktail party yesterday. If that fat butler hadn't come out when we were ready to close in, we'd have had you cold.'

Dot smiled faintly. 'Too bad you didn't. Did you ever have anybody get you in a corner and talk stocks until you felt ticker tape coming out of your ears?'

'Then, tonight,' Turk went on musingly, 'we were wondering if we'd have to slug the boy friend. What happened? How is it he didn't take you home?'

'None of your business,' Dot said acridly. Her tone changed, and she added, 'I guess you mean Stan Warwick. He never takes me home. I'm not allowed to see him.'

Turk raised an eyebrow. 'In sour with the family? What's the trouble? Your old man don't think him good enough for you?'

'More or less.' Chickie laughed.

'Question of cash, mebbe?'

'You win.'

Turk chuckled. 'Fawncy!'

The coupe turned off the main road. It ran along a rutted, narrow lane. After a few minutes it went in between trees and up to a ramshackle cottage. Dot had a glimpse of barns and outbuildings leaning wearily together in the gloom.

'I know this dump,' she said. 'It's the old Herman Farm. Quite a card, Mr. Herman. Always clowning round and making believe―'

'We get out here,' Turk interrupted.

Dot was ushered into the lamp-lit front room of the house. The sedan had come along and stopped behind the coupe. Two other men joined them. They were much like Turk and Chickie. Hard-boiled, stonyfaced, with shifty eyes and tight lips.

'Sit down; make yourself at home,' Chickie suggested.

Dot gathered her fur wrap closer about her and dropped down on the end of a horsehair sofa. She looked round with some interest. The room was cheaply furnished, much as it had been when she had gone there from a party on a treasure hunt. The wallpaper still peeled leprously, cobwebs still festooned the cracked ceiling.

'Lots of atmosphere,' Dot murmured. 'Regular Dracula stuff.'

Turk pulled out a chair, sat down, and stared hard at her. Chickie lighted a cigarette and lounged at a window. The other two— Joe and Ralph— stood round idly.

'What do you think you're worth to your old man?' Turk began abruptly.

Dot reflected. 'The way things are, about five dollars.'

'Angus C. Cassel,' Turk continued thoughtfully, 'president of the Amalgamated International Products, chairman of the board, director in four or five other corporations. If we can't get $20,000 dollars for you, we'd better give up this racket and go to work.'

'Make her write the letter,' Chickie suggested.

Turk got up and brought a sheet of cheap notepaper, an envelope, a bottle of ink, and a pen over to a pine table. He motioned to Dot to sit there. 'Take a letter, sister. Write what I tell you.'

Dot picked up the pen and looked at the corroded point. 'So you rob post offices, too? What do you want me to say?'

'Begin it like this.' Turk wrinkled his forehead. 'Start off, 'Daddy, darling―'

Dot shook her head. 'Nuts!'

'What's the matter with that leadoff?' Chickie growled. 'It sounds pretty good from here.'

'If the old man got a letter that began that way he'd know it wasn't from me.'

'Okay,' Turk broke in. 'Suppose you tell us how you'd start a ransom note.'

Dot dipped the pen in the ink. 'Like this:

'Dear Fossil, when you get this letter you'll know that in order to see your honey chile again you'll have to lay $20,000 on the line, or else.'

'That's good,' Joe mumbled in the background.

Turk looked at Chickie and nodded. 'Go on, sister, write more.... And keep it high class.' Chickie advised.

'How does this sound?' Dot dipped the pen again.

'Unless you hurry, it looks like a black-out for your little pet. Don't fail me, Pops. I'm in a spot, so you'd better give.'

'Say I'll telephone him tomorrow and tell him where to drop the money. Write that in and say that, if he tells the police or tries marking any notes, he'll never lay an eye on you again. Make that double clear.'

Obediently, Dot completed the epistle. She handed it over to Turk. He read it aloud, got three nods of approval, and put the letter in his pocket.

'I'll take care of this in the morning. Now, sister, I'm turning you over to Ma Mimble. She's the housekeeper round here. Get this. If I was you, I wouldn't think of taking a powder or trying any fancy tricks. We're good-natured guys until we're crossed. Then we get tough, awful tough. Catch?'

An elderly woman came in. She went over to Dot and gave her a toothless, welcoming smile.

'I'm to take care of you while you're here, dearie. Want to take the feathers or sit round and chin with the boys for a while?'

'Bed.' Dot decided. 'Not that I couldn't go for a scintillating chat, but I've been dancing most of the night and I'm fagged to the bone.'

'Pleasant dreams, sister,' Turk said, opening the door.

TOWARD FIVE the following afternoon Turk barged into the living room of the cottage where Dot, still decorative in her evening gown, was amusing herself with Canfield. She looked up from the cards as Turk swung over to her. He seemed a trifle out of humor.

'What's the matter with that old man of yours?'

'I've been wondering for years.'

Turk sucked in a breath.

'The cheap so-and-so! He got your letter okay. I sent a messenger over with it. He knew what I wanted when I phoned him. Do you think he'd do business with me on the up and up? Not a chance!'

'Sit down and tell me about it,' Dot urged. 'Price too high?'

'High?' Turk laughed harshly. 'The cheap chiseler! He said he wouldn't listen, that he wasn't interested more than $5,000 worth!'

'That's dad for you. The Angus in his name wasn't there for fun. I was afraid of this. I know father. He wouldn't buy the movie rights to the original Battle of Waterloo for $50 on easy payments unless they got Napoleon to play the lead. Even then he'd probably dicker.'

'He can't do this to me!' Turk growled. 'What's the matter with him?'

'As a matter of fact,' Dot said slowly, 'Pa's a bit annoyed with me. You know, because of Stan, the one you saw me dancing with last night.'

Turk's eyes narrowed. 'If I had a daughter and a bunch of rats snatched, do you think I'd dicker about a lousy $20,000? It's indecent!'

'Revolting. How do you think I feel?'

'Take another letter. Well lay it on strong. We'll tell that skunk where to get off! Well?'

'It's won't do any good.'

Dot bunched the cards and shuffled them neatly. 'Dad's as stubborn as a mule. If he said five thousand, that's his opening and closing bid. You'd better reach for it in a hurry. He's just as likely as not to change his mind if you keep him waiting.'

'No chicken feed like that!' Turk's mouth twisted in a leer. 'Twenty thousand or you don't darken his doorstep again! I'm not fooling.'

He gave her a glowering look and shuffled out.

Dot sank back on the horsehair sofa. Her blue eyes grew dreamy.

Outside the sun was dropping low and shadows lengthened across the floor. Mice in the walls began their evening peregrinations.

ABOUT a half-hour later Turk and Chickie came in. Turk dropped his cigarette on the carpetless floor, stepped on it, and cleared his throat.

'Look, sister! How about you calling the old man and giving him the business? Make him understand what kind of a tangle you're in. That he either pays or we bump you off!'

'Frankly, that's no good,' Dot told them. 'I'll telephone if you insist, but Dad doesn't go for my line at all. It wouldn't get you a thing.'

'Then what?' Chickie asked tersely.

'I've been thinking things over, and I have an idea,' Dot resumed meditatively. 'I think I have an angle that will pull you out of this with some profit. It's no $20,000 dollars deal, but it should pay more than $5,000.'

'How much more?' Turk demanded.

'You might get $10,000 dollars if you're lucky.'

Chickie's head jerked up. His eyes began to glitter. Turk's cold, expressionless face took on a look of quick interest.

'What's the idea, sister? Let's hear it.'

Dot spoke slowly, thoughtfully. 'Since my father thinks I'm only worth $5,000, I'll show him!'

'Atta babe,' Chickie applauded hoarsely.

Turk's dark face was like a piece of stone, but his eyes revealed his sudden interest. 'How?'

'In the study,' Dot continued, leaning a little forward, 'is a wall safe, and in the safe, I happen to know, is $30,000 in cash. Dad's emergency fund, as he calls it. Want to get it?'

Chickie's thin fingers were nervous on the lapels of his coat. Turk's mouth tightened.

'You know the dial numbers?'

'To the last numeral.'

'It ain't a trap?' Chickie cut in swiftly. 'Because, if you think―'

'Shut up,' Turk snarled. 'Can't you see she's on the level? Go ahead, sister. What else have you got in mind?'

'Tonight is dad's board meeting. He never gets home until midnight. Connery, the chauffeur, will be in town with him. Phelps, the butler, has the night off. So has Macklin, the gardener. The other servants will all be in their own quarters. All you have to do is walk in, click off the combination, help yourself, and exit.'

'How do we crash the joint?' Turk's glinting gaze never left Dot's face. 'A big shack like yours must have plenty of burglar alarms.'

'Sure, but why worry about them?' Dot opened her bag, fished round, and brought out a key. 'You go in through the front door. Now, give me a piece of paper and I'll jot down the dial reading for you. Fair enough?'

TWENTY minutes later, alone again, Dot resumed the inevitable patience. Ma Mimble came in with a cup of tea, and Dot conferred with her for a few minutes. Then Ralph hulked in, watched her manipulate the pastboards, and pulled up a chair.

'How about making it a double game and letting me in?'

'Love to have you,' Dot replied. 'But no cheating.'

An hour dragged past. The tiny octagon of the watch ticking on Dot's wrist showed her it was 10.30. After a while she heard a car approach. It stopped outside. Ralph got up, his hand sliding in under his coat. A door banked open, and Turk, Chickie, and Joe piled in.

Dot took one look at the trio and knew her plan had worked. They were exultant, excited.

'How did it go, boys? Any luck?'

Turk pulled the card table over toward him, swept the pack to the floor, and began shedding neat packets of money. Out of his shirt he took the packages of notes, slapping them down as if to emphasise their amounts.

'Thirty thousand! Boy, oh, boy!' Joe murmured.

'What a haul!' Chickie said. 'Not even a watchdog to lick our hands!'

'A pushover,' Turk agreed. He straightened and smiled at Dot.

'Nice goin', sister. We won't forget this. Get me a bag, Ralph. This cash is hot. I want to stick it away while it's sizzling.'

Ralph retired, to return with a small leather satchel. Turk stowed the money in it. Dot watched, her gaze retrospective.

'What are you going to do— clear out?'

'That's it, sister. No use sticking round now. When that double Scotch old man of yours gets home and finds the till empty, he's going to yell. And we don't want to be round to hear it!'

'What becomes of poor little me?' Dot asked quickly.

'We'll leave you right here,' Chickie told her. 'We'll give you the key to your car. It's out in the barn. All we ask from you is twenty minutes' start.'

'Okay?' Turk queried.

Dot sighed. 'I suppose so.'

Her glance drifted to the small leather satchel. She looked at her watch again and moved restlessly on the sofa. 'If you want it that way.'

'Yes. I was thinking,' Dot said, 'that maybe you'd take me with you.'

'You're nuts!' Chickie rapped out.

'That idea's out,' Turk said positively. 'You wait here like a good girl until we spread some dust. Then go home and tell Daddy what a skunk he is.' Dot was about to say something when, again, she heard the sound of a car on the rutted road. Turk wheeled round. Joe and Ralph started toward the door. Chickie turned his back to the sofa and advanced two steps. Dot got up. She leaned over and helped herself to the flat automatic she had been sitting on. Her finger closed round the trigger. She swung the gun from side to side in a slow arc.

'Hands up, boys! Reach for the cobwebs and don't make a move or I'll have to let you have it!'

They turned as one. Their hands went up.

Dot smiled at their combined looks of consternation.

'What's this?' Turk demanded huskily.

'Just a hold up.' Dot's tone was amiable. She dropped her left hand and reached for the satchel with the money.

'You see, boys, I need this money. Poor Stan's out of a job, but he has a wonderful chance to buy a partnership in a growing business. I've tried and tried to get Dad to lend him the money, but nothing doing. He wouldn't give a duck a drink if he owned a lake! So―'

'Have a heart, sister―'

'So,' Dot continued, 'I had to take Ma into my confidence. She's getting a slice of this, for calling Stan. That's Mr. Warwick outside now— unless I'm terribly mistaken.'

There was a knock at the front door. Ma Mimble opened it, and a tall, attractive, broad-shouldered youth entered. He looked at the quartet with their hands held high, went to Dot, kissed her, and said: — 'Ready, honey?'

'Maybe you'd better get their guns before we check out. Under their left arms, in shoulder holsters. Did I tell you we'rs taking Mrs. Mimble with us? She'll make a wonderful housekeeper when we're married, Stan. All she needs is a bath and a new set of teeth.'

Warwick collected an assortment of firearms and Dot moved toward the hall door. Four pairs of eyes followed her. Mrs. Mimble came downstairs, carrying a valise and her coat and hat. She and the broad-shouldered youth went out. Dot looked back, still smiling. She began to laugh softly, quietly.

'You look too funny, with your hands up. You can put them down now. Good-night, boys. It was nice knowing you.'

The front door opened and closed, the accelerated whine of two automobile engines dwindled in the distance.

'Well,' Chickie whispered thinly, 'what do you know about that?'

'I ought to have been wise,' Turk snarled.

'How do you mean?' Ralph asked.

'Like father, like daughter!' Turk answered. 'What can you expect from a pair like that?'

____________________

26: Open and Shut

Clues Detective Stories, Nov 1935

“IF HE gets a chance,” “Slim” Gordon told Anstey, “he’ll cross you sure. I know that baby. He’s fast on his feet.”

Anstey threw away his cigarette.

“He won’t get smart with me,” he promised. “By the way, what cut will I ask?”

Gordon, tall, lean and cadaverous, grinned.

“Hit him for a fifty-fifty split and see how much you get. Let me know. I’m interested.”

TOWARD seven o’clock Anstey knocked on the door of Professor Morgan’s room in the Forty-sixth Street hotel.

“Slim gave me the office on you,” Morgan began, after he closed the door and cleared a place on the end of the bed. “Gordon says you’re O.K. You know what the proposition is. If you come in with me on it, how much of a slice do you want?”

“Fifty percent.”

Morgan lighted a cigarette. He nodded. Like Anstey, he was young, well-groomed, attractive. Only the set of his mouth and a certain hardness to his expression gave a hint of a life that had not been entirely a bed of roses.

“That stands with me. Here’s the continuity in a few words. Tomorrow night I’m putting on a magic show for the Hildreth kids. You’re my assistant. While I’m working in the ballroom you’ll dust off the safe in the bedroom upstairs. It’s open and shut. You can’t miss.”

“What kind of a box is it?” Anstey asked.

“Circular wall safe. I found out through the boyfriend of a maid who used to work there. I’ll sketch a floor plan later. It’s a cinch.”

“How do I get my tools in?”

“You carry them in a bag. Nobody’ll stop you. I said you were to be my assistant. You could bring in a ten-ton truck and it would be part of the act. Wait’ll I get paper and pencil. I’ll draw up the  layout.”

ANSTEY followed Morgan out of the taxi and up the brownstone steps of the private house on East Seventy-third Street. He held a black leather satchel in one hand. He thought briefly of the Baumes while the Hildreth butler admitted them. Anstey’s lips tightened. It would be a second offense if he were picked up. But he wasn’t going to be. The job, as Morgan told him, was open and shut.

A stage had been erected at one end of the small ballroom. Morgan went to work setting up his apparatus. It had been delivered that afternoon— cages of rabbits, white mice, mirror-lined cabinets. He supervised their placing while Anstey gave him a hand.

It was nine o’clock when the show began. Anstey picked up his bag and let himself out of a rear door. He knew the floor plan by heart. Straight through to the servants’ stairs, then up two flights. No one stopped or questioned him. Apparently the servants were in the ballroom, watching Morgan’s feats of legerdemain. Anstey walked along a broad, deeply carpeted corridor. He stepped into a large, well-appointed bedchamber. A boudoir connected with it. Two shaded lamps gave a mellow glow. Anstey shut and locked the door, surveyed the room quickly.

He lifted a framed French print that hung to the left of a sprawling bureau. It had concealed the round face of a wall safe. From his bag Anstey took a No. 6 electric drill, a cake of kitchen soap, and a pair of rubber gloves. He plugged the long cord of the drill in a base socket and went to work. He drilled a hole above the safe’s central knob. The soap filled in the crack around the door. With an eyedropper he carefully dripped nitro into the hole. Then he made the double connection with the detonator wires, held a rug snatched up from the floor over the safe and touched off the charge. The explosion was dull and muffled. He dropped the rug, opened the twisted door and lifted out an ebony jewel box. He carried the box to the bed, opened it and stared at its glittering contents.

A VOICE came from the other side of the room.

“I really wouldn’t take that away,” it said. “Mother is particularly fond of her necklace and rings. If I were you I’d put it back.”

With a smothered exclamation Anstey wheeled around. A pretty girl with bright-red hair stood in the entrance to the boudoir. She wore a white evening gown. He noticed the curve of her neck, the level regard of her intensely blue eyes, how the light caught and reflected the coppery snare of her hair.

She came farther into the room.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Put that box back in the safe and— get out! If you’re not gone in two minutes I’ll telephone the police.”

Anstey drew a breath. “You’re telling me I can lam without a pinch?”

The girl dropped her hand significantly to a telephone on a table. Anstey shoved the ebony box hastily into the wall safe. He watched her narrowly while he unlocked the bedroom door. She stood motionless, her hand still on the telephone. Without a word he slipped into the corridor and hurried to the stairs.

A WEEK LATER Slim Gordon hailed him from the curb fronting the Winter Garden.

“You never told me how you made out with the professor.” He laughed under his breath. “What does that mean— he pull a fast one?”

Anstey shook his head.

“No business. The Hildreth family won a decision on points that night.”

Gordon looked at his wristwatch.

“The reason I asked,” he said, “is on account of the way Morgan’s been in the big sugar lately. He and his new wife sailed last night for a London booking. She’s the wren he chased around with so long. Say, isn’t it funny the way guys fall for these redheads? They must be smart or something.” He laughed again. “What do you think?”

___________________

27: Twenty-four Hours to Leave Town

Exciting Detective, Winter, 1942

VAN GRANBY was waiting on the platform when my train pulled in at Hamilton. I saw him through the smoking car window. You couldn’t miss the big chiseler with his round, flat face, the cigar in the corner of his mouth, and the brown felt hat pulled so far down it made his ears stick out.

We took a cab at the depot and rolled through the city. It seemed to be a pretty lively town. I had heard there was a factory making bomber parts down by the Noglia River. Lots of work. That meant lots of money.

“Funny how much you look like a copper, Johnny,” Van began, after a minute. “That dead pan of yours— I can’t explain it— but you’ve always reminded me of a cop. Any police blood in your family?”

“No,” I said, “but we’ve always mixed with ‘em. Lovely people.”

Van rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. He had a set of perfect teeth. They should have been perfect. They had cost enough.

“That’s why I wired you, Johnny.” His voice sounded soft. “Because you look more like a dick than the cheap little grifter you are.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But so far I’ve never done any time. That’s beating you by three tough years.”

Van laughed under his breath. “We don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

“Once is plenty.”

The taxi finally stopped at a hotel. A block-long, brick and stone bin. Smart, with its bronze canopy and doorman in uniform.

“We’ll register you here,” Van said.

I got Room 807. A bell-hop took my bag. I gave him a quarter when we went upstairs. Number 807 was a nice room. Large, sunny, with a bath attached. From the windows I could see the Noglia River and the bridge that crossed it at First Avenue. A big bridge, a recent WPA project.

VAN told me to phone down for drinks. I unpacked my valise and hung my blue suit in the closet while we waited for them to come up. The suit was my Chicago best. I hoped the wrinkles would come out.

Van tossed his brown hat on the bed. When I told him that was unlucky he grinned, but let the hat stay where it was.

“You remember Dave Henry,” he started, after a waiter had brought our Cuba Libres. “The party who put the profits he took out of his string of gas stations into a string of race-horses?”

I remembered the man. I used to see Henry on the lawn and in the paddock at the Middle Downs track, a quarter mile oval outside of Eaton, Illinois. He was a two hundred and twenty pounder, in a ten-gallon Stetson, with his shirt open at the neck and a pair of binoculars in his hand.

One September morning, early, they had found Dave Henry as dead as a nail in the living room of his home on Roseland Terrace. He had been shot through the heart. The day before he had won four thousand dollars at the track. That was gone. There were no clues, nobody had ever been picked up, and thirteen months had elapsed.

“What about Dave Henry?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, I know the guy who did the job on him.” Van took the cigar out of his mouth and rolled it between his fingers. “He’s a punk by the name of Tod Hecker. For the past year he’s been paymaster for the Briardale Dairy Company in this town.”

“How did you find all that out?”

“Through the only person in the world who knows. A dame. His dame. At least, she was his dame until I took over. But Hecker doesn’t know about that— yet.”

The rum drink was pretty good. It had a kick like a college football star. It sharpened my mind, but I couldn’t quite hook it up. Dave Henry’s murder, someone named Tod Hecker working for a milk company, and a doll spilling to Van. That didn’t explain why Van had wired me. Why had he said there was dough to divide? And why I was in Room 807 at the fancy Lord Hamilton Hotel, worried about the wrinkles in my Sunday suit?

“You’ll meet the dame tonight. She’s Flo Gaynor.” Van set his glass down on the night table beside the bed. “You’ll like her. I know how you are with the little lovelies. You’ll like her, but not too much. I’m nuts about this babe. Don’t forget that.”

“I’m off gals.” I made a face and reached for a cigarette. “What’s the answer? Hecker crosses Dave Henry out, but where do we come in? Where’s your profit?”

“You’ll see,” Van murmured, and his voice was soft again.

He was staying at a high-class boarding house a mile or so from the hotel. I met him at eight o’clock that night in the lobby. Flo Gaynor was with him. I didn’t think so much of her at first, but when we sat down in a corner of the grill and the lights shone on her reddish-brown hair, I began to change my mind.

Granby’s new heart had gray-greenish eyes. Long lashes and a creamy skin. You’d never say she was beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. Earl Carroll probably wouldn’t have given her a second glance, but after you were around her for a few minutes you could feel her magnetism like electricity.

I did.

Van ordered an expensive meal. He seemed to be in the chips. All the time I had known him he had dealt in petty larceny. From the looks of his roll he must have turned up a winner. I thought about that.

“Notice the guy at the third table on the left?” Flo Gaynor said, without switching her gaze, when we were through to the demitasses. “Thin lug. Looks as if he hadn’t shaved all day. Gray suit, henna tie, black shoes.”

“Who is he?” Van asked, without much interest.

“Detective-sergeant Benjamin Portal.” Flo’s red lips parted in a smile. “He keeps breaking into the big apple dailies with his smart stuff. He put the grocery store chain holdups on ice. Maybe you read about them.”

“Crime trembles in Hamilton when Benny polishes up his badge and takes a fresh cud of tobacco,” Van put in.

“He’s tough,” Flo Gaynor said. “I thought I’d let you know.”

“Thanks.” Van nodded.

We sat at the table, smoking and drinking liqueurs. Detective-sergeant Portal finished his cup of coffee, got up and wandered over to us. He did look as if he hadn’t shaved. Still he didn’t need a shave. He had one of those  blue skins over a pan that was hatchet-thin. His mouth was thin, too.

Portal gave Van a gander and looked at me.

“We’re not interested in the dirty laundry from other cities,” he said in a voice that was quiet, almost silky. “Hamilton’s kind of particular about its visitors.”

“Is that so?” Van answered.

“My advice,” Portal went on, “is for you two to leave town within twenty-four hours.”

Van shrugged. He puffed a little harder on his cigar. Flo smiled up at the copper. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t like the idea of police people thinking I was undesirable.

“What have we done?” Van asked Portal. “Outside of spending our money in this burg?”

“We don’t need your money and we don’t like your kind around.”

Van shrugged again. We knew what the law meant. Someone had recognized Van and had tipped the cops. Or maybe Portal had been other places, knew something about Van’s record.

“Twenty-four hours,” Portal repeated. “If you’re still here after that I’ll give you both a going over.”

He walked away. Flo said something under her breath. Van looked at his watch.

“How do you like that?” he said, and laughed. “Popular everywhere we go.”

I went up to Room 807. I don’t know where Van took the dame, but he was back within fifteen or twenty minutes. He told me to get my hat. He said not to turn the key to the room in at the desk, but to keep it in my pocket.

We walked down First Avenue. There was a tavern on the corner, a couple of streets beyond. We sat down in one of the compartments and had a beer.

“Here’s a little present for you,” Van said, handing me a badge. “Slip it in your vest. Later on, you’ll need it.”

I held it below the top of the table and looked at it. It was a regulation police department badge from the town of Eaton.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“Shut up and listen.” Van leaned across the table. “I’ve been bearing down on Tod Hecker. I dropped in to see him the other night and almost scared him to death when I told him what I knew. I mean when I told him a few of the facts about Dave Henry. When I finished with him he was standing in a pool of his own sweat.”

I began to figure where Van’s coin had come from. I didn’t say anything. I let him do the talking.

“I told Hecker a detective at Eaton had turned up evidence and was coming to Hamilton to talk to him. I let Hecker know I had a strong in with this copper. I told him things could be fixed, but it would cost him dough.”

“How much?”

Van rubbed his chin. “That was the question. Hecker makes a good salary with the dairy company. He’s a tight hustler. That’s one reason Flo brushed him off. It’s a cinch he’s got Henry’s cash in the bank. So I told him I thought you’d do business with him for around two thousand bucks.”

“No more?”

Van shook his head. “I’ve got Hecker believing this is all right. I’m afraid to raise it. He might get suspicious. Two grand’s better than no grand. One for you, one for me, Johnny. And don’t forget we’re working on a twenty-four hour shift.”

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I’m to meet Hecker at nine o’clock. I’ll give him the key to your room and send him to the hotel. I won’t go up with him because I don’t want to be seen with him. You let him sweat there alone for ten minutes before you go in. Here’s what you say, and how you say it.”

Van was a good talker. He laid it on the line, so clear a child could understand. I repeated most of it and he paid for the beers and went out. I sat there thinking and looking at the bar flies. A few minutes passed and a girl with
reddish-brown hair and gray-green eyes came in through a rear door.

Flo Gaynor sat down where Van had parked. I don’t know why it was, but I felt kind of a hollow emptiness.

“Surprised?” she smiled. “I’ve been waiting for Van to leave. I thought he’d never go. I want to talk to you, Johnny.”

“About what?”

“Buy me a beer.”

I got her one and waited until she drank half of it.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked her.

“Van. Is he married?”

“I don’t know much about his private life. Why?”

“He wants me to go to Eaton with him. He says he wants to marry me. I— I don’t know. Has he got a prison record?”

“I don’t know anything much about him.”

“Have you ever been in stir?”

“No,” I answered truthfully. Then I said: “You?”

She nodded, looked away.

“I want to be sure about Van. I’ve had that matrimonial gag handed me before. I want to be positive there are no strings on him. I don’t want policemen at my wedding.”

I felt uncomfortable. It was none of my business. I knew Van had a wife and a couple of kids somewhere, but that wasn’t my affair. I didn’t intend to speak out of turn. When Flo saw she couldn’t pump me, she changed her attitude.

“You’re a nice boy, Johnny. Different from the guys I’ve known. I hope I see you again before you leave.”

I took a deep breath. “So do I. Where do you stay?”

“At this address.”

She tore a piece from the wine card, borrowed my pencil and wrote a number on it. I put it in my card-case, wondering why I was all stirred up inside.

“Ten after nine,” I said. “I’ve got to be moving.”

“I’ll sit here a while longer,” Flo said. “Take care of yourself, Johnny.”

“That’s the best thing I do,” I told her.

It was not quite twenty after nine when I stepped out of the elevator on the eighth floor of the Lord Hamilton.

There was a light on the transom of Room 807. The door was shut and unlocked. I opened it and walked in. Tod Hecker sat slumped in a chair facing the windows. He was a small, gray-haired man in the early forties. His face was seamy and he was so nervous he could hardly keep still. His feet moved and his fingers tapped the arms of the chair.

I threw him a look and took off my hat. Van had stressed the professional angle. I tried to act the way a copper would.

“I understand Granby’s given you the dope on me,” I led off, showing him the Eaton badge briefly.

Hecker nodded. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face. He must have used it several times before I’d come in. It was pretty damp.

“Yes. Granby said you had come to Hamilton to talk to me.”

His voice was shaky, high-pitched. I took plenty of time getting a cigarette out and lighting it. I blew out the match and set an ashtray on the bed. Hecker coughed. A dry cough, deep in his throat.

“The chief of police at Eaton wants to ask you a few questions,” I went on. “We picked up a couple of clues out at Roseland Terrace that we’ve been working on for more than a year. One led nowhere. The other got hot. McCabe sent me here to bring you back.”

Hecker squirmed in the chair. “Granby said—”

“I know. Of course, I can tell McCabe I was on a cold trail. I can tell him you were in Hamilton six months ago, that I found out you’d gone to South America. I can do that, but—”

Hecker peered up at  me. He had expressionless eyes, pale blue, watery. What Flo Gaynor ever had seen in him was a mystery. Particularly, if Granby was right when he had said that Hecker was cheap and tight.

“How much to leave me alone?” he asked. His thin voice cracked. He used the handkerchief again. I’d never seen a man sweat more. Unless it was Dave Henry at the track, pushing up his Stetson, when the horses were coming down the stretch..

“Two thousand dollars—cash.”

The blue eyes looked at me. I knew what he was thinking. A crooked cop, putting on the gouge. But there was nothing he could do. Not a thing if he wanted to stay in Hamilton, keep on working for the dairy, make love to Flo.

“What assurance have I got,” he asked, “that when I pay you off you won’t come back next week, next month, next year and do the same thing?”

“None at all,” I said cheerfully.

“But I have some hold on you.” Hecker sat up a little straighter. “If you turn me in I can always tell how you propositioned me, and what I paid you.”

I let that pass. I didn’t say anything more.  After a couple of minutes he took out his wallet. It was brown leather, worn thin.

Hecker had money in it. He thumbed through some bills of high denomination. He counted out two thousand dollars and laid the money on the night table. I noticed how his hand shook. I didn’t know whether it was due to the moult or his relief at not having to go back to Eaton.

I tucked the bills away in my pocket. He put on his hat and buttoned his coat.

“You’d better buy yourself a drink on the way out, Hecker— or whatever you’re calling yourself these days. Go on, beat it. Get out of here.”

I opened the door and shoved him through it. The last thing I heard was the dry, rattling cough in his throat as he stood waiting for the elevator.

I SPLIT the take equally with Van. We celebrated with a couple of Cuba Libres. We had learned to have a real yen for the rum one year when we had been resting in Havana. Van looked worried about something.

“It’s Flo,” he said, when I mentioned it. “I’m losing my grip. I can’t figure women any more. I thought she loved me. She acted strange tonight.”

“Nuts,” I said. “It’s nothing more than your imagination.”

“No, Johnny. It isn’t.” That’s the trouble. She won’t go to Eaton with me. She wants to stay here.”

“On account of the Hecker punk?”

“I don’t know.” Van rubbed his chin. “We’ve got to think about taking a powder. I can’t stick around and try to make her change her mind. It’s always something.” He looked at me, when I reached for my hat. “Where are you going, Johnny?”

“Out for a walk.”

I took a taxi at the corner. I gave the hackie an address scribbled on the corner of a wine card. We rolled a couple of miles and stopped before a three-story apartment house. It was on a quiet, tree-lined street.

I went in and rang a bell. I went up two flights of stairs. The second door to the left opened when I reached the landing. Flo Gaynor looked out. She had on a thin blue robe. It went well with her reddish-brown hair. It had wide sleeves.

“That you, Johnny? Come in. I— I’ve been waiting for you.”

I went in and shut the door. Flo snapped the lock. I stood in the middle of the room. When she came over I put my arms around her. The wide sleeves of the robe slid back and her hands crept up to my shoulders.

I kissed her. It was one of those long, melting kisses that make you thrill from your heels to your scalp. I didn’t want to stop, but after a minute she laughed and pushed me away.

“I’ve got a couple of things to do, Johnny. A couple of phone calls to make. One to Tod, telling him it’s all off. Another to your friend Van. Or maybe I don’t have to notify him. Maybe he knows already.”

She turned toward a telephone on a desk in the corner. I grabbed her again and held her close to me.

“You’re a sweet kid, Flo. We’re going to have a lot of fun together!”

“I hope so, Johnny,” she whispered. “That’s all I need!”

I didn’t want to run into Van so we decided to take the bus to Stanton, change there and ride the cushions east from Central City. I kept away from the hotel. They could have my Chicago best suit, my pajamas and the haberdashery. Also my bag. It was better to travel light than to run into Granby.

FLO MADE breakfast at seven and at half past we were all set. She had her stuff packed in two suitcases. She put on her hat, powdered her nose and took a last look around the place.

“Two years, Johnny. That’s a long time.”

“Ready?” I picked up the suitcases. “Let’s blow.”

Flo opened the door— and Benny Portal walked in.

It was half past seven and he must have just shaved, but you’d never have known it. He had on the same clothes he had worn at dinner. There was a uniformed man with him, gun and all, and there were a couple of other guys who stayed out in the hall.

“Going somewhere?” Portal asked, looking at the luggage.

“It was your suggestion, pal,” I said.

Portal walked over and opened the bathroom door. He looked in the kitchenette. I set the suitcases on the floor. He glanced in the bedroom and came back.

“You and the girl are riding up to Headquarters with us,” he said.

I heard Flo breathing hard. Portal didn’t sound good. In his tone there was something that had a snap-sure click.

“Why do we have to go to Headquarters?” I asked. “What have we done?”

Portal sat his feet down flat on the carpet. He began to smile. I didn’t like any part of it.

“We want to find out where you and the girl friend come in on the sudden demise of a party named Hecker. Tod Hecker.”

“Tod— murdered!” Flo gasped.

“He did a piece of diving early this morning,” Portal said. “Off the First Avenue Bridge, into the river. Lee, down at the dairy company, tells me Hecker was two thousand dollars short in his accounts. He was working on the books last night. Hecker would be short, after the money he’d tossed away on this Gaynor dame.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I said.

Portal spoke over his shoulder. The two guys came in from the hall.

“We want to get to the bottom of this suicide. We’re pretty sure we have half the dairy company’s missing cash. We’ll get the rest— soon.”

He grinned at me. The two guys picked up the suitcases. One of them nudged Flo. She looked at me before she walked out with them.

“And you think I know about it?” I asked.

“We found something in Hecker’s pocket that fits you into the pattern. Your pal Granby’s waiting at Headquarters. We’ll all talk this over together, quiet and refined like.”

“Okay.” My voice sounded funny to me. “So Granby had money on him. I still don’t figure where I come in. What did you find in Hecker’s pocket?”

Portal gave me a push toward the door.

“Just a key, with a tag on it. For a room in the Lord Hamilton. A key numbered eight hundred and seven.”

_____________________

28: Shoulder Straps

Thrilling Detective, September, 1944

BIG DAVE McCLAIN, of Homicide, rode the prowl car to the scene of the crime. It wove in and out of the Bronx traffic, sirens screaming. McClain, one of his inevitable cigars tucked in the corner of his wide mouth, watched the streets go by.

The radio flash said it was a payroll stickup. Out at the Hubbell-Whitcomb plant. That was where they made electrical gadgets for submarines on Government contracts. A humming war factory. Thousands of workers. McClain stretched his loose, large frame and shifted the cigar from one side of his face to the other.

Sergeant Peters, driving the car that had picked McClain up at Times Square, gave it more gun when they reached the open spaces of the long, cement boulevard.

Five minutes later they were at the wire gates of the plant. Captain Fred Mullin, McClain’s boss, gave him a nod and the big detective followed his superior into an office in one of the buildings to the left of the entrance.

A middle-aged man lay on the floor in the center of the room. McClain gave him a gander. The man was completely out of the world and would never come back.

“Eighty  thousand  bucks,”  Mullin  said shortly. “That’s what they scooped after plugging this party!”

McClain shrugged and went about the routine business of the holdup. Gradually, he lined up the facts. The dead man— a John Peterson—t ogether with a younger assistant, a Harry Clement, had gotten the payroll money at the Tremont branch of the bank the plant deposited with.

The eighty thousand was in bills of all denominations.

Half a mile from the plant a green 1936 sedan had cut in on them from Throggs Neck Road. Clement, to avoid a collision, had jammed on the brakes. The next minute he had found himself looking into the ugly end of a tommy-gun. There were three men in all and they didn’t waste time.

One, opening the door, had snatched the satchel from between Peterson’s feet. The paymaster, evidently an employee with courage, had tried to get his shooter out.

It was a wrong move. The party who reached for the dough bag let him have it. Two shots, either one sufficient. Then all three had piled back into the green heap and disappeared.

Clement had driven Petersen to the plant. The paymaster was alive until he reached the middle of the office. He collapsed there and hadn’t been touched since.

“Think you’d recognize any of ‘em?” McClain asked Clement. “Stick around, I’ll take you downtown and let you look at the photos later.”

THERE wasn’t much to work on. Mullin threw McClain a nod and he took Clement down to the Gallery.

In less than five minutes the assistant paymaster had identified two of the bandits.

“Simm  Yellen  and  ‘Hooker’  Bristol,” McClain told Mullin, when the hard-hitting, cold-eyed captain finished at the plant and got back to Headquarters.

“Go out and bring them both back.” Mullin rubbed his lantern jaw on the back of a hand. “Eighty G’s. War contracts. I want to bust this wide open and show the Federal Bureau we’ve got some brains down here, too.”

McClain nodded.

“Yeah? Where?” He grinned, one of his slow, lazy grins. “Funny. I saw the Hooker last night— with a doll. Uptown, dancing his feet and head off.”

“Bring ‘em in!” Captain Mullin repeated.

McClain filled both vest pockets from a box of fifty cigars presented him by a grateful admirer who operated a hotel tobacco concession. The man had been troubled with petty larcenists stealing his stock whenever his back was turned. Mac had solved his problems by installing two things— a small mirror in the rear of the stand and a large mouse-trap concealed among the culprits favorite brand of cigarettes.

The mirror had turned up one of the hotel bellhops and the mouse-trap had sent the lad howling through the lobby.

They were pretty good smokes. McClain smelled one appreciatively, sighed and went on uptown to level on Hooker Bristol and Simm Yellen.

Both  had  records.  Both  were  tough hoodlums. Both knew their way around and were expert with firearms. With eighty thousand dollars, to be split three ways, it didn’t seem any too likely they’d be hanging around the usual stamping ground.

McClain shook his head and got out of the subway at Times Square.

He walked two blocks up Longacre, turned east and went into the Mirador. That was the creep where he had seen the Hooker the night before. By daylight the place was pretty sad. Shabby and tarnished around the edges. McClain went on up to the second floor and rapped on the door of the owner-manager.

“Come in.”

Phil Bimber, a typical Rialto sharpshooter, sat in his shirt-sleeves, going over the books. He was a middle-aged man with a thin, shrewd face and not much hair. McClain admired his sleeve garters and sat down.

Bimber gave him an expressionless glance. Evidently having the law drop in was no particular novelty.

“How’s business?” the detective asked affably.

He always found it better to attract his answers with honey rather than barge in and bulldoze.

“Wonderful. War, taxes, headaches. Yet there’s more lettuce on the loose than I’ve ever seen in twenty-seven years running joints. They want to spend. They want to chuck it around. They want fun and they’re over-anxious to pay for it.”

“So I understand.”

McClain settled further back in his chair. He teased a spiral of fragrant smoke from the gift cigar that was like a candy stick between his thin lips. He saw Phil Bimber sniff and grinned again. “Tell me something, Phil. Who was the little bundle the Hooker was doing the heel-and-toe stuff with last night?”

Bimber’s blank face went blanker.

“You mean Bristol? Was he here last night?”

“Who was the dame?” McClain’s easy, pleasant tone disappeared.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Okay.” McClain, in sections, began to get up. “Just as you please, Phil. Funny,” he added softly, “about those fancy draperies you’re featuring downstairs. I kept looking at them last night and wondering if they’re fireproofed. I kept thinking about that big blaze, a couple of years ago, in Boston. I’ve been wondering if the Fire Commissioner has ever stopped in here for a drink—”

“Sit down.” Bimber’s thin face cracked in a smile. “The dame’s Dovey Penfield. A little cuticle cutie from Maxie Wilden’s barbershop.”

McClain made a note of that. “Anything else on your chest?”

“You  might,”  Bimber  added,  as  an afterthought, “check on ‘Humpty’ Keller. He’s around again— in from Chicago.”

McClain passed over one of the aromatic perfectos and went down to the street. The Wilden Tonsorial Parlor was almost diagonally across from the old Palace Theater. McClain shuffled in and hung his dicer on the chromium hat-rack. A glance showed him the manicurist in the rear of the shop was sitting cross-legged, reading a flamboyantly covered detective story magazine.Mac pulled out the chair opposite and dropped into it. The girl shut the magazine, put it in one of the lower drawers of the table and looked up inquiringly. She was a pretty little thing with starry brown eyes, glinting curls and a smooth, young skin.

But hard, McClain saw. Wisdom lay in the depths of her soft brown eyes. It was in the lip line of her red, pursed mouth. In her expression, her way of talking.

“Hello,” McClain said.

“Hello yourself.”

Her voice was fascinatingly husky, as if she had a cold.

“The works,” Mac requested, passing over his right hand.

Except for himself there was only one other customer. A man with a face full of lather, being shaved by Maxie himself.

Dovey Penfield looked at his nails and then up at him.

“What am I supposed to do— trim ‘em? I haven’t got an ax in my kit.”

“Burn them off.” McClain laughed. “I know they’re pretty terrible, but work on an assembly line all day, putting thingamajigs together, and see how your nails come out. Do the best you can.”

“Okay, but there’s no guarantee.”

HE went to work. McClain’s lazy glance wandered over her. After awhile he sent out a feeler.

“Look, babe. I’m on a two-day vacation with a roll of cash crying for a good time. Believe it or not, Arthur Murray’s my ideal. I’m a fiend for a waxed floor and a gal to hoof with. Busy tonight?”

The brown eyes studied him. McClain was sure of her type. She was one of these Broadway workers who loved to make dates with lads whose leathers were well lined. She wasn’t particular, either. She wouldn’t go out with the Hooker if she were.

“I don’t know.” She frowned a little. “I had sort of a date, but—”

“You name the place and I’ll take care of the overhead.”

Mac made it sound alluring. He added a few details, bringing in the word “champagne” and let it rest and simmer while she dug and ground with orange stick and file.

When she was all through he draped a ten-dollar bill gracefully over her celluloid-topped buffer.

“Yes or no?”

She reached in the bottom drawer, tore the blank margin from one of the pages in the magazine, scribbled her name and address on it and passed it over.

“Come up around seven.”

In a corner drugstore the big detective talked with Captain Mullin for several minutes, hung up and wandered into a convenient beer-stube. He took a flagon to a compartment table and nursed it along while he thought about Phil Bimber’s tip. Humpty Keller, as his name implied, was a hunchback who had been around the mazda thoroughfare for a long time before he had gone West to try his luck in the windy burg. Keller had always been a stooge for crooks and shufflemen. Never directly tied in with any rough stuff, more than once he had been suspected of gun-toting for trigger addicts and playing bank with stolen funds. Mac remembered that Humpty Keller had, in the past, been more than friendly with Hooker Bristol and Simm Yellen.

It began to look as if maybe Bimber knew what he was talking about. It all depended, McClain decided, with another dip into the suds, more or less on what he learned from the girl he had the seven o’clock date with....

THE ADDRESS tied in with a frowzy apartment house in the upper hundreds, a nod in from the avenue named after America’s discoverer. Two blocks beyond a brewery perfumed the evening air with its day-long scent of hops and malt. A couple of stoop-warmers moved languidly to let McClain’s flat feet in their number twelves go past them when he mounted the steps and consulted the mail boxes in the vestibule.

Dovey Penfield opened the door of an apartment on the third floor.

“Oh, hello,” she said. “Come on in.”

“Thanks.”

McClain eased his big frame into a cheaply furnished living room. A not-too-clean, shabby room. The windows looked out on an airshaft. It was rather dim. But there was enough light for Mac to see the sporting edition of the evening newspaper on a littered table.

A page had been turned so the full details of the Hubbell-Whitcomb payroll snatch faced upward for anyone to read. And, Mac decided, the girl had transferred her literature from make-believe cops to the genuine article.

He sat down on a mangy couch. Broken springs hummed and vibrated under his weight, Dovey Penfield wore the same black rayon dress of the barber shop, but minus her apron. McClain  smiled amiably up at her.

“Figured where you’d like to feed, baby? You pick the trough and I’ll keep my promise.”

“I know a dozen wonderful places.”

“There must be a band and there must be a dance floor.”

“I’ll think them over while I’m changing.”

Dovey’s ruby-tipped fingers strayed to the fastenings at her waist. “You park here and puff on one of those nice-smelling weeds. This dump needs fumigating. I won’t be long.”

“Put  on  something  pretty,”  McClain murmured coyly, wincing a little at the corn.

She went into an adjoining bedroom.

McClain heard her humming under her breath. She left the door ajar a trifle, as if the room were too warm for comfort with it closed. He heard her opening and closing bureau drawers. Then the whisper of silk and the tiny thuds made by the slippers she took off.

He distributed his weight more evenly among the springs, jerking his head up when, abruptly, the doorbell buzzed.

“Be a good boy and see who it is.”

Dovey looked out through the crack in the door.

“Sure.”

McClain got up and walked out to the two-by-two foyer. The front door had a patent burglar-proof lock on it. He solved it and pulled the door open.

It was pushed wider.

“Dovey home?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I just want to use the telephone.”

McClain stepped aside and Humpty Keller walked in.

“Who is it?” Dovey Penfield’s voice came from the bedroom.

“Me, honey. Mind if I use your phone a minute? I’m temporarily out of slugs.”

“No, help yourself. But make it fast.”

Mac shut the front door and walked back to the living room. Humpty Keller stood near the table. Bound for the telephone on a stand in the corner, he stopped for a look at the open newspaper on the table. When McClain went in he glanced up.

“Hope I’m not jamming you and Dovey. I’ll only be a minute.”

“Okay,” Mac said, reseating himself on the sofa.

He watched Keller lift the telephone from its black bakelite cradle. The other was not much taller than a jockey. Short, wizened, malevolent-looking. The physical disfigurement that had given him his nickname rose from between his hunched shoulders like a good-sized watermelon. Keller stood in front of the phone so the number dialed couldn’t be checked. There was a minute’s wait and then he said:

“Humpty.... Absolutely right.... Nothing else new.... I’m at Dovey’s, but moving on....”

McClain couldn’t hear what the person at the other end of the wire said. Humpty grunted and rang off.

“Stick around and have a drink with us. I’ll be out in a minute. By the way, meet my friend. Mr. Parker. Isn’t that right?” Dovey said from the crack in the door.

“Right.” Mac nodded at the little man. “Glad to know you Mr.—”

“Mutual. The tag says Gleason.” Humpty dug a loose cigarette from his pocket and hunted up a match. “New around town?”

“Fairly so. I work in a munitions plant.”

Humpty’s muddy gaze darted to the newspaper on the table. “The big dough. Me, I couldn’t stand that grind. Where’s your oil?” he called in to the girl.

“Look in the top of the ice-box. There should be a couple of bottles of ale there. I couldn’t get any Bourbon anywhere,” she added.

Keller went out, making a face. McClain finished his cigar and put it in a high-heaped ashtray beside him. He stretched, smothering a yawn.

Warmth always made him sleepy and this room must be around eighty degrees.

“Be a pal and hook me up, Mr. Parker.”

Dovey stood before him. She wore a green near-silk dress. It had a frilly neckline, bows at the waist. She must have sprayed lacquer on her brown hair. It looked stiff and frostily glazed. She laid her make-up on with a heavy hand; the pursed, hard mouth was caked with lipstick.

Clumsily, McClain went after the fastenings on the green dress. The perfume she used was a trifle overpowering at close range. Automatically he stuck a dry cigar in his mouth in self-defense.

“I’ll be glad when zippers come back— if ever.” She twisted around and smiled at him. “We’ll have a beer with my friend and then duck. it’s early yet.”

They sat around and killed the quart of ale she opened. The room got hotter. Keller slipped his coat off. Under it he wore a very thin white shirt. McClain looked at the shirt slowly, his gaze focusing on its shoulders whenever Humpty’s own eyes were busy with Dovey Penfield.

She must have gotten a message across to the little man because, McClain saw, Keller hadn’t had his coat off for more than a minute or two before he put it on again.

All at once the detective began to be aware of a certain growing tension. It was in the air, in their conversation, in Keller’s restlessness. Twice, McClain saw the brown-haired girl look at the cheap watch on her wrist.

He played along, drinking the balance of the brew, content, as usual, to let events shape themselves. He had made one discovery which might, or might not, be of some importance. It concerned Humpty Keller’s thin white shirt, the shoulders. He turned it over in his mind, toying with the significance of it until, after more desultory conversation, there was another buzz of the bell.

“Looks like it’s my busy night,” Dovey pouted. “Answer it,” she directed Humpty. “I’ll take these glasses away.”

She gathered them up and went in the kitchen while Keller ankled to the foyer. McClain slipped his police gun out of its holster and planted it under one of the three seat cushions on the lumpy sofa.

He was standing at the window, peering idly into the dusk of the airshaft when Humpty came back with the new caller. Turning slowly, McClain felt his nerves telegraph a swift and sudden warning.

The man who came leisurely in was the same party Mullin had told him to go out and get!

“I want to introduce you to Dovey’s friend.”

Keller waved a hand. “Mr. Parker.”

Hooker Bristol’s seamy lips went back over his prominent gums. He was well-built, wide-shouldered, well-dressed. But crime was etched indelibly into his close-eyed, twisted-lipped face. The mark of the killer was in his tightly drawn, unhealthy skin, in the brooding, colorless eyes, the gummy smile.

McClain got it without any trouble. It wasn’t likely the girl had known him. It wasn’t likely that Phil Bimber had notified either Humpty or the Hooker. Bimber had too much at stake to risk putting his nose into what didn’t concern him. McClain thought back.

He remembered the man in the barbershop, the one with the lather-smeared pan. He must be the one who had tipped Dovey off. Humpty had dropped around to make the identification sure and his telephone call, naturally, had been to the Hooker.

“Naturally!” Mac thought.

“Name is Parker?” Bristol shook his head.

“This week mebbe. Last week it was McClain. Dovey, your friend’s a flattie.”

“No!” the girl exclaimed, giving a creditable impression of real surprise. “Why, he told me he was on the assembly line—”

“We assemble a lot of characters. I line them up and look them over. Same idea. So what?”

Bristol, stepping in close beside Mac, while Keller made a show of reaching for a rod to distract the detective’s attention, drew with lightning speed.

“Freeze, copper!” Bristol ordered.

McClain lifted both hands. The Hooker’s gat was planted directly over his heart.

“I’ll get his steel.” Humpty felt around with small, grimy hands. He said, “Cut me down and call me Shorty! No iron!”

“Look again!” Bristol directed.

“A cop!” The girl’s voice was full of scorn. “Trying to get next to me to learn something! A dirty, low copper! I can’t get over it!”

“Neither will he.” Bristol laughed curtly.

“What’s the snoop, McClain?”

“What do you think?”

“I’ll guess. The Bronx job this morning. Who identified me— the lug that was driving?”

McClain looked at the couch. It didn’t sound good. Hooker Bristol wasn’t admitting things unless he was pretty sure that he, McClain, wouldn’t be around to use them.

“That’s right. Where’s Yellen?”

“Why don’t you keep in touch with Mullin?” Bristol sneered. “Simm’s been down at the main office for the last two hours— getting worked over.”

“Don’t talk to him!” Humpty grated. “Let him have it and let’s get out of here!”

“You’re not going to shoot anyone in front of me,” Dovey Penfield said emphatically.

Bristol reached in his pocket with his left hand. He produced a round, numbered check. He tossed it over to the girl.

“You beat it down to the Grand Central and get the baggage. We’ll meet you by the information booth in twenty minutes.”

“Go on,” Keller said, when the door closed behind her, “get it over with! I’m sweatin’ like a bull.”

“How do you want it?” Bristol’s colorless eyes were alive with sparks. “Through the heart or head—”

“Let me sit down and think it over,” Mac laughed. “What’s the matter with you kill-crazy mugs? Knocking me off won’t help your score any. You—”

“Fry for one, fry for two! What’s the difference?”

“Get it over with!” Humpty insisted. Perspiration dripped from his forehead. His hands had begun to tremble.

McClain leaned a little forward. He could feel the hard outline of his gun under the cushion he sat on. It might as well have been a thousand miles away.

He glanced down at Bristol’s well-polished shoes. Like a couple of mirrors. McClain moved his own brogans. He pushed them out to within an inch of the Hooker’s glimmering booties. Then he up-ended his feet, resting on his heels.

He straightened and bent backward against the cushions.

Inch by inch he raised his feet from the floor. Both of them. He couldn’t see his target now, he had to gauge and guess. Humpty was pleading with Bristol to go on and do the job. Bristol, his gun outstretched and ready, moved slowly in an arc while he made up his mind where to aim and trigger the slug.

With all the power in his long, heavily muscled legs, McClain brought both heels down like trip-hammers on Hooker Bristol’s shined shoes!

It worked as Mac hoped it would.

Bristol yelped in pain and started to double up. McClain had his pistol wrist the next split-second. He was on his feet, slugging Bristol with a bunch of knuckles. The Hooker was important stuff with a weapon in his hand but putty without one. He wilted under the thunderous right hook, the gun whirling from his opening fingers.

Mac hit him again and stooped to pick up the gat. As he did so Humpty made a flying leap and landed on his back.

Keller was different. Keller was like a live, sinuous wire, surcharged and full of high voltage. His thumbs dug into McClain’s windpipe. The big detective couldn’t get at him to dislodge him. Like a monkey, Humpty clung to his back, the small hands throttling unmercifully.

The room began to swim around McClain’s head. The furniture grew large and then small, coming close and fading away. Rage set the blood pumping through him. A fine state of affairs! He could knock Bristol out with one punch, but he had to fold up because a little man was on his back, using a couple of tiny thumbs on his throat! Something had to be done and done quickly.

Bristol was snapping out of it. McClain could feel the Hooker tossing around on the floor. Another minute and Bristol would have his gun back and then it wouldn’t be funny. Another minute and Hooker would ventilate him with hot lead.

Mac sucked in a breath through what opening was left in his windpipe. He began to back up, gathering speed as he went. He aimed himself at the nearest wall. He’d crush Humpty between himself and the plaster, flatten him out like a pancake.

But Keller sensed it and acted. The thumbs left McClain’s throat. Keller unfolded his arms and slid off.

He tried to duck but McClain was too quick for him. Mac socked him with the muzzle of the gun, full in the face. Humpty shrieked, spit out teeth and fell over a chair.

Bristol, climbing to his knees, came forward to try a football tackle. McClain let him have a number twelve in the chest and for good measure hammered the butt of the got directly down on top of the paymaster killer’s skull!

Then, still in a blind, cold rage, he repeated the operation on Humpty and was whaling Hades out of him when the door opened and Mullin,

Lantry, Ed Wheeler and Peters burst in.

“Okay, okay!” Mullins said brusquely. “Nice going, Dave. Everything’s nice. Everything’s just swell. We’ve got three killers— we’ve got everything— except eighty thousand dollars!”

“That’s right.” McClain explained briefly.

“The dame!” Mullin cleared his throat.

“What did you let her walk out for? Grand Central package room check! The dough’s in the luggage and she’s on her way!”

“I don’t think so.”

McClain walked over to the bumpy sofa. Humpty, sprawled on it, whimpered like a dog in pain. Blood was all over his face, dripping from the side of his head. McClain, who hated to see all the plasma going to waste, hauled the little man to his feet.

He stripped off his coat, yanked Keller’s tie loose and glanced up at the interested Captain Mullin with a faint smile.

“I might be all wrong, but I think I know where the dough is. It didn’t walk out with the babe! It’s right here!”

Mac ripped the thin white shirt off the trembling Keller, revealing what he had seen when the other had first taken off his coat, earlier that evening.

Two slender leather straps circled each shoulder, disappearing under the man’s armpits. While Mullin and the others stared, Mac spun Keller around.

“Well, I’ll be—”

There was another thin strap, around Keller’s midriff. McClain unbuckled all the straps and lifted off the smooth wooden hump that had nestled so convincingly between the stooped shoulders.

“No wonder he made a swell bank for stolen goods! Let’s see if my hunch on the hunch is right or wrong!”

With the air of a prestidigitator, McClain set the wooden hump on top of the newspaper on the table, found the catch that fastened the two halves together, slid it back and opened the thing. Captain Fred Mullin whistled.

“Eighty thousand bucks! All wadded in together! Well, I’ll be—”

_______________

29: The Perfect Crime

The Black Mask Jul 1920

TWO MEN sat at a table in a waterfront saloon. One was tall, dark and thin. He had the crafty, malevolent face of a gangster or crook. His eyes were beady and set close to a hawk-beak nose. His mouth was loose and weak but his chin was square. The other man was also tall. He was blond and broad shouldered. He was healthy in appearance and youthful looking. He resembled a stevedore or a freight handler from the docks. The two men had never seen each other until ten minutes past.

The dark man absently reached into a pocket and drew out a small, round pasteboard box. He opened it and dipped a thumb and forefinger into it and pinched out some white stuff. This he placed well into a nostril and sniffed it up his nose.

He looked across at the blond, who regarded him curiously.

“Walk in a snow storm, brother?”

“It’s dope, isn’t it?” the other asked.

The dark man’s eyes began to sparkle.

“Happy dust. Have some? No. So much more for me, then. What’s your name, brother?”

The blond youth set down his beaker of near-beer.

“My name is Klug— Martin Klug.”

The dark man nodded.

“Martin Klug, you say? I knew a Klug once. He was a gay-cat, which means a blaster or a safe-blower, if you don’t happen to know. He was doing a stretch in a band-house in Joplin for a job in Chi. He was old and had big ears. Was he your father?”

“No!” the other replied curtly. “He wasn’t my father. My father was an honest man.”

“Which implies his son isn’t, eh? Now, let me see if I can guess what you are.”

He cocked his head on one side and looked the youth over.

“You’re too big and clumsy for a dip or a leather snatcher. You haven’t got enough imagination to be a flash-thief or a con. Your hands are too large for peterman’s work and you’re too slow to swing on a derrick. What are you? I see your shoes are full of rust and stained with salt water. I’ll put you down as a river rat, a rattler grab, which means you’re a freight car crook. Am I right?”

The blond youth smiled a little.

“More or less. And you—what are you? Who are you?”

The dark man twisted his lips into a grin.

“Me? Brother, I’m Lott— Rider Lott. I’m an inventor. I’m also an author. I’m the inventor of the Perfect Crime. That is to say I’ve discovered how a job can be turned without any danger of a prison sentence. I’m the author of a little book I hope to publish some day. It’s called a Primer of Progressive Crime. I hope you understand me.”

“I don’t,” said Klug.

Lott raised a hand.

“Listen. Crime doctors and criminologists say it is impossible to commit a crime without leaving behind a clue. The law of Chance swings an even balance. No matter what is accomplished, so they declare, something tangible is always left behind. It might be a finger-print, a drop of blood, a lock of hair, a footprint, a bit of cloth— something. Do you get me now?”

Klug nodded.

“And you don’t agree with them?”

Lott picked at his right cheek.

“No, I don’t agree with them. The Perfect Criminal doesn’t have to leave a clue behind. I said the law of Chance swings an even balance. He’s not compelled to furnish the cops with clues, is he? All he has to do is—”

At this minute a girl came out of the shadows and sat down at the table. She was coarse, voluptuous but possessed of a flashy beauty. She was dressed in tawdry finery and reeked of patchouli. Under a large, dusty picture hat, Klug observed quantities of red-bronze hair. She had cow-like brown eyes, a milk white skin, a vermil mouth. She carried a black satin handbag and a pair of dirty white kid gloves.

“Well, well,” Lott said, as the girl sat down, “we now have with us Beatrice the Beautiful Brakeman’s Daughter. Where have you been keeping yourself, Beatrice? I haven’t seen you in six weeks.”

Klug watched the girl curve her painted lips in a smile.

“My name isn’t Beatrice,” she said, “and I never saw you before.”

Lott chuckled.

“Your fault—not mine, then. Beatrice, meet my friend Mr. Martin Klug. He seems to be a nice boy in spite of his name. But he is wasting his youth and ambition robbing freight cars. Stupid occupation, isn’t it? Now, if some day he should walk into a bank at twelve o’clock—when the bank cops go and get something to eat—and stick a gun through the wicket of the paying-teller’s cage and dip a hand in after it and pick up a package of bills—”

The girl looked at Klug.

“I’ve got ten cents,” she said. “Will they back me up a wash of phoney suds for that much?”

“Not while I’m around with a quarter!” Lott said quickly.

He lifted a finger for a lantern-jawed waiter’s attention, gave the order and looked at the girl.

“Ten cents is your capital, you say? Beatrice, you surprise me. A swell looker like you and only a thin dime! What’s the matter with you? Did you ever happen to fall out of a chair when you were a child? You should be riding around in your limousine. Ten cents! Are you laughing, Martin Klug?”

“I don’t see anything funny in that,” Klug growled.

“I was the upstairs maid in a private house,” the girl said moodily. “Mrs. Cabbler was the madame. She’s an old woman with warts on her face. She’s about seventy years old, I guess.”

Lott chuckled.

“Seventy, eh? Their necks crack easy when they’re that age!”

“I worked there three weeks up to yesterday,” the girl went on. “I only wanted to get some money together to buy a pair of long white gloves—the kind that come up to your elbows. I’ll never be happy until I get long white gloves that come up to my elbows. Look at these dirty things I own. They’ve been cleaned twelve times—”

“Never mind about the gloves,” Lott said. “Tell my young friend and myself what happened. You haven’t the gloves you yearn for and therefore it stands to reason you weren’t paid. You worked three weeks and weren’t paid. Why not? What was the trouble? There was trouble of some kind, wasn’t there?”

“Yes. Mrs. Cabbler left a ten dollar bill on the bureau in her bedroom. Someone hooked it. She called me in. She said I took it. She discharged me. She wouldn’t give me my wages.”

Rider Lott looked hard at the blond youth.

“You hear that, Martin Klug? Mrs. Cabbler said Beatrice took ten dollars from the bureau in her bedroom and discharged her without paying her wages. Clearly an unlawful act.”

“A dirty trick!” The youth said thickly.

“No,” Lott disagreed pleasantly, “a perfectly proper course to take. Beatrice took the money. But she was forced to give it back. Then her madame took her revenge by discharging her without pay. Only natural, isn’t it?”

“She’s a devil, that Mrs. Cabbler!” the girl said viciously. “She looked me in the eyes and seemed to know everything. I gave her back the ten dollars. I didn’t know what I was doing, hardly. Now I’ll never get those long white gloves that come up to the elbows.”

“I’ll buy them for you,” Martin Klug said, “when I get some money.”

Lott picked at his left cheek.

“You’ll never get any if you stick to robbing freight cars. No money in that, my friend.”

The girl pushed aside her glass.

“I wish I hadn’t given Mrs. Cabbler back that ten spot. She’s got more now than she knows what to do with. Once I was passing along the hall and her bedroom door was ajar. She was counting her money. The whole top of the bed was covered with bills. She keeps it in a trunk under the bed. It is a small black trunk.”

Rider Lott looked across the table again.

“You hear that, Martin Klug? Mrs. Cabbler is seventy years old. She has a trunk full of money. Money isn’t much use to a person seventy years old, is it? Young people should have money. You’re young—so am I, for that matter.”

He turned his beady eyes on the girl.

“I don’t suppose you have the front door key, the back door key, the side door key or any other key, have you, Beatrice? I mean to Mrs. Cab-bler’s house.”

The girl moved restlessly.

“My name isn’t Beatrice. But I have the key to the basement door. Just for spite I wouldn’t give it back to her. She doesn’t know I have it.”

Rider Lott stretched out a thin, pale hand.

“Give me the key you have.”

The girl opened her satin handbag, fumbled in the depths and drew out a key. She gave it to Lott. He dropped it in a pocket and looked at Martin Klug.

“If a person who is an enemy to society works alone,” he stated, “it is excellent. If two people work together it is less excellent and yet it is not altogether foolhardy. But if three people go out on a job it is flirting with disaster. We are Three. Do you understand what I mean?”

Klug shook his blond head.

“No, I don’t.”

“Neither do I,” said the girl.

Lott made an impatient gesture.

“I see why you, Martin Klug, are a river rat. And I see why you, Beatrice, Jewel of my Turban, have never risen above the level of a maid servant. You are both handicapped by the lack of intelligence and imagination. Both of you together don’t own the intellect of a common, garden-variety spider. You disgust me.”

Klug scowled.

“Well, what the hell do you mean?”

“Do you mean we should rob Mrs. Cabbler?” the girl asked, breathlessly.

“Ah, a gleam of intelligence!” Lott said mockingly. “Certainly we shall rob Mrs. Cabbler. Seventy years of age and a trunk full of money! She is made to rob. We have our own particular desires. Beatrice wants a pair of those long white gloves that come to the elbow, to replace the dirty ones she carries—”

“And I,” put in Martin Klug, brightening up, “need a new pair of shoes. These are all in.”

Lott smiled.

“While I am desirous of placing my books on the newsstands of the underworld. A thousand dollars will float my Primer. It will be of wonderful assistance to young, ambitious crust-floppers, grifters and heavymen. It will make me famous.”

The girl grew animated.

“I should love to rob that skinny witch. And, oh, those gloves—”

Lott picked at his chin with his nervous fingers.

“We shall rob Mrs. Cabbler, the skinny witch. But two of us only must go. Beatrice must be one. She must guide one of us to the bedroom and the trunk with the money. She knows the house. Who will go with her? Martin Klug or myself? We shall draw straws and see.”

He picked up a discarded newspaper, lying beside his chair, and tore two strips of unequal length from it. These he placed in his pale, thin hand and extended the hand toward the blond youth.

“Take one, Martin Klug. If you draw the long strip of paper you go with Beautiful Beatrice and rob Mrs. Cabbler. If you draw the short one I go.”

Klug hesitated a minute and then drew one of the strips of paper from the hand before him. It proved to be the longest piece.

“So be it,” Lott said. “Go with Beatrice and rob the skinny witch. And remember these things: Use no violence of any kind. Take no chances, leave no clues. Take great pains to cover every step and don’t be in a hurry. After you have the money, if you will go back and check over every move you have made, in quest of suspicious or incriminating clues left behind, and then remove them, you will have accomplished the Perfect Crime. I hope you know and understand my meaning.”

Klug inclined his head.

“I do.”

Lott looked at a battered nickel watch.

“Twelve after one.” He considered the two with a roving glance. “We’ll spring this job on a share and share alike basis. We’ll divide Mrs. Cabbler’s money into three equal portions. But we must decide now on a place where we can cut the swag. It’s bad business dividing in a public place. Where can we go?”

The girl stood up.

“I know the very place. I live with my sister. She has a flat up on Tenth Avenue. She’s away now. You can both go there. You can stay there as long as you want.”

Lott attained his feet.

“Fine. Let’s start for Mrs. Cabbler’s now. A woman of seventy sleeps as heavily at twelve o’clock as at three.”

Martin Klug stood up.

“Are you coming, too?” he inquired, as if surprised.

Lott turned up his coat collar.

“Certainly. I shall wait outside for you both.”

TWO MEN and a girl sat at a table in the living-room of a cheap Tenth Avenue flat. It was the night following. A gas jet flickered garishly. An empty whisky bottle was on the table. The odor of booze mingled with that of cigarettes.

“Are you sure,” Lott said, “you left no telltale marks behind you, incriminating evidence? Did you follow my instructions to the letter? Did you make it a Perfect Crime?”

Martin Klug shifted about in his rickety chair.

“I’m sure. I remembered what you told me. I went over the ground carefully. I even picked up the burnt matches.”

“Robbery,” said Lott, “means anywhere from five to twenty years. But murder means the chair. You made a mistake, Martin Klug. You shouldn’t have killed the old woman.”

The girl laughed.

“What else could he do? Just when we pulled out the trunk the old witch opened her eyes. She began to squawk.”

Lott shook his head soberly.

“You could have tied her up. You could have gagged her. You didn’t have to kill her!”

Martin Klug drew a breath.

“I was excited,” he confessed. “I’m used to freight cars, not bedrooms. I pulled out the trunk. Then I looked up and saw the old woman’s eyes looking at me. They were eyes like a fish’s, cold and dead looking. Then she began to squawk. So I took her skinny throat between my hands.”

“Bad business,” said Lott. “Well, there’s no use of shedding tears about it. It’s over and done with. Get the coin, Beatrice. We’ll split it up.”

The girl went to the corner of the room. She pulled aside a couch and drew out a package wrapped in newspaper. She brought this to the table and laid it before Lott. He opened it and drew out three packages of money.

“Nine thousand dollars,” he said. “Divide it by three and it equals three thousand dollars apiece.”

“I don’t see where you come off to get any of it,” Martin Klug grumbled. “What did you do?”

Lott twisted his lips into a grim smile.

“I suppose you want my share because you croaked the old lady? What did I do? Nothing, not a thing, except plan the robbery. This three thousand is my royalty on the idea. Get me? What do you say, Beatrice?”

“My name isn’t Beatrice,” the girl replied. “And I don’t say anything at all. Take the dough— it’s yours!”

“You’re a droll humorist, my young murderer, if you know what that is,” Lott said to the blond young man.

“Here, take your share of the stuff and keep your mouth shut. Beatrice, Pearl of Price, put your mitts on your three thousand. Take it, my dear. Heaven is witness you earned it!”

The girl grabbed up her package of money and hugged it to her full breast.

“Mine! All mine!” she exulted. “And that’s not all either! No, that’s not all! Wait— look! I want to show you something!”

She jumped up, went to her wrap and dug something out of a pocket—something long and supple as a white snake. She held the objects up before Lott’s eyes.

“Do you see ‘em? Gloves— long white gloves that come up to my elbows!”

Martin Klug chuckled.

“She saw them on the dresser in the old woman’s room. She made a dive for them. She seemed to want them more than the coin. Women are funny.”

The girl pressed the gloves to her face.

“They’re just the kind I dreamed about! It’s a joke. I worked there three weeks to get the money to buy them and all the time the old hag had just the gloves I wanted. Well, they’re no use to her now. Won’t they look swell with that big hat of mine? I’m terribly lucky. When Martin Klug lit the match they were the first things I saw!”

Lott picked at his chin.

“You should have heard the old dame squawk,” Martin Klug said suddenly, with a laugh. “Then you should have heard her gurgle when I got hold of her windpipe. It sounded like water running out of a sink!”

He sighed.

“We’ve divided up the stuff, Lott. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Let’s divide up the girl. You want her. I want her. Who gets her? That’s what I want to know.”

The dark man took a deliberate sniff of snow and stretched his long arms.

“I’m in a drift. But don’t dig me out! Who gets the girl? Who gets Beatrice the Beaut? Ask her? Who does get you, sweetheart?”

The girl ceased admiring the long, new white kid gloves in her hands.

“They are just my size. It was good to shake the old ones. Now these—”

“Answer the question!” Lott said briskly. “Who gets you?”

She looked slowly from one to the other.

“Well,” she murmured, “you’re both nice. I like you both.”

“Make a choice,” Lott said brusquely. “Don’t beat around the bush. We both can’t have you. That’s polygamy; against the law. It wouldn’t do to run afoul of the law— that way. So— which?”

The girl let a scowl creep across her beautiful face.

“I think,” she said, after an interval, “if you would stop calling me Beatrice, I’d like you the best!”

Lott picked at his lips.

“Good. Then I get you, eh? Is that it?”

Martin Klug lurched heavily to his feet.

“Like hell you get her! “

He made a swift lunge at Lott. But the dark man was too quick for him.

Lott jumped to his feet and threw back his head with a quick, feline motion. The blow glided harmlessly over his shoulder. He seized the whisky bottle by the neck as the blond youth sprang at him like a tiger. He sidestepped and brought the bottle down with all his force on the skull of the other.

Klug stopped short, moaned faintly, groaned, and sank in an odd, limp heap on the table.

Then he rolled off it and sprawled, stirless, on the dirty uncarpeted floor.

Lott laughed a little.

“Poor fool! Now we have three thousand more than we had two minutes ago. I guess I’ve killed him. A tap on the facade is always like that if you use force. Maybe it’s just as well. He was only a river rat. Get on your hat and coat, Beatrice. Put the cash in a bag. We’ve got to get out of here now in a hurry.”

While the girl hastened to obey his orders, Lott took another sniff of dope and prodded Klug’s body with his foot.

“No imagination,” he said under his breath. “It’s just as well—”

The girl loomed up before him. She had a satchel in her hand and wore the large, dusty picture hat.

“Wait until I put on these new gloves. They’re soft. I love them. I always wanted them.”

She began to flex her hands into them while Lott pushed Klug’s body under the table.

“What did you do with the other gloves— the dirty ones?” he asked.

The girl held out a rounded arm and inspected the new glove.

“What did I do with ‘em? What do you think? I just naturally chucked them away. What do I want with rotten old gloves like those, that have been cleaned twelve times?”

Lott drew his brows together and glanced at his nickel watch.

“Where did you throw them?”

She began donning the second glove.

“Oh, in the trash basket in the old witch’s room. What difference does it make?”

Lott grasped her arm. His face had changed. Color had crept into it. His eyes burned queerly.

“In the trash basket! You threw your old gloves in the trash basket in that room!”

The girl sought to wrench her arm from the tight grip he put upon it.

“What’s eating you!” she said sibilantly. “You’ve got too much snow on board—”

Lott drew his lips over his teeth.

“You fool!” he cried. “You little fool! You’ve—”

He stopped and dropped her arm. The lids fell over his gleaming eyes. He moved his head to one side as if listening. Something in his attitude caused the girl to listen, too. For a long, tense minute she heard nothing. Then, on her strained ears sounded a footfall on the stairs outside… another.

She heard Lott draw a quick breath.

At the same instant the door burst open and two men stepped in, drawn revolvers glinting in the gaslight. Both wore derby hats and an air of authority. One motioned her to fall back against the wall; the other man jammed his gun in Lott’s face.

“I’m Davis of Headquarters!” this second man snapped. “You and the moll are wanted. Case of murder— croaking old Mrs. Cabbler the rich widow! Out with your dukes and let me jewel you!”

Lott, against the table, hands trembling over his head, looked at the cowering figure of the girl.

“In the trash basket,” he whispered. “Oh, God—”

The detective, adjusting steel handcuffs, grunted.

“In the trash basket is right! It was a careful job and neatly turned. Not even a burnt match or a fingerprint. But no crime is perfect. We fished the dirty gloves out of the trash basket. They were full of numbers and those ink marks the cleaners put in them. We spent the day getting a line on the numbers in them. An hour ago we found the establishment that had cleaned them—”

_______________________

30: Little Pieces

Exciting Detective, March 1943

I USED to think I, Don Wheeler, was a pretty smart guy. That was when I was keeping company with Marge Kelsey, before I met “Frenchy” Bergdorf and his crowd. Three years ago next September. There were a lot of things I didn’t figure— for instance, that the dame, Paula Drew, would spill to the cops and that they could tie me into it like they did.

I guess I’m lucky at that. If I hadn’t listened to my lawyer, and pleaded the way he said, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be anywhere!

I liked Bridgetown. It was the right size city. Not too big, but big enough. A lot of factories, mills and warehouses. I understand it’s important now, turning out planes and guns to lick the Axis. But when I was there it was a peaceful burg. That is, until Frenchy Bergdorf and his friends moved in.

I was working for the Star Pyrotechnics Company. It was a steady job. Some people think you only use fireworks on the Fourth of July, but that’s a mistake. The company sold them all the year round.

For instance, we’d always get a big order from the Mardi Gras crowd in New Orleans, around February. Florida always kicked through with big orders. You’d be surprised at all the holidays, the religious festivals and county fairs in the country. South America, too, kept us busy.

I worked in the powder room. I got more dough than the other guys— the boys on the machines who made the casings, tubes, fuses and so forth. Maybe you’d call my job dangerous. I guess it was. I know the insurance company wouldn’t give me a policy.

Nearly every night that summer I used to take Marge over to Lake Waseka. There were boats and canoes for rent. It was nice drifting around in the dark. Some guys brought mandolins. There was a little island halfway up the lake. We used to paddle up there sometimes and watch the stars shine on the water.

I was crazy about Marge. She was eighteen, swell looking. A real blonde, too. Not one of these black-at-the-part babes. She had the best figure in Bridgetown. All curves, soft and cuddly. And speaking of curves, Marge knew all the angles, believe me!

AROUND the end of July, I met Frenchy Bergdorf for the first time. He, Clint Oster and some other lugs were at the boathouse one night when Marge and I came down from the island. Her yellow hair was a little mussed up and I had lipstick on my cheek. Before we went in to get a Coke Marge dipped her handkerchief in the lake and cleaned my pan.

“You look terrible, Don,” she whispered. “Like you’d been peppered with buckshot.”

She was close to me. I tried to reach out and grab her, but she laughed and pushed me away.

I knew Clint Oster fairly well. He never had a steady job, but he always seemed to have plenty of cash. He was tall, with a bad complexion and a couple of front teeth that needed fixing. He got up from the table where he was sitting with the others and spoke to us.

“Hello, Don. Howdy, Marge. Come on over and sit in. I want you to meet my friends. This is Frenchy Bergdorf and Eddie Milton. They’ll be in town for awhile now.”

I didn’t pay much attention to Milton. He was just a sappy looking bird in a striped suit. The mustache he was wearing didn’t add much to his appearance. Bergdorf was different.

Frenchy was big, big all over. He had jet-black hair, and sharp eyes that looked at and through you. His skin was dark like he was always sunburned. That made his teeth seem even whiter than they were. A neat dresser, too. His linen suit looked expensive. It didn’t have a spot on it.

I shook hands with him and we sat down. Frenchy shoved a lot of nickels in the juke box. We gagged and kidded around. Frenchy asked Marge to dance with him, but she shook her head. She said she was tired, that she’d have to be getting on home.

Frenchy kept looking at her. I didn’t object. In fact, it made me feel kind of proud. Marge was my girl. To have people admire her made me feel I was lucky, that I knew how to pick ’em.

“Glad to have met you,” Frenchy said to Marge and me when we stood up to go. “Be seeing you around.”

“What’s his grind?” Marge asked, when I started my ‘35 flivver and we headed for home.

“Search me. What is he, a Greek or a Spick?”

“If they call him Frenchy,” Marge said, “I guess he’s that. Did you notice what nice teeth he has?”

I ran into Bergdorf a couple of nights later. Marge had to stay home and mind her kid sisters while her old man and lady went to the movies. I dropped in at the Omega Bowling Alley to pick up a game. Frenchy, Eddie Milton and Clint were there.

Between strings, I asked Clint what Frenchy did for a living.

“Haven’t you heard?” Oster looked at me as if I was dumb. “He’s the head guy of the Associated Florist Society.”

“What does that mean?”

Clint laughed. “Try and open a flower shop or greenhouse or run that kind of a business without signing with Frenchy’s society and see what happens.”

Still, I didn’t understand exactly what Bergdorf’s racket was.

He took a liking to me. It was mutual, because I liked Frenchy. I liked the way he dressed, the way he talked, the way he acted. He’d been around. He had a big city polish. He never got excited, always kept his voice quiet. But when he got sore about anything, and turned on the pressure, it showed in his eyes and the way a muscle twitched in his cheek.

From what he dropped, Frenchy was quite a ladies’ man. But particular. He didn’t run after dames just because they were dames. If they didn’t have class and looks, he never gave ’em a second glance.

After all, why should he? He had money. He didn’t have to bother with the riff-raff and the janes that only liked a guy for what they could get out of him.

He opened an office in the Manning Building on the corner of Second Street and Congress Boulevard. It was furnished in red leather and mahogany. He had a girl working for him by the name of Paula Drew. Miss Drew had been with Frenchy in Chicago. He told me she knew the business backwards, that he paid her sixty bucks a week.

Paula Drew was a nice, clean-looking girl. Not as attractive as my Marge, but different. She was older, more sophisticated. Any time I dropped in at Frenchy’s office, she was always busy on the books.

When Miss Drew worked on them she wore horn-rimmed spectacles. They made her look like a school teacher. She boarded with the Klausmeyers on Valentine Lane. Sometimes in the evening, when I was coming back from the fireworks’ factory, I’d meet her crossing Second Street. She’d always give me a funny little smile and a nod.

IT WAS in August that I began to have trouble with Marge.

One night she stood me up. We had a date to go to the lake. When I stopped by to get her it was her mother who came to the door.

“Don, Marge went to see her cousin Ella,” Mrs. Kelsey told me. “She said to tell you she’s sorry. She’ll call you up tomorrow.”

Marge called all right, and I saw her that Thursday. But Saturday night it happened again. This time she rang me at the plant. Jackson, the foreman on the second floor, told me I was wanted on the phone.

“And don’t make this a habit, Wheeler,” he said. “You know what the rules are about personal calls during business hours.”

Marge, on the wire, said: “Don, I’m terribly sorry. I’ll have to break tonight’s date. Don’t be sore, Don. Ella’s been sick and there’s no one else but me to take care of her.”

“Why don’t she get a trained nurse?”

“Please don’t be angry, Don. You can’t help sickness. I’ll see you Monday, positively. Come over at eight— earlier. And Don— haven’t you anything nice to say? Tell me something sweet.”

I stood there for a minute, the receiver like a piece of ice in my hand. Then I blurted out: “Okay, babe. You know it. I’m nuts about you. All day I’ve been thinking about you— the island, the stars—”

“Oh, Don!” Marge’s voice was soft and shaky. “You even thrill me over the telephone!”

It was lonely Saturday night with no date. I stopped at the bowling alley. There was no sign of Frenchy or Clint. Eddie Milton was there, playing pool with the kid who did the cleaning. He put the six-ball in the side pocket, ran off the other two and racked his cue.

“Busy, Don?”

“No. Where’s everybody? Where’s Frenchy?”

Eddie shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Want to roll across town with me? I’ve got a man to see. It’ll only take a few minutes. Then we can have a drink, grab a flicker— or something.”

He didn’t have a car so I took him to Water Street. We stopped in front of a small florist’s. It was run by a Greek. The name on the window was Andropopolos. Inside there was a light and I saw a guy cutting flowers and putting them in a white ice box.

“Won’t take but a minute,” Eddie Milton said, climbing out of the car. “I’ve got to see this guy.”

He went in. I could hear their voices through the screen door.

Eddie spoke first. He said, “Well, what’s the answer, Andropopolos? Did you sign that membership blank?”

“Get out of my store!” the Greek ordered. “I told you I ain’t interested.”

“Listen, brother.” Eddie Milton’s voice was silky. “I’m not used to this kind of treatment. I—”

“Get out! Crooks, grafters! I know all about you kind of fellars! You bother me again and I’ll tell the police!”

I saw Eddie move closer. “Tell the cops? Tell ’em— what? That we’re giving you protection at a cheap rate? That we’re trying to keep prices regular in this town the same as we do in all the big cities? You punk! I’ll send the boss around to have a talk with you Monday!”

Andropopolos picked up the scissors. For a minute I thought he was going to use them on Eddie.

“Get out!”

Milton came back to the car. He was cursing under his breath. When he got in he said, “That dirty Greek! Wait’ll I tell Frenchy! He’ll make him squirm plenty!”

I went up to Marge’s on Monday night. I waited in the front parlor. She had finished the dishes and was taking a bath. There were a lot of flowers in vases. Roses, other stuff. So many they made the room smell like a funeral home.

I didn’t like the perfume so I went out on the porch. Marge came down about ten minutes later. She had a white dress on, sandals, but no stockings. Her hair was damp from the bath and it made little curls around her forehead.

I took her in my arms. She was soft, softer than she had ever been before. Usually, when I hadn’t seen her for a few days, her arms would wind tight about my neck and she’d be as anxious as I was for a kiss.

Tonight it was different. She kissed me, her arms went around my neck, but I noticed a change. It was funny, yet I couldn’t explain exactly what it was. Not the way she acted, or what she said. Just something was missing.

We sat on some wicker lawn furniture like so many other nights. But there was a tension between us. Marge didn’t say much. She kept her head resting on my shoulder, looking out through the honeysuckle at the street. Once or twice I heard her sigh.

“Where’d you get all the posies, hon?” I asked, after awhile. I could even smell them out on the porch.

“It’s ma’s birthday. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No. How’s your cousin?”

“Not so good. I might have to go out Wednesday and stay with her for a few days. Oh, Don. There’s always something, isn’t there?”

GENERALLY, it was after twelve before I’d leave. But that night I said goodbye at ten to eleven. On the way home I thought about the difference. I tried to figure it out. Even after I was in bed, and I couldn’t sleep, I kept trying to decide what had happened between Marge and me.

Wednesday she phoned to say she was going to her cousin’s, but that she’d be back Saturday— she hoped. The same afternoon, when I left the factory, I saw a brand new convertible Buick parked outside the wire gate.

“Hey, Don!”

Frenchy Bergdorf whistled to me. He was sitting at the wheel. He leaned and opened the door for me. I got in and sat down on blue leather upholstery.

“Your heap, Frenchy?”

“Yeah, I bought it yesterday.” He stepped on the starter. “Listen to that engine. Purrs like a cat with a saucer of cream, eh?’ Got a few minutes to spare? I’d like to gab with you.”

“Sure.”

“Then let’s take a ride.”

Frenchy pressed a button on a trick gadget. A cigarette popped up, lighted. He handed it to me and got one for himself. We rolled down Congress Boulevard toward the river and the suburbs. Bergdorf didn’t say much for awhile.

“Look, Don,” he began, all of a sudden. “We’re pals, aren’t we?”

“I hope so.”

“I like you a lot, kid. I’ve always liked you, from the time I met you at the lake. Someday soon, when I get my business running smooth here in Bridgetown, I’m going to fix you up with a nice job.”

“That’ll be swell.”

“Right now,” Frenchy continued, “I want you to do me a favor. It’s a big favor and I’m willing to pay for it. I’ll pay you a hundred bucks.”

I looked at him, puzzled. “What for?”

“Here’s the story. I’ve got a stupid Greek I want to throw a scare into. He won’t do business with me and he wants to make trouble. I’ve got to teach him a lesson. I don’t want to hurt him, but I want to show him that he can’t outsmart me. Get the idea?”

“What else?”

“You work in that fireworks factory. I’ve got a diagram. How to make a time-bomb. You can get the powder, fuses and stuff there. I’ll furnish the rest. What do you say, kid? A bomb for a century note.”

I could feel my heart beat faster. “What are you going to do with it?”

Frenchy laughed. “Plant it in the Greek’s backyard and scare hell out of him.” He turned his head. “I know what you’re worried about. That they might trace back and find you were mixed up in it. Forget it. Nobody’ll ever know a thing about it. This is guaranteed air-tight.”

“How do you mean?”

“A bomb goes off, and where’s your evidence?”

We stopped at a tavern and had a couple of drinks. I began to feel normal again. After all, if nobody was going to get hurt what difference did it make? And a hundred bucks! I needed the cash. I’d been saving up for the day Marge and I were to be married. It was slow work on my wages. A C note would help a lot.

“Well, what’s the answer?” Frenchy asked, when we were back in his new car again.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “As a favor to you—on your word that nobody will get hurt.”

“I’ll meet you tonight.” Frenchy pressed the button on the cigarette gadget. “I’ll want the thing ready Saturday at six o’clock. Tomorrow I’ve got to hop out on a business trip. You have it all ready to deliver and I’ll take care of the rest.”

I WORKED Thursday and Friday nights— in the cellar. There wasn’t much else to do with Marge at her cousin’s. I smuggled the powder and fuses out of the factory without trouble. The diagram Frenchy gave me was easy to follow.

I made the time-bomb up in a small, cheap suitcase. It had three compartments. The middle one was for the alarm clock. I wired the whole business and left it so all I had to do was wind the clock, set it for whatever time Frenchy wanted, hook it up to the wires and lock the suitcase.

On Saturdays I only worked a half-day. On the way out Jackson stopped me.

“Here’s a phone message, Wheeler.” He gave me a crooked grin along with the slip of paper. “I thought I told you to lay off having dames buzz you here. One more call and I’ll take it into the main office.”

I thought the message was from Marge. Instead, it was from Miss Drew. She said she wanted to see me at the Manning Building as soon as I quit work.

After I washed up and changed my clothes, I got the car and went across town. There was no one in the Associated Florist Society’s offices except the girl who had telephoned me.

Paula Drew was sitting at her desk, staring out the window. She had smoked a lot of cigarettes. The ashtray beside her was piled with them. I shut the door and sat down in the chair near her.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked.

She looked at me. She didn’t seem as young as I thought she was. Her face was kind of drawn, kind of blank. But her eyes had a glitter. They looked strange.

“We’ve both been a couple of suckers,” she said. “It’s about time you found out.”

Something in her voice made my breath catch in my throat. I kept watching her. Her hornrimmed glasses were on the blotter. Her fingers, pushed them around nervously.

“I don’t get it,” I muttered.

“It’s easy.” I could hear the breath she drew. “Your girl has been two-timing you the same as Frenchy has me! That’s the whole thing in a nutshell!”

I sat there, suddenly feeling sick at my stomach. My head buzzed. My throat felt dry, as if I’d been filling Roman candles all day without a nose-protecting sponge. I remembered the flowers in the front parlor the night I’d gone out on the Kelsey porch. I remembered a lot of other things.

“I don’t believe it,” I heard myself say.

“Where do you think your girl friend has been all this week?”

After a long silence I got up. I didn’t say anything more to Paula Drew. I went down to the street and got in the car. It was fourteen miles out to Blauvelt, the town where Marge’s cousin Ella lived.

I felt like I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. I went back to my place. What I needed and wanted was a lot of liquor, but I didn’t take a drink. I had to keep my head clear, to know what I was doing.

But the time until six o’clock was like a knife stabbing me in the heart!

AT SIX to the dot, Frenchy Bergdorf rolled up in the new Buick. It was pretty dusty, as if he’d done a lot of mileage. The white-walled tires were muddy.

“Everything okay, Don?”

When I nodded, he slipped two fifty-dollar bills in my hand. “Set it for nine o’clock,” he directed, when I told him the suitcase was ready.

I locked the suitcase and brought it up from the cellar. Frenchy was in the front seat. He told me to lay the suitcase on its side in the rear. I did that and he shook hands with me.

“Thanks, Don. You’re a real pal. Don’t forget, I’ll have a job for you around the middle of next month. That’s a promise.”

He laughed and drove off. I stood and watched the car until it disappeared.

I knew I’d never see it again—or Frenchy, either. Instead of nine o’clock, I’d set the time for fifteen minutes after six!

I couldn’t eat any dinner. I didn’t think about Frenchy Bergdorf; all that was in my mind was Marge. Now, I told myself, maybe she’d be mine again. Maybe we’d go out to Lake Waseka like we used to. I could see the island and the stars. I could feel Marge in my arms, soft and cuddly, her blond hair tickling my face. I could feel her arms around my neck, the kisses we had shared.

I was going upstairs when I saw a car stop outside. Then I caught a glimpse of Eddie Milton. I opened the screen door and went down the path to meet him.

One look at his face was enough to tell me what had happened. But I waited for him to speak.

“Haven’t you heard, Don? It’s been on the radio! The Sentinel has a special extra out.”

Away up the street I could hear the newsboys shouting. Eddie’s face was the color of skimmed milk. The hand he put on my arm was shaking. He kept swallowing and breathing with his mouth open.

“No, I didn’t hear anything,” I answered. “What happened?”

Eddie made sounds in his throat. “Frenchy— at a quarter after six! The whole car blew to pieces, little pieces! Quarter after six—not five minutes after he stopped at Marge Kelsey’s house and picked her up!”

_______________

A Johnny Castle Story

31: Don’t Meddle With Murder

Thrilling Detective May 1946

1: Cop’s Call

THE TWO cauliflowers were going at it tongs and hammer. The smaller, a lippy kid with orange-colored hair, was taking a pasting. Which annoyed my host no end. Barney Koppel, fight promoter, stationery store owner and ex-paper hanger, had gone to the trouble of inviting me down to Ziggy’s gym to observe what he called “the flashiest lightweight discovery in the last sixty years— now under my exclusive management” in action.

That was the lad with the orangeade locks. Something had slipped in the workout. A look across at Ziggy’s blackavised countenance, and a big wink from the gymnasium owner’s left lid, told me where the wires were crossed. Ziggy, knowing Koppel wanted to cut a hunk of publicity in the Orbit— the sheet for which I composed numerous sporting sonnets— had arranged to rib Barney for my benefit. The work horse, instead of taking the terrific slapping around Koppel had no doubt ordered, was tearing into “the greatest lightweight discovery in sixty years” like a Kansas tornado.

Barney, plucking out his few remaining hairs, one by one, broke away from my side and jumped up into the gym ring. He took a left and a right before he got between the brawlers. He pushed his groggy find onto a stool and waved both arms in frenzied agitation.

“I’ve been robbed! You done that, Ziggy! You tried to make a monkey out of my boy in front of Mr. Castle! I should die like a dog in the street if I ever come back here again!”

The black-faced Ziggy, two hundred and forty pounds even, shook like a bowl of jello, all six flavors. Barney pushed his leather-swinger into a bathrobe and conducted him to a dressing room, leaving the air blue behind him.

“What a character!” Ziggy wiped mirth tears from his eyes and looked at me. “He’s got a punk who can’t punch harder than an Erie conductor and right away he wants a page spread in your paper, Johnny. Can I stand by and watch him get away with it?”

A pair of new future greats climbed into the ring for some exercise. I looked at my watch. Three-fifteen and a fraction. Time to get back to the Orbit’s office and see if there were any telephone calls or mail.

Also, I remembered suddenly, the Number One gal in my life was meeting me at five at Billy Austin’s place. And Miss Libby Hart liked being kept waiting the same as a chorine likes kitchen work.

I started toward the door when Barney Koppel came out and grabbed my arm.

“Look, Mr. Castle! You seen what happened. Jobbed— by that fat no-good. A laughing-stock! The boy’s really sensational in his own bracket. They ring a light heavy in on him. It’s like wrestling with a kid— uneven, what I mean. Wait’ll I break him at the Kris Kringle A. C. Tuesday night a week.”

I nodded him off and was heading for an exit when I stopped.

A man came in. Just an ordinary, large-footed specimen of the breed, but familiar to me from the top of his dusty felt down to his well-polished, square-toed shoes.

Detective Larry Hartley of Homicide!

There was plenty of mayhem on tap at Ziggy’s resort, but it wasn’t like Hartley to check on it. Captain Fred Mullin’s best man was usually reserved for special assignments. Hartley didn’t see me as he pounded in. I made a show of lighting a cigarette and watched.

On the other side of the gym, Hartley gave Ziggy the office. He pulled a chair out and sat down beside the dark-complexioned load of blubber. I could see Ziggy shake his head and nod as Detective Hartley went into conversation. A couple of minutes passed and the squirrels of curiosity began to scamper around in the back of my mind.

Which was bad. A sports writer for a dignified Manhattan daily had no business mixing with what didn’t concern him. Several times that had happened in the past— with results that narrowly kept me from being measured for a pair of wings. Meddling with murder and cracking into crime, while bringing me some local fame as an amateur sleuth, had neither improved my blood pressure count nor softened my arteries any.

And, more to the point, Libby had laid down her own law in a few select words. They ran something like this:

“Either you stop doubling for a Centre Street character or you get your ring back. I don’t mean the one that goes on the Bell System, either.”

I thought of that as I stood there, watching Hartley mumble in the gym owner’s private ear.

It was none of my business; no brass off my watch. Still, I had a hunch that something important was being broiled. Hartley never made visits unless they added up. All my reportorial instincts surged to the fore.

“Here we go again!” an inner voice chortled. “Hang onto your Stetson!”

The parley didn’t last long. With a grunt Hartley got up and went out. I was downstairs and was around the corner when he laid his Number Twelves on the sidewalk. Further down the street was a regulation police prowl car. A cop and another man were in it. Hartley made it three and the official heap buzzed off.

As it passed the corner my suspicions were confirmed. In the front seat I gandered another familiar face. It belonged to the head of Homicide—a cold, shrewd-eyed pan with all the animation of a marble quarry and a mouth made to order for sneers and leers.

Captain Fred Mullin, in person!

I went back to Ziggy’s in a rush. If Mullin had sent Hartley to the gym, and thought enough of it to ride uptown with him, nothing less than Grade A murder must be on the book.

But Ziggy, when I asked him if he’d seen my cigarette case around, shook his head and grinned.

“You should ask Hartley things like that, Johnny. He was here a minute ago. What’s the answer— mebbe you want to find out what he was quizzing me about. I seen you standing over there watching.”

“Not a bad idea,” I drawled. “Some time I can slip in a nice write-up about your establishment. Perhaps I can even tuck in one of those photos you had taken twenty years ago— when you were young and less repulsive.”

Ziggy raised a brow. Unlike morphine he was nobody’s dope. But like most of the Broadway sporting gallery he had a craving for seeing his name in print.

“No kidding, Johnny.”

“Come on,” I said. “What bends?”

Ziggy studied the fistic action of the two sluggers in the ring before he put on a cagy look and lowered his voice.

“Poor Kenny Stangl,” he said, from the left side of his mouth. “Picked up in an alley at six this morning— with more holes in him than a twenty-dollar suit hung in a closet full of moths! Tough, huh?”

I went back to the Orbit office, thoughtfully reflective. What Ziggy revealed was interesting. Kenny Stangl, one of the Rialto wolf pack, was a big shot along the lane. That is, as an ex-gunsel and a large drinker. Stangl had tangled with the police on several memorable occasions. That he always came out first best was due to a smart mouthpiece and a distressing lack of evidence. In fact, folks who had seen Kenny use a hot rod had become vague and forgetful in a witness chair.

So now he had been picked up in an alley, looking like a sieve.

I said a polite good afternoon to Beth Wheaton, prima donna of the plugs, as I braked at her switchboard.

“Any calls, darling— for me?”

Beth flicked a blue eye uninterestedly over the top of the board.

“One from somebody named Hart— a dame. She wants you to call her immediately, if not sooner. I wrote the number down somewhere. I’ll look it up and see if I’ve misplaced it.”

“Do that,” I said, and wandered into Bill Jamison’s domain.

Jamison was a star leg man for the Orbit. Bill’s department was crime in all its vicissitudes, murder a specialty. Once he had dreamed of being a college professor, teaching English. Now he wrote a reasonable facsimile of the same language, with vernacular embellishments, and made Times Square his campus.

“Hi, Johnny,” was his greeting. “Pull up a chair.”

“Remember Kenny Stangl?” I led off with. “Sure do,” he said. “Bad news in blue serge. What’s he been up to now?”

“Not up— down. In the gutter. Blasted. Rubbed. Perforated. Haven’t you heard?”

Jamison looked at me with a frown. “Is this straight? Because I haven’t had a nudge on it from anybody. Not even Mullin the Great, and he’s kept all his promises lately to give me ground floor space. Where’d you hear it?”

I explained. Bill looked serious. He thanked me and I went back to my desk where the phone was jingling.

“About that number, Mr. Castle,” Beth Wheaton cooed. “I can’t find it anywhere.”

“You can draw your pay Saturday and don’t come back Monday,” I told her.

“But I’ll keep trying and maybe some day it will show up.” She broke off and came back with, “What a coincidence. The lady’s on another wire now. Do you want to talk to her?”

A round of seconds and then the One and Only’s fascinating tonal qualities drifted into the receiver:

“Johnny? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because a stupid, inefficient operator named Beth Wheaton—”

“Well, I like that!” Beth cut in indignantly. She clicked off before I could fire another shot.

“Date still on for five at Austin’s?” I said to Libby.

“Yes, but couldn’t you make it a little earlier? Something funny’s happened and I want to ask your advice.”

I told her I’d try to be on tap about half-past four and she rang off. Jamison came in looking troubled.

“I just called the good captain, Johnny,” he said. “He says I’m crazy. That as far as he knows Stangl’s in perfect health. How do you like it?”

I whistled. “Then it’s front page stuff, sure!”

“My idea exactly.” Jamison pulled on his hat. “Kenny always hangs out at the Jockey Club on Forty-eighth. I think I’ll roll around. Want to come?”

“Date,” I said, and he blew.

2: Tail

BILLY AUSTIN’S mouserie was a hole-in-the-wall where the Scotch had an accent and you could meet anyone from an exiled king to a reigning pickpocket. All I wanted to meet was Libby and for once I made a rendezvous before she did.

The tuckaway was full up. Aristocratic trap-shooters rubbed elbows with not so aristocratic craps shooters. Wall Street mingled with the underworld. That delightful camaraderie that came from cracked ice, soda and fire-water glossed the dive with the shellac of equality.

I got a beer, a handful of pretzels and a table. I was down to the last crippled cracker when I saw Libby come in. She lit the place up like a four-alarm blaze. There was music in the way she walked, Saks Fifth Avenue in her smart little dress, and a whole garden of dewy flowers in the perfume that haloed her shining dark hair.

But Mrs. Hart’s daughter had a troubled look. The minute I saw the starry eyes and the expression in them, I realized that while she was serene on the surface there was agitation under her cake make-up.

“You’re on time, Johnny,” she said. “How wonderful!”

I pulled out a chair for her and bowed her into it. She looked back over her shoulder as she sat down. Her cherry-red lips featured a smile, but it was fixed and a little mechanical.

“What’s the trouble, hon?” I asked her. “Why the backward glance and the shadows under your lashes? Lovely lashes, too. They sort of sweep your chin when you close your eyes.”

“I’ve been followed!” Libby said, a trifle breathlessly. “By a man!”

“I can’t blame him. If I saw you, didn’t know you, I’d try to correct that.”

“Be serious, Johnny! This is what I want to talk to you about. Something very strange is going on. Do you know Dance Bowen?”

Everybody knew who “Dance” Bowen was even if they weren’t lucky enough to be on speaking terms with her. The star of a brand new musical smash entitled, “Lady in Love,” Dance had hit Rainbow Road with all the scintillation of a bursting meteor. The critics loved her, the public adored her and so did Howard Gail, a retired barge owner who, through the medium of cards, horses and roulette wheels, had amassed himself a fortune.

Those in the know had the word that Gail had backed the new show, exclusively for Dance’s benefit. For weeks she had been seen at all the better bistros with Gail in ardent attendance. Twice, in the past few evenings, I had lamped the lovely at a couple of spots where, if you didn’t buy champagne, you were a very low and unimportant character.

All that went through my mind while I gave Lib a puzzled look.

“Enunciate,” I requested. “I’ve known Dance for the past month,” Libby said. “She stopped in my office at Flowerland several times. I think she likes me.”

“I’ll lay bets on that. Go on.”

“Night before last she asked me if I’d do her a favor. If I’d put a little package in the safe and keep it for her. Naturally I said I would.”

“What’s strange about that?”

“Nothing, except that from that moment on this man I mentioned is bobbing up all over the place. Every time I go out I see him. I sit down to have a sandwich and there he is. I get on the bus to go home and I see him.”

“He’s the conductor?”

The starry eyes crackled. “There he is sitting up front or in the rear.” Libby leaned quickly forward. “And there he is now— the one in the brown suit who just came in, at the end of the bar!”

I looked. What I saw I didn’t like. The party in the brown suit was a gaunt-faced youth with slanted eyes, a hooked, beaky nose and a mouth half normal size. His skin looked as if you could make a wallet or a belt out of it and while his brown suit was well-tailored and expensive, on him it wasn’t becoming. I pegged the lad, in a second glance, as “Cracky” Morgan, a hard number around Sugar Square.

Morgan, I knew, had turned in a number of years helping the Government make auto license plates in a prison machine shop. And Morgan was one of those careless, casual lads who always wore a gun and used it as often as necessary, without a qualm. And he had been following my dream girl!

“I’m scared, Johnny!” Libby said, in a half-whisper.

“I’ll second the emotion.”

I finished the rest of my foam, told the waiter to bring Libby a dry Martini and did a little prodding.

“You think that whatever the Bowen fluff gave you is responsible for the tail?” I asked.

“What else?” Libby said. “What did Dance Bowen say? I mean, did she give you any hint at all as to what was in the package?”

Libby shook her dark head. “No. All she said when I took it was that now Kenny Stangl would be out of luck— whatever that meant.”

Something high explosive went off inside me. Stangl again! Murder in an alley and my honey chile tangled in it! Libby Hart in the picture and Cracky Morgan at the end of the bar, watching our table with slanting eyes under the brim of a low-pulled hat!

“Look, babe.” I said it fast in a private voice. “Whatever you have that belongs to Miss Bowen goes back to her, and quick! Come on, we’re leaving. Maybe you don’t know it, but the scythe of the well known Grim Reaper is about to take a cut at us, if we don’t dodge!”

“But my Martini?”

“Dump it in your shoe,” I said, “but take out the olive. It might hurt when you start running!”

“Where are you taking me?” Libby cried softly, when I got her out of Billy Austin’s and into a taxi.

“Stuyvesant Theater, hackie,” I told the driver, answering Libby’s question at the same time.

The ark rolled off. I looked through the rear window, in time to see Morgan nose dive out of the wall-hole and toss his big frame into the next cab in line.

It didn’t look good from where I sat.

Something screwy was breaking and I didn’t have an angle to go on. Ziggy’s confidential tipoff after Detective Hartley’s visit to the gym. Jamison’s phone call to my old friend and enemy, Captain Fred Mullin of the Homicide Department, and what Mullin had told him. And now Libby, with Morgan pounding along in our wake.

I didn’t like that last word, either!

While I was still thinking about it our taxi slid up to the marquee of the playhouse where “Lady in Love” was strictly S.R.O. at every performance.

This was mid-week matinee day and, according to my watch, just about time for the finale and the last curtain.

I oiled the hackie and steered Libby for the stage door. Cracky’s cab passed, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. We went down a length of bricked-in cement and up to an open fire-proof door out of which issued voices lifted in song.

A party in suspenders, blue shirt and faded pants stopped us on the threshold.

“Miss Bowen.” I gave him a glimpse of my newspaper-police pass card. “She ought to be off in a few minutes.”

“She ain’t working today.” He said it defiantly. “Understudy. Goldielocks don’t believe in no afternoon shows. Too much wear and tear on the nervous system.”

“Do you know where she lives?” I asked Libby.

“I have the address she gave me, in my handbag.”

“Swell. Thanks, bud,” I said to the Suspenders.

There was no sign of Cracky Morgan out on the street. Still his absence didn’t improve my mental agitation to any marked degree. Taxis were as plentiful at that hour as ants at a picnic. We hopped another and I let Libby speak her piece.

“The Armitage Arms,” she directed. “I think it’s on Fifty-sixth.”

“Correct, lady,” the driver said over his shoulder.

The address was that of one of those super-exclusive apartment houses. A tall sliver of a building set between sedate private houses. The kind of a dump that had a waiting list for its duplexes as long as a bartender’s arm. It was hardly the type of place a Broadway star would be at home in. Still, with the housing problem— and Howard Gail rolling in dough like a baker’s elbow— nothing was too good for the Bowen frail, the Armitage Arms, least of all.

“I don’t want to be announced,” I said to Libby, covering the street we’d just left with a glance that didn’t find Cracky Morgan in its focus.

“What’s the apartment number?”

“Twelve D.”

“Then right into the elevator just as if we lived here,” I directed.

We made it without being stopped for questioning by any of the gold-braided staff officers prowling around the lobby.

“Twelve,” I told the operator, and the cage went away like Hoop Jr. with a Derby to win.

Beautiful black-and-white tiles echoed to our steps as we hunted for 12 D along a corridor where a parade could have been held. Libby, close beside me, began to ask questions.

“I don’t get this, Johnny. What am I to tell her? What’s the reason for all this rush? You know, maybe it’s only imagination. I mean, that man following me ever since Dance gave me the package to keep for her.”

“Tell her to put her shoes on and go down to the office at Flowerland and get her little bundle. You don’t know it, but I have an idea it’s loaded with dynamite. The kind that goes off by remote control.”

“I don’t understand,” Libby said, wrinkling that smooth brow.

“Neither do I—exactly,” I confessed. “But I do know this much. The Stangl she mentioned to you was swept up this morning in a public byway, all full of great big holes!”

Libby’s eyes widened. She was about to say something else but checked it as I pressed the pearl circle of the bell of a door numbered 12D.

No answer.

I rang again, and again. We could hear the bell giving out with a melodious tinkle somewhere inside, but nothing happened. Nothing, that is, until I happened to drop a hand to the large brass knob. Through force of habit I gave it a turn and the door obligingly opened.

“Well,” I said, “this is hospitality. The latch string’s always out and come right in!”

“You’re not going in there, Johnny!”

“Try and stop me.”

An arm around Libby’s slender waist forced her unwillingly into a mirror-lined foyer where the waning afternoon shadows backed up in all four corners. I let the front door swing shut and stood there for a minute, listening.

There wasn’t a sound except faraway-street noises and Libby’s quick breathing. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt a funny tingle. Like a piece of ice sliding down my spine and sending out small shivers during its journey.

“We might as well look around.” I tried to make it sound cheerful. “Maybe some day we’ll be renting a hive like this for ourselves. Smart idea to get a view of what kind of furniture to buy.”

“I’m staying right here,” Libby interrupted decidedly. “You look at the furniture. I want to be ready to leave when the police come to arrest us for housebreaking!”

I was glad she stayed in the foyer.

Because, when I went through one gorgeously appointed room and into another that connected with it, it wasn’t the furniture that caught my eye. It was what was lying full length on the floor, and that wasn’t any Oriental rug.

I was in a living room. One of those Hollywood movie set places. The carpet was as soft as moss and the same color. The appointments mingled periods with question marks in a decorator’s nightmare.

But all that sank in later.

What started to lift my hair, and put a dryness in the back of my throat, was the grotesque appearance of the room’s occupant. He was a gent with pepper-and-salt hair, not small and not large— just an average sized fellow in a better than average set of rugged tweeds. Somebody had shot him neatly in the throat and it wasn’t beef gravy running down his vest in a thin, coagulated trickle!

I stood there looking. My feet seemed frozen to the floor. After a while my hair got back in place and the slight nausea left the pit of my crawling stomach.

I took another look and recognized the man’s rather blunt features. Glazed eyes with pouches under them, a nose that should have been bigger for the amount of face that went with it, and lobeless ears that grew close to his head.

Howard Gail!

3: Libby Opens the Safe

WHILE the dead man’s identity penetrated, I saw something else. That was the gun that had done the trick. It lay on the other side of the room, bright and glinting against the mossy carpet. A funny kind of a gun— a Colt Woodsman, the type that used .22s for target practise.

It had taken some smart shooting to send Gail away with a single shot pumped into a principal artery in the larynx department. Whoever had triggered the lead knew just where to address it. Gail had probably folded up without a squawk.

My thoughts were all scrambled like a dozen eggs in a sizzling pan. Gail in his girl friend’s apartment, cold as a handful of snow. From the looks of him he had been dead for hours. And Dance hadn’t played a matinee that afternoon.

And Cracky Morgan had been tailing Libby while Homicide had been withholding the sudden demise of Kenny Stangl who, according to what Libby had transferred to me, cut some sort of a figure in the package my dream cake was keeping for the Bowen beauty in the safe at Flowerland. That was the hooferie where Libby smoked up publicity for all the dailies.

“Johnny!” I heard her call. “What are you doing? Where are you?”

“Don’t come in here!” I said it with authority and, of course, it brought her right to the door. Before I could block the late Mr. Gail from her view, Libby had seen, and started to make odd noises in her throat. Even the cake make-up couldn’t hide the pallor spreading in her smooth cheeks. As if fascinated, her big, dark eyes, wide and horrified, riveted on what occupied the floor.

I got an arm around her and edged her toward the other room.

Just as we reached it the foyer door banged open and in walked no less than Captain Fred Mullin with what seemed to be the entire Metropolitan Police Force at his rubber heels!

Queerly enough, Mullin, the bulldog of the department, in appearance and manner, didn’t seem unduly surprised because of my presence in Dance Bowen’s suite. Or the presence of the young lady my arm was around. In fact Mullin’s cast-iron countenance mirrored an expression that might have been one of knowing satisfaction.

“Where’s the body, Castle?” he rasped, while I caught a glimpse of Detectives Hartley, Wheeler, Mulligan and a lot of others who were gazing around the mirror-lined compartment with interested optics.

“Body?” I must have been still shaken from what I’d seen. Even to my own ears the question sounded slightly infantile.

“Didn’t you phone me half an hour ago and tell me to come up here?” Mullin barked. Color, the same shade as his winter underwear, tinted his rock-pile pan. “If this is a gag, you’re going to get smacked straight in the kisser! You’ve been in my hair too long and too often these past months. I’ve been waiting for a chance at you. If this is it, I’ll laugh.”

“I guess you mean the late Mr. Gail,” I interrupted. Mullin’s remarks were all that was needed to tonic me back to normality. “Walk right in. You’ll find him in the second room beyond. He’s waiting for you.”

“C’mon,” the Captain growled to his faithful followers.

He flung me a look full of scorch and stamped through the door. Libby drew an uneven breath and began to pry my arm away.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had telephoned him?” she asked, her arched brows drawn together.

“I didn’t, because I didn’t!”

“You mean—”

Before she could finish Wheeler cat-footed back to the foyer and pointed a finger at me.

“Inside, Castle. The Captain wants to talk to you.”

“Wait here and don’t move an inch, whether I’m gone two minutes or ten years!” I said to Libby, and followed Wheeler back to the room where Gail had grown his wings.

Mullin’s men were all over the place, like a flock of bees. Hartley was going through the dead man’s pockets, Mulligan was measuring off distances with a pair of feet that looked like tractors. A couple of others were wandering in and out of Dance Bowen’s pink-and-gold bedroom as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Every time they opened its door the memory of a subtle perfume crept out.

“Let’s hear all about it, Castle,” Mullin growled.

He planted his body solidly on its short, thick legs and twisted his mouth into a sneer. His cold, fishy eyes raked me over like a fork going through the remains of a spaghetti dinner.

I didn’t like the glint in his gaze, the sneer, or the way he got his words out. Somehow I had the impression he believed I was on the hook, at last.

“What do you want to know?” I held my temper and gave him one of my best smiles. “You know me, Captain. Always cooperative. Always looking out for your interests. Always your little pal in any emergency. But you’re slightly in error. I haven’t telephoned you in over six weeks. Lucky me, eh?”

The sneer faded a trifle. “Yeah? Then who buzzed the tip-off to come up here, and said he was Castle of the Orbit?”

“That,” I murmured, “is something your superior investigating ability will have to solve. The young lady who’s with me,” I went on, with patent-leather smoothness, “is Miss Hart, as you probably know. She happens to be a friend of Dance Bowen, the lady who usually lives here. We came up to call on her, after stopping at the theater and finding she hadn’t been there this afternoon. The door was open and we walked right in— to this.”

I tossed a nod at the still figure Hartley had finished with.

Mullin digested what I told him. He didn’t believe me. I could see that. It was too lumpy for perfect palatability. He snorted like a horse in a bag of oats, wiped his hand across his chin and gave me a brand new leer.

“You dream by day as well as night. Okay. We’ll talk to your girl friend in a minute. Get over there and pipe down.” He asked Hartley, “How does it look, Larry?”

“Twenty-two. Through the jugular. Here’s the gun.” He handed Mullin the handkerchief-wrapped Woodsman. “The kind of shooter they use for paper targets. Oughtn’t to be hard to trace. This fella’s been cold seven or eight hours at least.”

Mullin unloaded the usual directions. He wanted the superintendent brought up, the rear-admirals we had seen prowling the lobby. He wanted the medical examiner in a hurry. He wanted his fingerprint expert. He wanted service with a large S.

After that he gave me his official attention again.

“Get that dame in here,” he directed Wheeler. “Just a minute,” I put in. “If there’s any questioning her, you’ll do it outside. She’s not like you— used to corpses all over the place.”

Mullin flung me a look, shrugged, and went back to the foyer. I edged in behind him and put a finger over my mouth to let Libby know that she wasn’t to talk. Being a bright little gal she caught quick.

“Castle tells me you’re a friend of Miss Bowen,” Mullin began, not quite as tough as he usually was. “What did you come up here to see her about?”

“That’s a personal matter.” I could have kissed Libby for the way she said it.

Captain Mullin grunted. “Yeah? Known her a long time?”

“Not so long.”

“Ever hear her speak of a party named Stangl— Kenny Stangl?”

Libby glanced at me from the corner of one eye. “I— I don’t believe I have. Why?”

If I’d been taking the questioning myself, I couldn’t have handled it any better. Mullin shrugged a pair of shoulders made to order for piano moving and swung around on me.

“I want you and the lady for further questioning, later, Castle. Keep her on tap. You’re not fooling me. You know something and you’re going to try and play it yourself. You’re going to try and be Johnny Smart, get a scoop for your rag and show me up as some kind of a dummy who couldn’t find a horse in a kitchen. Okay. We’ll see about that. Go on now, powder. The both of you!”

“You know my office phone number Captain,” I murmured, and led Libby out to the elevator.

We didn’t say anything until we got to the street. Mullin’s array of prowl cars had put the usual crowd on the pavement in front of the apartment house. I snaked Libby through the throng and over to Central Park South.

“Who was he, Johnny?” she asked in a low, tight voice. “The man on the floor, I mean. You said ‘Mr. Gail’. Not the one Dance was going around with?” When I nodded, her mouth opened. She had teeth like pearls. “Who—”

“Mopped him up? Frankly, I wouldn’t know. But I do know this. A gunny named Stangl has been after your friend for something she had. The Bowen babe got scared and gave it to you to keep for her. Stangl got himself liquidated early this morning and Cracky Morgan, the boy who’s been following you around, has an active interest in the affair. So,” I told her, “the intelligent thing to do is for us to get over to Flowerland and into the safe. I have a hunch that the package Dance left with you will answer a lot of questions when we open it up.”

“But you wouldn’t do that!” Libby exclaimed.

“With murder striking all around us? That’s the first thing on the docket! And to make it as speedy as possible, here comes an empty taxi. We’ll take it.”

Fifteen minutes later we were in Libby’s office on the second floor of Flowerland. The dance pavilion had been almost exclusively taken over by the Navy. From the regions below we could hear the deadly thump of one of the three bands that played there from noon until closing without a breakoff.

I looked around the Hart sanctum. Not a bad place to grind. Big desk with some posies in a sixteen-ounce highball glass. A lovely view of the Acropolis framed on one wall, and a scattering of comfortable-looking leather chairs. But my entire attention focused on a small safe in one corner.

“Hilda’s gone home,” Libby said. Hilda was her slightly moronic assistant, the dame who mispelled the letters she typed. “She’s shut the safe.”

“Then we can’t open it?”

“Don’t sound so alarmed. Of course I can open it. I’m the only one with the combination. But”— she turned and faced me— “is it the right thing to do, Johnny? Shouldn’t we give Dance’s package to the police and not get mixed any deeper in it? We’ve already lied, you know.”

“Ease your conscience,” I told her. “We don’t pull punches when murder’s on the stalk. Suppose you let me handle this. After all, I draw my laundry money from a newspaper that expects loyalty from its slaves. So be a nice little gal and click off the numbers. I’ll take the entire responsibility.”

Libby drew a breath and moved her sweetly sloping shoulders.

“All right, master. If you say so. But when Olga comes back and asks for her package, what will I say?”

“Who?”

“Olga. That’s Dance’s real name. Olga Barron. I forgot to tell you.”

Libby had pulled a chair around and seated herself in front of the safe. She began to mark off numbers from memory, talking as she twirled.

I didn’t say anything. I did a lot of thinking. Olga Barron. The name stuck in my mind like a burr to a spaniel’s ear. I was still chewing it mentally when the little safe’s double doors swung open and Libby reached a slim, graceful hand into its interior.

I waited for it to come out with Dance Bowen’s package.

It came out empty.

Libby looked up at me with a strained, blank, water-clear expression in her starry, dark eyes.

“It’s gone, Johnny! I put it right here and— and it isn’t here now!”

“Sit tight till you hear from me again,” I said. “I’m going back to the office.”

Bill Jamison had gone when I made the Orbit’s office. His destination, I was told, was the Armitage Arms. That made it all right with me. Mullin had loosened up evidently. Or maybe Bill, with his ear to the ground, had picked up the rumble.

I went down to the newspaper morgue, the place they keep the old clippings and such. Stan Holden, who used to be in charge, was somewhere in the Pacific. A girl had taken his place. She wasn’t a fireball, but she had some intelligence. Enough to get me the file of clippings I asked for.

I sat down there and did some quick and earnest reading. I blessed my retentive memory. Because, when I finished and handed the file back, I figured I was one up on Fred Mullin. The Captain, never having been in the newspaper business, didn’t know what I knew.

Which was plenty!

Back at my desk I phoned Libby at her place. She had tried to get in touch with Hilda, to dig some kind of information on Dance Bowen’s missing package, but with no luck.

“Hilda’s mother told me she’s gone to a party in Brooklyn,” Libby said. “That’s a big place, Johnny. I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

“You stay in tonight,” I advised. “Knit me a sports jacket, or something. But keep your doors and windows locked.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m heading home to think about it. Then I’ll probably go down to Headquarters and gossip with Friend Fred. Don’t worry about me. I have the faculty of taking care of myself.”

She made some remark I didn’t like and rang off.

I tapped out a short piece to keep the promise I had made Ziggy that morning. About his gym. Then, making sure I didn’t. have a shadow bobbing after me that wasn’t my own, I went on home.

4: Johnny Rings a Bell

MY THREE ROOMS and bath were half a block from the Big Blaze, a rock’s pitch from the well-known Winter Garden. A quiet place in a quiet foxhole. Once upon a time the building had been a livery stable and on damp days you didn’t have to be told. But it had the virtue of being a central location, having a low rent and only one flight of stairs to scale.

The hall was anemically lighted by a low-powered bulb. The landlord was tight as a new girdle, but it didn’t matter. Long experience put my key in the lock like it had eyes. I opened the door and walked in.

To find I had company!

He sat in my dime-sized living room, dumping cigarette ashes on my moth-eaten rug. He had helped himself to a couple of cold bottles of beer and was looking over my collection of Varga prints. I didn’t mind those things so much. What I did object to was the snub-nosed automatic on the table beside him, and the fact that he still had on his felt hat.

Cracky Morgan took a long pull at the beer glass, put it down and daintily dabbed the froth from his rosebud mouth with a silk handkerchief large enough to cover a circus.

“You ought to get your front door lock fixed, Castle.” His voice was low, quiet, with a faint lisp in it.

“Yeah,” I said. “Seems so. Comfortable? How about a chair for your feet or a cushion for your head?”

The slanted eyes took me in slowly but thoroughly. I didn’t discount my danger. I knew what Morgan was capable of. Reaching for the snub-nose and using it would be part of his day’s work.

He got up, helped himself to his gun and walked over to me. I stood perfectly still while he patted around my person with a thin, bony hand decorated with nicotine-stained fingers. He found I wasn’t rodded and put his own shooter away.

“Sit down, Castle,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

“Thanks for calling Homicide and telling Mullin to go up to Twelve D. It saved me a nickel.”

His little mouth grinned crookedly. “That’s okay. Think nothing of it. The doorman at the Stuyvesant overheard you asking the doll where Dance lived. I thought it might be a good idea to wind that up altogether and in one piece.”

“You cut Gail down?” I suggested. “No, Castle. No mowing in that quarter. That was somebody else. Why should I shoot that bird? He never done nothing to me. I only croak crossers and the like. I know you wouldn’t do nothing like that, Castle,” he added softly. “That’s why you’re coming clean with me.”

“On what score?”

“A certain little package Dance left with your babe. I happened to be tailing the Bowen number at the time and seen her flutter into Flowerland and leave it. With me that’s all right. She was trying to keep Kenny away. The only trouble is I’ve got to get that little package, Castle. I need it— bad.”

I shook my head. “No good, Morgan. I had the same idea. But when my thrill opened the strong box the package was gone, like the wind. Funny, I’d half a notion you had it.”

Under droopy lids, Cracky’s eyes began to wear a shine. He fixed them on me and his hand played with the top button of his coat, an inch or two from the shoulder sling where he kept his cannon.

Finally he removed the hand, upended the beer bottle, swished the lather around in the glass and emptied it.

“Who got the little package, Castle?” he said. “Your guess is as good as mine. Until the girl who closed the safe up tonight gets back on the job in the morning we won’t know. She’s at a party in Brooklyn. Who did get it? Not Stangl, because he was written off in an alley. Not Howard Gail. He finished on a moss-green carpet in a lovely living room. Not you, because you’re here— looking. Not Miss Hart whom you’ve been trailing around all day, and not me. Who does that leave?”

He caught the idea, and cursed under his breath.

“The Bowen frail! She hears Stangl is off the list and goes back and gets them! I’m a dope. I should have figured that angle.”

“The only difficulty,” I couldn’t help but put in, “is where Dance Bowen happens to be at the moment. Looks like she might have gone underground, until all this blows over.”

Morgan buttoned his coat. That made me feel somewhat better. His gaze turned speculative, before his hard face went into cementlike contours.

“Take a word, Castle. I ain’t got nothing against you personal. I even read your stuff in the paper, but I don’t like to be crowded when I’m doing a job. So why don’t you mind your own business and keep out of what don’t concern you?”

“I often wonder,” I murmured. “That’s all.”

He started for the door, stopping before he was half-way to it. His ears went up like a rabbit’s. So did mine. From the street, through the half-open window, we both caught the same sound.

The eerie wail of a police car’s siren, fading out as the vehicle ground to a stop at the curb below.

“How do I get out of here? Quick— name it!”

“Fire escape. This way!”

I hustled him through my bedroom and through the window.

“Thanks, pal,” he said. “Be seeing you.”

I shut the window and was back in the living room as knuckles beat out a knock on the door. Opened, Hartley and Wheeler marched in with all the fizz and sparkle of two pallbearers.

“The Captain wants you, Johnny.” Hartley coughed. “Get your hat. We’re taking you for a nice ride downtown.”

Wheeler went over and peered into the beer bottles. He looked disappointed, but didn’t say anything. I did some fast thinking.

“Be right with you. I’ll have to change my shirt and wash up a little. Help yourself to the smokes boys. All the popular brands scattered around.”

I turned the key quietly in the bedroom door and went right on, through the same window Cracky Morgan had left by, down the same fire-escape and through a wilderness of back yards that finally tossed me out near Sixth Avenue that I can’t remember is the Avenue of the Americas.

I got a cab there and a few minutes later climbed out of it at the mouth of the Stuyvesant’s stage door cut-through.

It was ten minutes before curtain time. The company were all in their dressing rooms, stage hands were roaming around behind the lowered asbestos. Suspenders warmed a whittled-down chair, barring all progress without his confirming nod. He gave me recognition without moving from his seat.

“You around again? Last time you showed me a pass card. What have you got now— a clacker?”

“Something better than a badge.” I opened my wallet and let him get a glimpse of the green. Thumbing out a ten-spot I folded it into a small square and held it poised between thumb and forefinger. “How much wise stuff does this buy tonight?”

“Depending,” he yawned. “Miss Brown didn’t show up?” Suspenders nodded. I went on, “She must have another address other than Armitage Arms. Or wouldn’t you know?”

I smoothed the ten out and made like I was putting it back with the other lettuce. Suspenders straightened, an avaricious gleam in his face.

“Not so fast, friend. Mebbe I do know. Mebbe I’ve taken a couple of valises up there for her, now and then. Gimme!”

He stuck out his fin. I waited until he talked and handed the dough over.

“If it’s a phony number,” I warned, “I’ll come back with my guerrillas. We’ll hammer you down so short you’ll be able to hear the clocks in your socks tick.”

Another cab and a trip across town.

I relaxed against the worn upholstery, trying to figure it out. I couldn’t. It didn’t make much sense. The rich Mr. Gail leaded in his Dance’s living room. Cracky Morgan had doubtlessly taken care of the Kenny Stangl menace, but where the package Libby had taken care of fitted, and what was in it, was a puzzle you couldn’t do with a pencil.

After a while the cab slowed down. We were in an uptown neighborhood, close to Harlem and not too far from the end of the Park. Not a nice neighborhood like that which Armitage Arms reared in. This was cheap and tawdry, crowded and somewhat odoriferous.

“Here’s you are, Boss,” the hackie informed me, pulling up before a dirty brick building whose tenants went in for lace curtains and rubber-plants.

I paid the meter charge, added two bits for luck, and moved into the vestibule. Almost the first bell I gandered, above some tarnished mailboxes, bore a significant name:

Barron

I pressed the bell.

She opened the door and stood peering at me, lamplight behind her in a golden haze. Her eyes were a warm green jade, her hair was a smooth, taffy colored miracle of the hairdressing art. Her lips were like two red, ripe cherries and if it hadn’t been for a certain brittle quality in her oval face, she could have passed anywhere as an unsophisticated and charming schoolgirl.

But that look was the giveaway. “Miss Barron?” I began. “Or should I say Bowen?”

“You can say either, handsome.” The fruity mouth curved in a saucy smile. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Plenty. Suppose I come in and talk about it.”

“I’d love you to.”

She opened the door wider. I walked in. It wasn’t anything like 12D at the Armitage. The furniture was all right— substantial and old-fashioned— but the wallpaper needed a change, the fixtures were made to order for a junk dealer and the carpet, instead of being Oriental, had a Midwest accent.

She piloted me into a big room where a turned-down radio was busy with news reports. She snapped that off and smiled at me through the light of an opalescent-shaded lamp.

She was wearing a cute little draped rayon number that did things to her streamlined figure. In the light her skin was creamy satin, flawlessly perfect.

“I’m a friend of Libby Hart,” I began. She didn’t say anything and I kept going. “You gave Libby something to keep for you, in the safe at Flowerland.”

The green eyes lost their warm look. They darted to me and I saw her mouth begin to tighten.

“What about it?”

“You didn’t stop at the office there today? Pick the package up?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Why?”

I let it hang there and went off on another angle.

“Would you mind telling me what was in that package? Or is it too personal to talk about?”

She drew a quick little breath. “It— it’s a present Mr. Gail gave me, on my birthday. It’s worth a lot of cash. I happened to hear that an ex-gunny named Stangl was going to get it away from me.” She moved her shoulders casually. “If anyone thought I was going to stand by and let him grab he’s crazy.”

“But Stangl can’t grab. Didn’t you hear? The police found him this morning— shot up.”

“Honest?” She made it sound surprised enough, but I had a feeling it wasn’t any news flash. She kept on staring at me, before she said, “What did you come up here for?”

“Your package isn’t in the safe any more,” I told her.

That rang a bell. The hand she stretched for a cigarette stopped moving. Her head went back a few inches. The lids came down over her eyes and she seemed to freeze all over. At the same moment all the simple, naive veneer melted.

“What’s this— a transaction between you and your girl friend? I didn’t stop at Flowerland, and if that package is missing somebody’s going to be visited by a lot of grief! You might not know it, but I can manage just that!”

She stopped as the front doorbell rang. She dropped her cigarette in an ashtray and turned her back on me. A nice back, too.

Out in the hall I heard her talking to someone. Then heavy footsteps. Then a shadow across the floor.

I looked up and thought I was seeing things. Ziggy came into the room— all two hundred and forty pounds of him— black face, quartet of chins and jellylike paunch!

“Well, Johnny!” He sounded as surprised as I must have looked. “What are you doing here?”

I could have asked him the same question. I didn’t. Because the Bowen babe spoke her piece first.

“He says my package isn’t in the safe! That it’s gone!”

The gym owner dropped into a chair. A big chair, made to his measure. He mopped a slight dew of perspiration from his face, pushed dank hair back and scowled.

“Gone, eh? That’s funny. I thought you said the dame could be trusted.” He used a wrinkled handkerchief again. “Let that ride for a minute. I want to talk to Johnny. The kid’s a reporter. On the Orbit. He likes to mess around with crime stuff. He’s got teeth. Ask Mullin if you don’t believe me.”

5: Round and Black

I WATCHED Ziggy. I had a lot of ideas, a lot of fancy notions. I let him do the talking. So did the star of “Lady in Love.”

“How are you doing on the Stangl bump, Johnny?” he asked. “Learned the why and wherefore yet? Let’s hear what you’ve dug. Maybe I can fill in the chinks.”

He grinned at the girl. I felt uncomfortable, suddenly nervous, and a little empty inside. It didn’t add up right. Nothing about it had any appeal—the whale in the chair, the beautiful blonde, the sad wallpaper, or the room that seemed to get smaller and smaller.

“It’s not hard to figure,” I said mechanically. “Gail gave Miss Bowen a present. Stangl wanted it. But he didn’t get it. He got some slugs instead.”

“Bright lad. Why?”

“That’s one of the chinks.”

Ziggy laughed. “Read it this way, Johnny. Gail gave the girl here the present because he thought she was all for him. He never dreamed she might like a big roughneck like me. When he did find out he got awful sore. He wanted the present back, on account of it being worth important coin.”

“Indian-giver!” Dance Bowen said in a harsh aside.

“Naturally, she wouldn’t consider that. So what does Gail do? He gets one of his old office boys and sicks him on her. Party named Stangl. But Kenny never gets to first base, no less a fingerhold on the package.”

Ziggy shook with inner laughter. Dance’s green eyes flashed. Oddly, I found I was perspiring, too.

“And Gail,” I heard myself saying, “got killed, too! Why?”

“Maybe because he was a little het up on account of Stangl,” the man in the chair chuckled. “Maybe he was threatening to crack down on Dance. You know how lugs are when they get sore and lose their tempers. They don’t know what they’re doing. Yeah, that’s the way it must have been. Howie Gail blew his top and got himself eradicated.”

“But in Miss Bowen’s apartment!” I protested.

Ziggy shrugged. “One place is as good as another. That’s the way it must have been.” He smiled blandly. “All on account of me, a fat boy without much education who stole Dance here right out of his favorite limousine. One for Winchell, Johnny. Right?”

“You didn’t pop Gail?” I told him. “Me? Heck, no. That’s out of my department.” He laughed again and turned to the girl. “Look, honey. Bring me a drink and my kit.”

Dance went into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator open and close. Then the gurgle of a bottle. Then the hiss of carbonated water.

She came back with an ice-filled glass and what looked like a shoe box. Ziggy balanced it on his knees. He had no lap. When he sat down that crawled up to his chest. He took a long cut at the glass, swallowing half of what was in it in one prodigious gulp.

After that he opened the box. He took out a .38 Smith and Wesson. He broke it at the breach, looked at the chambers, blew up the barrel. I noticed the gun had a reamed tip.

Ziggy reached in the box again. He took out a small cylinder about four and a half inches long. It was pock-marked with holes. Steel wool protruded from some of them. Ziggy fitted the cylinder over the end of the gun. He screwed it in place and looked at me.

“A silencer, Johnny. The kind used on fellas who know too much. Nosy fellas who stick their schnozzles into what don’t concern them. Like you, for instance.”

It was queer. I was sweating quarts, but felt as if I were packed in dry ice. I couldn’t move. It was like being nailed down. My shoes were full of iron weights and I couldn’t lift my arms. A sort of paralysis had crept over me.

But I could still talk, and did. “Wait a minute, Ziggy! Why knock me? After the nice piece I wrote about you tonight! What will murdering me get you? I’m no dick or private eye. Your affairs are none of my business.”

“You know too much. You’re not safe!”

I looked at Dance Bowen. She rested against a table. The ash on her cigarette was a gray curve. I wondered why it didn’t fall— the way I was soon to drop.

“Are you going to stand there and let him blast me?” I asked, almost indignantly. Or maybe it was hysterically.

The gorgeous shoulders moved in a shrug. “You can’t stop Zig, when he makes up his mind.” She didn’t smile or register any emotion. It was a plain statement of a plain fact. “He’s like that.”

The chill left me and fever set in. The burning heat of blood that lashed through me in pounding waves of fear. There was a cushion beside me. I kept worrying the fringe on it. I kept watching the fat man with the dark face, until I heard his gun click and saw the round O of the cylinder point in my direction.

And then the bell rang!

Ziggy ripped out a curse and spoke without turning his head.

“See who it is. Don’t let anybody in!”

I pegged the cushion at him as Dance Bowen started to leave the room. It was literally a soft touch. The down sailed through the air and spoiled Ziggy’s aim. The gun coughed like an asthma sufferer but its lead went wild.

I tangled the next instant.

It was like fighting with a feather bed. I buffed him in the face, missing his jaw, but reaching his cheek. My knuckles must have gone in an inch or two. No good. And he was trying to get the gun in firing level. I gave that my attention, making a frenzied grab for his pistol wrist before the hooded rod could cough a second time.

The chair went over and so did we. I landed on top. Ziggy was a dictator when upright. On his back he was only a porpoise, out of salt water and gasping for air. I almost had the gun when a foot banged against my wrist and almost broke it.

“Leave him alone, pal!” The voice was familiar. “I’ll take care of this sick moose!”

I rolled off Ziggy. In the lamplight Cracky Morgan, gun in hand, was covering the man on the floor!

Dance Bowen crouched near a table. Her green eyes were wide and full of fire but she just crouched there. Morgan kicked the fat man in the ribs and picked up the .38. He grinned.

“A muffler.” He looked at the silencer before he shoved the gun in his pocket. “I used ’em once— until I saw one kick back on a buddy and almost blow his fingers off. Get up, Ziggy. You know why I’m here. That was my stuff in the first place—what Gail robbed me of and sent Kenny out to gather after he’d given it to the girl! I’ve come for it, and I want it!”

Ziggy climbed to his feet. He was shaken, but he wasn’t through. He licked his lips and pressed a finger over the place on his face where I’d knuckled him.

“Okay, Cracky,” he mumbled. “Okay, boy. You don’t have to kick my ribs in to get it. It’s right here. I didn’t know it was yours in the first place.”

He began to open a drawer in the table close to where Dance stood. It was done so smoothly I didn’t have a chance to speak. I didn’t have a chance to do anything but look.

The drawer came open and the gun Ziggy snatched began to belch bullets. Morgan ducked and used his own rod. There must have been at least a half-dozen shots exchanged. The room was full of whizzing lead. The girl with the green eyes dropped to the floor and crawled for the couch.

I met her behind it and we drew in there while the guns roared.

Ziggy went out first.

He screamed and grabbed for his throat. His hand moved away, red and sticky. He looked at it, amazed. Just one look, because the next second he began to buckle at the knees and go down. It was like the fall of a building in slow motion.

Fascinated, I saw the gym owner thump on the floor and almost bounce when he hit it. Then I looked in Cracky Morgan’s direction. He was all through, too. He was up against the surbase, threshing around and clawing at the wallpaper.

Another spasm or two and he relaxed and rolled over on his face.

I was shaking like a line of wash when I crawled out from behind the sofa. I remember I had a hand around Dance’s arm and it was like cool velvet.

Just about then, through the confusion of police whistles screeching from open windows, the front door of the apartment was kicked open and Larry Hartley with the cop from the corner clumped in, guns drawn.

“Believe it or not,” I said to Hartley, “I’m glad to see you. I’ve got a present for you— the party who twenty-twoed Howard Gail at the Armitage Arms. She’s yours— take her and keep her!”

The funny thing was that Dance Bowen— or Olga Barron— only smiled when Hartley reached for her.

Next morning I sat in one of the comfortable chairs in Libby’s office at Flowerland and thought what a swell place the world was.

“So Dance made a complete confession,” Mrs. Hart’s only child stated, looking up from the Orbit and Bill Jamison’s able handling of the fracas on the fringe of Harlem. “She killed Gail because he threatened to close her show, throw her out and show her up for what she was. ‘Is’, might be a better word. But, you, Johnny. How did you know?”

“I’ve got a memory like a money lender,” I said, as I leaned back in the chair and admired the way the sun gilded her black hair. “When you said ‘Olga Barron’ you set off a spark. Some years past. Chicago. When I was covering the White Sox. A lady by that name had been mixed up in a shooting brawl, Let off. Not enough evidence. Same old story.”

“But—”

“The morgue at the office came up with the full particulars. She was Olga Barron then. Had a night-club act. Fancy shooting. With a target, twenty-two gun. Made a specialty of clipping the spots out of cards and stuff like that. Why couldn’t she pierce a jugular vein, if necessary? Catch?”

Libby smiled. It had all the sunshine of the universe in it and it did things to my heart and imagination.

“But what about the package? Johnny, I simply can’t figure what became of it!”

“Good morning,” said a voice from the doorway. In came Hilda, the demon typist of middle Manhattan. In addition to being dumb she was tired. She yawned a couple of times while she hung up her hat, fluffed out some near-blond hair and opened her handbag.

“You’re fifteen minutes late,” Libby informed her.

“Yeah. I know. Ma had to drag me off the sheets. No more parties in the middle of the week. They’re turrible... By the way, Miss Hart. I made a mistake yesterday. I took your package out of the safe instead of mine. Mine, with the six bucks worth of costume jewelry, I was supposed to wear last night.”

She handed over a small, brown paper-wrapped box.

“Give!” I said.

Libby slapped my hand and opened it herself. In a nest of cotton twenty-six gleaming black pearls were strung together on platinum wire, with a diamond catch.

“Pearls!” Libby breathed.

“Cracky lifted them somewhere,” I said. “Gail bought them, but never paid Morgan for them. Bad business, making a purchase and forgetting to settle. Get your hat, honey. We’ll take these down to Captain Mullin, before anybody else gets ideas.”

Libby nodded. “What a pleasure,” she said softly, “to go out with you, Johnny, unfollowed!”

_____________________

A Johnny Castle Story

32: This Murder’s On Me

Thrilling Detective Jun 1948

1: Some Give, Some Get

IT LOOKED more like the subway rush hour than the Charity Dance, Bazaar and Fish Fry given by that wealthy widow, Mrs. Stanfield Haviland, for her pet project, the aged and destitute musicians.

Everybody from the Blue Book, the telephone book and the handbook, had crowded into the Drury-Plaza’s grand ballroom for the tea party. Supreme Court judges rubbed shins with petty pickpockets. Society dowagers admired the scenery worn by dime store shop-girls. Dizzy little debs drooled at Forty-second Street muscle men.

Democracy lived!

Libby Hart, my Moment of Joy, had been hired to handle the publicity for the fracas. Lib had done a knock-down-drag-out job. For three weeks she had sprayed the metropolitan dailies with copy. It hadn’t gone to waste. I saw that the minute I stashed the dicer and flogger and went on an expedition to find my dream girl.

Finding Lib in the mad and merry mob was like trying to count your change at a two-dollar mutuel window. Before I’d gone three feet into the ballroom I’d been tackled twice, assaulted, battered, bruised and black-andblued.

Mrs. Stanfield Haviland had the place of honor in a box at the far end of the playing field. She was a lot of woman. Ten years previous, “Stanny” Haviland, an ex-polo player and retired bottle man, had left her a couple of railroads, half the state of Arizona and a few million bucks in frosty cash, when he had obligingly tossed off his last triple Scotch and gone to a better world.

But this wasn’t the only occasion recently that the fat lady—had made the front page of the New York Orbit, the sheet for which I composed items of interest to sports lovers. At that time her headlines hadn’t been concerned with needy flute players. As I recalled it, Mrs. Haviland had been reached for eighty thousand dollars in jewelry.

It had happened shortly before she had flown down to Florida a couple of months ago. I remembered the details vaguely. A couple of masked gentlemen, equipped with guns, had stepped into the Haviland apartment. When they left they had with them a small alligator satchel containing the glitter. Mrs. Haviland, later, had informed the cops that she had been in the act of transporting the satchel of shine to a safe-deposit box when it happened.

As far as I knew, not a carat of the Haviland diamonds had been retrieved.

ALSO in the box, I had a worm’s-eye view of a tidbit with long brown hair and a glowing skin. A good looking babe in the early twenties, done up in a silver evening gown and a little fur cape. She was sitting there, looking bored. I had a chance for a double glance when, the next moment, I saw Mrs. Hart’s favorite daughter, Libby, bobbing and weaving in my direction.

“Johnny! Isn’t it wonderful!” I managed to pry Libby loose from three or four people running interference for her, got her into a cleared spot and split a kiss two ways. “Johnny— you’ll ruin my make-up!”

Her dark eyes sparkled excitedly. I looked her over. The doll in the box with Mrs. Haviland could stay there, I decided. The girl friend was something to look forward to and backward on!

“A great night for hungry ‘cellists, honey. What time do you knock off?” I asked.

Libby looked at the watch I’d given her on her last birthday. It said eleven-thirty which meant it was a quarter past ten.

“As soon as Mrs. Haviland leaves. I’m to get my check then.”

“Dance?”

“The foot in the iron shoe?” She bore it bravely. “I suppose I’ll have to do something to repay you for coming, Johnny. Lead on!”

The dance floor, waxed and slippery, was full of knees and elbows. The band boys were beating out a samba. The beauty of it was you couldn’t hear the music and you couldn’t dance. I held Lib tight, and looked her over admiringly.

Dark green on her was becoming. So were her little gold-strapped slippers. So were a pair of warm, red lips.

We jostled along until we were opposite Mrs. Haviland’s box. Libby’s employer raised the dirty look on the stick she carried, smiled and nodded. The cutie beside her yawned.

“Who’s the weary woman?” I flicked an eye in the direction of Brownie.

“Mrs. Haviland’s personal secretary. Her name is Helen Allison. From there on, I’m completely out of information.”

I knew what she meant.

We shuffled on. Half a city block more and, on the side-lines, I caught a glimpse of a familiar pan. It belonged to a character named Paul Daven, a fuzzy-eared, heavy foreheaded delinquent who right-handed for a party named Ray Perona.

Daven knew me. I’d seen him around the Broadway spots, at the Garden pushover carnivals and the Yankee Stadium. He tipped a nod and waved a hand when he caught my glance.

“Who’s the ape man?” Libby asked, with some curiosity. “You know more amusing people, Johnny.”

“He’s no comic.” I clipped it off short. “He’s a man of extinction. He grinds for Ray Perona, and if you’re not up on your underworld, Perona’s one of our most charming vice overlords. Ray deals in anything from arson to whatever starts with Z— without missing a dime in between.”

Libby shuddered. “And you can’t understand why I worry about you?”

At the far end of the ballroom was a big banner that read, “Give, So They May Get!” It was half obscured by tobacco smoke, but its meaning was obvious enough. Half a dozen Campfire Gals, attractive enough to start a blaze anywhere, sat at a long table and accepted contributions.

Libby smiled as she danced me up to the payoff.

“For destitute drummers, Johnny,” she cooed. “Give!”

“Now I know why they call them trap drummers.” I parted company with a fin and steered the Number One Charmer over to a convenient beverage booth.

Libby said, “I’m to meet Mrs. Haviland in her room in about twenty minutes-to get my check. Then you can take me home. Unless, of course, you’re having fun.”

The stout lady’s suite was on the fourth floor of the hotel. I tagged along when we got out of a velvet-quiet elevator. In a public foyer, opposite the elevator shaft, Libby told me to wait and went on— two doors down.

I saw the door open and got a flash of the brown-haired girl in the silver dress. She murmured, “Oh, yes, Miss Hart. Come in. Mrs. Haviland has your check ready.” Libby disappeared.

As she went in I had the impression I wasn’t alone.

Seated across the foyer was a little guy who had the look of a mortician. Or maybe it was the plain black suit he wore, the white shirt and the stringy tie.

His hair, parted exactly in the middle, was a crinkly, mousy tan. I didn’t like the face that went with the ensemble for it was thin to the point of boniness. The skin, drawn tightly across it, was a chalky gray. He had big square, yellowish teeth and a dreamy expression.

He looked at me, I looked at him. Somewhere, sometime, I had seen him before. From the glance he gave me I knew he’d seen and recognized me. I let it go, fumbled for a cigarette and was prowling around the hall when the door of the Haviland suite opened again.

The generously upholstered, rich widow, with the secretary on one side and Libby slightly in the foreground, began to come out. I had the impression the little guy who looked like an unhappy undertaker had gotten up from his chair and had walked over to the head of the stairs.

I stood waiting for Miss Hart to make me acquainted with her pals, but no introduction was forthcoming.

Suddenly I saw Libby’s black eyes widen. A funny expression flashed across her face. The rose-red lips opened but no sound came out of them. I jerked my own head around to see what had promoted Miss Hart’s emotion.

What I saw sent a shiver racing up my spine!

The party with the pale face, in the black suit, had a gun in his hand. The hall light glinted along its blue-steel barrel. As I looked, the rod swept up and went off with a snarling cough.

The little man didn’t wait for results. Before you could say, “This murder’s on me!” he was out of sight— down the stairs!

I heard Libby’s scream mingling with Helen Allison’s choked exclamation, then a soft thud, the same sound that might come if you dumped a load of laundry on a carpeted floor.

Only it wasn’t laundry.

Doors were beginning to open along the corridor. I heard voices and saw people stepping out of their rooms. But that was only a hazy impression.

What was real and distinct was the figure of Mrs. Stanfield Haviland crumpled on the floor, one pudgy hand pressed over her heart, a significant red ooze trickling through her fingers.

She was staring directly up at the ceiling. But I knew that she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see anything— Libby’s horrified face or the expression on the countenance of the brown-haired girl.

I didn’t have to be a medical examiner to understand that the Grim Reaper had gotten in his final licks.

Mrs. Haviland was permanently dead!

2: Or Else

HOMICIDE detectives arrived shortly thereafter.

Captain Fred Mullin, together with Lieutenant Larry Hartley, Dave Wheeler and the rest of his entourage, barged in and took charge. More than twice in the past I’d tangled with the head of Homicide. The Captain, a fishy-eyed, stockily built copper of the old school, enjoyed my company just as much as if I were a rattler under his pillow.

Once, in the dear, dead but not forgotten past, I had printed some harsh words concerning one of the Mullin blunders. He had put the arm on an innocent bystander, in a grog shop shooting, and wouldn’t listen to an alibi.

Through the medium of the Orbit I had written things that required asbestos earmuffs, concerning the stupidity of some officials, and the stolid Captain had never forgiven me.

When it came to remembering, Mullin had elephants looking like absentminded university professors!

He flatfooted out of the lift, looked at the untouched body of the wealthy Mrs. Haviland, stabbed Libby with one eye, the Allison broad with the other and brought both to focus on me.

“So it’s you, Castle!” You could have cut his contempt with a wooden knife. “It’s gotten so that every time there’s a murder in this town, you’re in on it, grinning like a jack— jack—”

“Jackal.”

“I can’t take it!” He let out a roar that shook the plaster. “I’m going to complain to the Commissioner. You’re in my hair and under my feet.”

“Plenty of room there,” I murmured politely. “Do me a favor, Captain. Listen to our stories and then turn us loose so I can take these jittery janes home.”

“Get over there and sit down.” Mullin jerked a thumb in the direction of the foyer chairs. “You and your dames!”

For the next twenty minutes I cooled my rubber heels while Mullin had the deceased Mrs. Haviland taken into her suite. “Doc” Bagby, the bored medical examiner, followed to earn his fee, Larry Hartley wandered over to ask a few preliminary questions and another twenty minutes passed before Mullin, sizzling around the edges, hotfooted out to stage his usual routine inquiry.

He took Libby first and pumped her dry. Then the Allison girl. Then— me.

“Okay, Castle. So you saw the killer. How do I know you weren’t in cahoots with him? How do I know it wasn’t a frame— between him and you— to blast the lady out!”

“For what purpose, Captain?” I smiled naively. “What possible motive could I have?”

“Give me a complete description of the murderer!” Mullin growled. “Never mind the gags. You’re all the comedy I need, just looking at you. Talk!”

It was almost one o’clock when the Captain said we could go, with instructions not to take a trip out of town.

“As for you, Castle,” he said, pointing a stubby finger, “I’m not through with you yet. You know more about this than you’re letting on.”

“How much do you pay the little guy?” I asked.

“What little guy?”

“The one who sits in that vacancy under your scalp and thinks up the smart cracks you make.”

We left him smoldering and took an elevator down to the lobby. A funereal atmosphere pervaded the hostelry, shocked disbelief that anything as vulgar as murder could have been committed on its aristocratic premises.

The doorman whistled for a taxi, I followed the ladies into it, the longhaired Miss Allison giving the driver her address. That was a half mile down Lexington Avenue.

Mrs. Haviland’s secretary was nervous and agitated. All the time Mullin had grilled her she had suffered from the shakes, and now, beside me on the cab’s worn upholstery, I could feel her trembling through the short fur cape.

When we reached her place, Helen Allison thanked me in a low, tight tone and disembarked. She ducked into an old-fashioned apartment building without a backward glance.

“There,” I said to Lib, “goes a girl with a bad case of scare.”

“Why not? How would you like to have your employer shot?” Libby’s starry eyes looked at me through the semi-gloom.

“Mine’s half-shot most of the time.” Libby went on seriously, “You know, Johnny, it’s a lucky thing that she didn’t stop that bullet.”

“How do you mean?”

“You didn’t see— you were looking at the man with the gun,” Libby said. “Just before he fired it, Miss Allison leaned over to take Mrs. Haviland’s arm. If she hadn’t done that she might have been the one who died.”

I frowned. I was still turning what the girl friend had disclosed over in my mind when we reached her home address. She shook her head at my suggestion.

“No, you can’t come up for a beer, Johnny. I’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

The cab rolled me across town. My own cubbyhole was in the general direction of the Winter Garden, half a block from the well advertised Street of Song. I let the hackie and his vehicle go when I arrived there and fished around for a key.

I was putting it in the door when a dark figure detached itself from the shadows of the vestibule and loomed up beside me.

“Hello, kid. I was wondering how long that fat moose Mullin would lean on your ear.”

It was gloomy, but not enough to obscure the big-eared Paul Daven. Paulie grinned at my start of surprise and tossed a nod in a southerly direction.

“The boss wants to gab with you, Castle. Private and personal. Right now.”

“At this time of night?”

“Right now,” Daven repeated, softly.

I knew what he meant. Paulie’s right hand had slipped into his coat pocket. Something that wasn’t a pipe stem made a bulge in the wool. Daven didn’t smoke a pipe. He was more the marihuana type.

A second glance at the urge in his serge and I said, “All right. Where is he?”

“Over at his office.”

Daven headed me down the stem. Broadway lights were winking out. Theaters had closed a couple of hours past, their marquees were dark. Traffic had slowed to a trickle. All the gay scissor-grinders and other cut-ups were in the night resorts.

We walked about five blocks before we turned into the Morrison Building.

That big load of stone was not far from the Astor’s bar. One elevator, skippered by an operator who looked like an owl, was on duty for the convenience of tenants bothered by insomnia. He took us to the tenth floor.

A minute later I was going through a door gold-leafed with the words, R. Perona— Investments.

It was a fairly large office with double windows staring down on the boulevard. Photos of box-fighters were on the walls— autographed. There were plenty of women in frames, too. I knew something about Perona’s reputation with the gentle sex.

Ray fancied himself as a Casanova of cuddly cuties, Longacre’s gift to dames with a yen for Cadillac convertibles and ranch-grown mink coats.

On his desk, when I went closer, I noticed one such picture had a place of honor in a silver frame. It was a colored photograph of a doll with shimmering gold curls and smiling eyes. I gave it a quick gander before I shifted my gaze to the party who had sent for me.

Perona lounged in a tipped-back chair, performing some kind of art work on his nails with a paper-cutter. The heels of forty-dollar custom-built shoes were on the glass edge of his desk.

In between the V they made, I had a glimpse of his swarthy, smooth-skinned face and bright, snaky eyes, his small, pursed mouth, lobeless ears and kinky, inky hair.

Perona, the kind who went in for ermine sports shirts and sable slacks, discarded the paper-cutter when Daven closed the door behind us.

The tipped-back chair went level, the brogans slapped the floor. The snaky eyes darted over me.

“Hello, Castle. Glad Paul found you. Good.”

Daven propped himself up against one wall. I looked Perona over cautiously, and asked:

“What’s the ache, Ray?”

“Meaning why are you here?” The small, pursed mouth grinned. “Thought I’d ask you down for a little visit. I understand you were up at Drury-Plaza to-night, at that musicians’ benefit.”

“That’s right.”

“I hear,” Perona went on, “how some rich lady got a package. You were standing by when it happened?”

It hit me like forked lightning then. The little guy with the embalmer’s look! The lad wearing the black suit and the blue-steel shooter. I had wondered where I’d seen him before. Now I knew.

He was one of Perona’s pals! “Yes, I saw it happen.”

“What did you tell Mullin?” Perona’s grin faded. “I mean, in the way of a description?”

“I told him what I saw, naturally.”

Ray Perona’s smooth-skinned face hardened. “You shouldn’t have done that, Castle.” His voice was like oil. “You should have known better— you’ve been around. And don’t tell me you had to. A two-months-old child can stall Mullin plenty. Bad, Castle.”

He shook his head. Across the room, Paul Daven left off rubbing his ears and nodded. I felt a funny, feathery feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I knew a lot about Ray Perona. He was a super-sharpie. If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have gotten where he was— a top bracket operator owning a chain of ale houses, East Side property, a couple of second-hand auto lots, a string of prize-fighters, and a number of pawn shops.

I knew something else. The fancy dressed character in the desk chair had a hand deep in the muddy pool of crime.

He kept the snaky eyes on me, while he said, “Look, Castle. Maybe the cops will pick Georgie Zix up. Maybe not. If they do they’ll want an identification. I wouldn’t oblige, Castle, if I were you. I mean, if I liked breathing and wanted to continue doing it. Catch the idea?”

“I think so.”

“And the dolls you were with.” Perona added. “That sweet face you chase around with. You could pass the word to her. It goes the same for her as for you. That’s all. Thanks for dropping in. See you around.”

Ten minutes later I was back at my place, not feeling any too happy.

3: Nobody Answers

BILL JAMISON, star reporter and specialist in feature stories concerning death by violence, had put the murder of the wealthy Mrs. Stanfield Haviland on the front page of the Orbit.

I shared it with a doughnut and a cup of coffee the next morning in my favorite cafeteria.

According to Bill, the killer had walked out of the Drury-Plaza without leaving a clue. Jamison mentioned Libby, the Allison frill and me, by name, saying that all three of us had given a description of the man to the police.

That, of course, meant that the glacier-eyed Mullin would be asking us down to Headquarters shortly for a gander at the Gallery daguerreotypes.

I read on.

Jamison said there was no apparent motive for Mrs. Haviland’s demise. According to her secretary, the rich widow had been free from enemies. Almost her entire career had been devoted to charity, good deeds. Why anyone should go gunning for her was inconceivable.

There was a mention of the jewel theft, just a line or two touching on the eighty-grand lift. Apparently, Centre Street wasn’t attaching much importance to the fact that Mrs. Stanfield Haviland’s departure from earthly matters had followed so closely on the heels of the robbery.

Personally, I disagreed with that theory. Since the previous night, and my command appearance at Ray Perona’s office, I had done some deep and fancy thinking. I got up from my armchair without finishing the coffee and, paying my check, hurried to the newspaper plant.

Jamison’s desk was empty when I went past it. The morning’s mail had been dumped on mine, the usual assortment of press-agent blurbs, glossy photographs of sockologists, letters, bills, press tickets and all the other junk that made the day of a sports reporter complete.

But somehow I wasn’t in the mood to sift through it.

I went down to the Orbit’s morgue and got out the file on the recent jewel theft. I read all I could lay my eyes on, but it didn’t tell me too much. Still, I had an in, worrisome though it was.

George Zix, another character of the Paulie Daven caliber, had taken care of the sharpshooting. That raised a question. Had Zix done it on his own or under orders— the orders of Perona, the party he ran with?

It didn’t seem likely that Zix would go out for target practise on his own. That meant Perona was behind the killing. But why would Perona want Mrs. H. slain?

“Why,” I said to myself, “unless Ray was the one who grabbed the Haviland gems, valued at eighty grand.”

That made sense. Yet, it raised another large interrogation point. If Ray had engineered the heist, why send a hired marksman around to bump off the victim of the snatch? From what I’d just read, the Haviland gems had been amply and sufficiently covered by insurance. The only headache in the affair was that suffered by the Universal Indemnity, the company holding the policy and the bag.

Back at my desk, still brooding, I reached for the telephone when the bell jingled.

Beth Wheaton, the knock-kneed Grable of the outside switchboard, sprayed me with her best Brooklynese:

“Good morning, Mr. Castle. I guess I didn’t see you when you came in. Or maybe you were bending over. Thanks for them tickets to the basketball game. My boy friend took me last night.”

“So you’ve got a boy friend? What’s the matter with him?”

“What do you mean, what’s the matter with him?”

“Let it go, sweetheart. Who have a you got on the other end of the wire?”

“The police!” Beth giggled, and pushed plugs.

The dulcet, sand-papered tones of Mullin drifted across the wire.

“Castle? I want you at Headquarters within an hour. You and your lady friends.”

“For a look at the Gallery? Okay. We’ll try to make it. Always glad to do a friend a favor.”

I hung up before he could turn on the vitriol and asked Beth to buzz Libby Hart.

“Johnny, cookie. Orders from His Highness. They want us at Headquarters. You’d better call Miss Allison. We can pick her up on our way down.”

Twenty minutes after that Libby was climbing into the taxi I’d chartered.

“I couldn’t get Helen Allison,” Libby said. “Her phone didn’t answer.”

We pointed downtown. “Pay attention, babe. This, what I’m about to say, has a lot of bearing on whether or not I’ll have dates with you in the future. How well did you see that homicidal handyman of Perona’s last night, the one who perforated Mrs. Haviland?”

Libby’s big dark eyes widened. “Why, I saw him perfectly! I’d know him again anywhere.”

“No, darling,” I disagreed, “you wouldn’t. And, if his picture should come up in the rogues we’re about to look at, you’re going to pass him without a flicker of recognition.”

I told her about my interview with Ray Perona. Libby listened, registering extreme panic.

“Johnny, this is terrible! Why don’t you tell Captain Mullin?”

“Quiet. For one thing, Perona’s in the clear. Mullin hasn’t any charge against him. A pinch of Perona by the cops would only get us all ‘accidentally’ exterminated, with the greatest of ease and pleasure.”

“Then— what?”

“Let me handle this in my own way. We’ll look at the mugs and we won’t recognize Mr. Zix, no matter if he opens his yap and says ‘Howdy, folks.’ Say nothing to Mullin, beyond what you’ve already told him, and don’t worry. I have a feeling things are going to work out all right.”

But that was strictly for morale. Hers! I didn’t feel that things were going to work out all right. All I felt was numb, with Perona a step behind me, and a couple of professional trigger artists waiting for his nod to get busy making more cold meat.

Mullin, with his usual morning gripe, had all the savoir faire of an annoyed buzzard. He didn’t even bother to smother the scorch for Libby.

“Where’s the other dame?” Mullin grunted. “There were three of you last night.”

“Miss Allison wasn’t home,” Libby said, sweetly.

“Yeah?” The Captain made a note on his desk pad. He smiled like a vulture. “When I say stick around, I don’t mean powder. C’mon, I want you to look at the tintypes and if possible find the party who killed Mrs. Haviland last night.”

Zix, Perona’s gun-bearer, came up after we had skimmed through a couple of dozen countenances that bore no resemblance to Cary Grant. I felt Libby stiffen. Her knee touched mine, but her pretty pan didn’t change its expression.

Casually, we let Georgie Zix slide by. However, before he disappeared, I grabbed a quick survey of his pedigree. It wasn’t blue ribbon. I had just time enough to see that he was a second offender, had done a stretch at the Big House, and also used the monicker, Bob Kirk.

“Don’t place him, Captain,” I said to Mullin, when the snapshot tour concluded.

Mullin turned to Libby. “How about you?” She shook her head. “No, I’m sure he wasn’t in there.”

She lied like a lady and Mullin, after dividing a glare equally between us, shrugged his bulky shoulders.

“Okay. What I said last night still goes. You two stay handy. If I pick anybody up, I’ll need you both for identification.”

I hid a shiver, remembering my stop-off at the Morrison Building, before I said, “Mind telling me what you have got, Captain? In the interests of the Fourth Estate, of course.”

The Homicide chieftain made a noise deep in his throat. “All I’ve got to tell you is this, Castle. Keep your nose out of this one! If I find you messing around I’m going to book you for obstructing justice. I’ll show you who’s running this department.”

We started back uptown in another taxi. “Good gal,” I murmured approvingly, when I moved closer to my love interest. “There he was, leering at us, and you didn’t move a muscle!”

“I’m scared, Johnny.” Her voice had a tremble in it. “What’s going to happen now? What are you going to do?”

“Me? Nothing. Nothing, that is,” I told her, “more important than tripping Mr. Zix and putting a tangle on him. This isn’t like most homicides I’ve romped through. In the others the killer was unknown. This time he was out in front from the start. Strangely enough, that fact makes it a lot tougher than if I didn’t know him at all.”

Libby pressed her ruby red lips together. “You will be careful, Johnny?”

“I’ve got to get Zix— and the motive— before Zix gets me. How, I wouldn’t know. When and where, I wouldn’t know. But it’s got to be done if I’m to stay healthy. Which reminds me, I want to go into conference with the brown-haired secretary, Helen Allison. I have a hunch she can tell me something about Mrs. Haviland’s jewel loss that might clear up a few things concerning Ray Perona.”

I left Libby at Saks-Fifth Avenue to spend some of her recent earnings and went on back to the newspaper.

Shortly before five, that afternoon, I blew a kiss to Beth Wheaton and took the trail to Lexington Avenue and the old fashioned apartment building where we had dropped the agitated Helen Allison the night before.

Her name was over a mail box in a stucco vestibule. The front door was hooked back so anybody could enter at any time. I went up to the second floor and thumbed the bell at the Allison apartment. I could hear it ringing inside, but nothing happened. Nobody came to open the door. Finally, I decided the brown-haired beauty must have moved and was turning away when I heard steps coming up the stairs.

Before I could do anything about it, I saw a familiar face rise above the top step.

The next moment Lieutenant Larry Hartley wheezed his way up to the landing. A thin, sarcastic smile began to twist his lips.

“Well, Johnny, so we’re both calling on the same party.”

“In vain, for she’s not home,” I said. “Help yourself to the bell if you don’t believe me.”

Hartley didn’t. He kept his finger on it for a couple of minutes. Then he shrugged and his smile faded.

“I want to talk to you, Castle. I understand the Captain warned you to stay out of this thing. He don’t like to be crossed up. Neither do I. Let’s go somewhere and discuss it!”

4: Blue Orchid

THE “SOMEWHERE” was a beer stube across the street.

We put leather on a well shined brass rail, Hartley spun a half buck piece on the wet mahogany and a harried barman combed foam before he sailed a pair of schooners across to us.

“Let’s get down to cases, Johnny. The gal in that apartment house across the way didn’t show up at Headquarters this morning. Where is she?”

“How would I know, Lieutenant?” Hartley’s stare was the kind that made you feel your bones were showing. He sampled his malt-and-hops, put the glass down and shook his head.

“Look, pal. We’ve known each other for quite a space. Don’t let’s have anything spoil a beautiful friendship at this late date. Where’d the babe go? If you don’t know, you can tell me why you were calling on her.”

“Personal matter.” I made it sound careless. “Nothing to do with the murder.”

“You’re staying with that?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Hartley sighed. “I guess we’d better take a run downtown and let Mullin iron this out, Johnny. You’ve evidently got yourself mixed up. This is murder, not a feature bout at the Garden or a varsity basketball tussle. Finish your froth and we’ll journey.”

“All right.” I said it indifferently. “You can’t put a guy in the clink because he calls on a friend of his fiancée. If your fatheaded boss tries to toss me around, I’ll print more stuff about him and cause more hilarity— and indignation— than the other squib produced. Wait’ll I wash my hands and I’ll be right with you.”

The washroom was a flight down. I had a choice of three exits.

One was enough.

In less than five minutes I was around the corner and on the rear seat of a taxi parked there.

“Where to, Senator?” The driver jammed the flag down and woke the motor with a kick.

“Over to Broadway, the Morrison Building,” I directed.

But Perona wasn’t in his office.

Instead, a dumpy girl who wore tortoise cheaters and had fun with her bubble gum said, “Mr. Perona’s at the Blue Orchid.”

The picture on the desk caught my eye. I looked at it again— at the golden curls and the laughing eyes and lips. At the dimple near the right corner of her curved mouth.

“Blue Orchid. One of Mr. Perona’s side lines?”

“He only bought it the day before yesterday,” Miss Dumpy explained before I thanked her and blew.

The floral exhibit mentioned was, I knew, a cheap nighterie on the fringe of the theater district. It stood a couple of doors in from Eighth Avenue, a three-story building smeared with a big garish sign that grew neon flowers in a garden of girls.

It was one of those traps where you wiped your feet on the front door mat, walked in and were handed a bill for a Threshold Charge.

I wandered half a block before I turned around and started for the Blue Orchid. A vague, crazy idea was beginning to shape up in the back of my mind. Anything, I knew, could happen in the carefree underworld of the big town, particularly when murder was on the loose!

In a drug store telephone booth, I traded a nickel for the voice of the operator in the Pine Street office of the Universal Indemnity Company. She put me through to the proper person.

“Castle of the Orbit,” I murmured. “Could you let us have some information about the Mrs. Stanfield Haviland jewel robbery?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Was the policy paid?”

“The claim hasn’t been settled,” came back. “It’s under investigation. I suggest you talk with the late Mrs. Haviland’s attorney.”

“One thing more.” I let it out slowly. “Was there any suggestion of collusion or—”

“You’d better come down here and see me. We don’t give information of this kind on the telephone. My name’s Baker, Edgar Baker. See me.”

I continued on to the Blue Orchid.

The Blue Orchid’s main entrance was closed and locked. The place wouldn’t open until after dusk, but a shut door never stopped any of the Castle family. I knew there was a side entrance somewhere for the convenience of the hired help. I hunted around and found it down a narrow, odoriferous alley.

I walked into semi-gloom.

A flight of stairs took me up to the main floor. Nobody was around to stop me. In the quiet, my footfalls sounded like drumbeats.

The main room, in the half light, was a sad sight. Tawdry decorations, glamorous in the glow of warm illumination, hung shapeless and disconsolate in the murk. Chairs were piled on top of tables. The smell of defunct cigars and cigarettes mingled with the departed spirits of bottled spirits.

I followed through to the lobby. It was a little lighter there, and as I moved into it, I caught the faint rumble of conversation.

That came from above, from the region where a flight of stairs climbed. I went up the steps and through a half open door saw the speaker. I listened for a few seconds. The familiar voice of Hopalong Perona drifted out.

He was talking on the telephone, saying, “Try those other places on the list I gave you, Paul. Don’t be dumb about it. Report back as soon as you’ve got something. And don’t give me arguments. You know what I want. Do it!”

The telephone slapped back against wood. Perona, in well cut flannels, was reaching for a cigarette on the lip of an ash tray when I walked in.

He wasn’t alone.

Stretched comfortably out on a brocaded loveseat, across from the desk, Georgie Zix had an arm pillowing his mouse-colored head. One foot was on the floor, the other hooked over the back of the sofa.

I said, “Acrobatic blood, no doubt,” as Ray Perona, seeing me come in, held the cigarette suspended in mid-air. If I surprised him, he didn’t show it.

“Oh, Castle. How’d you find your way over?” I mentioned the dumpy young lady. Perona nodded and indicated Zix who raised his head but didn’t bother to get up. “Meet a friend of mine— George Zix. You and he have a lot in common.”

I shook my head. “Not exactly. I like my ladies alive.”

Perona grinned. Zix gave me a cold, deadly stare. At close range the little murderer looked like something that had crawled out of a bad dream.

“What brought you here, Castle?” Perona asked, with some curiosity.

“A couple of small matters. One, Mullin had me down to Headquarters this morning.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve had Paul on your tail. He saw you and the doll go in.”

“Mullin gave us a view of the Gallery. We passed Mr. Zix.”

“Smart boy.” Perona nodded approvingly. “I thought you’d see it my way. So what?”

“So does that end the matter?” I could see Zix straining his ears so he wouldn’t miss a word. “I’m slightly allergic to gunmen shagging me— sudden death hanging over my snap brim fedora. You get what I mean.”

“Stay smart and you’ll stay safe,” Perona said briefly. “Buy you a drink, Castle?”

Hospitably he opened the bottom drawer of the desk. From it he took a fifth of a bonded brand, a stack of Lily Cups and a silver-plated corkscrew.

It was smooth stuff, the kind that slid down like oil. Zix inhaled his noisily. Perona passed the paper cup under his nose a couple of times to whiff its aroma.

We had another and then the telephone rang. Paul Daven’s rumbling voice was distinct in the receiver Perona hoisted to his left ear:

“I’ve got the line, boss! Send Georgie over to the Green Shamrock, I’ll meet him there and take him up.”

“You’re sure, Paulie?” Perona’s snaky eyes were full of glints.

“Positively. I got it from a dame— next to the last one on the list.”

“Stick around,” Ray Perona ordered. “Georgie’ll be right over.”

Daven cut and Perona put the bottle away. I had a feeling he wanted to be alone with the pasty-faced killer on the couch. I tossed my cup in a wire trash basket and made a show of looking at my watch.

“Okay, Ray. Thanks for the word. How about a couple of Annies for Friday night? Young Wolgast versus. If he clicks he’s a natural for a title bout.”

“Drop ‘em off at my office, Castle.”

I went down the stairs and out the side alley exit.

Under the hat I had mentioned to Perona I could feel the wheels go ‘round. All of a sudden, I thought I had a pretty fair idea of the meaning of the two conversations I had heard on the telephone in Perona’s office at the Blue Orchid.

It was also an even money bet I was wrong, imagining things, but I didn’t think so. I had a sneak hunch that what the big-eared Daven had said tied in neatly with the idea that had hit me before I had gone to the Orchid.

The Green Shamrock mentioned was above the Capitol. I bee-lined for it, beginning to feel the bump of my heart, an odd shortness of breath. I figured if I were right I’d get a payoff. If I weren’t I’d still get a payoff— of another kind.

The kind Mrs. Stanfield Haviland had received!

The Green Shamrock was a reasonable facsimile of a thousand other taverns scattered the length and breadth of the island metropolis, a place of and for the thirsty. It was a spot where business thrived daily at that particular hour.

Passing the first of the evening mob lining up to catch the flicker at the Capitol, I cut across the lane and took Ray Perona’s advice about being smart. Going into the Green Shamrock; where Daven was waiting for Zix, would be like placing the nose of a loaded gun at the right temple and pulling the trigger to see what kind of a sound it made.

I stepped into a parked taxicab and had a conversation piece with its chauffeur.

“Pay attention, friend,” I said. “Ten dollars’ worth. A couple of guys are coming out of the Shamrock and I want them followed. Interested?”

The hackie squirmed around to have a good look at me.

“Ten bucks— with all this inflation!” he whined.

From the corner of my eye I saw the dark-suited figure of George Zix roll up in another cab, get out and go into the Shamrock. His vehicle waited.

There was no time for argument. “Make it twenty,” I said. “We’re in business,” the driver at the wheel assured me.

5: Persistent Visitors

LUCKILY I didn’t have to wait long, maybe two minutes, maybe three. Then Zix and the floppy-eared Paulie Daven emerged from the tavern and jumped into the waiting chariot.

“Start moving!” I told my man.

He had had the cab pointed, had gotten within tailing distance and was all ready to roll. We did, for two blocks south and then east.

On the avenue we turned into, the traffic was thick. Half a dozen times I thought the cab we followed was going to slip us. Each time, by a miracle, we picked it up again.

Through the Forties, then the Fifties and into the Snooty Sixties. Another turn and we were in a quiet side-street which was so familiar that, as the heap we trailed began to slow, I felt the butterflies flitting through my stomach again.

This was the same block on which Libby Hart resided, the same one I had wheeled her into the previous night and picked her up on this morning.

“It can’t be!” I thought.

But it was.

The other taxi braked directly in front of the apartment house where the dream girl lived!

Daven and Zix went into the building without wasting a glance at my cab. We stopped several doors away. I shoved two tens into a receptive set of fingers and spoke fast:

“One more thing, Jehu—”

“The name’s Pete, mister.”

I scribbled some figures on a piece of paper and handed them over with instructions. The hackie looked at the paper, looked at me and said he understood.

Libby’s apartment house featured a self-service elevator, the kind you got in, pressed buttons and, if you lived a good life, boosted you up or down to the proper floor.

I hit the lobby in time to see its metal door shut.

The stairs were over to the left. I went up them two at a time. On the third floor, as I rose higher, I could hear a door opening, voices. I slowed on the last flight. Through the iron balustrade I had a shoe-lace view of the pair from the Green Shamrock and Mrs. Hart’s only daughter. Libby, in a housecoat that looked as if it might have been torn off an angel that morning, was saying:

“Miss Allison isn’t here.”

Daven, sucking on a cigarette, started to get tough.

“Don’t give me that, baby! Not more than thirty minutes ago I seen Lucille down at the beauty parlor. The Allison doll told her she was coming over here to visit with you. Open up— we’ll take a look.”

Something began to shine in Libby’s eyes. “No, you won’t!”

Zix, meanwhile, rested a shoulder against the wall and gazed pensively at nothing at all. I decided it was about time to do something before the jerky with the over-sized ears got rough.

“Hello, boys. Looks like you got here first.” I joined them, conscious of the quick relief in Libby’s pretty face.

“Johnny! Make them go ‘way!”

“Is Helen Allison inside?” I asked her. “Of course not. What would she be doing here? I haven’t seen her since last night.”

I turned to the two badmen. “You heard her, fellers. The party you want isn’t in. Now, breeze! On your way!”

Paulie glanced at Zix. The pint-sized killer glanced back, shrugged and moved out from the wall.

“Mebbe,” Zix volunteered, “she’s on her way,” He grinned crookedly. “You know dames— never on time.”

Daven didn’t like it, but he couldn’t think of anything to do about it.

“Okay. But if you’re working a cold deck—”

He broke off and followed Zix back and into the waiting elevator. It went down. I lingered until I heard it jar to a stop in the lobby and followed Lib into the apartment.

At the door she had seemed cool and collected, calm as a preacher’s voice. But in the living room she began to go slowly to pieces. I put an arm around her and tried to get her under control.

“Now, sweetie, don’t take on. It’s all right. Everything’s all right. They’ve gone and I’m here and—”

“So is Helen!” Libby whispered, pointing toward a closed door.

I let her go and walked over to the indicated door. A turn of its knob and I was looking into Helen Allison’s long-lashed eyes. The ex-sec wore a neat gray suit, a hat with a hunk of veil across the front and some expensive alligator shoes.

A large valise and a leather hatbox were piled on the floor beside her. She smiled faintly and said, “Hello.”

“Come on in and join the party.” I held the door wider. “Going somewhere?”

“Away from this town.” She walked leisurely into the living room. “I don’t like some of its citizens. They frighten me.”

“Me, too. Sit down, Miss Allison. I think we ought to have a dash of conversation.”

“About— what?”

In contrast to Libby’s nervousness, the Allison gal looked like an icicle. It was a little different from the fright show she put on after leaving the Drury Plaza last night.

“About you, principally,” I didn’t look at Libby. I kept my gaze glued on Helen Allison. “What was dark and mysterious last night is a trifle clearer today. About an hour ago I stopped off at the Blue Orchid and saw Ray Perona. We had a long chat, a couple of drinks. I was surprised to find out you’re a friend of his.”

“Perona?” The Allison brows drew together in a tiny V. “Who’s he?”

“Don’t let’s beat any bushes, honey,” I went on, hearing Libby’s quick breathing beside me. “Ray told me all about you.”

Her eyes probed me with the same kind of a look that Larry Hartley had used at the bar. In their depths I saw speculation and— something else.

“Did he?” She didn’t turn a hair. “What did he say?”

I let that pass and leaned closer. “You’re mixed in the Haviland jewelry lift! Georgie’s slug last night didn’t have Mrs. Haviland’s name on it. It had yours! You ducked the Mullin summons this morning because you were scared. You’re not scared now. You figure the coast is clear and you can pick up your baggage and powder before Perona’s pals overtake you!”

“Johnny!” Libby cried softly. “Let’s hear from you, Miss Allison,” I went on. “Because, if you don’t level with us, I’m going to let Captain Mullin put on a private quiz show.”

She moved her gaze away. She was thinking fast. I could almost hear her mind click. Still, no trace of emotion showed in her oval face.

A minute went by— two— three.

I heard the elevator come up and stop. That sent my thoughts back to the hackie and the numerals jotted down on the paper I had given him. Helen Allison got up from her chair. She began to smile, a small, tight-lipped little smile.

But her fingers betrayed her. Ice on the outside, fire within. The fingers on the strap of the smart saddle-leather bag she carried fluttered like leaves in a stiff breeze.

“Perona never told you anything about me!” she said suddenly in a low, dry voice.

“He didn’t have to! But that’s not as important as this. You’ve got us mixed in murder and we’re breaking out. You’re going to tell me the whole story, briefly and truthfully.”

The bell buzzed. Libby’s head went up. I nodded and she went out to open the front door.

“Too late, Helen,” I said. “I asked my cab driver to call Headquarters. You can do your talking to them.”

Out in the foyer, Libby’s exclamation was low and muffled. I understood better when I turned around.

Instead of the law, the same two luggies I had sent away so short a time previous were in again!

Georgie Zix, Daven toddling along behind him, walked in!

I heard the brown-haired girl’s gasp. It sounded like the air going out of a tire. She stepped back, raising her bag as if to ward off an expected shot. Her eyes widened, the pupils dilating until they looked like shiny marbles.

The stare Zix gave her was as cold and deadly as the one he had made me a present of in the office of the Blue Orchid. His hands were in his pockets. His voice, when he finally spoke, was soft as buttermilk:

“Got tired of waiting. Thought we’d come up here and park. How did you get in— through the roof?”

Helen Allison didn’t answer. Her eyes swept from him to me and then to Daven. Paulie began to rub his big ears. In the sudden quiet the noise he made sounded like paper crinkling.

I jabbed a swift glance at Libby. The Number One Girl, in the glamorous housecoat, pressed a hand over her heart. I could understand why. The situation didn’t look good. It looked as if someone was about ready for a mahogany box.

“She was here all the time,” Paulie mumbled.

Zix didn’t argue the point. In the same mild, gentle tone, he addressed the girl with the brown hair!

“Ray sent us to get you, Helen. Ray wants to see you. Ray is burned up. That gab of yours about going to the insurance people and selling him out—he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. In fact—”

“He crossed me!” There was a sibilant snap to what Helen Allison said. “I did my share and he didn’t keep his word. People can’t do things like that to me and get away with it. Just because he’s got a new heartbeat—”

“We’d better go over to the Blue Orchid and let Ray settle this,” Zix interrupted.

“How about Castle and. the other dame?” Daven asked.

“We’ll all go over,” Zix told him. “Settling this and smoothing it out is Ray’s headache. See if Castle’s clean, Paulie, while I take a look in Helen’s handbag.”

Zix began to move forward, hands still in his pockets. The girl with the long brown hair wheeled around. The move was swift, so quick and unexpected, she had her bag open and an automatic out before Georgie could reach her.

Daven was heading for me. But I hardly noticed. The gun the girl held fascinated me. Zix was in front of her and Libby was behind him. Any wild shots would be bad.

The automatic went off!

Zix ducked sideways. The shot tore past him. Plaster puffed from the wall a few feet from where Libby, frozen to the spot, stood rooted.

6: Guns Go Off

ZIX’S HAND was coming out of his right side pocket. Up in the hall of the Drury-Plaza he hadn’t done so well. This time might be better. I couldn’t afford to take chances.

Paulie was a paw’s length distant. I sidestepped and grabbed Zix.

Daven passed me and went on to the Allison girl. The gun banged again behind me. Libby screamed and Zix began to wrench himself out of my grip. I dug a knee in his stomach. That helped some, but not enough.

He got his left arm free and bounced a bunch of knuckles into my mouth. I could feel my teeth jar and rattle. Then he broke loose entirely, while I winked away a lot of swimming stars and wondered what made the room so dark.

“ Johnny! His gun!”

Libby Hart’s throaty scream roused me. The darkness lifted and the stars disappeared. The little punk with the embalmer’s look had the blue-steel cannon free from his pocket and was all ready to go to work. Strangely, I didn’t feel frightened. Maybe the sock in the kisser had jolted fear out of me. .

A hot wave of fury burned through me. I was conscious of Paulie Daven and Helen Allison putting on a private bout of their own on the other side of the room. But that was only a vague impression. What was real and significant was the cold menace in Zix’s experienced hand!

I dived for him.

He fired twice and lead whizzed so close to my left ear that it took some of the fuzz off. Glass splintered musically and Libby started a fresh series of screams.

I hit Georgie like a truck on a steep grade, minus brakes. The force of it carried him all the way back to Libby’s slip-covered divan. That stopped him around the rear of the knees. He tried desperately to lift his shooting-iron again.

But he didn’t get the chance.

I twisted it out of his hand and hooked him with the same kind of a left “Jersey Jerry” Johnson had demonstrated for the benefit of the newspaper fraternity a couple of days previous. That crashed into the tight-skinned face and the yellowish teeth with all the outraged power I possessed.

It was a hundred percent perfect. Zix went rubber-legged and caved.

I started to use the butt of his gun, with the general idea of making holes in his head, when my instructions to the hackie paid off.

Libby’s front door yawned open and Captain Mullin, Hartley, with the usual aggregation from the Centre Street A. C. in attendance, streamed in, the frosty-eyed chief in the lead.

For once I was glad to see him. “At it again, Castle!” Mullin yelped, grabbing my arm before I could start to cheat the chair of a future occupant.

I winked sweat away and got up. I tried to grin. I had a funny, salty taste in my mouth. I felt around with my tongue for open dental spaces. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any.

“You shouldn’t have stopped me, Captain,” I said. “He would have looked fine over the fireplace— mounted!”

Libby and I caught a late meal at Sullivan’s Spring Meadow Farm, just beyond Van Cortlandt Park. We sat out on the lantern-hung porch, far enough away from the band boys to be able to talk over the arpeggios.

After the late afternoon’s excitement, the pride of the Hart family was at her smooth, lovely best again. Her dark hair looked polished, her eyes were as dreamy as two opium cans, her lips red as a garden full of June roses.

“I still can’t figure it, Johnny. I know this Perona character never told you anything about Helen’s friendship with him. I know you said that to trap her, but it’s still beyond me.”

“You gave me the first cue, darling. When you said it looked to you as if she was Zix’s target instead of Mrs. Haviland. Then, when Perona sent Paulie around to escort me to his office, I happened to glance at a picture he had on his desk.”

“Picture?”

“Of a dame with blond hair, curls. It looked vaguely familiar. The gilt coiffeur might have fooled me, but the dimple didn’t.”

“So—” Libby prompted. “I dug around the files at the office. I read all about the jewels Mrs. Haviland had lost. It struck me as strange that the sleight-of-hand artists dropped in to help themselves at almost the exact time the rich widow was about to cart them over to the safe-deposit vault. That seemed to smack of inside information.”

Libby nodded. “Smart, Johnny!”

“Not so smart. Until I began to get ideas in the middle of a street. Why couldn’t Perona have planted the Allison babe with Mrs. Stanfield Haviland for the exclusive purpose of cuddling up to the jewelry? It was a reasonable notion— once I was sure she was the girl in the picture on the desk. From there on I had to work it in reverse.”

Libby nodded. She said: “And you guessed that after Helen had made everything easy, and the robbery possible, this Perona had shifted his affections and didn’t intend to give her a penny of the profits. That was smart, Johnny!”

“What I wanted to do,” I explained, “was to force her into admitting that. Instead, Zix filled in the chink when he said she had threatened to tip the insurance company off. That was enough for Ray! Her number was up. Funny guy— loves one day and wants to slay the next.”

Libby shuddered delicately. “Don’t let’s talk any more about it. From this minute on I want to forget the whole thing. There are pleasanter things to think about.”

“Such,” I said, “as a samba with Johnny Castle.”

We got up. I steered her toward the waxed floor inside. Only one waiter was looking. He didn’t count. Libby started to say something about my large, heavy feet.

I turned it off as I leaned over and drew her close to me.

What happened then was nobody’s business but mine!

_______________

33: Broadway Bait

Snappy Stories 2 Feb 1922

CHARACTERS

Yvonne

Verna

Cortledge, the Married Simp.

Jerry, the Unmarried Wise Guy

TIME
respectable people were in bed.

SCENE

THE LIVING ROOM of Yvonne and Verna’s joint apartment, somewhere in the uproarious Fifties. The room is a typical habitat chorus-girls.

As the curtain rises Yvonne and Verna, two show girls of the belladonna-peroxide variety, in evening gowns purchased from the wardrobe of some defunct production , are lounging with their cigarettes. It is a toss up as to which is the better looking of the two. One is quite as hard as the other. Off stage right is the subdued sound of hilarity which would indicate some sort of nocturnal festivities. Laughter blends with the clink of glasses and the drift of maudlin melody.

YVONNE (lazily)

Them home brew hounds gimme an awful pain. Do you hear the way they are hitting it up?

VERNA

Am I deaf?

YVONNE

I hope they get that Married Simp flooded to the gums. I don’t know why it is but every time I see him I long for a weapon of some kind. A case of hate at first sight.

VERNA

He ain't so worse at that. Most married men I know haven't got a nickel they can call their own. But this baby packs a roll of yellow smackers a trained greyhound couldn’t jump over. Don’t knock him, Vonnie. All he needs is a little education. Most married men do.

YVONNE

You make me laugh!

VERNA

If you didn’t hate him so much you could see that he was fish for some wise rib. I’d like to take him to the cleaners.

YVONNE

Swell chance. That guy's as tight as a union suit during the middle of August. You’re welcome to all you can dig out of him.

VERNA

The closer they are the more they have to kick in with when you make ’em moult. (Candidly.) How are we gonna get out to Hollywood to have a fling at the movies if some sucker don’t come through with car-fare?

YVONNE

Search me. I gave up that idea a couple of weeks ago. What's the use of thinking of Hollywood with just enough jack in the house to pay one month’s rent? Forget it!

VERNA

I wish I could. The trouble is I can’t. There’s good jobs waiting for us in the fillums. Didn’t Betty write? I’m going if I have to vamp a bank paying teller!

YVONNE

I'd love to join you but conditions are against me.

(As she finishes speaking the door at left opens and the Unmarried Wise Guy comes briskly in. His name is Jerry and is what Broadway terms a “sharpshooter ” or “patent leather pinkie.” His Tux fits him like the paper on the wall and his blond hair lies so flat and sleek on his head that one suspects glue.)

JERRY

What are you two frails waitin’ for— Christmas?

YVONNE

No. for that bunch of bootleggers to air out. I’d like to pound the pad some time to-night.

JERRY

They'll be goin’ soon now.

VERNA

Is our married friend still on deck?

JERRY

Right with the rest of them. Say, that last batch of brew was just elegant. Cortledge went to it like a hop hound on the trail of a yeast cake.

VERNA

I was just telling Vonnie we ought to get together and put that bird over the jumps.

JERRY (giving her a sharp look)

Say that’s funny.

YVONNE

What’s funny?

JERRY

I’ve been trying to roll Cortledge for his bundle for the last month. Just this morning I got a peach of an idea. I even brung up the materials with me when I come to-night.

VERNA( excitedly )

Then you’re set to take a shot at him?

JERRY

All ready. It’s funny because I just broke away to slide in here and ask for a little help from you girls.

YVONNE ( languidly )

Advertise in the Help Wanted columns. I wouldn’t waste time trying to file the chains on Cortledge’s pocketbook.

VERNA

I’d give my right eye for a chance at him. We’re trying to wave up enough gold to take us out to the Coast, Jerry. What’s the idea?

JERRY

C’mon inside and I’ll sing it to you.

(Jerry and Verna exit together. The hilarity off stage has dwindled to a monotone. Someone calls, “ Good night, Vonnie.” Yvonne drags herself from the divan and goes to the door at right. She opens it and stands on the threshold.)

YVONNE (calling in)

So long, Chick. Night, Eddie. Don’t forget to tell Mae I and she have a date for lunch at the Automat some day next week !

{She returns to the divan, yawning prodigiously. As she throws herself down on it Cortledge, the Married Simp, enters from right. He is a rather well set up, good looking man, in the middle thirties. He is in full dress and carries silk hat and top-coat. His face is rather flushed but his steps are perfectly steady and his voice free from any suggestion of thickness.)

CORTLEDGE (spying Yvonne)

Excuse me. I’m looking for Jerry.

YVONNE

He’ll be in in a minute. Pardon me if I don’t imitate baking powder and rise.

CORTLEDGE (sitting down)

With your permission I’ll wait. I want to see Jerry before I go.

YVONNE

Not to be curious nor nothing like that but don’t your wife mind when you stay out all night?

CORTLEDGE (with a faint smile)

No. She has her friends and I have mine. She does what she pleases and I do what I like.

YVONNE

That’s what I call a grand idea.

(Jerry enters right.)

JERRY

Waitin’ for me, Cortledge?

CORTLEDGE

I thought I’d give you a lift in the car as far as Seventy-second Street.

JERRY

Fine. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Verna wants to see you before you go. I understand it’s a personal matter.

YVONNE (climbing to her feet)

I suppose that’s a cue to exit. (She yawns and totters to door at right. Jerry follows her.)

JERRY (to Cortledge)

Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll cap a few bottles for the gals while I’m waitin’.

(He exits with Yvonne. Cortledge places his coat and silk hat on a chair. At the piano he pauses and  taps out the refrain of “All By Myself” with one finger. He is half way through the tune when Verna appears in the doorway. She has relinquished her evening gown in favor of a purple kimono and has her hair in heavy braids. Smiling enigmatically she waits a minute or two.)

VERNA

That tune ain't strictly true now I’m here, Mr. Cortledge.

CORTLEDGE (wheeling)

Miss Verna.

VERNA

The kid herself! Pardon my appearance. I was just about to flop in the feathers when I heard you were still here.

CORTLEDGE  (crossing to her)

Jerry told me you had something you wanted to talk to me about.

VERNA

That’s the truth. (She seats herself on the divan. Cortledge drops
down beside her. Verna crosses her legs and links her hands about her
knees.) I don’t know how to begin.

CORTLEDGE

What does it concern?

VERNA (disregarding the question)

How long have you known me?

CORTLEDGE

Not half long enough. Two months or so, isn't it?

VERNA

Yes, about two months. I hope you won’t think I am forward or not a lady if I tell you what I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to.

CORTLEDGE

Do you want to — ah — borrow money ?

VERNA

I should say not ! It’s something very different. I — I hope you’ll understand.

CORTLEDGE

Try me and see. (Facetiously) I can understand most anything except why women dress the way they do in winter.

(JERRY enters right. Sighting the two on the divan he halts abruptly.)

JERRY

Pardon me for crashing in on the chatter fest. Did you see anything of my cigarette case, Verna?

VERNA

I didn’t know you owned one.

(JERRY catches her eye and significantly displays his watch. He nods toward the Married Simp and makes signs with his fingers. Verna nods hastily.)

JERRY (pretending to search on the table)

Guess I left it in the other room. Pardon me twice more.

(He exits.)

VERNA

Where were we, honey?

CORTLEDGE (standing)

It’s rather warm in here. Do you mind if I remove my coat?

VERNA

Go right ahead.

(Cortledge takes off his dress coat and throws it over a convenient chair. He unbuttons his waistcoat and touches his face with a large silk handkerchief. Sitting down again on the divan he puts his arm around Verna. )

CORTLEDGE

You were saying that you didn’t think I would understand. I said to give me a try-out.

VERNA

Oh, yes. But first let me ask you this: Do you like me or don’t you?

CORTLEDGE

Do!

VERNA

Much?

CORTLEDGE

Lots. You’re a nice little girl. You’re pretty and intelligent and you have a way with you that’s very taking.

VERNA

Umm—

CORTLEDGE (holding her closer)

Pretty girls are a hobby of mine. There's more music for me in the rustle of a skirt than in all the pianos that were ever made. I like them young and innocent. I like them when they are—

(YVONNE enters right.)

YVONNE

Listen, did I leave Variety in here? Honest, if that paper was a diamond
ring it couldn’t disappear more!

(She makes a show of looking on and under the table.)

VERNA

I didn’t see it. Maybe you left it in the kitchen.

YVONNE

I’ll look there. (She turns to the door , managing to attract Verna's attention. Touching the dial of her wrist-watch, she exits.)

VERNA

Where were we?

CORTLEDGE ( standing )

This room is very close. And this collar I have on feels like a vise. Do you mind if I remove it?

VERNA

Go as far as you like. We’ve got a couple of empty barrels in the storeroom. ( Cortledge takes off his collar and tie. For good measure he removes his waistcoat , revealing bright pink suspenders.) What passionate suspenders you wear!

CORTLEDGE ( sitting down with a long breath)

I feel better now. (He embraces Verna.) Why do you ask me if I like you?

VERNA( dramatically )

Because I like you! That’s what I was afraid you wouldn’t understand. I’m— I’m just crazy about you !

CORTLEDGE

Do you mean it?

VERNA

Mean it!

CORTLEDGE

But you’ve never given me any indication of it before.

VERNA

I’ve never had the chance. Affection is like a rubber plant. You’ve got to give it attention if you want it to grow!

CORTLEDGE ( softly )

And you really and truly care?

VERNA

Ever since that night we was up to the Roof. I’ll never forget how you looked that night in your dinner jacket— like one of these here derby hats or whatever you call ’em— them guys what wear ribbons across their shirt fronts.

CORTLEDGE

Diplomats.

VERNA

I knew it was something like that. You looked so handsome and classy that my girlish heart just went bump— bump— bump. Then, a couple of days later, I found out you was married. Oh, I felt terrible— perfectly awful.

CORTLEDGE ( Softly )

I never dreamed that you cared that way. I never imagined that—  ( He is interrupted by the appearance of Jerry. The young man with the glued-down hair is plainly out of temper. )

JERRY

Pardon me three times, but did I leave a box of safety matches in here? (He goes to the table and pretends to search.).

CORTLEDGE

I have some matches in my over-coat pocket.

VERNA (getting up)

I’ll see if I can find them, Jerry. (She crosses to the table. Jerry steps to her side and nudges her.)

JERRY (in a low but sibilant voice)

Everything's set! For the love of Gawd, get busy!

VERNA (under her breath)

I’ll get him in a minute or two!

JERRY

Use the old signal! And make it snappy! (Louder,  for Gortledge’s benefit.) Never mind, kid. I guess I left them in the kitchen. What’s a box of matches between friends, anyway? (He exits.)

VERNA (returning to the divan)

Do you wonder why girls go crazy? (She sits down and snuggles close to Gortledge, determined to get it over and done with.) Haven’t you any more feelings than a fish? I tell you that I’m crazy about you, and you sit there like a stone man! I’m human if you’re not!

CORTLEDGE

You mean—

VERNA (wildly)

Take me in your arms! Hold me tight! Love me! Hate me! Beat me up! Put my glims in mourning! Do anything, only do something!

CORTLEDGE

I— I—

VERNA

Like this! (She urges herself forward. With one deft movement of her slim hand she disarranges his hair. The next minute she is on his lap with both hands linked tightly about his neck. So unexpected is her stratagem that Gortledge is completely bowled over. Verna unleashes a long peal of silvery laughter, which of course, is Jerry’s signal. In a watch-tick things begin to happen. First, the lights are abruptly blotted out, leaving the stage in stark darkness. Next there is a vivid explosion. This is followed by Verna’s scream, a chuckle of laughter and a distinct sneeze. The lights come up almost immediately. Jerry and Yvonne are disclosed standing close to the right doorway. Jerry has one hand on the wall light-switch and the other about the rubber bulb of a camera that is mounted on a tripod. Yvonne holds the tin tray on which the flashlight powder exploded.)

YVONNE

The damn stuff almost blew my eyebrows off!

VERNA

What in 'ell does this mean? (The Married Simp stands, plainly bewildered. Verna registers indignation perfectly.)

JERRY (coldly)

Take a guess what it means.

YVONNE

It means we’ve got you both with the goods! It means that the two of you are both on a fillum ! It means that the picture, when it’s printed, will make pretty darn good evidence at any divorce trial!

CORTLEDGE (blinking)

Eh?

JERRY

Sure. One kimono is worth a dozen letters any day!

YVONNE

It also means, Mr. Cortledge, that this here camera is for sale just as it stands. The price is five thousand berries cash. If it isn’t sold within the next ten minutes, photographs will be printed up from the negatives and sent to your wife. What’s the answer? (There is a pregnant silence. During it, Cortledge, the target for three pair of eyes, puts on his waistcoat, knots his tie, slips on his dress coat and topcoat and fits his silk hat to his head. He lights a cigarette and, producing a long wallet made of green Morocco leather, crosses to Jerry. Opening the wallet he takes a bill from a fat load of money and slips the wallet back in his pocket.)

CORTLEDGE

Here’s the hundred I promised you, Jerry. Get on your things and let's be going.

JERRY (giving a good home to the bill)

Much obliged. I’ll be with you as soon as I get my lid. (He picks up the camera and takes a step toward the door.)

VERNA (hoarsely)

Wait! What does this mean!

JERRY (halting)

It means, gals, I had to double cross you. Cortledge, the good-looking man on my left, is going to get a divorce from his wife. They got it all framed up between them. This here picture I took, and my testimony, will be part of the necessary evidence. I’m sorry I had to hand you both a dirty deal like this, but every man for himself when there’s a century in sight! (There is a moment’s stunned silence. It is broken by Verna’s despairing wail.)

VERNA (throwing herself on Cortledge)

And I loved you! I thought you were white! (In a frenzy she puts her arms about his neck and embraces him tightly. There is a little struggle before Jerry intervenes, pushing her away so roughly that she falls in a little heap.)

JERRY

These broads make me sick!  C’mon, skipper. Let's bend outta here before somebody tries to start something more! (He exits with Cortledge, who blows a kiss to YVONNE. She makes a face at him. The door closes behind the Married Simp and the Unmarried Wise Guy. Verna gets up, her right hand held behind her back, an enigmatic smile on her lips.)

YVONNE (viciously)

I’ll get that big Jerry tramp if it takes a hundred years! And me— the tin-head— helping him along like a perfect dumb-bell. I ought to be in a gymnasium! (She turns to Verna.) Didn’t I tell you that you couldn’t blast a nickel away from that guy?

VERNA

You told me, but did I believe you. (Gayly) Sweetheart, we ride the cushions to Hollywood to-morrow! (She moves her right arm from behind her back. The fingers of her hand are about Cortledge’s long green Morocco wallet.)  Got it about two seconds before Jerry give me the push!

(Both girls rush to the divan and drag dusty suitcases from under it as

THE CURTAIN FALLS.

Table of Contents

- 1: It Was a Sight!
- 2: Are Chorus Girls on the Square?
- 3: How Did He Know That?
- 4: The Puzzle Girl
- 5: Under Sparkling Lights
- 6: The Lady-Killer
- 7: Slight Touch of Satan
- 8: Sue as in Suicide
- 9: Fog is Necessary
- 10: Death With Music
- 11: Merry Month of Mayhem
- 12: Come Back to Aaron
- 13: A Shock for the Countess
- 14: This Will Kill You
- 15: Ink
- 16: Ivan’s Foe
- 17: Murder In Red
- 18: A Thousand Berries a Week
- 19: Publicity For The Corpse
- 20: Crepe For Suzette
- 21: Five minutes from the Grave
- 22: The Man Who Never Forgot
- 23: At 9.30 Precisely
- 24: Nobody's Business
- 25: Quick Money
- 26: Open and Shut
- 27: Twenty-Four Hours to Leave Town
- 28: Shoulder Straps
- 29: The Perfect Crime
- 30: Little Pieces
- 31: Don’t Meddle With Murder
- 32: This Murder’s on Me
- 33: Broadway Bait (a play)